A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

COBALT, ZAFFER, SMALT

The name cobalt is given at present to that metal and its ores, the oxides of which are largely employed in the manufactures of glass, porcelain and pottery, for the production of a blue colour. The cobalt ores are first roasted and freed from foreign mineral bodies, particularly sulphur, iron, nickel, bismuth, and arsenic, with which they are united, and then well calcined, and sold, either mixed or unmixed with fine sand, under the name of zaffer (zaffera); or the cobalt is melted with siliceous earth and potash to a kind of blue glass called smalt, which, when ground very fine, is known in commerce by the name of powder-blue. All these articles, because they are most durable pigments, and those which best withstand fire, and because one can produce with them every shade of blue, are employed, above all, for tinging crystal and for enamelling; for counterfeiting opake and transparent precious stones, and for painting and varnishing real porcelain and earthen and potters’ ware. This colour is indispensably necessary to the painter when he is desirous of imitating the fine azure colour of many butterflies and other natural objects; and the cheaper kind is employed to give a blueish tinge to new-washed linen, which so readily changes to a disagreeable yellow.

The preparation of this new colour may be reckoned among the most beneficial inventions of modern times. It rendered of importance an useless and hurtful production; gave employment to a number of hands; assisted in bringing many arts to a degree of perfection which they could never before attain; and has drawn back to Germany a great deal of money which was formerly sent out of it for foreign articles.

Though there is no doubt that the process used in the preparation of cobalt and smalt was invented about the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century, we have reason to ask whether the ancients were acquainted with cobalt, and if they employed it for colouring glass. They opened and worked mines in various parts; and it is at any rate possible that they may have found cobalt; they made many successful attempts to give different tints to glass[1472 - See what is said under the article Artificial Rubies (#rubies).]; and they produced blue glass and blue enamel. They may have learned by an accident to make this glass, as they did to make brass; and they may have continued to make the former as long as their supply of coloured earth lasted. When the mineral failed them, they may have lost the art, in the same manner as the method of preparing Corinthian brass[1473 - See the Annotations on Arist. Auscult. Mirab. p. 98.] was lost for a considerable space of time. The use of cobalt does not imply a knowledge of its metal; for the moderns made brass and smalt for whole centuries, before they learned to prepare zinc and regulus of cobalt.

It seems, however, difficult to answer this question; for one can scarcely hope to discover cobalt with any certainty among those minerals mentioned by the ancients. They could describe minerals in no other manner than according to their exterior appearance, the country where they were found, or the use to which they applied them. Now there is no species more various and more changeable in its figure and colour than cobalt ore, which on this account shows the impossibility of distinguishing minerals with sufficient accuracy by external characteristics. Besides, there are scarcely two passages of the ancients which seem to allude to it; and these, when closely examined, give us little or no information.

The meaning of the term cadmia is as various and uncertain as that of the word cobalt was two centuries ago. It signified often calamine; sometimes furnace-dross; and perhaps, in later times, also arsenic; but, as far as I know, it was never applied to cobalt till mineralogists wished in modern times to find a Latin term for it[1474 - I am of opinion that this Latin name for cobalt was first used by Agricola.], and assumed that which did not belong properly to any other mineral. The well-known passage of Pliny[1475 - Lib. xxxiii. cap. 13. Theophrast. De Lapid. § 97.], in which Lehmann thinks he can with certainty distinguish cobalt, is so singular a medley that nothing to be depended on can be gathered from it. The author, it is true, where he treats of mineral pigments, seems to speak of a blue sand which produced different shades of blue paint, according as it was pounded coarser or finer. The palest powder was called lomentum; and this Lehmann considers as our powder-blue. I am however fully convinced that the cyanus of Theophrastus, the cæruleum of Pliny, and the chrysocolla[1476 - Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.], were the blue copper earth often already mentioned, which may have been mixed and blended together. Besides, Pliny clearly adds to it an artificial colour, which in my opinion was made in the same manner as our lake; for he speaks of an earth, which when boiled with plants, acquired their blue colour, and which was in some measure inflammable. With these pigments walls were painted; but as many of them would not endure lime, they could be used only on those which were plastered with clay (creta). The expression usus ad fenestras has been misapplied by Lehmann, as a strong proof of his assertion; for he explains it as if Pliny had said that a blue pigment was used for painting window-frames; but glass windows were at that time unknown. I suspect Pliny meant to say only that one kind of paint could not be employed near openings which afforded a passage to the light, as it soon decayed and lost its colour. This would have been the case in particular with lake in which there was a mixture of vegetable particles.

For my part, I find in this passage as few traces of smalt as M. Gmelin; and I agree with him in opinion that the strong and unpleasant mixtures arising from cobalt would, had it been known, have induced the ancients to make particular mention of it in their writings. Would not the arsenic, which is so often combined with cobalt, have given occasion to many reports respecting the dangerous properties of these minerals? And would not arsenic and bismuth have been sooner known, had preparations of cobalt been made at so early a period? It is a circumstance of great weight also, that in the places where the ancients had mines, and where antiquities painted or tinged blue, and resembling in colour that produced by cobalt, have been dug up, cobalt has not been discovered, or has been discovered only in modern times. At present we know nothing of Egyptian, Arabian, Ethiopian, Italian, and Cyprian cobalt; and in Spain[1477 - Bowles, Introducion à la Historia Natural y à la Geographia Fisica de España. – Madrit, 1775 p. 399.] this mineral was first found in the reign of Philip IV. I shall here observe, that the island of Cyprus was formerly so abundant in copper, that, in a mineralogical sense, it might be called the island of Venus; and we can therefore entertain the less doubt that the cæruleum Cyprium was copper-blue.

The principal reason, however, why Lehmann, Pauw[1478 - Recherches Philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois. Berlin, 1773, i. p. 345. – Delaval’s Experimental Inquiry into the Cause of the Changes of Colour in Opake and Coloured Bodies. Lond. 1774, 4to, p. 56.], Ferber, Delaval, and others, think that the ancients used smalt, and were acquainted with cobalt, is that, as has been already said, various antiquities both of painting and enamel have been discovered, in which a blue appears that seems to give grounds for conjecturing that it was produced by cobalt. Ferber[1479 - Briefe aus Welschland. Prag, 1773, 8vo, p. 114, 136, 223.] speaks of blue glass squares in mosaic-work; and Delaval mentions old Egyptian glass-work of this colour[1480 - Blue enameled figures of the Egyptian deities may be found in Marbres de la Galerie de Dresde, tab. 190.]. It is well known also that the Chinese and people of Japan gave to their porcelain that fine blue colour, for which it is celebrated, long before the discovery of smalt in Europe. On mummies a blue is seen likewise, which, even after so many centuries, seems to have lost little or nothing of its beauty[1481 - [The blue colour of the glass, of which the beautiful Portland Vase is composed, is owing to cobalt.]]. We must therefore allow that the ancients used either ultramarine or cobalt.

The first opinion seems, in regard of porcelain, to be confirmed by Duhalde[1482 - Déscription de la Chine, ii. p. 223, 230, 232. I have, however, often heard, and even remarked myself, that the blue on the new Chinese porcelain is not so beautiful as that on the old.], who speaks of a mine of azur, and relates that the Chinese, in modern times, use instead of it, for painting their porcelain, a blue colour brought from foreign countries. It is probable that by the former he means lapis lazuli, and by the latter smalt, which is sent in large quantities from Europe to China. The invention of ultramarine, however, appears to me too new, its effect on porcelain too uncertain, and its price too high to allow us to suppose that it has been much used. We should therefore have been almost obliged to adopt the latter opinion, had not M. Gmelin proved by chemical experiments[1483 - De Cæruleo Vitro in Antiquis Monumentis, in Comment. Soc. Götting. 1779, vol. ii. p. 41.] that it is not only possible to give to glass and enamel a blue colour by means of iron, but that the before-mentioned antiquities, upon which so much stress has been laid, show not the smallest traces of cobalt. He even made experiments upon blue tiles, found in a Roman tessellated foot-pavement at Montbeillard; and likewise on the blue paint of the mummy which was presented to our university by the king of Denmark[1484 - Comment. Soc. Götting. 1781, iv. p. 20.]. He has also mentioned various articles on which a blue colour is produced by the vitrification of iron. Of this nature are in particular those slags found near the smelting-houses at the iron-mines of the Harz forest; and I myself have seen slags which were of a blue colour exceedingly beautiful. Volcanic slags, or scoriæ, found in the neighbourhood of Verona, Vicenza, and other parts of Italy, are mentioned also by Ferber[1485 - Briefe, p. 30.], which seems to confirm the conjecture of Dr. Bruckmann[1486 - Beytrage zu der Abhand. v. Edelsteinen. Bruns. 1778, 8vo, p. 55.], that the ancients may have used such slags for their works. It is probable that the ancients were first induced by the blue slag of their smelting-houses to make experiments on the colouring of glass with iron, and that in this art they acquired a dexterity not possessed at present, because it was abandoned by our ancestors after the invention of smalt, which is much more beautiful; and which can be used more easily and with more certainty. I cannot, however, deny that I have often lamented this loss when I saw the excellent blue in the painted windows at Gouda, Goslar, and other places; though its beauty is much heightened by the transparency of the glass, and the strong light that falls upon it from without.

I shall now proceed to the invention of the colour prepared from cobalt. About the end of the fifteenth century, cobalt appears to have been dug up in great quantity in the mines on the borders of Saxony and Bohemia, discovered not long before that period. As it was not known at first to what purpose it could be applied, it was thrown aside as a useless mineral. The miners had an aversion to it, not only because it gave them much fruitless labour, but because it often proved prejudicial to their health by the arsenical particles with which it was combined; and it appears even that the mineralogical name cobalt then first took its rise. At any rate, I have never met with it before the beginning of the sixteenth century; and Mathesius and Agricola seem to have first used it in their writings. Frisch derives it from the Bohemian word kow, which signifies metal; but the conjecture that it was formed from cobalus, which was the name of a spirit that, according to the superstitious notions of the times, haunted mines, destroyed the labours of the miners, and often gave them a great deal of unnecessary trouble, is more probable; and there is reason to think that the latter is borrowed from the Greek. The miners, perhaps, gave this name to the mineral out of joke, because it thwarted them as much as the supposed spirit, by exciting false hopes and rendering their labour often fruitless[1487 - Mathesius, in his tenth Sermon, p. 501, where he speaks of the cadmia fossilis, says, “Ye miners call it kobolt; the Germans call the black devil, and the old devil’s whores and hags, old and black kobel, which by their witchcraft do injury to people and to their cattle.”… Whether the devil, therefore, and his hags gave this name to cobalt, or cobalt gave its name to witches, it is a poisonous and noxious metal. Agricola, De Animantibus Subterraneis, says, at the end, “Dæmones, quos Germanorum alii, aut etiam Græci, vocant cobalos, quod hominum sunt imitatores.” Bochart, in his Canaan, i. 18, p. 484, gives a Hebrew derivation of κόβαλος. It appears to be the same as covalus and gobelinus, the latter of which was used by Ordericus Vitalis in the eleventh century as the name of a spirit or phantom. See Menage, Diction. Etymol. i. 681.]. It was once customary, therefore, to introduce into the church service a prayer that God would preserve miners and their works from kobolts and spirits.

Respecting the invention of making a useful kind of blue glass from cobalt, we have no better information than that which Klotzsch[1488 - Sammlung zur Sächsischen Geschichte, iv. p. 363.] has published from the papers of Christian Lehmann. The former, author of an historical work respecting the upper district of the mines in Misnia, and a clergyman at Scheibenberg, collected with great diligence every information in regard to the history of the neighbouring country, and died, at a great age, in 1688. According to his account, the colour-mills, at the time when he wrote, were about a hundred years old; and as he began first to write towards the end of the thirty years’ war, the invention seems to fall about 1540 or 1560. He relates the circumstance as follows: “Christopher Schurer, a glass-maker at Platten, a place which belongs still to Bohemia, retired to Neudeck, where he established his business. Being once at Schneeberg, he collected some of the beautiful coloured pieces of cobalt which were found there, tried them in his furnace; and finding that they melted, he mixed some cobalt with the vitreous mass, and obtained fine blue glass. At first he prepared it only for the use of the potters; but in the course of time it was carried as an article of merchandize to Nuremberg, and thence to Holland. As painting on glass was then much cultivated in the latter, the artists there knew better how to appreciate this invention. Some Dutchmen therefore repaired to Neudeck, in order that they might learn the process used in preparing this new colour. By great promises they persuaded the inventor to remove to Magdeburg, where he also made glass from the cobalt of Schneeberg; but he again returned to his former residence, where he constructed a hand-mill to grind his glass, and afterwards erected one driven by water. At that period the colour was worth seven dollars and a half per cwt., and in Holland from fifty to sixty florins. Eight colour-mills of the same kind, for which roasted cobalt was procured in casks from Schneeberg, were soon constructed in Holland; and it appears that the Dutch must have been much better acquainted with the art of preparing, and particularly with that of grinding it, than the Saxons; for the elector John George sent for two colour-makers from Holland, and gave a thousand florins towards enabling them to improve the art. He was induced to make this advance chiefly by a remark of the people of Schneeberg, that the part of the cobalt which dropped down while it was roasting contained more colour than the roasted cobalt itself. In a little time other colour-mills were erected around Schneeberg. Hans Burghard, a merchant and chamberlain of Schneeberg, built one by which the eleven mills at Platten were much injured. Paul Nordhoff, a Frieslander, a man of great ingenuity, who lived at the Zwitter-mill, made a great many experiments in order to improve the colour, by which he was reduced to so much poverty that he was at length forced to abandon that place, where he had been employed for ten years in the colour-manufactory. He retired to Annaberg, established there in 1649, by the assistance of a merchant at Leipsic, a colour-manufactory, of which he was appointed the director; and by these means rendered the Annaberg cobalt of utility. The consumption of this article however must have decreased in the course of time; for in the year 1659, when there were mills of the same kind at more of the towns in the neighbourhood of mines, he had on hand above 8000 quintals.” Thus far Lehmann.

This information is in some measure confirmed by Melzer[1489 - Melzer’s Berglauftige Beschreibung der Stadt Schneeberg, 1684, 4to, p. 405. The same account is given in his Historia Schneebergensis, 1716, 4to. In these works one may see the dispositions made from time to time by the electors of Saxony, to support this highly profitable manufacture. The latest information on this subject is to be found in Hoffmann’s Abhandlung über die Eisenhütten, Hof. 1785, 4to.], who says that the mines of Schneeberg, which were first discovered in the middle of the fifteenth century, had declined so much towards the middle of the sixteenth, that it was impossible to get any profit by them till the year 1550, when a greater advantage arose from the new method of using cobalt. About this period a contract was entered into with the Dutch, who agreed to take the roasted cobalt at a certain price. Lehmann[1490 - Cadmiologia, i. p. 14.] says, but without adducing any proofs, that a manufactory for making blue glass was erected by Sebastian Preussler, between Platten and Eybenstock, so early as 1571. Rossler[1491 - Speculum Metallurgiæ Politissimum. Dresden, 1700, fol. p. 165.], who died in 1673, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, gives us to understand that a century and a half before his time, cobalt was procured and sold as zaffer; but that the colour-mills in the country had been established only about sixty years. I conjecture therefore that the roasted cobalt, to which sand was added, in order that the nature of it might be better concealed, and the further preparation of it rendered more difficult, was given up to the Dutch, even so early as the beginning of the sixteenth century[1492 - I say, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the authority of the following information in Melzer, which seems not to have been noticed by others: – “Peter Weidenhammer, a Franconian, came hither poor; but by means of a colour he procured from pounded bismuth, and of which he exported many quintals to Venice, at the rate of twenty-five dollars per quintal, he soon acquired great riches, and built a beautiful house in the market-place. His name is inscribed in the lower window of the chancel of the great church, with the date 1520.” At that period a great deal of this paint was prepared at Venice, and it may therefore be easily comprehended how Vannuccio could be so early acquainted with zaffera.], and that these people by melting it anew, or at any rate by pounding it finer, derived the greatest benefit from it long before the Saxons themselves constructed mills according to the model of those used in Holland. At present many Dutchmen grind German cobalt with very great advantage[1493 - How early manufactories for blue paint were erected beyond the boundaries of Saxony and Bohemia I do not know, as I have found no information on that subject. We are however told by Calvor, in Beschreibung des Maschinenwesens am Oberharze, ii. p. 202, that a person was engaged to superintend the blue-paint-manufactory at St. Andreasberg in the year 1698.].

It appears that this new colour was not made known in books till a late period. Agricola was not acquainted with the blue glass, nor is zaffera mentioned either by him or Mathesius. Albin also, who indeed derived the greater part of his information from these two writers, says not a word respecting it; but he tells us that bismuth when put in vessels grew together again[1494 - Meisnische Bergchronik, p. 133, tit. 16.]. He seems therefore to allude to cobalt roasted and mixed with sand, which when packed up becomes a solid body, whereas bismuth which has been purified by roasting can never assume that state. Vanuccio Biringoccio, the oldest writer in whose works I have as yet observed the name zaffera, describes its use for painting glass, and calls it a heavy mineral, without defining it any further. Cardan[1495 - Lib. v. De Subtil.] gives the name of zaffera to an earth which colours glass blue. Cæsalpin says it is a stone[1496 - Lib. ii. cap. 55.]; and Julius Scaliger must have known as little of it, else he would have mentioned it in his Exercitations on Cardan. Porta, who employed great diligence to acquire knowledge of this kind, often mentions zaphara figlinorum, without telling us what it is; but he describes how it must be melted, poured into water, pounded, sifted, and reduced into a fine powder in order to be employed for making artificial precious stones[1497 - Magiæ Naturalis lib. vi.]. Neri, who wrote about the year 1609[1498 - De Arte Vitriaria. Amst. 1668, 12mo, lib i. cap. 12, p. 32.], knew nothing more of it; and Merret, the commentator on Neri, who lived in the middle of the sixteenth century[1499 - Ibid. p. 327.], confesses that he knew not what zaffera was, but he believed that it was a new German invention, at least that it was brought from Germany, and that it seemed to him to be made from copper and sand, with the addition perhaps of calamine. The first person who properly explained zaffera in his writings, and gave a correct account of the method of preparing it, is, in my opinion, Kunkel[1500 - Glasmacherkunst. Nurnb. 1743, 4to, p. 46.] in his annotations on Neri and Merret. That writer says, zaffera was by the miners called zafloer, and that sand was mixed with it only that the powder-blue used by women for linen, and by painters called blue smalt, might not be imitated in other countries.

Rosler says the Bohemian cobalt is not so good as that of Misnia, and that its colour is more like that of ashes. That Brandt, a member of the Council of Mines in Sweden, first asserted that cobalt contained a peculiar kind of metal, must be so well known to mineralogists, that it scarcely deserves to be mentioned[1501 - Act. Lit. et Scient. Upsal, 1733. Wallerii Syst. Min. ii. p. 164.].

TURKEYS

That these fowls, which at present are everywhere common, were brought to us from a different part of the world, is, I believe, generally admitted; but respecting their original country, and the time when they were first introduced into Europe, there is much difference of opinion among those who in later times have made researches on that subject[1502 - The principal works in which information may be found on this subject, are Perrault in Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences depuis 1666 jusqu’à 1699. – Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, ii. p. 726. – Buffon, Hist. Nat. – Pallas, Spicilegia Zoologica, fascic. iv. p. 10. – Pennant, in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxxi. part i. p. 72. – Pennant’s Arctic Zoology, vol. ii. – Miscellanies by Daines Barrington. London, 1781, 4to, p. 127.]. I shall therefore compare what has been advanced on both sides with what I have remarked myself, and submit my decision to the judgement of the reader.

The question, whether turkeys or turkey-fowls were known to the Greeks and the Romans, will depend upon defining what those fowls were to which they gave the name of meleagrides and gallinæ Africanæ; for in the whole ornithology of the ancients, there are no other kind that can occasion doubt. It has however been justly remarked by Perrault and others, that every thing which we find related by the ancients of the meleagrides can be applied only to the pintado or Guinea fowl (Numida meleagris, Linn.), and not to the turkey; and that the gallinæ Africanæ were only a variety of the former, or a species that approached nearly to them. Their spots, disposed in such a manner as if formed by drops, on account of which, in modern times, they have been called pintados and pientades, and the marks on the feathers of the wings, accord perfectly with the description given of them by Clytus, the scholar of Aristotle[1503 - Athenæus, Deip. lib. xiv. p. 655. Most of those passages of the ancients in which this fowl is mentioned have been collected by Gesner, in his Histor. Avium, p. 461, and by Aldrovandus in his Ornithologia, lib. xiii. p. 18. When we consider the feathers as delineated by Perrault, we shall find the comparison of Clytus more intelligible than it has appeared to many commentators.]; though in northern countries, some Guinea fowls are found, the colour of which is more mixed with white. But this is a variation not uncommon among birds in general when removed from their native country, as is proved by the white peacocks, which were first observed in Norway. The coloured hood of thick skin which covers the head has also been accurately described by Clytus, as well as the coloured fleshy excrescence on the bill (palearia carunculacea). In size the meleagrides were like our largest common fowls, which is true also of the pintado; and we must acknowledge with Clytus, that its naked head is too small in proportion to the body. The figure of the pintado, like that of the partridge, and its drooping tail, correspond equally well with the epithet gibberæ, especially as the position of its feathers occasions its back to appear elevated or bent upwards. The feet are like those of the domestic fowl, but they are destitute of the spurs with which those of the latter are furnished; and the pintado lays spotted eggs, as described by Aristotle; but these, by the manner in which the fowls are reared in Europe, are liable to variations. It deserves to be remarked above all, that both sexes of the meleagrides are so like, that they can scarcely be distinguished; and this circumstance alone is sufficient to confute those who pretend that the meleagrides were our turkeys. Had that been the case, it is impossible that Clytus in his description, which seems to have been drawn up with great care, should have omitted the proud and ridiculous gestures of the turkey-cock when he struts about with his tail spread out like a fan, or thrown into a circular form, and his wings trailing on the ground, or the long excrescence that hangs down from his bill, and the tuft of black hair on his breast. The unpleasant cry, and the unsocial disposition of the meleagrides, are observed in the Guinea fowls, which, as the ancients justly remarked, frequent rivers and marshes, where turkeys on the other hand never thrive.

The ancients assure us that the native country of the meleagrides was Africa[1504 - Plin. Strabo. The following passage of the Periplus Scylacis, p. 122, which I have never found cited in the history of the meleagrides, is worthy of remark. This geographer, speaking of a lake in the Carthaginian marshes, says, “Circa lacum nascitur arundo, cyperus, stœbe et juncus. Ibi meleagrides aves sunt; alibi vero nusquam nisi inde exportatæ.”], where the Guinea fowls are still found in a wild state, but where our turkeys were never seen wild. When writers however mention places not in Africa, to which the former were brought, we are not to suppose that they were carried thither directly from Africa. The difference which Columella and Pliny[1505 - Columella, viii. 2, 2, p. 634.] make between the meleagrides and gallinæ Africanæ is so trifling, as to imply only a variety of the species; and the opinion of Pallas, who has occasionally collected a number of important observations which may serve to explain the natural history of the ancients, is highly probable, that we are to understand under it the Numida mitrata, which he has described. The red crest which the last-mentioned bird always has, and which almost alone distinguishes it from the common Guinea fowl, seems fully to prove this opinion[1506 - I have here quoted nothing more than what I thought requisite to prove that the meleagrides of the ancients were our Guinea fowls, because I had no intention of treating fully on a subject which has been handled by so many others; and because I had only to show that they were not turkeys. Had not this been the case, it would have been necessary for me to collect into one point of view everything that the ancients have said of these fowls, with the words used by the different writers. It may however be said, that by this mode of examining a disputed point, a mode indeed practised by many, the reader may be led to an ill-founded approbation, because what is not agreeable to the author’s assertion may be easily concealed. But this observation is not applicable to me; for I confess that I do not know with certainty whether the Guinea fowls are as careless of their young as the meleagrides are said to have been; whether their cry, which I have often enough heard, and which is indeed unpleasant, agrees with the κακκάζειν of Pollux, v. § 90; and whether the ἀλεκτρυόνες μεγέθει μέγιστοι, mentioned in Ælian’s Hist. Animal, xvi. 2, belong to the Guinea fowls, or, as Pennant will have it, to the Pavones bicalcarati.]. I shall here take occasion to remark, that Buffon erroneously affirms that the Guinea fowls, which were transmitted from the Greeks and the Romans, became extinct in Europe in the middle ages; for we find mention made of them in English writers, under the name of Aves Africanæ, Afræ, so early as about the year 1277[1507 - Kennet’s Parochial Antiquities, p. 287. The meleagrides also, which Volateran saw at Rome in 1510, were of the same kind.].

That the ancients were not acquainted with our turkeys is still further confirmed by the testimony of various historians and travellers, who assure us in the first place, that these birds are still wild in America; secondly, that they were brought to us from that country; and thirdly, that before the discovery of the New World they were not known in Europe. Besides, we are enabled, from the information which they give us, to see how and when these animals were conveyed to those countries where they at present are reared as domestic fowls; and these proofs appear to me so strong, that I conclude Barrington asserted the contrary, that he might obtain assent not so much by the force of truth as by advancing absurdities. All animals multiply more easily, and become larger, stronger, and more fruitful in those places which nature has assigned to them for a residence, that is, where they originally lived wild; and this observation seems to hold good in regard to the turkeys in America. It is indeed probable that the number of wild animals will always decrease in proportion as countries are peopled, and as woods are cut down and deserts cultivated; it is probable also, that at last no wild animals will be left, as has been the case with sheep, oxen and horses, which have all long ago been brought into a state of slavery by man. The testimony therefore of those who first visited America, and who found there wild turkeys, deserves the greater attention.

The first author in whom I find mention of them is Oviedo, who wrote about the year 1525[1508 - Sommario dell’ Ind. Occid. cap. 3. In the third volume of the Collection of Voyages by Ramusio, Oviedo describes them with great minuteness, which it is unlikely he would have done had these fowls been so well known in Europe as Barrington thinks they were.]. He has described them minutely with that curiosity and attention which new objects generally excite; and as he was acquainted with no name for these animals, till then unknown to the Europeans, he gave them that which he thought best suited to their figure and shape. He calls them a kind of peacocks, and he relates that even then, on account of their utility, and the excellent taste of their flesh, they were not only reared and domesticated by the Europeans in New Spain, where they were first found, but that they were carried also to New Castille, and to the West India islands. The other fowls likewise which he describes we have without doubt procured from America, such for example as the Crax alector[1509 - The peacock pheasant of Guiana, Bancroft; Quirissai or Curassao, Brown; the crested curassow, Latham.]. Lopez de Gomara, whose book was printed in 1553, makes use of the name gallopavo; and says that the animal resembles in shape the peacock and the domestic cock; and that of all the fowls in New Spain its flesh is the most delicious[1510 - Hist. de Mexico, p. 343.]. In the year 1584 wild turkeys were found in Virginia[1511 - Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 274.]. René de Laudonniere found them on his landing in North America in 1564[1512 - Pennant quotes also De Bry, but that author I never consulted.]. Fernandez also reckons them among the birds of Mexico; and takes notice of the difference between those that were wild and those which had been tamed[1513 - “Huexolot gallus est Indicus, quem gallipavonem quidam vocant, noruntque omnes.” – Thesaur. Rerum Med. Novæ Hispaniæ, in Append. Barrington remarks that Fernandez would not have said quem norunt omnes, had these animals been first made known from America; for Mexico was discovered in 1519, and Fernandez appears to have written about 1576. This reason, however, appears to me of little weight; especially as it is certain that these fowls, like many other productions which excited universal curiosity, were soon everywhere common. Besides, it is not certain that these words were really written by Fernandez.]. Pedro de Ciesa saw them on the isthmus of Darien[1514 - An English translation of Ciesa’s Voyage may be found in Stevens’s New Collection of Voyages and Travels.], and Dampier in Yucatan[1515 - Vol. ii. part ii. p. 65, 85, 114. Leri seems also to have found them in Brazil, see Laet, in his Novus Orbis, Lugd. Bat. 1633, fol. p. 557. As his description, however, is not clear, and as the diligent Marggraf does not mention it among the animals of Brazil, this information appears to be very uncertain.]. Besides the testimony of many other later travellers which have been already quoted by Buffon, and which I shall not here repeat, the accounts of Kalm and Smyth in particular deserve to be noticed. The former, who visited Pennsylvania in 1784, says, “The wild turkeys run about here in the woods. Their wildness excepted, they are in nothing different from ours, but in being generally a little larger, and in having redder flesh, which is, however, superior in taste. When any one finds their eggs in the woods, and places them under a tame hen to be hatched, the young, for the most part, become tame also; but when they grow up they make their escape. On this account people cut their wings before they are a year old. These wild turkeys, when tamed, are much more mischievous than those tamed by nature[1516 - Kalm’s Reise, ii. p. 352.].” Smyth assures us that wild turkeys are so abundant in the uncultivated country behind Virginia, and the southern provinces, that they may be found in flocks of more than five thousand[1517 - Tour in the U. S. of America, by J. F. D. Smyth, 1784, 2 vols. 8vo.].

These testimonies, in my opinion, are sufficiently strong and numerous to convince any naturalist that America is the native country of these fowls; but their weight will be still increased if we add the accounts given us when and how they were gradually dispersed throughout other countries. Had they been brought from Asia or Africa some centuries ago, they must have been long common in Italy, and would have been carried thence over all Europe. We, however, do not find that they were known in that country before the discovery of America. It is certain that there were none of them there at the time when Peter de Crescentio wrote, that is to say, in the thirteenth century[1518 - Crescentio lived about the year 1280. [His work Ruralium Commodorum lib. xii. was first printed in 1471.]]; else he would not have omitted to mention them where he describes the method of rearing all domestic fowls, and even peacocks and partridges. The earliest account of them in Italy is contained in an ordinance issued by the magistrates of Venice, in 1557, for repressing luxury, and in which those tables at which they were allowed are particularised. About the year 1570 Bartolomeo Scappi, cook to pope Pius V., gave in his book on cookery several receipts for dressing these expensive and much-esteemed fowls[1519 - Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, Venet. 1570, 4to. The copy in the library of our university contains eighteen copper-plates, which represent different kitchen utensils, and various operations of cookery. Among the former is a smoke-jack, molinella a fumo. I am inclined to think that turkeys at this period were very little reared by farmers; for I do not find any mention of them in Trattato dell’ Agricoltura, di M. Affrico Clemente, Padovano, in Venetia 1572, 12mo; though the author treats of all other domestic birds.]. That they were scarce at this period appears from its being remarked that the first turkeys brought to Bologna were some that had been given as a present to the family of Buonocompagni, from which Gregory XII., who at that time filled the papal chair, was descended.

That these fowls were not known in England in the beginning of the sixteenth century, is very probable; as they are not mentioned in the particular description of a grand entertainment given by archbishop Nevil[1520 - It is certain that the name does not occur in the List of archbishop Nevil’s feast, nor is it mentioned in the Earl of Northumberland’s Household-book, so late as the year 1512. See Latham’s Birds.]; nor in the regulations made by Henry VIII. respecting his household, in which all fowls used in the royal kitchen are named[1521 - This order, which is worthy of notice, may be found in the Archæologia, vol. iii. p. 157.]. They were, however, introduced into that country about the above period; some say in the year 1524; others, in 1530; and some, in 1532[1522 - Anderson, Hist. Commerce. Hakluyt, ii. p. 165, gives the year 1532; and in Barnaby Googe’s Art of Husbandry, the first edition, printed in 1614, as well as in several German books, the year 1530 is mentioned.]. We know, at any rate, that young turkeys were served up at a great banquet in 1555[1523 - Dugdale’s Origines Juridiciales, 1671, p. 135.]; and about 1585 they were commonly reckoned among the number of delicate dishes[1524 - Pennant quotes the following rhyme from Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Husbandry: —Beefe, mutton and porke, shred pies of the best,Pig, veale, goose and capon and turkie well drest;Cheese, apples and nuts, jolie carols to heare,As then in the countrie, is counted good cheare.These lines he places in the year 1585, in which the edition he quotes was printed; but as there was an edition in 1557, a question arises whether they are to be found there also. [They are not there. – Ed.]].

According to the account of some writers, turkeys must have been known much earlier in France; but on strict examination no proofs of this can be found. The earliest period assigned for their introduction into that country is given by Beguillet[1525 - Déscription du Duché de Bourgogne, par MM. Courtépée et Beguillet, Dijon, 1775, 8vo, vol. i. p. 193, and in Déscription Générale et Particulière de la France, Paris, 1781, fol. In the Description of Burgundy, p. 196, the following passage occurs: – “C’est sous le règne de Philippe le Hardi, que les gelines d’Inde furent apportées d’Artois à Dijon en 1385; ce qui montre la fausseté de la tradition, qui en attribue l’apport à l’Amiral Chabot au seizième siècle. Cent ans avant Chabot, Jaques Cœur en avoit transporté de Turquie en son château de Beaumont en Gatinois, et Americ Vespuce en Portugal.” – What impudence to make such an assertion without any proof!], who confidently asserts that they were brought to Dijon under the reign of Philip the Bold, about the year 1385. Had this French author quoted his authority, we might have discovered what gave rise to his mistake; but as he has not, one cannot help suspecting that the whole account is a fiction of his own. De la Mare also is in an error when he relates that the first turkeys in France were those which Jaques Cœur, the well-known treasurer to Charles VII., brought with him from the Levant, and kept on his estate in Gatinois, after he had received the king’s permission to return to the kingdom. This Cœur, however, who was banished in 1450, never returned, but died in the island of Chio in the year 1456[1526 - See the works which give a particular account of this Jacques Cœur, and which have been quoted by Meusel in Algemeine Welt Historie, xxxvii. p. 615.]. Equally false is the account given by Bouche in his History of Provence, that René, or Renatus, king of Naples and duke of Anjou, first brought turkeys into the kingdom, and reared them in abundance at Rosset[1527 - La Chorographie ou Déscription de Provence, par Honoré Bouche, Aix, 1664, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 479.]. This author gives as his authority the oral tradition of the neighbourhood, which certainly cannot be put in competition with testimony of a more authentic nature. Another Bouche[1528 - Essai sur l’Histoire de Provence, à Marseille, 1785. 2 vols. 4to.], who a few years ago wrote also a History of Provence, and who has collected many things that do honour to Renatus, makes no mention of this service, though he could not be ignorant of what had been before related by his namesake. Had these fowls been known so early as the time of that monarch, who died in 1480, it is impossible that they could have been so scarce in France as they really were above a hundred years after. The assertion, often repeated, but never indeed proved, that they were first brought to France by Philip de Chabot, admiral under Francis I., is much more probable. Chabot died in 1543; and what Scaliger says, that in 1540 some turkeys were still remaining in France, may be considered as alluding to the above circumstance. This much however is certain, that Gyllius, who died in 1555, gave soon after the first scientific description of them, which has been inserted both by Gesner and Aldrovandus in their works on ornithology. The same year the first figure of them was published by Bellon. About the same time they were described also by La Bruyere-Champier, who expressly remarks that they had a few years before been brought to France from the Indian islands discovered by the Portuguese and the Spaniards[1529 - De Re Cibaria, lib. xv. cap. 73, p. 632. This work was first published by the author in 1560, but it was written thirty years before. Turkeys, therefore, at any rate, must have been in France in 1630.]. How then could Barrington assert that this Frenchman meant the East and not the West Indies? They must, however, have been a long time scarce in France; for, in the year 1566, when Charles IX. passed through Amiens, the magistrates of that place did not disdain to send him, among other presents, twelve turkeys[1530 - Histoire de la Vie Privée des Français, par Le Grand d’Aussy, i. p. 292.]. This information seems to agree with the account often quoted, that the first turkeys were served up, as a great rarity, at the wedding dinner of that monarch in the year 1570[1531 - Anderson. Keysler’s Travels.]; but it seems the breed of these fowls was not very common under Charles IX.; for they are not named in the ordinances of 1563 and 1567, in which all other fowls are mentioned. In the year 1603, Henry IV. caused higglers to be punished who carried away turkeys from the country villages without paying for them, under a pretence that they were for the use of the queen[1532 - This is related by Le Grand, from the Journal of L’Etoile.]. I shall here also remark, that I can nowhere find that the Jesuits are entitled to the merit of having introduced these fowls into France[1533 - “On lit, dans l’Année Littéraire, que Boileau, encore enfant, jouant dans une cour, tomba. Dans sa chute, sa jaquette se retrousse; un dindon lui donne plusieurs coups de bec sur une partie très-délicate. Boileau en fut toute sa vie incommodé; et de-là, peut-être, cette sévérité de mœurs, … sa satyre contre les femmes… Peut-être son antipathie contre les dindons occasionna-t-elle l’aversion secrette qu’il eut toujours pour les Jésuites, qui les ont apportés en France.” – Helvetius de l’Esprit. Amst. 1759, 12mo. i. p. 288.].

As these American fowls must have been carried to Germany through other lands, we cannot expect to find them in that country at an earlier period. Gesner, who published his Ornithology in 1555, seems not even to have seen them. We are, however, assured by several authors, such as B. Heresbach[1534 - De Re Rustica. Spiræ Nemet. 1595, 8vo, lib. iv. p. 640.], Colerus[1535 - Hausbuch, vol. iv. Wittenberg, 1611, 4to, p. 499.] and others, that turkeys were brought to Germany so early as 1530; and in the same year carried to Bohemia and Silesia[1536 - Œkonomische Nachrichten der Schlesischen Gesellschaft, 1773, p. 306. For the festival of the university of Wittenberg, in 1602, fifteen Indian or Turkey fowls were purchased at the rate of a florin each. They were in part dressed with lemon-sauce.]. Respecting the northern countries, I know only, on the authority of Pontoppidan, that they had been in Denmark two hundred years before his time.

As these fowls are found at present both in Asia and Africa, it may be worth while to inquire at what period they were carried thither, especially as these quarters of the world have been by some considered as their native countries. In China there are no other turkeys than those which have been introduced from other parts, as we are expressly assured by Du Halde, though he erroneously adds that they were quite common in the East Indies. They were carried to Persia by the Armenians and other trading people, and to Batavia by the Dutch[1537 - Bell’s Travels, i. p. 128.]. In the time of Chardin they were so scarce in Persia that they were kept in the Emperor’s menagerie[1538 - “Turkeys (poulets d’Inde) are there foreign and scarce birds. The Armenians, about thirty years ago, carried from Constantinople to Ispahan a great number of them, which they presented to the king as a rarity; but it is said that the Persians, not knowing the method of breeding them, gave in return the care of them to these people, and assigned a different house for each. The Armenians, however, finding them troublesome and expensive, suffered them almost all to perish. I saw some which were reared in the territory of Ispahan, four leagues from the city, by the Armenian peasants; but they were not numerous. Some imagine that these birds were brought from the East Indies; but this is so far from being the case, that there are none of them in that part of the world. They must have come from the West Indies, although they are called cocqs d’Inde because, being larger than common fowls, they in that resemble the Indian fowls, which are of much greater size than the common fowls of other countries.” – Voyages de Chardin, iv. p. 84.]. In the kingdom of Congo, on the Gold Coast, and at Senegal, there are none but those belonging to the European factories. According to Father de Bourzes there are none of them in the kingdom of Madura; and we are told by Dampier that this is the case in the island of Mindanao. Prosper Alpinus also gives the same account in regard to Nubia and Egypt; and Gemelli Carreri says there is none of them in the Philippines; though I agree with Buffon in laying very little stress upon the Travels known under that name, which we have reason to suppose not genuine.

It is worthy of remark, that Cavendish found a great number of turkeys in the island of St. Helena so early as the year 1588; and Barrington misapplies this circumstance to prove that these fowls did not come from America. It is, however, very doubtful whether Cavendish really meant our turkeys, as he says, “Guiney cocks, which we call turkeys[1539 - Hakluyt, ii. p. 825.];” for the first name belongs to what are at present called pintados; and it is therefore uncertain which kind ought here to be understood. But even allowing that they were turkeys, is it improbable that they should be on an island which had often been visited by the Portuguese? The account of De la Croix is of as little weight; for he says that in the woods of Madagascar there are many coqs d’Inde[1540 - Rélation Universelle d’Afrique. Lyon 1688, iv. p. 426.]. De la Croix published his book in 1688, at which time there were in South America wild horses and wild cattle. Does this, therefore, invalidate the certainty of these animals being carried thither from Europe?

I intended to enter into a critical examination of those grounds upon which Barrington endeavours to prove that turkeys were originally brought from Africa; but on reading over his essay once more, I find the greater part of his arguments are sufficiently refuted by what I have proved from the most authentic testimony; and nothing now remains but to add a few observations. Barrington considers it improbable that these fowls should be so soon spread all over Europe, as Cortez first visited Mexico in 1519, subdued the capital in 1521, and returned to Spain in 1527. To me, however, it does not appear incredible; for I could prove by several instances, that the curiosity excited by the most remarkable American productions soon became general. Those, for example, who take the trouble to inquire into the history of maize or Turkish corn will make the same remark; though it is a truth fully established that we procure that grain from America. How soon did tobacco become common! In the year 1599 the seeds were brought to Portugal; and in the beginning of the seventeenth century it began to be cultivated in the East Indies. When Barrington asserts that these fowls were carried to America by the Europeans, in the same manner as horses and cattle, this argument may be turned against himself; for he must doubtless find it equally improbable that they should so soon become common, numerous and wild, in the New World, as they must have been according to the authorities above quoted.

As many fat turkeys were purchased yearly in Languedoc and sent to Spain in the time of cardinal Perron[1541 - Perroniana, p. 67.], it is thence concluded that these fowls were not brought to France through the latter. Perron died in 1620. At that period turkeys were very common; and whoever is acquainted with the industry of the Spaniards will not find it strange that the French should begin earlier to make the rearing of these animals an employment. How falsely should we reason, were we to say that it is impossible the English and French should procure the best wool from Spain, because the Spaniards purchase the best cloth from the French and the English!

One proof by which Barrington endeavours to show that turkeys were esteemed so early as the fifteenth century is very singular. He quotes from Leland’s Itinerary that capons of Grease were served up at an entertainment, under Edward IV., in 1467. The passage alluded to I cannot find; but an author must be very self-sufficient and bold indeed, to convert capons of Grease into capons of Greece, and to pretend that these were turkeys[1542 - Leland’s Itinerary. Oxford, 1744, vol. vi. p. 5.].

What, however, most excites my surprise is, that the name of these fowls even should be assumed by this writer as a ground for his assertion. Had they, says he, been brought from America, they would have been called American or West Indian fowls; as if new objects had names given to them always with reflection. Names are often bestowed upon objects before it is known what they are or whence they are procured. Ray, Minshew[1543 - Minshew’s Guide into Tongues, 1617, fol.], and others have been induced by the name turkey-fowls to consider Turkey as their original country; but whoever is versed in researches of this kind must know that new foreign articles are often called Turkish, Italian, or Spanish. Is Turkey the original country of maize? or is Italy the original country of these birds, because they have been sometimes called Italian fowls? Even allowing that turkeys had acquired their German name (kalekuter) from Calicut, this, at any rate, would prove nothing further than that it was once falsely believed that these animals were brought from Calicut to Europe: but I suspect that the appellation kalekuter, as well as the names truthenne, putjen, and puten, were formed from their cry. Chardin offers a conjecture which is not altogether to be neglected. That traveller thinks that these fowls were at first considered as a species of the domestic fowl, and that they were called Indian, because the largest domestic fowls are produced in that country.

BUTTER

Milk, the most natural and the commonest food of man, is a mixture of three component parts, whey, butter, and cheese. The caseous part is viscous; the butter is the fat, oily, and inflammable part, and properly speaking, is not perfectly dissolved in the serum or whey, but rather only diffused through it like an emulsion, so that it may be separated by rest alone, without any artificial preparation. When milk is in a state of rest, the oily part rises to the surface, and forms what is called cream. When the milk has curdled, which will soon be the case, the caseous parts separate themselves from the whey; and this separation may be effected also by the addition of some mixture, through means of which the produce is liable to many variations. The caseous part, when squeezed and mixed with salt, and sometimes herbs, and when it has been moulded into a certain form and dried, is used under the name of cheese, which will always be better, the greater the butyraceous part is that has been left in it. The cream skimmed, and by proper agitation in a churn or other vessel separated from the whey and caseous parts, becomes our usual butter.

This substance, though commonly used at present in the greater part of Europe, was not known, or known very imperfectly, to the ancients[1544 - The works with which I am acquainted that treat on this subject, are the following: – M. Schoockii Tractatus de Butyro: accessit ejusdem Diatriba de aversatione Casei. Groningæ, 1664, 12mo. – H. Conring De habitus corporum Germanicorum antiqui et novi caussis. Helmst. 1666, 4to, or Frankf. 1727, 8vo. – Vossii Etymologicon, art. Butyrum. – Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, lib. v. 7. ii. p. 799. – Tob. Waltheri Dissert. de Butyro. Altorfii, 1743. – Conr. Gesneri Libellus de lacte et operibus lactariis, 1543, 8vo. This small treatise I have hitherto sought for in vain.]. The ancient translators of the Hebrew writers[1545 - Bochart, Hierozoicon, ii. 45, p. 473.] seem however to have thought that they found it mentioned in Scripture[1546 - Genesis, chap. xviii. ver. 8: “And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set before them.” Deuteron. chap. xxxii. ver. 14: “Butter of kine and milk of sheep.” Judges, chap. v. ver. 25: “He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.” 2 Samuel, chap. xvii. ver. 29: “And honey, and butter, and sheep.” Job, chap. xx. ver. 17: “He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.” Ibid. chap. xxix. ver. 6: “When I washed my steps with butter and the rock poured me out rivers of oil.” Proverbs, chap. xxx. ver. 33: “Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter.” Isaiah, chap. vii. ver. 15: “Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.” Ibid. ver. 22: “And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give, that he shall eat butter; for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.”]: but those best acquainted with biblical criticism, unanimously agree that the word chamea signifies milk or cream, or sour thick milk, and at any rate does not mean butter[1547 - Michaelis Suppl. ad Lex. Hebr. v. i. p. 807; and his Mosaisches Recht (on the Laws of Moses), § 291 and 295.]. The word plainly alludes to something liquid, as it appears that chamea was used for washing the feet, that it was drunk, and that it had the power of intoxicating; and we know that mares’-milk, when sour, will produce the like effect. We can imagine streams of milk, but not streams of butter. This error has been occasioned by the seventy interpreters, who translate the Hebrew word by the word boutyron. These translators, who lived two hundred years after Hippocrates, and who resided in Egypt, might, as Michaelis remarks, have been acquainted with butter, or have heard of it; but it is highly probable that they meant cream, and not our usual butter. Those who judge from the common translation, would naturally conclude that the passage in Proverbs, chap. xxx., describes the preparation of butter by shaking or beating; but the original words signify squeezing or pressing, pressio, frictio mulgentis educit lac; so that milking and not making butter is alluded to.

The oldest mention of butter, though it is indeed dubious and obscure, is in the account given of the Scythians by Herodotus[1548 - iv. 2. p. 281: “Postquam emulxere lac, in cava vasa lignea diffundunt; et compungentes ad illa vasa cæcos lac agitant (δονέουσι τὸ γάλα) cujus quod summum est, delibatur, pretiosiusque habetur; vilius autem quod subsidit.” – That δονέειν signifies to shake or beat, there can be no doubt. Theocritus uses the same word in speaking of a tree strongly agitated by the wind. It is used also to express the agitation of the sea during a storm; and in Geopon. xx. 46, p. 1270, where the preparation of that sauce called garum is mentioned, it is said that it must be placed in the sun, and frequently shaken.]. “These people,” says he, “pour the milk of their mares into wooden vessels, cause it to be violently stirred or shaken by their blind slaves, and separate the part that arises to the surface, as they consider it more valuable and more delicious than that which is collected below it.” The author here certainly speaks of the richest part of the milk being separated from the rest by shaking; and it appears that we have every reason to suppose that he alludes to butter, especially as Hippocrates, who was almost contemporary, mentions the same thing, but in a much clearer manner[1549 - De Morbis, lib. iv. edit. 1595, fol. v. p. 67. Also in his treatise De Aëre, Locis, et Aquis, sect. iii. p. 74, he says the Scythians drink mares’-milk, and eat cheese made of it.]. “The Scythians,” says the latter, “pour the milk of their mares into wooden vessels, and shake it violently; this causes it to foam, and the fat part, which is light, rising to the surface, becomes what is called butter. The heavy and thick part, which is below, being kneaded and properly prepared, is, after it has been dried, known by the name of hippace. The whey or serum remains in the middle.” This author, in my opinion, speaks here very distinctly of butter, cheese and whey. It is probable that the Scythians may have hastened the separation of the caseous part from the whey by warming the milk, or by the addition of some substance proper for that purpose. These passages therefore contain the first mention of butter, which occurs several times in Hippocrates, and which he prescribes externally as a medicine[1550 - De Natura Mulierum, sect. v. p. 137. – De Morbis Mulier. 2. sect. v. p. 191, 235, and in several other places. Vossius therefore, in his Etymolog. p. 84, says erroneously, that this word was first used by Dioscorides.]; but he gives it another term (pikerion), which seems to have been in use among the Greeks earlier than the former, and to have been afterwards neglected. That this word signified butter, and was no longer employed in the time of Galen, appears from his translating it, in his explanation of the obsolete expressions of Hippocrates, by the word boutyron[1551 - Edition of Basle, 1538, fol. v. p. 715.]. It was even before that period explained in the same manner by Erotian, in his dictionary of the words used by that Greek physician; and he remarks, from an ancient writer, that the Phrygians called butter pikerion, and that the Greeks seemed to have borrowed the word from these people. It however occurs very seldom, and is to be found neither in Hesychius, Suidas, nor Pollux[1552 - It occurs however in Phavorinus.].

The poet Anaxandrides, who lived soon after Hippocrates, describing the wedding of Iphicrates, who married the daughter of Cotys, king of Thrace, and the Thracian entertainment given on that occasion, says that the Thracians ate butter[1553 - Athenæus, iv. p. 131. Respecting Anaxandrides see Fabricii Bibl. Gr.], which the Greeks at that time considered as a wonderful kind of food.

It is very remarkable that the word butter does not occur in Aristotle, and that he even scarcely alludes to that substance, though we find in his works some very proper information respecting milk and cheese, which seems to imply careful observation. At first he gives milk only two component parts, the watery and the caseous; but he remarks afterwards, for the first time, in a passage where one little expects it, that in milk there is also a fat substance, which under certain circumstances, is like oil[1554 - Historia Animal. iii. 20, p. 384: πᾶν δὲ γάλα ἔχει ἰχῶρα ὑδατώτη, ὃ καλεῖται ὀῤῥὸς, καὶ σωματῶδες, ὃ καλεῖται τυρός. Omne lac habet succum aquosum, qui dicitur serum, et alterum corpulentum, qui vocatur caseus. – P. 388: ὑπάρχει δ’ ἐν τῷ γάλακτι λιπαρότης, ἣ καὶ ἐν τοῖς πεπήγοσι γίνεται ἐλαιώδης. Inest in lacte pinguedo, quæ in concreto oleosa fit. This is the translation of Scaliger; but by Gaza the latter part of the passage is translated as follows: “quæ etiam concreto oleum prope trahit.” It appears to me doubtful what ἐν τοῖς πεπήγοσι properly means. The comparison of oil occurs also in Dioscorides and Pliny. Aristotle, in all probability, intended to say that the fat part of milk was observed under an oily appearance in cheese made of sweet milk from which the cream had not been separated; and that indeed is perfectly agreeable to truth.].

In Strabo there are three passages that refer to this subject, but from which little information can be obtained. This author says that the Lusitanians used butter instead of oil; he mentions the same circumstance respecting the Ethiopians; and he relates in another place, that elephants, when wounded, drank this substance in order to make the darts fall from their bodies[1555 - Lib. iii. p. 233; xvii. p. 1176; xv. p. 1031.]. I am much astonished, I confess, to find that the ancient Ethiopians were acquainted with butter, though it is confirmed by Ludolfus[1556 - Histor. Æthiop. lib. iv. 4, 13.]. It ought to be remarked also, that according to Aristotle, the elephants, to cure themselves, did not drink butter, but oil[1557 - Histor. Animal. viii. 31, p. 977.]. In this he is followed by Pliny[1558 - Hist. Nat. viii. 10, p. 440.]; and Ælian says, that for the above purpose these animals used either the bloom of the olive-tree, or oil itself[1559 - Hist. Animal. ii. 18.]; but Arrian, who lived a hundred years after Strabo, and who has related everything respecting the diseases of the elephant and their cures, in the same order as that author, has omitted this circumstance altogether[1560 - Indica. Amst. 1668, 8vo, p. 537.]. Is the passage of Strabo, therefore, genuine? Ælian however says, in another part of his book, that the Indians anointed the wounds of their elephants with butter[1561 - Lib. xiii. cap. 7.].

We are told by Plutarch, that a Spartan lady paid a visit to Berenice, the wife of Dejotarus, and that the one smelled so much of sweet ointment, and the other of butter, that neither of them could endure the other. Was it customary, therefore, at that period, for people to perfume themselves with butter?

Of much more importance are the remarks made by Dioscorides and Galen on this subject. The former says that good butter was prepared from the fattest milk, such as that of sheep or goats, by shaking it in a vessel till the fat was separated. To this butter he ascribes the same effects, when used externally, as those produced by our butter at present. He adds also, and he is the first writer who makes the observation, that fresh butter might be melted and poured over pulse and vegetables instead of oil, and that it might be employed in pastry in the room of other fat substances. A kind of soot likewise was at that time prepared from butter for external applications, which was used in curing inflammation of the eyes and other disorders. For this purpose the butter was put into a lamp, and when consumed, the lamp was again filled till the desired quantity of soot was collected in a vessel placed over it.

Galen, who distinguishes and confirms in a more accurate manner the healing virtues of butter, expressly remarks that cow’s-milk produces the fattest butter; that butter made from sheep’s- or goat’s-milk is less rich; and that ass’s-milk yields the poorest. He expresses his astonishment, therefore, that Dioscorides should say that butter was made from the milk of sheep and goats. He assures us that he had seen it made from cow’s-milk, and that he believes it had thence acquired its name[1562 - De Simplic. Med. Facultat. lib. x. p. 151. Edit. Basil. ii. p. 134.]. “Butter,” says he, “may be very properly employed for ointments; and when leather is besmeared with it, the same purpose is answered as when it is rubbed over with oil. In cold countries, which do not produce oil, butter is used in the baths; and that it is a real fat may be readily perceived by its catching fire when poured over burning coals[1563 - De Aliment. Facultat. iii. cap. 15, p. 54. Edit. Basil. iv. p. 340.].” What has been here said is sufficient to show that butter must have been very little known to, or used by, the Greeks and Romans in the time of Galen, that is, at the end of the second century.

The Roman writers who give an account of the ancient Germans, all relate that they lived principally on milk; but they disagree in one thing, because many of them tell us that they used cheese, while others affirm that they were not even acquainted with the method of preparing it[1564 - Cæsar de Bello Gall. iv. 1. vi. 22. Strabo, lib. iv. speaking of the Britons, says, “In their manners they are somewhat similar to Celts, but more simple and barbarous; so that many, although they abound in milk, are unable to make cheese, through want of skill.”]. Pliny, on the other hand, says that they did not make cheese, but butter, which they used as a most pleasant kind of food. He ascribes to them also the invention of it; for it is highly probable that under the expression “barbarous nations” he meant the people of Germany: and his description of butter appears to me so clear, that I do not see how it can be doubted[1565 - Lib. xi. c. 41, p. 637.]. He very justly remarks, that, in order to make butter in cold weather, the milk ought to be warmed, but that in summer this precaution is not necessary. The vessel employed for making it seems to have had a great likeness to those used at present; we are told at least that it was covered, and that in the lid there were holes[1566 - Ib. lib. xxviii. cap. 9, p. 465.]. What he says however respecting oxygala is attended with difficulties; and I am fully persuaded that his words are corrupted, though I find no variations marked in manuscripts by which this conjecture can be supported. Having made an attempt by transposing the words to discover the real sense, I found that I had placed them in the same order as that in which they had been before arranged by Dithmar, who, in his annotations on Tacitus, quotes them in the same manner as I would read them, and with so much confidence that he does not even hint they were ever read otherwise. Had we both been critics, this similarity might have given our conjecture perhaps more authority; but Dithmar also was a professor of the œconomical sciences[1567 - In my opinion the passage ought to be arranged as follows: – prælirato. Quod est maximum coactum, in summo fluitat. Id exemptum, addito sale, butyrum est, oleosum natura. Quod reliquum est decoquunt in ollis. Additur paululum aquæ (aceti?), ut acescat. Id quod supernatat, oxygala appellant. Quo magis virus resipit, hoc præstantius indicatur. Pluribus compositionibus miscetur inveteratum. Natura ejus adstringere, mollire, replere, purgare. – Dithmar’s emendation may be found in Taciti Libel. de Moribus German. Francof. 1766, 8vo, p. 140.].

Oxygala was evidently a kind of cheese, the preparation of which has been best described by Columella[1568 - Lib. xii. 8, p. 786.]. In order to make it, sweet milk was commonly rendered sour, and the serum was always separated from it. Of this process Pliny speaks likewise; but he first mentions under the above name a kind of cheese formed from the caseous parts which remained behind in the butter-milk, and which when separated from it by acids and boiling, were mixed and prepared in various ways. It must in general have been sourish; for, according to the account of Galen[1569 - De Aliment. Facultat. iii. cap. 16, p. 55.], it affected the teeth, though he mentions also another kind of cheese, under the name of caseus oxygalactium[1570 - Ibid. cap. 17, p. 57.], which was perfectly mild. In the Geoponica[1571 - Lib. xviii. 12, p. 1188.] directions are given how this cheese may be kept fresh for a long time. If my reading be adopted, the medicinal effects spoken of by Pliny are not to be ascribed to the butter, but to the sour cheese[1572 - See Mercurialis, p. 38.]; and physicians undoubtedly will be much readier to allow them to the latter than to the former. Whether Tacitus by lac concretum, which he says was the most common food of the Germans, meant cheese or butter I cannot examine, as we have no grounds to enable us to determine this question, respecting which nothing more can be known[1573 - De Moribus Germ. cap. 23.].

I have now laid before the reader, in chronological order, every thing that I found in the works of the ancients respecting butter; and it is certain, from what has been said, that it is not a Grecian, and much less a Roman invention; but that the Greeks were made acquainted with it by the Scythians, the Thracians and the Phrygians, and the Romans by the people of Germany[1574 - On this account some conjecture, and not without probability, that the name also βούτυρος or βούτυρον is not originally Greek, but that it may have been introduced into Greece from some foreign country, along with the thing which it expresses. Conring, for example, is of opinion that it is of Scythian extraction. The Grecian and Roman authors, however, make it to be a Greek word, compounded of βοῦς, an ox or cow, and τυρὸς, cheese, as we learn from the passages of Galen and Pliny already quoted. Cheese was known to them much earlier than butter; and it is therefore possible, that at first they may have considered the latter as a kind of cheese, as it appears that τυρὸς once signified any coagulated substance. The first syllable of the word, indeed, one should hardly expect, as the Greeks used the milk of sheep and goats much earlier than cow’s-milk; and for this reason Schook conjectures that the first syllable was added, as usual among the Greeks, to magnify the object, or to express a superior kind of cheese. Varro De Re Rustica, ii. 5, p. 274, says, “Novi majestatem boum, et ab his dici pleraque magna, ut βούσυκον, βούπαιδα, βούλιμον, βοῶπιν; uvam quoque bumammam;” and we find in Hesychius, “βούπαις νέος μέγας· βούπεινα, μέγας λιμὸς· βουφάγος, πολυφάγος.” But this supposes that the Greeks preferred butter to cheese; whereas they always considered the former as of less importance, and less proper for use. The same word being still retained in most languages determines nothing; especially as the Swedes use the word smor, which is totally different, and which was the oldest German name, and that most used in the ninth century; and Lipsius, in an old dictionary of that period, found the word kuosmer butyrum, the first syllable of which is certainly the word kuh, a cow. See Lipsii Epist. ad Belgas, cent. iii. 44, and Wormii Litteratura Runica, cap. 27. These etymological researches, which must always be uncertain, I shall not carry further; but only remark that, according to Hesychius, butter, in Cyprus, where I did not expect it, was called ἔλφος, which word may also be foreign. See Martini Lexic. Philol. art Butyrum, who derives ἔλφος from albus.]. It appears also, that when they had learned the art of making it, they employed it only as an ointment in their baths, and particularly in medicine. Besides the proofs already quoted, a passage of Columella[1575 - Lib. vi. 12, p. 582.] deserves also to be remarked, because that author, and not Pliny, as Vossius thinks, is the first Latin writer who makes use of the word butyrum. Pliny recommends it mixed with honey to be rubbed over children’s gums in order to ease the pain of teething, and also for ulcers in the mouth[1576 - Lib. xxviii. cap. 19, p. 486.]. The Romans in general seem to have used butter for anointing the bodies of their children to render them pliable[1577 - A passage of Tertullian adversus Jud. alludes to this practice. The same words are repeated Adversus Marcion. iii. 13.]; and we are told that the ancient Burgundians besmeared their hair with it[1578 - Sidonius Apollinaris, carm. 12.]. A passage of Clemens of Alexandria, in which he expressly says that some burned it in their lamps instead of oil, is likewise worthy of attention[1579 - Clemens Alexand. Pædag. i. p. 107.]. It is however certain, on the other hand, that it was used neither by the Greeks nor the Romans in cookery or the preparation of food, nor was it brought upon their tables by way of dessert, as at a later period was the custom. We never find it mentioned by Galen and others as a food, though they have spoken of it as applicable to other purposes. No notice is taken of it by Apicius; nor is there anything said of it in that respect by the authors who treat on agriculture, though they have given us very particular information concerning milk, cheese and oil. This, as has been remarked by other writers, may be easily accounted for, by the ancients having entirely accustomed themselves to the use of good oil; and in the like manner butter at present is very little employed in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the southern parts of France, where it is sold in the apothecaries’ shops for medicinal purposes[1580 - When Leodius accompanied the elector palatine Frederic II. in his travels through Spain, he was desirous of purchasing in that country several articles necessary for their journey. After much inquiry concerning butter, he was directed to an apothecary’s shop, where the people were much astonished at the largeness of the quantity he asked for, and showed him a little entirely rancid, which was kept in a bladder for external use. H. Th. Leodii Vita et Res Gestæ Frederici Palatini. Francof. 1665, 4to, lib. vi.]. It is certain besides, that in warm countries it is difficult to preserve it for any length of time.

To conclude, I shall offer one remark, which, in my opinion is entirely new. It appears to me, by the information which I have here collected from the ancients, that at the period when these authors wrote, people were not acquainted with the art of making butter so clean and so firm as that which we use on our tables. On the contrary, I am fully persuaded that it was rather in an oily state, and almost liquid. They all speak of butter as of something fluid. The moderns cut, knead and spread butter; but the ancients poured it out as one pours out oil. Galen tells us, that, to make soot of butter, the butter must be poured into a lamp. Had the ancients used in their lamps hard or solid butter, as our miners use tallow in the lamps that supply them with light under ground, they would not have made choice of the expression to pour out. We are told that the elephants drank butter; and liquid butter must have been very familiar to the Greek translators of the Sacred Scriptures, when they could mention it as flowing in streams. Hecatæus, quoted by Athenæus, calls the butter with which the Pæonians anointed themselves, oil of milk[1581 - Lib. x. p. 447.]. Casaubon observes on this passage, that the author makes use of these words, because butter was then employed instead of oil, and spoken of in the like manner, as was the case with sugar, which was at first considered to be a kind of honey, because it was equally sweet and could be applied to the same purposes. Hippocrates, on the like grounds, calls swine’s seam, swine’s oil[1582 - What Hippocrates calls ἔλαιον ὑὸς Erotian explains by τὸ ὕειον στέαρ.]. This explanation I should readily adopt, did not such expressions respecting butter, as one can apply only to fluid bodies, occur everywhere without exception. In warm countries, indeed, butter may be always in a liquid state; but I am of opinion that the ancients in general did not know by means of kneading, washing and salting, to render their butter so firm and clean as we have it at present. On this account it could not be long kept or transported, and the use of it must have been very much limited.

I shall remark in the last place, that butter appears to have been extremely scarce in Norway during the ages of paganism; for we find mention made by historians of a present of butter which was so large that a man could not carry it, and which was considered as a very respectable gift[1583 - Suhm, in the eighth vol. of the Transactions of the Copenhagen Society, where a reference is made, p. 53, respecting the above-mentioned circumstance, to Torfæi Histor. Norveg. pars. i. vi. sect. iii. cap. 2, p. 319.].

AURUM FULMINANS

If a solution of chloride of gold be precipitated by an excess of ammonia, a yellow powder will be obtained, which, when heated, or only bruised, explodes suddenly with a prodigious report. The force of this aurum fulminans is terrible, and, in the hands of incautious persons, has often occasioned much mischief. But, however powerful, it cannot, as some have imagined, be employed instead of gunpowder, even were not this impossible on account of the high value of the metal from which it is made; for explosion does not take place when the powder is confined. Phænomena of this kind are always of importance, and afford subject of speculation to the philosopher, though no immediate use can be made of them[1584 - [That this and other similar chemical phænomena may be of more advantage than as affording merely subjects for speculation to the philosopher, although not immediately applicable to any useful purpose, may be inferred from the valuable application of fulminating mercury, a somewhat similar compound to that under consideration. This, at first, as with fulminating gold at present, was a mere curiosity; it has recently caused the almost complete substitution of percussion for flint locks in fire-arms, which in addition to the greater certainty caused by the increased rapidity of the discharge, œconomises the quantity of powder requisite.Fulminating mercury is made by dissolving mercury in nitric acid and pouring the solution into warm alcohol. Effervescence ensues. When this has ceased, the mixture is poured upon a filter, and well-washed with water; after draining, the filter is expanded upon plated copper or stone-ware, heated to 212° by steam or hot water. Dr. Ure recommends that the powder be mixed with a solution of mastic in spirits of turpentine, to cause attachment. Its extensive use in making percussion-caps is well-known. It is however a very dangerous substance to experiment with, owing to the readiness with which it explodes, and has caused many very serious accidents.]]. Experiments, however, have rendered it probable that this powder may possess some medicinal virtues, and we are assured that it can be employed in enamel-painting.

He who attempts to trace out the invention of aurum fulminans is like a person bewildered in a morass, in danger every moment of being lost. I allude here to the immense wilderness of the ancient alchemists, or makers of gold; to wade through which, my patience, though pretty much accustomed to such labour, is not sufficiently adequate. Those who know how to appreciate their time will not sacrifice it in endeavouring to discover the meaning of books which the authors themselves did not, in part, understand, or to comprehend passages in which the writer tells us nothing, or, at any rate, nothing of importance. I have, however, made my way through this labyrinth from Spielmann to the works which are ascribed to Basilius Valentin[1585 - Spielmann, Institut. Chem. p. 288.].

The period when this powder was invented is as uncertain as the accounts given of its composition. It is however probable that the discoverer was a German Benedictine monk, who lived about the year 1413[1586 - See Preface of B. N. Petræus to the Works of Valentin, Hamb. 1717, 8vo.]; and there is reason to think that he may have made many useful observations, of which we are yet ignorant. When new observations have been made respecting gold, they have always been found afterwards in the works of Valentin, in a passage which no one before could understand. Such writings are of no more utility than the answers of the ancient oracles, which were comprehended when a knowledge of them was no longer necessary, and which misled those who supposed that they comprehended them sooner. But the account of aurum fulminans in Valentin is so uncommonly intelligible, that it almost seems he either wrote in an explicit manner without perceiving it, or that the words escaped from him contrary to his intention. As the work in which it may be found is scarce, I shall transcribe the prescription[1587 - Fr. Basilii Valentini Letztes Testament; Von G. P. Nenter. Strasb. 1712, 8vo, p. 223.]: —

“Take a pound of aqua regia made with sal-ammoniac; that is, take a pound of good strong aquafortis, and dissolve in it four ounces of sal-ammoniac, and you will thus obtain a strong aqua regia, which must be repeatedly distilled and rectified until no more fæsces remain at the bottom, and until it becomes quite clear and transparent. Take fine thin gold-leaf, in the preparation of which antimony has been used; put it into an alembic; pour aqua regis over it; and let as much of the gold as possible be dissolved. After the gold is all dissolved, add to it some oleum tartari, or sal tartari dissolved in a little spring-water, and it will begin to effervesce. When the effervescence has ceased, pour some more oil into it; and do this so often till the dissolved gold falls to the bottom, and until no more precipitate is formed, and the aqua regia remains pure and clear. You must then pour the aqua regia from the gold calx, and wash it well with water eight or ten times. When the gold calx is settled, pour off the water, and dry the calx in the open air when the sun shines, but not over the fire; for as soon as this powder becomes a little heated or warm, it explodes, and does much mischief, as it is so powerful and violent that no man can withstand it. When the powder has been thus prepared, take strong distilled vinegar and pour over it; keep it continually over the fire for twenty-four hours, without stirring it, so that nothing may fall to the bottom, and it will be again deprived of its power of exploding; but take great care that no accident happens by carelessness. Pour off the vinegar, and, having washed the powder, expose it to dry.”