The pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, from the original Greek
A translation of Hero of Alexandria's ancient Greek treatise on pneumatics, edited by Bennet Woodcroft and published in London in 1851 for engineers and students of mechanical science. The pictures are dense line engravings of hollow vessels, siphons, pipes and valves, with lettered reference points tying each diagram to the text. A designer could take from them the clean, technical diagram style of mid-nineteenth-century scientific plates, with fine hatching, lettered callouts and simple ornamental pedestals.
