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Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), B. (search)
hich could be unfixed at pleasure for the passage of vessels. — Strabo. Cyrus, according to Xenophon, crossed the Meander on a bridge supported by seven boats. Bridges of boats were in general ame of barley wine, having learned the art of making it from the Egyptians. It is mentioned by Xenophon, 401 B. C., According to Tacitus, beer was a common drink among the Germans, and Pliny says tha, like those which crossed the Bosphorus and the Hellespont under the orders of his successors; Xenophon states that the bridge of Cyrus had seven boats. The bridge of Xerxes was 500 paces in lengte horses was armed with prongs (lupatum, wolves' teeth). Homer refers to the bridle and bit. Xenophon speaks of their uses and management. The last-mentioned writer refers also to the double-bridlts are of great antiquity, as is proved by the Egyptian and Assyrian paintings and sculptures. Xenophon (400 B. C.) describes several kinds, smooth, sharp, and toothed. The curb is a modern inventio
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), C. (search)
ts hold for a while yet. The wandering Scythians from time immemorial covered their wagons with felt and with leather. (See cart; wagon.) Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophists, refers to Polemo, in his treatise on the wicker-carriage mentioned by Xenophon. The hamaxa (hama axon, of two axles) was a fourwheeled covered wagon of Persia and Greece, similar to the carpentum of the Romans. The body of Alexander was transported in a hamaxa. The Romans had vehicles with one wheel, adapted to be de also represented in the sculptures of Nimroud. The cymbals were used in religious and patriotic observances by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Jews, Etrurians, Greeks, and Romans; by the Greeks in the worship of Cybele, Bacchus, and Juno; indeed, Xenophon says that the cymbal was invented by Cybele, and used at her feasts, at a period corresponding to our date of 1580 B. C. The origin of the cymbal was evidently heroic; swords and shields being clashed in the warlike dances of the semi-barbaro
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), E. (search)
st it by compressing the reservoir, as in the example. The device shown is also applicable to the eyeball for the purpose of preventing myopia by preserving the convexity of the cornea; the bag c, being partially exhausted, is allowed to expand after the edges of the cups are seated upon the eye-balls. Eye-ex′tir-pator. A surgical instrument for removing the eye. Putting out the eyes has long been a common Oriental punishment. The eyes of Zedekiah were put out by Nebuchadnezzar. Xenophon states that in the time of the younger Cyrus the practice was so common that the blinded men were a common spectacle on the highways. The Kurds and Turkestan hordes yet blind their aged prisoners. Eye-glasses. Eye-glass. 1. (Optics.) The glass nearest to the eye of those forming the combination eye-piece of a telescope or microscope. The other glass, nearer to the object-glass, is called the field-glass. See negative eye-piece. 2. A pair of glasses to aid the sight; usuall
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), F. (search)
s for a door is made. See wagon. Marco Polo (thirteenth century) describes them fully. Klaproth describes them as of goat's hair (see haircloth), and having a shaggy villus on the outside. The Chinese traveler, Chi-fa-hian, who visited India in the fourth century, describes the people of Chen-chen, who lived about the Lake of Lob, as wearing dresses of Chinese cut, but made of felt. Felt covered the funeral pile of Hephaestion, whose obsequies were so splendidly celebrated by Alexander; Xenophon says that felt was used to cover chairs and couches; the Medes also used felt for sacks. The word felt is allied to the Greek pilos and Latin pilus, from a root word which means to compress. The Greek word pilotos — felted — comes strangely near the English pilot-cloth in name and meaning, not but that the latter is woven before being thickened by the act of compression (Latin, cogo, coactus, whence coactilis). Lanae et per se coactae vestem ficiunt. Pliny. The principal use of
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), G. (search)
re made of a variety of colors, are very soft and pliable, and have a very neat finish. Gloves are made with corrugated rubber palms for use in washing. Pliny recommends the use of gloves and boots to those engaged in pulling spartium, — a variety of the broom, and used, when soaked and broken like hemp, to make coarse cordage and the commonest description of garments. He also recommended them to his secretary, that he might not be impeded by chilly fingers in noting down memoranda. Xenophon ridicules the effeminacy of the glovewearing Persians. (Cyrop. VIII. 8, 17.) They do not appear to have been worn by the ancient Egyptians, but were regarded as a part of the indicative dress of Northern barbarians. Some dirty-handed cynics calling themselves philosophers railed at the Roman gentry for wearing gloves. The father of Ulysses wore gloves while working in his garden. So said Homer. The use of gloves in common life is a habit of late introduction. During the Middle
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), H. (search)
s was about 1063 B. C. The magadis of the Thracians was a three-cornered harp, with twenty strings arranged in octaves. It was used among them in the time of Xenophon. A band of 300 harpers was in the great procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus, preceding a column of 2,000 yellow bulls, with gilded horns and frontlets, crowns,Silenus Marsyas, flayed by Apollo, as the Phrygian story goes, was hanging in the market-place of Celaenae in the time of Herodotus. It was still shown there in Xenophon's time. The sides of hides are the flesh side; and the grain or hair side. Depilation is known as unhairing. Piling is unhairing hanging in a damp heat.c plates were nailed to the hoofs. Such boots were shod with metal for the rich. The mules of Nero were shod with silver; those of his wife Poppaea with gold. Xenophon, Arrian, Artemidorus, refer to these boots. For less stately purposes mules were shod with iron. Ferream ut soleam tenaci in vargine mula. Catullus. H
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), M. (search)
etc., are stamped out, the strip of gold being laid upon the lower die and impressed between it and the upper die, which descends in guides when the workman slacks the rope by raising the stirrup. Monkey-press. Mon′key-press. A hammer in which the driver consists of a monkey which is alternately raised and dropped, sliding in guides. One form of power-hammer. Mon′key-pump. The sailor's name for the sucking straw introduced at a gimlet-hole in a wine-cask. This is as old as Xenophon, who describes this mode of pilfering from the wine-jars of Armenia. Mon′key-rail. （Nautical.) A supplementary rail, above and lighter than the quarter-rail. Mon′key-tail. A small iron crow-bar used by naval gunners. Monkey-wrenches. Mon′key-wrench. A spanner with a movable jaw. The cut shows several kinds. a has a spring-dog on the back, catching into a ratchet. b has one jaw for hexagonal and another for square nuts. c shows a strong form with a s
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), P. (search)
Coptic32German26 Greek24Welch4 Latin25Russian35 Sanscrit328 The letter J was introduced into the alphabets by Giles Beye, a printer of Paris, 1660. Short-hand writing was known to the Greeks and Romans. Its invention was ascribed to Xenophon. It was introduced into Rome by Cicero. Pliny employed a short-hand amanuensis. The Chinese dictionary shows 43,496 words: of these 13,000 are irrelevant, and consist of signs which are ill-formed and obsolete. For ordinary use 4,000 signsus. Its length was 500 paces. Ships were used as pontons; suspension-cords of flax and biblos united them; transverse beams were laid on the ropes, planks on the beams, soil on the planks, and the armies crossed thereon. Cyrus, according to Xenophon, threw over the Meander a bridge supported on seven boats. Pompey crossed the Euphrates by a boat-bridge during the Mithridatic war. Portable bridges were designed by the Marquis of Worcester, 1655; Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1520; Bourne, 1578
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), S. (search)
r coverings, in order to show plainly the condition of the animals. Nero added cloths for show, and in the time of Alexander Severus (A. D. 222) they were splendidly accoutered. Pliny states that one Pelethronius first introduced seat-cloths. Xenophon speaks of the gorgeous and excessive coverings of the Persian horses. The Germans despised them after they were fully adopted in the Roman army. What may be termed padsaddles, of leather, are mentioned A. D. 304 The invention of the saddle No traces of the stirrup are found in the old Greek and Latin writings, coins, or statues. The celebrated equestrian statues of Trajan and Antoninus are destitute of stirrups, the legs of the riders hanging down without any support whatever. Xenophon does not mention them in his work on horsemanship and the art of riding. See saddle. Stirrups. Hippocrates and Galen speak of a disease among the Scythians occasioned by long and frequent riding, because the legs hang down without any sup
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), T. (search)
8.) Ehud and Gideon marshaled their men by trumpets. The Hebrews had three kinds of trumpets, keren, shophar, chatzozerah. The first two were more or less curved, and were horns. The last mentioned was a straight trumpet, about two feet in length. It is shown on the Arch of Titus, where a triumphal procession, after the fall of Jerusalem, is depicted. The salpinx of the Greeks; the tuba of the Romans. The keras was the brass curved horn of the Greeks; the cornu. of the Romans. Xenophon mentions, in the Anabasis, the ceremonies at the Thracian banquets: — Egyptian trumpeters (Thebes). And after this came men who played on horns, such as are used for giving orders with, and also on trumpets made of raw bull's-hide, in excellent tune, as if they had been playing on a magadis (a harp with twenty strings, arranged in octaves). The Greeks had six varieties of trumpets in their armies; the Romans but four. The Greeks had lyres, pipes, flutes, and cymbals for martial mu
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