Clarke, Edward Daniel: Testimonies of different authors, respecting the colossal statue of Ceres: placed in the vestibule of the Public Library at Cambridge, July the 1st, 1803 ; with a short account of its removal from Eleusis, November 22, 1801 (Cambridge, 1803)

22

a foreigner, without any mechanical aid, expect
to raise a mass of that magnitude, and convey it
over rocks and ruins from its station at Eleusis
to the sea ?

Athens afforded a rope of twisted herbs, and
a few large nails. A small saw about six inches
in length, an axe, and some long poles, were
found at Eleusis. The stoutest of these poles
were cut, and pieces nailed in a triangular form,
having transverse beams at the vertex and base.*
Weak as this machine was, it acquired consider-
able strength by the weight of the Statue when
placed on the transverse beams. With the re-
mainder of the poles were made rol/ers, over
which the machine might move.^ The rope
was then made fast to each extremity of the
transverse beams at the vertex.-j- Simple as
this contrivance was, it succeeded, when perhaps
more complicate machinery might have failed;
and a mass of marble, weighing near two tons,
was moved over the brow of the hill, or Acro-
polis of Eleusis, and from thence to the sea in
about nine hours.

An hundred peasants were collected from
the village and neighbourhood of Eleusis, and
near fifty boys. The peasants were ranged forty

* See fig. 8. of the Plate. § Fig. 10. ibid. -f Fig. 9. ibid.