IX

in" of piers and walls, and the extradosses ofarches and their abutments, with relation to theangle of thrust, and to a due strength in thedirection of pressure; selected from various im-perfect papers which have occasionally occupiedthe author’s leisure. He was desirous of addingsome problems to determine the relations of theparts of domes and their abutment walls, andhad collected with that view sections of theprincipal domes and their abutment walls inEurope , but which he must now reserve to somefuture opportunity: this is a question of greatinterest, and applies practically to the meanestvessel in common use, and to the greatest won-ders of art, namely, the domes of the church ofSt. Peter, and of the Pantheon at Rome . Theauthor had hoped that the sum of money votedfor monuments at the peace, or part of thatvoted for churches, would have been applied inthe erection of a dome on the high ground inthe Regent’s Park, for religious worship, ex-ceeding in dimensions either of those domes;as a pi’oper testimony of gratitude, and charac-teristic of the eminence this country has at-tained. In that case, it would have been a pro-fitable occupation to have shewn the waste ofmaterial which has occurred in the erection ofbuildings of that description, and to have de-termined the minimum quantity necessary forany given dome.