Page:The Seven Cities of Delhi.djvu/135

 to make this heavy pillar, of a metal the purity of which must be great, or it would surely have rusted almost away in all these centuries. There is no deposit of iron ore in the neighbourhood ; even had there been, how did they manage the forging of this great mass ? It seems a wild conjecture to suggest that it may have been a meteorite ; but even so, an immense amount of patient work must have been necessary before it assumed its present shape.

. — There is a point of interest about this arch, and those on either side, which formed the facade of the mosque. The courses are horizontal, and the arch is formed by shaping the inner edges of each course ; but the back of the arch shows that the idea of the true arch had begun to be explained to the Hindu masons, for some of the stones are cut so as to take a certain amount of thrust. The great ruin of these arches is probably due to their instability, although the gradual disintegration of the stone has been, no doubt, a contributory cause. The central arch is forty-three feet high.

. — It is unfortunate that this has no roof, for then some idea could have been formed as to how far Hindu masons had progressed in forty years under the tuition of