effect, it is often treated otherwise in external appearance, being decorated by pendants giving a reversed curve at this point, but which of course are only ornamental features hung from the roof. If we look again at Fig. 104, we shall see that this was a very natural transition after all, for the arrangement of the ribs and vaulting surfaces in that example is manifestly suggestive of a form radiating round the central point of springing, though it only suggests that, and does not completely realize it. But here came a further and very curious change in the method of building the vault, for as the ribs were made more numerous, for richness of effect, in this form of vaulting, it was discovered that it was much easier to build the whole as a solid face of masonry, working the ribs on the face of it. Thus the ribs, which in the intermediate period were the constructive framework of the vault, in the final form of fan vaulting came back to their original use as merely a form of architectural expression, meant to carry on the architectural lines of the design; and they perform, on a larger scale and with a different expression, much the same kind of function which the fluting lines performed in the Greek column. The fan vault is therefore a kind of inverted dome, built up in courses on much the same principle as a dome, but a convex curve internally, instead of a concave one, the whole forming a series of inverted conoid forms abutting against the wall at the foot and against each other at their upper margins. This form of roof is wonderfully rich in effect, and has the appearance of being a piece of purely artistic work done for the pleasure of seeing it; yet, as we have seen, it is in reality, like almost everything good in architecture, the logical outcome of a contention with structural problems.