A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 2 (of 2)Beckmann, Johann
History
A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 2 (of 2)
Beckmann, Johann
Inventions -- History
this subject see Le Long, Bibliothèque Historique de la France, ii. p.
326, n. 19128.
[398] In the Contes de Gaillard, printed in 1620, it is said, “Il alla
un jour d’esté souper chez un voluptueux, qui lui fit mettre de la
glace en son vin.”
[399] Problema 102. These Problemata are often printed with the
Problemata Aristotelis, Alexandri Aphrodis. and others. The collection
which I have was printed at Amsterdam, 1685, 12mo.
[400] De Miraculis, libri iv. Colon. 1581, 8vo, p. 288.
[401] Centuriæ ix Memorabilium. Francof. 1599, 12mo, p. 67.
[402] De Nive, p. 38.
[403] J. B. Du Hamel, Opera Philosophica, Norimb. 1681, 4to.
[404] L. Tancredi de Fame et Siti libri tres. Ven. 1607, 4to, lib. iii.
[405] When snow or ice is mixed with salt, both begin to be liquid.
This process is employed in Russia to clean windows covered with frost.
They are rubbed with a sponge dipped in salt, and by these means they
become immediately transparent. [The _rationale_ of this appears to
consist in the salt absorbing water and deliquescing, and in this fluid
the snow subsequently dissolves, the mixture requiring a much lower
temperature for its assuming the solid state.]
[406] Historia Vitæ et Mortis, § 44.--De Augmentis Scient. v. 2.--Silva
Silvarum, cent. i.
[407] History of Cold, title i. 17; title v. 3; title xv. 7. [The
method of making one or two freezing or cooling mixtures will not
perhaps be without interest here. Where snow is not at hand, a mixture
of 5 parts of powdered nitre and 5 of powdered sal-ammoniac may be
mixed with 16 parts of water. This reduces the thermometer from +50°
to about +10° F., or, 9 parts of phosphate of soda, 6 of nitrate of
ammonia, and 4 of dilute nitric acid, reduce the thermometer from +50°
to -21°; 5 parts of common salt, 5 of nitrate of ammonia and 12 of
snow, reduce it from the ordinary temperature to -28°. The most intense
degree of cold, probably known, has been produced by Dr. Faraday in
his experiments upon the liquefaction of gases. This was effected by
placing solid carbonic acid mixed with æther, under the air-pump, and
exhausting.]
[408] Des Cartes Specimina Philosophiæ. Amst. 1650, 4to, p. 216.
[409] Von Hohberg says, in his Adliches Landleben, “The following,
which serves more for amusement than use, is well-known to children. If
one put snow and saltpetre into a jug, and place it on a table, over
which water has been poured, and stir the snow and salt well round in
the jug with a stick, the jug will be soon frozen to the table.” This
baron, therefore, who, after he had sold his property in Austria on
account of the persecution against the Protestants, wrote at Regensburg
(Ratisbon), where he died in 1688, at the age of seventy-six, was not
acquainted with iced delicacies. Had they been known to him, he would
have certainly mentioned them where, in his Book of Cookery, he gives
ample directions for laying out a table of the first rank.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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