jointing of the armour of a tortoise. [Illustration: FIG. 12.] The construction of the wood framing of the greater of these spires is a forest of intricate interlacing timbers, the best authority for which is the article _Flèche_ in Viollet-le-Duc, or Burges’ drawing of Amiens in his volume of careful studies of the Gothic art of France. The most decorated of these lead spires in England--although not very large--is at East Harling in Norfolk. It rises within the stone battlement and has an open stage with wood pinnacles and crocketed “flying buttresses” all covered with lead. The sides of the spire proper, very narrow and acute, have the rolls arranged in lozenges instead of the usual herring-bone or vertical lines, the lozenges are on one side as wide as the face, breaking into a zig-zag above, on another side are smaller lozenges three or four in the width changing into one again above: at the apex is a large finial knob.[8] [8] _See_ drawing in _Sketch Book of Architectural Association_, 1881. Wren’s knowledge of the spire of old St. Paul’s possibly led him to try his hand at leaded spires, and the result in some of the City churches, particularly that one on Ludgate Hill that is such a perfect foil for the great dome of St. Paul’s, shows his usual assured mastery. The spire of St. Olave, Hart Street, is said to have a crystal ball at the apex. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--Barnard’s Inn Hall.] The smaller turrets on college halls are generally covered with lead in an ogee form. Those at Oxford have often a lozenge raised on each face, that on Barnard’s Inn in the City is wholly enveloped in lead. A turret on the alms-houses at Abingdon has large letters and crowns, which are gilt, standing up free on the slanting faces. At Hampton Court there are turret roofs, ogee with crockets and finials and little pinnacles set round at the springing. At Nonsuch leaded turrets surmounted the great octagons at the angles, they were probably much decorated and certainly of considerable size, making very picturesque compositions, as we may see in the rude views of the palace which exist.