at occupies a spot which has long ceased
to yield timber, and yields no stone, so we fall back on earth--burnt
into the form of bricks. Brick was employed in remote antiquity. The
Egyptians, who were great and skillful builders, used it sometimes; and
as we know from the book of Exodus, they employed the forced labor of
the captives or tributaries whom they had in their power in the hard
task of brick making; and some of their brick-built granaries and stores
have been recently discovered near the site of the battle of
Tel-el-Kebir.

The Assyrians and Babylonians made almost exclusive use of brickwork in
erecting the vast piles of buildings the shapeless ruins of which mark
the site of ancient Nineveh and of the cities of the valley of the
Euphrates. Their bricks, it is believed, were entirely sun-dried, not
burnt to fuse or vitrify them as ours are, and they have consequently
crumbled into mere mounds. The Assyrians also used fine clay tablets,
baked in the fire--in fact, a kind of terra cotta--for the purpose of
records, covering these tablets with beautifully executed inscriptions,
made with a pointed instrument while the clay was soft, and rendered
permanent by burning. We don't know much about Greek brickwork; but it
is probable that very little brick, if any, was made or used in any part
of Greece, as stone, marble, and timber abound there; but the Romans
made bricks everywhere, and used them constantly. They were fond of
mixing two or more materials together, as for example building walls in
concrete and inserting brickwork at intervals in horizontal layers to
act as courses of bond. They also erected buildings of which the walls
were wholly of brick. They turned arches of wide span in brickwork; and
they frequently laid in their walls at regular distances apart courses
of brick on edge and courses of sloping bricks, to which antiquaries
have given the name of herring-bone work.

The Roman bricks are interesting as records, for it was customary to
employ the soldiers on brick making, and to stamp the bricks with names
and dates; and thus the Roman bricks found in this country give us some
information as to the military commanders and legions occupying
different parts of England at different periods. Flue bricks, for the
passage of smoke under floors and in other situations, are sometimes
found. The Roman brick was often flat and large--in fact, more like our
common paving tiles, known as foot tiles, only of larg