The Book of Curiosities

by John Platts

Remarkable Lamps.—Cedrenus makes mention of a lamp, which, together with an image of Christ, was found at Edessa, in the reign of the Emperor Justinian. It was set over a certain gate there, and privily enclosed, as appeared by the date of it, soon after Christ was crucified: it was found burning, as it had done for five hundred years before, by the soldiers of Cosroes, king of Persia, by whom also the oil was taken out, and cast into the fire; which occasioned such a plague, as brought death upon almost all his forces.—At the demolition of our monasteries here in England, there was found, in the supposed monument of Constantius Chlorus, (father to the Great Constantine,) a lamp, which was thought to have continued burning there ever since his burial, which was about three hundred years after Christ. The ancient Romans used in that manner to preserve lights in their sepulchres a long time, by the oil of gold, resolved by art into a liquid substance.

Perpetual Fire.—In the peninsula of Abeheron, in the province of Schirwan, formerly belonging to Persia, but now in Russia, there is found a perpetual, or as it is there called, an eternal fire. It rises, and has risen from time immemorial, from an irregular orifice in the earth, of about twelve feet in depth, with a constant flame. The flame rises to the height of six or eight feet, unattended with smoke, and it yields no smell. The aperture, which is about one hundred and twenty feet in width, consists of a mass of rock, ever retaining the same solidity and the same depth. The finest turf grows about the borders, and at the distance of two toises, are two springs of water. The neighbouring inhabitants have a sort of veneration for this fire, which they accompany with religious ceremonies.

Magical Drum.—This is an instrument of superstition, used in Lapland, which is thus described by Schœffer, in his History of that country: It is made of beech, pine, or fir, split in the middle, and hollowed on the flat side where the drum is to be made. The hollow is of an oval figure, and is covered with a skin clean dressed, and painted with figures of various kinds, such as stars, suns and moons, animals and plants, and even countries, lakes, and rivers; and of later days, since the preaching of Christianity among them, the acts and sufferings of our Saviour and his apostles are often added among the rest. All these figures are separated by lines into three regions or clusters. There is, besides these parts of the drum, an index and a hammer. The index is a bundle of grass or iron rings, the largest of which has a hole in its middle, and the smaller ones are hung to it. The hammer, or drumstick, is made of the horn of a reindeer; and with this they beat the drum so as to make these rings move, they being laid on the top for that purpose. In the motion of these rings about the pictures figured on the drum, they fancy to themselves some prediction in regard to the things they inquire about. What they principally search into by this instrument, are three things: 1. What sacrifices will prove most acceptable to their gods: 2. What success they shall have in their occupations, as hunting, fishing, curing diseases, and the like: and 3. What is done in places remote from them. On these occasions they use several peculiar ceremonies, and place themselves in various odd postures as they beat the drum, which influences the rings to the one or the other side, and to come nearer to the one or the other set of figures. And when they have done this, they have a method of calculating a discovery, which they keep as a great secret, but which seems merely the business of the imagination in the diviner or magician.

An Extraordinary Cannon.—At Kubberpore-na-Jeal, in India, there is a cannon two hundred and thirteen inches long, sixty-six inches round the muzzle, and eighteen inches round the calibre. It has five, and had originally six, equidistant rings, by which it was lifted up. This gun is called by the natives, Jaun Kushall, or the destroyer of life, and its casting and position are attributed to the doctas or divinities, though its almost obliterated Persian inscriptions declare its formation by human means. But what is most extraordinary about it is, that two peepul trees have grown both cannon and carriage into themselves. Fragments of the iron, a spring, one of the linches, and part of the wood-work, protrude from between the roots and bodies of these trees; but the trees alone entirely support the gun, one of the rings of which, and half of its whole length, are completely hidden between, and inside their bark and trunks. A more curious sight, or a cannon more firmly fixed, though by the mere gradual growth of two trees, cannot well be imagined. The Indians assert that it was only once fired, and then sent the ball twenty-four miles!—Asiatic Journal.

Old Bread.—Bartholinus assures us, that in Norway the inhabitants make bread which keeps thirty or forty years; and that they are there fonder of their old hard bread, than others are of new or soft; since the older it is, the more agreeable it grows. For their great feasts, particular care is taken to have the oldest bread; so that at the christening of a child, they have usually bread which had been baked perhaps at the christening of his grandfather! It is made by a mixture of barley and oatmeal, baked between two hollow stones.

The following is said to be A Substitute for Spectacles.—A man, especially if accustomed to spend his time among books, would be much to be pitied, when his sight begins to fail, could he not in a great measure restore it by the aid of spectacles; but there are some men whose sight cannot be aided by the use either of convex or concave glasses. The following method, adopted by one of these to aid his sight, is certainly worthy of notice. When about sixty years of age, this man had almost entirely lost his sight, seeing nothing but a kind of thick mist, with little black specks which appeared to float in the air. He knew not any of his friends; he could not even distinguish a man from a woman; nor could he walk in the streets without being led. Glasses were of no use to him; the best print, seen through the bell spectacles, seemed to him like a daubed paper. Wearied with this melancholy state, he thought of the following expedient. He procured some spectacles with very large rings; and taking out the glasses, substituted in each circle a conic tube of black Spanish copper. Looking through the large end of the cone, he could read the smallest print placed at its other extremity. These tubes were of different lengths, and the openings at the end were also of different sizes; the smaller the aperture, the better could he distinguish the smallest letters; the larger the aperture, the more words or lines it commanded; and consequently, the less occasion was there for moving the head and the hand in reading. Sometimes he used one eye, sometimes the other, alternately relieving each; for the rays of the two eyes could not unite upon the same object when thus separated by two opaque tubes. The thinner these tubes, the less troublesome are they. They must be totally blackened within, so as to prevent all shining, and they should be made to lengthen or contract, and enlarge or reduce the aperture, at pleasure. When he placed convex glasses in these tubes, the letters indeed appeared larger, but not so clear and distinct as through the empty tube; he also found the tubes more convenient when not fixed in the spectacle rings; for when they hung loosely, they could be raised or lowered with the hand, and one or both might be used, as occasion required. It is almost needless to add, that the material of the tubes is of no importance, and that they may be made of iron or tin as well as of copper, provided the insides of them be sufficiently blackened.—See La Nouvell, Bigaruré for February, 1754, or Monthly Magazine for April, 1799.

Winter Sleep of Animals and Plants.—The winter sleep is a very singular property of animals and plants; and, though it occurs daily before our eyes, we are not able to explain the phenomena with which it is attended. In cold countries, many animals, on the approach of winter, retire to their subterraneous abodes, in which they bury themselves under the snow, where they remain five or six months without nourishment or motion; nay, almost without circulation of their blood, which flows only sluggishly, and in the widest vessels. Their perspiration is almost imperceptible; but still they lose something by it, as they enter their winter quarters in very good condition, and are exceedingly thin when they return from them.

Some animals enjoy their winter sleep under the earth, and others are concealed beneath the snow; some for the same purpose creep into the holes of rocks, and others under stones, or the bark of trees.

Plants have their winter sleep also; for, during the period of winter, their sap flows towards the roots, and the circulation of it, which is very slow, takes place only in the widest vessels. Were the expansion of the sap in winter as considerable as in summer, it would burst all the vessels, on being frozen.

Some observers have endeavoured to prove that this singular circumstance is merely accidental, and, indeed, no difference is found in the internal organization of those animals which have winter sleep, and those which have not. It is very remarkable, that this property belongs in general to animals of prey. As these have far stronger powers of digestion, and stronger digestive juices, it would appear that abstinence from food for several months would to them be hardly possible.