D’Orville’s opinion it is improbable, that this grotto was the work of that tyrant, who, as Plutarch tells us in his Life of Dion, employed very different means to learn the intention of dangerous persons. “The common people attacked the tyrant’s friends, and seized those whom they called his emissaries (προσαγώγιδας), worthless men, detested by the gods. These went about the city, mixed with the citizens, and, prying into everything, gave an account to the tyrant of what they thought and what expressions they made use of.” It was merely for its strength, and the labour employed in building it, and not on account of its ingenious construction, that the ancients admired the prison of the tyrant. At present the upper end of the winding passage is closed up; and it is so narrow, that some years ago the captain of an English vessel found great difficulty to clamber up it. It cannot, however, be denied that this grotto may have been used for the service ascribed to it; and I can readily believe that it may have led Kircher to the invention of the ear-trumpet. See the Travels of P. de la Valle, Ray, and Brydone; Delle antiche Siracuse, da G. Bonanni, &c., 2 vols. fol. Palermo 1717. Dan. Bartolo del suono e de’ tremori harmonici, Bonon. 1680, who examined this grotto as a naturalist. D’Orville, Sicula. Amst. 1764, pp. 182, 194. [238] This machine was invented by Kircher, in imitation of the ear of Dionysius; nor is it a vain and empty speculation, for the machine produces an infallible effect. Kircher caused to be made at Rome, of tin plate, a very large and straight tube, like a funnel, and placed it in an apartment next to his chamber, in such a manner that the large end projected into the garden of the college, and the less entered his chamber. When the porter of the college had occasion to call him to the gate, that he might not be obliged always to go up stairs, or to bawl out, he went to the broad end of the funnel, and communicated what he wished to Kircher.--Schotti Magia Universalis, ii. p. 156. [239] Eschinardi Discursus de Sono Pneumatico, p. 10. [240] Physico-theology. [241] Our Kircher, in his Phonurgia, justly claims that invention, as it was several years ago exhibited by him in the Jesuits’ college at Rome, and an account of it printed. That this is true I myself was an eye-witness; though I must acknowledge that no one before the above-mentioned Englishman ever applied this speaking instrument, at least in so perfect a manner, to that use for which it was afterwards employed.--Magisterium Naturæ et Artis. Brixiæ, 1684-92, fol. ii. p. 436. [242] Journal des Sçavans, tome iii. [243] Ibid. p. 131. [244] J. A. Sturm, Collegium Experimentale, ii. p. 146. [245] Philosophical Transactions. [246] Mémoires de l’Acad. des Sciences à Berlin, 1763, p. 97. [247] Experimental Inquiry into the Nature, &c. of Heat, p. 225. ANANAS.--PINE-APPLE.