128 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Aprii,, 



hill is to be left unpuddled, and the whole attention of the engineer is to be 

 directed to the object of making the base of the drains water-tight, not- 

 withstanding these drains are all cut into the solid clay. 



Mr. Editor, is not this pure nonsense ? And what right has a lecturer, 

 advancing such childish notions himself, to convey to his pupils an impression 

 alike unworthy and unjust towards the engineer who executed this work. 

 When the cutting was originally made, everything was done that was necessary; 

 and as for the puddling of these drains, they miglit have been puddled for 

 miles in length on each side of the railway, without contributing one single 

 atom of benefit towards the prevention of the slips. Further on, the pro- 

 fessor disapproves of what is being done by way of precaution, and recom- 

 mends that " apertures should be driven in horizonially, and brushwood 

 drains introduced, or a kind of hurdle or fascines, which would act as a drain, 

 jind be extremely efficacious. I do sincerely hope and trust tliat the Croydon 

 Railway Company will never act upon this advice, because if these apertures 

 »re driven any distance into the hill, they will tap a much larger body of 

 ■water than that which finds its way at present to the face of the slopes, and 

 as soon as the drains become at all choked up, down comes a slip much more 

 extensive than any that has yet happened ; while on the other hand, if the 

 apertures be not driven more than a few feet into the slope they will not 

 catch the water which occasions the mischief, and thus for all the good they 

 will do, might just as well have been driven so many feet into one of the 

 moantaius in the moon. 



I am. Sir, 



Your Tery obedient servant, 



Justus. 



REMARKS ON DR. FULTON'S LECTURE. 



SrR — Having perused Dr. Fulton's lecture on the " State and Study ol 

 Civil Architecture," as inserted in your March number, and considering some 

 of the observations made by him to be incorrect, I venture to offer a few 

 remarks on the same, hoping that if you have any superfluous room, you will 

 favour thera with a place in your next number. 



And, first, with regard to the origin of pointed architecture, the lecturer 

 asserts that it (together with the Saracenic,) was derived from the Roman, 

 bringing forward as evidence the fact, that at Spalatro are found slender 

 columns supporting circular arches with distorted human faces, introduced as 

 ornaments ; but at the same time he admits that the pointed arch is not found 

 there. Now I would observe that the pointed arch is the elementary ingre- 

 dient of the pointed style, and that without its presence a building cannot be 

 regarded as of that style, so that to detect i/s origin is, in fact, to detect the 

 origin of the style to which it belongs: I shall, therefore, endeavour briefly 

 to show that Rome was not the originator of it. It is a well-known fact 

 that the pointed arch made its appearance in the different countries of 

 Europe at very nearly one and the same time, viz. just after the termination 

 of the first Crusade ; and this fact manifestly points to some one locality 

 from whence all the nations of Europe among whom it sprung up must have 

 derived the idea of it. Moreover, this must have happened at the same time, 

 for if it had not, oi- if they had borrowed the one from the other, there would 

 necessarily have been specimens in our, or at all events in some, of these 

 countries, before the others had time to borrow it. 



But if the Europeans all derived the idea of the pointed arch at one par- 

 ticular time, and from one particular place, it follows that thai place must 

 have been one of general rendezvous ; and since the time in which it appeared 

 was just after they had returned from the first Crusade, it is in a high degree 

 proliable that they obtained this idea from the East, or else from some of the 

 countries through which they passed on their way thither. Now there are 

 specimens found in the East of the pointed arch of a date anterior to the first 

 Crusade, so that this circumstance appears to give a degree of assurance to 

 the notion that the Europeans derived it from the Saracens ; but admitting 

 that they did not, still there is no evidence in favour of their having obtained 

 it from the Itomans, for I am not aware that the first Crusaders passed through 

 Italy at all. Moreover, if they had, seeing that there was no actual specimen 

 of the pointed arch to be found in those parts, they must have seen some- 

 thing in Roman arcliitecture which indirectly conveyed to them the idea of 

 it ; and in this case it is extremely difficult to conceive that they should all 

 happen to hit on the same train of reasoning, and thus, each for themselves, 

 light upon the pointed arch. 



In the second place, Dr. Fulton states that the Greeks did not leave even 

 their Doric columns without bases, but that the steps on which they rested 



formed an ample basement. I grant, indeed, that these steps did form an 

 ample basement to the edifice, considered as a whole, serving both to beautify 

 and strengthen it, but certainly not as a base to each individual column. His 

 reasoning, too, is fallacious, for he says, " What would the finest statue that 

 ever was made appear to be, with its feet sunk in the ground or cut 

 off?" According to this, then, we must admit that the columns represented 

 statues, and the stylobate their feet ; and if so, what is the result ? Why 

 simply this ; that the Ionic columns in the temple of Minerva Polias (for 

 example), which not only individually have bases, but are collectively superim- 

 posed upon a stylobate, represent statues having a double set of feet, one 

 over the other, which, to my mind, would be quite as devoid of beauty as 

 statues with no feet at all. 



Tlie third and last point to which I shall take occasion to advert is the 

 lecturer's olijections against " gable-topped windows and doors," by which I 

 suppose windows and doors crowned with pediments. Ills words are, "Of 

 all the strange devices of which I have given a list, this is the most strange." 

 And yet I cannot find out that he has assigned any reason why they are 

 strange, unless indeed it is because he is " unable to discover the use of these 

 window tops ;" but if people ask the use of many things in architecture, we 

 shall only have to answer, " Its use is to adorn the building ;" and so here, 

 the use of these gable tops is to adorn windows and doors, and to show that 

 they do so in many cases, I need only refer to the lower range of windows ia 

 the Strand front of Somerset House, and to the one-pair windows of the 

 Reform Club. Besides, if these gable tops be absurd in Palladian architecture, 

 shall we not be obliged to condemn quite as much the beautiful pedimented 

 canopies over the windows and doors of many of our pointed structures, as, 

 for example, York cathedral; and who will say that they do not form wt 

 important element of beauty in those edifices ? 



With the remainder of Dr. Fulton's remarks I cordially assent ; and hoping 

 that I have not trespassed too long on your attention or that of your readers, 

 I beg to subscribe myself, Sir, 

 Yours respectfully, 



G. W. R. 



MORE ON FRESCO PAINTING. 



While the subject of fresco painting is in every one's mouth, and we hare 

 papers on the subject at the Institute, and lectures at the Royal Institution, 

 it may be worth while to consider the best method for commencing operations. 



At a late visit to Hampton Court, on entering the staircase to the gallery 

 of the chapel, I was struck with the excellent opportunity there presented for 

 an essay in this new style of art, by which additional interest might be given 

 to a part of the building now but little visited, at a moderate expense, and 

 with great advantage to our artists. The staircase is of oak, of the time of 

 Queen Anne ; the plan is a square of about 25 ft., and wainscotted about 8 ft, 

 above the upper landing, leaving on their sides perhaps a dozen feet more of 

 bare plaster up to the cieling, and lighted by windows on the foOTth. Oa 

 these spaces, which are well calculated for this kind of decoration, the artists 

 likely to be engaged with the new Houses of Parliament might be employed 

 to try their hands. The situation is not one of such vast importance as to 

 render the probable slight imperfections of a first attempt very alarming ; and 

 by beginning in this moderate way, the danger would be avoided of a failure 

 in a more conspicuous siuation, which might give an excuse to the timorous 

 to call in the aid of the Germans, and for the enemies of innovation to aban- 

 don the thing altogether ; and we may certainly hope that the earliest efforts 

 of our artists, inexperienced as they are, would be superior to plain white- 

 wash. Neither would they be induced to make their essays in situations 

 where the paintings could not be permanent, and by that means, as far as 

 everything but mere practice was concerned, throw away their time and 

 materials to no purpose. 



This locality is only mentioned as a specimen, of which hundreds might be 

 found elsewhere, and many in the same building ; all of which, besides per- 

 fecting the painters, would tend to make the style more generally known, 

 and thus interest the public in it from its very commencement. 



In the progress of this high style of art, much will depend on the archi- 

 tects ; for if they oppose it, or do not recommend its introduction in their 

 buUdiuga, it can never be generally adopted. 



J.L. 



