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

H. Junii Batavia. Lugd. Bat. 1558, 4to, p. 327. – Hugo Grotius de Antiquitate Reipub. Batavicæ, cap. 4. – Délices de la Hollande. Amst. 1685, 12mo, p. 218: “Les Wassenaers tiennent leur origine d’une village qui est entre Leiden et la Haye, ou des droits qu’ils eurent les siecles passez sur les eaux, les estangs et les lacs de la Hollande.” – Those who are fond of indulging in conjecture might form the following conclusion: – The lakes and streams belonged to the Wassenaers, who kept swans, geese and ducks upon them. When the brewers were desirous of clearing the water from the duck-weed, which in Fritsch’s German Dictionary is called Enten-grutz, in order that it might be fitter for use, they were obliged to pay a certain sum to obtain permission; and when the practice of floating timber began, the floats disturbed the ducks, and destroyed the plant on which they fed, and the proprietors of floats were on this account obliged to pay a certain tax also. But was it customary at that period to float timber in the Netherlands?

1436

Glossarium Manuale, iii. p. 850: “Gruta, Grutt, Gruit, appellant tributum, quod pro cerevisia pensitatur.”

1437

This is proved by the vestes Phrygioniæ of Pliny mentioned before in the article on wire-drawing (#wire). Those who made such works were called phrygiones. In the Menæchmi of Plautus, act ii. scene 3, a young woman, desirous of sending her mantle to be embroidered, says, “Pallam illam ad phrygionem ut deferas, ut reconcinnetur, atque ut opera addantur, quæ volo.” Compare Aulul. act iii. scene 5; Non. Marcellus, i. 10; and Isidor. 19, 22. The Greeks seem to have used the words κεντεῖν and καταστίζειν as we use the word embroider.

1438

De Vestitu Sacerdot. Hebræorum, i. p. 212.

1439

Count de Marsan, the youngest son of count d’Harcourt, brought from Brussels to Paris his former nurse, named Du Mont, with her four daughters, and procured for her an exclusive right to establish and carry on the lace manufactory in that capital. In a little time Du Mont and her daughters collected more than two hundred women, many of whom were of good families, who produced such excellent work that it was in little or nothing inferior to that imported from other countries. – Vie de Jean-Bapt. Colbert, Cologne, 1696, 12mo, p. 154.

1440

The oldest information on this subject is to be found in Annabergæ Urbis Historia, auctore Paulo Jenisio. Dresdæ, 1605, 4to, ii. p. 33. – C. Melzer, Berglauftige Beschreibung der Stadt Schneeberg. 1684, p. 471. – Historia Schneebergensis. Schneeberg 1716, 4to, p. 882. – Tob. Schmidt, Zwickauische Chronik. Zwickau, 1656, 4to. ii. p. 384. – Lehmanns Historischer Schauplatz des Obererzgebirges. Leipzig, 1699, 4to, p. 771.

1441

It is difficult to form an estimate of the number of persons employed in pillow-lace making during its prosperity; but in a petition from the makers in Buckingham and the neighbourhood presented to her Majesty queen Adelaide in 1830, it was stated that 120,000 persons were dependent on the trade.

1442

Waterston’s Encyclopædia of Commerce.

1443

The old method of preparing ultramarine may be found in De Boot, Gemmarum Histor. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 8vo, p. 279. Formerly ultramarine was improperly called a precipitate or magisterium.

1444

Besides the before-mentioned proofs of the real lapis lazuli being found in Tartary, the same thing is confirmed by Tavernier in his Travels. Paulus Venetus also seems to speak of that country when he says, “Suppeditat quoque mons alius in hac provincia (Balascia) lazulum, de quo fit azurum optimum, quale etiam in mundo non invenitur. Elicitur autem ex mineris non secus ac ferrum; præbent quoque mineræ argentum.” A great many however assert that this species of stone is brought from Persia: but it is not indigenous in that country, and is carried thither from Thibet. As the Persians are remarkably fond of this paint, they endeavour to procure as much of it as possible; but Persia itself produces only the blue copper ochre, which is sometimes used there instead of ultramarine. Tavernier mentions this very particularly, and, as he dealt in precious stones, was not liable to be deceived. To rectify a prevailing mistake, I shall here insert his own words: – “In the copper mines of Persia, veins of lazur, which is much used in that country, and with which the flowers on the ceiling and roofs of apartments are painted, have also been found. Before these were discovered, the Persians had no other lazur than the real kind which comes from Tartary, and is exceedingly dear. The Persian lazur is a sort of copper ore; and when the stone is pounded and sifted, which is the process employed with the real kind, it forms a fine paint, which appears very bright and pleasant. After this discovery, the Persians durst no more purchase the Tartarian lazur; and Mahomet-Beg issued an order that painters should not use foreign but Persian lazur. This prohibition however did not long continue; for the Persian lazur could not stand the effects of the atmosphere like the real kind, but in the course of time became of a dark and dismal colour. Sometimes it was full of scales, and would not hang to the end of a soft hair brush. On this account it was soon neglected as a coloured earth, and the lazur of Tartary again introduced.” This information is confirmed also by Chardin, in Voyages en Perse, iv. p. 66. “In the country around Tauris,” says the author, “is found lapis lazuli, but it is not so good as that of Tartary, as its colour changes, becomes dark, and afterwards fades.” In page 255, he says likewise, “The lapis lazuli, called lagsverd, from which we have formed the word azur, is found in the neighbourhood, in the country of the Yousbecs, but the general magazine for it is Persia.” I do not believe that this species of stone was formerly procured from Cyprus, as is asserted in many books. Copper is a production of that island, and it produces even at present mountain blue. Those also who assert that the colour of ultramarine fades in the fire, must not have been acquainted with the genuine sort. See Schriften der Schwedischen Acad. xii. p. 69. Montamy, in Abhandlung von den Farben zum Porzellan, Leipzig, 1767, 8vo, p. 121, affirms that ultramarine is not good for enamel-painting, but it is certain that it was once used for that purpose.

1445

See Plin. lib. xxxvii. cap. 9 and 10. – Isidori Orig. xvi. 9. – Theophrast. de Lapid. § 43. – Dioscorides, v. 157. – Dionys. Orb. Desc. v. 1105. – Epiphanius de xii gemmis, § 5. – Marbodeus de Lapidibus, 53, p. 46.

1446

Lib. ii. p. 782. Jaspis aërizusa – which I certainly do not, with Salmasius, consider as the turquoise. We have blue jasper still.

1447

Plin. Inutiles scalpturæ, intervenientibus crystallinis centris. – Several learned men have understood this passage as if Pliny said that the sapphire could not be cut; but they seem not to have attended properly to the author’s words, and to have forgot what the ancient artists called centra in stones and different kinds of wood which were to be cut. This Pliny himself explains, b. xvi. c. 39. In b. xxxvii. c. 2, he reckons also “prædurum ac fragile centrum” among the faults of rock crystal, which however, when it had not this blemish, was very proper for being cut. Theophrastus uses in the same sense the word κέντρον.

1448

Aristotelis Auscultat. Mirabil. cap. 59, p. 123.

1449

Systema Mineralium. i. p. 313.

1450

Dioscorides, Parabil. i. p. 10, 11.

1451

Some years ago my former colleague, H. Laxman, discovered lapis lazuli in veins of granite near Baikal in Siberia. These veins contained also along with it felspar and a milky-coloured kind of stone, perhaps zeolite, like pyrites.

1452

Braun de Vestitu Sacerdotum. ii. p. 530. – See Michaelis Supplementa ad Lexica Hebraica, num. 1775. The name sapphire is very ancient.

1453

Plin. lib. xxxiii. cap. 13. – Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.

1454

De Homonymis Hyles Iatricæ. Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1689, fol. p. 217.

1455

Lazul or lazur is not of Arabic, but Persian extraction. Ladschuardi or lazuardi in Persian signifies a blue colour and lapis lazuli. It ought properly to be pronounced lazuverd; but the Arabs in their pronunciation contract the v very much, so that it sounds like u; and one can say therefore lazurd. The derivative lazurdi or lazuverdi signifies blue.

The pronunciation lazul, with an l at the end, is agreeable to the common custom among the Arabs of confounding l and r; as instead of zingiber they say zengebil. The initial l is not the article, but seems to belong to the word itself, because it is not originally Arabic. It is worthy of remark, that the Spaniards call blue azul, which is plainly derived from the above word; and the l has been omitted because it was considered as the article, and thus the word was mutilated, as is often the case with foreign words among the Arabs, who say, for example, Escandria, instead of al Escandria (Alexandria).

1456

Leontius de Constructione Arateæ Sphæræ, in Astronomica Veterum Scripta, 1589, 8vo, p. 144.

1457

Biblioth. Græca, ii. p. 456.

1458

Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Ævi, ii. p. 372, 378.

1459

Introductio in Astrolog.