RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 
339 
a good .leal of character, is capable of considerable pic- 
turesque effect, is very easily and cheaply constructed of 
wood or stone, and is perhaps more entirely adapted to our 
[Fig. 46. The Bracketed Mode.] 
hot summers and cold winters than any other equally 
simple mode of building. We hope to see this Bracketed 
style becoming every day more common in the United 
States, and especially in our farm and country houses, 
when wood is the material employed in their construction. 
Gothic, or more properly, pointed architecture, which 
sprang up with the Christian religion, reached a point of 
great perfection about the thirteenth century ; a period 
when the most magnificent churches and cathedrals of 
England and Germany were erected. These wonderful 
structures, reared by an almost magical skill and contriv- 
ance, with their richly groined roofs of stone supported in 
mid-sir ; their beautiful and elaborate tracery and carving 
of plants, flowers, and animate objects ; their large windows 
