ARCHITECTURE and in Spain, where their empire became firmly established, the edifices they erected sufficiently prove with what success they cultivated the arts and sciences. We do not, in the narrow limits of such an article as this, think it necessary to extend any inquiry into the earliest works of the Saracens, such as the original Mosque of Omar, built in 640. Neither of that nor of other of their works (few indeed in number) have we sufficient historical evidence to compare them with the architecture of the period in other countries; but we proceed at once to that period when some of its most distinguishing features were such arches as are here exhibited. were well acquainted with the Byzantine architecture, in which the walls, the arcades, the pavements, in short all the parts, were covered with paintings; and it is clear that the Arabians, who really had invented no architecture of their own, spreading themselves in those countries wherein the arts had been established, were thus led to a trial of imitating the old masters. The Alhambra, at Granada, is perhaps the most curious and interesting Moorish edifice in Spain. It served the double purpose of palace and fortress, and is situated on the summit of a rock that commands the town. According to travellers who have described this edifice, the visitor may here fancy himself in a fairy-built dwelling. After passing the principal entrance, he arrives at two oblong courts, one of which is called the court of the lions, and is celebrated in Arabian history. A portion of the section of this court is given below. Round these two courts, on the ground floor, are disposed all the apartments of the palace; those for state look out towards the country; the rest, cooler and more retired, have small openings for light under the interior porticos, the whole of which are decorated with painted stucco, porcelain, and the most valuable marbles. On a neighbouring hill is another palace, called the Generalife: its ruins show that it was inferior to the Alhambra neither in size nor splendour. It is precisely in the same taste, and the details are similar, proving that the two edifices are contemporaneous. The Mosque at Cordova was begun by Abdalrahman, the second king of Cordova, and finished by his son towards the end of the eighth century. Its plan is a parallelogram of 600 feet by 400, formed by an embattled wall with counterforts also embattled; the height of this wall varies from 35 to 60 feet, and its thickness is 8 feet. This large quadrangular space is divided internally into two parts; viz. a court, 200 feet long by the length of the edifice, and the mosque itself, which is about 400 feet square. The mosque consists of 19 aisles, formed by 17 rows of columns, from south to north, and 32 narrower aisles, from east to west. Each of these aisles is 16 feet wide, from north to south, by 400 feet long; the width of them in the opposite direction is less. Thus the intersection of the aisles with each other produces 850 columns, which, added to the 52 columns of the court, form a total of near a thousand columns. Their diameter is about a foot and a half, and their mean height about 15 feet, and they are crowned by capitals of a Corinthian or composite.species. These columns, which have neither socle nor base, are surmounted by arches from column to column. The ceilings are of wood painted, each range forming on the outside a small roof, separated from those adjoining by a gutter. One of the most striking effects of the edifice Surprising as the works we have just named is produced by the beautiful marbles of which must be considered, we do not discover in them the columns are composed. It seems probable that real grandeur which exists in the works of that the larger portion of these columns were the Egyptians, the Etrurians, the Grecians, or procured from the Roman ruins in the city; the Romans. The mode of construction, though an opinion which is strengthened by their sufficiently durable, is not scientific, as respects being without bases, or with such as are ill the working of the materials. Brick was the suited to the style of the columns or capitals. material most in use; the masonry, where In the commencement of the sixteenth century employed, is covered with a coating of stucco, great changes were made in this mosque, for of which the painting in different colours is a the purpose of converting it into a Christian great source of the admiration these buildings church; these, it is said, ruined the original excite. The domes which crown their aparteffect, but enough is left to indicate what it ments are neither lofty nor large in diameter, anciently must have been. It is always con- neither do they exhibit great mechanical skill. sidered as one of the earliest Moorish build- The Moorish architects seem to have had no ings in Spain. The decorations throughout are notion of raising vaults from lofty piers. In in stucco, painted of different colours, and the mosque at Cordova, the span from pier occasionally gilt, in imitation of Byzantine to pier would have been less than 20 feet, churches. One cannot doubt that its architects to vault which would not have required very ARCHITECTURE nor has it any appearance of stone. Perhaps it has never been more than a natural eminence of the ground. The Spanish historians lead us to suppose that the palace of the emperor and the houses of the nobles exhibited some elegance of design and convenient arrangement: we have, however, no vestiges of these remaining, and, from the mode in which Cortes conducted the siege of Mexico, it seems likely that all the monuments of any importance were destroyed. Still, as at the period when Robertson wrote his History only two centuries and a half had elapsed, it seems impossible that in so short a time edifices of importance should have left no trace of their existence. extraordinary skill; yet here we find timber ceilings throughout. The use of orders seems to have been unknown to them; they employed the antique columns which they found ready to their hands, or rude imitations of them, without any apparent acquaintance with the types from which they were derived, their principles or proportions. Hence their columns may be more appropriately termed posts. In the forms of Moorish architecture we do not discover a character of originality arising out of local causes. The Arabians had wandered far from their country, in which they had never cuitivated the arts; their architecture was, therefore, necessarily formed upon models which were before them, such as the degenerated Roman and Byzantine. The form of their ar- ARCHITECTURE, Roman.-It can scarcely be cades is confined to this style of architecture. said that the Romans had an architecture They may be divided into two classes, both of peculiar to themselves. That which we unthem vicious in construction, from not affording derstand by the name is a modification, some the necessary resistance to thrust near the abut- call it a debasement, of the architecture of the ments. In masonry, failure would follow such Greeks. But, although they thus adopted a forms, if practised on a large scale; but where foreign form of ornamentation, they possessed arches are formed of brick, the large surface of a genuine architecture, which by borrowing from cement used, if it be good and the centres not others they practically destroyed; and this was struck until the cement is set hard, allows the architecture of the arch. Whence it came to great caprice in their forms. If the pleasure-them, is a question which we are not called upon we might almost use the word sensuality-of here to answer; but the fact remains that, where the eye be the sole object, it cannot be denied that success attended the efforts of the Arabian architects of Spain. The embroidery and painte draperies of the East appear to have been transposed to their architecture. The variety and profusion with which they used their ornaments, moreover, give their masses the appearance of a congeries of painting, incrustation, mosaic, gilding, and foliage. Much, perhaps, of this was induced by the law of their religion, which forbade the representation of animals or the human figure. It cannot be denied that in this profusion of ornament we find the details beautifully executed, and some of their forms extremely fine; and the mode of piercing domes for light, which they practised by means of starlike openings, is attended with an almost magical effect. ARCHITECTURE, Mexican.-The temples and other public edifices of Mexico do not appear to have deserved the high praises which Spanish authors have bestowed upon them. The great temple of Mexico, the most celebrated in New Spain, as far as can be gathered from the obscure and inadequate descriptions of it, has been represented as a magnificent building, raised to such a height that the ascent to it was by a flight of 114 steps; yet it was but a solid square mass of earth, faced partly with stone. Its base on each side extended ninety feet: it decreased gradually as it advanced in height, terminating at top in a quadrangle of about 30 feet, whereon were placed a shrine of the deity, and two altars on which the victims were sacrificed. All the other celebrated temples of New Spain resembled that of Mexico. The great hillock at Cholula, to which the Spaniards have given the name of temple, is not approached by steps, they abstained from Greek decoration, their buildings exhibited the principle of arched construction carried out with a massiveness and strength which have rarely been equalled. It may possibly have been derived from Etruria; it may have been permanently established by an Etruscan dynasty in Rome, but it is quite certain that Etruria did not derive her architecture from Greece. But whether the Cloaca Maxima and other great Roman works give evidence of a great Etruscan dynasty or not, the fact remains that the arch became the principle of all genuine Roman construction. Hence the assertion that Christian architecture may be traced directly to the Greek must be taken with a qualification; and it becomes of the greatest importance for the clear understanding of subsequent architectural history to bear in mind that the distinguishing characteristic of the former was derived from the principle, the use of which Roman architects for so long a time did their utmost to conceal. Without a struggle, Rome submitted herself to the intellectual yoke of the Greeks. 'In those instances where the skeleton of a building is Roman, she did no more than foist on them a system of decoration entirely unsuited to its new application, and which disguised or concealed all that was great and splendid in her architecture. Where with Greek detail she unites their general design, the buildings are not, strictly speaking, to be considered Roman at all. She sacrificed, in fact, for the sake of foreign elegance her native sources of strength and grandeur, and cramped a constructive genius, which might otherwise have astonished the world with a more genuine and stupendous architecture of the arch than it has ever yet beheld. The capital and entablature of Greece were not only ARCHITECTURE ARCHIVOLT no bounds, and was ultimately obliged to gain its end more by effect than purity, by richness and exuberance of ornament rather than by harmony, and by grandeur of lines rather than by beauty of forms. The luxury in art induced by the sculptor added to the number of different combinations in the Corinthian capital: this was carried to an excess which in the end produced a new order, known by the name of the composite. Thus, Roman architecture having, says Quatremère de Quincy, exhausted all the resources of richness guided by taste in the use of ornaments, throws aside all sobriety, sacrifices the whole to details and accessories, covers all parts of the surface without distinction, loads the different members with ornaments and sculptures, like a person who, to decorate a piece of cloth, covers it entirely with embroidery. We close this article with a few remarks on the Doric order. This, in Greece itself, at the time of her subjugation, had begun to be affected by change. It had lost much of the primitive simplicity of its character and the severity of its principles. The various wants in edifices less simple in plan, a taste for elegance and richness which was found in the other two orders, tended to modify its forms and profiles. Thus, in the portico of Augustus at Athens, it was strangely changed in appearance. In Rome it was adopted with proportions still more slender, and an aspect infinitely less severe. features alien to her art, but fatal obstacles to any real display of her powers; nor could she retain them but at the expense of an absurd incongruity and a frequent concealment of her real construction. And when, having filled the world with the vast structures of her spurious art, she fell before the inroads of Northern barbarians, her architecture became in their hands the source of illimitable beauty and grandeur only by being gradually stripped of the ungainly and cumbersome garb with which she had so studiously concealed her living powers. Greece therefore bequeathed to Rome a number of decorative features; from Rome Christian architecture derived its essence and its life. The forms of Greek art could never have given birth to any style presenting a really different character but for their accidental association with a foreign construction, while the architecture of Rome must have issued in a more magnificent development, had that of Greece never come into existence; nay, it would have done so perhaps with greater certainty and rapidity.' (Edinburgh Review, January 1857.) The necessary materials are wanting to enable ns to follow up historically the state of the art during the ages of the republic. There is scarcely the vestige of a ruin of the period; it is, however, easy to form, either from the political state of the times, or from the encouragement given to the other arts, and especially to literature, some idea of the extent to which the architecture of the Romans flourished. The conquest of Greece by the Romans brought to their city not only an importation of works of art, but the artists themselves. In architecture, however, the Romans at this time had erected monuments of such dimensions as were beyond the means of the little and separated states of Greece. The new state of things brought to its aid all that it needed. The great use which at this period was made of the Corinthian order, is one of the proofs of the public and private wealth. From the time of Augustus we see the extent to which richness of detail was carried. A small portion of the Baths of Agrippa, known to us under the name of the Pantheon, enables us to The English archives have been in the appreciate the art of this period, though it is course of the last few years gradually removed now despoiled of the bronzes of its pediment, from the various depositories in which they had its gilt caissons, and the profusion of sculptures hitherto been kept, and accumulated in the that adorned it. In the time of Augustus, Rome Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, under was not only the capital of the world, but the the superintendence of the Master of the world itself; it possessed within itself all the Rolls. In the twenty-fourth annual report of food that was necessary for the nourishment of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records the art. Rome now began to raise monuments (1863), will be found at p. iii. a table compreof a description unknown to the Grecians-hending the classes of public muniments which triumphal arches, baths as large as cities, immense porticos, amphitheatres, and naumachiæ. The marbles of all the quarries of the then known world were almost exhausted in supplies, and even Egypt furnished the city with means of adding to the general magnificence. Applied to such new species of edifices, it would have been indeed surprising if architecture had preserved its original Greek purity. It was the medium for satisfying a vanity which knew Architrave (made up from the Greek pxw, to rule, and the Latin trabs, a beam). The lower of the three members of the entablature of an order, being, as its name imports, the chief beam that is employed and resting upon the columns. A French writer has styled it the foundation of the head of an edifice. The architrave sometimes receives the name of Epistylium, from the Greek words ení, upon, and σrúλos, a column. Archives (Lat. archivum, from the Greek apxeîov, a senate-house). The repositories of the public records of a state or community: some. times the records themselves are so called. that office now contains. And in the twentyfifth annual report, p. xxi., will be found a list of Records not yet received into the Public Record Office,' chiefly on account of insufficient accommodation for the present. Archivolt. In Architecture this term is applied to express the ornamented band of mouldings round the voussoirs, or arch-stones, which terminate horizontally upon the impost. The archivolt is decorated analogously with the ARCHLUTE architrave, which it may be said to replace in arcades, or in a series of arches. Archlute. A double-stringed theorbo, for the bass parts, and for accompanying the voice. It had fourteen notes, and considerable power. Handel employed it in many of his operas. Archon (Gr. a ruler). The title of the chief magistrate of Athens. The office was originally instituted, it is said, on the death of Codrus, the last king of Athens, and was vested in one person who enjoyed it for life, and was succeeded by his son. Its duties were those of a limited monarchy, accountable to the assembly of the people; its duration was afterwards limited to ten, six, and, finally, one year, when its functions were divided among nine persons, taken at first by suffrage, and afterwards by lot, from the nobles. One was chief among them, and was called Eponymus, or naming Archon, because the year was distinguished by his name. The second, or king Archon (Baoteus), exercised the functions of high priest. The third, or Polemarch, was originally the chief military commander. The other six were called Thesmothetæ, or setters forth of the law, whose duties consisted chiefly in receiving informations and bringing cases to trial in the courts, and in an annual review of the whole body of laws, for purposes of amendment or abrogation. The exclusive right of the nobles to this office was taken away by the measures of Cleisthenes, who threw it open to the people at large. See especially Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens. Arcograph (Lat. arcus, a bow, ypápw, I write). A drawing instrument for describing arcs of circles, or other curves, without centres. Arctic (Gr. àрктIкós, from άрктоs, the bear). An epithet given to that part of the heavens in which are situated the constellations of the Great and the Little Bear. Arctic Pole, the north pole of the heavens, or the northern extremity of the axis of the diurnal motion. Arctic Circle, in geography, denotes a small circle of the sphere parallel to the equator, and 234 degrees from the north pole. At this latitude, the sun, at the summer solstice, comes exactly to the horizon at midnight, without descending below it. The corresponding circle in the southern hemisphere is called the Antarctic. The arctic and antarctic circles separate the frigid from the temperate zones. Arctic Current. The current thus named is considered to originate in the ice of the Arctic seas, whence it runs along the eastern shore of Greenland and round Cape Farewell to the western shore of Greenland in N. latitude 66°, when it turns southward, forming the Hudson's Bay Current. Thence it passes between the Bank of Newfoundland, and meeting the Gulf Stream, crosses it as an under current flowing into the Caribbean Sea. Another portion passes along the coast of North America and reduces the temperature of the land. The Arctic current, which is cold, replaces the warm water removed by the Gulf Stream. Arctic Ocean. The portion of the great ARE ocean contained within the Arctic circle. The area is estimated at between three and four millions of square miles, a very large part of which is covered with ice during the greater part of the year. The lands of Europe, Asia, and America approach by various promontories, and are almost connected by several chains of islands in this ocean, but there is now known to be open water at some parts of some seasons, connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic. The land does not appear to reach the north pole in any part, nor is the elevation of the Arctic land very great. In this respect the Arctic is very different from the Antarctic circle, and the climate of the North temperate zone is quite distinct from and much milder than that of the South temperate zone under similar conditions. Arctium (Gr. &ρктоs, a bear). A native Composite plant, forming a coarse troublesome wayside weed, with large rhubarb-like leaves, and burr-like flowerheads. It is called Burdock, and medicinal virtues have been ascribed to it. The common species is A. Lappa. Arctizite. Wernerite. [SCAPOLITE. Arctomys (Gr. åρêтos, bear, μús, mouse). The name of the subgenus of Rodentia, or gnawers, including the marmots. Arcturus (Gг. аρктоûроs). A star of the first magnitude in the constellation of Bootes, designated in the catalogues as a Bootes. It has a sensible proper motion. Arcuation (Lat. arcuatio). An obsolete term for the mode of propagating trees by layers, the shoots being bent. Ardassines. A very fine kind of Persian silk. Ardea (Lat.). The name of a Linnæan genus of Gralle, or wading birds, characterised by a straight, sharp, long, subcompressed bill, with a furrow extending on each side, from the nostrils to the apex of the bill. The genus was subdivided by Linnæus into the Cristata, corresponding to the modern genus Anthropoides; the Grues, or cranes; the Ciconia, or storks; and the Ardea, or herons; which latter have been subsequently subdivided into Ardea, or herons proper; Nycticoraces, or night-herons; and Botauri, or bitterns. Ardent Spirit. [ALCOHOL.] Ardisiaceæ (Ardisia, one of the genera). Exogens, which might, without much inaccuracy, be termed woody primulaceous plants. They form herbs and trees in warm countries, and have a succulent fruit; but they really differ in scarcely any positive point of structure from Primula and its co-ordinates. The group is now more usually called MYRSINACEAE: which see. Are. The modern French measure of surface, equivalent to 100 square mètres. Its multiples are called decare, hectare, chilare, miliare, &c., equal respectively to 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, &c. ares; its sub-multiples are termed deciare, centiare, milliare, &c., equal respectively to 1, &c. of an are. hectare is the term most frequently used and, The AREA [ACRE.] ARGAND LAMP compared with English measure, 1,000 acres are | birds, wanting the hinder toe: of this genus Area (Lat.) In Embryology, certain definite spaces which successively arise in the germinal membrane are so called: thus the opaque spot produced by an accumulation of cells and cell-nuclei is called 'area germinativa,' or germinal area; the clear space which subsequently appears in its centre is called area pellucida;' and the outer part of this space, where the blood-vessels are first formed, is called area vasculosa.' 6 Arenation (Lat. arena). The cure of disAreola (dim. of area). The ring or margin eases by sprinkling hot sand upon the body. which surrounds the pustule of small and cow pox. Areola. In Entomology, are smaller spa- Areolar Tissue. In Anatomy, a term Areometer, or Aræometer (Gr. àpaiós, AREA. In Mathematics, quantity of surface; the term, however, is usually restricted to plane figures. In measuring areas the unit is the area of a square described on the unit of length: the number of such unit squares which, taken together, cover the same quantity of surface as a given figure is the area of the latter. Hence the word quadrature. A triangle being half that of a rectangle having the same base and altitude, is equal to half the product of the lengths of its base and perpendicular. The area of any rectilineal figure is found by dividing it into triangles. The area of a figure bounded by a curve is found by the Areopagus. The chief court of judicature integration of y dx, where x and y, the rectangular co-ordinates of any point of the curve, at Athens: so called because it met in a hall are expressible as functions of a single variable on an eminence, called the Hill of Ares (Apetos by means of the equation to the curve. [QUAD-Tάyos). This court, which was of very early RATURE.] Practically the area of such a figure origin, was raised to the high character it is found by first constructing a rectilineal figure of, approximately, the same area. [SURVEYING and OFFSET.] Mechanically, the area of any plate or disc of uniform density and thickness is found by dividing its weight by that of the unit square cut out from the same plate. Area. In Entomology, the larger longitudinal divisions of the wing: they are termed cretal, intermediate, and anal, according to their relative position. An Areca (Areec, the Malabar name). East Indian Palm tree, whose nuts, folded in the leaf of the Piper Betel, and mixed with a little lime, are chewed by the natives of the countries bordering on the Indian Archipelago as a stimulating narcotic. Arena. A Latin word, signifying in its original meaning sand; but applied in a secondary sense to that part of the amphitheatre where the gladiators fought, which was covered with sand; the word is sometimes applied to the whole amphitheatre, or to any place which is habitually resorted to by combatants. Arenaceous (Lat. arenaceus). That which possesses the properties of sand; it is used with reference to certain descriptions of stone which have the texture of loose friable varieties of sandstone, cemented by some extraneous matter. Arenaceous Rocks. Rocks in which Arenaria (Lat. arena). A genus of wading afterwards enjoyed by Solon, who appointed A variety of lime-and-iron Arethusa (Gr. 'Apétovoa). In Mythology, one of the Nereids, who gave her name to the famous fountain in the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse. Arfvedsonite. A black, opaque variety of Hornblende, containing a large proportion of Norway. Named after the Swedish chemist iron, and also soda, found in Greenland and Arfvedson. Argand Lamp. The application of a eircular wick to oil lamps, so contrived as to allow of a current of air both inside and outside, was originally patented by a person of the name of Argand: the contrivance constitutes an important |