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LETTERS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS.
statly pillers, and was a buildinge twoe hundred and twenty yeares by the moste exquisite artizans in all Asia. The walles that inclosed the great citie of Babilon, built by Queen Symiramis, weare in circute sixtie miles; in heith, two hundred feet; in breadth fiftie; weare distinguished with twoe hundred and fiftie stately towers; in one yeares space weare finisshed, but by the hand of thirteen thowsand woorkmen. The children of Israell, that lived foure hundred and thirtie yeares under the slavishe servitude of the tirannicall Pharoes in Egipt, weare busied cheefely in there latter tyme in workinge of those stately Piramides; the commen people bakinge of bricke for the foundations, and the most learned amongest them in carvinge of stones for those hyerogliphicall misteries. Trajan the Emperure, as it weare in dispite of nature, made a stony bridge over the swifte river Ister of twenty arches, seavered by one hundred and twentie feet, in heith forty cubites, in breadth thirtie. The theaters at Rome weare capable of sixtie thowsand persons to behould, and of navis of shippes to present navale prelium for pleasure unto the people. Hortipensiles weare no lesse admirable, that were so artificially sett on pillers, that they seamed to hange in the aire, and therefore weare called hanginge gardens. The tombe that Artemisia bwilt for the kinge of Caria is renouned through the whole woorld by the name of Mausole. The great Colossus (that was in the haven of the Ile of Rodes, was an immage of sutch a mervelous heith, that great shippes with all ther sailes, there toppes and topp gallantes, mought enter betwixt his legges,) is to be wondered at howe it stoode firme and immovable of winde and tempest, without any shrowed, so many hundred yeares. Dionisius the tiran was the inventor of the warlicke engin called Catapulta; but first he, by proposinge infinite rewardes, assembled at Siracusa, in Sicily, the most rare persons for invention in all Africa and Europe. Archimedes did devise, by many yeares study and wonderfull expenses, a burninge glasse, wherewith he woold sett a fiar the Romaine shippes many leagues of, and handes of iron to lifte upp whole navies by force, and to make them as it weare flie in the aire. Nero did invent and caused to be bwilt a banquetinge howse in Rome, wherein the motions of the heavens, the conjunctions and opositions of the planettes, wear hourely presented unto him as he sported him self with musicall instruments. Vitruvius for warlike engins is of admirable renoune. And Berosus the Caldean did first devise to measure the tyme by an Hemicycle. Aristarchus of Samos, by a dishe havinge in the center thereof a strawe directed to the zenith, and Augustus the Emperewer in Campo Martio uppon the