The stone in quarries is found to be of different and unlike qualities. In some it is soft, in others it is medium, in still others it is hard as in lava quarries. There are also numerous other kinds: for instance, in Campania, red and black tufas; in Umbria, Picenum, and Venetia, white tufa which can be cut with a toothed saw like wood.

Wind is a floating wave of air, whose undulation continually varies.

Architecture is a science arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning; by the help of which a judgment is formed of those works which are the result of other arts.

Cold winds are disagreeable, hot winds enervating, moist winds unhealthy.

Now architecture consists of order, which in Greek is called taxis ... Order is the balanced adjustment of the details of the work separately, and, as to the whole, the arrangement of the proportion with a view to a symmetrical result.

Next I must tell about the machine of Ctesibius, which raises water to a height.

The leaves of these [larch] trees are like those of the pine; timber from them comes in long lengths, is as easily wrought in joiner's work as is the clearwood of fir, and contains a liquid resin, of the color of Attic honey, which is good for consumptives.