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the battlements of which were of various 

 white, black, scarlet, blue, and^ orange ; but all of 

 them covered with silver or with gold. Persepolis 

 was also a city which all historians speak of as one 

 of the most ancient and noble of Asia. There remaiu 

 the ruins of one of its palaces, which measured six 

 hundred paces in front, and still displays the relics of 

 its ancient grandeur. 



8. The lake Mocris is likewise a striking proof of 

 the vast undertakings of the ancients. All histo. 

 rians agree in giving it above a hundred and fifty 

 leagues in circuit : yet was it entirely the work of one 

 Egyptian king, who caused that immense compass of 

 ground to be hollowed, to receive the waters of the 

 Nile, when it overflowed more than ordinary, and to 

 serve as a reservoir for watering Egypt by means of its 

 canals, when the overflowing of the river was notof height 

 sufficient to enrich the country. Out of the midst of 

 this lake arose two pyramids, of about six hundred 

 feet in height. 



Q. The other pyramids of Egypt, in their largeness 

 and solidity, so far surpass whatever we know of edi- 

 fices, that we should be ready to doubt of the reality 

 of their having ever existed, did they not still subsist 

 to this day. M. D^ Chezele, of the academy of 

 sciences, who travelled into Egypt in the last century, 

 to measure them, assigns to one of the sides of the base 

 of the highest pyramid, a length of six hundred and 

 sixty feet, which reduced to its perpendicular altitude, 

 makes four hundred and sixty-six feet. The free-stones, 

 of which it is composed, are each of them thirty feet 

 long ; so that we cannot imagine, how the Egv ptians 

 found means to rear such heavy masses to so prodi- 

 gious a height. The Colossus of Rhodes was another 

 of <he marvellous productions of the ancients. To 

 give an idea of its excessive bigness, it need ouly be 

 observed, that the fingers of t were as large as statues 

 and very few. were able with out-stretched arms to 

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