236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



form of modern houses. The knowledge of the Phoenicians concerning 

 geometry and mechanics, as a matter of course, improved their car- 

 pentry to such a degree as to make their workmen sought after even 

 by the Hebrews. To Hiram, King of Tyre, both David and Solomon 

 applied not only for materials, but for the greatest number of carpen- 

 ters he could spare, when proposing to build the Temple of Jerusalem. 

 If we consider what a large share of work carpentry has in establish- 

 ing a colony and making it prosper, and, again, to what fame the colo- 

 nies founded by the Phoenicians all along the Mediterranean coast 

 arose, their prominence in this art will be still better proved. A car- 

 penter of Samos, by the name of Mandrocles, perhaps the oldest car- 

 penter whose name has found a place in history, built a bridge on the 

 Bosporus, which, in a few days, afforded passage to Darius and his 

 seven hundred thousand men, when on his expedition against the 

 Scythians. 



No documents, to our knowledge, remain that concern the carpen- 

 try of the Egyptians. Perhaps, owing to the peculiar conditions of 

 the land, masonry prevailed in Egypt at a very early stage of their 

 civilization ; the Pyramids and the temples of Memphis prove, how- 

 ever, better than tongue or pen, what was their knowledge of the art 

 under consideration ; those gigantic monuments presuppose the exist- 

 ence of the most powerful machinery. Expressing contempt for any 

 man who by his work contributed, however slightly, to the public wel- 

 fare, was among the Egyptians, as is known, an infraction of the law, 

 and punishable in consequence. In the case of a young carpenter who 

 had made but a few school implements and had been ill-spoken of, his 

 rights to the public respect were thus solemnly acknowledged by the 

 Magus who sat as judge : " The carpenter who makes school imple- 

 ments accomplishes more toward the improvement of his fellow men 

 than many kings have done." 



Vitruvius has speculated at length respecting the form of the early 

 huts in Greece : it appears that they were originally cuneiform ; then 

 rectangular, with flat roofs, the boards being well connected and nailed 

 to the posts ; later on, the roof became angular, and the hut assumed a 

 shape from which the general outlines of the Doric temple were de- 

 rived. So enthusiastically was this peculiarly framed roof in former 

 times admired, that even Cicero was betrayed into the unphilosophical 

 remark that, if a temple were to be erected in heaven, where no rain 

 falls, it would be becoming to crown it with a pediment roof. It is 

 hardly needful to explain how the posts were ultimately deprived of 

 their bark, rounded, smoothed, raised on stones and similarly crowned 

 at the summit end, and, to prevent splitting, bound with ligatures at 

 both extremities. "As large trunks," Eny says, "were sometimes 

 difficult to obtain, we note as one of the consequences the petrified 

 bundle-pillar of reeds or sticks tied together at the top and bottom. 

 These most probably suggested the idea of flutes ; and the superin- 



