Despite the somewhat ornate details of the upper stories and spire, they accord well with the rest of the building, and, although typical Early Decorated of the time of Edward III., fail to clash with the more severe Early English work. These two stories have elaborately canopied arcades running round them, the windows being pierced through two of the arches on each façade and not emphasized by any special treatment. Above each story is a traceried parapet of lozenge decoration, the same design being repeated in the two bands that encircle the spire itself. At each of the four angles of the tower is an octagonal turret with crocketed spire. Amid a coronet of decorated finials the great octagonal spire grows naturally with no abrupt revelation of its change of plan. The whole cresting of the tower, and the perfectly natural way in which its lines continue easily into the graceful spire itself, are triumphs of successful design. The silhouette of the mass against the sky so precisely reaches the ideal effect that it is difficult to restrain oneself to sober criticism in describing it, yet the result is achieved so naturally that until we compare it with others, especially with modern ones, we hardly do justice to the subtle beauty that gives it a right to the supremacy it has won. The timber framework erected as a scaffold during the progress of the building still remains inside the spire and helps to impart strength to it; those curious in such matters will find a mass of information and many plans and drawings of its internal construction in Francis Price's "Antiquities of Salisbury, 1774." In 1762, during the progress of some repairs to the capstone and the addition of a new copper vane, the workmen discovered a wooden box, and inside it a round leaden one 5-½ inches in diameter and 2-¼ inches deep, which contained a piece of woven fabric.[4] This was conjectured to be a relic of the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of the church, which had been deposited there to guard the lofty spire from danger by lightning or tempest. When tested on the 600th anniversary of the building the spire showed, it is said, no further deflection from that registered two centuries earlier. Consequently the settlement in the two western piers being so long at a standstill, and the repeated additions of metal work to strengthen the spire being apparently entirely successful, there seemed no reason to doubt but that in the natural course of events it would remain for many centuries a landmark to its neighbourhood and one of the greatest triumphs of English mediæval workmanship.[5] Richard de Farley, a Wiltshire man, is supposed to have been the architect of the spire; that his artistic instinct was right is evident to-day, but his engineering foresight seems less certain, as in all probability the settlement began almost immediately after the erection. Indeed it is said that the efforts to obtain the canonization of Osmund were started in 1387 to increase the popularity of the cathedral as a place of pilgrimage, and thereby to augment its revenue, so that funds might be forthcoming for the additional work needed to support the tower. Frequent references to miracles at his shrine show that the saint was popularly adored long before his canonization in 1456. A local superstition says the tower was builded on woolpacks. According to Pliny's account, the temple of Diana of Ephesus was made firm with coats or fleeces of wool; but it is inconceivable that bags of wool were employed in either case for the foundation. At Rouen in Normandy a similar legend refers to butter as the foundation of one of the western towers, which tradition, absurd though it be, supplies the idea of a butter tax, which in turn suggests a wool tax, that in such a district as this would have been naturally a profitable source of revenue.