and the interstices between the ends of the joists were closed with wax or clay. The roof was altered, and elevated in the centre by rafters, to support the materials of the covering, and to carry off the water. When the rude builder erected more stately edifices, he imitated those parts which, from necessity, had composed the primitive huts. The upright trees, with stones at each end, became the origin of columns, bases, and capitals; and the beams, joists, and rafters, which formed the covering, gave rise to architraves, friezes, and cornices.

The Greeks, whose genius prompted them to combine elegance and convenience, derived their ideas of building from the Egyptians. But the mind of man is influenced by the government under which he lives; the Greeks lost, with their independence, the ascendancy in works of genius, and from that period the Romans encouraged this noble art. Vitruvius, the learned Roman architect, had Julius Cæsar and Augustus for his patrons, and though employed in few works of magnificence, his rules for architecture were highly esteemed by the ancients, and are still a standard among the moderns. The Romans carried to the highest perfection the five orders of architecture: the Tuscan, the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, and the Composite; and though the moderns have materially improved the general structure of buildings, nothing has been added to the beauty and symmetry of these columns. To give an idea of the orders, it must be observed, that the whole of each is divided into two parts at least; the column

and entablature: and of four parts at most, when there is a pedestal under the column, and an acroterat, or little pedestal, surrounded by the entablature: that the column has three parts, the base, the shaft, and the capital; the entablature has three likewise, the architraves, the frieze, and the cornice.

The Tuscan order has its name and origin in Tuscany, first inhabited by a colony from Lydia, whence it is likely the order is but the simplified Doric. On account of its strong and massive proportions, it is called the Rustic order, and is chiefly used in edifices of that character, composed of a few parts, devoid of ornament, and capable of supporting the heaviest weights. The Tuscan order will always live where strength and solidity are required.

The Trajan column at Rome, of this order, is less remarkable for the beauty of its proportions, than for the admirable pillar with which it is decorated. Its column is seven diameters high; and its capital, base, and entablature, have but few mouldings or ornaments.

The Doric order, so called from Dorus, who built a magnificent temple in the city of Argos, and dedicated it to Juno, is grave, robust, and of masculine appearance, whence it is figuratively termed the Herculean order.

The Doric order possesses nearly the same character for strength as the Tuscan, but it is enlivened with ornaments in the frieze and capital. In various ancient remains of this order, the pro

portions of the columns are different. Ion, who built a temple to Apollo in Asia, taking his idea from the structure of man, gave six times the diameter of the base for the height of the column. This order has no ornament on its base, or on its capital: its height is eight diameters; its frieze is divided into triglyphs and metopes, where all the parts of the order are accurately defined; which gives it complete.

The Ionic order derived its origin from the people of Ionia. The column is more slender than the Doric, but more graceful. Its ornaments are elegant, and in a style between the richness of the Corinthian, and the plainness of the Tuscan ; simple, graceful, and majestic. When Hermogenes built the temple of Bacchus, at Teos, he rejected the Doric after the marbles had been prepared, and in its stead adopted the Ionic.

The temples of Diana at Ephesus, of Apollo at Miletus, and of the Delphic oracle, were of this order. Michael Angelo, contrary to all other authors, gives the Ionic a single row of leaves at the bottom of the capital.

The Corinthian, the finest of all the orders, and as first used at Corinth, is expressive of delicacy, tenderness, and beauty. The capital, so rich and graceful, was suggested to Callimachus, by an acanthus entwining its leaves around a votive basket, that adorned the grave of an illustrious young lady. The column is ten diameters high. The Composite order, invented, it is said, by the Romans, partakes of the Ionic and Corinthian

orders; but principally of the latter. Its column is ten diameters high, and its cornice has denticles, or simple modillions.

Gothic architecture has numerous and prominent buttresses, lofty spires and pinnacles, large and ramified windows, ornamental niches and canopies, with sculptured saints and angels, delicate lace-work, fretted roofs, and an indiscriminate profusion of ornaments. But its most distinguishing characters are small clustered pillars and pointed arches, formed by the segments of two intersecting circles. This style is supposed by some to be of Arabian origin, introduced into Europe by the Crusaders, or those who made pilgrimages to the Holy Land; while Dr. Milner thinks we are indebted for it to the Anglo-Normans and the English.

Curiosity

basaltic

CYCLOPEDIA.

opening into the Atlantic, is a great natural curiosity; it consists of a vast collection of basaltic

pillars, extending several miles along the coast, and divided into fragments or parts of causeways.

The chief causeway consists of a regular arrangement of millions of pentagonal and hexagonal columns, of basaltes, a deep greyish blue-coloured stone, harder than marble: the pillars are chiefly in the form of a pentagon, so closely situated on their sides, though perfectly distinct from top to bottom, that scarcely anything can be introduced between them. The columns are of an unequal height and breadth; some of the highest visible above the surface of the strand and at the foot of the precipice, are about twenty feet; none of the principal arrangement exceeds this height; how deep they are under the surface has not yet been ascertained. This causeway extends nearly two hundred yards, visible at low water, how far beyond is uncertain; from its declining appearance, however, towards the sea, it is probable it does not extend under water to a distance anything equal to what is seen above. The breadth of the causeway, which runs out into one continued range of columns, is, in general, from twenty to thirty feet; at one place or two, it may be nearly forty feet for a few yards. The highest part of this causeway is the narrowest, at the very foot of the impending cliff, whence the whole projects, where, for four or five yards, it is from ten to fifteen feet.

The columns of this narrow part incline from a perpendicular a little to the westward, and form a slope on their tops, by the very unequal height of the columns on the two sides, by which an ascent