348 On the Catoptrical and Dioptrical 



Nor is any other material fitter for mirrors." — Henry Ste- 

 phens, in his Thesaurus Ungues Grcecce, article 'Yaki**^ 

 (of or belonging to glass) cites a passage from Alexander 

 of Aphrodisium, the celebrated commentator on Aristotle, 

 who lived towards the end of the second century. Abat, 

 not having seen the original, does not give the passage, 

 but says that Stephens ad3s, " Unde 'YaXivx KdV^rpa, apud 

 Atexandrum Aphrodishun, vitrea specula : Hence the Hya- 

 Una Katoptra of Alexander Aphrodisius,, signifies glass 

 mirrors." 



6. Abat goes on to state, that, in consulting authors 

 whose only subject was the art of making glass, such as 

 Antonio Neri, Kunckel, Merret, Haudicquer de Blancour, 

 and Brumoy in his Latin poem De Arte Vitraria, he has 

 not found a single hint of the time of the invention of glass, 

 mirrors ; although all these writers inquire into the antiquity 

 of glass, and the purposes to which it has been applied, not 

 forgetting mirrors. He says that all the books of travels, 

 geography, and history, he has met with, which notice the 

 glass manufactories of Venice, Germany, he. are silent as 

 to the time and place of the first establishment of such works. 

 Abat further observes, that Scarabelli, in his Description of 

 the Cabinet of Settala or Septala, in Italian, positively says 

 that no author has mentioned who was the inventor of glass 

 mirrors. In short, my author declares, that, as far as he 

 knows, no writer has given the least inlimation of the time 

 when glass mirrors were invented ; except Pliny, who (in 

 the words cited above,^§ 85,) says that they were contrived 

 at Sidon. 



7. My learned author observes, that, from all antiquity, 

 the practice of coating copper with lead or tin has been 

 used * ; and he intimates that the following method of coat- 

 ing glass globes, which is common in Germany, is so an- 

 tient, that no author who describes it makes mention of the 

 inventor : — u Take equal parts of lead and antimony (the 

 stibium f of the antients) and melt them together. Blow 



a glass 



* AinszuQrtb, under the word Stannum, gives this quotation from Piiny, 

 xxxiv. 17. *« §tannum illitum ane'is vasis compesat arvginis virus s Tin 

 overlaid on copper vessels allays the poison or the verdigrise." In one 

 of the volumes of Dr r . AncUnons. excellent miscellany, The Bf:e, there 

 js a very simple recipe observed by the Turks in tinning metallic vessels; 

 but I cannot get trie volume at present.— Translator. 



f I have somewhere met with the following whimsical, but not im- 

 possible, account of the origin of the name Antimony:— Some monks hav- 

 ing thrown out an antimbnta! preparation, with which they had been 

 making experiments, it happened to be swallowed by some hogs, along 

 with the kitchen offals, 'and almost worked them to death. But the 



animals 



