In a paper on Ancient Oil Mills and Presses I touched upon Heron's screw-cutter, an instrument for cutting an inside screw thread in wood, described by him in his Mechanics (iii. 21). In relation to the oil-presses, it was a mere side-issue; but since the editor of the text, L. Nix, did not seem to have understood the instrument fully, I gave my own interpretation of the text, and a reconstruction, on paper, of the instrument.

This interpretation, or rather, the reconstruction, has been called in question by Mr. E. J. Andre Kenny, who in Antiquity, 1933, 7. 249, declares, that it is ‘ technically impossible.’ If that is the case, either the text, or my interpretation of it (or both), would seem to be at fault. Quite apart from the general inadvisability of starting an argument against a review it seems clear that such a question could only be satisfactorily answered in one way: by a practical experiment.