Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/163

 THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF FORM. That the Chaldaean architects were early led to the invention of the arch is easily understood. They were unable to support the upper parts of their walls, their ceilings or their roofs, upon beams of stone or timber, and they had to devise some other means of arriving- at the desired result. This means was not matured all at once. With most peoples the first stage consisted probably in those corbels or off-sets by which the width of the space to be covered was reduced course by course, till a junction was effected at the top ; and sometimes this early stage may have been dis- pensed with. In some cases, the workman who had to cover a narrow void with small units of construction may, in trying them ., M |I|V| */'-. , / r | Ml i '  ' " ' " ,i  [vvyvywv wvvf'vwwvr ] FIG. 43. -Temple in a Royal Park, Kouyundjik ; from the British Museum. in various positions and combinations, have hit upon the real principle of the arch. This principle must everywhere have been discovered more or less accidentally ; in one place the accident may have come sooner than in another, and here it may have been turned to more profit than there. We shall have to describe and explain these differences at each stage of our journey through the art history of antiquity, but we may at once state the general law that our studies and comparisons will bring to light. The arch was soonest discovered and most invariably employed by those builders who found themselves condemned, by the geological formation of their country, to the employment of the smallest units.