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COHALT, SMALT, ZAFFER.
smoke, and opposed this idea to the one of those dark volu-minous masses of smoke which often ascend from chimneyson fire; therefore the watchmen then, as we now find them,alarmed the neighbourhood when such an event took place,fearing the destruction of the house, and other ill conse-quences.
Horace, being on a journey, stopped at a paltry inn,where he complains, “ that the smoke affected his eyes.”Have we not similar houses witli smoky chimneys now-a-days;the inference to be deduced from this, in our humble opi-nion, is, that the poet was belter accommodated in Ids menhouse, or he would not have discovered the inconvenience.It is also universally admitted, that the ancients had suda-toria, or sweating-rooms; they had also rooms warmed byflues; now to us it really appears to be obstinate, for thesake of contradiction alone,—to insist that the smoke wouldnot naturally follow the same road meant to convey the heat.Vitruvius , also, speaking of the manufacture of lamp-black, says, “ The places where this was procured, con-sisted of huts built for the purpose, when the smoke ofburning pine-wood was conveyed to a close apartment.'’The natural question which here presents itself, is, bv whatmeans was it conveyed? if not by a flue or chimney, howcould it be collected ? Those proofs we have selected fromancient authors, we believe, may be sufficient to establishthe opinion, though the united learning and prejudice ofthe whole modern world were against ns. We deliver it asour most decided opinion, that the ancients had chimneys insome of their apartments; although we, at the same time,admit they were not so general, as we now find them innorthern European and cold countries.
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These three substances being produced from the self-samematerial, and nearly by the same identical process, theirhistory is comprehended in one article. We have often hadoccasion, in the course of our researches, to confess ourgratitude to the Sisyphian labours of the alchemist; uselessindeed, to him, but infinitely beneficial to mankind andposterity in the noble art of chymistry and its dependants.In nothing is rtian more benefited than in the very valuablediscoveries made in the mineral world by various degreesof chymical heat, those degrees ascertained to be requisitefor the fusion of certain metals; and the production of