Omaha daily bee., 1909-01-31
TREASURES OF OBLIVION
Present Century Would Win Mans
Gratitude Could II RedIscOvcr
Forgotten Arts.

The nineteenth century was distinctively
a century Of invention. Whether the TWEEN
tieth is destined to rival it by making dis
coveries that will rank with steam, cleo
tricity. wireless telegraphy, the harvester,
the linotype machine and the typewriter,
1t Is now too soon to say. 1t is safe, how
ever, to predict that il by any series of
fortunate chances 1t should earn the right
to be called a century of re-discovery. it
would win the gratitude of posterity and
fortune as we'll as fame would be the por-
ton of men who might reclaim for man
kind some remarkable secrets that were
we'll known to the civilized world many
centuries ago.
In the great storehouse Of oblivion there
are thousands of bits of knowledge that
were possessed by many men when the
world was much younger than 1t is today;
but these have been so thoroughly forgot
ten by mankind that they are now re-
ferred to as lost secrets, as difficult of re-
discovery as those that Turk in the mys-
teal notes Of a stradivarius violin.
Sheffield turns out the finest. hardest and
most perfect steel the world produces, but
even Sheffield cannot turn out a sword
blade to compare with those the Saracens
made and used hundreds Of years ago.
despite the fact that the Saracens never
HOSSeSStu SuCn machinery as ours nor Udu
the advantage of modern knowledge of the
metals.
A big fortune awaits the man who dis
covers the secret that enabled the Sara-
Gems to make sword blades so keen and
hard that they could cut in two most of
the swords used In our army today,
Probably not one out of every Zoo build
ings standing In all parts of the world and
built by modern masons will be standing
500 years hence. We do not know how to
put stones and bricks together as the an
clients did. and consequently the buildings
we raise nowadays are really mere tenn
porary structures and will be in ruins when
the ancient buildings of Greece and italy,
built thousands of years ago, are in 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 and
mortar are the weakest points; in the build
ings which the Romans and Greeks raised
thousands of years ago the cement and
mortar are the strongest points. and hold
good while the very stones they bind to-
gether crumble away with. age. With all
our science we can not make such cement
and mortar. and therefore we cannot con-
struct sich buildings as the ancients raised.
Chemistry. one might imagine. 's -"
science which has, perhe0s. made ~"
greatest strides during the last five or six
decades. Yet modern chemists cannot com
pound such dyes as were formerly USED
when the great nations of today were Ftill
unborn. Now and again It n~anpens that
searchers after antiquities come across
fragments Of fabrics which were dyed
than.an1a ~ Nearq am and tHaU ara rs
tonished by the wonderful richness Of the
colors. which. despite thar age, are
brighter and purer than anything of the
modern kind.
Present day artists buy their colors ready
made and spend large SUM Of money on
pigments with which to color their cam
vases. The pictures of modern artists will
be c~olorless when many of the works OF
old masters are as bright as they show
today. Just as the secret of dyeing has
been lost. so has the secret of preserving
the choice Of artists paints. Yet this
secret was known to every ancient painter,
for all OF them mixed the'r own colors.
The question Of mailing durable ink f.
al other that perplexes the manufacturers
Of today. Observe closely any letter five
or ten years old and one will notice that
in all probability the writing has faded to
a brown color and is very indistinct, Go
to any large museum and there will be
seen ancient manuscripts the writing of
which Is as black and distinct as If It had
been done the day before yesterday.
The secret OF glass blowing and tlntins
Is not vet entirely lost. inasmuch as there
are still a few men who can produce glass
work equal to that which the ancients
turned out hundreds OF years ago. Never
theless the average glass manufacturers
cannot produce an article that at all COM
pares with some of the articles
the Egyptians and. later. the founders Of
Venice manufactured, Those who still hold
the ancient secret guard Il so clc sely that
Il will probably die with them and so be
added TO the long list OF things IN whlcn
our ancestors excelled US TO a remarkable
degTee.-Philadelphia Record.