On page 183 of his book Cubic Forms, in the bibliographical remarks to the section on the twenty-seven lines, Manin quotes Henderson's historical summary: > Indeed Sylvester once remarked, in his characteristical florid style: > "Surely with as good reason as had Archimedes to have the cylinder, > cone, and sphere engraved on his tombstone might our distinguished > countrymen leave testamentary directions for the cubic eikosiheptagram > to be engraved on theirs." > > If Cayley and Salmon had wished to follow Sylvester's advice and to > insert a clause in their wills, directing that an eikosiheptagram be > engraved upon their monuments, they would have had no certainty of the > correct fulfilment of their directions until the year 1869, when > Christian Wiener made a model of a cubic surface showing twenty-seven > real lines lying upon it. This achievement of Wiener, Sylvester once > remarked, is one of the discoveries "which must for ever make 1869 > stand out in the Annals of Science." > > Klein exhibited a complete set of models of cubic surfaces at the > World's Exposition in Chicago in 1894, including Clebsch's symmetrical > model of the diagonal surface and Klein's model of the cubic surface > having four real conical points. Models of the typical cases of all > the principal forms of cubic surfaces have been constructed by > Rodenberg for Brill's collections; and these plaster models may now be > purchased. Manin concludes: "Henderson's book appeared in 1911. Sylvester's eloquence and the plaster models disappeared together with the Victorian era... "