Hauteur

“ Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow's stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground. ”

“ Everyone seems to over-estimate the proper height.
Another favourite illusion is to ask a person to mark on the wall a height from the floor which would represent the length of a horse’s head: here the majority guess far too little—for a horse’s head is much longer than most people imagine, ranging from 25 to 34 inches. In a recent experiment 5 persons out of 6 under-estimated the proper height. ”

“ For if we measure the distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth will be found to be the same as the height, as in the case of plane surfaces which are perfectly square. ”

“ Then sweeping by degrees from a stone to another, and from thence to a rotting stick embedded in the sand, I searched the bottom inch by inch. If you look, as it were at large—at everything at once—you see nothing. If you take some object as a fixed point, gaze all around it, and then move to another, nothing can escape. ”

“ The perfect mountain height is already thoroughly purified. It is as if you trod with awe the face of a god turned up, unwillingly, but helplessly, yielding to the law of gravity. In dreams I am shown this height from time to time, and I seem to have asked my fellow once to climb there with me, and yet I am constrained to believe that I never actually ascended it. ”

“ Every part is so perfect in proportion and finish that, as has been often remarked, it is only realized by comparison with the height of the human figures moving about on its paved floor. Perhaps there is also an architectural reason which in a large degree accounts for this difference between apparent and actual height. ”

“ And further, as the foot is one sixth of a man's height, the height of the body as expressed in number of feet being limited to six, they held that this was the perfect number, and observed that the cubit consisted of six palms or of twenty-four fingers. ”

“ Without being tall, there was height enough, one would say, to insure the eyes a good view of golden horizons and near heavens, and the arms an easy reach to the honeysuckle clusters or the ripe purple plum hanging low by its own weight. ”

“ Suppose a million of the men to stand in turns with their backs against a vertical board of sufficient height, and their heights to be dotted off upon it. The line of average height is that which divides the dots into two equal parts, and stands, in the case we have assumed, at the height of sixty-six inches. ”

“ If a man of 5 feet 7 inches give 101⁄2 inches for head and neck, 25 for trunk, and 311⁄2 for fork, what should another give, of 6 feet, or any other height? The approximation of a man's actual measurement to this rule of three determines his pretensions in the way of symmetry; and the inventor of the shibboleth has found it so far to answer, that a figure coming near the rule invariably pleases the eye, and gives the assurance of a handsome man. ”

“ Remember that our own tallest and noblest trees in England do not attain more than 100 feet or so in height; then try to imagine those having four times that height and stems or trunks proportionately huge. It is like comparing our five-storey buildings with the forty-storey buildings of New York, eight times their altitude. ”

“ If the building is square, let its height be fixed at one and one half times its breadth; but if it is to be oblong, add together its length and breadth and, having got the total, let half of it be devoted to the height up to the coffered ceiling.
2. Further, the inside walls should be girdled, at a point halfway up their height, with coronae made of woodwork or of stucco. Without these, the voice of men engaged in discussion there will be carried up to the height above, and so be unintelligible to their listeners. ”

“ Wishing to set up columns in that temple, but not having rules for their symmetry, and being in search of some way by which they could render them fit to bear a load and also of a satisfactory beauty of appearance, they measured the imprint of a man's foot and compared this with his height. On finding that, in a man, the foot was one sixth of the height, they applied the same principle to the column, and reared the shaft, including the capital, to a height six times its thickness at its base. ”

“ The mind, from home association, supposes them to be of the same height as average English trees on a hill-top—say fifty feet—and estimates, rapidly and unconsciously, the height of the mountain by that standard. ”

“ Almost everything seemed to be horizontal, but such things as stood perpendicular in this flat world gained a gigantic height. The two human beings looked at each other in amazement that such a tall man and woman existed. ”

“ Ask a person to mark upon the wall of a room the height above the floor which he thinks will correspond to that of a gentleman’s tall hat. Unless he has been beguiled on a former occasion, he will certainly place the mark several inches too high. ”

“ When you have learned by actual experience that it takes several days’ marching to pass the base of a big Himalayan mountain, you begin to feel the size of the thing. A precipice of 200 feet differs only in size from one of 2000 feet. To appreciate the majesty of the larger, you must become physically conscious of its scale. ”

“ I was told that the surface of the body, or the skin of a large man, measured sixteen feet square, which is equal to the surface of a table four feet long and four broad. Now, you know that in four feet there are forty-eight inches, and on the surface of the table are forty-eight rows, with forty-eight inches in each, or 2,304 square inches; so that a man's surface is 2,304 square inches, and the weight his body supports is 34,560 lbs., or upwards of fifteen tons—always at the rate of fifteen pounds to every square inch, you understand. ”

“ To get a plan we make a horizontal section at any determined height, which gives us the thickness of the walls and the area of the spaces which they inclose. An elevation shows us one of the faces of the building in all its details, while the transverse or longitudinal section allows us to lay the whole of the structural arrangements open to the spectator. Plan, elevation, and section, are three different things by the comparison of which a just idea of the whole building and of the connection of its various parts may be formed. ”

“ The foot-rule of the carpenter not only gives him the standard of a foot measure, which he could not exactly ascertain by any experience, or any mental process, but it is also a scale of the proportions of an inch, or several inches, to a foot, and of the parts of an inch to an inch. ”

“ When the elevation is determined by sights the angle of elevation is the angle between the line of sight and the axis of the piece, when these lines are in the same vertical plane,—or the angle between the line of sight and a plane containing the axis of the piece and a horizontal line intersecting it at right angles, when they are not. The graduations of tangent scales and fixed breech-sights give this angle in degrees. The graduation of the pendulum hausse gives the angle correctly only when the line of sight is horizontal. ”

“ Or if it be only meant that we think of a particular height, which must be a precise, positive, determinate idea, even this supposition may in the same way be shewn to be exceedingly fallacious, and an inversion of the natural order of our ideas. For take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you please, yet the actual height to which it amounts must be made up of the length of the different parts, the head, the face, the neck, the body, limbs, &c. ”

“ Square A to the left of the vertical is 21⁄2 feet wide, 1 foot from the vertical and 2 feet from the base, and is worked out in the same way.
Note.—It is necessary to know how to work to scale, especially in architectural drawing, where it is indispensable, but in working 51 out our propositions and figures it is not always desirable. A given length indicated by a line is generally sufficient for our requirements. To work out every problem to scale is not only tedious and mechanical, but wastes time, and also takes the mind of the student away from the reasoning out of the subject. ”

“ The limitations of service and the restrictions of good designing give the width of the primary mass so designed as three feet and two inches, with a ratio of height to length of five to eight and one-half. It is simpler to design first the most prominent face of the object to be followed by other views later in the designing process. ”

“ XXXV How to Form a Vanishing Scale that shall give the Height, Depth, and Distance of any Object in the Picture
If we make our scale to vanish to the point of sight, as in Fig. 89, we can make SB, the lower line thereof, a measuring line for distances. Let us first of all divide the base AB into eight parts, each part representing 5 feet. From each division draw lines to 8th distance; by their intersections with SB we obtain 80 measurements of 40, 80, 120, 160, &c., feet. Now divide the side of the picture BE in the same manner as the base, which gives us the height of 40 feet. ”

“ So accustomed is the eye to vertical lines in tree trunks, tall buildings, and thousands of other examples that the upward eye movement in viewing an object, having a predominance of vertical elements, seemingly adds to its height. ”

“ In like manner, of fifty young persons of the average of fourteen years and eleven months, the measurement in height was four feet five inches, and in circumference two feet three inches; while of forty-nine young persons employed on farms, of the average of fifteen years and six months, the measurement in height was four feet ten inches and eight-elevenths, and, in circumference, two feet three inches, being a difference of nearly six inches in height in favour of the agricultural labourers. ”

“ When rusticated work is used with an order the height of each course of stone should not be less than half a diameter, and when square recessed joints are used they can be one-eighth or one-tenth the height of the course. ”

“ The first species grows to an immense size, and is very commonly twenty-seven feet in circumference six feet above the earth’s surface: they rise to the height of two hundred and thirty feet, and one hundred and twenty of that height without a limb. We have often found them thirty-six feet in circumference. One of our party measured one, and found it to be forty-two feet in circumference, at a point beyond the reach of an ordinary man. ”

“ It is not the element of height alone which gives mountains their significance. There are many other features, which are little studied, yet of real import. It is, however, not a matter of indifference whether a chain thrusts up its peaks 1000, 5000, 10,000, or 20,000 feet, and the height has been made and will continue to be made a subject of careful investigation. In reference to height, we distinguish what, in a general sense, we call mountains, [3] into hills, mounts, and mountains of various degrees of magnitude. ”

“ That, if any Plain Surface have allocation about its Axis in any Situation whatsoever, and at any distance whatsoever, or none, it produceth a Round Solid equal to an Upright Solid, whole Base is the begetting Figure, and Height is equal to the Circumference described by its Center of Gravity. ”

“ One has to have instruments with which to calculate the height of mountains, and I couldn't do it even if I had the instruments, but I should say from what I've heard about the country and the tales of explorers that the peak we're looking at is about 14,000 feet high. ”

“ If it were possible for man to construct a globe 800 feet, or twice the height of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in diameter, and to place upon any one point of its surface an atom 1/4380th of an inch in diameter, and 1/720th part of an inch in height, it would correctly denote the proportion man bears to the earth upon which he stands. ”

“ I need not say that we may make scales in any proportion ad infinitum—one, two, or three hundredths of an inch to a foot, or to 10, 100, or 1,000 feet, as we do for drawing maps. In the same way we may give details on a scale of 6 inches to a foot, or half the actual size; 2 inches to a foot, or a sixth of the actual size, &c. Having chosen his scale, the architect is enabled to give to each part of the plan exact relative dimensions. If he has adopted the scale of one-eighth of an inch to a foot, and wishes to indicate a door 4 feet in width, he takes 4/8ths. ”