Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2Jefferson, Thomas
History
Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
steam-engine, which pumps water from a lower into an upper cistern, from
whence two overshot wheels are supplied, each of which turns two pair
of stones. The upper cistern being once filled with water, it passes
through the wheels into the lower one, from whence it is returned to the
upper by the pumps. A stream of water of one quarter or one half inch
diameter, supplies the waste of evaporation, absorption, fee. This is
furnished from a well by a horse. The arches of the Pont-St.-Esprit
are of eighty-eight feet. Wild figs, very flourishing, grow out of the
joints of the Pont-du-Gard. The fountain of Nismes is so deep, that a
stone was thirteen seconds descending from the surface to the bottom.
March 24. From Nismes to Arles. The plains extending from Nismes to the
Rhone, in the direction of Aries, are broken in one place by a skirt
of low hills. They are red and stony at first, but as you approach the
Rhone, they are of a dark gray mould, with a little sand, and very good.
They are in corn and clover, vines, olives, almonds, mulberries, and
willow. There are some sheep, no wood, no enclosures.
The high hills of Languedoc are covered with snow. At an ancient church,
in the suburbs of Aries, are some hundreds of ancient stone coffins,
along the road-side. The ground is thence called _Les Champs Elysees_.
In a vault in a church, are some curiously wrought, and in a back yard
are many ancient statues, inscriptions, &c. Within the town are a part
of two Corinthian columns, and of the pediment with which they were
crowned, very rich, having belonged to the ancient capitol of the place.
But the principal monument here, is an amphitheatre, the external
portico of which is tolerably complete. How many porticoes there were,
cannot be seen; but at one of the principal gates there are still five,
measuring, from out to in, seventy-eight feet, ten inches, the vault
diminishing inwards. There are sixty-four arches, each of which is, from
centre to centre, twenty feet, six inches. Of course, the diameter is of
four hundred and thirty-eight feet; or of four hundred and fifty feet,
if we suppose the four principal arches a little larger than the rest.
The ground floor is supported on innumerable vaults. The first story,
externally, has a tall pedestal, like a pilaster, between every two
arches; the upper story, a column, the base of which would indicate it
Corinthian. Every column is truncated as low as the impost of the arch,
but the arches are all entire. The whole of the upper entablature is
gone, and of the Attic, if there was one. Not a single seat of the
internal is visible. The whole of the inside, and nearly the whole
of the outside, is masked by buildings. It is supposed there are one
thousand inhabitants within the amphitheatre. The walls are more entire
and firm than those of the _ampitheatre_ at Nismes. I suspect its plan and
distribution to have been very different from that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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