Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
614 NOTES TO VOLUME I.
father was a merchant. After his father’s death he went to a brother
of his father’s in Stockholm , where he attended school till his twelfth
year. After his uncle’s death he was obliged he earn his own living,
which he did partly as clerk on an estate, and partly as tax -collector.
In his twenty -third year he succeeded amidst great difficulties in
mastering the rudiments of the Latin language, and in his twenty
fifth year he became a student in the University of Upsal. While
there he restored the wonderful cathedral clock, which showed the
motion of the sun and moon ; he also constructed some machines for
raising ore from the mines. In 1694 he made a journey abroad, and
constructed another wonderful clock, which the French court presented
to the Sultan. He was afterwards called by the Elector of Hanover
to the Hartz, to improve the machines for the use of the mines.
On his return to Sweden he was employed to establish at Stjernsund
in Dalecarlia, at the expense of the state, a mechanical institution,
with appliances for making machines of every kind. There Sweden
borg first became his assistant in 1710. On returning to Sweden
in 1715, Swedenborg undertook to prepare for publication all Polhem’s
inventions by describing and furnishing them with algebraical and
geometrical demonstrations, which he did in his Dedalus Hyper
boreus. In 1716, Polhem was ordered by Charles XII to build the
celebrated docks of Carlscrona, where Swedenborg was his assistant;
and next year they commenced the construction of locks at Trol
hätta and Wenersborg, and projected the famous Göta canal. In
1716, CharlesXII made Polhem a councillor of commerce, and ennobled
him , on which occasion he assumed the name of Polhem . Polhem’s
letters to Swedenborg and Ericus Benzelius, which are printed in
Section III for the first time, (see Documents 38, 51, 52, 53, 56, 57,
63, 65, 66, 71 A and B, and 84,) our readers will peruse ,with great
interest. With no less interest will they read a document (No. 54), ap
pended to Robsahm’s memoirs (Document 5), from which it appears that
Swedenborg was engaged to be married to one of Polhem’s daughters,
but that the engagement was broken off, because his love was not
reciprocated. Polhem died in 1751, at the advanced age of ninety
years. Swedenborg gives several interesting acounts of his former
preceptor and coadjutor in the other world. In the “ Smaller Diary "
( p. 65) he says : " Polhem died on Monday (Aug. 31, 1751), and he
spoke with me on Thursday. When I attended his funeral, he saw
his coffin, and those who were present, likewise the whole procession,
and how he was laid in the grave, conversing with me meanwhile,
and asking me why they buried him when yet he was alive. After
wards he asked why the priest said that he should rise at the last
judgment, when yet he had risen already: and he wondered that the
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
