Teak

“ The principal value of teak timber for use in warm countries is its extraordinary durability. In India and in Burmah beams of the wood in good preservation are often found in buildings several centuries old, and instances are known of teak beams having lasted more than a thousand years. [4] Being one of the few Indian timbers which are really durable, teak has always been used for buildings, particularly for temples, and in India it has been the chief timber employed for shipbuilding. ”

“ With both wood and iron or steel ships, if the parts which have become deteriorated can be removed and replaced, this is usually worth doing when the deterioration is only local. At the end of the 18th century the preservation of wood was not so well understood as it is at the present day, and teak, one of the most durable of woods, was, in Great Britain at least, little known. ”

“ The largest bamboos too that I ever came across were in this country, and I have cut specimens some nine inches in diameter. The rough leaves of the one and the glossy surface of the other contain a large proportion of silica.
No wood approaches teak for ship-building purposes, as it is easily worked, durable and insect-proof. Most of our old East-Indiamen were composed of it, outliving even those constructed of oak. ”

“ The dye stamps are made of teakwood by an ordinary carpenter, the flat surface of the wood being hollowed out so as to leave ridges which form either a design in curved lines or the outlines of the figures of men, elephants and tigers. ”

“ Plaster, terra-cotta, paint, tiles, wood, iron, and brick, even when united with all the skill of the most exquisite art, cannot long resist the rapid wear and tear of such a humid climate as ours. Those unsubstantial structures, with all their dazzling incrustations, are passed or passing from the earth: nothing is lasting but hard massive stone, impenetrable cement, and scientific combinations. ”

“ The walls and arched roof are as smooth and polished as if they had been wrought by art, and are composed of a fine glittering red and white granite, supported at intervals by columns of a deep blood-red shining porphyry, which, by the reflection of the lights, presents an appearance inconceivably grand. At the extremity of this passage is a sloping wall, formed of a single mass of purple marble, studded with sprigs of rock crystal, which, from the glow of the purple behind, appear like a continued range of amethysts. ”

“ The black oak rafters of the roof, polished as it were by age, meet overhead unconcealed by ceiling. Upon the wall in one place a figure seems at the first glance to be in the act to glide forth like a spectre from the solid stone. ”

“ The columns that support the vaulted roof begin to fade away, and their places are occupied by other forms, which gradually become better defined and stronger, and a tree, a house, or, it may be, a rock, thrusts the columns out of view, and the roof dims into blue sky, chequered with clouds. ”

“ Nevertheless, the casements whose glass was filmy like the eyes of blind men or sometimes diced with sinister gaps; the cracks and fissures in the external fabric; the headless supporters of the family coat; and the roof slowly being torn tile from tile by ivy—did consummate the initial impression. ”

“ The towers at each angle are also in two stages of platforms of open work like gray lace, and finished by a gilded iron flèche shining in the sunlight. Over all is a most prodigal lavishment of lace work in stone, and the result is bewildering. ”

“ The roof is a perfect forest of marble pinnacles, nearly all crammed with most valuable marble statues. The celebrated marble flower-bed contains several thousand flowers, each distinct and each different in design. ”

“ Veins which at the hangingwall and footwall have horn-coloured quartz or marble, but in the middle clayey earth, give some hope; likewise those give hope in which the hangingwall or footwall shows iron-rust coloured earth, and in the middle greasy and sticky earth; also there is hope for those which have at the hanging or footwall that kind of earth which we call “soldiers' earth,” and in the middle black earth or earth which looks as if burnt. ”

“ Each basin is a single, huge block of stone, hollowed out and cut with such exactness that the water, welling up from the bottom, pours over the smooth edges so evenly as to give it the look of a cube of polished glass. ”

“ Great slabs of marble, squared fragments of wall and triangular pieces of roofing, are scattered about, half-buried in the earth. I have often, continued the young man, ‘passed hours at a time in examining the combats and the games, the dances and the processions, the beautiful and ludicrous figures which are sculptured there. ”

“ Can the stories we have all been taught be true? Leaving beauty altogether out of the question, here you are in the midst of the wreck of one of the largest buildings you ever were in. You see that it was built of blocks of white marble; that the columns are formed of these blocks, each some four feet high, and so beautifully fitted together that at the distance of two thousand years you very often cannot find the joints, except where the marble is chipped. ”

“ Below the peat, and at the base and up the sides of the chalk hills, the rock is more or less thickly covered up with beds of gravel and light loam, in which are found the flint implements which have been the subject of so much speculation. ”

“ A narrow walk of planks spans this vaulting, and one creeps forward cautiously above the billows of stone, bending low under the great cross-timbers of the roof, and peering down into abysses masked in blackness. ”

“ The mouth is round like that of a well, and half way down there is a ledge round the mouth; as when they make a well, the upper half is wider, and the lower half, being faced with masonry, is narrower, and ends upwards in a sort of ledge. At times the fire comes out with great fury, and sends forth many stones, that look like great fiery pieces of iron. ”

“ The floors are marble or stucco--the roofs beams of pale blue wood placed transversely, and the whole has an air of agreeable coolness. Every thing is handsome without being gaudy, and admirably adapted for the climate. ”

“ A piece of white marble often forms the centre to some device; where the flooring in a garden happens to be uniform in colour, a pattern is formed by a sprinkling of sand, which seems to lie as a part of the flooring unmoved under a fresh blowing wind.... ”

“ The outside walls shall be faced with slabs or blocks of marble or granite, not less than two feel thick, and fastened together with clamps securely sunk therein,–they shall be carried up flush from the recess of one foot formed at the first floor where the foundation outside wall is reduced to two feet: The floors and landings as well as the roof shall be covered with marble slabs, securely laid in mortar; the slabs on the roof to be twice as thick as those on the floors. ”

“ A tall flight of steep steps rudely fashioned of large unshapen blocks of stone, conducted to the entrance of the hermitage, and the dim light within its hoary, moss-grown, sloping walls is admitted through irregularly formed apertures, pierced through the dense body of the rock, and command magnificent views of the subjacent scenery. ”

“ Stone work, which may be rough and uncemented, but should always be solid, may then be built up at the sides, and covered with a secure coping of stone. A floor and sloping sides of stone work, jointed with the previously described work, and well cemented, or laid in strong clay or mortar, may, with benefit, be carried a few feet beyond the outlet. ”

“ Brick is admirably adapted for the climate of England, and for the frequent manufacturing nuisances of English blue country: for the smoke, which makes marble look like charcoal, and stucco like mud, only renders brick less glaring in its colour ”

“ A beam ran across over our heads, but not out of reach of our arms and our pickaxes—a beam fast at each end in the ruined wall, with ceiling and flooring all ripped away, and a great gap in the roof above, open to the sky. ”

“ Dear Sirs:—During the recent very heavy storms—wind and rain—the roof on my house, put on with Walter’s Patent Tin Shingles, stood the test; not a single leak has ever been discovered, not even around the chimneys, valleys, nor where the roof of the wing butts up against the main building. ”

“ The face of the rock which contains the arch, rises immediately in front, and would effectually prevent the eye from ranging beyond its mighty barrier, did not its center open into the above-mentioned arch, through which is seen a small part of the opposite side of the dale, consisting of a mass of gloomy wood, from the shade of which a huge detached rock, solitary, cragged, and pointed, starts out to a great hight, and forms an object truly sublime. ”

“ On either side innumerable vertical lines lead the eye upward from the richly decorated ground-panels to the gorgeous walls, which are of crystal, for the stone-work is seen only as the framing of the glass, as the division between the windows. ”

“ The first thing that attracted my attention as we neared the shore, was the singular appearance of the roofs of many of the buildings, which I ascertained were covered with tiles. As few of my readers have ever seen a roof covered in this manner, I am induced to describe it. The [Pg 31] tiles are pieces of pottery in the form of half a tube seven or eight inches in diameter, half or three-quarters of an inch thick, and about two feet long. They are unglazed, and burnt as hard as our pottery. ”

“ A thatched and patched roof, with walls of alternate layers of turf and stone, and mid-walls or hallens of clay and straw, quite Egyptian manufacture, were all the go; and if any one, more advanced and uppish than his neighbours, got the length of a stone and clay wall, with a wooden partition within, he was deemed uncommonly appointed, as times went. ”

“ Where the walls of the rooms are bare, the brick-work has a most singular appearance of freshness; the stucco also is very perfect in many parts; but the marble, of which there are evident traces on the walls of the floors, is gone. ”

“ In some places the stalactites, shooting out in all directions, into innumerable small fibres, appear like fret-work along the roof; in others like masses of elegant drapery, extending fold above fold, to the height of thirty or forty feet, from the floor to the roof. ”

“ Once understand this thoroughly, and accept the condition that the body and availing strength of the edifice are to be in brick, and that this under muscular power of brickwork is to be clothed with the defence and the brightness of the marble, as the body of an animal is protected and adorned by its scales or its skin, and all the consequent fitnesses and laws of the structure will be easily discernible. These I shall state in their natural order.
SECTION XXX. LAW I. That the plinths and cornices used for binding the armor are to be light and delicate. ”

“ A single stone from the cornice of the pediment, is sufficient to give the angle of inclination, and consequently the height of the roof. In this way the structure of many beautiful edifices has been accurately determined, when in so ruinous a state as scarcely to have left one stone upon another. ”

“ In this fashion I presently came out upon a larger and higher plateau, carpeted with a uniform, stunted undergrowth, and extending, as flat as a table, to the very edge of a sheer precipice, which rose from it to a height of three or four hundred feet—gnarled, naked rock, showing no vestige of vegetation. ”

“ The walls are all of solid stone, and have no special thickness. If the roofs had been arched there might be empty spaces on each side of the spring of the arch, but they are supported by pillars or walls, with only just space between the floors for the beams of solid stone. ”

“ When everything is in readiness to commence work, a portion of the rough wall surface should be thoroughly saturated with water, and the plaster ground, or intonaco, should be laid on with a wooden trowel, beginning at the top and at an angle of the wall, and large enough in area to constitute a day’s work, or, rather, as much as can be done in about five hours ”

“ But as the stones become harder beneath one's feet, one senses the toil embodied in them. Male and female coolies still trudge over these stony paths, carrying baskets of gravel, tar, or sand higher and higher. ”

“ Any large blank surface may be relieved by a little ingenuity in the selection of the stones for the main walls, introducing, perhaps, some of regular shapes and size, the raised mortar, which may be colored dark or red, marking the joints, or inserting a belt of different color. ”

“ In making large statues, a skeleton framework of wood was often employed, called κίνναβος, or κάναβος, which was covered with solid material,—clay, plaster, brick, pitch, etc., all welded together to form a solid core over which the surface was finished in clay, plaster, pitch, ivory, or gold. ”

“ The stone walls sometimes seen are a sham, the stones being thin slabs nailed on the wooden framework of a house, like tiles or shingles, to rattle down in a harmless shower when the earth heaves and rocks. ”

“ By 'dry walls' are to be understood walls built without mortar or cement, of irregular, unhewn flagstones, so put together, so wedged in one with another, as to stand firm where a cemented wall might give way exposed to the high winds of those elevated regions, the very crevices allowing the blasts to pass through, and so reduce the pressure on the mass. ”

“ As for buildings of limestone or sandstone, like the temples of Thebes, they are always coated.
[113] Apropos of the Temple of Khons, Jollois and Devilliers (Description générale de Thébes, ch. ix.) remark: "It was upon this coat that the hieroglyphs and figures were sculptured.... The contour of the figures is sometimes marked upon the stone beneath, because the depth of the cutting is greater than the thickness of the stucco." ”