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greatly to strengthen the work. He, therefore, who is de-sirous of producing a lasting stucture, is enabled, by whatI have laid down, to qhoose the sort of wall that will suithis purpose. Those walls which are built of soft andsmooth-looking stone, will not last long. Hence, when va-luations are made of external walls, we must not put themat their original cost; but having found, from the regis-ter, the number of lettings they have gone through, wemust deduct for every year of their age an eightieth partof such cost, and set down the remainder or balance astheir value, inasmuch as they are not calculated to lastmore than eighty years. This is not the practice in thecase of brick walls, which, whilst they stand upright, arealways valued at their first cost. Thus, in some states,not only public and private buildings, but even royalstructures, are built of brick. We may instance thatpart of the wall at Athens towards Mounts Hymettusand Pentelicus, the temples of Jupiter and Hercules, inwhich the cells are of brick, whilst the columns and theirentablatures are of stone, in Italy the ancient and exqui-sitely wrought wall of Arezzo, and at Tralles a palace forthe Attalic kings, which is the official residence of thepriest. Some pictures painted on brick walls at Sparta,after being cut out, were packed up in wooden casesand transported to the Comitium to grace the iEdileshipof Yarro and Murena. In the house of Croesus, whichthe Sardians call Gerusia, established for the repose andcomfort of the citizens in their old age, as also in thehouse of Mausolus, a very powerful king of Halicarnas-sus, though all the ornaments are of Proconnesian mar-ble, the walls are of brick, are remarkably sound at thepresent day, and the plastering with which they arecovered is so polished that they sparkle like glass. Theprince who caused them to be thus built was not, how-ever, restrained by economy; for, as king of Caria, hemust have been exceedingly rich. Neither could it beurged that it was from want of skill and taste in archi-