BOOK. IX. 
C HAPTER III. 
How the Portion of Silver mixed with Gold in any Work may be 
discovered and ascertained. 
ALTHOUGH the many inventions of Archimedes were wonderful and various, yet this 
which Ishall relate, seems above all others to indicate his exceeding ingenuity. Hiero being 
raised to the regal power in Syracuse, resolved, for the success of his actions, to dedicate a 
votive crown of gold, in some temple of the immortal gods. He determined to have it made 
of great value, and ordered the quantity of gold to be weighed to the workmen; who at the 
time appointed presented the work to the king, curiously wrought; and the weight of the 
crown was found to be equal to that of the gold he received. Some time after, however, 
signs appeared, that part of the gold had been embezzled, and that so much silver had been 
mixed with the crown in its stead. Hiero, offended at this imposition, and not knowing by 
what means to detect the fraud, desired Archimedes to take the matter into consideration. 
While he was revolving this in his mind, it happened that he went to the baths, where, when 
he descended into the solium, he observed, that as much of his body as entered therein, 
caused so much of the water to flow out of the solium. Struck with this method of solving 
the difficulty, he stayed no longer, but, transported with joy, leaped out of the solium, and 
running home naked, cryed with a loud voice, he had found what he sought: for as he ran, 
he frequently exclaimed in Greek, EURECA, EURECA. Upon this principle, it is said, he made 
two masses, each equal to the weight of the crown, one of gold, and the other of silver; this 
done, he filled a large vase with water to the brim, in which he put the mass of silver, whose 
bulk, when sunk in the vase, caused a portion of the water to overflow. Then taking out 
the mass, he poured in again the quantity, measured with a sextarius, that was requisite to 
fill it to the brim, as before; thus he found what quantity of water corresponded to a certain 
weight of silver: this being known, he likewise put the mass of gold into the vase thus filled, 
and taking it out, in the same manner measured the quantity added, and found that the 
the pavement of the room; but this bason, that is here 
(1*) At chapter 10. book 5. Vitruvius calls the bason 
called solium, is probably of the smaller, kind, that 
that contains the water, labrum, where I have observed, 
stood upon the pavement. 
also, that it must be of those kinds which are sunk below