14 Annotations

First Reading

vincent  •  Link

"coale sweet" a process to remove sulphur: Nr. Greenewich Ferry: -"...where I saw Sir Jo: Winters new project of Charring Sea-Coale, to burne out the Sulphure & render it Sweete: he did it by burning them in such Earthen-pots, as the glassmen, melte their Mettal in so firing the Coales, without Consuming them, using a barr of Yron in each crucible or Pot, which barr has an hooke at one end, that so the Coales being mealted in a furnace, with other crude sea Coales, under them, may be drawn out of the potte, sticking to the Yron, whence they beate them off in greate halfe exhausted Cinders, which rekindling they make a cleare pleasant Chambers fires with, depriv'd of their Sulphury & Arsenic malignity: what successe it may have time will discover:" John Evelyn 10 august 1656

Grahamt  •  Link

This sounds like an early process to make "smokeless coal"
Like all such processes, it moves the problem from the family hearth to the industrial site. (the sulphur, as dioxide, has to go somewhere)
Newcastle coal is fairly high in sulphur. It wasn't until Welsh coal started being mined in the next century that very low-sulphur coal became available.
The ability to make large quantities of coke from coal, which is an evoloution of this process, made the smelting of iron from coal instead of charcoal a possibility, and thus "fuelled" the industrial revolution. See: http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~rsteph…

PHE  •  Link

Water pumps on display
11 Oct 1660 ... to walk in St. James

vincent  •  Link

needs full url: correction; plus others: direct from
http://www.hp-gramatke.net/pmm_ph…

other links to water mills
water wheel; roman in london and the reconstruction :
The 12-foot-high machine, with its complicated assemblage of wheels, cogs and oak buckets linked by iron fittings, is capable of drawing 15,000 gallons of water from a well every 10 hours

vincent  •  Link

the W.C.:another Invention that took two centuries to get accepted:
first WC; [Jacques, jakes] (as I did know it)
1589 Sir John Harrington, Elizabethan poet, designed the first water closet and installed it at his country house near Bath. In 1596 he installed one at the palace of his godmother Queen Elizabeth I
http://www.historymole.com/cgi-bi…

and I did think it was Thomas Crapper who got rid of the "guar de lou"
google: T Crapper it does get lots of leads:[not leds]
http://www.toiletology.com/histor…
science of the times; sample :
1662 Blaise Pascal invents a horse-drawn public bus which has a regular route a schedule and a fare system. Links

http://www.historymole.com/cgi-bi…

PHE  •  Link

Reading light:
Entry 24 Oct 1660
"Mr. Greatorex ...did show me the manner of the lamp-glasses, which carry the light a great way, good to read in bed by, and I intend to have one of them."
Sounds like something that focuses the light from a candle - probably similar to the silver cup that focuses a modern torchlight.

vincent  •  Link

For those hooked or nor not Robert Hooke: the man who knew everything
The exhibition is open at the Royal Observatory Greenwich until 31 January 2004.
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request…

Hooke:Robert Hooke Resources:
http://www.roberthooke.com/resour…
Robert Hooke's family and birthplace:
http://freespace.virgin.net/ric.m…
'England's Leonardo'. A lecture by Allan Chapman:
http://www.rod.beavon.clara.net/l…
Robert Hooke Tercentenary Conference:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/

PHE  •  Link

Monday 11 February 1660/61
... Then with young Mr. Reeve home to his house, who did there show me many pretty pleasures in perspectives,1 that I have not seen before, and I did buy a little glass of him cost me 5s. ...

vicenzo  •  Link

making of glass bottles issue of patent;
Colvett's Patent.
Ordered, That the Bill for confirming Letters Patents, granted to John Colvett, for making Glass Bottles, and for preventing Frauds therein, be read To-morrow Morning.

From: British History Online
Source: House of Commons Journal Volume 8: 26 February 1662. Journal of the House of Commons: volume 8, (1802).
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…
Date: 08/03/2005

in aqua  •  Link

Patents issued between 1660 to 1710 approx 1000
Books published 1620-1710, 6000
News sheets puplished by 1710 2.4 mil.
Publisher had all the rights until 1710, after that the author got the @ and was paid by the publisher, for his words.

Ruben  •  Link

The bottle in Pepys days
During the late sixteenth century, cork bottle stoppers reappeared as in England. Again, no special implement was required to remove them, since they were tapered in shape and protruded a comfortable distance from the vessel. Blown-glass bottles began to replace barrels and skins as wine storage vessels. The bottles consisted of a squatty chamber topped with a tapered neck. These "shaft and globe" bottles were sealed with tapered corks wrapped with waxed linen, making it easy to grasp and remove the stoppers.
No corkscrew yet!

see: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/C…

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