374 pltny's natueal history. [Book XXXVL 



CHAP 55. — defp:cts in building, plasters for walls. 



The great cause of the fall of so many buildings in our City, is, 

 that through a fraudulent abstraction of the lime, the rough 

 work is laid without anything to hold it together. The 

 older, too, the mortar is, the better it is in quality. In the 

 ancient laws for the regulation of building, no contractor was 

 to use mortar less than three months old ; hence it is, that no 

 cracks have disfigured the plaster coatings of their walls. 

 These stuccos will never present a sufficiently bright surface, 

 unless there have been three layers of sanded mortar, and two 

 of marbled^^ mortar upon that. In damp localities and places 

 subject to exhalations from the sea, it is the best plan to sub« 

 stitute ground earthenware mortar for sanded mortar. In 

 Greece, it is the practice, first to pound the lime and sand used 

 for plastering, with wooden pestles in a large trough. The test 

 by which it is known that marbled mortar has been properly 

 blended, is its not adhering to the trowel ; whereas, if it is 

 only wanted for white-washing, the lime, after being well 

 slaked with water, should stick like glue. For this last 

 purpose, however, the lime should only be slaked in lumps. 



At Elis, there is a Temple of Minerva, which was pargetted, 

 they say, by Panaenus, the brother of Phidias, with a mortar 

 that was blended with milk and saffron :" hence it is, that, 

 even at the present day, when rubbed with spittle on the 

 finger, it yields the smell and flavour of saff'ron. 



CHAP. 56. COLUMNS. THE SEVERAL KINDS OF COLUMNS. 



The more closely columns are placed together, the thicker 

 they appear to be. There are four different kinds of pillars. 

 Those of which the diameter at the foot is one-sixth part 

 of the height, are called Doric. When the diameter is one- 

 ninth, they are Ionic ; and when it is one-seventh, Tuscan. 

 The proportions in the Corinthian are the same as those of 

 the Ionic ; but they difier in the circumstance that the 

 Corinthian capitals are of the same height as the diameter 

 at the foot, a thing that gives them a more slender appear- 

 ance ; whereas, in the Ionic column, the height of the 

 capital is only one-third of the diameter at the foot. In 



^^ Pounded marble mixed with quicklime. 



^- '' Lacte et croco" appears to be a preferable reading to " late e croco," 

 as given by the Bamberg MS. 



