Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/280

 248 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part L mediaeval cathedrals, and although they never reached the altitude of their modern rivals, their cubic dimensions were probably in about the same ratio of proportion. The following table gives the approximate dimensions, rejecting fractions, of the eight largest and best known examples : — ... 346 feet long 190 feet wide = 360 173 362 168 354 171 348 164 295 156 261 144 228 101 65,740 feet 62,280 60,816 60,534 57,072 45,020 37,884 23,028 Juno, at Samos .... Jupiter, at Agrigentum. Apollo, at Branchidse Jupiter, at Athens. . Diana, at Ephesus. . . Didymjeus, at Miletus Cybele, at Sardis. . . Parthenon, at Athens There may be some slight discrepancies in this table from the figures quoted elsewhere, and incorrectness arising from some of the temples being measured on the lowest step and others, as the Parthenon, on the highest ; but it is sufficient for comjiarison, which is all that is attempted in its comjjilation. Doric Order.' The Doric was the order which the Greeks especially loved and cultivated so as to make it most exclusively their own ; and, as used 1 The fact of a proto-Doric order having existed in Egypt a thousand years before it is found in Cxreece ought to suffice as explaining the origin of the style. Still it may be worth while to tiy and make tliis a little clearer, as those who are not familiar with examples of this mode of building, or have not prac- tically emi^loyed it — as it has been my fate to do — feel a difficulty in realizing how a brick pier came to be used with a wooden superstructm-e. The annexed woodcut illustrates a mode of roofing very usually employed 134. Diagram of Doric construction, as used in the East. in the East at this day. Generally a square pier of brickwork is employed: and then an abacus of wood or tiles is indispensable to distribute the pres- sure of a narrow beam over a wider pier. When the i)i]lar is made octag- onal this is even more necessary. Where a wooden post is employed it is always of the same thickness as the beam, and is generally mor- ticed into it ; or a bracket may be employed, and is particularly ad- vantageous when a junction takes place between two lengtjis of