TCD MS 10516 folio 88 recto
[12th October 1916] by being originally spread over sheets of matted reeds and the sheets interposed between the successive lines of slabs. It was surprising to see the reeds still existing embedded in the pitch and perfectly preserved since those remote times when “they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter*”. Today the Arabs weave the same matting to roof their huts and use the same pitch to staunch their leaking boats.
(4). On one I saw the foot print of a large dog, made, I suppose when the clay was still soft.
(5). The tower or temple stood in three stages superimposed on one another. From its summit the vast desert lay exposed in all its silent grandeur. The view was superb. The plain seemed more like an ocean than ever; the low dis-
*Gen. XI, 3.