RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



393 



a good deal of character, is capable of considerable pic- 

 turesque effect, is very easily and cheaply constructed of 

 wood or stone, and is perhaps more entirely adapted to our 



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[Fig. 52 The Bracketed Mode.] 



hot summers and cold winters than any other equally 

 simple mode of building. We hope to see this Bracketed 

 style becoming every day more common in the United 

 States, and especially in our farm and country houses, 

 when wood is the material employed in their construction. 

 Gothic, or more properly, pointed architecture, which 

 sprang up with the Christian religion, reached a point of 

 great perfection about the thirteenth century ; a period 

 when the most magnificent churches and cathedrals of 

 England and Germany were erected. These wonderful 

 structures, reared by an almost magical skill and contriv- 

 ance, with their richly groined roofs of stone supported in 

 mid-air ; their beautiful and elaborate tracery and carving 

 of plants, flowers, and animate objects ; their large windows 



