132 



Chaldean desert, according to Mr. Carmichael's description of it, 

 appears to be bitumen. The wall of Media, which shuts up the 

 isthmus between the Euphrates and Tigris, above Babylon, was 

 built of burnt bricks, laid in bitumen * ; and the walls of Perisa bour, 

 in Babylonia, taken by Julian, were of the same materials f . So 

 that in those days bitumen was much in use as a cement ; but it 

 appears to have been disused in succeeding times. 



According to Herodotus, a composition of heated bitumen was 

 used in building, as a cement, in the place of mortar ; being mixed 

 with the tops of reeds, and placed between every thirtieth course of 

 bricks J. This account of Herodotus is confirmed by the reports of 

 modern travellers ; except that some have found the bitumen thus 

 disposed, at every seventh or eighth course : and M. Beauchamp 

 found it at every course, in some of the remaining buildings of 

 Babylon. 



From the accounts of various travellers, two different sorts of 

 bricks appear to have been employed in the supposed buildings of 

 the ancient city of Babel: the one kind seeming to have been 

 baked, by fire, and the others, by the heat only of the sun. Some 

 of these appear to have been deposited in lime and sand, or only in 

 clay, and others in bitumen : osiers or reeds having been also used> 

 perhaps, as hair is employed in the mortar of the present day, to. 

 augment the adhesiveness of the cementing matter. 



Having been favoured with some fragments of the bricks, taken 

 from some ruins near Hillah, accompanied by some of the bitumen.. 

 I was astonished to find that the bitumen, which, from its external 

 appearance, might have been suspected of having lost all its com- 

 bustibility, still inflamed* on being brought into contact with the 

 flame of a candle, and yielded a very strong bituminous smelL 



* Xenopbon. An, lib. ii. f Aram. Marc. lib. 24. J i. Clio. c. 178, & seq. 



