200 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[SEPTElStBER, 



many will, no doubt, be apt to consider a strangely fanciful— not to say 

 fantastical, arrangement. We certainly cannot produce authority for 

 any thing of tlie kind, because we do not recollect, and therefore may 

 safely affirm that we have never met with any similar instance. If 

 iilliers choose to say, it ought on that very account, to be received with 

 a good deal of suspicion, they are certainly at liberty to do so — or for 

 that matter, to reject our ideas and opinions altogether. 



Capricious as it may at first sight be considered, this alcove (fig. 3), 

 will, we think be found, on examination, to be well motived and com- 

 modious in plan. While the inner columns would produce great rich- 

 ness of effect — would render the whole a striking architectural picture ; 

 they serve also to define the central space, to keep that part more 

 distinct from the rest, thereby giving more importance to that, and by 

 screening ofi' the spaces behind them', to convey the idea of the alcove's 

 being greatly extended by the addition of these last. Nor is it in 

 such respect'alone that the plan belongs to the class we would distin- 

 guish as compound, since such character is still further increased by 

 the addition it receives from the part s, which is here made to form 

 a second or inner recess where the sideboard would be placed, and 

 which therefore should be allowed to show itselt distinctly as such by 

 being treated as a large niche, or else covered with a semidorae carried 

 up above the ceiling of the alcove and room. In the last mentioned 

 case, that recess might be lighted from above through its dome, nor 

 would other light be then required ; should that however, not be prac- 

 ticable, and should an arched niche-like recess also be objected to for 

 the design, it would then be better to contract the space 8, reducing 

 it from a semicircle to a more shallow recess whose curvature would 

 be anti-conctniric to, and therefore correspond with, that on which the 

 columns facing it are placed, — as is done in the recess B, fig. 2. 



Almost any one of these three plans above will be found, if studied 

 for that purpose, to contain within itself the germs of many others ; 

 and notwithstanding that they possess sometliing in common — taking 

 them altogether they furnish more variety, as far as plan is concerned, 

 than is now to be met with in as many thousand examples, — which 

 however they may differ as to matters of decoration and detail are 

 nearly alike in regard to arrangement and plan.* 



Instead of proceeding, as we could easily do, with other plans of the 

 same class, and for similar purposes, we will, by way of change, now ex- 

 hibit one for the windgw side of a library, occupied entirely by three bays. 

 Li order both to obtain novelty of character, and increase picturesque 



Fig. 4. 



posing the situation of the enclosed and open portions, — that is by 

 removing the screen between B and the room, and in lieu of it, screen- 

 ing off the two lesser bays 6 h, which might either immediately com- 

 municate w ith, and he open towards the larger bay, or entirely shut up 

 from it, as one of them is shown in the cut. In the former c^se a vista 

 would be obtained through the three bays, by a compartment at each 

 end filled with a mirror, so as to give the effect of an open arch ; or 

 else instead of being filled with a single mirror, each of those com- 

 partments might be (livided into panels by mullions, &c., like those of 

 the screens, whereby the effect of an additional open screen in each of 

 the smaller bays, might be obtained. 



As our chief object is rather to afford suggestive hints, than to give 

 plans definitively fixed, and intended for some one individual case, we 

 do not pretend to enter into more exact description. The cut itself 

 too, must likewise be- received as a mere explanatory sketch, it being 

 on too small a scale to admit of nicety as to detail, or do more than 

 indicate the arrangement and principal forms. 



(To he continued.) 



effect, the larger bay B, in the middle, is converted into a sort of case 

 separated from the rest of the rooms, by an open screen with tracery, 

 and carried down to about three feet from the floor. This screen, 

 which might either be grazed or not, as should seem most expedient, 

 would not only be characteristic and ornamental in itself, but be rather 

 serviceable than otherwise, by moderating the light within the body 

 of the room, and thereby rendering the two open bays, 6 b, more 

 piquant and brilliant by contrast. In fact the plan would admit of the 

 lower part of the screen being closed up to the height of about six 

 feet from the floor, by which means additional space for book-shelves, 

 on one if not both sides of it, might be obtained. And although this 

 would materially diminish the light in that part of the room, little if 

 anv inconvenience would result from that circumstance, because it is 

 here supposed that the room itself is chiefly intended to contain books, 

 and that the cabinet B, and the two bays b b, would be for sitting in. 

 Accordingly the fire-place is put within B, as the most convenient 

 situation ; and as that one would be sufficient, the space that must 

 otherwise be occupied by a chimney-piece and chimney pier would 

 be left free for book-cases or shelfing. 



With the same plan, a room of very different appearance as to de- 

 sign, if not exactly as to character, might be produced by merely trans- 



" Should this he disjiuteil. Wi' should feel obliged to anyone whoHouUI 

 inform us wliat remarkable instances of the kind there arc uliich would tend 

 to support an opinion contrary to that here expressed. — Kd. 



ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF OBUQUE ARCHES. 



Sir — I am sorry to trespass again on your pages in reference to Mr. 

 Peter Nicholson's work on Railway Masonry, but having a few days 

 since been made aware that a second edition of his book was published, 

 in which a reference was made to some remarks I had previously 

 written in your Journal, I procured a copy of it, and the reference in 

 question being nothing more or less than a gross misrepresentation of 

 facts, I trust you will allow me space to set the matter in its proper 

 light. 



The point in dispute is relative to Mr. Nicholson's trihedral system. 

 In his first edition he says at page xxiii , "If a trihedral be cut by a 

 plane perpendicular to one of its oblique edges, the section shall be a 

 right angled triangle." Relative to this I made the remark that there 

 were three sorts of trihedrals, and that this assumption only holds 

 good with one of them, namely, a right trihedral. 



In his second edition, page xxix. A, after stating that the trihedral 

 there treated is a right trihedral, he says, "if such a trihedral be cut 

 by a plane perpendicular to one of its oblique edges, the section shall 

 be a right angled triangle." To the end of which he appends the fol- 

 lowing complimentary observation. "I have called this kind of trihe- 

 dr;d a right trihedral ; but a narrow-minded hireling, who signs him- 

 self W. H. B., in the Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, page 152, 

 has erroneously transcribed from a paragraph following, Dei'. 6, page 

 xxiii., Railway Masonry, first edition, ' If a trihedral be cut by a plane 

 perpendicular to one of its oblique edges, the section shall be a right 

 angled triangle,' leaving out the part that would make sense. His 

 remarks, founded on this mistranscription, resemble rather the pueri- 

 lities of childhood, than the reasoning of mature age." 



Setting aside his personal abuse which will neither benefit his posi- 

 tion nor injure mine, the reply I have to make to the rest of his 

 observation is, firstly, that in saying I have mis-quoted his work, be 

 deliberately states that which he knows to be untrue ; and there stands 

 the paragraph at page xxiii., of the first edition to prove it. 



Secondly. In saying I omitted the part that made sense of the pas- 

 sage, he accuses me of the very blunder he himself committed, of 

 which the fact of his having corrected himself at page xxix. A, of the 

 present edition, is abundant evidence. 



The fact is, the page (xxix. A) is a fresh page which he has added 

 to his book, for the express purpose of inserting the corrected para- 

 graph; and has attached my remark to the corrected paragraph, de- 

 claring it to be a misquotation. It is really very lamentable to see a 

 man of the standing Peter Nicholson once had, obliged to have re- 

 course to so mean and unworthy a subterfuge ; and it is stilj more 

 lametitable to see him forget himself so much in the language he makes 

 use of. I consider it to be the duty of every one who is in a position 

 to do so, to expose the errors of a work addressed to the public ; par- 

 ticularly when it comes from the pen of one who has enjoyed a con- 

 siderable portion of their confidence and support, and is addressed to 

 those classes who being unable to investigate the subjects contained in 

 it for themselves, are compelled to rely implicitly on what is given to 

 them by the author. With this view I made my remarks on Mr. 

 Nicholson's first edition, and vrith this view I now proceed to show 

 that a great deal yet requires alter.ation in the second. 



Taking for example page 7, he says, " in order to prevent two joints 

 from meeting each other, it is necessary that the number of arch stones 

 in each face should be an odd number." Now every body at all ac- 



