actured to the present day in Persia, see TEXIER,
_L'Armenie et la Perse_, vol. ii. p. 64.

[145] As to the employment in Assyria of cedar from the Lebanon, see
FRANCOIS LENORMANT, _Histoire Ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 191, and an
inscription of Sennacherib, translated by OPPERT, _Les Sargonides_, pp. 52,
53. Its use in Babylon is proved by several passages of the great text
known as the _Inscription of London_, in which Nebuchadnezzar recounts the
great works he had caused to be carried out in his capital (LENORMANT,
_Histoire_, vol. ii. pp. 228 and 233). We find this phrase among others, "I
used in the chamber of oracles the largest of the trees transported from
the summits of Lebanon." LAYARD (_Discoveries_, pp. 356-7) tells us that
one evening during the Nimroud excavations, his labourers lighted a fire to
dry themselves after a storm, which they fed with timbers taken from the
ruins. The smell of burning cedar, a perfume which so many Greek and Latin
poets have praised (_urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum_, VIRGIL,
_AEneid_, vii. 13), apprised him of what was going on. In the British Museum
(Nimroud Gallery, Case A), fragments of recovered joists may be seen. They
are in such good preservation that they might be shaped and polished anew,
so as to again bring out the markings and the fine dark-yellow tone which
contributed not a little to make the wood so precious. It was sought both
for its agreeable appearance and its known solidity; and experience has
proved that the popular opinion which declared it incorruptible had some
foundation.

[146] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 223, and vol. ii. pp. 415-418.

Sec. 2.--_The General Principles of Form._

If in our fancy we strip the buildings of Chaldaea and Assyria of all their
accessories, if we take from them their surface ornament and the salience
of their roofs, the bare edifice that remains is what geometricians call a
_rectangular parallelopiped_.

Of all the types created by this architecture, the only one of which we
still possess a few fairly well preserved examples is that of the palace.
It is therefore the best known of them all, and the first to excite
attention and study. Now, upon the artificial mound, the wide terrace, over
which its imposing mass is spread, the palace may be likened to a huge box
whose faces are all either horizontal or vertical (Plate V.). Even in the
many-storied temples, whose general aspect is modified of course to a great
exten