United States or Greece ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This space, although they did not know it, was the hypocaust or heating chamber of the colonial Roman house, and had been kept filled with hot air from a furnace. Beams of wood and heaps of tiles indicated that there had been an upper storey of wood. This in fact was the case, the Romans having a strong objection to sleeping on the ground floor.
Clearly, then, it was a domain of much importance, and the granaries, mills, stables, slaves' dwellings would occupy much space about it an acre and a half, at least." "Portions of a brick foundation were unearthed no less than three hundred yards away. A hypocaust lay embedded among them, much broken but recognisable."
The mortar, however, between the stones of the walls of a hypocaust was found by my son to have been penetrated by many worm-burrows. The remains of this villa stand on land which slopes at an angle of about 3 degrees; and the land appears to have been long cultivated.
In the bathroom may be seen an excellent example of the hypocaust an ingenious contrivance, by means of which the rooms were heated with hot air, which passed along beneath the floors.
This he promptly proceeded to do, and the result was, that an extensive hypocaust apartment was brought to light, with baths, sudatorium, dressing-room, and a number of tile pillars all forming parts of a Roman floor sufficiently perfect to show the manner in which the building had been constructed and used.* Among Telford's less agreeable duties about the same time was that of keeping the felons at work.
The Duke of Brunswick had, in 1590, paid a visit to Uraniburg, and had particularly admired an antique brass statue of Mercury, about a cubit long, which Tycho had placed in the roof of the hypocaust or central crypt of the Stiern-berg observatory. By means of a concealed mechanism, it moved round in a circular orbit.
The cloister is very solemn; over it are chambers in which the singing men live. In one part of the street was a subterranean arch, very strongly built; in another, what they called, I believe rightly, a Roman hypocaust. Chester has many curiosities. We entered Wales, dined at Mold, and came to Lleweney . We were at Lleweney.
Word Of The Day