Now as regards the construction of the houses belonging to the strata at a depth of from 7 to 10 meters (23 to 33 feet), only the foundations and thresholds were composed of large stones--as anyone may convince himself by a glance at the earthen walls of my excavations. The house-walls, on the other hand, were composed of unburnt sun-dried bricks. At a depth of 10 meters (33 feet), I again found the buildings to be of stone, but of colossal proportions. Most of the stones are very large, many of them hewn, and we meet with a great many massive blocks. It appears to me that I have already brought to light several walls at this depth; but I have unfortunately not yet succeeded in arriving at an opinion as to how they were actually built and what their thickness was. The stones of the walls seem to me to have been separated from one another by a violent earthquake. I have hitherto seen no trace of any kind of cement between them, either of clay or lime.
Of the terrible difficulties of the excavations, where such large pieces of stone are met with, only those can have any idea who have been present at the work and have seen how much time and trouble it takes, especially during the present rainy weather--first to get out the small stones round one of the many immense blocks, then to dig out the block itself, to get the lever under it, to heave it up and roll it through the mud of the channel to the steep declivity.
But these difficulties only increase my desire, after so many disappointments, to reach the great goal which is at last lying before me, to prove that the Iliad is founded on facts, and that the great Greek nation must not be deprived of this crown of her glory. I shall spare no trouble and shun no expense to attain this result.
I must still draw attention to the remarkable growth of this hill. The huge square stones of the foundations of the house on the summit of the hill (where I found the inscription which appears to belong to the third century B.C.), which in its day must have been on the surface, are now in some places only 13 inches, in others only 3¼ feet below the earth. But as the colossal ruins, which I positively maintain to be those of ancient Troy, lie at a depth of 33 feet, the accumulation of _débris_ on this part must have amounted to more than 30 feet during the first 1000 years, and only from 1 to 3 feet during the last 2000 years.