d like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the
bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but
high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of
which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of
the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the
greatest diameter.

But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in
their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age.
None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a
fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for
what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are
supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand
and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest
of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before
Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is
seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five
hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense
substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it
may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks,
built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one
hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.

The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only
difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in
greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective
palace of many rulers.

Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew
Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of
ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to
Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and
thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which
were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable
architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably
exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of
Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were
probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the
conditions o