MATHEMATICS. 319 



the unlimited extent of his art in the well-known expression, " Give 

 me a spot to stand on, and I will move the earth." The mechanicians 

 of that time employed themselves, not merely in proving the possibility 

 of making a given force move any weight, however large, but studied to 

 combine the best material means for carrying it into effect. Athenaeus 

 describes a ship of extraordinary magnitude, which Hiero caused to be 

 made with twenty ranks of rowers, and containing so enormous a 

 space, as to have on board gardens, baths, walks, a gymnasium, a large 

 library, &c. This unwieldy mass, Archimedes is said, by means of 

 some mechanical power, to have enabled Hiero to push into the sea, 

 by his individual strength. We have already mentioned the screw of 

 Archimedes, which is said, also, to have been used as the pump of this 

 vessel. 



Though the study of mathematics is generally considered dry and His habits, 

 repulsive by persons not engaged in it, there seem to be few pursuits 

 which have the power of exciting so strong and engrossing an interest 

 in the student. Like our own Newton, when absorbed in the current 

 of discovery, Archimedes is said to have required to be reminded of 

 the common duties of eating and drinking by those about him ; and 

 while his servants were placing him in the bath, he employed himself 

 in drawing mathematical diagrams in the ashes which were spread on 

 the floor, or in the oil with which his skin was covered. " So that 

 this abstraction made people say, and not unreasonably," Plutarch tells 

 us, " that he was accompanied by an invisible siren, to whose song he 

 was listening." A lively fancy might easily imagine a discoverer, in 

 the enthusiasm of his speculations, to be absorbed in his attention to 

 the voice, audible only to his ears, which reveals to him truths con- 

 cealed from all the world beside. 



Another story told of Archimedes, is that of Hiero's crown. King Hiero's 

 Hiero sent to a goldsmith a certain weight of gold, to be made into a crown - 

 crown. The crown was sent home of the proper weight ; but it was 

 suspected that some silver had been substituted for a part of the gold, 

 and Archimedes was asked to detect the quantity of the fraud. He 

 had sought in vain for some time, the means of doing it ; when one 

 day, going into the bath, the rising of the water as his body became 

 more immersed, suggested a method, which he instantly saw to be 

 infallible, and he immediately sprung out, exclaiming, " I have found 

 it ! I have found it !" (evprjica, evprjKa). Vitruvius explains the process 

 by which he is said to have solved the problem. He placed the 

 crown, and a wedge of gold, and one of silver, each of equal weight, in 

 a full vessel of water. In each case the quantity of water which ran 

 over, gave the size of the mass ; and by comparing these, he found the 

 quantity of silver in the crown. The principles explained in his 

 * Equilibrium of Bodies in Fluids,' afford the means of a more accurate 

 and scientific solution, which we should have been disposed to attri- 

 bute to him, but for this testimony to the contrary. 



We now come to the last and most remarkable events in the life of 



