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Show A Problem for Modern En el n peril. Have any of our modorn engineers pondered the contemporary descriptions descrip-tions of Alexander's dubnr tent before Babylon? That appears to have had no central support. It was upheld, says Phylarcus, by eight pillars of solid gold. Of the glorious plenishing within we have not to speak, since our theme is mechanics. Around the throne and the great courtiers stood COO Macedonian guards; in a circle beyond theiu 500 Persian guards; beyond these again 1,000 archers. To fix a tent which iield 2,000 soldiers on duty, with anus and accouterments, surrounding in success ive circles the most gorgeous oriental court tliat ever was, with hundreds of satraps, counsellors, generals, eunuchs and slaves, would perplex a mechanician mechan-ician of the Nineteenth century. He will reply that the story is false must be because he cannot match it. Happily Hap-pily the awningof the Colosseum stands beyond dispute, and Alexander's tent is a small matter compared with that. |