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A stranger in New-York, and even many of its younger citizens, would hardly suppose, from the present appearance of the handsome Ionic temple standing directly east of the City Hall, for what "base uses" that classic edifice was originally built, or for what ignoble purposes it was kept, until within a few years back.

The Greeks also borrowed the column and flat arch from the Egyptians, but changed it to a more slender, graceful form. The three principal orders of Greek architecture are named from the style of the column used that characterized them, viz., the Corinthian, the Doric, the Ionic. Of these the Doric is the simplest and the Corinthian the most elaborate.

In an open space beside a mosque lay neglected a beautifully-finished marble bath, once intended, perhaps, for a Roman villa; and in the wall of the mosque, and of the cemetery beside it, were numerous friezes and cornices, whose elaborately-finished sculptures of the Ionic and Corinthian orders proved that they were never designed for any building on the spot, but were in all probability worked near the quarries for the purpose of easier transportation, as is done in the quarries of Carrara at the present day.

The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in Greece was Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers. He is reported to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred and sixty-five days, to have determined the course of the sun from solstice to solstice, and to have calculated eclipses.

Lawrie, whose elaborate researches into this subject leave us nothing further to discover, places the arrival of the Dionysiacs in Asia Minor at the time of the Ionic migration, when "the inhabitants of Attica, complaining of the narrowness of their territory and the unfruitfulness of its soil, went in quest of more extensive and fertile settlements.

They went to see her in a wonderful hotel, entering through a classic court, with a silver-plashing fountain in the middle, and slim Ionic pillars standing up white and glorious out of masses of palms.

The whole front of the palace of the Tuileries consists of five pavilions, connected by four piles of building, standing on the same line, and extending for the space of one thousand and eleven feet. The first order of the three middle piles is Ionic, with encircled columns.

"The tone metaphysical is also a good one. If you know any big words this is your chance for them. Talk of the Ionic and Eleatic schools of Archytas, Gorgias, and Alcmaeon. Say something about objectivity and subjectivity. Be sure and abuse a man named Locke.

Like that, it stands upon a raised platform, built of dark porphyritic stone, the surface being five or six feet above the level of the plaza. The principal front is in the Doric style; but the two tall side towers are Ionic. The two domes, covered with the glittering native tiles, throw back the sunlight with a dazzling mottled effect.

Though a Dorian by birth, he adopted the Ionic dialect, with its uncontracted terminations, its accumulated vowels, and its soft forms. These various elements conspire to render the work of Herodotus a production as perfect in its kind as any human work can be. LITERARY PREDOMINANCE OF ATHENS. Among the Greeks a national literature was early formed.