It is more than probable that these drops, and the singular property
which they possess, have been known at the glass-houses since time
immemorial. All glass, when suddenly cooled, becomes brittle, and
breaks on the least scratch. On this account, as far back as the
history of the art can be traced, a cooling furnace was always
constructed close to the fusing furnace. A drop of fused glass falling
into water[573] might easily have given rise to the invention of these
drops; at any rate this might have been the case in rubbing off what
is called the navel[574]. It is however certain that they were not
known to experimental philosophers till the middle of the seventeenth
century. Their withstanding great force applied at the thick end, and
even blows; and on the other hand, bursting into the finest dust when
the smallest fragment is broken off from the thin end, are properties
so peculiar that they must excite the curiosity of philosophers, and
induce them to examine these effects, especially at a time when mankind
in general exert themselves with the greatest zeal to become better
acquainted with the phænomena of natural bodies. On this account
they have been noticed in almost every introduction to experimental
philosophy. To determine the time then in which they were first made
known, seems to be attended with little difficulty; but it still
remains doubtful by whom and in what country.
It appears certain that the first experiments were made by philosophers
with these drops in the year 1656. Monconys[575], who travelled at that
period, was present when such experiments were made at Paris, before a
learned society, which assembled at the house of Mommor, the well-known
patron of Gassendi; and the same year he saw similar experiments made
by several scientific persons at London. He tells us expressly that
Chanut, the Swedish resident, procured glass drops for the first
Parisian experiments, and that these drops were brought from Holland.
It appears, therefore, that the first glass drops were made in Holland;
yet Montanari, who was professor of mathematics at Bologna, says that
the first were not made by the Dutch, but by the Swedes. The grounds,
however, on which he rests his assertion are exceedingly weak. Because
a Swedish resident procured those used for the first experiments,
it does not follow that they were made at Swedish glass-houses,
especially as it is positively said that they were brought from
Holland. It was indeed stated so early as 1661, by Henry Regius or Van
Roy, professor at Utrecht, that these glass drops came from Sweden;
but may not this have been a lapse of memory, occasioned by the
circumstance that the first drops used by the natural philosophers of
Paris were procured by a Swedish resident.
Monconys, whose relation indeed bears evident marks of great haste as
well as credulity, calls Chanut _Résident de Suède_, and seems to have
considered him as a Swedish resident at the French court; an opinion
in which he has been followed by many literary men. But Pierre Chanut
was French resident at Stockholm, and at that time so well-known that
Monconys could hardly be unacquainted with his quality. He was resident
from the year 1645 to 1649; and he was afterwards envoy for adjusting
the disputes between Sweden and Poland, which were to be settled at
Lubec. He is often mentioned in Puffendorf’s book De Rebus Suecicis,
and the printed account of his missions and negociations contain
important materials towards a history of queen Christina, with whom he
was a great favourite. He superintended the funeral of Descartes, who
was interred with great honour. He was born in 1601; but with the time
of his death I am unacquainted. He was celebrated as a man of great
learning, and particularly an able mathematician; and it is neither
improbable nor even impossible that he may have sent the first glass
drops to Paris from Sweden; but why does Monconys add that they were
brought from Holland?
It deserves to be mentioned, that about fifteen years before, that is
in 1641, the first glass-houses were established in Sweden, and in all
probability by Germans. It is possible that when the blowing of glass
was first seen, glass drops may have excited an attention which they
had not met with in Germany, where no one expected anything new in
glass-houses, which were there common and had long been established. It
can nevertheless be proved that they were known to our glass-blowers at
a much earlier period.
In 1695, John Christian Schulenburg, subrector of the cathedral school
of Bremen, published there a German Dissertation on glass drops and
their properties, in which he says that he was informed by glass-makers
worthy of credit, that these drops had been made more than seventy
years before at the Mecklenburg glass-houses, that is to say, about the
year 1625.
Samuel Reyher, professor at Kiel, says that Henry Sievers, teacher of
mathematics in the gymnasium of Hamburg, had assured him that such
glass drops were given to his father by a glass-maker so early as the
year 1637; and that his father had exhibited them in a company of
friends, who were much astonished at their effects. Reyher adds, that
he himself had seen at Leyden, in 1656, the first of these glass drops,
which had been made at Amsterdam, where he afterwards purchased some
of the same kind; but in 1666 he procured for a very small sum a great
many of them from the glass-houses in the neighbourhood of Kiel. It is
worthy of remark, that Huet[576], who paid considerable attention to
the history of inventions, says that the first glass drops, which he
had seen also in the society held at the house of Mommor, were brought
to France from Germany. According to Anthony Le Grand they came from
Prussia[577].
The first glass drops were brought to England by the well-known Prince
Rupert, third son of the elector Palatine, Frederic V., and the
princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I.; and experiments, described by
Rupert Moray, were made with them in 1661 by command of his majesty.
This is expressly stated by Merret[578]; and therefore what some
English writers have supposed, that Prince Rupert himself was the
inventor, is entirely erroneous[579]. The services which he rendered to
the useful arts were too great and too numerous to be either lessened
or increased by such trifles.
I shall take this opportunity of remarking, that those small glasses
hermetically sealed and containing a drop of water, which when placed
on hot coals burst with a loud report, and therefore are called in
German _knallgläser_, fulminating glasses, were known before 1665.
Hooke speaks of them in his Micrographia[580] printed in that year, and
they were mentioned by Reyher in 1669, in his Dissertation already
quoted. In Germany they are made chiefly by Nuremberg artists; one of
the most celebrated of whom was Michael Sigismund Hack. He learnt the
art of glass-blowing in England, and in 1672 returned to Nuremberg,
where he was born in 1643[581].