A liquor to wash old deeds and writings, &c. whereby they are rendered as legible as when firstwrote, communicated by Mr. Holmes, keeper of the records in the Tower. TA AKE five or fix galls, bruife them, and put them into about a pint of the very beft white wine, let it ftand in the fun two days, you will by trial focn fee whether it is too ftrong or two fmall; dip a brush into it, and wash the part wanted to be cleared up.

inches within are from the top of the cover to the bottom of the box; the cover is alfo filled with charcoal in the fame manner as the bottom, that the matter to be affayed may be placed between the coals, for which purpose, with a knife, a fuitable place is made in the charcoal, on the top, and on each fide of the fmall holes for vent.

The lamp is made of iron, and muft have a very good wick, at leaft an inch thick, if thicker it is better, must be well fupplied with oil or oil or greafe put between the chargreafe, and there must be alfo fome coal, with the matter you intend to

try.

TH

HIS apparatus confifts of a double pair of forge bellows, a lamp, and a box male of good ftrong crucible, or Stowbridge clay, fuch as the finelting-pots of the glafs-house are made of.

The bellows are of a common fize, the extreme meafure 30 inches long, and a foot or 12 inches broad, they must be made very ftrong and powerful, fo as to blow with as much force as possible.

The box is within about 6 inches deep, and about 4 inches diameter; in the front juft in the middle, a hole is contrived in fuch a manner as to receive the flame of the lamp, which by the bellows is to be played upon the matter or mineral to be tried, and in the bottom of the box is made a bed for charcoal, joined as clofe as poffible, fo that it has the appearance of one piece. The cover of this box is within half an inch as big as the lower part, but the fix

added and well mixed. mercur. fublimat. corrofiv. is to be

When the ore or mineral is in the box between the coals with the flux, then place the burning lamp before the hole in fuch a manner, that the flame may cafily reach it, and, with the bellows, blow all the flame upon it; continue thus blowing till you fee all the ftuff you try in a liquid ftate; then let it cool, and examine the product.

N. B. Before you begin the operation with the lamp and bellows, the cover of the box must be faftened upon it, with an iron wire or fcrew made on purpose for it. In this manner all minerals may be proved, and their contents discovered with the greateft certainty, but by this means it cannot be afcertained what quantity they yield, that knowledge must be obtained from regular affays; the chief utility of this apparatus, is, to difcover whether the mineral is worth a regular aflay.

ANTIQUITIES.

burning the dead.

NIR Thomas Brown, in his fpirited treatise, entitled Hydriotaphia, incidentally introduces the ancient ufage of burning the dead. It were to be wifhed, that he, and all those who preceded him in the difquifition of fo abftrufe a theme, had confidered the fubject with a little more attention. One general error feems to have been adopted ; that by fuch a precipitate diffolution, the ethereal flame, or foul of man, was purified by its difunion from the grofs and fervile bandages of matter. Heraclitus, it feems, was the first expofitor of this doctrine; by whofe means the practice became general in every region of Greece. According to him, fire was the predominant principle in the human fabrick; and that therefore by the reduction of the body to its firft principles, the purity and incorruptibility of its magifterial parts were, by fuch means, better preferved. To this purpose is Euripides, in fpeaking of Clytemne "ra,,

- τυρί καθήγνισαι δίμας.

There was indeed another opinion, which had its foundation in policy which was, that by burning the body, all rage and malice, the general iffues of hatred and enmity, which often furvived their object, were checked and prevented. But

tom, established a long time before; fo the custom, in its original, grew out of reafons, previous to those beforementioned. 'Tis matter of furprize, that fo ingenious a writer as Sir Thomas Brown should have imbibed the general opinion; and not rather have corrected it, by expatiating a little farther into that fruitful foil, where he would foon have difcovered a clearer profpect.

Two confiderations then will arife here. The first relates to the antiquity, and the fecond to the intention of this cuftom. Its antiquity rifes as high as the Theban war; where we are told of the great folemnity that accompanied this ceremony at the pyre of Menceceus and Archemorus, who were co-temporary with Jair, the eighth judge of Ifael. Homer abounds with funeral obfequies of this nature. Penthefilea, queen of the Amazons, we find, underwent this fiery dif lution. In the inward regions of Afia, the practice was of very an-, cient date, and the continuance long for we are told, that in the reign of Julien, the king of Chioniat, burnt his fon's body, and repofited the afhes in a filver urn, Coeval almoft with the first instances of this kind in the Faft, was the practice in the western parts of the world. The Herulian, the Getes, and Thracians, had a'l along obferved it: and its antiquity was as

great

The antiquity of drinking healths.

T was

It cuftom the

a cuftom among the Greeks, and from them derived, like many others, efpecially of the religious kind, among the Romans, to make libations, to pour out wine, and even to drink wine in honour of the gods. Sometimes this ceremony was introduced to their meals, but, in their more folemn entertainments, it was performed in the interval preceding the mensæ secunde, which answers to our fecond course, or the defert. This manner of venerating the Gods often occurs in the Claffics, and confequently is too well known to want any farther enlargement.

Servius and Potter, with other fcholiafts and antiquarians, may enable us to harangue very copioufly over the glafs, on thefe deyout effufions.

The grateful cuftom of drinking to the health of our benefaciors, or of our acquaintance, is of a more obfcure origin, though numberless inftances of it are to be feen in the Grecian poets and hiftorians, no lefs than in the Roman writers, Ovid, that eafy and luxuriant genius, that happy proficient in all the literature his age afforded, introduces this ufage in his metamorphofes, as of a very ancient date among the Greeks. The Athenians, on the arrival of Thefeus from killing the Minotaurus, according to him, made public rejoicings, attended with a pompous entertainment, in which they congratulate his fafe arrival, and enlarge on his unparalleled exploits, which intitled him to a divine immortality,

Here then is the custom of drink. ing to the health and profperity of fuperiors, by whom we have been benefited, or of our equals, with whom we live in reciprocal friendfhip, in vogue among the Grecians, fo early as Thefeus, in those remote ages, which are diftinguifhed in hiftory by the fplendid appellation of the heroic ages; that is, many centuries before the commencement of the Chriftian æra. Neither, like us, were they wanting to pay this regard to ftrangers or foreigners of eminent rank and merit.

Afconius, explaining the meaning of more Græco bibere, (drinking after the manner of the Greeks) fays, that it was their cuftom, in their libations, firft to pay their devotions to the Gods, and then mention their friends in terms of esteem and affection, and wishes for their profperity. Every time they venerated the Gods, or wifhed health to their friends, it was in neat wine; nay, it was indifpenfable to this religious ceremony, for fuch it was accounted, to drink merum, that is, wine, not only undiluted with water, but without any other of the mixtures then ufed, as faffron, honey, &c.

Libations were eftcemed more refpectful than drinking to the honour of the Gods, or welfare of their friends; and poffibly from this diftinction may be derived the omiffion of drinking to the healths of illuftriou, perfonages, elpecially where the nobility are not fo near on a level with the commonality, as they are in our well-conftituted country.

The Roman gallants used to take off as many glaffes to their miftreffes, as there were letters in her

namo,

name, according to Martial, who fays,

Let fix cups to Navia's health go round,

And fair Tuftina's be with feven crown'd.'

An account of the first instruments for measuring time, introduced into Rome. From M. D'Arnay's private life of the Romans.

THE

HE Romans were near four hundred and fixty years without knowing any other divifion of the day than morning, noon, and night. The laws of the twelve tables even mention only fun-rife and fun-fet; it was not till fome years afterwards that an officer of the conful's proclaimed mid-day aloud, which the Romans then diftinguifhed only in fine weather, and by the height of the fun.

Pliny reports, on the credit of an ancient author, that the firft inftrument which the Romans had to divide the hours was a fun-dial, which L. Papirius Curfor placed in the court of the temple of Quirinus, twelve years before the war againft Pyrrhus but he feems to doubt the truth of this relation. He weakens it himself; and to give fomething more certain, and better acknowledged, he fays, after Varro, that it was during the firft Punic war that the firft dial was expofed to public view at Rome, and placed upon a column of the tribunal of harangues. Marcus Valerius Meffala brought it from Sicily after the taking of Catana, thirty years after Papirius, the year of Rome 477.

Although this dial, drawn for the latitude of Catana, which was

different from that of Rome, could not show the hours justly; yet as imperfect as it was, the Romans conformed to it for the space of ninety-nine years, till Quintus Marcus Philippus, who was Cenfor with Paulus Æmilius, gave them another more exact. This, of all the acts of his cenforship, was that which obtained him the greateft applaufe. Thefe, forts of clocks were of ufe only in the day, and in clear weather. Scipio Nafica, five years after, in the year of Rome 595, first brought into ufe, and placed under cover a water-clock, which fhewed the hours equally by day and night. There were twelve in the day, and as many in the night, without diftinétion of fea fons.

Vitruvius attributes the inves tion of water-clocks to Crefibius, a native of Alexandria, he lived under the two firft Ptolemys. The Romans had different kinds of them, which marked the hours in different ways. They called them horologium hibernum, winter clock, and fometimes alfo horologiumns turnum, night clock, in oppofitica to the dials, which were of no ufe in the night, and of very little in winter, when the rays of the fun are often intercepted by clouds.

To form an idea of these clocks we may conceive a pretty large ba fon filled with water, which, by little hole contrived in the bottom, emptied itself into another veffel of nearly the fame capacity, in the space of twelve hours; and where the water riting gradually, brought up perpendicularly a bit of corks or the figure of a genius pointing to the hours, which were marked one above another on columns pilafters.

Thele