Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/166

 150 THE BUILDING NEWS. Fen. 23, 1872. ———$—_—_—_——————— ee Oa eo appropriate, ’ design or treatment 1s desirable, two or three woods will often be found sufficient for all purposes of effect, both as to design and colour. A much more extensive use might be made of this admirable style of decoration if the decorator would be content to use simple designs, which would be compara- tively inexpensive in the execution and quiet in colour, but unfortunately the tendency is constantly to the other extreme ; elabora- tion seems to be considered as the ne plus ultra of all that is good in ornamental design. Our public and private buildings are covered from ceiling to floor with elaborate design, not an inch of plain space is left for the wearied eye of the observer to rest upon, and he feels a sense of relief when he is rid of its oppressive influence. (To be continued. ) —_—_S_———_"_ GOSSIP FROM GLASGOW. HE eleventh Exhibition of the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts was opened in the Corpora- tion Galleries on Monday, the 29th of January. It is neither much better nor much worse than most of its more immediate predecessors. It comprises 677 pictures (the highest price amongst which is seven hundred pounds, and the lowest thirty shillings), fourteen architectural drawings,and thirteen works in sculpture. The architecture and sculpture, always the arch difficulty of those painters who may be on the hanging committee, have this year been extruded to a place by themselves—a screen in the centre of the water-colour gallery—the architecture being on the one side and sculpture on the other. The most noteworthy of the architectural subjects is ‘‘ Com- petition Design for City of Glasgow Assurance Company’s New Buildings in Renfield-street,” by Mr. Campbell Douglas, inasmuch as it gives the public an opportunity of comparing at least one of the rejected designs with the accepted—with the accepted as in stone and lime and as in ink and colour, for Messrs. Peddie & Kinnear, either with a charming ingenuousness or “To be possess'd with double pomp, Or guard a title that was rich before,” have, notwithstanding that their design is executed in our midst, also placed it before us in a representa- tive drawing. Whatever may have been the motive, the two designs can certainly be more easily and justly compared by drawings in juxtaposition than by the one as merely drawn and the other as built. It is always interesting to see side by side the many, and possibly very varied, renderings of the same subject, and perhaps it is to be regretted that the public has not had further revealed to it what the city may have lost or gained by the decision of a committee. Mr. Douglas’s design is in French Classic, a style in which, as an effeminate courtier may be dazzled out of sight by the gorgeousness of his apparel, an innate weakness is endeavoured to be diverted from, if not concealed by, the most elabo- rate decoration. The design, doubtless,is exceedingly clever, and, moreover, it is shown by a remarkably clever drawing; but the style will not bear being unclothed, far less anatomised. Sculptors model their draped figures first in the nude, and hence a true principle underlies the drapery, regulates its lines, and directs its disposal. The decoration of the Tuileries is as the cloak that covereth a multitude of sins. That Mr. Douglas should have chosen such a style is the more remarkable as all his antecedents are in quite the opposite direction. The (Gothic) churches on Garngad-hill and the Great Western- road are characterised not less by large, broad, vigorous treatment than by boldness and originality of conception; and the building in S. Vincent-street shows us how Italian architecture once was practised —before that it had degenerated into the mere handi- craft of the cabinet-maker. In sculpture there is little else than portraits— busts and medallions—excepting a plaster cast (7ft. in height) of “The Lady of the Lake—to be executed in bronze for the Memorial Fountain, now being erected in Kelvingrove Park,” by John Mossman. Mr. ! wing, who, in the Institute’s early history and hisjown, exhibited profusely, is now “ conspicuous Sy bis absence.” The lines of the poem illustrated by Mossman in hie statueseems to be— “With head up-raised, and look intent, And eyes end earattentive bent, The locks fimng back, and lips apart, Like menument of Grecian art, Tn hi is. mood she seemed to stand.” as to colour, and where breadth of | The face is intellectual, but the predominant expres- sion is of the moral sense ; the figure is at once easy and dignified ; and the drapery is full, free, and flow- ing. No statue could be more appropriate to a fountain whose object is to commemorate the intro- duction of water from Loch-Ketturin. Opposite to the Lady of the Lake is a full-length portrait statue, in marble, of John Graham Gilbert, the famous portrait painter, by Brodie, of Edinburgh, and the gift of Graham Gilbert’s widow to the City of Glasgow. Artists in Glasgow testify to the excel- lence of the likeness, the attitude is easy and com- manding, and the difficult matter of modern costume is perhaps about as skilfully managed as is possible. While noticing sculpture I may mention that John Mossman is busy with a monument to Hugh Mac- donald, a local poet, essayist, and descriptive writer, and his brother William with two life-size statues in freestone for an assurance company’s office, designed by Mr. Campbell Douglas. The sculpture of the monument is a bronze medallion, the architecture is a composition of obelisk and drinking-fountain. The monument is to be placed beside a little streamlet celebrated by the poet, hence the drinking-fountain ; and as the site is sequestered the obelisk is to call at- tention to it. Professor Kerr, of King’s College, London, has, upon the invitation of the trustees of Haldane’s Academy, been giving two lectures in Glasgow, one upon Classic, the other upon Gothic Art. I heard the one upon Classic, and I am sorry to say that I was disappointed. Strong meat for men may not have been intended, neither, peradventure, was skim-milk for babies, yet I think that the Professor might have set amore dainty dish before his audience. The cookery was excellent, so also was the service : they whetted the appetite but appeased not the hunger, they tickled the taste but left little for digestion. And if I was disappointed by the thin- ness of the lecture I was much more so by the meagreness of illustration. Hierocles illustrated his house by a single brick; Professor Kerr illustrated Greek architecture by two isolated columns, a Doric and an Ionic! We in the Provinces, who believe that the streets of London are paved with gold, may be excused if, in our simplicity, we imagine that a professorship of architecture in King’s College, London, would be fully equipped with illustrative drawings. Yet, in lecturing upon Classic Art, Pro- fessor Kerr has not a single example of either Greek composition or Greek ornamentation. Perhaps Pro- fessor Kerr may have remembered that once when Mr. Burges (of London) had to speak of Greek architecture he referred his audience to the works of Alexander Thomson, of Glasgow, and hence may have reasoned that to bring to Mr. Thomson's fellow- citizens Greek composition or detail would be about as “wasteful and ridiculous an excess” as to carry coals to Newcastle. Or, led away by the pre-Gothic mania, the learned Professor may have little sympathy with the arts of Athens—the word “Classical” on his admission ticket being printed in medieval type was not a little suggestive. What- ever the cause, Greek—of all others, the ‘‘ Classic” Art—was not illustrated, unless by a rather bold synecdoche we take two columns, and each of a different order, as an illustration. At the close of Professor Kerr’s second lecture several architects and others conferred with him about the founding in Glasgow of some association of young artists, wherein would be found some means of study beyond the routine of the office or the studio. I understand that the idea has been en- thusiastically received, and is likely to be most suc- cessfully realised, During his stay the Professor visited many of the chief buildings of the city, and honoured the Institute by being a guest at its annual dinner. A monument is about to be erected to the memory of Fillans, the eminent Scottish sculptor. It was Mr. Fillans’s intention to raise, as a family monument, a figure of a weeping Rachel, which he left in model; and it is proposed to carry out his wishes on the spot in the cemetery where he rests. I have seen this model. It is a work of great power, and if skilfully translated into the marble, will, even long after his death, enhance Fillans’s great reputation. A gymnasium in connection with the university has just been opened. The building is by Mr. Burnet, of Glasgow, and the several appliances are by Mr, MacLaren, of Oxford. ——__»———_ GAS AND WATER-PIPES AND LIGHTNING CONDUCTORS: OUR weeks since (Burtpinc News, No. 890) we gave the report of a valuable paper on this subject, read before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, by Mr. Henry Wilde. that paper it was shown that much of the value of the lightning conductors of churches was neutra- lised by the proximity of those conductors to gas and water mains, and the destruction of the beautiful church at Crumpsall, near Manchester, on the 4th of January last, was particularly alluded to as an in- stance. The following is a “note” on the sub- ject, read before the same Society, at its ordi- nary meeting on the 6th inst., by Joseph Baxendell, F.R.A.S. :— The interest, says Mr. Baxendell, taken in the question as to the cause of the ree:nt accident to S. Mary’s Church, Crumpsall, induces me to submit to the Society the following results of a careful exami- nation of the lightning conductor, spouts, gas piping, &c., at the church and rectory, which I made on the 27th ultimo. The lower part of the conductor passes through an iron down-spout, and terminates in a com- mon drain-pipe at a distance of only 3ft. Sin. from the lower end of the spout, and at a depth of only about 18in. below the surface of the ground. It has, therefore, no direct connection with the earth, and is in consequence absolutely use- less for the purpose for which it was intended. The iron down-spout through which the conductor passes received the end of a lead gutter, which extended the whole length of the church to the top of a similar iron down-spout built in the wall inside the rectory, and connected with another iron spout outside the wall by a leaden bend pipe. This leaden bend was above the floor of the vestry, and at a distance of 18in. from it, and below the floor there was a lead gas pipe connected with the large gas meter, which received its supply from a main laid in the street leading to the rectory. There was a small meter under the tower, but no part of the piping connected with it approached the conductor, the spouts, or the lead gutter, within a less distance than Sit. Assuming, then, that the lightning struck the top of the conductor, its course would be through the lead gutter to the iron down-spout in the vestry, and then by a disruptive discharge from the lead bend to the lead gas pipe under the floor of the vestry and through the meter to the street main. The lead gas pipe would be melted and the gas ignited, and it is very probable that the disruptive discharge from the lead bend would also ignite any .inflammable materials that might be in that corner of the vestry. When the discharge arrived at the gas main in the street, part of it would pass down the main in @ westerly direction and part up the main to the supply pipe and meter at the rectory. Here a small lead pipe passed from the meter for a short distance along the ceiling of the cellar, and in its course came in contact with an iron water supply pipe; the dis- charge melted part of the small lead pipe, ignited the gas, and finally passed off through the water supply pipe into the main in the street. Thayeassumed that thelightning struck the top of the conductor, but Imust state that I was unableto discover the slightest trace of any action tending to support this view; and it is at least equally probable that the stroke fell directly on the top of the iron down- spout at the east end of the church. It is stated that the bell in the tower was heard to ring at the time of the discharge; but the mere passage of the electric fluid down the conductor would not affect the bell, and the concussion of the air from a dis- charge on the top of the conductor would act upon the tower in a vertical direction, and would not, there- fore, be likely to give the bell a swinging movement. If, however, the discharge was directly on the spout at the east end of the church, then the concussion of the air would act laterally upon the tower in an east and west direction, and, as the bell swings on an axis lying north and south, it is quite conceivable that an oscillating movement might be given to it suffii- cient to cause it to ring. In either case, however, whether the discharge took place upon the top of the conductor or on the top of the down-spout in the vestry, the ultimate results would be precisely the same. Had the conductor been directly connected with the gas main, as suggested by Mr. Wilde, the accident to the church would have been prevented, but not that at the rectory. The practical conclu— sion, therefore, to be drawn from a consideration of all the circumstances of this disastrous occurrence is that, in towns and districts where systems of gas and water mains and pipes exist, all lightning con- ductors should be directly connected with the mains of both systems. Had this been done at S. Mary’s Church no accident would have occurred either to the church or the rectory. All who are interested in this question should read In | Mr. Wilde’s paper above referred to,