rtico suggested the _hypostyle hall_, with
all the picturesque developments it has undergone at the hands of the
Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the people of modern Europe. In
their ignorance of the pier and column, the Chaldaeans were unable to give
their buildings those spacious galleries and chambers which delight the eye
while they diminish the actual mass of a building. Their towers were
artificial mountains, almost as solid and massive from base to summit as
the natural hills from which their lines were taken.[153] A few small
apartments were contrived within them, near their outer edges, that might
fairly be compared to caves hollowed in the face of a cliff. The weight
upon the lower stories and the substructure was therefore enormous, even to
the point of threatening destruction by sheer pulverisation. The whole
interior was composed of crude brick, and if, as is generally supposed,
those bricks were put in place before the process of desiccation was
complete, the shrinkage resulting from its continuance must have had a bad
effect upon the structure as a whole, especially as the position of the
courses and the more or less favourable aspects of the different external
faces must have caused a certain inequality in the rate at which that
operation went on. The resistance would not be the same at all points, and
settlements would occur by which the equilibrium of the upper stages might
be compromised and the destruction of the whole building prepared.

Another danger lay in the violence of the sudden storms and the diluvial
character of the winter rains. Doubtless the outsides of the walls were
faced with well burnt bricks, carefully set, and often coated with an
impenetrable enamel; but an inclined plane of a more or less gentle
gradient wound from base to summit to give access to the latter. When a
storm burst upon one of these towers, this plane became in a moment the bed
of a torrent, for its outer edge would, of course, be protected by a low
wall. The water would pour like a river over the sloping pavement and
strike violently against each angle. Whether it were allowed to flow over
the edges of the inclined plane or, as seems more probable, directed in its
course so as to sweep it from top to bottom, it must in either case have
caused damage requiring continual watchfulness and frequent repairs. If
this watchfulness were remitted for an instant, some of the external burnt
and enamelled bricks might beco