Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/264

 220 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [Sept., POINTS OF THE ESCUTCHEON. A. Dexter Chief. B. Middle Chief. ic Right or C. Sinister Chief. 2 ft D. Honor Point. hi A B D E F H I. Sinister Base. r E. Fess Point. 43 o t-~ ft F. Nombril Point CO W. ° 'O 3 w G. Dexter Base. H. Middle Base. ings, right and left, or dexter and sinis- ter in heraldry. The whole upper portion of the shield, representing here, the position of a man's head, is called The Chief ; and the entire lower part, corresponding to his hips and groins, is termed The Base. These must not be confounded with the ordinaries of the same names, which, however, occupy the same places. * The position of the man's heart determines the Honor Point, D. The middle of the military waist-belt, typified in ar- mory by the Fess, fixes the Fess Point, E. The Nombril Point, or Navel Point, covers the site of the navel. A, B, and C, are respectively, The Dexter, Middle and Sinister Chief Points; and The Dexter, Middle and Sinister Base Points are respectively, G, H, and I. The use of these points of the escut- cheon will be immediately obvious, when we cite the arms of the Canton Schweitz of Switzerland, namely : " Gules, in the Sinister Chief point, a cross couped ar- gent," whilst the arms of Switzerland herself are " Gules, a cross couped ar- gent." While cross, in heraldry, is under- stood tc be a cross of equal width and length of limbs, bounded by straight lines, whereof one limb is perpendicular and the other horizontal, and both reach Plain Point, which, in ienney or in sanguine, is that one of the Abatements-of-Bonor appropriated to a liar: in any of the other tinctures, it is houorahle, and not an Abatement. entirely across the shield, the word couped, from the French couper, to cut, implies, that the limbs are cut across, at right angles, so that the tincture of the field shows all around the cross. This ordinary description following the above two blazons, or heraldic descrip- tions, will serve to prove the extreme conciseness of the nomenclature of her- aldry, which, in truth, is only equalled in that respect by the technical diction of seamanship. Thus one of the most purely ornamental and one of the most useful branches of knowledge come to- gether. They have, however, an inti- mate and useful point of contact, viz. : national flags, jacks, pennants, stream- ers, signals, &c, none of which can be properly devised, without a knowledge of heraldry. An elementary acquaintance with the rules of Arms Pictorial M T ill be highly beneficial to architects, artists and deco- rators generally. It will afford them additional means of imparting beauty, and save them from the perpetration of amazing and often amusing blunders. We will suppose the reader to be in- specting an American silver dollar or half dollar : a bold supposition in these days ! He finds the lines of the upper portion of the shield on the breast of the national eagle are drawn horizontally, and, also, that some of the perpendicular stripes of the escutcheon are expressed by ver- tical lines. He comes to the conclusion that these variations arose from the die- sinker's convenience, or, perhaps, from
 * xter.
 * The Base, in shape and position, is identical with the