a Public Road under the Thames. 65 
whereof were lined with bricks well cemented with bitumen *, she 
then turned into it the water of the Euphrates t. Across the chan- 
nel of the river, thus made dry, she then made a passage in the 
nature of a vault from one palace to the other. The arch was 
built four cubitst thick, of firm and strong bricks, plastered all 
over on both sides with bitumen. The walls supporting the arch 
were 20 brick § in thickness, and 12 feet high from the floor to the 
springing of the arch, and the breadth of the passage was 15 feet. 
* Dr. Hulme, (Archzologia, vol. xiv. page 57,) analyzed the cement adher- 
ing to a brick brought from Babylon, and found it to be bitumen. 
+ Strabo, (lib. xvi. page 738,) states the width of the Euphrates to be one 
stadium, which is generally taken at a furlong, or 660 feet. M. Gosselin 
shows that there were two stadia; one used by Herodctus, called the short 
stadium, about 329 feet English: the other of Archimedes, about 438 feet 
English. Ctesias, from whom Diodorus had his account, used the stadium of 
Archimedes, Herodotus used the short stadium. In this way the discordance 
of Herodotus and Ctesias, in respect to the wall of Babylon, has been re- 
conciled. 
$A cubit royal of Babylon was estimated, by Romé de Lille, at 22575 
inches English. 
§ There is a brick in the British Museum, brought from the site of ancient 
Babylon. That described by Dr. Hulme, in Archzologia, vol. xiv. page 55, 
is 133 inches square, and 3 inches in thickness, and weighs 38 1b. 11 oz. avoir- 
dupois. He analyzed the material, and found it to be pure clay, and not 
burnt.. Dr. Henley, in the same volume, page 205, deciphered the inscription 
on it, “ a brick baked by the sun.” Pocock measured some of the bricks of 
the brick Pyramid at Saccara, built by king Asychis ; he found some 133 
inches long, 6% broad, and 4 thick ; and others 15 inches long, 7 broad, and 
4} thick. 
In Rennel’s Geo. Sys. of Hero, section 14, page 356, is the following note : 
© Diodorus describes a vaulted passage under the bed of the Euphrates, by 
which the Queen Semiramis could pass from one palace to the other, on dif- 
ferent sides of the river, which was a stadium in breadth, (according to Strabo, 
page 738,) without crossing it. This serves, at least, to show, that the palaces 
were very near the river’s banks.” 
“ Ata time (1800) when a tunnel, of more than halfa mile in length, under 
the Thames (at Gravesend) is projected, it may not be amiss to mention the 
‘ reported dimensions of the tunnel made by Semiramis, under the Euphrates ; 
which, however, was no more than 500 feet in length, or less than 1-5th of the 
projected tunnel under the Thames. That of Semiramis was said to have been 
15 feet in breadth, 12 feet in height to the springing of the arch, perhaps 20 in 
all. The ends of the yault were shut dp with brazen gates, Diodorus had an 
Vou, XVI. r 
