MILL-SAWS.
381
persons saw Daedalus covering up the grave of his victim,and asked what he was doing? “ Oh,” says he, “ I amonly burying a snake.” How much credit may he due tothis relation, we do not take upon ourselves to determine.Pliny , and it appears Seneca, were of the former opinion ;whilst Diodorus Siculus, Apollodorus , and others hold thelatter. The youth is named by some Perdix. However, it ap-pears to rest between these two, no other claimant ap-pearing. Ovid says it was not the jaw of a snake, but theback-bone, or spine of a fish. 1 The former, however,appears to be the most rational opinion as to its origin, asit is conjectured, 1st, that the vertebra} would not besufficiently strong ; tJdly, that the joints are too far apart,and also too large.
The Grecian saw is said to have been much the sameas that instrument which the moderns now use. This idea iscorroborated by an ancient painting discovered in Hercu-laneum ; likewise from an antique representation of thisinstrument, given by the celebrated Monlfaucon , 2 a namewhom all who have a taste for classical antiquities mustvenerate. '
The preceding observations, however, have relation tothe subject of this article only, inasmuch, as they are in-troductory to what follows.
The most benelicial and ingenious improvement that liasbeen made in saws, \yas in the invention and introductionof machinery called saw-mills; which in woody countries, aswell as for delicate and fine veneers, are of the greatest utility :in the former case, wood forms the chief article of commerce,w’hen labourers are scarce ; in the latter, it may be cutnearly as thin as a sheet of paper: as we are informed isthe case with mills of this description erected in the publicworks at Plymouth.
They are declared to have been invented in Germany ,as early as the fourth century, upon the small river Roeror Ruer : for although Ausonius speaks of water-mills forcutting stone, he says nothing of mills to cut timber. Theart of cutting marble with a saw, is very ancient; Pliny thinks it was invented in Cana; at least he knew of nopalace or building incrusted with marble older than thepalace of King Mausolus, at Halicarnassus. Vitruvius alsonames the same circumstance, although he uses different terms