Читать книгу The Evacuation of England: The Twist in the Gulf Stream онлайн

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“Again it is clear that a pile of bricks, or of any other superimposed building blocks is the more secure, in its equilibrium, if the component parts overlie each other, along the broadest surfaces, and come in contact, or fit, as we say, in parallel position. If these bricks succeed each other in lines of brick that are flat, and then in lines that are vertical, or placed on their thinnest and narrowest edges, and these two contrasted positions alternate, or are irregularly disposed with reference to each other in the same wall, such a construction implies, involves, elements of weakness, and under the shock of any incident force would succumb in ruin more quickly, and more irretrievably than the former. If further, the latter building style had suffered ruptures and dislocations and the gaps or openings and broken surfaces of contact between its parts had been invaded or replaced by an irregular or incongruous assortment of ‘filling,’ differing from the original bricks in substance, texture and hardness, then we have a third pattern of composition that again is weaker than either of its predecessors. But further. If this least massive and most vulnerable type of structure has been subjected to repeated and considerable strains of elevation and depression, and strains recurrent at short intervals, then, without inspection, we know that its interior coherence has been much shattered, and that it has undergone a progressive dilapidation.