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[Book I.

Modes of propelling the Noria.

and is at least seventy feet.” a They are, he remarks, the greatest curiositywhich a modern traveler can find ln the city. Their enormous magnitudewill be apparent, if we consider that the loftiest dass of buildings ln thiscity, (N. York,) those of six stories, seldom exceed sixty feet. If there-fore, the largest of the Persian wheels at Hamath , were placed on thepavement, with its side towards a ränge of such buildings, it would oc-cupy a space nearly equal to the fronts of three of them, and would ex-tern! several feet over the roofs of the highest—and twelve of them wouldoccupy a Street, one sixth of a mile in length.

The construction of the water works of Hamath have probably re-mained unaltered in their general design, from very remote times. Thepeculiar location .of this city, the rapidity of the river, (named El Ausi,the swift,) and its consequent adaptation to propel unäershot wheels, whichwe know, were used in such works by the ancients, render it probablethat the present mode of raising water, is much the same as when this cityflourished under Solomon; and when the Romans under Aurelius, over-threw the queen of Palmyra and her army, in its immediate vicinity; andfrom the great antiquity of the noria, its extensive use over all Asia informer ages, and its peculiar adaptation to Hamath , and the tenacious ad-herence of the orientals to the devices of their forefathers; we infer thatthe machines which Burckhardt beheld with admiration, raising the water,of the Orontes , were similar to others in use at the same city, when thespies of Moses , searehed the land, ‘from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob,as men come to Hamath .’ h These wheels may be cited as another proof ofthe preservation, (by continual use) of hydraulic machines, while everyother memorial of the people by whom they were originally used, haslong since disappeared.

Modes of propelling the noria. —The tympanum, noria, chain ofpots, and even the screw, were often turned, according to Vitruvius , bythe ‘treading’ or ‘walking of men,’ i. e. except when employed to raisewater from rapid streams, in which case they were propelled, he says, bythe current acting on float boards or paddles, as in common under-sh otwheels. There is a difference of opinion among his translators respectingthe mode by which men moved these machines. Rivius, the translator ofthe German edition of 1548, seems to have thought that they walked roundan upright shaft, (as in figs. 26 and 53,)which they turned by horizontalbars, and by means of cog wheels communicated the required motion.He has also represented the noria as moved by men turning a crank; amode of propelling it that is figured in the first German edition of Ve-getius, (1511.) Rarharo, (1567,) represents the tympanum as moved bya crank; the noria by a current of water; and the chain of pots, by atread wheel, like the one figured in No. 24. Peravlt, also, in his figure of

»Travels in Syria , and the Holy Land. Lon. 1822, p. 146.

b There are several interesting eircumstances recorded respecting Hamath . This cityand Damascus were frequently subject to the Jews . The ‘ land of Hamath, ’ was par-ticularly fatal to them and their kings. Zedekiah was there taken, and his sons and no-bles slain in his presence; his o wn eyes were then put out, and he was carried a captive toBabylon, where he died. Jer. xxxix, 5. Pharaoh Necho there put Jehoahaz, another oftheir kings in bonds, whence he was taken a prisoner to Egypt , and confined tili hisdeath. 2 Kings xxiii, 34. Among the most interesting discoveries of modern times.connected with the ancient history of this people, are sculptured representations atThebes , of the Jews captured by Shishak, with the hieroglyphieal inscription, ‘ Jß-houda Melee,’ läng of the Jews . From the discoveries of Young and Champollion ,the precision with which the dates are determined, is wonderful; ‘ rnany of the sculp-tures have the dates inscribed to the day and the month.’ The figure of the Jewish king, is supposed to be a correct portrait, for we are told in those of the Egyptian mo-narchs, “ the likenesses are always exactly preserved.”