Such a story there is of Archimedes in Vitruvius, that having found out the means to know how much gold was mingled with the silver in king Hieron's crown, ran naked forth of the bath and cried [Greek: heuraeka], I have found: "and was commonly so intent to his studies, that he never perceived what was done about him: when the city was taken, and the soldiers now ready to rifle his house, he took no notice of it."

Some maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical application of its wonderful qualities.

The certain truths of geometry burst upon him like a revelation, and after mastering Euclid he turned to Archimedes with equal enthusiasm.

The Death of Archimedes After the painting by E. Vimont.

of France lying directly S. of the preceding; chief rivers the Eure in the N. and the Loir in the S. EUREKA (i. e. I have found it), the exclamation of Archimedes on discovering how to test the purity of the gold in the crown of HIERO (q. v.); he discovered it, tradition says, when taking a bath.

*** Speaking of MEDWIN'S Revised Life of Shelley a critic says, in a contemporary: "He puts the well-known boats of Archimedes into blank verse."

I have ranked Archimedes among the Platonists, because he cultivated the mathematical sciences Platonically, as is evident from the testimony of Plutarch in his Life of Marcellus, p. 307.

[Footnote 223: Sir A. Alison, "History of Europe," xxiii., 55, quotes a paragraph from the Examiner newspaper, which says: "The ground, limited as it is, which it is proposed to clear and open to the popular influence, will suffice as the spot desired by Archimedes for the plant of the power which must ultimately govern the whole system.