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

England und Italien, ii. p. 354.

Universal History, xxiii. p. 299–323. – The information contained there is taken from Fraser’s History of Nadir Shah. Aurengzebe also caused one of his sons to be put to death by this poison.

Georg. iv. 171.

Lib. vii.

Epist. 90.

Lib. i. 8.

A complete description and a figure of these bellows may be found in Schluter’s Unterricht von Hütten-werken. Brunswick, 1738. – Traité de la fonte des mines par le feu du charbon de terre; par M. de Genssane. Paris, 1770, 2 vols. 4to. [Ure’s Dictionary, p. 1128, also contains an excellent figure of these wooden bellows.]

“Germany is the country of machines. In general the Germans lessen manual labour considerably by machines adapted to every kind of movement; not that we are destitute of able mechanics; we have the talent of bringing to perfection the machines invented by our neighbours.” – P. 200. [This remark of Grignon will sound rather odd to English ears.]

Becher’s Narrische Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfort, 1683, 12mo, p. 113.

In this dissertation, the time of the invention is stated to be about forty years before, which would be the year 1629 or 1630; but in an improved edition, printed with additions at Hamburg, in 1725, a different period is given. “About eighty years ago,” says the author, “a new kind of bellows, which ought rather to be called the pneumatic chests, was invented in the village of Schmalebuche, in the principality of Coburg, in Franconia. Two brothers, millers in that village, Martin and Nicholas Schelhorn, by means of some box made by them, the lid of which fitted very exactly, found out these chests, as I was told by one of their friends, a man worthy of credit. These chests are not of leather, but entirely of wood joined together with iron nails. In blacksmiths’ shops they are preferred to those constructed with leather, because they emit a stronger blast, as leather suffers the more subtile part of the air to escape through its pores.”

In many places these bellows were at first put in a wooden case, to prevent their construction from being known.

In J. P. Ludewig, Scriptores Rerum Episcopatus Bambergensis. Francof. 1718, fol. Where any bishop of latter times is praised, I find no mention of this useful and ingenious invention.

See Leges XII. tab. illustratæ a J. N. Funccio, p. 72. Gellius, xx. 1.

Scheffer de Re Vehiculari, Spanhem. de Præstant. Numismatum. Amst. 1671, 4to, p. 613. Propertius, iv. 8. 23, mentions serica carpenta .

In my opinion the height here alluded to is to be understood as that of the body, rather than that of the wheels, as some think.

Codex Theodos. lib. xiv. tit. 12. and Cod. Justin. lib. xi. tit. 19.

Lersner, Chronica der Stadt Frankfurt, i. p. 23.

Sacrarum Cæremoniarum Romanæ Ecclesiæ Libri tres, auctore J. Catalano. Romæ, 1750, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 131.

See Cæremoniæ Episcoporum, lib. i. c. 11.

Ludewig’s Erläuter. der Güldenen Bulle. Franc. 1719, vol. i. p. 569.

Ludolf, Electa Juris Publici, v. p. 417.

Ludolf, l. c.

Sattler, Historische Beschreibung des Herzogthums Würtemberg.

Suite des Mémoires pour servir à l’Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, where the royal author adds, “The common use of carriages is not older than the time of John Sigismund.”

Annal. Ferdin. V. p. 2199; and vii. p. 375.

In Suite des Mém. pour serv. à l’Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, it is remarked that they were coarse coaches, composed of four boards put together in a clumsy manner.

Rink, Leben K. Leopold, p. 607.

Lünig’s Theatr. Cer. i. p. 289.

Ludolf, v. p. 416. Von Moser’s Hofrecht, ii. p. 337.

Lunig. Corp. Jur. Feud. Germ. ii. p. 1447.

An attempt was made also to prevent the use of coaches by a law in Hungary in 1523.

Histoire des Antiquités de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 187.

Sauval; also Mezeray, Abregé Chron. de l’Histoire de France. Amsterdam, 1696, iii. p. 167.

This ordinance is to be found also in Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, i. p. 418.

Valesiana. Paris, 1695, 12mo, p. 35.

Variétés Historiques, p. 96.

Sauval says, “I shall here remark, that this was the first time coaches were used for that ceremony (the entrance of ambassadors), and that it was only at this period they were invented, and began to be used.”

L’Art du Menuisier-carossier, p. 457, planche 171.

Stow’s Survey of London, 1633, fol. p. 70.

Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce, iv. p. 180.

Arnot’s Hist. of Edinburgh, p. 596.

Twiss’s Travels through Spain and Portugal.

Dalin, Geschichte des Reichs Schweden, iii. 1, p. 390 and 402.

Bacmeister, Essai sur la Bibliothèque de l’Académie de S. Pétersburg, 1776, 8vo, p. 38.

Joh. Ihre, Glossarium Sueogothic. i. col. 1178. Kusk , a coachman. It seems properly to denote the carriage itself. Gall. cocher . Hisp. id. Ital. cocchio . Ang. coach . Hung. cotczy . Belg. goetse . Germ. kutsche . The person who drives such carriages is by the English called coachman , which in other languages is made shorter, as the French say cocher , and the Germans kusk . It is difficult, however, to determine whence it is derived, as we do not know by whom these close carriages were invented. Menage makes it Latin, and by a far-fetched derivation from vehiculum ; Junius derives it somewhat shorter from ὀχέω to carry. Wachter thinks it comes from the German word kutten , to cover; and Lye from the Belgic koetsen , to lie along, as it properly signifies a couch or chair.

Ungrisches Magaz. Pressburg, 1781, vol. i. p. 15.

Stephanus Broderithus says, speaking of the year 1526, “When the archbishop received certain intelligence that the Turks had entered Hungary, not contented with informing the king by letter of this event, he speedily got into one of those light carriages, which, from the name of the place, we call Kotcze , and hastened to his majesty.” Siegmund baron Herberstein, ambassador from Louis II. to the king of Hungary, says, in Commentario de Rebus Moscoviticis, Basil 1571, fol. p. 145, where he occasionally mentions some stages in Hungary, “The fourth stage for stopping to give the horses breath is six miles below Jaurinum, in the village of Cotzi , from which both drivers and carriages take their name, and are still generally called cotzi .” That the word coach is of Hungarian extraction is confirmed also by John Cuspinianus (Spiesshammer), physician to the emperor Maximilian I., in Bell’s Appar. ad Histor. Hungariæ, dec. 1, monum. 6, p. 292. “Many of the Hungarians rode in those light carriages called in their native tongue Kottschi .” In Czvittinger’s Specimen Hungariæ Litteratæ, Franc. et Lips. 1711, 4to, we find an account of the service rendered to the arts and sciences by the Hungarians; but the author nowhere makes mention of coaches.