ox THE HISTORY OF MKCHANICS. 241 



relation of Hiero, had asserted that any weight wliatever might be moved by 

 any given power: and depending on tlie vahdity of his arguments, had given 

 scope to his imagination, and boasted that if he had another earth to which 

 he could step over, he would draw the whole of the present globe out of its 

 place. Hiero, surprised at the boldness of his assertion, requested him to 

 give some substantial proof of its truth, by moving a great weight with a 

 small power: up.on this Archimedes procured a ship, which was with great 

 labour drawn up on the shore, and having completely manned and freighted 

 lier, he seated himself at a distance, and by lightly touching the first move- 

 ment of a machine, he drew her along as smoothly and as safely as if she had 

 been sailing in the deepest water. Hiero, full of astonishment, and admiring- 

 tlie powers of mechanical art, prevailed on Archimedes to construct such en- 

 gines both of defpnce and of offence, as might be of use to him in case of a 

 siege: for these, however, Hiero, who lived a life of peace and prosperity, was 

 not so unfortunate as to have occasion; but they now became highly. valua- 

 ble to the Syracusans, and they were of the more advantage, as their inventor was 

 present, to direct their use. And in fact the whole people of Syracuse con- 

 stituted but a part of Archimedes's corporeal macliinery, and he was the soul 

 that moved and governed the whole. All other arms were deserted, and they 

 employed his engines alone, both for their own defence, and for the annoy- 

 ance of the enemy. In short, the Romans soon became so terrified, that if 

 they saw a stick or a rope upon the walls, they cried out that it was some 

 macliine of Archimedes, and immediately fled; so that Marcellus at last deter- 

 mined to desist from attempting to take the place by assault, and resolved to 

 blockade it only. 



"Archimedes, however, had such depth of intellect, and such sublimity 

 of mind, that notwithstanding he had obtained, by these inventions, the 

 credit and glory of an intelligence rather divine than human, he thought it 

 unworthy of him to leave any written treatise on the subject, considering 

 practical mechanics, and every art that is concerned in satisfying the wants 

 of life, as ignoble and sordid; and resting all his hopes of fame on those 

 works, in which the magnificent and the elegant are exhibited, un conta- 

 minated by the imperfections of the material world: works that are comparable 

 to nothing else that the mind of man has produced ; in which the subject only 

 contends with the mode of treating it, the magnitude and beauty of the o»€ 



VOL. I. J i 



