The distinguishing gables--so often mentioned, and intimately associated with house development--exhibit infinite varieties of treatment. Between the early stepped shapes, and the fantastic outlines of later days, there is an innumerable succession. They followed the trend of design prevalent at the time of their erection. Thus, the two gables, from Kampen (page 104) and Dordrecht (page 107), are in keeping with the current forms of the late Gothic period. They are both built of stone and decorated on the face with sunk panels and carvings. The Kampen gable has pinnacles rising from the coping of the steps, usual features in work of the time; while the twisted finials at Dordrecht, associated with the first quarter of the sixteenth century, are worthy of notice. It is impossible to consider here in detail the numerous vicissitudes through which the development of the gable passed during the many years that Gothic and Renaissance motives were acting together as guiding influences. Roughly and briefly, mediæval character was observed in respect to construction and general management of masses--evident by the stepped and curved gables--with a marked tendency to Classic feeling in the handling of details. Work was carried out wholly in brick, or in brick relieved by stone. Among the large number of different outlines that are in evidence, those based on the original stepped form show predominantly. But the spirit of the times is discernible in the culminating pediments, mouldings, and stone decorations. Four typical gables, all sketched in North Holland, are illustrated (pages 106 and 109). A good example of shaping, achieved by the use of oppositive curves, is that from Arnhem (page 108), and the stonework of the copings extends to the strapwork ornament. Two gables from Leiden (page 109) are well carried out in brickwork. How effectively window-heads and copings were handled, yet withal in a perfectly workmanlike way, is demonstrated by the larger drawing; the brickwork is flush and obliquely tailed into the horizontal courses of the wall. Long sweeping curves were much employed in the shaping of later gables. The house opposite the bridge in the Franeker illustration (page 113) has such a gable, and it is dated 1735. Another, from Amsterdam (page 110), has similar characteristics. Both are enriched with stone representations of fruit and flowers, vases and festoons, all quite in the spirit of late seventeenth and eighteenth-century work.