cannot do this, or our piers are unsafe. We have but
one other resource, to fill them up until we have a floor wide enough to
let us pass easily: this we may perhaps obtain at the first ledge, we
are nearly sure to get it at the second, and we may then obtain access
to the raised interval, either by raising the earth over the lower
courses of foundation, or by steps round the entire building.

Fig. XI. is the arrangement of Fig. X. so treated.

[Illustration: Fig. XI.]

Sec. VII. But suppose the pillars are so vast that the lowest chink in
Fig. X. would be quite wide enough to let us pass through it. Is there
then any reason for filling it up? Yes. It will be remembered that in
Chap. IV. Sec. VIII. the chief reason for the wide foundation of the
wall was stated to be "that it might equalise its pressure over a large
surface;" but when the foundation is cut to pieces as in Fig. X., the
pressure is thrown on a succession of narrowed and detached spaces of
that surface. If the ground is in some places more disposed to yield than
in others, the piers in those places will sink more than the rest, and
this distortion of the system will be probably of more importance in
pillars than in a wall, because the adjustment of the weight above is more
delicate; we thus actually want the _weight_ of the stones between the
pillars, in order that the whole foundation may be bonded into one, and
sink together if it sink at all: and the more massy the pillars, the
more we shall need to fill the intervals of their foundations. In the
best form of Greek architecture, the intervals are filled up to the root
of the shaft, and the columns have no independent base; they stand on
the even floor of their foundation.

Sec. VIII. Such a structure is not only admissible, but, when the column
is of great thickness in proportion to its height, and the sufficient
firmness, either of the ground or prepared floor, is evident, it is the
best of all, having a strange dignity in its excessive simplicity. It
is, or ought to be, connected in our minds with the deep meaning of
primeval memorial. "And Jacob took the stone that he had put for his
pillow, and set it up for a pillar." I do not fancy that he put a base
for it first. If you try to put a base to the rock-piers of Stonehenge,
you will hardly find them improved; and two of the most perfect
buildings in the world, the Parthenon and Ducal palace of Venice, have
no bases to their pillars: the latter ha