[101] The alabaster quarries of to-day are all in the Arab Chain, between the southern slopes of the mountain Mahsarah, near Cairo, and the springs of the Wady-Siout, opposite the town of that name.
[102] The obelisk of Queen Hatasu, at Karnak, is 105 ft. 8 in. high; the statue of Rameses II. at Thebes, on the left bank of the river, is a monolith 55 ft. 5 in. high, and weighing about 1,200 tons. [The obelisk which still remains at Syene, never having been completely detached from the rock in which it was quarried, is nearly 96 ft. high and 11 ft. 1-1/2 in. diameter at its base.—Ed.]
[103] We find this construction in the so-called Temple of the Sphinx, near the Great Pyramid.
[104] The vertical support and the architrave form the two vital elements of an Egyptian building, which is therefore enabled to dispense with those buttresses and other lateral supports which are necessary to give stability to the edifices of many other nations.
[105] We may here remark that the modest dwellings of the Egyptian fellah are often covered by vaults of pisé, that is to say, of compressed and kneaded clay. None of the ancient monuments of Egypt possess such vaults, which are of much less durability than those of stone or brick. We are, however, disposed to believe that they were used in antique times.
[106] Another explanation has been given of the employment of the vault in subterranean work. Mariette believed the arch to be symbolic, to signify the canopy of heaven, the heaven of Amen. One objection to this is the fact that the vault was not universal in tombs; some of those at Beni-Hassan have flat ceilings, others have coves.
[107] In this respect there is a striking resemblance between Egyptian carpentry (see [Fig. 83]), and much of the joinery of the modern Japanese.—Ed.
[108] In this figure we have attempted to give some notion of what a wooden building must have been like in ancient Egypt, judging from the imitations of assembled construction which have been found in the tombs and sarcophagi of the ancient empire.
[109] We here speak of the fauna as a whole, disregarding particular genera and species. It may be said that some particular plant which is to be found both in France and Norway, is much brighter in colour when it grows in the neighbourhood of the pole than in our temperate climate, but this apparent exception only confirms the rule which we have laid down. The plant whose whole season of bloom is comprised between a late spring and an early autumn develops itself much more rapidly than with us, and, granting that it has become so hardened that it is able to resist the long and hard frosts of winter, it receives, during the short summer, much more light and sun than its French or German sister. During those fleeting summers of the north, whose strange charm has been so often described, the sun hardly descends below the horizon; the nights are an hour long, and not six or seven. The colour of flowers is therefore in exact proportion to the amount of light which they receive.
[110] This was perceived by Goethe. In art, as in natural science, he divined beforehand some of the discoveries of our century by the innate force of his genius. He was not surprised by the discovery that the temples of classic Sicily were painted in brilliant tones, which concealed the surface of their stone and accentuated the leading lines of their architecture. He was one of the first to accept the views of Hittorf and to proclaim that the architects who had found traces of colours upon the mouldings of Greek buildings were not deceiving themselves and others.