TRANSACTIONS. 79 



there is no combustible connection between the stories, the 

 risk of fire would not be very materially increased by a 

 wooden flooring. 



In Lombardy and Romagna, where both building timber 

 and stone are scarce, moulded brick are almost universally 

 used, not only for plain, but for very highly ornamented, en- 

 tablatures in all styles of architecture, for the architraves 

 of doors and windows, for the shafts and capitals of col- 

 ums, and in sliort for every species of external architectu- 

 ral decoration capable of being executed in either wood or 

 stone. The brick-makers mould clay with all the facility 

 of plaster of Paris, and this delicate work bears exposure 

 to the weather even better than most kinds of stone. Mi- 

 lan, Bologna, and other towns in northern Italy, and es- 

 pecially the famous Carthusian monastery at Pavia, present 

 most remarkable examples of the successful employment of 

 this art in the form of large and small twisted, fluted and 

 reeded columns, complicated and deeply cut Gothic and 

 Grecian mouldings,. Ionic and Corinthian capitals, flowers, 

 wreaths, and every species of ornamental device, many of 

 which, after three centuries of exposure, are still as fresh 

 and sharp as when tliey issued from the kiln. There is 

 no reason to doubt that moulded brick, which is free from 

 many of the objections justly urged against iron as a build- 

 ing material, may be employed by us with great economy 

 and advantage, in place of more costly or combustible, as 

 well as less durable, carved or cast architectural decora- 

 tions. Indeed, if tlie new, or as some say, very ancient 

 but now revived art of silicifying soft stones, plaster and 

 baked clays, shall fulfill its present promise, brick thus 

 hardened will combine more advantages than any other 

 known building material. 



A humbler subject to which I have paid a good deal of 

 attention abroad is that of the difl"erent methods of har- 

 nessing oxen for draught. The modes of employing the ox 

 are very various, and the existence of this great diversity, 



