was removed, tin 15 parts, copper 85.

The other, found in the island of Rugen, was covered with the common patina, and gave tin 13, copper 87.

3. Analysis of an antique ring. I had selected for other inquiries a fragment of an elastic and flexible ring, which was found with some Roman coins in the vicinity of the Rhine. This ring was made with a half-flattened stem,

grooved on the outside, and eight

lines broad. Its exterior diameter

is two inches and seven-eighths, its

interior two and a half. It is not soldered, but its extremities are

so closed by the elasticity of the

metal, that it is difficult to separate them. The colour of the metal, in the parts that have been polished, is very fine. We have no sufficient clue to the use of these rings. Its analysis gave tin 9, copper 91.

of the thickness of a middle-sized wire. As it was necessary they should be flexible, it was requisite that the alloy should be in different proportions, that of the tin being diminished. This consisted of tin 2.25, copper 97.75.

6. Analysis of an antique cup. The great number of antique cups and vases found at different times sufficiently prove, that the ancients possessed the art of re

ducing bronze to thin sheets.

The cup, pieces of which were

employed for this analysis, was

found in a Grecian tomb near Naples. It has so well resisted

rust, that its inside has lost very little of its polish. Being very thin, I expected to find in it but a small proportion of tin; but I obtained tin 14, copper 86.

Comparing the proportions of tin found in the present analysis with those of a fragment of an antique mirror, which I had already

by Mr. Mongez, which was found near Bourg, where several other Roman antiquities had before been discovered.

It is to be wished that the elastic property of bronze should be examined more minutely.

4. Analysis of a piece of Grecian brass.

This little fragment, decorated with ornaments, which was found in Sicily in a Grecian tomb, appears to have been a button, or some other ornament of armour. Its proportions are, tin 11, copper 89.

5. Analysis of antique rivets. These rivets were short, and

and which consisted of

32 per cent. tin, and a little lead, we find that the ancients judiciously adapted the proportions of tin and copper to the purposes for which they were required. I conceive it unnecessary to particularize the rest of the analyses I made of pieces of antique bronze: it is sufficient to say, that except this mirror, and the rivets already mentioned, I always found the alloy contained from 9 to 15 per cent of tin.

7. Analysis of the quadriga of Chios.

The proportions of the alloy of this masterpiece of antiquity bear no resemblance to those already mentioned,

:

mentioned. It has been long asserted, that these horses were the work of Lysippus, contemporary of Alexander, who is known in the history of the arts as the greatest master in the execution of equestrian statues; but several modern connoisseurs dispute this, and say the horses are in too clumsy a style to have been the work of Lysippus.

It is admitted, however, that they were brought from Chios to Constantinople in the reign of Theodosius I. In 1204, when the croisaders made themselves masters of that city for the second time, pillaged it, and set it on fire, this quadriga escaped the destruction that befel many ancient works of art. On dividing the plunder, the doge Dandolo destined these horses for the republic of Venice. After his death, the podestat, Martin Zeno, sent them to Venice with other parts of the spoil, and the doge, Peter Ziani, ornamented with them the entrance to the cathedral of St. Mark. About six centuries after, in 1798, they were removed to Paris, and placed at the two entrances of the square of the Carrousel. Since that time they have been brought together again, and harnessed to a chariot, to decorate the triumphal arch in that square.

These four horses were not cast at once, like statues in bronze, but are composed of separate parts, wrought with the chisel, and afterward joined together. The hollows in the hind parts are filled with lead, which has assumed its shining reddish appearance. These parts are gilt; yet the gilding is nearly effaced, though, according to Buonarotti, the gold with which

the ancients covered their bronze was to ours as six to one.

These horses were supposed to be of copper, because this metal takes gilding better than bronze; and I have been enabled to verify the fact on a small piece, weigh. ing 40 grains, which was sent me. From this it appears, that the copper was not absolutely pure, as it contained a little tin; but the oxide of tin obtained from these 40 grains, amounted only to 0.35 of a grain; so that when reduced to the metallic state, the proportion would be only 7 parts of tin to 993 of copper. This proportion is so small, it may be presumed to have been accidental.

In our days the use of iron and brass has singularly diminished that of bronze, which was so frequently employed by the ancients. It is now confined to cannons, bells, and statues. But is it not desirable, that our copper-vessels should be replaced by vessels of bronze or brass, as they are less liable to oxidation, and to injure the health? This question deserves to be solved by comparative experiments. What ought to induce us to examine this important question is, that the ancients employed only vessels of bronze in their kitchens and cellars in general, though they were well acquainted with the injurious qualities of oxide of copper taken internally. This oxide, however, they used externally for cleansing and healing wounds. According to Aristotle, wounds made with weapons of bronze were more easily cured than those made with weapons of iron.

In a note subjoined, Mr. Darcet observes, observes, that the metal of the horses of the Carrousel, taken as it is, yields copper, tin, lead, gold, and silver. If the surface be filed, so as to remove all the gilt part, nothing is found but copper, tin, and lead. If a piece perfectly free from cracks be taken, and thoroughly cleaned by the file, it yields copper and tin alone: but it is difficult to procure such pieces, for the copper is full of flaws, and the mixture of lead and tin, with which the horses were partly filled, has insinuated itself into every crack. On analysing some select pieces, he found copper 99-177, tin 0.823: but as sulphuric acid disturbed the transparency of the solution, he supposes a little lead was present, and that part of the tin might come from the alloy of tin and lead, which had covered the inside of the pieces he used.

observation, the truth of which is not likely to be controverted, and add such remarks as present themselves upon the Roman hothouses, with a few words on the subject of our own.

The first epigram is as follows:

Pallida ne Cilicum tineant pomaria bru-.

mam,

Mordeat et tenerum fortior aura nemus; Hibernis objecta notis specularia puros Admittunt soles, et sine fæce diem, &c. MARTIAL, lib. viii. 14.

Qui Corcyræi vidit pomaria regis,

Rus, Entelle, tuæ præferat ille domus. Invida purpureos urat ne bruma racemos, Et gelidum Bacchi munera frigus edat; Condita perspicua vivit vindemia gemma,

Et tegitur felix, nec tamen uva latet. Fæmineum lucet sic per bombycina

corpus:

Calculus in nitida sic numeratur aqua. Quid non ingenio voluit natura licere? Autumnum sterilis ferre jubetur hiems. MARTIAL, lib. viii. 68.

From these passages, and from that of Pliny, in which he tells us that Tiberius, who was fond of cucumbers, had them in his garden throughout the year by means of (specularia) stoves, where they were grown in boxes, wheeled out in fine weather, and replaced in the nights or in cold weather, Pliny, book xix. sect. 23, we may safely infer that forcing-houses were not unknown to the Romans, though they do not appear to have been carried into general use.

Flues the Romans were well acquainted with; they did not use open fires in their apartments as we do, but in the colder countries at least, they always had flues under

der the floors of their apartments. Mr. Lysons found the flues, and the fire-place from whence they received heat, in the Roman villa he has described in Gloucestershire; in the baths also, which no good house could be without, flues were used to communicate a large proportion of beat for their sudatories, or sweating apart.

ments.

The article with which their windows were glazed, if the term may be used, was talk, or what we may call Muscovy glass (lapis specularis). At Rome, the apartments of the bettermost classes were furnished with curtains (vela) to keep away the sun; and windows (specularia) to resist cold; so common was the use of this material for windows, that the glazier, or person who fitted the panes, had a name, and was called specularius.

On the epigrams the following remarks present themselves. The first in all probability described a peach-house, the word pale, which is meant as a ridicule upon the practice, gives reason for this supposition; we all know, that peaches grown under glass cannot be endowed either with colour or with flavour, unless they are exposed by the removal of the lights, from the time of their taking their second swell, after stoning, to the direct rays of the sun: if this is not done, the best sorts are pale green when ripe, and not better than turnips in point of flavour; but it is not likely that a Roman hot house should, in the infancy of the invention, be furnished with moveable lights as ours are. The Romans had peaches in plenty,

both hard and melting. The flesh of the hard peaches adhered to the stones as ours do, and were preferred in point of flavour to the soft ones.

The second epigram refers most plainly to a grape-house, but it does not seem to have been calculated to force the crop at an earlier period than the natural one; it is more likely to have been contrived for the purpose of securing a late crop, which may have been managed by destroying the first set of bloom, and encouraging the vines to produce a second. The last line of the epigram, which states the office of the house to be that of compelling the winter to produce autunnal fruits, leads much to this opinion.

Hot-houses seem to have been little used in England, if at all, in the beginning of the last century. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, on her journey to Constantinople, in the year 1716, remarks the circumstance of pine-apples being served up in the dessert, at the electoral table at Hanover, as a thing she had never before seen or heard of. See her Letters. Had pines been then grown in England, her ladyship, who moved in the highest circles, could not have been ignorant of the fact, The public kave still much to learn on the subject of hot-houses, of course the Horticultural Society have much to teach.

They have hitherto been too frequently misapplied under the name of forcing-houses, to the vain and ostentatious purpose of hurrying fruits to maturity, at a season of the year when the sun has not the power of endowing

them with their natural flavour: we have begun, however, to apply them to their proper use; we have peach-houses built for the purpose of presenting that excellent fruit to the sun, when his genial influence is the most active. We have others for the purpose of ripening grapes, in which they are secured from the chilling effects of our uncertain autumns; and we have brought them to as high a degree of perfection here as either Spain, France, or Italy can boast of. We have pine-houses also, in which that delicate fruit is raised in a better style than is generally practised in its native intertropical countries; except, perhaps, in the well-managed gardens of rich individuals, who may, if due care and attention is used by their gardeners, have pines as good, but cannot have them better, than those we know how to grow in England.

The next generation will no doubt erect hot-houses of much larger dimensions than those to which we have hitherto confined ourselves, such as are capable of raising trees of considerable size; they will also, instead of heating them with flues, such as we use, and which waste in the walls that conceal them, more than half of the warmth they receive from the fires that heat them, use naked tubes of metal filled with steam instead of smoke. Gardeners will then be enabled to admit a proper proportion of air to the trees in the season of flowering; and as we already are aware of the use of bees in our cherry-houses to distribute the pollen where wind cannot be admitted to disperse it, and of shaking the trees when in

full bloom, to put the pollen in motion, they will find no dificulty in setting the shyest kinds of fruits.

It does not require the gift of prophecy to foretell, that ere long the aki and the avocado pear of the West Indies, the flat peach, the mandarine orauge, and the litchi of China, the mango, the mangostan, and the durion of the East Indies, and possibly other valuable fruits, will be frequent at the tables of opulent persons; and some of them, perhaps in less than half a century, be offered for sale on every market day at Covent Garden.

Subjoined is a list of those fruits cultivated at Rome, in the time of Pliny, that are now grown in our English gardens.

Almonds, both sweet and bitter, were abundant.

Apples 22 sorts at least: sweet apples (melimala) for eating, and others for cookery. They had one sort without kernels. Apricots. Pliny says of the apricot (Armeniaca) quæ sola et odore commendantur, lib. xv. sect. 11. He arranges 'them among his plums. Martial valued them little, as appears by bis epigram, xiii. 46. Cherries were introduced into Rome in the year of the city 680, 73 A. C. and were carried thence to Britain 120 years after, A. D. 48. The Romans had eight. kinds, a red one, a black one, a kind so tender as scarce to bear any carriage, a hard-fleshed one (duracina) like our bigarreau, a small one with a bitterish flavour (laurea) like

our