One thousand
nine hundred years ago, the famous scientist Pliny the Elder lived in Rome.
This scientist was famous for his industriousness. Even on the road, swaying in
a stretcher, which was carried by exhausted slaves being dripping with sweat,
he managed to write with a sharp wand on wax-covered tablets. And in the
bathhouse, while a slave was massaging his well-cared-for body or wiping him
with a towel, he read a book.
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| The Eruption of Vesuvius in 79 |
Unlike modern
scientists, Pliny was not a specialist: he was engaged in all sciences, which
were at that time, without distinction. This learned man was an unusually curious
person and was interested in everything in the world. This destroyed him: Pliny
died during the eruption of Vesuvius. Watching from the deck of the ship what
was happening on the shore, he ordered to swim too close to the volcano. Clubs
of heavy, toxic smoke smothered the scientist.
Pliny's main
work is Natural History. He wrote it for many years. This is a real
encyclopedia of all the knowledge of the ancient world. It talks about the
movement of the heavenly bodies, about countries and peoples, about animals and
plants, about stones and metals ... It is narrated in it, by the way, and how
glass was discovered.
One day, Pliny
says, a Phoenician merchant ship, caught by a strong storm, had been forced to
anchor in a small bay. Tired and cold sailors went ashore. They began to look
for a place to make a bonfire in order to cook their soup and keep warm. The
shore was sandy, there were no stones anywhere, and then one of the sailors
came up with the idea: what if we take out from the hold blocks of soda that we
are carrying for sale and put a boiler on them?
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| Soda in Nature |
Soda in those
days, as now, was used when washing clothes. In addition, clothmakers needed in
it to soften the coat, and Egyptian priests - to embalm corpses.
The bonfire was
a success, the sailors ate heartily and went to bed. And in the morning, going
on a journey, one of them scattered the smoldering remains of a fire. Suddenly
he noticed some shiny pieces in the ash. They were not like wood, nor metal,
nor clay, nor stone. Until now, not a single Phoenician has seen such strange
light pieces.
This new
mysterious substance, according to Pliny, was glass: an alloy of coastal sand
and soda.
