M. Arago's Biographical Memoir of James TVatt. 237 



now a-days do not always escape these accidents ; and we have 

 no reason to suppose that the ancients were free from them. 

 While casting, then, then* innumerable statues, the splendid 

 ornaments of their temples and public resorts, of their gardens 

 and private mansions at Athens and at Rome, many acci- 

 dents must have occurred ; the artists themselves must have 

 discovered the immediate cause ; whilst the philosophers on 

 their part, following that tendency to generalization which 

 was the characteristic feature of thek schools, would here be- 

 hold in miniature a true image of the eruptions of Etna. 

 Now, all this might be true without having the slightest rela- 

 tion to the history with which we are now engaged ; and I 

 would not even so far have insisted upon these slight traces 

 of the science of the ancients regarding the power of steam, 

 were it not that I might live at peace with the Daciers of both 

 sexes, and with the Dutens of our own day.* 



Powers, whether natural or artificial, previous to becoming 

 really useful to mankind, have almost always v^TOught wonders 

 in support of superstition ; and steam has been no exception 

 to this general rule. 



Chroniclers have informed us, that upon the banks of the 

 Weser, the god of the ancient Teutonic race manifested his 

 displeasure by a kind of thunderbolt, to which, immediately 

 afterwards, succeeded a cloud that filled the sacred enclosure. 

 The image of the god Busterich, discovered, it is said, in 

 some excavations, clearly demonstrated the mode in which 



• Influenced by the same motive, I can scarcely avoid mentioning here 

 an iinecdotc, which, besides its romantic character, and its inconsistency 

 with what we now know of the mode of the action of steam, shews us also 

 the high idea which the ancients entertained of the power of this mechani- 

 cal agent. It is stated that Anthemius, the architect of Justinian, had a 

 dwelling contiguous to that of Zeno, and that, to annoy the orator, who 

 was bis declared foe, he placed beneath the ground-floor of his own house a 

 number of great caldrons, which he filled with water ; that from an open- 

 ing made in the lid of each of these, proceeded a flexilde tube, which was 

 directed into the partition wall, under the beams tliat supported the ceil- 

 ings of Zeno's mansion ; and finally, that these ceilings actually shook as 

 if from a violent eartliquake when fires were lit beneath the caldrons. 



VOL. XXVII. NO. LIV,— OCTOBER 1839. R 



