A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



engines, came to be separated from geometry, and be- 

 ing long time despised by the philosophers, it came to 

 be one of the warlike arts. 



" But Archimedes having told King Hiero, his kins- 

 man and friend, that it was possible to remove as great 

 a weight as he would, with as little strength as he 

 listed to put to it : and boasting himself thus (as they 

 report of him) and trusting to the force of his reasons, 

 wherewith he proved this conclusion, that if there were 

 another globe of earth, he was able to remove this of 

 ours, and pass it over to the other: King Hiero won- 

 dering to hear him, required him to put his device in 

 execution, and to make him see by experience, some 

 great or heavy weight removed, by little force. So 

 Archimedes caught hold with a hook of one of the 

 greatest carects, or hulks of the king (that to draw it to 

 the shore out of the water required a marvellous num- 

 ber of people to go about it, and was hardly to be done 

 so) and put a great number of men more into her, 

 than her ordinary burden : and he himself sitting alone 

 at his ease far off, without any straining at all, draw- 

 ing the end of an engine with many wheels and pulleys, 

 fair and softly with his hand, made it come as gently 

 and smoothly to him, as it had floated in the sea. 

 The king wondering to see the sight, and knowing by 

 proof the greatness of his art ; he prayed him to make 

 him some engines, both to assault and defend, in all 

 manner of sieges and assaults. So Archimedes made 

 him many engines, but King Hiero never occupied any 

 of them, because he reigned the most part of his time 

 in peace without any wars. But this provision and 

 munition of engines, served the Syracusan's turn mar- 



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