788 
FORCE OF MEFT AND HORSES, 
Phcenix. 
This is a fabulous bird of antiquity. The ancients speak of it a® 
being single, or that there is only one of this kind alive at once in 
the world ; they describe it as of the size of an eagle, its head finely 
pressed with a beautiful plumage, its neck covered with feathers of a 
gold colour, and the rest of its body purple, only the tail white, and 
the eyes sparkling like stars. They that it lives about five hun- 
dred years in the wilderness ; that when thus advanced in age, it 
builds itself a pile of sweet wood and aromatic gums, and fires it 
with the wafting of its wings, and thus burns itelf, and that from its 
ashes arises a worm, which in time grows up to be a phoenix. Hence 
the Phoenicians gave the name of phmnix to the palm-tree ; because, 
when burnt down to the root, it rises again fairer than ever. 
In the sixth book of the Annals of Tacitus, sect, 28, it is observed 
that, in the year of Rome 787, the phoenix revisited Egypt; which 
occasioned among the learned much speculation. This bird is sacred 
to the sun. Of its longevity, the accounts are various. The common 
persuasion is, that it lives five hundred years ; though by some the 
period is extended to one thousand four hundred and sixty-one, and 
Ausonius makes it no less than 69,984 years. 
The several eras when the phoenix has been seen are fixed by tra- 
dition. The first was in the reign of Sesostris ; the second in that 
of Amasis ; and, in the period when Ptolemy III. was on the throne 
of Egypt, another phoenix directed its flight towards Heliopolis. 
When to these circumstances are added the brilliant appearance of 
the phoenix, and the tale that it makes frequent excursions with a 
load on its back, and that when, by having made the experiment 
through a long tract of air, it gains sufficient confidence in its own 
vigour, it takes up the body of its father, and flies with it to the 
altar of the sun, to be there consumed ; it cannot but appear pro- 
bable, that the learned of Egypt had enveloped, under this allegory, 
the philosophy of comets. 
Comparative Force of Men and Horses. 
There are several curious as well as useful observations in Desa- 
gulier’s Experimental Philosophy, concerning the comparative force 
of men and horses, and the best way of applying them.-— *A horse 
draws with the greatest advantage, when the line of direction is level 
with his breast ; in such a sitnation, he is able to draw two hundred 
pounds eight hours a day, walking about two miles and [a half an 
hour. And if the same horse is made to draw two hundred and forty 
pounds, he can work but six hours a day, and cannot go quite so fast. 
On a carriage, indeed, where friction alone is to be overcome, a 
middling horse will draw a thousand pounds. But the best way to 
try a horse’s force, is by making him draw up out of a well, over a 
single pulley or roller; and in such a case one horse will draw two 
hundred pounds. Five men are found to be equal in strength to one 
horse, and can with as much ease push round the horizontal beam 
of a mill, in a walk forty feet wide. 
