The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-03
FAMOUS LOST SECRETS
EGYPTIAN METHOD OF EMBALM-
 ING STILL A MYSTERY.
Secret of Making Diamonds Gone--Ancient Cement Cam.
 Not Be Reproduced.

0one~-AuC1euv Cemeut van. Not Be Reproduced.
 Denver Times:
 Taking into consideration the mar vicious strides we have made in almost every branch of knowledge during the
 last 200 or 300 years. 1t seems exceed
 ingly strange that our forefathers 1 should have been able to do things which we find impossible or next door
 to impossible. and that we cannot dis cover secrets which were almost com mon knowledge hundreds upon hun- dreds of years ago. But. despite the l fact that the average modern man
 knows more than did the learned men l of long ago. tLere are mysteries "f knowledge and science which our most l advanced scientists cannot solve. Thousands of years ago for instance the Egyptians used to enbalm the bodies of their dead kings and nobility | so perfectly that the bodies are in wonderful preservation today. as may be seen at the British museum. Clever | as we are in this age. we cannot do
 the same. The valuable secret is lost,
 and modern science cannot recover the
 lost knowledge. We can. of course. and do embalm bodies. but only for | tivelv speaking, In a most unsatis- | factory manner. Bodies which are em- balmed nowadays will not be preserved | for more than a few years at most; | very many of the bodies of the Egypt | ians embalmed. before the birth of | Christ are still 50 perfect that the lines of their faces are still as clearly l marked as when they were first eni- | balmed.
 | Shefield turns out the finest. hardest
 and most perfect steel the world pro- duce a sword blade to compare with | those the Saracens made and used hundreds of years ago, and the Sara cens 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 l tune awaits the man who discovers l the secret which enabled the Sara cens 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 dozen different methods of making artificial diamonds. but none of the stones produced by these meth | oda can compare with those of old | French paste, the secret of which Is | lost. So perfect were paste diamonds | that 1t was difficult for even person with expert knowledge of diamonds to ] tell that they were arttficially pro- duced. whereas most of the modern artificial diamonds can easily be de- | tected. and their durability is nothing
 like 90 great as the old paste diamonos: | indeed. good paste diamonds are now | almost as valuable as real diamonds Probably not one out of every ten l thousand buildings standing In all parts of the world and built by mod. | ern masons. will still be standing 5O9 years hence. We do not know how to put stone and bricks together aS the | ancients did. and consequently the | buildings we raise nowadays are really
 mere temporary structures, and VIII be in ruins when the ancient build- ings of Greece and Italy, which were | built thousands of years ago, are In I as good condition as they are now. | The secret is not in the 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 ana
 mortar are the weakest points; in | buildings in which tht Romans anc | Greeks raised thousands of years ago l the cement and mortar are the strong | est points, and hold good While the l | ble away with age. We cannot. with all our science. make such cement and | mortar, and, therefore, we cannot onilo l such buildings as the ancients raised. l Chemistry. one might imagine. Is the
 science which has, perhaps, made the greatest strides during the last i've or six decades. Yet modern chemistry cannot compound such dyes as were commonly used when the great na' tions of today were still unborn. NOV and again 1t happens that searchers after antiquities come across fragments | of fabrics which were dyed thousands of years ago, and they are astonishec by tho wonderful richness of the col ors of the cloths. which, despite their age, are brighter and purer than any
 thing we can produce.
 Modern artists buy their colors ready
 made and spend large sums on pig
 ments with which to color their can
 vases. The pictures Sf modern ar
 lists will be colorless when many ol
 the works of ancient masters are as
 bright as they are Today. Just as th'
 secret of dyeing has been lost, so hal
 the secret of preserving the colors o
 artists paints. Yet the secret wal
 known to every ancient artist. fol
 they all mixed their own colors.
 How to make durable ink is anothel
 great secret we have lost LOOK
 any letter five or ten years old. anc you will probably notice that the WIT.
 ing has faded to brown color ana !
 very ind!stinct. Go to any big museum
 and you will find ancient MSS, tn
 writing of which is as black and dis
 ttnct as If the MSS. were written tn
 day before yesterday.
 The secret of glass blowing and tint
 inr Is not vet entirely lost. There ar
 still a few men who can produce glas
 work equal to the things of this Kim
 which the ancients turned out hun
 dreds of years ago. But the averaG
 glass manufacturer cannot pToduc
 anything that could at all compar
 with some of tho commoner article
 the Egyptians, and later. the founder
 of Venice manufactured; and thos
 who still hold the ancient secret guar
 1t so closely that 1t will probably al
 with them and be added to the lon
 list of things in which our ancestor
 beat us hollow.