at Kouyunjik, each chamber being reserved for some particular historical incident, and each palace, it would appear, only recording in its sculptures the exploits of the king who built it. No pillars are to be found in Assyrian architecture; and the difficulty experienced by the builders in the construction of expansive roofs is shown by the great narrowness of the rooms compared with their length; the most elaborately ornamented hall at Nimroud, although above 160 feet in length, being only 35 feet broad. Forty-five feet appears to have been the greatest width spanned over by a roof; for the great central hall in the north-west palace at Nimroud (110 feet by 90) may have been entirely open to the sky,—and, as it did not contain sculptures, it probably was so. The rooms ranged from 16 to 20 feet in height; the side-walls being covered to twice the height of a man by the sculptured slabs, and their upper portion being built of baked bricks richly coloured, or of sun-dried bricks covered by a thin coat of plaster, on which various ornaments were painted. Of the mode of roofing these palaces we know nothing. Probably the roof was formed of beams resting solely on the side-walls; but as this method would not have sufficed for the larger rooms, from 35 to 45 feet in width, we may conjecture that the beams in some instances were made to meet and rest against each other at a slight angle in the centre of the ceiling, or (more improbably) that wooden pillars or posts were employed which have since entirely mouldered away. No traces of windows are to be found, even in the chambers next the outer walls; so that, as in the temples of Egypt, there must have been square openings or skylights in the ceilings, which may have been closed during the winter-rains by canvass or some such material. The pavement of the chambers was formed either of alabaster slabs, or of kiln-burnt bricks, covered with inscriptions relating to the king;—and beneath this pavement, drains led from almost every room, showing that water might occasionally have entered the rooms from above, by such apertures in the ceiling as have been conjectured. The interior of these Assyrian palaces must have been as magnificent as imposing. Mr Layard thus graphically describes the spectacle which, in days of old, met the eye of those who entered the abode of the Assyrian kings:—