"NS IN ARCHITECTURE. 



that stalk I mean in the Sanscrit, the Oltic, and the 



of these three namely, the Sanscrit, the Celtic, aii.l thu 



-t may be considered a* the most 

 tin) second stands next in age, and the third in the 



Imvo boon led to regard monosyllables as to a large ex- 



u. I !ut many words, commonly considered 



an' ratli.T Indo-European, being found in Sanscrit, in 



:m,l in 1. at in, or in ono of these besides the modern English. 



Su h \\..i.U as know, lick, break, yoke, sit, are the common 



l>r..p.Tty "t' the Sanscrit, tho Latin, the Greek, the German, and 



ll.i.l I space to exhibit the proofs of tho relationship of these 

 languages, I should dwell on the similarity which prevails in 

 tin- iiHxliii.-ations of number, person, case, tense, etc., which 

 they severally undergo ; but I can, in addition, do nothing more 

 than sot down in different tongues the variations of a few words 

 of universal prevalence, which indicate a common origin. 



Fatlu r 



Mother 



BOB 



Daughter 



Brother 



Sister 



Man 



Wimuiu 



Eye 



HOM 



Tooth 



Sim 



Moon 



Water 



Day 



Sea 



Light 



Sarucrit. 

 pitri (pader) 



in.itri 



M'.llll 



duhitrl 



bhrati 



swarsi 



tnanu 



vamoni 



akshi 



nasa 



danta 



holi 



OHM 



uda 



dyu 



inira 



loch (to see) 



pater 



inuU-r 



Latin, 

 pater 

 mater 



Teutonic, 

 vater 

 mutter 

 sunu 

 dauhtar 

 brothar 

 swistar 



Celtic, 

 athair 



unit lui ir 



dear 



brathair 



siur 



femen 



augo 



1KISO 



thuntu 



sauil 



mena 



vato 



dag 



rnarei 



liclit 



dend 

 haul 

 inios 

 dour 



din 



muir 



Ihwg 



LESSONS IN ARCHITECTURE. III. 



CYCLOPEAN OB PELASGIC ARCHITECTURE EARLY MONUMENTS. 



AFTER tho brief sketch of the origin of architecture in our 

 last lesson (Vol. L, page 369), we must notice in proper order 

 that system of construction, the monuments of which cover a 

 great part of the Old World. This system had its origin among 

 the Shemitio tribes, which at the commencement of civilisation 

 peopled the fairest part of the globe. This early system, noted 

 for the rudeness of its form, its stability without mortar, and 

 the great size and irregularity of its materials, is attributed to 

 the Pelasgians, a people originally from Upper Asia, who, 

 according to Herodotus, spread themselves over Phoenicia and 

 Asia Minor, and colonised Greece and Italy. Examples of 

 vie of architecture, called Pelasgic, are found extending 

 from the borders of Persia and Armenia to the western limits 

 ol Asia. The term "Cyclopean" is also applied to this kind of 

 architecture, because, in Greece, these buildings of huge rough 

 blocks of stone were fabled to bo the work of the Cyclopes a 

 race of giants with one eye in the middle of the forehead, who 

 laboured at the forges of Hephcestus, fire-god of the Greeks, ami 

 patron of all who wrought in iron. Crossing the Mediterranean, 

 it spread over Greece, where the most remarkable monuments 

 described by ancient authors, from the age of Hesiod and 

 Homer, are traced, according to tradition, as far back as eighteen 

 centuries before our era. This was the style of construction 

 i the heroic times of ancient Greece ; and at a later period 

 it was employed on certain important occasions. 



Tho migrations of the Pelasgi carried this system into Italy, 

 and we meet with it at every step, particularly in the central 

 countries. Examples are also to be seen in nearly all the western 

 islands of the Mediterranean, in the Balearic Isles, and some 

 even on tho coasts of Franco and Spain. In fine, by a remark- 

 able coincidence, travellers who have drawn and described the 

 monuments of Palenquo and Papantla, cities of Mexico destroyed 

 long ago, and grown over by forests, exhibit constructions 

 similar to those of the Pelasgi. The gigantic remains of the 

 Pelasgic monuments, to this day subjected to examination by 

 travellers, bear traces of different modes of building. Those 

 which seem to be the most ancient are composed of blocks of 



tone, or rather at rocks, so rude and to immense that Paiwanias, 

 in speaking of the walk of Tirynn, near Nauplia, in Greece, 

 built thirty-six centurion ago, describes them thus : " Theee 

 walls are constructed of unhewn Mtouen, and are all of iraob 

 dimensions that a yoke of oxen could not shake the smallest of 

 them. The interstices are filled up with mailer tone*, which 

 serve to unite the larger one*." These wall* present the came 

 appearanoe now which they did in the day* of Homer and of 

 Pansanias. They are about 25 feet thick, and about 43 feet in 

 height. Two temples, close to each other, in the ialand of Go*o, 

 near Malta, are analogous in their construction to the wall* of 

 Tiryns. They are built of immense blocks of stone, forming a 

 sort of artificial hill, in which are placed the naves and arches 

 of the temples ; bnt some of the rocks bear traces of the mason's 

 tools. 



It has been proved, by careful examination, that these edifices 

 were dedicated to the gods of Asia. To conclude : the walls of 

 Tarragona, on the east coast of Spain, are constructed, like the 

 preceding, of immense rocks in their natural state. The appli- 

 cation of instruments to building, at a later period, caused the 

 edifices of the Pelasgians to assume another form. The stone* 

 taken from quarries were cut .into irregular polygons, and placed 

 one upon another in such a manner as to make the different 

 faces of the geometrical figures which they employed coincide, 

 the salient angles filling up the re-entrant angles formed by two 

 adjoining stones in a manner precisely similar to that used in. 

 the present day for building walls of Kentish ragstone or Devon- 

 shire limestone. This was the ordinary manner of building 

 under this system of construction. It is met with from Lake 

 Van, on the frontiers of Armenia, to the west of Italy, Sardinia, 

 and the Balearic Isles ; and it is found in temples and in tombs, 

 in public and private buildings, and in innumerable military 

 constructions. At last, a third method presents itself in the 

 walls of these early buildings namely, that in which the 

 stones are fashioned in the square form ; and the buildings 

 themselves, assuming the same form, exhibit a greater degree of 

 civilisation, and the invention and application of more exact 

 instruments. The walls of the ancient Mycenae were built in 

 this manner. 



The continued and progressive order of these Pelasgic con- 

 structions is ene of the most interesting facts in the history of 

 the art of building particularly when we refer them to an 

 antiquity which goes bock to tho heroic time of Greece. 

 Doubtless the gradual improvement which is to be seen in the 

 walls constructed by this original people, does not reveal all the 

 revolutions of this art in early antiquity ; bnt it enables us to 

 perceive the progress of the greater part of the civilised world, a 

 progress which it must necessarily follow, because it is the 

 nature of all human inventions to pass from early and rude 

 attempts to successive periods of improvement and perfection. 

 The Pelasgio monuments, sketched and studied at the present 

 day, extend over a zone which, comprising the breadth of 

 Western Asia, stretches over Greece and Central Italy ; and 

 this is not the whole of the ancient world, as we have already 

 said, in which early monuments composed of rocks in their 

 natural state have been seen by ancients and moderns ; but 

 they have been discovered in all the northern countries, and 

 in Africa, from Egypt to the neighbourhood of Carthage ; and 

 we have reason to believe that in these countries, to the primi- 

 tive constructions, a second period succeeded, more refined in its 

 productions, and forming a step from the first attempts to the 

 More perfect examples, of which we behold the numerous ruin* 

 in India, in Central Asia, in the valley of the Nile, and in th. 

 oases of the desert. These monuments of transition, so to speak, 

 have disappeared under early and actual civilisation, and have 

 even escaped the investigation of travellers. 



FIRST REGULAR CONSTRUCTIONS, PYRAMIDS, TC. 



The Pelasgi, proceeding from the Asiatic plateaus, or table- 

 lands, directed their stops towards the west ; other Shemitic 

 tribes marched towards the south and east, and peopled India, 

 Persia, Assyria, and Arabia, as well as Ethiopia and Egypt. 

 The art of these tribes, like that of the western branch, passed 

 through a rude and primitive state, as we have shown through 

 the BETH-EL style, or constructions in unhewn stones. It 

 cannot be supposed that these tribes were more privileged than 

 others, and were able, without previous attempts, to hew atones 

 regularly, to mould and cement bricks, and to give to the union 



