BECKMANN’S
HISTORY OF INVENTIONS,
DISCOVERIES, AND ORIGINS.
“Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every
variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness
to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things
might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for
reading.... Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and
you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you
put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him
in contact with the best society in every period of history,--with
the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest
characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all
nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for
him.”--SIR JOHN HERSCHEL. _Address on the opening of the Eton Library_,
1833.
[Illustration:
_Lud. Schmidt._ _J. J. Hinchliff._
_John Beckmann._]
A
HISTORY
OF
INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES,
AND ORIGINS.
BY JOHN BECKMANN,
PROFESSOR OF ŒCONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN,
BY WILLIAM JOHNSTON.
Fourth Edition,
CAREFULLY REVISED AND ENLARGED BY
WILLIAM FRANCIS, Ph.D., F.L.S.,
EDITOR OF THE CHEMICAL GAZETTE;
AND
J. W. GRIFFITH, M.D., F.L.S.,
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS.