CIVIL ARCHITECTURE. 



597 



tactic*, work. The former dressing freely with the hammer, in 

 >> ~r~ ' one direction, may readily be formed with good faces, 

 but not being stratified, their beds are uncertain, and not 

 easily improved by art ; the latter, that is schistus, is just 

 the reverse, having naturally good beds, but being, in 

 few instances, willing to dress square across the laminae : 

 They are, indeed, where expence is not an object, worked 

 to a face by the laborious operation of striking perpen- 

 dicularly with a wedge-mouthed hammer or stone axe: 

 Both kinds are laid, sometimes promiscuously, and at 

 others in regular courses. 

 Limestone. Limestone, where found regularly stratified, affords 



food building stone, and combines the advantages of 

 oth the former, having naturally good beds, and dress- 

 ing readily for a face. 



Schisms. A species of schistus stone affords a covering to roofs 

 totally unknown to the ancients, and which, when good 

 of its kind, and properly prepared and laid on, is both 

 very effectual and beautiful ; it is, in those northern cli- 

 mates, an object of sufficient importance to require to be 

 treated more at length than can, with propriety, be done 

 hi the present Section ; so that we must refer the reader 

 to the word SLATE for farther information. 



Brickj. Bricks have, in England, become a material very ge- 



nerally employed in constructing all kinds of buildings. 

 The country is provided by nature with abundant sup- 

 plies of coal for burning bricks, which can, by means of 

 the sea or numerous inland navigations, be, with great 

 facility, conveyed to the large towns and populous dis- 

 tricts where the demand has long been very great. Clay 

 of proper quality is usually found, either upon the spot 

 or immediate vicinity; a very limited number of work- 

 men, properly arranged, can manufacture a great num- 

 ber of bricks in a stated time ; these can readily be remo- 

 ved to the place where they are to be employed ; being 

 light to handle, and of a rectangular shape, the work- 

 men lay them with facility and ease. By means of bricks, 

 walls can be made much thinner than with almost any 

 kind of stone, they are therefore cheaper, and occupy 

 less space ; in forming doorways, windows, chimneys, 

 apertures and angles of all kinds, the facility they af- 

 ford is greater than that of any other durable material. 

 A building, whose walls are made with bricks, dries 

 soon, is free from damp; and, if properly made, and 

 thoroughly well burnt, bricks endure equal to mo t, and 

 longer than many kinds of stone. The best modes of 

 manufacturing them having already been so fully dis- 

 cussed, in this work, under the word BRICK, it would 

 be superfluous to repeat them. 



Tilet. Tiles have long been employed in England for cover- 

 ing the roofs of buildings situated in towns, and of farm 

 houses and cottages in the country, but of late years the 

 use of them has been much circumscribed by the exten- 

 sion of that of slates; the particular mode of manufac- 

 turing and using them, will be found under the word 

 TILE. 



Sand. Respecting sand, the ancient and modern practice 

 agrees nearly in all that need be said; that which is of 

 angular shape, hard texture, and perfectly free of earthy 

 particles, is admitted to be best. The circumstances ne- 

 cessary to be attended to in employing it, have already 

 been mentioned in the article BRIDGE. 



Mme. Lime, as employed in mortar, has already been inves- 

 tigated and explained under the article BRIDGE. What 

 regards the practical opt-rations of quarrying and burning, 

 will be found under the words LIME, and LIMEKILN. 



Metalf. In rfgard t" mela's i,. modern times, the use of copper 

 and ironzi- '; ?, in building purposes, been mostly aban- 

 doned. Bran has been continued in locks, pullies, sash. 



fl 



windows, handles, and sliding plates, connected with bells, Practice; 

 and sundry other purposes in fitting up the interior of """"Y"^"' 

 apartments. Iron has been applied to many purposes 

 unthought of in former limes. The improvement and ge- 

 neral introduction of cast iron bids fair to create a totally 

 new school of architecture. It has already been occa- 

 sionally employed in pillars, roofs, floors, chimney, doors, 

 and windows; and the facility with which it is moulded 

 into different shapes, will continue to extend its applica- 

 tion. The before-mentioned purposes, to which it has al- 

 ready been applied, will be more particularly noticed in 

 the discussions of Practice in the different Branches of 

 Architecture ; and an investigation of the qualities of the 

 material itself, as well as the mode of procuring and ma- 

 nufacturing it, will form a separate and important head 

 under the word IRON. 



Glass, as a building material, was little if at all known Glass, 

 to the ancients, and its introduction alone has been pro- 

 ductive of comforts and elegancies to which the most re- 

 fined of the Greeks and Romans were utter strangers. 

 Their oiled paper, transparent horn, talc, shells, and linen, 

 would now, even to an English peasant, appear a miser- 

 able expedient. An account of the application of glass 

 in architectural works, will frequently occur as we pro- 

 ceed through the several branches ; but being also ex- 

 tensively employed in purposes totally distinct from what 

 is connected with buildings, we must, for a general and 

 full investigation of it, refer to the word GLASS. 



Besides the materials which have already been enume- 

 rated as composing the principal members, as walls, roofs, 

 floors, doors, windows, chimneys, stairs, and pavements; 

 hair is also necessary in the composition of mortar for Hair, 

 plastering the surface of the walls and ceiling.i ; likewise 

 various paints and papers for covering them and other Paper*, 

 parts of the work ; but as these will be described, and 

 the modes of applying them explained in their proper 

 places, it would b>. improper to swell this article by en- 

 tering upon the subject at present. 



Definitions relating to the Orders. 



The moderns have applied the term order to those ar- 

 chitectural forms with which the Greeks composed the 

 facades of their temples. The principal members of an 

 order are, 1. A platform ; 2. Perpendicular supports ; 

 and, 3. A lintelling or covering connecting the tops of 

 these supports, and crowning the edifice. The propor- . 

 tioning these parts to the edifice and to each other, and 

 adapting characteristical decorations, constitutes an order, Orders 

 canon, or rule. We have already seen that the Egyp- 

 tian employed all the principal members of an order, E gyP tuB - 

 and also in some instances adapted very fine decorations, 

 but they never varied the general character, it continued 

 uniformly to express dignified gravity. The Greeks, in 

 the spirit of freedom, and with peculiar facility of inven- 

 tion, varied the expressions of th.ir architecture as well 

 as sculpture, and produced three species, which are de- 

 nominated orders. The principal member of an order; 

 is the perpendicular support or column. The accompani- 

 ments being subservient to this leading feature, the bot- 

 tom of the column is placed either on a general artificial 

 platform, or each upon a particular plinth, or both. The 

 lower part of the column, which rests upon the square 

 plinth, is sometimes encompassed with mouldings, which, 

 in allusion to their position, are, in conjunction with the 

 plinth, termed a Base. The top part of the column is also Bae. 

 covered with a square plinth, with its sides straight or cur- 

 ved, and generally accompaaied by circular mouldings or 

 sculptured decorations upon the top part of the column 

 which is immediately underneath it : this, taken together, 



