It appears, therefore, that the first glass drops were made in Holland; yet Montanari, who was professor of mathematics at Bologna, says that the first were not made by the Dutch, but by the Swedes. The grounds, however, on which he rests his assertion are exceedingly weak. Because a Swedish resident procured those used for the first experiments, it does not follow that they were made at Swedish glass-houses, especially as it is positively said that they were brought from Holland. It was indeed stated so early as 1661, by Henry Regius or Van Roy, professor at Utrecht, that these glass drops came from Sweden; but may not this have been a lapse of memory, occasioned by the circumstance that the first drops used by the natural philosophers of Paris were procured by a Swedish resident.
Monconys, whose relation indeed bears evident marks of great haste as well as credulity, calls Chanut Résident de Suède, and seems to have considered him as a Swedish resident at the French court; an opinion in which he has been followed by many literary men. But Pierre Chanut was French resident at Stockholm, and at that time so well-known that Monconys could hardly be unacquainted with his quality. He was resident from the year 1645 to 1649; and he was afterwards envoy for adjusting the disputes between Sweden and Poland, which were to be settled at Lubec. He is often mentioned in Puffendorf’s book De Rebus Suecicis, and the printed account of his missions and negociations contain important materials towards a history of queen Christina, with whom he was a great favourite. He superintended the funeral of Descartes, who was interred with great honour. He was born in 1601; but with the time of his death I am unacquainted. He was celebrated as a man of great learning, and particularly an able mathematician; and it is neither improbable nor even impossible that he may have sent the first glass drops to Paris from Sweden; but why does Monconys add that they were brought from Holland?
It deserves to be mentioned, that about fifteen years before, that is in 1641, the first glass-houses were established in Sweden, and in all probability by Germans. It is possible that when the blowing of glass was first seen, glass drops may have excited an attention which they had not met with in Germany, where no one expected anything new in glass-houses, which were there common and had long been established. It can nevertheless be proved that they were known to our glass-blowers at a much earlier period.
In 1695, John Christian Schulenburg, subrector of the cathedral school of Bremen, published there a German Dissertation on glass drops and their properties, in which he says that he was informed by glass-makers worthy of credit, that these drops had been made more than seventy years before at the Mecklenburg glass-houses, that is to say, about the year 1625.
Samuel Reyher, professor at Kiel, says that Henry Sievers, teacher of mathematics in the gymnasium of Hamburg, had assured him that such glass drops were given to his father by a glass-maker so early as the year 1637; and that his father had exhibited them in a company of friends, who were much astonished at their effects. Reyher adds, that he himself had seen at Leyden, in 1656, the first of these glass drops, which had been made at Amsterdam, where he afterwards purchased some of the same kind; but in 1666 he procured for a very small sum a great many of them from the glass-houses in the neighbourhood of Kiel. It is worthy of remark, that Huet[576], who paid considerable attention to the history of inventions, says that the first glass drops, which he had seen also in the society held at the house of Mommor, were brought to France from Germany. According to Anthony Le Grand they came from Prussia[577].
The first glass drops were brought to England by the well-known Prince Rupert, third son of the elector Palatine, Frederic V., and the princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I.; and experiments, described by Rupert Moray, were made with them in 1661 by command of his majesty. This is expressly stated by Merret[578]; and therefore what some English writers have supposed, that Prince Rupert himself was the inventor, is entirely erroneous[579]. The services which he rendered to the useful arts were too great and too numerous to be either lessened or increased by such trifles.
I shall take this opportunity of remarking, that those small glasses hermetically sealed and containing a drop of water, which when placed on hot coals burst with a loud report, and therefore are called in German knallgläser, fulminating glasses, were known before 1665. Hooke speaks of them in his Micrographia[580] printed in that year, and they were mentioned by Reyher in 1669, in his Dissertation already quoted. In Germany they are made chiefly by Nuremberg artists; one of the most celebrated of whom was Michael Sigismund Hack. He learnt the art of glass-blowing in England, and in 1672 returned to Nuremberg, where he was born in 1643[581].
FOOTNOTES
[573] It is not always necessary that the water should be cold; these drops will be formed also in warm water, as well as in every other fluid, and even in melted wax. See Redi’s experiments in Miscellan. Naturæ Curios. anni secundi, 1671, p. 426. They succeed best with green glass, yet I have in my possession some of white glass, which in friability are not inferior to those of green.
[574] The navel, in German nabel, is that piece of glass which remains adhering to the pipe when any article has been blown, and which the workman must rub off. These navels, however, are seldom in so fluid a state as to form drops.