341 



BRICKWORK. 



BRIDGE. 



312 



Ctesiphon (about 18 or 20 miles from Bagdad) ia perhaps the largest 

 ancient brick arch existing, being a semicircle 85 feet wide, 106 feet 

 high, and 150 feet long. 



The worst bonded specimens of brickwork executed by the Romans 

 are those formed of triangular bricks filled with rubble. The re- 

 ticulated work, which ia constructed with stones, is often bonded 

 with courses of brickwork. In Pompeii columns constructed with 

 bricks have been discovered : in this city the brickwork of the public 

 buildings has been very accurately executed. 



The brick dome of Santa Sophia at Constantinople is made of 

 porous bricks, light enough to float on water. The brick towers of 

 Bologna are stupendous piles of brickwork. The brickwork in Holland 

 is very accurate. There are many curious brick fronts in Germany, 

 especially in Hanover, and some architectural display in brickwork 

 appears in several of the smaller Italian towns. But the most 

 singular and beautiful brickwork is found in North Prussia, in the 

 Marien Kirche at Brandenburg, the castle of the Teutonic knights, and 

 a variety of other buildings. 



Brickwork was not common in London until after the great fire 

 of 1666. There are early specimens of brickwork in some of the old 

 baronial mansions, in which the chimneys are the most conspicuous 

 features. But few of these houses are of greater antiquity than the 

 time of Henry VII. and VIII. ; and most of them date about the 

 reign of Elizabeth. Hampton Court, built by Cardinal Wolsey, is a 

 specimen of good ancient English brickwork. One of the most 

 elaborately carved specimens of English brickwork with which we are 

 acquainted is a tomb in the church of Wymondham, Norfolk, which 

 is in the early Italian style, covered with grotesque ornaments. 

 The practice of carving cornices, &c., hi brick continued till about a 

 century ago, when it ceased, owing to the more frequent use of stone. 

 Inigo Jones used brick-moulded cornices hi some of his structures. 



It may safely be asserted that London now contains more brick 

 structures than any other city in the world so abundant is the supply 

 of clay, and so distant are the quarries of stone. As a general rule, 

 the private houses do not display any great excellence in brickwork ; 

 perhaps St. James's Square, and a portion of the buildings at Ken- 

 sington Palace, are among the best. Several of the vast warehouses 

 recently built in New Cannon Street present fine examples of brick- 

 work, dressed with stone. Many of the new churches exhibit a careful 

 use of red, yellow, and white bricks the manufacture of which has 

 greatly increased since the removal of the duty. Vast systems of 



brickwork are comprised in the sewers of London ; and still finer 

 examples will probably be afforded by the great intercepting drainage 

 now (1859) just commencing. The Thames Tunnel is a large and fine 

 specimen of brickwork. Still more extensive are the viaducts of 

 brick arches belonging to the various railways which enter the metro- 

 polis. The very perfection of brickwork, probably, is exhibited in the 

 lofty factory chimneys, some of them 400 feet high, in Lancashire, 

 Cheshire, Yorkshire, and around Glasgow. 



BRIDGE. A construction by means of which a roadway or a foot- 

 path is carried across a river, or other piece of water. In common 

 language bridges differ from aqueducts, insomuch as the latter convey 

 water only ; and from viaducts, because viaducts usually are erected in 

 deep valleys wherein the watercourse occupies but a very small portion 

 of the space traversed, whereas bridges are essentially erected hi the 

 watercourses it is desired to pass. 



Although unquestionably the necessity for erecting some means of 

 permanent communication between the respective banks of large rivers, 

 must have been felt at an early period in the history of civilised 

 nations, it was not until a comparatively late one that the art of bridge 

 building can be said to have assumed any definite character. The 

 Greek historians, indeed, mention the erection of very important 

 bridges by Semiramis, Darius, Xerxes, Pyrrhus; and in Egypt, the 

 irrigation canals must have rendered it necessary to construct many 

 such passages. But it would appear that the style adopted in all these 

 constructions was of the rudest and most unscientific character ; and, 

 in fact, it consisted simply in the erection of piers upon the tops of 

 which were laid horizontal beams of timber, or large flat stones. 

 During the monarchy and the early days of the republic of Rome, 

 bridge building remained in this rudimentary state ; and even subse- 

 quently to the completion of the Cloaca Maxima, wherein the principle 

 of the arch is boldly and successfully applied, the earliest of the bridges 

 over the Tiber was constructed of timber as above described. This 

 would be the more singular if, as has been asserted, Tarquinius Priscus, 

 during whose reign the cloacae were made, actually built a stone 

 bridge over the Teverone; but inasmuch as there are reasons for 

 doubting the correctness of this story, it would be safer to consider 

 that the erection of the first stone bridge of large span, was that of 

 the Ponte Rotto, or the Senator's Bridge, built about the year 127 B.C., 

 by Caius Flavius Scipio. This was rapidly followed by other works 

 of the same description, such as the Ponte Mole, Janiculum, 

 Fabricius, Sestius, &c. ; and directly the Roman empire was definitely 



100 



200 feet. 



PODS Senttorius, now Ponte Bitto, restored. 



Alcantara. 



established under Augustus Caesar, the series of wonderful engineering 

 works connected with the formation of roads, and the establishment of 

 water supplies, which still challenge our admiration, were commenced. 

 In fact, arched construction was essentially a Roman invention ; and 

 it was not until their civilisation had distinctly developed itself that 

 the art of bridge building could be said to exist. It is true, however, 

 that the Assyrians and Egyptians had applied the principle of the 

 arch long before Rome exhibited any indications of its future greatness, 

 as has been shown under ARCH, vol. i. col. 486. 



It has been asserted that the Chinese have, for countless ages, 

 pOMemed many of the arts and sciences which Europeans have only 

 acquired within a few years and after a tedious and painful series of 



experiments. Amongst the rest, it is said, that the art of bridge 

 building was practised amongst them, at periods long antecedent to its 

 cultivation in the West; and the bridges at Fou-tcheou-fou and at 

 Suen-tcheou-fou are quoted amongst their earliest works 'of this 

 description. There are no reliable accounts of these structures, but 

 from the little which can be gathered from the travels of the Jesuit 

 missionaries it would seem that the Chinese, at the time of their 

 erection, were not able to execute great bridges in a superior style to 

 that adopted by the Egyptians, Assyrians, or Greeks ; for those above- 

 named were simply formed by laying large horizontal stones upon 

 upright piers. It is true that in China, bridges are said to exist in 

 which pointed, semicircular, polygonal, and semi-elliptical arches are 



