Thomas de Quincey - "The Caesars"

Frederick W. Hamilton - "Punctuation"

Ralph Bonehill - "The Boy Land Boomer"

L. Zamenhof - "Fundamenta Krestomatio"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Ten Books on Architecture

V >> Vitruvius >> Ten Books on Architecture




I have now sufficiently explained all that I could suggest for the
avoidance of mistakes in stucco work. Next, I shall speak of the
components as they occur to me, and first I shall treat of marble, since
I spoke of lime at the beginning.




CHAPTER VI

MARBLE FOR USE IN STUCCO


Marble is not produced everywhere of the same kind. In some places the
lumps are found to contain transparent grains like salt, and this kind
when crushed and ground is extremely serviceable in stucco work. In
places where this is not found, the broken bits of marble or "chips," as
they are called, which marble-workers throw down as they work, may be
crushed and ground and used in stucco after being sifted. In still other
places--for example, on the borderland of Magnesia and Ephesus--there
are places where it can be dug out all ready to use, without the need of
grinding or sifting, but as fine as any that is crushed and sifted by
hand.




CHAPTER VII

NATURAL COLOURS


As for colours, some are natural products found in fixed places, and dug
up there, while others are artificial compounds of different substances
treated and mixed in proper proportions so as to be equally serviceable.

1. We shall first set forth the natural colours that are dug up as such,
like yellow ochre, which is termed [Greek: ochra] in Greek. This is
found in many places, including Italy, but Attic, which was the best, is
not now to be had because in the times when there were slaves in the
Athenian silver mines, they would dig galleries underground in order to
find the silver. Whenever a vein of ochre was found there, they would
follow it up like silver, and so the ancients had a fine supply of it to
use in the polished finishings of their stucco work.

2. Red earths are found in abundance in many places, but the best in
only a few, for instance at Sinope in Pontus, in Egypt, in the Balearic
islands of Spain, as well as in Lemnos, an island the enjoyment of whose
revenues the Senate and Roman people granted to the Athenians.

3. Paraetonium white gets its name from the place where it is dug up.
The same is the case with Melian white, because there is said to be a
mine of it in Melos, one of the islands of the Cyclades.

4. Green chalk is found in numerous places, but the best at Smyrna. The
Greeks call it [Greek: theodoteion], because this kind of chalk was
first found on the estate of a person named Theodotus.

5. Orpiment, which is termed [Greek: arsenikon] in Greek, is dug up in
Pontus. Sandarach, in many places, but the best is mined in Pontus close
by the river Hypanis.




CHAPTER VIII

CINNABAR AND QUICKSILVER


1. I shall now proceed to explain the nature of cinnabar. It is said
that it was first found in the Cilbian country belonging to Ephesus, and
both it and its properties are certainly very strange. First, before
getting to the vermilion itself by methods of treatment, they dig out
what is called the clod, an ore like iron, but rather of a reddish
colour and covered with a red dust. During the digging it sheds, under
the blows of the tools, tear after tear of quicksilver, which is at once
gathered up by the diggers.

2. When these clods have been collected, they are so full of moisture
that they are thrown into an oven in the laboratory to dry, and the
fumes that are sent up from them by the heat of the fire settle down on
the floor of the oven, and are found to be quicksilver. When the clods
are taken out, the drops which remain are so small that they cannot be
gathered up, but they are swept into a vessel of water, and there they
run together and combine into one. Four pints of it, when measured and
weighed, will be found to be one hundred pounds.

3. If the quicksilver is poured into a vessel, and a stone weighing one
hundred pounds is laid upon it, the stone swims on the surface, and
cannot depress the liquid, nor break through, nor separate it. If we
remove the hundred pound weight, and put on a scruple of gold, it will
not swim, but will sink to the bottom of its own accord. Hence, it is
undeniable that the gravity of a substance depends not on the amount of
its weight, but on its nature.

4. Quicksilver is a useful thing for many purposes. For instance,
neither silver nor copper can be gilded properly without it. And when
gold has been woven into a garment, and the garment becomes worn out
with age so that it is no longer respectable to use, the pieces of cloth
are put into earthen pots, and burned up over a fire. The ashes are then
thrown into water and quicksilver added thereto. This attracts all the
bits of gold, and makes them combine with itself. The water is then
poured off, and the rest emptied into a cloth and squeezed in the hands,
whereupon the quicksilver, being a liquid, escapes through the loose
texture of the cloth, but the gold, which has been brought together by
the squeezing, is found inside in a pure state.




CHAPTER IX

CINNABAR (_continued_)


1. I will now return to the preparation of vermilion. When the lumps of
ore are dry, they are crushed in iron mortars, and repeatedly washed and
heated until the impurities are gone, and the colours come. When the
cinnabar has given up its quicksilver, and thus lost the natural virtues
that it previously had, it becomes soft in quality and its powers are
feeble.

2. Hence, though it keeps its colour perfectly when applied in the
polished stucco finish of closed apartments, yet in open apartments,
such as peristyles or exedrae or other places of the sort, where the
bright rays of the sun and moon can penetrate, it is spoiled by contact
with them, loses the strength of its colour, and turns black. Among many
others, the secretary Faberius, who wished to have his house on the
Aventine finished in elegant style, applied vermilion to all the walls
of the peristyle; but after thirty days they turned to an ugly and
mottled colour. He therefore made a contract to have other colours
applied instead of vermilion.

3. But anybody who is more particular, and who wants a polished finish
of vermilion that will keep its proper colour, should, after the wall
has been polished and is dry, apply with a brush Pontic wax melted over
a fire and mixed with a little oil; then after this he should bring the
wax to a sweat by warming it and the wall at close quarters with
charcoal enclosed in an iron vessel; and finally he should smooth it all
off by rubbing it down with a wax candle and clean linen cloths, just
as naked marble statues are treated.

4. This process is termed [Greek: ganosis] in Greek. The protecting coat
of Pontic wax prevents the light of the moon and the rays of the sun
from licking up and drawing the colour out of such polished finishing.

The manufactories which were once at the mines of the Ephesians have now
been transferred to Rome, because this kind of ore was later discovered
in Spain. The clods are brought from the mines there, and treated in
Rome by public contractors. These manufactories are between the temples
of Flora and Quirinus.

5. Cinnabar is adulterated by mixing lime with it. Hence, one will have
to proceed as follows, if one wishes to prove that it is unadulterated.
Take an iron plate, put the cinnabar upon it, and lay it on the fire
until the plate gets red hot. When the glowing heat makes the colour
change and turn black, remove the plate from the fire, and if the
cinnabar when cooled returns to its former colour, it will be proved to
be unadulterated; but if it keeps the black colour, it will show that it
has been adulterated.

6. I have now said all that I could think of about cinnabar. Malachite
green is brought from Macedonia, and is dug up in the neighbourhood of
copper mines. The names Armenian blue and India ink show in what places
these substances are found.




CHAPTER X

ARTIFICIAL COLOURS. BLACK


1. I shall now pass to those substances which by artificial treatment
are made to change their composition, and to take on the properties of
colours; and first I shall treat of black, the use of which is
indispensable in many works, in order that the fixed technical methods
for the preparation of that compound may be known.

2. A place is built like a Laconicum, and nicely finished in marble,
smoothly polished. In front of it, a small furnace is constructed with
vents into the Laconicum, and with a stokehole that can be very
carefully closed to prevent the flames from escaping and being wasted.
Resin is placed in the furnace. The force of the fire in burning it
compels it to give out soot into the Laconicum through the vents, and
the soot sticks to the walls and the curved vaulting. It is gathered
from them, and some of it is mixed and worked with gum for use as
writing ink, while the rest is mixed with size, and used on walls by
fresco painters.

3. But if these facilities are not at hand, we must meet the exigency as
follows, so that the work may not be hindered by tedious delay. Burn
shavings and splinters of pitch pine, and when they turn to charcoal,
put them out, and pound them in a mortar with size. This will make a
pretty black for fresco painting.

4. Again, if the lees of wine are dried and roasted in an oven, and then
ground up with size and applied to a wall, the result will be a colour
even more delightful than ordinary black; and the better the wine of
which it is made, the better imitation it will give, not only of the
colour of ordinary black, but even of that of India ink.




CHAPTER XI

BLUE. BURNT OCHRE


1. Methods of making blue were first discovered in Alexandria, and
afterwards Vestorius set up the making of it at Puzzuoli. The method of
obtaining it from the substances of which it has been found to consist,
is strange enough. Sand and the flowers of natron are brayed together so
finely that the product is like meal, and copper is grated by means of
coarse files over the mixture, like sawdust, to form a conglomerate.
Then it is made into balls by rolling it in the hands and thus bound
together for drying. The dry balls are put in an earthern jar, and the
jars in an oven. As soon as the copper and the sand grow hot and unite
under the intensity of the fire, they mutually receive each other's
sweat, relinquishing their peculiar qualities, and having lost their
properties through the intensity of the fire, they are reduced to a blue
colour.

2. Burnt ochre, which is very serviceable in stucco work, is made as
follows. A clod of good yellow ochre is heated to a glow on a fire. It
is then quenched in vinegar, and the result is a purple colour.




CHAPTER XII

WHITE LEAD, VERDIGRIS, AND ARTIFICIAL SANDARACH


1. It is now in place to describe the preparation of white lead and of
verdigris, which with us is called "aeruca." In Rhodes they put shavings
in jars, pour vinegar over them, and lay pieces of lead on the shavings;
then they cover the jars with lids to prevent evaporation. After a
definite time they open them, and find that the pieces of lead have
become white lead. In the same way they put in plates of copper and make
verdigris, which is called "aeruca."

2. White lead on being heated in an oven changes its colour on the fire,
and becomes sandarach. This was discovered as the result of an
accidental fire. It is much more serviceable than the natural sandarach
dug up in mines.




CHAPTER XIII

PURPLE


1. I shall now begin to speak of purple, which exceeds all the colours
that have so far been mentioned both in costliness and in the
superiority of its delightful effect. It is obtained from a marine
shellfish, from which is made the purple dye, which is as wonderful to
the careful observer as anything else in nature; for it has not the
same shade in all the places where it is found, but is naturally
qualified by the course of the sun.

2. That which is found in Pontus and Gaul is black, because those
countries are nearest to the north. As one passes on from north to west,
it is found of a bluish shade. Due east and west, what is found is of a
violet shade. That which is obtained in southern countries is naturally
red in quality, and therefore this is found in the island of Rhodes and
in other such countries that are nearest to the course of the sun.

3. After the shellfish have been gathered, they are broken up with iron
tools, the blows of which drive out the purple fluid like a flood of
tears, and then it is prepared by braying it in mortars. It is called
"ostrum" because it is taken from the shells of marine shellfish. On
account of its saltness, it soon dries up unless it has honey poured
over it.




CHAPTER XIV

SUBSTITUTES FOR PURPLE, YELLOW OCHRE, MALACHITE GREEN, AND INDIGO


1. Purple colours are also manufactured by dyeing chalk with madder root
and with hysginum. Other colours are made from flowers. Thus, when
fresco painters wish to imitate Attic yellow ochre, they put dried
violets into a vessel of water, and heat them over a fire; then, when
the mixture is ready, they pour it onto a linen cloth, and squeeze it
out with the hands, catching the water which is now coloured by the
violets, in a mortar. Into this they pour chalk and bray it, obtaining
the colour of Attic yellow ochre.

2. They make a fine purple colour by treating bilberry in the same way
and mixing it with milk. Those who cannot use malachite green on account
of its dearness, dye blue with the plant called dyer's weed, and thus
obtain a most vivid green. This is called dyer's malachite green. Again,
for want of indigo, they dye Selinusian or anularian chalk with woad,
which the Greeks call [Greek: isatis], and make an imitation of indigo.

3. In this book I have written down, so far as I could recall them, the
methods and means of attaining durability in polished finishings, how
pictures that are appropriate should be made, and also the natural
qualities of all the colours. And so, having prescribed in seven books
the suitable principles which should govern the construction of all
kinds of buildings, I shall treat in the next of water, showing how it
may be found in places where it is wanting, by what method it may be
conducted, and by what means its wholesomeness and fitness may be
tested.




BOOK VIII




INTRODUCTION


1. Among the Seven Sages, Thales of Miletus pronounced for water as the
primordial element in all things; Heraclitus, for fire; the priests of
the Magi, for water and fire; Euripides, a pupil of Anaxagoras, and
called by the Athenians "the philosopher of the stage," for air and
earth. Earth, he held, was impregnated by the rains of heaven and, thus
conceiving, brought forth the young of mankind and of all the living
creatures in the world; whatever is sprung from her goes back to her
again when the compelling force of time brings about a dissolution; and
whatever is born of the air returns in the same way to the regions of
the sky; nothing suffers annihilation, but at dissolution there is a
change, and things fall back to the essential element in which they were
before. But Pythagoras, Empedocles, Epicharmus, and other physicists and
philosophers have set forth that the primordial elements are four in
number: air, fire, earth, and water; and that it is from their coherence
to one another under the moulding power of nature that the qualities of
things are produced according to different classes.

2. And, in fact, we see not only that all which comes to birth is
produced by them, but also that nothing can be nourished without their
influence, nor grow, nor be preserved. The body, for example, can have
no life without the flow of the breath to and fro, that is, unless an
abundance of air flows in, causing dilations and contractions in regular
succession. Without the right proportion of heat, the body will lack
vitality, will not be well set up, and will not properly digest strong
food. Again, without the fruits of the earth to nourish the bodily
frame, it will be enfeebled, and so lose its admixture of the earthy
element.

3. Finally, without the influence of moisture, living creatures will be
bloodless and, having the liquid element sucked out of them, will
wither away. Accordingly the divine intelligence has not made what is
really indispensable for man either hard to get or costly, like pearls,
gold, silver, and so forth, the lack of which neither our body nor our
nature feels, but has spread abroad, ready to hand through all the
world, the things without which the life of mortals cannot be
maintained. Thus, to take examples, suppose there is a deficiency of
breath in the body, the air, to which is assigned the function of making
up the deficiency, performs that service. To supply heat, the mighty sun
is ready, and the invention of fire makes life more secure. Then again,
the fruits of the earth, satisfying our desires with a more than
sufficient store of food stuffs, support and maintain living beings with
regular nourishment. Finally, water, not merely supplying drink but
filling an infinite number of practical needs, does us services which
make us grateful because it is gratis.

4. Hence, too, those who are clothed in priesthoods of the Egyptian
orders declare that all things depend upon the power of the liquid
element. So, when the waterpot is brought back to precinct and temple
with water, in accordance with the holy rite, they throw themselves upon
the ground and, raising their hands to heaven, thank the divine
benevolence for its invention.

Therefore, since it is held by physicists and philosophers and priests
that all things depend upon the power of water, I have thought that, as
in the former seven books the rules for buildings have been set forth,
in this I ought to write on the methods of finding water, on those
special merits which are due to the qualities of localities, on the ways
of conducting it, and how it may be tested in advance. For it is the
chief requisite for life, for happiness, and for everyday use.




CHAPTER I

HOW TO FIND WATER


1. This will be easier if there are open springs of running water. But
if there are no springs which gush forth, we must search for them
underground, and conduct them together. The following test should be
applied. Before sunrise, lie down flat in the place where the search is
to be made, and placing the chin on the earth and supporting it there,
take a look out over the country. In this way the sight will not range
higher than it ought, the chin being immovable, but will range over a
definitely limited height on the same level through the country. Then,
dig in places where vapours are seen curling and rising up into the air.
This sign cannot show itself in a dry spot.

2. Searchers for water must also study the nature of different
localities; for those in which it is found are well defined. In clay the
supply is poor, meagre, and at no great depth. It will not have the best
taste. In fine gravel the supply is also poor, but it will be found at a
greater depth. It will be muddy and not sweet. In black earth some
slight drippings and drops are found that gather from the storms of
winter and settle down in compact, hard places. They have the best
taste. Among pebbles the veins found are moderate, and not to be
depended upon. These, too, are extremely sweet. In coarse grained gravel
and carbuncular sand the supply is surer and more lasting, and it has a
good taste. In red tufa it is copious and good, if it does not run down
through the fissures and escape. At the foot of mountains and in lava it
is more plentiful and abundant, and here it is also colder and more
wholesome. In flat countries the springs are salt, heavy-bodied, tepid,
and ill-flavoured, excepting those which run underground from mountains,
and burst forth in the middle of a plain, where, if protected by the
shade of trees, their taste is equal to that of mountain springs.

3. In the kinds of soil described above, signs will be found growing,
such as slender rushes, wild willows, alders, agnus castus trees, reeds,
ivy, and other plants of the same sort that cannot spring up of
themselves without moisture. But they are also accustomed to grow in
depressions which, being lower than the rest of the country, receive
water from the rains and the surrounding fields during the winter, and
keep it for a comparatively long time on account of their holding power.
These must not be trusted, but the search must be made in districts and
soils, yet not in depressions, where those signs are found growing not
from seed, but springing up naturally of themselves.

4. If the indications mentioned appear in such places, the following
test should be applied. Dig out a place not less than three feet square
and five feet deep, and put into it about sunset a bronze or leaden bowl
or basin, whichever is at hand. Smear the inside with oil, lay it upside
down, and cover the top of the excavation with reeds or green boughs,
throwing earth upon them. Next day uncover it, and if there are drops
and drippings in the vessel, the place will contain water.

5. Again, if a vessel made of unbaked clay be put in the hole, and
covered in the same way, it will be wet when uncovered, and already
beginning to go to pieces from dampness, if the place contains water. If
a fleece of wool is placed in the excavation, and water can be wrung out
of it on the following day, it will show that the place has a supply.
Further, if a lamp be trimmed, filled with oil, lighted, and put in that
place and covered up, and if on the next day it is not burnt out, but
still contains some remains of oil and wick, and is itself found to be
damp, it will indicate that the place contains water; for all heat
attracts moisture. Again, if a fire is made in that place, and if the
ground, when thoroughly warmed and burned, sends up a misty vapour from
its surface, the place will contain water.

6. After applying these tests and finding the signs described above, a
well must next be sunk in the place, and if a spring of water is found,
more wells must be dug thereabouts, and all conducted by means of
subterranean channels into one place.

The mountains and districts with a northern exposure are the best spots
in which to search, for the reason that springs are sweeter, more
wholesome, and more abundant when found there. Such places face away
from the sun's course, and the trees are thick in them, and the
mountains, being themselves full of woods, cast shadows of their own,
preventing the rays of the sun from striking uninterruptedly upon the
ground and drying up the moisture.

7. The valleys among the mountains receive the rains most abundantly,
and on account of the thick woods the snow is kept in them longer by the
shade of the trees and mountains. Afterwards, on melting, it filters
through the fissures in the ground, and thus reaches the very foot of
the mountains, from which gushing springs come belching out.

But in flat countries, on the contrary, a good supply cannot be had. For
however great it is, it cannot be wholesome, because, as there is no
shade in the way, the intense force of the sun draws up and carries off
the moisture from the flat plains with its heat, and if any water shows
itself there, the lightest and purest and the delicately wholesome part
of it is summoned away by the air, and dispersed to the skies, while the
heaviest and the hard and unpleasant parts are left in springs that are
in flat places.




CHAPTER II

RAINWATER


1. Rainwater has, therefore, more wholesome qualities, because it is
drawn from the lightest and most delicately pure parts of all the
springs, and then, after being filtered through the agitated air, it is
liquefied by storms and so returns to the earth. And rainfall is not
abundant in the plains, but rather on the mountains or close to
mountains, for the reason that the vapour which is set in motion at
sunrise in the morning, leaves the earth, and drives the air before it
through the heaven in whatever direction it inclines; then, when once in
motion, it has currents of air rushing after it, on account of the void
which it leaves behind.

2. This air, driving the vapour everywhere as it rushes along, produces
gales and constantly increasing currents by its mighty blasts. Wherever
the winds carry the vapour which rolls in masses from springs, rivers,
marshes, and the sea, it is brought together by the heat of the sun,
drawn off, and carried upward in the form of clouds; then these clouds
are supported by the current of air until they come to mountains, where
they are broken up from the shock of the collision and the gales, turn
into water on account of their own fulness and weight, and in that form
are dispersed upon the earth.

3. That vapour, mists, and humidity come forth from the earth, seems due
to the reason that it contains burning heat, mighty currents of air,
intense cold, and a great quantity of water. So, as soon as the earth,
which has cooled off during the night, is struck by the rays of the
rising sun, and the winds begin to blow while it is yet dark, mists
begin to rise upward from damp places. That the air when thoroughly
heated by the sun can make vapours rise rolling up from the earth, may
be seen by means of an example drawn from baths.

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