MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS. 101 



question intelligible, I will not quote the Greek. It seems, how- 

 ever, that zopissa was pitch, compounded with wax, scraped from 

 the sides of ships which had been at sea. Sprengel's Latin gives the 

 Greek with great accuracy, and that permit me to quote : — 

 ' Zopissam alii dicunt esse resinam cum cera navibus derasam, a 

 nonnullis apochyma vocatum, quae dissipandi vim habet, quia aqua 

 marina, est macerata.' Pliny, according to the quaint old translation 

 of Philemon Holland, gives it thus : — 



" ' It would not be forgotten how the Greeks have a certain pitch, 

 scraped, together with waxe, from ships that have laineat sea, which 

 they call zopissa ; so curious are men to make experiments, and try 

 conclusions in everything ; and this is thought to be much more 

 effectuall for all matters that pitch and rosin are good for, by reason 

 of the fast temperature that it hath gotten by the salt water.' 



"In Ducange the word is spelt 'zupissa,' and in Donnegan's 

 Lexicon 'Zcuds' and 'liiacra' are given as the etymology, as if 

 the compound signified 'living pitch.' Ainsworth derives the 

 whole word from the Hebrew ' Zephth ' — pitch or bitumen. All 

 this, however, points distinctly at the distinguishing characteristic 

 of Mr. Szerelmey's process. 



' ' I wish I could believe he had succeeded. I agree with you in 

 thinking that in the face next the river his specimen looks better 

 than Ransome's ;* but if you go into either of the two courts coated 

 this summer by Mr, Szerelmey, you can scrape the composition off 

 with your nail. In truth, it seems to me that neither one solution 

 nor the other is absorbed into the stone, which is the whole ques- 

 tion, and that consequently the stone is not silicated. 



" I did hope the distinguished chemist to whom the Chief Com- 

 missioner referred the question would have suggested something, but 

 he evidently only answered certain questions, and I fear that the 

 whole difficulty remains exactly where it was ; and we may spend 

 thousands upon thousands in literally doing but little more than 

 whitewashing this magnificent specimen of a national misfortune. 



"The only course I can suggest is that the Chief Commissioner 

 should at once remit the question to a commission composed of our 

 best chemists and most experienced architects." 



In this letter, the opinion of the writer that the secret of silicating 

 stone is still to be discovered, called forth a reply from Sir Henry 

 Rawlinson, stating as follows : — 



" The art of indurating stone by the application of a solution of 

 silica to the surface was certainly known to the ancients, and the 

 substance actually employed by them is still to be obtained in suffi- 

 cient quantities to admit of minute chemical analysis. In a notice 

 of the great cuneiform inscription of Darius Hystaspes on the rock 

 ofBehistun, which I published thirteen years ago (Journal of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. X., part 3, p. 193), I gave a remarkable 

 instance of the successful use of liquid ' silica' by the ancient 

 Persians. The passage is as follows : — 



* This was in justification of a lengthy account of Szerelmey's process, and its 

 successful results, overstated, according to the showing of Mr. Kansome. 



