chance. The first inhabitants of Chaldaea fashioned rude kitchens for the
cooking of their simple food out of moist and plastic clay, the fires of
reed and broken wood lighted on these simple hearths reddened and hardened
the clay till it became like rock. Some bystander more observant than the
rest noted the change and became the father of ceramics. We use the word in
its widest, in its etymological sense. _Ceramics_ is the art of fashioning
clay and burning it in the fire so as to obtain constructive materials,
domestic utensils, or objects of luxury and ornament.[127]

Even before the first brick or pottery kiln was erected it must have been
recognized that in a climate like that of Chaldaea the soil when dried in
the sun was well fitted for certain uses. Among the _debris_ left by the
earliest pioneers of civilization we find the remains of vases which seem
to have been dried only in the sun. But porous and friable pottery like
this could only be used for a few purposes, and it was finally renounced as
soon as the art of firing the earth, first in the hot ashes of the domestic
hearth, and afterwards in the searching flames of the close oven, was
discovered. It was otherwise with brick. The desiccation produced by the
almost vertical sun of Mesopotamia allowed it to be used with safety and
advantage in certain parts of a building. In that condition it is called
crude brick, to distinguish it from the harder material due to the direct
heat of wood fires.

In any case the clay destined for use as a building material was subject to
a first preparation that never varied. It was freed from such foreign
bodies as might have found their way into it, and, as in Egypt, it was
afterwards mixed with chopped or rather pulverized straw, a proceeding
which was thought to give it greater body and resistance. It was then mixed
with water in the proportions that experience dictated, and kneaded by foot
in wide and shallow basins.[128] The brickmakers of Mossoul go through the
same process to this day.

As soon as the clay was sufficiently kneaded, it was shaped in almost
square moulds. In size these moulds surpassed even those of Egypt: their
surfaces were from 15-1/4 to 15-1/2 inches square, and their thickness was
from 2 to 4 inches.[129] It would seem that these artificial blocks were
given this extravagant size to make up for the absence of stone properly
speaking; the only limit of size seems to have been that imposed by
diffi