The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1889-11-22
KNEW MORE THAN WE DO.
MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL Sc
CRETS OF THE ANClENTS.

hh
There are many things that the ancients
knew which is lost to the world despite
the fact that our boasted modern enter
prise has tried lard to recover the miss
ing link. The chemists of old COM
pounded numerous drugs, to which we
are strangers, and in the industrial arts
there are evidences that in a 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 a liquid made by the Chinese,
which to the observers 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
Chinese confessed that they did not
make them, but that they were the
DlllllutI VI sOlliC IOICi5U NOlIjAtSI many
centuries before.
MYSTERY OF H OK.
The art of luminous painting vas
known to the japanese 900 years ago, and
an extract 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 expla-
nation. which none of them, however,
could give.
Al last a certain Buddhist priest said
that the japanese found some nacreous
substance within the flesh of n 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 which 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 me-
chanical ingenuity are related by vari-
Gus ancient authors. In the year 1913,
the twentieth of Queen Elizabeth's reign,
one Mark Scaliot, a blacksmith, made a
lock consisting of eleven pieces of iron,
steel and brass, with a hollow key in it,
that altogether weighed but one grain of
-1lJ IL H. ,,n11 n 1r-I1 iii, ~,
posed of forty-three links, which he fast
ened TO the lock and key. In the pres
ence 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 a pair of scales,
and they altogether weighed but one
grain and a half.
Myrmecides, an ancient carver, was
also so proficient in microscopic mechan-
ism that he made an ivory chariot with
four wheels, and as many harnessed
horses. in o small a compass that a fly
might have hidden them all under its
wings. The same artisan made a ship
with all her decks, masts, yards, rigging
and sails, which took up scarcely more
room than the chariot.
The silver sphere, "a most noble and
ingenious performance" which was pre-
sented to Sultan Solyman the Magnif-
cent 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 con-
figurations. 1t was carried to C~onstanti-
nople by twelve men and there put to
gether by the artist that made it.
DMISUTIvE MECHANISM.
An a~rtificer 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 without the keys being touched,
but would lot play in the shade. For
this reason it is supposed that it was in
closed air rariiied 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 q table.
"All hands We're aloft, a woman made
good music on the Lutte, and a little puppy
cried in the midship, all of which va
riety," quantity says an oldauthor, twas
very pleasant and diverting."
The Damascus blades as maryeIs of
perfect steel have long been famous, and
even those used in the crusades are as
perfect today as they were eight centu-
ries ago. One on exhibition in London
could be put into a scabbard almost as
crooked as q corkscrew 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 ia
nous writer's have sung its praises.
Scott, in his "Talisman," describes a
meeting between Richard Coeur de Lion
and Saladin. Saladin asks Richard to
show him the wonderful strength for
which he is noted, and the Norman mon
arch responds by severing a bar of iron
which lies on the floor of the tent. Sala-
din says: Il 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 that such is not
the case, takes q scarf from his shoulders
which is 80 light that it almost floats in
the air, and, tossing it up, sewers it be-
fore it can descend. That SCOTS story
is by no means an exaggeration is proved
by a traveller who relates that he once
say a man in Calcutta throw a handful