A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

Sir Hans Sloane, after having accompanied the duke of Albemarle to Jamaica as physician, was elected on his return to this country to succeed Sir Isaac Newton as president of the Royal Society. He was born in 1660, and died on the 11th of January, 1752. Having with great labour and expense during the course of his long life collected a rich cabinet of medals, objects of natural history, &c., and a valuable library of books and MSS., he bequeathed the whole to the public on condition that the sum of £20,000 should be paid to his executors, being little more than the intrinsic value of the medals, metallic ores and precious stones comprised in his collection. Parliament fulfilled the terms of the legacy, and in 1753 an act was passed “for the purchase of the museum or collection of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. and of the Harleian collection of MSS., and for procuring one general repository for the better reception and more convenient use of the said collection, and of the Cottonian library and additions thereto.” Such was the commencement of the British Museum, every department of which has since been vastly augmented. The printed books alone occupy Ten Miles of Shelf, and owing to our connexions with every part of the globe, it vies in the variety and number of objects of natural history with the most celebrated museums of the world. The interest taken in these collections by the public is evident from the number of persons who visited them from Christmas 1844 to Christmas 1845, amounting to no less than 685,614.

Nor should we omit to mention the collection of curiosities, &c. formed by James Salter, more commonly known by the name of Don Saltero. They were exhibited to the public at his Coffee-house, Cheyne-Walk, Chelsea, which was first opened about the year 1695. It was a very mixed collection of saints’ bones, models, carved ivory, and objects of natural history. The following announcement, printed in the Weekly Journal for June 22, 1723, may be regarded as containing the most positive and authentic information concerning this establishment, inasmuch as it appears to have been sanctioned by the proprietor himself.

 
Sir. – Fifty years since to Chelsea Great, —
From Rodman, on the Irish Main, —
I stroll’d, with maggots in my pate,
Where, much improved, they still remain.
Through various employs I’ve past, —
A scraper, virtuos’, projector,
Tooth-drawer, trimmer, – and at last
I’m now a gim-crack-whim collector.
Monsters of all sorts here are seen,
Strange things in nature as they grew so:
Some relicks of the Sheba Queen,
And fragments of the famed Bob Crusoe.
Knick-knacks, too, dangle round the wall,
Some in glass-cases, some on shelf;
But, what’s the rarest sight of all,
Your humble servant shows Himself.
On this my chiefest hope depends,
Now, if you will my cause espouse,
In journals pray direct your friends
To my Museum – Coffee-house.
And, in requital for the timely favour,
I’ll gratis bleed, draw teeth, and be your shaver:
Nay, that your pate may with my noddle tarry,
And you shine bright as I do, – Marry! shall ye
Freely consult your Revelation – Molly,
Nor shall one jealous thought a huff,
For she has taught me manners long enough.
 

Chelsea Knackatory. Don Saltero.

A fine engraving of Salter’s house, with a description and catalogue of his collection, will be found in Smith’s Historical and Literary Curiosities.]

CHIMNEYS

Notwithstanding the magnificence of the Grecian and Roman architecture, which we still admire in those ruins that remain as monuments of the talents and genius of the ancient builders, it is very doubtful whether their common dwelling-houses had chimneys, that is, passages or funnels formed in the walls for conveying away the smoke from the fire-place or stoves through the different stories to the summit of the edifice; conveniences which are not wanting in the meanest of our houses at present, and in the smallest of our villages. This question some have pretended to determine without much labour or research. How can we suppose, say they, that the Romans, our masters in the art of building, should not have devised and invented some means to keep free from smoke their elegant habitations, which were furnished and ornamented in a splendid and costly manner? How is it possible that a people who purchased ease and convenience at the greatest expense, should suffer their apartments to be filled with smoke, which must have allowed them to enjoy scarcely a moment of pleasure? And how could their cooks dress in smoky kitchens the various sumptuous dishes with which the most refined voluptuaries covered their tables? One must however be very little acquainted with the history of inventions and manners, to consider such bare conjectures as decisive proofs. It is undoubtedly certain, that many of our common necessaries were for many centuries unknown to the most enlightened nations, and that they are in part still wanting in some countries at present. Besides, it is probable that before the invention of chimneys, other means, now forgotten, were employed to remove smoke.

The ancient mason-work still to be found in Italy does not determine the question. Of the walls of towns, temples, amphitheatres, baths, aqueducts and bridges, there are some though very imperfect remains, in which chimneys cannot be expected; but of common dwelling-houses none are to be seen, except at Herculaneum, and there no traces of chimneys have been discovered⁹⁰⁴. The paintings and pieces of sculpture which are preserved, afford us as little information; for nothing can be perceived in them that bears the smallest resemblance to a modern chimney. If the writings of the ancients are to be referred to, we must collect from the works of the Greek and Roman authors whatever seems allusive to the subject. This indeed has been already done by various men of learning⁹⁰⁵; but the greater part of them seem to deduce more from the passages they quote than can be admitted by those who read and examine them without prejudice. I shall here present them to my readers, that they may have an opportunity of judging for themselves.

We are told by Homer, that Ulysses, when in the grotto of Calypso, wished that he might see the smoke ascending from Ithaca, that is, he wished to be in sight of the island⁹⁰⁶. Montfaucon is of opinion that this wish is unintelligible unless it be allowed that the houses of Ithaca had chimneys. But cannot smoke be seen to rise also when it makes its way through doors and windows? When navigators at sea observe smoke arising, they conclude that they are in the neighbourhood of inhabited land; but no one undoubtedly will thence infer, that the habitations of the people have chimneys.

Herodotus⁹⁰⁷ relates that a king of Lebæa, when one of his servants asked for his wages, offered him in jest the sun, which at that time shone into the house through the chimney, as some have translated the original; but it appears that what is here called chimney, was nothing more than an opening in the roof, under which, perhaps, the fire was made in the middle of the edifice. Through a high chimney, of the same form as those used at present, the sun certainly could not throw his rays on the floor of any apartment.

In the Vespæ of Aristophanes⁹⁰⁸, old Philocleon wishes to escape through the kitchen. Some one asks, “What is that which makes a noise in the chimney?” “I am the smoke,” replies the old man, “and am endeavouring to get out at the chimney.” This passage, however, which, according to the usual translation, seems to allude to a common chimney, can, in my opinion, especially when we consider the illustration of the scholiasts, be explained also by a simple hole in the roof, as Reiske has determined; and indeed this appears to be more probable, as we find mention made of a top or covering with which the hole was closed.

In a passage of the poet Alexis, who lived in the time of Alexander the Great, quoted by Athenæus⁹⁰⁹, some one asks, “Boy, is there a kitchen? Has it a chimney?” “Yes, but it is a bad one – the eyes will suffer.” The question here alludes without doubt to a passage for carrying off smoke; but information is not given us sufficient to determine its form and construction. Athenæus has preserved also a passage of the poet Diphilus⁹¹⁰, in which a parasite says, when he is invited to the house of a rich man, he does not look at the magnificence of the building or the elegance of the furniture, but to the smoke of the kitchen. “If I see it,” adds he, “rising up in abundance, quick and in a straight column, my heart is rejoiced, for I expect a good supper.” In this passage, however, which according to Maternus is clearly in favour of chimneys, I can find as little proof as in the words of the poet Sosipater, quoted likewise by Athenæus⁹¹¹, who reckons the art of determining which way the wind blows to be a part of the knowledge requisite in a perfect cook. “He must know,” says he, “to discover from what quarter it comes, for when the smoke is driven about it spoils many kinds of dishes.” Instead of agreeing with Ferrarius that this quotation seems to show that the houses of the ancients were provided with chimneys, I conclude rather from it, that they were not; for, had there been chimneys in their kitchens, the cooks must have left the smoke to make its way through them without giving themselves any trouble; but if they were destitute of these conveniences, it would be necessary for them to afford it some other passage; it would consequently be the business of the cook to consider on what side it would be most advantageous to open a door or a window; and in this he would undoubtedly be guided by the direction of the wind. That this really was the case, appears from a Greek epigram, which by an ingenious thought, gives us an idea of the passage of smoke through a window⁹¹².

These, as far as I know, are all the passages which have been collected from Greek authors respecting this question. But instead of proving that the houses of the ancients were built with chimneys, they seem much rather to show the contrary: especially when we consider what the Roman writers have said on the same subject; for the information of the latter, taken together, affords good grounds to believe that no chimneys were to be found in the houses at Rome, at least at the time when these authors wrote; and this certainly would not have been the case had the Romans ever seen chimneys among the Greeks. I shall now lay before my readers those passages which appear on the first view to refute my conjecture.

When the triumviri, says Appian⁹¹³, caused those who had been proscribed by them to be sought out by the military, some of them, to avoid the bloody hands of their persecutors, hid themselves in wells, and others, as Ferrarius translates the words, “in fumaria sub tecto, qua scilicet fumus e tecto evolvitur.” The true translation however is “fumosa cænacula.” The principal persons of Rome endeavoured to conceal themselves in the smoky apartments of the upper story under the roof, which in general were inhabited only by poor people; and this seems to be confirmed by what Juvenal⁹¹⁴ expressly says, “Rarus venit in cænacula miles.”

Those passages of the ancients which speak of smoke rising up from houses have with equal impropriety been supposed to allude to chimneys, as if the smoke could not make its way through doors and windows. Seneca⁹¹⁵ writes, “Last evening I had some friends with me, and on that account a stronger smoke was raised; not such a smoke however as bursts forth from the kitchens of the great, and which alarms the watchmen, but such a one as signifies that guests are arrived.” Those whose judgements are not already warped by prejudice, will undoubtedly find the true sense of these words to be, that the smoke forced its way through the kitchen windows. Had the houses been built with chimney-funnels, one cannot conceive why the watchmen should have been alarmed when they observed a stronger smoke than usual arising from them; but as the kitchens had no conveniences of that kind, an apprehension of fire, when extraordinary entertainments were to be provided in the houses of the rich for large companies, seems to have been well-founded; and on such occasions people appointed for that purpose were stationed in the neighbourhood to be constantly on the watch, and to be ready to extinguish the flames in case a fire should happen⁹¹⁶. There are many other passages to be found in Roman authors of the like kind, which it is hardly necessary to mention, such as that of Virgil⁹¹⁷:

 
Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant.
 

and the following words of Plautus⁹¹⁸ descriptive of a miser:

 
Quin divûm atque hominum clamat continuo fidem,
Suam rem periisse, seque eradicarier,
De suo tigillo fumus si qua exit foras.
 

If there were no funnels in the houses of the ancients to carry off the smoke, the directions given by Columella to make kitchens so high that the roof should not catch fire, was of the utmost importance⁹¹⁹. An accident of the kind, which that author seems to have apprehended, had almost happened at Beneventum, when the landlord who entertained Mæcenas and his company was making a strong fire in order to get some birds sooner roasted:

 
… ubi sedulus hospes
Pæne arsit, macros dum turdos versat in igne;
Nam vaga per veterem dilapso flamma culinam
Vulcano summum properabat lambere tectum⁹²⁰.
 

Had there been chimneys in the Roman houses, Vitruvius certainly would not have failed to describe their construction, which is sometimes attended with considerable difficulties, and which is intimately connected with the regulation of the plan of the whole edifice. He does not, however, say a word on this subject; neither does Julius Pollux, who has collected with great care the Greek names of every part of a dwelling-house; and Grapaldus, who in later times made a like collection of the Latin terms, has not given a Latin word expressive of a modern chimney⁹²¹

I shall here answer an objection which may be made, that the word caminus means a chimney; and I shall also explain what methods the ancients, and particularly the Romans, employed without chimneys to warm their apartments. Caminus signified, as far as I have been able to learn, first a chemical or metallurgic furnace, in which a crucible was placed for melting and refining metals. It signified also a smith’s forge⁹²². It signified likewise, without doubt, a hearth, or as we talk at present, a fire-place, which served for warming the apartment in which it was constructed; and for that purpose portable stoves or fire-pans were also employed. These were either filled with burning coals, or wood was lighted in them, and, when burned to coal, was carried into the apartment. In all these however there appears no trace of a chimney.

The complaints often made by the ancients respecting smoke serve also to confirm the opinion that they had no chimneys. Vitruvius⁹²³, where he speaks of ornamenting and fitting up apartments, says expressly, that there ought to be no carved work or mouldings, but plain cornices, in rooms where fire is made and many lights burned, because they will soon be covered with soot, and therefore will require to be often cleaned. On the other hand, he allows carving in summer apartments, where the effects of smoke are not to be apprehended. The moderns, however, who use chimneys, ornament the borders of them with carving, painting and gilding, nor are they injured by the smoke; but we find that among the ancients, furniture of every kind, ceilings and walls were soon covered over with soot; and from this even the images of their ancestors, imagines majorum, were not secure, which, though they were to be found only in the houses of the great, and stood in niches in the atrium⁹²⁴ or hall, became black with smoke, and on that account were justly named fumosæ⁹²⁵. The smoke therefore must have been blown very much about, and carried into every apartment. In the houses of the opulent, care in all probability was employed to keep them clean; but the habitations of families who did not belong to the common or poorest classes, are represented as smoky and black; and we are told that their walls and ceilings were full of soot. They were therefore called black houses, as in Russia the huts of the common people, which are furnished with paltry stoves, and which are blackened in the same manner by the smoke of the fir-wood used in them for fuel, are called black huts⁹²⁶.

As the houses of the ancients were so smoky, it may be easily comprehended how, by means of smoke, they could dry and harden, not only various articles used as food, but also different pieces of timber employed for making all sorts of large and small implements. In this manner was prepared the wood destined for ploughs, waggons, and ships, and particularly that of which rudders were formed⁹²⁷. For this reason pantries for flesh and wine, and also coops to hold fowls, which were said to thrive by smoke, were constructed near the kitchen, where it always abounded⁹²⁸; and on the other hand, it was necessary to remove to a distance from kitchens, apartments destined for the purpose of preserving such articles as were liable to be spoiled by smoke⁹²⁹: but among us the case is widely different, for we often have neat and elegant apartments in the neighbourhood of the kitchen.

From what has been said it will readily appear why the ancients kept by them such quantities of hard wood, which, when burning, does not occasion smoke. The same kind is even sought after at present, and on this account we value that of the white and common willow, Salix alba and triandra; because when burned in our chimneys, it makes little smoke, and throws out fewest sparks. The great trouble, however, which was taken in old times to procure wood that would not smoke, clearly proves that this was much more necessary in those periods than at present. It was customary to peel off the bark from the wood, to let it lie afterwards a long time in water, and then to suffer it to dry⁹³⁰. This process must undoubtedly have proved of great service, for we know that wood which has been conveyed by water, in floats, kindles more readily, burns brisker, and throws out less smoke than that which has been transported from the forest in waggons. Another method, much employed, of rendering wood less apt to smoke, was to soak it in oil or oil-lees, or to pour oil over it⁹³¹. With the like view, wood, before it was used, was hardened or scorched over the fire, until it lost the greater part of its moisture, without being entirely reduced to charcoal. This method is still employed with advantage in glass-houses and porcelain manufactories, where there are stoves made on purpose to dry wood. Such scorched wood appears to be that to which the ancients gave the name of ligna cocta or coctilia⁹³². It was sold in particular warehouses at Rome, called tabernæ coctiliariæ, and the preparing as well as the selling of it formed an employment followed by the common people, and which, as we are told, was carried on by the father of the emperor Pertinax⁹³³. When it was necessary to kindle fire without wood prepared in that manner, an article probably too expensive for indigent families, we find complaints of smoke which brought on a watering of the eyes; and this was the case with Horace at a paltry inn where he happened to stop when on a journey⁹³⁴.

The information which can be collected from the Greek and Roman authors respecting the manner in which the ancients warmed their apartments, however imperfect, nevertheless shows that they commonly used for that purpose a large fire-pan or portable stove, in which they kindled wood, and, when the wood was well-lighted, carried it into the room, or which they filled with burning coals. When Alexander the Great was entertained by a friend in winter, as the weather was cold and raw, a small fire-bason was brought into the apartment to warm it. The prince, observing the size of the vessel, and that it contained only a few coals, desired his host, in a jeering manner, to bring more wood or frankincense, giving him thus to understand that the fire was fitter for burning perfumes than to produce heat⁹³⁵. Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, though displeased with many of the Grecian customs, praised the Greeks, however, because they shut out the smoke and brought only fire into their houses⁹³⁶. We are informed by Lampridius, that the extravagant Heliogabalus caused to be burned in these stoves, instead of wood, Indian spiceries and costly perfumes⁹³⁷. It is also worthy of notice, that coals were found in some of the apartments of Herculaneum, as we are told by Winkelmann, but neither stoves nor chimneys. As in Persia and other countries of the East no stoves made in the European manner are used at present, and as it is certain that the manners, customs and furniture of the early ages have been retained there almost without variation, we have reason to suppose that the methods employed by the inhabitants for warming themselves are the same as those used by the ancients. They agree perfectly with the descriptions given by the Greek and Roman authors, and serve in some measure to illustrate them. I shall therefore here insert the account given by De la Valle, as it is the clearest and most to the purpose.

“The Persians,” says he, “make fires in their apartments, not in fire-places as we do, but in stoves in the earth, which they call tennor. These stoves consist of a square or round hole, two spans or a little more in depth, and in shape not unlike an Italian cask. That this hole may throw out heat sooner, and with more strength, there is placed in it an iron vessel of the same size, which is either filled with burning coals, or a fire of wood and other inflammable substances is made in it. When this is done, they place over the hole or stove a wooden top, like a small low table, and spread above it a large coverlet quilted with cotton, which hangs down on all sides to the floor. This covering condenses the heat, and causes it to warm the whole apartment. The people who eat or converse there, and some who sleep in it, lie down on the floor above the carpet, and lean, with their shoulders against the wall, on square cushions, upon which they sometimes also sit; for the tennor is constructed in a place equally distant from the walls on both sides. Those who are not very cold, only put their feet under the table or covering; but those who require more heat can put their hands under it, or creep under it altogether. By these means the stove diffuses over the whole body, without causing uneasiness to the head, so penetrating and agreeable a warmth, that I never in winter experienced anything more pleasant. Those, however, who require less heat let the coverlet hang down on their side to the floor, and enjoy without any inconvenience from the stove the moderately heated air of the apartment. They have a method also of stirring up or blowing the fire when necessary, by means of a small pipe united with the tennor or stove under the earth, and made to project above the floor as high as one chooses, so that the wind, when a person blows into it, because it has no other vent, acts immediately upon the fire like a pair of bellows. When there is no longer occasion to use this stove, both holes are closed up, that is to say, the mouth of the stove and that of the pipe which conveys the air to it, by a flat stone made for that purpose. Scarcely any appearance of them is then to be perceived, nor do they occasion inconvenience, especially in a country where it is always customary to cover the floor with a carpet, and where the walls are plastered. In many parts these stoves are used to cook victuals, by placing kettles over them. They are employed also to bake bread, and for this purpose they are covered with a large broad metal plate, on which the cake is laid; but if the bread is thick and requires more heat, it is put into the stove itself⁹³⁸.” I shall here remark, that the Jews used such stoves in their houses, and the priests had them also in the temple⁹³⁹.

Those who have employed their talents on this subject before me, have collected a great many passages from the Greek and Roman writers which speak of fires made for the purpose of affording warmth; but as they contain nothing certain or decisive, I shall not here enlarge upon them⁹⁴⁰. Though one or more expressions may appear to allude to a chimney, and even if we should conclude from them, with Montfaucon, that the ancients were acquainted with the art of constructing in mason-work elevated funnels for conveying off the smoke, it must be allowed, when we consider the many proofs which we find to the contrary, that they were at any rate extremely rare. As they are so convenient and useful, and can be easily constructed upon most occasions, it is impossible, had they been well known, that they should have ever been forgotten. Montfaucon says, from caminus is derived chiminea of the Spaniards; camino of the Italians; cheminée of the French; and kamin of the Germans; and it seems, adds he, beyond a doubt, that the name, with the thing signified, has been transmitted to us from the ancients. Though this derivation be just, the conclusion drawn from it is false. The ancient name of a thing is often given to a new invention that performs the same service. The words mill and moulin came from mola; and yet our mills were unknown to the ancients. Guys relates, that a Greek woman, seeing an European lady covered with a warm cloak, said, “That woman carries her tennor about with her.”

Besides the methods already mentioned, of warming apartments, the ancients had another still more ingenious, which was invented and introduced about the time of Seneca⁹⁴¹. A large stove or several smaller ones were constructed in the earth under the edifice; and these being filled with burning coals, the heat was conveyed from them into dining-rooms, bed-chambers, or other apartments which one wished to warm⁹⁴² by means of pipes inclosed in the walls. The upper end of these hot-air pipes was often ornamented with the representation of a lion’s or a dolphin’s head, or any other figure according to fancy, and could be opened or shut at pleasure. It appears that this apparatus was first constructed in the baths, and became extended afterwards to common use. These pipes sometimes were conducted around the whole edifice⁹⁴³, as I have seen in our theatres. Palladius advises a branch of such pipes to be conveyed under the floor of an oil-cellar, in order that it may be heated without contracting soot⁹⁴⁴. Such a mode of warming apartments, which approaches very near to that employed in our German stoves, would have been impossible, had the houses been without windows; and it is worthy of remark, that transparent windows, at the time Seneca lived, were entirely new. These pipes, like those of our stoves, could not fail in the course of time to become filled with soot; and as they were likely to catch fire by being overheated, laws were made forbidding them to be brought too near to the wall of a neighbouring house⁹⁴⁵, though there were other reasons also for this regulation. As what is here said will be better elucidated by a description of the still existing ruins of some ancient baths, I shall transcribe the following passage from Winkelmann: —

“Of chimneys in apartments,” says this author, “no traces are to be seen. Charcoal was found in some of the rooms in the city of Herculaneum, from which we may conclude that the inhabitants used only charcoal fires for warming themselves. In the houses of the common citizens at Naples, there are no chimneys at present; and people of rank there as well as at Rome, who strictly adhere to the rules laid down by physicians for preserving health, live in apartments without chimneys, and which are never heated by coal-fires. In the villas, however, which were situated without Rome, on eminences where the air was purer and colder, the ancients had hypocausta or stoves, which were more common perhaps than in the city. Stoves were found in the apartments of a ruined villa, when the ground was dug up to form a foundation for the buildings erected there at present. Below these apartments there were subterraneous chambers, about the height of a table, two and two under each apartment, and close on all sides. The flat top of these chambers consisted of very large tiles, and was supported by two pillars, which, as well as the tiles, were joined together, not with lime but some kind of cement, that they might not be separated by the heat. In the roofs of these chambers there were square pipes made of clay, which hung half-way down into each, and the mouths of them were conveyed into the apartment above. Pipes of the like kind, built into the wall of this lower apartment, rose into another in the second story, where their mouths were ornamented with the figure of a lion’s head, formed of burned clay. A narrow passage, of about two feet in breadth, conducted to the subterranean chambers, into which coals were thrown through a square hole, and the heat was conveyed from them by means of the before-mentioned pipes into the apartment immediately above, the floor of which was composed of coarse mosaic-work, and the walls were incrusted with marble. This was the sweating-apartment (sudatorium). The heat of this apartment was conveyed into that on the second story by the clay pipes enclosed in the wall, which had mouths opening into the former, as well as the latter, to collect and afford a passage to the heat, which was moderated in the upper apartment, and could be increased or lessened at pleasure.” Such a complex apparatus would have been unnecessary had the Romans been acquainted with our stoves⁹⁴⁶.

I have, as yet, made no mention of a passage of the emperor Julian, which is too remarkable to be entirely omitted; though, at the same time, it is so corrupted that little can be collected from it⁹⁴⁷. Julian relates, that during his residence at Paris the winter was uncommonly severe; but that he would not allow the house in which he lived to be heated, though it had the same apparatus for that purpose as the other houses of the city. His reason for this was, that he wished to inure himself to the climate; and he was apprehensive also, that the walls by being heated might become moist and throw out a damp vapour. He suffered, therefore, burning coals only to be brought into his apartment, which, however, occasioned pains in his head, and other disagreeable symptoms. What apparatus the houses of Paris then had for producing heat, no one can conjecture from the passage alluded to. In my opinion, they were furnished with the above-described subterranean stoves: but even if these should not be here meant, I cannot help thinking that the emperor’s relation confirms that they had not chimneys like ours; for, had the case been otherwise, the cautious prince would not have exposed himself to the vapour of charcoal, the noxious quality and effects of which could not be unknown to him.