The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1861-03-04
Il there any New Thins under ,he On. !

|
Nearly three thousand yeare ago, so.oxo,
satd "thsre 10 nothing new under the sun. 10,
The thing which hath been is that which shall
be, and that which 10 done, is that which
shall be done. The complacency of the 10th
century lie apt to ignore this judgment Of the
Hebrew sage, or TO allow II only a partial an.
plieation, restricting It In fact to the moral
world. We are prone TO believe that IL EN-
braced much more than We apt to imagine
For instance, the art of print is regarded
as an invention entirely modern. And 40 in
deed it Ia. in SO far as an art formerly known.
afterwards utterly lost, and revived without
any knowledge of its prey ious existence an
the part Of the person reviving IL. NAV Ia
considered an Invention Of that person ana
50 we certainly regard it. Yet Drsg.RI1. tho
elder, in his "Curiosities of Literature ),
stontly main tains that the Romans wer. nc.
qaainted with the art of printing, and that
'ney Intentionally prevented il from being
practscd Rome is often appealed to Az
| tue example OF n republic In pont of
iaet, the Roman Commonwealth seems TO
| us 70 nave been the most thorough oil
garchy that ever existed, except, perhaps,
| the Nenitan. The rulers had no notion of
ahowing to be practised an art which they
| han tue wisdom to foresee would disseminate
among the people independent opinions on lite
| nature, science, and, what they feared most Of
| ali, government. They We're aristocratic In
| all Things. They desired to retain a monopo-
| ~ OF ideas, as well as of corn, wine and oil
hey knew too well the basis of their own
! power, TO subject ii 10 the nc ton OF any such
disturbing element. In this respect they
showed far more wisdom than the French
Bouroons one century ago, who allowed the
| press to flourish in full freedom, while they
governed as despotically as AUGUSTUS or Tt
| BRKIus. How long could either of these last
have kept their ground, against free press,
| with some PLISr or TAUIrus laundering every
| morning against the corruption Of the times
III, however, the Romans understood we'll
| enough the power of the prin ting press, and
| restrained ii to suit the purposes of an oil
garchy, they seem to have utterly overlooked
The power of gunpowder. That they knew of
| III, Is evident from many passages in ancient
authors, among them some from the grea Ro-
| man engineer E1rRrvIrs, who was Il coniem-
! porary OF julius CESAR, and wrote under At
drsTrs. Had he taken al enlarged view Of
| the phenomena connected with the subject
what Il change he might have produced in the
history Of the world. Imagine the great Ro-
man General taking the field with several
!
ing his heavy guns TO bear upon the eighty
fortresses which he demolis he'd with his bat
tering rams, breaking the ranks OF PoMPRY At
Pharsalia, with the concent ira ted fire of 4
powerful park, instead of sending his yeter
ans to cut the dainty young horsemen of Rome
in their faces, thus spelling their pretty looks,
and blasting forever their hopes of wealthy
marriages. But, in his hands, and in the
hands pf RI
to nothing more than a chief agency in the
exhibition of works and crackers They
had the thing i'll their hands, fifteen centuries |
before ROGER BACON lived, and they knew not |
what to make of 1t, although they were con- |
tinually strainng their invention to fashion |
Irresistible artillery. They remind us of those |
Egyptian explorers who were trying for years
to find the site of Lake Morris, and knew not
that they were standing on the very ground
which 1t covered, until LRPsfUs came, and
everything became apparent at glance.
Two hundred and seventeen years before the
birth of Christ the year before the battle of
Gamma, and the very year of the battle Of
Thrasymene, HERO of Alexandria astonished
the Court of the Ptolemiee, by exhibiting
light balls dancing in Jet of steam. He did
more He invented an apparatus, consisting
of small sphere, which was moved on piyots
by the action of steam generated in n heated
boiler! Here was 4 locomotive! A very print
tive sort OF locomotive II must be owned but
to all intents and purposes a loco motive -
This HERO wrote among other things a book
on pneumatlcs, in which he treats of the
power OF steam, and he is the only ancient
author who speaks of it in connection with
science. The absurd notion then prevailed
mat 1t was degradation to philosophy to APP
ply 1t to any useful object. This, no doubt, |
WAS the cause of its not having been men ton
sd ny writers; for ii is certain that it's power |
rs an agent was we'll known. GIBBoH, who |
lVed on the eve OF the great discoveries in re-
'pect 10 steam, but who had never seen n |
steamboat. or heard of a locomotive, speaks
d us use In the defence of some city, we for
get what, at least as early rs the 4th century.
Europeans are wont to think that acu- pune c
lure il a modern discovery in surgery. 1t
was known to the Chinese ut leas thousand i,
years ago, and is described in their most
ancient medical works. The mora, a species
II actual cautery, is generally supposed be
Chinese invention domes ticated Of late years y
n Europe. Its name is Chinese, and, in the t.
original, signifies the dried plant used in o
he process. Now, if anybody Will take the
rouble to consult the book of HERoporUs in -
which the manners and Gus toms of the Libyans +
re trea ted of, heSTill find the whole process =
1actly described. These uomadic tribes tied
redsy wool to the temples Of their children, r
md set fire to it. They imagined that by -
urniEg holes i'll their heads they could effec- n
ually guard them against the danger Of taking q
old. The Romans and Greeks We're far better =
cquainted with the properties of drugs which 4
end TO produce sleep and insensibility TO i
ain, than the moderns We're, until at least 7
within the last thirty years. They used al
he mandragora, which several of their g.
writer's tell us rendered 4 man insensible d
D the pain of a surgical operation In a
he middle ages the Crusaders brought the T.
aSheest to Europe. BoccAoIo speaks Of a E
rench surgeon who employed soporiHcs to T.
eaden the sensibilities when he was about to
perate PARAc.LsUs an ticipated HAHSRMAS's =
ystem, AyICRSEA admins tered infnitesmal "A
oses on the HON u4opathc system and the phi at
,sopher DgsCARTRs killed himself by prac NJ
sing upon it, Even the kindred system of y
the mere bathing which is Of
3 old as the world but the intricaces of :
REIsNITz-has a Heather origin 1t was
ractised on the Emperor ACGrsrUs with III
gnal benefit, and MUsA AEToNIUs, who prac- 80
sed it, was rewarded by brazen statue. and :
princely fee. He tried the same system of | :
lARcELLrs-the son OF the Emperor's sister. Is
no Is the subject of one of the most beauti- he
IL passages In the Aeneid-but unfortunate az
,, 1t htIed him. He WAS chilIad hv thu =