Chap. 4.] Spanish Steam Skip in 1543. 403
geographical distinctions respecting the abode of its citizens should beunknown.
A few scattered relics of ingenious men who flourished in tbe darkages are still extant, which serve to eonvince us that experimental re-searches of some of the monks and other ardent inquirers after knowledgein those times were more extensive, and evinced a more thorough ac-quaintance with the principles of natural philosophy, than is generallysurmised. The following remarks of Roger Bacon are an instance. Fromthem we may safely infer that he was aware of the elastic force o£ steamand its applicability to propel vessels on water and carriages on land.That he was acquainted with gunpowder is generally admitted, and itwould seem that neither divingbells nor Suspension bridges escaped him:“ Men may construct for the wants of navigation such machines thatthe greatest vessels, directed by a single man, shall cut through the riversand seas with more rapidity than if they were propelled by rowers;chariots may be constructed which, without horses, shall run with immea-surable speed. Men may coneeive machines which could bear the diver,without danger, to the depth of the waters. Men could invent a multi-tude of other engines and useful instruments, such as bridges that shallspan the broadest rivers without any intermediate support. Art has itsthunders more terrible than those of heaven. A small quantity of matterproduces a horrible explosion, accottipanied by a bright light; and thismay be repeated so as to destroy a city or entire battalions.”
Bacon was not ä man to speak or write in this manner at random. Hisexperimnnts led him to the conelusions he has thus recorded, for he wasby far the most talented and indefatigable experimental philosopher ofhis age. His discoveries however were not understood, or their impor-tance not appreciated, for he was imprisoned ten years as a practiser ofmagic, &c. There is a remark in his treatise “ on the secret Works ofart and nature,” that is too valuable to be omitted: he says a person whois perfectly acquainted with the manner that nature ohserves in her opera-tiohs, can not only rival büt surpass her. “ That he was acquainted withine rarefaction of air, and the structure of the air pump, is past contradic-tion,” He was (says Dr. Friend) the miracle of the times he lived in,and the greatest genius perhaps for mechanical knowledge Which everappeared in the world since Archimedes . The camera obscura andfelescope were known to him, and he has described the mode of makingreading glasses. Most of the operations now used in chemistry aresaid to be described or mentioned by him. A description of his laborato-ry and of the experiments he made, with a sketch of the various appara-tus employed, woüld have been infinitely more valuable than all thevolumes on scholastic divinity that were ever written.
In 1543, a naval officer under Charles V. is said to have propelled aship of two hundred tons, by steam, in the harbor of Barcelona. Noacöount of his machinery is extant, except that he had a large eopperboiler, and that paddle wheels Were suspended over the sides of thevessel. Like all old inventors he refüsed to explain the mechanism. Thefollowing accoünt was furnished for publication by the Superintendent ofthe Spanish royal archives. “ Blasco de Garay , a captain in the navy,proposed in 1543, to the Emperör and King, Charles the Fifth, a machineto propel large boats and ships, even in calm weather, without oars orsaüs. In spite of the impediments and the Opposition which this projectMet with, the Emperor ordered a trial to be mäde of it in the port ofBarcelona, which in fact took place on the 17th of the month of June,of the said year 1543. Garay would not explain the particulars of his