The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-20
SAVING A CATHEDRAL.
Diver at Work Under the Walls of
 Winchester.

e-A~ " NeNAAo Dl e 1eANAANe4 eAA 5OulluS 4lAi- possible and lncogruous. The sight may be witnessed, however, almost any day at Winchester. The magnii- cent cathedral, which represents in it's stately proportions the changes through which ecclesiastical architec- ture passed between the Roman Con- quest and the Reformation, is, as all England is aware, now in danger.
 The ancient builders, with all their cleyerness, sometimes made mistakes. They made a most serious one when they came to build the eastern portion of Winchester Cathedral in the time of Bishop Godfrey de Lucy Q1S9120D, The foundations of the retro-choir and the Lady Chapel are dangerously insecure, being laid, in fact, upon nothing more substantial than peat and. water. And it is in the important work of underpinning the buttresses which support the walls of the build ing that the diver plays just now a necessary park,
 The subsistence of the east end of the cathedral, as the Dean of Win chester pointed out in a recent ap- peal is no new thing. During at least four hundred years there has been from time to time, a settlement of this portion of the building, and the marked. Proofs of this are apparent to any one who examines the Interior of the cathedral and the crypt, for cracks in the masonry, walls out of the perpendicular, vaultings all askew land columns stained with moisture are to be seen here and there Most alarming of all are two serious cracks in the roof, due undoubtedly to the sinking of the walls.
 The cause of the mischief, in the opinion of experts who have been con- suited, is attributable partly to the insufficient buttressing of the vault ing and partly to the untrustworthy foundation The latter is, in fact, a bed of soft mari, only ten feet below the surface. This bed is very thin, and beneath it is a mixture of peat and gravel, It is nit, in fact, until depth of sixteen feet Is reached that solid stratum is arrived at--a hard bed of gravel. at least six feet thick, and probably more.
 These facts have been placed on re- cord by T. G. Jackson, R. A., under whose directions the work of preserva- tion Is now being conducted. In Mir. Jacksons opinion the builders of the cathedral were deterred from carehing this fine foundation by the water, which in exceptionally dry weather stands four feet above it, and has been known to rise to nine or ten feet.
 | The mediaval architects chose what was in their view the best possible foundatison in building on the msrly 1 gravel, but the results are now seen to have been not very satisfactory. They strengthened their foundations, as they though by placing below the masonery horizontal layers of beech trees and filling in the interstices with chalk and flints. These contrivances were not sufficient to prevent the gradual sinking, through succeeding centuries, of the heavy mass of ma sorry.
 l The work of underpinning the walls of the retro-choir, and thus rendering secure the edifice of Bishop de Lucy, is one of considerable difficulty. It is necessary, first, to remove the peat which lies under the marly bed, and to fill In the vacuum thus created with concrete. Then, between the bed of concrete and the masonry a solid mass of bricks in concrete takes the place of the mari and of the thirteenth century beech trees, some of which, as the fragments brought to the sur face show, are still well preserved. 1 This is hew the work Is done. A hole lis dug close to the foundation, down to the peat; when this is reached the hole is continued under the main wall lnine feet front the front, and the timber, flints, etc., are removed down to the top of the peat As soon as this point is reached the water fills the hole to a depth of six or seven feet.
 Now comes the turn of the diver. Tn his india rubber working suit with metal helmet, he descends the shaft and scoops out the remaining peat which he sends up in iron buckets This done, he receives from the work men above bags of cement concrete
 well grouted These he places on the surface of the gravel, for the purpose of preventing the water from continu- ing to rise.
 When he has got the bags into posi- ton he slits them open, on the tor of them he places another layer, and above that another. When three or four feet of concrete have thus been laid down, liquid cement is forced in by the grouting machine, filling uI the interstices and binding the con. crete into solid mass. Over this
 the bricklayers courses of hard bricks
 with cement, and the underpinning is
 complete.
 This underpinning is the most i'm
 portant part of the work of restora-
 tion or preservation, but there are
 other highly necessary repairs also
 being carried out The interior of the
 retro-choir for instance. is now filled
 with scaffolding, required for the ust
 of the men engaged In remedying the
 damage to the walls and roof The ex.
 terior of the west end of the nave, too
 is almost hidden by woodwork for the pinnacles and towers have become un
 safe through the disintegration of thu
 Caen stone which was used in thu
 restoration" of half century ago.
 It is considered possible that thu
 whole of the work will cost something
 like G5O,OO0, and of this less than hal
 has been promised so far. The "Fa bric Fund should benefit consider