Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/510

Rh 452 ARCHITECTURE [PRESENT merely by a flat stone, but are rudely domed over by overlapping stones. A much more artistic class of tombs is biiilt of stones in FlQ. 62. Square Chulpa or Burial Tower, Bolivia. From Squier. the form of a tower, but increasing in width towards the top, and domed as above described. Most of them are round on plan, but some are square and two stories high, the upper being covered with overlapping stones cut to the arch shape. Many of these are of hard stone, beautifully fitted together, and the cham bers are lined with a peculiar stucco still in good preserva tion. Some other sepulchral re mains are on a much grander scale, being immense mounds held up by huge retaining walls. One of these mounds is 108 feet high, and 276 yards by 75 at the top. None seem to have been as yet ex plored. Of the fortresses one of the grandest examples is at Cuzco, 7GO feet above the level of that city. It has three lines of fortifications in terraces 1800 feet long, the lower terrace having a retaining wall now 25 feet high, the second Era. 63. Section of Tower, fig. 62. Fia. 64. Cyclopean Wall at Chanchan. From Hutchinson s Peru. (30 feet behind the first) 18 feet, and the third (18 feet be hind the second) 1 4 feet high. The walls are of cyclopean masonry, accurately fitted, one stone being 27 feet by 14 by 12, and many are 15 by 12 by 10 feet. The plan shows considerable skill, as the walls are not straight, but built with recesses and re-entering angles, evidently for giving the garrison command of the ground close to the walls. The most interesting remains in Peru are those called Huacas ; but whether they were forts, or palaces, or tombs, is not as yet clearly ascertained. They are described as being enclosed by walls (in various examples 100 to 180 yards long, and 60 or 70 yards broad), and divided by cross walls, thus forming enclosures or chambers, many of which are still lined with stucco. In some of these are considerable remains of staircases, but the upper parts are destroyed. The chambers and enclosures are almost invari ably filled with clay, which presents great difficulties in their examination. This filling in may, possibly, be accounted for by the construction of the walls, which are immensely thick (some at Chanchan are 15 feet), and usually of sun-dried bricks, either small (adobes), viz., about two-thirds the size of ours, or very large (adolines). some being 1 to 2 yards long. PRESENT POSITION OF ARCHITECTURE. We have, in conclusion, a few remarks to make upon the present position of architecture. The increase of commerce and of wealth in the United Kingdom of late years, has thrown into the hands of the architect and engineer a vast amount of work, both for public and private edifices. Not only has there been an increase in the number of build ings, but the old parts of very many towns are being rebuilt on a larger and grander scale, and new, wide streets are being formed through their busiest and most densely peopled quarters. In London, in the great manufacturing towns of the north, in the universities, in the seaport towns, north and south, and in the pleasure-seeking cities on the sea-board on every coast, this process is going on at a rapid rate ; and we look with interest and anxiety as to what are replacing the old buildings (many of them land marks in our art) which have been destroyed, or what is to range beside those which are left. And besides these reconstructions, there are rising up, in every part of the country, railway stations, colossal hotels, baths and wash- houses, working men s dwellings, and such other edifices as the Crystal and Alexandra Palaces, of a kind entirely unknown to the past generation. In addition to these we have the altogether new towns of Swindon, Wolverton, Crewe, Fleetwood, Barrow-in-Furness, Midcllesborough, &c. These last afford, perhaps, the least encouraging view of modern work as contrasted with the old. Our old towns were usually picturesquely placed on the margin of a river for trade, or on a hill for defence; gradually increased round some nucleus of importance a church or monastery or castle ; and comprised the mansions of the rich as well as the shops of the trader and dwellings of the poor. But the modern town is all built at once, on some sudden call, on a site selected, perhaps, simply from its being at the junction of two railways. It shows only long straight streets of small dwellings for artisans, unbroken, except, perhaps, by a church, or an assembly-room, or more forcibly by the long, unpicturesque lines of railway sheds. Neither the architect nor the engineer has had much to do with this, and the result is about as wretchedly uninteresting a series of streets as it is possible to conceive. Horace Walpole s satirical description of London, &quot; a gigantic mass of little ness,&quot; would apply well to them. It has been better with the extension of the old towns. At first this gave us such long, bald lines of streets as Bath shows in stone, and Baker Street, &c., in London, in brick. These led by a natural result to a more ornate class, and we had the Regent s Park, and Regent Street, London, wherein a number of houses are grouped together into one