[639] Virgil. Georg. lib. i. v. 144. Pontoppidan says, “Before the
middle of the sixteenth century all trunks were hewn and split with the
axe into two planks; whereas at present they would give seven or eight
boards. This is still done in some places where there are no saw-mills
in the neighbourhood; especially at Sudenoer and Amte Nordland, where
a great many boats and sloops are built of such hewn boards, which are
twice as strong as those sawn; but they consume too many trunks.” See
Natürliche Historie von Norwegen. Copenhagen, 1753, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p.
244.
[640] De Garcilasso de la Vega, Histoire des Incas.
[641] Lib. vii. 1. cap. 56.
[642] Epist. 90.
[643] Diodor. Sicul. iv. cap. 78.
[644] Apollodori Bibl. lib. iii. cap. 16.
[645] Those who are desirous of seeing the whole account may consult
Diodorus, or Banier’s Mythology, [or Keightley’s Mythology of Ancient
Greece and Italy, p. 398, Lond. 1838.]
[646] Hygin. Fab. 39, 244, 274.
[647] Ad Georg. i. 143.
[648] Mythographi, ed. Van Staveren, lib. iii. 2, p. 708.
[649] In Mythogr. et in Ovid. Burm. lib. viii. fab. 3.
[650] Orig. lib. xix. cap. 19.
[651] Chiliad. i. 493.
[652] Metamorph. lib. viii. 244. The following line from the Ibis, ver.
500, alludes to the same circumstance:
“Ut cui causa necis serra reperta fuit.”
[653] See Cadomosto’s Voyage to Africa, in Novi Orbis Navigat. cap. 6.
This account is not so ridiculous as that of Olaus Magnus, who says
that the saw-fish can with his snout bore through a ship. [There are
however many well-authenticated instances of the planks of ships being
perforated by the upper jaw of this powerful animal, which it has been
supposed occasionally attacks the hulls of vessels in mistake for the
whale.]
[654] Le Pitture antiche d’Ercolano, vol. i. tav. 34.
[655] That cramps or hold-fasts are still formed in the same manner as
those seen in the ancient painting found at Herculaneum, particularly
when fine inlaid works are made, is proved by the figure in Roubo,
l’Art du Menuisier, tab. xi. fig. 4, and xii. fig. 15.
[656] L’Antiquité Expliquée, vol. iii. pl. 189.
[657] Pallad. De Re Rust. lib. i. tit. 43.--Cicero, in his oration for
Cluentius, chap. lxiv., speaks of an ingenious saw, with which a thief
sawed out the bottom of a chest.
[658] Ausonii Mosella, v. 361.
[659] Plin. lib. xxxvi. cap. 6.
[660] Vitruv. lib. ii. cap. 8.
[661] Plin. lib. xxxvi. cap. 22.
[662] See Jannon de S. Laurent’s treatise on the cut stones of the
ancients, in Saggi di Dissertazioni nella Acad. Etrusca di Cortona,
tom. vi. p. 56.
[663] “Saw-mills are useful machines, first introduced in this
century; and I do not know any one who can properly be called the real
inventor.”--Närrische Weisheit. Frankf. 1683, 12mo, p. 78.
[664] In that excellent work, Kunst-und-handwerks Geschichte der Stadt
Augsburg, 1779, 8vo, p. 141.
[665] This we are told by Abraham Peritsol, the Jew, in Itinera Mundi,
printed with the learned annotations of Thomas Hyde, in Ugolini
Thesaur. Antiq. Sacr. vol. vii. p. 103. Peritsol wrote before the year
1547.
[666] Nic. Cragii Historia regis Christiani III. Hafniæ 1737, fol. p.
293. See also Pontoppidan’s History of Norway.
[667] Allgemeine Welthistorie, xxxiii. p. 227.
[668] The account of this journey may be found in Hardwicke’s
Miscellaneous State Papers, from 1501 to 1726, i. p. 71:--“The saw-mill
is driven with an upright wheel; and the water that maketh it go, is
gathered whole into a narrow trough, which delivereth the same water to
the wheels. This wheel hath a piece of timber put to the axle-tree end,
like the handle of a broch, and fastened to the end of the saw, which
being turned with the force of the water, hoisteth up and down the saw,
that it continually eateth in, and the handle of the same is kept in a
rigall of wood from swerving. Also the timber lieth as it were upon a
ladder, which is brought by little and little to the saw with another
vice.”
[669] Hercules Prodicus. Coloniæ 1609, 8vo, p. 95.
[670] Leupoldi Theatrum Machinarum Molarium. Leipzig, 1735, fol. p.
114. I shall here take occasion to remark, that in the sixteenth
century there were boring-mills driven by water. Felix Fabri, in his
Historia Suevorum, p. 81, says that there were such mills at Ulm.
[671] De Koophandel van Amsterdam. Amst. 1727, ii. p. 583.
[672] La Richesse de la Hollande. Lond. 1778, 4to, i. p. 259.
[673] Clason, Sweriges Handel Omskiften 1751.
[674] Anderson’s History of Commerce.
[675] Houghton’s Husbandry and Trade Improved, Lond. 1727, iii. p. 47.
[676] Memoirs of Agriculture and other Œconomical Arts, by Robert
Dossie. Lond. 1768, 8vo, i. p. 123. Of Stansfield’s mill, on which
he made some improvements, a description and figure may be seen in
Bailey’s Advancement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Lond. 1772, i.
p. 231.
[677] Anderson _ut supra_.