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The operation of separating silver ore from gold by the powers of aqua fortis, precipitating the first-named metal by suspension of a copper plate in the liquid, and called quartation; was I believe wholly unknown to the ancients, who got much earlier at the art of weighing gold in water, testified by the old story of King Hiero's crown.
These machines he had designed and contrived, not as matters of any importance, but as mere amusements in geometry; in compliance with king Hiero's desire and request, some little time before, that he should reduce to practice some part of his admirable speculations in science, and by accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use, bring it more within the appreciation of people in general.
"Could Cleopatra smile upon Antony, and the moon upon Endymion, and the sea not love its lovers?" The fresh air breathed upon our faces as he spoke. I might have sailed in Hiero's ship, or in Roman galleys, had I lived long centuries ago, and been born a nobleman.
But a fine chastity inherent in his Northern blood had, whatever were his moral convictions, kept him from the mire; and the sudden death of his father had given him a graver turn than was normal to his years. "I knew you were my uncle Hiero's bankers," he added, "and I supposed you would be able to tell me about him. He is my only living relative."
In Sicily it practically never rains during the summer; the sea water is collected in large, open pans, being raised by means of the screw which has been in use all over the island for nearly twenty-two centuries, ever since Archimedes invented it to remove the water from the hold of one of Hiero's ships at Siracusa.
The latter, entering a bath-tub one day, and noticing that he displaced a quantity of water equal in bulk to that of his body, saw that this discovery would give him a mode of determining the bulk and specific gravity of King Hiero's crown. Leaping out of the tub in his delight, he ran home, crying, "Eure'ka! eureka!" I have found it! I have found it!
It was while lying in his bath, but still meditating on the means to detect the fraud of the goldsmith who had made Hiero's crown, that the most extraordinary philosopher of antiquity was led to the investigation of a series of propositions demonstrated in the two books of ARCHIMEDES, De insidentibus in fluido, still extant; and which a great mathematician admires both for the strictness and elegance of the demonstrations.
This ring which he always wore " Balder roughly snatched back his hand. "Hiero's ring?" "Why do you look so? is it not a sign to me from him?" "Hiero's ring? tell me, Gnulemah, is this Hiero's ring? Stop stand up! No call me Satan! Hiero's ring!" "Where is Hiero, then?" demanded Gnulemah, rising and dilating. "You wear his ring, what have you done with him? Is there no God?"
Better a thousand times for him and for us the long, tranquil days under the pine and the olive than a great position under Hiero's hand and the weary intrigue and activity which made the melancholy semblance of a successful life for men less wise and genuine.
Fox's encouraging kindness to its author. No one who loved Mr. Archimedes in the bath had many particulars to settle about specific gravities and Hiero's crown, but he first gave a glorious leap and shouted 'Eureka! Many persons have discovered Mr. Browning since he has been known to fame. One only discovered him in his obscurity. Next to that of Mr.
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