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June (search for this): chapter 7
ng tools dropped into or broken in bored wells. g is a grab for recovering well-tubes from bored wells or shafts. Grass-cloth. A light fabric resembling linen, exported from the Malay Islands. It is made from the fiber of the poa, a species of nettle. A similar cloth is made from the Chinese ma, a species of cannabis (hemp). It is perennial, and sends up numerous stems of from 7 to 10 feet in hight. The plant yields three crops every year. The first cutting takes place in June. On being cut, the leaves are carefully taken off with a bamboo knife by women and children, generally on the spot. It is then taken to the house and soaked in water for an hour. In cold weather the water should be tepid. After this the plant is broken in the middle, by which the fibrous portion is loosened and raised from the stalk; into the interstice thus made, the operator, generally a woman or child, thrusts the finger-nails and separates the fibers from the center to one extremity a
October (search for this): chapter 7
sands 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 pounded by iron pestles in stone mortars till the pieces are reduced to the size of a lentil. It is then ground in the ordinary hand mill to a line powder. He then proceeds to say: At length the masters lake the stone thus ground to powder and carry it away
1200 BC (search for this): chapter 7
gnomon of the sun-dial of Delhi takes the form of an elevated staircase. See dial. The gnomon or style of a horizontal dial has an edge parallel to the axis of the earth, and makes with the horizontal plane of the dial-plate an angle equal to the latitude of the place. The gnomon was anciently used in China for astronomical purposes, but this people did not excel in dialing. A measurement of the length of the solstitial shadow, made by Tschea-Kung, at Loyang, on the Yellow River, 1200 B. C., was found by Laplace (quoted by Humboldt in Cosmos, Val. 11. p. 1151 to accord perfectly with the present accepted theory of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic. The sun-dial and the gnomon, with the division of the day into twelve parts, were received by the Greeks from the Babylonians. Herodotus, 2. 109. Eubulus, the comie poet, quoted by Athenaeus, who wrote about A. D. 220, says: — We have invited two unequalled men, Philo-crates and eke Philocrates, — For that one
1490 BC (search for this): chapter 7
thmes III., the era of the exodus, they had various modes of applying; in leaf, inlaying, or by beating it into other metals. Specimens may be seen in Dr. Abbott's collection, New York. We read that the wood of the ark was overlaid with gold, 1490 B. C. It was lavishly practiced in ancient Rome; parts of the Capitol were thus ornamented, a single ounce only making 450 leaves, each four inches square. Gilding is performed:— 1. By laying on gold-leaf. Gig-saw. 2. By applying go35,000,000 per annum in the times of Rameses II., fourteenth century B. C., and were still worked under the Ptolemies. The molten calf and the fact that Aaron fashioned it with a graving tool show that casting and engraving metals were known 1490 B. C., and the character of the articles found in the tombs, as well as the paintings and sculptures, point in the same direction. A curious series of pictures at BeniHassan point out with some clearness the process of collecting and working gold. (
1500 BC (search for this): chapter 7
quired some size. In figure i is shown a glass bottle found in Thebes. The bottle came to represent wine in the hieroglyphics. c shows a glass bead belonging to Captain Henvey, and the hieroglyphics contain the name of a monarch who lived 1500 B. C. The Egyptians attained an excellence in the manufacture of counterfeit amethysts and other precious stones which has not been excelled, and Winckelmann considers their skill in all departments of vitreous art to be in advance of any succeeding where it appears to have been first made known by the Saracens. In a code of Gentoo laws occurs a prohibition against the use by the ruler of deceitful machines, poisoned weapons, and weapons of fire. To this document is assigned the date 1500 B. C. When Ghengis Khan invaded China, A. D. 1219, he carried with him ho-pao, or fire-tubes, which killed men and set fire to buildings. Passages in Quintius Curtius and Philostratus indicate that Alexander was met in India by a people who used a
1700 BC (search for this): chapter 7
times alloyed with metals. It is a heavy, yellow, lustrous, malleable, ductile, nonoxidizable, soft metal. Its uses are for coin, plate, ornaments, and articles of luxury. Its principal sources are California, Australia, the western coast of Africa, and the Ural. It is a very widely disseminated metal, but is only found in paying quantities in a few countries. Wicklow, in Ireland, parts of Nova Scotia and of Virginia and North Carolina, yield this metal. Gold operations in Egypt, 1700 B. C. The principal supplies of gold in the land of Egypt were derived from the gold mines in the desert of the Upper Country. Their position, according to Wilkinson, is still known to the Arabs, and is about southeast from Bahayreh, a village opposite the town of Edfou, at a distance of ten days journey. The gold lies in veins of quartz in the rocks bordering an inhospitable valley and its adjacent ravines, and yields a small quantity in proportion to the labor required. Water is scarce
1706 BC (search for this): chapter 7
h. Gig—tree. The frame of a gig or harness saddle. Gild′ing. The process of overlaying with gold. Substances overlaid with fine gold-leaf are found in connection with the earliest. Egyptian monuments, even as early as Osirtasen, 1706 B. C. In the time of Thothmes III., the era of the exodus, they had various modes of applying; in leaf, inlaying, or by beating it into other metals. Specimens may be seen in Dr. Abbott's collection, New York. We read that the wood of the ark was oixture of gold, silver, copper, and iron at a lower hole, forming a matt which is shipped to Swansea, Wales, for complete separation. Gold, im-i-ta′tion. Mock-gold. See jeweler's alloys, p. 63. Gold-leaf. Gold-leaf was made in Egypt 1706 B. C. Homer refers to it. The temple of Solomon was profusely gift. Pliny states that in his time a single ounce admitted of being heaten out into 750 leaves, four fingers in length by the same in breadth. This tenuity is very far exceeded at the p<
1740 BC (search for this): chapter 7
by hardship was a matter of little concern; as was evinced in other regal undertakings, — the building of the Pyramids, the quarrying, moving, and erection of the monoliths, and the digging of the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. Agatharcides states that the toil of extracting the gold of these mines was immense. The rock was pounded fine, and the gold was separated by frequent washings, and the account is confirmed by paintings on the tombs executed in the reign of Osirtasen, about 1740 B. C. Mehemet Ali announced his intention to reopen these mines, but desisted. He was tyrant enough for the purpose, but had a method in his madness, and was doubtless deterred by mechanical and climatic difficulties. The skeletons of the victims of his rapacity in Egypt would have paved the road across the desert to the desolate hills devoted to the auri sacra fames. These mines are said to have yielded $35,000,000 per annum in the times of Rameses II., fourteenth century B. C., and wer
2000 BC (search for this): chapter 7
reddish color when transmitting sunshine. It would be tedious to enumerate the articles of glass found by Dr. Abbott in the tombs of Egypt. The myth related by Pliny and so widely copied in relation to the invention of glass-making by certain Phoenician mariners, has been exploded by researches in the land of the Nile. A few pieces in the collection may be noticed:— Two beads of blue glass attached to a gold necklace stamped with the name of Menes, the first Pharaoh of Egypt (over 2000 B. C.). A cylindrical ring of blue glass. Glass bottles from Sakkarah, Gizeh, etc. Glass beads,—white, blue, red, green, and black. Variegated glass ornaments. Semi-translucent glass imitations of alabaster. Opaque red and blue glasses. Tazzas and images of green, blue, and other colors. Beads of colored glasses in layers. Ornaments of mosaic glass. A glass model of the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Grotersque faces and portraits in glass. Glass imitations o
212 BC (search for this): chapter 7
mewhere in Tartary about the eleventh century (some say the thirteenth), is cited as particularly skilful in blowing up his enemies. He stuffed — so says the legend — copper figures with explosive and combustible materials which were emitted at the mouths and nostrils of the effigies, making great havoc. The Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus, A. D. 1200, gives an account of a similar contrivance, used by a Gothic king. The devices of Archimedes, who defended Syracuse from the Romans, 212 B. C., were mechanical or optical, and do not seem to have involved chemical compounds. Green-house. 1. (Pottery.) A house moderately warmed, where some kinds of green-ware are placed to become partially dried before taking to the hothouse, where the drying is completed by strong heat. The ware is then arranged in seggars and fired in the kiln. 2. (Horticulture.) A plant-house, with glass roof and sides, with facilities for maintaining an artificial temperature and the necessary
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