3'56

THEORY OF
ARCHITECTURE.
Hook
II.
that is, from
450 to 750 poiiiids
;
but a horse can drav 2000 pounds up a steep liill which
IS but short. The most oisadvantageous
mode of ajjplying a horse's force is to make
him carry or draw up hill
;
for if it be steep, he is not more than equal to three men,
each of whom would climb
up faster with
a burden of 100 pounds weight than a horse
that IS loaded with
300 pounds. And this arises from the different construction of what
may be called the two living machines.
1348. Desaguliers
observes, that the best and most effectual
action of a man is that
exerted in rowing, in which he not only acts with more muscles at once for overcoinii
g
resistance than in any otlier
application of his strength,
but that, as he pulls backwards,
his body assists by way of lever.
1.'349. There are cases in which the architect has to avail
himself of the use of horse
power
;
as, for mstance, in pugmills for tempering
mortar, and occasionally when the
stones employed in a building may be more conveniently
raised by such means. Fo
flfectually using the strength of the animal, the track or diameter of a walk for a horse
should not be less than
25 to 30 feet. A stea-n horse-power is reckoned as iqual to three
actual horses' power, and a living horse is eijual to seven men.
1350. We close this section by observing that some horses have carried 650 or 700 lbs.,
and that for seven or eight mile-, without resting, as their ordinary ork; and, according
to Desaguliers {Experiment.
I'liiios. vol i
),
a horse at Stourbridge cirried 11 cwt. of iron.
or 1232 lbs., for eight miles.
Sect. VIII.
PIE US AND VAULTS.
Atitliors on equilibrium
of
arches.
1351. Tiie construction of arches may be considered in a threefold respect. I. As
respects their form. II. As respects the moae in which their parts are constructed.
III. As respects the thrust they exert.
1352. In the first category is involved the rriode of tracing the right linos and curves
whereof their surfaces are composed, which has been partially treated in Section V. on De-
scriptive Geometry, and will be further discussed in future pages of this work. The
other two points will form the subject of the present section.
1353. The investigation of the equilibrium of arches by the laws of statics does not
appear to have at all entered into the thoughts of the ancient architects. Experience,
imitation, and a sort of mechanical intuition seem to have been their guides. They ajjpear
to have preferred positive solidity to nice balance, and the examples they have left are
rather the result of art than of science. Vitruvius, who speaks of all the ingredients
necessary to form a perfect architect, does not allude to the assistance which may be
aflbrded in the construction of edifices by a knowledge of the resolution of forces, nor of
the aid that may be derived froin the study of such a science as Descriptive Geometry,
though of the latter it seems scarcely possible the ancients could have been ignorant, seeing
how much it must have been (practically, at least) employed in the construction of such
vast buildings as the Coliseum, and other similarly curved structures, as respects their plan.
1354. The Gothic architects seem, and indeed must have been, guided by some rules
which enabled them to counterpoise the thrusts of the main arches of their cathedrals
with such extraordinary dexterity as to excite our amazement at their boldness. But
they have left us no precepts nor clue to ascertain by what means they reached such
heights of skill as their works exhibit. We shall hereafter offer our conjectures on the
Ijcading principle which seems as well to have guided tliem in their works as tlie ancients
in their earliest, and perhaps latest, s|)ecimcns of columnar architecture.
135."^. Parent and De la Hire seem to have been, at the latter end of the seventeenth
century, the first mathematicians who considered an arch as an assemblage of wedge-formed
stones, capable of sliding down each other's surfaces, which they considered in a state of the
highest polish. In this hypothesis M. de la Hire has proved, in his Trcati.ie on Mfchanics,
i)rinted ii 1()95, that in order that a semicircular arch, whose joints tend to the centre, n^ay
be able to stand, the weights of the voiissoirs or arch stones whereof it is composed must
be to each other as the differences of the tangents of the angles which form each voussoir;
but as these tangents increase in a very great ratio, it follows that those which form the
sjiringings must be infinitely heavy, in order to resist the effects of the sujierior voussoirs.
Now, according to this hypothesis, not only would the construction of a semicircular arch
be an impossibility, but also all those which arc greater or less than a semicircle, whose
centre is level with or in a line parallel with the tops of the piers ; so tliat those only would
be practicable whose centres were formed by curves forming angles with the piers, such as
the ]iarabola, the hyperbola, and the catenary. And we may here remark, that in para-
bolic and hyperbolic arches, the voussoir forming the keystones should be heavier or