102 TEAR-BOOK OF FACTS. 



" It would be very hazardous to speculate on the means employed to engrave 

 the work in an age when steel is supposed to have been unknown, but I cannot 

 avoid noticing a very extraordinary device, which has been employed apparently 

 to give a finish and durability to the writing. It was evident to myself, and 

 to those who in company with myself scrutinized the execution of the work, 

 that after the engraving of the rock had been accomplished, a coating of 

 'silicious varnish' had been laid on to give a clearness of outline to each 

 individual letter, and to protect the surface against the action of the ele- 

 ments. This varnish is of infinitely greater hardness than the limestone rock 

 beneath it. It has been washed down in several places by the trickling of waters 

 for three-and-twenty centuries, and it lies in flakes upon the footledge like thin 

 layers of lava. It adheres in other portions of the tablet to the broken surface, 

 and still shows with sufficient distinctness the forms of the characters, although 

 the rock beneath is entirely honeycombed and destroyed. It is only, indeed, in 

 the great fissures, caused by the outburstings of natural springs, and in the lower 

 part of the tablet, where I suspect artificial mutilation, that the varnish has 

 entirely disappeared. 



" I would only correct this description, in so far as to suggest that, 

 the flakes of silicate which lie on the footledge are the original drop- 

 pings of the varnish when it was first laid on in a liquid state, rather 

 than the effect of the subsequent trickling of water over the surface 

 of the rock. These flakes might be easily detached from the rock 

 with a chisel and hammer, and their analysis would show if any other 

 ingredient were employed in the composition than flint and caustic 

 alkali. The substance looks like opaque glass, but has no perceptible 

 effect on the colouring of the rock. It is certain, moreover, that it 

 was absorbed into the stone, and prevented decomposition, so far as 

 it penetrated. The sculpture, indeed, which extends over several 

 hundreds of square feet, and which was executed about 500 B.C., is, 

 although exposed to the full force of the prevailing storms from the 

 S.E., for the most part in as good a state of preservation as if it had 

 been engraved but yesterday. 



" Surely, if a commission be appointed to report on the silicata- 

 zopissa question, it would be worth their while to obtain specimens 

 of the flint varnish of the ancients from Persia, and perhaps also 

 from Egypt." 



Upon reading this letter, a Correspondent of the Bulkier 

 whether the ancients might not have applied the first varnish in a 

 fused or heated state, which would at once render it impervious to 

 the weather, and might in some measure account for the deposit, so 

 desirable to obtain. 



Mr. Szerelmey has published a pamphlet on his process, which he 

 terms "The Encaustic and Zopissa of the Ancients ;" but, whi 



time may prove .as to bhevah f his process, we are col prepossessed 



by bis arguments as to the cause of the decay. We therefore await 

 further report. 



One of the oonsequenoef of the question of the preservation of the 

 stonework being thus publicly mooted was an erroneous view "f the 

 comparative merits of the processes of Mr. Bserelmeyand .Mr. Ran* 

 some, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter ; this erroneous bo- 

 on being, doubtless, increased by the minute account ofSzerel- 

 process filling .1 column of the '/'< 



Sir. Bansomeb r, in a communication to that journal 



