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[Book IV.
in ignorance ; while it now contributes so largely to enlighten and benefitmankind. These instances of early applications of steam make us regretthat detailed descriptions of the various apparatus have not been preserved.Many ingenious devices were evidently employed, and although we con-demn the contrivers of such as were used for purposes of delusion, wecannot but admire the ingenuity which even these men displayed, in ex-hibiting before a barbarous people their gods in the most imposing man-ner and with such terrific effect—in making idols express by means ofsteam approbation and anger with the voice of thunder or the hissingof dragons, and causing them to appear and disappear in clouds öf smokeand sheets of flame.
It is probable from the antiquity of these idols and of eolipiles thatallusions to both might be found in the Bible . May not such expressionsas “ the blast of his mouth,” “ the blast of the terrible ones,” “ the blastof his nostrils,” &c. have reference to eolipiles or steam idols of old 1“ Their molten images [says Isaiah] are wind and confusion.” Hospita-bly receiving a traveler into the house during a storm, and protectinghim from the inconvenient heat of the fire wheh urged by an eolipile, maybe alluded to by the same prophet in the following passage : “ Thou hastbeen a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a re-fuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat when the blast of the terribleones is as a storm against the walls.” The expression ‘ terrible ones,’probably referring to the hideous forms into which we have already seenthose blowing instruments were moulded. Eolus the god of winds wasrepresented “ with swoln cheeks, like one who with main force blowsa blast, with wings on his shoulders and a fiery countenance.” Idolswere always made of a terrific form, and are so made by barbarous peo-ple at the present day. When God is personified as blowing on the fire,is there not an allusion to these instruments 1
Eusebius , in the third book of his life of Constantine, says that whenImages were subverted, amOng other things found in some of them were“ small faggots of sticks”—perhaps the remains of fuel employed to raisesteam in them. a
From the observation of one of the early travelers into the East, itseems that eolipiles were employed even in war and with great effect.Carpini, in the account of his travels, A. D. 1286, describes a species ofeolipile of the human form, and apparently charged with an inflammableliquid, as having been used in a Sattle Setween the Mongals and thetroops of Prester John . The latter, he says, caused a number of hollowfigures to be made of copper, which resembled men, and being chargedwith some combustible substance, “ were set upon horses, each having aman behind on the horse with a pair of bellows, to stir up the fire.When approaching to give battle, these mounted images were first sentf'orward against the enemy, and the men who rode behind set fire by somemeans to the combustibles, and blew strongly with their bellows; and theMongal men and horses were burnt with wild fire and the air was dark-ened with smoke.” 14 Supposing these eolipiles to have been chargedwith alcohol or spirit of wine, they must have been (as we see they were)of terrible effect, since, as modern experiments show, a jet of flame fromeach might have extended to a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet.
Besides blowing directly upon or against a fire, eolipiles were employedto increase the draft of chimneys, for which purpose the jet rose perpen-dicularly from the centre of the dome, as in No. 181. öne or two stand-