ADDITIONAL NOTES то THE FIRST VOLUME. NOTES TO ESSAY I. 1. The mariner's compass. Page 3, line 6. SINCE this Essay was written I have been convinced that Flavio Gioia could not have been the inventor of the mariner's compass, though it has generally been attributed to him; because Hugh de Berry, a French poet, who wrote in the beginning of the 13th century, plainly refers to it, and says that "sailors employ a needle which has been rubbed on a loadstone, and that this small instrument is fixed on a board which floats in a vessel of water."-Pasquier, Recherches de la France, liv. 4. c. 25, page 405. Anderson says that Gioia discovered the compass in 1302: but this cannot be correct, as the poem above referred to was written half a century before this period. It is probable, however, that the mariner's compass had been in use before Flavio Gioia was born, and that he improved its construction. This appears likely, from the circumstance of Principato, in the kingdom of Naples, (the place of his nativity,) bearing a compass for its arms; and it has been said that as Gioia was a Neapolitan, and as the sovereigns of Naples in his time were branches of the royal family of France, he, in order to mark the circumstance of the invention originating with a subject of Naples, distinguished the North by a fleur de lis. Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. i. page 144. Biog. Dictionary, vol. vii. page 24. About the middle of the 17th century, a native loadstone was dug up in Devonshire of the enormous weight of sixty pounds. Its magnetic power was so great that it would move a needle at nine feet distance. Dr. Cottou made a present of it to the Royal Society. Philosophical Transactions, vol. ii. for the year 1667, page 423. 2. Invention of printing.-Page 3, line 8. "We have a fact established beyond controversy, that WILLIAM CAXTON, an eminent mercer and negotiator, first introduced the art of printing with fusible types into England; and some suppose that Frederic Corsellis, or some other foreigner, used wooden types a few years before him. He was succeeded by Wynkyn de Worde, who improved the art very much, and first introduced musical notes, and (some think) Roman numerals but the Roman character was first used in printing by Pynson, who was by extraction a Norman. The progress of the typographic art among us was very rapid. Margaret, Duchess of Somerset, or more properly Countess of Richmond and Derby, took it under her patronage, and Pynson had a formal appointment of the office of king's printer, in the beginning of the reign of her grandson Henry VIII."-Herbert's Preface to Ames's Typographical Antiquities. The first book known to be printed in England was by Caxton in the year 1474. The first by his successor, Wynkyn de Worde, appeared in 1494. 3. The alchemists.- Page 4, line 6. The following proclamation respecting two noted alchemists was published by King Edward III. A.D. 1329. "Know all men, that we have been assured, that John Rows and Mr. William de Dalby know how to make silver by the art of alchymy; that they have made it in former times, and still continue to make it; and considering that these men by their art, and by making that precious metal, may be profitable to us, and to our kingdom, we have commanded our well-beloved Thomas Cary to apprehend the foresaid John and William wherever they can be found, within liberties or without, and bring them to us, together with all the instruments of their art, under safe and sure custody."-Rymeri Fœdera, tom. iv. page 384. So lately as the year 1784, Dr. James Price, F.R.S. of London, attempted to revive the spirit of alchemy. He produced a red and a white powder, with which he boasted that he could convert mercury into gold or silver. He made several experiments before a number of respectable persons; but when the powders were exhausted, and he was importuned on all sides to renew his powders and repeat his experiments, before men of science, he swallowed laurel water and put an end to his existence. Crell's Chemical Annals, 1784. 4. Lord Bacon.-Page 4, line 9. This great and eminent man, who is generally acknowledged to have been the father and founder of rational experimental philosophy, is deserving of distinguished notice in every modern work that professes to treat of the origin and progress of the sciences, especially that of chemistry. David Mallet, who wrote the life of this great philosopher, has left us the following testimony in his favour. "Nothing," says he, "can give a more exalted idea of the fruitfulness and vigour of his genius, than the number and nature of his writings. These are not works of mere erudition and labour, that require little else but strength of constitution and obstinate application; they are original efforts of genius and reflection, on subjects either new, or handled in a manner that makes them so. To this commendation of his talents, the learned throughout Europe have given their common sanction, and own him for the father of the only valuable philosophythat of fact and observation." "From an examination of his great work, entitled 'The Instauration of the Sciences,' it appears that he was not only well acquainted with every thing that had been discovered in books before his time, and able to pronounce critically on those discoveries, but he saw clearly, and at the end of this Treatise has marked out in one general chart the several tracts of science that lay still neglected or unknown. And to say the truth, some of the most valuable improvements since made, have grown out of the hints and notices scattered through this work : from which the moderns have selected, each according to his fancy, one or more plants to cultivate and bring to perfection." "France, Italy, Germany, Britain, I may add even Russia, have taken him for their leader, and submitted to be governed by his institutions. The empire he has erected in the learned world is as universal as the free use of reason: and one must continue till the other is no more."-David Mallet's Life of Lord Bacon, prefixed to his Works in 5 vols. 4to, London, 1778. 5. Geber.-Page 5, Note 2. John Geber was a man of great acquirements. A list of his writings will be found in the Biographical Dictionary. His chemical works were first published in English at Leyden, in the year 1668, by Richard Russel, who ten years afterwards reprinted them in London in a small duodecimo volume. 6. Irrigation.-Page 9, Note 7. The agriculturists of the present day whom I have heard of as being the most successful in this practice, are Mr. Pagett of Ibstock in the county of Leicester, the late Mr. Wilks of Overseal, Mr. Bakewell, Mr. Templar of Stover, Mr. W. Smith, and the Rev. Theophilus Houlbrooke of Shropshire. Many others might doubtless be added. See the Essay on WATER in the second volume. 7. Magnesian limestone.-Page 10, line 3. When this paragraph was written, I was not aware that some well-informed agriculturists entertain a different opinion. It is asserted by them that lime and magnesia are both hurtful when employed in improper situations, or in excessive quantity, but that magnesia in itself is not essentially injurious. See The Elements of Agriculture, by John Naismith, author of the General View of the Agriculture of Clydesdale. London, 8vo, 1810. 8. Soap waste.-Page 10, line 22. The use of soapers' ashes as a manure, was known more than 200 years ago, though it is a commonly received opinion that its application to this purpose is a modern invention. In Platt's Jewel House of Art and Nature, 4to, London, 1594, is a woodprint engraving of an ear of corn that was produced from a field which had been enriched with this manure. The writer of the work also states that a good mortar for building may be made by a mixture of two loads of such ashes, one of lime, one of loam, and one of Woolwich sand. He says that just before he wrote, a soap-boiler at Aldgate built a large house for his own family with such mortar, in order to encourage others to buy soap-ashes for the same purpose.-Ibid. page 77. 9. Metallic oxides.-Page 11, note 14, line 3. In the beginning of the 17th century, Jean Rey, a physician at Perigord, published a work, which is now extremely rare, to prove that the increase which metals acquire in calcination arises from the air. An apothecary at Bergerac having informed him that two pounds of fine tin, during six hours calcination, had increased seven ounces in weight, he answers, "This increase of weight proceeds from the air, which mixes with the calx, and attaches itself to its minutest particles, in the same manner as water adheres, and adds weight, to those of sand.”— See Rosier's Journal, tom. v. Paris, 1777. This writer surely discovers great sagacity for the time in which he lived; for he must have preceded Mayow nearly half a century, whose celebrated Tractatus quinque were not published till the year 1674. A copy of Rey's book was lately discovered in Paris, and an English translation of it has lately been printed in the Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts. 10. The blood.-Page 13, note 17, line 2. The source of the iron in animal blood is very mysterious; for it is well known that the quantity may be increased either by medicine or exercise. "In hard-working people," says Mr. Johnson, "the red particles abound; and by the exercise of particular parts, the same takes place, as in the wings of those birds accustomed to fly, and in the legs of those accustomed to walk a great deal."-Johnson's Animal Chemistry, vol. i. p. 42. 11. Smelting of ores.-Page 17, line 2. The many thousand tons of iron scoria which are here spoken of, lie at Flaxley Abbey in the forest of Dean, seven miles from the town of Ross. It is not only rich in metal, but the proprietors are enabled to obtain better iron from it than can be procured from the original ore. 12. Sulphate of soda.-Page 22, note 29. See the Essay on Glass Making, in the second volume, where the subject is further elucidated, and this salt, under certain circumstances, recommended for the fabrication of glass. 13. Morocco leather.-Page 26, line 4. The manufacture of Russia leather is not thoroughly understood in England. The best account of the process hitherto published, is in Tooke's View of the Russian Empire, 8vo, London, 1799, vol. iii. page 514. A respectable tanner in the North of England informed me that there is more of the tanning principle in the root of the common plant called Burnet, the Sanguisorba of Linnæus, than in oak bark. It is a plant that bears a red flower, and was, a century ago, the clover of the day. He thinks it might be cultivated for cattle, as they are all fond of it; and that it might be plowed up every three years in order to collect together the roots for the purpose of tanning. 14. Carburetted hydrogen-gas.-Page 30, line 22. The house of Mr. Lee of Manchester has for several years past been heated by steam and lighted in a very elegant manner by the gas procured from coal. The works of Messrs. Philips and Lee are also lighted in the same way; and so safe is this mode of lighting apartments considered, that since then the London Insurance Company have offered to insure their works at one-half of the former premium.-Buchanan On the Economy of Fuel, 8vo, page 251. More than seventy years ago Colonel Cooke suggested the idea of warming rooms by steam. See the Philosophical Transactions for 1745. 15. Intense light.-Page 30, line 25. It is so important to obtain an intense light at the public light-houses, that great expense has been incurred in the construction of reflectors of silver. It has occurred to me, that strontites and some other substances might be employed to make coloured lights for greater distinction in hazy nights or foggy VOL. I. 2 R |