The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-07-03
ANCIENT VESSELS.
Nothing Built to Equal them I'm Modern
Times.

| Times.
Magnificent and large as are some of
our modern steam vessels, they are infe-
rior, if we may judge from description,
both in size and splendor, to the vessels
constructed by the kings of Egypt and
Syracuse, on a scale of grandeur cor
responding to the immense preparations
of the sculpture and architecture.
Ptolemaaus Philopater, king of Egypt,
built a vessel 400 feet long, 56 feet
broad, 72 feet high from the keel to the
top of the prov, but 80 feet to the top
of the poop. She had four helms of
! 60 feet her largest oars were 80 feet
| long, with leaden handles, so as to
| work more easily by the rowers she
had two prows, two sternS, seven rostra
or breaks, successively rising and swell
ing out one over the other, the topmost
one most prominent and stately on the
poop and prov she had figures of ami
mails not less than 18 feet high all the
interior of the vessel was beautified
with a delicate sort of painting of
waxen color. She had 1000 rowers,
400 cabin boys or servants marines to
do duty on the deck, $3.50; with an
immense store of arms and provisions.
The same prince built another ship,
calledthe Thalamegus, or bed-chamber
ship, which was only used as pleasure
yacht for sailing up and down the Nile.
She was not so long or large as the pre-
ceding, but more splendid in the cham
bers and their furnishings. Hero, king |
of Syracuse. built an enormous vessel, |
which he intended for a corn-trader ; |
her length is not given. She was built |
at Syracuse, by a Corinthian ship |
builder, and was launched by an appa-
ratus devils ed by Archimedes. All her |
bolts and nails were brass she had |
twenty rows of oars her apartments
were all paved with neat, square varie-
gated tiles on which was painted the |
story of Homer's Iliad. She had gym
nasium, with shady walks, on her upper
decks, garden plots stocked with vari-
GUS plants, and nourished with limpid
water that flowed circulating round them
in a canal of lead. She had, here and
and vine branches, which fourished in
principle of growth from the leaden Ca
nal. She had one chamber particularly
splendid, whose pavement was of agate
and other precious stones, and whose
panels, doors and roofs were of ivory
and wood of the thya tree. She had
or library with five
couches, its roof arched into polus or
vault, with the stars embossed she had
a bath, with its accompaniments, all
most magnificent; she had on each side
of her deck ten stalls for horses, with
fodder and furnishings for the grooms
and riders fish-pond of lead, full of |
fish, whose waters could be let out or
admitted at pleasure ; she had two tow
ers on the poop, two on the prov, and
four in the middle, full of armed men
that managed the machines invented by
for throwing stones of 300 {
pounds weight and arrows Is feet long
to the distance of furlong. She had {
three masts and two antenn@ or yards 3
that swung with hooks and masses of 1
lead attached. She had round the
whole circuit of her desk rampant of
iron, with iron crows, which took hold
Of ships and dragged them nearer for !
the purpose of destroying them. The q
tunnels or bowls on her masts were of I
brass. with men in each. She had ]
Twelve anchors and three masts. It was c
With difficulty they could find a tree t
arge enough for her highest mast. s
Great Britain-an ominous circumstance L
or the superiority of British oak-had e
he glory of bestowing upon her a suf- v
icient tree for that purpose. 1t was '
discovered amid the recesses of Albion's i
orests by swineherd What is re- Ii
in the construction of this gi- o
,antic vessel is that her sentina or sink, Il
hough large and deep, was emptied by Q
me man by means of a pump invented .
~ Archimedes. Hero, on..fndiHg that o
he Syracusan was too unwieldy to be g
admitted with safety into the harbors of iI
sicily, made a present of her to q
who changed her name to the o
We may add, as a pan o
rgon to this long tale of a ship, that a
the Greek epigrammatist, T
vrote little poem on the large vessel, G
which was rewarded by Hero with a Ii
resent to its talented author of 1000 ,
neasures of corn-a premium proper q
iened, if not to the poem, at least to s.
he magnitude of the theme celebrated. "