1846.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEEERAND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL 



119 



THE BOODROOM MARBLES. 



For the following comniunication from Boodroom, Asia Minor, we are 

 indebted to a correspondent of the Times. 



Our arrival at this once celebrated place, anciently called the city of 

 Halicarnassus, is caused by a request from his Excellency Sir Stratford 

 Canning, the Minister at Constantinople, to remove and receive on board 

 for conveyance to England some ancient marbles, supposed to be a part of 

 the tomb of Mausolus, erected by Artemisia to the memory of her husband, 

 and which was, in the days of the kings of Caria, considereil as one of the 

 seven wonders of the world. The monumeul, in question was, no doubt, a 

 mass of unusual splendour, and from this magnificent sepulchre tombs and 

 the like edifices received their names ; it was built by four dilTerent archi- 

 tects — Scopas erected the east side, Timotheus the south, Leochares the 

 west, Brucis the north. Pithis was also employed in raising a pyramid 

 over this stalely super.structure, and the top was adorned by a chariot with 

 four horses ; the expense was immense, and called forth the remark made 

 by the philosopher Anaxagoras, when he saw it, "How much money 

 changed into stones." 



The marbles were found inside the fortress, and built into the ramparts, 

 and counterscarp and bastions, at various heights from the ground, varying 

 from 10 feet to 12 feet ; are of considerable size, being from 7 feet by 5 feet, 

 and of great thickness, varying from 25 to 46 cwt., and 14 in number. This 

 fortress withstood many sieges, especially the one maintained against 

 Alexander the Great, under Wemna, and another during the time of the 

 knights of Malta and Rhodes. It is now a Turkish castle, miserably pro- 

 vided with the munitions of war, and bearing striking evidence of the state 

 of Turkish command. Three ot^ the friezes were outside facing the north, 

 one was embfdded under a high wall on the left side of the second en- 

 trance, three were under the drawbridge leading to the citadel, three more 

 were taken from an outer wall of a moat or trench ; two from the right of 

 a wall in the fourth portal, and two from the south-east wall. They were 

 thickly coated with whitewash to correspond with the rest of this strong- 

 hold of chivalrous knights, and the greater part resisted, for some lime, the 

 impression tried to be made upon them in loosening the brickwork tor their 

 extraction. It may here be mentioned, that the citadel of Boodroom, as it 

 is called, has, on its various walls, ramparts, and bastions, many shields 

 in marble, and near to every one of the antiquities were specimens of the 

 same. No doubt they were considered by the holders as ornaments to their 

 heraldic devices, and their position evidently bespoke that they were so 

 placed as a commemoration of some gallant achievement of the warrior 

 who defended that particular spot. In the inside of the largest lower there 

 appeared one with the figure of St. George and the Dragon, having on 

 each of its sides nine lesser shields, and over the first gale of the draw- 

 bridge one betokened that the knight had served in Palestine, bearing un- 

 derneath the following inscription : — 



" I. H. S. 

 "Salve, nos, Domine vigilantes; 

 " Nisi Doniinus custodierit civitatem 

 " Frustra vigilet qui cusludit." 



Leaving, however, these mementos of peculiar interest, it may be men- 

 tioned that ihe figures on the marbles are in a very masterly style. The 

 majority of them are sadly defaced by time, weather, and lime ; from their 

 character they are evidently meant as a picture of the wars of the "Ama- 

 zons;" a few are in a state of preservation, and present to the eye a rare 

 specimen of the sculpture of the age in which they were executed ; some 

 pourlray women stricken down by the ruthless hand of the warrior, and 

 their subdued bodies are exquisitely chiselled. But to illustrate this re- 

 mark, there is one which cannot fail to impress the spectator, and W'hicli I 

 think stands preeminenl — it is the death of a woman by the hand of a 

 man, stretched on the ground, with her head fallen on the left arm, the 

 right hand clenching the earth in the last struggle for life, her conqueror, 

 with head bent and shield before his breast, stands looking with peculiar 

 ferocity on the bloody deed he has committed, whilst an Amazon, with out- 

 stretched body and uplifted arras, appears in the act of wreaking vengeance 

 on him who has slain one of her sex. 



The village of Boodroom, for it cannot be called a town, is a specimen 

 of Turkish indolence, and were it not for its ancient site, would otter little 

 pleasure to the visitor. There are some fine remains of what Ihe city of 

 Halicarnassus was, on a hill, besides what was most likely an amphithea- 

 tre; and though many of its massive stones and marble seats lie scattered 

 in the grass and rank vegetation with which it is overgrown, still there is 

 a sufficient perfeclness to denote that 6,0;-0 people could have witnessed 

 the scenes tberein enacted. On a sumn.it at a short distance from this 

 spot are several catacombs, containing chambers or vaults for their dead, 

 some were sealed by stone slabs, and so firmly, as to resist an iron crow- 

 bar ; one of them was found to contain nearly 40 lachrymatories. These 

 chambers of death have a very curious appearance from Ihe entrance of 

 the harbour, and are seldom visited either by Greek or Turk. About a 

 mile in the country stands in tottering form what was once a gateway, but 

 which is in a very ruinous state, and not far from this place are several 

 small arched buildings, near which must have been an entrance to the city, 

 as several parts of the wall can be traced through the rich olive groves. 

 Adjoining, under the wide spreading branches of a tulip tree, is a sarco- 

 phagus, apparently of great antiquity. Time and weather have completely 

 destroyed its sculpture. In another orchard stands the ruin of a frontal 

 piece of a temple, much decayed. Several rams' heads can be traced on 



it, and the pillars are in a very tottering condition. There are about 2,000 

 houses in Boodroom, inhabited by Turks and Greeks. The soil is rich, 

 but in lieu of green pastures, unwholesome weeds spring up before the eye, 

 proving how much given to indolent habits the Turks are,how they manage 

 to sustain life cannot be told. There is the appearance of their cultivating 

 the olive, fig and almond trees, but even these require but little manual 

 assistance. Some coins of ancient dale were obtained; sickness and dis- 

 ease appear iu almost every family, and some, from want of medical as- 

 sistance, were found to be beyond human skill. 



Thanks to Sir Stratford Canning, England may now congratulate herself 

 on possessing some of ihe finest specimens of ancient sculpture in existence; 

 for althougli those in the interior have been guarded willi such Jealousy bj 

 the Turks, that no eye, save those of the officers of the Siren, have ever 

 been set on them, those on the sea bastion have been visited by celebrated 

 travellers, and pronounced to be little inferior to those of the Parthenon. 



REPORT OF EXPERIMENTS ON GUNPOWDER, MADE AT WASH- 

 INGTON ARSENAL, IN 1843 & 1844. 

 By Captain Alfred Mordecai, of the Ordnance Department. 



This Report embodies the results of many thousands of accurate experi- 

 ments made by Capt. Mordecai, under government authority, with instru- 

 ments constructed in such a manner as to ensure perfect accuracy. Having 

 had the satisfaction of inspecting the instruments, and of hearing from 

 Capt. Mordecai an account of the methods of experimenting, we can speak 

 of them with the greater certainty. The force of gunpowder, since the 

 time of Hutton and the French experimenters, has been calculated by means 

 of the balistic peiiduluyn and of a gun penditbim. The yww (in these experi- 

 ments a twenty-four and a thirty-two pounder) is suspended in an iron 

 frame, hung on knife edges of hardened steel, like a balance beam, the 

 whole supported (a load of 10,500 lb.) on massive stone pillars. The recoil 

 is measured on a limb of brass, having a curve, of which the frame work 

 and the gun are the radius, and graduated to read to seconds by means of a 

 vernier which is moved by the recoil, and retained at the point of greatest 

 vibration by a slight spring. When the gun is adjusted and at rest, its axis 

 is a horizontal line, and the vernier stands at zero on the scale. 



At a distance of only fifty-five feet (between the centres), is inserted the 

 pendulum block for receiving the shot and measuring its velocity. This/)en- 

 dulum is a counterpart to the gun, as regards its mode of suspension and 

 motion, which is also measured in like manner on a graduated arc. This 

 " block" as it is called, resembles a mortar or wide howitzer, with a bore of 

 four and a half feet deep and fifteen inches calibre, and filled with leathern 

 bags of sand, and a bedding of lead. This block, the frame and counter- 

 poise weights, weighed 9, .358 lbs., and was suspended so as to hang when at 

 rest, with its axis perfectly mi one and the same line as the axis of the gun. 

 When prepared for use, the aperture of the pendulum block was covered by 

 a sheet of lead, which served to make the deviation of the ball from a right 

 line, by the hole which was pierced in it. This deviation was found to be 

 very slight. 



It seems, to a person unaccustomed to such experiments, a rather daring 

 attempt to fire a thirty-two pound shot, at the distance of only 50 feet, in the 

 mouth of another gun. But that velocity which, left unrestrained, would 

 serve to carry the shot for miles, is in this apparatus restrained within the 

 range of a few feet, and imparts only a moderate motion on the great mass 

 of matter on which it impinges, which can be wholly and accurately esti- 

 mated. Capt. Mordecai remarks, that "an observer, placed in such a posi- 

 tion as to see the face of the block uiiobscured by the smoke of the gun, 

 perceives, at the moment of impact, a circle of reddinh white flame surround- 

 ing the hole made by ths hall." He supposes " that this flame may be pro- 

 duced by the combustion of minute particles of iron and lead ignited by 

 friction." He further remarks, that " in firing a thirty-two pound ball into 

 the pendulum block with a charge of eight pounds, the sand immediately 

 before tlie hall was compressed into a solid mass, forming an imperfect 

 sandstone sufiiciently firm to bear handling. A specimen is still preserved 

 in that state, after a lapse of more than eighteen months." This sand, 

 when examined, was found quite free from any calcareous cement. An 

 apparatus of quite similar structure, on a proporaionaie scale, was used for 

 muskets. In these experiments powder from a great number of manu- 

 factories, and of great variety of compobition, grain, and finish, was tested. 

 The eleiuen's for calculating the strength of gunpowder, obtained by these 

 experiments, were resolved by the formula; of Hutton and those which more 

 recently have been employed by the French at .Metz. This portion of the 

 labour is performed with the accuracy and skill which characterize all the 

 highly educated officers from West Point Academy. Capt. Mordecai con- 

 cludes from the results of his experiments, that the only reliable mode of 

 proving the strength of gunpowder is to test it, with service charges, in the 

 arms for which it is designed; for which purpose the balistic peadulumi 

 are perfectly adapted. 



In the twenty. four pounder gun, new cannon powder should give, with a 

 charge of one-fourth the weight of the ball, an initial velocity of not l-ss 

 than sixteen hundred feet, to a ball of medium size and windage. 



