A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins (Vol. 1&2). Johann Beckmann

Sauval; also Mezeray, Abregé Chron. de l’Histoire de France. Amsterdam, 1696, iii. p. 167.

171 This ordinance is to be found also in Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, i. p. 418.

172 Valesiana. Paris, 1695, 12mo, p. 35.

173 Variétés Historiques, p. 96.

174 Sauval says, “I shall here remark, that this was the first time coaches were used for that ceremony (the entrance of ambassadors), and that it was only at this period they were invented, and began to be used.”

175 L’Art du Menuisier-carossier, p. 457, planche 171.

176 Stow’s Survey of London, 1633, fol. p. 70.

177 Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce, iv. p. 180.

178 Arnot’s Hist. of Edinburgh, p. 596.

179 Twiss’s Travels through Spain and Portugal.

180 Dalin, Geschichte des Reichs Schweden, iii. 1, p. 390 and 402.

181 Bacmeister, Essai sur la Bibliothèque de l’Académie de S. Pétersburg, 1776, 8vo, p. 38.

182 Joh. Ihre, Glossarium Sueogothic. i. col. 1178. Kusk, a coachman. It seems properly to denote the carriage itself. Gall. cocher. Hisp. id. Ital. cocchio. Ang. coach. Hung. cotczy. Belg. goetse. Germ. kutsche. The person who drives such carriages is by the English called coachman, which in other languages is made shorter, as the French say cocher, and the Germans kusk. It is difficult, however, to determine whence it is derived, as we do not know by whom these close carriages were invented. Menage makes it Latin, and by a far-fetched derivation from vehiculum; Junius derives it somewhat shorter from ὀχέω to carry. Wachter thinks it comes from the German word kutten, to cover; and Lye from the Belgic koetsen, to lie along, as it properly signifies a couch or chair.

183 Ungrisches Magaz. Pressburg, 1781, vol. i. p. 15.

184 Stephanus Broderithus says, speaking of the year 1526, “When the archbishop received certain intelligence that the Turks had entered Hungary, not contented with informing the king by letter of this event, he speedily got into one of those light carriages, which, from the name of the place, we call Kotcze, and hastened to his majesty.” Siegmund baron Herberstein, ambassador from Louis II. to the king of Hungary, says, in Commentario de Rebus Moscoviticis, Basil 1571, fol. p. 145, where he occasionally mentions some stages in Hungary, “The fourth stage for stopping to give the horses breath is six miles below Jaurinum, in the village of Cotzi, from which both drivers and carriages take their name, and are still generally called cotzi.” That the word coach is of Hungarian extraction is confirmed also by John Cuspinianus (Spiesshammer), physician to the emperor Maximilian I., in Bell’s Appar. ad Histor. Hungariæ, dec. 1, monum. 6, p. 292. “Many of the Hungarians rode in those light carriages called in their native tongue Kottschi.” In Czvittinger’s Specimen Hungariæ Litteratæ, Franc. et Lips. 1711, 4to, we find an account of the service rendered to the arts and sciences by the Hungarians; but the author nowhere makes mention of coaches.

185 In his Account of the German War, p. 612.

186 Examples may be seen in Frisch’s German Dictionary, where it appears that the beds which are used for raising tobacco plants are at present called Tabacks kutschen, tobacco beds. This expression is old, for I find it in Pet. Laurembergii Horticultura, Franc. 1631, p. 43.

187 Roubo, p. 457. The historian, however, gives it no name.

188 “Berlin. A kind of carriage which takes its name from the city of Berlin, in Germany; though some persons ascribe the invention of it to the Italians, and pretend to find the etymology of it in berlina, a name which the latter give to a kind of stage on which criminals are exposed to public ignominy.”—Encyclopédie, ii. p. 209.

189 Nicolai Beschreibung von Berlin, Anhang, p. 67.

190 At Rome, however, at a very early period, there appears to have been carriages to be let out for hire: Suetonius calls them (i. chap. 57) rheda meritoria, and (iv. c. 39) meritoria vehicula.

191 Charles Villerme paid in 1650, into the king’s treasury, for the exclusive privilege of keeping coaches for hire within the city of Paris, 15,000 livres.

192 A full history of the Parisian fiacres, and the orders issued respecting them, may be seen in Continuation du Traité de la Police. Paris, 1738, fol. p. 435. See also Histoire de la Ville de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 192.

193 An account of the manner in which these brouettes were suspended may be seen in Roubo, p. 588. He places the invention of post-chaises in the year 1664.

194 Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce.

195 Haubers Beschr. von Copenhagen, p. 173.

196 Twiss’s Travels through Spain and Portugal.

      WATER-CLOCKS, CLEPSYDRAS.

       Table of Contents

We are well assured that the ancients had machines by which, through the help of water, they were able to measure time197. The invention of them is by Vitruvius198 ascribed to Ctesibius of Alexandria, who lived under Ptolemy Euergetes, or about the year 245 before the Christian æra199. They were introduced at Rome by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, in the year 594 after the building of the city, or about 157 years before the birth of Christ. How these water-clocks were constructed, or whether they were different from the