{From Transactions of the Anhceological Society of Glasgow.) 



NOTES ON SOME BOOKS OF TECHNICAL RECEIPTS, OR SO-CALLEl) 

 \ " SECRETS,"^ 



JOHN (FEPtCiUSON, M.A., 



Professor of Chemistry in the University of Glasgow. 

 [Read at a meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 20th April, 1SS2. | 



The following notes may serve to some extent as an introduction 

 to a subject wide in itself, and with numerous and important con- 

 nections. Tlie history of practical invention and of technical 

 progress is one which might well engage tlie attention of students 

 of anthropology and antiquities, as it throws light on many points 

 connected with the growth of social life and civilisation. The 

 desire and the power to turn external ol)jects to his service 

 and coiTvenience are developed to such an extent in man, that, 

 among the many differences between him and other animals, may 

 be reckoned the various arts by which he induces nature to accom- 

 modate herself to his wants ; among the lower animals one looks 

 in vain for anything parallel to the arts of cookery, medicine, 

 metallurgy — to the systematic use of tools, of clothing, of weapons. 

 In ancient times the various handicrafts were monopolies of 

 certain families or castes ; in the middle ages the handicraftsmen 

 were too glad to pursue their callings in obscurity ; it is only in 

 the most recent years that arts and manufactures ha^ o acquired 

 such paramount interest, that the special or technical education of 

 those who are to exercise them has come to be thought of national 

 importance. While, in the days of the Greeks and Romans, the 

 artizan was a despicable if not an almost infamous person, and, in 

 the middle ages, was oppressed by the military and ruling classes, 

 against whom, nevertheless, he canned on a ceaseless struggle until 

 he succeeded in asserting his importance, and even his equality with 

 them, it has been reserved for the pi'esent day for ignorance of 

 arts and manufactures, and inditierence to their progress, to be as 

 discreditable as they were fonnerly dignified. The history of 



