

BUR 



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Burning, the ceremony is attended with great ex pence, this 

 * -v ' honour is not conferred on the poor. Funerls are 

 solemnized with much religious parade and semblance 

 of grief in the kingdom of Ava. The corpse, preceded 

 by women chauniing a dirge, is carried in slow proces- 

 sion on a bier on men's shoulders, and attended by the 

 relatives in mourning. When placed on a pile, which 

 is about six or eight feet high, formed of billets of 

 dried wood laid across, with interstices to admit the 

 air and promote the conflagration, the priests walk 

 around, reciting prayers to their deity. When the 

 fire reaches the body, it is quickly reduced to ashes ; 

 and the bones being afterwards collected, are depo- 

 sited in a grave. The bodies of the chief ecclesiastic 

 of a province, and of persons of exalted station, are 

 embalmed, and lie in state in some religious edifice 

 six weeks before they are committed to the pile. 

 Cremation of the dead is practised by the natives 



of New Holland, a race which ranks lowest in the Bur;g. 

 scale of mankind. The surviving husband constructs ' " /"" 

 a pile to consume the body of his depa ted wife : he 

 collects her ashes, and, depositing them in the earth, 

 erects a rude and simple memorial of her on the spot. 

 See Herodotus, p. 490 ; Pomponius Mela dc Situ 

 Orbis ; Diodorus Siculus, lib. xix. ; Suetonius in 

 Vit. Jul. Ciesaris, August. Vespasian, 84'. 101. 

 9.5. ; Caesar dc Bell. Gall. lib. 6. cap. 18. ; ./Elian 

 Varies Hislorice, lib. v. cap. 6. Dio. 5't, 59 ; Gutherius 

 de Jure Maniiim ; Keysler Antiquitatcs Sdcclce Sep* 

 tentrionalis ; Bartholinus Libri Antiquitalum Dani- 

 carnm, p. 507. ; Brown on Urn Burial ; Holvvell'a 

 Historical Events ; Campbell's Journey over Land ; 

 Hodge's Travels in India ; Asiatic Researches, vol. 

 v. vii. ; and Asiatic Annual Register, vol. xi. For 

 an account of the ceremony of Burning the Living, 

 see the above works, and the article CREMATION. (<) 



BURNING INSTRUMENTS. 



Burning JJURNING instruments, are optical instruments for 

 instru- producing an intense heat from the concentration of 

 t _j the solar rays, either by reflection or refraction. 



When the concentration is effected by reflection alone, 

 the instruments may be called CATOPTRIC BURNING 

 INSTRUMENTS; when the effect is produced by re- 

 fraction, they may be called DIOPTRIC BURNING IN- 

 STRUMENTS ; and when the rays are concentrated 

 both by mirrors and lenses, they may be called CA- 

 TADIOPTRIC BURNING INSTRUMENTS. In proceed- 

 ing, therefore, to give an account of the different 

 instruments which have been employed for this pur- 

 pose, we shall arrange them under these three heads. 



ON CATOPTRIC BURNING INSTRUMENTS. 



Catoptric It appears, from the authority of Plutarch, that 

 burning in- the ancients were acquainted with the power of con- 

 *truments. cave mirrors to concentrate the solar rays, and to 

 burn substances placed in their focus ; and there is 

 every reason to believe, that it was by a contrivance 

 *>f this kind that the vestal fires were rekindled. This 

 method, however, of producing an intense heat from 

 the solar rays, can be practised only at short dis- 

 tances, and is completely incapable of producing those 

 tremendous effects at a distance which Archimedes 



Burning 

 Instru- 



is said to have exhibited at the siege of Syracuse. 



The concurring testimonies of several ancient au- 

 thors * sufficiently establish the general fact, that by 

 a combination of mirrors, constructed by Archime- 

 des, the Roman fleet was either partly or wholly mirrors of 

 consumed. By means of a similar apparatus, as we Archime. 

 are informed by Zonaras, (Annul, lib. xiv. p. 55.) des and 

 Proclus destroyed the Gothic ships in the harbour of ^ roc ' us> 

 Constantinople, in order to protect his benefactor, 

 Anastasius, against the bold attempt of Vitalian. 



The credibility of these statements has been seri- 

 ously questioned by many modern mathematicians of 

 the highest eminence, and the exploits of Archime- 

 des at Syracuse have been confidently ranked among 

 the fables of antiquity. All this scepticism, how- 

 ever, seems to have been founded on the supposition, 

 that the Syracusan philosopher employed concave 

 mirrors ; for if we suppose, along with Kircher and 

 Euffon, that Archimedes employed a combination of 

 plain mirrors, and if we make some allowance for the 

 exaggeration of ancient authors, we must admit it as a 

 fact well authenticated, and in no respect contradicted 

 by the principles of optics, that Archimedes construct- 

 ed a burning machine, by which he set fire to the Ro- 

 man fleet at a considerable distance- When the rays 

 of the sun are reflected from a plain mirror upon any 



* The authors who mention the mirror of Archimedes, are Lucian, Galienus, Anthcmius, Eustathius, Tzetzes, and Zonaras. 



l.urian, in his Hippias, simply states, that Archimedes, by a singular artifice, reduced the ships of the Romans to ashes. 

 liulienus observes, (Dc Temper -amends, lib. iii. cap. 2. torn. 1. p. 81. Edit. Basil.): " It is in this way, at least I think so, that 

 Archimedes burnt the enemy's vessels. For, by the help of a burning mirror, he may easily set fire to wool, hemp, wood, &c. ; 

 and, in shoit, to any thing dry and light." 



Eustathius remarks, in his commentary on the Iliad, E. p. 338. that Archimedes, by an invention in catoptrics, burned the 

 fleet of the Romans at a distance equal to the shot of an arrow from a bow. According to Zonaras, (Annul, lib. ix. p. 424.). 

 *' Archimedes burnt the fleet of the Romans in an admirable manner; for he turned a certain mirror towards the sun, 

 which received its rays. The air having been heated on account of the density and smoothness of this mirror, he kindled an 

 immense flame, which he precipitated on the vessels which were in the harbour, and reduced them to ashes." 



" When the fleet of Marcellus (says Tzetzes, Chiliad ii. 119.) was within bow-shot, the old man (Archimedes) brought out 

 a hexagonal mirror which he had made. He placed, at proper distances from this mirror, other smaller mirrors, which were of 

 the same kind, and which were moved by means of their hinges, and certain square plates of metal. He afterwards placed his 

 mirror in the midst of the solar rays, precisely at noon day. The rays of the sun being reflected by this mirror, he kindled a 

 dreadful fire in the ships, which were reduced to ashes at a distance equal to that of a bow shot. Dion and Diodorus, who wrote 

 the life of Archimedes, and several other authors, speak of this fact ; but chiefly Anthemius, who wrote on the prodigies of 

 Miechunics : it is in these works that we read the history of the conflagration occasioned by the mirror of Archimedes." 



Though these authorities are conclusive, yet no notice is taken of Archimcdes's mirror by Polybius, Livy, and Plutarch* 



