[ 62 5 ] 
“ in unum fpatium cogant, futurum, ut non tantum 
t( majorem uftionis effedum, quam quaelibet uftoria 
u parabolica, hyperbolica, elliptica, praellent; fed & 
<c in multo majus fpatium, radiofam lucem refleffant, 
u quemadmodum me in quinque fpeculis ad fpatium 
“ centum & amplius pedum, experientia docuit.” 
Schottus gives the fame account of Kircher’s ex- 
periment. He accompanied him in all his trials, as 
well as in his journey to Syracufe, after he had 
brought his plane mirrours to anfwer his purpofe ; 
and, upon viewing the place, they both concluded, 
the galleys of Marcellus could not be farther than 
thirty paces from Archimedes. And yet Schottus 
declared, that if a concave fpeculum could be con- 
ftrufted, as large as the rotunda, it could not have a 
fufficient focus to effedt what both Archimedes and 
Proclus are faid to have done. 
Thus we fee Kircher had fcientifically eftablifh’d 
the problem, for the confirmation of a burning ma- 
chine, confuting of any number of plane fpecula ; 
which was afterwards farther confirm’d by the in- 
genious Monfieur de Buffon, a worthy member of 
our Society, at Paris ; as it appears in two letters,, one 
from Mr. Needham, fellow of the Royal Society, to 
me ; and the other from the marquis Nicolini to our 
late worthy prefident ; both read before this Society in 
April 1747, and fince printed in thefe TranJaBions ; 
in which Monfieur de Buffon is faid to be the in- 
ventor *. If fo, we cannot fuppofe he could have feen 
what either Kircher or Schottus had wrote about it. 
* Since this paper was committed to the prefs, the author has found, 
that Monf. de Buffon, at the clofe of his difcourfe on this fubjeft, print- 
ed in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences, has mentioned that 
himfelf had folved the problem, before he knew that it had been done 
by Kircher. 
y 4 K LXXXIII. 
