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chapter:
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I: THE ORIGIN OF THE DWELLING HOUSE
CHAPTER II: ON THE PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE ACCORDING TO THE PHYSICISTS
CHAPTER III: BRICK
CHAPTER IV: SAND
CHAPTER V: LIME
CHAPTER VI: POZZOLANA
CHAPTER VII: STONE
CHAPTER VIII: METHODS OF BUILDING WALLS
CHAPTER IX: TIMBER
CHAPTER X: HIGHLAND AND LOWLAND FIR
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Table of Contents:
BOOK I
BOOK II
BOOK III
BOOK IV
BOOK V
BOOK VI
BOOK VII
BOOK IX
1. FIRST of all Thales thought that water was the primordial substance of all things. Heraclitus of Ephesus, surnamed by the Greeks σκοτεινὸς on account of the obscurity of his writings, thought that it was fire. Democritus and his follower Epicurus thought that it was the atoms, termed by our writers “bodies that cannot be cut up,” or, by some, “indivisibles.” The school of the Pythagoreans added air and the earthy to the water and fire. Hence, although Democritus did not in a strict sense name them, but spoke only of indivisible bodies, yet he seems to have meant these same elements, because when taken by themselves they cannot be harmed, nor are they susceptible of dissolution, nor can they be cut up into parts, but throughout time eternal they forever retain an infinite solidity.
Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture. Vitruvius. Morris Hicky Morgan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. London: Humphrey Milford. Oxford University Press. 1914.
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