The reduction of the octagon to the circle is facilitated by giving the spandrels between the arches the necessary concave surface; and this stage is finished off with a cantilever cornice, the work (at least in part) of one Jonathan Maine. The eight great keystones of the arches by Caius Gabriel Cibber are seven feet by five, and eighteen inches in relief.
=The Whispering Gallery= is almost exactly a hundred feet from the pavement, and curiously enough about the same distance across. We are still, be it understood, below the level of the apex of the exterior roof, and the Cross is quite two hundred and sixty feet above us. The gallery projects so that the lectern steps and the pulpit are underneath. The attendant whispering across the whole area can be distinctly heard, an acoustic property seemingly caused by the nearness of the concave hemisphere above.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE DOME. _From an engraving by G. Coney in Sir H. Ellis' edition of Dugdale's St. Paul's._]
=The Drum.=--The actual bend inwards now begins, but for this part only in straight lines.[99] First comes the plain band or PODIUM, panelled and of a height of twenty feet. On this stand thirty-two composite pilasters, in reality, as well as in appearance, out of the horizontal. Three out of each four intervening spaces are pierced with square-headed windows; and from them such light as the dome possesses, streams down through the windows of the exterior colonnade. The alternate fourth recesses, apparently nothing more than ornamental niches, conceal the supports which bear the weight above. In the recent scheme of decoration they have been filled with statues of Early Fathers--the four eastern, SS. Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, and Athanasius; and the four western, SS. Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, and Gregory. If the light allows, the Podium, at present bare, is a suitable place for mosaics.
=The Cupola.=--So, for want of a better name, we will call the topmost section or inner roof of brick, two bricks thick. Here the straight lines bearing inwards give way to the sphere; and here, too, the three separate coverings, which constitute the dome, begin. The circular opening below the lantern coincides with the lower edge of the fluting of the exterior shell, and is about two hundred and fifteen feet from the pavement.[100]
