Chap. 50.] STJLPHUE. 291 



pumice-earth, extremely good for the purpose when it can be 

 made to unite. The Greeks have always preferred walls of 

 brick, except in those cases where they could find silicious 

 stone for the purposes of building : for walls of this nature 

 will last for ever, if they are only built on the perpendicular. 

 Hence it is, that the Greeks have built their public edifices and 

 the palaces of their kings of brick ; the wall at Athens, for 

 example, which faces Mount Hymettus ; the Temples of 

 Jupiter and Hercules at Patrae,^^ although the columns and 

 architraves in the interior are of stone ; the palace of King 

 Attains at Tralles ; the palace of Croesus at Sardes, now con- 

 verted into an asylum''^ foraged persons; and that of King 

 Mausolus at Halicarnassus ; edifices, all of them, still in ex- 

 istence. 



Mursena and Varro, in their sedileship, had a fine fresco paint- 

 ing, on the plaster of a wall at Lacedsemon, cut away from 

 the bricks, and transported in wooden frames to Home, for the 

 purpose of adorning the Comitium. Admirable as the work 

 was of itself, it was still more admired after being thus trans- 

 ferred. In Italy also there are walls of brick, at Arretium 

 and Mevania.^i At Rome, there are no buildings of this de- 

 scription, because a wall only a foot-and-a-half in thickness 

 would not support more than a single story; and by public 

 ordinance it has been enacted that no partition should exceed 

 that thickness ; nor, indeed, does the peculiar construction of 

 our party- walls admit of it. 



CHAP. 50. (15.) SULPHUR, AND THE SEVERAL VARIETIES OF IT : 



FOURTEEN REMEDIES. 



Let thus much be deemed sufficient on the subject of bricks. 

 Among the other kinds of earth, the one of the most singular 

 nature, perhaps, is sulphur, an agent of great power upon other 

 substances. Sulphur is found in the ^olian Islands, between 

 Sicily and Italy, which are volcanic, as already^- stated. But 

 the finest sulphur of all, is that which comes from the Isle of 

 Melos. ^ It is obtained also in Italy, upon the range of hills iu 

 the territories of Neapolis and Campania, known as the Leuco- 

 geei -.^3 -^hen extracted from the mines there, it is purified by 

 the agency of fire. 



^' See B. iv. c. 5, and B. xxxvi. c. 4. 



f '' Gerusia." 9i See B. iii. c. 19. 92 In B. iii. c. 6. 



'^ See B. xviii. c. 29, 



U2 



