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

In his Account of the German War, p. 612.

Examples may be seen in Frisch’s German Dictionary, where it appears that the beds which are used for raising tobacco plants are at present called Tabacks kutschen , tobacco beds. This expression is old, for I find it in Pet. Laurembergii Horticultura, Franc. 1631, p. 43.

Roubo, p. 457. The historian, however, gives it no name.

“ Berlin. A kind of carriage which takes its name from the city of Berlin, in Germany; though some persons ascribe the invention of it to the Italians, and pretend to find the etymology of it in berlina , a name which the latter give to a kind of stage on which criminals are exposed to public ignominy.” – Encyclopédie, ii. p. 209.

Nicolai Beschreibung von Berlin, Anhang, p. 67.

At Rome, however, at a very early period, there appears to have been carriages to be let out for hire: Suetonius calls them (i. chap. 57) rheda meritoria , and (iv. c. 39) meritoria vehicula .

Charles Villerme paid in 1650, into the king’s treasury, for the exclusive privilege of keeping coaches for hire within the city of Paris, 15,000 livres.

A full history of the Parisian fiacres , and the orders issued respecting them, may be seen in Continuation du Traité de la Police. Paris, 1738, fol. p. 435. See also Histoire de la Ville de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 192.

An account of the manner in which these brouettes were suspended may be seen in Roubo, p. 588. He places the invention of post-chaises in the year 1664.

Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce.

Haubers Beschr. von Copenhagen, p. 173.

Twiss’s Travels through Spain and Portugal.

[Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. cap. 21) says that the Chaldæans divided the zodiac into 12 equal parts, as they supposed, by allowing water to run out of a small orifice during the whole revolution of a star, and dividing the fluid into 12 equal parts, the time answering to each part being taken for that of the passage of a sign over the horizon.]

Lib. ix. c. 9.

[Some mode of measuring time by the reflux of water, however rude it might be, was used at Athens before the time of Ctesibius, as we see by various passages in Demosthenes.]

Auctor Dialog. de Caus. Cor. Eloq. 38. – The orators were confined to a certain time; and hence Cicero says, latrare ad clepsydram .

Some account of the writers who have spoken of the water-clocks of the ancients may be found in Fabricii Bibliograph. Antiquaria, p. 1011. They were formerly used for astronomical observations. The authors who treat of them in this respect are mentioned in Riccioli Almagest. Novo, i. p. 117.

In that year Kircher’s Ars Umbræ et Lucis was published for the first time. In the edition of 1671, several kinds of water-clocks are described, p. 698.

A particular account of these water-clocks is to be found in Ozanam, Recréations Math. et Physiques [republished in Hutton’s Mathematical Recreations, ii. 40]. Bion on Mathematical Instruments.

Muschenbroek, Philos. Natur. i. p. 143.

Journal des Sçavans, 1691.

This monk may be considered as the restorer of the clepsydra, or clock which measures time by the fall of a certain quantity of water confined in a cylindric vessel. These clocks were in use among ancient nations. They are said to have been invented at the time when the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt. Dom Vailly, who applied himself particularly to practical mathematics, having remarked the faults of these clocks, bestowed much labour in order to bring them to perfection; and by a number of experiments, combinations, and calculations, he was at length able to carry them to that which they have attained at present. At the time of their arrival they were very much in vogue in France. – Hist. Littéraire de la Congr. de St. Maur, ordre de S. Bénoit. Bruxelles, 1770, 4to, p. 478.

Ozanam, ii. p. 475.

Alexander will not admit this to be the case. “It is possible,” says he, “that two persons of penetrating genius may have discovered the same thing.”

Art du potier d’étain, par Salmon. Paris, 1788, fol. p. 131.

Theophrast. De Lapidibus, edit. Heinsii, fol. p. 395, and Plin. lib. xxxvii. c. 3, and lib. viii. c. 38.

Epiphanius De XII Gemmis.

J. de Laet De Gemmis. 1647, 8vo, p. 155.

Phil. Trans. vol. li. 1. p. 394.

Recueil de Mem. sur la Tourmaline, par Æpinus. Petersb. 1762, 8vo, p. 122.

Gemm. et Lapidum Historia. 1647, 8vo, p. 441, 450.

Plin. lib. xxxvii. c. 7.

India produces also the lychnites, the splendour of which is heightened when seen by the light of lamps; and on this account it has been so called by the Greeks. It is of two colours; either a bright purple, or a clear red, and if pure is thoroughly transparent. When heated by the rays of the sun, or by friction, it attracts chaff and shavings of paper. It obstinately resists the art of the engraver. – Solinus, c. lii. p. 59. Traj. 1689, fol.

“Hager albuzedi is a red stone, but less so than the hyacinth, the redness of which is more agreeable to the eye, as there is no obscurity in it. The mines where this stone is found are in the East. When taken from the mine it is opake; but when divested of its outer coat by a lapidary, its goodness is discovered, and it becomes transparent. When this stone has been strongly rubbed against the hair of the head it attracts chaff, as the magnet does iron.” – Serapionis Lib. de simplicibus medicinis. Argent. 1531, fol. p. 263.

Curiöse Speculationes bey Schlaf-losen Nächten, 8vo, Chemnitz, 1707. The author’s name appears to be expressed by the initials I. G. S. This work consists of forty-eight dialogues, each twelve of which have a distinct title.

Frankf. 1713, 8vo.

I shall here lay before the reader the whole passage, taken from Histoire de l’Académie for 1717, p. 7: – “Here we have a small magnet. It is a stone found in a river of the island of Ceylon. It is of the size of a denier, flat, orbicular, about the tenth part of an inch in thickness, of a brown colour, smooth and shining, without smell and without taste, which attracts and afterwards repels small light bodies, such as ashes, filings of iron, and bits of paper. It was shown by M. Lemery. It is not common, and that which he had cost twenty-five livres (about twenty shillings sterling). When a needle has been touched with a loadstone, the south pole of the loadstone attracts the north pole of the needle, and repels its south pole: thus it attracts or repels different parts of the same body, according as they are presented to it, and it always attracts or repels the same. But the stone of Ceylon attracts, and then repels in the like manner, the same small body presented to it: in this it is very different from the loadstone. It would seem that it has a vortex…”