London, June 10.
Just before the war St. Paul's, as a result of a special appeal to the public, raised £70,000 towards the cost of repairs which were urgently needed. The money has all been spent, and a further appeal will be essential.
No one has ever agreed as to whether St. Paul's Cathedral is in danger or not, but everyone does agree that it is showing signs of eld age, and that unless it is nurse ed very carefully, there is little possibility of the ' structure going down the centuries to come. Wren was a great architect, and he carried out a building which not a single architect. could face nowadays, so vast is the mass of masonry carried on the eight great piers. But he worked under difficulties, and it is unfortunately only too true that a good deal of the construction was scamped. In fact, it would be hardly too much to say that. portions of the structure are jerry built.
In the first place, Wren could not carry the foundations deep enough. St. Paul's rests on about 8 ft. of earth, below which there is about two dozen fect of wet sand, at the end of which comes the London clay. Wren carried the foundations down to a large extent through the earth, but either through the cost or insufficient apphanoes, he abstained from cartying them through the wet sand ich we should have done nowadays. As a result, the Cathedral authorities are always on tenter hooks as to whether anyone will dry off the water in this sand, in which case the building would rest on ery shifting foundation. They therefore oppose, and always will oppose the construction in the ieinity of any underground railly. big sewer, or warehouse, needing a specially deep foundation. So long as the water remains where it now is, there need be less ground for anxiety although the 'S authorities contend that it would be safer to begin at once underpinning the Cathedral as was recently thie ease at Winchester.
Tur Lack or Stoxe.
Not having enough money jor the foundation the Cathedral authorities commenced operations by strengthening the piers. Wren could not get as much stone as he needed, partly because of the cost and partly because of the difficulties in those days of transporting it by sea from Portland. He, therefore, faced the piers with' stones and filled in the interior with rubble. As a result the vast mass of masonry beneath the Cross of St. Paul's rests on a thin outer shell of stone, which is proving unable to carry' the weight, and is cracking badly. To cope with this, the authorities are cutting out sections of the face of the stone, and foreing in conerete, partly by infltration, and partly by using compress sed air. They then reface the front of the piers from which the stone had been taken away, and add new carving on the lines' of the old. The south pier has just been com-letely treated; the southwest pier is now being treated, and should be finished this year, while the northeast pier, which is in a bad state, will next be taken in hand.
Wastep 4 Mitrronsrre, Probably all the piers will have to be so treated, and in view of the cost of labour and material, it will require some £500,000 at least.
The authorities are, therefore, waiting for a millionaire with generous instincts, though they point with not a little pride to the fact that the public last year visiting the Cathedral contributed mostly in coppers to the Repairing Fund Boxes dotted about the structure the sum of £2,000. Donations are, by the way, frequently made te the Cathedral; the authorities have just declined an offer of glass windows for the nave, which would have cost £18,000, and they did so because it would have darkened the interior of the structure too much.
Unfortunately, it is not only the piers which require attention. Some of the buttresses are badly cracking. These do not, however, carry any of the weight. of the superstructure, and their repair though taken in hand is not so essential.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.