Word: mortar
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...salts crystallize again, they crack pores within the stone. In recent years, scientists agree, the salt damage has been accelerated by the Aswan High Dam, more than 400 miles upriver. The new dam has raised the water table throughout the Nile Valley. Another villain has been the high-salt mortar used to restore the flaking monument. "Walking on top of the Sphinx in the morning," says Gauri, "you can hear the stones popping like potato chips...
Gauri, who has worked on the Taj Mahal and the Acropolis, proposes that the Egyptians flush out the Sphinx's salt deposits and replace part of its veneer with low-salt stone and mortar. "If the work is done right," says Gauri, "it should last as long as the stones of the pharaohs...
...plans yet to replant the ivy when the Houses are all spruced up again-that, in fact, the ivy was partially responsible for the structural decay that prompted the massive renovation. The plant's tendrils, it seems, secrete a substance that slowly eats away at a wall's mortar and cement...
...second law of corporate contributions: companies are always more willing to give when their giving is seen. "Many companies are reluctant to give for endowment, for bricks and mortar," Stephenson observes. They are more likely to endow professorships or support buildings and forums, than they are to donate money for unrestricted...
...Seychelles army truck parked on the runway and was forced to hop over another, which the plane did brush with a wing flap. "I'm afraid you have arrived at a most unfortunate moment," one of the mercenaries told the 79 startled passengers and crew on board as mortar and machine-gun fire blazed around them. "You'll just have to wait." Three hours later, the surviving soldiers of fortune, carrying the body of a dead comrade, trooped onto the plane and ordered it to fly to South Africa. Arrested upon landing at Durban, they now face prison...