[140] Georg. iv. 171.
[141] Lib. vii.
[142] Epist. 90.
[143] Lib. i. 8.
[144] A complete description and a figure of these bellows may be found
in Schluter’s Unterricht von Hütten-werken. Brunswick, 1738.--Traité de
la fonte des mines par le feu du charbon de terre; par M. de Genssane.
Paris, 1770, 2 vols. 4to. [Ure’s Dictionary, p. 1128, also contains an
excellent figure of these wooden bellows.]
[145] “Germany is the country of machines. In general the Germans
lessen manual labour considerably by machines adapted to every kind
of movement; not that we are destitute of able mechanics; we have
the talent of bringing to perfection the machines invented by our
neighbours.”--P. 200. [This remark of Grignon will sound rather odd to
English ears.]
[146] Becher’s Narrische Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfort, 1683,
12mo, p. 113.
[147] In this dissertation, the time of the invention is stated to
be about forty years before, which would be the year 1629 or 1630;
but in an improved edition, printed with additions at Hamburg, in
1725, a different period is given. “About eighty years ago,” says
the author, “a new kind of bellows, which ought rather to be called
the pneumatic chests, was invented in the village of Schmalebuche,
in the principality of Coburg, in Franconia. Two brothers, millers
in that village, Martin and Nicholas Schelhorn, by means of some box
made by them, the lid of which fitted very exactly, found out these
chests, as I was told by one of their friends, a man worthy of credit.
These chests are not of leather, but entirely of wood joined together
with iron nails. In blacksmiths’ shops they are preferred to those
constructed with leather, because they emit a stronger blast, as
leather suffers the more subtile part of the air to escape through its
pores.”
[148] In many places these bellows were at first put in a wooden case,
to prevent their construction from being known.
[149] In J. P. Ludewig, Scriptores Rerum Episcopatus Bambergensis.
Francof. 1718, fol. Where any bishop of latter times is praised, I find
no mention of this useful and ingenious invention.