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Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), A. (search)
of Jupiter, B. C. 69. After this, Lentulus Spinther is said to have first introduced cotton awnings in the theater at the Apollinarian Games, July 6, B. C. 63; they were red, yellow, and iron-gray. By and by, Caesar the Dictator covered with awnings the whole Roman Forum, and the Sacred Way, from his own house to the ascent of the Capitoline Hill; this was 46 B. C., and is said to have appeared more wonderful than the gladiatorial exhibition itself. Afterward, without exhibiting games, Marcellus, the son of Octavia, sister of Augustus, when he was aedile and his uncle consul the eleventh time, on the day before the Kalends of August, July 31, 23 B. C., protected the Forum from the rays of the sun, that the people engaged in lawsuits might stand with less injury to their health. Pliny says: What a change from the manners that prevailed under Cato the Censor, who thought that the Forum should even be strewed with caltrops! Awning. The awnings extended, by the aid of ropes, o
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), B. (search)
rning-mir′ror. A concave mirror, or a combination of plane mirrors, so arranged as to concentrate the sun's heating rays on a common object. The most celebrated of these are the mirrors of Archimedes, who thereby burned the Roman fleet of Marcellus at Syracuse. Each concave mirror was separately hinged, and they were brought to bear in combination upon the object in the common focus. In Peru, previous to the Spanish Conquest, the rays of the sun were collected in a concave mirror and fire kindled thereby. Besides the familiar instance of the burning of the fleet of Marcellus by Archimedes, another instance is cited by the historian Zonaras, who records that Proclus consumed by a similar apparatus the ships of the Scythian leader Vitalian, when he besieged Constantinople in the beginning of the sixth century. It must, however, be mentioned that Malaba, another old chronicler, says that Proclus operated on this occasion by burning sulphur showered upon the ships by machin
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), C. (search)
ch is the inner wall of the ditch. At this point the fraise is placed, if such be used. The cordon projects a foot beyond the face of the scarp, or revetment. 2. The edge of a stone on the outside of a building. Cor′do-van; Cord′wain. A Spanish leather, originally of goat-skin, but now frequently made of split horse-hides. It is finished as a black morocco, and is named from Cordova (the ancient Corduba), which is situated on the Guadalquiver, in Andalusia, and was founded by Marcellus. It was the chief emporium of Iberia. The Moorish city contained 300,000 inhabitants in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. It was the great seat of the arts, sciences, and learning in the days of liberal Spain, when the people were worth something, before the black darkness of the Pedros and Philips. Cor-du-roy′. 1. (Fabric.) A stout, ribbed cotton fustian, made with a pile so cut as to leave a surface ridged in the direction of the warp. 2. A road formed of poles laid <
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), L. (search)
rial groove filled with an opaque object to exclude lateral rays. A Coddington lens. The Stanhope lens is of a cylindrical form, and has convex ends having different radii. It is, perhaps, impossible to determine when lenses were first made. The first observations of their effects were, no doubt, with drops of dew upon leaves, and occasionally by a spawl of crystal or a tear of vitreous matter from the inside of a furnace. Whether the means by which Archimedes burnt the fleet of Marcellus at Syracuse was a combination of mirrors or lenses, it is hard now to determine. Probably mirrors. The same may be said of the burning by Proclus of the besieging ships of Vitalian the Scythian, at Constantinople, in the sixth century. Refraction was observed by the ancients, and Archimedes is said to have written a book upon the subject. Plutarch speaks of instruments used by Archimedes to manifest to the eye the largeness of the sun. The appearance of a straight stick when thrus
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), M. (search)
ated down the river, carrying produce, and were not returned up stream. One mast and one sail, the latter depending from a yard, is the general feature, though a plurality of masts was not uncommon, especially with large vessels, such as the galley built by Archimedes for Hiero of Syracuse. It had 3 decks, towers on the bulwarks, stables, libraries, baths, fish-ponds, a crew of 600 men, and a main-mast that came from England. This was about 240 B. C. (See ship.) Syracuse was captured by Marcellus 212, and Archimedes slain. The mast is presumed to have been brought by the Phoenician or Carthaginian navigators from England, as those maritime nations were yet in existence. Poor Tyre had been desolated by Alexander 100 years before, but the people dispersed around the Mediterranean were yet active, and Carthage had not fallen before her imperial rival, remorseless Rome. In the time of Isaiah the masts were strengthened with shrouds from the deck or bulwarks. A few years later we
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), P. (search)
strated by Lasteyrie. l is a modern plow of Castile, and m is the plow now used in Sicily. It is hardly as good a one as that shown at k, which is a plow of the Greek occupation over 2,000 years since, before Syracuse fell under the attack of Marcellus, 212 B. C. It still lacks the mold-board. n shows the modern Roman plow, with a broad flat share. The diverging wings form a wedge which divides and turns over the soil to some extent. The plowman stands on the rear portion of the sill-piececial fountain. The splendid French edition of Hero's Spiritalia was published in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV., — not so very long after the good burgher of Magdeburg had set the ball rolling again. What Archimedes did for the fleet of Marcellus at Syracuse, 212 B. C., Proclus did for the ships of Vitalian at Constantinople some 700 years afterward, and Buffon performs the same feats with burning mirrors in a peaceable way, about the middle of the last century, upon metals, green wood,
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), S. (search)
5363 shows instruments for distending the eyelids during examinations and operations. Tiemann's nasal speculum. Speculums. a (Fig. 5363), Graefe's eyespeculum. b, Noyes' eye-speculum. c, Hart's eye-speculum. 2. (Optics.) A metallic, concave mirror. These were known to the ancients, and were probably used for lighting the sacred fires. The construction of the mirrors of Archimedes is not accurately known. It need not be doubted that he fired some of the vessels of Marcellus, who was then besieging Syracuse. The wonder is not that an arrangement of burning mirrors, so called, should be able to effect this, for this has been clearly proved by Buffon and others, but the wonder arises from our mis-preconceptions of the condition and talents of the men of former times. Kircher went to the historic spot and tried an arrangement of plane mirrors, which convinced him the account was entirely probable. Tiemann's eye-speculums. The ancients also used lens and