ABSTRACT
FURTHERMORE, cunning master-builders who wish to lay foundations in water and build lofty houses watch for a season in which lakes or rivers are frozen with ice that is firm to a thickness of at least one handbreadth, though the ice is sometimes ten times as thick as that and even more. Then they sink down timbers which cannot be rotted by the action of water, with stones lashed to them, all on a suitable plan, and adjust every thing by accurate measurement so that, when the ice has melted under the heat of the sun, they have foundations standing solidly on banks or projecting into the water, chiefly so that they may be able to preserve their best pos sessions more safely from fires which, for the most part, are started by lightning.1
