Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

New Inventions — Stomach Pump — Built a Carriage — Description of Thames Tunnel — Barton’s Iridescent Buttons — Chinese Orders of Nobility — Manufactory of Gold Chains at Venice — Pulsations and Respirations of Animals — Punching a Hole in Glass without cracking it — Specimen of an Enormous Smash — Proteus Anguineus — Travellers’ Hotel at Sheffield — Wentworth House. IN this chapter I propose to throw together a few suggestions, which may assist in rendering a tour successful for its objects and agreeable in its reminiscences. Money is the fuel of travelling. I can give the traveller a few hints how to get money, although I never had any skill in making it myself. In one tour, extending over more than a twelvemonth, I took with me two letters of credit, each for half the sum I should probably require. My reasons for this were, that in case one was lost the other might still be available. One of these was generally kept about my person, the other concealed in my writing-case. Another reason was, that if I were unluckily carried off and detained for a ransom, it might thus be mitigated. 〈TRAVELLING CARRIAGE.〉 It is of great advantage to a traveller to have some acquaintance with the use of tools. It is often valuable for his own comfort, and sometimes renders him able to assist a friend. I met at Frankfort the eldest son of the coachmaker {372} of the Emperor of Russia. He had been travelling over the western part of Europe, and showed me drawings he had made of all the most remarkable carriages he had met with. Some of these were selected for their elegance, others for the reverse; take, as an example, the Lord Mayor’s. We travelled together to Munich, and I took that opportunity of discussing, seriatim, with my very intelligent young friend, every part of the structure of a carriage. I made notes of certain portions in case I should find occasion to have a carriage built for my own use. The young Russian was on his way to Moscow, and was very anxious to prevail on me to accompany him thither, for which purpose he offered to wait my own time at Munich. As, however, I wished to reach Italy as soon as possible, I declined his proposition with much regret. However, in the following year, I profited by the information I then gained. I had built for me at Vienna, from my own design, a strong light four-wheeled calèche in which I could sleep at full length. Amongst its conveniences were a lamp by which I oc­ca­sion­al­ly boiled an egg or cooked my breakfast. A large shallow drawer in which might be placed, without folding, plans, drawings, and dress-coats. Small pockets for the various kinds of money, a larger one for travelling books and telescopes, and many other conveniences. It cost somewhat about sixty pounds. After carrying me during six months, at the expense of only five francs for repair, I sold it at the Hague for thirty pounds. It is always advantageous for a traveller to carry with him anything of use in science or in art if it is of a portable nature, and still more so if it has also the advantage of novelty. At the time I started on a lengthened tour the stomach-pump had just been invented. It appeared to give {373} promise of great utility. I therefore arranged in a small box the parts of an instrument which could be employed either as a syringe, a stomach-pump, or for cupping. As a stomach-pump, it was in great request from its novelty and utility. I had many applications for permission to make drawings of it, to which I always most willingly acceded. At Munich, Dr. Weisbrod, the king’s physician, was greatly interested with it, and at his wish I lent it to the chief surgical instrument-maker who produced for him an exact copy of the whole apparatus. 〈DESCRIPTION OF THAMES TUNNEL.〉 Having visited the Thames Tunnel a day or two before I started for the Continent, I purchased a dozen copies of the very lucid account of that most interesting work. Six of the copies were in French and the other six in the German language. I frequently lent a copy, and upon some occasions I gave one away; but if I had had twice that number I should have found that I might have distributed them with advantage as acknowledgments of the many attentions I received. Another most valuable piece of travelling merchandise consisted of a dozen large and a dozen small gold buttons stamped by Barton’s steel dies. These buttons displayed the most beautiful iridescence, especially in the light of the sun. They were formed by ruling the steel die in parallel lines in various forms. The lines were from the four to the ten thousandth of an inch apart. I possessed a die which Mr. Barton had kindly given me. This I kept in my writing-case; but I had had a small piece of steel ruled in the same way, though not with quite the same perfection, which I always kept in my waistcoat pocket; it was also accompanied by a small gold button in a sandalwood case. These were frequently of great service. The {374} mere sight of them procured me many little attentions in diligences and steamboats. 〈IRIDESCENT BUTTONS.〉 Of course I never appeared to be the possessor of more than one of these treasured buttons; so that if any one had saved my life, its gift would have been thought a handsome acknowledgment. If I had travelled in the East, as I had originally intended until the battle of Navarino prevented me, my buttons might have given me unlimited success in the celestial empire. The Chinese, like ourselves, have five orders of nobility. They are indicated by spherical buttons. The Chinese nobles, however, wear them on the top of their caps, whilst our nobility wear their pearls and strawberry-leaves in their armorial bearings. It is a curious circumstance that the most anciently civilized nation should have invented an order of knighthood almost exactly similar to our own—the order of the Peacock’s Feather—which, like our own Garter, is confined to certain classes of nobility of the highest rank. Of the two the decoration of the Chinese noble is certainly the more graceful. One out of many illustrations may show the use I made of a button. During my first visit to Venice I wished to see a manufactory of gold chains for which that city is justly celebrated. I readily got permission, and the proprietor was so good as to accompany me round his factory. I had inquired the price of various chains, and had expressed my wish to purchase a few inches of each kind; but I was informed that they never sold less than a braccia of any one chain. This amount would have made my purchase more costly than I proposed, so I gave it up. 〈THE VALUE OF A BUTTON.〉 In the meantime we proceeded through several rooms in which various processes were going on. Observing some {375} tools in one of the shops, I took up a file and asked whence it was procured. This led to a conversation on the subject, in which the proprietor gave me some account of files from various countries, but concluded by observing that the Lancashire files, when they could be got, were by far the best. I took this opportunity of asking him whether he had seen any of our latest productions in steel: then pulling out of my waistcoat-pocket the piece of hardened steel, ruled by a diamond, I put it into his hands. The sun was shining brightly, and he was very much interested with it. I remarked that in a darkened room, and with a single lamp, it would be seen with still greater advantage. A room was soon darkened, and a single lamp produced, and the effect was still more perfect. My conductor then observed that his managing man was a very skilful workman, and if I could afford the time, he should much wish to show him this beautiful sight. I said it always gave me pleasure to see and converse with a skilful workman, and that I considered it as time well spent. The master sent for his superintendent, who, being of a judicious turn of mind, was lavish in admiring what his master approved. The master himself, gratified by this happy confirmation, turning to me, said that he would let me have pieces of any or all of his gold chains of any length, however short I might wish them to be. I thanked him for thus enabling me to make my countrymen appreciate the excellence of Venetian workmanship, and purchased small samples of every kind of chain then man­u­fac­tured. These, on my return to London, I weighed and measured, and referred to them in the economy of man­u­fac­tures as illustrations of the different proportions in which skilled labour and price of raw material occur in the same class of man­u­fac­tured articles. {376} A friend of mine, then at Venice, again visited that city about five years afterwards. He sub­se­quent­ly informed me that he had purchased, at the manufactory I visited, samples of gold chains about an inch or two long, fixed on black velvet, and that it formed a regular article of trade in some demand. 〈PULSATIONS AND INSPIRATIONS.〉 A man may, without being a proficient in any science, and indeed with only the most limited knowledge of a small portion of it, yet make himself useful to those who are most instructed. However limited the path he may himself pursue, he will insensibly acquire other information in return for that which he can communicate. I will illustrate this by one of my own pursuits. I possess the slightest possible acquaintance with the vast fields of animal life, but at an early period I was struck by the numerical regularity of the pulsation and of the breathings. It appeared to me that there must exist some relation between these two functions. Accordingly, I took every opportunity of counting the numbers of the pulsations and of the breathings of various animals. The pig fair at Pavia and the book fair at Leipsic equally placed before me menageries in which I could collect such facts. Every zoological collection of living animals which I visited thus gained an additional interest, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly excited the attention of those in charge of it to making a collection of facts relating to that subject. This led me at another period to generalize the subject of inquiry, and to print a skeleton form for the constants of the class mammalia. It was reprinted by the British Association at Cambridge in 1833, and also at Brussels in the ‘Travaux du Congress Général de Statistique,’ Brussels, 1853. I have so frequently been mortified by having the {377} utterly-undeserved reputation of knowing everything that I was led to inquire into the probable grounds of the egregious fallacy. The most frequent symptom was an address of this kind:—“Now Mr. Babbage, will you, who know everything, kindly explain to me — — —.” Perhaps the thing whose explanation was required might be the metre of some ancient Chinese poem: or whether there were any large rivers in the planet Mercury. 〈HOW TO PUNCH A HOLE IN GLASS.〉 One of the most useful accomplishments for a philosophical traveller with which I am acquainted, I learned from a workman, who taught me how to punch a hole in a sheet of glass without making a crack in it. The process is very simple. Two centre-punches, a hammer, an ordinary bench-vice, and an old file, are all the tools required. These may be found in any blacksmith’s shop. Having decided upon the part of the glass in which you wish to make the hole, scratch a cross () upon the desired spot with the