2

Andent Arts.

[Book I.

cessive labors developed and matured that “ semi-omnipotent engine,”which “ driveth up water by fire.” A machine that has already greatlychanged and immeasurably improved the state of civil society ; and onewhich, in conjunction with the printing press, is destined to renovateboth the political and moral World. The subject is therefore, intimatelyconnected with the present advanced state of the arts ; and the amazingprogress made in them during the last two centuries, may be attributedin some degree to its cultivation.

The origin and early history of this art, (and of all others of primitivetimes) are irrecoverably lost. Tradition has scarcely preserved a singleanecdote or circumstance relating to those meritorious men, with whomany of the useful arts originated; and when in process of time, historytook her Station in the temple of Science , her professors deemed it beneathher dignity, to record the actions and lives of men, who were merely in-ventors of machines, or improvers of the useful arts ; thus nearly allknowledge of those to whom the world is under the highest of obliga-tions, has perislied forever.

The scholar mourns, and the antiquary weeps over the wreck ofancient learning and art—the philosopher regrets thatsufficient of hothhas not been preserved to elucidate several interesting discoveries, whichhistory has mentioned ; nor to prove that those principles of Science , uponwhich the action of some old machines depended, were understood ; andthe mechanic inquires in vain for the processes by which his predecessorsin remote ages, worked the hardest granite without iron, transported itin masses that astound us, and used them in the erection of stupendousbuildings, apparently with the facility that modern workmen lay bricks,or raise the lintels of doors. The machines by which they were elevatedare as unknown as the individuals who directed their movements. Weare almost as ignorant of their modes of working the metals, of their al-loys which rivalled Steel in hardness, of their furnaces, crucibles, andmoulds ; the details of forming the ennobling Statue, or the more usefulskillet or cauldron. Did the ancients laminate metal between rollers, anddraw wire through plates, as we do 1 or, was it extended by hammers, assome specimens of both seem to show T On these and a thousand othersubjects, much uncertainty prevails. Unfortunately learned men of old,deemed it a part of wisdom, to conceal from the vulgär, all discoveries inScience. With this view, they wrapped them in mystical figures, thatthe people might not apprehend them. The custom was at one time sogeneral, that philosophers refused to leave any thing in writing, explana-tory of their researches.

Whenever we attempt to penetrate that obscurity which conceals fromour view, the Works of the ancients, we are led to regret, that some oftheir mechanics did not undertake, for the sake of posterity and theirown fame, to write a history and description of their machines and manu-factures.

We know that philosophers, generally, would not condescend to per-form such a task, or stoop to acquire the requisite Information, for theydeemed it discreditable to apply their energies and learning, to the eluci-dation of such subjects. (Few could boast with Hippias —who was master of the liberal and mechanv;al arts—the ring on his finger, the tunic, cloak,

a “ And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires.” Exod. xxxix, 3.These plates, were probably similar to those made by the aneient goldsmiths of Mexico ,which were “ three quarters of a yard long, foure fingers broad, and as thicke as parch-ment.” Purchas ’ Pilgrimage, 984. “ Silver spread into plates, is brought from Tarshish,and gold from Uphaz,” Jer. x, 9.