VOL. XXXVI,] I'HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 383 



The equuleas, therefore, in these days was an erect stake, at top of which 

 lay a cross piece of timber, inciirvated at both ends like horns; and provided, 

 as the former, with two pulleys; the lesser of which was fixed into the lower 

 part of the stake, made hollow to receive it ; the larger had a handle to it, and 

 was fastened behind: the person to be tortured, being raised upon the equuleus, 

 hung with his arms bent back on the cross piece of timber, and with his hands 

 bound behind to the stake; his feet were also tied with cords, which, passing 

 over the less pulley, were received into the large one fixed to the back part 

 of the equuleus, by turning of which round, the body was stretched. 



And since ecclesiastical writers, who give an account of the exquisite tor- 

 tures of the martyrs under the Roman emperors, make frequent mention 

 of this sort of equuleus; their testimonies are of especial use in proving 

 its figure. 



Mr. Ward quotes a number of passages from ancient writers, having refer- 

 ence to this mode of torture, tending to show the difi^erent forms and uses of 

 this instrument ; which he illustrates with several engraved figures, not neces- 

 sary to be here retained. 



On the whole then, since the entire proof of this matter chiefly depends on 

 the testimonies of ancient writers ; and as Mr. Ward thought it superfluous to 

 adduce any more, though very numerous; so he was of opinion that fewer 

 would not be suflicient to explain it fully. But whatever accounts the ancients 

 give on this head, they may easily be referred to one or other species above 

 described. One, therefore, who attends to the age of the author, the differ- 

 ent modes of speaking used at diff'erent times, can, Mr. Ward thinks, find no 

 difliculty for the future, what he ought to determine about this kind of torture; 

 in explaining which so many learned men have hitherto perplexed themselves 

 to no purpose. 



An Account of a Treatise entitled, Calculations and Tables relating to the Attrac- 

 tive f^irtue of Loadstones, &c. I72g. N° 412, p. 245. 



The author, the Hon. Lord Paisley, by several experiments very carefully 

 made, has observed, that if two loadstones are perfectly homogeneous, that is, 

 if their matter be of the same specific gravity, and of the same virtue in all 

 parts of one stone, as in the other, and that like parts of their surfaces are 

 capped or armed with iron, then the weights they sustain, will be as the squares 

 of the cube roots of the weights of the loadstones; that is, as their surfaces. 



On this principle the tables are formed. The first column of these tables 



