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“ hoisteth up and down the saw, that it continually eateth“ in, and the handle of the same is kept in a rigall of wood“ from swerving. Also the timber lieth as it were upon“ a ladder, which is brought by little and little to the saw“ with another vice.” In the sixteenth century, therewas a grand improvement made in this machine by havingseveral saws affixed to one beam, by which timber couldbe cut into several planks or boards, and of any thickness,at the same time. P'tgliius saw one of these, in 1575, uponthe Danube , near liatisbon.
In England, saw-mills were at first as little encouragedas printing is in Turkey, and from the same motive. Whenattempts were made to introduce them, it was said thesawyers would be deprived of bread. For this reason, itwas found necessary to abandon a saw-mill erected by aDutchman, near London , in 1(363. However, in 1700, oneHoughton laid before the nation the advantages of them,but he expressed his apprehension that it might cause acommotion in the populace. What he feared, actually cameto pass, for on the erection of one by an opulent timber-merchant, by desire of the Society for promotion of arts, &c.in 1767 or 1768, who caused one to be erected and worked,driven by w'ind, near Limehouse, under the direction ofJames Stans field, who had learnt in Holland and Norway ,the art of constructing them, a foolish mob assembled atidpulled it to pieces. The loss sustained by the individualwas, of course, made good by the county, and some ofthe rioters were punished. There had been, we understand,a similar mill erected in Scotland many years before.
MUSEUMS.
Should the report be true which we have from antiquity, that■written accounts of those who had recovered from sicknesswere deposited in the temple of JEsculapius, these it isconjectured, furnished the first idea of collections of thisnature. That this was so, we have the testimony of Hip-pocrates , who himself, did not disdain to consult them.Fragments of these collections have been also collectedand published by Mercurialis, in his work De Arte Gymnas-tica, i. c. 1.
There is also the most ample room to believe that rareanimals, plants, and minerals were collected and depositedin the temples; even some of the ancients occasionallyvowed to deposit their hair in certain temples, as we read