in. "Primitive Arabian art itself is quite negligible. When the new
strength of the followers of the Prophet was consolidated with great
rapidity into a rich and powerful empire, it took over the arts and
artists of the conquered lands, extending from North Africa to Persia"
(p. 158); and it is known how this influence spread as far west as Spain
and as far east as Indonesia. "The Pharos at Alexandria, the great
lighthouse built about 280 B.C., almost appears to have been the parent
of all high and isolated towers.... Even on the coast of Britain, at
Dover, we had a Pharos which was in some degree an imitation of the
Alexandrian one." The Pharos at Boulogne, the round towers of Ravenna,
and the imitations of it elsewhere in Europe, even as far as Ireland,
are other examples of its influence. But in addition the Alexandrian
Pharos had "as great an effect as the prototype of Eastern minarets as
it had for Western towers" (p. 115).

I have quoted so extensively from Professor Lethaby's brilliant little
book to give this independent testimony of the vastness of the influence
exerted by Egypt during a span of nearly forty centuries in creating and
developing the "matrix of civilization". Most of this wider dispersal
abroad was effected by alien peoples, who transformed their gifts from
Egypt before they handed on the composite product to some more distant
peoples. But the fact remains that the great centre of original
inspiration in architecture was Egypt.

The original incentive to the invention of this essentially Egyptian art
was the desire to protect and secure the welfare of the dead. The
importance attached to this aim was intimately associated with the
development of the practice of mummification.

With this tangible and persistent evidence of the general scheme of
spread of the arts of building I can now turn to the consideration of
some of the other, more vital, manifestations of human thought and
aspirations, which also, like the "matrix of civilization" itself, grew
up in intimate association with the practice of embalming the dead.

I have already mentioned Professor Lethaby's reference to architecture
and agriculture as the two arts that have changed the surface of the
world. It is interesting to note that the influence of these two
ingredients of civilization was diffused abroad throughout the world in
intimate association the one with the other. In most parts of the world
the use of stone for building and E