Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-10-28
KNEW MORE THAN WE DO.
Mechanical aud Chemical Secrets of tn,
Ancients.

AncientS.
From the New York News
There are many things that the ancients
knew which are lost to the world despite
the fact that our boosted modern enter
prise has tried hard to recover the missing
Ink The chemists of old compounded
numerous drugs to which we are strangers,
and in the industrial arts there are evil
dences that in variety Of occupations
they were more skillful than we are.
In the letters of the Catholic priests who
first visited China, which were published
in France 200 years ago, they relate that
they were shown a glass, transparent and
colorless, which was filled with liquid
made by the Chinese, which to the OBJ
servers appeared to be as clear as water
This liquid was poured into the glass;
then, looking through it, it seemed to be
filled with fishes.
This was not owing to any popularity of
the fluid, but to the glass itself. The Chi
nese confessed that they did not make
them, but that they were the plumber of
some foreign conquest many centuries be-
fore.
The art of luminous painting was known
to the japanese 900 years ago, and an ex-
tract from one of their old writers has
been translated as follows:
One Su Ngoh many years ago had a
picture of an OK. Every day the OK left
the picture frame to Craze and returned to
sleep within it at night. This picture
came into the possession of the Emperor
Tai Tsung of the Sung dynasty ruling
from 976 to 99S, who showed it to his
courtiers and asked them for an explana-
ton, which none Of them, however, could
give.
At last certain Buddhist priest said
that the japanese found some nacreous
substance within the flesh of certain
kind of oyster they picked up when the
rocks were barred at low tide, and that
they ground this into color material and
then painted pictures with it shich were
invisible by day and luminous by night.
The secret simply was that during the
day the figure of an OK was not visible,
and it was therefore said that it left the
frame to go grazing.
Many instances of remarkable mechani-
cal ingenuity are related by various an
cient authors. In the year of 1873, the
twentieth of Queen Elizabeth's reign, one
Mark Scaliot, blacksmith, made lock
consisting of eleven pieces of iron, steel
and brass, with hollow key in it, that
altogether weighed but one grain of gold.
He also made gold chain, composed of
forty-three links, which he fastened to the
lock and key. In the presence of the
Queen he put the chain about the neck of
a flea, which drew it with ease, after
which he put the lock and key, flea and
chain, into pair of scales, and they alto
gether weighed but one grain and a half.
Myrmecides, an ancient carver, was also
so proficient in microscopic mechanism
that he made an ivory chariot with four
wheels, and as many harnessed horses, in
SO small compass that fly might have
hidden them all under his wings. The
same artisan made ship, with all her
decks, masts yards, rigging and sails, which
took up scarcely more room than the char
lot.
The silver sphere, "a most noble and
ingenious performance" which was pre-
scented to Sultan Solyman, the Magnificent,
by his Imperial Majesty Ferdinand, is
mentioned by Paulus Jovius as showing
and keeping time with the motions of the
celestial bodies in their various conhgura-
tions. 1t was carried to Constantinople by
twelve men, and there put together by the
artist that made it.
An artifcer named Cornelius Van
Drebble once made an instrument like an
organ that, being set in the open air under
a warm sun, would play airs of itself with
out the keys being touched, but would not
play in the shade. For this reason it is
supposed that it was inclosed air rarifed
by the sun that caused the harmony.
George Whitehead, an Englishman,
made a ship, with all things pertaining
to it, to move as if it sailed upon table.
"All hand were aloft, woman made good
music on the lutte, and little puppy cried
IN the midship, all of which variety"
quantity says an old author, "was very
pleasant and diverting."
The Damascus blades as marvels of
perfect steel have long been famous, and
even those used in the crusades are as
perfect to-day as they were eight centuries
ago. One on exhibition in London could
be put into a scabbard almost as crooked as
a cork-screw and bent every way without
breaking. The point of this sword could
be made to touch the hilt.
The poets have celebrated the perfec-
ton of the oriental steel, and many famous
writers have sung its praises. Scott, in his
''Talisman" describes meeting between
Richard Ceur de Lion and Saladin. Sal
adm asks Richard to show him the Won
derful strength for which he is noted, and
the Norman monarch responds by seyering
a bar of iron which lies on the floor of the
tent. Saladin says: 81 cannot do that"
but he takes an elder down pillow from a
couch, and drawing his keen blade across
it, it falls in two pieces. At this Richard
says: 'This is the black art-it is magic;
you cannot cut that which has no resist
ance."
Saladin, to show him such is not the
case, takes a scarf from his shoulders,
which is so light that it almost floats in
the air, and, tossing it up, sewers it before
it can descend. That SCOTS story is by
no means an exaggeration is proved by
traveller who relates that he once saw
man in Calcutta throw handful of floss
silk into the air and Hindoo sever it to
pieces with his saber.
D. cf