Egyptian, Hindoo, and Peruvian Blowpipes.
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[Book III.
the atmospheric pump, we here insert some of blowing tubes, as showingthe incipient state of the forcing pump.
No. 98. Egyptian using a reed. 1600 B. C. No. 99. Ancient Egyptian Goldsmith.
No. 98, represents an Egyptian blowing a fire with a reed. It is fromthe paintings at Beni Hassan, and extends back through a period of 3,500years. According to Mr. Wilkinson, the figure is that of a goldsmith,“ blowing the fire for melting the gold,” but from the comparative largesize of the vessel, it would seem rather to be a cauldron in which the ar-ticles were picklcd. No. 99, is the figure of a goldsmith either solderingor fusing metal with the blow-pipe, from the sculptures at Thebes . Theportable furnace has raised cheeks to confine and reflect the heat. Thepipe is of metal with the end enlarged and pointed. a
Sonnerat, has given (in the vulumeof illustrations to his voyages,) a platerepresenting modern goldsmiths ofHindostan, from which the annexedfigure (No. 100) is copied. It willserve to show, when compared withthe preceding cuts, what little chan-ges have taken place in some mechani-cal manipulations in the East, fromvery remote times. A similar figure isin Shoberl’s Hindostan. The samemode of fusing their metals was prac-ticed by the ancient gold and silversmiths of Mexico and Peru . Insteadof bellows, says Garcilasso, the latterhad blow-pipes “made of copper,about a yard long, the ends of whichwere narrow, that the breath might pass more forcibly by means of thecontraction, and as the fire was to be more or less; so accordingly theyused eight, ten, or twelve of these pipes at once, as the quantity of metaldid require.” (Commentaries on Peru , p. 52.)
The next Step was to apply a leathern bag or sack, formed of the skinof some animal, to one end of the tube (shown in No. 80) as a Substitutefor the mouth and lungs. The bag was inflated by the act of opening it,or by blowing into it, and its contents expelled by pressure. To suchHomer seems to allude in his account of Eolus assisting Ulysses:
The adverse winds in leathern bags he braced,
Compressed their force, and locked each struggling blast. Odys. 10.
No. 100. Goldsmith of Hindostan
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