Johann Beckmann - A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

Florus, iii. 19, 4.

Directions for performing this trick may be found in various works, such as Joh. Wallbergen’s Zauberkünste, Stuttgard, 1754, 8vo, and Natürliches Zauberbuch, Nurnberg, 1740, 8vo.

See Bayle’s Diction. i. p. 450, art. Barchochebas.

Philostorgii Hist. Eccles. vii. 7, p. 93.

Vita Alexandri, p. 687.

Galen, l. c.

Ovid. Met. lib. ix. 160.

Instances may be found collected in Huetii Alnetanæ Quæstion. lib. ii. and in Bayle’s Dictionary, art. Egnatia.

Journal des Sçavans, 1667, pp. 54, 222; and 1680, p. 292. Deslandes, Mémoires de Physique, ii. and Bremenscher Magazin, i. p. 665. See also Busbequii Omnia, Basil, 1740, 8vo, p. 314.

[Deception might have been easily practised in this case. Fusible metal, as suggested by Sir David Brewster, Nat. Magic, p. 301, which consists of mercury, tin and bismuth, and which melts at a low temperature, might easily have been substituted in place of lead; and fluids, the boiling-point of which is lower than water, might easily have been substituted for that liquid.

A solution of spermaceti in sulphuric æther, tinged with alkanet root, which solidifies at 50° F., and melts and boils with the heat of the hand, is supposed to be the substance which is used at Naples, when the dried blood of St. Januarius melts spontaneously and boils over the vessel which contains it.

The experiments of M. Tillet, Dr. Fordyce and Sir Charles Blagden, will show the great heat which may be endured by the human body. Some of these gentlemen remained in a room where the heat was one or two degrees above 260° F. for eight minutes; a beaf-steak was cooked in the same atmosphere, and was overdone in thirty-three minutes; when the steak was blown upon with a pair of bellows, it was found to be pretty well done in thirteen minutes. But Sir F. Chantry exposed himself to a still greater heat in the furnace used for drying his moulds. When raised to its highest temperature, the thermometer indicated 350° F., and the iron floor was red-hot. The workmen often entered it at 340°. On one occasion Sir F., accompanied by five or six of his friends, entered the furnace, and after remaining two minutes, they brought out a thermometer which indicated 320°. Some of the party experienced sharp pains in the tips of their ears, and in the septum of the nose, whilst others felt a pain in their eyes. – Brewster, l. c. ]

[The peculiar property of minerals and various salts, as alum, in forming and protecting articles of dress, &c. from the effects of fire, has long been known. But the art of practically applying it, is due to the ingenuity of the Chevalier Aldini of Milan. His dress consisted of a strong cloth covering which had been steeped in a solution of alum, for the body, arms and legs; whilst the head-dress was a large cap enveloping the whole head down to the neck, with holes for the nose, eyes and mouth; the covering for the feet was composed of asbestos, or amianthus cloth. The stockings and cap were single, but the gloves were double, to enable the fireman to take burning or red-hot bodies into his hands. A metallic dress was added to this, consisting of a cap, with a mask, leaving a space between it and the asbestos cap; a cuirass; a piece of armour for the trunk and thighs; a pair of boots of double wire-gauze; and an oval shield five feet long by two and a half wide, made by stretching the wire-gauze over a slender frame of iron. All these pieces were made of wire-gauze.

It was found, that when armed with this apparatus, a man could walk upon hot iron, in the midst of high flames, keep his head over a pan of flaming fire, &c. for several minutes, and this in some cases where the heat was so intense that bystanders were obliged to stand at the distance of eight or ten yards. This was remarkably shown in 1829, in the yard of the barracks of St. Jervais. Two towers were erected, two stories high, and were surrounded with heaps of inflamed faggots and straw. One of the firemen, with a child on his back, in a wicker basket covered with metallic gauze, and having a cap of amiantheric cloth, rushed into a narrow place, where the flames were raging eight yards high. The violence of the fire was so great that he could not be seen, while a thick black smoke spread around, throwing out a heat which was insupportable to the spectators. The man remained so long invisible that serious doubts were entertained of his safety. He at length, however, issued from the fiery gulf uninjured.]

The same thing was performed by Schreber in 1760.

Plin. vii. 11. – Virg. Æn. xi. – Silius Ital. v. – Strabo, v.

Strabo, xii.

In his work De Mirabilibus Mundi, at the end of his book De Secretis Mulierum, Amstelod. 1702, 12mo, p. 100.

Antigone, 270.

Animad. in Athen. lib. i. 15.

De Theatro, lib. i. 40, in Grævii Thes. Ant. Rom. ix.

Lib. iii. epist. 20. – Seneca, Epist. 45. Compare Suidas, Pollux, and Athenæi Deipn. 4. It is probable that Quintilian alludes to this art in his Institut. x. 7, 11.

Plin. vii. 20, p. 385. – Martial. v. 12. – Suidas, speaking of Theogenes Thasius. – Haller, Elem. Physiol. iv. p. 486.

Vopiscus, Vita Firmi. See the figure in Desaguliers, tab. xix. fig. 5. He describes the position thus: – The pretended Samson puts his shoulders (not his head, as he used to give out) upon one chair, and his heels upon another (the chairs being made fast), and supports one or two men standing on his belly, raising them up and down as he breathes, making with his backbone, thighs and legs, an arch whose abutments are the chairs.

A course of Experimental Philosophy. Lond. 1745, 4to, i. p. 266. [A popular account of these extraordinary feats, with illustrations and explanations of the principles on which they depend, is given by Sir David Brewster in his interesting volume on Natural Magic, p. 246.]

Versuche und Abhandl. der Naturforsch. Geselsch. in Danzig.

A great many of these passages of the ancients have been collected by Bulenger, in his work De Theatro, i. cap. 41. See also Des Camps in a dissertation contained in Recherches Curieuses d’Antiquité, par Spon. A Lyon 1683. – Mercurialis De Arte Gymnast. and Fabricii Biblioth. Antiq. p. 995.

An epigram, ascribed to Petronius, at page 542 of the edition of Hadrianides, belongs to this subject.

Muratori Antiquit. Ital. Med. Ævi, ii. p. 846.

Von Stetten, Kunstgeschichte von Augsburg, ii. p. 177.

Claudian. de Mallii Consul. 320. In Cilano’s Römischen Alterthümer, ii. fig. 8, there is a representation like what I have often seen exhibited. But the most dangerous and the most curious is that of which an engraving is given in Splendor Urbis Venetiarum, to be found in Grævii Thesaurus Antiquit. Italiæ, v. 3. p. 374.

Sat. xiv. 265.

Lib. v. 433.