Show the chinese wall general J U wilson reports the great wall of china in tine flue condition where he be examined it though ruinous imparts in parts 1 I it is from 25 to SO 30 feet high 15 to 10 feet thick and rivet ted outside and in with cut granite masonry laid in regular courses with an excellent mortar of r lime and aad sand it is surmounted by a parapet or battlement of gray burned brick IS 18 or 20 inches thick covered with moss and pierced with openings for or the defenders whether archers or to tire lire through h the rear or inner revetment wall Is ilso also furnished with a lower parapet but itis it is not the top copis is paved with a double layer ot brick about a foot square the inside of the wall is made ot earth and loose stor elwell rammed in every or yards there lb Is il a bankins fi turret thirty five or forty feet high projecting beyond and overlook ins ing tile the face of the wall in both directions and near each turret is a stone staircase leading down between the walls to a door opening upon the round ground in the rear the most astonishing thing about it is however that it climbs straight up the steepest and ancl most lugged mountain sides courses along their sum summits dinits descends into the gorges and ravines an and rising again skirts the face of almost inaccessible crags crosses rivers valleys and plains in endless succession from one end of the empire to the other from the seashore on the gulf of P chee lee to the desert waste of estan so no spot is left belt unguarded or uncovered and no matter how alerce and active were the wild tribesmen who assailed it or how innumerable their armies it is evident that it could rould if well defended defy the world worl 1 I up to the day of gunpowder and artillery indeed II 11 it t la Is almost impossible to conceive of its capture except through treachery or great neglect on the part ot of those whose duty it should be to defend it it is laid out in total defiance of the rules of military engineering ensine erine and tet yet t the walls are so solid and In inaccessible access J and the gates so well arranged and defended that it would puzzle a modern modera army with a first class siege train to get through it if any effort whatever was made for its de defence feuce 11 |