remarks made on the stacks with two detached shafts apply also in a less degree to all of these—and, ing disproportionately large, and making the cottage therefore look top-heavy, which is, of all defects in proportion, one of the greatest. In pairs of cottages in which there is one stack of chimneys in the middle of the building, there Fig. 10. are usually eight flues in the chimney-stack; in Fig. 10 are shown six other ways of arranging them besides the two shown above. In Figs. 4 and 6 the edges of the shafts are finished with a stopped chamfer. This is commonly introduced in the present day into all sorts of work, in all kinds of material, in the corners of buildings, the jambs of windows and doorways, in the frames of windows and doors, in the frames of doors themselves, round the panels-in fact, everywhere where otherwise there would be a square edge. The use of it may be sometimes overdone, but it is nevertheless one of the simplest and most effective ornaments that can be used, and is readily produced in brickwork by using the bevelled bricks (Fig. 2). ROOFING MATERIALS. Slate and flat tiles are the best roofing materials. If the former be used, and there be much roof seen, so that the large flat unbroken surface has a disagreeable effect, it may be quite sufficiently varied by introducing one or two lines, of four or five course each of slates, the lower edge of which is either cut round, or has the corners cut off. This is often a great improvement to the appearance of a slate roof. Of flat tiles a considerable variety of shapes and some variety of colour is found amongst those which may be bought; but I think that a still greater variety, especially of colour, might be employed with advantage. Much variety of colour in a roof would, however, require to be used with caution and good judgment, lest it should have the effect not unfrequently to be observed in the present day, where a profusion of coloured bricks is employed, only to make a design originally ugly still more hideously ugly. GABLES. It is usual, when the roof overhangs the gable, to finish it with a barge-board (which is frequently pierced with an ornamental pattern) and a small king-post to finish the gable. The pattern of a pierced barge-board is often made much too large and rambling, and altogether out of keeping with the size of a small building like a cottage; but if the gable be finished with a barge-board, it adds much to the appearance of the cottage for it to be pierced with a small pattern, or, perhaps, still better (for a pierced one is usually altogether too wide), that it should be merely cut out at the edge into an ornamental pattern. Gables were at one time usually finished by carrying the walls above the roof and finishing the wall with stone tabling, or even with bricks for one or more courses set on edge. This is not often done now; and both for use and appearance I think that the present practice of carrying the roof over the walls is much to be preferred. In Italy the gables of many of the larger buildings are finished with a kind of cornice-sometimes a very elaborate and heavy one, formed of a variety of moulded bricks : one or two instances of these may be found in |