Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Selinus, of which the 18th plate contains a chart, that marks diftinctly its circumference, had feveral temples, which have been entirely demolished. We find the ruins and fcattered fragments of two of these in the 17th and 18th plates.

No. IV.

In the beginning of the 4th Number or Chapter, we find the description of another temple of Selinus, delineated in the 19th plate, and a general view of the largest temple of that city, whofe remains aftonish us, as they are reprefented in the plate following; the Author exhibits in the 21ft plate the plan of this enormous edifice, and the geometrical details that are neceffary to convey an idea of its particular beauties. It is palpable, that this temple was demolished by hoftile violence; but it is inconceivable, fays our Traveller, that hoftile rage should go fo far, as to overturn the very bases of the columns, and that of columns fo prodigiously bulky. This temple, which after that of Jupiter Olympius at Girgenti, is the greatest fabric of antiquity ftill preferved, is 51 fathoms (toifes) in length, and 25 in breadth *. It has 16 lateral columns, and 8 in front. The columns are 4 feet 6 inches high, and their bafes have 10 feet in height, and 10 in diameter. The temple, which was one of the wonders of Sicily, and ftill maintains its fuperiority, by the quantity and ftately afpect of its ruins, was dipteral, having two rows of columns all around it. Its columns are perceived at fuch a distance, that they direct pilots at fea in their course.

M. HOUEL vifited the Rocca di Cufa, or famous quarry, which furnished the ftones for the conftruction of these temples, and which is reprefented in the 22d plate. It is 300 fathoms in length, and the ftones it yields have this peculiarity, that when they are ftruck they found like metals. It is fituated about feven miles from Selinus, in the midst of a beautiful and fertile plain, called Campo bello, and does not rife in any part of it more than 50 feet above the level of the plain. The archite&ts went wifely to work they rough-hewed in the quarry the ftones which they employed in thefe maffy buildings, and gave them there, though rudely, the form they were to have, that they might diminish, as far as was poffible, their weight, before they were tranfported. When they had fixed upon the fize of a column, they cut round, in the rock, a mafs of fo many feet diameter, as the thickness of the column required. When this mass was cut round by two men, who had formed a paffage on each side, and completed each his femi-circle, it formed a cylinder. To difengage its extremities from the rock, they made, at the bafe

* Baron Reidefel fays it is about 100 yards long and 80 broad. But his account is much inferior in detail and accuracy to that of Mr. Houel: Mr. Brydone has not minded these things.

of

of the column, an incifion of about four inches deep, which they filled with as many wedges of the drieft wood as could be forced into it. These wedges were continually moiftened, and by their fwelling, they made the cylinder break off from the rock. But the most marvellous part of this business still remains to torture conjecture: for with what machines did theft architects tranfport capitals 12 feet 6 inches fquare, and 4 feet 5 inches thick, and architraves 20 feet long and 7 feet large? and yet these enormous stones, drawn from a place at the diftance of above 7 miles, across an uneven road, muft fuprife us ftill less than the tranfportation, from the fame diftance, of three columns, each formed of a fingle ftone, 45 feet 6 inches in height, and 10 feet in diameter. Our Author exhibits in one of the figures of this plate, the ingenious method employed by Vitruvius for the transportation of large maffes of this kind; but this method feems only adapted to fucceed on level ground, and not in a hilly district.

The 23d and 24th plates represent the baths and mountain of S. Calogero, and the grotto of the bathers, with its plan and dimenfions, all which our Author defcribes at great length. His defcriptions are interfperfed with a multitude of little ftories of his conversations and adventures, which might make fome impreffion in the vacant moments of dinner, tea, or supper, but have no title to be admitted into a work of this kind: Mr. Brydoné's stories have much more falt and favour than thofe of M. Houel.

No. V.

The falting of anchovies in the fea-port town of Sciacca, and a ruftic waggon full of lads and laffes going to their harvest labours, employ our Author's pen and pencil in the 25th and 26th plates, and the defcriptions are lively and poetical. Painting, as he goes along, rural fcenes, and enchanting profpets, without omitting the dogs that barked at him, as he paffed the huts of which they were the guardians, he arrives at the palace (or cafin as it is called) of the Prince of Palagonia, whofe whimfical, or rather monftruous tafte for the contradictory, the abfurd, and the fhocking, in fculpture and architecture, has been related by almoft every traveller. Centaur, fphynx, dragon, and chimæra, are objects of fymmetry and order, compared with the productions which that impertinent fool (if he is not ftark mad) has multiplied, at a prodi gious expence, in his contemptible manfion. But why employ three great folio pages in the defcription of these fruits of a dif

ordered brain?

The 27th plate represents the ancient Naumachia of Palermo, and the 28th the tonnaro, a kind of aquatic caftle, for the taking the tunny-fish, formed, at a great expence, of ftrong nets, and

7

compoled

compofed of different apartments. Mr. Brydone has given a good, though a concise description of this amufement; but our Author's account of it is much more ample and circumftantial, and, by the affiftance of the figures, more intelligible and interefting. The two following plates, which conclude this Number, exhibit the manner of catching and killing the fish, when they are collected in the tonnaro.

No. VI.

In the beginning of this Number or Chapter, our Author returns, like the dog to his vomit, and gives us a view of the palace of the Prince of Palagonia at La Bagaria, in the 31ft plate, where we see the avenue that is peopled by the monsters already mentioned, and the triumphal arch, which is the entrance of this avenue. The palace, indeed, deserved fome little attention, as it is an old caftle, built originally by the Saracens, finely fituated, and gives an idea of the kind of architecture that prevailed among that people, when Sicily was under their dominion. The view from the terras, that forms the fummit of this caftle, is extenfive and delightful, and is deemed, by our Author, worthy of the particular attention of travellers.

The Calabrian afh-tree, which produces the manna, is the fubject of the 32d plate, and the manner of collecting this medicinal fugar is accurately defcribed; but with no particulars that are not well known. His defcriptions of La Favoratta and Cineft, and of the fimplicity and benevolence that reign in the manners of their inhabitants, are pleasing, and may be called very agreeable fummer-reading. The 33d plate brings us back to ancient times, by prefenting to our view fome very beautiful remains of the ancient arts, well preferved, which our Author noticed in the rufeum and monaftery of St. Martin, about feven miles from Palermo. This museum, lately founded by D. Salvator Blafi, of the Benedictine order, contains a very good collection of ancient marbles, farcophagi, medals, Grecian, Roman, Etrurian and Sicilian vafes, &c.--The marble candelabrum here delineated by our Author, is an exquifite piece, whether we confider the beauty of its form, the elegance of its ornaments, or the excellence of the workmanship. It is accompanied with fix Etrurian vafes, all beautiful, an Egyptian buft of ba faltes, and two curious human figures, one male and the other female, with Ionic capitals, fupporting baskets of flowers on their heads.

The 34th plate reprefents a funeral urn, which our Author confiders as one of the most beautiful remains of antiquity that has escaped the ruins of time. Its form, ornaments, and execution, are equally perfect. A fquare void space that feems to have been prepared for an infcription, and a medallion under it, fupported by cupids, which exhibits a fine female head, give rea

fon

fon to fuppofe, that the urn contains the afhes of fome lady, illuftrious in her time and day. The two laft plates of this Number represent two tombs or farcophagi, of noble workmanship, and a fingular capital of the Corinthian order, with cornucopias instead of volutes, and in the middle a medallion exhibiting a fe male head, with flowing treffes, and fome very elegant figures on the bafe of the column. Thefe antiquities were obferved by our Author in the episcopal palace of Monreale.

ART. IX.

Verbandelingen van het Bataafsch Genootschap, &c. Tranfactions of the Batavian Society at Rotterdam. Vol. VI.

THE

HE firft piece we find in this volume is the differtation of Dr. VAN MARUM (a very ingenious and learned phyfician at Haarlem, and known with diftinction in the walk of experimental philofophy), which obtained the gold medal, as the beft difcourfe on the following question: To fhew by proofs, what meteors depend upon the operation of natural electricity,how fuch meteors are produced by it, and what are the best means of preferving houfes, fhips, and perfons, from their pernicious effects. This differtation is divided into fix parts.

In the first the author fhews that lightning is an effect of the natural electricity of the atmosphere, and may be confidered as the discharge of the electrical force of the clouds, by feven properties, which lightning has in common with electricity, fuch as its ferpentine motion; its direction to thofe bodies, which are the best conductors, such as metals; its kindling a flame in combustible fubftances; melting metals; penetrating, splitting, and bruifing bodies; killing animals; and laftly, its influence on the magnetic needle. Our author confirms, farther, this important truth, by experiments made with a new apparatus of his own invention, which is very ingenioufly contrived for the purpose. It is not poffible to render this invention intelligible by defcription without the affiftance of the figures with which it is accompanied; but we can affirm, that the experiments made with it are fully fatisfactory and decifive, though not

new.

In the fecond part, Dr. VAN MARUM fhews how the lightning is produced by the natural electricity of the atmosphere. Franklin, Beccaria, and others, who have made obfervations on the electrical force of the clouds in thunder-ftorms, tell us that fome of these clouds have a pofitive and others a negative electricity. Two bodies, differently electrified, are known to attract each other; and as that, which is overcharged, or pofi.

⚫ For an account of the preceding volumes of the memoirs of this fociety, fee the appendix to our 67th volume, p. 511. 9

tively

[ocr errors]

fively electrified, communicates its overplus to that which is undercharged or negatively electrified, it is natural to conclude, that different electrical ftates of the clouds in a thunder-ftorm give rife to this attraction and communication, and that the undercharged cloud receives an additional quantity of electric fluid from that which is overcharged or pofitively electrified. But the thunder-clouds difcharge the electrical fluid, on the earth, against elevated bodies, fuch as houfes, fteeples, and fhips. This, however, fays our author, is not to be confidered merely as a communication of the electrical fluid to the furface of the earth, fince it is proved by repeated experiments, that there can be no diffufion or difcharge of the fluid of an electrified body, unless that part of the body, to which, it is communicated, has previously acquired an oppofite force or power by the action of that famé electrified body near which, it is placed. So that before a thunder-cloud, pofitively electrified, can diffufe its fluid upon any body, it must previously produce in that body, fubjected to its action, a negative electricity; and vice verfa, if the thunder-cloud be negatively electrified. This truth our author proves by an experiment, in which be employs two plates, coated on one fide: the one he fufpends on a conductor, and infulates the other under it: the refult is, that the electricities and their effects differ, according as the fecond plate remains infulated, or is made to communicate with the earth by á chain or any other contrivance..

The third part of this differtation contains, an inquiry into the best methods of preferving our edifices, hips, and perfons from the fatal effects of thunder-ftorms. Here M. VAN MARUM naturally treats on conductors: he approves the pointed ones; evinces, by new experiments, that they are not dangerous, and fhews that thofe with feveral points placed at confiderable diftances from each other, are more adapted to answer their purpose, than thofe which have only one. And here his experiments feem highly decifive, notwithstanding what is affirmed to the contrary in the third volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Bruffels, p. 11. 25,, M. VAN MARUM difcuffes the questions, that have been propofed relative to the height and thickness of conductors, the manner of compofing and placing them, the number that ought to be employed in an edifice 3 with many other queftions of this kind, which have been treated before him by able hands, to whofe inventive labours he has added little or nothing, though he has placed them in a very useful light to the view of his countrymen.

In the fourth part of this differtation the author describes the water-fpout, the whirlwind, and the aurora borealis, meteors, fufficiently known; and he inquires into their caufes, which are, as yet, a fubject of investigation and controverfy. With APP. REV. Vol. LXVIII,

Sf

refpect

« AnteriorContinuar »