60 
House 
& Garden 
Harriet 
Advise with us in regard to interior plans, or we will 
assist you in the selection of individual pieces. Sug^ 
gestions for color schemes and harmonious effects 
During the month of January ten per 
cent of the purchase price of 
furniture will be set aside for the 
AMERICAN WAR RELIEF 
at 6 East 
street. 
IMPORTERS of 
SELECTED OLD MASTERS 
No. 3 West Fifty-Sixth Street NEW YORK 
SAT1NOVER GALLERIES 
SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE 
By B. BELLOTTO 
The Making of Easy Stairs 
(Continued from page 49) 
correct width of tread for any given 
riser can readily be found. 
Suppose, for instance, that you desire 
to know the proper width of tread for 
a riser of 7". In the diagram which is 
shown on page 49 find the figure 7 in the 
right-hand column denoting the “height 
of riser in inches.” From this figure 
follow the horizontal line to where it in¬ 
tersects the curve, and thence downward 
to the figure 11 in the lower margin de¬ 
noting the “width of tread in inches.” 
Thus, it is seen that a riser of 7" de¬ 
mands a tread of 11". Likewise, it is 
seen that a riser of 6" calls for a tread 
of 14" and that a riser of 8" requires 
a 9" tread, and so on. Values be¬ 
tween those shown can be determined 
by interpolation. Thus, a riser of 6 /" 
is evidently halfway between 6 and 7. 
Hence, the corresponding tread would 
be halfway between 11" and 14" which 
is 12)4". In the same manner it is 
found that the correct tread for a riser 
of 7/4" is 10". On the other hand, if 
the desired width of tread is first de¬ 
cided upon, then the correct height of its 
corresponding riser can be found by a 
reversal of the above procedure. It re¬ 
quires an infinitely longer time to explain 
this diagram than it does to use it! 
The projection of the tread beyond 
the face of the riser is termed the nosing. 
But, remember, the width of tread is 
always measured from the face of one 
riser to the face of the next; the projec¬ 
tion of the nosing should never be taken 
into account. Actually, of course, the 
tread is widened by an amount equal to 
the projection of the nosing. But this 
extra width is of no real advantage as 
footroom. It simply has the effect of 
moving the steps slightly forward. 
A steep stairway, provided the steps 
are correctly proportioned, is not neces¬ 
sarily an uncomfortable one. But a steep 
stairway is dangerous. On the other 
hand a stairway with a very gentle 
slope is neither uncomfortable nor 
dangerous. It is, however, exceedingly 
extravagant of floor space. Evidently 
the “happy medium” is somewhere in 
between — somewhere between the very 
steep and the very gentle. Now, the 
height of the risers of the ordinary stair¬ 
way can be placed definitely between 
6/4" as a minimum and 7)4" as a maxi¬ 
mum, inclusive. This fixes the corre¬ 
sponding minimum width of tread at 
10", and the maximum at 12)4". There¬ 
fore, the dividing plane between the 
steep and the narrow is a stairway with 
risers of 7" and treads of 11". This is 
the “happy medium,” neither dangerous¬ 
ly steep nor extravagantly sloping. 
Stand on your toes, against the wall, 
one arm hanging loosely at your side. 
Bend your hand outward at the wrist, 
palm downward. Make a mark on the 
wall at the height of your outstanding 
palm. This is the correct height for the 
handrail of your stairway. 
It must be admitted that the most 
persistent fault with stairways is a 
lack of sufficient headroom. This is 
unpardonable. Lack of headroom 
merely indicates a lack of judgment on 
the part of the designer or builder. 
Again, appearances are deceitful. A 
stairway may really have enough head- 
room to insure the protection of your 
head—and the ceiling—yet at the same 
time it may appear to be insufficient, 
so that you have an uncomfortable feel¬ 
ing of impending disaster upon as¬ 
cending or descending the stairway, and 
involuntarily “duck your head” to 
avoid a collision with the overhead 
beam that frames the wellhole. Or, yet 
again, where one flight of stairs occurs 
directly over another, that is to say, 
where there is no wellhole, barely suf¬ 
ficient headroom is equally bad. 
In the latter case, where one flight 
is built directly over another, the clear 
vertical distance between the two should 
at no point be less than 7)4'. In the 
former case, where the stairway ascends 
through an open well, the headroom 
ought never to be less than 7j4’. 
The Glass of a Thousand Flowers 
(Continued from page 21) 
eyes with astonishment. We must not 
forget that with the ancients a crystal¬ 
line glass was of great rarity, though 
colored glass was common enough. Thus 
the crystalline products of the Venetians 
were an achievement reserved for later 
centuries, and this white glass, in com¬ 
bination with the colored glasses was 
so skillfully employed by the workmen 
and artists of the Murano glass fac¬ 
tories that nothing has surpassed these 
Venetian products in millefiori for sheer 
ingenuity and beauty. 
Often, of course, millefiori work was 
carried to the extreme of becoming less a 
thing of beauty than a tour de force. 
However, the collector will find interest 
in all pieces of the sort, and their range 
was enormous. The glass of Venice was 
famous for its extraordinary lightness 
and this added to its vogue. The Chap¬ 
lain of Louis XIV, Rene Frangois, 
amusingly warned the world that 
Murano was filling Europe with its 
fantasies of glass; but rare enough are 
the early specimens of Venetian manu¬ 
facture, more precious now than their 
weight in gold. Yet collectors will not 
give up. 
After all, there must always remain 
the zest of the chase in the spirit of 
the true collector without which wonder¬ 
ful finds would never have been made, 
though we need not go to the extent 
of the Countess of Fiesque, a lady of 
Louis XIV’s court. This lady died at 
Fontainebleau in great poverty at an 
advanced age. Historians of the gossip 
of the day have laid her indigent cir¬ 
cumstances at the door of the rascally 
man of business, but I fancy her pas¬ 
sion for mirrors had something to do 
with it. When almost in need of bread 
she astonished her friends by purchas¬ 
ing an enormously expensive mirror. 
“I had a piece of land,” said she in 
extenuation, “which brought me in noth¬ 
ing but com. I sold it, and tire money 
procured this mirror. Have I not 
managed wonderfully to possess this 
beautiful glass instead of dull corn?” 
Doubtless the Countess did manage 
wonderfully; dontentment is a great 
thing! 
Seven hundred years of glass making 
in Venice produced an experience that 
was useful to the rest of Europe and 
finally to America. Much millefiore glass 
has been manufactured in this country. 
The Pennsylvania Museum in Phila¬ 
delphia is especially rich in examples 
of it. There are also many private 
collectors of millefiore glass in this 
country, some collecting specimens in 
general, others confining themselves to 
examples of American manufacture, 
while still others specialize in millefiore 
paperweights already referred to. Dr. 
Edwin Atlee Barber, a noted authority 
on American glass, gives the following 
information concerning the process of 
its making in the Pennsylvania Museum 
Bulletin: 
“The glass rods used in the prepara¬ 
tion of modern millefiore glass are 
usually made in metal moulds of 
comparatively large size. The interior 
(Continued on page 62) 
