Nicholson, Peter: The student's instructor in drawing and working the five orders of architecture (London, 1823)

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PLATE XX.

OTHER PARTS AT LARGE OF THE FOREGOING, AND
OF THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES.

Fig. l. Profile of the echinus of the capital of the
temple of Theseus to a large scale: this moulding
as well as that of the temple of Minerva is an
hyperbola, or the portion of one: the lower part
from the greatest projection at the top to the bot-
tom, being one of the legs ; the upper part forming
the quirk or recess above, part of the other leg, and
the greatest projection the vertex. It is something
singular that the very ancient mouldings in Grecian
capitals should be of this form, and some of them
quite straight, from one end to the other, which may
be considered as a section of the cone through the
vertex.

Fig. 2. Annulets under the echinus of the capital
of the column. The reader may here observe that
the annulets continue in the general form of the
curve, viz. the recesses in the curve itself, and the
extremities in a line parallel to that curve.

Fig. 3. Profile of the echinus of the capital of the
Doric Portico, as in the following plate ; this mould-
ing is singular, being of an elliptical figure; it is
more than a quadrant. This portico was built while
the government of Athens was in the hands of the
Romans, who were partial to mouldings of a uniform
and bold curvature ; the taste of the Grecians, it ap-
pears, began to blend with that of their conquerors,
hence I account for the elliptic form of this member;

E