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Based on a text of Brett McLaughlin
| Cornelius Jacobszoon Drebbel was born in Alkmaar (Netherlands) in 1572, as
a son of a well-to-do farmer. He probably only had elementary education, which would have
included Latin. He had no university education. As a young man he was apprenticed to the
famous engraver Hendrick Goltzius in Haarlem. Goltzius incidentally practiced alchemy and
undoubtedly introduced Drebbel to the Art. Drebbel had little interest in
the quest for the Elixir of Life or the Philosopher's Stone, and instead learned chemical
ideas and processes. Drebbel married Sophia Jansdochter, one of Goltzius' younger sisters
in 1595. In
1595 he settled at Alkmaar, where he devoted himself to engraving and publishing maps and
pictures. He soon turned to mechanical invention, for in 1598 he was a granted a patent
for a pump and a clock with perpetual motion. In 1602 he was granted a patent for a
chimney. He also made instruments and designed a water-supply system for the town of
Alkmaar. |
Cornelis Drebbel after Hendrick Goltzius
The Seven Free Arts: Geometry |
Cornelis Drebbel after Hendrick Goltzius
The Seven Free Arts: Grammar |
In 1604, King James I received Drebbel at his court in
England. Drebbel obtained the attention of the English court through the amazing perpetual
motion machine. It actually 'worked' through shifts in air temperature and pressure. The
King stationed him at the Castle at Eltham, where he entered the special service of
Henry, the Prince of Wales, as a mechanic especially associated with displays of
fireworks. Payments to him of £ 20 in both 1609 and 1610 are recorded.
Many times Drebbel shuttled across the English Channel back to the Netherlands.
Nevertheless Drebbel never quite made it; he remained at the level, not of a Galileo who
produced spectacles of a different order, but of court entertainers among whom Drebbel
walked at the King's funeral. In 1610 Drebbel visited the court
of
Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, at the Emperor's invitation. Rudolf gave him
the title of Chief Alchemist after seeing his remarkable perpetual motion machine; Drebbel
really only claimed that it could rewind constantly by atmospheric pressure changes. It
had a sealed glass tub where liquid contracted and expanded to enable the clock to
constantly rewind.
He lingered a decade and instructed the son of Archduke Ferdinand of
Bohemia who would later become Holy Roman Emperor. At the beginning of the Thirty Years'
War, Ferdinand V's forces imprisoned Drebbel and took all his possessions, for he was
affluent at this time. Rudolf's brother Matthias ousted Rudolf from his authority and
conquered Prague. Through the intervention of Prince Henry, Drebbel was set free to
return to England in 1613. |
During the next several years he lived mostly in London. About 1620 he
began to devote himself to the manufacture of microscopes and to the construction of a
submarine (one of his most famous projects). For the next several years he was employed by
the British navy, partly in connection with the submarine, but mostly to make explosive
devices with which to attack other ships, at a fairly high salary. During
1626 to 1628, he advised the military on how to relieve the French Huguenots under siege
at La Rochelle. In 1627, they put him in charge of fireships at La Rochelle. Buckingham
was his source of employment and his career plummeted after someone assassinated
Buckingham after La Rochelle failed . His weapons were criticized when he failed.
He was involved in a drainage project in East Anglia. The extent of his involvement and
the extent of his technical expertise is under debate. From 1629 until his death in 1633
he was extremely poor and earned his living by keeping an alehouse. |
Cornelis Drebbel after Hendrick Goltzius
The Seven Free Arts: Astronomy |
Technological Involvement
In the strict sense he was not a scientist but an inventor or practicing
technologist. He left very few writings of his own, and none of them is concerned with his
invention. His most famous work was Ein kurzer Tractac von der Natur der Elemetum (Leiden,
1608), an alchemical tract on the transmutation of the elements. Engineering seems the
best category for his general activity.
Among his best-known inventions are:
"Perpetual mobile", the elaborate toy operated on the basis of
changes in atmospheric temperature and pressure. He extended the basic idea to the
operation of clocks.
Thermostats and thermoscope. He applied the principles used in the perpetual
mobile to thermostatic regulators that controlled ovens, furnaces, and
incubators. As the temperature rose, air expanded, forcing quicksilver to close a damper.
When it cooled, the damper opened. The incubator he made hatched both duck and chicken
eggs
Optics. He invented the microscope with two sets of convex lenses. He made
compound microscopes as early as 1619. He also made telescopes, and he developed a machine
for grinding lenses. He constructed a camera obscura with a lens in the aperture, and he
had some sort of magic lantern that projected images.
Dyeing. Drebbel made a new tin mordant process for dyeing the
color scarlet with cochineal. Treated mild red dye, cochineal, mixed with tin or pewter
dissolved in nitric acid made this new color. This process happened by accident when tin
mixed with aqua regia fell into cochineal Drebbel had prepared for a thermometer. He then
grasped how significant this was and told his son-in-law, Abraham Kuffler. Abraham had a
dyehouse and made "color Kufflerianus" as the new scarlet was called.
Chemical Technology. Drebbel did two more chemical processes.
He oxidized sulfur for sulfuric acid, through heating sulfur and potassium nitrate
(saltpeter). He made it more efficiently than any other way at that time. It became the
basis for John Roebuck's work for production in the lead chamber. He also found a way to
make oxygen from heating saltpeter, which is now one of the standard way to produce it.
| Submarine.Drebbel's most phenomenal work was
definitely the submarine. In 1620, he made the first "rudimentary" submarine.
Drebbel constructed his vessel while working for the British Navy. They never used it, but
tested it many times. He had a wooden rowboat; it had a wooden hull wrapped tightly in
waterproofed leather. His rowboat was the first to answer the question of air
replenishment underwater. Air tubes with floats went to the surface to provide the craft
with oxygen. Oars went through the hull at leather gaskets. Twelve oarsmen and some other
passengers were on board. The trip at the Thames River took three hours. |
 Drebbel in Gilles de Geus |
The Drebbel Lunar Crater
 |
This picture shows the lunar crater that is named after
Cornelis Drebbel. In this figure 1 pixel corresponds to 1 km. (The size of the picture is
256 x 256 pixels.) The diameter of the crater is about 30 kilometers.
The coordinates at which the crater can be found are 40.9S latitude, 49.0W longitude. |
Sources
1. Brett McLaughlin, Cornelis Drebbel and the
First Submarine (1997).
2. Gerrit Tierie, Cornelius Drebbel (1572-1633), (Amsterdam, 1932).
3. L.E.Harris, The Two Netherlanders, (Cambridge, 1961).
4. Jaeger, Cornelis Drebbel en zijne tijdgenooten, (Groningen, 1922)
5. G.C. Gerrits, Grote nederlanders bij de opbouw der natuurwetenschappen, (Leiden, 1948).
6. Richard S. Westfall, The Galileo Project Development Team, Department of History and
Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
This page was last updated at
14-01-05
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