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The Doric order possessed a peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and also the height of the entablature. The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia.
But if they made observations in or near latitude 30° north on the supposition that the earth is a globe, their probable error would exceed the difference even between the earth's polar and equatorial diameters.
They knew that French coinage is all decimal, the franc being the standard of which the other coins, whether gold, silver, or copper, are multiples or measures; they knew, too, that the caliber or diameter of each piece of money is rigorously determined by law, and that the diameters of the silver coins representing five francs, two francs, and fifty centimes measure thirty-seven, twenty-seven, and eighteen millimeters respectively; and they accordingly guessed that Professor Rosette had conceived the plan of placing such a number of these coins in juxtaposition that the length of their united diameters should measure exactly the thousand millimeters that make up the terrestrial meter.
On putting this under a microscope magnifying fifty diameters there come into view the Declaration of Independence in full, in a clear, bold type, every name signed in fac-simile; the arms of all the States, easily made out, and well finished; with good portraits of all the Presidents, down to a recent date.
I blinked tired eyes and once more pressed them to the twelve diameters of magnification, every diameter having full play in the clear light.
They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars; whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost, five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the centre of Mars; which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.
It is enough for our purpose that we are now in possession of an instrument freed from all confusions and illusions, which magnifies a thousand diameters, a million times in surface, without serious distortion or discoloration of its object.
The monkey has a hand well enough adapted for the sense of touch, which contributes to his great facility of imitation; but in taking objects with his hands, as a stick or an apple, he puts his thumb on the same side of them with his fingers, instead of counteracting the pressure of his fingers with it: from this neglect he is much slower in acquiring the figures of objects, as he is less able to determine the distances or diameters of their parts, or to distinguish their vis inertiæ from their hardness.
This instrument is so constructed that it appears to throw the image of the object upon the white sheet of paper on the small table at the right hand where the drawing is made, at the, same time that it enables the same eye to see the pencil and the right hand. In this way I made a careful drawing of B. termo and its flagellum, magnified 5,000 diameters. Here is a projection of the drawing made.
The central boss is in relief; the petals and tracery are encrusted in the mass. These roundels, which are of various diameters ranging from three- eighths of an inch to four inches, were fixed to the walls by means of a very fine cement.
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