THE APARTMENT-HOUSE.



From Building News.

Most people are willing to admit that they cannot afford to pay over twice as much for a thing as it is worth; but few in this country are aware that they do this very thing when they build for themselves an independent city dwelling-house or pay a rent equivalent to or greater than the interest on this outlay.

In the old country the secret of obtaining luxury and economy combined in building has been learned, and rich and poor, fashionable and unfashionable alike live in "flats." In America, people have not yet learned this lesson, but cling to the old and barbarous custom of living perpendicularly in isolated towers, with all the cares and worries that go with isolated management.



Nothing shows more clearly than this, how much man is a creature of habit. In his savage state, the nature of his existence necessitated the isolated hut. As civilization advanced, however, the necessity for, and enormous advantages of cooeperation became evident, but habit perpetuated the isolated dwelling long after the reasons for its existence had disappeared, and it required centuries for civilized men to learn that cooeperation is an element as essential to perfection in the arrangement of their habitations as it is in other things.

A given accommodation may be obtained in the form of a "flat" for less than one-half the outlay required to obtain it in the form of an independent dwelling built on the same land.

The form of comparison herein presented has never, to my knowledge, been heretofore made, and the results are as surprising as they are important and interesting.

The estimates of cost have been made by several competent contractors on scale drawings and accurate specifications, are easily verified and hence may be accepted as reliable.

Figure 1 is one of the plans of our apartment-house which is to be built on the Back Bay, Boston.

Figure 2 shows the floor-plans of an independent house which might be built on the same land. Both figures are drawn to the same scale for convenience in comparing the dimensions. The independent-house (which I shall, in contradistinction to the "flat," designate as the "tower" to mark its prominent point of difference from the "flat" in form) contains a kitchen, pantry, furnace-room, fuel-cellar, laundry, dining-room, china-closet, parlor, eight bed-chambers provided with suitable closets, two bath-rooms, a trunk-room, a front staircase extending from the first floor to the attic, and a back staircase extending from the basement to the third floor. What will these accommodations cost in this form and what in the form of a "flat" in an apartment-house?

The apartment-house contains a public kitchen, steam-heating, ventilating and electric-lighting isolated plants, fuel-cellar, laundry, cafe, billiard-room, gentlemen's smoking-room, ladies' parlor, small public dining-rooms, and eighty suites, averaging five rooms, a bath-room and closets in each, and with a trunk or storage-room in the basement for each suite; four elevators and four fireproof staircases of iron and marble enclosed in brick walls from basement to roof.

The suites are of different sizes to suit the proposed occupants, and will have from two to twelve or more rooms of varying dimensions as desired. They are partly "housekeeping" suites, i. e., having kitchens and dining-rooms; partly "hotel" suites, i. e., having neither kitchens nor dining-rooms, the occupants preferring to use the public cafe and dining-rooms; and partly "semi-housekeeping" suites, i. e., having dining-rooms and china-closets with dumb-waiters connecting them with the public-kitchen, but no independent kitchen. The "housekeeping" suites require one more bed-room than the others, to accommodate a private cook.

Assuming now at first in our comparison those conditions which are least favorable to the apartment-house, we will take one of the "housekeeping" suites, having precisely the same number and size of rooms as we find in our independent house or "tower" and compare costs.

The only difference in the accommodation in each case is that, in the "flat," the rooms are accessible to one another without the use of stairs, while in the "tower" six flights of stairs in all are used, constituting in the aggregate a ladder, as it were, of about a hundred steps; also in the fact that in the "tower" the owner has to manage his own heating, ventilating and hot-water supply apparatus, while in the "flat" this work is done for him; that in the "tower" wooden staircases and no elevators are used, while in the "flat" fireproof staircases enclosing elevators are provided; that in the "tower" the main partitions are often of wood while in the flat they are of brick a foot thick and each "flat" is separated from its neighbor by a brick wall a foot thick and all the floors are completely deadened against the transmission of sound; and finally that in the "tower" no external fire-escape is provided, while the "flat" has convenient external fire-escapes of iron. Otherwise the accommodations are in both cases precisely the same.

The total cost of this apartment-house, including the building-lot valued at, say, $5 a square foot, has been carefully estimated at $617,771.

This is the highest of two competitive estimates given by two responsible builders, and comprises general cooking-plant, electric-lighting, steam-heating and ventilating apparatus, iron staircases and fire-escapes, elevators, copper roofing, architect's commission, and, in short, everything required for occupancy and use except wall-paper.

The first floor contains 16,688 square feet of available room. (By "available" I mean room which is directly occupied by, and which must be separately provided for each owner. That is, it excludes staircases, furnace, laundry, etc., which might be used in common by many owners and therefore need not be duplicated for each, and which are only indirectly serviceable to each owner in contributing to the usefulness of those which are directly enjoyed.) The six floors above contain 23,288 square feet of available room each, making a total of 156,416 square feet. Adding 10,880 square feet for basement storage and trunk-room for the suites, and 2,000 square feet in the basement for barber's shop, apothecary, carriage and other offices along the street fronts, we have a total of 169,296 square feet of available room in the entire apartment-house. Dividing the total cost $617,771 by this figure we have $3.65 for the cost of each square foot of available room in the building.

Our "tower" measures twenty-five feet front on party lines, by seventy feet deep. Its available rooms comprise parlor, library, music-room, eight closeted-chambers, two bath-rooms, a trunk-room, a dining-room, and we may add a kitchen for those who still believe in having an independent cook.

The area of these rooms is as follows:

Parlor 374 sq. ft. Library 374 " Music-room 154 " Chamber No. 1 384 " Chamber No. 2 528 " Chamber No. 3 170 " Chamber No. 4 252 " Chamber No. 5 162 " Chamber No. 6 286 " Chamber No. 7 242 " Chamber No. 8 315 " 2 Bath-rooms 144 " Trunk-room 136 " Dining-room 408 " Kitchen 384 " China-closet 136 " Other closets 410 "

Making a total of 4,859 square feet of available room in the "tower." Its total cost on a twenty-five foot lot of the average depth on the Back Bay, i. e., 112 feet, the land being valued as before at $5 per square foot, would be at the lowest estimate $32,000 at the present prices, the wood finish being equally good with that in the "flat." If we figure, however, for the same style of lighting, heating, ventilating and fireproofing, and provide an elevator and outside fire-escape, the cost could not be put below $40,000.

The same amount of available space, i. e., 4,859 square feet in our "flat" would cost at $3.65 per square foot as above estimated, $17,735.

If now we consider that the management of a private kitchen and an Irish cook does not actually constitute the essence of a home in its broadest sense, but, that on the contrary, it really deprives a home of its greatest charm, namely, peace of mind and rest of body, the kitchen and the cook's bed-chamber may be omitted from our "flat" in view of the public kitchen. The area of our "flat" then becomes 4,475 square feet, which, at $3.65 per foot, brings the cost down to a little over $16,000.

Finally, if we omit the dining-room also, with its china-closet, our area becomes 3,931 square feet, and the cost only $14,350 for the "flat," against $40,000 for the "tower," the former being but little over a third of the latter.

So much for the saving in the case of a large family and large suite. For a small suite, such as would be required for a single person, or a small family of two or three persons, the saving at once mounts to a very much larger figure; so much so, indeed, as to render the use of the isolated house in such cases a most inordinate extravagance, except for the very rich. Thus a single person, or a family of two or three, could be very comfortably provided for with three or four rooms, and a bath-room in an apartment-house having a good cafe. Estimating the rooms to measure 18 x 22 feet, their area would be a little over 400 feet each, including closets, and their cost $1,460 apiece; or for smaller rooms of, say, 14 x 15 feet, or 224 square-feet surface, the cost would be but $818 apiece. An isolated dwelling, on the same land, of only eighteen feet frontage and fifty feet deep, would cost, including the lot at $5 a foot, not less than $18,000 or $8,000, without the land. Of course, in such an isolated dwelling, electric-lighting, steam-heating, fireproof stairs, and other luxuries of the "flat," would hardly be expected.

By the arrangement of our apartment-house, there are twenty-four corner-suites out of the eighty. These have direct sunlight on either one or both of their exposed fronts, and may be estimated as worth fifty per cent more than the rest. In other words, 3/10 of the whole available room space is worth fifty per cent more, and 7/10 correspondingly less than the average price of $3.65 per foot. Therefore, $3.65 x 1-1/2 = $5.47 = price of corner-suites per foot, 3/10 x the total area 169,296 square feet = 50,788 square feet x $5.47 = $277,810, which, deducted from $617,771, leaves $339,961 to represent the total cost of the remaining 7/10. The total area 169,296 x 7/10 = 118,507 square feet of available space in the inner-suites. Hence $339,961/118,507 = $2.86 as the price per square foot of the inner-suites, or all suites which are not corner-suites.

Now, as our estimates on the "tower" were made on the basis of its being an inner building in a block and not a corner-house, our estimates for the "flat" should be on a basis of $2.86, instead of $3.65, as taken. Therefore, our suite of 4,859 square feet would be but $13,896 if the "flat" were any other than a corner one, and if the public kitchen and cafe were used, it would be $11,242, or but a little more than a quarter of that of the "tower!"

The foregoing figures are easily explained, and their correctness verified by the following simple diagrams and considerations:



In Figure 2 the shaded parts of the plans represent the unavailable room which, under the apartment-house system, are rendered unnecessary, and they are practically wasted. Thus the eighty families, by uniting their eighty homes in one cooeperative apartment, save 156 staircases consisting of seventy-six front and eighty back staircases, seventy-eight furnaces, seventy-nine laundries, etc., and nearly all the space they occupy, and the land, foundation and roof they represent.



This waste space may be graphically shown by the diagrams in Figure 3. The large black-and-white line represents the "tower," and the shorter the "flat." The black part of each line denotes unavailable, and the white part available room, the sum of the two denoting the total cubical contents of each dwelling. The white parts of the lines measure the same length in each case, because the amount of available room in "tower" and "flat" is assumed at the outset to be the same. Thus in the "tower," the front and back staircases and halls take up 22,000 cubic feet out of the total 106,000 cubic feet covered by the entire building. In the "flat" the proportional part of the halls and staircases for each suite is represented by a comparatively insignificant quantity as shown.

Again, an enormous waste is shown in the flooring, roof and air-spaces of the "tower," while this item is but a trifle in the "flat." The six floors, each 16 inches thick, and the roofing make up together in the "tower" 12,000 cubic feet, or nearly the equivalent of an entire story. Add to this 12,000 cubic feet of air-space under the roof and over the concrete, and we have in these items a waste of 24,000 cubic feet, against only 4,000 in the "flat."

Thus we see that the waste space in the "tower" actually exceeds the available. Yet it must be paid for at the same rate with the latter. Deducting the waste in the "flat" from that in the "tower," we find the balance of waste space in the "tower" to be equal to the available, showing graphically that the "tower" must cost, in these items alone, just twice as much as the "flat."



Figure 4 shows a block-plan on a very small scale of the apartment-house, and a block-plan on the same scale of 40 "towers" adjoining each other, and having the same available space as the apartment-house. These plans show how much more land is required to give the same accommodations (minus the conveniences and luxuries of an apartment-house) in the "tower" system than in the "flat."

The shaded portions in each block-plan represent the aggregate of available room in each case. This shows very strikingly what an enormous proportion of land and material is wasted in the "tower" system.

In short, the possible saving in first cost for each family adopting the "flat" system of building lies between $14,265 and $28,758, making an aggregate saving for the 80 families occupying the apartment of between one and two millions of dollars.

The annual running expenses are also greatly in favor of the "flat" system when the advantages of cooeperation are used to its greatest extent.

Eighty independent Irish cooks give way to a professional chef and half-a-dozen attaches. The wages and maintenance of the 80 cooks would amount to an annual sum of not less than $40,000; those of the chef and his assistants to hardly $10,000, making in this one item a possible annual saving of $30,000.

The management of the 80 independent Irish cooks, if possible at all, could only be accomplished by the constant struggle of 80 worried and largely inexperienced owners or their wives. The management of the chef and his attaches could more easily be managed by a single person, either selected from among the 80 families and suitably recompensed, or employed as a professional manager at a regular salary. Or the entire control of the cafe, and kitchen could be let out by contract to some suitable caterer, if preferred.

Corresponding savings are evidently possible in every other department of housekeeping, including steam-heating, ventilating, laundry-work, lighting and elevator-work. In all of these particulars, cooeperation, judiciously conducted, has been shown to yield surprising economies.

But there are other advantages even more important than its economy in favor of the "flat." Freedom from housekeeping cares has already been touched upon. In the "tower," life is spent in training and treating with servants, mechanics and market-men. The private cook is a volcano in a house, slumbering at times, but always ready to burst forth into destructive eruption. True repose is out of the question, and we are told that "the motive for foreign travel of perhaps one-half of Americans is rest from household cares and the enjoyment of good attendance, freed from any responsibility in its organization and management."

Security against burglary and fire is another. In a good apartment-house, trained watchmen stand on guard night and day to protect the occupants, and stand-pipes, hose and fire-buckets are provided in all the halls, and kept in repair for emergency.

The family may leave their apartments for travel summer or winter, knowing that their property is as secure as modern appliances, system and ingenuity can make it. Not so with our isolated dwelling. The cost of providing all these means of protection is too great to make them practicable. The result is that the fear of burglary and fire at all times causes uneasiness, particularly on the part of the wife during the absence of her husband.

Beauty in the architectural arrangement of the rooms is a third advantage of the "flat." In this it has all the advantage of the double house or residence of the immensely rich. The rooms may be grouped in a manner which renders possible the highest architectural effect, whereas in the "tower" the perpendicular arrangement evidently precludes such opportunity by limiting the design to a wearisome and monotonous repetition from basement to attic.

No argument can be sustained against the "flat" on the ground of transmission of sound or want of privacy and isolation, for sound may be as fully deadened as in the "tower" by means of the 12-inch brick separating walls shown in our plan, and the most improved deafening treatment of the floor-joists.

Isolation may be made complete in the "flat," the private halls and front doors of each suite being in every respect the equivalent of those in the "tower"; the only difference being that with the "flat" the outer world begins with the public hall and its elevator, while with the "tower" it begins with the public street and its horse-car.

Add to these advantages the possibility for a greatly enlarged and delightful social intercourse which a properly arranged and conducted apartment-house provides, and we have as near an approach to the ideal of a human habitation as has yet been devised.

J. P. PUTNAM.



ARCHITECTURE IN BROOKLYN.



The city of Brooklyn has at last waked up to realize her size and importance architecturally. Brooklyn, though growing very rapidly and having many buildings of importance, has really had very little good architecture, for the simple reason that the profession, not being in any way organized, could not, as a rule, receive the treatment due respectable architects. For this reason many young men who would not be capable of practising elsewhere, have flocked to this city, and by various methods, many of which are far from honorable, have succeeded in getting control of most of the work. However, we hope for better things.

The Brooklyn Institute some time ago decided to organize a Department of Architecture, and for this purpose a meeting of architects was called, which led to several more meetings and the attendance at these was exceedingly hopeful for the new department, some forty or fifty architects signifying their willingness to help along in the work; finally a public meeting was held in the Institute on Friday December 13, at which some six or seven hundred persons were present, and the Department was fully organized; the constitution carefully thought-out at the previous meetings was adopted, and the following list of officers chosen:

President, G. L. Morse; Vice-President, Louis De Coppet Berg; Secretary, William B. Tubby; Treasurer, Gustave A. Jahn; Committee on Current Work, Richard M. Upjohn, R. L. Daus and Louis De Coppet Berg; Committee on Museum and Library, Walter E. Parfitt, Pierre Le Brun; and Wm. Hamilton Gibson; Committee on Competitions and Awards, R. L. Daus, D. E. Laub, Russell Sturgis; Committee on Professional Practice, Walter Dickson, Albert F. D'Oench, Richard M. Upjohn; Committee on Social Intercourse, H. P. Fowler, Charles T. Mott and General Ingram.

During the necessary intervals of balloting, etc., the President, Mr. George L. Morse, made a short address, setting forth the history of the previous meetings, and congratulating the local architects on the prospect of having a strong and well-organized society.

Mr. Louis De Coppet Berg, of the firm of J. C. Cady & Co., Architects, then addressed the meeting as follows:—

When a young man enters a profession, and particularly the profession of architecture, if perchance he gets an original idea, or a little knowledge, he at once becomes very secretive, tries to keep it all to himself for fear some one else will benefit by it, and marks all his drawings "The property of...," and "Not to be copied, or used, without the consent of the author, under penalty of the law." As he grows a little older in his profession he begins to find out that a few others have ideas as well as himself, and know a little something once in a while; and as he grows still older he finds that there are a great many others, who know a great deal more than he does, and who have a great many better ideas than he has; and then it is, that he longs for communication with his professional brethren, and he finds that, in order to get the benefit of their ideas and knowledge, he must freely communicate his own to them. Hence it is that in most of the large cities we find some association of architects; Brooklyn, however, the third city of the Union, is unique in this respect, that it has absolutely no place where professional architects can meet and discuss the different problems of their profession.

To remedy this evil, the Brooklyn Institute proposed to establish a Department of Architecture, and for this purpose called together a large number of local architects.

Now, we have decided that, if we have any Department at all, it shall be a live one; and this reminds me of a squib I read in the paper the other day, telling how, somewhere in Spain, they had unearthed an old painting, which was pronounced a genuine Murillo. It was said that the experts could not as yet determine whether the subject of the cracked and dingy old canvas was a Madonna or a Bull Fight, but that, nevertheless, they did not hesitate to declare that it was a great acquisition to art. Now, that is the trouble with most associations of architects; if the subject for discussion is only old, cracked and dingy enough, they are happy. Nothing delights them more than to spend all their time and energies in discussing Etruscan or other antique architectures, or the exact differentiations between the many styles of architecture. Now, while we value the history of an art, and shall give it all due attention, we propose to remember that the modern architect, besides being an artist, must be one of the most practical and executive of business men.

We admit that our ancestors in the profession designed beautiful castles, magnificent cathedrals and lovely chateaux, but we remember that these castles, these cathedrals, these chateaux were planned without any comfort; that they had no plumbing devices, no methods for cooking, no systems of heating or ventilation, and no way of getting light but the miserable taper; while to-day the architect, besides being a thorough artist, who knows how to design and to color, besides being thoroughly up in the history of his art, must know how to plan for comfort, to construct for strength and stability; must understand all the details of boilers, machinery, dynamos, electric-wiring, heating and ventilating systems, plumbing and sanitation, and lastly must be able to manage the complicated finances of large undertakings.

Now, to carry out these ideas in our work, we shall, in the first place, establish a museum and library, to which we shall welcome all gifts of books, pictures, models, casts, etc., whether illustrating the artistic, or the practical side of the profession. Then we shall have a course of monthly, public lectures by competent authorities, the subjects of which will probably be very largely chosen from the artistic side of the profession. We also propose to have stated meetings of the Department monthly, at which some carefully selected papers will be read by experts, the subjects of which will be given out as long in advance as possible, in order that all may be thoroughly prepared for a full and open discussion; and then, after these meetings, in order to promote sociability amongst the members, and to show how thoroughly practical we are, we propose to have something to eat. We also hope later to establish schools, not only for young men, but particularly for draughtsmen, where they can be taught, not only the art of drawing, but also the many practical branches connected with the profession.

The meeting was also addressed by the Rev. Dr. Chas. H. Hall, President of the Associate Members. He spoke at great length and kept his audience intensely interested by describing his own acquaintance with architecture, beginning with the original negro log-house down South, then the prim buildings of old Andover and Harvard, and finally how he saw the great former St. Ann's of Brooklyn, the likeness of which, he said, could be seen any day on the piers of New York when they were unloading dry-goods boxes; and how he finally went abroad and saw the beautiful architecture of Paris, which he could not praise enough. He was also unstinted in his praise of the modern beauty and architecture of Washington. He also spoke of his visits to London, and, while he admitted that Englishmen thought their architecture beautiful, he took exception, and claimed that the great St. Paul's, though beautiful to the English eye, was a cold barren building, blacked with smoke inside and out, a place where you could not be comfortable, nor hear the speaker at any distance. We regret that we are not able to give a verbatim account of his witty address.

At the end of Dr. Hall's address, the lecturer of the evening, Professor Russell Sturgis, architect, of New York, addressed the meeting as follows, his subject being "The Study of Architecture," with particular reference to the architecture of to-day.

ADDRESS OF MR. RUSSELL STURGIS.

With regard to architecture and all the arts of decoration, there is a strange difference between the practice of them, and such study as looks toward practice, on the one hand, and the history and theory of them, with such study as that involves, on the other. Quite completely are these two studies separated, each from the other. A man may be most active and successful as a practising designer, and successful in an artistic way, too, with no knowledge and little thought of the history of his own branch of art, and with little curiosity as to its philosophy or its poetry. And, on the other hand, a man may be a very earnest student, and a happy and delighted student of the history and criticism of art, and know nothing, and care as little, about the profession or practice of any art, or about studio ways and studio traditions. I do not know that in any branch of human study this distinction is so marked and so strong. This is to be regretted, for many reasons, but it can hardly be done away with so long as the community is generally careless of both the theoretical and the practical—so long as the students and the practitioners alike feel themselves nearly isolated units, floating in a sea of good-humored indifference. This state of things only time can alter. Only time can civilize our new community in intellectual and perspective matters; but there are some other conditions which are more immediately in our power to modify, perhaps—let us see:

It is as true as if it had not been repeated, even to fatigue and boredom, that the arts of decoration have been in a bad way for a good part of the century past, at least among some European and Europeanized nations. I do not imagine that a Frenchman would admit that architecture and the arts of decoration had ever languished in his own society. Your cultivated Frenchman would say that some periods were better than others, but that there were no bad periods; he would say that, to be sure, the style of the First Napoleon's Empire was not a very fortunate style,—too stiff, too absurdly pseudo-classic, unworthy of France, a poor enough successor of the dainty and playful art of Louis XV, or the somewhat more refined and restrained art of Louis XVI: but he would say that it was art still, and the period a not wholly inartistic period; and even of the dull times of the Napoleon of Peace, from 1830 to 1848, while he would confess to a great deal of languor and lack of public spirit of all sorts, except in the struggle which the Romantic artists, headed by Delacroix, waged with the Classicists, headed by Ingres; while he would admit that the abundant wood-cuts and lithographs, the painting and statues much less abundant even in proportion, and the buildings very few and unimportant, were not sufficient to make up a great artistical epoch, that is, for France; yet as for its being an epoch without art,—such a thing as that, he would say France had not known since she was France. And he would be right.

But if said of England it would be pretty nearly true, if it were said that the whole amount of art of the decorative kind that existed in England between 1810 and 1850, for instance, would fill but a small museum, and that its quality would fill but slight requirements, it would require a bold Anglophil to contradict. There came a dull pall, like that of her own black fogs, over social London, and the stucco-fronted languors of Baker Street and Portland Place are no worse than were the dull monotony of the interiors behind them. Veneered and polished mahogany furniture, very much too large and too heavy for the rooms; black haircloth, like the grave clothes of Art, for the covering of everything that could be sat upon; cold, brownish-red curtains, of shiny but not lustrous material; silver candlesticks of monstrous design,—these, and such as these, were the decorative objects which our fathers or our grandfathers admired, or felt that they must admire for want of better, during the unhappy years that I have cited. The delicate carvings that the furniture of a generation just previous had received, were forgotten. People put up with Chippendale chairs in their dining-rooms because they had belonged to their fathers and nothing special was offered to take their place; but there is no record that they cared for them. The richer and more fantastic carvings of Grinling Gibbons had never obtained any general recognition nor availed to modify the woodwork of the domestic interiors of England. The brocades and flowered silks which the eighteenth century had revelled in, and if in England not strong enough artistically to produce them itself, had brought into England from other lands;—these were replaced by the dismal things I have alluded to, and no vestige of them seems to have remained in the parlors of that unhappy time.

Richness of costume had disappeared with the wars of the French Revolution. Embroidered silk coats had given place gradually to claret-colored and blue broadcloth, and this gave place to black, and all variety in costume had disappeared completely; and now, from 1810 to 1850, fantastically varied and interesting house-furnishing and decoration had followed, as I suppose it inevitably must follow; costume, being, one fears, a necessary part of anything like a prosperous artistic epoch.

Out of this gloomy depression the Anglo-Saxon world, in England and in this country, is trying to emerge. It began its efforts with the perfectly natural conviction that by studying the artistic history of the past, something could be done to benefit the arts of the present. The Gothic revival, which you have heard of so much, and which was followed with real ardor and with unquestioning zeal by crowds of devotees for years, beginning with, perhaps, 1840, was an attempt along the most obvious lines,—along what seemed to be the line of least resistance, to change the metaphor. To develop anew an old art, which had flourished so greatly in the past,—how easy! and how certain! How certain were the enthusiasts of that time, that by earnestly poring over and closely analyzing and heartily loving the buildings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, such buildings, and others like them, could be built in the nineteenth! How happy was the conviction of all these men that it was not more difficult than that! The secret of what had been done was to be found in the phenomena themselves. There, in this parish church, in this cathedral, lay the secret of their charm. Let us analyze first, they said, and let us put together again the ingredients that our analysis shall have discovered, and we will re-create the thing that we are in search of.

In like manner, in the minor arts, the people of 1850 felt, or some of them did, that they did not know how to weave curtains that it was worth any one's while to hang up, except to shut out the light and shut in the warmth; that so far as beauty of texture, beauty of pattern, and beauty of color went, they were powerless to produce anything of any avail. But they saw that the Venetians of the sixteenth century and the Florentines of the seventeenth century and the French of the eighteenth century had produced splendid stuffs; and although there were no museums in those days that condescended to anything so humble, such stuffs were still to be bought of the bric-a-brac dealers, and very cheap, too, and still existed, rolled up in some old garrets. By studying them, surely the art of making others like them could be learned. And so around the whole circle of the arts of decoration, it was believed, and in thoroughly good faith, and with, as it seemed, perfectly good reason, that the study of what had been would suffice, with zeal and patience and good will, to the production of what should be.

Well, the experiment has failed. Archaeology is the most delightful of pursuits, but it is not particularly conducive of good art. The German professor, who knows the most about Phidian sculpture, is as far as his youngest pupil from being able to produce anything Phidian, but, of course, this is not a fair example. The German professor does not profess to be a sculptor. Let us say then, that that sculptor now alive who knows the most, theoretically and historically about Greek art, is as far as his most ignorant contemporary and rival from having Greek methods of work. This is a safe proposition. I do not know who he is, nor can any one tell me. It is not a question of men, but of principles. The study of the monuments of art is one thing, their analysis, their criticism, their comparison, is one of the most attractive, the most fascinating, the most stimulating, the most absorbing of studies, one that I shall never cease commending in the most earnest way to all those persons to whom scholarship is dear and to whom it is a question of recommending a study which is worthy of their most earnest and hearty devotion, but it is not the study of practical art, that is another and a very different thing.

The way to make good sculpture is to let the youth thumb and punch and dabble in wet clay, and see what he can make of it; and the way to make a painter is to give the boy now a burnt stick, and at another time a pin and a back of a looking-glass, and see what he can delineate with such materials as these and with all other materials with which a line can be drawn. To look at the world, and what it contains, and to try and render what is suggested to him,—that is the training for the artist, and it has more to do with our beloved study of archaeology than if they were not concerned with the same subject. This, I say, has been proven. Sad experience, the waste of forty years of work, disappointment and despair, have taught some of our artists what others did not need to learn,—that the way to succeed was not through study of the past. The artist has no primary need of archaeological knowledge; the archaeologist has no need of any fact that the artist can furnish him with.

Suggestions; yes! Each side can furnish the other with suggestions in abundance, and suggestions which each can immediately profit by. An able artist, if a fellow of modesty and frank speech, can hardly talk without giving the student of the theory of art hints which the latter should study over at home before he sleeps upon them; for the secret of much that is vital and essential in his study is to be found in these hints; and on the other hand, I imagine that an artist would be better off, and have more play of mind, and readier and fresher conceptions, if he would now and then listen to what the student of old art has to tell him about what is to be observed in this or that monument of the past. But beyond that there is no connection between them. I will run two ateliers side by side, one for archaeologists, and one for practical students of architecture and they need never mix.

This will be more readily admitted, perhaps, in the case of the arts of expression than in the case of arts of decoration and let us define these terms. If you will allow me, I will quote from an address delivered a year ago before the New York Architectural League. Any work of art whose object is to explain and express the thing represented, or to convey the artist's thought about the thing represented, is art of representation, or, if you please, art of expression, or if you please, expressional art. I offer these as nearly synonymous terms. But if, on the other hand, the work of art has for its object the adornment of a surface of any sort, as a weapon, a utensil, an article of costume, and if the natural objects represented or suggested are used only as suggestions to furnish pretty lines and pleasant tints, which lines and tints might have been after all represented apart from the object were man's mind more creative than it is,—that is art of decoration.

Now, architecture, you see, is primarily an industrial affair, a method of covering men in from the rain, and admitting light into their protected interiors, and of warming those interiors, and in a few rare cases of ventilating them, and in providing a variety of apartments, communications, and the like for the varied requirements of a complicated existence; and it need not put on any artistic character at all. But as architecture becomes a fine art, it is perforce one of the arts of decoration. It has nothing to do with the arts of expression. Mr. Ruskin and all his life work to the contrary, notwithstanding, the business of building is not to tell tales about the world and its contents, not to set forth the truths of botany or of zoology, or of humanity, or of theology. If zoological or botanical or human objects are introduced, or representations of them, it is not for the sake of information that can be given about these interesting things, nor for the sake of expressing the artist's mind about them, nor for the sake of saying anything whatever in regard to them. It is for the sake of making the building beautiful. When the Oxford Museum stood presenting to the street a flat-fronted wall, diversed with pointed arches, and carvers were set to work bands of rich sculpture around the windows; although Mr. Ruskin had a great deal to do with that edifice, and architects of his own choosing were in charge of it, and clever Irish workmen of his own approval were producing the interesting carvings of those archivolts and tympanums, in spite of all theories, the object aimed at and the object attained by that outlay of time and money and skill was the beautifying of the building, and this was achieved to an extent probably beyond what its planners proposed to themselves, for the effect of well-applied sculpture upon a building is beneficial to an extent that would never be believed by one who has not often watched the changes that can be wrought in this way. They who have said that the Gothic Cathedral is nothing but a work of associated sculpture are not far wrong, and to produce a lovely building, one would rather have the blankest malt-house or brewery in New York, and some good carvers set to work upon it, than to have the richest architectural achievement of our time, devoid as it is and must be of decorative sculpture. For to get decorative sculpture, you must have your sculptors; and they, you know, are wanting. Where are the men who will model capitals and panels in clay, with some sense of ornamental effect? We have the men who can make a copy in relief of an architect's drawings: but then the architect, even if he have the sense of ornamental effect, in the first place can never draw out, full size and with care, all the work required in a rich building, and, in second place, can never design sculptured form aright by mere drawings on the flat. The architects of New York and Brooklyn are employing today, I suppose, 3,000 draughtsmen, of which number two or three hundred at least are engaged most of the time in making large scale and full-size drawings of architectural detail, in which sculpture plays a large part. Well, we need as many modellers, who, either in architects' offices, or in stone-cutters' yards and terra-cotta works, shall be putting into tangible form the dreams and thoughts of the designer's brain. "As many," do I say? Once it is found that architectural sculpture can be got promptly and cheaply, and conveniently, it is not 200 modellers only that this big community around the big bridge will need; but architects will engage three or four or a dozen at a time, as they now engage draughtsmen when big jobs come in.

For so the relative success and power today of the arts of expression seem to assure us. When we come to look into the subject, we find that modern life, which finds its expression freely in prose and in verse, and to a slight extent in music, finds some expression also in those arts which deal with expression. It is perhaps not a great artistic epoch that we are living in, although, if some one were to rise by and by, and maintain that it was, I would not be sure that he was wrong. It is certainly a kind of novel and in many ways admirable art in the way of expression. Great thoughts have found expression almost worthy of them in painting, in sculpture, in etching, in wood-engravings, in color and in black-and-white; in the single costly work of art and in the easily multiplied and cheap productions of the press. It is true that in these the thoughts are not always worthy of the expression they receive. This is partly because we have nearly lost the desire of talking about our religious beliefs in line and color and modelled form, and that no other subject of equal universal interest has taken the place of the ancient, simple and popular theology.

Patriotism, as shown in scenes of battle and pictures of deeds of gallantry and self-sacrifice; poetry, as seen in pictures which suggest sweet thoughts of young love and of home affections and of childish grace; the love of wild nature, as seen in our school of landscape art, now nearly fifty years old and flourishing—none of these nor all of them together have quite replaced the priestly theology of the Middle Ages as a subject for art, for none are quite so universal or appeal quite so readily to the untutored eye and mind. And so the uniform is better painted than the soldier very often, and the outside of nature than her inward spirit, and the flesh of the baby or the golden hair of the girl better than the baby nature or the girl nature in each instance. But this is to be stated merely as a drawback from praise which would otherwise be too unmeasured and too universal. The world contains a vast amount of good art of very recent date, and every year adds to the amount. The worst thing that can be said of the time is that it should be capable of producing so incalculably great an amount of bad art at the same time; that the walls of the Paris Salon should be so hung with inferior work every year that the important pictures are lost in chaos; and that, while this is true of the Salon, it is true to an immeasurably greater degree of the Royal Academy, of the New York Academy and every other exhibition in the world, except where a selected few paintings hang on reserved walls.

And as for sculpture, that is to say expressional sculpture, it is even more true in this case that the poor works terribly outnumber the good ones, though this is less noticed and makes less impression on the public. Our English-speaking communities do not even think of sculpture as a thing to look to for any refined enjoyment. How far the labors of a dozen living men, all Frenchmen but two or three, may have sufficed during the past score of years to change the public mind in this matter, I am not ready to say; but, surely, it has not been the general thought that sculpture is anything more than an expensive and perfunctory way of doing one's duty to a great occasion or a great man. This, however, is temporary. The good sculpture exists and will be recognized. So much for expressional art.

But, as for the arts of decoration, once more, there is not so much to be said. As yet the way to subdue technicalities and enthrone design has not been discovered. The way to produce beautiful buildings is known to none. The way to produce good interior decoration, good furniture, good jewelry, beautiful stuffs, has only been seen by here and there one, and his lead no one will follow. The fact of his having done a fine thing, or of his doing fine things habitually, acts not as an attraction to others, but as a warning to them to keep off. Every artist strives to do, not as his neighbor has done, and better, but as his neighbor has not done. The potteries work no better, because of one pottery which turns out beautiful work. The wall-paper makers still copy, slavishly from Europe and Japan, fortunately if they do not spoil in copying, in spite of the occasional production of a wall-paper which an artist has succeeded in. The carpet-weavers caricature Oriental designs by taking out of them all movement and spirit, while their best customers buy the original rugs. If some rich man were to make a museum of modern decorative art, from which he would carefully exclude all that which was not in some way fresh and intelligent, and if not good, at least promising, a room like this one would hold all his trophies, even though he should use his millions to ransack Europe and America. It is nobody's fault, least of all is it the architect's fault. For see what you expect of an architect. He must know about digging deep holes; and about sheath-piling, that he may retain the loose soil and keep it from smothering the workmen at the bottom of his excavation; and he must know the best machines to use for drilling rock and the best method for removing it; he must know about all the stones in the country and the best way of making concrete; he must be familiar with the thousand new inventions, and discriminate carefully and rightly between this range and that, and between this form of trap and the other, between a dozen different steam-heaters and twenty systems of ventilation; he must be prepared to give his owners exactly what they want in the way of windows and chimney-corners, of cupboards, shelves in available corners, and recesses to put away step-ladders and brooms. But observe that if he fails in any one of these things, he will fail in that which his owner really cares about; still more, if he fails in the economical administration of the funds allowed for the building, will he fail in that which the owner most cares about. Less beauty, less success in producing a novel, an original, a thoughtful, a purposeful design will hurt him but little, but insufficient care as to the circulation of hot-water will ruin him.

Now, no man can do all that, and still produce delicate and thoughtful designs. No man can be busy laying out work, superintending work, explaining to contractors and reasoning with employers, and still be producing delicate and thoughtful designs. An extraordinary fellow here and there may surprise us by what he does under such circumstances, but it will be but little and feeble in comparison with what he might do. The community must see its way to paying some to eschew plumbing and stick to design, if they mean to have any design. This has been done, indeed, in the matter of monumental-glass, and to a certain extent in wall-decoration by means of painting; but it must be done in what is more vital yet—in architectural sculpture of all sorts and all grades; of vegetable, animal and human subjects; in low relief, in high relief and in the round; in detached work and associated groups—or no architecture for us. I say, then, that as things are constituted, the architects are not particularly to blame for not having achieved much in the way of decorative art, either on the exteriors of their great buildings or in the beauty of their interiors. Not much to blame; but yet they are so far to blame as that no one else is to do this work if they do not. The architects and the artists who are associated with them in the work of supplying us with what we call decorative arts of all sorts, form the only class of the community to whom the rest of the community can look to for advancement in this direction. It is probable, then, that what such an associate has to do is two-fold; or rather it has two things to do: One is to study the beautiful art of the past, and to study it patiently and lovingly, feeling confident of this that the interests of the pursuit grow more absorbing every day; and the other is to watch the arts of the present, and to keep an open and perspective mind with regard to them, feeling sure of this that they will grow more complex and interesting every day, and that now and again some chance of something good will appear, here and there, giving us great opportunities to help, if we are clever enough to perceive them.

The study of the arts of the past is more entrancing every day because we are so much better informed, because we are daily better informed about them. Archaeology, having gone through a long apprenticeship, is doing wonders today; and, although ancient buildings are suffering from the accursed restorer, they are also more thoroughly known, more rightly judged, more sympathetically analyzed than ever before; while monuments other than buildings, those, that is, that are not open to the attacks of the restorer, are preserved in practical safety, and they also are minutely and honestly studied in a way of which our ancestors knew nothing. There is, therefore, more pleasure to be got out of the study of ancient art today than ever before, and that condition of things is a permanent one. Our children will have even better opportunities than we.

And, as for the arts of the present, the arts that are being produced around us, they are to be looked at as calmly and temperately; with, on the other hand, as little as possible of that provincial which makes cathedrals out of carpenters' Gothic churches, and, on the other hand, without carping, but with good-natured patience, with a feeling that if things are not very good, they can hardly be expected to be better; that we, in this country at least, are only half-civilized in the ways of cultivation, and we do uncommonly well for such babes as we are in literature and art. With patience then, and with impatience about nothing but this, that we deny ourselves the study of the great works of art of Europe and Asia by thirty per cent and forty per cent and sixty per cent duty, and deny to the author all proper remuneration for his work by the lack of common honesty. No other nation of European blood does these things. It is not a matter of politics. No protectionists so ardent in the Bismarck ranks as to propose to levy a tax on literature and science. No selfish grabber so small, even among peoples whom we consider less honest than we, who approves of stealing an author's books under color of the law. While we send to Washington Congressmen who keep such laws on the statute-books, our community is not "barbarous" so much as savage; for such acts are the acts of savages; that is, of men who have no reasonable motive for their acts, but act impulsively, like grown-up children.

And now, after this evening, let us return from theory and general principles, to practice and details, and see whether we can find out how it is that Indians combine color, how Japanese use natural form decoratively, how Chinamen make porcelain lovely and noble; how Greeks of old time have sculptured and Frenchmen have created Gothic architecture, and Italians have raised painting to the highest heaven of achievement. There is happiness, if study can give it. And for those to whom scholarship is less attractive than action and production, there is sculpture in small and large, in stone, marble, terra-cotta, wax, clay, plaster, bronze, iron, lead, gold and silver; there is inlay of all material and styles, from square tiles to minute glass tesserae; there is painting with all known vehicles and of all sorts; the whole to be devoted to the beautifying of buildings in which we have to live and work and rest. There is a plenty to do for those who know how to begin.

* * * * *

TO PROTECT PLATE-GLASS IN BUILDING.—Passing along Dearborn Street, recently, I saw a crowd watching closely the placing in position of some enormous panes of glass in a handsome new building. The glass was the best French plate, and the workmen handled it as carefully as if it were worth something more than a week's wages. The task of putting it in place was no sooner completed than one of the workmen grabbed a pot of whiting and with a big brush daubed a lot of meaningless marks on it. I thought it about as silly a thing as a man could do, and with the usual reportorial curiosity asked the foreman why he allowed it. The answer was a crusher. "Why," said he, "we have to mark them in that way or they'd be smashed in no time." My look of amazement doubtless prompted him to further explanation, for he said: "You see, the workmen around a new building get in the custom of shoving lumber, etc., through the open sash before the glass is put in. They would continue to do it even after the glass is in if we didn't do something to attract their attention. That's the reason you always see new windows daubed with glaring white marks. Even if a careless workman does start to shove a stick of timber through a costly plate of glass he will stop short when his eye catches the danger sign. That white mark is just a signal which says, 'Look out; you'll break me if you are not careful.'"—Chicago Journal.



THE STRUCTURE OF SANDSTONE.[1]

AS AFFECTING ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING WORKS.



The native stones we Liverpool architects have at command are all sandstones belonging to the geological division called the Trias, or, in older phraseology, the "New Red Sandstone," which lies above the coal-measures. The term "New Red" was given to distinguish these rocks from the "Old Red," which lies below the Mountain Limestone, the lowest division of the carboniferous rocks. It is, perhaps, needless to remark that the "New Red" is not always red; sometimes it is yellow, at others, like some of the Storeton stone, white. These red rocks occupy a large part of Lancashire and Cheshire, and especially in the latter county give the characteristic scenery which distinguishes it. The escarpment of the Peckforton Hills of which Beeston Castle Hill is an outlier, and that at Malpas, farther south, gives rise to some very beautiful scenery; and again at Grinshill and Hawkstone, in Shropshire, we have a repetition of much the same kind of landscape. It will be necessary for my purpose to say briefly that these red rocks have been divided into the "Bunter" and "Keuper"; the lower division, the Bunter, occupying most of the ground about Liverpool; the upper, the Keuper, being more developed on the Cheshire side. All these sandstones are not fit for building purposes, and those that are so used differ considerably in their durability. It is my object in this short Paper to show upon what the perfection or imperfection of the various stones for building purposes depends—a matter of great moment to an architect or engineer who is desirous that his work should last.

Sandstones, or, in masons' language, "free-stones," from the freedom with which most of them are worked when freshly taken from the quarry, are plastic or sedimentary rocks. That is, they are composed of separate particles which have once existed as sand, like that we see on our own shores, or in the sand dunes of Hoylake or Crosby. Sandstones are usually more or less laminated, and are stronger to transverse stress at right angles to their natural bedding than in any other direction, a fact recognized in every architect's specification, which states "all stones must be laid on their natural bed," a direction that unfortunately sometimes begins and ends in the specification. The cause of the superior strength is not, however, generally understood.

I have devoted some considerable time to an investigation of the internal structure of sandstones, which I have communicated from time to time to various scientific societies and publications, and will now briefly explain it in a manner I judge will be most likely to interest architects and engineers. The particles or grains of which the rock is built up are of various forms and sizes, from a thoroughly rounded grain, almost like small shot, to a broken and jagged structure, and to others possessing crystalline faces. These grains, most of them possessing a longer axis, have been rolled backwards and forwards by the tides or by river-currents. The larger grains naturally lie on their sides when freshly deposited, with their axes in the plane of bedding; the smaller and more rounded particles naturally tend to occupy the interstices between the others, and in this way rude divisional planes or laminations are formed. Each layer forms a sort of course like coursed-rubble in a wall, and by the necessities of deposition a certain rude geometric arrangement results, by which the particles of the future rock overlap each other, and thereby gain what is known to architects as bond.

But, so far, this is only like "dry walling," the mass wants cementing together to make it solid. The cementing process happens in this way in our rocks, which are almost purely silicious: Water containing a minute quantity of carbonic acid in solution, which most rain-water does, especially when it comes into contact with decaying vegetation, has the power of dissolving silica to a slight extent. This is proved in various ways, and is shown in the fact that all river water contains more or less silica in solution.

The circulation of water through the sand deposit of which our rocks are made dissolves part of the grains, and the silica taken up is redeposited on others. I cannot explain the chemical reaction that produces this deposition, but that it takes place in the rock during some period of its history is certain. I exhibit a quartzite pebble taken from the Triassic sandstone at Stanlow Point, which, as can be easily seen, was at one time worn perfectly smooth by attrition and long-continued wear, for the quartzite is very hard. Upon this worn surface you will see spangles and facets which reflect the light, and on closer inspection it will be evident that they are crystals of quartz that have been deposited upon the surface of the worn pebble after it became finally enclosed in the rock.

A microscopic examination of the granules of the rock itself will show that many of them have had crystalline quartz deposited upon their surfaces, and in some cases rounded grains have in this way become almost perfect crystals.

An examination of the best sandstones for building purposes shows that they possess more of these crystalline particles than the inferior ones, and a good silicious sandstone shows its good quality by a fresh fracture sparkling in the sun. In addition to these crystalline deposits of silica I believe it exists also as a cement which binds the particles together when in contact.

It certainly is, however, with this secondary silica that the original sand has become a building stone, and the particles have become interlaced and bound together. Thus, in building parlance, the grains are the rubble of the wall, the currents the quarrymen, masons and laborers, and the silicious infiltration the mortar.

And now, when I am on the subject, I may point out that this hard and compact quartzite pebble was also once loose sand. The only difference between the sandstone in which it was imbedded and itself is that in the latter case the process of silicious deposit has gone further, so that all the interstices between the grains have been absolutely filled up with the cement.

It is not possible to see this clearly with the naked eye, but by the aid of a slice of the rock prepared for the microscope the granular structure of the quartzite is made perfectly plain. So much for the mechanical, chemical, and molecular structure of sandstone, all of which affect the strength and quality of the stone; but to architects there is another element of consequence, namely, the color. The rich red of our Triassic sandstones is due to a pellicle of peroxide of iron coating each of the grains. That this is merely surface coloring is shown by the fact that hydro-chloric acid will discharge the color and leave the grains translucent. Unfortunately the most brilliantly colored stone is not the most durable, and it so happens that these brilliant red sandstones are often composed of exceedingly rounded grains. Also some of the very red sandstone has an interfilling of a loose argillaceous irony matter detrimental to the stone as a building stone. The most durable of the red sandstones are those having a paler or grayer hue, like those of Woolton, Everton, and Runcorn. This distinction of color was brought freshly to my mind a short time since in looking at the church of Llandyrnog, in the Vale of Clwyd, a few miles from Ruthin. Some of the dressings, quoins for instance, were of a very brilliant-colored red sandstone, and others of a pale gray or purple red. It struck me that these latter must be of Runcorn stone, which I was afterwards informed was the case. The very red stone was the natural stone of the Vale, originally used for dressings, which were replaced, on the restorations being made, with Runcorn stone. The original stone was aesthetically the best, but the introduced stone the best structurally. The old stone of Chester Cathedral was a very red Bunter sandstone, which decayed badly. It has been replaced in the restorations by Runcorn stone, which belongs to the Keuper division, which has caused the Geological Surveyors to say that the Keuper is a better building stone than the Bunter. In this case it is; but, on the other hand, the Bunter sandstones, or Pebble-beds, as they are called, near Liverpool, are often better than the Runcorn Keuper. The Runcorn building stone lies between two beds of very red loose rock, showing that it is not its geological position, but its structure, that makes it a good durable stone.

It is a remarkable fact that most of the pebbles included in the red rocks are quartzites, or indurated silicious sandstones; and, as showing that their solidity and hardness are due only to a further continuance of the deposit of silica in the interstices, it has been proved that the purple quartzites are purple only by reason of the original coloration of the grains which have been enclosed between the original grains and the secondary silica. Yellow sandstone is colored also by iron, and I have frequently seen the red sandstone shading of to the yellow without any division whatever. The various shades and tints of sandstone are necessarily due to the coloration of the individual grains.

Most of you will, no doubt, have observed the sort of marbling or grain upon the stone of our old buildings, such as the Town-Hall, which I believe was obtained from quarries occupying the site of the St. James's Cemetery. This is due to what is called current bedding; that is to say, the grains have been arranged along oblique lines and curves instead of in parallel laminae. This stone, which is geologically equivalent to the Storeton Stone, and of the same nature, has stood very well. Some of the Storeton Stone, if free from clay galls, although very soft when quarried, becomes hardened by exposure, and will stand the weather much better than a harder and more pretentious material.

The stone of Compton House is in a very good condition, although the mason told me such was the hurry in rebuilding that they could not stop to select the stone, and also that it is placed in all sorts of positions with respect to its quarry bed. Perhaps the circumstances that the stone is not in parallel laminae may have something to do with its durability, notwithstanding this latter fact.

It would take a long Paper, and several evenings, to exhaust the subject even of our local stones. I may mention, however, that the quarries of Grinshill, between Shrewsbury and Hawkstone, yield a beautiful white sandstone, of a finer grain than Storeton, but of a similar quality.

Most of the public buildings of Shrewsbury are built of it, and I am informed that it was to some extent used in the Exchange buildings. The rocky substratum of a district can be well seen in its ancient buildings, for in old times carriage was so important an item that the old builders could not go far for their stone; hence we see that the old churches of part of Lancashire and most of Cheshire, and a large portion of Shropshire, are of red sandstone. Some of it has stood very well, while some has decayed into shapeless masses. There is a tendency to exfoliate parallel to the exposed or worked surface, in all stones, irrespective of the way of the bed, but more so where the stone is set up on edge, or at right angles, to its quarry bed. It is interesting and peculiar to see in some of the old buildings erected with pebbly sandstone how the white quartz pebbles stand out from the surface like warts. This is due to the greater indestructibility of the quartz pebbles, and the weathering away, or denudation, of the sandstone face.

Before leaving the subject of local sandstones it will be necessary to refer to one quality they have which is of excellent utility as regards the storage of water, but which is decidedly a disadvantage in building stone—that is, their porosity. I have proved by actual experiment that a cubic foot of Runcorn Stone will take up three quarts of water by capillarity, and that it is possible to make a syphon of solid sandstone which will empty a vessel of water into another vessel by capillarity alone.[2] This shows the absolute necessity of damp-proof courses, not only in the main walls of buildings of stone, but even in fence walls, for the continual sucking up of moisture from the earth, and its evaporation at the surface of the stone, make it rapidly decay. I think I could show you this fact in almost any stone building in Liverpool or elsewhere where the stone is in direct connection with the earth. It also shows the necessity of taking care that no stones go through the wall to the interior surface, and of precautions for backing up stone walls with less porous materials, or the introduction of a cavity. If you could suppose such a sandstone wall 40 feet long, 20 feet high, and 1 foot 6 inches thick fully saturated, it would hold almost a ton of water! Of course, it never would be fully saturated, because of the evaporation from the surfaces, but with a southwest aspect, and very wet weather, it might become half saturated. But what does evaporation mean? It means the loss of so much heat and the burning of so much coal to supply its place. From this it will be seen that a pure sandstone wall is a thing to be avoided.

The subject is so wide a one that I have felt compelled to restrict my remarks to local sandstones, but the general principles of structure apply to all sandstones alike.

It is difficult by written description to tell you how to select a good stone, but one essential is that there shall be a good deposition of secondary quartz, as shown by the crystalline sparkling on the freshly fractured surface.

It must also be free from very decided laminations, for these constitute planes of weakness and are often indications of the deposition of varying materials, or the same material in various grades of fineness. It must also not be full of argillaceous and iron-oxide infillings. It should possess a homogeneous texture. The best way to study building stones is to study them in old buildings, for nature has then dissected their weaknesses.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Read before the Liverpool Architectural Society, on the 18th November, 1889, by Mr. T. Mellard Reade, F.S.G.S. Fellow, President of the Society, and printed in the R.I.B.A. Journal.

[2] This experiment was made before the audience.—T. M. R.

* * * * *

WARFARE ON OAK TREES.—"The world seems to have waged a special warfare upon oak trees," says a St. Louis man. "Before iron ships were built, and that was only twelve years ago, oak was the only thing used. When this drain ceased oak came into demand for furniture, and it is almost as expensive now as black walnut. No one feels the growing scarcity of oak like the tanner, and the substitution of all sorts of chemical agencies leads up to the inquiry as to whether other vegetable products cannot be found to fill the place of oak bark. The wattle, a tree of Australian growth, has been found to contain from twenty-six to thirty per cent of tannic acid. Experiments have been made on the Pacific Slope, where the wattle readily grows, and in a bath of liquor, acid was made from it in forty-seven days, whereas in liquor made from Santa Cruz oak, the best to be found in all the Pacific States, the time required is from seventy-five to eighty days. The wattle will readily grow on the treeless plains of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, the bark of which ought to yield five dollars per acre counting the fuel as nothing."—Invention.



THE BARYE EXHIBITION.



Entering the handsome galleries of the American Art Association, one finds the lower floor given up to the Barye bronzes, while the upper rooms are devoted to the "Angelus" and the paintings by Millet and other contemporaries of the great French sculptor. Passing on the left of the entrance the superb, large bronze of "Theseus battling with the Centaur," one is fronted by the great cast of the "Lion and Serpent," which from the centre of the gallery dominates the surrounding exhibits. Both of these are the property of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the cast having lately been presented to that institution by the French government. Upon the right hangs Bonnat's vigorous portrait of Barye, on the left wall one sees the water-color of the "Tiger Hunt," and all around are cases, groups and isolated pieces of the bronzes.

Here are over 450 works in wax, plaster and bronze, of which Mr. W. T. Walters contributes one-fourth, while the Corcoran Gallery sends its entire collection, numbering nearly a hundred, Mr. Cyrus J. Lawrence loans sixty-two pieces, Mr. James F. Sutton fifty-two and Mr. Samuel P. Avery thirty. Other contributors, who have followed their generous example, are Messrs. R. Austin Robertson, Theodore K. Gibbs, Robert and Richard M. Hoe, James S. Inglis, Richard M. Hunt and Albert Spencer. Of many of the subjects there are several copies, and amateurs can study proofs and patinas to their heart's content. From Mr. Walters's famed collection are the four unique groups modelled for the table of the Duke of Orleans, chief of which is the "Tiger Hunt," where two of the huge cats attack an elephant from whose back three Indians defend themselves with courage. The giant pachyderm writhes his serpent-like trunk in air and plunges forward open-mouthed, trumpeting with pain from the keen claws of the tigers hanging on his flanks. The Hunts of the Bull, the Bear and the Elk are worthy companions of this magnificent bronze, offering wonderfully fine examples of condensed composition in the entwined bodies of men and beasts, and filling the eye with the grand sweeps of their circling forms. The same liberal patron of art also lends his unique piece of a walking lion, in silver, made in 1865 for a racing prize, and a plaster-proof of the little medallion of "Milo of Crotona attacked by a Lion," executed by Barye in 1819 for the Prix de Rome competition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. This little gem, worthy of the antique, did not secure the prize, however, which went to a now-forgotten sculptor named Vatinelle. It had often been so before, it has often been so since down to our day (Comerre was preferred to Bastien Lepage in 1875) and doubtless it will be so for who knows how many years to come.

All the phases of that terrific struggle for existence where beast hunts beast, which have been depicted by Barye's genius, are here. Here is the "Tiger devouring a Crocodile" (with which Barye made his first appearance at the Salon, in 1831); the "Jaguar devouring a Hare"; the "Lion devouring a Doe," the "Crocodile devouring an Antelope," the "Python swallowing a Doe," the "Tiger devouring a Gazelle," the "Bear on a tree devouring an Owl" and the "Lion devouring a Boar." What a series of banquets on blood and warm, almost living flesh is here presented! How cruel these creatures are to each other, is the thought that first comes to us, but a second, reminds that it is but their instinct and a necessity of natural law, and repulsion is lost in astonishment and delight at the marvellous fidelity with which the sculptor has rendered these links in the great chain of animal life. Their (as we call it) savage eagerness, their almost blind rage for their appointed food, the tenacity with which they clutch and the ravening anxiety (caused by the dread of losing their prey) with which they tear the flesh of their victims, is portrayed to the life. We speak of a death-grip, but here is a death and life grip—death to the victim whose palpitating body furnishes life to its destroyer. It is the hot-cold-bloodedness of nature, the disregard for suffering of the tornado, the earthquake and the avalanche shown in little in the fangs and claws of these wild creatures. Then there are the battles of the more evenly-matched animals—not always as a result of the need of sustenance—such are the tiger transfixed by the elephant; the python's folds crushing the crocodile; and the bear dragging the bull to earth, or itself, in turn, overthrown by mastiffs. Then comes those groups into which man enters—the African horseman surprised by a great serpent whose formidable folds already enclose his struggling body; the Arabs killing a lion; and the "Theseus overcoming the Minotaur," wherein the calmly irresistible hero is about to bury his keen, short sword in the bull-neck of the gross monster. The success with which Barye has combined the human and bestial characteristics of the minotaur is most remarkable and a similar triumph is won in the hippogriff—the winged horse, with forefeet of claws and beaked nose, which leaps so swiftly over the coiled-shape of the dolphin-serpent, which serves for his pedestal—bearing upon his back the charming, nude figure of Angelica held in the mail-clad arms of Ariosto's hero. To this category seems to belong the "Ape riding a Gnu," the forms, however, being true to nature though appearing fantastic when placed in juxtaposition.

The horse as we know him, and carrying more familiar burdens, is shown in numerous equestrian statuettes, the best of which is the slender, nervous figure of Bonaparte as First Consul, mounted on a proudly-stepping Arab. There is another one of Napoleon, showing him at a later period of his life, and the other equestrian portraits include one of the Duke of Orleans, who looks every inch a gentleman; one of Gaston de Foix, the hero of Ravenna; and one of Charles VII. Then there is a spirited statuette of a Tartar warrior in chain armor sharply pulling back his steed, and a graceful figure of a lady wearing the riding-dress of 1830. A painful contrast is presented by the doomed horse unwillingly carrying a lion whose dreadful grip his frantic rearing cannot loosen. In addition there are many studies of horses, various in breed and attitude, and the small wax model of a young man mastering a horse which though but a rough "first sketch" has all the "go and fire" possible. It would have been of interest if some illustration of Barye's equestrian monument of Napoleon at Ajaccio could have been shown, and this reminds me that except a photograph of the Chateau d'Eau at Marseilles, showing the four groups of animals designed by him (which Mr. Cyrus J. Lawrence was thoughtful enough to send), and the two reclining river-gods from the Louvre (sent by Mr. Walters), there is nothing which gives any idea of Barye's public work. Not even photographs of the War, Order, Glory and Peace groups of the Louvre, which could have easily been taken from the copies given by Mr. Walters to Baltimore, now on Mount Vernon Place, are present. But, in face of the admirable collection here gathered together, this may savor of ingratitude, and I will return to the consideration of the remaining sculptures.

Among them are some masterly pieces of decoration, the most important being the superb candelabra made for the Duc de Montpensier. These have seated at their base nude figures of the three chief goddesses of classic mythology, whose noble proportions and purity of outline prove the versatility and completeness of the sculptor's art. Juno is accompanied by her peacock and bears the rod of power; Minerva lifts a sword, and Venus holds the golden apple. The candelabra are further enriched with masks and chimeras, and bear at their top a charming circular group of the three graces, small undraped figures, with arms entwined and faces turned toward each other. The general design and exquisite detail of this work is worthy of the Renaissance. There are some more candlesticks and other works of decorative art, all of which bear the marks of a master-hand.

The humorous side of things is presented by some of the groups: in the ungainly figure of the elephant of Senegal running; in the bear lying on his back in a trough and eating with great gusto some sweet morsel which he holds between his paws; and in the meditative stork standing on the back of a turtle. Some of the animals are shown as sleeping or reclining, and there is a cat sitting, a goat feeding, a deer scratching its side and a pheasant walking, among others, but the tragic note is struck in most of them. Probably the best works are to be found among those pieces representing members of the feline race, which were always the subject of Barye's most thorough study. The sculptures of horses are also very numerous, and it strikes one at first as curious that, after all the rebuffs he received from the academic faction, who recognized no animals but the horse and lion as worthy of representation in sculpture, he should have modelled so many of these very creatures. But, after all, Barye's lions and horses belong to an entirely different race from those which the tradition-bound old fogies were pleased with. The collection embraces many admirable bronzes of birds: an eagle holding a dead heron; an owl with a rat; a paroquet on a tree, and a strikingly fine composition of a hawk killing a heron; and there are some beautiful studies of dogs, especially a large seated greyhound, belonging to Mr. Walters. There are rabbits, badgers, wolves and camels, but I remember no cows or pigs, and only one group of sheep. Wild life, much more than domestic, touched the sympathies of Barye.

Mr. Walters loans twenty-three of Barye's powerful water-colors of animals and a fine oil, of unusual size for this artist, of a tiger. One of the most striking of the water-colors shows a great snake swallowing an antelope, whose head is partly engulfed, and it is almost exactly the same as one of the bronzes from the Walters collection. Other gentlemen have contributed water-colors and oil-paintings by Barye, among them being several landscapes at Fontainebleau, and there are various etchings and prints after his works and some of his lithographs, pencil-sketches and autographs, with a copy of the only etching—a stag fighting a cougar—which, according to so good an authority as Mr. Avery, he ever made. These remarkable water-colors alone would suffice to show the genius of Barye, for they are full of the same qualities of truth and originality of expression which we see in his bronzes. Their color is exceedingly fine, and their topics are generally tigers, lions, elephants and serpents. It is a source of wonder how Barye, who never visited the East, could have so well depicted the tropical landscapes in which he has placed these tawny tigers and majestic lions. The drawings, like the sculptures, impress us with their air of absolute veracity, and, even in their most dramatic moments, suggest a reticence behind. Barye does not exhaust himself or his subject, yet he seems to have said the last word in this direction of art, and I cannot imagine that his profound and searching genius will ever be surpassed.

The managers of the galleries announce the exhibition of a hundred "masterpieces" by the contemporaries and friends of Barye, but I do not think that the visitor will find so large a number which can rightly be thus classed. To me it appears that something less than one-half are works of the first order, but among the remainder are many good things worthy of attention. Here again the treasures of Mr. Walters's collection are drawn upon and he sends some twenty-five pictures, prominent among which is the great "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian," by Corot; the "Evening Star," by the same master; Troyon's "Cattle Drinking"; Diaz's "Storm" and "Autumn Scene in the Forest of Fontainebleau"; Rousseau's "Le Givre"; Decamps's "Suicide"; Daubigny's large "Sunset on the Coast of France"; Delacroix's "Christ on the Cross"; and Millet's "Breaking Flax." One of the finest Millets I have ever seen is here, lent by Mr. Walters. This is the "Sheepfold at Night," which with several others of Mr. Walters's paintings here shown, was in the exhibition of "One Hundred Masterpieces" held at Paris in 1883. In its foreground a line of sheep pass by toward the gate of the fold through which some have already entered under the guidance of the shepherd and his dog, who stand near. The horizon is low, and just above it swings a swollen moon, shaped like a cup, from which floods of pale light fill the scene with color. If this were Mr. Walters's only contribution it would be sufficient to place us under a heavy obligation to him. The "St. Sebastian" is a large canvas, measuring four feet wide by eight feet high, which was first shown at the Salon of 1853, and afterwards twice received important changes at the artist's hands. It shows an opening in a great wood, with the saint reclining on the ground tended by two holy women, while above appear some angels who bear the martyr's palm and crown. Rousseau's "Le Givre" is well described by Sensier, who says in his "Souvenirs sur Th. Rousseau," it represents "the hills of Valmondois as seen a mile away across the Oise, along the des Forgets road. The composition could not be more simple. Little hillocks heaped in the foreground are covered with half-melted snow, and the sun, red in the midst of a leaden sky, is seen dying and threatening through the clouds." The "Suicide," of Decamps, shows the body of a young artist stretched lifeless on his pallet in a gloomy room, and is painted with extraordinary force. The "Sunset," by Daubigny, describes a scene on the French coast with some cows near a pool separated from the sea only by a few yards. The foreground is rich in sombre greens and browns, the ocean a glorious blue and the sky tinged with the roses of sunset.

A superb specimen of the lately dead veteran, Jules Dupre, "The Old Oak," is lent by Mr. John G. Johnson, who contributes several other pictures, among them a fine "Going to the Fair," by Troyon, in which is seen a drove of cattle and sheep, with a woman on horseback behind talking to a man. Another still finer Troyon, the "Drove of Cattle and Sheep," which brought $26,000 at the Spencer sale, is lent by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt. It will be recalled as showing a flock of sheep coming along a road toward the spectator, while behind are two cows, one with head uplifted to avoid the threatening stick of the drover—a dumb but eloquent protest against man's cruelty. Corot's lovely "Lake Nemi," the property of Mr. Thomas Newcombe, is here, while Mr. Jay Gould sends his "Evening"; Mr. William F. Slater, of Norwich, Conn., the "Fauns and Nymphs," and Mr. Charles A. Dana his beautiful "Dance of Loves." To the same gentleman the public is indebted for an opportunity to admire Millet's admirable "Turkey-keeper." Mr. D. C. Lyall has Delacroix's splendid page of romance, "The Abduction of Rebecca," and among the numerous paintings which come from Mr. George I. Seney's gallery, is the same artist's well-known "Convulsionaries," a crowd of self-tortured fanatics wildly rushing through the white-walled streets of Tangiers. There are several other works by Delacroix, including examples of his vivid renditions of lions and tigers, and Mr. Slater has here his "Christopher Columbus," Mr. Potter Palmer, of Chicago, lending the "Giaour and Pacha." Gericault is represented by but one picture, a noble couchant lion, but in addition to the "Suicide," there are several other Decamps, notably the magnificently colored "Turkish Butcher's Shop," which, with a splendid Rousseau, the "Forest of Fontainebleau," comes from the collection of Mr. Henry Graves. The gorgeous blues and crimsons of Diaz's "Coronation of Love," which Mr. Brayton Ives is fortunate enough to own, glow in a corner of one of the galleries—a bouquet of living color. It was pleasant to meet again a familiar picture in Millet's "Waiting," which the writer recalls often seeing at the Boston Art Museum when it belonged to Mr. Henry Sayles. It is now the property of Mr. Seney, and will be at once remembered by any who have ever seen its homely but touching figures of the old mother looking down the road for the coming of her absent son, and the blind father stumbling hastily over the steps to the door. I renewed my acquaintance with the inimitable cat which arches its back, elevates its tail and miaows on the bench outside, its ginger-colored coat relieved against the cool blue-grays of the stone wall. It is the apocryphal story of Tobit and Anna, with the waiting parents made into peasants of Millet's own country, and when it was exhibited at the Salon of 1861, the public, of course, passed it by to gaze at the "Phryne" of Gerome. Millet has doubtless painted better pictures, but for direct simple pathos it would be hard to surpass this.

Boston, through Mr. Quincy Shaw and other gentlemen, sends to the exhibition some of the best paintings shown. Mr. Shaw exhibits his "Potato-planters," to me the most beautiful in its rosy tones of any example of the artist here; of the same size, a fine "End of the Village of Greville," walled with graystone, its little street monopolized by geese and ducks, and the sea-gulls flying above; and the "Buckwheat Threshers," with two smaller canvases. Mr. F. L. Ames, lends two Millets, a beautiful Rousseau, "The Valley of Tiffauge," Decamps's splendid picture of an African about to sling a stone at a vulture sitting on some ruins, and the superbly painted dogs of Troyon's "Gardechasse." Dr. H. C. Angell's fine Jules Dupre, "Symphony," is also here.

The Millets number about a third of the paintings and among them is an interesting variation of the "Sower," narrower in shape than the others and with a steeper hillside. It would have been a delight to have seen Mr. Shaw's "Sower" temporarily lifted from its place in the modest house which conceals so many treasures, and brought here, especially as it was not possible to borrow the replica belonging to the estate of the late W. H. Vanderbilt, but such good fortune was not in store for us. A beautiful little nude by Millet, "After the Bath," has been sent by Mr. A. C. Clark. I think it must be the same one which was at the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund Exhibition some years ago, when it belonged to Mr. Erwin Davis. Messrs. Boussod, Valadon & Co., have lent an important and beautiful "November" by Millet, showing a sloping field with a harrow lying on the foreground and a man shooting at a flock of birds from behind a tree at the top of the hill.

The "Angelus," draped with crimson, is given the entire end of the long upper gallery and, I think, proves a disappointment to most, if not all. One chief reason for this is its small size,—it is but about 21 x 25 inches—and then it is certainly not to be compared for painting with half a dozen other Millets which are here. Its sentiment is lasting, however, but it is not new to us, on the contrary it is a household word now, and the painting gives but little more than does Waltner's etching. Mr. Walters loans the crayon sketch for it and one of "The Sower" and the "Sheepfold by Moonlight," with others, and there are some very interesting pastels and water-colors by Millet, Rousseau and Delacroix.

Altogether the exhibition is an extraordinarily good one, unapproached as to the Baryes and not easily surpassable as to the paintings of the Fontainebleau school, and any lover of art would find himself amply repaid by it for a journey to New York.



[Contributors are requested to send with their drawings full and adequate descriptions of the buildings, including a statement of cost.]

"THE LION AND THE SERPENT." M. A. L. BARYE, SCULPTOR.

[Photogravure issued only with the International Edition.]

See article elsewhere in this issue.

AUDITORIUM OF THE PALACE OF THE TROCADERO, PARIS, FRANCE. MM. DAVIOUD & BORDAIS, ARCHITECTS.

[Gelatine Plate issued only with the International Edition.]

AN INTERIOR IN THE CHATEAU DE JOSSELIN, MORBIHAN, FRANCE.

[Gelatine Plate issued only with the International Edition.]

TORRE DEL VINO, ALHAMBRA, GRANADA, SPAIN.

[Grano-chrome issued only with the International Edition.]

RUINS OF THE CHAPEL OF CHARLES V, YUSTE, SPAIN.

[Grano-chrome issued only with the International Edition.]

COOMBE WARREN, KINGSTON, ENGLAND.—GARDEN FRONT. THE LATE MR. GEORGE DEVEY, ARCHITECT.

[Issued only with the International Edition.]

COOMBE WARREN, KINGSTON, ENGLAND.—ENTRANCE FRONT. THE LATE MR. GEORGE DEVEY, ARCHITECT.

[Issued only with the International Edition.]

A GENTLEMAN'S COUNTRY HOUSE. MR. HORACE R. APPELBEE, ARCHITECT.

[Issued only with the International Edition.]

This design is founded upon the Francis I style of architecture, though it by no means slavishly follows it. It was required to obtain a house suited in all respects to modern requirements, including such things as sash-windows, and in places plate-glass. These hardly harmonize with the ordinary character of English country-houses of the Elizabethan and Queen Anne types, with their many mullioned windows and lead-glazed casements, nor is the other extreme of heavy Classic with ponderous detail and a portico two stories high at all desirable. The style of Francis I offers a mean between these, giving emphasis to the principal block by a certain amount of symmetrical planning, together with picturesqueness, with rich and refined detail, which a gentleman's country-house certainly requires. The exterior would be of long and thin red bricks, with stone cornices and other dressings, and roofed with green slates. The interior has oak-work and enriched plaster ceilings to the principal rooms, with the exception of the hall, where the ceiling would be of oak. The hall and the staircase would have some stained-glass in the windows. The original drawing was exhibited in this year's Academy.

WROUGHT-IRON GATES, DUKE STREET, CHELMSFORD, ENGLAND.

[Issued only with the International Edition.]

HISTORICAL FIGURES FROM LORD MAYOR'S PROCESSION, 1889. DESIGNED BY MR. JOHN JELLICOE.

[Issued only with the International Edition.]

These figure sketches embrace five typical examples from the late Lord Mayor's show, in which Mediaeval, Tudor and Stuart costumes were (thanks to the research and artistic knowledge of Hon. Lewis Wingfield) so pleasantly associated. We have selected five, both on account of their diversity and also because of their being representative costumes of different eras in English history. The dresses, for magnificence and accuracy of detail, have rarely been equalled.

HOUSE OF MRS. CHARLES BLAKE, BEACON ST., BOSTON, MASS. MESSRS. STURGIS & CABOT, ARCHITECTS, BOSTON, MASS.

[Issued only with the Imperial and International Editions.]

COMPETITIVE DESIGN FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE, NEW YORK, N.Y. MR. GLENN BROWN, ARCHITECT, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Although the selection of material is a matter that can be well dispensed with until the general design has been determined, the architect suggests as in harmony with the treatment, Westerly, R.I. granite for the body of the cathedral, with trimmings of carved capitals, bases, columns, belts, arches and other ornamental stonework of a Georgia marble. The granite is cream color, with a suspicion of red, and the marble is of the same shade but a trifle darker and more positive. Both from chemical and physical tests they are apparently of equal strength and durability. The colors suggested would not give the building the cold appearance of white marble, or the somewhat sombre appearance produced by gray granite.