=The Changing Forms of the Hood, the Waist, and the Base.=--The evolution of form in one class of object from one period to another is of exceptional interest. In furniture, in china, in glass, and in silver, the progression of forms is so marked as to give practically a date to each piece. The gate-leg table can be traced from three to twelve legs with double gates. The chair, from its straight oaken back and massive arms to the tapering legs and curves of the satinwood period, runs through stages as definitely marked as though the makers had signed the pieces. Now the stretcher is low, next it becomes higher, then it disappears altogether; or the splats in the back are single, then double, with cane panels, and then again upholstered. The top rail of the chair affords similar delectation to the connoisseur of form changing for a definite reason. The clock-case underwent equal changes in character, not only in its decoration, as we have seen, in marquetry, in lacquer, and in veneers of burr-walnut and mahogany, but its proportions varied. At first, coming as it did in the walnut period, the hood had turned rails, in keeping with the turned rails of the chairs of the time. The hood was square and small, the waist was more slender, and the base in proportion. During the marquetry and the lacquered periods the hood began to grow larger and more dominant. It had a domed superstructure, and the finials or metal terminals were more ornamental and grew in number (see illustrations, pp. 133, 117). The massive character of the early mahogany period, culminating with Chippendale, had its effect on the long clock-case. The hood had a pagoda-like edifice in the Chinese style (see illustration, p. 239), or it had the woodcarver's adoption of architecture, as in the crest of the hood (see illustrations, pp. 145, 117). The rail in the hood had become a Corinthian pillar, and later a pilaster. At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century it had a new form: when it was turned mahogany it stood away from the case, as an ornament apart, rather than a supporting pillar (see illustration, p. 233). This is a noticeable feature in country-made clocks of this period.