Page:The Kinematics of Machinery.djvu/624

 602 NOTES.

reaching partly across the tire, Prof. Reuleaux tells ine that in some instances at least these have proved to be pieces of leather. The royal chariots, at least those of Sennacherib and Sardanapalus, not only have ornamented spokes and naves, but have also the nail tires mentioned by Prof. Keuleaux. These occur nowhere but on the royal chariots, so that they must have been the " latest im- provement " in Assyria in the eighth century B.C. I have noticed wheels with more than eight spokes only upon one slab. One has sixteen, one thirteen and several twelve spokes. Some of these, however,'are certainly intended for wheels belonging to the chariots of the people with whom the Assyrian are righting.]

30 (P. 209.) According to Herr Detring's own observation, so that the disc- wheel of the plaustrum forms a step in the growth of wheeled vehicles all the world over.

31 (P. 210.) In Sanscrit the chariot is called ratha.

32 (P. 210.) We may remember, for instance, the method of transporting the pillars of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, described by Vitruvius (x. chap 2). The master-builder Chersiphron fastened iron pins to the ends of the enormous cylindrical blocks of hewn stone, and laid upon these a wooden frame fitted with proper bearings for them. To this frame the draught oxen were yoked, and with their aid the pillars were dragged, after the manner of our street rollers, from the quarry to the site of the building the same site upon which excavations have recently enabled us to appreciate the magnitude of the work, and the advantages of the method used in carrying it out.

33 (P. 211.) It has been successfully shown by experiment that apparently blunt fragments, if they have crystalline edges, are specially suited for boring harder stones.

34 (P. 212.) The rare form tornator is to be found in Jul. Firmicus (Mathesis, iv. 7) :facit quoque tornatores, aut simulacrorum sculptores.

35 (P. 212.) Among the specimens at the Berlin Museum which undoubtedly belong to the old kingdom, there are several which have certainly been turned in the lathe, and the latter must therefore have been used by the Egyptians between 2,000 and 3,000 years before our era. These are again vessels, partly of alabaster and serpentine (as Nos. 93 and 88), partly of marble and even granite (Nos. 62 and 100). The hypothesis of the connection between the lathe and the potter's wheel (which turned out most excellent work, as we see from the museum collection, even at that early date) seems to be supported by this.

36 (P. 215.) Cf. Bockler, Theatrum Mechanicum Novum, Nuremberg, 1762, Plates 35, 36, 80. Neither in this whole work of 154 plates, nor in Rosberg's Kumtlichem Abriss &c. Nuremberg, 1610, do we find any apparent trace of our present belt- train. Arrangements for driving by a cord or rope twisted two, three, or four times round a pulley, are given by Ramelli, Arteficiose Machine, Paris, 1588, Plates 171, 175, 183.

37 (P. 217.) There are specimens of Ancient Egyptian spindles in the Berlin Museum. Wilkinson, who mentions the Berlin specimens in his Ancient Egyptians, places beside them (Fig. 385, 1 to 5, vol. ii.) three illustrations of distaffs or portions of them, which he erroneously takes to be spindles also. He had apparently been misled by a note in an older catalogue. [Nos. 1 and 2, Fig. 168 have unfortunately been printed upside down.]

38 (P. 220.) Dr. Wetzstein writes to me : " The word schaduff or shadoof

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