CHAPTER IX

THE CAPITAL

§ 1. THE reader will remember that in Chap. VII. § 5 it was said that the cornice of the wall, being cut to pieces and gathered together, formed the capital of the column. We have now to follow it in its transformation.

We must, of course, take our simplest form or root of cornices (a, in Fig. 5, above). We will take X and Y there, and we must necessarily gather them together as we did X b and Y b in Chap. VII. Look back to the tenth paragraph of Chap. VII., read or glance it over again, substitute X and Y for X b and Y b, read capital for base, and, as we said that the capital was the hand of the pillar, while the base was its foot, read also fingers for toes; and as you look to the plate, Fig. 12, turn it upside down. Then h, in Fig. 12, becomes now your best general form of block capital, as before of block base.

§ 2. You will thus have a perfect idea of the analogies between base and capital; our farther inquiry is into their differences. You cannot but have noticed that when Fig. 12 is turned upside down, the square stone (Y) looks too heavy for the supporting stone (X); and that in the profile of cornice (a of Fig. 5) the proportions are altogether different. You will feel the fitness of this in an instant when you consider that the principal function of the sloping part in Fig. 12 is as a prop to the pillar to keep it from slipping aside; but the function of the sloping stone in the cornice and capital is to carry weight above. The thrust of the slope in the one case should therefore be lateral, in the other upwards.

135

[Version 0.04: March 2008]