A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2). Johann Beckmann. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Johann Beckmann
Издательство: Public Domain
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Зарубежная классика
Год издания: 0
isbn:
Скачать книгу
id="n358">

358

A few instances are related by Livy, Valerius Maximus, and Plutarch. Among the fables of the Christian church they are more numerous.

359

Vol. v. p. 90. editio Bipont.

360

Theodoreti Hist. Eccles. v. 22.

361

Cassiodori Variar. i. ep. 45.

362

[Speaking Automaton.– There is a piece of mechanism now exhibiting to the public at the Egyptian Hall – the work of Professor Faber, of Vienna, and the result, as he states, of twenty-five years of labour and preparation. The name which he has given to this product of his ingenuity is the Euphonia; and the work, as that name implies, is another of those many combinations which have attempted, by the anatomical and physiological study of the structures that contribute to the human voice, to attain to an imitation of that organ as regards both sound and articulation. As an example of inductive and mechanical skill this exhibition is well deserving of attention. The professor himself, by an arrangement of bellows-pipes, pedal and keys, which he plays somewhat like the keys of a piano, prompts the discourse of his automaton; which certainly does enunciate both sounds and words. When we entered the room we found it singing to a select society. It requires all our sense of the ingenuity and perseverance which have been bestowed on the work to induce our assent to the proposition which calls the voice human; but undoubtedly it is a remarkable result of contriving skill and scientific patience. —Athæneum.]

363

Historia Ægypti Natural. Lugd. Bat. 1735, 4to, p. 60.

364

Proverbs, xxv. ver. 13.

365

Bartholini de Nivis Usu Medico Observationes, Hafn. 1661.

366

Seneca, Quæst. Natur. iv. 13.

367

Athenæus, iii. p. 124.

368

Sympos. vi. quæst. 6. – Augustinus De Civitate Dei, xxi. 4, p. 610.

369

Mémoires Instructifs pour un Voyageur. How the snow repositories at Constantinople are constructed, is related by Bellon in his Observat. iii. 22.

370

The dissipated Heliogabalus caused whole mounts of snow to be heaped up in summer in order to cool the air. See Lampridius, Vita Heliogab. cap. 23.

371

Plin. xix. 4. – Latinus Pacatus in Panegyr. Theodos.

372

De la Valle, iii. p. 60, where the Persian ice-pits are described, as well as in Chardin, iv. p. 195.

373

Hist. Nat. xxxi. 3, 23, p. 552.

374

Vita Neronis, cap. 48: Hæc est Neronis decocta.

375

In lib. vi. Hippocrat. de Morbis Vulgar. comment. 4, 10.

376

Meteorol. i. cap. 12.

377

In the place before quoted.

378

Deipnos. iii. p. 124.

379

Ibid. p. 123.

380

See Pitisci Lex. Antiq. Rom. under the word Decocta.

381

Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxv. part i. p. 126.

382

Traité du Mouvement des Eaux.

383

Du Hamel, Hist. de l’Academ. l. i. c. 3, p. 99.

384

Tentamina Experimentorum Acad. del Cim. p. 183.

385

Dissertation sur la Glace. Paris, 1749, 12mo, p. 187.

386

Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxv. part i. p. 124.

387

[In India, one mode of cooling wines, is to suspend the bottle in a thick flannel bag, or folds of blotting-paper, kept constantly wetted, and placed in the sun’s rays, or a current of air, or both; by which means the evaporation, and therewith intense coldness, is produced.]

388

Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxxi. part ii. p. 511. [M. Boutigny’s beautiful experiment of making ice in a red-hot crucible is a striking phænomenon of this kind. It is thus performed: – A deep crucible of platinum is heated to a glowing red heat; liquid sulphurous acid, which has been preserved in the fluid state by a freezing mixture, and some water are then at the same instant poured into the crucible. The rapid evaporation of the volatile sulphurous acid, which boils below the freezing-point of water, produces such an intense degree of cold as to freeze the water, which is then thrown out of the crucible as a solid lump.]

389

Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxxi. part ii. p. 252: the process of making ice in the East Indies; by Robert Barker.

390

[There is no question that this refrigeration is caused by the evaporation of a portion of the water, whereby a very large quantity of heat becomes latent in the vapour. A clear serene sky being necessary for the success of the production of the ice, would tend to show that the further loss of heat by radiation, which always ensues to a great extent at nights, when the sky is clear, is necessary.]

391

… a number of small, shallow, earthen pans. These are unglazed, scarce a quarter of an inch thick, about an inch and a quarter in depth, and made of an earth so porous, that it was visible from the exterior part of the pans, the water had penetrated the whole substance. [Our ordinary wine-coolers, which consist of extremely porous vessels, act from evaporation. A portion of the water, which is placed in the interior of the cooler, evaporates through its pores, and produces cold by rendering a considerable amount of heat latent.]

392

See the account of Lloyd Williams, in the Universal Magazine, June 1793, p. 410. Thin unglazed vessels are employed at present in Egypt also for cooling water, as we are told in several books of travels.

393

Sympos. vi. 5, p. 690.

394

The word however may be found in Dictionnaire par Richelet, Genève 1680, 4to.

395

J. B. Campegii Libri xxii. de re cibaria, xvi. 9, p. 669.

396

Most vessels of this kind in Portugal are made at Estremos, in the province of Alentejo. The description given of them by Brantome is as follows: – “Cette terre étoit tannée, si subtile et si fine qu’on diroit proprement que c’est une terre sigillée; et porte telle vertu, que quelque eau froide que vous y mettiez dedans, vous la verrez bouillis et faire de petits bouillons, comme si elle estoit sur le feu; et si pourtant elle n’en perd sa froideur, mais l’entretient, et jamais l’eau ne fait mal à qui la boit, quelque chaud qu’il fasse, ou quelque exercice violent qu’il fasse.” This clay seems to be the same as that which the ladies in Spain and Portugal chew for the sake of its pleasant taste, though to the prejudice of their health. They are so fond of it that their confessors make them abstain from the use of it some days by way of penance for their transgressions. See Madame D’Aunoi, Voy. en Espagne, ii. pp. 92, 109. Mémoires Instructifs pour un Voyageur. A vessel of the above kind is called bucaro and barro. See Diccion. de la Lengua Castellana, Madrid, 1783, fol.

397

This curious work contains so much valuable information respecting the French manners in the sixteenth century, that some account of it may not prove unacceptable to my readers. The title is, Déscription de L’Isle des Hermaphrodites, nouvellement découverte … pour servir de Supplement au Journal de Henri III. The preface, to which there is no signature, says that the book was printed for the first time in 1605. In the first editions neither date nor place is mentioned; but one edition is dated 1612. It appears to have been written in the reign of Henry IV., after the peace of Vervins, concluded in 1598, which the author mentions in the beginning. Henry IV. would not suffer any inquiry to be made respecting the author that he might be punished, because, he said, though he had taken great liberty in his writing, he had written truth. He is not therefore known. Some have conjectured that it was the production of cardinal Perron,