Note 215 — ESSAYS. (continued 3)

Pantænus, the brother of Phidias, used a plaster or stucco in the Temple of Minerva at Elis, mixed with milk. This should be something like the beautiful marble-like stucco or chunam-work of India. I once saw a floor laid at Madras, among the materials of which were jaggree, or coarse sugar water and milk. Ram Raz, in his treatise on Hindu Architecture, says:

“Chunam, intended for fine plastering and ornamental works, is ground by women on an oblong granite stone, and a cylindrical upper stone about four inches in diameter; the mixture is sometimes ground two, three, and four times, to bring it to the required fineness and purity. In all the operations of chunam-work, jaggery water, i. e. a solution of molasses or coarse sugar, is invariably added by the builders, and its use appears to have prevailed from the remotest ages. There are various opinions among the modern practitioners regarding its usefulness, but those who have had the most extensive practice in building hold it as an indispensable ingredient in the formation of a durable and hard cement; and it is stated that the operator evidently perceives the dissolvent property of the jaggery water, on its being tempered with the prepared mortar.”