are, as formerly, and the whole plastered over with mud, or some other tenacious material.

angles, gradually converging, and rising from the four sides to the middle point at the top, and then covered with boughs and loam. In this manner the barbarians make the testudinal roofs of their towers. The Phrygians, who inhabit a champaign country, being destitute of timbers by reason of the want of forests, select little natural hills, excavate them in the middle, dig an entrance, and widen the space within as much as the nature of the place will permit; above they fix stakes in a pyramidal form, bind them together, and cover them with reeds or straw, heaping thereon great piles of earth. This kind of covering renders them very warm in winter and cool in summer: some also cover the roofs of their huts with the weeds of lakes: and thus in all nations and countries the dwellings are formed upon similar principles. At Marseilles we may observe the roofs without tiles, and covered with earth and straw. At Athens the Areopagus is an example of the ancient roofs of loam;-at the Capitol also, the house of Romulus in the sacred citadel may remind us of the manner of covering our roof with straw. By these examples therefore we may be assured, that the first inventions of building happened in the manner we have related; but at length mankind, by daily practice improved, and by repeatedly exercising their faculties and talents, arrived at the full knowledge of the art; those who were most experienced professing themselves artificers. When, therefore, these things were thus far advanced, as nature had not only given to mankind sense in common with other animals, but has also furnished their minds with judgment and foresight, and subjected other animals to their power, they, from the art of building, gradually proceeded to other arts and sciences, and from a savage and rustic way of life became humane and civilized. Then when their minds were enlightened, and they became more judicious by experience, and the advancement of the various arts and sciences, they no longer built huts, but founded houses with walls constructed with bricks, stones, or other materials, covering the roofs with tiles."

As mankind began to associate, they would improve each other by degrees; and having found the use of tools, trunks of trees, divested of their bark and branches, would be used as pillars, and beams or lintels, instead of ramified boughs. In this improved state of joining and cutting the timbers, the beams would no doubt suggest a rectilinear plan instead of the circular one, as beams of the circular form could not so readily be procured as those of the straight form, the triangle being the only figure that includes a space by the fewest sides, it may first have been employed for the plan; but finding this form of building inconvenient, on account of the acuteness of its angles, the rectangle would be adopted in its stead; the hut erected thereon, would have the form of a rectangular prism, which figure has been generally retained to the present day, with little variation, by almost the whole inhabitants of the globe, and exactly by those who live in the mildest climates; but in countries liable to rain, pyramidal and wedge-formed roofs have been constantly in use. From this state of the hut has civil architecture advanced progressively to the present state of improvement. Vetruvius, who lived in the time of Julius Cæsar, and who is the most ancient writer on architecture, informs us nearly as above supposed, in the following language. "Mankind began to make themselves covering with the boughs of trees; some dug caves in mountains; and others, in imitation of the nests of swallows, with sprigs and loam, made shelters under which they might lie; and by observing each other's work, and turning their thoughts to discover something new, they by degrees improved and made better kinds of habitations; but men being of an imitative and docile nature, glorying in their daily inventions, and showing one another the houses they had made, they by these endeavors and exertions of their faculties became in time more skilful. At first, for the walls they erected forked stakes, and disposing twigs between them, covered them with loam; others piled up dry clods of clay, binding them with wood, and to avoid rain and heat, they made a covering with reeds and boughs; but finding that this roof could not resist the winter rains, they made it sloping and pointed at the top, plastering it over with clay, and by that means discharging the rain-water. That the origin of things was as above written, may be concluded from observing that to this day some foreign nations construct their dwellings of the same kind of materials, as in Gaul, Spain, Lusitania, and Aquitain, they use oak shingles or straw. The Colchians, in the king-clay. The fire is made in the centre, and the dom of Pontus, where they abound in forests, fix trees in the earth, close together in ranks to the right and left, leaving as much space between them as the length of the trees will permit; upon the ends others are laid transversely, which circumclude the place of habitation in the middle; then at the top the four angles are braced together with alternate beams; and thus the walls, by fixing other trees perpendicularly on these below, may be raised to the height of towers. The interstices, which, on account of the coarseness of the materials, remain, are stopped with chips and loam. The roof is also raised by beams laid across from the extreme

The truth of the supposition advanced in the first part of this article, and of the account of Vetruvius, will seem most evident if we consider even the present mode of building among those nations who have made but small advances in civilisation and the arts. Savage nations usually live in huts, constructed of different materials, and with various degrees of skill, according to the situation and character of the people. They are generally formed of stakes or poles, interwoven with twigs and covered with bark or leaves, or sometimes plastered with

smoke escapes at the top. Those of the North American Indians are called wigwams. An irregular collection of these huts or tents is called a village. The natives of South Africa form their huts of bended poles, plastered with earth much resembling a bee-hive. They are arranged in a circle around an enclosure which contains their cattle; and the village is termed a kraal. There is a number of villages of natives collected round Sierra Leone, and about the missionary stations of South Africa, with a neat appearance, and present many of the improvements of civilized life. The Laplanders, Northern Siberians, and the North American

tribes of the frozen regions, usually reside in tents, or huts constructed of light materials, during summer. But the winter huts are built of thick walls of stone and turf, with no outlet for smoke but the entrance. In Greenland and Lapland, they are protected from the cold winds by a long, vaulted passage for entrance; and to render them still warmer, many of the tribes of these regions building among them consisted of but few principles: them half under ground, and enter through an opening at the top by means of a ladder.

may be seen in their huge pyramids and proud tombs, which have outlived the memory of the mighty kings whose ashes they contain; granite temples as extensive as towns, which enclose in their courts, or support upon their roofs, villages of the modern inhabitants; long avenues of sphinxes, colossal statues, and obelisks. Yet the art of buildthey did not even seem to understand the use of the arch. Their walls were built of stones of enormous size, without cement. The removing and placing of these huge materials, would, even at this day, almost bid defiance to the boldest and best constructed of our mechanical inventions, though conducted with all the science of modern times.

Architecture has also been carried to a wonderful extent among the ancient inhabitants of India, who have not only rivalled the Egyptians, but have been supposed to be even anterior to them in the knowledge of the art; their exertions were, however, directed almost exclusively to excavation.

In the Torrid Zone, many of the uncivilized nations build their huts of very light materials, and they are often mere sheds, used only as a protection from the rains and dews. In Polynesia, and the Asiatic islands, they are very neatly built of canes, lined with mats, and covered with leaves. The same style of building is found in Hindoostan and Farther India, and to a considerable extent in China; and these, or mud-walled huts, are the best buildings of the poor. The residence of a king in Africa, appears like a collection of thatched barns and hovels, surrounded by a mud wall; and the palace even of the emperor of China is only a col-knowledge in the art of building: the walls of Nin lection of cottages, in which the meanness of the structures is concealed by the splendid curtains and gilded ornaments. The dwellings of the great are distinguished by the number of buildings, and the great extent of ground they occupy, rather than the superiority of architecture.

als used in the construction of these works, were square bricks, baked in a furnace, and heated bitumen, mixed with the tops of reeds; this composition was placed between every thirteen courses of bricks: from this circumstance it is probable, that the method of reducing calcareous stones into lime, for mortar, was unknown at this time. The walls of Babylon are described to be one of the seven wonders of the world; they were first built by queen Semiramis, in the time of her regency, during the minority of her son Ninias; and it would seem that they were afterwards improved by the great Nebuchadnezzar. Of these mighty works there are no remains, nor hardly any trace of the ancient city.

The Assyrians have been much reputed for their eveh and Babylon were of wonderful magnitude. Those of the latter were double, and surrounded with a ditch; the outer wall was regularly fortified; it was fifteen miles square, or sixty in circumference, two hundred royal cubits high, and fifty thick. In the circumference were placed one hunThe origin of architecture, is, like that of most dred massy gates of brass; and on the top, watchother arts, involved in great obscurity. We are in-towers, corresponding to each other. The materiformed by Moses, that Cain built a city, and called it after the name of his son Enoch; but concerning the mode of constructing the houses, or the quality of the materials, he is quite silent. The same author also informs us, that Jabal was the father of such as dwelt in tents. In the days of Noah, architecture must have arrived at great perfection: to construct the ark of sufficient strength to withstand the tempest's raging over the surface of the watery element, would require considerable skill in the art of carpentry. Ashur built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen. The city and tower of Babel were built of well-burnt brick, and slime for mortar. Brick-making must have been well understood then, and perhaps at a period much earlier. Moses does not say, what either the dimensions or figure of the tower was, but that it was the intention of the people to make its top reach unto heaven: this vain design being frustrated by the intervention of the Almighty, the building was left unfinished. Whether this city and tower be the same Babylon and tower as described by Herodotus and Strabo, is uncertain; the former says it was a square building, each side of which, at the base, was a furlong, consequently half a mile in circumference; from a winding stair, or rather inclined plane, which went round the exterior, making eight revolutions, the building appeared as if eight stories had been placed one upon the other; each such story was seventy-five feet high, and consequently the whole height 600 feet; the inclined plane was so broad as to allow carriages to pass each other.

From very remote antiquity the Egyptians have been celebrated for their cultivation of architecture among other arts; the ruins of their ancient structures astonish the traveller of the present day, as

In the ruins of Persepolis, the columns are of a character somewhat different from those of Egypt; yet the Egyptian style of building may be traced in various parts of these ruins. Diodorus Siculus says, that the famous palace of Susa and Persepolis were not built till after the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, and that they were both conducted by Egyptian architects; it therefore seems probable that the Persians received the art of building in unwrought stone from the Egyptians.

In the vast structures of Asia and Africa, greatness of design, ponderosity of parts, and stones of immense magnitude, seem to have been more regarded than elegance or utility. In all these great works there is no trace of an arch, but what is excavated out of the solid rock, or may be made of a single stone. The Greeks seem to have derived the knowledge of architecture from the Egyptians; but the art of building has been so much improved by transplanting, that scarcely any trace of the original remains. Their edifices were at first constructed of wood and clay, but they soon began to

imitate the wooden posts and beams of the original | the Composite, wore brought to perfection under hut in stone and marble. From this imitation arose the Greeks and Romans. Modern efforts have adthe first order in architecture, which also gave birth to two others. This ingenious people, favored by nature with marble and other building materials, and, like the Egyptians, being anxious to make their works durable, employed very weighty stones in the construction, which, although laid without cement, as was the practice of all ancient nations, yet they are jointed with the utmost accuracy, which is the reason of the perfect state of their edifices to this day.

Prior to the Macedonian conquests, all the temples of Greece, and its colonies in Sicily and Italy, appear to have been of the Doric order, and of one general form, though slightly varied in particular parts, as occasional circumstances might require: their plan was an oblong, having one column more on the flank than double the number of those in front.

The ancient Etrurians have left many excellent monuments of taste, and to them is generally ascribed the method of building with small stone and mortar, made of calcareous stone; and this seems probable, as the most ancient vestiges of cementitious buildings, are to be found in the country which the present Tuscans inhabit. They were employed by the Romans in many public works; the walls of the city of Rome were of hewn stone, the capitol and the cloaca maxima are of their construction; the last of these is esteemed a very extraordinary piece of architecture, as is sufficiently proved by its remains. To these is attributed the invention of one of the orders of architecture, called after them the Tuscan.

The Romans appear to have had their first knowledge of architecture from the Etrurians; but it was not till after the conquest of Greece, that they acquired a just relish for its beauties. It seems to have attained to its highest degree of excellence in the reign of Augustus, and continued to flourish till the seat of empire was removed to Byzantium. The works of the Romans were much more numerous than those of any other people. The remains of their palaces, theatres, ampitheatres, baths, mausoleums, and other works, excite at this day the admiration and astonishment of every judicious beholder. Their first temples were round and vaulted, and hence they are counted the inventors of the dome.

The Corinthian order was the favorite order among the Romans, and, as far as existing examples enable us to judge, the only order well understood, and happily executed.

ded little or nothing to the beauty and symmetry of these columns, and the parts dependent on them; but much has been done in the internal improvement of mansions and houses. As Roman and Grecian architecture, which teaches the proportions and arrangements of the orders invented by them, is called ancient; modern, or practical architecture, relates chiefly to the art of distributing the apartments with more attention to domestic economy, convenience, and comfort. And if we have not surpassed the taste of the ancients, in external design and ornament, nor equalled them in the durability and vast extent of their buildings, the ruins of which astonish us at this day; yet, doubtless, the natural and first purposes of the art are more completely answered, and the people in general are more comfortably lodged.

Beside what is called ancient and modern architecture, a third style of building may be traced from the same source with the former. Among the northern nations of Europe originated the style called Gothic; which, after the destruction of the Roman empire by these people, they introduced in Europe, to the exclusion of the Greek and Roman manner of building. Like the ancient Egyptians, they sometimes seem to have been more studious to astonish the eye with great and vast masses of stone, than to please by symmetry of design, or beauty of ornament.

ARCHON. The archons in Greece were chief magistrates, chosen, after the death of Codrus, from the most illustrious families, to superintend civil and religious concerns. They were nine in number; the first was properly the archon; the second was called king; the third polemarch, or general of the forces. The other six were called thesmotheto, or legislators.

ARCTURUS. A fixed star of the first magnitude, in the skirt of Bootes: so called from the circumstance of its being near the tail of the Bear. It has been thought to be the nearest fixed star to our system visible in the northern hemisphere, because the variation of its place, in consequence of a proper motion of its own, is more remarkable than that of any other of the stars, and by comparing a variety of observations respecting the quantity and direction of the motion of this star, we infer, that the obliquity of the ecliptic decreases at the rate of 58" in 100 years, a quantity that nearly corresponds to the mean of the computations framed by the celeWhat we now call the Composite order, is of Ro-brated Euler and Lalande, upon the more unerring man extraction. It was employed in many of their principles of attraction. buildings, but chiefly in the triumphal arches. From what we find in Vetruvius, it was never accounted a distinct order, but as a species of the Corinthian only. The only example that Rome affords of the Doric order, is that executed in the theatre of Marseilles, and, though in the age of Augustus, is but a vitiated composition: the columns are meagre and plain, divested of that sublime grandeur and elegance which are so conspicuous in the solidity and flutings of the Grecian Doric.

The established five orders of architecture, the Tuscan, the Doric, the Ionic the Corinthian, and

ARENARIUS. The name of a book of Archimedes, in which is demonstrated, that not only the sands of the earth, but even a greater quantity of particles, than could be contained in the immense sphere of the fixed stars, might be expressed by numbers, in a way invented and described by himself.

ARENA. Among the Romans, was a place where gladiators fought; and was so called, from being strewed with sand, for the purpose of concealing

from the view of the spectators, the blood spilt in cognizance of criminal causes; but in course of the combats.

AREOMETER. An instrument by which the density and gravity of fluids are measured. The invention of this instrument is ascribed to Hypatia, the daughter of Theo, in the fourth century. It is usually made of glass, consisting of a round hollow ball, which terminates in a long slender neck, hermetically sealed at top, there being first as much running mercury put into it, as will serve to balance, or keep it in an erect position. The neck or stem is divided into degrees, and by the depth of its descent into any liquor the lightness of that liquor is estimated, for the fluid in which it sinks least is the heaviest; and that in which it sinks lowest is lightest.

AREOPAGUS, in antiquity, a sovereign tribunal at Athens, famous for the justice and impartiality of its decrees; to which the gods themselves are said to have submitted their quarrels.

time their jurisdiction became of greater extent. This court is recorded as the first that sat upon life and death; and the trial of wilful murder seems to have been the original design of its institution. In later ages, all incendiaries, assassins, conspirators, deserters of their country, treasons, and most capital causes in general, fell under its cognizance. The opinion which the state entertained of the wisdom, gravity, and sanctity of its members, gained for them an unlimited power; insomuch that, according to Solon's regulation of this assembly, the inspection and custody of the laws, the management of the public funds, the guardianship of young men, and the education of youth, according to their rank, were committed to them. Their power extended to persons of all ages and sexes, to punish the idle and profligate, and to reward the sober and virtuous, according to their own pleasure. For this purpose, they were empowered, by entering and examining private houses, to condemn every useless person as dangerous, and every expense not proportionate to the means of the citizen as criminal. Besides, they took cognizance of religious matters, blasphemy, contempt of holy mysteries, the erection and consecration of temples and altars, and the introduction of new ceremonies: nevertheless, they interfered in public affairs only in cases of emergency or danger. As this assembly exhibited the greatest firmness in punishing crimes, and the nicest circumspection in reforming manners; as it never employed chastisement till advice and menaces were slighted; it acquired the esteem and confidence of the people, even while it exercised the most absolute power. Its meetings were held three times in every month, viz. on the 27th, 28th, and 29th days, but on any urgent business, the sen

This tribunal was in great reputation among the Greeks, so that it was denominated "the most sacred and venerable tribunal," and Socrates says that it was deemed so sacred, that if those who had been vicious were elected into it, they immediately gave up their former practices, and conformed to the rules of the senate, because they could not resist the authority of example, but were constrained to appear virtuous. The Romans themselves had so high an opinion of it, that they trusted many of their difficult causes to its decision. Demosthenes says, that in his time neither plaintiff or defendant had any just reason to be dissatisfied with their proceedings. Innocence, summoned to appear before it, approached without apprehension; and the guilty, convict-ators assembled in the royal portico. ed and condemned, retired without daring to murmur. Authors are not agreed about the number of the judges who composed this august court. Some reckon thirty-one, others fifty-one, and others five hundred; in reality their number seems not to have been fixed, but to have been more or less in different years. By an inscription quoted by Volaterranus, it appears they were then three hundred. At first this tribunal only consisted of nine persons, who had all discharged the office of archons, had acquitted themselves with honor in that trust, and had likewise given an account of their administration before the logista, and undergone a very rigorous examination. Those who Trials in the areopagus were preceded with trewere admitted members of this assembly, were mendous ceremonies. The two parties, placed strictly watched, and their conduct was scrutinized amidst the bleeding members of the victims, took and judged by the court to which they belonged, an oath, which they confirmed by dreadful imprewithout partiality. Trivial faults did not escape cations against themselves and families. They censure. A senator, it is said, was punished for called to witness the Eumenides, who, from a having stifled a little bird, which from fear had tak-neighboring temple dedicated to their worship, en refuge in his bosom: he was thus taught, that he who has a heart shut against pity, should not be allowed to have the lives of the citizens at his

The court was divided into several committees, each of which took cognizance of separate causes, if the multiplicity of business would not allow time for them to be brought before the whole senate: and this was done by lots, that the causes might not be prejudged. In crimes that concerned religion or the state, the power of this court was limited to preparing the matter for a trial; and it then made its report to the people, without coming to any conclusion. The accused then had it in his power to offer new pleas in his defence; and the people named orators to conduct the prosecution before one of the superior courts.

seemed to listen to the invocation, and prepare to punish the perjured. They then proceed to the trial; requiring all pleadings to be conducted in the simplest terms, without exordium, epilogue, or appeal to the passions. After the question had been sufficiently discussed, the judges silently deposited their suffrages in two urns, one of brass, called the urn of death, and the other of wood, called the urn of mercy. This mode of giving votes was afterwards abandoned, and they were delivered in pub