Preface N making a selection of the Wonders of the World IN wonders accomplished by the brain and hand of man -in some sort a companion volume to the Wonders of Nature in this series, I have included as wide a range of subjects as the scope of this volume would allow. Here, therefore, will be found tombs, towers, temples, columns, beacons, baths, aqueducts, walls, pagodas, colossal statues, bells, a clock, a great dam, and such modern structures as the Eiffel Tower and the "Sky-Scrapers" of New York. It is a far cry from the Pyramids of Egypt to the "SkyScrapers" of New York. The ages between these astounding triumphs of architectural and engineering skill saw many marvellous buildings and other works arise upon the earth's surface only to sink below it in the course of time, there to await the archeologist and excavator of a later age. Every year new marvels are uncovered and the world is fast learning that almost every great building stands on the site of a still older one. For instance, recent discoveries have shown that the famous Diana at Ephesus was one of three temples. Every one knows that the old portable tabernacle of the Jews was succeeded on Mount Moriah by Solomon's Temple, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and Herod's magnificent Temple erected here was again succeeded by the Mosque of Omar. What has survived is only a fraction of the artistic performances of antiquity. Layers upon layers of old civilizations carry the birthdays of nations into such remote periods that Twentieth Century minds recoil helplessly before the mist of ages. Ancient nations built like giants, and some of them finished with the delicacy of fairies and elves. The East was probably peppered with such buildings as the Tower of Belus (Tower of Babel), that solid pyramid rising in eight great stories from a base of six hundred feet -a type followed 2,000 years later in Boro-Boedoer, Java. When we read of buildings of cedar sheeted with gold or silver, buildings cemented with gold, buildings in which musk was mixed with the mortar for the mere sake of imparting perfume, buildings enriched with magnificent marbles, gorgeous paintings, exquisite carving, jewelled shrines and wonderful statues, we are fain to believe that there were many more than "Seven Wonders" of antiquity. However, the classic list gives: Pyramids of Egypt; Hanging Gardens of Babylon; Mausoleum of Artemesia; Temple of Diana at Ephesus; Colossus of Rhodes; Pharos at Alexandria; and Statue of Jupiter at Olympus. A later list of "Seven Wonders" comprises: The Colosseum at Rome; the Catacombs of Alexandria; the Great Wall of China; Stonehenge; the Leaning Tower of Pisa; the Porcelain Pagoda of Nanking; and the Mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople. All of these are included in this volume, except the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Some of the curious erections of ancient times still baffle inquiry: Stonehenge is one; Carnac, with its 4,000 stone columns, is another; and the Round Towers of Ireland also belong to this class. Then we also have another peculiar class of structures,— the rock-cut temples of India. No collection of wonders of architecture would be complete without that pearl of buildings, the Taj Mahal, perhaps the loveliest of all human works now in existence. New York, July, 1912. E. S. |
