The basis of the plan were two main streets crossing each other at right angles, each one hundred feet wide and lined with colonnades. The other streets were to run parallel to these. Near the centre of the proposed city was to be clustered the public buildings, the Museum and the Serna, which subsequently contained an alabaster coffin in which rested the remains of Alexander. Alabaster, which the Greeks obtained from Thebes, was much used for mortuary purposes, as well as for columns and statues. Plutarch also describes the planning of the city as follows: “As chalk-dust was lacking, they laid out their lines on the black, loamy soil with flour, first swinging a circle to enclose a wide space, and then drawing lines as chords of the arc to complete with harmonious proportions, something like the oblong form of a soldier’s cape. While the king was congratulating himself on this plan, on a sudden a countless number of birds of various sorts flew over from the land and the lake in clouds, and, settling upon the spot, devoured in a short time all the flour, so that Alexander was much disturbed in mind at the omen involved, till the augurs restored his confidence again, telling him the city he was planning was destined to be rich in resources and a feeder of the nations of men,” a prophecy which proved its truth in the fulfilment. Dinocrates was not, however, the only architect employed in laying out so large a city, as might naturally be supposed, although he was, of course, the governing one. How many more there were it would be difficult to say, but there is record at least of two others, both probably employed by the rapacious and unscrupulous Cleomenes, whom Alexander left in Egypt as hyparch under Ptolemy Philadelphus. Olynthius is the name given of one of these architects and Parmenion of the other. The latter was entrusted more particularly with the superintendency of the works of sculpture, especially in the temple of Serapis, which, by the way, came to be called by his name, Pharmenionis. Bryaxis is also credited with statuary work there. Upon the island of Pharos, which was joined to the city of Alexander by a wide mole, about three-quarters of a mile long, in which were two bridges over channels communicating between the eastern and western harbors, was built by Ptolemy Soter and his son in the year 282 B.C., a most famous lighthouse and a very glorious ancestor of such guardians of the coast as exist to-day.