Los Angeles herald., 1906-10-22

wheel was to attach the board to a
pivot, and since that time, several
thousand years ago. the only great i'm
provement has been the addition Of a
foot power to revolve It,
The ruins of Bismya revealed the
early history Of the brick. Down In the
lowest and most ancient strata of the
ruins unbaked bricks and mud APP
peared. Tho mud, while soft, had been
nodded into rectangular blocks and
placed in the sun to dry. The poorer OF
the natives OF Mesopotamia still em-
ploy no other building material. 1t was
not far from 1900 y. G. that the first
burned bricks were made. The in
ventor no doubt was some observing,
half-naked Babylonian who noticed
that the soft mud upon which he built
his camp fire became as hard as
stone. So we'll were the carly bricks
burned that even now after moro than
6OO0 years upon the upper surface OF
every brick may be seen the I'M
pressions of the fingers Of the man who
shaped them. Because of their convex
surface they could not well be laid fiat
wise in the wall, as modern bricks are
placed. so the ancient mason set them
uron edge. leaning them against each
ether, herringbon e-wise, as the archae-
ologist would say, leaving large spaces
between them to be filed with sott
mud or with the bitumen from the hot
springs near by.
The makers mark upon our modern
bricks Is not a recent invention, Tor IL
has been employed from the time bricks
were first made. In ancient times bricks
were not manufactured by one person
and sold to The general trade, but, as
now in some parts Of the modern orient,
IL q person wished to build, his first
duty was to make and bake his bricks.
IT was then the king alone who aspired
to structures OF burned br1cks, ana,
therefore, only the royal mark ap-
peared. The first mark upon brick
of about the year $500 B. G. was made
by jabbing the end of the thumb into
the soft clay; the thumb mark was
succeeded by an impression from the
end of a round stick. Between 1900 and
$500 Il. G. an interesting series ~oi
brick marks was developed. Ihe trsC
of the series was a line drawn length
wise with the finger along the surface
of the brick; the next generation drew
the line diagonally, the third adoed
another diagonal line which crossed the
first. The other rulers continued the
series with two, three, four and I'VE
lines. In $500 b. C. Sargon, the king,
who introduced square bricks, was
among the first to stamp his name ana
titles upon thel11--a custom Whlch mas
survived in one form or another until
now.
We are told that the dress of the first
human pair was made by Fastening
fig leaves together, The dress OF the
early Babylonian, as we learn from the
statues and stat tuettes from the Bis
mya ruins, showed but little improve
ment upon it. The dress was narrow
band about the loins, which. in time,
grew wider until it extended from the
waist to the knees. 1t is difficult to dis
tinguish upon the crude clay and stone
images the material employed in the
dresses, yet it appears to have consist
ed of bands Of leaves overlapping eacn
other as shingles upon a roof, or or
skin, or Of strips Of wool, lightly at
tached together.
Weaving by the Rabylonans
1t is not known Just at what time the
ancients first wove cloth. Probably
the weaving of cotton and wool, or the
fibers Of plants, was suggested py the
reed mats which were made at an ex-
ceedingly early date. No woven goods
from the earliest Babylonian times have
survived, but that they existed we are
certain. In the ruins of a house con-
tanning Inscriptions dating from about
$500 B. c. we uncovered an earthen jar
which had been securely sealed with
mud. Breaking the mud covering
away we found upon its under surface
the distinct impression of the threads
of a woven cloth. The cloth itself had
entirely disappeared, but the impress
sion showed that 1t had been placed
over the mouth Of the jar and then
sneared over with mud.
To most people it is mystery how
the American Indians formed their ar
row heads and other implements from
the hardest of stone. Still more remark
able was the work upon stone in the
ancient Babylonian times. The chief
weapon Of war was the sling, with its
balls of hard clay, yet stone arrow
heads have been found The most COM
mon Of all stone implements was the
flint saw, an exceedingly thin piece of
stone, about half an inch in width and
with notches upon both edges to serve
as teeth With the fragment Of one
had no difficulty in saving through