Part 62 (1/2)
The time of these inventions was about the year 1658; as appears, among other evidences, from an inscription on one of the double-balance watches presented to King Charles II. viz. ”Rob. Hooke _inven._ 1658. T. Tompion _fecit_, 1675.” The invention presently got into reputation, both at home and abroad: and two of them were sent for by the dauphin of France. Soon after this, M. Huygens' watch with a spiral spring got abroad, and made a great noise in England, as if the longitude could be found by it. It is certain, however, that his invention was later than the year 1673, when his book ”_De Horol. Oscillat._” was published; wherein he has not one word of this, though he has of several other contrivances in the same way.
One of these the Lord Brouncker sent for out of France, where M. Huygens had got a patent for them. This watch agreed with Dr. Hooke's, in the application of the spring to the balance; only M. Huygens' had a long spiral spring, and the pulses and beats were much slower. The balance, instead of turning quite round, as Dr. Hooke's, turns several rounds every vibration.
Mr. Derham suggests, that he has reason to think M. Huygens' fancy was first set to work by some intelligence he might have of Dr. Hooke's invention from Mr. Oldensworth, or some other of his correspondents in England; and this, notwithstanding Mr. Oldensworth's attempt to vindicate himself in the Philosophical Transactions, appears to be the truth.
Huygens invented divers other kinds of watches, some of them without any string or chain at all; which he called particularly, pendulum watches.
CHAP. LXXIII.
CURIOSITIES RESPECTING THE ARTS.--(_Continued._)
_Telegraph--Spectacle of a Sea Fight at Rome--Wooden Eagle; and Iron Fly--Whitehead's s.h.i.+p--Scaliot's Lock, &c.--Praxiteles' Venus--Weaving Engine--Hydraulic Birds--Hersch.e.l.l's Grand Telescope--Boverick's Curiosities--Bunzlau Curiosities--Artificial Flying._
TELEGRAPH.--This is a word derived from the Greek, and which is very properly given to an instrument, by means of which information may be almost instantaneously conveyed to a considerable distance. The telegraph, though it has been generally known and used by the moderns only for a few years, is by no means a modern invention. There is reason to believe, that amongst the Greeks there was some sort of telegraph in use. The burning of Troy was certainly known in Greece very soon after it happened, and before any person had returned from thence. Now that was altogether so tedious a piece of business, that conjecture never could have supplied the place of information. A Greek play begins with a scene, in which a watchman descends from the top of a tower in Greece, and gives the information that Troy was taken. ”I have been looking out these ten years (says he) to see when that would happen, and this night it is done.” Of the antiquity of a mode of conveying intelligence quickly to a great distance, this is certainly a proof. The Chinese, when they send couriers on the great ca.n.a.l, or when any great man travels there, make signals by fire, from one day's journey to another, to have every thing prepared; and most of the barbarous nations used formerly to give the alarm of war by fires lighted on the hills, or rising grounds.
It does not appear that the moderns had thought of such a machine as a telegraph, till the year 1663, when the Marquis of Worcester, in his ”Century of Inventions,” affirmed, that he had discovered ”a method by which, at a window, as far as eye can discover black from white, a man may hold discourse with his correspondent, without noise made, or notice taken, being, according to occasion given, or means afforded, _ex re nata_, and no need of provision beforehand; though much better if foreseen, and course taken by mutual consent of parties.” This could be done only by means of a telegraph, which, in the next sentence, is declared to have been rendered so perfect, that by means of it the correspondence could be carried on ”by night as well as by day, though as dark as pitch is black.”
About forty years afterwards, M. Amontons proposed a new telegraph. His method was this:--Let there be people placed in several stations, at such a distance from one another, that, by the help of a telescope, a man in one station may see a signal made in the next before him; he must immediately make the same signal, that it may be seen by persons in the station next after him, who are to communicate it to those in the following station, and so on. These signals may be as letters of the alphabet, or as a cipher, understood only by the two persons who are in the distant places, and not by those who make the signals. The person in the second station making the signal to the person in the third, the very moment he sees it in the first; the news may be carried to the greatest distance in as little time as is necessary to make the signals in the first station. The distance of the several stations, which must be as few as possible, is measured by the reach of a telescope. Amontons tried this method in a small tract of land, before several persons of the highest rank at the court of France. It was not, however, till the French revolution, that the telegraph was applied to useful purposes.
Whether M. Chappe, who is said to have invented the telegraph first used by the French about the end of 1793, knew any thing of Amonton's invention or not, it is impossible to say; but his telegraph was constructed on principles nearly similar. The manner of using this telegraph was as follows:--At the first station, which was on the roof of the palace of Louvre, at Paris, M. Chappe, the inventor, received in writing from the Committee of Public Welfare, the words to be sent to Lisle, near which the French army at that time was. An upright post was erected on the Louvre, at the top of which were two transverse arms, moveable in all directions by a single piece of mechanism, and with inconceivable rapidity. He invented a number of positions for these arms, which stood as signs for the letters of the alphabet; and these, for the greater celerity and simplicity, he reduced in number as much as possible. The grammarian will easily conceive that sixteen signs may amply supply all the letters of the alphabet, since some letters may be omitted, not only without detriment, but with advantage. These signs, as they were arbitrary, could be changed every week; so that the sign of B for one day, might be the sign of M the next; and it was only necessary that the persons at the extremities should know the key. The intermediate operators were only instructed generally in these sixteen signals; which were so distinct, so marked, so different the one from the other, that they were remembered with the greatest ease.
The construction of the machine was such, that each signal was uniformly given in precisely the same manner at all times: it did not depend on the operator's manual skill; and the position of the arm could never, for any one signal, be a degree higher or a degree lower, its movement being regulated mechanically. M. Chappe having received, at the Louvre, the sentence to be conveyed, gave a known signal to the second station (which was Mont Martre) to prepare. At each station there was a watch-tower, where telescopes were fixed, and the person on watch gave the signal of preparation which he had received, and this communicated successively through all the line, which brought them all into a state of readiness.
The person at Mont Martre then received, letter by letter, the sentence from the Louvre, which he repeated with his own machine; and this was again repeated from the next height, with inconceivable rapidity, to the final station at Lisle.
Various experiments were in consequence tried upon telegraphs in this country; and one was soon after set up by government, in a chain of stations from the admiralty-office to the sea-coast. It consists of six octagon boards, each of which is poised upon an axis in a frame, in such a manner that it can be either placed vertically, so as to appear with its full size to the observer at the nearest station, or it becomes invisible to him by being placed horizontally, or with only the narrow edge exposed.
These six boards make thirty-six changes, by the most plain and simple mode of working; and they will make many more, if more were necessary.
We submit to the reader the following account of a SPECTACLE OF A SEA FIGHT AT ROME.--Augustus, to divert his mind from fixing on his domestic misfortunes, exhibited the most magnificent and expensive shows that had ever been seen at Rome. Chariot-races in the circus, representations on the stage, combats by gladiators, &c. were now become common. Augustus, therefore, the better to divert both himself and the people, revived these sports, which had been for a considerable time laid aside, on account of the extraordinary charges that attended them. He caused a ca.n.a.l to be dug, eighteen hundred paces in length, and two hundred in breadth, conveying into it the Flaminian waters, and building scaffolds quite round it, capable of holding a prodigious mult.i.tude of spectators. And indeed the concourse of people was so great, that the emperor was obliged to place guards in all quarters of the city, lest the thieves should lay hold of that opportunity to plunder the empty and abandoned houses. Augustus had frequently entertained the people with fights of lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, &c. but now the new ca.n.a.l appeared all on a sudden covered with crocodiles, of which thirty-six were killed by Egyptians, brought from the banks of the Nile for that purpose. The mult.i.tude were highly delighted by this sight, which was quite new; but the sea-fight which ensued, afforded them still greater diversion: for, at the opposite ends of the lake, or ca.n.a.l, two fleets appeared, the galleys of one being built after the Greek, and those of the other after the Persian manner. Both fleets engaged; and, as they fought in good earnest, most of the combatants being persons sentenced to death, the battle proved very b.l.o.o.d.y.
A WOODEN EAGLE, AND AN IRON FLY.--Petrus Ramus tells us of a Wooden Eagle and an Iron Fly, made by Regiomonta.n.u.s, a famous mathematician at Nuremberg: whereof the first flew forth out of the city, aloft in the air, met the Emperor Maximilian a good way off, coming towards it; and, having saluted him, returned again, waiting on him at the city gates. The second, at a feast, whereto the Emperor had invited his familiar friends, flew forth from his hand, and, taking a round, returned thither again, to the great astonishment of the beholders: both which, the excellent pen of the n.o.ble Du Bartas has expressed in the following lines:
Why should I not that Wooden Eagle mention, A learned German's late admir'd invention, Which, mounting from his fist that fram'd her, Flew far to meet the German Emperor?
And, having met him, with her nimble train And pliant wings turning about again, Follow'd him close unto the castle gate Of Nuremberg; whom all their shows of state, Streets hung with arras, arches curious built, Grey-headed senate, and youth's gallantries, Grac'd not so much as only this device.
He goes on, and thus describes the Fly:
Once, as this artist, more with mirth than meat; Feasted some friends whom he esteemed great, Forth from his hand an Iron Fly flew out; Which having flown a perfect round about, With weary wings returned to his master, And as judicious on his arm he plac'd her.
Oh! wit divine, that in the narrow womb Of a small Fly could find sufficient room For all those springs, wheels, counterpoise, and chains, Which stood instead of life, and blood, and veins.
WHITEHEAD'S s.h.i.+P.--George Whitehead, an Englishman, made a s.h.i.+p, with all her tackling, to move itself on a table, with rowers plying the oars, a woman playing on the lute, and a little whelp crying on the deck,--says Scottus, in his Itinerary.