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650 BC (search for this): chapter 4
h uniformity. — Herodotus II. 4. These [Egyptians] of Thebes seem most accurately to have observed the eclipses of the sun and moon; and from them do so manage their prognostications that they certainly foretell every future event. — Diodorus Siculus (60 B. C.). The Egyptians had the true heliocentric theory of the solar system, which the Greeks could not receive, and which was revived twenty centuries afterwards by Copernicus. It was a great event for Europe when Psammeticus, about 650 B. C., opened the ports of Egypt to the other Mediterranean nations, and encouraged the Ionians and Carians to settle there. The horoscopus, who occupied the second place in the procession of the Egyptian priests, carried a horologium, or sun-dial. The dial is mentioned in the book of Tobit, which is supposed to have been written by a Jew of Palestine, detailing the experiences of an Israelite of the tribe of Naphthali, who lived in Nineveh in the reigns of Shalmanezer and Sennacherib.
900 BC (search for this): chapter 4
eliminary tint was given with coccus (kermes). The dye and dyed goods are celebrated in the Hebrew and other ancient scriptures. This color seems, from its extreme beauty, permanence, and costliness, to have become regal, and the royal taste is for the same down to our day. The color of the velvet in the crown of the Queen of England is a shade of purple; the velvet coronation robes of George IV. were of that color. Pliny (A. D. 70) says that the robes of triumph in the time of Homer (900 B. C.) were colored. Purple habits were given to Gideon by the Israelites from the spoils of the kings of Midian. Achan secreted a Babylonish garment, and suffered for it. Plutarch says that when Alexander took Susa, the Greeks took from the royal treasury purple stuffs to the value of 5,000 talents (1 talent $860 × 5,000 = $4,300,000), which still retained their beauty, though they had lain there 190 years. Prussian blue was discovered by Diesbach, at Berlin, 1710; aniline, in 1826, by Unv
950 BC (search for this): chapter 4
of ancient historians that observations quite as ancient were made by the Chaldeans. The dials commonly used in China are mentioned by Mohammedan travelers in that country in the ninth century. After all this, it seems idle to quote the saying of Pliny, that the sun-dial was originally invented by Anaximander of Miletus (550 B. C.); but that curious writer, to whose appetite for information we owe so much, felt bound to give an origin for everything. He might even have read in Homer (950 B. C.), the not very recondite reference to a sun-dial: — These curious eyes, inscribed with wonder, trace The sun's diurnal and his annual race. The building in Athens long known as the Tower of the winds is now known as the Horological monument of Andronicus Cyrrhestes. It had eight faces, each provided with a gnomon and divisional markings. The dial in the square court of the Alexandrian Museum was visited by an august procession of philosophers during the seven centuries which s
1004 AD (search for this): chapter 4
s, about 1120 B. C., and carried them to the top of a hill before Hebron. He took them bar and all, not condescending to unlock them, but tearing them from their foundations. The doors of the Temple of Siva, at Somnauth, a town of Guzerat, in Hindostan, were of sandal-wood, elaborately carved in correspondence with the other portions of the temple, which was an oblong hall 96 × 68 feet, crowned by a dome. When Mahmoud, of Ghizni, at the head of his Mohammedan hordes, invaded India (A. D. 1004), on a mixed mission of plunder and conversion, he mingled avarice with enthusiasm and lust, so as to afford a first-rate model for a demon to master Anacreon Moore, some 800 years afterward: — 'T is he of Ghizni, fierce in wrath He comes, and India's diadems Lie scattered in his ruinous path; His bloodhounds he adorns with gems Torr from the violated necks Of many a young and loved sultana; Maidens within their pure zenana, Priests in the very fane he slaughters, And chokes up with the
1024 AD (search for this): chapter 4
e adorns with gems Torr from the violated necks Of many a young and loved sultana; Maidens within their pure zenana, Priests in the very fane he slaughters, And chokes up with the glittering wrecks Of golden shrines the sacred waters of the Ganges, of course. It must not be understood, however, that he failed to strip off the gold before he pitched these things into the muddy waters of the river, which delivers yearly into the Bay of Bengal 534,600,000 tons of solid matter. Mahmoud, about 1024, after desolating Northern India for some years, came to Somnauth, and — omitting the details — plundered from the Temple of Siva the destroyer the rich offerings of centuries, carrying them and the doors of the temple to Afghanistan, where the latter were made the doors of his tomb. Here they rested till 1842, when the English, stung to madness by the massacre of 26,000 soldiers and camp followers in the Kyber pass, in the month of January of the same year, invaded Afghanistan in force, a
1080 AD (search for this): chapter 4
ix times the length; six of these ribbons similarly treated and formed into one; six of the latter by a third operation, formed into one sliver; and five of these drawn into one, — will have the effect of placing the fibers parallel to each other 1080 times (6 × 6 × 6 × 5=1080). The drawing-frame for long-stapled wool is for drawing out and extending the slivers which have already been operated upon by the breaking-frame (which see). This is a repetitive operation, and it is usual to pass th1080). The drawing-frame for long-stapled wool is for drawing out and extending the slivers which have already been operated upon by the breaking-frame (which see). This is a repetitive operation, and it is usual to pass the wool through the breaking-frame and four times through the drawing-frame before roving. These slivers are united at each drawing, and are extended to, say, four times the length. The result is an actual extension and an oft-repeated laying of the slivers alongside of each other, so as to blend them and reduce inequalities. 2. (Silk-machinery.) A machine in which the fibers of floss or refuse silk are laid parallel, preparatory to being cut into lengths by the cutting-engine, to be afterw
1277 AD (search for this): chapter 4
sufficient width at top to form a roadway. They are founded on timbers and piles filled in with stones faced with clay and revetted with gabions of rushes, willows, etc. The slope to the sea is from 1 rise to 4 base down to 1 in 13. The history of these works is one of gradually increasing strength and solidity, with heroism and pertinacity wonderful to relate. The accidents by which the sea has again and again claimed its own have swept away whole provinces and communities. A flood in 1277 formed the present Gulf of Dort and overwhelmed forty-four villages. The flood of 1287 overwhelmed 80,000 persons, and gave the Zuyder Zee its present bounds. Another storm in the sixteenth century destroyed 100,000 persons. The Haarlem Lake is the latest of the great reclamations. The cost of rendering habitable and cultivable the 51,300 acres was $3,330,000, about $65 per acre. Previously to undertaking this colossal work, the Zind Plass, of nearly 11,500 acres, had been reclaimed at
1287 AD (search for this): chapter 4
in with stones faced with clay and revetted with gabions of rushes, willows, etc. The slope to the sea is from 1 rise to 4 base down to 1 in 13. The history of these works is one of gradually increasing strength and solidity, with heroism and pertinacity wonderful to relate. The accidents by which the sea has again and again claimed its own have swept away whole provinces and communities. A flood in 1277 formed the present Gulf of Dort and overwhelmed forty-four villages. The flood of 1287 overwhelmed 80,000 persons, and gave the Zuyder Zee its present bounds. Another storm in the sixteenth century destroyed 100,000 persons. The Haarlem Lake is the latest of the great reclamations. The cost of rendering habitable and cultivable the 51,300 acres was $3,330,000, about $65 per acre. Previously to undertaking this colossal work, the Zind Plass, of nearly 11,500 acres, had been reclaimed at a cost of $1,250,000, not far from $110 per acre. Among the most celebrated of dikes
1351 AD (search for this): chapter 4
the pendulum springs for chronometers. c is a draw-plate of metal for tube drawing. d are sections of wire of various shapes drawn through plates. e represents forms of pinion wire. f shows faney forms of wire used with others as pins in the surface of a wooden block used in calico-printing. The essential feature of wire-drawing is the drawplate. This was probably known at Nuremberg early in the fourteenth century, and how much before is not apparent. The History of Augsburg, 1351, and that of Nuremberg, 1360, mention the wire-drawer (Drahzieher). The draw-plate was imported into France by Archal, and into England by Schultz (1565). The drawplate is probably an Oriental invention. The draw-plate is made of a cylindrical piece of cast-steel, one side being flatted off. Several holes of graduated sizes are punched through the plate from the flat side, and the holes are somewhat conical in form. The wire is cleaned of its oxide in a tumbling-box, and is then annealed.
1357 AD (search for this): chapter 4
cletus of two naked boys at play, then in the Atrium of Titus. The same subject in stone is in the British Museum. In the game of duodecim scripta the moves were determined by dice; the game of tali and tesscra was played with dice. Dice similar to ours were found at Herculaneum, and the convulsion which overwhelmed Pompeii surprised a hazard-party at their amusement; 1800 years afterward the dice were found in their bony hands, and the game yet unsettled. At an entertainment given in 1357 by the Lord Mayor of London, the Kings of France and Scotland being prisoners and the King of Cyprus on a visit (temp. Edward III.), the host challenged all to dice and hazard.—stow. The dice-box of the ancients (fritillus) was of a cylindrical form, and had parallel indentations to turn the dice as they were shaken. To descend one step lower brings us down to the game of odd and even (par et impar), a puerile amusement played by the Roman vagabonds with beans, nuts, almonds, or coin.
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