The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1901-07-17
Famous Lost Secrets.


every branch of knowledge during the
last two or three hundred years, it
seems exceedingly strange that our
forefathers should have been able to
do things which we find impossible,
or next door TO impossible, and that
we cannot discover secrets which we're
almost common knowledge hundreds
upon hundreds of years ago. But,
despite the fact that the average mod.
ern man knows more than did the
learned men of long ago, there are
mysteries Of knowledge and science
which our most advanced scientists
cannot solve.
Thousands Of years ago, for n
stance: the Egyptians nsed 20 emhs!:n
the bodies of their dead Kings and
nobility 80 perfectly that the bodies
are in wonderful preservation to-day,
as may be seen atthe British Museum.
Clever as Nc are i'll this age, We can
not do the same. The valuable secret
is lost, and modern science cannot re-
cover the lost knowledge. We can, of
course, and we do, embalm bodies, but
only for temporary preservation, and,
comparatively speaking, in most un-
satisfactory manner. Bodies which
are embalmed nowadays will not be
preserved for more than few years
at most; very many of the bodies the
Egyptians embalmed before the birth
OF Christ are still so perfect that lines
Of their faces are still as clearly mark
ed as when they were FIRST embalmed.
Sheffield turns out the finest, hard
est and most perfect steel the world
produces, but even Sheffield cannot
produce sword blade to compare with
those the Saracens made and used
hundreds Of years ago, and the Sara
Gems never possessed the machinery
we have, nor had the advantage of
knowing so much about metals as we
are supposed to know. A huge for.
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the secret which enabled the Saracens
to make sword blades so keen and
hard that they could cut in two most
OF the swords used in our army to-day.
There are g dozen different methods
Of making artificial diamonds. but
zone of the stones produced by these
methods can compare with those made
of old French paste, the secret Of
which is lost. So perfect were paste
diamonds that it was difficult for even
a person with expert knowledge of dia-
monds to tell that they were artificial
ly produced, whereas most Of the
modern artificial diamonds can easily
be detected, and their durability is
nothing like 80 great as the old paste
diamonds; indeed, good paste diamonds
are now almost as valuable as real dia-
monds.
Probably not one out Of every ten
thousand buildings standing in all
parts Of the world and built by modern
masons will still be standing five hun
dred years hence. We do not know
how to put stones and bricks together
as the ancients did and consequently
tho buildings we raise nowadays are
really mere temporary structures and
will be ruins when the ancient build
ings Of Greece and Italy, which were
built thousands of years ago, are in
as good condition as they are no v.
The secret is not in bricks or the
stone, but in the cement and mortar,
neither of which essentials can we
make as the ancients made them.
in modern buildings the cement and
mortar are the weakest points; in
buildings which the Romans and
Greeks raised thousands of years ago
the cement and mortar are the strong
est puints and hold good while the
very stones they bind together orum-
BILE away with age. We cannot, with
all our science, make such cement and
mortar aud, therefore, we cannot build
such buildings as the anoients raised.
Chemistry, one might imagine, is
the science which has, perhaps, made
the greatest strides during the lest
five or six decades. Yet modern
chemists cannot compound sush dyes
as were commonly used when the great
nations Of to-day were still unborn.
Now and again it happens that search
ers after antiquities come across frag-
ments Of fabrics which we're dyed
thousands of years ago and they are
astonished by the wonderful richness
Of the colors of the cloths, which
despite their age, are brighter and