372
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
the street, unless they are counterpoised by a certain weight, or are tied down by irons, built firmly into the interior of the wall. In Paris, to avoid all danger from such causes, these stones are required by law to rest upon the whole width of the wall, and in no case project more than the thickness of this w T all at its upper portion. Now, v T here the wall is but eighteen inches or a foot thick, the cornice can also have no greater projection ; and this is insufficient to produce much effect. In Vienna, with thicker walls, wider cornices can be made; and those of three and even four feet projection are frequent. The laws of harmony and taste require that this projection of the main cornice should govern all other projections upon the fronts,—such as of window-cappings, subordinate cornices, etc., all of which are made less than the first. Thus in Paris there is a lack of relief in the general street architecture, which is not found in the newer Vienna. In this connection,—now that the matter of cornices is under consideration,—I wish to call attention to a certain matter connected with the late fire in Boston. Although not present there at that time, I have understood that the large stones forming the cornices of buildings toppled over into the streets at an early period in the conflagration. Before the existence of the present building laws of Vienna, which are recognized as among the best on the continent, such accidents also occurred here, and were occasioned by holding these stones in place on the wall simply by the weight of the roof resting upon them. Upon the burning of the latter, there remained nothing to counterpoise the weight of the projecting portion of these stones, and they necessarily fell. At present, they must be tied in place with irons, -which are built into the wall and anchored six to twelve feet below the cornice. Whether these stones fell in Boston from a similar cause to that referred to, or whether the walls, from insufficient thickness, crumbled beneath them, is to me unkno-wn. When a fire occurs in the roof of a Viennese house, the wood simply burns away, without disquieting or affecting the dwellers in the lower stories, and the fire then ceases from want of fuel. I remember, last year, trying to discover a house upon the lling where the roof had thus been burnt, and found nothing in the exterior appearance of the building to indicate that a