Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/158

 138 A HISTORY OF ART IN CMALD/EA AND ASSYRIA. In the long and burning summers of Mesopotamia the inhabitants freely exchanged light for coolness. With few and narrow open- ings and thick walls the temperature of their dwellings could be kept far lower than that of the torrid atmosphere without. 1 Thus we find in the Ninevite palaces outer walls of from fifteen to five-and-twenty feet in thickness. It would have been very difficult to contrive windows through such masses as that, and they would when made have given but a feeble light. The difficulty was frankly met by discarding the use of any openings but the doors and skylights cut in the roofs. The window proper was almost unknown. We can hardly point to an FIG. 38. A Fortress. From Layard. instance of its use, either among Assyrian or Chaldean remains, or in the representations of them in the bas-reliefs. Here and there we find openings in the upper stories of towers, but they are loop-holes rather than windows (Fig. 38). 2 1 According to the personal experience of M. Place, the ancient arrangements were more suited to the climate of this country than the modern ones that have taken their place. The overpowering heat from which the inhabitants of modern Mossoul suffer so greatly is largely owing to the unintelligent employment of stone and plaster in the construction of dwellings. During his stay in that town the thermometer sometimes rose, in his apartments, 1051 Centigrade (90 Fahrenheit). The mean temperature of a summer's day was from 40 to 42 Centigrade (from 72 to about 76 Fahrenheit). - See LAVARO, Monuments of Nineveh^ 2nd series, plates 21 and 40.