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Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), C. (search)
cuirasses of thin plates of gold or silver with surcoats of featherwork. Among the presents stolen or purchased by the brutal Cortez and sent to Charles V. were cotton mantles, some all white, others mixed with white and black, or red, green, yellow, and blue; waistcoats, counterpanes, tapestries, and carpets of cotton; and the colors of the cottons were extremely fine. — Clavigero's Conquest of Mexico. The Mexicans had indigo and cochineal. Columbus found the Cotton-plant wild in Hispaniola, in other West India islands, and on the continent of South America, where the natives used it for dresses and fishing-nets. Magellan, in 1519, found the Brazilian natives reposing on beds of cotton down. Cotton goods were familiar to the Arabs in the time of Mohammed, A. D. 627, and the culture was carried by his followers through the Mediterranean coast of Africa into Spain, whence the fabric reached the less civilized parts of Europe. Abderrahman III. commenced the manufacture o
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), D. (search)
ting a diver with his cap, from which rises a long leather pipe provided with an opening above the surface of the water. Lorini on Fortification, 1607, shows a square box, bound with iron, furnished with windows and a seat for the diver. Kessler in 1617, Witsen in 1671, and Borelli in 1679, gave attention to the subject and contributed to the efficiency of the apparatus. A diving-bell company was formed in England in 1688, and the operators made some sucessful descents on the coast of Hispaniola. In 1664, cannon were recovered from wrecks of the Spanish Armada by the Laird of Melgim, near the Isle of Man, but not sufficient to pay. Previous unsuccessful attempts had been made by Colquhoun, of Glasgow, who depended for air upon a leathern tube reaching above the surface of the water. Dr. Halley, in 1715, improved the diving-bell by a contrivance for supplying it with fresh air by means of barrels lowered from the vessel, from which the bell was suspended, the foul air escaping by
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), G. (search)
as just been made to the account of Agatharcides, where he describes the hardships of the gold-miners. A fuller description is given of it by Diodorus, entering into a detailed statement of the cruel treatment of the unfortunate convicts who were sent by thousands to the spot and worked under the lash without any alleviation, care during sickness, or any hope except in death. The account is too long to insert, but stands along with the history of Spanish operations in the gold mines of Hispaniola as an example of what can be done by men who neither fear God nor regard man. The illustration is taken from a tomb at BeniHassan, and includes the operations from the washing of the pounded ore to the making of jewelry. The words of Diodorus, 10 B. C., throw much light on the process employed in his time. He states that the marble shining rock (quartz) is excavated by main force by iron picks and chisels, and carried by boys from the bottom of the shafts to the open air. It is then
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), T. (search)
according to other authorities, yetl ; yoli in other places. All the present modes of using the tobacco plant originated in America. a. Columbus noticed that the natives of the West India islands used the leaves in rolls, — cigars. The Aztecs had cigar tubes, and also used nostril tubes of tortoise-shell for inhaling the smoke. The Mexicans and North American Indians used pipes. Ovideo speaks in 1426 of the inhaling of the smoke through the forked nostril tube by the Indians of Hispaniola. Lobel, in his History of plants, 1576, gives an engraving of a rolled tube of tobacco (a cigar) as seen by Colon in the mouths of the natives of San Salvador. He describes it as a funnel of palm-leaf with a filling of tobacco leaves. The pipe is shown in the engravings to Be Bry, Historia Braziliana, 1590. b. Cortez found smoking the pipe to be an established custom in Mexico. Bernal Diaz relates that Montezuma had his pipe brought in great state by the ladies of his court after