The Ten Books on Architecture, 8.6.14

Vitruvius  translated by Joseph Gwilt

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14If the soil be hard, and there be no veins of water found at the bottom, we must then have recourse to cisterns made of cement, in which water is collected from roofs and other high places. The cement is thus compounded; in the first place, the purest and roughest sand that can be had is to be procured; then work must be of broken flint whereon no single piece is to weigh more than a pound, the lime must be very strong, and in making it into mortar, five parts of sand are to be added to two of lime, the flint work is combined with the mortar, and of it the walls in the excavation are brought up from the bottom, and shaped by wooden bars covered with iron.

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