The Dickinson press., 1889-11-09
KNEW MORE THAN WE DO.
MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL Sc
cRErS OF THE ANclENTs,

lherc are many things that the %ancients
knew which is lost to the world despite
the fact that our boasted modern enter
prise has tried hard 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 arc evidences that in q variety Of
occupations they We're 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, slooking
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
plumber of some foreign conquest many
centuries before.
MYSTERY OF THE OK.
The art of luminous painting was
known to the Japanese 900 years ago, and
an extract from n of their old writer's
has been translated rs 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
camo 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.
AT last n certain Buddhist priest said
that the Japanese found some n~acreous
substance within the flesh of a certain
kind of oyster they picked up when the
rocks we're 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 wa that during the
day the figure of an o. 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 1878,
the twentieth Of Queen Elizabcth's reign,
IL 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
gold. He also made a gold chain, com
posed of forty-three links, which he fast
ened to the lock and key. In the pres
ence of the queen lie put the chain about
the neck of n flea, which drew it with
ease, after which he put tho lock and
key, flea and chain into a pair of scales,
and they altogether weighed but one
grain and a half.
Myrmecidcs. 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 SO small a compass that a fly
might have hidden them all under it's
wings. The same artisan made a shin
with all her decks, masts, yards, rigging
and sails, which took up scarcely more
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 mentionedby Paulus Jovius as showing
and keeping time with tho motions of
the celestial bodies in their various on
1t was carried to CONSTANT
nople by twelve men and there put to-
gether by the artist that made it.
DIMINUTIvE MECHANISM.
An artiticer named Cornelius Van
Drebble onc 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 not play in the shade. For
this reason it is supposed that it was in
closed air rarified by the sun that caused
the harmony.
George Whitehead, an Englishman,
made a ship, with all things pertaining
to it, to move us if it sailed upon a table.
Cali hands were aloft, a woman made
good music on the lutte, and little puppy
cried in the midship. all of which a
riety," quantity says an oldauthor. "was
very pleasant and diverting."
The Damascus blades as marvels of
perfect steel have long been famous, and
v 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 a corkscrew and bent every
way without breaking. The point Of this
sword could be made to touch the hilt.
The poets have celebrated tho perfec.
ton of the oriental steel, and many IA
nous writers have sung its praises.
Scott, in his Craftsman" describes a
meeting between Richard Occur 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 Oh the floor of the tent. Sala-
din says: ~ cannot do that" but he
takes an cider down pillow from a couch.
and, drawing his keen blade across it, ii
falls i'll 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 a scarf from his shoulders
which is so light that it almost floats in
tie air. and, tossing it up, sewers it be.
fore it can descend. That SCOTS story
is by no e an exaggeration is proved
by a traveller who relates that ho once
saw a man in Calcutta throw a handful
Of floss silk into the air and a Hindoo
sever it to pieces with his saber.-New
York News.
Turtle and Bear.
A man at Covington. Pa, who was
~fattening a twenty pound swapping tur-
tie, was aroused early one morning by
the noise Of a scufae in his yard. Re-
pairing there he found the turtle hang
ing to the nose of q 800 pound bear.
Bruin was nea the fence, endeavoring
to get over, but his efforts were inter-
fered with by the turtle. Eventually