204 Prucecding'S of the Roijal Society ()f Edinburgh. 



that of Apollo Delpluneus at Athens ; but he pointed out reasons 

 why the Greeks never used the arch as a conspicuous member of their 

 architecture, though these examples shew that they were not igno- 

 rant of the principle of the arch. 



In reviewing the specimens of early Italian art, he shewed that 

 the arch was well understood by the ancient Etruscans. He con- 

 tended, from ancient authorities, and the peculiarity of the ma- 

 sonry, that in the Emissary of the Alban Lake, the Cloaca Maxi- 

 ma at Rome, the substructions of the Temple of Tarpeian Jove, and 

 probably also in the body of the Pantheon itself, we have genuine 

 specimens of very ancient Etruscan art, in which arches form con- 

 spicuous members; and he shewed that, in the walls of Cortona, 

 Fesulse, and Volterra, in the ruins of the Theatre of Arezzo, in the 

 Piscina of Volterra, and in the sepulchres of Perugia and Tarquinii, 

 we have undoubted and very ancient specimens of Etruscan 

 arches. In the temples of Egypt we have no examples of any arch, 

 one of the arches figured in Belzoni's tenth plate being evidently 

 Saracenic, and the others a mere hole, with a rounded top, cut in a 

 wall; but the author exhibited specimens of both round and pointed 

 arches, lately delineated by Mr George Hoskins junior, in the an- 

 cient royal tombs of Napata and Meroe, which shew that arches 

 were perfectly understood by the singular people of ancient Ethiopia. 



The author next shewed that the pointed arch was long employed 

 in eastern architecture before it was known in western Europe ; a 

 position which he illustrated by a collection of sketches from va- 

 rious authors. 



He concluded this Essay by some observations on the extraor- 

 dinary architecture of the ancient inhabitants of the table land of 

 Anahuuc, or Mexico, in which arches are distinctly visible ; as may 

 be seen in the designs of Dupaix, published in the magnificent work 

 of Aglio ,• though the domes in the stupendous tombs of that peo- 

 ple are constructed on the same principle as the Treasury of Atreus 

 at Mycenae. 



\Qth February. — Dr Hope, V. P. in the Chair. No paper 

 read on account of extraordinary business. 



2d March.— '^ix Thomas Bkisbane, K. C. B., President, in 

 the Chair. A communication was read : — 

 On the Anatomy of the Char. 



\Gth March. — The Right Hon. Lord Greexock, Vice- 

 President, in the Chair. The following communications were 

 read : — 



1. The first part of a paper on the Ruins of Babylon. By 



Dr Traill. 



2. On the application of the Hot Air Blast in the Manufac- 



ture of Cast-iron. By Dr Clark, Aberdeen. 



