other discoveries of the Grecian geometricians, are so 

 very numerous, that it would exceed the limits of a 

 chapter, even to mention them. 



5. Should we pass toother considerations, we should 

 find equally incontestable evidences of greatness of 

 genius among the ancients, in the diflicult and indeed 

 astonishing experiments, in which they so successfully 

 engaged. Egypt and Palestine still present us with 

 proofs of this, the one m its pyramids, the other in 

 the ruins of Palmyra and Balbec.* Italy is filled 

 with monuments, and the ruins of monuments, which 

 aid us in comprehending the former magnificence of 

 that people. And ancient Rome even now attracts 

 much more of our admiration, thaw the modern. 



6. The greatest cities of Europe give but a faint 

 idea of that grandeur, which all historians unanimously 

 ascribe to the famous city of Babylon ; which, being 

 fifteen leagues in circumference, was encompassed with 

 walls two hundred feet in height, and fifty in breadth; 

 ivhoae sides were adorned with gardens of a prodigious 

 extent, which arose in terrasses one above another, to 

 thr very summit of the walls. And for the watering 

 of those gardens, they had contrived machines, which 

 raised the water of the Euphrates to the very highest 

 of these terrasses ; a height equalling that, to which 

 the wter is carried by the machine at Marly. The 

 tower of Behis arising out of the middle of a temple, 

 was of so vast a height, that ?orne ancient aurhors 

 havt? not ventured to assign the measure of it : others 

 put it at a thousand paces. 



7. Ecbatane, the capital of Media, was of immense 

 magnificence, being eight leagues in circumference,and 

 surrounded with seven walls inform of an amphitheatie; 



* It is proper to remark, that the temples and immense, pa'a e 

 of Palmyra, whose inagnificoru'e surpasses all other buildin.u 

 the world, appear to have been built at the time, when archiu -otu.<- 

 was in its decline. 



