will likewise put your terrace continually out of repair. All access to your building by steps or otherwise out of doors, exposed to rain and winter weather, ought to have a sound basis upon brick or other masonry; otherwise the wet gets in, and by degrees carries away the earth or matter on which the work rests, and brings it quickly to decay.

"Drains to carry the water quickly off the ground from about your buildings, ought to be well contrived and as well performed; many a noble structure having miscarried through want of due caution in that particular.

"I think, sir, by this time I have tired you with my general notions in architecture, namely, that part of it which concerns substantials and fundamentals in that science as they have occurred to me, without order or any great connexion. If you had digested your commands into queries, I might have spoken with more propriety, and perhaps more to your satisfaction; and wherein what I have now said may be found defective, I shall more readily and studiously apply myself to supply, and obey you in any future commands according to my humble talents in this science, as being with great obligation and affection "Your most humble and faithful servant,

"July 5, 1695,

DISSERTATION XI.

ON ERECTING WALLS.

H. SHERE."

"There is nothing to be left void in a firm building, even the cavities ought not to be filled with rubbish, which is destructive to the strength, but with brick or stone, though of less pieces, yet of the same nature, and fitted to the crevices."DRYDEN'S Dedication to Virgil's Æneid.

Having advised as to the foundation of a house, we shall proceed to the superstructure. In the usual way, walls are constructed either of stone or brick, but generally according to the produce of the spot, or convenient circumstances of carriage; the former is generally adopted in the country, the latter more generally in towns. Stone is sometimes raised near the spot, and in other places where brick-earth is found, bricks are made. In noblemen's houses the walls on the exterior are sometimes faced with Portland or Bath stone, from five to six or eight to nine inches thick, the inside part being formed of brick; these are decidedly the best walls,* and present the most handsome appearance; but since the discovery of Roman cement, our brick dwelling-houses are now more generally compoed over, and thus made to assume the appearance of freestone. On erecting stone walls, care must be taken that they are carried up sound; that is, by causing the stones to have a proper bed and bond, and the middle of the walls built in solid as the work proceeds; for in thick walls the masons are too liable to fill them up with dry rubbish. As the solidity of the walls depends so much upon the goodness of the bed of the stones, as they lie on each other, the mason should speedily shape out the stones for the building as soon as possible after they are taken out of the quarry, as they are then in a softer state than they will be after being some time dug up and laid in the sun. The digging of stones in summer and exposing them to the air, is a kind of seasoning for opposing the winter frost; and they are not then so liable to crack in the walls as when laid fresh and new. An Italian architect advises that all stones laid in the walls, and other essential parts of a building, should be taken out of the same quarry; and he has great reason for that caution, for if an architect desires to see his work uniform, there is no better way of assuring himself of that part than by care in these principal materials.†

The Bath stone is very beautiful, but not so durable as the Portland, and the bed should always be marked at the quarry, which is of the utmost importance, for unless the stones are laid in the building the same way as they lay in the quarry, they will be liable to split asunder and fall off after being placed in the walls. Stones so laid on edge in the walls are called a shelering: each is cramped to the walls, and there are occasional bond-stones which go through the wall. The cramps are made of cast-iron, copper, or lead; wrought-iron will not do, this will rust and split the stone. The Greeks built their walls of solid marble, the Romans cased theirs with the same material.-(B.)

+ There are various kinds of building-stones in different counties of England besides the Portland and the Bath. There is the Bromley fell-stone and the Whitby stone, both in Yorkshire; granite, limestone, and red sandstone in Devonshire;

In regard to the construction of brick-walls, it is necessary to state, that there are two general methods of arranging the bricks in the face of the wall; one is called the old English bond, which is formed by a course of stretchers, and then a course of headers above, and so on alternately: a wall of this kind is remarkably strong. The next is what is known as the Flemish bond, that is one header, and then a stretcher laid along in every course, breaking the joints below. This bond is more generally adopted in London, on account of its very neat appearance to the eye when finished. In building brick-walls, it is necessary for us to observe, that in summer the bricks should be laid as wet and in winter as dry as possible, for this is the way to make them adhere well together with the mortar. In winter, if the frost and rain set in, the walls should be covered up, for rain washes out the mortar from the joints, and is a great enemy in destroying the strength of the mortar before it is dry; frost is still worse. In all cases let the builder take care that the angles of his walls be well bonded and united together, for if the walls around the whole building be not brought up at the same time, they will never keep well together. He is also to remember, that every part of the building should be raised equally at the same time, raked back at the raised angles, but not toothed, that the walls may all settle equally in every part, and there be none of those cracks and clefts to be seen which are so great a blemish in a building, and a scandal to the builder.*

The ancients sometimes built their walls with brick and stone mixed together, at other times in alternate courses; and by the remains that are yet extant of their several works, we find they had various ways of constructing walls. Their chequer-work or reticulated wall was at one time famous, but went out of use sooner than the others. This formation consisted of a number of courses of

rag sandstone in Kent; and argillaceous freestone in Dorsetshire. In Northamptonshire there is a greenish-coloured stone. In the more northern counties there is a brownish kind, full of little spangles that will glitter in the sun. (My Memorandum Book.)

* Bricks, says Dr. Whitaker, were probably made by the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, as they were very early made and used at Babylon in the first ages of their descendants. "And they said one to another, Go to, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." (Genesis, xi. 3.) The art therefore would be carried away by the several parties from Babel upon the dispersion of the whole into all the countries they successively planted. The Babylonish bricks, which were of a large size, have been found to be of two kinds, the sun-dried and oven-burnt. The palace of Semiramis at Babylon, which consisted of three squares, was built of well-burnt bricks, upon which was portrayed before burning, all sorts of living creatures, drawn from the life, and chiefly represented in various colours.-(Diodorus, b. ii. c. 3.)

The use of crude bricks baked in the sun, in the time of Moses, was universal in Upper and Lower Egypt, both for public and private buildings. These simple materials were found to be peculiarly suited to the climate, and the ease, rapidity, and cheapness with which they were made, offered additional recommendations. In this country all the dwelling-houses and every other kind of building, except the temples, were of crude brick; and so great was the demand, that the Egyptian government, observing the profit which would accrue to the revenue from a monopoly of them, undertook to supply the public at a moderate price, thus preventing all unauthorized persons from engaging in their manufacture; and to guard against it, their bricks were stamped at the time they were made with the king's name. (Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 96.) In the British Museum are to be seen several Egyptian sun-dried bricks, some made of clay and others of clay and straw, of the following dimensions, 1 foot 4 inches, 4 feet 6 inches high, 5 inches thick to 11 inches high, 5 inches broad, 3 inches thick, stamped on the upper surface with the prenomen of Amenôf or Amunoph III. (Memnon), a. c. 1692—1661; of Rameses III. (Sesostris), A. c. 1565-1499; of Rannofre, a deceased prophet-priest.-(B.)

In countries where the sun is powerful and it seldom rains, the former is practical. In Chaldea not for eight months together is there any rain, and occasionally not for two years and a half. (Archæolog. x. iv. 58.) In Egypt a continued storm of heavy rain during a whole day and night would be a rare occurrence; but showers fall about five or six times in the course of a year at Thebes. (Wilkinson's Thebes, p. 75.) Accordingly it appears that bricks were known to the ancient inhabitants of the East and West in general; and probably known, though it does not appear, to the colonists of Britain, particularly through their brethren of Gaul. The Romans seem to have had a brick-kiln at every stationary town in Britain. Their clay has been generally found to be well tempered and well kneaded, beautifully red, and completely burnt; and their bricks were about sixteen English inches and three quarters in length, and eleven inches and one quarter in breadth. But the Romans of the first century never raised up structures with these materials, because they wildly supposed a wall that was merely the length of their brick in thickness to be unequal to the support of a single story, of which their houses were then composed. (Whitaker's History of Manchester, b. i. c. 10.)

+ In China their brick-walls are all built hollow, which on account of its cheapness has lately been attempted to be

bricks being laid diagonalwise, and about every two feet and a half three straight courses of the same material to bind the work together. The inward part of the wall was made of flints and cement and the facing chequered. The common brick-walls were built on two sides with good bricks, and the middle filled up with brickbats and mortar well laid and bedded together. These cement-walls were composed of tessera, pebbles, and tenacious earth, laid in a rough manner: sometimes walls were built with mortar, and at other times even without, where stones were of a large size.* The angles were strengthened by courses of brick or squared stones, and occasionally brick bond-courses were adopted to bind the wall together. Their rustic-work walls were built of rough and irregular stones of various forms and sizes, which they fitted and laid together as evenly as they could. There was a triangular-groove rustic-work in fashion among the Romans, and a square-grooved rustic-work among the Greeks, chiefly adopted in the basement story of their public edifices; such we find is that of the Lantern of Demosthenes at Athens. Their regular stone walls were made of large and small stones, cut and squared, and laid alternately with great taste. Sometimes a course of

larger and a course of smaller ones were laid over one another. This was a wall of great beauty and strength. The walls erected by the Mameluke kings of Egypt were formed of horizontal layers of alternate black and white stone, which gave them a picturesque look.

For

All the above walls derived their names from the form and manner of their construction. the latter, they made a kind of oblong coffer of boards as wide as the intended thickness of the wall; and into this mould they threw rubble stones, cement, and tenacious earth promiscuously, beginning first with a course of stone-work for a foundation, and after that, at every two feet, a course of brick-work was laid to bind the work together. In this way pise-walls are built, and such, it appears probable, was the practice in some parts of Asia. Their bitumen or slime-mortar, which

established in England, but the difference of climates is too great.-(See Sir William Chambers' Chinese Architecture, p. 11.)

* As to the largeness of stones, we may remark, that some of astonishing size were certainly employed in the ancient structures of Syria. Thus in the sub-basement of the great temple at Baalbec, (which was probably much more ancient than the now ruined Roman superstructure,) Irby and Mangles measured a stone sixty-six feet in length by twelve in breadth and thickness. (Travels, p. 215.) And Wood, in his account of the same ruins, confirms this observation, and takes notice of stones which he found cut and shaped for use in a neighbouring quarry, one of which measured seventy feet in length by fourteen in breadth, and fourteen feet five inches in depth, containing fourteen thousand one hundred and twentyeight cubic feet, and which would, if of Portland stone, weigh one thousand one hundred and thirty-five tons.

The stones in the walls of Solomon's Temple, which, according to Josephus, were white, were also of an immense size, to which the attention of Christ was drawn by one of his disciples, who then foretold that they should be thrown down, and not one stone left upon another, at which they were greatly astonished on account of their immense magnitude. (Mark, xiii 1,2.) The stones of this temple are generally supposed to have been brought from Lebanon, though no mention is made of it. The stone of those regions is described by Shaw as hard, calcareous, sonorous, whitish, like freestone, and disposed in strata variously inclined; and has nearly the same appearance throughout Syria and Palestine, and is still used for building. (A.) As an antiquity, a stone may be seen in the porch of Stepney church, near London, having the following inscription, "In Carthage wall I was a stone."

The Cyclopean style of masonry at Tyrus and Mycenae, the latter mentioned by Homer, is characterised by huge stones, of which the interstices are filled with those which are smaller. This is precisely the same method as is now practised in the west of England. The polygonal style, where the larger stones are made to fit into each other, is of a later date. In the construction of walls in the Cyclopean style of the first period, even these chasms and interstices were deemed disgraceful. The polygonal style of hewing the angles of the stones to fit each other was the second order, and came in with the age of Epaminondas, 370 years B.C.; and last of all, hewn stones made square in regular courses, and laid with mortar, about 146 B.C.-(Dodwell's Greece, pp. 151, 152.)

Whether so or not, it is certain that the dwellings of the mass of the population, that is of the humbler classes, throughout Asia, are still, and always have been, of clay or mud. (See Job,iv. 19.) The dwellings which come within this class are of three principal sorts, the first formed by a framework of hurdles or wicker, daubed thickly with mud. In the second, the walls were composed of successive layers of trodden mud or clay, each being left to dry (which it does rapidly) before another layer is spread upon it. The third is built with sun-dried bricks, that is, cakes of trodden clay or mud, fashioned in a mould and dried in the sun: straw is usually mixed with them in order to strengthen them; but the poor peasantry generally have no straw, or very little, in the sun-dried bricks, or more properly mud-cakes, with which their humble dwellings are built. In ancient times we have observed that structures of a far higher class were built with the same materials.—(A.)

was inflammable, was much better than ours; of this we have had abundant proof in their walls, which, though no trowel was used, and where the force of the water has been great, the most uneven stones have been held together, and still resisting the attacks of three thousand years.*

The double brick-wall, formed with cement and brickbats between, is very strong and durable for public buildings, having been adopted in the still-existing Pantheon at Rome, built in the time of Agrippa, and also in the Baths of Diocletian. We have examples of grouted walls in the early Amphitheatre at Verona, and the walls of Præneste afford an instance of the rustic and the squared stone-walls, which are to be seen in the remains about the temple of Augustus, as well as of the antique coffer-work kind.†

DISSERTATION XII.

ON CONSTRUCTING CHIMNEY-FLUES.

"Should the chimney of a house, for want of previous consideration, be found to smoke, no afterthought will compensate this want of forethought. And he who has begun in this manner, can only expect to have the ill construction of a chimney to combat with, which it is often impossible to alter."-DR. FRANKLIN.

In most things relating to a building, we may refer the modern architect to the practice of the ancients, for examples and models by which to guide and improve; but in the article of chimneyflues we have not that resource; for at the time Vitruvius, the father of architectural history, wrote his treatise on civil architecture, in the reign of Augustus, we find the Romans had no chimneys in their houses, nor flues in their walls; they had only stoves which produced smoke in the rooms, and for this Vitruvius advised the architect not to have much carved work in his internal cornices, for fear the smoke should settle on them and produce a blackness. That the Romans had no chimneys at that time may seem surprising, as architecture was in its zenith at Rome during the empire; but it must be remembered they lived in a warmer climate than Their stoves were placed against the wall, with a hole in the same for the emission of smoke, while others were placed in the middle of the room (where the house was but one story high), and the smoke then escaped at the top through a louver. In some houses there was no other fire kept but in the entrance or great hall. The earliest account of a chimney on record, is that in the Hebrew Prophet Hosea, xiii. 3; but the word л7, arubeh, rendered chimney, means any kind of hole or opening, and particularly a window. The only thing in the East that approaches to a chimney, is a funnel above the fireplace to conduct the smoke out of the rooms. A structure rising above the roof for the same purpose, and to increase the draft, is not known, nor is the other much in use. There is therefore no evidence of the existence of a chimney in ancient times; certainly

ours.

The bitumen used for joining the bricks in the wall at Babylon, so cemented the bricks together that the brick parted before the mortar.-(See Buckingham's Travels in Assyria.)

+ The English mortar is composed of lime and sand, but there are two kinds of lime and two of sand in general use. The first of the limes is that of calcined rock, the second that of chalk; the rock-lime is the strongest, and the heavier the stone the better the lime; but the lime itself when burnt should be light. The river-sand is the best for stone-wall mortar, being the strongest, while the pit-sand is too fine, and needs washing to clean it of impurities; but this will do for brick-work and plastering: good building-mortar is that which is composed of two bushels of sand to one of lime.—(R. B.)

It is worthy of observation, that the statues of the ancients of the great Roman families, which were placed in the atrium or hall of their houses, where a fire was constantly kept, were termed fumosæ, from their being covered with soot; and that the name of the atrium itself was derived from the same circumstance.-(Count Stendall's Sketches of the Present State of Society and Manners, Arts and Literature in Rome, Naples, and Florence.)

none occur at Pompeii or Herculaneum : they employed charred wood, or wood that emitted no smoke, or let the smoke escape at the windows or at holes made for the purpose.

The first account of a chimney in Rome was in 1368, and is thus related: "A Paduanese nobleman, named Francesco da Carraro, when he paid a visit to Rome, being lodged at the sign of the Moon, an inn of note, found there that the fire was kindled, according to the universal custom of that city, in a brazier placed in the middle of the room, whereupon he sent for workmen, and caused two chimneys to be constructed in the manner of those in use at Padua."* Over these chimneys, being the first ever erected in modern Rome, he placed his arms as a memorial of that event. In the present day, throughout Spain and Portugal, no houses possess any chimney but that which belongs to the kitchen; and when it is found necessary to warm other apartments, a fire of charcoal is placed in the centre of the room in a brass pan, termed a brazero. This custom is indeed as old as the times of the Greeks and Romans, who had no other means of warming their apartments, until the former invented flues which conveyed the smoke underneath, which is still practised in the greater part of Greece.

As to the ancients being acquainted with the use of chimneys, it is a question that has occasioned much learned controversy, but after the closest examination it appears to be clearly decided in the negative. On this subject some will doubtless recollect the description of the inn, mentioned in Horace's account of his journey from Rome to Brundusium, as one proof among many that the houses were not then provided with chimneys.

"Tendimus hinc recta Beneventum; ubi sedulus hospes

Pæne, macros, arsit, dum turdos versat in igne:

Nam vaga per veterem dilapso flamma culinam

Vulcano, summum properabat lambere tectum . . .”—Lib. i. Sat. 5.

Thus we see the most essential improvement in architecture during the important ages, which had been missed by the sagacity of Greece and Rome, were chimneys. Nothing apparently can be more simple than the chimney-flue, yet the wisdom of the ancient times had been content to let the smoke escape by an aperture in the centre of the roof; and a discovery, of which Vitruvius had not a glimpse, was perhaps made, in this country, by some forgotten semi-barbarian. It is not till about the middle of the fourteenth century that the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in Italy, nor till the sixteenth in England in dwelling-houses, although they are found in several of our castles which bear a much older date.‡

Many of our early ancestors lived at home amid smoke and dirt, either of which, at least, to the poorest among us, would now seem intolerable; yet the Anglo-Saxon nobles, those who had ten thousand vassals or slaves at their command, lived in habitations sordid with smoke and affecting

* We are told they were known at Venice in 1347, and that in an earthquake which then happened several were thrown down.-(B.)

+ Beckman's History of Inventions.

Muratori, Antich. Ital. Dissert. xxv. p. 390. Beckman in his History of Inventions, vol. i., a work of very great research, cannot trace any explicit mention of chimneys beyond the writings of John Villani, wherein however they are not noticed as a new invention. Piers Plowman, a few years later than Villani, speaks of a chamber with a chimney," in which rich men usually dined. But in the account-book of Bolton Abbey, under the year 1311, there is a charge, pro faciendo camino, in the rectory-hand of Gargrave. (Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 331.) This may, I think, have been only an iron stove or fire-pan, though Dr. W., without hesitation, translates it a chimney. However, Mr. King in his Observations on Ancient Castles, (Archæol. vol. vi.,) and Mr. Strutt in his View of Manners, vol. i., describe chimneys in castles of a very old construction. That of Conisborough, in Yorkshire, is peculiarly worthy of attention, and carries back this important invention to a remote antiquity. Chimneys are still more modern in France, and seem, according to Paulmy, to have come into common use since the middle of the seventeeth century. "Jadis nos pères n'avoient qu'un unique chauffoir, qui étoit commun à toute une famille, et quelquefois à plusieurs." (t. iii. p. 133.) In another place, however, he says, "Il parît que les tuyaux de cheminées etoient déjà très en usage en France." (t. xxxi. p. 322.)

PP