382

Brazen Altars.

[Book IV.

moisture within it, and rarefying the inward air unto so great an extensionthat it must needs seek for vent or issue, did thereby give several motionsunto the Instrument.” (Math. Magic, Book li, chap. 1.)

Decaus, besides his explanation of the vocal Statue of Egypt , has givena description of a musical summer, a device apparently similar to Dreb-ble’s ; and in the twenty-second plate of his work he has figured anotherwhich Switzer has copied into his System of hydrostatics.

The heat of the sun is too uncertain to be relied upon in those pro-jects that require immediate and certain results. Düring the evening,night, and early dawn, nothing could be effeeted; and even in mid-day,clouds and showers often intercept or divert the rays : moreover a ma-chine when placed so as to be heated directly by the sun, soon experien-ces a diminution of its influence by the motion of the earth. Those rayswhich fall directly upon it becoming, in consequence of this motion,oblique. These and other unfavorable circumstances are common to mostcountries where the solar heat is sufficiently intense, while in others it istoo feeble to be used with effect; hence, in the temperate zones, withinwhich the arts have at all times been chiefly cultivated, the application ofordinary fire has superseded, for nearly all practical purposes, that derivedfrom the sun. In some parts of the earth saline waters are concentrated,and salt produced by the heat of the glowing orb of day, but for everything like the devices belonging to our subject it is now seldom employed,if at all.

The oldest applications of fire to raise-liquids are, singülarly enough,also to be found among the philosophical tricks of ancient priests, andamong the prodigies which they performed at the altar itself. The selec-tion of altars for such displays was natural, because it was at them the willof the gods was more particularly expected to be made known. It mustnot be supposed that ancient altars were all simple structures of wood,stone, brick, or marble ; on the contrary, many of them were elaboratelydesigned, and constructed entirely of metal. Every one knows thatbronze or brazen altars are of frequent occurrence in the Old Testament ,and the descriptions of some prove them to have been splendid specimensof workmanship and design. The altar for “ burnt offerings,” being up-wards of eight feet square and five deep, was covered with plates ofbrass. The grate, fire place, vessels, &c. were also of the same material.One of the numerous brazen altars built by Solomon was an extraordmaryaffair, being twenty cubits, or thirty-tkree feet square, and sixteen feet high.The large number of victims consumed on it and the necessary fires ac-count for these dimensions.

As some of the most effectual frauds were consummated at and bymeans of altars, the civil governors of the heathen, and some of the worstprinces of the Je ws, made use of them for the performance of state tricks,to inttmidate the people and subdue them to their will. In such mattersa collusion between the priests and statesmen of antiquity is very obvi-ous. (By a similar combination of church and state it is that the peopleof Europe are still oppressed.) When Themistocles could not otherwisecarry out his measures, he did not fail to make the oracles interfere. Thereare some interesting particulars in 2d of Kings, chap. xvi: respecting abrazen altar which Ahaz examined at Damascus , and an exact copy ofwhich he had made and erected in Jerusalem . It evidently was of a no-vel construction and was probably designed for working pretended mira-cles for state purposes, for it was among those destroyed by his son He-Zekiah, Montfaucon in the Supplement to his antiquities describes somesingulär altars, and among others, one on which an eagle was made sud-