18 Architecture in the United States. 



parts thus far were common to all : we must now select a particular 

 kind of temple, and will take the one called 'peripteral, having a row 

 of columns all around. 



The columns had no base, being placed immediately on the upper 

 step. Within them, at a distance nearly, equal to the interval be- 

 tween the columns, was the cell or body of the temple, a solid struc- 

 ture without any opening in its whole circuit, except the door for en- 

 trance at one end. At this end the row of columns was usually 

 double, forming the pronaos : in the Pailhenon, the row of columns 

 was doubled at both ends, but this was an exception to the general 

 rule. The interior was lighted only by the door or by a break in 

 the roof immediately over the central part of the cell. The cell was 

 usually quite plain and of the same material as the rest of the build- 

 ing. The height of the columns was about six times their diameter 

 at the base, a proportion that would have given them a heavy char- 

 acter, had this not been guarded against by twenty shallow flutings to 

 each. Over the columns was the entablature, in this order equal in 

 elevation to about one third of their height. The entablature con- 

 sisted of three parts, the architrave which was plain, the frieze and 

 the cornice. A low roof crowned the whole, the triangle formed by 

 "it at each end being called the tympanum. Here only, and in the 

 metopes of the frieze was any ornament admitted ; the triglyph and 

 other parts which resemble ornaments, being only an improvement 

 on the original projection of the beams, and thus an essential part of 

 the building. In most of their temples the metopes and tympanum 

 appear to have been entirely plain. 



This is the Grecian temple, so highly and so justly admired, and 

 so long retained by the art as the only one suited to the display of 

 its greatest skill. I have gone carefully through the description, 

 that the reader may have the whole distinctly before him, and be able 

 to judge for himself. 



The most striking character of this temple is its simplicity. Its 

 shape is the simplest possible, even more simple than a circle, when 

 we consider that the subject is solid walls instead of lines. Its parts 

 also are extremely simple : nothing can be more so than the plat- 

 form on which it rests, or the walls which form the body of the edi- 

 fice. The former is plain and uniform all around ; the latter has no 

 break in it, except the door : when more light is needed, the opening 

 for it is in the roof and out of sight. The Grecian Doric is also the 

 simplest form in which an order can appear. The pillars have no 



