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

The person who first speaks of the magnetic needle and its use in navigation, is a Provençal poet, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and who wrote a poem entitled Bible Guyot. This work is a satire, in which the author lashes with great freedom the vices of that age. Comparing the Pope to the polar star, he introduces a description of the compass, such as it appears to have been in its infancy. This invention however is claimed by the Italians, who maintain that we are indebted for it to a citizen of Amalphi, named Flavius Gioja, and in support of this assertion quote commonly the following line of Panormitanus:

Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalfis.

Of the use of gunpowder in Europe no certain traces occur till towards the middle of the fourteenth century. It seems pretty well proved, that artillery was known in France after the year 1345. In 1356, the city of Nuremberg purchased the first gunpowder and cannon. The same year the city of Louvain employed thirty cannon at the battle of Santfliet against the Flemings. In 1361, a fire broke out at Lubec, occasioned by the negligence of those employed in making gunpowder. In 1363, the Hans-towns used cannon for the first time, in a naval combat which they fought against the Danes. After 1367, the use of fire-arms became general throughout Italy, into which they had been introduced from Germany.

The invention of printing has given rise to many researches. Meermann in his Origines Typographicæ, published in 1768, endeavours to prove that Laurence Coster of Haarlem was the inventor, about the year 1430. Most authors however agree that John Gutenberg was the inventor of moveable types, but they differ respecting the place of the invention. Some make it to be Strasburg, others Mentz, and some fix the epoch of the invention at 1440, and others at 1450.

Vasari, in Vite de’ Pittori, vol. iv. p. 264, ascribes the invention of engraving on copper to a goldsmith of Florence, named Maso Finiguerra, about 1460. The oldest engravers whose names and marks are known, were Israel de Mecheln, of Bokholt, in the bishopric of Munster; Martin Schœn, who worked at Colmar in Alsace, where he died in 1486; and Michael Wolgemuth of Nuremberg, who was preceptor to the famous Albert Durer, and engraved the plates in the well-known Nuremberg Chronicle. It may be proper here to observe, that the art of engraving on wood seems to be older than the invention of printing, to which perhaps it gave rise. The names of the first engravers on wood are however not known. [In the Athenæum Journal for 1845, page 965, is given a fac-simile of a large wood-engraving, bearing the date of 1418, which was discovered at Malines in 1844, and is now preserved in the public library at Brussels.]

Heyne, in his funeral oration, says Beckmann was so struck with admiration at the vast knowledge of Linnæus, that he became ensnared, like the companions of Ulysses in the island of Circe, and was disheartened from proceeding any further in his own botanical studies. To this circumstance is attributed the coolness with which he afterwards cultivated this department of science.

La science des négocians et teneurs de livres. Paris 1754.

Vol. i. p. 408.

Those who are desirous of further information respecting Lucas de Borgo, may consult Scriptores ordinis Minorum, recensuit Fr. Lucas Waddingus, Romæ 1650; – Heilbronneri Historia Matheseos universæ, Lipsiæ 1742; – Histoire des Mathématiques, par Montucla, Paris 1758.

Vol. i. p. 409.

The title runs thus: Ein Teutsch verstendig Buchhalten für Herren oder Gesellschafter inhalt wellischem Process.

Bayle says, that the Latin translation of Stevin’s works was executed principally by Willebrord Snellius.

Lib. ii. cap. 7.

C. 14. Nicolai, in the first part of his Travels, has translated this description of an odometer, and illustrated it with a figure by H. Catel.

This palace, with its ornaments, is described in the Memorie concernenti la citta di Urbino. Roma, 1724. fol. The figure to which I allude is in plate 53. Bernardino Baldi, the author of the descriptive part, considers it as an odometer.

In Joannis Fernelii Ambianatis Cosmotheoria, Parisiis 1528, we find only the following passage respecting this invention: – “Nec vulgi supputatione satiatus, vehiculum, quod Parisios recta via petebat, conscendi, in eoque residens tota via 17024 fere rotæ circumvolutiones collegi, vallibus et montibus ad equalitatem, quoad facultas nostra ferebat, redactis. Erat autem rotæ diameter.” In Almagesti novi parte posteriori, tomi primi, Bononiæ 1651. fol. the author, Riccioli, says that Fernel contrived his carriage in such a manner, that the revolutions of the wheels were shown by a hammer striking on a bell. Where that jesuit discovered this I cannot learn.

Doppelmayer, Nachricht von Nurnberg Künstlern, p. 82. Will, Nurnbergisches Gelehrten-Lexicon, iii. p. 156.

Cimelium Geographicum Tripartitum. Dresden, 1680.

Kunstgeschichte von Augsburg, p. 167.

Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 8vo, p. 468.

Magnes, sive De arte magnetica. Coloniæ, 1643, 4to, p. 221.

Boot. Hist. Gemmarum, p. 473.

This machine was used by Sulzer during his tour. See his Journal, published at Leipsic, 1780, 8vo, p. 3. It has been since improved by Schumacher, a clergyman at Elbing, by Klindworth, Catel at Berlin, and by an anonymous clergyman in the Schwabisches Magazin, 1777, p. 306.

This model is preserved in the collection of the Academy.

There is a figure of it in the Penny Cyclopædia, vol. xvii. p. 367.

Phil. Trans. vol. xliv. p. ii. No. 483, p. 446.

[Among the improvements of recent date there are perhaps none of greater importance than those of electro-gilding and gilding by immersion, which have almost entirely superseded the process of gilding by an amalgam of mercury and gold, so fatal to the workmen exposed to the deleterious effects of the mercurial vapours. It is not our intention to enter at present into a history of the invention of these processes; they will more properly be reserved for a future volume, in which the discoveries of the present century will be treated of. The following short outline may however not prove uninteresting to the reader: – It had long been known to experimentalists on the chemical action of voltaic electricity, that solutions of several metallic salts were decomposed by its agency, and the metal produced in its free state. The precipitation of copper by the voltaic current was noticed by Mr. Nicholson 1613in a paper entitled ‘Account of the new Electrical Apparatus of Sig. Alex. Volta, and experiments performed with the same;’ but the earliest recorded process in electro-gilding is probably that contained in a letter from Brugnatelli to Van Mons 1614, in which he states that he had deposited a film of gold on ten silver medals by bringing them into communication by means of a steel wire with the negative pole of a voltaic pile, and keeping them one after the other immersed in ammoniuret of gold newly made and well-saturated. This announcement of a process identical with those now extensively used, attracted no attention at the time it was made, and no further experiments on the application of electricity to the deposition of metals for the purposes of the arts were published until the year 1830, when Mr. E. Davy read a paper before the Royal Society, in which he distinctly states that he had gilded, silvered, coppered and tinned various metals by the voltaic battery 1615. The experiments of Brugnatelli and Davy were however completely lost sight of, and the art may be said to date its origin from the period when the late Professor Daniell described his constant battery. Since that time the art has continued to advance most rapidly, either in the perfecting of the apparatus or in the pointing out of more suitable salts of gold and silver, from which the metals might be precipitated. Among those who have contributed to its advancement we may particularly instance the names of our countrymen, Woolrich, Spencer, Jordan, Mason, Murray, Smee, Elkington, Fox Talbot, and Tuck. Nearly all the gilt articles manufactured at Birmingham are now gilded by the process patented by Mr. Elkington, in which, after the articles have been cleansed by a weak acid, they are placed in a hot solution of nitro-muriate of gold, to which a considerable excess of bicarbonate of potash has been added; in the course of a few seconds they thus receive a beautiful and permanent coating of gold.]