Sealing-wax in the present form was first noted in London in the middle of
the sixteenth century. A sort of earth was used by the ancient Egyptians
in sealing papers and documents. The Egyptians placed such earth on the
horns of cattle, and upon it was stamped the seal of the priest. Thus were
identified the cattle to be used in the sacrifices.
The diving-bell was not mentioned before the sixteenth century. Two Greeks
in that century (1538) gave an exhibition before Charles V, descending
into water of considerable depth in a large inverted kettle. They took
down with them burning lights. The men returned to the surface without
being wet. The light was still burning.
The Lombardians were the first to use effectual quarantine methods against
the plague and infectious diseases, and mention of a quarantine is made in
Lombardy and Milan in 1374, 1383, and 1399. Prior to that time Christian
communities resigned themselves to the visitation of the plague, regarding
it as a divine punishment.
J.H. Schultze, a German, obtained the first actual photographic copies (of
writing) in 1727; and to Thomas Wedgwood is due the honor of first
producing pictures on sensitized surfaces in 1802. Between 1826 and 1833
Louis Jacques Daguerre and Nicephore Niepce perfected the daguerreotype
process, the first practical photography. Their discovery was communicated
to the French Academy of Sciences in 1839.
The turkey is an American bird. Lucullus and the Epicureans did not know
about him. He was found in his wild state after Columbus's time. About a
hundred years after the discovery of America broiled young turkeys became
great delicacies on the Frenchman's table.
A telegraphic line, consisting of twenty-four wires, each representing a
letter, was established by Lesage, at Geneva, in 1774; and in the same
year Bishop Watson made experiments over a two-mile wire near London. In
Germany the invention is credited to Sommering--1809.
Cork was known to the Greeks and Romans, and was put to almost as many
uses as at present, although there is no mention in Rome of linoleum,
notwithstanding its Roman sound. Glass bottles, with cork stoppers, for
wine and beer did not come into use until the middle of the fourteenth
century.
Water-mills were used in the time of Julius Caesar. In Roman times slaves
were condemned to the corn-mills, which were propelled by treads.
Afterward cattle were used. In the third and fourth centuries there were
as many as three hundred cattle-mills in Rome.
Corn-mills are often mentioned in the Bible. The original corn-mill much
resembled the modern druggist's pestle. Moses forbade corn-mills to be
taken in pawn, for that, he thought, was like taking a man's life in
pledge.
Joseph Henry was the first to construct electro-magnets in a useful form.
In 1832, at the Albany Academy, he succeeded in ringing a bell over a mile
of wire.
Wire was first beaten out by a hammer, but the artisans of Nuremberg, in
1350, began to draw it, which was the great step forward in that art.
The first camera-obscura was invented by Giambattista della Porta, an
Italian philosopher, during the latter half of the sixteenth century.
The first cologne was called Hungary water, from the country of its
invention. It was made from spirits of wine distilled upon rosemary.
Colored glass came from Egypt. The Egyptians carried the art to great
perfection apparently before history begins to tell of it.
Buckwheat began to be cultivated in England in 1597. It had been brought
into Europe from Asia one hundred years before.
Wall paper, with fancy colored figures, began to be used in 1620. The art
was developed thereafter largely by the French.