Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1873-03-15
CURIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC.

CURIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC.
THE OLD DYES. For the Egyptians,
color was a means Of recording history.
We find upon the stucco of their walls
their kings holding court, their armies
marching out, their craftsmen in the
ship-yard, with the ships floating in tn,
dock, and, in fact, we trace all then
rites and customs painted in undyinG
colors. The French, who went to
Egypt with Napoleon, said that all the
colors were perfect except the greenisl
white, which is the hardest for us. They
had no difficulty with the Tyrian pur.
pie. The burned city of Pompeii wa
a city of stucco All the houses al,
stucco outside, and it is stained Will
Tyrian purple-the royal color Of an
tiquity and the flaming hues are as
bright as if painted but yesterday
Come down from Titan, whose colors
are wonderfully and perfectly fresh, t,
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and although i1is
colors are not yet hundred years old,
they are fading the colors on his lips
are dying out, and the cheeks are losine
their tints. He did not know how t.
mix we'll. The French have theory
that there is a certain delicate shade o.
blue that Europeans can not see Rus
kin says that We can not initiate il
colors that would last for twenty year,
the magnificent scarlet in old illumin
ated missals, now five centuries old
! The Frenchman says &" | am the bes
dyer in Europe; nobody can equal me
and nobody can surpass Lyons Ye'
in Cashmere, where the girls max,
shawls worth thirty thousand dollars
they will show him three hundred dis,
tinct colors, which he not only canno,
make, but can not even distinguish.
ANCIENT MASTER ARTISANS. -.Takine
the metals, the Bible in its first chap
ters shows that man first conquere,
metals there in Asia, and on that spo
to-day he can work more wonders witt
those metals than We can. One of til,
surprises that the European artists re
ceived when the English Ilundered til,
summer palace of the King Of China
was the curiously wrought metal yes
sells every kind, far exceeding all til,
boosted skill of the workmen of En-
rope. English surgeons going to Indii
are advised to have their instruments
gilded because English steel can no.
bear the atmosphere. Yet the Damas.
Gus blades of the Crusades were no
gilded and they are as perfect as the,
were eight centuries ago. There wa
one at the London Exhibition, til,
point of which could be made to toucl
the hilt, and could be put into 4 scab
bard like a corkscrew, and bent ever,
way without breaking. Ii a LondoI
chronometer maker wants the best stee
to use in his chronometer, he does no
send TO Sheffield, the centre of al
science, but to the Punjaub, the empir,
Of the seven rivers, where there is nt
science at all. The first needle eveI
made in Europe was made in the tim
of Henry the VIII. and made by {
negro and when he died, the art dice
with him. Some of the first traveller
in Africa stated that they found trib,
in the interior who gave them bette
razors than they had. Scott, in "Tales
of the Crusaders describes meeting
between Richard Ceur de Liol
and Saladin. Saladin asks Richard t,
show him the wonderful strength fol
which he is famous, and the Norman
sovereign responds by seyering u ban
of iron which lies on the floor of his
tent. Saladin says, II can not do that,
but he takes an elder down pillow iron
the sofa, and, drawing his keen blad,
across it, it falls in two pieces. Richar,
says "This is the black art; it is
the devil you can not cut that whicl
has no resistence;" and Saladin, t.
show him that such is not the case,
takes from his shoulders Il scarf whicl
is SO light that it almost floats in til,
air, and, tossing it up, sewers it befor,
it can descend. George Thompson
states that he saw a man in Calcutta
throw q handful of floss silk into the
air, and Hindoo sever it into piece,
with his saber. We can produce no
thing like this.
CANALs.-The Suez Canal absorb,
half its receipts in cleaning out tn,
sand which fills it annually, and it is
not yet known whether it is pecuniar,,
success. The ancients built canal
right angles to ours, because they knew
it would not fl up II built up in that
direction, and they knew such q one as
ours would. There were magnificent
canals in the land of the Jews, with
perfectly arranged gates and sluices.
We have only just begun to under
stand ventilation properly for our
houses; yet late experiments at the
Pyramids in Egypt show that those
Egyptian tcmbs we're ventilated in the
most perfect and scientific manner;