Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/248

236 form of modern houses. The knowledge of the Phœnicians concerning geometry and mechanics, as a matter of course, improved their carpentry to such a degree as to make their workmen sought after even by the Hebrews. To Hiram, King of Tyre, both David and Solomon applied not only for materials, but for the greatest number of carpenters he could spare, when proposing to build the Temple of Jerusalem. If we consider what a large share of work carpentry has in establishing a colony and making it prosper, and, again, to what fame the colonies founded by the Phœnicians all along the Mediterranean coast arose, their prominence in this art will be still better proved. A carpenter of Samos, by the name of Mandrocles, perhaps the oldest carpenter whose name has found a place in history, built a bridge on the Bosporus, which, in a few days, afforded passage to Darius and his seven hundred thousand men, when on his expedition against the Scythians.

No documents, to our knowledge, remain that concern the carpentry of the Egyptians. Perhaps, owing to the peculiar conditions of the land, masonry prevailed in Egypt at a very early stage of their civilization; the Pyramids and the temples of Memphis prove, however, better than tongue or pen, what was their knowledge of the art under consideration; those gigantic monuments presuppose the existence of the most powerful machinery. Expressing contempt for any man who by his work contributed, however slightly, to the public welfare, was among the Egyptians, as is known, an infraction of the law, and punishable in consequence. In the case of a young carpenter who had made but a few school implements and had been ill-spoken of, his rights to the public respect were thus solemnly acknowledged by the Magus who sat as judge: "The carpenter who makes school implements accomplishes more toward the improvement of his fellow men than many kings have done."

Vitruvius has speculated at length respecting the form of the early huts in Greece: it appears that they were originally cuneiform; then rectangular, with flat roofs, the boards being well connected and nailed to the posts; later on, the roof became angular, and the hut assumed a shape from which the general outlines of the Doric temple were derived. So enthusiastically was this peculiarly framed roof in former times admired, that even Cicero was betrayed into the unphilosophical remark that, if a temple were to be erected in heaven, where no rain falls, it would be becoming to crown it with a pediment roof. It is hardly needful to explain how the posts were ultimately deprived of their bark, rounded, smoothed, raised on stones and similarly crowned at the summit end, and, to prevent splitting, bound with ligatures at both extremities. "As large trunks," Eny says, "were sometimes difficult to obtain, we note as one of the consequences the petrified bundle-pillar of reeds or sticks tied together at the top and bottom. These most probably suggested the idea of flutes; and the