Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/711

Rh center of gravity should be so well within its base that there will be no danger of its being upset by the ordinary uses to which it is exposed. Pots and pans, pitchers, lamps, and candlesticks, of general and daily household use, should have bases so broad and weight so low that the accidental bump of the inexperienced "help" will not be inevitably fatal.

When utensils are made more for show than for use, as those in Fig. 10, and are to occupy places of comparative security, beauty more than utility may be considered in the proportions of their supports. Where utility has disappeared altogether and the suggested outline of a vase, for instance, is used for purely ornamental purpose, supports may be done away with altogether, as appears in these drawings of Italian tapestries of the seventeenth century (Fig. 11).

The stability of pendant objects must also be considered. It is evident that the perpendicular line of suspension must be the line of equilibrium, and that these two must correspond with the design (Fig. 12). Whether any objects should under any circumstances be exposed to the real and apparent danger of falling is a question. We have got so into the habit of hanging pictures, engravings, and other works of art in our houses, and of seeing them hung in galleries, that we have lost sight of the incongruity of the custom. Pictures should be impaneled, and be permanent parts of the walls on which they appear. But, then, how could they be moved when owners tire of them, or tire of their houses, or how could they be gathered together in museums for purposes of study and public enjoyment? Picture frames are of comparatively modern invention. The idea of buying a picture for the purpose of selling it again was not entertained before the fifteenth century. Pictures were as substantial parts of churches and houses as were shrines and fireplaces.

Having very cursively reviewed the elements of form, we are in a position to understand decoration, which is simply the application to form of ornament.

The highest authenticated points at which flowering plants have heretofore been found growing upon the Andes are at about 17,000 feet, although the Kew Herbarium contains several specimens labeled as having been found at altitudes of from 17,000 to 18,000 feet. Sir Martin Conway has brought back from his recent explorations in the Bolivian mountains at least half a dozen species from 18,000 feet and upward, the highest being from about 18,500 feet. They include a saxifrage, a mallow, a valerian, and several Compositæ. Composite likewise attain the upper limit of phanerogamous vegetation in Thibet, where, in latitudes from 30° to 34°, one was found by Dr. Thorold at 19,000 feet.