y man then
imagineth with himself he could have found it out well enough, he can
then so plainly make demonstration of the thing he meaneth to show. And
therefore that methinks is likely to be true, which they write of him:
that he was so ravished and drunk with the sweet enticements of this
siren, which as it were lay continually with him, as he forgot his meat
and drink, and was careless otherwise of himself, that oftentimes his
servants got him against his will to the baths to wash and anoint him:
and yet being there, he would ever be drawing out of the geometrical
figures, even in the very imbers of the chimney. And while they were
anointing of him with oils and sweet savours, with his finger he did
draw lines upon his naked body: so far was he taken from himself, and
brought into an ecstasy or trance, with the delight he had in the study
of geometry, and truly ravished with the love of the Muses. But amongst
many notable things he devised, it appeareth, that he most esteemed the
demonstration of the proportion between the cylinder (to wit, the round
column) and the sphere or globe contained in the same: for he prayed his
kinsmen and friends, that after his death they would put a cylinder
upon his tomb, containing a massy sphere, with an inscription of the
proportion, whereof the continent exceedeth the thing contained."(2)

It should be observed that neither Polybius nor Plutarch mentions the
use of burning-glasses in connection with the siege of Syracuse, nor
indeed are these referred to by any other ancient writer of authority.
Nevertheless, a story gained credence down to a late day to the effect
that Archimedes had set fire to the fleet of the enemy with the aid of
concave mirrors. An experiment was made by Sir Isaac Newton to show
the possibility of a phenomenon so well in accord with the genius of
Archimedes, but the silence of all the early authorities makes it more
than doubtful whether any such expedient was really adopted.

It will be observed that the chief principle involved in all these
mechanisms was a capacity to transmit great power through levers and
pulleys, and this brings us to the most important field of the Syracusan
philosopher's activity. It was as a student of the lever and the pulley
that Archimedes was led to some of his greatest mechanical discoveries.
He is even credited with being the discoverer of the compound pulley.
More likely he was its developer only, since the principle of the p