** This method of building was noticed by classical writers. The word “Bowarieh,” borne by several ancient mounds in Chaldoa, signifies, properly speaking, a mat of reeds; it is applied only to such buildings as are apparently constructed with alternate layers of brick and dried reeds. The proportion of these layers differs in certain localities: in the ruins of the ancient temple of Belos at Babylon, now called the “Mujelibeh,” the lines of straw and reeds run uninterruptedly between each course of bricks; in the ruins of Akkerkuf, they only occur at wider intervals--according to Niebuhr and Ives, every seventh or eighth course; according to Raymond, every seventh course, or sometimes every fifth or sixth course, but in these cases the layer of reeds becomes 3 1/2 to 3 3/4 inches wide. H. Rawlin-son thinks, on the other hand, that all the monuments in which we find layers of straw and reeds between the brick courses belong to the Parthian period. [Illustration: 128.jpg A CHALDAEAN STAMPED BRICK.] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a brick preserved in the Louvre. The bricks bearing historical inscriptions, which are sometimes met with, appear to have been mostly ex-voto offerings placed somewhere prominently, and not building materials hidden in the masonry. Monuments constructed of such a plastic material required constant attention and frequent repairs, to keep them in good condition: after a few years of neglect they became quite disfigured, the houses suffered a partial dissolution in every storm, the streets were covered with a coating of fine mud, and the general outline of the buildings and habitations grew blurred and defaced. Whilst in Egypt the main features of the towns are still traceable above ground, and are so well preserved in places that, while excavating them, we are carried away from the present into the world of the past, the Chaldaean cities, on the contrary, are so overthrown and seem to have returned so thoroughly to the dust from which their founders raised them, that the most patient research and the most enlightened imagination can only imperfectly reconstitute their arrangement.