JEFFERSON'S WALL SIR,—Mr. Edinger's poetic interpretation of Thomas Jefferson's serpentine
wall (The Spectator, August 25th) is a good story. Some of your readers might be interested in the true but prosaic interpretation.
Build a straight-line wall, six feet high, of single courses of bricks only. It will have small resistance to lateral shocks or pressures ; it could be tumbled over by a playful billy-goat. Build another wall, in every way similar, except that it follows a mildly serpentine line on the ground, with bulges or waves six feet apart, or so. Try to push this one over. It is the principle of the arch, laid horizontal.
With considerable economy of both material and labour you have a wall equivalent if not superior in strength to one built in a straight line with double courses of brick. It is said that Mr. Jefferson devised the scheme.—Yours, Kendal Green, Massachusetts.
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