Piers

“ The piers terminate in hexagonal pinnacles, while the tower, as well as the rest of the front, is finished with a battlement. The later blocking up of this, as well as the superimposed roofing,{85} is very evident and disturbing. All the angles of buttresses, of windows, arches, splays, and pyramids,—those also crowning the bulky piers that meet the flying buttresses,—are characteristically and uniquely decorated with an ornamentation of balls. It softens the hard lines, splashing the surface with infinite series of small, sharp shadows and making it sparkle with life and light. ”

“ I forget how many piers Atlantic City has, but it is unusually rich in these structures, and I have no doubt that the builders of them were wise. A pier makes an irresistible appeal to the pleasure-seeker. He would rather dance on a pier, under proper shelter, of course, and on a good floor, than in a well-appointed salon on solid land. He would rather eat ices on a pier than in an ordinary shop, though he has to pay more for them, the cost of the ice being the same and the two pence for entry into the enchanted region being an extra. ”

“ It is to see the work-worn look of the mothers, the squalor of the babes, the haggish ugliness of the old women, the slovenly frowziness of the young girls. All this makes you hasten your pace down to the river, where the tall buildings break and dwindle into stables and shanties of wood, and finally end in the piers, commanding the whole stretch of the mighty waterway with its shipping, and the wooded heights of its western bank. ”

“ Outside the piers and beyond the bar the waves seem to be miles long, and when they narrow themselves to enter the river they rise to a height so appalling that the topmasts of a sailing-ship running for shelter may, with every dip the vessel makes, be lost to the view of those on shore. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They represent the position of the many piers within the building and are necessary as points of support for the elevation and security of the whole. At the same time they further make apparent on the outside, so far as interval, number, and other features are concerned, the rows of piers on the inside, albeit they do not exactly reproduce the shape of the interior piers, but the higher they mount up become reduced in the strength of their springing buttresses. ”

“ When the piers are placed parallel with the current of the river they are parallel with one another, and the faces of the piers may properly be considered as so many parallel planes. The spans of the bridge are to be not less than 160 feet in length in the clear on each side of the pivot-pier of the draw,-that is, from the face of the central pier to the face of the next adjacent pier must be a distance of not less than 160 feet in the clear. ”

“ The bases of the piers vary greatly in form—none of them being of Roman design, but all set upon a great square block. The caps of the cylindrical piers differ considerably, but consist of large mouldings, with corbels and billet ornaments. The pier arches are circular, and the aisles lofty, and vaulted with round arches. Rising from the caps of the cylindrical piers are short columns, the caps of which carry the pointed transverse ribs of the tunnel vault of the nave, which is also pointed, and probably belongs to the twelfth century. ”

“ This pier is constructed in a peculiar manner of pozzolana mixed up with irregular-shaped pieces of brick, marble, and tufa, or volcanic stone. The piers were formed by enclosing the space in a wooden dam or box, then filling it with the materials above mentioned, which after a short time set under water, and became [148] a solid mass; the cofferdam was then removed and the pier left standing; then another was constructed in the same manner, until the required number were completed; upon these piers arches were built, and upon the top of them a roadway and parapet were constructed. ”

“ All the piers and wharves are called "docks" by the people. Those which are semi-public and are rented to miscellaneous excursion and river steamers are crowded nightly.
The wharf to which our couple strolled was a mere flooring above the water, edged with a stout string-piece, which formed a bench for the mothers. They were there in groups, some seated on the string-piece with babes in arms or with perambulators before them, and others, facing these, standing and joining in the gossip, and swaying to and fro to soothe their little ones. ”

“ The chief peculiarity of the dock is the form of construction adopted for the sides. Piers of brickwork, 10 feet long and 2 feet 3 inches thick, are placed at right angles to the sides of the dock at intervals of 26 feet. The backs of these piers are connected by horizontal arches, carried up with a curved batter. The piers are about 20 feet high, and arches are turned upon them, which support the front part of the quay, and meet the horizontal arches at the backs of the piers. ”

“ The seven spans from pier 3 to south cantilever end pier were all built on staging erected between the piers, and rising to a few feet above the masonry, in order to allow the lifting rams and lifting girders to be placed between piers and viaduct girders.
Piers 3 to 5 had been brought up to level 18 ft. above high water early in January, 1884, pier 6 in March, 1884, pier 7 in October, 1884, pier 8 and cantilever pier in February, 1885, and pier 9 in June, 1885. ”

“ The piers are similarly treated. The clustered shafts give place to mouldings, and the caps become carved with running ornament. The plan of the piers is frequently that of a lozenge. A four-centred arch, forming an ogee or reversed curve, is now introduced in water tables over doorways. ”

“ The whole front was richly ornamented in stucco, and the corner piers are covered with hieroglyphics, each of which contains 96 squares. The four piers are ornamented with human figures, two on each side, facing each other, which are represented in the following engravings in the order in which they stand upon the piers.
The first, No. 60, is that of a woman with a child in her arms; at least we suppose it to be intended for a woman from the dress. It is enclosed by an elaborate border, and stands on a rich ornament. The head is destroyed. ”

“ Those parts of the piers from immediately below the springing of the arches to a point above the top of the main solid ribs of the arches were composed of large blocks of stone set nearly vertically, breaking bond laterally and vertically with each other, and in the centre of this part of the piers there was a set of keystones 12 feet long and 2 feet thick, tapering on each side, forming so many stone wedges. ”

“ Likewise in houses where piers are used in the construction, when there are arches composed of voussoirs with joints radiating to the centre, the outermost piers at these points must be made broader than the others, so that they may have the strength to resist when the wedges, under the pressure of the load of the walls, begin to press along their joints towards the centre, and thus to thrust out the abutments. ”

“ Beneath the Suspension Bridge across the Menai Strait in Wales, close to one of the main piers, is a remarkably fine echo. The sound of a blow on the pier with a hammer is returned in succession from each of the cross-beams which support the road-way, and from the opposite pier at a distance of 576 feet; and in addition to this, the sound is many times repeated between the water and the road-way. ”

“ Often piers and arches were of the same width—a waste of labour and material, as well as of space in the waterway. Even the Romans, though their piers were less bulky, impeded the current of rivers with too much stone; and to save their work from the floods which they provoked, they built relief bays for spate water above that part of their piers where adequate resistance had been obtained against the lateral thrust of heavy arches. ”

“ The remedy for this is always to build thick piers under the wall which is slipping, with arches from one to another, and with a good scarp and let the piers have a firm foundation in the strata so that they may not break away from them. ”

“ Seamen sometimes call a pier a dock, but a dock is really the water between piers.
A hatch or hatchway is an opening in the deck of a vessel. People can go down a hatch, and so can cargo. Big strong poles called booms raise and lower cargo through hatches. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Mr. Babbage found, on the sixth pier, perforations of lithodomi four feet above the level of the sea; and, near the termination of the mole on the last pier but one, marks of the same, ten feet above the level of the sea, together with great numbers of balani and flustra. The depth of the sea, at a very small distance from most of the piers, is from thirty to fifty feet. ”

“ There is nothing here to attract the eye of the traveller, unless it be the harbour with its two piers—one 3,530, the other 3,123 feet long—where the inhabitants can go and breathe the sea air, away from the noise and smoke of the town. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 waterway was straightened and narrowed so as to confine and accelerate the current and thus concentrate its force to scour away the bar. In 1861 it was decided to replace the temporary constructions by permanent piers which should extend into the deeper water of the Black Sea. ”

“ To accomplish this very strong airtight steel or wooden boxes with flat tops and no bottoms are set on the pier sites at ground water level and pumped full of compressed air while men enter them and excavating the soil, undermine them, so they sink, until they land on the rock and are filled solid with concrete to form the bases of the foundation piers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”