•3i]C> 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[November, 



smallest possible quantity of materials set in the form of flying-but- 

 tresses, pinnacles, and wall-buttresses, that force which unrestrained 

 might have endangered the walls. Thus by making use of only a 

 small quantily of materials, every particle of which was brought into 

 active service, he was enabled to carve ornament and enrich every 

 part of his fabric out of those funds which we ignorant moderns expend 

 in raising coarse masses which iierfonn no duly, or ill-directed cither 

 waste much of their weight and strength, or else employ it in rending 

 and dilapidating the fabric. 



The author comes now to a department of the dynamic knowledge 

 of the Gothic arcliilects, wliich, as he believes it outstrips in combi- 

 nation of skill and beauty all other efforts of the architectural prac- 

 titioner, ancient or modern, affords him matter of surprise, that as far 

 as he knows or remembers, it has not been noticed by any previous 

 writer. 



The manner in which the Gothic architects conducted the active 

 force of a vault to one place, and then with practical certainty counter- 

 abutted that force by a small rpiantity of materials placed exactly in 

 the situation proper for the purpose, has just been shown; it is now 

 proposed to show the wonderful manner in which the flying-buttresses, 

 the wall-buttresses froni which they spring, and the surmounting pin- 

 nacles, are together disposed so as with the most delicate union of 

 the extreme of beauty, to unite the most wonderful economy and such 

 a knowledge of mechanics as will in vain be sought for in any other 

 description of buildings. 



Having found out exactly tlie precise place where the active force 

 of the vaulting was pressing against the wall, they distended the 

 Jlyhig-hiiltresses or arc-boutant widely at that part, in the same manner 

 'as a modern carpenter, in ttm/.orary-shoring, places a board flat against 

 a dangerous wall ; they then gradually concentrated this distention of 

 tlie wall-thrust into one point, where the flying-buttress joins the wall 

 buttress; thus they concentrated at the head of the wall-buttress, all 

 the active force communicated by the vaulting, in the same manner as 

 in wrestling all the force received by the arms becomes concentrated 

 in the spine, pressing its vertebree closely together ; but then as the 

 operation of this force, would have required the wall-buttress to be 

 made sprawling out to a vast distance from the wall, in order to pre- 

 vent the active power from throwing it over, they change the course 

 of the active force, simply by running up the head of the wall-buttress 

 in the form of a pinnacle," which, having only a direct downward 

 gravity, by the resolution of forces, so changed the course of the active 

 force, that it could be confined within the body of a buttress of com- 

 1 aratively moderate dimensions,— the downwardly-increasing gravity 

 of the wall-buttress in fact mingling with the force communicated to 

 it, curved the direction of the force more and more inwards, till it was 

 eventually re-dift'used horizontally over the broad foundation of the 

 buttress, and was from thence communicated to the earth itself. Thus 



f—h. Bc-nl of the force communicated 

 to Ibo llying-butlrcss by ihe drift 

 of llie vauUino;, which force would 

 proceed unrestrained to u, if the 

 pinnacle were removed, and 

 weuld consequently drive over 

 the wall-butlress in thai direc- 

 tion. 



p—f. The direct downward force of the 



fravily of the pinnacle, 

 he active ilirection of the two 

 combined forces above-slated, 

 more and more restrained in i[s 

 downward course, within the body z£ 

 of the wall-buttress, till it reaches 

 the ground at ^. 

 f,h,p,c. Parallelogiam of forces. 



pinnacles, which are vulgarly considered merely as ornaments, became 

 the most refined instruments in the economy and security of ecclesias- 

 tical and other buildings, and like the position of the human head, had 

 a most material influence upon the stiffness and activity of the whole 



frame. With this knowledge, it was, tliat the Gothic architects pro- 

 portioned the weight and size of their pinnacles, and when we see 

 them assuming an extraordinary altitude, as at Worcester Cathedral, 

 it is not from idle, wild, or luxuriant caprice, but because extraor- 

 dinary means were required in order to change suddenly the course of 

 an active power, which wo\ild otherwise have expended itself beyond 

 the body of the abutment, and by displacing it, have brought to ruin 

 the whole work.* 



They did not always stop here, for knowing that there was a por- 

 tion of the wall-buttress near the ground and adjoining to the side 

 aisles, which received no thrust, and lay as it were dead, this they cut 

 out altogether, as at Gloucester Cathedral, some of our English Chap- 

 ter-houses, Westminster-hall, and some of the Continental Cathedrals 

 which have chapels set between their wall-buttresses ;t so that in fact, 

 the wdiole form, position, and management of the counter-abutments 

 of Gothic vaultings, were like those of a human skeleton, placed in a 

 leaning posture, with the bones of the legs away from the base, those 

 of the nands and arms pressing against the moving part of the vault, 

 with the skull erect to confirm and steady the spine, and the whole 

 strengthened by sufficient flesh and muscle. 



That the true mechaoical office of the pinnacles of pointed architecture 

 is as stated above, appeared to the author to be so evident, that it at 

 once struck him after coming to this knowledge, that the double 'set of 

 flying buttresses on the south side of Westminster Abbey, must be respec- 

 tively inclined, so as to receive within their solid substance the pres- 

 sure of the vaultiug ; and that on account of the operation of the two 

 sets of pinnacles, the lower flying-buttresses must be set more uprightly 

 than the upper ones; this upon examination pioved to be the case, 

 showing that if the original budders were not fully versed in the sub- 

 ject (which may be greatly doubted). Wren, who restored these but- 

 tresses, was so, and probably by his great scientific knowledge, was 

 enabled to adjust them more accurately to their proper positions. 

 The great masters who had to do with this fabric, could not avoid the 

 great extra consumption of materials which arose from removii:g the 

 great buttresses away from the wall out into the cloister-green, in 

 order to leave room for the north avenue of tlie cloister; but having 

 a difficult task to perform, they performed it with admirable skill, 

 and knowledge greater than is exhibited in many of the Continental 

 Cathedrals, some of which have two sets of buttresses in order to 

 admit side chapels. 



With what humility should we look upon our modern use of but- 

 tresses, pinnacles and abutments, which we pretend are the results of 

 a far outstripping science, and of an improved taste, — while men whom 

 we have been in the habit of calling barbarians, have in a dark age 

 (more enlightened in many things than the best ages of Greece and 

 Rome) at once mingled in their works, poetry, economy, taste, strength, 

 and invention. 



Geometrical Survey. — The officers of the engineers appointed to conduct the 

 survey of die island have been for the last six weeks stationed upon the top 

 of Ben Volicb, a high and peaked mountain in Rannocb, east of Lochgarry. 

 They had spent the greater part of the summer un Schihallion. but the severity 

 of the weather of late lias both both impeded their operations and rendered 

 the station very uncomfortable. For the last fortnight the snow has been 

 lying some inches deep around their very superficial temi'orary dwelling, and 

 the carriage of fuel from the surrounding districts is at once expensive and 

 precarious. The view from this moutain, as well as from Schihallion, is very 

 extensive from their commamling altitude, and enables the engineers to take 

 B very wide observation. — Scotch Paper. 



* Ronilclet in his " Traite The'orlque et Pratique dc VArt de Bdtir," shows 

 that he bad sagacity enough to find out the benuty of the whole management 

 of the dome of St. Paul's, and that he saw plainly the consolidating effect 

 which the weight of the covering of the dome has upon the hollow cone; but 

 it is singular that this sagacity did not preserve him from in some sort depre- 

 cating the oblujue meeting of the cone with its supporting piers; be did not 

 perceive, that besides the enormous collection of surrounding abutments 

 which the great cone possesses, the perpendicular extension of the external 

 peristylium aljove the foot of the cone, acts so as by the resolution of furces 

 to materially change the direction of any expanding thrust which the base of 

 the cone may possess, and to confine it strictly within the bodies ol the first 

 set of piers. 



t Mr Savage, at the New Chelsea Church, has omitted the nactive parts 

 of" the wall -buttresses in order to admit a free passage in the dry areas which 

 surround the basement-story of the edifice ; but he has not changed the drijt 

 in tile (lying. buttresses by placing p nnacles over the wall-buttresses; allow- 

 ing the present wall-buttresses ot the church to lie sufhcicnt, the present 

 combustible ceilings over the galleries of the church might be exchanged for 

 groined roofs of stone, and the addition of pinnacles would still confine the 

 drift within the present wall-buttresses, notwithstanding the added drift of 

 the new side vaults. 



