324 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



wasting a moment over the problem for this reason, 

 simply, that it has long since been demonstrated to 

 be insoluble by simple geometrical methods. So that, 

 when a man says he has squared the circle (and many 

 will say BO, if one will only give them a hearing), he 

 shows that either he wholly misunderstands the nature 

 of the problem, or that his ignorance of mathematics 

 has led him to mistake a faulty for a true solution. 



(From CJiambertfs Journal^ January 16, 1869.) 



THE NEW THEORY OF ACHILLE&S SHIELD. 



A DISTINGUISHED classical authority has remarked 

 that the description of Achilles's shield occupies an 

 anomalous position in Homer's " Iliad." On the one 

 hand, it is easy to show that the poem for the descrip- 

 tion may be looked on as a complete poem is out of 

 place in the " Iliad ; " on the other, it is no less easy to 

 show that Homer has carefully led up to the descrip- 

 tion of the shield by a series of introductory events. 



I propose to examine, briefly, the evidence on each 

 of these points, and then to exhibit a theory respecting 

 the shield which may appear bizarre enough on a first 

 view, but which seems to me to be supported by satis- 

 factory evidence. 



An argument commonly urged against the genuine- 

 ness of the " Shield of Achilles " is founded on the 



