BOHN’S STANDARD LIBRARY. BECKMANN’S HISTORY OF INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES, AND ORIGINS. “Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading.... Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history,--with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.”--SIR JOHN HERSCHEL. _Address on the opening of the Eton Library_, 1833. [Illustration: _Lud. Schmidt._ _J. J. Hinchliff._ _John Beckmann._] A HISTORY OF INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES, AND ORIGINS. BY JOHN BECKMANN, PROFESSOR OF ŒCONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY WILLIAM JOHNSTON. Fourth Edition, CAREFULLY REVISED AND ENLARGED BY WILLIAM FRANCIS, Ph.D., F.L.S., EDITOR OF THE CHEMICAL GAZETTE; AND J. W. GRIFFITH, M.D., F.L.S., LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1846. PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. CONTENTS.