File:Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. - during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820 (1821) (14591241809).jpg

Identifier: travelsingeorgia02port (find matches)
Title: Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. : during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820
Year: 1821 (1820s)
Authors: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842
Subjects: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842
Publisher: London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown
Contributing Library: Tisch Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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remains ofwhat formerly constituted a part of some interior division of thegreat pile itself, I shall presently attempt to shew. At the footof this piece of wall, on its southern and western sides, besidesthe minor fragments I have just mentioned as having inspectedin search of bitumen, lay several immense unshapen masses ofsimilar fine brick-work; some entirely changed to a state ofthe hardest vitrification, and others only partially so. In manymight be traced the gradual effects of the consuming powerwhich had produced so remarkable an appearance; exhibitingparts burnt to that variegated dark hue, seen in the vitrifiedmatter lying about in glass manufactories ; while through thewhole of tiiese awful testimonies of the fire, (whatever fire itwas !) which, doubtless, hurled them from their original eleva-tion, the regular lines of the cement are visible, and so hardenedin common with the bricks, that when the masses are struckthey ring like glass. On examining the base of the standing
Text Appearing After Image:
THE TOWER OF BABEL. 3I3 wall, contiguous to these huge transmuted substances, it is foundtotally free from any similar changes, in short, quite in itsoriginal state; hence I draw the conclusion, that the consumingpower acted from above, and .that the scattered ruin fell fromsome higher point than the summit of the present standingfragment. The heat of the fire which produced such amazingeffects, must have burnt with the force of the strongest furnace;and from the general appearance of the cleft in the wall, andthese vitrified masses, I should be inclined to attribute thecatastrophe to lightning from heaven. Ruins, by the explosionof any combustible matter, would have exhibited very differentappearances. On the face of the pile itself*, a little way down its northernbrow, a considerable space of similar fine brick masonry is vi-sible. The bricks here measure three inches and a quarter inthickness, by twelve inches in length. They are a pale red, andcemented, like the upper mural fragme

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