Heat is a universal solvent, melting out of things their power of resistance, and sucking away and removing their natural strength with its fiery exhalations so that they grow soft, and hence weak, under its glow.

Trees which grow in places facing the course of the sun are not of porous fiber but are solid, being drained by the dryness... The trees in sunny neighborhoods, therefore, being solidified by the compact texture of their fiber, and not being porous from moisture, are very useful, so far as durability goes, when they are hewn into timber. The lowland firs, being conveyed from sunny places, are better than those highland firs, which are brought here from shady places.

Propriety is that perfection of style which comes when a work is authoritatively constructed on approved principles. It arises from prescription, from usage, or from nature.

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.

Noting all these things with the great delight which learning gives, we cannot but be stirred by these discoveries when we reflect upon the influence of them one by one.

In the midst of all this great variety of subjects, an individual cannot attain to perfection in each, because it is scarcely in his power to take in and comprehend the general theories of them.

Dimension stone, flint, rubble, burnt or unburnt brick, use them as you find them. For it is not every neighborhood or particular locality that can have a wall built of burnt brick like that at Babylon, where there was plenty of asphalt to take the place of lime and sand, and yet possibly each may be provided with materials of equal usefulness so that out of them a faultless wall may be built to last forever.