Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/240

Rh cornice of the Cathedral of Paris) is admirably adapted to shed water quickly and thoroughly. In this profile we have the typical form of the Gothic drip-moulding, in which the steeply sloping upper surface is associated with a deeply undercut hollow, the salient edge between the two effectually cutting off the drip and preventing any backward movement of the water over the lower surfaces of the moulding, and thence upon the wall beneath.

Towards the end of the twelfth century the sloping surface was sometimes given to the upper member of interior strings, whether in a spirit of conformity with the changed form that had been adopted in outside mouldings, or for other reasons, it is, of course, impossible wholly to determine. Perhaps the earliest instance of an interior moulding of this form is that of the triforium string of the nave of the Cathedral of Paris (Fig. 120"). The slope has not, of course, the same raison d'être here that it has when the moulding is exposed to the weather; but it still is not altogether without reason, for the projecting edge of the flat-topped moulding hides a considerable portion of the members which come immediately above it, as shown in Fig. 130, where the portion b c of the superstructure is concealed from the eye at a. Whereas, if from the point c, the moulding is sloped off so as to bring its surface nearly parallel with the usual line of vision, as in the triforium string of Paris, nothing is concealed; but this makes the profile a little too much like an exterior drip-mould to permanently satisfy the nicely discriminating sense of the Gothic builders. And hence, in the nave of Amiens, the triforium string is managed in a different way. The principal members that are apt to be cut off from view by the projecting moulding are the bases of the shafts of the