AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 625 



fell aside. Wooden locks still exist in the Highlands, so artfully 

 made and notched at unequal distances that they can only be 

 opened with the wooden key belonging to them. Probably these 

 were the locks of the Celts. In the British towns occupied by 

 the Romans w-e find metallic locks and keys. Before the use of 

 locks and keys they fastened their doors with knots, according to 

 fancy, and they were difficult to open to those not in the secret. 

 The Roman locks on Scrhiia, i. e. book cases, boxes, trunks, etc., 

 resembled our modern trunk locks. The pessulus versatilis or 

 turning latch, box locks, chain-locks or padlocks were in use as 

 far back as 1381. Gate locks, the speldolum or crook by which 

 a chain was let into the lock and the vertevella, are not explained. 

 The lock and key of Taillebois castle was vast and substantial. 

 It was in the form of a fetterlock; that is "cadenas de chaine," 

 or a chain lock. Our old church door and chest locks explain it. 

 On opening a small antique brass ring lock, the letters on each 

 ring were placed together thus e. r. c. o. Nares mentions one 

 marked with the letters a. m. e. n., which being placed so as to 

 form the word Amen, would open, otherwise not. On chamber 

 doors they used tw^o locks, one of which was called the privy 

 lock. 



Teftoft, the celebrated Marquis of Worcester, in about 1650, 

 two hundred years ago, to wiiose original plan w^e refer much of 

 our steam engine, gave the following suggestion; an escutcheon 

 shall be placed before the lock with these properties : 



1. The owner, though a woman, may, with her delicate hand, 

 vary the ways of coming to open the lock ten ' millions of times 

 beyond the knowledge of the smith who made it, or of me who 

 invented it. 



2. If a stranger open it it setteth an alarm agoing which the 

 stranger cannot stop from running out, and besides, though there 

 should be no one in hearing, yet it catcheth his hand as a trap 

 doth a fox, and though far from maiming him, yet it leaveth such 

 a mark behind it as will discover him if suspected. The 

 escutcheon, or lock, will plainly show what money he hath taken 

 out of the box, to a farthing, and how many times he opened it 

 since the owner has been at it. 



