South Tower Research Articles

Golden Gate Bridge

INSTRUMENTS have recently been installed on the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco for accurate recording of movements that occur under wind loads (Earthquake Notes, 14, Nos. 1 and 2 ; 1942). These include a wind velocity recorder, a wind directional recorder and a non-sensitive recording seismograph. Vertical and horizontal graduated boards at midspan will facilitate observations with a transit to measure movement in these two planes. The wind vane and anemometer are mounted on a structural steel platform on the west or ocean side of the bridge at midspan. Both these instruments are electrically connected to motor-driven recording units in the east leg of the south tower. At this point a 24-hour continuous record is maintained from the two wind instruments and the seismograph. With these records it is expected that useful information will be obtained as to the various movements caused under different wind conditions ; for example, as in the case of a 72 m. p. h. wind such as was recorded during a storm in 1938.

Colour Television at the Dominion Theatre, London

ON February 4, a surprise item was introduced into the regular programme of the Dominion Picture Theatre, London. At 8 p.m. an experimental demonstration of Baird colour television was effected for the first time in public. The sending station was the South Tower of the Crystal Palace, the wave-length employed being 8·3 metres. The quality of the pictures was naturally much inferior to those with which the present-day viewer is familiar: only 120 scanning lines being used as compared with the 400 lines now employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The projected picture was twelve feet by nine feet and could be clearly seen by everyone in this large theatre. It was illuminated by a high-intensity arc lamp. The programme included the transmission of fashion plates of ladies hats ; the various coloured flowers were quite brilliant and the gaily and variegated headgear sometimes used by officers abroad came out very distinctly. A coloured cartoon of Popeye the Sailor caused much amusement. Colour television is still in the early stages of development, but the transmission was very successful and the unexpected show was well received by the spectators.

Verulamium and Colchester

RESUMPTION of the work of excavation on the pre-Roman and Roman sites at St. Albans and Colchester has already been marked by noteworthy results, more especially on the latter site. The first reports from Verulamium, which record inter alia the discovery of a mosaic floor of a previously unknown type, are accompanied by the welcome announcement that the Corporation of St. Albans has decided that the site shall be a permanent exhibition of the excavation, and parts of the structures discovered have been prepared for inspection accordingly, while the Office of Works is maintaining the South Tower with its ditches as an example of the system of defences of the second Roman city. At Colchester, where the Excavation Committee is at work on land adjoining Sheepen Farm, has been found a grave group, concluded to be that of a wealthy Romano-British lady and dated at the middle of the second century A.D., which has afforded some remarkable examples of Romano-British artistry and technique. According to the report which appeared in the Times of August 14, the grave group, which was enclosed in a large globular amphora, included a two-handled cinerary urn, a square metal mirror, a bronze brooch, another brooch with an unusual decoration of bone or ivory knobs, and a casket containing beads, pins, rings and other small objects. Most notable, however, among the contents of the amphora was a vase of Castor ware, with a lid, about three inches high, with a decorative design of a man fighting a lion and hounds chasing stags. The whole is executed in the technique of applied clay paste known as barbotine, which is known to have sprung up in the second century A.D. This is not only the finest, but also the earliest dated example of this form of Romano-British art. A large deposit of glass vessels has also been found. It may be that the excavators are on the track of a local factory of the large amount of glass which has been found at Colchester but up to the present no sign of a kiln has appeared.

A Restoration Study of the Southwest Tower at Chartres

No VISITOR or student of Chartres fails to admire the sturdy old southwest tower of the cathedral, but the satisfaction of the more discerning is somewhat diminished by the way in which the nave shoulders and crowds against it on the northern side. We should know, even if we had not explicit evidence,' that it was designed for a smaller building. The two western towers were, in fact, planned to stand a short distance in front of a spacious basilica dating from 1020 and 1031. The north tower, begun about 1134, is the earlier, but by 1150 both towers had reached the second story level; about 1145 a new fagade for the church was undertaken. This was set deep in the recess between the towers, and included the celebrated Royal Portal. Construction continued on the south tower, which was completed about 1190. Meanwhile the church had been lengthened by relocating the fagade at the front plane of the towers. All of this later work survived the wonderful and miserable fire of 1194, which reduced the church proper to ruins and was the occasion for the building of the existing structure. It was my purpose in making the drawing presented here to show what the appearance of the cathedral might be, had the old basilica with its west front of 1145 come down to us, and in particular to show how magnificent was the profile of the southwest tower when it still stood free. The north spire is an invention, merely representing, more or less, what must have been in the mind of the designer of the other; the drawing of the basilica is as non-committal as possible, owing to the limited data, and it must be confessed that two eleventh-century belfries of uncertain location do not appear; but after all, the purpose of the picture is to show the unsurpassed loveliness of the old spire. KENNETH JOHN CONANT, Harvard University.