Chapter XV: Part 15

A very valuable material for the formation of foot-pavements has been found and patented in _asphalte_. That which has been most used for this purpose is the native asphalte from Seyssel; it is mixed with a small quantity of native bitumen and sand. In preparing it, 93 parts of native asphalte are reduced to powder and seven of bitumen; these are melted together and fine gravel or sand stirred in the mixture. It is then spread upon a concrete foundation in layers about an inch in thickness. Its elasticity renders it exceedingly durable. Various compositions have been substituted for this mixture, but we believe none have been found to answer so well. The application of bituminous substances to carriage-pavements has been almost exclusively limited to court-yards, but there is very good evidence of its applicability to public thoroughfares, in a piece of pavement, about 150 feet in length by 10 feet in width, laid down in 1838 at Whitehall, as a sample of Messrs. Claridge’s patent. It still remains in perfect condition. The principal objection to the general adoption of asphaltic pavement in the streets of London, appears to be the difficulty of raising and relaying it, a process so constantly required to reach the innumerable gas and water-pipes beneath.

Pavements have been laid down, especially in court-yards and stables, one of the principal constituents of which is caoutchouc.]

FOOTNOTES

[791] I reckon the post among police regulations, to which its object originally belonged, as well as that of the coining of money; though in the course of time it has been made a productive source of revenue, by which it has been rendered burdensome to the public, while its utility has been lessened.

[792] Origin. lib. xv. cap. 16.

[793] Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 1071. Diodor. Sic. lib. ii. cap. 13. Polyæni Stratagem. lib. viii. cap. 26.

[794] Valerius Max. lib. iii. cap. 7. Plutarch. Reipublicæ Gerendæ Præcepta, p. 811.

[795] 1 Kings, chap. vii. ver. 12.

[796] Antiquit. lib. xx. cap. 9.

[797] Pesachim, fol. 71. Metzia, fol. 26.

[798] Bergier, Hist. des Grands Chemins Rom. liv. i. chap. viii.

[799] Statius, Sylv. ii. 2, v. 12.

[800] Lib. xli. cap. 27.

[801] Lib. xxix. cap. 37.

[802] Lib. x. cap. 23. Equally inapplicable are the passages lib. xxxviii. cap. 28, and lib. x. cap. 47.

[803] Æl. Lamprid. Vita Heliogab. cap. 24.

[804] Ovid. Fastor. lib. v. ver. 293. See also Marc. Varro, lib. iv. de L. L. Festus, p. 310. An examination of the question whether the ædiles or censors had the inspection of the streets may be found in Ducker’s notes on Liv. lib. x. cap. 32 (edit. Drakenborchii).

[805] Cardonne Histoire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne sous les Arabes, 3 vols. 12mo, Par. 1765. Translated into German, with notes, by Dr. Murr. Nurnb. 1768, i. p. 187.

[806] Rod. Ximenez, archiep. Toletani, Historia Arabum, cap. xxvi. p. 23. Printed at the end of Erpenius’ Historia Saracenica, 4to. Lugd. 1625.

[807] Rigordus De Gestis Phil. Augusti, in Duchesne Hist. Script. Franc. Par. 1649, fol. p. 16.

[808] Gulielmi Armorici Hist. de Vita Phil. Augusti, in Duchesne, p. 73. Alberici Monachi Trium Fontium Chronicon, ed. a G. G. Leibnitio, Lips. 1698, 4to, p. 367.

[809] Felibien, Hist. de Paris, i. p. 104.

[810] A proof of this may be seen in De la Mare, iv. p. 197, who gives the best account respecting the regulations made to keep in repair the pavement of the streets of Paris. The later regulations are given by Perrot in Dictionnaire de Voierie, Paris, 1782, 4to, p. 315.

[811] Courtepée Description du Duché de Bourgogne, i. p. 233, and ii. p. 62.

[812] Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce, vol. i. p. 483.

[813] In the king’s order it was said, that the highway named Holbourn in London was so deep and miry, that many perils and hazards were thereby occasioned as well to the king’s carriages passing that way as to those of his subjects; he therefore ordained two vessels, each of twenty tons burthen, to be employed at his expense, for bringing stones for paving and mending the same.--Anderson’s Hist. of Com. i. p. 244.

[814] In this order the streets were described “as very foul, and full of pits and sloughs, very perilous and (noyous) noisome, as well for the king’s subjects on horseback as on foot, and with carriage.”--Anderson, _ut supra_, p. 370.

[815] Anderson, i. p. 491. Northouck’s History of London, 1773, 4to, p. 121. 217. 414. 436.

[816] Digest. lib. xliii. tit. 2.

[817] Notitia utraque dignitatum, Pancirolli. Lugd. 1608.--Notit. Imperii Occident. cap. 19. This work may be found in Grævii Thes. Antiq. Rom. vol. vii.

[818] Digestorum lib. xliii. tit. 12, and lib. ix. tit. 3.

[819] Martial, Epig. vii. 61. Juvenal, sat. iii. ver. 247.

[820] A full history of the regulations made respecting the cleaning of the streets of Paris may be found in De la Mare, iv. p. 200.

[821] De la Mare, iv. p. 202.

[822] Ibid. iv. p. 172, 203.

[823] De la Mare, p. 205.

[824] Ibid. iv. p. 216, 239, 243.

[825] This contract is inserted in Perrot, Dictionnaire de Voierie, p. 305. In 1445 six carts were employed at Dijon in cleaning the streets.

[826] Histoire de la Ville de Paris, par Sauval, vol. ii. p. 640.

[827] De la Mare, iv. p. 253. Perrot, p. 307.

[828] Letters from Scotland, 1760, 2 vols. 8vo. [At this period, when the luxury of water-closets was unknown, it was a custom for men to perambulate the streets of Edinburgh, carrying conveniences (pails) suspended from a yoke on their shoulders, enveloped by cloaks sufficiently large to cover both their apparatus and customers, crying, “Wha wants me, for a bawbee?” It has since been used against the Edinburgh people as a joke or satire upon an ancient custom. By way of a set-off, however, it may be observed that at the present day there is a water-closet in almost every house in Edinburgh.]

[829] Cook’s First Voyage, 4to, vol. ii. p. 281.

[830] Whoever wishes to enter deeper into the history of this family convenience, certainly an object of police, the improvement of which the Academy of Sciences at Paris did not think below its notice, may consult the following work, Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences, Inscriptions, Belles Lettres, Beaux Arts, etc. nouvellement établie à Troyes en Champagne. A Troyes et Paris 1756. The author, who by this piece of ridicule wished, perhaps, to avenge himself of some academy which did not admit him as a member, has collected from the Greek and Latin writers abundance of dirty passages respecting this question: “Si l’usage de chier en plein air étoit universel chez les anciens peuples.” He proves from a passage of Aristophanes, Ecclesiaz. ver. 1050, that the Greeks had privies in their houses.

[831] De la Mare, i. p. 568, and iv. p. 254. “Tous propriétaires de maisons de la ville et fauxbourgs de Paris sont tenus avoir latrines et _privez_ suffisans en leurs maisons.” [They should also have been compelled to make use of them.]

[832] De la Mare, _ut supra_.--Coûtume de Mante, art. 107.--Etampes, art. 87.--Nivernois, chap. x. art. 15.--Bourbonnois, art. 515.--Calais, art. 179.--Tournay, tit. 17, art. 5.--Melun, art. 209.

[833] Historische Beyträge die Preussischen und benachbarten Staaten betreffend. Berlin, 1784, 4to, iii. p. 373.

[834] Nicholai Beschreibung von Berlin, p. 26. The author quotes, from the order published at Berlin, Nov. 30, 1641, respecting the buildings of the city, section fourth, the following words: “Many citizens have presumed to erect hog-sties in the open streets, and often under the windows of bed-chambers, which the council cannot by any means suffer;” and in the seventeenth section hog-sties are forbidden to be erected in future in the small streets near the milk-market.

[835] “Frivola hæc fortassis cuipiam et nimis levia esse videantur, sed curiositas nihil recusat.”--Vopiscus in Vita Aureliani, cap. 10.

[836] Chronica der Stadt Frankf. von C. A. von Lersner, i. p. 512.

[837] [Berlin, strange to say, is very ill circumstanced in respect to these conveniences, even at the present day (1846). In most of the houses, small closets are located on the landings of the stairs, which require to be emptied every other night, to the no great satisfaction of the olfactory nerves. Nor are the streets kept in a very proper state,--large puddles of filth being allowed to collect before the doors even of the best houses, and which, especially in the hot months of summer, diffuse a most horrible stench. Something however must be allowed for the low situation of the town, which renders drainage next to impracticable. Laing, in his Notes of a Traveller, speaking of Berlin as he found it in 1841, says, “It is a fine city, very like the age she represents--very fine and very nasty.... The streets are spacious and straight, with broad margins on each side for foot-passengers; and a band of plain flagstones on these margins make them much more walkable than the streets of most continental towns. But these margins are divided from the spacious carriage-way in the middle by open kennels, telling the nose unutterable things. These open kennels are boarded over only at the gateways of the palaces, to let the carriages cross them, and must be particularly convenient to the inhabitants, for they are not at all particularly agreeable. Use reconciles people to nuisances which might be easily removed. A sluggish but considerable river, the Spree, stagnates through the town, and the money laid out in stucco work and outside decoration of the houses, would go far towards covering over their drains, raising the water by engines and sending it in a purifying stream through every street and sewer. If bronze and marble could smell, Blücher and Bülow, Schwerin and Ziethen, and duck-winged angels, and two-headed eagles innumerable, would be found on their pedestals holding their noses instead of grasping their swords. It is a curious illustration of the difference between the civilization of the fine arts and that of the useful arts, in their influences on social well-being, that Berlin as yet has not advanced so far in the enjoyments and comforts of life, in the civilization of the useful arts, as to have water conveyed in pipes into its city and into its houses. Three hundred thousand people have taste enough to be in die-away ecstasies at the singing of Madame Pasta, or the dancing of Taglioni, and have not taste enough to appreciate or feel the want of a supply of water in their kitchens, sculleries, drains, sewers, and water-closets. The civilization of an English village is, after all, more real civilization than that of Paris or Berlin.”]

COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES.

If it be true that the written accounts which those who had recovered from sickness caused to be drawn out of their cure, their disorder, and the medicines employed to remove it, and to be hung up in the temples, particularly that of Æsculapius, were the first collections of medical observations[838], as seems to appear by the testimony of Hippocrates, who did not disdain to make use of them in order to acquire information[839]; we have every reason to conjecture, that the rare animals, plants and minerals, generally preserved in the temples also, were the first collections of natural curiosities, and that they may have contributed as much to promote the knowledge of natural history, as those tablets to improve the art of medicine. Natural objects of uncommon size or beauty, and other rare productions, on which nature seemed to have exerted her utmost power, were in the earliest periods consecrated to the gods[840]. They were conveyed to the temples, where their value became still enhanced by the sacredness and antiquity of the place; where they continued more and more to excite respect and awaken curiosity, and where they were preserved as memorials to the latest generations, with the same reverence as the other furniture of these buildings. In the course of time these natural curiosities dedicated to the gods became so numerous, that they formed collections which may be called large for those periods, and for the infant state in which natural history then was.

When Hanno returned from his distant voyages, he brought with him to Carthage two skins of the hairy women whom he found on the Gorgades islands, and deposited them as a memorial in the temple of Juno, where they continued till the destruction of the city[841]. The horns of a Scythian animal, in which the Stygian water that destroyed every other vessel could be contained, were sent by Alexander as a curiosity to the temple of Delphi, where they were suspended, with an inscription, which has been preserved by Ælian[842]. The monstrous horns of the wild bulls which had occasioned so much devastation in Macedonia, were by order of king Philip hung up in the temple of Hercules. The unnaturally formed shoulder-bones of Pelops were deposited in the temple of Elis[843]. The horns of the so-called Indian ants were shown in the temple of Hercules at Erythræ[844]; and the crocodile found in attempting to discover the sources of the Nile was preserved in the temple of Isis at Cæsarea[845]. A large piece of the root of the cinnamon-tree was kept in a golden vessel in one of the temples at Rome, where it was examined by Pliny[846]. The skin of that monster which the Roman army in Africa attacked and destroyed, and which probably was a crocodile, an animal common in that country, but never seen by the Romans before the Punic war, was by Regulus sent to Rome, and hung up in one of the temples, where it remained till the time of the Numantine war[847]. In the temple of Juno, in the island of Melita, there were a pair of elephant’s teeth of extraordinary size, which were carried away by Masinissa’s admiral, and transmitted to that prince, who, though he set a high value upon them, sent them back again because he heard they had been taken from a temple[848]. The head of a basilisc was exhibited in one of the temples of Diana[849]; and the bones of that sea-monster, probably a whale, to which Andromeda was exposed, were preserved at Joppa, and afterwards brought to Rome[850]. In the time of Pausanias, the head of the celebrated Calydonian boar was shown in one of the temples of Greece; but it was then destitute of bristles, and had suffered considerably by the hand of time. The monstrous tusks of this animal were brought to Rome, after the defeat of Antony, by the emperor Augustus, who caused them to be suspended in the temple of Bacchus[851]. Apollonius tells us, that he saw in India some of those nuts which in Greece were preserved in the temples as curiosities[852].

It is certain, however, that all these articles, though preserved in the temples of the ancients as rarities or memorials of remarkable events, or as objects calculated to silence unbelief, were not properly kept there for the purpose to which our collections of natural curiosities are applied; but at the same time it must be allowed that they might be of as much utility to naturalists, as the tablets, in which patients who had recovered thanked the gods for their cures, were to physicians.

We are told by Suetonius, that the emperor Augustus had in his palace a collection of natural curiosities[853]. I, however, do not remember that any of the ancient naturalists make mention of their own private collections; though it is well known that Alexander gave orders to all huntsmen, bird-catchers, fishermen and others, to send to Aristotle whatever animals they could procure[854]; and although Pliny was accustomed to make observations on such as he had an opportunity of seeing. No doubt can be entertained that a collection of natural curiosities was formed by Apuleius, who, next to Aristotle and his scholar Theophrastus, certainly examined natural objects with the greatest ardour and judgement; who caused animals of every kind, and particularly fish, to be brought to him either dead or alive, in order to describe their external and internal parts, their number and situation, and to determine their characteristic peculiarities, and assign names to them; who undertook distant journeys to become acquainted with the secrets of nature; and who on the Getulian mountains collected petrifactions, which he considered as the effects of Deucalion’s flood. It is much to be lamented that the zoological works of this learned and ingenious man have been lost.

The principal cause why collections of natural curiosities were scarce in ancient times, must have been the ignorance of naturalists in regard to the proper means of preserving such bodies as soon spoil or corrupt. Some methods were indeed known and practised, but they were all defective and inferior to that by spirit of wine, which prevents putrefaction, and which by its perfect transparency permits objects covered by it to be at all times viewed and examined. These methods were the same as those employed to preserve provisions, or the bodies of great men deceased. They were put into salt brine or honey, or were covered over with wax.

It appears that in the earliest periods bodies were preserved from corruption by means of salt[855], and that this practice was long continued. We are told that Pharnaces caused the body of his father Mithridates to be deposited in salt brine, in order that he might transmit it to Pompey[856]. Eunapius, who lived in the fifth century, relates that the monks preserved the heads of the martyrs by means of salt[857]; and we are informed by Sigebert, who died in 1113, that a like process was pursued with the body of St. Guibert, that it might be kept during a journey in summer[858]. In the same manner the priests preserved the sow which afforded a happy omen to Æneas, by having brought forth a litter of thirty pigs, as we are told by Varro, in whose time the animal was still shown at Lavinium[859]. A hippocentaur (probably a monstrous birth), caught in Arabia, was brought alive to Egypt; and as it died there, it was, after being preserved in salt brine, sent to Rome to the emperor, and deposited in his collection, where it was shown in the time of Pliny, and in that of Phlegon[860]. Another hippocentaur was preserved by the like method, and transmitted to the emperor Constantine at Antioch[861]; and a large ape of the species called Pan, sent by the Indians to the emperor Constantius, happening to die on the road by being shut up in a cage, was placed in salt, and in that manner conveyed to Constantinople[862]. This method of preserving natural objects has been even employed in modern times to prevent large bodies from being affected by corruption. The hippopotamus described by Columna was sent to him from Egypt preserved in salt[863].

To put dead bodies in honey, for the purpose of securing them from putrefaction, is an ancient practice[864], and was used at an early period by the Assyrians[865]. The body of Agesipolis king of Sparta, who died in Macedonia, was sent home in honey[866], as were also the bodies of Agesilaus[867] and Aristobulus[868]. The faithless Cleomenes caused the head of Archonides to be put in honey, and had it always placed near him when he was deliberating upon any affair of great importance, in order to fulfil the oath he had made to undertake nothing without consulting his head[869]. According to the account of some authors, the body of Alexander the Great was deposited in honey[870], though others relate that it was embalmed according to the manner of the Egyptians[871]. The body of the emperor Justin II. was also placed in honey mixed with spices[872]. The wish of Democritus to be buried in honey[873] is likewise a confirmation of this practice. Honey was often applied in ancient times to purposes for which we use sugar. It was employed for preserving fruit[874]; and this process is not disused at present. In order to preserve fresh for many years the celebrated purple dye of the ancients, honey was poured over it[875], and certain worms useful in medicine were kept free from corruption by the like means[876]. By the same method also were natural curiosities preserved, such as the hippocentaur already mentioned; and it has been employed in later times, as is proved by the account given by Alexander ab Alexandro[877], respecting the supposed mermen.

Among the Scythians[878], Assyrians[879], and Persians[880], dead bodies were covered over with wax. That of Agesilaus, because honey could not be procured, was preserved in this manner[881], which indeed ought not to be despised even at present. When the Orientals are desirous of transporting fish to any distance, they cover them over with wax[882]; and the apples carried every year to the northern parts of Siberia and Archangel, from the southern districts of Russia, are first dipped in melted wax, which, by forming a thick coat around them, keeps out the air, and prevents them from spoiling. This property has in my opinion given rise to the ancient custom of wrapping up in wax-cloth the dead bodies of persons of distinction. Linen, or perhaps silk, which had been done over with wax, was used on such occasions, but not what we at present distinguish by the name of wax-cloth, which is only covered with an oil-varnish in imitation of the real kind. The body of St. Ansbert, we are told, was wrapped up _linteo cerato_; and a _camisale ceratum_[883] was drawn over the clothes which covered that of St. Udalric. When Philip duke of Burgundy died in 1404, his body was wrapped up in thirty-two ells _de toile cirée_[884]. In an ancient record, respecting the ceremony to be used in burying the kings of England, it is ordered that the body shall be wrapped up in wax-cloth[885]. In the year 1774, when the grave of king Edward I., who died in 1307, was opened, the body was found so closely wrapped up in wax-cloth, that one could perfectly distinguish the form of the hand, and the features of the countenance[886]. The body of Johanna, mother of Edward the Black Prince, who died in 1359, was also wrapped up in _cerecloth_; and in like manner the body of Elizabeth Tudor, the second daughter of Henry VII., was _cered by the wax-chandler_[887]. After the death of George II., the apothecary was allowed one hundred and fifty-two pounds for fine double wax-cloth, and other articles necessary to embalm the body[888]. The books found in the grave of Numa, as we learn from the Roman historians, though they had been buried more than five hundred years, were, when taken up, so entire, that they looked as if perfectly new, because they had been closely surrounded with wax-candles. Wax-cloth it is probable was not then known at Rome[889].

In those centuries usually called the middle ages, I find no traces of collections of this nature, except in the treasuries of emperors, kings and princes, where, besides articles of great value, curiosities of art, antiquities and relics, one sometimes found scarce and singular foreign animals, which were dried and preserved. Such objects were to be seen in the old treasury at Vienna; and in that of St. Denis was exhibited the claw of a griffin, sent by the king of Persia to Charlemagne; the teeth of the hippopotamus, and other things of the like kind[890]. In these collections the number of the rarities always increased in proportion as a taste for natural history became more prevalent, and as the extension of commerce afforded better opportunities for procuring the productions of remote countries. Menageries were established to add to the magnificence of courts, and the stuffed skins of rare animals were hung up as memorials of their having existed. Public libraries also were made receptacles for such natural curiosities as were from time to time presented to them; and as in universities the faculty of medicine had a hall appropriated for the dissection of human bodies, curiosities from the animal kingdom were collected there also by degrees; and it is probable that the professors of anatomy first made attempts to preserve different parts of animals in spirit of wine, as they were obliged to keep them by them for the use of their pupils; and because in old times dead bodies were not given up to them as at present, and were more difficult to be obtained.

At a later period collections of natural curiosities began to be formed by private persons. The object of them at first appears to have been rather to gratify the sight than to improve the understanding; and they contained more rarities of art, valuable pieces of workmanship and antiquities, than productions of nature. It is certain that such collections were first made in places where many families had been enriched without much labour by trade and manufactures, and who, it is likely, might wish to procure to themselves consequence and respect by expending money in this manner. It is not improbable that such collections were formed, though not first, as Stetten thinks[891], at a very early period at Augsburg, and this taste was soon spread into other opulent cities and states.

Private collections, however, appear for the first time in the sixteenth century; and there is no doubt that they were formed by every learned man who at that period applied to the study of natural history. Among these were Hen. Cor. Agrippa of Nettesheim; Nic. Monardes, Paracelsus, Val. Cordus[892], Hier. Cardan, Matthiolus, 1577; Conrad Gesner, George Agricola, 1555[893]; Pet. Bellon, 1564; W. Rondelet, 1566; Thurneisser[894]; Abraham Ortelius, 1598[895]; and many others. That such collections were formed also in England[896] during the above century, is proved by the catalogue which Hakluyt used for his works.

The oldest catalogues of private collections which I remember, are the following: Samuel Quickelberg, a physician from Antwerp, who about the year 1553 resided at Ingolstadt, and was much esteemed by the duke of Bavaria, published in quarto at Munich in 1565, Inscriptiones vel Tituli Theatri Amplissimi, complectentis Rerum Universitatis singulas Materias et Imagines. This pamphlet contained only the plan of a large work, in which he intended to give a description of all the rarities of nature and art. I have never had an opportunity of seeing it. I am acquainted only with a copious extract from it, which induces me to doubt whether Walch was right in giving it out as a catalogue of the author’s collection[897].

The same year, 1565, John Kentmann, a learned physician in Torgau, sent a catalogue of his collection, which consisted principally of minerals and shells, to Conrad Gesner, who caused it to be printed[898]. The order observed in it is principally borrowed from Agricola. This collection, however, was not extensive. It was contained in a cabinet composed of thirteen drawers, each divided lengthwise into two partitions, and the number of the articles, among which, besides minerals, there were various productions found in mines and marine bodies, amounted to about sixteen hundred. It must however have been considerable for that period, as the collector tells us he laid out sums in forming it which few could be able to expend[899]; and as Jacob Fabricius, in order to see it, undertook a journey from Chemnitz to Torgau[900]. About this time lived in France that ingenious and intelligent potter, Bernard Palissy, who collected all kinds of natural and artificial rarities, and published a catalogue of them, which he made his guide in the study of natural history[901]. Michael Mercati, a physician, who was contemporary, formed also in Italy a large collection of natural curiosities, and wrote a very copious description of them, which was first printed about the beginning of the last century[902]. The collection of Ferdinand Imperati, a Neapolitan, the description of which was printed for the first time in 1599, belongs to the same period; and likewise the large collection of Fran. Calceolari of Verona, the catalogue of which was first printed in 1584[903]. Walch and some others mention the catalogue of Brackenhoffer’s collection as one of the earliest, but it was printed for the first time only in 1677.

[The TRADESCANTS, father and son, are celebrated as being among the first collectors of rarities in this country, which they deposited during their lives in a large house situate in the parish of Lambeth. This became a place of fashionable resort from the curiosities it contained, and obtained the appellation of Tradescant’s ark. A catalogue of its contents was printed in 1656 under the title of Museum Tradescantium. In 1659 this collection was purchased by ELIAS ASHMOLE, who presented it, together with his books, MSS., and other rarities, to the University of Oxford in 1683, thereby commencing the now celebrated ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM.

About the same period, JAMES PETIVER, still celebrated for his curious and interesting botanical publications, made extensive collections of natural curiosities, employing captains, ship-surgeons, merchants, &c. to bring him whatever they could find suitable to his museum, at almost any cost. He kept up an extensive correspondence in pursuit of this object, and eventually formed one of the finest collections hitherto made in England. At his death it was purchased by that celebrated naturalist, Sir HANS SLOANE, and thus became the foundation of perhaps the most important collection in Europe--the BRITISH MUSEUM.

Sir Hans Sloane, after having accompanied the duke of Albemarle to Jamaica as physician, was elected on his return to this country to succeed Sir Isaac Newton as president of the Royal Society. He was born in 1660, and died on the 11th of January, 1752. Having with great labour and expense during the course of his long life collected a rich cabinet of medals, objects of natural history, &c., and a valuable library of books and MSS., he bequeathed the whole to the public on condition that the sum of £20,000 should be paid to his executors, being little more than the intrinsic value of the medals, metallic ores and precious stones comprised in his collection. Parliament fulfilled the terms of the legacy, and in 1753 an act was passed “for the purchase of the museum or collection of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. and of the Harleian collection of MSS., and for procuring one general repository for the better reception and more convenient use of the said collection, and of the Cottonian library and additions thereto.” Such was the commencement of the British Museum, every department of which has since been vastly augmented. The printed books alone occupy TEN MILES of SHELF, and owing to our connexions with every part of the globe, it vies in the variety and number of objects of natural history with the most celebrated museums of the world. The interest taken in these collections by the public is evident from the number of persons who visited them from Christmas 1844 to Christmas 1845, amounting to no less than 685,614.

Nor should we omit to mention the collection of curiosities, &c. formed by JAMES SALTER, more commonly known by the name of Don Saltero. They were exhibited to the public at his Coffee-house, Cheyne-Walk, Chelsea, which was first opened about the year 1695. It was a very mixed collection of saints’ bones, models, carved ivory, and objects of natural history. The following announcement, printed in the Weekly Journal for June 22, 1723, may be regarded as containing the most positive and authentic information concerning this establishment, inasmuch as it appears to have been sanctioned by the proprietor himself.

SIR.--Fifty years since to Chelsea Great,--
From Rodman, on the Irish Main,--
I stroll’d, with maggots in my pate,
Where, much improved, they still remain.
Through various employs I’ve past,--
A scraper, virtuos’, projector,
Tooth-drawer, trimmer,--and at last
I’m now a gim-crack-whim collector.
Monsters of all sorts here are seen,
Strange things in nature as they grew so:
Some relicks of the Sheba Queen,
And fragments of the famed Bob Crusoe.
Knick-knacks, too, dangle round the wall,
Some in glass-cases, some on shelf;
But, what’s the rarest sight of all,
Your humble servant shows Himself.
On this my chiefest hope depends,
Now, if you will my cause espouse,
In journals pray direct your friends
To my Museum--Coffee-house.
And, in requital for the timely favour,
I’ll gratis bleed, draw teeth, and be your shaver:
Nay, that your pate may with my noddle tarry,
And you shine bright as I do,--Marry! shall ye
Freely consult your Revelation--Molly,
Nor shall one jealous thought a huff,
For she has taught me manners long enough.

_Chelsea Knackatory._ DON SALTERO.

A fine engraving of Salter’s house, with a description and catalogue of his collection, will be found in Smith’s Historical and Literary Curiosities.]

FOOTNOTES

[838] Fragments of such inscriptions have been collected by Mercurialis in his work De Arte Gymnastica, lib. i. cap. 1.

[839] Plin. lib. xxix. cap. 1. Strabo, lib. xiv.

[840] Plin. lib. xii. cap. 2.

[841] Plin. lib. vi. cap. 31.

[842] Hist. Anim. lib. x. cap. 40.

[843] Plin. lib. xxviii. cap. 4.

[844] Plin. lib. xi. cap. 31.

[845] Plin. lib. v. cap. 9. This crocodile was still remaining in the author’s time.

[846] Lib. xii. cap. 19.

[847] Plin. lib. viii. cap. 12. Valer. Max. lib. i. cap. 8. Orosius, lib. iv. cap. 8. Jul. Obsequens de prodigiis, cap. 29. Hujus serpentis maxillæ usque ad Numantinum bellum in publico pependisse dicuntur. May not this animal have been the Boa constrictor?

[848] Cicero in Verrem, iv. cap. 46. Valer. Max. lib. i.

[849] Scaliger De Subtilit. lib. xv. exercit. 246.

[850] Plin. lib. ix. cap. 5, and v. 13. 31. Strabo, lib. xvi.

[851] Pausanias, in Arcadicis, cap. 46 and 47.

[852] Philostrat. in Vita Apollon. lib. iii. cap. 5. I conjecture that these nuts were cocoa-nuts.

[853] Vita Augusti, c. 72.

[854] Plin. lib. viii. cap. 16.

[855] Plin. lib. xxxi. cap. 9. Isidorus Origin. lib. xvi. cap. 2. Nitre also was employed for the like purpose. Plin. lib. xxxi. cap. 10. Herodot. lib. ii. Sextus Empiricus in Pyrrhon. Hypotypos. cap. 24. The last author ascribes this custom to the Persians in particular.

[856] Dion Cassius, lib. xxxvii. cap. 14. See the Life of Pompey in Plutarch, who adds that the countenance of Mithridates could no longer be distinguished, because the persons who embalmed the body in this manner had forgotten to take out the brain.

[857] Eunapius in Ædesio.

[858] In Acta sancti Guiberti, cap. 6.

[859] Varro De Re Rustica, lib. ii. cap. 4.

[860] Phlegon Trallian. De Mirabil. cap. 34, 35, adopts in his account the same expression as that used in the Geoponica, lib. xix. cap. 9, respecting the preservation of the flesh. Pliny however says, lib. vii. cap. 3, “Nos principatu Claudii Cæsaris allatum illi ex Ægypto hippocentaurum in melle vidimus.” Perhaps it was placed in honey after its arrival at Rome, in order that it might be better preserved.

[861] See Hieronymi Vita Pauli Eremitæ.

[862] Philostorgii Historia Ecclesiastica, 1643, 4to, p. 41.

[863] Columnæ Aquatil. et Terrestr. Observat. cap. 15.

[864] Plin. lib. xxii. cap. 24.

[865] Strabo, lib. xvi.

[866] Xenophon, Rer. Græc. lib. v.

[867] Diodorus Siculus, lib. xv.

[868] Josephi Antiq. Jud. lib. xiv. c. 13. De Bello Jud. lib. i. c. 7.

[869] Æliani Var. Hist. lib. xii. cap. 8.

[870] Statius, Silv. iii. 2.

[871] Curtius, lib. x. cap. 10.

[872] Corippus De Laudibus Justini II.

[873] Varro, in Nonius, cap. iii. The following words of Lucretius, b. iii. ver. 902, “aut in melle situm suffocari,” allude perhaps to the above circumstance.

[874] Columella, xii. 45. Apicii Ars Coquinar. lib. i. cap. 20.

[875] Plutarch in the Life of Alexander relates, that among other valuables in the treasury at Susa, that conqueror found 5000 talents of the purple dye, which was perfectly fresh, though nearly two hundred years old, and that its preservation was ascribed to its being covered with honey. This account is well illustrated in Mercurialis Var. Lect. lib. vi. cap. 26.

[876] Plin. lib. xxix. cap. 4.

[877] Dier. Genial. lib. iii. cap. 8.

[878] Herodot. lib. iv. cap. 71.

[879] Θάπτουσι δ’ ἐν μέλιτι, κηριῳ περιπλάσαντες. Sepeliunt in melle, cera cadavere oblito. The bodies therefore were first covered with wax, and then deposited in honey.

[880] Herodot. lib. i. cap. 140. Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. lib. i. Alexandri ab Alexan. Dier. Genial. lib. iii. cap. 2.

[881] Plutarchus in Vita Agesilai. The following passage of Quintilian’s Institut. Orat. lib. vi. cap. 1. 40, is understood by most commentators, as if the author meant to say that a waxen image of the person deceased, made by pouring the wax into a mould of gypsum, was exhibited. “Et prolata novissime, deformitate ipsa (nam ceris cadaver attulerant infusum) præteritam quoque orationis gratiam perdidit.” See Turnebi Adversar. lib. xxix. cap. 13. But in my opinion it appears very probable that the body itself, covered with wax, was carried into the court.

[882] Near Damietta are found a kind of mullets, which, after being covered over with wax, are by these means sent throughout all Turkey, and to different parts of Europe.--Pocock’s Travels.

[883] Theophilus Raynaudus de incorruptione cadaverum, in vol. xiii. of the works of that learned Jesuit, Lugd. 1665.

[884] Beguillet, Déscription du Duché de Bourgogne, i. p. 192.

[885] Liber Regalis, in the article De exequiis regalibus.

[886] Archæologia, vol. iii. p. 376.

[887] Dart’s Westminster, ii. p. 28.

[888] In the account of the funeral expenses stands the following article: “To Thomas Graham, apothecary to his majesty, for a fine double cerecloth, with a large quantity of very rich perfumed aromatic powders, &c., for embalming his late majesty’s royal body, 152_l._” See Archæologia, _ut supra_, p. 402.

[889] Livius, lib. xl. cap. 29. Pliny, b. xiii. chap. 13, relates the same thing, with a little variation, respecting the annals of Cassius Hemina: “Mirabantur alii, quomodo illi libri durare potuissent. Ille ita rationem reddebat; lapidem fuisse quadratum circiter in media area vinctum candelis quoquoversus. In eo lapide insuper libros impositos fuisse, propterea arbitrari eos non computruisse. Et libros citratos fuisse, propterea arbitrarier tineas non tetigisse.”--Hardouin thinks that _libri citrati_ were books in which _folia citri_ were placed to preserve them from insects. The first editions however have _libri cedrati_, and even the paper itself may have been covered over with some resinous substance. The scarce edition which I received as a present from Professor Bause at Moscow, Opus impressum per Joan. Rubeum et Bernardinum Fratresque Vercellenses 1507, fol. has in page 98 the word _caedratos_, and in the margin _caeratos_.

[890] A catalogue of this collection may be found in the second volume of Valentin’s Museum Museorum.

[891] Von Stettens Kunstgeschichte von Augsburg, p. 218. 362.

[892] With how much care this learned man, who died in 1544, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, collected minerals and plants is proved by his Silva Observationum Variarum, quas inter peregrinandum brevissime notavit. Walch, in his Naturgeschichte der Versteinerungen, considers it as the first general oryctography of Germany, and is surprised that so extensive a work should have been thought of at that period. Wallerius, in his Lucubratio de Systematibus Mineralogicis, Hohniæ, 1768, 8vo, p. 27, considers this Silva as a systematic description of all minerals. Both however are mistaken. Cordus undertook a journey in 1542, through some parts of Germany, and drew up a short catalogue without order, of the natural objects he met with in the course of his travels, which was published by Conrad Gesner, together with the other works of this industrious man, at Strasburg in 1561. This book, which I have in my possession, has in the title page, In hoc volumine continetur Valerii Cordi in Dioscoridis libros de Medica Materia; ejusdem Historiæ Stirpium, &c. The Silva begins page 217.

[893] That Agricola had a good collection, may be concluded from his writings, in which he describes minerals according to their external appearance, and mentions the places where they are found.

[894] H. Mohsen says in his Account of Mark Brandenburg, Berlin, 1783, 4to, p. 142. Thurneisser is the first person, as far as is known at present, who in this country formed a collection of natural curiosities.

[895] “Ortelius habebat domi suæ imagines, statuas, nummos ... conchas ab ipsis Indis et Antipodibus, marmora omnis coloris, spiras testudineas tantæ magnitudinis, ut decem ex iis viri in orbem sedentes cibum sumere possent; alias rursum ita angustas, ut vix magnitudinem capitelli unius aciculi adæquarent.”--M. Adami Vitæ Germ. Philos. Heidelb. 1615, 8vo, p. 431.

[896] See Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. p. 2469. [The names of our early English collectors, Tradescant, Ashmole, Petiver, and Sir Hans Sloane, though a little later than the period alluded to, deserve to be recorded here.]

[897] This extract may be seen in D. G. Molleri Dissert. de Technophysiotameis, Altorfi, 1704, p. 18. Some account of Quickelberg may be found in Sweertii Athenæ Belgicæ, Antv. 1628, fol. p. 671; in Val. Andreæ Bibliotheca Belgica, Lov. 1643, 4to, p. 806; and in Simleri Bibliotheca Instituta a Gesnero, Tiguri, 1574, fol. p. 617.

[898] De Omni Rerum Fossilium Genere, op. Conr. Gesneri. Tig. 1565, 8vo.

[899] He says in the preface, “Thesaurum fossilium multis impensis collegi, paucis comparabilem.”

[900] This is related by Jacob Fabricius, in the preface to the treatise of his brother George Fabricius De Metallicis Rebus, which may be found in Gesner’s collection before-quoted.

[901] This catalogue is printed in Œuvres de B. Palissy. Par M. Faujas de Saint-Fond et Gobet. Paris, 1777, 4to, p. 691. [Quite recently a new edition of Palissy’s works, together with an account of the life of this remarkable man by M. Cap, has been published at Paris. Palissy, after long devoting his services to the king and some of the royal family, was shut up in the Bastille on account of his religion. It is said that one day Henry III., having visited him in his prison, spoke to him thus: “My good man, you have been for forty-five years in my mother’s and my service. We have suffered you to live in your religion amidst fires and massacres: now I am so strongly urged by the Guise party and by my people, that _I am constrained_ to leave you in the hands of my enemies, and to-morrow you will be burnt if you are not converted.” “Sire,” replied Bernard, “I am ready to lay down my life for the glory of God. You have often told me that you pitied me; and now I pity you, who have uttered these words, ‘_I am constrained!_’ Sire, it is not speaking like a king; and it is what you yourself, those who constrain you, the Guisards, and all your people, could never compel me to; for I know how to die.” Palissy died indeed in the Bastille, but a natural death, in 1589. Thus ended a career illustrious alike for great talents and rare virtues.]

[902] Mercati Metallotheca. Romæ, 1717, fol. to which an appendix was added in 1719.

[903] Joh. Baptistæ Olivi de reconditis et præcipuis collectaneis a Franc. Calceolario in Museo adservatis testificatio ad Hieron. Mercurialem. Venet. 1584, 4to. An edition was published also at Verona in quarto, in 1593. The complete description was however first printed at Verona in a small folio, in 1622; Musæum Calceolarianum Veronense. Maffei, in his Verona Illustrat. Veron. 1732, fol. p. 202, says, “Calceolari ... fu de’ primi, che raccogliendo grandissima quantità d’erbe, piante, minerali, animali diseccati, droghe rare, cose impetrite, ed altre rarità naturali, formasse museo di questo genere.”

CHIMNEYS.

Notwithstanding the magnificence of the Grecian and Roman architecture, which we still admire in those ruins that remain as monuments of the talents and genius of the ancient builders, it is very doubtful whether their common dwelling-houses had chimneys, that is, passages or funnels formed in the walls for conveying away the smoke from the fire-place or stoves through the different stories to the summit of the edifice; conveniences which are not wanting in the meanest of our houses at present, and in the smallest of our villages. This question some have pretended to determine without much labour or research. How can we suppose, say they, that the Romans, our masters in the art of building, should not have devised and invented some means to keep free from smoke their elegant habitations, which were furnished and ornamented in a splendid and costly manner? How is it possible that a people who purchased ease and convenience at the greatest expense, should suffer their apartments to be filled with smoke, which must have allowed them to enjoy scarcely a moment of pleasure? And how could their cooks dress in smoky kitchens the various sumptuous dishes with which the most refined voluptuaries covered their tables? One must however be very little acquainted with the history of inventions and manners, to consider such bare conjectures as decisive proofs. It is undoubtedly certain, that many of our common necessaries were for many centuries unknown to the most enlightened nations, and that they are in part still wanting in some countries at present. Besides, it is probable that before the invention of chimneys, other means, now forgotten, were employed to remove smoke.

The ancient mason-work still to be found in Italy does not determine the question. Of the walls of towns, temples, amphitheatres, baths, aqueducts and bridges, there are some though very imperfect remains, in which chimneys cannot be expected; but of common dwelling-houses none are to be seen, except at Herculaneum, and there no traces of chimneys have been discovered[904]. The paintings and pieces of sculpture which are preserved, afford us as little information; for nothing can be perceived in them that bears the smallest resemblance to a modern chimney. If the writings of the ancients are to be referred to, we must collect from the works of the Greek and Roman authors whatever seems allusive to the subject. This indeed has been already done by various men of learning[905]; but the greater part of them seem to deduce more from the passages they quote than can be admitted by those who read and examine them without prejudice. I shall here present them to my readers, that they may have an opportunity of judging for themselves.

We are told by Homer, that Ulysses, when in the grotto of Calypso, wished that he might see the smoke ascending from Ithaca, that is, he wished to be in sight of the island[906]. Montfaucon is of opinion that this wish is unintelligible unless it be allowed that the houses of Ithaca had chimneys. But cannot smoke be seen to rise also when it makes its way through doors and windows? When navigators at sea observe smoke arising, they conclude that they are in the neighbourhood of inhabited land; but no one undoubtedly will thence infer, that the habitations of the people have chimneys.

Herodotus[907] relates that a king of Lebæa, when one of his servants asked for his wages, offered him in jest the sun, which at that time shone into the house through the chimney, as some have translated the original; but it appears that what is here called chimney, was nothing more than an opening in the roof, under which, perhaps, the fire was made in the middle of the edifice. Through a high chimney, of the same form as those used at present, the sun certainly could not throw his rays on the floor of any apartment.

In the Vespæ of Aristophanes[908], old Philocleon wishes to escape through the kitchen. Some one asks, “What is that which makes a noise in the chimney?” “I am the smoke,” replies the old man, “and am endeavouring to get out at the chimney.” This passage, however, which, according to the usual translation, seems to allude to a common chimney, can, in my opinion, especially when we consider the illustration of the scholiasts, be explained also by a simple hole in the roof, as Reiske has determined; and indeed this appears to be more probable, as we find mention made of a top or covering with which the hole was closed.

In a passage of the poet Alexis, who lived in the time of Alexander the Great, quoted by Athenæus[909], some one asks, “Boy, is there a kitchen? Has it a chimney?” “Yes, but it is a bad one--the eyes will suffer.” The question here alludes without doubt to a passage for carrying off smoke; but information is not given us sufficient to determine its form and construction. Athenæus has preserved also a passage of the poet Diphilus[910], in which a parasite says, when he is invited to the house of a rich man, he does not look at the magnificence of the building or the elegance of the furniture, but to the smoke of the kitchen. “If I see it,” adds he, “rising up in abundance, quick and in a straight column, my heart is rejoiced, for I expect a good supper.” In this passage, however, which according to Maternus is clearly in favour of chimneys, I can find as little proof as in the words of the poet Sosipater, quoted likewise by Athenæus[911], who reckons the art of determining which way the wind blows to be a part of the knowledge requisite in a perfect cook. “He must know,” says he, “to discover from what quarter it comes, for when the smoke is driven about it spoils many kinds of dishes.” Instead of agreeing with Ferrarius that this quotation seems to show that the houses of the ancients were provided with chimneys, I conclude rather from it, that they were not; for, had there been chimneys in their kitchens, the cooks must have left the smoke to make its way through them without giving themselves any trouble; but if they were destitute of these conveniences, it would be necessary for them to afford it some other passage; it would consequently be the business of the cook to consider on what side it would be most advantageous to open a door or a window; and in this he would undoubtedly be guided by the direction of the wind. That this really was the case, appears from a Greek epigram, which by an ingenious thought, gives us an idea of the passage of smoke through a window[912].

These, as far as I know, are all the passages which have been collected from Greek authors respecting this question. But instead of proving that the houses of the ancients were built with chimneys, they seem much rather to show the contrary: especially when we consider what the Roman writers have said on the same subject; for the information of the latter, taken together, affords good grounds to believe that no chimneys were to be found in the houses at Rome, at least at the time when these authors wrote; and this certainly would not have been the case had the Romans ever seen chimneys among the Greeks. I shall now lay before my readers those passages which appear on the first view to refute my conjecture.

When the triumviri, says Appian[913], caused those who had been proscribed by them to be sought out by the military, some of them, to avoid the bloody hands of their persecutors, hid themselves in wells, and others, as Ferrarius translates the words, “in fumaria sub tecto, qua scilicet fumus e tecto evolvitur.” The true translation however is “fumosa cænacula.” The principal persons of Rome endeavoured to conceal themselves in the smoky apartments of the upper story under the roof, which in general were inhabited only by poor people; and this seems to be confirmed by what Juvenal[914] expressly says, “Rarus venit in cænacula miles.”

Those passages of the ancients which speak of smoke rising up from houses have with equal impropriety been supposed to allude to chimneys, as if the smoke could not make its way through doors and windows. Seneca[915] writes, “Last evening I had some friends with me, and on that account a stronger smoke was raised; not such a smoke however as bursts forth from the kitchens of the great, and which alarms the watchmen, but such a one as signifies that guests are arrived.” Those whose judgements are not already warped by prejudice, will undoubtedly find the true sense of these words to be, that the smoke forced its way through the kitchen windows. Had the houses been built with chimney-funnels, one cannot conceive why the watchmen should have been alarmed when they observed a stronger smoke than usual arising from them; but as the kitchens had no conveniences of that kind, an apprehension of fire, when extraordinary entertainments were to be provided in the houses of the rich for large companies, seems to have been well-founded; and on such occasions people appointed for that purpose were stationed in the neighbourhood to be constantly on the watch, and to be ready to extinguish the flames in case a fire should happen[916]. There are many other passages to be found in Roman authors of the like kind, which it is hardly necessary to mention, such as that of Virgil[917]:

Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant.

and the following words of Plautus[918] descriptive of a miser:

Quin divûm atque hominum clamat continuo fidem,
Suam rem periisse, seque eradicarier,
De suo tigillo fumus si qua exit foras.

If there were no funnels in the houses of the ancients to carry off the smoke, the directions given by Columella to make kitchens so high that the roof should not catch fire, was of the utmost importance[919]. An accident of the kind, which that author seems to have apprehended, had almost happened at Beneventum, when the landlord who entertained Mæcenas and his company was making a strong fire in order to get some birds sooner roasted: