1850.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



161 



period, exhibited invariably a wonderful beauty and exactness of proportion, 

 and a marvellous grace of outline. The spires of the latter peiiod he had 

 mentioned, presented a variety of character which was most extraordinary, 

 considerinfi; how few were the elements at the command of the architects. 

 They had only the square, the sexagon, and the octagon, and yet there were 

 not two steeples to be found at that period precisely alike; while their out- 

 lines had a power and beauty, which completely disproved the assertion, that 

 all the old parish churches of England were bad Gothic. While on this sub. 

 ject. he wished to draw attention to the miserable condition of many towers 

 and spires throughout England. X remarkable instance was the tower of 

 St. Mary's, Taunton. The interior of that edifice was fitted up at a large 

 cost a few years ago by .Mr. Ferrey, fellow, but the tower was left untouched, 

 and it was now in a wretched state of dilapidation and decay from top to 

 bottom. St. Stephen's, Bristol, which had a curious arrangement of open 

 work, similar to that at Taunton, was also in a decayed state; but dilapida- 

 tion itself was even better than some modes of repair. He had been on the 

 day previous at Dundry, a village in Somersetshire, four or five miles from 

 Bristol, and the church tower there had open work at the top, something 

 like that at St. Stephen's, Bristol but yet possessing interesting peculiarities 

 of its own. The upper part of the tower falling into decay, an architect 

 was consulted, who recommended the rebuilding of the decayed portions, at 

 a cost, which he estimated would be about 300/. The parish blacksmith, 

 however, who, being one of the vestry, was all powerful, said he could mend 

 it for 40/.; and accordingly he had encased it with the most amusing elabor- 

 ation of iron net-work ever beheld. Cross bars of iron traversed the 

 tower in every direction, and this mode of repair would in a few years 

 hasten the whole pile to destruction. The tower, which was a beautiful 

 specimen of the style common in the sixteenth century, was in a good state, 

 except the top; and he repeated, that the means used for its repair must 

 inevitably in a few years destroy the whole. It was, indeed, most important 

 that parish authorities should listen to that which was repeated almost 

 every day, namely that they ought in such cases always to call in proper 

 professional advice, and not merely call it in, he would add, but take it. 



Mr. TiTE. — I am glad, and I am sure all here present are delighted, to see 

 our old friend Mr. Britton, again amongst us. Let us hope it is a pleasure 

 which will again gladden us. Our friend states that Mr. Wickes is anxious 

 to publish the series of drawings, in outline here exhibiied. Every artist 

 would desire to see them published in outline; to the profession that would 

 certainly be the most useful and acceptable form. As a group of buildings 

 they are honourable to the country and to our native architecture. I do not 

 think that any other country in the world could furnish the originals for such 

 an admirable series of drawings as those now exi-.ibited. There are few 

 countries that could match, or at least excel, any cf them in he.iuty. In all 

 Normandy, I only remember one church which I could describe as worthy 

 to be ranked with these; that was at Lillebonne, a town famous for Roman 

 remains; and I was delighted to find, on inquiring after its architect, that it 

 was attributed to an Englishman, who had settled permanently in that part 

 of the country. I mention the circumtance as a proof that English church 

 architecture has a distinctness of character, which would almost of itself 

 constitute a separate school of the art. 



Mr. Fowler alluded to the peculiar characteristics which prevailed in the 

 towers of churches in different parts of England. This point had, no doubt, 

 struck other gentlemen, and he should like to hear a dissertation upon it 

 from some one, if not from Mr. Britton. In Devonshire, Somerset, and 

 Wilts, there were general peculiarities clearly traceable, which had no con- 

 nection whatever with any feature of the country round about. Mr. Godwin 

 had referred to the church at Taunton. He had long resided in that town, 

 and was well acquainted with that splendid specimen of architectural taste, 

 the tower of St. Mary's, although he confessed it was not until he had dili- 

 gently compared it with others, that he became convinced that it was the most 

 beautiful tower of that class in all England, and it presented as curious a net- 

 work of iron bars as he saw at Dundry. He quite agreed with Mr. Godwin, 

 that the introduction of iron into masonry could not fail to be attended with 

 injurious effect-. He trusted the attention of the public would be called to 

 the subject, and steps would be taken to restore and preserve St. Mary's, 

 Taunton, to the condition in which its excellence entitled it to be maintained. 



Ruins of an Ancient Califomian City. — Antiquaries will feel deeply 

 interested in the discovery of vast regions of ancient ruins near San Diego, 

 and within a day's march of the Pacific Ocean, at the head of the Gulf of 

 California. Portions of temples, dwellings, lofty stone pyramids (seven of 

 these within a mile square), and massive granite rings or circular walls, 

 round venerable trees, columns and blocks of hieroglyphics — all speak of 

 some ancient race of men now for ever gone, their histoiy actually unknown 

 to any of the existing families of mankind. In some points, these ruins 

 resemble the recently discovered cities of Palenque, &e., near the Atlantic or 

 Mexican Gulf coast; in others, the ruins of ancient Egypt ; in others, again, 

 the monuments of Phcenicia, and yet in many features they differ from all that 

 I have referred to. I observe that the discoverers deem them to be ante- 

 diluvian, whilst the present Indians have a tradition of a great civilised 

 nation, which their ferocious forefathers utterly destroyed. The region of 

 the ruins is called by the Indians " the Valley of Mystery." — American Corre- 

 spondent, 



THE ENTASIS OF A COLUMN. 



Description of a method invented by 3tr. J opting for describing the 

 Entasis of a Column, or Spire, and some other Curves adapted to 

 Architectural Lines. By F. C. Penrose, Esq. — (Paper read at the 

 Royal Institute of British Architects, March 18th.) 



There are few gentlemen here, who will not allow, that a curre 

 of strictly v.-irying curvature is more heautiful and appropriate 

 than one, like the false ellipse to which I point, which is made of 

 several circles, each mutilated segment of which suggests its own 

 completion, and interferes with the general line composed of the 

 several arcs. And no one wiU deny, that, if it can be shown that 

 varying curves can be constructed easily, we ought to apply them 

 whenever possible, instead of the broken lines so often used. 1 

 was led in following out an examination of the curves used by the 

 Greeks, to endeavour to invent an instrument for drawing by con- 

 tinued motion the hyperbola, a curve frequently used by them in 

 the profiles of their mouldings, and the entasis of their columns ; 

 and I succeeded in arriving at an instrument, which, by a very 

 slight modification of the metliod of drawing the conchoid of 

 Nicomedes, of which I produce some e.xamples, draws the hyper- 

 bola with the greatest exactness. I had not gone far in this 

 study, before I found that Mr. Joseph Jopling had made many 

 valuable discoveries in various methods of drawing curves by ma- 

 chinery, the principles of some of which he has recently published 

 in a small pamphlet, named the ' Imjmlse to Art.' In this he de- 

 scribes a method for drawing the Ionic volute by a particular and 

 simple arrangement of three cranks, or a crank and two strings, 

 like the instrument I lay before you; and by another arrangement 

 of the same instrument, he produces a very beautiful ogee, called 

 by him the line of beauty, of both of which he has lent me speci- 

 mens of a larjre size, drawn by him to lay before you this 

 evening. I was enabled by applying his method deduced from 

 the 'Impulse to Art,' without any assistance from him, to 

 arrive at so near an appro.vimation to the volute of the Ionic 

 column of the Propylaea, of which Mr. Willson and I obtained 

 exact measurements at Athens, tliat I can hardly resist the con- 

 clusion that Mr. Jopling has discovered the method used by the 

 Greeks in drawing their volutes. He assures me that he has found 

 equally, if not more, satisfactory comparisons from the volutes of 

 the Erechtheum and other buildings. 



What I have chiefly undertaken to bring before you this even- 

 ing, is a method for drawing the entasis of a column, or a spire. 

 We suppose it to be granted (which perhaps is not absolutely cer- 

 tain) that a spire ought to ha\e an entasis. It probably depends 

 upon the effect we wish to give to the spire, whether it should be 

 straight-sided, or have the usual convex entasis, or concave entasis, 

 as the latter may be called where the sides are hollowed. Mr. 

 Jopling's instrument, which is very simple, is equally adapted to 

 either case. It consists of two principal parts: a fiat straightedge, 

 the sides of which, instead of being parallel to one another, di- 

 minish at a small angle; the one for instance which I produce, is 3 

 feet 6 inches long, at one end 3^ inches, and at the other l^ incli 

 broad. The other part is a bar with one fixed peg at the end, and 

 two moveable sockets, one of which carries a peg, the other a 

 pencil tube. Nothing more or less than the bar of an ordinary 

 trammel and the tapering straightedge: it is the same in principle 

 as the trammel, only much more convenient for the drawing of very 

 ihit ellipses than tliat instrument in its ordinary construction. 

 This might be applied full size to the column or spire, with great 

 ease, though it may be questioned whether that be really so good a 

 way as that of obtaining the curves more at ease, and setting them 

 off from straight directing lines. In drawing the entasis however 

 on paper, to any attainable size, its action is most simple. To pro- 

 duce a very flat ellipse, we have only to set the tw o pegs at some 

 convenient distance, rather greater than the broader part of the 

 straightedge, and the pencil at some convenient distance along 

 the bar. By sliding the bar along the straightedge, keeping the 

 two pegs in contact, and the pencil on the paper, which is, after a 

 little handling, very easy to tlo, with proper elbow room and other 

 convenience of standing room, we produce a portion, nearly the 

 half, of an exceedingly flat ellipse; the part nearest the vertex 

 having very sharp curvature, and the parts removed from it being 

 almost straight: so tliat by a proper selection of a portion of this 

 arc, we may" obtain a curve of whatever variety we please, con- 

 stantly varying also its curvature according to a regular law, al- 

 together superior to anything that can be put together by parts of 

 circles and straight lines, for those purposes at least to which it 

 can be applied. 



There are numerous other forms of curves, that could be advan- 



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