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

medulla palmarum in cacumine, quod cerebrum appellant.”

624 Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second book, p. 70. He gives everything to be found in Theophrastus; but either the author or some of his transcribers have so confused what he says, that it is almost unintelligible.

625 Herm. Barbar. ad Dioscor. iii. 15.

626 Manni de Florentinis inventis commentarium, p. 34.

627 Politiani Opera. Lugd. 1533, 8vo, p. 444.

628 Ruellius De Natura Stirpium. Bas. 1543, fol. p. 485.

629 Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 164. Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. p. 2462; and Anderson’s History of Commerce.

630 Herm. Barbarus, in his Observations on Dioscorides.

631 Salmas. ad Solin. p. 160.

632 It is remarked in Golius’s Dictionary, p. 597, that this word signifies also the scales of a fish, and the strong scales of the calyx of the plant may have given rise to the name.

633 The Greek word is αρτυτική.

634 Glossarium Suiogothicum, i. p. 411.

635 Potatoes.

636 A variety of derivations may be found in Menage’s Dictionnaire Etymologique.

637 See Rozier, Cours Complet d’Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 14.

638 See his Travels. Geneva, 1681, fol. p. 164.

      SAW-MILLS.

       Table of Contents

In early periods, the trunks of trees were split with wedges into as many and as thin pieces as possible639; and if it was necessary to have them still thinner, they were hewn on both sides to the proper size. This simple and wasteful manner of making boards has been still continued to the present time. Peter the Great of Russia endeavoured to put a stop to it by forbidding hewn deals to be transported on the river Neva. The saw, however, though so convenient and beneficial, has not been able to banish entirely the practice of splitting timber used in building, or in making furniture and utensils, for I do not speak here of fire-wood; and, indeed, it must be allowed that this method is attended with peculiar advantages, which that of sawing can never possess. The wood-splitters perform their work more expeditiously than sawyers, and split timber is much stronger than that which has been sawn; for the fissure follows the grain of the wood, and leaves it whole; whereas the saw, which proceeds in the line chalked out for it, divides the fibres, and by these means lessens its cohesion and solidity. Split timber, indeed, turns out often crooked and warped; but in many purposes to which it is applied this is not prejudicial; and such faults may sometimes be amended. As the fibres, however, retain their natural length and direction, thin boards, particularly, can be bent much better. This is a great advantage in making pipe-staves, or sieve-frames, which require still more art, and in forming various implements of the like kind.

Our common saw, which needs only to be guided by the hand of the workman, however simple it may be, was not known to the inhabitants of America when they were subdued by the Europeans640. The inventor of this instrument has by the Greeks been inserted in their mythology, with a place in which, among their gods, they honoured the greatest benefactors of the earliest ages. By some he is called Talus, and by others Perdix. Pliny641 alone ascribes the invention to Dædalus; but Hardouin, in the passage where he does so, chooses to read Talus rather than Dædalus. In my opinion, Pliny may have committed an error as well as any of the moderns; and as one writer at present misleads another, Seneca642, who gives the same inventor, may have fallen into a mistake by copying Pliny. Diodorus Siculus643, Apollodorus644, and others name the inventor Talus. He was the son of Dædalus’s sister; and was by his mother placed under the tuition of her brother, to be instructed in his art. Having once found the jaw-bone of a snake, he employed it to cut through a small piece of wood; and by these means was induced to form a like instrument of iron, that is, to make a saw. This invention, which greatly facilitates labour, excited the envy of his master, and instigated him to put Talus to death privately. We are told, that being asked by some one, when he was burying the body, what he was depositing in the earth, he replied, a serpent. This suspicious answer discovered the murder; and thus, adds the historian, a snake was the cause of the invention, of the murder, and of its being found out645.

Hyginus646, Servius647, Fulgentius648, Lactantius Placidus649, Isidorus650, and others call the inventor Perdix. That he was the son of a sister of Dædalus they all agree; but they differ respecting the name of his parents. The mother, by Fulgentius, is called Polycastes, but without any proof; and Lactantius gives to the father the name of Calaus. In Apollodorus, however, the mother of Talus is called Perdix; and the same name is given by Tzetzes to the mother of the inventor, whose name Talus he changes into Attalus651. Perdix, we are told, did not employ for a saw the jaw-bone of a snake, like Talus, but the back-bone of a fish; and this is confirmed by Ovid652, who nevertheless is silent respecting the name of the inventor.

What may be meant by spina piscis it is perhaps difficult to conjecture; but I can by no means make spina dorsi of it, as Dion. Salvagnius has done, in his observations on the passage quoted from Ovid’s Ibis. The small bony processes which project from the spine of a fish have some similitude to a saw; but it would be hardly possible to saw through with them small pieces of wood. These bones are too long, as well as too far distant from each other; and the joints of the back-bone are liable to be dislocated by the smallest force. I am not acquainted with the spine of any fish which would be sufficiently strong for that purpose. The jaw-bone of a fish furnished with teeth would be more proper; but the words spina in medio pisce prevent us from adopting that alteration. I should be inclined rather to explain