On men determining to become settlers in towns, more stable materials were rendered available. The manufacture of bricks ascends to the earliest time of historical record. The first building of which there is any mention after the deluge is the Tower of Babel. Considerable progress appears to have been made, not only in this but the city before “the confusion of tongues” took place. It is expressly stated that well-burned brick was used, instead of stone, in these structures, and that slime, which is generally understood to be bitumen, was employed instead of mortar. Other edifices were reared from bricks formed of earth, and then burned in furnaces or kilns. The manufacture of bricks was familiar to the ancient Egyptians. In this, as is well known, the children of Israel were greatly oppressed. The circumstance of the bricks they made being mixed with chopped straw, renders it probable that they were not burned, but merely dried in the sun. Herodotus records of Asychis, one of the kings of Egypt, that he built a pyramid of bricks, made of the mud or silt dredged up from the bottom of the Nile. In one compartment of a tomb in Thebes the whole process of brick-making is portrayed. Some persons appear carrying the clay in vessels from the field, others beating it with spades, others taking the bricks out of the mould, and others bearing away the dried bricks, making a balance over their shoulders with ropes attached to a beam. The first effort of those who would rear a town would be to mark out the extent of the ground they required, including not only a desirable space for building, but pasture-lands for flocks and herds, and also fields for the produce of grain. A wall would now be necessary at the boundary line, as a defense from the assaults of ravenous beasts, or the incursions of hostile bands. This would at first be formed of any stones that could be dug out or collected, and then heaped together; a strong and stable, but rude protection.