gt ye? 
Round Towers of freland. "8389 
key-stone of the door; but whether this is 
as ancient as the tower itself is a point open 
to discussion. The Tower at Kilmacduagh 
is remarkable for two peculiarities: in the 
first place, it leans very much from the pre- 
pendicular, and though 110 feet high, is quite 
perfect, and, apparently, without a crack ; 
and secondly, it is built in a style of masonry 
which we have never before observed in 
Ireland. The stones, which are of a great 
size, instead of being squared, are fitted to 
each other whatever their shape, and this has 
been done with such labour and accuracy, 
that the seams between the stones are as mi- 
nute, and the building as compact, as if built 
of squared stone.(B) Had the stones been 
(B) The only masonry of this kind we have ever seen wasin the walls 
of Cortona, which are of Tuscan origin,—in the remains of the Castle 
of Ulysses in Ithaca,—and in the Cyclopian fortresses of Greece. These 
are probably the most ancient buildings in Europe. It is a circumstance 
worthy of remark, that the ancient Palaces of the Peruvian Incas are in 
the same style of masonry, and though the stones of which some of 
them are built are almost as hard as flint, yet they are so well fitted to 
each other, that the edge of a fine knife cannot be introduced between 
the joints, and the seams are but just sufficiently visible to show that the 
whole wall does not consist of asingle stone. (Relacion de Viage 
del’ America Meridional, por Don Jorge y Don Antonio de Ulloa Lib. vi. 
Cap. xi. 
These buildings, as well as those in Greece and Italy, to which we 
have alluded, are all built without cement of any kind ; whether this is 
the case with the Round Tower of Kilmacduagh we cannot positively. 
say, any more than why this singular, and, we should suppose, difficult 
and expensive mode of masonry was adopted, in preference to the com- 
