The grand cathedral of St. Paul, London, was
threatened by a "tube," and only saved by vigorous protest from having
its foundations jarred and shaken by rumbling trains in the bowels of
the earth. Moreover, by sewers and drains the earth is made devoid of
moisture, and therefore is liable to crack and crumble, and to disturb
the foundations of ponderous buildings. St. Paul's still causes
anxiety on this account, and requires all the care and vigilance of
the skilful architect who guards it.
The old Norman builders loved a central tower, which they built low
and squat. Happily they built surely and well, firmly and solidly, as
their successors loved to pile course upon course upon their Norman
towers, to raise a massive superstructure, and often crown them with a
lofty, graceful, but heavy spire. No wonder the early masonry has, at
times, protested against this additional weight, and many mighty
central towers and spires have fallen and brought ruin on the
surrounding stonework. So it happened at Chichester and in several
other noble churches. St. Alban's tower very nearly fell. There the
ingenuity of destroyers and vandals at the Dissolution had dug a hole
and removed the earth from under one of the piers, hoping that it
would collapse. The old tower held on for three hundred years, and
then the mighty mass began to give way, and Sir Gilbert Scott tells
the story of its reparation in 1870, of the triumphs of the skill of
modern builders, and their bravery and resolution in saving the fall
of that great tower.
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