28 LETTERS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. 



statly pillers, and was a buildinge twoe hundred and twenty 

 yeares by the moste exquisite artizans in all Asia. The walles 

 that inclosed the great citie of Babilon, built by Queen Sy- 

 miramis, weare in circute sixtie miles ; in heith, two hundred 

 feet ; in breadth fiftie ; weare distinguished with twoe hun- 

 dred and fiftie stately towers ; in one yeares space weare 

 finisshed, but by the hand of thirteen thowsand woorkmen. 

 The children of Israeli, that lived foure hundred and thirtie 

 yeares under the slavishe servitude of the tirannicall Pharoes 

 in Egipt, weare busied cheefely in there latter tyme in work- 

 inge of those stately Piramides ; the commen people bakinge 

 of bricke for the foundations, and the most learned amorigest 

 them in carvinge of stones for those hyerogliphicall misteries. 

 Trajan the Emperure, as it weare in dispite of nature, made a 

 stony bridge over the swifte river Ister of twenty arches, sea- 

 vered by one hundred and twentie feet, in heith forty cubites, 

 in breadth thirtie. The theaters at Rome weare capable of 

 sixtie thowsand persons to behould, and of navis of shippes to 

 present navale prelium for pleasure unto the people, Horti- 

 pensiles weare no lesse admirable, that were so artificially sett 

 on pillers, that they seamed to hange in the aire, and there- 

 fore weare called hanginge gardens. The tombe that Arte- 

 misia bwilt for the kinge of Caria is renouned through the 

 whole woorld by the name of Mausole. The great Colossus 

 (that was in the haven of the He of Rodes, was an immage of 

 sutch a mervelous heith, that great shippes with all ther 

 sailes, there toppes and topp gallantes, mought enter betwixt 

 his legges,) is to be wondered at howe it stoode firme and im- 

 movable of winde and tempest, without any shrowed, so 

 many hundred yeares. Dionisius the tiran was the inventor 

 of the warlicke engin called Catapulta ; but first he, by pro- 

 posinge infinite rewardes, assembled at Siracusa, in Sicily, the 

 most rare persons for invention in all Africa and Europe. 

 Archimedes did devise, by many yeares study and wonderfull 

 expenses, a burninge glasse, wherewith he woold sett a fiar the 

 Romaine shippes many leagues of, and handes of iron to lifte 

 upp whole navies by force, and to make them as it w r eare flie 

 in the aire. Nero did invent and caused to be bwilt a ban- 

 quetinge howse in Rome, wherein the motions of the heavens, 

 the conjunctions and opositions of the pianettes, wear hourely 

 presented unto him as he sported him self with musicall in- 

 struments. Vitruvius for warlike engins is of admirable re- 

 noune. And Berosus the Caldean did first devise to measure 

 the tyme by an Hemicycle. Aristarchus of Samos, by a dishe 

 havinge in the center thereof a strawe directed to the zenith, 

 and Augustus the Emperewer in Campo Martio uppon the 



