well as cray-fish, and other objects for the table. He died in the year 1575.

We are told that these fish were brought from Italy to Prussia, where they are at present very abundant, by a nobleman whose name is not mentioned. This service however may be ascribed with more probability to the upper burggrave, Caspar von Nostiz, who died in 1588, and who in the middle of the sixteenth century first sent carp to Prussia from his estate in Silesia, and caused them to be put into the large pond at Arensberg not far from Creuzburg. As a memorial of this circumstance, the figure of a carp, cut in stone, was shown formerly over a door at the castle of Arensberg. This colony must have been very numerous in the year 1535, for at that period carp were sent from Königsberg to Wilda, where the archduke Albert then resided. At present (1798) a great many carp are transported from Dantzic and Königsberg to Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. It appears to me probable that these fish after that period became everywhere known and esteemed, as eating fish in Lent and on fast-days was among Christians considered to be a religious duty, and that on this account they endeavoured to have ponds stocked with them in every country, because no species can be so easily bred in these reservoirs.

I shall observe in the last place, that the Spiegel-carpen, mirror-carp, distinguished by yellow scales, which are much larger, though fewer in number, and which do not cover the whole body, are not mentioned but by modern writers. Bloch says that they were first described by Johnston under the name of royal carp. The passage where he does so I cannot find; but in plate xxix. there is a bad engraving, with the title Spiegel-karpen, which however have scales all over their bodies, and cannot be the kind alluded to. On the other hand, the Spiegel-karpen are mentioned by Gesner, who, as it appears, never saw them. In my opinion, Balbinus, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century, was the first person who gave a true and complete description of them; and according to his account, they seem to have come originally from Bohemia. The first correct figure of them is to be found in Marsigli.

55

CAMP-MILLS.

UNDER this appellation are understood portable or moveable mills, which can be used, particularly in the time of war, when there are neither wind- nor water-mills in the neighbourhood, and which on that account formerly accompanied armies in the same manner as camp-ovens and camp-forges. Some of these mills have stones for grinding the corn, and others are constructed with a notched roller like those of our coffee-mills. Some of them also are so contrived that the machinery is put in motion by the revolution of the wheels of the carriage on which they are placed; and others, and perhaps the greater part of those used, are driven by horses or men, after the wheels of the carriage are sunk in the ground, or fastened in some other manner.

To the latter kind belongs that mill of which Zonca1 has given a coarse engraving, but without any description. He says it was invented by Pompeo Targone, engineer to the well-known marquis Ambrose Spinola; and he seems to place the time of the invention about the end of the sixteenth century. This mill is the same as that described by Beyer in his Theatrum Machinarum Molarium, and represented in the twenty-seventh plate of that work 2. Beyer remarks that it was employed by Spinola.

The inventor, as his name shows, was an Italian, who made himself known, in particular, at the celebrated siege of Rochelle, under Louis XIII., at which he was chosen to assist, because in the year 1603, when with Spinola, who was consulted respecting the operations at Rochelle, he had helped by means of a mole to shut the harbour of Ostend during the tedious siege of that place. He was likewise in the French service, as intendant des machines du roi; but his numerous and expensive undertakings did not succeed according to his

1 Novo Teatro di Machine ed Edificii, di Vittorio Zonca. Padoua, 1621, and reprinted in 1656, fol. The greater part of the machines delineated in this scarce book are engines for raising heavy bodies; but many of them are used in various trades and manufactures, and may serve in some measure to illustrate the history of them.

2 J. M. Beyer's Schauplatz der Mühlen-Bau-kunst. Leipzig, 1735, fol. Reprinted at Dresden, 1767.

expectations1. He invented also a particular kind of guncarriages, and a variety of warlike machines 2.

Another old figure of such a mill was shown to me by Professor Meister, in Recueil de Plusieurs Machines Militaires, printed in 1620. This machine was driven by the wheels of the carriage; but whether it was ever used the author does not inform us.

Lancellotti ascribes this invention to the Germans, about the year 1633.

Carriages for transporting camp-forges and mill-machinery are mentioned by Leonard Fronsperger', but he does not say whether complete mills were affixed to them.

MIRRORS.

It is highly probable that a limpid brook was the first mirror,

1 All those authors who have written expressly on the fate of the Huguenots, the History of Richelieu, Louis XIII., and the siege of Rochelle, make mention of Targone.

2 Histoire de la Milice Françoise, par Daniel. Amst. 1724, i. p. 332. 3 L'Hoggidi, overo gl'Ingegni non inferiori a' passati. Ven. 1636, 8vo. 4 Kriegsbuch, Frankf. 1596, fol. p. 9.

5 The works in which this subject has been already treated are the following:-Eberhartus de Weihe, de Speculi origine, usu et abusu. A compilation formed without taste, of which I gave some account in the Article on Chimneys.-Spanhemii Obs. in Callimachi hymn. lavacr. Palladis, p. 615.-Académie des Inscriptions, t. xxiii. p. 140.-Recherches sur les Miroirs des Anciens, par Menard. A short paper, barren of information.Saggi di Dissertazioni Accad. dell' Accad. Etrusca dell' città di Cortona, vii. p. 19: Sopra gli Specchi degli Antichi, del Sig. Cari. A translation from the French, with the figures of some ancient mirrors. It contains an explanation of some passages in Pliny,'where he seems to speak of a mirror formed of a ruby, and some conjectures respecting the mirror of Nero. An anonymous member of the Academy, in an appendix, confirms the former, and considers the latter, very properly, as improbable.Caylus, Recueil d'Antiquités, iii. p. 331, and v. p. 173. A description and figures of ancient mirrors, with some chemical experiments on their composition.-Amusemens Philosophiques. Par le père Bonaventure Abat. Amst. 1763, 8vo, p. 433: Sur l'Antiquité des Mirroirs de Verre. A dissertation worthy of being read on account of the author's acquaintance with the ancient writers, and his knowledge of technology; but he roves beyond all proof, and employs too much verbosity to decorate his conjectures.

Passages of the poets, where female deities and shepherdesses are

but we have reason to think that artificial mirrors were made as mankind began to exercise their art and ingenuity on metals and stones. Every solid body, capable of receiving a fine polish, would be sufficient for this purpose; and indeed the oldest mirrors mentioned in history were of metal. Those which occur in Job1 are praised on account of their hardness and solidity; and Moses relates, that the brazen laver, or washing-basin, was made from the mirrors of the women who had assembled at the door of the tabernacle to present them, and which he caused them to deliver up. As the women appeared in full dress at divine worship, it was necessary for them to have looking-glasses after the Egyptian manner. With these the washing-basins, according to the conjecture of most interpretators, were only ornamented, covered, or perhaps hung round; and Michaelis3 himself was once of this opinion. But why should we not rather believe that the mirrors were melted and formed into washing-basins? As soon as manrepresented as contemplating themselves in water instead of a mirror, may be found in the notes to Phædri Fab. i. 4, in the edition of Burmann. 1 Chap. xxxvii. ver. 18. 2 Exodus, chap. xxxviii. ver. 8

3 Historia Vitri apud Judæos, in Comment. Societat. Scient. Götting. iv. p. 330. Having requested Professor Tychsen's opinion on this subject, I received the following answer:-"You have conjectured very properly that the mirrors of the Israelitish women, mentioned Exod. xxxviii. 8, were not employed for ornamenting or covering the washing-basins, in order that the priests might behold themselves in them; but that they were melted and basins cast of them. The former was a conceit first advanced, if I am not mistaken, by Nicol. de Lyra, in the fourteenth century, and which Michaelis himself adopted in the year 1754; but he afterwards retracted his opinion when he made his translation of the Old Testament at a riper age. In the Hebrew expression there is no ground for it; and mirrors could hardly be placed very conveniently in a basin employed for washing the feet. I must at the same time confess that the word (n) which is here supposed to signify a mirror, occurs nowhere else in that sense. Another explanation therefore has been given, by which both the women and mirrors disappear from the passage. It is by a learned Fleming, Hermann Gid. Clement, and may be found in his Dissertatio de Labro Eneo, Groning. 1732, and also in Ugolini Thesaurus, tom. xix. p. 1505. He translates the passage thus: Fecit labrum æneum et operculum ejus æneum cum figuris ornantibus, quæ ornabant ostium tabernaculi. This explanation however is attended with very great difficulties; and as all the old translators and Jewish commentators have here understood mirrors; and as the common translation is perfectly agreeable to the language and circumstances, we ought to believe that Moses, not having copper, melted down the mirrors of his countrywomen and converted them into washing-basins for the priests."

kind began to endeavour to make good mirrors of metal, they must have remarked that every kind of metal was not equally proper for that use, and that the best could be obtained only from a mixture of different metals. In the mirrors however which were collected by Moses, the artists had a sufficient stock of speculum metal, and were not under the necessity of making it themselves; and for this reason they could much more easily give to the whole basin a polished surface, in which the priests, when they washed, might survey themselves at full length. At any rate such a basin would not be the only one employed instead of a mirror. Artemidorus1 says that he who dreams of viewing himself in a basin, will have a son born to him by his maid. Dreams indeed are generally as groundless as this interpretation; but one can hardly conjecture that Artemidorus would have thought of such a dream, had it not been very common for people to contemplate themselves in a basin. There were formerly a kind of fortune-tellers, who pretended to show in polished basins to the simple and ignorant, what they wished to know 2. The ancients also had drinking-vessels, the inside of which was cut into mirrors, so disposed that the image of the person who drank from them was seen multiplied 3. Vopiscus mentions, among the valuable presents of Valerian to the emperor Probus, when a tribune, a silver cup of great weight, which was covered on the inside with mirrors of this sort'.

1 Oneirocrit. lib. iii. cap. 30. p. 176. 2 Joh. Sarisberiensis, i. cap. 12. 3 Plin. lib. xxxiii. cap. 9. Seneca, Quæst. Nat. i. cap. 5.

4 Vita Probi, cap. iv. p. 926: "Patinam argenteam librarum decem specillatam." Salmasius chooses rather to read specellatam. I am inclined to think that this word ought to be read in Suetonius instead of speculatum, where he speaks of an apartment which Horace seems to have been fond of. That historian, in his Life of Horace, says, "Ad res venereas intemperantior traditur: nam speculato cubiculo scorta dicitur habuisse disposita, ut quocunque respexisset, ibi ei imago coitus referretur." Lessing, who in his Miscellanies (Vermischten Schriften, Berlin 1784, 12mo, iii. p.205) endeavours to vindicate the poet from this aspersion, considers the expression specu latum cubiculum, if translated an apartment lined with mirrors, as contrary to the Latin idiom, and thinks therefore that the whole passage is a forgery. Baxter also before said that this anecdote had been inserted by some malicious impostor. This I will not venture to contradict, but I am of opinion that specillatum or specellatum cubiculum is at any rate as much agreeable to the Roman idiom as patina specillata. This expression Salmasius and Casaubon have justified by similar phrases, such as opera filicata, tesselata, hederata, &c. The chamber in which Claudian