How the problem of weight distribution is solved is, indeed, difficult to understand. The builders of these early churches perhaps knew some of the secrets of the Roman architects who at Nimes, in the Temple of the Nymphs, have erected a seemingly miraculous ceiling composed of heavy square stones which are guilty of the misdemeanour of existing in their places "without visible means of support." The feat is accounted for, though it is scarcely made clear, by the fact that on their upper surfaces the stones are cut so that they are thicker and heavier on one side than on the other, and thus the weight is thrown obliquely from stone to stone across the roof, instead of downwards, a method involving elaborate mathematical calculations and perfection of workmanship.
The twentieth century has no monopoly of ingenuity after all!
Maguelonne makes a beautiful, sad picture as one leaves it to pass down to the sea. The blank walls with their arched machicolated abutments—recalling the fortifications of the Papal Palace—look bare and acquainted with adversity in the blinding sunshine. On the side of the lagoons the protecting pines crowd round the building like a sacred grove; and through their branches the sea-wind makes a low, ominous music.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SPIRIT OF THE WILDERNESS
"Sa desolation grandiose ... immense et caillouteuse comme une steppe d'Orient."
Paul Mariéton.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SPIRIT OF THE WILDERNESS