ABSTRACT
Architecture is both an essential, and an ornamental art. The art of building, in its widest signification, includes naval, military, and civil architecture. Civil architecture, comprehending all edifices constructed for the use of man in civil life, forms the topic of the present work. Respecting the origin and early practice of the art, historical testimony affords no aid ; some shelter, however, has been necessary for the comfort and protection of man ever since his creation. The employment of stones for buildings, was another important onward step in the art. The city was laid out in regular squares, the streets of fifteen miles in length crossing each other at right angles. Its hundred gates of brass opened at the end of these streets. The hanging gardens of “the golden city” gave it the beauty of Paradise. But prophecy had spoken its doom, and Babylon the Great fell never to rise again.
