Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

20 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. Very few traces of iron have been discovered among their monuments, yet it is difficult to imagine that any other metal The Tools would have served to shape so of the hard a material as granite. Ancients. How did the old Britons cut the tenons and mortises for the great trilithons of Stonehenge ? The Romans had their “ levels,” “ plumb-lines,” and “ measuring - rods ” — Vitruvius tells us that much—and archaeologists have brought to light things which prove the Roman work- shop to have been better provided than many of us might think. The cases of the British Museum contain samples of carpenter’s augers and centrebits of a very modern character ; also metal squares, and, what we should little expect, a very efficient pair of proportional compasses. At Silchester have been exhumed the remains of iron planes very similar to those which now hail from the land of the Stars and Stripes. Such a thing as a metal screw we should hardly look for among a col- lection of Roman curios ; yet we are able to give an illustration of such, a screw, which actually has a point that proves the idea em- bodied in the famous Nettle- fold patent to have been known ^°mfn in these islands fifteen hundred Screw, years ago. So, putting one thing with another, we may conclude that, so far as manual tools, as distinct from machines, are concerned, the ancients were fairly well provided, while of their skill their works are sufficient witness. This chapter may close suitably with some words of Dr. J. Elfrith. Watkins : “ If Conclusion, the demands of what we are pleased to call our higher civilization were to exhaust our mines of coal, our wells of oil and gas, and our beds of ore, so that steam and iron should no longer be the slaves of man, could a modern engineer erect so magnificent an edifice as Karnak, bore so wonderful a tunnel as the Grotto of Posilippo, or con- struct such a satisfactory system of water supply as Rome enjoyed during the Augustan age ? ” A ROMAN GIMLET-POINTED SCREW. Photo, F. White and Co., Heading. Date about 300 a.d. ; found at Silchester. The discovery of this screw proves that the Romans were skilled mechanics.