1S46.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



167 



one foot is a unit of work done. A spring that lifts 1000 pounds ^Jjj part 

 of a foot does a unit of work. It is evident, tiiat to elongate a bar an ad- 

 ditional length I, the weight necessary to keep it elongated needs not be 

 applied from the commencement of the process of elongating ; for half I 

 would be produced by half the weight, and one-third of / by one-lhird the 

 weight, and so on. It is evident thatWi would be too much, for the 

 weight W would not be actually employed in the business of elongation 

 in moving from » to I. 



Let L be the length of the bar before the weight W is applied ; A, the 

 area of its cross section ; as before, I = elongation consequent on W. And 

 let X be any elongation between o and /. The weight necessary to keep L 



stretched to L + a; will he - x '^V i this weight may be said to be fully 



employed while it passes through dx at the very extremity of L -f .r. 



W 



7 



xdx expresses the work done 



W pi 



is 





\\i, 



2 



the whole units of work. 

 We have shown that I — 



M.A! 



WL 



M,A 

 W I 



■ .fJi^Xl = WL 



M A/2 



^ = the units of work. 



h ^ 2 L 



Also, the work done, or the resistance overcome, expressed in units of 



hence it is evident that the 



work, = M ^'^ = I M 

 f 2 L e 



amount of work to be done to elongate different bars of the same material, 

 any fractional part of its length expressed by -r, which must not exceed 



theelasticlimit, will vary as LA; for in every case ^M (^\ remains 

 constant. The work done in elongating a bar to its elastic limit, 

 (To be continued.J 



FITZVVILLIAM MUSEUM. 

 The following particulars respecting the site and purpose of this noble 

 building may be interesting to those readers who are not acquainted with 

 the topography of Cambridge. 



The situation of the Museum is one of the most favourable which an 

 architect could desire. It is near the entrance of the town from the Lon- 

 don road, in a broad open part of the main street. When first erected the 

 building was hemmed in by several mean and decayed tenements which 

 have since been removed. The edifice is now perfectly isolated : on three 

 sides are broad spaces of lawn, on the fourth or principal side is the open 

 thoroughfare. So (hat the architect has had the advantage of placing his 

 building where it may be readily seen, and where it is the conspicuous ob- 

 ject of a place of public resort, without the architecture being marred or 

 concealed by the adjacent houses. 



The material of the masonry, pure white Portland stone, contributes 

 much to the architectural effect— and especially in summer by the contrast 

 of the dazzling colour of the building with the dark fol.age of the trees in 

 Peierhouse gardens. The whiteness of the stone is really extraordinary, 

 and generally gives to strangers the impression ihat the building is con- 

 structed of pure marble. Those who are merely accustomed to see Port- 

 land stone of the colour which it assumes in the smoke of London, can 

 scarcely imagine the almost slariling effect produced by the brilliant ap- 

 pearance of the Museum at Cambridge, when seen for the first time: there 

 are few strangers who on entering Cambridge are not impressed with 

 a feeling akin to amazement when they suddenly come in sight of this 

 gorgeous monument of classic architecture. The effect by night, espe- 

 cially, when the moon is shining, is very striking. The columns show in 

 the moonlight as white as snow, and there is somelhing almost magical in 

 the manner in which they contrast with the dark shadows of the sur- 

 rounding trees. 



It must not be supposed, however, that the whole of the effect is to be 

 attributed lo the accidents of situation and colour : these serve only to ex- 

 hibit fully the excellence of the architecture. It has been Mr. Basevi's 

 good fortune to place his masterpiece where it will be seen and appreciated ' 

 by men of taste and education ; and it has successfully undergone the 1 



ordeal of their criticism. This ordeal is the more severe, because, as most 

 of the readers of the Journal are aware, there is in Cambridge a strong and 

 energetic party of amateur architects whose exclusive tenets would lead 

 them to regard with little favour such a building as the Filzwilliam Mu- 

 seum. Even from the hands of these, however, its architectural character 

 has escaped safely. The most zealoos of the Camdenists will generally 

 allow (in moments of candour and liberality) that the Museum is on the 

 whole an exception to the usual hideousness of Pagan architecture ; and 

 some of them have gone so far as to say that the building exhibits positive 

 merits, and that they look upon the lofty columns and the sculptured pedi- 

 ment not only without disgust, but with a feeling very like absolute satis- 

 faction. 



But the Fitzwilliam Museum has undergone a test even surer than the 

 judgment of the members of the Camden Society. The test is this— that 

 the architecture appears more beautiful as the eye becomes more familiar 

 with its character. There are many buildings which appear well at first 

 sight, which cease to please on a second inspection; but this is by no 

 means the case in the present instance. If on his first visit to the Museum, 

 the stranger be gratified by the boldness and richness of its architecture, 

 his pleasure will be only increased in subsequent examinations, when he 

 begins to criticise the architecture in detail. Perhaps no one feels a greater 

 admiration of it than the old Cambridge man after having been familiar 

 with the building during the whole time ot his residence, examines it 

 afresh after the interval of several years. 



That the architecture is not perfect it is useless to deny. The square 

 mass or hump which rises above in the rear of the pediment sadly injures 

 its effect, and this injury appears far greater on actual inspection of the 

 building than could possibly be supposed from an examination of a view 

 of the elevation. The reason of the injury produced probably occurs to 

 few, though all are able to pronounce as to the reality of it. There can be 

 no doubt Ihat this reason is to be found in the fact that the rules of "ap- 

 parent construction" are violated. The pediment, instead of being, as all 

 pediments should be, the gable end of a roof, assumes the appearance of a 

 factitious appendage-it looks stuck on and not an integral and essential 

 portion of the structure. This effect is certainly produced by the " hump" 

 in question, which destroys all idea of the continuity of the roof. To the 

 same cause must be assigned the disfigurement produced by the lateral 

 wings flanking the portico. This criticism rests not merely upon an in- 

 dividual opinion— the defects to which it refers are universally condemned 

 by those who are familiar with the building. The superstructure above the 

 apex of the pediment, and the wings to the right and left of the portico are 

 equally destructive to its chaiacter-and from the same cause :-they show 

 that the portico is not treated constructively, but is merely an ornament 

 — an appendage. 



There is a phrase among sculptors for a group of which the several 

 parts are not sufficient separated— they say of such sculpture that " it does 

 not show enough day-light," and the cutting away the marble so that limbs 

 appear distinct and the light shines through in different parts of the group 

 is called " letting in day-light." To apply this phraseology to a portico 

 which like that of the Fitzwilliam Museum is flanked by wings-it ex- 

 cludes too much light. In pure architecture such as that of the Parthenon, 

 the Temple of Theseus, or that of Neptune, at Pa;stum, a most beautiful 

 effect is produced by the light shining in between the extreme columns of 

 the portico and the angles of the cella.* The relief thus given by the corner 

 columns standing out distinctly against the sky or background is neces- 

 sarily lost in the Fitzwilliam Museum. 



It may also be fairly objected that the character of the street front of 

 this edifice is not maintained in the other sides of it. Not indeed that we 

 accuse the architect of masking it with a " show front :"— that utter viola- 

 tion of the rules of architecture— that hopeless vulgarity of taste, was re- 

 served for our two national repositories of works of art, the British Mu- 

 seum and the National Gallery. Of these buildings the less conspicuous 

 sides have about as much architectural pretension as a factory or union- 

 workhouse, being in fact built of the plainest brickwork, so that the shovf 

 sides, even if they were tenfold better than they really are, must be pro- 

 nounced absolutely devoid of artistic value. It is however but fruitless 

 labour to criticise these monuments of perverted taste ; they display that 

 entire want of all true architectural feeling which renders animadversion 

 obviously useless, and we merely notice them to institute a contrast in favour 



,1,= T of the very few good qualities of the architecture of Budsiugham Palace, is that 

 the columns ol the pediments at the wings stand out in this manner. The only oh« 

 ments, and they are but negative merits, of this building, are that the pediments at the 



