The Babylonian Engine.

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Chap. 15.]

apparatus—on the contrary, we know that the Babylonians carried manyof the arts to the highest degree of refinement. “ They were great con-trivers,” in this respect, and “ feil short of no one nation under the sun,so far from it, that they in a great measure showed the way to every na-tion besides.” Univer. His. Vol. i, 933. Besides, it is certainly morephilosophical to suppose this famous engine to have been a modificationof some machine, which we have reason to believe was used in Chaldea atthat time, and capable of producing the results ascribed to the Babylonian engine, than of any other of which that people possibly knew nothing.

Of all ancient machines, the chain of pots was certainly the best adapt-ed for the purpose, and if we mistake not, the only one that could, withany regard to permanency and effect, have been adopted. It Stands, andjustly so, at the head of all ancient engines for raising water through greatelevations ; and it may be doubted whether any machine could now beproduced better adapted for the hanging gardens of Babylon—either in theeconomy and simplicity of its construction ; durability and effect; or beless liable to derangement, less expensive, or less difficult for ordinarypeople to repair. The project of raising water through a perpendicularelevation, exceeding three hundred feet, in numerous vessels attached toan endless chain, would probably startle most of our mechanicians; andsome might suppose that the weight of so long a chain, if made of iron,would overeome the tenacity of the metal ; but almost all the works ofthe remote ancients partook of the same bold features. Magnitude in someof their Machines, is as surprising as in other departments of their labors.Their engineers seem to have carried it to an extent that in modern days,would be considered as verging on the limits of the natural properties ofmaterials.

That the chain of pots was the Standard machine for raising water inquantities from great depths would appear from Yitruvius, since it is theonly one adapted for that purpose which he has described, except the“machine of Ctesibius and as he professes to give an account of the“ various machines for raising water,” and his profession as a civil engi-neer would necessarily render him familiär with the best of them, it isclear that he was ignorant of any other having been in previous use.That the engine at Babylon was no other than the chain of pots, may bemferred from the employment of the latter in Joseph’s well, where itraises water to an elevation nearly equal to that ascribed to the former ;and if the subject were of sufficient interest, we think a Connection mightbe traced between them, if Joseph’s well be, as supposed, a relic of Egypt -lan Babylon. Both Egypt and Chaldea were subject to the same monarchat the time that city was built. Twenty two or three years only had elapsedafter Nebuchadnezzar ’s death when Cyrus took Babylon, and with it theempire ; and nine years after he was succeeded by his son Cambyses, whowhen in Egypt , it is alleged, founded a city on the site of modern Cairo ,and named it after old Babylon Cambyses reigned seven years and fivemonths. If, therefore, the Babylonian machine was superior to the ‘ chainof pots,’ (and it must have been, if it differed at all from the latter, forotherwise it would not have been selected,) then it would, we think, as amatter of course, have been adopted also in Joseph’s well, in which thewater was required to be elevated to about the same height as in thehanging gardens. Besides, if it possessed peculiar advantages, it wouldcertainly have been preserved in use, as well as the chain of pots, for thewealth, comfort, and even existence of the people of the east, have at alltimes depended too much upon such machines to suffer any valuable oneto be lost.