Theatre of Instruments and Machines

have moved the small wheels, by the multiplication of motion, anything can be done. I cannot describe more now, but I will write others God willing.

PROP. LII.

A machine, as not common (as we think), so singular for shooting water against great fires, when with the flame prevailing no approach is open closer to the houses.

Declaration of the 52nd figure.

The instrument rests on two wheels, made like a conoid, the apex of which leans toward the north; near the base, however, is a semicircle by whose work it is raised or depressed. At the northern extremity is a funnel into which waters are poured, and at the base or southern part of the instrument is a certain handle-mover, at the end of which is the inner part of a screw, by which the inner wood in which there is tow is led and retracted, as in apothecaries' syringes. The rest is obvious.

PROP. LIII.

An artifice not to be despised, by which a boat with merchandise depressed in a port can be extracted, not only the merchandise but the ship itself, either whole or disassembled, and the port cleared of that impediment.

Declaration of the 53rd figure.

There is nothing new in this machine, although it does not lack subtlety, which is in the mode and manner in which the inner part of the screw is moved. A hub appears to the north, from which radii emerge by which the hub is moved, and that being moved, the inner screw is moved, since the hub itself is external. There are also two timbers, namely lower and upper, whose holes are fashioned in the manner of an external screw so that the inner screw can be turned in them. At the southern end of this inner screw are hands for pulling weights upward. All things are easy.

PROP. LIIII.

A machine of a kind not unlike that which Archimedes once exhibited at Syracuse with the work of a trispast, and with a single hand drew a ship of huge size from land into the sea, with King Hiero watching, along with an infinite multitude of people who, joined with all their strength, could not effect the same.

Declaration of the 54th figure.

How great the excellence of this machine is, no one can say in words, since by the triplication of certain instruments, their force is increased almost to the infinite. Here is one configuration of three trispasts, that is, of endless screws, which is fixed in a ship with anchors that leans toward the south. In its upper wooden framework, five beams appear from south to north, in the first of which is a certain circumvolving handle by which all the pulleys of the trispasts are moved, so disposed that the one which is in the third beam is moved and moves this one which is in the second, which finally moves that one which is in the fifth beam, around whose axis is wrapped the rope tied to the ship to be drawn. Which are obvious from the lines of the figure.

PROP. LV.

An artifice hitherto unknown by which, with the help of a trispast, ships not entirely vast are drawn onto the shore with little labor of workers and are repaired.

Declaration of the 55th figure.

The fulcrum of the machine rests on a hinge like frequent mills, so that the lifted loads can be freely moved, by that beam which leans toward the south parallel to the western line, and 1 p. 11 p. distant from it, which two men push: the rest pertains to the stability of the machine and to the motion of lifting. In that part which is distant 1 p. 6 p. from the western line and 1 p. 17 p. from the meridian line is a trispast, from whose windlass a rope is led to the end of the machine's rostrum, from which, by ropes, hangs a polypast of architects, in which, as was said before, there is the greatest power of pulling. It remains that we warn the reader that the rope depicted, other than that which we mentioned, is empty. In the rest, however, the picture is to be imitated.