ces, and yet it is unlikely that in the beginning the
Assyrian palaces had these carved walls. The casing of stone and alabaster
must have been originally employed for more utilitarian purposes--to hide
the grey and friable material within, to protect it from damage, and to
offer a surface to the eye which should at least be inoffensive. The upper
parts of the walls would be covered with a coat of stucco, which could be
renewed whenever necessary, but for the lower part, for all that was within
reach of the crowds that frequented the public halls of the seraglio, who
passed through its gates or those of the city itself, some more efficient
protection would be required. The constructor was thus led to encase the
lower parts of his walls in a cuirass of stone imposed upon their brick
cores. The slabs of which he made use for this purpose varied between three
and ten feet in height, and between six and fifteen in width. Their average
thickness was about eight inches.

The way in which these slabs were fixed is hardly worthy of such clever
builders, and, in fact, the Assyrians seem to have never succeeded in
mastering the difficulties inherent in the association of two heterogeneous
materials. The slabs were of gypsum or limestone, the wall of pise,
materials which are not to be easily combined. The Assyrians contented
themselves with simply placing the one against the other. No trace of any
tie is to be found. A "tooth" has been given to the inner faces of the
slabs by seaming them in every direction with the chisel, and, perhaps,
some plastic substance may at the last moment have been introduced between
them and the soft clay, but no trace of any other contrivance for keeping
the two materials together has been found. After the general mass of the
building--its clay walls and vaults--were complete, a different class of
workmen was brought in to line its chambers and complete their decoration.
The crude brick would by that time have become dry, and no longer in a
condition to adapt itself to the roughnesses of the alabaster slabs. The
liquid clay, like that of an earthenware "body," wets and softens the
surface of the brick while it enters into every hollow of the stone and so
allies the one with the other. We recommend this conjecture to those who
may undertake any future excavation in Assyria. It lies with them to
confirm or refute it.

However this may have been, the constructor made use of more than one
method of givin