Pier-glass

“ The part of the piers below the bed of the river is formed of concrete, while the upper part is brickwork, set in cement and faced with Cornish granite. Upon each of the river piers rest four octagonal columns, built up of flat steel plates, connected together at their edges by splayed angle-bars. The columns are 120 feet high, and 51⁄2 feet in diameter; those on each pier are securely braced together, at certain stages also by plate girders, 6 feet deep, to form a floor or landing, and the tops of the columns are similarly joined together. ”

“ The intervening spaces above the cornice, are crimson and gold, with silver studs.
'On the east side are five spacious windows, the draperies of which are of the richest crimson silks, adorned with gold, and sustained by flying dragons. The dividing piers are covered by fluted silks of celestial blue; and, in front of each pier, is a beautiful candelabrum, about ten feet in height. ”

“ The moon shone with a fitful light—at times it was bright as day—flooded the sea with silver and showed the chain and the arches of the pier as plainly as the sun could have done—showed the running of the waves—they were busy that evening and came in fast—spreading out in great sheets of white foam, and when the moonlight did touch the foam it was beautiful to see. ”

“ Towards the south end of the building on this level, in at least two instances, the stone piers have been carried away for building materials, and the lower part of the brick wall, through which it had been cut, stands just as well without it as with it. The object of this tall stone pier was to carry the upper gallery only, not to support the old walls of the lower galleries [245] . ”

“ The height is divided into four nearly equal parts by well-moulded rings, encircling the whole pier, and in the middle of the second of these divisions are corbels and canopies for statues. The capitals are round and covered with leaves, but scarcely exceed the piers in diameter. Besides all this each strip between the eight thin shafts is covered from top to bottom—except where the empty niches occur—with carving in slight relief, either foliage or, more usually, renaissance arabesques. ”

“ Professor Willis says: "The entire height of the severey (or bay) is divided into two nearly equal parts, of which the lower is given to the pier arches, the upper to the clerestory. The window-sills of the latter are high, and there is a passage in front of them immediately above the tablement or string course over the pier arches. This passage, the veritable triforium, pierces the great piers of masonry which sustain the vault. The high sills receive the sloping roof of the side aisles, and have three plain open arches in each severey to air the roof." ”

“ For while it is up, there is nothing but very shallow, muddy water to be seen, on which the faithful old sun, try as he will, can paint no pictures. Whereas at low tide, the colours of these sandy wastes—the steely gleam of the wet parts, the bright yellow of the dry, and the warm and rich tints of brown of the intermediate, and the quaint, black line of the pier, running out across them all till it reaches the pale blue of the channel, where the fishing-boats all lie at anchor round the pier-head at sunset—are one perpetual feast, even to the untrained eye. ”

“ We have a pier—a queer old wooden pier, fortunately without the slightest pretensions to architecture, and very picturesque in consequence. Boats are hauled up upon it, ropes are coiled all over it; lobster-pots, nets, masts, oars, spars, sails, ballast, and rickety capstans, make a perfect labyrinth of it. For ever hovering about this pier, with their hands in their pockets, or leaning over the rough bulwark it opposes to the sea, gazing through telescopes which they carry about in the same profound receptacles, are the Boatmen of our watering-place. ”

“ The mere addition of an impost and a base to the pier does much to relieve its plainness. We may, however, as in the case of arches, substitute shafts for the divisions of the pier, or double shafts where the ribs are wide; or we may, instead of amplifying the forms of the pier, concentrate it to a column, from whose capital the ribs spring, as we have already seen in case of the double arch. ”

“ Flat surfaces often richly diapered. Spires broached. Vaulting pointed with diagonal and main ribs only; ridge ribs not introduced till late in the style; bosses at intersection of ribs.
Proportions less lofty than in the previous style. Arches mostly inclosing an equilateral angle, the mouldings often continued down the pier. Windows large, and divided into two or more lights by mullions. Tracery in the head, at first composed geometrical forms, later of flowing character. Clerestory windows generally small. Diamond [Pg 25] shaped piers with shafts engaged. ”

“ The flank is much better than the front, from the beautiful simplicity of its seven equal arches, rising on insulated piers; each pier has a panel, which though they are quite shallow, is a great defect. Above each pier there is a circle of porphyry, surrounded by a wreath; and at a moderate distance over these, the entablature, corresponding with that of the front. In each arch there is a stone sarcophagus, and the whole is elevated on a continued basement. The 136only fault in the composition is the panelling of the piers. Everything else is beautiful. ”

“ COMPOUND PIER, the architectural term given to a clustered column or pier which consists of a centre mass or newel, to which engaged or semi-detached shafts have been attached, in order to perform, or to suggest the performance of, certain definite structural objects, such as to carry arches of additional orders, or to support the transverse or diagonal ribs of a vault, or the tie beam of an important roof. ”

“ The piers are large, and consist of clustered shafts, lozenge-shaped in plan, set on much moulded bases, and having beautifully carved foliated capitals from which spring architrave mouldings of great variety. From the base and up the centre of each pier runs a cluster of three fine columns to capitals, also foliated, at the top of the triforium; from these spring five vaulting ribs, three of which diverge to an ornamental central rib, and two to a small similarly decorated transverse rib. There are finely carved bosses at the intersection of all the various ribs. ”

“ The truss for each line of way consists of two suspension chains, one on each side of the roadway, hung from either side of the ends of a horizontal circular tube, arched slightly for the sake of appearance, which rests on piers rising about 50 feet above the level of the rails. The pier at the land end is of masonry, and the upper part of the middle pier is of cast iron, resting on the cylinders already mentioned. ”

“ It is not constructed with arches, but piers are built up from the bottom of the river and great granite stringers are laid horizontally from pier to pier. I measured some of these great stone stringers, and found them to be three feet square and forty-five feet long. They weigh over thirty tons each. ”

“ The use of that member is, of course, to convey support from one pier to another when the plan of the building renders it necessary or desirable that the supporting masses should be divided into groups, the most frequent necessity of this kind arising from the intermediate range of chapels or aisles between the nave or choir walls and their supporting piers. The natural, healthy, and beautiful arrangement is that of a steeply sloping bar of stone, sustained by an arch with its spandril carried farthest down on the lowest side, and dying into the vertical of the outer pier ”

“ Few places are better loafing-ground than a pier, with its tranquil 'lucid interval' between steamers, the ever recurrent throb of paddle-wheel, the rush and foam of beaten water among the piles, splash of ropes and rumble of gangways, and all the attendant hurry and scurry of the human morrice. ”

“ Out in the sea, lonely and by itself, appears a pier, scarcely emergent from the waves, which once supported an arch parallel to the one now standing and also one at right angles to the shore. The one now standing makes the fourth. But the ever-working sea carves and carries away arch and shore alike. At some points a careful and even admiring observer sees little change for years, but the remorseless tooth gnaws on unceasingly. ”

“ Special provisions have to be made for the foundations of piers where the ground is soft for some depth, or loose water-bearing strata are encotmtered, and especially where the piers of large bridges crossing rivers have to be constructed under water. In soft ground, bearing piles driven down to a firm stratum, and surmounted by a planked floor or a layer of concrete, provide a convenient foundation for a pier; and in places where timber is abundant, wooden cribs filled with rubble stone or concrete have been used in the United States for raising the foundations for piers out of water. ”

“ A large breadth is allowed for the embankment on the sea-side, with facing mound of stone from the rocky point near the Red Stone to within 600 feet of the Point of Helbre. The head of this pier to be of rough stone, rounded off, and carefully paved. A pier head is to be built in Helbre of 300 feet in length, leaving an opening of 300 feet into the tide harbour, which is fifty147 acres in extent, and to be cleared to at least low water of a spring-tide, and preserved of that depth by scouring. ”

“ Some forty yards to the left of the cascade an irregularly shaped rocky ledge extends from the beach some way out into the deep water beyond the beach, and thus forms a natural pier. I had often found it quite an easy matter to land here when to do so anywhere else would be impossible; for, as a rule, the seas do not break until they have rolled some way inside the end of this point; so that, by approaching it carefully, and waiting till the boat is on the summit of a wave and near the level of the top of the rock, one can leap or scramble on to it with the exercise of a little agility. ”

“ Both piers are long, and are well constructed of solid masonry, with a parapet and roadway; there being large mooring stones, with holes through their extremities, fixed solidly into the inner or quay walls of each pier. Upon the whole this is a substantial work, although, as the piers are curved, they are badly adapted for breaking the waves on the outside, and for preserving tranquillity within the harbour. The whole space within and without the piers was filled up with sand to within two feet of the quay walls. It is a common error, even at the present day, to make curved piers ”

“ For each of the two archways, take two thin sticks of wood and stand them at the top outward edge of the pier, with ends braced together at the top, and spread out at the bottom, as in the photograph.
Use either natural or tissue-paper trees stuck into empty spools for foliage, or little toy trees, if you happen to have them among the children's store toys. [72]
Though the bridge is not intended to be over real water, you might try the experiment and strengthen the hollow piers by filling them with stones, when building the bridge out-of-doors. ”

“ The principal Triforium-piers generally exhibit a row of light shafts on the face of a solid pier, carrying arch-mouldings of three orders, and separated sometimes by a line of dog-tooth moulding, or stiff foliage. ”

“ The pier, which is one thousand one hundred and thirty-four feet long, and thirteen feet wide, with a neat cast-iron railing on each side, is supported by eight chains, each containing one hundred and seventeen links, ten feet long, six and a quarter in circumference, and weighing one hundred and twelve pounds, which are made fast in the cliff. ”

“ His stateroom baggage contained no dutiable articles save the gown in question and a few trinkets for Rosie, who was at the pier to greet him. Indeed, she bestowed on him a series of kisses that reechoed down the long pier, and Abe's pallor gave way to the sunburnt hue of his amused fellow-passengers. In one of them Abe recognized with a start the tanned features of the young lady of the Café de la Paix.
"Moe," he said, nudging Griesman, "there's your friend."
Moe turned in the direction indicated by Abe, and his interested manner was not unnoticed by Mrs. Potash. ”

“ To begin then: a deep and solid stone foundation is laid in the earth, and a massive pier of masonry is built up on it. A heavy block of granite forms the summit of this pier, and on this block rests the equatorial telescope. Around this structure a circular tower is built, with two or more floors which come close up to the pier, but do not touch it at any point. It is crowned with a hemispherical dome, which, I may remark, half realizes the idea of my egg-shell studio. This dome is cleft from its base to its summit by a narrow, ribbon-like opening, through which is seen the naked sky. ”

“ Occasionally we venture down upon the pier to see the boats make the harbour, which, not a little to our disappointment, they never fail to do. There are huge buttresses of stone against the pier-head, behind which the new comer imagines he may crouch in perfect safety, till the third wave comes in and convinces him to the contrary. ”

“ Genêts. The Romanesque transept crossing. One of the tower piers. Two sides have a flat non-molded surface. On the other two sides, the arches are received by two attached twin columns on a backwall. In one corner, an attached column receives the spring of one arris of the vault. The carved basket capitals are topped by a thick square abacus. The square bases are topped by a double torus. The pier itself rests on a broader square base. The other three pillars are perfectly symmetrical to this one. Photo by Claude Rayon. [Claude-45]
150. ”