Instruments of the Antients, 34 1 



translate the French of Abat, having never seen his English 

 original,) Mr. Ellis says : " Their snow eyes, as they very 

 properly call them, are a proof of their sagacity. They are 

 little pieces of wood or ivory*, properly formed to cover 

 the organs of vision, and tied on behind the head. They 

 have two slits of the exact length of the eyes, but very nar- 

 row ; and they see through them very distinctly, and with- 

 out the least inconvenience. This invention preserves them 

 from snow-blindness, a very dangerous and painful malady, 

 caused by the action of the light strongly reflected from tne 

 snow; especially in the spring, when the sun is considera- 

 bly elevated above the horizon. The use of these eyes 

 considerably strengthens the sight; and the Esquimaux are 

 so accustomed to them, that when thev have a mind to view 

 distant objects, they commonly use them instead of spy- 

 glasses." — Surely a more ingenious device never originated 

 among any untutored tribe. Yet I could mention a modern 

 system-wright, who is pleased to rank these Esquimaux 

 among the naturally inferior races of men, which owe their 

 existence to his own imitative imagination. But this is not 

 the proper place. 



4. My author's ninth Amusement, or Memoir, appears to 

 be more interesting than the eighth ; or at least it is more 

 analogous to that which I translated in my last com- 

 munication. It is " On the Antiquity of Glass Mirrors, 

 such as we use at present ; and on the Perfection of the 

 metallic Mirrors, which were in Use among the Antients." 

 In this memoir, Abat endeavours to prove that several an- 

 tient nations possessed abundance of plane metallic mirrors, 

 some of them of a large size; and he contends (against 

 Muratori, in his Antiq. Italicce Medii AZvi ; M. Carry, in 

 a MS. paper which he sent to the Academy of Cortona in 

 1733; and Mr. Nixon, in the London Phil. Trans, for 

 1758), that the antients had the art not only of casting and-- 

 polishing glass plates, but of coating them on the back with 

 metal. It would be tedious to follow him through his rea- 

 sonings on this subject ; but as his authorities must have 

 cost him very considerable research, and some of the books 

 are scarce, I shall here insert them. 



5. M I, Metallic Mirrors. — In Exodus, eh. xxxviii. 

 v. 8, we read that Bezalcel sc made the laver of brass and 

 the foot of it of brass, of the looking-glasses, or brazen 

 glasses, of the women." (Mirrors are among the furniture 



v No doubt the author means by ivory, any kind of solid bone.-— • 

 ylranslalor, 



Aa3 of 



