DISCOVERIES REDISCOVERED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9915, 2 August 1910, Page 2

DISCOVERIES REDISCOVERED.

History is not the only thing that repeats it-self. Discovery does the same. We are not nearly so much ahead of tho ancients as it pleases us to believe. Many of our discoveries are ci.ly rediscoveries; improved upon, perhaps, but nob altered in nature. In 1662 France was already in possession of omnibuses. The! Romans sank artesian wells even in the Sahara. In lo'So Papin published in "The Journal oes Savants" an account of- an experiment made by one of his friends who caused flowers to grow instantano ously. ?ho secret, which was not re-' vealed. lay in the preparation of the ground. The Greeks had a woollen or linen cuirass, so- closely woven as to be impenetrable by the sharpest darts. We have not found out the secret of it. Tho Romans had better mills than ours lor pounding olives. The Chinese had invented iron houses as early as 1200. Glass houses were found among the Picts in Scotland and the Celts in Gaul, and. many centuries earlier in Siam. Grass cloth was used many centuries ago by the Chinese. Massage was an ancient practice arid ■was known to the Romans. Paracelsus speaks of homeopathy, and says that like is cured by like, and not contrary by contrary. The speculum, the probe, the forceps wore known in the. year 500. Indeed, specimens thereof have been found in the ruins of Pompeii.- Aristotlo noticed that sea-water could bo made drinkable by boiling it and collecting the steam. The Romans appear to have been familiar with the lightning rod. On top of the highest tower of the Castle of Dunio, on the Adriatic, there was set, from, time immemorial, ia long rod of iron. In the stormy weather of summer it served to predict the approach of a tempest. A soldier was always stationed by it when the sea showed threaten!ngs of storm. From time to time he put the point of his long javelin close to the rod. Whenever a spark passed between tho two pieces of iron he rang a bell to warn tho firemen. Gerbert, in the tenth century, invented a plan for diverting lightning from fields by placing in them long sticks tipped with sharp lariceheads.