Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/586

 4 82 CHINESE ARCHITECTURE. BOOK IX. externally at all events, being of a more solid nature, with flat terraced roofs instead of those covered with tiles as in Pekin. The resemblance, however, is curious, and as there are numerous examples throughout the empire in which, instead of the plain beams as shown in Woodcut No. 505, are circular and 507- View in the Winter Palace, Pekin. (From a Photograph.) pointed arched openings, they may be taken as some evidence of the origin of Chinese architecture already mentioned (p. 466), showing that in these great arched gateways they were continu- ing the tradition of the earlier examples in the Great Wall of China, which bear the closest resemblance, both in design and construction, to the entrance gateways of the Assyrian palaces. The engineering works of the Chinese have been much extolled by some writers, but have less claim to praise as works of science than their buildings have as works of art. Their canals, it is true, are extensive ; but with 300,000,000 of inhabitants this is small praise, and their construction is most unscientific. Their bridges, too, are sometimes of great length, but generally made up of a series of small arches constructed on the horizontal-bracket principle, as nine-tenths of the bridges in China are, and consequently narrow and unstable. To these, however, there are many notable exceptions, in which the principle of arched and vaulted constructions, as in the marble bridge with seventeen arches in the Summer Palace near Pekin, with sumptuous balustrades, all in white marble, a