thrown upon the town of Watchtendonck, in Guelderland, in the year 1580.

CHAIN SHOT.

This destructive missile was invented by De Wit in the year 1666, and was first used by the Dutch on the 1st of June the same year, when the Dutch fleet engaged the Duke of Albemarle's squadron in the Downs; it was a drawn battle.

CONGREVE ROCKETS.

The death-dealing rockets thus denominated, receive their name from General Sir Wm. Congreve, the inventor of them:

GUILLOTINE.

The guillotine takes its name from one Dr. Guillotine, who first introduced it into France.

An instrument for beheading, constructed on the same principle as the guillotine, was anciently used in Scotland, and was called a a MAIDEN; it was introduced by the Regent, James, Earl of Morton, who, it seems, had met with it in his travels, and who, by a singular coincidence, was the first person whose head it severed.

"This mighty Earl (Morton), for the pleasure of the place, and the salubrity of the air, designed here a noble recess and retirement from wordly business, but was prevented by his unfortunate and inexorable death, three years after, anno 1581, being accused, condemned, and executed by the MAIDEN, at the Cross of Edinbro', as art and part of the murder of King Henry, Earl of Darnley, father of James 6th, which fatal instrument, at least the pattern thereof, the cruel Regent had brought from abroad to behead the Laird of Pennecuik of the ilk, who, notwithstanding, died in his bed, and the Earl was the first that handselled this unfortunate Maiden."Pennecuik Dusc. Tweedal.

LION'S HEAD FOUNTAINS.

Fountains are not so prevalent now as they were wont to be. Formerly almost every leading street in London, and almost every town in the country, had its conduit or fountain, from whence

"the grateful fluid fell."

They were generally adorned with the lion's head, which the ancients introduced, because the inundation of the Nile happened during the progress of the sun in Leo.

BASTINADO.

Tarquin the Proud invented, says St. Isadore, the bastinado and other punishments, and, adds he, he deserved exile.

THE TREAD MILL.

The tread mill was taken from the squirrel cage, which was formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of a tinner's shop, and were in fact the only live signs. One, we believe, still hangs out in Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our ancestors.

SUN-DIAL.

Why has it, says Elia, almost every where vanished? If its business use be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sun-set, of temperance, and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horolage of the first world. Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring by; for the birds to apportion their silver warblings by; for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. The shepherd carved it out quaintly in the sun, and turning philosopher by the very occupation, provided it with mottos more touching than tombstones.

The first sun-dial is said to have been set up at Rome by L. Papirius Cursor, A. U. 447 (B. C. 301), and the next near the rostra, by M. Valerius Mesela, the consul, who brought it from Catana, in Sicily, in the first Punic war, A. U. 481. Scipio Nasica first measured time at Rome, by water, or clepsydrae, which served by night as well as by day, Á. U. 595.

The use of clocks and watches were then unknown to the Romans; being so much taken up with military acquirements, they had neither time nor leisure to cultivate the arts of peace.

CLOCKS, WATCHES, &c.

Clock-making was brought into this country from the Netherlands. About the year 1340, that patriotic and wise prince, Edward the Third, invited over to this country John Uninam, William Uninam, and John Lutuyt, of Delft, and granted them his royal protection to exercise their trade of clock-making in any part of his kingdom, without molestation.-Rymer's Foedera, vol. vi. p. 590.

Pocket watches were first brought to England from Germany in 1577; and the manufacture of them commenced a few years afterwards.

According to Eginhard, secretary to Charlemagne, the first clock seen in Europe was sent to his master by Abdalla, king of Persia.

BELLS:

Turketel, abbot of Croyland, gave to king Athelstane the first set of bells in England.

Bells were first baptized, annointed, exorcised, and blessed, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. The baptism of bells is confirmed by an old author, John Stell, in his Beehive of the Romish Church," but we need not this, as it is common in France at the present day.

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MANUFACTURE OF TIN PLATE.

Formerly, says Parkes in his Chemical Essays, none of the English workers in iron or tin had any knowledge whatever of the methods by which this useful article could be produced; our ancestors from time immemorial, having supplied themselves with it from Bohemia and Saxony. The establishment of this manufacture in those districts, was doubtless owing to their vicinity to the tin mines in the circle of Ersgebirg, which, next to those of Cornwall, are the largest in Europe. The ore which is found there is not the tin pyrites, but the mineral called tin stone.

From the time of the invention of tin plate to the end of the se

venteenth century, not only England but also the whole of Europe depended upon the manufactures of Bohemia and Saxony for their supply. However, about the year 1665, Mr. Andrew Yarranton, encouraged by some persons of property, undertook to go over to Saxony to acquire a knowledge of the art; and on his return, several parcels of tin plate were made of a superior quality to those which we had been accustomed to import from Saxony; but owing to some unfortunate and unforseen circumstances, which are all detailed by Mr. Yarranton in his very valuable publication, the manufactory was not at that time (although some few years after), established in any part of Great Britain. Such was the origin of the tin plate manufactory in England, where, at this day, it is in greater perfection than in any other country in Europe.

BLEACHING.

Flax and hemp were employed in the fabrication of cloth many years ago, and in those early times such cloth was highly esteemed; it must, therefore, long before that period, have been discovered, that these fabrics were improved in colour by exposure to the action of the atmosphere. The effect of hot water in whitening brown linen would also soon arrest the attention of mankind; and when it became a practice with the early inhabitants of Asia to employ certain earths and alkaline plants in the operations of washing and scouring their garments, the whitening, as well as the detersive properties of these vegetables, could not fail to be observed, and, by degrees, would naturally occasion the introduction of regular processes for bleaching; and that this art was practised very early, is, I think, says Parkes, evident from the great progress which it had made in the beginning of the Christian era.

That the ancients had learnt some method of rendering their linen extremely white, may be supposed from many remarks which are interspersed among their writings. Homer speaks of the garments of his countrywomen, in a way that leaves no doubt of their being clothed, occasionally at least, in white vestments.

"Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills,

Whose polish'd bed receives the falling rills,

Where Trojan dames, ere yet alarm'd by Greece,
Wash'd their fair garments in the days of peace."

Modern bleaching, however, originated with the Dutch, whose linens were the most esteemed of any in Europe.

CALICO PRINTING.

"And Jacob made for Joseph a coat of many colours.” The coat above alluded to was probably of cotton or linen; at any rate, we are informed, that more than 3000 years ago, a shrewd matron tied a scarlet thread round the hand of one of Tamar's children; and Homer, who flourished 900 years B. C., speaks of the variegated cloths of Sidon as very magnificent productions.t

An historian who wrote more than 400 years before the Christian era, when describing the nations which inhabited Caucasus, a mountain extending throughout the regions of Georgia and Armenia, affirms, that by means of vegetables ground and diluted with water, these people adorned their cloth with the figures of various

* Genesis xxzviii. 27.

+ Iliad, lib. vi. line 289.

animals, and that the dyes were permanent which were thus obtained.

Strabo, the Greek philosopher, who was contemporary with our Saviour, relates that the Indians wore flowered linens, and that India abounded with drugs, roots, and colouring substances, from which some very beautiful dyes were produced; and we know that the inhabitants of India used a purple and scarlet dye, resembling cochineal in colour, and in the manner of its production.

Tyre, and other parts of Syria, have long been famed also for using purple and scarlet dye. The Tyrian dye has been noticed in song, poetry, and prose; and the late Lord Erskine wittily alludes to it in his epigram on the Serjeants of the Common Pleas :

"Their purple garments come from Tyre,
Their arguments go to it!"

Thus it will appear, that the origin of calico printing may be traced to the earlier ages, but to whom the invention belongs is lost in the mazes of obscurity.

It does not appear that calico printing was introduced into this country earlier than the reign of Elizabeth, when an act was passed to restrain the use of logwood in dyeing, on account of the fugitive nature of its colour.*

SOAP.

The first notice we have of soap is by one of the Hebrew:"Though thou wash thee with nitre and take much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me."-Jeremiah ii. 22. Etius, who flourished about the end of the fourth century, and was the first Christian medical writer, speaks of a black soap; and Paulus Egineta, a Greek physician, who lived in the early part of the seventh century, says he made an extemporaneous soap from oil and the burned dregs of wine. The origin, however, cannot be traced nearer than notice.

ALUM.

The first alum manufactured in England was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, at Gisborough in Yorkshire, by one Thomas Chaloner, an ancestor of Robert Chaloner, Esq.-See Chemical Chatem. 10th edi. p. 100.

LAWNS, CAMBRICS, AND STARCHING.

Shortly after the introduction of coaches,† the knowledge and wear of lawns and cambrics were introduced by the Dutch merchants, who retailed those articles in ells, yards, &c.; for there was not one housekeeper, among forty, durst buy a whole piece; and when the queen (Elizabeth) had ruffs made thereof, for her own princely wearing (for until then the kings and queens of England wore fine Holland in ruffs), there was none in England could tell how to starch them; but the queen made special means, for some women that could starch; and Guilham's wife was the first starcher the queen had, and himself was the first coachman.

Soon after this, the art of starching was first publicly taught in

In the time of Elizabeth, the nature of logwood was not understood; but now it has many important uses, and when properly employed, is one of the most valuable articles used in dyeing."

+ See article "Origin of Coaches in England."

London, by a Flemish woman, called Mistress Dinghen Vander Place; her usual price, for teaching the art itself, being four or five pounds, and twenty shillings additional for showing how to seeth the starch.

At this period, the making of lawn ruffs was regarded by the populace as so strange and finical, that thereupon rose a general scoffe, and bye-words, "that shortly they would make ruffs of spider's webb."

THE SILK TRADE.

"Without the worm, in Persian silks we shine."-Waller.

The ancients were but little acquainted with the use and manufacture of silk; they took it for the work of a sort of spider or beetle, who spun it out of its entrails, and wound it with its feet about the little branches of trees. It was in the Isle of Cos that the art of manufacturing it was first invented; and Pamphila, daughter of Platis, is honoured as the inventress. The discovery was not long unknown to the Romans. Silk was brought from Serica, where the worm was a native. They could not believe so fine a thread was the production of a worm-it was a scarce commodity among them for many ages; it was even sold weight for weight with gold, insomuch that Vopiscus tells us, the Emperor Aurelean, who died A. D. 275, refused the Empress, his wife, a suit of silk, which she solicited of him with much earnestness, merely on account of its dearness; but at the present period, through the industry and enterprise of man, the produce of this tender worm (which a thoughtless individual would crush beneath his feet), serves to decorate the humble individual as well as the mighty monarch.

Heliogabulus is said to be the first person who wore holosericum, i. e. a garment all of silk. The Greeks of Alexander's army are said to have been the first who brought wrought silk from Persia into Greece, about 323 years before Christ: but its manufacture was confined to Berytus and Tyre, and from thence it was dispersed over the west. At length two monks coming from the Indies to Constantinople, in 555, brought with them great quantities of silk-worms, with instructions for the hatching of their eggs, rearing and feeding the worms, &c. Upon this manufactures were set up at Athens, Thebes, and Corinth. It was brought to France a little before the time of Francis 1st, who brought it to Touraine. It appears there was a company of silk women in England so early as the year 1455; but these were probably employed in needle works of silk and thread. Italy supplied England and all other parts with the broad manufacture till 1489. In 1620 the broad silk manufacture was introduced into this country; and in 1661 the company of silk-throwsters employed above 40,000 persons. The revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, contributed in a great degree to promote the silk manufacture in this country, as did also the silk throwing machine, erected at Derby in 1719, which contained 26,586 wheels; one water-wheel moved the whole, and in a day and night it worked 318,504,960 yards of organized silk. Within about a century the secret has been found in France of procuring and preparing silk from the webs of spiders. The silk, however, from the spider is both inferior in strength and lustre.