Word Finder - pillars

definition

A large post, often used as supporting architecture.

definition

Something resembling such a structure.

example

a pillar of smoke

definition

An essential part of something that provides support.

example

He's a pillar of the community.

definition

A portable ornamental column, formerly carried before a cardinal, as emblematic of his support to the church.

definition

The centre of the volta, ring, or manege ground, around which a horse turns.

Trees and curiously shaped stones were also worshipped, and artificial pillars of wood or stone.

He made new pillars higher and higher, till after ten years he reached the height of sixty feet.

This consisted of eighty square pillars, 7 ft.

The roof is supported on wooden pillars and walls are provided only at the sides.

Sonnin on the site of the older building of the 17th century destroyed by lightning; the interior, which can contain 3000 people, is remarkable for its bold construction, there being no pillars.

Many old houses are also preserved, and in High Street their overhanging upper stories, supported on pillars, form a covered way for foot-passengers.

The Pointed arches rest upon pillars, possibly Norman, and above them, below the Decorated clerestory windows, is a series of semicircular arches with flamboyant tracery, a remarkable feature.

The plan was abandoned for lack of funds, after twelve out of the twenty-four Greek pillars had been erected, but it is perhaps more effective in its unfinished state than if it had been completed.

Crowds of merchants with their hats on transacted business in the aisles, and used the font as a counter upon which to make their payments; lawyers received clients at their several pillars; and masterless serving-men waited to be engaged upon their own particular bench.

In long-wall and in the work of mining pillars the roof will be supported on one side only, the overhanging beds acting as cantilevers.

A similar sacrifice in the shape of pillars is often necessary to support the surface, either to avoid injury to valuable structures or to prevent a flooding of the mine.

As already noted large pillars must always be left to protect shafts, adits and the more important mine-passages necessary for drainage, ventilation and the haulage of mineral.

In the systematic mining of larger deposits, the simplest plan consists in mining large areas by means of numerous working-places under the protection of pillars of mineral left for the purpose, and later mining these pillars systematically, allowing the overlying rock beds to fall and fill the abandoned workings.

In shallow mines the pillars are small and the saving of the mineral of minor importance.

In deep mines the pillars may furnish the bulk of the product, and the control of the fall of the roof, so as to permit the successful extraction of the mineral, demands a well-schemed plan of operation.

In the robbing of pillars, timber is necessary for the support of only a single line of timber and lagging over the level, called the stull.

It is not desirable to leave large areas standing upon pillars in the mine, and as soon as the work on any level is completed the pillar below should be mined out as far as is safe, and the abandoned portion of the mine allowed to cave in and lessen the weight on the pillars elsewhere.

This plan has the advantage of requiring little or no timbering when the mineral is strong enough to stand well in the pillars and when the hanging wall is good.

In this the stoping contracts run vertically, the roof in the working-places, and later to control the fall of the roof while the pillars are mined.

By the use of rock-filling it is even possible to dispense with pillars of mineral; or, if pillars are left, the use of rock-filling greatly facilitates subsequent robbing operations.

With soft material, pillars must be large, even at moderate depths below the surface, and it involves less labour to leave long rectangular pillars than to form numerous Pillar- square ones.

In this method of mining no pillars need be left under the levels, as the rock-filling gives sufficient support to the roof.

The mining of each floor is carried on in sections with small working-places which are first driven of moderate height to their full length and width, leaving a back of ore above and pillars of ore between to support the upper portion of the upper layer or floor.

The bottom-slice caving system of mining begins at the bottom of a hundred-foot block of ground, a floor being excavated under the whole area, leaving pillars of sufficient size to support the ground above.

These pillars are then filled with blast holes which are fired simultaneously, permitting the whole block of ground to the level above to drop. A floor is then reopened in this fallen ore, leaving pillars for temporary support which are blasted out as before.

In the latter case the top-slice caving method will usually be employed for the working of such intervening pillars.

This condition manifests itself, for example, in mine pillars which are subjected to a weight beyond the limit of elasticity of the mineral of which they are composed.

The caving in of mine workings results from the excavation of large areas supported upon pillars of insufficient size.

At first a fall of the roof occurs locally, here and there throughout the mine, and these falls may succeed one another until the settlement of portions of the roof has so far relieved the strain that the remaining areas are supported by the stronger pillars, and by the fallen rock masses.

In 1679 the university was established in the old Cloth Workers' Hall, a building dating from 1317, with long arcades and graceful pillars supporting the upper storeys.

The pillars which support the nave are of marble from Elba and Giglio; those of the side aisles are the spoils of ancient Greek and Roman buildings brought by the Pisan galleys.

A little to the south-west of the town are the remains of a large Roman aqueduct, of which upwards of sixty pillars are still standing.

The nave, dating from the 11th century, is supported by alternate columns and pillars, and contains frescoes of the 11th-14th centuries.

The pillars, architraves, ceilings, panels, and almost every available part of the structure, are covered with arabesques and sculptured figures of dragons, lions, tigers, birds, flowers, and even pictorial compositions with landscapes and figures, deeply carved in solid or open workthe wood sometimes plain, sometimes overlaid with pigment and gilding, as in the panelled ceiling of the chapel of Iyeyasu in Tokyo.

This gallery is sometimes supported upon a deep system of bracketing, corbelled out from the feet of the main pillars.

The ceilings of the loggias are generally sloping, with richly carved roof-timbers showing below at intervals; and quaintly carved braces connect the outer pillars with the main posts of the building.

The whole disposition of pillars, posts, brackets and rafters is harmonically arranged according to some measure of the standard of length.

A very important feature of the faade is the portico or porch-way, which covers the principal steps and is generally formed by producing the central portion of the main roof over the steps and supporting such projection upon isolated wooden pillars braced together near the top with horizontal ties, carved, moulded and otherwise fantastically decorated.

When the temple is of very large dimensions an interior peristyle of pillars is introduced tc assist in supporting the roof, and in such cases each pillar carrim profuse bracketing corresponding to that of the cornice.

The church of Preshute, largely rebuilt, but preserving its Norman pillars, has a curious piscina, and a black basalt font of great size dating from 1100-1150, in which according to a very old tradition King John was baptized.

In it were carved out four chambers or reservoirs all connected and a porch consisting of three pillars between two antae in which the side walls ended.

There are three ancient Romanesque churches, in one of which, San Miguel, some Roman pillars are incorporated.

In the former, which is also known as " post and stall" or "bord and pillar " in the north of England, " pillar and stall " in South Wales, and " stoop and room " in Scotland, the field is divided into strips by numerous openings driven parallel to the main rise headings, called " bords " or " bord gates," which are again divided by cutting through them at intervals, so as to leave a series of pillars arranged chequer-wise over the entire area.

These pillars are left for the support of the roof as the workings advance, so as to keep the mine open and free from waste.

In the oldest form of this class of working, where the size of the pillar is equal to the width of the stall or excavation, about 4 of the whole seam will be removed, the remainder being left in the pillars.

A portion of this may be got by the process known as robbing the pillars, but the coal so obtained is liable to be very much crushed from the pressure of the superincumbent strata.

This accident generally arises from an improper size of pillars; some roofs, however, are so difficult to support that sits take place where the half of the coal is left in pillars.

In the same figure is also shown the method of working whole coal and pillars at the same time, a barrier of two or three ranges of pillars or a rib of solid coal being left between the working in the solid and those in the pillars.

By this method the whole of the coal is got backwards, the main roads being kept in solid coal; the intermediate levels not being driven till they are wanted, a greater amount of support is given, and the pillars are less crushed than is usual in pillar working.

In the South Wales system of working, cross headings are driven from the main roads obliquely across the rise to get a sufficiently easy gradient for horse roads, and from these the stalls are opened out with a narrow entrance, in order to leave support on either side of the road, but afterwards widening to as great a breadth as the seam will allow, leaving pillars of a minimum thickness.