A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2). Johann Beckmann
have undergone considerable changes. Stage-coaches, which in this country had arrived at such a degree of perfection, and which, till within a few years, passed through and connected almost every small town in the United Kingdom, have now nearly disappeared in consequence of the introduction of railroads. It is also rare in London to meet with a solitary hackney coach, this class of vehicles being almost entirely superseded by the lighter one-horsed cabriolets which were first introduced as public conveyances in the year 1823. The number of hackney coaches and cabriolets now plying for hire in the streets of London amounts to 2650, of which probably not more than 250 are two-horsed coaches.
That very useful form of public conveyance, the omnibus, which is at present met with in nearly every large town in Europe, originated in Paris in 1827. In the latter part of 1831 and the beginning of 1832, omnibuses began to ply in the streets of London. Those running from Paddington to the Bank were the earliest. Carriages, however, of a similar form were used in England as Long Stages more than forty years ago, but were discontinued as they were not found profitable. They were in most request at holiday time, by schoolmasters in the neighbourhood of London; and some even of the present generation will remember their joyous pranks on journeying home in these capacious machines.
There are now about 900 omnibuses running in London and its immediate vicinity. The line from Paddington to the Bank is served by two companies, the London Conveyance Company, and the Paddington Association, which have mutually agreed to run forty omnibuses each. An idea of the utility of these conveyances may be formed from the fact that the receipts of each of the eighty carriages on the above line averages 1000l. per annum, in sixpences.
Omnibuses began to run in Amsterdam in 1839.]
WATER-CLOCKS, CLEPSYDRAS
We are well assured that the ancients had machines by which, through the help of water, they were able to measure time197. The invention of them is by Vitruvius198 ascribed to Ctesibius of Alexandria, who lived under Ptolemy Euergetes, or about the year 245 before the Christian æra199. They were introduced at Rome by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, in the year 594 after the building of the city, or about 157 years before the birth of Christ. How these water-clocks were constructed, or whether they were different from the clepsydras, I shall not inquire. If under the latter name we understand those measurers of time which were used in courts of justice, the clepsydra is a Grecian invention, first adopted at Rome under the third consulship of Pompey200. The most common kinds of these water-clocks all, however, corresponded in this, that the water issued drop by drop through a hole of the vessel, and fell into another, in which a light body that floated marked the height of the water as it rose, and, by these means, the time that had elapsed. They all had this failing in common, that the water at first flowed out rapidly, and afterwards more slowly, so that they required much care and regulation201.
That ingenious machine, which we have at present under the name of a water-clock, was invented in the seventeenth century. The precise time seems to be uncertain; but had it been before the year 1643202, Kircher, who mentions all the machines of this kind then known, would in all probability have taken notice of it. It consists of a cylinder divided into several small cells, and suspended by a thread fixed to its axis in a frame on which the hour distances, found by trial, are marked out. As the water flows from the one cell into the other, it changes very slowly the centre of gravity of the cylinder, and puts it in motion203; much like the quicksilver puppets invented by the Chinese204.
These machines must have been very scarce in France in 1691; for Graverol at that time gave a figure and description of the external parts of one, but promised to give the internal construction as soon as he should become acquainted with it205. This was the only one then in Nismes. He says, also, that they were invented a little before by an Italian Jesuit, who resided at Bologna, but were brought to perfection by Taliaisson, professor of law at Toulouse, and a young clergyman named De l’Isle.
Alexander says more than once that this machine was invented at Sens in Burgundy, in 1690, by Dom Charles Vailly, a Benedictine of the brotherhood of St. Maur, and that he brought it to perfection by the assistance of a pewterer there, named Regnard. This account is in some measure confirmed by Ozanam; for he says expressly, that the first water-clocks were brought from Burgundy to Paris in 1693, and he describes one which was made of tin at Sens. Dom Charles Vailly was born at Paris in 1646, and died in 1726; he was celebrated on account of his mathematical knowledge, though he is known by no works, as he burned all his manuscripts206.
Alexander, however, who was of the same order, seems to have ascribed to his brother Benedictine an honour to which he was not entitled; for Dominic Martinelli, an Italian of Spoletto, published at Venice, in 1663, a treatise written expressly on these water-clocks, which Ozanam got translated into French by one of his friends, and caused to be printed with his additions207. This translator says that water-clocks were known in France twenty years earlier than Ozanam had imagined. It appears therefore that they were invented in Italy about the middle of the seventeenth century, and that Vailly, perhaps, may have first made them known in France208.
It may perhaps afford some pleasure to those who are fond of the history of the arts, to know that Salmon, an ingenious pewterer at Chartres in France, has given very full and ample directions how to construct and use this machine209. He is of opinion that the invention is scarcely a century old; and that these water-clocks, which are now common, were first made for sale and brought into use among the people in the country, by a pewterer at Sens in Burgundy. What this artist affirms, that they can be constructed of no metal so easily, so accurately, and to last so long as of tin, is perfectly true. I have however in my possession one of brass, which is well constructed; but it suffers a little from acids. Among the newest improvements to this machine may be reckoned an alarum, which consists of a bell and small wheels, like those of a clock that strikes the hours, screwed to the top of the frame in which the cylinder is suspended. The axis of the cylinder, at the hour when one is desirous of being wakened, pushes down a small crank, which, by letting fall a weight, puts the alarum in motion. A dial-plate with a handle is also placed sometimes over the frame.
[A very ingenious application of the principle of the clepsydra, for the purpose of measuring accurately very small intervals of time, is due to the late Captain H. Kater. Mercury is allowed to flow from a small orifice in the bottom of a vessel, kept constantly filled to a certain height. At the moment of noting any event, the stream is interrupted and turned aside into a receiver, into which it continues to run till the moment of noting any other event, when the intercepting cause is suddenly removed. The stream then flows in its original course. The weight of mercury in the receiver, compared with the weight of that which passes through the orifice in a given time, observed by the clock, gives the interval between the events.]
TOURMALINE
The ancients, though ignorant of electricity, were acquainted with the nature of amber, and knew that when rubbed it had the power of attracting light bodies. In like manner they might have been acquainted with the tourmaline, and might have known that it also, when heated, attracted light bodies, and again repelled them; for had they only bethought themselves, in order to search out the hidden properties of this stone (which on account of its colour and hardness is very remarkable), to put it into the fire, they would have then seen it sport with the ashes. Some learned men have thought they found traces of the properties of this stone, in what the ancients tell us respecting the lyncurium, theamedes, and carbunculus. The fruit of my researches respecting this subject I shall here lay before the reader. All that we find in the ancients to enable us to characterize the lyncurium is, that it was a very hard stone, which could with difficulty be cut; that seals were formed of
[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,
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.