It was left for the Germans to carry this system to its acme of absurdity. Half the merit of the old Round arched Gothic cathedrals on the Rhine consists in their solidity and the repose they display in every part. Their walls and other essential parts are always in themselves sufficient to support the roofs and vaults, and no constructive contrivance is seen anywhere; but when the Germans adopted the pointed style, their builders—they can hardly be called architects—seemed to think that the whole art consisted in supporting the widest possible vaults on the thinnest possible pillars and in constructing the tallest windows with the most attenuated mullions. The consequence is, that though their constructive skill still excites the wonder of the mason or the engineer, the artist or the architect turns from the cold vaults and lean piers of their later cathedrals with a painful feeling of unsatisfied expectation, and wonders why such dimensions and such details should produce a result so utterly unsatisfactory. So many circumstances require to be taken into consideration, that it is impossible to prescribe any general rules in such a subject as this, but the following table will explain to a certain extent the ratio of the area to the points of support in sixteen of the principal buildings of the world.[13] As far as it goes, it tends to prove that the satisfactory architectural effect of a building is nearly in the inverse ratio to the mechanical cleverness displayed in its construction. ----------------------+--------+--------+--------+-------------------- | | |Ratio in| Nearest | Area. | Solids.|Decimals| Vulgar Fractions. ----------------------+--------+--------+--------+-------------------- | Feet. | Feet. | | Hypostyle Hall, Karnac| 63,070 | 18,681 | .296 | Three-tenths. St. Peter’s, Rome |227,000 | 59,308 | .261 | One-fourth. Spires Cathedral | 56,737 | 12,076 | .216 | One-fifth. Sta. Maria, Florence | 81,802 | 17,056 | .201 | One-fifth. Bourges Cathedral | 61,590 | 11,091 | .181 | One-sixth. St. Paul’s, London | 84,311 | 11,311 | .171 | One-sixth. Ste. Geneviève, Paris | 60,287 | 9,269 | .154 | One-sixth. Parthenon, Athens | 23,140 | 4,430 | .148 | One-seventh. Chartres Cathedral | 68,261 | 8,886 | .130 | One-eighth. Salisbury Cathedral | 55,853 | 7,012 | .125 | One-eighth. Paris, Notre Dame | 61,108 | 7,852 | .122 | One-eighth. Temple of Peace | 68,000 | 7,600 | .101 | One-ninth. Milan Cathedral |108,277 | 11,601 | .107 | One-tenth. Cologne Cathedral | 91,164 | 9,554 | .104 | One-tenth. York Cathedral | 72,860 | 7,376 | .101 | One-tenth. St. Ouen, Rouen | 47,107 | 4,637 | .097 | One-tenth. ----------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------------------