manufactures of the United States. (See _U.S.A. Census Reports, 1900,
Manufactures_, part iii. pp. 315-327.)

BUTTRESS (from the O. Fr. _bouteret_, that which bears a thrust, from
_bouter_, to push, cf. Eng. "butt" and "abutment"), masonry projecting from
a wall, provided to give additional strength to the same, and also to
resist the thrust of the roof or wall, especially when concentrated at any
one point. In Roman architecture the plans of the building, where the
vaults were of considerable span and the thrust therefore very great, were
so arranged as to provide cross-walls, dividing the aisles, as in the case
of the Basilica of Maxentius, and, in the Thermae of Rome, the subdivisions
of the less important halls, so that there were no visible buttresses. In
the baths of Diocletian, however, these cross-walls rose to the height of
the great vaulted hall, the tepidarium, and their upper portions were
decorated with niches and pilasters. In a palace at Shuka in Syria,
attributed to the end of the 2nd century A.D., where, in consequence of the
absence of timber, it was necessary to cover over the building with slabs
of stones, these latter were carried on arches thrown across the great
hall, and this necessitated two precautions, viz. the provision of an
abutment inside the building, and of buttresses outside, the earliest
example in which the feature was frankly accepted. In Byzantine work there
were no external buttresses, the plans being arranged to include them in
cross-walls or interior abutments. The buttresses of the early Romanesque
churches were only pilaster strips employed to break up the wall surface
and decorate the exterior. At a slightly later period a greater depth was
given to the lower portion of the buttresses, which was then capped with a
deep sloping weathering. The introduction of ribbed vaulting, extended to
the nave in the 12th century, and the concentration of thrusts on definite
points of the structure, rendered the buttress an absolute necessity, and
from the first this would seem to have been recognized, and the
architectural treatment already given to the Romanesque buttress received
[v.04 p.0892] a remarkable development. The buttresses of the early English
period have considerable projection with two or three sets-off sloped at an
acute angle dividing the stages and crowned by triangular heads; and
slender columns ("buttress shafts") are used at the angle. In later work
pinnacles and niches