Chap. XXXI.

PRINCIPLES OF PROPORTION.

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King’s College Chapel , Cambridge , has no side aisles, but in lieu of them are smallchapels between the buttresses, which are not interrupted in their depth, their wholestrength being requisite to maintain inequilibrio the highly wrought stonevault; this they have hitherto perfectlydone, to the admiration of all who havestudied its principles of construction.

The chapel is divided in its lengthinto twelve equal divisions or severies,each of which is formed of four quad-rants of a concave parabolic conoidstanding on their apex, and is boundedby a main rib or arch of masonrywhich has its abutments secured by theweighty buttresses added to the outerwalls. The width of each severy fromcentre to centre'is 24 feet, the thicknessof the buttresses being 3 feet 7 inches,and the length of the chapel betweenthem 20 feet 6 inches; their depth is13 feet 6 inches in the clear.

The transverse section shows moreparticularly the proportion of mass andvoid, which are here equal: the total ex-tent or width from the face of one but-tress to that of the other is 84 feet,and the clear width 42 feet; the heightfrom the pavement to the top of thestone vault is 80 feet 1 inch, though thisvaries from the pavement being out of thelevel; the thickness of the walls at top

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is 5 feet 7J inches; in it is a gallery2 feet 1£ inch wide, and 7 feet high, com-municating entirely around the building.

The height of the cluster column,whose capital receives the points of theinverted cones, is 59 feet 3 inches, sothat the arch, which is struck from fourcentres, does not rise more than 18feet 6 inches, and the intersections takeplace at one quarter of the span whenthe height is 15 feet 6 inches: this archor stone rib is 2 feet in depth and 18inches in breadth, formed of twelve vous-soirs on each side, the joints radiatingto the centres ‘ respectively ; it abutsat its extremities against the ponderousbuttresses, and remains steadfast andimmovable, dividing, as before stated,the vault into several severies.

The plan of the main piers shows thatthere has been no after-thought graftedupon the original design, which, in allprobability, was commenced soon afterthe year 1446, as we find that a stonequarry at Haselwode, and another atHuddlestone, in Yorkshire , were granted,for the works to be carried on here. Thestone roof does not appear to have beencommenced till about 1512, the inden-ture concerning it bearing date the fourth Fig. 3039. king’s college chapel.

year of King Henry VIII. ; in this document Thomas Larke is called the “surveyor,”John WastelL the “master mason,” and Henry Semerk one of the “wardens,” the twolatter agreeing to set up a sufficient vawte, according to a plat signed ; the stone to be from theWeldon quarries : the contracting parties were also to provide “ lyme, scaffoldyng, cinctorcs,moles, ordinaunccs,” and “every other thyng required for the same vawting : the timbers