WITH NOTES. 429 



haven, if that it be of not too great breadth.&quot; See his 

 Inventions or Devices, 1578. 



Sir Hugh Plat, in his &quot;Jewel House of Art and 

 Nature, 1 1653, shows, in article No. 22, &quot; How to erect 

 or build over any brook, or small river, a cheap and 

 wooden bridge of 40 or 50 feet in length, without 

 fastening any timber work within the water.&quot; 



A portable Fortification able to 

 contain five hundred fighting men, 

 and yet 3 in fix hours time may 4 be 

 fet up, and made Cannon-proof, 

 upon the fide of a River or Pafs, 

 with Cannon mounted upon it, and 

 as complete as a regular Fortifica 

 tion, with Half-moons and Counter- 

 fcarps. 



3 yet omitted. * able to be for, may be. 



[_A moveable Fortification.~\ Vegetius, in u De re 

 militari,&quot; 1535, offers many similar schemes but less 

 ambitious than the present one ; which is, after all, 

 little if any more than an extension and improvement 

 on what had previously been more or less practised. 



In his &quot;Naturae simia seu technica,&quot; dated 1618, 

 Eobert Fludd, at page 421, gives a folio engraving 

 of a triangular fort, with six pieces of cannon and 

 three gunners. It appears to be on wheels, and is 

 pushed along by a beam running on three wheels, 

 having four horses yoked to it ; literally the cart before 

 the horse. 



