EARLIEST PEOPLE.

5

must have been on softer materials than stones.Whether so or not, it is certain that the time andlabour necessary to carve on stone, would soon leadmen to consider of some more expeditious mode ofrecording their thoughts and discoveries ; as well asto multiply their number. We find clay was earlyused for the purpose, and stamps made by which itwas impressed, and then submitted to the action ofthe sun or fire to harden. 11 To this class the Baby-lonian bricks belong, the inscriptions on whichdoubtless were intended for the propagation ofscience, to the inculcation of some special facts, orthe record of some useful memorial.* And thoughthe meaning of these inscriptions is unknown, thepreservation of some of the bricks through a periodof some thousand years, proves that the ancientsrightly calculated on the mode they adopted inperpetuating their discoveries. These bricks wereemployed in the building of their public edifices.From them further advances were made, which ulti-mately led to the formation of books. This progressis shown in the following sketch of a burnt clay pillar,of about the same period as those before referred to.It also displays a considerable improvement in theformation of the characters. This pillar, with severaof the bricks, are preserved in the library of TrinityCollege, Cambridge .

h ' Fosbroke’s Cyclop, of Antiquities, vol. i. p. 233.—"«

* Hansard's Typographia, p. 2.

B 3