any temple throughout the Valley of the Nile. This method of building also reduced to a minimum the number of joints. This was, in more ways than one, a great gain. Many joints would have interfered very materially with the sculptures and wall-writing; and to have these in as perfect a form as possible was the great object. That the masonry had many joints would also, sooner or later, have led to the displacement of stones, which would have mutilated the record; and eventually have brought about the ruin both of it, and of the building itself. When we see how careful Egyptian architects were in making the joints as fine as possible, so that the stones of a building are often found to be as accurately fitted together as if it were jewellers’ work, and not masonry; and when we observe that the further precaution is sometimes taken of covering the joints of the roof with stone splines, in order to minimize the corroding effects of air and wet, we may be sure that they would be predisposed to adopt a style of building, which would very much reduce the number of joints. The thoughts and motives I have been attributing to these old builders will account for another fact, that needs explanation. The ancient Egyptians were familiar with the principle, and use of the arch. We find in the temple-palace of the great Rameses a crude brick arch, every brick of which contains his name. On the same grounds we must assign another brick arch in this neighbourhood to Amunoph, one of the great builders of the preceding dynasty. There are, too, frequent instances of it in tombs of a still earlier date; but we do not find it in their grand structures. There is no difficulty in divining the reason. It was unsuitable to the purpose they had in view. For the reasons I have given they had decided on using enormous blocks of stone. Arches thus heavily loaded would have been subject to unequal subsidence, which would have been derangement—probably, destruction—to them; and they knew that the arch, in consequence of the lateral thrust, is a form of construction that never sleeps. Hence their conception and formation of a style—for they did not borrow it—which was confined to horizontal and perpendicular lines.