34 



WOOD CHIMNEY-PIECES. 



coal iuel. As coal rises in price and legal disabilities fall on those who fail to consume their own smoke. 

 \ve must expect more and more to have grates evolved on the lines of a fire-brick retort, small in size but 

 powerful in radiant action. It falls, therefore, to the sensible architect to continue the manifest 

 evolution of the mantel-piece and to work out his designs in accordance with the new conditions. Fancy, 

 invention, grace and proportion are of all periods and will not die out, and the good architect will produce 

 out of the treasure-house of his mind things old and new in admirable combination. 



Much mischief has been done by the falsified scale of the mantel-shelf and the accompanying 

 burden of ormolu and bronze that has accumulated thereon. This legacy of the great salon, with its 

 furniture, heroic in scale, is very difficult to displace. It has been a hard battle to get a hearing for the 

 small shelf up to six inches wide and perhaps four to five feet from the floor. Tenants have been known 

 to decline architects houses on such grounds, and to take their stand, morally and physically, as it were, 

 on the wide, low shelf as a condition of occupancy. 



We should be &quot; still talking,&quot; like the hero of &quot; Superman,&quot; if we continued on this fertile topic 

 of chimney-piece design ; but this chapter will have served its purpose if it calls attention to the wide- 

 field afforded by the chimney-piece and interests the intending house-builder in the problem to the end 

 that he may encourage his architect to make special designs for these features. 



ARTHUR T. BOLTON. 



52. A DESIGN OF SIMPLE ELEMENTS. 



