1841.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



43 



all other animals, are framed on symmetrical and mathematical rules 

 which serve their wants and contribute to their preservation. So that 

 vie detect a unity prevailing throughout, which we must accept as 

 constituting the only symmetry, harmony, or beauty which can exist — 

 because the best uses are always made of any sum of materials in 

 hand. All this exhibits the means by which in everv instance con- 

 ception and will gain an ascendancy over passive material bodies, and 

 impart to them unity in beauty and adaptation to their uses. Symme- 

 trical correspondences, which all admit to be a rule of beauty when 

 truly adapted to their several purposes, form by no means an ideal 

 taste, but a geometrical and mathematical rule rigidly observed in 

 every instance. Who would recommend the drawing of circles and 

 squares by taste ? Nobody. Even a school-boy with his compasses 

 and rules of art by which such figures are formed, would far outstrip 

 in exactness of outline, the most accomplished artist that ever lived, 

 had he no help except mere taste. 



Coupling these observations with what has been given by the cor- 

 respondents of the Architect's Journal, on the geometrical and mathe- 

 matical harmonies of Gothic Architecture, it is plain that a fresh spirit 

 in architectural design has been evoked. We claim for our day the 

 age of science and civilization, and yet on what evidences does the 

 claim depend? Do we prove our assumptions by a belief in the uni- 

 versal harmony of physics, springing from the causation of Almighty 

 wisdom ; or by the self-sufficiency of an empiricism, which utterly 

 denies all connexion between philosophy and the laws of heaven? 

 Why is it not obvious that we have a philosophy distinct from every 

 religious consideration ; and religious impressions which disclaim all 

 evidences from philosophy; evils obviously existing because violent 

 and bewidered extremes can neither agree with true science, nor with 

 the purity of religion and morals. Mind is a universal power, of the 

 mysteries of which we know nothing, except that it always works in 

 pure physic according to geometrical and mathematical forms, upon 

 the nearness of which to our frail bodies or distance from them we are 

 totally unable to speculate. 



Let this be accepted as the religious and philosophic belief of the 

 English monks in the thirteenth century, as shown by the symmetrical 

 harmony of their ecclesiastical edifices, and our ignorance and vanity 

 are at once apparent. Yet no sooner do we observe scepticism, reli- 

 gious indiflerence, or bigotry creep into the public mind, than we find 

 a decay in Gothic Architecture first appearing; and in less than two 

 centuries it may be said to have been wholly lost, insomuch as the 

 uniformity of geometric and mathematical rules were concerned. The 

 purity of Gothic Architecture, (what a contemptuous name '■) obviously 

 sprang from the religious purity of the English monks in the thirteenth 

 century, believing, as they must have done, that Almighty volition is 

 manifested in the exactness of physics, geometrically and mathemati- 

 cally balanced in every work of the divine will. If we collect our 

 proofs of this, from the day of Bede, in the eighth century, to that of 

 Roger Bacon, in the thirteenth century, we shall discover one of the 

 chief means, by which, in these five Gothic centuries, as we vainly 

 call them, architecture and science had risen to a state of pre-eminence, 

 which ought to make us blush for our own day, and acknowledge what 

 lessons of wisdom we yet owe to the works of the Gothic barbarity 

 bequeathed to us. Most unfortunately, according as papal bigotry and 

 superstition vitiated the religious purity of every succeeding day, an 

 opposite error crept in; and the world became all but divided between 

 a superstitious despotism, which denied all reason in philosophy, and 

 either a scepticism or a religious indifference, which promulgated a 

 philosophy, independent of every religious consideration. In three 

 centuries the lamp of genius, so brilliantly lit up at the fountain of 

 heaven's laws, as evinced in the geometrical and mathematical exact- 

 ness of Gothic Architecture, went out, and gave place to a race of im- 

 perfect copyists.* There can be no beauty but that which is symme- 

 trically and mathematicidly adopted to the uses and ends held in view. 

 Decoration, on all the rigidity of these severe rules, is displayed in 

 every surface lineament of our globe ; it is a scene of uses and beau- 

 ties combined by the modus operandi of attributes divine. Ignorance 

 may either oveilook or deny this ; and scepticism in the weight of its 

 prejudices may vainly strive to hide the lamp divine under a bushel 

 of follies, yet it is mildly bursting into the face of day in spite of either 

 dullness supreme, or wilful blindness the most obtuse. 



Ere such the proud day of success arrives, a vast preparation must 

 be made. We must see distinctly what it is that we want. We must 

 forego all baseless taste ; and put a physical taste in its place. Neither 

 papal superstition, nor its opponent scepticism, based on the foolish 

 conceits of vain men, can serve us in the mighty acquisitions to be 

 gained. These have not promoted, but retarded a development of 



" We trust the learned author will excuse us lor omitting some too flatter- 

 ng com;.liments to ourselves. 



those noblest faculties in man, which alike raise the standard of our 

 religious belief, our moral qualities, and the perfections of our civil 

 institutions. For not a little remarkable is it, that the age, which 

 furnished us architectural remains so splendid, preserved if not ma- 

 tured our free institutions, amidst a period of turbulence and violence 

 disturbing Europe at large. What I humbly ask then is, that men so 

 well qualified as Mr. Cresy and Mr. Bartholomew, should go on and 

 fear nothing. 



[These remarks border too mucli on transcendefitatism to be within 

 the usual scope of our columns, but as we know they represent faith- 

 fully the ideas of a large class both here and abroad, we should have 

 considered ourselves as neither doing justice to the subject nor the 

 author, had we not availed ourselves of his proffered permission to con- 

 sult our own taste in suppressing such portions of the paper as were 

 not conformable to our views. — Editor.] 



ENGINEERING WORKS OF THE ANCIENTS, No. 1. 



The Persians. 



Engineering has its archaeology as well as architecture, the monu 

 ments of the Egyptians, of the Persians, of the Romans, are subjects 

 which interest every class of readers. To some it may appear that 

 the profession of a civil engineer is but of modern growth, it certainly 

 may be so considered as regards its recent progress, but to the atten- 

 tive observer a long chain of history is visible which records the 

 labours of engineers, not for hundreds of years merely, but for thou- 

 sands. On the engineering profession therefore the contemplation of 

 the works of their predecessors is imposed as a task, if they are at all 

 desirous that their successors should pay the same homage to them- 

 selves. The works of classic authors abound with accounts of in- 

 teresting works, the descriptions of some of which we mean to copy 

 into the Journal, as into a common-place book, trusting that it can 

 never be considered useless to any man to contemplate the glories of 

 the past. For this purpose we shall from time to time put down as 

 they occur to ns, extracts from the several authors, who have left ma- 

 terials for the subject of our enquiries. 



Our present paper wiU principally be devoted to the works of the 

 Persians and the Babylonians, which belong to one of the first schools 

 of which we have authentic records. The history of this period forms 

 the first in the annals of engineering, as now taught in this country, 

 for the rudiments of the science laid down by the Persians, have, by 

 successive nations, been transmitted to us. Persia being, like Egypt, 

 a country traversed by a large river, and requiring extensive hydraulic 

 works, naturally led to considerable proficiency in this branch, which 

 would naturally be later of introduction among the continental Greeks, 

 to whom it was taught by the lonians in the Persian service. The 

 Persian monarchs, independently of their own engineers, also became 

 masters of the services of those of Egypt, Babylon, and Phoenicia, 

 each of which, as we shall see, had also peculiar opportunities of 

 study. From the Greeks engineering passed to the Romans, and so 

 through the middle ages down to the present time, affording an ex- 

 ample, paralleled in few professions, of rules of practice being trans- 

 mitted uninterruptedly for more than twenty-five centuries, and illus- 

 trated from the earliest period by specimens now existing. 



The materials for the ensuing descriptions are principally derived 

 from Herodotus, who had authentic sources of information as to most 

 of the works which he described. They are, as before stated, chiefly 

 hydraulic works, and illustrate much of the antiquities of that im- 

 portant department of engineering. 



CANAL Of MOUNT ATHOS. — CUTTING. — THE GOD OF THE ENGINEERS. 



In the course of the war of the Persians against the Greeks 

 about the year 484 B. C, Herodotus* relates that, in order to avoid 

 shipwreck on the dangerous coast of Mount Athos, Xerxes determined 

 on cutting through the isthmus by which it is joined to the mainland, 

 and so making a canal for the passage of his fleet. Herodotus says 

 that three years were spent upon this work, the Persian fleet having 

 been ordered to the port of Eleus in the Chersonese, and all the forces 

 on board being compelled by turns to dig, and open a passage through 

 the mountain. In this they were assisted by the adjoining inhabitants, 

 and the direction of the works was confided to Bubaris, the son o 

 Megabyzus, and to Artacheeus, the son of ArtEEUs, both Persians. 



Athos is described as a mountain of considerable magnitude, leaning 

 upon the sea, and well inhabited, (now, we may observe, by monks). 

 It terminates to the landward in the form of a peninsula, and makes 

 an isthmus of about twelve stades (a mile and a half) in length. The 



* Polymnia 7. 



