Chapter XXIV: Part 24

[1435] H. Junii Batavia. Lugd. Bat. 1558, 4to, p. 327.--Hugo Grotius de Antiquitate Reipub. Batavicæ, cap. 4.--Délices de la Hollande. Amst. 1685, 12mo, p. 218: “Les Wassenaers tiennent leur origine d’une village qui est entre Leiden et la Haye, ou des droits qu’ils eurent les siecles passez sur les eaux, les estangs et les lacs de la Hollande.”---Those who are fond of indulging in conjecture might form the following conclusion:--The lakes and streams belonged to the Wassenaers, who kept swans, geese and ducks upon them. When the brewers were desirous of clearing the water from the duck-weed, which in Fritsch’s German Dictionary is called _Enten-grutz_, in order that it might be fitter for use, they were obliged to pay a certain sum to obtain permission; and when the practice of floating timber began, the floats disturbed the ducks, and destroyed the plant on which they fed, and the proprietors of floats were on this account obliged to pay a certain tax also. But was it customary at that period to float timber in the Netherlands?

[1436] Glossarium Manuale, iii. p. 850: “Gruta, Grutt, Gruit, appellant tributum, quod pro cerevisia pensitatur.”

LACE.

Fifty years ago, when a knowledge of many useful and ingenious arts formed a part of the education given to young women destined for genteel life, one who should have supposed that any reader could be ignorant of the manner in which lace is made, would only have been laughed at; but as most of our young ladies at present employ the greater part of their time in reading romances or the trifles of the day, it is probable that many who have even had an opportunity of frequenting the company of the fair sex, may never have seen the method of working lace. For this reason, I hope I shall be permitted to say a few words in explanation of an art towards the history of which I mean to offer such information as I have been able to collect.

Proper lace or point was not wove. It had neither warp nor woof, but was rather knit after the manner of nets (_filets_) or of stockings. In the latter, however, one thread only is employed, from which the whole piece or article of dress is made; whereas lace is formed of as many threads as the pattern and breadth require, and in such a manner that it exhibits figures of all kinds. To weave, or, as it is called, knit lace, the pattern, stuck upon a slip of parchment, is fastened to the cushion of the knitting-box; the thread is wound upon the requisite number of spindles, which are called bobbins; and these are thrown over and under each other in various ways, so that the threads twine round pins stuck in the holes of the pattern, and by these means produce that multiplicity of eyes or openings which give to the lace the desired figures. For this operation much art is not necessary; and the invention of it is not so ingenious as that of weaving stockings. Knitting, however, is very tedious; and when the thread is fine and the pattern complex, it requires more patience than the modern refinement of manners has left to young ladies for works of this kind. Such labour, therefore, is consigned to the hands of indigent girls, who by their skill and dexterity raise the price of materials, originally of little value, higher when manufactured than has ever yet been possible by any art whatever. The price, however, becomes enormous when knit lace has been worked with the needle or embroidered: in French it is then called _points_.

The antiquity of this art I do not pretend to determine with much certainty; and I shall not be surprised if others by their observations trace it higher than I can. I remember no passage in the Greek or Latin authors that seems to allude to it; for those who ascribe works of this kind to the Romans found their opinion on the expression _opus Phrygianum_: but the art of the Phrygians[1437], as far as I have hitherto been able to learn, consisted only in needle-work: and those ingenious borders sewed upon clothes and tapestry, mention of which occurs in the ancients, cannot be called lace, as they have been by Braun[1438] and other writers. I am however firmly of opinion that lace worked by the needle is much older than that made by knitting. Lace of the former kind may be found among old church furniture, and in such abundance that it could have been the work only of nuns or ladies of fortune, who had little else to employ their time, and who imagined it would form an agreeable present to their Maker; for had it been manufactured as an article of commerce, we must certainly have found more information respecting it.

We read in different authors that the art of making lace was brought from Italy, particularly from Genoa and Venice, to Germany and France; but this seems to allude only to the oldest kind, or that worked with the needle, and which was by far the dearest. At any rate, I have nowhere found an expression that can be applied to lace wove or knit. In the account given of the establishment of the lace manufacture under Colbert in 1666, no mention is made but of _points_[1439].

I will venture to assert that the knitting of lace is a German invention, first known about the middle of the sixteenth century; and I shall consider as true, until it be fully contradicted, the account given us that this art was found out, before the year 1561, at St. Annaberg, by Barbara wife of Christopher Uttmann. This woman died in 1575, in the sixty-first year of her age, after she had seen sixty-four children and grandchildren; and that she was the inventress of this art is unanimously affirmed by all the annalists of that part of Saxony[1440]. About that period the mines were less productive, and the making of veils, an employment followed by the families of the miners, had declined, as there was little demand for them. This new invention, therefore, was so much used that it was known in a short time among all the wives and daughters of the miners; and the lace which they manufactured, on account of the low price of labour, soon became fashionable, in opposition to the Italian lace worked with the needle, and even supplanted it in commerce.

A doubt, however, has often occurred to me, which may probably occur also to some of my readers, that this Barbara Uttmann may be entitled only to the merit of having made known and introduced this employment; and that, as has often happened to those who first brought a new art to their own country, she may have been considered as the inventress, though she only learned it in a foreign land, where it had been long practised. But I conjecture that this could not have been the case, as I find no mention of the art of knitting lace, nor any of the terms that belong to it, before the middle of the sixteenth century.

[The application of machinery to the manufacture of lace dates from the early part of the present century. The original fabric, called pillow or bone-lace, which formerly gave employment to so many thousands[1441] of the poorer classes, is now, especially in this country, almost entirely abandoned, in consequence of the invention of the bobbin-net machinery.

The bobbin-net trade is a branch of the cotton manufacture, the net being almost invariably formed of that material. It originated in successive improvements and alterations on the stocking-frame, by which it was adapted to the weaving of lace; though it is deserving of notice that it could have had no existence but for Samuel Crompton’s invention, the mule, which spins yarn suitable for that delicate fabric. The application of the stocking-frame to lace-making was first attempted by a frame-work knitter of Nottingham, named Hammond, about 1768; but it was not rendered completely successful till after improvements by John Heathcoat, also of Nottingham, for which a patent was secured in 1809. His improvements were of so important a character as to entitle him to be justly considered the inventor of the lace-frame, and the father of the bobbin-net manufacture. Means were besides discovered for making the net into various widths, instead of only one broad piece as at first, and likewise to work various ornaments into it by the aid of machinery, which, in point of complex ingenuity, far surpasses that used in any other branch of human industry[1442]. One of Fisher’s spotting-frames, according to Dr. Ure, is as much beyond the most curious chronometer in multiplicity of mechanical device, as that is beyond a common roasting-jack. The combined effects of these improvements is, that fabrics, for which £5 were paid during the existence of Mr. Heathcoat’s patent, may now be purchased for 2_s._ 6_d._ The different systems of bobbin-net machines are described in Ure’s Dictionary, or his Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain. It has been found that no machines, except those upon the circular-bolt principle invented by Mr. Morley of Derby, have been found capable of working successfully by mechanical power.]

FOOTNOTES

[1437] This is proved by the vestes Phrygioniæ of Pliny mentioned before in the article on wire-drawing. Those who made such works were called _phrygiones_. In the Menæchmi of Plautus, act ii. scene 3, a young woman, desirous of sending her mantle to be embroidered, says, “Pallam illam ad phrygionem ut deferas, ut reconcinnetur, atque ut opera addantur, quæ volo.” Compare Aulul. act iii. scene 5; Non. Marcellus, i. 10; and Isidor. 19, 22. The Greeks seem to have used the words κεντεῖν and καταστίζειν as we use the word _embroider_.

[1438] De Vestitu Sacerdot. Hebræorum, i. p. 212.

[1439] Count de Marsan, the youngest son of count d’Harcourt, brought from Brussels to Paris his former nurse, named Du Mont, with her four daughters, and procured for her an exclusive right to establish and carry on the lace manufactory in that capital. In a little time Du Mont and her daughters collected more than two hundred women, many of whom were of good families, who produced such excellent work that it was in little or nothing inferior to that imported from other countries.--Vie de Jean-Bapt. Colbert, Cologne, 1696, 12mo, p. 154.

[1440] The oldest information on this subject is to be found in Annabergæ Urbis Historia, auctore Paulo Jenisio. Dresdæ, 1605, 4to, ii. p. 33.--C. Melzer, Berglauftige Beschreibung der Stadt Schneeberg. 1684, p. 471.--Historia Schneebergensis. Schneeberg 1716, 4to, p. 882.--Tob. Schmidt, Zwickauische Chronik. Zwickau, 1656, 4to. ii. p. 384.--Lehmanns Historischer Schauplatz des Obererzgebirges. Leipzig, 1699, 4to, p. 771.

[1441] It is difficult to form an estimate of the number of persons employed in pillow-lace making during its prosperity; but in a petition from the makers in Buckingham and the neighbourhood presented to her Majesty queen Adelaide in 1830, it was stated that 120,000 persons were dependent on the trade.

[1442] Waterston’s Encyclopædia of Commerce.

ULTRAMARINE.

Ultramarine is a very fine blue powder, almost of the colour of the corn-flower or blue-bottle, which has this uncommon property, that, when exposed to the air or a moderate heat, it neither fades nor becomes tarnished. On this account it is used in painting; but it was employed formerly for that purpose much more than at present, as smalt, a far cheaper article, was not then known. It is made of the blue parts of the lapis lazuli, by separating them as much as possible from the other coloured particles with which they are mixed, and reducing them to a fine powder. The real lapis lazuli is found in the mountains of that part of Tartary called Bucharia, which extends eastwards from the Caspian sea, and particularly at Kalab and Budukschu. It is sent thence to the East Indies, and from the East Indies to Europe. The Bucharians also carry fragments of it, weighing sometimes a pound and more, to Orenburg, though less frequently than some years ago. As large pieces of a pure and beautiful colour are scarce even in that distant country, and as they are employed for making ornaments and toys, the rough stone itself is costly; and this high price is increased in the ultramarine by its laborious preparation, though in later times the process has been rendered much easier[1443].

On account of the scarcity and great value of the lapis lazuli, other stones, somewhat like it only in colour, have been substituted in its stead; and hence have arisen the many contradictions to be found in the works of different authors, particularly those of the ancients, where they speak of the properties and country of this species of stone. Many have considered the Armenian stone, which is a calcareous kind of stone tinged with copper; many the mountain blue or malachite, and many also blue sparry fluor, and blue jasper, as the lapis lazuli[1444]; and ultramarine of course is not always what it ought to be. At present, smalt of a good colour is often purchased therefore at a dear rate; and it is in greater request, as it is certain that its colour is more durable in fire than even that of the lapis lazuli. Good ultramarine must be of a beautiful dark colour, and free from sand as well as every other mixture. It must unite readily with oil; it must not become tarnished on a red-hot tile or plate of iron, and it ought to dissolve in strong acids, almost like the zeolite, without causing any effervescence. In the year 1763, an ounce of it at Paris cost four pounds sterling, and an ounce of _cendre d’outremer_, which is the refuse, two pounds. At Hamburg, Gleditsch sold fine real Oriental ultramarine for a ducat per ounce, and warranted it to stand proof by fire; but whether it would stand proof by acids also, I do not know.

From what has been said, a question arises, whether ultramarine was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans? And this gives occasion to another, whether they were acquainted with lapis lazuli? The name lapis lazuli no one indeed can expect to find among them; for it is certain that we received it from the Arabians; and the word _ultramarinum_ is altogether barbarous Latin. Some centuries ago, many foreign articles, brought from beyond sea, had a name given them from that circumstance; and the ancients applied the epithet _marinum_ to various productions on the like account. Hence, in the decline of the Roman language was formed _ultramarinum_, which some have endeavoured to improve by changing it into _transmarinum_, but this among the ancients never signified a colour.

Though the ancient names of precious stones have neither been examined with sufficient accuracy nor distinguished with the greatest possible certainty, I think I can discover among them the lapis lazuli. I consider it as the sapphire of the ancients, and this opinion has been entertained by others; but I hope to render it more probable than it has hitherto appeared. In the first place, the sapphire of the Greeks and Romans was of a sky-blue colour with a violet or purplish glance; and sometimes it had a very dark or almost blackish-blue colour. Secondly, this stone was not transparent. Thirdly, it had in it a great many gold points, or golden-yellow spots, but that which had fewest was most esteemed. Fourthly, it was polished and cut; but when it was not perfectly pure, and had mixed with it harder extraneous particles, it was not fit for the hands of the lapidary. Fifthly, it appears that it was procured in such large pieces that it could be employed for inlaid or mosaic-work. Sixthly, it was often confounded with, or compared to, copper-blue, copper-ore, and earth and stones impregnated with that metal. Seventhly, such medicinal effects were ascribed to it as could be possessed only by a copper salt; and lastly, it formed veins in rocks of other kinds of stone, as we are informed by Dionysius[1445].

That a stone with these properties cannot be the sapphire of our jewellers is beyond all doubt. Our real sapphire does not form veins in other fossils, but is found among sand in small crystals, shaped like diamonds; though they sometimes have rather the figure of columns. Like other precious stones, they are always transparent; they have never gold points in them; their blue colour resembles more or less that of blue velvet, and it is often very pale, and approaches seldom, or very little, to purple. Powder of sapphire appears like fine pounded glass, exhibits no traces of copper, and can in no manner produce a blue pigment, or be confounded with mountain-blue.

The question, whether the ancients were acquainted with our sapphire, and whether it may not belong to their amethysts or hyacinths, I shall not here examine. I am inclined rather to decide in the negative than the affirmative; and at any rate the proof will always remain dubious. It might perhaps be difficult also to determine whether every modern mineralogist who has spoken of the sapphire was acquainted with, and alluded to, the real stone of that name.

On the other hand, we can affirm with the greatest certainty, that the sapphire of the ancients was our lapis lazuli. The latter is of a blue colour, which inclines sometimes to violet or purple, and which is often very dark. It is altogether opake, yet its colour will admit of being compared to a sky-colour; in mentioning of which Pliny had no idea of transparency, for he compares the colour of an opake jasper to a sky-blue[1446]. The lapis lazuli is interspersed with small points, which were formerly considered as gold, but which are only particles of pyrites or marcasite. It can be easily cut and formed into articles of various kinds, and at present it is often used for seals. Pliny, however, informs us that it was not fit for this purpose when it was mixed with hard foreign particles, such as quartz; and that which was of one colour was therefore much more esteemed[1447]. Many cut stones of this kind, which are considered as antiques, may be found in collections. I remember to have seen several works of this sort in the excellent collection of the duke of Brunswick, which, in all probability, are Egyptian, and which are worthy of an accurate description. That lapis lazuli was used formerly for inlaid works I am well convinced, though at present I can produce no proofs. In how beautiful a manner it is employed for that purpose in Florentine works, is well known. The largest and most magnificent squares of lapis lazuli which I ever saw, are in the apartments at Zarskoe-Selo, a summer palace near Petersburg, belonging to the empress of Russia, the walls of which are covered with amber, interspersed with plates of this costly stone. I was informed that these plates were procured from Thibet. The doubt expressed by Epiphanius concerning stairs overlaid with lapis lazuli, respects only the great expense of it, and he perhaps imagined that the steps were entirely cut from the solid stone. The confounding the sapphire with the _cyanus_, or comparing it to it, of which several instances occur, proves that the former must have had a great resemblance to copper-ore; for that the _cyanus_ is a kind of mineral or mountain blue, tinged with copper, I have proved already[1448]. The blue colour of lapis lazuli has always been supposed to be owing to copper; but according to the latest discoveries it originates from iron[1449]. The medicinal effects which the ancients ascribed to their sapphire could be produced only from a mixture of copper, as they considered the Armenian stone, or false lapis lazuli, to be the real kind. They recommended copper ochre for an inflammation of the eyes[1450]. In the last place it agrees with what Dionysius says, that the sapphire or lapis lazuli was produced in veins among other kinds of stone[1451]. The sapphire also mentioned in the oldest writings of the Hebrews, appears to be no other than the sapphire of the Greeks, or our lapis lazuli; for it was said likewise to be interspersed with gold points[1452].

The ancients therefore were acquainted with our lapis lazuli; but the question whether they used it as a paint, or prepared ultramarine from it, I cannot answer with sufficient certainty. It is possible that their _cæruleum_ sometimes may have been real ultramarine; but properly and in general it was only copper ochre[1453]. The objection that the ancients made blue glass and blue enamel, and if they had not smalt they could use no other pigment that would stand fire but ultramarine, I shall answer in the next article.

Before I proceed to the oldest information with which I am acquainted respecting ultramarine, or the blue colour made from lapis lazuli, I shall communicate what I know of the origin and antiquity of the name commonly given to this stone. That I might be able to offer something more on the subject than what has been said by Salmasius[1454], I requested the opinion of Professor Tychsen, which, with his permission, I have here subjoined[1455]. It is, in the first place, certain that the word is of Persian derivation, and the stone, as I have already remarked, has hitherto been brought to us from Persia. Secondly, it signifies a blue colour. It was at first also the common name in Europe for blue stones and blue colours used in painting; and it was a long time used to express mountain-blue impregnated with copper. The modern systematic mineralogists, it appears, first appropriated the corrupted Persian word to the present lazur-stone, properly so-called; and those therefore would commit an error in mineralogy who should now apply this name to the Armenian stone, mountain-blue, or any other blue mineral containing copper.

Without pretending to have discovered the first mention of the name lazuli in those writings which have been handed down to us, I shall here offer, as the oldest with which I am acquainted, that found in Leontius[1456], who, where he gives directions for colouring a celestial globe, speaks of _lazurium_. If Fabricius be right, Leontius lived in the sixth century[1457]. Among the receipts for painting, written in the eighth century, which Muratori[1458] has made known, we find an unintelligible account how to make _lazuri_, for which _cyanus compositus_, perhaps a prepared kind of mountain-blue, was to be employed. There is also another receipt which orders blue-bottles to be pounded in a mortar. It appears therefore that this word was used in the corrupted Latin of that period to signify a blue colour for painting. The same word, formed after the Greek manner, seems to have been used for blue by Achmet, the astrologer, who lived in the ninth century[1459], and by Nonus in the tenth for a blue earth[1460]. Of still more importance is a passage of Arethas, who lived in the following century, and who, in his exposition of a verse in the book of Revelation[1461], says, the sapphire is that stone, of which _lazurium_, as we are told, is made[1462]. This, therefore, is a strong corroboration that the sapphire of the ancients was our _lapis lazuli_, and appears to be the first certain mention of real ultramarine. The word however occurs often in the succeeding centuries for blue copper-ochre. Constantinus Africanus, a physician of the eleventh century, ascribes to lapis lazuli the same medicinal qualities as those of copper-ochre[1463]; as do also Avicenna, Averroes, and Myrepsius. The first, under the letter _lam_, gives a chapter entitled _lazuard_, to which the translator has prefixed “De azulo, id est, de lapide Armenio;” and the last says expressly, that the _lapis lazuli_ of the Latins is the _lazurios_ of the Greeks[1464]. The words _azura_, _azurum_, _azurrum_, occur often also in that century for _blue_.

The name _ultramarine_, or, as it was first called, _azurrum ultramarinum_, I have not yet found in any writer of the fifteenth century. But it appears that it must have been common about the end of that century, as it was used by Camillus Leonardus in 1502[1465]. It is probable that it originated in Italy. In the first half of the sixteenth century Vanuccio Biringoccio gave directions for preparing the real ultramarine, which he distinguishes with sufficient accuracy from copper azur[1466], or, as he calls it, the _azurro dell’ Alemagna_. At that period, however, the best method of preparing it must have been doubtful as well as little known, and on that account of no great benefit; for, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the father of the celebrated Giambatista Pigna, an apothecary at Modena, was in possession of the secret for making the best ultramarine, by which he acquired more riches than would have arisen from a large estate[1467]. It is not, therefore, altogether true that Alexius Pedemontanus, as Spielmann relates[1468], was the first person who mentioned ultramarine. I am of opinion that this Alexius, or Hieronymus Ruscellai concealed under that name, who wrote in the beginning of the sixteenth century, only first published a complete account of the method of preparing it. At any rate, his receipt was long followed as the best and the most certain[1469]. But on what information is that assertion founded, which we read in English and French authors[1470], that the preparation of ultramarine was found out in England, and that a servant of the East India Company disclosed it, in order to be revenged for some injury which he had sustained?

[The following is the method of making ultramarine from lapis lazuli. The finest mineral is selected, heated to a dull red heat, and quenched in water; it is thus rendered friable, and is ground down into an impalpable powder. This is then mixed with a tenacious paste made of linseed oil, wax, resin, turpentine and mastic; and the mixture being kneaded in warm water gives out the blue particles, which are afterwards collected by subsidence.

Chemists are not agreed concerning the cause of the colour of ultramarine. Dr. Eisner considers it to arise from sulphuret of sodium and of iron, the former being a higher sulphuret than the latter. MM. Clement and Desormes show that the iron is not essential, either to the lapis lazuli, or to the pigment made from it.

An artificial method of making ultramarine was discovered in 1828 by M. Guimet; the process has been kept secret. Processes have also been discovered by M. Gmelin of Tübingen, M. Persoz of Strasburg, and others. M. Gmelin’s process consists in fusing a mixture of two parts of sulphur and one of dry carbonate of soda in a Hessian crucible, and then sprinkling into it by degrees another mixture of silicate of soda and aluminate of soda. The crucible must be exposed to the fire for an hour after this. The ultramarine thus prepared contains a little sulphur, which can be separated by means of water.

Some valuable observations on this subject have lately been published by M. Prückner[1471]. He states that the materials required in the preparation of ultramarine are alumina, sulphate of soda, sulphur, charcoal and a salt of iron, the common sulphate or green vitriol being the best. The alumina is supplied in white bole, or a very pure white clay. The sulphate of soda is reduced by charcoal and heat to the state of sulphuret, and its solution thus obtained afterwards boiled with sulphur so as to form a persulphuret (penta-sulphuret, Berz.). The solution is then mixed with the dried clay and stirred; during the mixing a solution of green vitriol is added and mixed. It is then dried and very finely powdered as rapidly as possible. It is afterwards heated in a muffle; then washed, drained and again heated in a muffle; finally it is again washed, dried and powdered.]

FOOTNOTES

[1443] The old method of preparing ultramarine may be found in De Boot, Gemmarum Histor. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 8vo, p. 279. Formerly ultramarine was improperly called a precipitate or magisterium.

[1444] Besides the before-mentioned proofs of the real lapis lazuli being found in Tartary, the same thing is confirmed by Tavernier in his Travels. Paulus Venetus also seems to speak of that country when he says, “Suppeditat quoque mons alius in hac provincia (Balascia) lazulum, de quo fit azurum optimum, quale etiam in mundo non invenitur. Elicitur autem ex mineris non secus ac ferrum; præbent quoque mineræ argentum.” A great many however assert that this species of stone is brought from Persia: but it is not indigenous in that country, and is carried thither from Thibet. As the Persians are remarkably fond of this paint, they endeavour to procure as much of it as possible; but Persia itself produces only the blue copper ochre, which is sometimes used there instead of ultramarine. Tavernier mentions this very particularly, and, as he dealt in precious stones, was not liable to be deceived. To rectify a prevailing mistake, I shall here insert his own words:--“In the copper mines of Persia, veins of lazur, which is much used in that country, and with which the flowers on the ceiling and roofs of apartments are painted, have also been found. Before these were discovered, the Persians had no other lazur than the real kind which comes from Tartary, and is exceedingly dear. The Persian lazur is a sort of copper ore; and when the stone is pounded and sifted, which is the process employed with the real kind, it forms a fine paint, which appears very bright and pleasant. After this discovery, the Persians durst no more purchase the Tartarian lazur; and Mahomet-Beg issued an order that painters should not use foreign but Persian lazur. This prohibition however did not long continue; for the Persian lazur could not stand the effects of the atmosphere like the real kind, but in the course of time became of a dark and dismal colour. Sometimes it was full of scales, and would not hang to the end of a soft hair brush. On this account it was soon neglected as a coloured earth, and the lazur of Tartary again introduced.” This information is confirmed also by Chardin, in Voyages en Perse, iv. p. 66. “In the country around Tauris,” says the author, “is found lapis lazuli, but it is not so good as that of Tartary, as its colour changes, becomes dark, and afterwards fades.” In page 255, he says likewise, “The lapis lazuli, called _lagsverd_, from which we have formed the word _azur_, is found in the neighbourhood, in the country of the Yousbecs, but the general magazine for it is Persia.” I do not believe that this species of stone was formerly procured from Cyprus, as is asserted in many books. Copper is a production of that island, and it produces even at present mountain blue. Those also who assert that the colour of ultramarine fades in the fire, must not have been acquainted with the genuine sort. See Schriften der Schwedischen Acad. xii. p. 69. Montamy, in Abhandlung von den Farben zum Porzellan, Leipzig, 1767, 8vo, p. 121, affirms that ultramarine is not good for enamel-painting, but it is certain that it was once used for that purpose.

[1445] See Plin. lib. xxxvii. cap. 9 and 10.--Isidori Orig. xvi. 9.--Theophrast. de Lapid. § 43.--Dioscorides, v. 157.--Dionys. Orb. Desc. v. 1105.--Epiphanius de xii gemmis, § 5.--Marbodeus de Lapidibus, 53, p. 46.

[1446] Lib. ii. p. 782. Jaspis aërizusa--which I certainly do not, with Salmasius, consider as the turquoise. We have blue jasper still.

[1447] Plin. Inutiles scalpturæ, intervenientibus crystallinis centris.--Several learned men have understood this passage as if Pliny said that the sapphire could not be cut; but they seem not to have attended properly to the author’s words, and to have forgot what the ancient artists called _centra_ in stones and different kinds of wood which were to be cut. This Pliny himself explains, b. xvi. c. 39. In b. xxxvii. c. 2, he reckons also “prædurum ac fragile centrum” among the faults of rock crystal, which however, when it had not this blemish, was very proper for being cut. Theophrastus uses in the same sense the word κέντρον.

[1448] Aristotelis Auscultat. Mirabil. cap. 59, p. 123.

[1449] Systema Mineralium. i. p. 313.

[1450] Dioscorides, Parabil. i. p. 10, 11.

[1451] Some years ago my former colleague, H. Laxman, discovered lapis lazuli in veins of granite near Baikal in Siberia. These veins contained also along with it felspar and a milky-coloured kind of stone, perhaps zeolite, like pyrites.

[1452] Braun de Vestitu Sacerdotum. ii. p. 530.--See Michaelis Supplementa ad Lexica Hebraica, num. 1775. The name sapphire is very ancient.

[1453] Plin. lib. xxxiii. cap. 13.--Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.

[1454] De Homonymis Hyles Iatricæ. Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1689, fol. p. 217.

[1455] _Lazul_ or _lazur_ is not of Arabic, but Persian extraction. _Ladschuardi_ or _lazuardi_ in Persian signifies a blue colour and lapis lazuli. It ought properly to be pronounced _lazuverd_; but the Arabs in their pronunciation contract the _v_ very much, so that it sounds like _u_; and one can say therefore _lazurd_. The derivative _lazurdi_ or _lazuverdi_ signifies _blue_.

The pronunciation _lazul_, with an _l_ at the end, is agreeable to the common custom among the Arabs of confounding _l_ and _r_; as instead of _zingiber_ they say _zengebil_. The initial _l_ is not the article, but seems to belong to the word itself, because it is not originally Arabic. It is worthy of remark, that the Spaniards call blue _azul_, which is plainly derived from the above word; and the _l_ has been omitted because it was considered as the article, and thus the word was mutilated, as is often the case with foreign words among the Arabs, who say, for example, _Escandria_, instead of _al Escandria_ (_Alexandria_).

[1456] Leontius de Constructione Arateæ Sphæræ, in Astronomica Veterum Scripta, 1589, 8vo, p. 144.

[1457] Biblioth. Græca, ii. p. 456.

[1458] Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Ævi, ii. p. 372, 378.

[1459] Introductio in Astrolog.

[1460] De Morb. Curat. cap. 143.

[1461] Chap. xxi. ver. 19.

[1462] The exposition of Arethas is printed with Œcumenii Comm. in Nov. Test. Paris, 1630, 2 vols. fol.

[1463] De Gradibus, quos vocant Simplicium, p. 362. This passage serves further to explain and confirm what I have said respecting Aristotelis Auscultat. Mirab. cap. 59, where we are told that copper-ochre promotes the growth of the hair and of the eye-brows. The works of Constantinus were printed at Basle, 1536-39, in two folio volumes.

[1464] Matth. Silvaticus says, “_Lapis lazuli_ Latinis, Arabibus _Hager alzenar_ sive _alzanar_;” and also, “_Lauzud._ Arab. Azurinum, lapis lazuli.”

[1465] Speculum Lapidum. Hamb. 1717, 8vo, p. 125.

[1466] Of azur there are two sorts, one called by painters _azurro oltramarino_, and the other _azurro dell’ Alemagna_. The ultramarine is that made of the stone known by the name of lapis lazuli, which is the proper matrix of gold ore. This stone, after being pounded and washed, is reduced to an impalpable powder. It is then brought back to its lively and beautiful colour by means of a certain paste composed with gum, and is refined and freed from all moisture. This kind is that most esteemed; and according to its colour and fineness is purchased at a high price by painters; for it not only adds great beauty to paintings, but it withstands fire and water--two powers which other colours are not able to resist.--Pirotechnia, p. 38. The German azur of Biringoccio is not smalt; for he describes that colour before under the name of _zaffera_.

See also Fallopius, who in 1557 wrote his book De Metallis seu Fossilibus, chap, xxxiii. p. 338, who observes that _ultramarine_ was then selling for 100 golden scudi per ounce.

[1467] As young Pigna applied too closely to study, Bartholom. Ricci, in a letter still extant, advised him to be more moderate, as he was not compelled by necessity to labour so hard. “Without it,” he observes, “you are possessed of an estate sufficiently ample. Farms, country and town houses, the choicest furniture, all your own: besides, you have a father who is as good as a hundred estates to you; who in preparing one blue colour, called ultramarine (to say nothing of his skill and large profits in compounding medicines), has exclusively the secret, and is thereby enabled to acquire great riches, and indeed is daily adding to his store.”--Riccii Opera, vol. ii. p. 336; and Tirabosci Bibliotheca Modenese, vol. iv. p. 134.

[1468] Institut. Chemiæ, p. 45.

[1469] The work of Alexius Pedemontanus De Secretis is no contemptible source from which materials may be drawn for the technological History of Inventions; and on this account it will perhaps afford pleasure to many if I here give an account of the author, according to such information as I have been able to obtain. Conrad Gesner seems not to have known anything of him, as he is not mentioned either in his Epistolæ Medicinales or his Bibliotheca. Ciaconius, in Bibliotheca Libros et Scriptores fere cunctos complectens, Parisiis, 1731, fol. p. 94, says that his real name was Hieronymus Ruscellai. The same account is given by Haller in Biblioth. Botan., &c. Gobet, in Les Anciens Minéralogistes de France, Paris, 1779, 8vo, ii. p. 705, tells us that this Jerome Ruscellai died in 1565; and that his book was composed from his papers by Franc. Sansovino, who published many works not his own, and printed for the first time at Milan, in 1557. I have nowhere found a particular account of this Ruscellai; and indeed it is always laborious to search out any of that noble family, which I have already spoken in the article Lacmus. He appears to me to be none of those mentioned in Jochers Gelehrten-Lexicon. I have met with no earlier edition of his works than that of 1557: but I suspect that the first must be older. However much the book may have been sought after, it seems to me improbable that three editions should be published in Italian in the course of the first year; for, besides that of Milan, two editions printed at Venice the same year, one in quarto and another in octavo, are still extant. A French translation also was published at Antwerp, in 1557. Is it possible that an English translation could be published at London in 1558, if the original appeared for the first time only in 1557? At that period translations were not made so speedily. The Secrets of Alexis, London, 1558, is mentioned in Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, p. 296. I have in my possession a French translation by Christofle Landré, Paris, 1576, 12mo, which I seldom find quoted. It has a large appendix, collected from various authors.

It is well-known that Joh. Jacob Wecker, a physician at Colmar, translated into Latin this book of Alexius, and enlarged it with additions, under the title of De Secretis Libri xvii. The first edition, as Haller says, was printed at Basle in 1559, 8vo. Every edition seems to differ from the preceding; many things are omitted, and the new additions are for the most part of little importance. I have the edition of Basle, 1592, 8vo, in which there is a great deal not to be found in that of 1662, and which wants some things contained in the edition of 1582. The latest editions are printed from that improved by Theod. Zwinger, Basle, 1701, 8vo. The last by Zwinger, was published at Basle in 1753. Though these books on the arts, as they are called, contain many falsehoods, they are still worthy of some notice, as they may be reckoned among the first works printed on technology, and have as much induced learned men to pay attention to mechanics and the arts, as they have artists to pay attention to books and written information.

[1470] See Savary, Dict. de Commerce, art. _Outremer_, which has been copied into Rolt’s Dictionary of Trade, Lond. 1756, fol.

[1471] Chemical Gazette, May 31, 1845.

COBALT, ZAFFER, SMALT.

The name cobalt is given at present to that metal and its ores, the oxides of which are largely employed in the manufactures of glass, porcelain and pottery, for the production of a blue colour. The cobalt ores are first roasted and freed from foreign mineral bodies, particularly sulphur, iron, nickel, bismuth, and arsenic, with which they are united, and then well calcined, and sold, either mixed or unmixed with fine sand, under the name of zaffer (_zaffera_); or the cobalt is melted with siliceous earth and potash to a kind of blue glass called smalt, which, when ground very fine, is known in commerce by the name of powder-blue. All these articles, because they are most durable pigments, and those which best withstand fire, and because one can produce with them every shade of blue, are employed, above all, for tinging crystal and for enamelling; for counterfeiting opake and transparent precious stones, and for painting and varnishing real porcelain and earthen and potters’ ware. This colour is indispensably necessary to the painter when he is desirous of imitating the fine azure colour of many butterflies and other natural objects; and the cheaper kind is employed to give a blueish tinge to new-washed linen, which so readily changes to a disagreeable yellow.

The preparation of this new colour may be reckoned among the most beneficial inventions of modern times. It rendered of importance an useless and hurtful production; gave employment to a number of hands; assisted in bringing many arts to a degree of perfection which they could never before attain; and has drawn back to Germany a great deal of money which was formerly sent out of it for foreign articles.

Though there is no doubt that the process used in the preparation of cobalt and smalt was invented about the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century, we have reason to ask whether the ancients were acquainted with cobalt, and if they employed it for colouring glass. They opened and worked mines in various parts; and it is at any rate possible that they may have found cobalt; they made many successful attempts to give different tints to glass[1472]; and they produced blue glass and blue enamel. They may have learned by an accident to make this glass, as they did to make brass; and they may have continued to make the former as long as their supply of coloured earth lasted. When the mineral failed them, they may have lost the art, in the same manner as the method of preparing Corinthian brass[1473] was lost for a considerable space of time. The use of cobalt does not imply a knowledge of its metal; for the moderns made brass and smalt for whole centuries, before they learned to prepare zinc and regulus of cobalt.

It seems, however, difficult to answer this question; for one can scarcely hope to discover cobalt with any certainty among those minerals mentioned by the ancients. They could describe minerals in no other manner than according to their exterior appearance, the country where they were found, or the use to which they applied them. Now there is no species more various and more changeable in its figure and colour than cobalt ore, which on this account shows the impossibility of distinguishing minerals with sufficient accuracy by external characteristics. Besides, there are scarcely two passages of the ancients which seem to allude to it; and these, when closely examined, give us little or no information.

The meaning of the term _cadmia_ is as various and uncertain as that of the word _cobalt_ was two centuries ago. It signified often calamine; sometimes furnace-dross; and perhaps, in later times, also arsenic; but, as far as I know, it was never applied to cobalt till mineralogists wished in modern times to find a Latin term for it[1474], and assumed that which did not belong properly to any other mineral. The well-known passage of Pliny[1475], in which Lehmann thinks he can with certainty distinguish cobalt, is so singular a medley that nothing to be depended on can be gathered from it. The author, it is true, where he treats of mineral pigments, seems to speak of a blue sand which produced different shades of blue paint, according as it was pounded coarser or finer. The palest powder was called _lomentum_; and this Lehmann considers as our powder-blue. I am however fully convinced that the _cyanus_ of Theophrastus, the _cæruleum_ of Pliny, and the _chrysocolla_[1476], were the blue copper earth often already mentioned, which may have been mixed and blended together. Besides, Pliny clearly adds to it an artificial colour, which in my opinion was made in the same manner as our lake; for he speaks of an earth, which when boiled with plants, acquired their blue colour, and which was in some measure inflammable. With these pigments walls were painted; but as many of them would not endure lime, they could be used only on those which were plastered with clay (_creta_). The expression _usus ad fenestras_ has been misapplied by Lehmann, as a strong proof of his assertion; for he explains it as if Pliny had said that a blue pigment was used for painting window-frames; but glass windows were at that time unknown. I suspect Pliny meant to say only that one kind of paint could not be employed near openings which afforded a passage to the light, as it soon decayed and lost its colour. This would have been the case in particular with lake in which there was a mixture of vegetable particles.

For my part, I find in this passage as few traces of smalt as M. Gmelin; and I agree with him in opinion that the strong and unpleasant mixtures arising from cobalt would, had it been known, have induced the ancients to make particular mention of it in their writings. Would not the arsenic, which is so often combined with cobalt, have given occasion to many reports respecting the dangerous properties of these minerals? And would not arsenic and bismuth have been sooner known, had preparations of cobalt been made at so early a period? It is a circumstance of great weight also, that in the places where the ancients had mines, and where antiquities painted or tinged blue, and resembling in colour that produced by cobalt, have been dug up, cobalt has not been discovered, or has been discovered only in modern times. At present we know nothing of Egyptian, Arabian, Ethiopian, Italian, and Cyprian cobalt; and in Spain[1477] this mineral was first found in the reign of Philip IV. I shall here observe, that the island of Cyprus was formerly so abundant in copper, that, in a mineralogical sense, it might be called the island of Venus; and we can therefore entertain the less doubt that the _cæruleum Cyprium_ was copper-blue.

The principal reason, however, why Lehmann, Pauw[1478], Ferber, Delaval, and others, think that the ancients used smalt, and were acquainted with cobalt, is that, as has been already said, various antiquities both of painting and enamel have been discovered, in which a blue appears that seems to give grounds for conjecturing that it was produced by cobalt. Ferber[1479] speaks of blue glass squares in mosaic-work; and Delaval mentions old Egyptian glass-work of this colour[1480]. It is well known also that the Chinese and people of Japan gave to their porcelain that fine blue colour, for which it is celebrated, long before the discovery of smalt in Europe. On mummies a blue is seen likewise, which, even after so many centuries, seems to have lost little or nothing of its beauty[1481]. We must therefore allow that the ancients used either ultramarine or cobalt.

The first opinion seems, in regard of porcelain, to be confirmed by Duhalde[1482], who speaks of a mine of _azur_, and relates that the Chinese, in modern times, use instead of it, for painting their porcelain, a blue colour brought from foreign countries. It is probable that by the former he means lapis lazuli, and by the latter smalt, which is sent in large quantities from Europe to China. The invention of ultramarine, however, appears to me too new, its effect on porcelain too uncertain, and its price too high to allow us to suppose that it has been much used. We should therefore have been almost obliged to adopt the latter opinion, had not M. Gmelin proved by chemical experiments[1483] that it is not only possible to give to glass and enamel a blue colour by means of iron, but that the before-mentioned antiquities, upon which so much stress has been laid, show not the smallest traces of cobalt. He even made experiments upon blue tiles, found in a Roman tessellated foot-pavement at Montbeillard; and likewise on the blue paint of the mummy which was presented to our university by the king of Denmark[1484]. He has also mentioned various articles on which a blue colour is produced by the vitrification of iron. Of this nature are in particular those slags found near the smelting-houses at the iron-mines of the Harz forest; and I myself have seen slags which were of a blue colour exceedingly beautiful. Volcanic slags, or scoriæ, found in the neighbourhood of Verona, Vicenza, and other parts of Italy, are mentioned also by Ferber[1485], which seems to confirm the conjecture of Dr. Bruckmann[1486], that the ancients may have used such slags for their works. It is probable that the ancients were first induced by the blue slag of their smelting-houses to make experiments on the colouring of glass with iron, and that in this art they acquired a dexterity not possessed at present, because it was abandoned by our ancestors after the invention of smalt, which is much more beautiful; and which can be used more easily and with more certainty. I cannot, however, deny that I have often lamented this loss when I saw the excellent blue in the painted windows at Gouda, Goslar, and other places; though its beauty is much heightened by the transparency of the glass, and the strong light that falls upon it from without.

I shall now proceed to the invention of the colour prepared from cobalt. About the end of the fifteenth century, cobalt appears to have been dug up in great quantity in the mines on the borders of Saxony and Bohemia, discovered not long before that period. As it was not known at first to what purpose it could be applied, it was thrown aside as a useless mineral. The miners had an aversion to it, not only because it gave them much fruitless labour, but because it often proved prejudicial to their health by the arsenical particles with which it was combined; and it appears even that the mineralogical name _cobalt_ then first took its rise. At any rate, I have never met with it before the beginning of the sixteenth century; and Mathesius and Agricola seem to have first used it in their writings. Frisch derives it from the Bohemian word _kow_, which signifies metal; but the conjecture that it was formed from _cobalus_, which was the name of a spirit that, according to the superstitious notions of the times, haunted mines, destroyed the labours of the miners, and often gave them a great deal of unnecessary trouble, is more probable; and there is reason to think that the latter is borrowed from the Greek. The miners, perhaps, gave this name to the mineral out of joke, because it thwarted them as much as the supposed spirit, by exciting false hopes and rendering their labour often fruitless[1487]. It was once customary, therefore, to introduce into the church service a prayer that God would preserve miners and their works from _kobolts_ and spirits.