A saw-mill was first fitted up in London in 1633, but afterwards demolished, that it might not deprive the poor of employ.

TOURNIQUET.

This instrument, used by surgeons to benumb the limb prior to amputation, was invented by one Morell, at the siege of Besançon, in 1674.

Petit, of France, invented the Screw Tourniquet in 1718.

ANCHORS.

The data of the invention of the anchor is somewhat obscure. The first anchors, however, were not made of iron, but of stone, and sometimes of wood. These latter were loaded with lead. Several writers relate that the Phoenicians, in their first voyages into Spain, having amassed more silver than their ships could contain, took the lead from their anchors, and supplied its place with silver.-Goguet's Origin of Laws, &c., vol. i. p. 292.

TELEGRAPHS

Were first invented, 1687; put into practice by the French in 1794; by the English, January 28, 1796. In 1816, it was determined to change the Admiralty Telegraphs into Semaphores. They consisted of an upright post, with moveable arms. This kind of Telegraph continued to be used at the Government Stations till the introduction of the

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

The idea of applying electricity to the purposes of telegraphic communication, is said to have originated with Mr. James Bain, an ingenious mechanic, to whom, by a recent legal decision, a handsome remuneration is to be paid out of the funds of the Electric Telegraph Company.

It is chiefly, however, to the joint labours of Messrs. W. F. Cooke and Professor Wheatstone, that Electric Telegraphs owe their practical application. The first was laid down upon the London and Blackwall Railway; the second from London to West Drayton; the third (in 1849) from London to Gosport, and by means of this surprising agency, an instantaneous communication is now made between London and Paris. This invention was patented in 1837. When Faraday obtained the converse of electro-magnetism, by induced electricity from magnets in motion, he originated magneto-electricity, and it is possible that its successful application to the purposes of the Electric Telegraph, will supersede the use of the present galvanic electricity.

The Electric Telegraph is now marching apace over continental

Europe, and so complete is the magic network of its intellectual nerves, that for all purposes of communication it may be said that there is no longer any British Channel. From the mountain cities of Transylvania, to the marshes of Pomerania, there is scarcely a town of any literary or commercial importance not connected by the metallic pulses terminating at Charing Cross. The Baltic, the Black Sea, the Bay of Biscay, are all now brought into immediate contact with each other. A word may be shot by lightning from the Gulf of Venice to the Irish Sea. Holland has now been brought, as it were, into the human family; and Amsterdam, Haarlem, the Hague, Leyden, Rotterdam, and Breda, are but as links in the great chain of European confraternity.

ELECTRIC PRINTING TELEGRAPH.

Mr. J. Brett has invented an Electric Printing Telegraph, which consists of two parts, called the communicator, or keyboard, and the printing machine; the former is supposed to be at the station from which intelligence is to be transmitted, and the latter, the place to which it is to be sent. The machinery is propelled chiefly by the power of weights, or by ordinary clocksprings. The motion of the printing-machine is regulated by the galvanic current, by means of an escapement, and which requires much less power than is necessary to impel the machinery; thus both the advantage of the instantaneous action of the current, and the greater power of the weights, combine to accomplish the work for which this machine is designed. By the use of Mr. Brett's Telegraph, communications are made in any language, and printed upon paper with considerable rapidity and precision; the paper and ink are self-supplying, and sufficient may be placed in the apparatus of both to last for some time. It is calculated that the letters may be printed at a greater speed than a well-practised person could write them, and that a clerk, after some experience, might manipulate upon the finger key-board upwards of 150 letters per minute.

DOMESTIC TELEGRAPH.

The mechanical Domestic Telegraph consists of an arrangement of tubes, formed of gutta percha, and supplied with metallic and other mouth pieces, to which a whistle is attached. By blowing into the tube, the whistle is sounded in a remote apartment, and the message can then be delivered with scarcely any elevation of the voice through the tube, which transmits sound in a remarkable manner. Mr. Whishaw of John Street, Adelphi, contributed a Telekouphonon, or Speaking Telegraph, to the Great Exhibition. (See Official Descriptive Catalogue, vol. i. p. 454.) Mr. Burdett of Clapham, has also invented another Domestic Tele

graph, requiring only one bell for any number of rooms. All the rooms being numbered, wires are brought to corresponding numbers on this machine, so that, when the wire of any room is agitated, the bell will ring, and the indicator will point out the number of the room on the dial where attention is required.

TELESCOPES.

The precise period of the invention of the Telescope is unknown. Roger Bacon, before the end of the thirteenth century, had no doubt conceived the instrument, though there is no proof that his conception was carried into practice. About 1590, two Dutch opticians, Zachariah Jans (or Jansen,) and Hans Lapprey, constructed Telescopes. The first on record, however, who appears to have carried his theoretical notions into effect, is Leonard Digges, as we learn from the second edition of his Pantometria, published by his son in 1591. It was while Galileo was living at Venice, A. D. 1609, that he heard of its discovery, and immediately applied himself to make such improvements, so as to render this instrument available for the purposes of astronomy. In 1655, Huygens, in conjunction with his brother Constantine, applied himself to the manufacture of this noble instrument. Since his time, improvements have been made in it by James Gregory, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Hooke, Herschel, and the Earl of Rosse.

HOROSCOPE.

This word, in astrology, is the degree or point of the heavens rising above the eastern point of the horizon at any given time, when a prediction is to be made of a future event, as, the fortune of a person then born, the success of a design then laid, the weather, and so on. The word is composed of ga, hour, and σκεπ τομαι, I consider. Such was at one time the infatuation concerning horoscopes, that Albertus Magnus, Cardan, and others, are said to have had the temerity to draw that of Jesus Christ.

HOROSCOPE is also used for a scheme or figure of the twelve houses or signs of the Zodiac, in which is marked the disposition of the heavens for any given time. Thus we say, to draw a horoscope, to construct a horoscope, and the like. Calculating a nativity, is when the life and fortune of a person are the subject of the prediction.

SPECTACLES.

Dr. Johnson expressed his surprise that the inventor of spectacles was regarded with indifference, and had found no biographer to celebrate his deeds. Most authorities give the latter

part of the thirteenth century as the period of their invention, popular opinion has pronounced in favour of Alexander de Spina, a native of Pisa, who died in the year 1313. In the Italian Dictionary, Della Crusca, under the head of "Occhiale," or Spectacles, it is stated that Friar Jordan de Rivalto tells his audience, in a sermon published in 1305, that "it is not twenty years since the art of making spectacles was found out, and is indeed one of the best and most necessary inventions in the world." This would place the invention in the year 1285. On the other hand, Dominic Maria Manni, an eminent Italian writer, attributes the invention to Salvino Armati, who flourished about 1345-(See his Treatise, Degli Occhiali da Nuso, inventati da Salvino Armati, 4to. 1738.) On the authority of various passages in the writings of Friar Bacon, Mr. Molyneux is of opinion that he was acquainted with the use of spectacles; and when Bacon (Opus Majus) says, that "this instrument (a plano-convex glass, or large segment of a sphere) is useful to old men, and to those who have weak eyes; for they may see the smallest letters sufficiently magnified," we may conclude that the particular way of assisting decayed sight was known to him. It is quite certain that they were known and used about the time of his death, A.D. 1292.

TIME MEASURE BAROMETER

Was introduced by Scipio Nasica, 159; King Alfred's timekeeper was six large wax tapers, each 12 inches long; as they burnt unequally, owing to the wind, he invented a lanthorn, made of wood, and then scraped plates of ox-horns, glass being a great rarity, (887.) The ancients had three sorts of time measures; hour glasses, sun dials, and a vessel full of water with a hole in its bottom.

SAILING COACHES.

We have heard much of propelling coaches by steam, but it appears from the following article, that sailing coaches, or coaches propelled along by the wind, were known to our neighbours long ago. They were invented by Simon Sterinius, a Fleming.

Purposing to visit Grotius (saith Gassendus,) Peireskius went to Scheveling, that he might satisfy himself of the carriage and swiftness of a coach, a few years before invented, and made up with that artifice, that with expanded sails it would fly upon the shore as a ship upon the sea. He had formerly heard that Count Maurice, a little after his victory at Newport, had put himself thereinto, together with Francis Mendoza, his prisoner, on purpose to make trial thereof; and that within two hours they arrived at Putten, which is distant from Scheveling fourteen leagues, or two and forty miles. He had, therefore, a mind to make the experiment of it himself, and he would often tell us

with what admiration he was seized, when he was carried with a quick wind, and yet perceived it not, the coach's motion being equally quick."

STEAM ENGINES.

We have often heard of the utility of steam being derived from its effect on the lid of the tea-kettle; be that as it may, it was first employed to produce motion by Brancas, a philosopher at Rome, about the year 1628. But the first real steam engine for raising water, is described in a small pamphlet, published in the reign of Charles the Second, in the year 1663, entitled, “ A Century of the Names and Scantlings of the Marquis of Worcester's Inventions, written in the year 1655." No use was made of this invaluable hint until Captain Savary, in 1698, obtained a patent for an engine which operated both by the expansive and condensive force of steam, to be employed in drawing mines, serving towns with water, and for working all sorts of mills.

Thomas Newcomen, ironmonger, and John Cowley, glazier, of Dartmouth, obtained a patent in 1705 for improvements made in the steam engine, and in which Captain Savary was admitted to participate. But it was reserved for James Watt, a mathematical instrument maker at Glasgow, to bring the steam engine to perfection. He obtained a patent for his great invention of performing condensation in a separate vessel from the cylinder. Many inventions have, since that time, been made by him for effecting a saving and better application of steam. Watt often acknowledged, that his first ideas on this subject were acquired by his attendance on Dr. Black's Chemical Lectures, and from his consideration of latent heat, and the expansibility of steam. The name of George Dodd deserves a prominent place in the history of steam engines, as being the first to undertake a considerable voyage by sea in a steam vessel. The boat was built on the Clyde by Messrs. Wood, and was launched in 1813, under the name of the Glasgow, but subsequently called the Thames.

HORSE'S POWER.

This term, used as the name of a measure of power, is an expression which had its origin in convenience. In its first application no great nicety was necessary; but as the value of mechanical power became better understood, an exact measure, nearly coinciding with the power of a horse, and uniformity in the practice of engineers, became desirable. Mr. Watt has fixed the elementary horse power at 1,920,000lb. raised one foot per hour, or 32,000lb. raised one foot per minute, or 533 raised one foot per second. Mr. Watt further assigned a proportion for the low-pressure steam engine, equivalent to a horse's power, which is 55 times the square of the diameter of the cylinder, in inches,