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 materialsf. 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^. 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 
* Xenophon. An. lib. ii. 
f Amm. Marc. lib. 24. 
I 1 Clio. c. 178, & seq. 
