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It is not impossible that paternal affection might suggest to Mr. Barretier, some false conceptions of the King's design; for he infers from the introduction of his son to the young princes, and the caresses which he received from them, that the King intended him for their preceptor, a scheme, says he, which some other resolution happily destroyed.

Whatever was originally intended, and by whatever means these intentions were frustrated, Barretier, after having been treated with the highest regard, by the whole royal family, was dismissed with a present of two hundred crowns, and his father, instead of being fixed at Stettin, was made pastor of the French church at Halle; a place more commodious for the study to which they retired; Barretier being first admitted into the Royal Society at Berlin, and recommended by the King to the University at Halle.

At Halle he continued his studies with his usual application and success, and either by his own reflections or the persuasions of his father, was prevailed upon to give up his own inclinations to those of the King, and direct his inqui ries to those subjects that had been recommended by him.

He continued to add new acquisitions to his learning, and to increase his reputation by new performances, till, in the beginning of his nineteenth year, his health began to decline, and his indisposition, which being not alarming or violent, was perhaps not at first sufficiently regarded, increased by slow degrees for eighteen months, during which he spent whole days among his books, and neither neglected his studies nor lost his gaiety, till his distemper, ten days before his death, deprived him of the use of his limbs; he then prepared himself for his end, without fear or emotion, and on the 5th of October, 1740, resigned his soul into the hands of his Saviour, with confidence and tranquillity.

1740, Dec. 1741, Feb.

II. Method of staining Marble.

MR. URBAN,

THERE having been very great admiration expressed by many, who have seen mother of pearl, Egyptian and other stones, stained with landscapes, figures, and even portraits, so as to appear to be in the substance of the stone, very

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neatly executed by a German; I was pleased in finding an old receipt, containing the secret by which this work is or probably may be effected. I send it you, not doubting but it will be agreeable to your ingenious readers, and that your publishing it, may occasion the improvement or revival of the art, if lost to the English.

Method for preparing a liquor that will sink into and penetrate marble; so that a picture drawn on its surface, will appear in its inmost parts.

TAKE of aqua-fortis, and aqua-regia, two ounces of each; of sal-ammoniac, one ounce; of the best spirit of wine, two drachms; as much gold as may be had for four shillings and six-pence; of pure silver, two drachms. These materials being provided, let the silver, when calcined, be put into a vial; and having poured upon it the two ounces of aquafortis, let it evaporate, and you will have a water yielding first a blue, and afterwards a black colour: likewise, put the gold, when calcined, into a vial, and having poured the aqua-regia on it, set it by to evaporate; then pour the spirit of wine upon the sal-ammoniac, leaving it also to evaporate; and you will have a golden-coloured water, which will afford divers colours. And after this manner, you may extract many tinctures of colours out of other metals: this done, you may, by means of these two waters, paint what picture you please upon white marble of the softer kind, renewing the figure every day for some time with some fresh superadded liquor; and you will find that the picture has penetrated the whole solidity of the stone, so that cutting it into as many parts as you will, it will always represent to you the same figure on both sides.

Mr. Bird, a stone-cutter in Oxford, practised this art before the year 1660; several pieces of marble so stained by him are to be seen in Oxford; several others being shown to King Charles II. soon after the Restoration, they were broken in his presence, and found to correspond through the whole substance.

1747, Suppl.

Yours, &c.

J. B.

III An Invention in Architecture, communicated by a Person of Distinction in Switzerland to an Italian Merchant.

A GENTLEMAN of small fortune, but well skilled in architecture, having drawn a plan of an intended building, which was to be for the most part of stone, shewed it to the most experienced workmen, in order to obtain a true notion of the expense. Their answer carried the cost much higher than he could either expect or afford; and, upon his inquiring particularly into the grounds of this expence, he was told that it arose from the ornaments he had designed, and the wages that must be paid to the stone-cutters.

But

This was a high mortification to our man of taste; he was unwilling to desert his plan, which had cost him so much trouble; and at last, after much thinking, a notion came into his head, that it might not be impossible to perform the mouldings on the cornices and entablements with planes. He tried the experiment with his own hands, and succeeded in hard and well seasoned stones, as well as those that were green and fresh from the quarry. Upon this, he applied himself to a joiner, shewed him what he would have done, and how it might be done; and the man, after a little trial, offered to do as much for six livres, as in the ordinary method would have cost twenty crowns. upon a view of the invention, the mason he intended to employ took the task off his hands, and, by the help of a wooden press, of a very simple and easy construction, after preparing the stones, by taking off their loose upper coat with a chisel, and placing them upright close together, he executed his business so effectually, that the very first day he did as much as fifteen of his men could have done, and passed his plane over all the stones in the line, whereas in the common way they must have been done singly, by which means the work was much more true, though performed only with the joiner's old tools. This astonished even the person who performed it, but at the same time it encouraged him to think of adding to the invention, and in a short time he carried it much further than the author expected.

In order to this, he contrived a new sort of planes, in which the wood and iron were so disposed, that he was able to execute a cornice, or entablement, in which were three, four, or five mouldings of different forms and sizes, at one operation, and by these means performed with his own hands as much, in the same space of time, as could have

been done, in the common method, by forty hands. The result of all this was, that the building being finished, upwards of fifty parts in sixty were taken off in the expense. The only difficulty that was met with, at least worthy mentioning, arose from flints being found in the stones, which they were obliged to remove; but this, it seems, was no new inconvenience, but is experienced also in the common way, and when the work is done with a chisel; neither is it impossible, when this new invention shall be farther improved, that even this single difficulty may be got over.

[We are apt to think highly of foreign inventions; and accordingly this of stone-planes is cried up. But the like was done some years ago in England. Mr. Sowerby, a gentleman near Penrith, in Cumberland, had a table made of slate, (which is much harder than free-stone,) with mouldings on the sides regularly performed by a joiner with his planes.]

1748, Jan.

IV. Wonderful Memory of William Lyon.

WILLIAM LYON, a strolling player, who performed at the theatre in Edinburgh, and who was excellent in the part of Gibby, the Highlander, gave a surprising instance of memory. One evening over his bottle, he wagered a crown bowl of punch, a liquor of which he was very fond, that next morning, at the rehearsal, he would repeat a Daily Advertiser from beginning to end. At the rehearsal his opponent reminded him of his wager, imagining, as he was drunk the night before, that he must certainly have forgot it, and rallied him on his ridiculous bragging of his memory. Lyon pulled out the paper, desired him to look at it and be judge himself whether he did or did not win his wager. Notwithstanding the want of connection between the paragraphs, the variety of advertisements, and the general chaos which goes to the composition of any newspaper, he repeated it from beginning to end, without the least hesita tion or mistake. I know this to be true, and believe the parallel cannot be produced in any age or nation. Lyon died about four years ago at Edinburgh, where he had played with great success.

[We heard of this performance many years since, when the Daily Advertiser, though larger than other papers, was not so large and crowded as it has been of late. It is said, that the late Mr. Heidegger could name all the signs from the Exchange to St. James's, on one side the street, after once walking to observe them.]

1752, Sept.

V. Method of increasing the Solidity, Strength, and Duration of Timber.

A new Method of increasing the Solidity, Strength, and Duration of Timber. By M. de Buffon, of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris.

To answer these purposes nothing more is necessary than to bark the tree from top to bottom, in the sap season, and to suffer it to become quite dry before it is felled, which may be done at a trifling expense. Vitruvius and Mr. Evelyn have indeed just mentioned this method, but I believe nobody before me has thoroughly considered it.

In the beginning of May I caused four oaks of about 30 or 40 feet high, and about 5 or 6 feet in girt, to be barked standing; all of them were in full vigour, high in sap, and about 70 years old. I ordered the bark to be stripped off from the top of the body to the foot: this is an easy operation, for in the sap season the bark parts without any difficulty from the body. These oaks were of the kind, common enough in forests, which bear the large acorns. When they were quite stripped of their bark, I caused four other oaks of the same kind, which grew in the same soil, and as like them as possible, to be felled, My intent was to have barked six, and to have felled as many on the same day; but this could not be accomplished before the next day: of these six barked oaks, two happened to be considerably less in sap, than the other four. I caused the six felled trees to be brought and laid under a shed, there to dry in their bark till I should have occasion to compare them with those which had been barked. I fancied that this operation must affect them in an extraordinary manner, and produce considerable alteration in them. I visited my barked trees very carefully during two months, but could perceive no great change. On the 10th of July, however, one of them

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