thedral, and they have many other unusual features. Taken in
conjunction with the lantern, they produce an effect to be found in no
other Gothic church in the world. In England there are none so wide and
so lofty. In France there are interiors even loftier, but in France the
transepts are seldom a prominent feature of the design. Often they do
not project beyond the outer wall of the aisles of the nave, and oftener
still there is no central tower large enough to allow of a lantern at
all. It is a great piece of good fortune, also, that the five vast
lancets of the north transept end, known as the five sisters, still keep
their beautiful original glass. If we look at these windows and consider
how utterly ineffective they would be if they were glazed with plain
glass, we can understand how little remains of the original beauty of
the interior of Salisbury.

When these transepts were planned, the minster had a Norman nave and
choir, far narrower and smaller in every way than the present nave and
choir. There is no doubt that the transepts were begun with the
intention of rebuilding the whole church. At that time it was not among
the largest of English cathedrals, and the aspiring and ambitious
archbishops naturally desired to have a cathedral worthy of their
position in the church. They therefore planned their transepts without
any regard for the then existing proportions of the rest of the
building, but as it was impossible to rebuild the whole minster at once,
they found it necessary to fit their new transepts on to the older and
smaller nave and choir, and afterwards to fit their new and larger nave
and choir to these transepts. This necessity accounts for and explains
many of the peculiarities of the transepts.

There is one peculiarity in particular, the arrangement of the bays
nearest to the piers supporting the lantern, which must strike every
observant visitor at once, and the explanation of which was only
discovered by the patient and penetrating investigations of Professor
Willis.

For the purpose of explaining this peculiarity of arrangement, the two
bays of the west side of the south transept nearest the south-west pier
supporting the lantern may be taken as an example.

It will be seen that their arrangement is most irregular--in fact, they
can hardly be called bays at all. For instance, the main arch nearest to
the pier is much wider than the main arch next to it, and this latter is
filled with masonry.