FOOTNOTES
[204] Mariette, Traité des Pierres gravées. Par. 1750, fol.
[205] The two ancient glasses found at Nismes, and described in Caylus’ Recueil d’Antiquités, ii. p. 363, were probably of this sort.
[206] Natter, Traité de la Méthode antique de graver en Pierres fines, comparé avec la Méthode moderne. Lond. 1754, fol.
[207] Of this kind were the calices audaces of Martial, xiv. 94, and those cups which often broke when the artist wished to give them the finishing touch.
[208] See Sandrart’s Teutsche Akademie, vol. i. part 2, p. 345, where there is much valuable information respecting the German artists. Compare also Doppelmayer’s Nachricht von Nürnberg. Künstlern.
[209] Oculus Artificial. iii. p. 79.
[210] Lib. xxxvii.
[211] Cap. 52, p. 59.
[212] Origin. xvi. 8.
[213] De Miner. lib. ii. 2.
[214] Traité des Pierres gravées, i. pp. 90, 156.
[215] Ibid. p. 156.
[216] In the preface, p. 15.
[217] Ueber den Nutzen d. geschnitt. Steine. Altenb. 1768, p. 42.
[218] Le Veil, iii. p. 19. This anecdote however is not mentioned by Mezeray, Castelnau, or Laboureur; and Bayle must have been unacquainted with it, or he would have introduced it into his long article on the Duchesse d’Estampes.
[219] Doppelmayer, p. 232.
[220] Abhandlungen der Schwed. Akad. xxxiii. p. 122.
[221] Halle, Fortgesetzte Magie. Berlin, 1788, 8vo, i. p. 516. This author says that the invention came from England, where it was kept very secret; but the honour of the second invention belongs to H. Klaproth.
[222] Schwanhard, by the acuteness of his genius, proved what was before considered as impossible, and found out a corrosive so powerful that the hardest crystal glass, which had hitherto withstood the force of the strongest spirits, was obliged to yield to it, as well as metals and stones. By these means he delineated and etched on glass, figures of men, some naked and some dressed, and all kinds of animals, flowers, and plants, in a manner perfectly natural; and brought them into the highest estimation.—Sandrart, Teutsche Akademie, i. 2, p. 346.—Doppelmayer, p. 250, says, “After 1670 he accidentally found out by the glass of his spectacles, upon which some aquafortis had fallen, becoming quite soft, the art of etching on glass.”
[223] Breslauer Sammlung zur Natur- und Medicin-Geschichte. 1725, January, p. 107. “Invention of a powerful acid by which figures of every kind, according to fancy, can be etched upon glass.—When spiritus nitri per distillationem has passed into the recipient, ply it with a strong fire, and when well dephlegmated, pour it, as it corrodes ordinary glass, into a Waldenburg flask; then throw into it a pulverised green Bohemian emerald, otherwise called hesphorus (which, when reduced to powder and heated, emits in the dark a green light), and place it in warm sand for twenty-four hours. Take a piece of glass well cleaned and freed from all grease by means of a lye; put a border of wax round it, about an inch in height, and cover it all equally over with the above acid. The longer you let it stand the better, and at the end of some time the glass will be corroded, and the figures, which have been traced out with sulphur and varnish, will appear as if raised above the plane of the glass.” This receipt has been inserted by H. Krunitz in his Œkonomische Encyclopedie, xi. p. 678.
[224] Klindworth covers the glass with the etching ground of the engravers; but in the Annals of Chemistry for 1790, ii. p. 141, a solution of isinglass in water, or a turpentine oil varnish, mixed with a little white lead, is recommended. Complete instructions for acquiring this art may be found there also.
[225] De Lapidibus, sect. 19.
[226] See Ephemerid. ac Nat. Cur. 1676, Dec. 1, obs. 13, p. 32; and Elsholtii De Phosphoris Observationes, Berol. 1681, 4to.
[227] G. C. Kirchmaieri De Phosphoris et Natura Lucis, necnon de Igne, Commentatio Epistolica. Wittebergæ, 1680, 4to.
[228] Miscellanea Berolin. 1710, vol. i. p. 97. The fluor-spar earth, or phosphoric earth, as it is called, which in later times has been found in marble quarries, and which some at present consider as an earth saturated with phosphoric acid, is mentioned by the Swede Hierne, in Prodromus Hist. Nat. Sueciæ. Henkel had never seen it.
[229] Watson’s Chemical Essays, ii. p. 277.
[230] Descriptive Catalogue of Tassie’s Engraved Gems, Lond. 1791, 2 vols. 4to, i. p. 51.