Pharmacy.

Date:
[1835]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    10/10 page 186
    celebrated light-house built on the island of Pharos seems to have been the first edifice of this description in ancient times. This magnificent tower consisted of several stories and galleries, with a lantern at top, in which a light being continually burning, might be seen 100 miles off. It was accounted one of the seven wonders of the world. It was built by the architect Sostratus, a native of Cnidos, or, according to some, by Deiphanes, the father of Sostratus, and cost Ptolemy Philadelphus 800 talents. The several stories were adorned with columns, balustrades, and galleries of the finest marble and workmanship ; to w'hich some add, that the architect had contrived to fasten some looking glasses so artificially against the highest galleries, that the observer could see in them all the ships that sailed on the sea for a great way. Instead of this noble structure there is now only an irregular castle, without ditches or outworks of any strength, out of which rises a tower, which serves for alight-house, but has nothing of the grandeur or beauty of the old one. The ruins of an ancient pharos still remain on the Castle-hill at Dover. Its form is octagonal without, but square within ; the sides of the internal square, and each side of the external octagon, being about fourteen feet in dimensions : the thickness of the W’all in the lower part is about ten feet. The foun- dations were laid in a bed of clay, notwithstanding it is built on a chalk rock, a circumstance that has also been observed in other Roman buildings. It has an arched doorway, about six feet wide on the east side; on the other three sides of the internal square were Roman arches, and narrow spaces for windows, about thirteen feet and a half high, and near four feet wide: these have been much altered in subsequent ages, to convert them into loop-holes. The old arches at the top ‘of these recesses w^ere turned with Roman tiles, and with pieces of stalac- titical concretion cut wedge-shaped, about four times the thickness of the tiles, and placed alternately with them. The dimensions of the tiles in length are different, but their breadth and thickness are nearly the same : the forms of some of them are very singular, espe- cially in the lower part of the building, and on the eastern front: these are on one side furnished with “ winding grooves, and with four protuberant hemi- spherical knobs, nearly equidistant from each corner; and at one end of each tile, near each corner, is a projecting part, of about an inch and three quarters in length, and an inch and a half wide ; whilst at the opposite end, near each angle, a void space is left of the same dimensions, so that by reversing the tiles when laid in the wall, the projecting parts might drop into the void spaces like a sort of dovetail work, and render it impossible for them to give way, and slip from each other, in consequence of any internal pressure. With alternate courses formed of these and other Roman tiles, and then of small blocks of stalactitical incrustations was this edifice constructed from the bottom to the top ; each course of tiles consisting of two rows, and each course of stalactites of seven rows of blocks, generally about seven inches deep, and about one foot in length. Five of these alternate courses are still discernible, notwithstand- ing an external casing which was spread over the whole about two centuries ago. *‘The component parts of this pharos,” says Mr. King, '' by a strange coincidence of circumstances. plainly show its age ; forh is, like most other Roman buildings, composed of fbng, thin, irregular bricks; but in the intermediate courses, as no quarries of stone were immediately at hand, both the facing and a great part of the interior substance of the wall were filled up, not, as might have been expected, with flints and chalk rubbish from the neighbour- ing country, but with a harder and more lasting substance than chalk, though lighter and fitter lor carriage ; for it is filled up in a most unusual nianner, with masses of hard stalactitical incrustu- tio7is, cut into blocks of various dimensions, that could not well have been met with nearer than the northern coasts on the east side of this island, where they abound in great numbers, and which, there- fore, could not well have been obtained by any Roman commander prior to the time of Agricola, who surrounded the Avhole island by a regular navi- gation for the first time; and who might, therefore, most easily, in his ships, convey from the north to the south, these curious and desirable materials, for the purpose of rearing this structure.” (See Light- House.) Pheons, in heraldry; the barbed heads of darts and arrows, frequently borne in coat armour. Phillipsite, a newly discovered mineral. (See Natural History division.) Philosophy. This word, which is derived from the Greek, literally signifies the love of wisdom ; but in its more extended sense may be defined as that study which investigates the phenomena of nature. These phenomena relate either to the intellectual or material universe, and hence admit of being clas- sified under two distinct departments of 'study, material philosophy taking cognizance of those phe- nomena which are the objects of perception ; mental i philosophy, of those which are the objects of con- sciousness. Thpe two branches of science are known by the | peculiar denominations of phj’sics and metaphysics : physics the study of external nature; metaphysics ! the study which comes after, or goes beyond physics. I These denominations, it may be remarked, arose from the comparative importance of the two branches in the estimation of the ancients. Modern physics, ) or experimental philosophy, cannot be said to'have ] existed amongst the ancients : in so far, however, as j they were guided by demonstration ; that is, in I; geometrical and mechanical science, they made vast ji and rapid progress. But, in the explanation of |; nature’s unceasing and complicated changes, the philosophers of antiquity made little progress. When ll they quitted the strong hold of rigid demonstration, it was not to investigate the operations of nature, it was not to scrutinize her visible phenomena, nor to listen to her voice. Their attention, no doubt, was attracted towards some of her most fantastic appearances, and they were occasionally awakened into hearing by any sudden convulsion of the ele- ments ; but it was with the glazed eye of mental , abstraction that they gazed, and there was more of , wonder than philosophy in their listening. In modern times, on the contrary, experimental philosophy has become an object of ardent and . rational pursuit; and the conseciuencc is, that real scientific investigation constantly adding to the substantial comforts and rational enjoyments of civi- lized life. To enable our readers to judge of the ancient .
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3