3H ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



before that people collected themselves into one city, the 

 statue of Minerva— supposed to have fallen from Heaven 

 — was deposited in a tower, and that an artist named 

 Callimachus made a lamp of gold for the goddess, which, 

 when filled with oil, burned day and night for the space 

 of one year. This, it appears, was owing to the wick 

 being made of Carpasian flax, which was u inconsumable 

 by- fire. Above the lamp was a brazen palm-tree, which, 

 rising to the roof of the building, dissipated the smoke. 



Now, perhaps, there is nothing so very wonderful in 

 all this ; but that the ancients possessed the art of con- 

 structing lamps, which would for many ages produce a 

 splendid light, without a fresh supply, I think, from the 

 numerous testimonies, we cannot hesitate to believe. 

 The most celebrated of all is the one found in the tomb 

 of Pallas (son of Evander, who was killed by Turnus, as 

 Virgil relates in his tenth y£neid), which was discovered 

 near the city of Rome in the year 1401. Above the 

 head of the deceased warrior was this lamp found, which 

 neither wind nor water could extinguish ; and that it was 

 the real body of Pallas, the inscription on the tomb 

 showed. Had it not been broken by the over-curious, it 

 would doubtless have been burning now. 



In the Appian Way also, at Rome, a lamp was 

 discovered in the sepulchre of Tullia, Cicero's daughter, 

 which had been burning fifteen hundred years ; but this 

 became extinct on the admission of external air. Other 

 lamps are mentioned by credible authors, apparently 

 made of the same lasting materials. One was found in 

 a town belonging to Padua, in Italy, in the year 1500, 



