manner of his death, but all agree that it was accidental, contrary to the wish of Marcellus, and took place immediately after the capture of the city. Archimedes by his will had desired his relations and friends to put no other epitaph on his tomb, after his death, than a cylinder circumscribed by a sphere; that is to say, a globe, or spherical figure, and to set down at the bottom the proportions which these two solids, the containing and the contained, have to each other. He might have filled up the bases of the columns of his tomb with relievos, whereon the whole history of the siege of Syracuse might have been carved, and himself appeared like another Jupiter, thundering upon the Romans. But he set an infinitely higher value upon the discovery of a geometrical demonstration, than upon all the so much celebrated machines he had invented. Hence he chose rather to do himself honour in the eyes of posterity, by the discovery he had made of the relation of a sphere to a cylinder of the same base and height; which is as two to three. The Syracusans, who had been in former times so fond of the sciences, did not long retain the esteem and gratitude they owed a man who had done so much honour to their city. Less than a hundred and forty years after, Archimedes was so perfectly forgotten by the citizens, notwithstanding the great services he had done them, that they denied his having been buried at Syracuse. It is Cicero who informs us of this circumstance. At the time he was quæstor in Sicily, his curiosity induced him to make a search after the tomb of Archimedes, a curiosity worthy of a man of Cicero’s genius. The Syracusans assured him that his search would be to no purpose, and that there was no such monument amongst them. Cicero pitied their ignorance, which only served to increase his desire of making the discovery. At length, after several fruitless attempts, he perceived, without the gate of the city, facing Agrigentum, amongst a great number of tombs, a pillar, almost entirety concealed by thorns and brambles, through which he could discern the figure of a sphere and a cylinder. Those who have any taste for antiquities may easily imagine the joy of Cicero upon this occasion. Adopting the words of Archimedes, he exclaimed--“I have found what I looked for.” The place was immediately ordered to be cleared, and a passage opened to the column, on which was found the inscription, still legible, though some of the lines were obliterated by time. So that, says Cicero, on finishing this account, the greatest city of Greece, and the most flourishing of old in the study of the sciences, would not have known the treasure it possessed, if a man, born in a country which it considered almost as barbarous, a man of Aspinum, had not discovered for it the tomb of its citizen, so highly distinguished by the force and penetration of his mind. We trust our readers will excuse our having gone into more details in our account of this siege than of most