San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-08-26
ANCIENT ENGINEERS.
THEIR FEATS OF SKILL WHICH MOD
ERNS CANNOT EQUAL.

The Engineering of Old Times - Present
- Obstacles to the More Advanced Men
of Our Day II. Eiffers and NJ. Bar
tholdi's Conclusions About the Colossus.
The bumptiOusness of the modern engi-
neer gives little offense, because it is honest
and guileless.
1t is waste of time to ask him how the
powders of Stonehenge were conveyed to
their resting place, how the walls of Fie-
sole or Mycene were built; these marvels
represent the power which lies in the brute
force of multitudes, and there's an end of
the question. Engineering now is an art
and a science, with which the rude work
of the savages has no sort of connection.
One must not inquire why he takes it for
granted that Stonehenge, for example, was
built by savages, where the brute multi
tude came from, how they subsisted on
Salisbury Plain, or why it is necessary TO
assume that they were unacquainted with
mechanics.
All that is chose jugee-beyond dispute.
If you cite records of antiquity which tell
of works he cannot rival that fact alone is
proof that the record is a lie; for how can
it possibly be that mere Greeks and Romans
should have been able to do what the build
ers of the Eiffel tower and the Forth bridge
cannot accomplish? We had an amusing
instance of this feeling lately. The in
genious NJ. Eiffel and the artistic N. Bar
tholdi have been gravely bordering the
Colossus of Rhodes-measuring it and
weighing it as per description; and they
l., l,,t no 81 -,
sible.
THE COLOSSEUM.
1t could not have been set up, to begin
with, and when set up it could not have
stood the pressure of the wind This is
demonstrated by all the rules of modern
science, and he who does not admit the
demonstration must be prepared to show
that two and two do not make four. Those
antique personages who professed to have
seen the Colossus were victims of an ocular
delusion or fat story tellers, and that
greater number who mention it incident
ally, as we might mention the ruins of the
Colosseum, were credulous gossips. The
fact is that Messrs. Eiffel and Bartholdi
argue in the fashion usual with engineers.
Not all of them would pretend that they
know any law of nature which applies in
such a case. But very few would listen
patiently if it were urged that the ancients
knew some laws with which they were I'M
acquainted.
So it appears, however, to the disinter-
ested student, and we can bring forward
evidence enough. If it be true that the
Colossus of Rhodes is really proved ''im-
possible" according to the best modern
authorities, this is a good illustration to
begin with, for its existence is as well au-
thenticated as the temple at Delphi and
the statue of Olympian Zeus, or the Tower
of London, for that matter, to one who
has never seen it. By some means it was
set up, and by adaptation of some natural
laws it was made to stand until an earth
quake overthrow it. One is embarrassed
by the number and variety of illustrations
to the same effect which crowd upon the
mind.
Since the Colosseum has been mentioned
we may choose examples of the class. Is
NJ. Eiffel prepared to put an awning over
Trafalgar square when the sun shines, and
remove it promptly without the aid of a
central support of steam engines or even
chains? The area of the Colosseum is GER
tainly not less. This may seem triiing
matter to the thoughtless because they
have never considered it. Roman engineers
covered in that vast expanse with some
wooden material, and they worked the
ponderous sheet so easily and smoothly
that it was drawn and withdrawn as the
sky changed. The bulk of it must have
weighed hundreds of tons, all depending
by ropes from the circumference. But the
aneients thought so little Of this feat that
they have left us only one trivial detail of
the method.
ALEXANDER'S GIGANTIC TENT.
So Julius Caesar stretched an awning
above the Forum Romanum and great part
of the Via Sacra in the space of a single
night. Have any of our modern engineers
pondered the contemporary descriptions of
Alexander's durbar tent before Babylon?
That, again, appears to have had no CEN
trail support. 1t was upheld, says Ply
larchus, by eight pillars of solid gold. OF
the glorious plenishing within we have not
to speak, since our theme is mechanics.
Around the throne and the great court;ers
stood 500 Macedonian guards; in a circle
beyond them 800 Persian guards; beyond
these again 1000 archers To fix IA tent
which held 1000 soldiers on duty with
arms and accOutrements, surrounding, in
successive circles, the most gorgeous ORR
entail court that ever was, with hundreds
of satraps, councillors, generals, eunuchs
and slaves, would perplex a mechanician