Hans Charles von Carlowitz, chamber-counsellor, and principal surveyor of the mines of the electorate of Saxony1. To save wood and promote the benefit of the mines he sought for turf; and having discovered it, he then endeavoured to find out some method of rendering it fit to be employed in the meltinghouses, and this was the reducing to coal, which, as he himself says, he first attempted in kilns at Scheibenberg, in the year 1708. At the Brocken the first experiments were made in 1744, with turf which had been dug up several years. This was announced by F. C. Brückman in 17453, as a new invention; but an anonymous writer stated soon after, that this charring had been long used in the district of Hadeln, and that the smiths there employed no other kind of coals for their work. [In 1842 a patent was taken out by Mr. Williams for compressing peat into a dense mass, resembling coals. It is said to be superior to coal in its properties of producing heat by combustion, forming an excellent charcoal or coke. It is asserted that this charcoal is much more combustible than that of wood, and very useful in the manufacture of fire-works. The process is as follows:-Immediately after being dug it is triturated under revolving edge-wheels faced with iron plates perforated all over the surface, and is forced by the pressure through these apertures, till it becomes a kind of pap, which is freed from the greater part of its moisture by a hydraulic press. It is then dried, and converted into coke in the same manner as pit-coal. The factitious coal of Mr. Williams is made by incorporating pitch or rosin, melted in a caldron with as much peat-charcoal ground to powder as will form a tough doughy mass, which is then moulded into bricks.] 1 The practice of charring turf appears however to be much older, if it be true that charred turf was employed about the year 1560 at the Freiberg smelting-houses, though that undertaking was not attended with success. See Hoy's Anleitung zu einer bessern Benutzung des Torfs. Altenburg, 1781. 2 Von Carlowitz, Sylvicultura Economica. Leipzig, 1713, fol. p. 430, where an account is given of the first experiment. 3 In Hamburgischen Berichten, p. 93. 4 Ib. p. 170: ARTICHOKE. THAT I might be able to investigate whether our artichoke was known to the ancients, I have not only collected a variety of scattered passages, compared them with one another and with nature, and laboured through a tedious multitude of contradictions and a confusion of names, but I have also been obliged to examine a load of groundless conjectures, heaped together by commentators1, in order that I might understand them and ascertain their value. By these means I have learned more than seems hitherto to have been known; and I have found that more is believed than can be proved; but that the fruits of my toil will give complete satisfaction to my readers, I do not pretend to hope. Before the botany, however, and the natural history in general of the ancients can be properly elucidated, before truth can be separated from falsehood, what is certain from what is uncertain, and things defined from those which are undefined, researches of this kind must be undertaken, and the same method as that which I have followed must be adopted. The names of plants in ancient authors which have been applied to our artichoke, are the following: Cinara, Carduus, Scolymus, and Cactus. The Cinara, which is originally a Greek word, belonged certainly to the thistle species; and the description of its top, as given by Columella, seems, as has already been remarked by Nonnius and others, to agree perfectly with that of our artichoke. The cinara was commonly furnished with prickles, but that was preferred which had lost them by cultivation, and for which means were prescribed that did not produce the desired effect. It was raised from seed sown in spring, but was propagated also from slips or shoots which in Italy were 1 See Stapel, über die Pflanzen des Theophrast. p. 618. Salmasius ad Solinum, p. 159. Casauboni Animadv. in Athen. Lugd. 1621, fol. p. 146. Bauhini Hist. Plant. iii. p. 48. 2 Colum. lib. x. ver. 235. 3 Lud. Nonnii Diæteticon. Antv. 1646, 4to, p. 56. 4 It was said, that if the corners of the seeds were bruised, no prickles would be produced. See Geopon. lib. xii. cap. 39. [It is a well-known physiological fact in botany, that many plants which are naturally spinous, when cultivated in gardens or rich soil, become unarmed. The production planted in autumn, that they might bear earlier the next summer. The direction given to water these plants frequently, is still followed by our gardeners in respect to their artichokes, and they expect from this attention that the fruit will be more abundant and tender. By this method many give to their artichokes a superiority which others that have not been watered so carefully cannot attain. A complaint, which occurs in ancient authors, is also prevalent, that the roots are often destroyed by mice. I do not, however, find it remarked what part of the cinara was properly used, but it may be conjectured it was the top, because the tender fruit is praised 2. Carduus, among the Romans, was the common name of all plants of the thistle kind. It occurs among those of weeds3, and may be then properly translated by the word thistle. It, however, often signified an eatable thistle; and this has given Pliny occasion to make use of an insipid piece of raillery, when he says that luxury prepared as food for man what would not be eaten by cattle. It is an old and common fault, that when the Greek and Roman authors have not given us such descriptions of natural objects as are sufficient to enable us to ascertain exactly what they are, we suppose that they have been known under different names, and a variety of characteristics are drawn together to enable us to determine them. What, for example, we find respecting the cinara is too little to give a just idea of the plant; we read somewhat more of the carduus; and because between these there seems to be an affinity, it is concluded that the cinara and the carduus were the same plant; and everything told us respecting both of them is thrown into one. Some even go further, and add what they find under a third or a fourth name. It is indeed true, that many natural objects have had several names, and the species may sometimes be rightly guessed; but conjecture ought never to be admitted of spines seems to arise from an imperfect development of the growing point of a plant; when this development is increased by the greater supply of nutriment, the spines disappear, their places being supplied by a branch having leaves. We have instances of this in the apple, pear, &c., which are naturally spinous.] 1 Geopon. l. c. Columella, xi. cap. 3. 2 Geopon. 925, where repeated watering is directed; it is said you will then have tenderer fruit, and in more abundance. 3 Virgil. Geor. i. 150. Plin. xviii. cap. 17. unless the identity can be fully established; else one may form such a monstrous production as Horace has delineated, when he says, Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas, I wish commentators would follow the example of our naturalists, who consider a plant as a distinct species until it has been proved on sure grounds that it is nothing else than a variety of a plant already characterized. I should not therefore affirm that the cinara and the carduus are the same, were I not able to produce the following incontestable proofs in support of my assertion. In the first place, the Latins, Palladius and Pliny, give us the same account of the carduus that Columella and the Greeks do of the cinara. The former lost its prickles through cultivation; its flowers were also of a purple colour2; it was propagated by seed and by shoots; it required frequent watering; and it was remarked that it throve better when the earth was mixed with ashes. Had not the carduus and the cinara been the same, Palladius and Pliny would have mentioned the latter; for we cannot suppose that they otherwise would have omitted a plant that formed a dish so much esteemed and so well-known among their countrymen. The latter claims to himself the merit of having passed over no one that was held in estimation. In the second place, Virgil has translated the word cynaros in a part of Sophocles now lost, by carduus3 ; thirdly, Athenæus says expressly, that the cinara was by the Latins named cardus and carduus; and, lastly, the old glossaries explain cinara by carduus, as we are told by Salmasius. On these grounds, therefore, I am of opinion that the cinara and the carduus were the same. 1 Palladius, iv. 9, p. 934, and lib. xi. Octob. p. 987. In the first-mentioned place he gives the same direction for preventing prickles, as that quoted respecting the cinara. 2 Pliny, lib. xx. says, "The wind easily carries away the withered flowers on account of their woolly nature." 3 Κύναρος ἄκανθα πάντα πληθύει γύην.-Sophocles, in Phcnice. Carduus. ... Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second book, p. 70. Salmasius, in his Remarks on Solinus, p. 159, is of opinion that Athenæus wrote Kápdov, not rápovov; and the Latins not carduus, but cardus. We are informed by Apicius and Pliny in what manner the carduus was dressed by the ancient cooks. The latter gives directions for pickling it in vinegar; but neither of them tells us what part of it was eaten. Lister thinks that Apicius speaks of the tops of the young shoots, which, as far as I know, are parts of the artichoke never eaten at present. It is, however, worthy of remark, that the tops (turiones) of certain kinds of the thistle family of plants, and among these the common burr3, are in some countries dressed and eaten like asparagus. It is not improbable also that Pliny and Apicius may have meant the ribs of the leaves; though none of the ancients has taught us the art of binding up, covering with earth, and blanching the cinara or carduus. This, perhaps, was a new invention of the gardeners; and the cooks may have had other methods of rendering the ribs of the leaves tender and eatable. Had they meant the bottom of the calyx, they would not have omitted to give a circumstantial account of the preparation previous to its being pickled. The Scolymus is by Pliny and Theophrastus reckoned to belong to the genus of the thistles. The former says, that, like most others of the same kind, the seeds were covered by a sort of wool (pappus). It had a high stem, surrounded with leaves, which were prickly, but which ceased to sting when the plant withered. It flowered the whole summer through, and had often flowers and ripe seed at the same time; which is the case also with our artichoke plants. The calyx of the scolymus was not prickly 5; the root was thick, black and sweet, and contained a milky juice. It was eaten both raw and cooked; and Theophrastus observes, as something very remarkable, that when the plant was in flower, or, as others explain the words, when it had finished blowing, it was most 1 Lib. iii. cap. 19. 2 Lib. xix. cap. 8. 3 Arctium Lappa, an indigenous weed, difficult to be rooted out. Elsholz, in his Gartenbau, speaking of the Spanish cardoons, says, "The strong stem of the large burr, Arctium Lappa, may be dressed in the same manner, and is not much different in taste." See also Thomas Moufet's Health's Im.. provement. Lond. 1746, 8vo, p. 217. 4 Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 16. 66 5 Theophrastus: "Conceptus non spinosus, sed oblongus." But Dios corides says, Capitulum spinosum." This contradiction, and other small variations, have induced some to consider the scolymus of Theophrastus and that of Dioscorides as two different plants. |