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Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), A. (search)
blic structures were characterized. The Romans made very free use of them. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, of Rome, is the oldest known example of Roman workmanship; it is believed to have been constructed more than five hundred years before the Christian era, and is yet in a perfect state of preservation, still continuing to perform its original functions. That people also used arches as triumphal monuments; the arch of Titus was erected A. D. 80; that of Trajan, A. D. 114; and of Constantine, A. D. 312. The Gothic style, which originated about the ninth century, and soon spread over the whole of Europe, was emphatically the style of arches. Its special characteristics are the clustered pillar and the pointed arch. The mediaeval masons treated them with a boldness and freedom unknown to the builders of Ancient Rome. Their constructions display an astonishing amount of practical science, and clearly show that their taste was equal to their skill. Long before the properti
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), C. (search)
h was the artery of the empire. Witness the Mediterranean, the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris; these waters washed all the lands of historic interest from Noah to Constantine. We must except far Cathay, — China. Stowe dates the making of coaches in England from 1555, and credits Walter Rippin with the making of the same. The canhis Jerusalem, as a Jewish city, disappears altogether, and under the name of Aelia, A. D. 135, became a Roman colony from which Jews were rigorously excluded. Constantine restored the name and made it a Christian city about A. D. 326. Five centuries of peace, a long period for Jerusalem, followed the restoration under ConstantineConstantine and Julian. Then followed the Persian, Chosroes II., A. D. 614; Heraclius retrieved it in 628; but Omar subdued it, A. D. 637. The Christians regained it but for a brief and bloody interval of 87 years, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when it was conquered by Saladin, became nominally attached to the Kingdom of Sicily in
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), G. (search)
ere yoked was fastened to the runner which rotated upon the bed-stone. Since a time that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, the Phoenicians have had mills for bruising olives, constructed on the plan of the Chilian mill, one stone rolling on its edge in a circular track around a post planted vertically in the center of the track. (See oil-mill.) Such was probably a common form of the Syrian cattle-driven grain-mill. The cattle-driven grain-mills in Rome, about the time of Constantine, numbered three hundred. Strabo informs us that mills were driven by water in the period of Mithridates of Pontus, the contemporary of Caesar and Cicero. Such mills were driven by the current of the Tiber a little before the time of Augustus. It is not certain that these were grain-mills. Windmills were introduced from Greece by one Paulo, and were used for grinding grain, if we may credit Pomponius Sabinus. Antipater, time of Cicero, refers distinctly to the use of water-mills
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), N. (search)
nilometer at Cairo has been erected for many centuries, but it is not nearly so ancient as that at Elephanta, which consists of a staircase between two walls descending to the Nile. One wall has engraved upon it a series of marks representing the hight to which the water has risen on certain occasions. The cubits here are divided into 14ths, or double digits, and measure 1 foot 8.625 inches. This nilometer was described by Strabo, 54 B. C. The nilometer at Memphis was transferred by Constantine to a church in the vicinity of the Serapeum of Alexandria; Julian sent it back to the building at Memphis, where it remained till its destruction by Theodosius. At the present day the rise is watched for with anxiety, and proclaimed by 4 criers. The object of the nilometers formerly was to settle the amount of taxation to be imposed upon the country. It may still be the basis of the impost of taxes in that overridden country. Eminent domain there includes the land, the poor fellah
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), O. (search)
from the deposit of the Nile 9 feet in 1,700 years at Elephantine, and 7 feet at Thebes. The deposit of mud at Thebes, therefore, since Amunoph I., would be about 17 feet. There are about a dozen Egyptian obelisks erected in Rome. The largest is that from Heliopolis. It is of granite, and now stands before the north portico of the Church of St. John Lateran, where it was erected in 1588. Its whole hight is about 149 feet; without the base, 105 feet. It was removed to Alexandria by Constantine, and to Rome by his son Constantius, and placed in the Circus Maximus. It was overthrown, broken into three pieces, and a piece was removed from its base before re-erecting. It weighs about 985,600 pounds. Its partner yet stands at Heliopolis. It is marked with the name of Osirtasen I., about 2100 B. C. Roman obelisks were also imported by Augustus and Caligula. Other obelisks are found at Constantinople, Paris, Arles, Florence, etc. The Egyptian obelisks are usually of granite,
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), P. (search)
the reign of the Emperor Titus, in the fifth year of whose reign they suffered so much. They yet subsisted in the reign of Hadrian, under the Antonines, and are mentioned as inhabited cities in the chart of Peutinger, which is of the date of Constantine. The eruption of A. D. 471 was probably the most frightful on record; and if we may believe Marcellinus, the ashes of the volcano were vomited over a great portion of Europe, reaching to Constantinople, where a festival was instituted in commof superior quality, as is evidenced by the common derivation of the name of the thing, and of the material of which it is made. The pyxis of the Greeks and Latins was a jewel-box, and when the great fusion of the two systems took place under Constantine the pyxis became a reliquary. While the word box has with us a generic signification, the older form of the word pyxis, shortened to pyx, has certain specific meanings:— 1. The box in which the sacramental host is kept in the order of th
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), S. (search)
attributed to the Selians, a people of ancient Franconia. Hence, perhaps, the Latin sella. Leaving a doubtful passage in Zonaras referring to the fall of Constantine the Younger (A. D. 340) from the sella, which may mean a saddle, but more probably means his seat on horseback, we find the saddle fully described in the time oto mentions it as12 to 1. Menander mentions it as10 to 1. Livy, B. C. 189,10 to 1. Julius Caesar exchanged at9 to 1. Early Emperors (average),12 to 1. From Constantine to Justinian,14 to 1. Modern times, from14 to 1 to 17 to 1. 9. A unit of value. See unit. Stand′ard-gage. A gage for verifying the dimensions, or ans. The feast of the dedication was such among the Jews. The Roman forum was lighted when night-games were celebrated. Caligula once lighted the whole city. Constantine lighted up the city of the Bosphorus on Easter eve. The streets of Antioch and Edessa were lighted in the fourth and fifth centuries. The lights were lamps
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), T. (search)
as derived from the Medes. A hat, a tunic with sleeves reaching to the waist, and trowsers, are proper to be worn in cold and northerly places, such as Media. The custom of the vanquished appeared so noble to the conquerors that they adopted it. Breeches were worn by Augustus, who had a habit of taking cold; they reached a little below the knees, and were called reproachfully, femmalia. They were worn by the Roman horsemen of the Empire: are shown on the Column of Trajan, the Arch of Constantine, and elsewhere. Truck. 1. (Nautical.) a. A small wooden disk at the extreme summit of a mast. It may contain the pulleys for the signal halyards. b. A circular perforated block like a wooden thimble, and acting as a fair-leader. 2. A roller at the foot of a derrick or gin by which the position of the hoisting-apparatus may be shifted. 3. (Ordnance.) A small solid wheel on which a certain description of gun-carriage is based. 4. A low two-wheeled vehicle for conveyin