The Adair County news., 1913-07-23
ANCIENT SECRETS.
Priceless Recipes That Are Now
Lost to the World.
COLORS OF THE OLD MASTERS.

They Are the Envy and the Despair of
Modern Artists, to Whom Their
Composition Is a Mystery-Greek
Fire and Roman Mortar.
Numerous are the trade secrets hand
ed down generation by generation
from father to son, and vast is the
capital made out of some Of them in
the commercial world of today.
Particularly, perhaps, is this the case
among the numerous manufacturers of
piquant sauces and the countless vend-
ers of patent medicines.
But there is also, it must be remem-
bered, another side to the case. Many,
alas, are the priceless trade secrets
buried far down below the moldering
dust of the misty past and lost to the
world, perchance never again to be re-
covered.
To cite the first example that occurs
to the mind of the writer, for instance,
what would Royal academician of the
present day give to be possessed of the
secret held by the old masters-Ra-
phael, Rubens, Correggio, Van Dyck
and their compression mixing their
colors so as to render them imperish-
able and impervious to the ravage Of
time?
The red colors especially Of these
artists Of a bygone epoch are every
whit as bright now as they were
three long centuries ago. On the
contrary, the colors Of pictures paint
ed only 100 years ago have lost their
luster and are faded and decayed to
a deplorable extent
Again, in the world Of music, the
manufacturers Of violins-old masters,
as one may justifiably term them, in
another branch Of art-treasured a
recipe for yarnish that sank into the
wood Of their incompatible instru-
ments and mellowed it as well Is pre-
served it.
With such extreme, relentless jeal-
ousy, however, did they guard their
great secret that ii, too, is lost, to all
appearances, irretrievably.
Rather more than 100 years ago
there lived in quaint, old world vii
lage in Wales a working blacksmith
who had managed by some means or
other to bring the welding of steel to
such a pitch of perfection that the
joint was absolutely invisible and the
temper Of the steel as fine as on the
day it left the testers hands. By his
process he was able to join the very
finest of sword blades, and after he
had finished with them they were alb
solutely as good and as sound as when
they had left the factory.
The blacksmith's fame spread far
and wide, and, naturally enough, he at
tanned a great reputation, but he made
point of invariably working in soil
tude. He was offered large and tempt
ing sums to divulge his secret, but
kept it obstinately to himself, and
when his span Of life had run its
course he took it with him to another
world.
The ancient Greeks had a substance
which we call Greek fire and which
they used in naval warfare.
4hCIA HCIuOu VI II was
simply this-to throw the substance
upon the surface Of the water, where
it famed up and set fire to the ships
of the enemy. What was it?
The only known substance of the
present day that would do this is the
| metal potassium, but to set fire to a
| ship in the manner described would
necessitate the use of at least half a
| ton of the metal Where did the
Greeks obtain the substance they used
| with such effect? Or how did they
make it? If Greek fire was potassium
the secret of the process is another
that must be numbered with the lost.
The man who could disinter the
buried recipe for Roman mortar would
be bowed down to and wOrshiped by
the builders of the present day. How
they made it is profound secret and
bids fair to remain so.
The mortar is as firm now as it was
1000 years ago. 1t has calmly scoffed
at the ravages of time and weather.
The above are but a few-a very
few-of the lost and buried secrets of
antiquity which modern scientists and
mechanicians would give much to
learn.-London Answers.