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Contents of Heron's Spiritalia.

[Book IV.

The Spiritalia formed but a small part of the writings of Heron: hadall of them reached our times, we should have possessed an almost per-fect System of ancient mechanical philosophy. He wrote books onclepsydra, automata, dioptrics, war machinery, engines for raisingweights; and an introduction to mechanics, which is said to have beenthe most complete Work on the subject which the ancients possessed.Taken as a whole, the Spiritalia seems more like the manual of an ancientmagician than any thing eise—a eollection of deceptions with the pro-cesses by which they were matured. ln it Heron, instead of appearingin the character of a philosopher, rather assumed (perhaps for amusementor to expose the frauds of the Egyptian hierarchy) that of a ministerof Isis, initiating an acolyte into the mysteries of his profession. Andnumerous as are the devices described, they doubtless formed but a smallpart of those which constituted the active and efficient Capital of theEgyptian priesthood. With the exception of an hydraulic' and anotherOrgan, a syringe, fire engine, fountain of compression, three lamps andtwo eolipiles, (and most of which were also used for unworthy purposes)the whole may be considered as a text book for conjurers. Of the seventy-six problems contained in the book, twelve relate to the working ofprodigies at the altars, by air dilated by the heat of the sacred fires, &c.as already noticed; upwards of forty relate to sacrificial vases, Tantalus’cups, magic pitchers, &c. In some of these were concealed cavities, inwhich the liquid was retained or discharged, by closing with the thumba minute opening in the handle. Water was poured into some and theygave out wine, and vice versa. In these we have a solution of the trickby which water was changed into wine in the temple of Bacchus, on the7th of January at the annual feast of the god, as mentioned by Pliny . Inothers were disguised partitions forming various compartments in whichdifferent liquids were retained, and all discharged at one orifice (by aspecies of three or four-way cock) so that those in the secret could drawwine, oil, or water, at pleasure ; besides many other merry conceits, as theold authors name them. There is we think among them abundant evi-dence that our solution of Tutia’s miracle of carrying water in a sievewas the true one. It is probable that in some of these vases, specimens ofthe old divining cups may be found.

The ingenious reader will not repine at our inserting a specimenof a lustral vase. We have selected this because it shows that me-chanical as well as hydrodynamical devices were adopted as occasionsrequired. It shows also that the mode of increasing or diminishing thepressure of a valve to its seat, by a loaded lever, as in the safety valve ofa steam engine, was known—a circumstance that may be deemed quite in-significant by some persons; but attention to such little things oftenenables us to arrive at correct estimates of an ancient device, and of theingenuity and fertility of conception of ancient devisers.

Most readers are aware that holy rvater was derived from that of theheathen. When a worshiper was about to enter the temple, he sprink-^led himself from a vase of it placed near the entrance. On some particu-lar occasions the people were sprinkled by priests. (See an example atpage 196.) Those who celebrated the Eleusinian mysteries were parti-cularly required to wash their hands in holy water. In the middle agesthe liquid was a source of considerable profit to monks, and it was evena custom for clerks and scholars to hawk it for sale. From Heron’s de-scription of the following figure, (No. 178,) we learn that heathen priestsalso made it a source of revenue ; the vessels containing lustral water notbeing always open for public use, free of charge, but closed, and like a