London in 1710, from the travels of Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach

In the afternoon we visited some bookshops and intended to wait on a mathematician called Rohly, but we did not find him at home. In the evening we had much conversation at the coffee-house. Herr Karger spoke of the famous Joh. Joachim Becher, who had planned and laid out the waterworks here, being, however, wretchedly paid for it. Generally he was highly respected and had earned a great deal of money; but he had been such a rake that he had died quite poor and his daughter was even now in service as a maid at the house of a schoolmaster in London. When the conversation turned on books and the libraries here, Herr Karger assured us that there were several connoisseurs who collected with so little wit that he had seen with his own eyes how a noble lord, taking a piece of string from his pocket, had measured off a row of books (most of the books in the shops here being tied together in bundles) and bargained for them by the yard or ell, without glancing at their titles or contents. Baron von Nimptsch told us that the author of The True Born Englishman and the RevieuwReview of London had been pilloried because these works were such bitter satires against England. We also heard that Herr Hautsch of Nürnberg could make steel red-hot in his forge. First he forges a piece of good steel a finger thick, square and with pointed end. He lets it get red-hot in the coals and lie there until they have burnt out and become cold. Then he gives rapid blows with the hammer at all the four corners as if he wished to weld it towards the point, and thus it becomes red-hot. But, as I said, the steel must be constantly turned and the blows follow each other with great swiftness. We also learnt the following experiments and pieces of artifice: If one dissolves a grain of phosphori in two ounces of spiritus vini rectificatiff. and lets fall only two drops of this solution into a glass containing a thimbleful of spring water, a brightly gleaming vapour will result, which remains for a long time if the glass is immediately sealed with cucumber. Again, if one takes a ducat or plate of silver and places on it a piece of good glass and allows the ducat or silver to become red-hot over coals, fine plana convexa vitra will be formed. Moreover, if one distils oleum vitrioli and nitrum and mixes this spiritum with oleo caryophyllorum or cinnamomi, a bright flame will result. If no more than a few drops of the olei caryophyllorum are let fall on cotton-wool and it is placed in the distilled solution described above, it will catch fire all the better. To prepare phosphorum so that it may be used without harm and not burn, take an ounce of liquid aloes in a vessel and place this in hot water (this prevents it being set on fire); add to it half a fifth of phosphori, stir energetically and then everything can be smeared with it without danger of burning, and this without lessening the effect of the phosphorus. Again: if one buys pulverised emerald mineral or stone from the apothecary and, mixing or rubbing it with gum, paints or smears anything with it, this will gleam strongly; but it must only be painted on copper or sheet-iron, and a lamp should be held below during the process, so that the metal may be warm. It has an excellent effect, gleaming most elegantly, and it does not wear off. At last Herr Benedetti came and showed us the following handsome gold medals. One, on which was Caesaris Caput velatum with the superscription: Caesar Cos. Ter.; on the reverse: Scrupulum; with the inscription: A Hirtius Pr. (i.e Praetor); this he valued at fifteen guineas. A Caput August laureatum. Inscription: Caesar Augustus Divi F. Pate Patriae. Reverse: Cajus & Lucius cum clypeis. Inscription Princ. Juvent. below C. L. Caesar. Finally Herr Karp showed us yet another rare book entitled: A Centuns of the, names and Scantlings of such inventions as at present &c., by Worcester, London 1663, in duod. In it were described all kinds of excellent inventions and machines invented by this man Worcester. [*]

EDWARD SOMERSET, second Marquis of Worcester (1610-1667), the general, politician and inventor, who was sharply criticized by Robert Hooke.

Baron von Nimptsch protested, moreover that the Duke of Buckingham had in his possession several other sketches of all kinds of machines invented by till above-mentioned author, which he had himself drawn but never published.