ARCHITECTURE AND MECHANIC AL SCIENCES. 467 



he had advanced, by launching singly by himself a ship of a prodi. 

 gious size. He built likewise for the king an immense galley, of 

 twenty banks of oars, containing spacious apartments, gardens, 

 walks, ponds, and all other conveniences suitable to the dignity of 

 a great King. He constructed also a sphere, representing the 

 motions of the stars, which Cicero esteemed one of the inventions 

 which did the highest honour to human genius. He perfected the 

 manner of augmenting the mechanic powers by the multiplication 

 of wheels and pullies ; and, in short, carried mechanics so far, that 

 the works he produced of this kind, even surpass imagination. 



Nor was Archimedes the only one who succeeded in mechanics. 

 The immense machines, and of such astonishing force, as were 

 those which the art of the ancients adapted to the purposes of war, 

 are a proof they came nothing behind us in this respect. It is with 

 difficulty we can conceive how they reared those bulky moving 

 towers, an hundred aud fifty .two feet in heighth, and sixty in com. 

 pass, ascending by many stories, having at bottom a battering ram, 

 a machine of strength sufficient to beat down walls ; in the middle a 

 draw. bridge, to be let down upon the wall of the city attacked, in 

 order to open a passage into the town for the assailants ; and at top 

 a body of men, who, being placed above the besieged, harrassed 

 them without running any risk. An ancient historian hath trans, 

 mitted to us an action of an engineer at Alexandria, which deserves 

 a place here. In defending that city against the army of Julius 

 Caesar, who attacked it, he by means of wheels, pump>, and other 

 machines, drew from the sea a prodigious quantity of water, which 

 he afterwards turned upon the adverse army to their extreme annoy- 

 ance. In short, the art of war gave occasion for a great number 

 of proofs of this kind, which cannot but excite in us the highest idea 

 of the enterprising genius of the ancients, and the vigour with which 

 they put their designs in execution. The invention of pumps by 

 Ctesibius ; and that of water-clocks, automatical figures, wind, 

 machines, cranes, &c. by Heron, who lived in the second century; 

 and the other discoveries of the Grecian geometricians, are so very 

 numerous, that it would exceed the limits of a chapter, eyen to 

 mention them. 



Should we pass to other considerations, we shall find equally in. 

 conlestable evidences of greatness of genius among the ancients, in 

 the difficult, and indeed astonishing enterprizes. in uhich they so 

 successfully engaged. Egypt and Palestine still present us with 



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