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THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW AND AMERICAN BUILDERS’ JOURNAL.


VOL. II.—Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
Samuel Sloan, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.




MONTHLY REVIEW.


THE LONDON BUILDER AND OURSELVES.


In a tolerantly critical notice of the REVIEW recently published in
the _Builder_, we find an effort to substantiate a charge formerly
made by it, and replied to by us, on the subject of “trickery” in the
construction of the exteriors of American buildings. The _Builder_
reiterates the charge and points to Grace Church, New York, in proof
of the truth of it. That marble edifice, he avers, has a wooden spire,
crocketted, etc., painted in imitation of the material of which the
body of the church is constructed. Alas, we must acknowledge the wood.
And we will make a clean breast of it, and still farther acknowledge
that at the time that Grace Church was built, our land of wooden
nutmegs, and other notions, had not an architectural idea beyond the
wooden spire, and that our city and country churches, that aspired
at all, were forced to do so in the national material of the day.
That said sundry spires of wood were _of necessity_, painted, is most
true; and furthermore, white-lead being a great favorite with the
people generally, [when our manners, customs, and tastes were more
immaculate than in these degenerate days of many colors,] that pigment
was the ruling fashion. That the color of the marble, of which Grace
Church’s body is constructed, should be similar to that with which
said ecclesiastical edifice’s spire was coated, is unfortunate; but,
that the resemblance goes to prove any attempt at a _cheat_, we most
strenuously deny. Grace Church is of a by-gone taste,—an architectural
era which we now look back to in order to see, by contrast, how far
we have advanced in architectural construction. Trinity Church, New
York, was the first great effort at a stone spire which our Architects
ventured to rear. And although hundreds have followed its lead, none in
this soaring republic have gone so near to heaven as that yet. But the
thing once effected is sure to be improved upon.

We are not at all abashed then, to own to the _wooden spire painted to
imitate stone_, which crowns the steeple of old Grace Church, New York.
And the less annoyance should it give our most sensitive feelings,
when we reflect that the dome of the great ST. PAUL’S, London, is no
less a delusion and a cheat, it being of wood, coated with lead and
painted on the outside, having a false dome on the inside, considerably
smaller than the external diameter would naturally lead the confiding
observer to expect. The body of St. Paul’s is of stone. Why, according
to the requirements of the _Builder_, is not the dome, like that of the
Pantheon at Rome, likewise of stone?

Do we suppose, for an instant, that Sir Christopher Wren was guilty
of a deliberate cheat in so constructing it? Certainly not. He used
the material which he considered best suited to his purpose and his
means. And so we should, in charity, suppose did the Architect of Grace
Church, New York.

The _Builder_, like too many of our English cousins, who do us the
honor of a visit, falls into error in supposing that wood is generally
used for ornamentation of exteriors. In none of our larger cities is
this the case. And when that critical and usually correct authority
says, “Even the Fifth avenue itself is a sham as to much of its
seeming stone-work,” it displays a melancholy absence of its uniform
discernment, judgment, and sense.

The only other constructive material to be found on the fronts of
the Fifth Avenue, New York, besides marble, brown stone, or pressed
(Philadelphia) brick, is in the gutter, which is either of zinc or
galvanized iron, and forms the upper portion of the cornice.

Porches and Hall-door frontisces, of every style, are of marble or
stone, and never of wood. Pediments and all trimmings around windows
are invariably of stone. In fact we are not a little surprised at the
apparent want of information on this subject by so well posted an
observer as the _Builder_ is acknowledged to be. Some twenty years
ago the taunt might lie most truthfully applied to our efforts at
architectural construction, but to-day the “trick” of painted and
sanded wood would be hissed down by our citizens who claim to live in
residences the majority of which are greatly superior to residences of
the same class in London, as far at least as material is concerned. No,
no—criticism to be useful must be just; and to be just must be founded
strictly on truth unbiassed by prejudice.

We do not desire in these remarks to throw the slightest doubt on the
good intentions of the London _Builder_ in its monitorial check, but
our wish is to correct the erroneous information which it has received,
and which has led to the mistake under which it evidently labors.

We as utterly despise any falsehood in construction as our honestly
outspoken contemporary, and will at every opportunity disclose and
denounce its adoption in this country in all cases where there is any
pretension to architectural design. For a new country like this, it
is at least creditable that, even in a small class of dwellings, the
architect is, as a general thing, called on to design and frequently
to superintend—every thing is not left to the builder as in London.
Yet there is and always will be in this as in all other countries a
large class of private buildings outside the pale of legitimate taste;
creations ungoverned and ungovernable by rule. But such should never
be taken as examples of the existing state of the constructive art of
the day; they should rather prove the unfortunate exceptions to the
fact of its position. Even these it will be our duty to watch over
and try to set right; for we are ardent believers in the influential
power of information, and look with assurance to the education of our
people generally on this subject of judgment and taste in building as
the infallible means of turning to good account the remarkable progress
in that constructive art of the American nation, which the observant
London _Builder_ notices with the generous well-wishing of a kindly
professional brother.


THE MANSARD MADNESS.

Of all the intellectual qualifications which man is gifted with, there
is not one as sensitive as that which enables him to discern between
what is intrinsically good, and what is bad or indifferent to his eye.
Yet are there none of all man’s mental attributes so frequently and so
grossly outraged as is this to which we now allude, called Taste.

Custom has much to say in the question of arbitrary rule which taste
so imperatively claims. Persistence in any thing will, of necessity,
make itself felt and recognized, no matter how odious at first may
be the object put before the public eye, and ultimately that object
becomes what is commonly called “fashionable.” This apparent unity of
the public on one object is variable and will soon change to another,
which in its turn will seem to reign by unanimous consent and so on _ad
infinitum_.

In Architecture this fickle goddess, Fashion, seems to reign as
imperatively and as coquettishly as in any or all the affairs of
this world of humanity. That which was at first esteemed grotesque
and ridiculous, becomes in time tolerable and at last admirable. But
the apathy which sameness begets cannot long be borne by the novelty
worshippers, and accordingly new forms and shapes remodel the idea of
the day, until it ceases to bear a vestige of its first appearance and
becomes quite another thing.

Of all the prominent features of architecture that which has been least
changeable until late years is the “roof.” The outline of that covering
has been limited to a very few ideas, some of which resolved themselves
into arbitrary rules of government from which the hardiest adventurer
was loath to attempt escape.

Deviating from the very general style of roof which on the section
presents a triangle, sometimes of one pitch, sometimes of another,
but almost universally of a fourth of the span, the _truncated_ form
was to be found, but so exceedingly sombre was this peculiar roof that
it never obtained to any great extent, and indeed it presented on the
exterior a very serious obstacle to its adoption by architects in the
difficulty of blending it with any design in which spirit, life, or
elegance, was a requisite.

There are occasionally to be found in Europe, and even in America,
examples of these truncated roofs, but it is very questionable whether
there are to be met with any admirers of their effect.

The principle on which they are constructed has, however, a very great
advantage in the acquirement of head-room in the attics, giving an
actual story or story and half to the height, without increasing the
elevation of the walls. The architects of the middle ages took a hint
from this evident advantage, and used the truncated roof on their
largest constructions. Its form is that of a pyramid with the upper
portion cut off (_trunco_, to cut off, being its derivation.)

MANSART, or as he is more commonly called MANSARD, an erratic but
ingenious French architect, in the seventeenth century invented the
curb roof, so decided an improvement on the truncated that it became
known by his name. This roof adorning the palatial edifices of France
soon assumed so much decorative beauty in its curb moulding and base
cornice, as well as in the dormers and eyelets with which it was so
judiciously pierced, that it became a source of artistic fascination in
those days in France; and as Germany was indebted to French architects
for her most prominent designs, the Mansard roof found its way there,
and into some other parts of Europe.

But, much as English architects admired, as a whole, any or all of
those superb erections of the Gallic Capital, it was a century and
a half before it occurred to them to imitate them even in this most
desirable roof.

Our architects having increased with the demand for finer houses and
more showy public buildings, and having parted company with their
Greek and Roman idols to which their predecessors had been so long and
so faithfully wedded, and acknowledging the necessity for novelty,
ardently embraced the newly arising fashion and the Mansard roof arose
at every corner in all its glory. At first the compositions which were
adorned with this crowning were pleasing to the general view, if not
altogether amenable to the strict rules of critical taste. But in due
time (and alas that time too surely and severely came) the _pseudo_
French style with its perverted Mansard roof palled upon the public
taste for the eccentricities its capricious foster-fathers in their
innate stultishness compelled it to display.

Some put a Mansard roof upon an Italian building, some on a Norman, and
many, oh, how many, on a Romanesque! Some put it on one story erections
and made it higher than the walls that held it, in the same proportion
that a high crowned hat would hold to a dwarf. Some stuck on towers at
the corners of their edifices and terminated them with _Mansard domes_!
Some had them inclined to one angle, some to another; some curved them
inward, some outward, whilst others went the straight ticket.

The dormers too came in for a large share of the thickening fancies
and assumed every style or no style at all. The chimney shafts were
not neglected. Photos of the Thuilleries were freely bought up, and
bits and scraps of D’Lorme were hooked in, to make up an original idea
worthy of these smoky towers. “Every dog will have his day,” is a fine
old sensible remark of some long-headed lover of the canine species,
and applies alike to animals, men, and things. That it particularly
applies to that much abused thing called the Mansard roof is certain,
as the very name is now more appropriately _the absurd roof_.

Fashion begins to look coldly upon her recent favorite, which in truth
“has been made to play such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, as
make the angles weep;” and it is doomed.

A few years hence, and we will all look back in amused wonder at the
creations of to-day, crowned with the tortured conception of MANSARD.


HYDRAULIC CEMENT.

The rapid hardening under water of the cement which from that property
derives its name of “Hydraulic Cement,” has been, and indeed is still,
a subject of discussion as to the true theory of such action. We find
in the June number of the _Chemical News_ a paragraph which must prove
very interesting to manufacturers as well as to all who use and take
an interest in that most useful of building materials to which the
Architect and the Engineer are so deeply indebted.

“In order to test the truth of the different hypotheses made
concerning this subject, A. Schulatschenko, seeing the impossibility
of separating, from a mixture of silicates, each special combination
thereof, repeated Fuch’s experiment, by separating the silica from 100
parts of pure soluble silicate of potassa, and, after mixing it with
fifty parts of lime, and placing the mass under water, when it hardened
rapidly. A similar mixture was submitted to a very high temperature,
and in this case, also, a cement was made. As a third experiment, a
similar mixture was heated till it was fused; after having been cooled
and pulverized, the fused mass did not harden any more under water.
Hence it follows that hardening does take place in cement made by the
wet as well as dry process, and that the so-called over-burned cement
is inactive, in consequence of its particles having suffered a physical
change.”

[Illustration: IRON STORE-FRONTS, No. V.

BY WM. J. FRYER, JR., WITH MESSRS. J. J. JACKSON & BROS., NEW YORK.]


NATIVE COLORED MARBLES.

In the preceding number we have spoken in general terms of this
beautiful acquisition to our art materials, and indeed we feel that
we cannot esteem this new American discovery too highly; for even in
Europe such stone is extremely scarce at the present day, and it is
fortunate that the location in which the quarries exist is open to
the Old World to freely supply the wants of its artists, as well as
our own. The beautiful Lake Champlain affords excellent commercial
facilities, the Chambly Canal and Sorel River improvements opening a
free navigation both with the great chain of lakes, and the Atlantic
Ocean. The Champlain Canal connecting it with the Erie Canal and Hudson
River, giving it uninterrupted communication with New York State and
its Empire City, from the latter end of March to the middle of December.

The quarry is situated in a great lode projecting up in the bosom or
bay of Lake Champlain, forming an island of several acres outcropping
on each shore, and giving evidence that the deposit extends and really
forms, at this point, the bed of the lake, its supply being thought to
be inexhaustible.

The marble occurs in beds and strata varying in thickness from one
to six feet, and will split across the bed or grain; blocks of any
required size being readily obtained. Its closeness of texture and
hardness render it susceptible of a very high polish, and it will
resist in a remarkable degree all atmospheric changes. It is hard to
deface with acids or scratches, and this one fact should attach to
it much additional value. Its variegation in color, as shown by the
specimens taken from its outcroppings, give promise of a much richer
development as the bed of the quarry is approached; and must equal in
beauty and durability the highly prized oriental marble of ancient and
modern times.

The facilities, already alluded to, of its transportation to all the
markets for such material in the country and to the seaboard, whence
it can be shipped to any part of the world, must tend to bring it into
general use here and elsewhere, that colored marbles are required for
building and ornamental purposes.

We are much indebted to a gentleman of Philadelphia, whose taste and
liberal enterprise have so opportunely brought to our knowledge this
most remarkable deposit of one of Nature’s most beautiful hidden
treasures, which must, at no distant day, add vastly and more cheaply
to the art material of our country.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE palace in course of construction at Ismalia, for the reception of
the Empress Eugenie during her stay in Egypt, will be 180 feet wide and
120 deep. The estimate cost is 700,000fr. According to the contract
it is to be finished by the 1st of October, for every day’s delay the
architect will be subject to a fine of 300fr per day, and if finished
before he will receive a bonus of 300fr per day. The building will
be square; in the centre there is to be a dome covered with Persian
blinds. On the ground floor there will be the ball, reception, and
refreshment rooms. An idea can be formed of the importance of this
structure and of the work necessary to complete it within the required
time, as it will contain no less than 17,400 cubic feet of masonry.

       *       *       *       *       *

TO REMOVE WRITING INK—To remove writing ink from paper, without
scratching—apply with a camel’s hair brush pencil a solution of two
drachms of muriate of tin in four drachms of water; after the writing
has disappeared, pass the paper through the water and dry.




DESCRIPTIONS.


IRON STORE FRONTS, No. 5.


BY W. J. FRYER, JR., NEW YORK.

The elevation, shown in the accompanying page illustration, shows an
iron front of five stories, having a pedimented centre frontispiece of
three stories in _alto relievo_.

The style, though not in strict accordance with rule, is showy, without
being objectionably so, and goes far to prove the capabilities of iron
as a desirable material in commercial Architecture, where strength,
display, and economy may be very well combined.

Such an elevation as this, now under consideration, could not be
executed in cut stone, so as to produce the same appearance, without
incurring a much greater expense, and in the event of a continuous
block of such fronts, the balance of economy would be wonderfully in
favor of the iron, for the moulds could be duplicated and triplicated
with ease, whilst the same composition executed to a like extent in
stone would not be a cent cheaper in proportion. Every capital and
every truss, and every fillet, should be cut in stone independently of
each other, no matter how many were called for.

It may be very well to say that stone is the proper material,
according to the long-accepted notion of art judgment, and that iron
has to be painted to give it even the semblance of that material,
being, therefore, but a base imitation at best. All very true. But,
nevertheless, iron, even as a painted substitute, possesses advantages
over the original material of which it is a copy, rendering it a
very acceptable medium in the constructive line, and one which will
be sought after by a large class of the community who desire to have
this cheap yet practical material, even though it be not that which
it represents. As a representative it is in most respects the peer of
stone though not it identically.


SUBURBAN RESIDENCE IN THE FRENCH STYLE.

BY CARL PFEIFFER, ESQ., ARCHITECT, N. Y.

This design is of one of those homes of moderate luxury wherein the
prosperous man of business may enjoy in reason the fruits of his
energetic toil. There is nothing about it to indicate presumptuous
display, but rather the contented elegance of a mind at ease,
surrounded with unostentatious comfort.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: SUBURBAN RESIDENCE IN THE FRENCH STYLE.

CARL PFEIFFER, ESQ., ARCHITECT, NEW YORK.]

On the westerly slope of the Palisades, and two miles to the west of
the Hudson, this residence was built by one of New York’s retired
merchants.

It is sixteen miles from Jersey City, in a town of but a few years
growth, named “Terrafly,” in Bergen county, and stands on a hill
commanding some of the most charming pieces of pastoral scenery,
occupying about thirty acres laid out in lawns, walks, gardens, etc.,
and tastefully ornamented with shrubbery, having a fountain on the lawn
in front of the house (as shown.)

The approach is from the public road, by a drive through a grove of
about ten acres of stately trees, passing by the side of a pretty
pond formed by the contributions of several streams and making a
considerable sheet of water. About the middle of this pond the sides
approach so near to each other as to be spanned by an artistic little
stone arched bridge which leads to the garden.

From the house one looks on a lovely panorama of inland scenery. The
Palisades towards the east, the Ramapo mountains to the northwest; and
looking in a southerly direction the numerous suburban villages and
elegant villas near New York may be seen.

The house is constructed of best Philadelphia pressed brick with
water-table, quoins, and general trimmings of native brown stone neatly
cut. It stands high on a basement of native quarry building stone and
has for its foundation a permanent bed of concrete which likewise forms
the basement floors, as well as a durable bedding for the blue flagging
of Kitchen and Laundry hearths.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

The arrangement of plan is admirably calculated to conduce to the
comfort of the family. It is as follows:

Fig. 1 shows the plan of the basement. A, steps and passage leading
from Yard. B, Servant’s Dining Room. C, C, C, Coal Cellar and Passages.
D, Kitchen. E, Pantry. F. Laundry. G, G, Cellars. H, Water Closet. I,
Wash tubs in Laundry. J, Dumb waiter. K, Wash-tray. L, Sink. M, Back
stairs.

Fig. 2 shows the plan of the principal story. A, Dining Room. B,
Drawing Room. C, and D, Parlors connected by sliding doors with the
Drawing Room through the hall. E, Principal staircase. F, Back Hall.
G, Butler’s Pantry with dumb waiter, plate closet, wash-trays, etc. H,
Back stairs. J, Conservatory. K, Steps leading down to Yard. L, L, L,
Verandahs. M, M, Piscinæ.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

Fig. 3 shows the arrangement of the Chamber floor, or second story. A,
the Hall. B, C, D, and E, Chambers. F. Boudoir. G, Closet. H, Passage
to Boudoir. I, Half landing connected with rear addition. J, Back
passage. K, Bath Room. L, M, N, Servant’s Bed Rooms. O, O, O, Clothes
Closets. P, Water Closet, _o_, _o_, _o_, _o_, _o_, _o_, Wardrobes in
the several Chambers. These occupy the angle enclosed by the slope of
the Mansard, thus leaving the walls of the chambers plumb.

The roof is flat, and is embellished at the curb with a rich traceried
iron balustrade, making a safe and desirable promenade platform. All
the accessories that go to make a comfortable home are provided, and
the whole forms a model retreat from busy life to Nature and her charms.


SUBURBAN RESIDENCE IN THE FRANCO-GOTHIC STYLE.

We here give a perspective view of a capacious suburban residence,
showing the marked effects of light and shade produced by means of
Gothic gables on a building of a square plan. A hipped roof on such
a plain form would make a most uninteresting mass of heaviness.
The judicious addition of bay windows is always desirable in such
compositions; and the hooded gables give a pleasing quaintness to the
whole. We present, on next page the principal floor plan, which is
somewhat unusual in arrangement, but comfortable, as such form of house
is always sure to be.

A, The Porch, pierced on each side with open lights. B, the Hall, in
the form of an L, and receiving light from the roof. C, the Drawing
Room, with its capacious bay window. D, a Parlor. E, Library and Study.
F, Side Hall, with door, under stairs, communicating with passage
leading to study; (or, there may be a door opening directly into the
study from the side hall.) G, Private Stairs. H, Principal Stairs,
under which is a door communicating with the passage to study. I, the
Kitchen. J, Pantry. K, the Dining Room, with glass door leading out
into the Conservatory L.

[Illustration: SUBURBAN RESIDENCE.]

Few arrangements of plan can be more complete. Chimnies all in the
inner walls retain the whole of the heating within the house in winter.
And so thorough is the natural ventilation, by doors and windows, that
coolness is secured in the summer time.

Executed in stone, either hammered or rough rubble, with cut-stone
trimmings, this house would present a pleasing appearance. In pressed
brick, with stone trimmings, though not so consonant to surrounds of
shrubbery as in stone, it would yet be a neat object and tend much to
the embellishment of the outskirts of a city or village.

[Illustration]


DESIGNS FOR SMALL CHURCHES.

There is a great want of suitable designs calculated to meet the tastes
and necessities of those communities whose funds are too limited to
admit of anything approaching to architectural display. Our object,
therefore, in presenting the two which illustrate our remarks, is to
show the way to others to do likewise.

Churches of large dimension and assuming appearance call forth
professional skill, because the expenditure will be commensurate with
the expansive ideas of the wealthy for whose benefit such edifices are
constructed. But a plainer class of erections, as much wanted, should
draw out the efforts of our brethren, if only for the good they may do.

There are few architects who are not subject to the often occurring
claims on their donative services in behalf of poor congregations,
and, we say it with pride, that we have yet to hear of the first
instance of those claims not being promptly attended to by even the
busiest of our brethren. Although it too frequently happens that
their liberality is severely and most thoughtlessly taxed; for there
generally is in every community some spirit too restless to cease
troubling even those whose time is very limited. In a serial like
the ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW there is an opportunity presented to give,
from time to time, sketches and instructions, by which the wants of
the bodies we allude to may be met. The pastor in the backwoods, and
the minister on the prairie, as well as the servant of God who teaches
the poor in our crowded cities, and skill are freely given, not to
them personally, but to the sacred cause they are supposed to have an
interest in. But let that pass.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

The illustrated works on Ecclesiastical Architecture, which come from
the press, usually treat of a class of edifices altogether beyond the
reach of the congregations whose means are limited—will each and all be
benefitted by the information given, and a truly good work will thus
be done. The two small churches here presented are now in course of
construction in this city.

The one on the upper part of the page is a Chapel of Ease to the
Calvary Presbyterian Church, now building on Locust street, west of
Fifteenth street.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: TWO DESIGNS FOR SMALL GOTHIC CHURCHES.]

Its dimensions are fifty-seven feet front by ninety feet deep, outside
measurement. It will be two stories high, with gallery.

The first story will be sixteen feet from floor to floor. This is to
be the Lecture Room. The second story will be twenty-five feet at the
walls, and thirty-nine feet to the apex of the ceiling in the centre.
The Gallery will be six feet wide along the sides, circular on front,
and the ends curved at the rear. Its floor will be level.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

Besides the Lecture Room, the first floor will contain two class rooms
and the ladies’ parlor. Immediately over the Lecture Room, and of the
same size, will be the Sunday-school Rooms. And over the ladies’ parlor
there will be the Infant School.

On the gallery are three class rooms on the front, two of which are
over the Infant School Room, and one over the eastern stairway. There
are two class rooms in the rear. The walls will be of rubble masonry.
As high as the level of the first floor, and projecting two inches,
with a wash, the exterior will be hammer-dressed. Above that, the
superstructure will be all laid broken range, pointed off, except the
rear wall, which will be rubble with rock face. The whole will be faced
with Trenton Brown Stone.

All the dressings of the doors, windows, buttress, caps, cornices,
pinnacle caps, etc., will be distinguished by a finer class of work.

The roof and its dormers will be covered with best Blue Mountain slate,
of medium size, varied with green and red color.

The interior as well as exterior finish will be Gothic in style,
inexpensive yet expressive.

FIG. 1. The plan of the Lecture Room is here shown: A, A, the
entrances, with stairs in each, leading to School Rooms and continuing
to Gallery. B, Ladies’ Parlor. C, the Lecture Room. D, Platform and
desk. E, E, Class-Rooms. F, F, Water-Closets.

FIG. 2. This is the arrangement of the Second story, which contains: G,
the Infant School Room. H, the School Room. J, J, Class Rooms. K, K,
Water Closets.

Fig. 3. L, L, L, the Gallery. M, M, M, Class Rooms in front. M, M,
Class Rooms in rear. It will be seen that, by means of sliding glass
partitions, each floor can be considerably enlarged in accommodation.
There are nine class-rooms, and school room for over six hundred
children. The galleries will hold two hundred and fifty.

The illustration below that of Calvary, is the design of the TRINITY
REFORMED CHURCH, now being erected on the east side of Seventh street,
south of Oxford street, in this city.

It is also Gothic in style, and although smaller than that just
described, will, nevertheless, be a very convenient and tasteful
church, and well suited to the wants of its growing congregation.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]


HYATT’S VAULT LIGHTS.

Few patents have conferred a greater blessing on society than that of
which the accompanying cut is an illustration. The misery which was
closely akin to area gratings, as used in “our grandfather’s day,”
may yet be remembered by some not very old readers. Then light had
to be admitted from the sidewalk without trespassing on the right of
way by encroachment, and the manner in which that object was attained
was by the use, invariably, of open iron gratings, which, whilst they
admitted the light in _bar sinister_, as our heraldric authorities
would say, did not offer any opposition to the falling dirt of the
street which resolved itself alternately into dust or mud, according to
the relative condition of the weather. The very palpable consequence
of such a state of things was, that all areas under sidewalks were an
accumulative nuisance which had to be borne if day-light was desirable
in underground places.

Let us pause for a moment to mentally look back on those days of
dirt-clad cellar windows, if it were only to enhance the value to our
mind of the present state of things.

[Illustration]

Hyatt’s Patent Vault, and Side-walk lights, are so well known and so
universally appreciated North, South, East, and West, now-a-days,
that it is doubtful whether we are enlightening a single reader of
the REVIEW in thus alluding to them. But, unfortunately there are
people so listlessly unobservant in this world of ours, as to walk over
them, aye, and walk under them, without perceiving the benefit enjoyed
from them. Such people look on all improvements without wonder or
admiration, and calmly set them down as matters of course—things that
were to be, improvements—the growth of necessity. The inventive mind
that gave them birth is neither thanked nor thought of. But all men
are not so stolid. Many will take an interest in the benefaction and
the benefactor, and to such the present notice will recall a duty—the
grateful acknowledgment of a benefit bestowed.

[Illustration]

The sidewalk lights are powerfully strong as well as perfectly
weather-proof and they can be turned out in any required form in single
plates to a maximum size of six and a half feet long by two and a half
feet wide, or in continuous platforms. They are likewise made to answer
an excellent purpose as steps and risers, or even as entire flights
of stairs of any desired length. They are three quarter inch thick,
hexagonal shaped glass, well secured and presenting a really handsome
appearance.

In our preceding number we made some observations on a more fitting
system of awnings than that now in use.

[Illustration] We think there can be very little doubt but this very
invention could be well made available for such a purpose, and we
sincerely hope that the hint will not be lost sight of.

BROWN BROTHERS of Chicago have for the last ten years been active in
the manufacture and sale of the patent sidewalk lights, and there is
scarcely a city of any pretensions in the Great West that has not
awaked up to the use and value of this most beneficial invention,
and the pleasing consequence is that the Messrs. B. are now doing an
immense business in the manufacture of them, at 226 and 228 Monroe
street, Chicago, where the orders of our friends the Architects and
Builders who propagate improvements in the growing cities of the
irrepressible West, will be attended to, with that promptitude which
has hitherto made the name of the firm of BROWN BROTHERS so well known,
and their excellent manufacture so fully appreciated.


WHITE LEAD BY A NEW PROCESS.

The manufacture of this important and useful pigment has been very
successfully prosecuted within the past year, by a new process, the
invention of Dr. H. Hannen of this city, and is destined to supersede
the old method, both as regards economy in preparation and purity of
material. The old or Dutch process, requiring some six to eight months
for its completion, fit for painter’s use; while by the Hannen patent
it can be produced in from ten to fifteen days. The quality of the
article is said to be fully equal, if not superior, to that of the lead
made by the old method. The process of manufacture, as far as we can
learn, is as follows:

The best Spanish pig lead is melted in a large iron kettle, holding
from fifteen to eighteen hundred weight, and then drawn off by a
suitable valve, and allowed to run over a cast-iron wheel or drum,
about six inches on the face and three feet in diameter, running at a
high speed, and kept cool by a stream of cold water constantly playing
on it. The lead, in passing over this wheel, is cast into ribbons
about the thickness of paper, it is then taken and placed on lattice
shelving in rooms some eight to ten feet square, made almost airtight
by a double thickness of boards, and capable of holding some three tons
of the metallic lead as it comes from the casting machine in ribbon
form, the temperature of the room is then raised by injecting steam
to about one hundred degrees, and then sprinkled several times a day
with diluted acetic acid, converting it into sub-acetate or sugar of
lead. While this operation is going on, carbonic acid gas is forced
into the room by means of a blower or pump, which decomposes the
acetate and forms a carbonate of lead; this operation of forming an
acetate, and then a carbonate, requires from five to six days, until
a complete corrosion of the lead is effected; the room is now allowed
to cool and the lead to dry, after which it is taken out and sifted
through fine wire sieves, which separates all undecomposed lead or
other impurities. It is then ready for washing and drying. The finely
powdered lead is mixed with water into a thick pasty form and ground in
a mill of similar construction to an ordinary flour mill, from which
it is allowed to run into large tubs filled with water, and thoroughly
washed and allowed to settle. The last or finishing operation is to
place it in large copper pans, heated by steam, when it is dried; from
thence taken to the color grinder, where it is mixed in oil ready for
the painter’s use.




PAINTERS AND ARCHITECTS.


There is a presumptuous feeling in the breasts of those who, _par
excellence_, assume the style and title of “Artists,” both in the Old
and the New World, which it would be well to look into were it not
that valuable time might thus be wasted on an exceedingly contemptible
subject. We allude to the arrogation of eminence by those autocrats
of the easel, who, not content with the undue position conceded to
them by the vain and the frivolous who stilt themselves on their
recognition of “high art,” and affect to govern the very laws of
taste itself, go farther in the fulness of their ambition, and seek
to ignore ARCHITECTURE as an art. This outrage on common sense is not
confined to America, it has been continuously practised, if not boldly
promulgated, for over a century in London, by an institution bearing
the absurd title of THE ROYAL ACADEMY, originally intended to foster
and advance the interests of Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture, yet
in forty elections, or rather selections, of Associates, that is, of
those ordained to emblazon their names with the R. A., _but four were
Architects_!

And, notwithstanding the studious efforts made by our profession to
elevate our position and draw at least our share of public attention,
we find that this Royal Academy and the rest of the aristocratic
Dundrearifications, positively prohibit the appearance of architectural
designs upon the walls of their National Galleries by crowding
every available foot of wall space with easel-work, (we beg
pardon—“paintings,”) ephemeral, unnatural, mannerized exudations of
the “modern school,” that barely patronizes Nature as a stupid fact,
which to be got round must be obliterated in gaudy coloring. But, shall
Architects make bold to criticize these “Artists?” No, PAINTING is a
sublime gift, by the magic touch of which the coarse inelegant canvas
is made to put forth emanations of the etherial mind, which it were a
pity to limit to the paltry boundary of a gilded frame!


What is ARCHITECTURE?

Where would the art of PAINTING find a shelter, were it not for
Architecture?

Do the gentlemen of the brush and palette ever look around and above at
the walls, the ceilings, or even at the tessellated floor of the rooms
where their small framed efforts are on exhibition, and suffer their
overweaning vanity to acknowledge that ARCHITECTURE is really something?

How many painters can properly depict it? How many?

The ignorance which urges the pre-eminence of PAINTING at the
expense of ARCHITECTURE is more to be pitied than contemned. And the
public patronage lavished on the one and withheld from the other, is
superinduced by the ease with which any one can assume to be a critical
admirer of an art whose governing rules are imaginary rather than real
or substantial.

Some see beauty in the fidelity which a painting bears to Nature.
Others consider that very fidelity as slavish imitation. And a very
general notion obtains amongst painters of “assisting Nature.” Now,
ARCHITECTURE stands upon the solid base of TRUTH. Without imitating,
it borrows applicable ideas from Nature to be used in carrying out its
designs. Nor is it merely the imaginations, limnings, as in the case of
PAINTINGS; those designs have to be executed. CONSTRUCTION then comes
in as the solid, tangible, work of art, which shall defy the elements
and render ARCHITECTURE the protectress of PAINTING, without whose
solid enduring defence the more fragile art would speedily decay and
become unknown.

But, are not the professors and admirers of ARCHITECTURE themselves to
blame for the degraded position it holds to-day as an art, here and in
Europe? Why is there not more practical enthusiasm, and altogether less
contemptible jealousy, and ill-natured feeling, amongst all who claim
to have an interest in this the grandest and most over-shadowing of the
Arts?

If PAINTING must needs hold an exclusive position as regards the public
exhibitions of what is most erroneously called the “Fine Arts,” why
cannot ARCHITECTURE and SCULPTURE assert their dignity, and give the
public a chance to patronize them independently? The truth is that
Architecture and Painting do not at all agree in sentiment; the one
is a mere luxury, and no more; the other is a necessary art, adorned
or unadorned. The one can be glanced at and instantly understood; the
other demands the effort of the mind to study and to comprehend. In
PAINTING, the eye is the arbiter; in ARCHITECTURE, the eye and the
mind must form the judgment. It is not what a merely pretty picture is
displayed; it is—how would that design look in execution?

Most of people who go to a “Fine Art Exhibition” are superficial
observers. They glance at pictures by the hundred. Such are not the
persons from whose judgment ARCHITECTURE can expect even a recognition.
They have been bedazzled with the sheen of the gilded frames, and the
well laid-on varnish which bedizens the bright pigments of the gaudy
glare of Art, which they have just left, and are, of course, impatient
of the more staid and methodical elevations or perspectives, now
presented in a narrow crowded section to their view. They have not
time nor inclination to pause and consider them. They cannot bear to
lose the impressions made by the “sweet shaded alley,” the “dancing
streamlet,” or the “green reflective lake,” with that charming sky
that looks so much more like heaven than nature. No, it will not do
to exhibit ARCHITECTURE and PAINTING together, and it is time to
acknowledge this so often proven fact. The two must be distinct. Let
Architects put forth their powers, and show the community what their
Art really is, and what it is capable of. People will go expressly to
view an exhibition of Architectural designs, combined with Sculpture,
and take much pleasure in the visit, because their mind is prepared
for the occasion, and will not be distracted by a rival exhibition of
quite another effect. To say that the public generally will find no
pleasure in the consideration of Architecture is to assert that which
is disproved by fact. When the Commissioners, appointed to choose a
fitting design for the new Post Office at New York, threw open to a
limited number of visitors the inspection of the collection of designs,
the rooms were crowded each day of the exhibition, and innumerable
applications were made for tickets of admission. Had all the public
been allowed the privilege, no doubt it would have been universally
accepted. Yet that was but a very uninteresting display compared to
one in which the subjects would be manifold, and the scales various.
Not to speak of the freedom of display in color, which on the occasion
adverted to was necessarily confined to an extreme limit.

Why cannot our Architects have an independent exhibition? There is
nothing to be gained, but on the contrary every thing to be lost by
clinging to the skirts of the _painters_. An effort in this direction
could not fail to meet with the warmest support from our monied
citizens, who are constantly proving substantially their regard for
the progressive welfare of Architecture, by expending vast sums
in buildings. And we have no doubt, but that State Legislatures
would promptly and liberally aid any such effort to educate the
general public in an art so intimately connected with the history of
civilization.




HONOR TO WASHINGTON.


The anniversary of this great nation’s independence never was more
fittingly honored than on the Fourth of July last, when, in this city,
and in the front of the glorious old Independence Hall, Philadelphia
inaugurated her statue of him who was FIRST IN PEACE, FIRST IN WAR
AND FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN. There is not in the United
States a single spot more sacred to the cause of Freedom than that
on which stands Independence Hall, where our great fathers of the
Revolution so nobly pledged to the cause of mankind their lives, their
fortunes, and their sacred honor, and where the truly noble Washington
was heard and seen, when the hopes of an embryo nation rested on his
integrity.

Although the thought well suggests itself that an honor such as that
just now paid the great patriot’s memory should long ere this have
been credited to Philadelphia, yet it is never too late to do our
name justice before the world; and it is appropriate that the rising
generation of a closing century should thus mark the establishment of a
free government for which he fought and conquered.

Thanks to the school children whose contributions thus have given to
Philadelphia, what their sires so long neglected, a testimonial worthy
of our grateful recollection of the foremost of Americans.

On the 13th of December, 1867, a contract was made with our eminent
citizen artist, Mr. J. A. BAILEY, and on the 2d of July, 1869, the
material for the granite base was delivered on the ground. The
following day the statue was duly erected, where it now stands in front
of the entrance of that venerated Hall.

In the centre of the foundation is placed a box containing the names of
children and teachers, Directors and Board of Controllers, Mayor and
City Councils, heads of departments, records of the Association, etc.,
and a copy of the Holy Bible. The base of the statue is of Virginia
granite, from the Richmond quarries, and is in four pieces, weighing
about twenty tons. The statue is of white marble, 8 feet 6 inches high.
The left hand of Washington rests on the hilt of his sword, sheathed in
peace; his right hand rests on the Bible, the Bible on the Constitution
and American flag which drapes the supporting column on the right of
the figure. The weight of the figure is about six tons. The whole
height of base and statue is 18 feet 6 inches. On the north front the
base will bear the name—WASHINGTON; on the south, this inscription:

                  ERECTED
                  BY THE
      WASHINGTON MONUMENT ASSOCIATION
                  OF THE
  FIRST SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The total cost, including a railing, will be about $6,500.

The ceremony of the unveiling was a most impressive one, the children
being in the act of singing “Hail, Columbia,” when, at a given, signal,
the flag covering the noble statue was raised, and from its folds came
forth innumerable small flags which flew among the people and were
eagerly caught.

As the marble image of Washington came into view the cheers of the
assembled thousands were only outvied by the cannon in the square, and
the national hymn was for the time drowned in the enthusiasm of the
event.

The President of the Washington Monument Association Mr. GEORGE F.
GORDON, in an appropriate address to the Mayor and Select and Common
Councils, presented the beautiful monument to the city. It was received
by the Mayor, Hon. DANIEL M. FOX, in a suitable reply, and the
benediction being pronounced, this most interesting event became part
of the brightest of Philadelphia’s chronicles.

       *       *       *       *       *

The munificence of our fellow-townsman, W. W. Corcoran, Esq., has been
handsomely acknowledged by the National Academy of Design, at New York,
which has transmitted to him congratulatory resolutions with reference
to his recent foundation of a gallery of art in this city.—_Washington
Chronicle._




NEW SOUTH WALES.


Our latest files are to April 21st, inclusive. Sydney was at that time
in high spirits over the recent visit of the Prince Captain of H. M. S.
_Gallatea_. The most noteworthy action of whom was the laying of the
corner-stone of the testimonial to the hardy navigator and discoverer,
Captain Cook. We extract the remarks of the leading journal of Sydney.

“THE CAPTAIN COOK MEMORIAL.—A monument to the memory of Captain Cook
will be rather an expression of our admiration for his character and
services than an enhancement of his fame. The last generation was
filled with wonder at the narrative of his discoveries. The first
quartos that record them display in most striking forms the scenes and
objects he made known to the world. He visited many islands of the
Southern seas, whose voluptuous and animated social life attracted as
to a new-found Paradise. Subsequent experience scattered the illusions
of fancy, but brought out more clearly the value of his labors. New
South Wales presented to his view a land of savages, lowest in the
scale of civilization, but it also offered a noble field for British
colonization, perhaps less appreciated while America was still a
dependency of England, but brought into notice a few years after that
country ceased to belong to the Crown.

“COOK first landed at Botany Bay, on the 19th of April, and on the
23d of August, he took possession of the entire country in the name
of the SOVEREIGN of England. The precise spot where he anchored is
marked in the charts by a nautical symbol, and can thus be identified.
On reaching the shore he found a spring of water ample for the wants
of the ship, and tradition has reported that he bent his knees in
adoration of the Supreme Being.

“The character of COOK as a navigator occupies the first rank in
nautical sciences. It is to his high honor, that modern times,
though they have added to his discoveries, have been rarely able to
dispute them. Nothing is superfluous—nothing is obscure. The modern
investigator starts from the observations made by COOK as undoubted
facts. Every year displays more strikingly, not only the results of his
discoveries and their value, but the almost prophetic foresight which
presided over them.

“The history of Captain COOK is an example of the lofty position
which may be taken by the humblest ranks when attended with high
intelligence and superior moral qualities. The first step of his naval
career was as a cabin boy. He rose to the command of an expedition
which was suggested by scientific men, and their warmest hopes were
more than fulfilled. They had seen with regret the blanks in the
map of the world, and the ignorance which prevailed in reference to
the true character and capabilities of countries partially known.
The men of science who accompanied him on his voyage acquired for a
time a scarcely inferior fame. Mr. BANKS and Dr. SOLANDER are names
familiar to the readers of COOK’S Voyages, but the magnificence of his
achievements leaves in the shade every inferior merit. He stands forth
as the founder of a new era in nautical discovery, and as the revealer
of a new world.

“Could Captain COOK have seen the spot on which it is proposed to erect
his monument, and from thence, with superhuman knowledge, anticipated
the events of this day, he would have been overwhelmed with awe.

“EDMUND BURKE delineated, while the struggle with America was still
transpiring, the emotions of astonishment with which he supposes Lord
BATHURST, then an aged statesman, might in the days of his youth have
looked forward, under the guidance of some celestial instructor, to the
events which had raised American colonization from insignificance to
greatness. But what emotions would have stirred the heart of COOK, if,
standing on this spot, he had foreseen the progress of colonization,
the painful labors included in the first fifty years, and the immense
prosperity of the last.

“Had such heavenly anointing enabled him to foresee all this, his
grateful spirit would have been filled—with—what sacred joy! Still
further extending his intellectual prospect, he might have foreseen
the arrival of a vessel furnished with the results of science then
unattained, advancing like some being, instinct with intelligence, from
port to port, through billows over which he was tossed, and independent
of winds for which he had to wait, arrived at a fixed hour at the haven
of its destination. And still farther, he might have seen the great
grandson of that monarch whose name he proclaimed as the lord of this
territory—the son of a royal woman who has inherited all the virtues
of her race, without its faults; and he might have seen that son,
surrounded with a multitude of her subjects, standing over the first
stone of an edifice to do honor to his memory.”—_Sydney Morning Herald,
March 27._

“THE NEW POST OFFICE, SYDNEY.—The keystone of the central arch of the
new Post Office, George street, was laid by His Royal Highness the Duke
of Edinburgh, on the 1st instant, in the presence of a vast concourse
of spectators. A large platform was erected behind the arch, and on a
level with the stone, access to which was obtained by carpeted stairs,
springing from the northern side of the building.

“The stone laid by the Prince forms the keystone, archivolts and two
spandrils of the central archway of the George street front. Upon the
face are to be carved the Royal arms, and upon the coffered soffits
the arms of the Duke. The dimensions of the stone are:—Length 13 feet
6 inches, width 4 feet 6 inches, and height 6 feet 6 inches—the whole
being equal to 394 cubic feet. The weight is twenty-six tons. This
stone is doubtless the largest yet laid by his Royal Highness, and it
is probably the largest block of sandstone he will ever lay, for it
would be difficult, if not indeed impossible, to get _sound_ blocks of
sandstone of equal size from any quarry in England, or elsewhere. Few
cities are so favorably situated for sandstone as Sydney, for in almost
every direction blocks of this description of freestone may be obtained
of almost unlimited dimensions, and without a flaw. The most casual
observer of the new Post Office cannot fail to notice the massiveness
of the stones used in the building, and the solidity of the structure
is unequalled by any other erection in the city. The contractor has
placed very powerful cranes in his quarries at Pyrmont, whence these
immense blocks of stone are obtained, and great credit is due to Mr.
C. Saunders for the workmanlike manner in which these blocks—far
exceeding in size anything previously attempted in the colony—have
been quarried. The difficulty of removing these heavy blocks of stone
must be very considerable; and the stone laid by the Duke of Edinburgh
was equal to the force of twenty-one horses, calculating a horse to
draw about twenty-five cwt. Ordinary wagons or trucks usually carry
weight not exceeding 5, or, at most, 6 tons; and as there are in this
building many blocks of granite and freestone of 10 to 20 tons, the
difficulty of carriage can easily be seen. In hoisting and fixing these
large stones ‘travellers’ are used, which can move longitudinally and
crossways; and as the lift is directly over the stone to be fixed,
there is less liability of accident than by the use of cranes or other
contrivances.

“The building progresses as rapidly as the elaborate nature of
such work will admit. It is now to the height of the first story,
twenty-five feet from the floor line, which is three feet above the
causeway in George street. The works are being carried on under the
superintendence of the Colonial Architect, Mr. James Barnet. The
contractor has fixed all the polished granite columns on the work front
facing the street, which is to be taken through from George street to
Pitt street. They are exceedingly beautiful, and are resplendent with a
lustre brighter than that of marble. The polish has been brought out by
an elaborate process, and is, we believe, ineffaceable by atmospheric
influences. Each column is polished by machinery—incessant friction
continued for a fortnight being requisite to bring out the lustre.
There are to be twenty-seven columns in the George street front, which
the Government have also decided shall be of polished granite, material
which for beauty and durability cannot be surpassed even in Europe. The
building, when completed, will compare favorably with any structure
erected for a similar purpose elsewhere.

“The blue granite used in the edifice is obtained by Mr. Young from his
quarries at Moruya, about one hundred and sixty miles to the south of
Sydney. The quarries are opened in the side of the hill—a mountain of
granite in fact—and about half a mile of railway constructed across the
swamp carries it to a granite jetty, which has been built in the river,
into water deep enough to admit of vessels drawing fifteen feet of
water loading alongside. The granite is sound—sufficiently so, indeed,
to admit of two hundred feet lengths being quarried. A block has been
got out for the front columns of the Post Office, which weighs nearly
three hundred tons, and the dimensions of which are:—Length, 22 feet;
breadth, 22 feet; thickness, 8 feet; total contents being 3,520 feet.”




BUILDING IN CONCRETE.


It is something to be wondered at, the slowness with which the
advantages of concrete, as a building material, have been developed
and accepted by practical men. As a foundation it is beyond all
doubt the firmest, simplest, and most economical. But, its merit is
not confined to underground operations; for, as has been repeatedly
maintained during the last twenty years, it is capable of making walls
of unsurpassing strength and durability, giving comforts which no other
material will. It is true that certain parties have sought to astonish
the world with securely patented _inventions_, by which Nature’s humble
efforts at making granite were at once surpassed, and the old fogy way
of the consolidation, by the tedious action of time, of grains of mica,
quartz, and feldspar, set aside by the use of this invaluable mode of
making as good an article with one man power at a rate fully equal to
supplying the demands of all who want stone houses erected rapidly from
the raw material!

All this is arrant folly, and should not be listened to, much less
patronized. The making or undertaking to make stone in blocks is a
step, aye, a long stride backwards.

The object of cementing together blocks, whether of brick or stone,
is simply to produce one solid mass. And it is because we cannot
conveniently carve out in a _monolith_ or mass together in one
_tumulus_ the desired dwelling or temple, that we are forced either
to break blocks of stone into fragments, or mould and burn earth
into bricks. Now the idea of forming artificial stone into blocks
still leaves the expensive necessity for cementing them together; and
therefore instead of improving our condition, actually leaves us worse
off, by giving us, as a substitute for Nature’s well-tested material,
a most unreliable article, which has already too clearly proved its
utter worthlessness. However, this should not cause the friends of
progress to give up all idea of simplifying and economizing the mode of
wall structure. On the contrary it should stimulate them to make that
exertion in the right way, which has hitherto been so persistently and
blindly made in the wrong.

In Europe they are taking this subject into serious consideration.
In England, under the name of CONCRETE; in France, under the title
of BÉTON. In the latter country, much has been done lately, and all
arising out of the excellent work on cements given to the world by M.
VICAT, whose name should be enshrined forever in the Temple of Fame,
for the amount of good, present and prospective, which his earnest
labors have done the Art of Building.

One of the most indefatigable and successful of experimenters in
_béton_ is M. COIQUÉT, who has proved beyond all cavil the excellence
of that composition when applied to the sustaining of weight or
resistance of pressure.

In London we find Messrs. Drake, Brothers and Reed, under Her Majesty’s
Letters-Patent, undertakers of Building in Concrete.

It is the machinery they use that is patented, we believe, and not the
material; for there are many others in this branch of business. Mr.
JOSEPH TALL, of London, has also a patent for a peculiar method of
building in concrete, and has executed some contracts in Paris, where,
in 1867, he took a prize at the Exposition.

It is evident, then, that concrete is forcing its way, and that it
is not an unworthy subject for the inventive minds of our astute
countrymen.

What we particularly need in order to give an impetus to construction
in concrete is a well-systematized apparatus, movable and always
available, and that men should be drilled to work to the greatest
possible advantage; for it is the want of these requisites that makes
concrete to-day a material so little known and so seldom used.

Let an active company, with sufficient capital, start the business in
any of our large cities, and concrete will soon assert its excellence
as a building material, and an investment will be secured, giving
profit to its holders and satisfaction to a very large section of
our population, to whom economy must prove the key to comfortable
independence.

       *       *       *       *       *

The quarry companies in Connecticut were never doing a heavier business
than this season. Three quarries now employ over one thousand laborers,
seventy-five horses and one hundred yoke of cattle.




A REMARKABLE CENTENARY.


How few there are who pause for one instant from their plodding after
the deified “Dollar,” to reflect that this present year, 1869, is the
most remarkably commemorative of any yet on the Book of Time.

It is now one hundred years since HUMBOLDT, CUVIER, the first BRUNELL,
JAMES WATT, Jr., and Sir THOMAS LAWRENCE, among the most eminent of the
world’s civilians—and NAPOLEON the First, WELLINGTON, SOULT and NEY,
among the most advanced rank of mighty military chiefs, had birth.

It is one hundred years since the elder WATT’S condensing steam engine
was invented, and that invention which brought poverty with its
production has, in these hundred years, revolutionized the globe, and
made not alone individuals, but whole nations wealthy and powerful.

No nation on the globe owes more to WATT’S steam engine than does this
of ours. Where now would Civilization be coiled up? Where now would
Science be secluded comparatively unnoticed and unknown—were it not for
that one invention?

The peoples of the world have been growing and multiplying, and where
would have been the room, or the employment for the teeming millions,
were it not for that happy thought which in 1769 became a palpable fact?

A wise Providence was over all, and the brain that worked out the idea
of the condensing steam engine was but doing its special part in the
great work of civilization and progress.

This Centenary is one which should not be allowed to pass unheeded,
especially now that we have just drawn the extremes of the earth
nearer, not alone to the ear, but to the eye itself.

       *       *       *       *       *

“How fast they build houses now!” said H.; “they began that building
last week, and now they are putting in the lights.” “Yes,” answered his
friend, “and next week they will put in the liver.”




AUTOMATIC WATER ENGINE.


An important discovery connected with the raising of water is claimed
to have been made by Dr. Bouron, a physician of some reputation,
residing at Heverville, Seine Inférieure. It appears that by a very
simple piece of mechanism he can raise a continuous stream of water to
almost any altitude, without labor of any kind, and without expense,
beyond that necessary for the first cost of the machine, and this is
by no means large, considering the amount of useful work which it
yields. Dr. Bouron states that the power of the machine is based upon
a natural and immutable mechanical principle, and that by it there may
be created a continuous current of water at the surface of the soil,
wherever there exists, no matter at what depth it may be, a spring of
water. The machine is intended to supersede all existing pumps, its
construction not being more expensive, whilst it has the additional
advantage that no expense is incurred for keeping it constantly and
usefully at work, although other pumps, especially when the water is
raised a great height, necessitates enormous expenses compared with the
useful effect produced, and that, too, during the whole time they are
at work. It must not be forgotten, however, that it is a stream and not
a jet of water which the new machine produces, so that, although it
would be well adapted to supply water to fire engines, for example, it
could not replace them. It is claimed that the machine will yield the
same quantity of water as that being produced by the spring to which
it is adapted, (less, of course, the loss inseparable from the working
of all mechanical apparatus), and at any height, whether it be one
thousand metres, two thousand metres, or more. Dr. Bouron also observes
that, however paradoxical it may appear, he has found “the greater the
height to which the water has to be raised the greater is the power of
the machine.” But the relative proportion of the power to the speed
is quite in conformity with the principles of mechanics. The greater
the height to which the water has to be raised, the greater the power
and the speed that can be brought to bear upon it; but the greater the
horizontal section of the column of water to be lifted, the more will
the speed diminish.




REMARKABLE MASONIC INCIDENT.


The first masonic funeral that ever occurred in California took place
in the year 1849, and was performed over the body of a brother found
drowned in the Bay of San Francisco. An account of the ceremonies
states that on the body of the deceased was found a silver mark of a
Mason, upon which were engraved the initials of his name. A little
further investigation revealed to the beholder the most singular
exhibition of Masonic emblems that was ever drawn by the ingenuity of
man upon the human skin. There is nothing in the history or traditions
of Freemasonry equal to it. Beautifully dotted on his left arm in red
or blue ink, which time could not efface, appeared all the emblems
of the entered apprentice. There were the Holy Bible, the square and
the compass, the 24-inch gauge and the common gavil. There were also
the mosaic pavement representing the ground floor of King Solomon’s
Temple, the intended tessle which surrounds it and the blazing star in
the centre. On his right arm, and artistically executed in the same
indelible liquid, were the emblems pertaining to the fellow craft
degree, viz.: the square, the level, and the plumb. There were also the
five columns representing the five orders of architecture—the Tuscan,
Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite.

In removing the garments from his body, the Trowel presented itself,
with all the other tools of operative Masonry. Over his heart was the
Pot of Incense. On the other parts of his body were the Bee Hive, the
Book of Constitutions, guarded by the Tyler’s Sword, the sword pointing
to a naked heart; the All-seeing eye; the Anchor and Ark, the Hour
Glass, the Scythe, the forty-seventh problem of Euclid; the Sun, Moon,
Stars, and Comets; the three steps emblematical of Youth, Manhood, and
Age. Admirably executed was the weeping Virgin, reclining on a broken
column, upon which lay the Book of Constitutions. In her left hand she
held the Pot of Incense, the Masonic emblem of a pure heat, and in her
uplifted hand a Sprig of Acacia, the emblem of the immortality of the
soul. Immediately beneath her stood winged Time, with his scythe by
his side, which cuts the brittle thread of life, and the Hour Glass
at his feet which is ever reminding us that our lives are withering
away. The withered and attenuated fingers of the Destroyer were placed
amid the long and gracefully flowing ringlets of the disconsolate
mourner. Thus were the striking emblems of mortality and immortality
beautifully blended in one pictorial representation. It was a spectacle
such as Masons never saw before, and, in all probability, such as the
fraternity will never witness again. The brother’s name was never known.




NECESSITY FOR PURE AIR.


Those of our citizens who were “to the manor born,” and never left
their native land, cannot form any idea of the comfort they enjoy as
compared with the misery endured from birth to death by thousands
of kindred humanity in the other parts of the world. Even in highly
cultivated and brilliant England and her dependencies, we find enough
to shock the feelings and make us ask ourselves “can such things be?”

In a pamphlet recently given to the world, DR. MORGAN, a Master of
Arts, and a prominent member of the British Medical Association,
repeats in print a paper which he read before that learned body at
Oxford, in August last; and but for which publication we would have
been in ignorance of the actual depth of misery to which so many good
and faithful subjects of that proud and wealthy monarchy are condemned
uncared for and unthought of.

“The author remarks that the housing of the poor, while beset with
great difficulties, is most intimately connected with the future
prosperity of the great mass of the people. In all our great cities,
there are unhealthy quarters, where the death rate is exceptionally
high, and the reason of this, after careful inspection of many such
places, Dr. Morgan believes is to be found in this statement. Bad air,
or too little of it, kills the people.

“Men will grow robust and vigorous, the author remarks, on very poor
food, in very dirty cabins, and in very sorry attire, provided they
enjoy a pure and bracing atmosphere, and the great physical development
of the nations of the Hebrides and the western highlands of Scotland is
cited as an example. In striking contrast to this, we find that in the
Isle of St. Kilda, a small island, numbering about eighty inhabitants,
three out of every five infants born alive are carried off a few days
after birth by a convulsive affection allied to tetanus, the difference
being apparently due to the huts having no smoke-hole in the thatch,
and being rendered impervious to air by double walls filled in with
peat and sods, the object of which is to prevent the escape of smoke,
and in due time the soot is collected and used as manure.”

       *       *       *       *       *

DRINKING FOUNTAINS—This philanthropic movement which offers the
grateful cup of Nature’s refreshing beverage to the parched lip of
the passenger, is one that takes a high place indeed in the church
universal, at whose shrine all bend in unison, and know no discordant
thought, but love one another for the love of God.




LESSONS FOR LEARNERS.

PRACTICAL GEOMETRY.


We will not commence our instructions with the hackneyed “definitions,”
but give our readers full credit for the knowledge of what is a
_point_, _a right or straight line_, _a curved line_, _parallel
lines_—and so forth, and proceed at once to practice.

There are some persons who think that with a drawing-board and square,
they can, without fail, make all sorts of horizontal, perpendicular,
or parallel lines, and that therefore any geometrical rules for such
purpose are to them unnecessary. But, suppose the drawing-board, or
the square is absent, or that neither can be had. In such an emergency
the want of the following items of knowledge would be severely felt,
and, therefore, the acquirement and retention of them is something
desirable, and even highly necessary.


PROBLEM I. _To erect a perpendicular on a given right line._

[Illustration: _Fig. 1_]

A, B, is the given right line. From the point C, with a radius longer
than the perpendicular distance describe the arc, or part of a circle,
D, D. And from the points of intersection with the right line A, B,
describe arcs cutting each other at C and E. Join C and E, and the
perpendicular is obtained on either side of the right line A, B.


PROBLEM II. _To erect a perpendicular at the middle of a right line._

From the extreme points of the right line A, B, with radii less than
the length of the line describe two arcs intersecting each other at
C and D, and through the points of their intersection draw the line,
which will be perpendicular to the given right line at the middle.

[Illustration: _Fig. 2_]

In this way, too, may any line be divided into too equal parts with
facility and exactness.


PROBLEM III. _To erect a perpendicular at or near the end of a given
right line._

[Illustration: _Fig. 3_]

Take any point, D, on the given right line A, B, as a centre, and to
the required point C, as a radius, and describe an arc C, E, F. Take
a portion of this arc, say E, and make from C, E, equal to E, F. Join
F and C. Now with E, C, for a radius, describe the arc G, E, H, and
make from E to H equal to from E to G. Then through H from C draw the
perpendicular required.

There are other methods of accomplishing this, but we will not
introduce them here, as the one now given is sufficient.

We will now proceed to the formation of geometrical figures which
enclose space.

That which is bounded by one line is called a _circle_; and a right
line dividing it into two equal parts is called its _diameter_; from the
centre of which to either end is called the _radius_: and the boundary
line is termed the _circumference_ from the Latin words _circum_,
around, and _fero_ to carry. That is: a line carried around. Thus we
see an area or space is enclosed by one line. An area may be enclosed
by two lines; but one, or both of them, must be curved; as two right
lines cannot enclose a space. But three can; and the figure is called a
_triangle_.


PROBLEM IV. _In a given circle to construct a Triangle._

[Illustration: _Fig. 4_]

Take the radius of the circle, and with it mark off six points on the
circumference. Take two of these lengths of the radius and join their
extreme points A and B, which will be the base. Now take this base as a
radius and describe alternately two arcs cutting each other at C. Join
A, C, and B, C, and a triangle is formed, whose sides being equal is
termed an _equilateral triangle_.

In order to ensure its being upright, erect a perpendicular at the
centre, and let the two sides A, C, and B, C, meet that perpendicular
where it intersects the circumferences. Or, begin the triangle at this
point, and mark off two lengths of the radius, joining the extreme
points as before; and do this at each side of the perpendicular;
finally connecting the distant extremities of the two sides for a base.


PROBLEM V. _To construct an upright square in a given circle._

Let fall a perpendicular, I, E, from the centre to the circumference,
and with that as a radius and E as a centre, cut the circumference at
A, B, C, and D, and join the points. The four-sided figure called a
square is thus formed.

[Illustration: _Fig. 5_]


PROBLEM VI. _On a given right line_, A, B, _to construct a pentagon, or
five-sided figure_.

[Illustration: _Fig. 6_]

Draw B, F, perpendicular and equal to the half of A, B. Produce A, F,
to G, making F, G, equal to F, B. From the points A and B, with the
radius B, G, describe arcs cutting each other at I. From I, with the
radius I, B, describe a circle. Inscribe the successive chords A, E; E,
D; D, C; C, B, which with the base A, B, completes the pentagon.

If the circle be given, and a pentagon to be inscribed in it, the
following is as simple as it is practical. From the centre erect a
perpendicular, which shall meet the circumference at D. At each side of
this point divide the circumference into five equal parts, and connect
every two of them from D to E, from E to A, and from D to C, C to B.
Now connect A and B and the pentagon is formed.


PROBLEM VII. _On a given line_ A, B, _to construct a hexagon, or
six-sided figure_.

Take the length of the radius I, G, and lay it off from F to A, A to B,
B to C, C to D, D to E, and E to F.

[Illustration: _Fig. 7_]


PROBLEM VIII. _To form an octagon, or eight-sided figure._

Refer back to _Fig. 5_. Draw the radius I, E, till it meets the
circumference at E. Join the points E, A, and E, B. Repeat this at each
of the four sides, and the octagon is formed.


PROBLEM IX. _To form a decagon, or ten-sided figure._

Refer to _Fig. 6_, and proceed as in the preceding problem.


PROBLEM X. _To construct a duo-decagon, or twelve-sided figure._

Refer to _Fig. 7_, and duplicate the chords, as already shown.

We do not present 7, 9, or 11 sided figures, because they seldom or
ever come into practice. Our object being to give what is useful and
not overburden the memory unnecessarily.

The learner should go over and work out each of the foregoing problems
several times. In fact, until they are soundly secured in his memory,
so that on any emergency he can apply them to a required practice.
They are the simplest rudiments, but as practically useful as they are
simple. The Architect, the builder, as well as the several trades of
carpenter, joiner, carver, stone-cutter, mason, and in fact, all in
any way concerned in the practice of construction will at some time
or other wish to recall one of these useful problems. Therefore do we
dwell on the necessity for committing them, understandingly, to memory,
and likewise the advantage required in being able to draw them neatly
and perfectly on paper. In order to do this with satisfaction to one’s
self, it is desirable that a fine point be constantly maintained on the
pencil, and that uniform nicety be preserved with the curved lines, as
well as the right or straight lines. For nothing looks worse than undue
thickness in the one or the other. All should be alike.

In theoretical geometry a line, whether right or curved, is but
imaginary, not having any thickness whatever, and therefore no palpable
existence. In practical geometry the line must be visible, but ought to
be so uniformly fine as to occupy scarcely any perceptible thickness.
And herein lies the greatest beauty in geometrical draughting. By
strict attention to this apparently trifling matter, its advantages
will show wherever minute angles occur. They will be clear and
distinct, and always satisfactory.

The learner should keep his first attempts, however coarse, for they
will by comparison hereafter, show the advance he has made. Nor should
he be content to “let well enough alone.” There is no “well enough”
in drawing. It is a progressive science, and the true artist never
believes he has done his best. Go as near to perfection as you can, and
do not turn aside from, or step over obstacles to reach the end you
have in view. Whatever you have neglected in early study will surely
haunt you through after years, and trouble you when you can least bear
the annoyance.

We now conclude this primary lesson, hoping that our learners may
profit by the hints we have thrown out, and will thoroughly prepare
themselves for the advance in our next.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE first brick house in Iowa was built by Judge Rerer, of Burlington,
in 1839.




VINES FOR THE DECORATION OF COTTAGES.

THE GROUND NUT VINE.


A tourist riding a few miles in almost any New England city, would
hardly fail to notice that a large number of the rural residences
display a profusion of architectural embellishment, without wearing
a cheerful, home-like look. He would pass cottage after cottage
ornamented with slender porticoes, fanciful verandas, sculptured gables
and deep bay windows, but situated in a pen-like looking enclosure,
and surrounded with fixtures, dark and dismal; and with arbor vitæ
hedges whose yellow cast clearly indicated that they had been planted
in ungenial soil. In each narrow yard he would notice flower beds,
containing many unhealthy looking plants, and most of these beds would
exhibit the same arrangement and the same multifarious specimens of the
odds and ends of Nature for miles. He would remark concerning these
suburban seats that they were _pretty_; he would hardly say beautiful,
certainly not charming. They were not satisfying to the eye—they were
designed to impart an expression of exquisite rurality but failed. As
the same tourist passed by some old-fashioned farm house, with its
broad green lawns in front, shaded with green old elms; as he noticed
the wood colored porch covered with luxuriant woodbine, the dove-cote
with its glittering birds, the dark orchards beyond the yard, the
pond in the meadow overhung with willows; or, as he descried some
inexpensive cottage, removed from the road and half hidden from view
by graceful arbors and vigorous native trees, he would ride slowly and
express his satisfaction at each of these scenes of rural taste and
beauty.

It is not the richness of art that gives to English cottages their
picturesqueness and poetic expression, but the beauty of the grounds
that surround them, and the vines that adorn them. It is not the
fantastic gables, nor the latticed windows that so captivate the eye
of the traveller, but the tasteful foliage that drapes them, and the
lustrous vines that embower them. Denude these cottages of these
embellishments, and many of them would appear as uninviting to the eye
as the mouldering tower without the classic ivy.

Louis XIV had his Versailles, and his elegant queen her embowered
Triannon; but the simple charms of Triannon proved more inviting to the
cultivated minds of the court, than the gorgeous pile and artificial
gardens at Versailles.

We devote too much time to the cultivation of exotics, and too lightly
value the vines and shrubs of our native soil. Again, we sacrifice rich
foliage that lasts for a season, to gaudy flowers that last only for a
brief period. The double prairie rose is a very delightful sight—for a
single week—and during the remaining season it is a miserable brier,
commonly wormy and lousy. Yet the prairie rose is in common use as
an ornament for the veranda, while the jessamine, the woodbine, the
wisteria and the luxuriant honeysuckle are, put in less conspicuous
places, or their cultivation wholly neglected.

It may be cited as an evidence of improving taste in the rural art,
that rustic work, which imparts to a place an expression of delightful
rurality, is taking the place of images, porcelain vases, etc.,
that long have been conspicuous objects in almost every parterre.
The perfection of beauty to which this work may be carried has been
admirably illustrated in Central Park, New York City, and widely copied
by gentlemen of taste. Few objects are more pleasing than rustic arbors
or even rustic urns over-running with foliage.

Among the most pleasing vines for embellishment of rural seats are the
honeysuckle (_Lonicera japonica_ and the trumpet vine), the woodbine,
the jessamine and the American ivy. For adorning stone work, the
English ivy is very rich, though it grows imperfectly in our Northern
latitudes.

The woodbine forms a massive drapery for a cottage porch. It has a rich
marine hue in summer, and it is very richly tinted in autumn after
the early frosts. The Japan honeysuckle is deliciously fragrant, and
it retains its dark lustrous foliage until mid-winter. Unlike many
climbers this honeysuckle, together with the trumpet vine, is not
liable to be infested with insects. The feathery _clematis_, known also
by the names of the _virgin’s bower_ and the _traveller’s joy_, is a
pretty creeper for walls and fences; and the common hop vine may be
made to add beauty to the dove-cote and the martin boxes, when these
are placed after the old English manner, upon poles.

The American ivy is one of the most prolific of foliage vines. The
leaves when they are young are of a delicate pea-green color, but they
become dark and lustrous as the season advances. They are very gorgeous
after the early autumn frosts, displaying the richest tints of orange
and vermillion. The ivy forms a sort of net-work for old crumbling
walls, and it is indigenous to stormy places.

There is a slender vine very common in the Eastern States that is
seldom used for ornamental purposes, to which we would especially
invite the attention of the florists. It is called the ground nut,
(_Apios tuberosa._) Its foliage is dark, thick, and very graceful.
The flowers are remarkable. They are dark purple in color and present
a peculiar waxy appearance, in dense predunculate, axillary racemes.
Their odor is wonderfully sweet, and it is so powerful and inexhaustive
as to fill perpetually the air. The vine entwines itself among low
bushes in its native state. A florist of our acquaintance supplemented
the charms of her trellises of roses by entwining these vines among the
branches. Her rooms were filled with fragrance whenever the windows
were thrown open during the whole of the hot season. The flowers of the
ground nut vine last for a very long period. Remember this vine in your
summer rambles.—_Working Farmer._

CLEAN THE CELLAR.—The Boston _Journal of Chemistry_ says: “Diptheria,
typhoid, and scarlet fevers, and many other most serious illnesses,
have their origin in cellars both in city and country; and we can do
our readers no greater service than to urge them to see that at all
times they are in a dry, sweet, wholesome condition. Why should farmers
and farmer’s families, living in the country away from the pestilential
vapors of the cities, be so subject to attacks of malignant diseases?
There is a reason for it, and we can point it out. They arise from
the indifference manifested to the observance of hygienic rules and
the violation of sanitary laws. Cleanliness is essential to health,
and it is just as necessary in the country as in the city. A family
living over a foul cellar is more liable to be poisoned and afflicted
with illness than a city family living in its polluted atmosphere,
but without cellar or basement filled with fermenting roots and
fruits. There is far more sickness in the country among husbandmen
than there ought to be. With plenty of pure air, water, and exercise,
the evil imp Disease ought to be kept at bay, and he would be better
if an observance of certain hygienic conditions were maintained. Bad
conditioned cellars, small, close sleeping rooms, stoves—these are all
agents of evil, and are fast making the homes of farmers almost as
unhealthy as those of the dwellers in cities. Are not these suggestions
worthy of consideration?”




ON THE ART OF GARDENING.


BY THOMAS HOPE.

What was, in the earlier times, the origin of the garden? The wish
that certain esculent plants and fruits, which in the waste field and
the wide forest are scattered at great distances, in small quantities,
intermixed with useless vegetables and fruits, precarious in their
appearance, and stinted in their growth, difficult to collect, and
scarce worth the gathering, might in a nearer, a smaller, and a more
accessible spot, be better secured, more abundantly produced, kept
clearer of the noxious herbs and weeds which destroy their nutriment
and impede their growth. This was, in its origin, the sole object of
the entire garden; this, to the present hour, continues to be the
principal purpose of that essential portion of the garden, devoted to
the uses of the kitchen and the table.

In these parts of the garden then, which are destined immediately for
the gratification, not of the eye, but merely of the palate, it is only
in proportion as we more fully deviate from the desultory and confused
dispositions of simple nature—firstly, by separating the different
species of esculent plants, not only from their useless neighbors, but
from each other; and secondly, by confining the vegetables thus classed
in those symmetric and measured compartments, which enable us with
greater ease to discover, to approach, and to improve each different
species in the precise way, most congenial to its peculiar requisites,
that we more fully attain that first of intellectual beauties, which,
in every production, whether of nature or of art, resides in the exact
correspondence between the end we propose and the means we employ.
Nay, if it be true that contrast and variety of colors and of forms
are amongst the most essential ingredients of visible beauty, we may
say that even this species of sensible charm is greatly increased in
the aspect of a country by the opposition to the more widely diffused,
but more vague shades and outlines of the unsymmetrical surrounding
landscape, offered by the more vivid hues and more distinct forms of
the gay Mosaic work of nicely classed and symmetrized vegetables which
clothe these select spots.

Even where the general unadorned scenery is as bold and majestic as
in Switzerland, or as rich and luxuriant as in Sicily, the eye with
rapture beholds the variety, and enjoys the relief from the vaster
and sublimer features of rude Nature, offered by the professed art
of a neat little patch of ground, whether field, orchard, or garden,
symmetrically distributed. It looks like a small but rich gem—a topaz,
an emerald, or a ruby, sparkling amidst vast heaps of ruder ore; or
rather like a rich carpet, spread out over a corner of the valley. It
appears thus incontrovertible, that in that part at least of the garden
which is immediately intended for utility, we incidentally produce
not only greater intellectual, but greater visible beauty, by not
confining ourselves to the desultory forms of unguided Nature, but by
admitting the more symmetric outlines of avowed art, and it therefore
only remains to be inquired, whether in that other and different part
of the artificial grounds, in later times added to the former, which
is directly intended for beauty, and which we therefore call the
pleasure-grounds, we shall really produce more beauty, intellectual or
visible, or, in other words, more pleasure to the mind or eye, by only
employing the powers of art in a covert and unavowed way; in still only
preserving the closest resemblance to the interminable and irregular
forms of mere nature, or by exhibiting her additional resources in a
more open and avowed manner; in contrasting these more indeterminate
and desultory features of pure nature, with some of those more
determinate and compassed outlines, which, indeed, on a small scale,
are already found in many of the spontaneous productions of Nature
herself; but which on a more extended plan, are only displayed in the
works of art. I say, more pleasures to the mind or eye; for the portion
of the garden here alluded to, no less than the one before mentioned
professes itself to be a piece of ground wrested from Nature’s dominion
by the hand of man, for purposes to which Nature alone was inadequate;
and thence contending that there is the least necessity or propriety
in rendering this district, appropriated by art, a fac-simile of pure
Nature, independent of any consideration of superior beauty which this
imitation may offer to the eye or mind, and merely because, to form
a garden, we use materials supplied by Nature—such as air, water,
earth, and vegetables, would be absurd in the extreme. As well might
we contend, that every house, built of stone should resemble a cavern,
and every coat made of wool, a sheepskin. Every production of human
industry whatsoever, must, if we trace it to its origin, arise out of
one or more definite ingredients of pure nature; and unless, therefore,
by the same rule, every production of human industry whatsoever be
obliged everlastingly to continue wearing the less regular forms of
those peculiar objects of nature, out of which it is wrought, we cannot
with more justice arraign gardens in their capacity as aggregates of
mere natural substances and productions, for assuming the artificial
forms of a terrace or a _jet-d’eau_, an avenue or a _quincunx_, than
we can condemn opera-dancers and figurantes, in their capacity of
compounds of natural limbs and features, for exhibiting the artificial
movements of the minuet and the gavot, the entrechat and the pas-grave.

If, then, the strict resemblance to the desultory forms of rude
nature be not indispensably requisite in the artificial scenery of
pleasure-grounds, on account of any invariable reasons of propriety
or consistency, inherent in the very essence of such grounds, this
resemblance of studious art to wild nature, in the gardens that adorn
our habitations, can only be more eligible on account of some superior
pleasure which it gives the eye and mind, either in consequence of
certain general circumstances connected with the very nature of all
imitation, or only in consequence of certain more restricted effects,
solely and exclusively produced by this peculiar species of imitation;
namely, of natural landscapes through artificial grounds.

Now, with regard to the former of these two considerations, I allow
that a faithful imitation, even of a deformed original, is capable
of affording great intellectual pleasure to the beholder, provided
that imitation, like that displayed in painting and sculpture, be
produced through dint of materials, or tools so different from those
of which is composed the original imitated, as to evince in the
imitator extraordinary ingenuity and powers; but the imitation of a
natural landscape, through means of the very ingredients of all natural
scenery; namely, air, earth, trees, and water, (and which imitation
will in general offer greater truth in proportion as it is attained
through greater neglect,) cannot possess that merit which consists
in the overcoming of difficulties and the display of genius; unless,
indeed, it be an imitation of such a species of wild scenery as is
totally foreign to the genius of the locality in which it is produced;
unless it consists in substituting mountains to plains, waterfalls to
puddles, and precipices to flats; and in that case, on the contrary,
the attempt at imitation will become so arduous as to threaten
terminating in a total failure, by only offering, instead of a sublime
and improved resemblance, a most paltry and mean caricature. Since,
then, in a garden, the imitation of the less symmetric arrangements of
rude nature can afford little or no peculiar gratification to the mind
in their sole capacity as imitations, the question becomes restricted
within a very narrow compass; and all that remains to be inquired
into is, whether, in that garden, the exclusive admission of mere
unsymmetric forms of simple nature, or their mixture with a certain
proportion of the more symmetric forms of professed art, will give more
intense and more varied pleasure to the eye? And, when thus stated, I
should think the question would be nearly answered in the same way by
every unprejudiced person. I should think it would be denied by none,
that if, on the one hand, the most irregular habitation, still, through
the very nature of its construction and purposes, must ever necessarily
remain most obviously symmetric and formal; if not in its whole, at
least in its various details, of doors, windows, steps, entablatures,
etc., and if, on the other hand, as I take it, all beauty consists
in that contrast, that variety, that distinctness of each of the
different component parts of a whole, from the remaining parts, which
renders each individually a relief to the remainder, combined with that
harmony, that union of each of these different component parts of that
whole with the remaining parts, which renders each a support to the
remainder, and enables the eye and mind to glide over and compass the
whole with rapidity and with ease, fewer striking features of beauty
will be found in a garden, where, from the very threshold of the still
ever symmetric mansion, one is launched in the most abrupt manner, into
a scene wholly composed of the most unsymmetric and desultory forms of
mere nature, totally out of character with those of that mansion; and
where the same species of irregular and indeterminate forms, already
prevailing at the very centre, extend, without break or relief, to the
utmost boundaries of the grounds, than will be presented in another
garden, where the cluster of highly-adorned and sheltered apartments
that form the mansion, in the first instance, shoot out, as it were,
into certain more or less extended ramifications of arcades, porticoes,
terraces, parterres, treillages, avenues, and other such still splendid
embellishments of art, calculated by their architectural and measured
forms, at once to offer a striking and varied contrast with, and a
dignified and comfortable transition to, the more undulating and
rural features of the more extended, more distant, and more exposed
boundaries; before, in the second instance, through a still further
link, a still further continuance of this same gradation of hues and
forms, these limits of the private domain are again made in their turn,
by means of their less artificial and more desultory appearance, to
blend equally harmoniously on the other side, with the still ruder
outlines of the property of the public at large.

No doubt, that, among the very wildest scenes of unappropriated nature,
there are some so grand, so magnificent, that no art can vie with, or
can enhance their effect. Of this description are the towering rock,
the tremendous precipice, the roaring cataract, even the dark, gloomy,
impenetrable forest. Of such, let us take great care not to destroy, or
to diminish the grandeur by paltry conceits or contrivances of art. But
even these are such features as, from certain conditions unavoidably
attendant on them, we would not wish to have permanently under our
eyes and windows; or even if we wished it, could not transport
within the narrow precincts which immediately surround the mansion.
A gentleman’s country residence, situated in the way it ought to be,
for health, for convenience, and for cheerfulness, can only have room
in its immediate vicinity for the more concentrated beauties of art.
In this narrow circle, if we wish for variety, for contrast, and for
brokenness of levels, we can only seek it in arcades and in terraces,
in steps, balustrades, regular slopes, parapets, and such like; we
cannot find space for the rock and the precipice. Here, if we admire
the fleeting motion, the brilliant transparency, the soothing murmur,
the delightful coolness of the crystal stream, we must force it up in
an erect _jet-d’eau_, or hurl it down in an abrupt cascade; we cannot
admit so near us the winding torrent, dashed at wide intervals from
rock to rock. Here, if we desire to collect the elegant forms, vivid
colors, and varied fragrance of the choicest shrubs and plants, whether
exotics, or only natives, oranges, magnolias, and rhododendrons, or
roses, and lilies, and hyacinths; we still must confine them in the
boxes, the pots, or the beds of some sort of parterre; we cannot give
them the appearance of spontaneously growing from amongst weeds and
briers. Here, in fine, if we have a mind to secure the cool shade and
the convenient shelter of lofty trees, we can only plant an avenue, we
cannot form a forest. And for that, since we admire, even to an excess,
symmetry of lines and disposition in that production of art called a
house, we should abhor these attributes in the same excess in that
other avowed production of art, the immediate appendage of the former,
and consequently the sharer in its purposes and character, namely, the
garden, I do not understand. There is between the various divisions of
the house and those of the grounds, this difference, that the first
are more intended for repose, and the latter for exercise; that the
first are under cover, and the latter exposed. The difference should
make a corresponding difference in the nature of the materials, and in
the size and delicacy of the forms; but why it should occasion on the
one side an unqualified admission, and on the other, as unqualified
an exclusion of those attributes of symmetry and correspondence of
parts which may be equally produced in coarser as in finer materials,
on a vaster as on a smaller scale, I cannot conceive. The outside of
the house is exposed to the elements as well as the grounds; and why,
while columns are thought invariably to look well at regular distances,
trees should be thought invariably to look ill in regular rows, is what
I cannot comprehend. Assuredly the difference is as great between the
eruptions of Etna, or of any other volcano, and artificial fire-works,
as it is between the falls of the Niagara or of any other river, and
artificial water-works. Why, then, while we gaze with admiration on a
rocket, should we behold with disgust a _jet-d’eau_? And why, while we
are delighted with a rain of fiery sparks, should we be displeased with
a shower of liquid diamonds, issuing from a beautiful vase, and again
collected in as exquisite a basin? If the place be appropriate, if the
hues be vivid, if the outlines be elegant, if the objects be varied and
contrasted, in the name of wonder, how should, out of all these partial
elements of positive, unmixed beauty, arise a whole positively ugly?
No, there can only arise a whole as beautiful as the parts; and so,
those travellers who have not allowed any narrow and exclusive theories
to check or destroy their spontaneous feelings, must own they have
thought many of the suspended gardens within Genoa, and of the splendid
villas about Rome; so they have thought those striking oppositions of
the rarest marbles to the richest verdure; those mixtures of statues,
and vases, and balustrades, with cypresses, and pinasters, and bays;
those distant hills seen through the converging lines of lengthened
colonnades; those ranges of aloes and cactuses growing out of vases
of granite and of porphyry, scarce more symmetric by art, than these
plants are by nature; and, finally, all those other endless contrasts
of regular and irregular forms, everywhere, each individually
increasing its own charms, through their contrast with those of the
other, exhibited in the countries, which we consider as the earliest
schools, where beauty became an object of sedulous study.

But the truth is, that in our remoter climes, we carry every theory
into the extremes. Once, that very symmetry and correspondence of
parts of which a certain proportion ever has, to all refined ages and
nations, ancient and modern, appeared a requisite feature of the more
dressy and finished parts of the pleasure garden, prevailed in all
English villas with so little selection, and at the same time, in such
indiscreet profusion, as not only rendered the different parts insipid
and monotonous with respect to each other, but the whole mass a most
formal, unharmonious blotch with regard to the surrounding country.
Surfeited at last with symmetry carried to excess, we have suddenly
leaped into the other extreme. Dreading the faintest trace of the
ancient regularity of outline as much as we dread the phantoms of those
we once most loved, we have made our country residences look dropped
from the clouds, in spots most unfitted to receive them; and, at the
expense, not only of all beauty, but of all comfort, we have made the
grounds appear as much out of harmony, viewed in one direction with the
mansion, as they formerly were viewed in the opposite direction with
the country at large. Through the total exclusion of all the variety,
the relief, the sharpness, which, straight or spherical, or angular, or
other determinate lines and forms might have given to unsymmetric and
serpentining forms and surfaces, we have, without at all diminishing
the appearance of art, (which in a garden can never be totally
eradicated,) only succeeded in rendering that art of the most tame and
monotonous description; like that languid and formal blank verse, which
is equally divested of the force of poetry and the facility of prose.
Nature, who, in her larger productions, is content with exhibiting the
more vague beauties that derive from mere variety and play of hues
and forms; Nature herself, in her smaller and more elaborate, and if
I may so call them, choicer bits of every different reign, superadds
those features of regular symmetry of colors and shapes, which not only
form a more striking contrast with the more desultory modifications
of her huger masses, but intrinsically in a smaller space, produces a
greater effect than the former can display. Examine the radii of the
snow-spangle, the facettes of the crystal, the petals of the flower,
the capsules of the seed, the wings, the antennæ, the rings, the
stigmata of the insect and the butter-fly; nay, even in man and beast,
the features of the face, and the configuration of the eye, and we
shall find in all these more minute, more finished, and more centrical
productions of the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms,
reigns the nicest symmetry of outline and correspondence of parts. And
if art, which can only be founded upon, only spring out of nature; if
art, I say, should ever only be considered as the further development
of nature’s own principles, the complement of nature’s own designs,
assuredly we best obey the views of nature, and best understand the
purposes of art, when, leaving total irregularity to the more extended,
more distant, and more neglected recesses of the park, we give some
degree of symmetry to the smaller and nearer, and more studied
divisions of the pleasure-ground. This principle of proportioning the
regularity of the objects to their extent, the Greeks well understood.
While in the Medici Venus the attitude of the body only displays the
unsymmetric elegance of simple nature, the hair presents all the
symmetry of arrangement of the most studious art; and unless this
principle also become familiar among us there is great danger that
unable to make the grounds harmonize with the mansion, we attempt to
harmonize the mansion with the grounds, by converting that mansion
itself into a den or a quarry.




REMARKS ON FIRE-PROOF CONSTRUCTION.


A PAPER READ BEFORE THE NEW YORK CHAPTER OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF
ARCHITECTS, APRIL 6TH, 1869.

BY P. B. WIGHT, F. A. I. A.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:—A distinguished member of this body not
long since remarked that a fire-proof building was easily defined:
“It is a building which cannot burn, and which contains nothing that
will burn.” Admitting the definition, I do not propose to dispute with
the gentleman, neither do I intend to enter into an elaborate and
scientific investigation of the subject; to do so would be to essay a
task far beyond my powers, and one which might result in stultifying
myself and wearying you. The best I can do is to collect some of the
scattered results of thought and observation, into what I trust you
will consider to be but a rambling dissertation upon a subject which is
of great interest to all of us. It is, therefore, less with the desire
to display any erudition, than to introduce the subject, and call forth
the views of those assembled here, that I have chosen to address you
some remarks on fire-proof buildings. In so doing it is possible that
I may enter the field of criticism, and may comment upon the works of
some who are here present; but whatever I may say in that direction,
allow me to assure you, will be said with justice and candor, and an
endeavor to follow Matthew Arnold’s definition of criticism—to find the
best ideas in everything. I will look to those whose experience has
been more extended than mine, for a continuation of the discussion of
what I may only hint at.

It is very seldom that any building is required for such use that only
non-combustible material shall be placed in it; but it is still a
fact that fire-proof buildings are often called for, and are needed,
wherein large amounts of combustible materials are to be placed.[A] To
supply such a demand, is one of the most important problems offered to
the architect for solution. Of such buildings, are storage warehouses,
and stores or shops, wholesale and retail, as well as buildings for
certain kinds of manufacturing processes, such as sugar-houses and
carriage or furniture shops.

Having devised a building of non-combustible material throughout,
the question which next arises is how to keep a conflagration in one
part from extending to all the contents of the building. It seems to
me, that in buildings for such purposes, the idea of making them only
partially fire-proof is not to be considered for a moment, unless,
perhaps, the material contained is so highly inflammable that it would
destroy the material of the building, even if it is divided into
fire-proof compartments, in which case it seems to be folly to go to
the expense of fire-proof materials at all. When you know that no part
of your building can burn of itself it is evident that every atom of
it will offer some resistance to the enemy confined within. I believe,
too, that it is impossible to smother or choke a fire once commenced,
by the use of closed compartments. Accident or carelessness may leave
some openings which will facilitate a draft in some unforeseen way.
And even supposing that you have shut in your fire by some arrangement
of closed compartments, can you give your compartments less air than
a charcoal pit? Close it as much as you will, your confined goods,
if the barriers are not forced by the immense power generated by the
heat, will at last be reduced to charcoal; for you cannot open a door
or window upon such a smouldering fire, but that it will instantly
burst into flames. Ships have been brought to port with smouldering
fires under their closed hatches, which have been in existence for
weeks at a time, while but few have been eventually saved under such
circumstances, except by scuttling. Such conditions do not exist with
regard to buildings; in them there is not the risk of human lives,
which may be saved on shipboard only by closing down the hatches, and
scuttling is obviously out of the question.

Store-houses are the only class of buildings which admit of division
into airtight compartments, and there is a practical objection to
them in even buildings of this class; but few kinds of goods can be
preserved without good ventilation. It seems, therefore, that the
compartments should be open and accessible from without, but carefully
divided from each other. If so, they afford good facilities to those
employed in extinguishing fires; and I think that in a building thus
arranged, there would be a more reasonable chance of a portion of its
goods being saved.

The division of buildings into horizontal compartments, rather than
vertical ones, is so much more desirable, where land is expensive,
that inventors have almost exhausted their ingenuity in devising
thoroughly fire-proof floors. It is obvious, however, that the division
of a building by vertical fire-proof partitions, is a matter so easy
of accomplishment, that it is questionable whether the horizontal
division, so beset with practical difficulties, so expensive, and
withal so much less to be depended upon, even when the best systems
of construction are used, is ever economical, even where ground
is expensive. I even question whether it is of any use to build
iron floors, or floors with iron supports, for buildings to contain
goods; brick piers and groined arches are alone reliable. If you
divide horizontally you must have stairways within and windows on the
exterior, both of which welcome the ascending flames. You may enclose
your staircase in a fire-proof enclosure, and you may put the heaviest
iron shutters on your windows, but you must have doors through which to
gain access from your stairways, and you must open your shutters when
you want light. There is a contingency that these traps may be set when
the enemy comes, and then all your expensive floors represent so much
wasted capital.

As yet, I believe, that no buildings in this vicinity, built purely
for storage purposes, have been constructed entirely of fire-proof
materials, except the St. John’s Depot of the Hudson River Railroad
Company. I am not aware that any attempt has been made in these
buildings to stop a conflagration among the goods on storage either
by horizontal or vertical compartments. The floors, to be sure, are
of iron and brick, non-combustible, but with hoistways; and it is not
difficult to conjecture, even supposing that all horizontal openings
and iron shutters were closed, what would be the result of a fire
raging on one of those floors, hundreds of feet in expanse.

Several fires occurring recently in the Brooklyn warehouses have
warned their owners to take extra precautions, even though none of
these warehouses are fire-proof, if I am rightly informed. One of the
best is known as the Pierrepont Stores, near the Wall Street Ferry,
and the arrangement of them is well worthy of notice. These are about
three hundred feet in length, and are divided into six compartments by
fire-proof party walls; the width of each compartment is consequently
about fifty feet, and the length about two hundred feet. The floors
are of wood, and it would have been useless to make them of iron and
brick; for the goods taken in them are mainly sugars, and it would
be folly to attempt to arrest a fire of such combustible material in
its ascending course, by any practicable device. But what is most
interesting in these buildings is that each is fortified against its
neighbor. Recently the party walls were carried up about six feet above
the roofs, and were pierced with embrasures, through which firemen can
play from the roof of one building upon the flames of another, with
perfect safety to themselves. Here is an instance wherein capital would
have been wasted on the expensive materials required for fire-proof
floors.

It is the duty of the architect, as I conceive it, to guide the
capitalist in coming to a decision on such points. If he devises
economical methods, his commission is lessened, but thereby so much
more capital remains unemployed, but ready for investment in other
enterprises. It would be foreign to my subject to enlarge upon this
point, and show how much more it is to the interest of the architect
to study reasonable economy in his works, especially buildings for
business purposes; but I will let the suggestion stand for what it
is worth. Perhaps a knowledge of the fact that most members of our
profession agree with me in this opinion would go far toward disarming
the misgivings of many a client upon the question of commissions.

Buildings for manufacturing purposes next demand attention. Some time
since a manufacturer and contractor for iron work remarked to me, that
if some one would only put up a large fire-proof building, with good
steam power, to be rented out for manufacturing purposes, his fortune
would easily be made. I have often thought of the suggestion, and
wondered why it had not been acted upon. He said that at that time it
would be impossible to hire a fire-proof shop or room, with power,
in this city. Now, there are many occupations requiring delicate,
and not easily replaced machinery, or in which are involved elaborate
experiments, running for long periods—the derangement of which could
not be recompensed by any amount of insurance—for which a fire-proof
building would be almost invaluable. The saving of insurance on such
a building and its contents would be greater than the interest on the
extra cost of fire-proof floors, and would enable the owner to rent
his rooms at a lower rate—in proportion to the equivalent given—than
could the owners of buildings with wooden floors. The extra cost of
fire-proof construction in a manufacturing building is small when
compared with that of a bank or public building. The walls and ceilings
require neither lath nor furring, and the floors may be of flags
or slate, bedded on the brick arches, or what is better, plates of
cast-iron bolted to the beams—which will presently be described. All
inside finish may be discarded, and iron doors, of No. 16 iron, with
light wrought-iron frames, hung to stone templates in the jambs, are
the only coverings required for the openings.

Such fire-proof buildings as have been erected for manufacturing
purposes have been specially designed for single occupants. The most
perfect and the earliest that I know of is a building erected on Vestry
street, about ten years since, for the Grocers’ Sugar Refining Company.
This building, as far as its material is concerned, is absolutely
fire-proof. It is most remarkable for its floors, which are made of
plates of boiler-iron, riveted together and secured to the beams in
large sheets. This is the most simple system of floor construction
I have ever seen, and has many advantages. But I have not seen the
building in use, and do not know how the floors answer the ends for
which they are intended.

Some of the new buildings for the various gas works in this city are
fire-proof. The best are those of the Metropolitan Company, at the
foot of Forty-second street, North river. But they are at best, only
sheds—brick walls, with iron shutters and roofs. Large, open, and well
ventilated, they serve their purposes well; but they can hardly be
called architecture.

The most extensive attempt to build a fire-proof building for
manufacturing purposes was the enterprise of Harper & Brothers. This
was one of the pioneer buildings of the new dispensation. The Harper
girder is well known; it is an ornamented cast-iron beam, with a tie
rod, and was the father of the truss beam, now so extensively used
for supporting the rear walls of stores. It has been succeeded by the
built-up beam, now generally used for girders, and the double rolled
beam. It was eminently a constructive beam, using iron according to
its best properties, cast-iron for compression and wrought-iron for
tension. I doubt not that it will some day be again used where girders
are required. The built-up beam was invented for the restorer of the
“pure” styles, who think that furring strips, laths, plaster and a
modicum of run moulding, not to forget “a neat panel on the soffit,”
to be a good substitute for the honest lintel of the Greeks, and more
artistic than the constructive beam which James L. Jackson & Bro.
designed and executed for the Harpers. When men are no longer ashamed
to display good iron construction, and bend their artistic conceptions
to their constructive skill, we may hope to see something like the
Harper beam revived, and decorated in a manner befitting its use. But
I fear that this will be done when a more rational generation than
our own holds the sway. But to return. In Harper’s building, as in
the Cooper building, the deck beam was used for the floors, and brick
arches, such as those now in use, were employed. The deck beam has
also gone out of use. When first employed, iron beams were not made
for houses, but for ships. The I beam, has replaced the deck beam for
the former purpose. And in this connection, I would suggest an inquiry
into the practicability of using the deck beam inverted. It has always
seemed to me that the broad flange would best sustain compression,
and that the roll, having the form of a round bar, would best resist
tension. The matter of the bearings is easily remedied by a cast-iron
shoe on each end of the beam and bolted to it. This shoe, with a broad
foot, would answer the purpose both of template and anchor, and if
made to project from the wall and assume an ornamental shape, might
become a visible and constructive bracket. The deck beam inverted would
evidently present the best appearance from below in cases where the
flooring is placed on top of the beams—the various methods of doing
which I propose to discuss further on. Should the deck beam come again
into use, it might be made of more ornamental form without detriment
to its strength. The bottom roll or flange could be moulded in various
ways.

But, except in so far as the floors are concerned, the Messrs. Harper’s
building is far from being fire-proof. There is much wood-work in its
inside finish, and the contents being of a highly inflammable nature,
I fear that fire would have its own way in that building unless early
checked.

Besides these buildings two partially fire-proof publishing houses have
been built; the Times Building and the Ledger Building; but there is
nothing in either that it is pertinent to my inquiry to mention;—they
are manufacturing buildings in the same sense that the Harper’s
Building is, but the former might as well come within the class of
office buildings.

The fact of the American Bank Note Company having taken quarters in
the Mutual Life Insurance Building, upon their expulsion from the
Custom House, illustrates what my friend mentioned about the demand
for buildings for delicate and elaborate processes, such as the art of
bank note engraving, and goes to show that such branches of business
are obliged to settle in buildings erected for other purposes. The
work of a bank note company is in some respects a heavy manufacturing
business, which any one will believe who examines the powerful boilers
and engines in the cellar of the Mutual Insurance Building; but it is
also a delicate artistic business, requiring steady floors, good light,
and absolute safety from fire, to the valuable materials used and kept
in it, which not money alone could replace.

From the Bank Note Company we come next to the Assay office whose risks
are similar. I am informed that it is absolutely fire-proof, but I have
had no occasion to visit it.

Of Banks and Insurance Buildings we certainly have a large number
which are to all intents fire-proof, though but few are thoroughly so.
It is generally admitted that such buildings are not in danger from
their contents, and to this belief may be ascribed the fact that we
already have so many of this class. The Continental Bank, the American
Exchange Bank, the Mutual Life Insurance Company’s building, the Park
Bank, and the City Bank building, recently remodeled, are absolutely
fire-proof. Nothing less than a bonfire of all the furniture, books,
and papers that could be collected together in any one room of any of
these buildings would endanger its destruction. They are safe from
any ordinary casualty. But in all the rest there is enough wood-work
to make the word “fire-proof,” as applied to them, of very doubtful
significance. To show what a practical eye the Insurance Companies
have, let me say that in nearly all the so-called fire-proof bank
buddings the rates of insurance are as high as in ordinary business
buildings. The rates are unusually high in the building which I happen
to occupy, on account of a well hole in the centre which is trimmed
with wood, and would carry a fire through the whole building in an
instant. What I might say in relation to buildings of this class will
be comprised in some practical suggestions upon fire-proof buildings
generally. Let us then look for a few moments into the matter of
constructive details.

And, firstly, how shall floors be constructed? Before the “iron
period,” when our Washington Capitol, our City Hall, our old Exchange
and Custom House were built, the Roman Mediæval vaults only, were
used—either of stone or of brick plastered. When the width of a room
was too great for one span, granite columns or brick piers were used,
as in our old Exchange, now the Custom house. The floors above the
vaults were leveled up and paved with flags or marble tiles. As far
as grace, strength and absolute relief from the dangers of fire were
concerned, this was a perfect system. But now space is demanded; there
must be no more heavy piers and no great thickness of floors. We are
therefore forced to use a material which, though not combustible of
itself, will do little work if exposed to great heat; and in this is
seen the great difference between our fire-proof buildings of the
brick period and those of the iron period, and the inferior fire-proof
qualities of the latter. The problem now is, to use the minimum of
brick and the maximum of iron. I think, therefore, it must be conceded
that with the best we can do with this material, there is danger; and
the problem might be put thus: “Given Iron, make as nearly fire-proof
buildings as possible out of it.” What, then, has been done with it
thus far? For columns, we have used cast tubes of all shapes and sizes
and the wrought-iron pillars of the Phoenix Iron Company; for girders,
we have used compound beams of cast-iron, with wrought ties—built up
beams of various forms of rolled and plate iron, bolted and riveted
together—and common rolled beams, used double; for floor beams we first
used deck beams for wide spans and railroad iron for narrow spans;
these have now been superseded by the I beam of various sizes. The
Rolling Mills now have on their circulars I beams of great dimensions
and suitable for girders, but refuse to fill any but large orders;
indeed, I believe that only one mill has rollers for beams larger than
thirteen inches, while the others will not put up machinery until
they get large enough offers. So we are thus far deprived of large
smooth beams of one piece, for girders of long span—beams which no
one would desire to hide from view, but which might honestly tell
their use to every beholder. For supports between beams we have had
Peter Cooper’s _terra cotta_ pots and the four inch brick arches. The
former are out of use and the latter are almost universally employed.
Corrugated iron—first used in the Columbian Insurance building by Mr.
Diaper—has also gone out of use. The destruction of the Fulton Bank,
a so-called fire-proof building, sealed its fate as far as floors
are concerned.[B] We have also had the experiment of stone floors in
the American Exchange Bank, by Mr. Eidlitz, and repeated by another
architect in the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Building, at Newark, N.
J. The stone slabs, brick arches, and the Parisian floors—of plaster or
concrete, bedded upon bar iron gratings inserted between the beams—are
the only practical systems of fire-proof floor construction, now in
use. The only attempt to lay the floor _on_ the beams, of which I have
knowledge, is in the sugar house above mentioned. This has suggested to
me several methods of laying rigid floors upon beams at considerable
spaces (three to five feet) from one another. Preliminary to so doing,
I have above suggested the revival of the deck beam, or the I beam
with a better form for the bottom flange, and the adoption of cast-iron
shoes for the bearings.

The objections to the brick arches are that their great weight requires
heavier beams than would otherwise be used, and that the form of their
soffits is not beautiful; for they have the appearance of a long
succession of little wagon vaults, requiring a resort to the doubtful
expedient of furring the ceiling with iron lath. I think it might be
objected to the French system of floors, that the expense would be too
great, plaster being a dear article with us in comparison with its
price in France, while our own cement has not the requisite properties
to enable it to be substituted, besides being almost equally costly.
The stone slabs, of Mr. Eidlitz, are the only rigid material thus
far used successfully with iron beams, and could be used to better
advantage if laid _on_ the beams rather than resting upon their lower
flanges, as is done in the American Exchange Bank. They are doubtless
the handsomest material that can be used for this purpose, but are
open to the objection of being heavy and expensive—where expense is a
question, and utility only is sought—requiring heavy beams and calling
for elaborate cutting on the under side. It will be pertinent to our
inquiry, therefore, to ask if there are any other rigid materials
adaptable to this purpose, and possessing the desired quality of
lightness and cheapness. A former draughtsman of mine, now a member of
the Institute, first suggested the use of slabs of slate, about two
inches in thickness, for spans of four feet, and thicker or thinner
in proportion to the distance of the beams from centres. I give his
suggestion for what it is worth. But it led me to believe that we would
eventually come to cast-iron as the practicable material for this
purpose, possessing the requisite qualities of lightness and cheapness
and capable of being bolted to the beams, thus answering all the
purposes of flooring and bridging. Cast-iron plates may be used for
flooring in two ways; first, when deafening and finished floor covering
are required; second, when neither is required, as in manufacturing
buildings, wherein a reasonably smooth flooring is required, and a few
planks, laid where workmen habitually stand, will answer the purpose
of non-conductors of heat. Experiment must determine the minimum
quantity of iron (in proportion to the strength required) to be used
in the floor plates. In obtaining the proper form for strength, and
to ensure true castings, the bottoms of the plates will naturally be
covered with raised flanges, except at the edges, where they bear on
the beams. These flanges or ribs may assume a decorative form, either
a plain diaper or a larger pattern to form a complete design for the
ceiling when many of them are combined. By a judicious arrangement
of the flanges the actual thickness of the iron may be reduced to
three-eighths, or a quarter of an inch. When deafening is required,
strengthening flanges may also be cast on top of the plates, and
consequently the beams can be placed at wide intervals. The flanges on
the top will then serve to keep the concrete, used for deafening, in
its place, and avoid the cracks which might occur in a large surface
of cement. The deafening may be of any thickness required, and will
serve as a bed for the floor tiles. All that is then required for the
underside is judicious decoration of the beams and floor plates. When
deafening is not required, as in manufacturing buildings, the tops
should be smooth. It has been objected by a manufacturer, to whom I
explained this system of construction, that the floors of iron would
be too cold for the feet of workmen. But it would be very easy to put
down platforms of wood where the men habitually stand. Besides, when
the lower story is heated, the stratum of hot air immediately under the
ceiling would naturally keep the floor at a higher temperature than
that of the air in the room, and the greater conductibility of the
iron would rather tend to warm the feet of those who stand upon it.
The plates, in all cases, being bolted to the flanges of the beams,
would serve as bridging for the floors.

By the above-described construction of floors, I would attempt to get
rid of the obnoxious and expensive iron lath, so generally used. But
it is more difficult to avoid their use on side walls, when the walls
are to be plastered—and let me say here, that there can be no excuse
for plastering the side walls in a fire-proof building, except for
economy’s sake. The easiest and by all means the cheapest expedient
when plastering is required is to build four inch walls, secured to
the main exterior walls by iron straps. These will not conflict with
the building laws, provided you build your walls thick enough at the
outset. There is, however, no better way in which to finish interior
walls than to line them with stone or marble, or both combined. Where
decorative effect is desired, I would use stone with marble panels.
Our native quarries now afford stone light enough in color to set at
rest all objections that may be made to its use on the score of light.
But if those should hold good the material might be marble paneled
with marble, the former white, and the latter colored. Obviously the
cheapest material for wall covering in natural materials would be
slabs of white marble. Let us then make some comparison of figures,
and see what can be done with this material. Iron lath, of the form
generally used, cost $1.25 per foot. Three coat plastering costs nine
cents per foot. A responsible dealer in marble informs me that he will
put up inch slabs of Italian veined or Vermont marble for one dollar
and a half per foot. Which, then, would you choose, polished marble at
$1.50, or plaster, as good in appearance as that in any tenement house,
at $1.34? This is a fair comparison for exterior walls or ceilings.
Italian marble slabs can be procured in any quantity, from eight to
nine feet long and three feet wide. In a room fifteen feet high,
allowing four feet for wainscot and two feet for cornice, you may line
your walls with one length of marble.

What treatment do we now give to doors? We build brick jambs with
wooden or iron lintels, as if we would trial the doors with wood.
We then put up cast-iron jambs, rivet to their edges pilasters or
architraves of the same material, and then surmount the whole perhaps,
with a cast-iron cornice and pediment. Some have gone so far as to
inlay the panels of the iron work with bits of colored marble, thus
heightening the effect of the already rough finish of the iron, a
roughness which the best foundrymen have been unable to prevent, and
which, it would cost untold money to reduce down to the smoothness of
ordinary work in pine wood. In one of our most pretentious houses on
Fifth Avenue, they are now putting up jambs, architraves and cornices
made of sawn slabs of marble or marble boards, in the same manner in
which wood and iron have been used. And what does all this amount
to? In the category of shams, there is no equal to this monstrous
succession. You have imitated a Greek or Roman architrave and cornice
by a wooden sham, your wooden sham has been imitated by an iron sham,
your iron sham has been imitated by a marble sham; and what is the
result? You have kept the form all along; you have come back to the
original material by a succession of imitations, and have at last a
shell without meat, marble carpentry instead of marble architecture.
In all the stages of your attempt to revive the old forms, you have
sham imitation of shams down to the final achievement of your carpenter
in marble. Next must follow, I suppose, the imitation marble-vender,
who will crown the whole fabric of shams and give you something which
can as much be called architecture as Mr. Shoddy’s painted “red
backs” and “blue backs” resemble standard literature. I offer no
original suggestion to remedy this condition of affairs. Go back to
your old Greek, go back to your old Roman models, if you like them,
and seeing how they are built, go and do likewise; but spare us these
sham contrivances. Set up your door posts and plant your lintel upon
them, whether for exterior or interior use, and carve them to suit your
fancy. They will be at least _good_ so long as they be genuine and
strong. Then figure up the cost of this kind of work, and see how much
you have saved for your clients.

In conclusion, let me urge you to study diligently the various problems
affecting this subject, which, in your experience, are continually
offered for solution. In so doing, look mainly to a practical solution
of the questions which may arise, and free yourselves from all
consideration of so-called rules of art, which might control you. The
development of architectural design was no less affected by local and
circumstantial conditions, with the ancients, than it is with us; but
the conditions at the present time are essentially different from,
and decidedly more various than those which controlled our ancestors,
whether of the classic or mediæval period. Whatever may have been
achieved by art in those times, was the result of, and co-ordinate with
the practical solution of problems then offered.

We have ignored the conditions which specially affect us, and the
result is that our architecture, for whatever purpose, is without
originality, and wholly irrational. As long as we allow ourselves to
be governed by rules of art founded on the experience of the past, and
precedents established by conditions which now do not exist, we need
hope neither for good construction nor good art. The attempt to engraft
the traditions of the past upon the practical work of this century has
resulted in failures involving the waste of hundreds of millions of
capital in this country alone; I might name from memory a score of
buildings, many of them the most prominent, and all the most costly
that have been erected, in proof of this assertion. I would commence
with our national Capitol, in whose dome may be seen the most flagrant
attempt in all modern time to perpetuate a traditionary style in a
material entirely different from that in which the style was developed;
so different that the foundations under it could not carry the
superstructure, if it were erected of the material for which it would
appear to have been designed; and for want of foundations of sufficient
breadth, even to carry the iron work, it has been necessary to carry
the whole exterior iron colonnade upon iron brackets, concealed
beneath what appears to be the podium for the whole dome, but which
is in reality a box of thin plates of cast-iron, secured to a light
framework, built out over the roof of the building.

In erecting modern fire-proof buildings, especially in so far as iron
work is concerned, all the conditions imposed upon the architect are
different from those which existed in past ages. The same may be said
of the use of iron in any building. Subserviency to style, when the
material used is not such as was the controlling element of that style,
is destructive to all good art; for there can be no truly artistic
effect except that which is produced by the best use of material, and
its decoration in best accordance with its nature. If the use of iron
is ever to lead to the erection of buildings worthy of being called
works of art, such a result must be attained only by the recognition of
this principle.

The best thinkers have doubted whether there can be any such thing
as architecture in iron, assuming, of course, that to be called
architecture, the material must be constructively used; and there
is good reason for these doubts. An iron building does not always
require the force of gravity to maintain the cohesion of its parts; it
possesses such properties that it may be swung in the air or balanced
on a single point, if it is necessary so to do. It is a machine
admitting of as little decoration as a steam engine or a printing
press. If iron alone were used for buildings, constructive necessity
and economy combined, might lead us to build houses like steam boilers
or water tanks.

What has been done thus far toward the erection of iron buildings on
constructive principles? We can only recur to the buildings of the
Crystal Palace pattern. We had a beautiful one in New York, admirably
constructed, and well designed for its purpose; but even that building
was decorated in the Moresque style, perhaps as nearly appropriate
to the material employed as any that could have been selected. Here
originality in treatment failed, just where it was wanted. The same
constructive principles were involved in the design of this building
which would have been involved in the erection of a fire-proof
building. In this respect it was a success.

In the erection of fire-proof buildings, we are forced to do the best
we can with iron while using it in the most varied capacities; but when
its use can be spared, let me entreat you to rid yourselves of it;
where it must be employed, use it rationally and constructively; but
better not decorate it at all, than imitate styles not in harmony with
its constructive properties. As all iron must be painted, I am inclined
to believe that the best method of decorating it is in colors; for
this treatment the iron must be plain and simple, and the colors may
be proportionately brilliant. With regard to other materials, I would
suggest nothing more than is said above—in all things build rationally.
First, let your work be strong and well balanced—no part too heavy—no
part too light. Then decorate it in harmony with its constructive
features, never concealing materials, except where necessary to
protect them, and emphasizing the main lines of the construction by
ornamentation. Thus only can the great problem of the day be solved,
and the fire-proof architecture of the nineteenth century be made
worthy of a rational and progressive age.

    NOTE.—An inspection of HARPER & BROTHERS’
  building, since writing this paper, has convinced me that
  the principle of division into horizontal compartments
  has been carried out more thoroughly in it than in any
  other building of the kind. There are no openings through
  the floors. It contains neither interior stairs nor
  hoistway; both are on the exterior. The stairs are in an
  isolated tower approached by bridges, and the hoistway is
  without enclosure. This arrangement is however extremely
  inconvenient.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] But by combustible material, I do not by any means intend what the
insurance companies call hazardous, but dry goods, books, and similar
things, which will burn independently of the building in which they are
contained.

[B] (That disaster was owing also to the fact that the beams, other
than girders, were made only of No. 12 sheet iron with flanges of 2
inch angle iron).




THE NEW MERCANTILE LIBRARY, PHILADELPHIA.


The history of the origin of public libraries is simple. Very few
persons who possessed a desire to own books of great value could, in
early times, afford to gratify their wish, owing either to want of the
necessary means, or the very great scarcity of many works of intrinsic
value. Before the invention of the great art of printing it is well
known that all communicated learning was, of necessity, confined to
manuscript on vellum. And that the only mode of repeating books was by
transcription. The number of copies being extremely limited, it became
necessary to have public places at each of which a copy might be placed
for the use of those who desired to read, and as that number was in
those days limited also, it was customary for some man of learning to
read aloud to an audience.

These folios of manuscript, in time, accumulated to thousands, and the
places of their deposit became institutions, and received the name
of _librarium_. The term “librarian,” however, was applied in those
days to the transcriber of books (_librarius_), rather than to the
custodian, the latter officer being entitled _custos librariarum_, and
who was nothing more than a janitor.

The enormous impetus given to education by the invention of printing,
although it multiplied copies of books to such an extent as to render
them cheap enough to become the property of individuals, still public
libraries suffered no diminution, and the very increase of the draught
seemed to promote the thirst for information, especially in that
class in whom a taste for reading was controlled by a limit of means
to become possessed of the necessary books. And although in our day
the newspaper, the journal, and the serial, do much to disseminate
knowledge among the millions, yet are libraries as much an institution
of positive necessity as ever; for, in fact they whet the appetite for
reading, and the brief paragraphs and condensed essays editorial are
but so many stimulants to more extensive acquisitions of information.
The taste grows, and the patronage of libraries increases, and such
a progress must continue and enlarge whilst the mind of man lives to
accomplish the task set by Him in whose likeness the favored being is
made.

The history of libraries is one of great interest to the lover of
mental progress and the active civilization of our race, and might
well call out the most industrious efforts of learned writers to do
it justice. However, our business just now is with a local event—the
inauguration of a new building by a most popular institution, the
MERCANTILE LIBRARY of this city, which took place on the 15th of the
past month, in the presence of a large and intellectual number of
visitors of both sexes.

The rise and progress of this admirable institution is interesting.
Started in 1822 in a small second-story room, with few books and fewer
members, pinched to pay the rent of $150 per annum, by degrees it
gained vigor and steadily advanced to its present position, occupying
now a building admirable in all the arrangements of room, light, heat,
and ventilation.

This spacious building, occupying a prominent position on Tenth street,
north of Chestnut, in this city, was purchased and fitted up at a cost
of a quarter of a million dollars, and possesses a choice collection of
books amounting to fifty-two thousand volumes, besides a well supplied
news room, where will be found a great variety of journals from all
parts of the civilized world, together with magazines, reviews,
quarterlies, and annuals in abundance. The ladies having a separate
department to themselves, unapproachable by the masculines.

The arrangement by which the reading rooms have been studiously kept in
the rear of the building out of the reach of street disturbances, is
one which gives it a great advantage over the public libraries of most
other cities.

There is a well furnished chess room for the lovers of that mental
game, and conversation, waiting and other rooms requisite to perfectly
complete a truly desirable city institution.

We understand that the membership exceeds fifty thousand, and judging
from what has been done, there is no reason to doubt its ultimately
doubling that number in so large a city as this.

       *       *       *       *       *

ARTIFICIAL STONE.—At the recent meeting of the Polytechnic Association
of the American Institute, Mr. Thomas Hodgson exhibited and explained
two methods of manufacturing and moulding artificial stone ornaments,
blocks, etc., for buildings. One of these is prepared by treating
lime with a solution of four ounces of oxalic acid in a gallon of
water, thus producing an oxalate of lime, which is mixed with from
two to four times its weight of sand. In this condition the material
is a moist, friable powder. It is then moulded to the required form
in Plaster-of-Paris moulds, removed from the latter, and suffered to
dry. It is then preferably placed in a bath of dilute oxalic acid,
which causes it to harden throughout, after which it is ready for use.
In making the other variety, the inventor treats the oxalate of lime
with a solution of silicate of potash, thus bringing it to a semi-fluid
condition, whereupon it is poured into moulds and suffered to indurate.

Dr. Van der Weyde said that the oxalate of lime, being one of the
most insoluble substances known in chemistry, its employment in the
fabrication of artificial stone was a lucky thought. The use of
potash and soda compounds for such purposes had been extensively
attempted with very poor results, but the oxalate of lime was free from
objections which hold good against such compounds.—_Railroad and Mining
Register._

       *       *       *       *       *

THE NEW TREASURY BUILDING, at Washington, D. C., is now completed.
This addition or north wing of the Treasury building is 65 by 195
feet, and occupies the site of the old State Department. The entire
Treasury building covers an area of 520 by 278 feet, that is 144,550
square feet, or three acres and a half, including two large courts.
On the eastern side of the building is a colonnade of thirty pillars,
extending 336 feet north and south. On each of the other sides is a
portico, each shaft of the columns of which is a monolith or single
block of stone, 32 feet in height, and 4 feet 6 inches in diameter,
that is 14 feet in circumference. The buttress caps, which partially
inclose the steps of the porticoes, are single slabs of granite, 20
feet square by 2 feet thick. The granite was quarried on Dix’s island,
off the coast of Maine, and the larger slabs were taken to Washington
in the rough, and there dressed. Fronting the north entrance is a
fountain, the base of which is 12 feet in diameter, and the height 5
feet. It was cut from a single block of granite.




CORRESPONDENCE.


_It must be distinctly understood that we do not hold ourselves
accountable for the opinions of correspondents._

                                       WASHINGTON,
                                             July 20th, 1869.

    “DEAR SIR:—Give your readers in your notes on
  Drawing and Drawing Materials, information that if a little
  powdered borax (borate of soda) is put into the water with
  which India Ink is rubbed up, and the mixture is kept in a
  tight bottle when not in use, it will keep sweet for months.

    “The ink with which this is written was rubbed one year
  ago, and has sufficed for all my drawing during the past
  twelve months. A hard rubber ink bottle and screwed top has
  preserved, and it flows well, and the fragrance of the musk
  is as pleasant as when it was first rubbed.

    “I have used the drawing pen for nearly forty years, and
  only a year ago was, by this receipt given me by a friend,
  relieved from the trouble of rubbing ink for every day’s
  work.
                                “Yours respectfully,
                                      “M. C. MEIGS.”

[Illustration]

We have assumed the liberty of giving the name of the writer of the
foregoing excellent suggestions, in order to inspire learners with
additional enthusiasm by showing them what an interest is taken in
their progress by one who has attained to such a high position as the
Quarter Master General of the United States Army, and we trust that
Major General MEIGS’ solicitude for art education may be emulated by
many others, capable (if willing) of doing the cause an occasional
service.

       *       *       *       *       *

OMISSION.—In the preceding number of the REVIEW we overlooked the name
of the architect who designed and super-intended the _Atlantic_ Hotel,
of which we gave an illustrated description in the article on our “Sea
Bathing Resorts.” Unrequested by that gentleman, we think it but proper
to give the credit to Mr. JOHN STEWART, Architect, of this city.

                                  WEST PHILADELPHIA,
                                            June 21st, 1869.

    SIR:—It is to be hoped that at some time or
  other, before the appearance of cholera shall compel
  attention to the matter, we may see a move made in the
  direction of public baths. Is it not a little singular that
  our people of means who acknowledge the healthful necessity
  of bathing, and are lavish of expenditure to secure it in
  its utmost salt-water purity, do not seem to be aware of the
  advantage that blessing would be to hundreds of thousands of
  their fellow-beings, too poor to provide it for themselves.
  In winter we have Soup Associations, and other charitable
  societies. In summer can we not have Public Bathing
  Societies, just as necessary to the health of our community?

    There are surely thousands who would subscribe their mite
  towards it; will not the millionaires lead off and set the
  ball in motion?
                                            A CITIZEN.

Yes, we certainly think they ought, and we have not the slightest doubt
but that they will, as soon as the coming man, who is to lead in this
matter, shall make his appearance. Let us hope that person will soon be
on hand.




_Queries and Responses._


                                     NEW YORK,
                                         July 8th, 1869.

    MR. EDITOR:—Is it not a most unaccountable
  fact that the New York Post Office structure, which was to
  have been commenced some two years since, is as seemingly
  a myth as one of those “castles in Spain,” of which we all
  have had at some time of our lives an idea. The site was
  duly purchased by the United States Government, designs
  were called for and provided in most eccentric profusion,
  and the select, if not elect, among the eighth-inch sealed
  suggestions were liberally paid for in awarded premiums.
  In fact all that is necessary to trumpet forth an advance
  was done. Where, then, is the new POST OFFICE?
  Out of sight—for, even the purchased site itself is not a
  certainty, then how should we expect to find the Post Office
  over ground when the ground is not yet decided on.

    That Treasury Building at Washington is just now finished,
  after a lapse of time which makes gray hairs come on in
  unbidden numbers. Will the infant born this year, behold the
  promised New York Post Office before his growth of manhood
  is doubled into

               “Lean and slipper’d Pantaloons?”

    Alas, the “temporary” addition to that old Dutch church
  on Nassau street has but too truly proved a prediction, and
  we of the Empire city will either have to put up with the
  present arrangement, or build a postal structure of our own.
  It is evident now that the act of Congress, in this case
  made and provided, is but
                            A DEAD LETTER.

    SARAH B.—In the case you mention, the lightning
  rod was secured to the wall of the house by iron staples.
  There was nothing to hinder the electric fluid from turning
  off on one of these, as it actually did. Accidents of a
  like nature are constantly happening, and where sufficient
  precaution is not taken it would be far safer to have no
  conductor.

    S. T., asks, is there any bank lock, of how many, and
  whatever combinations, that is absolutely secure against
  thoroughly posted and prepared burglars? We doubt that there
  is. For years the Bank of England trusted its vaults, filled
  with treasures, to the celebrated _Chubb_ lock. Yet that
  ingenious Yankee, Hobbs, opened it in a surprising short
  time. The fact is—what man’s ingenuity can make, man’s
  ingenuity can also unmake.

    C. G., Cincinnati.—We perfectly agree with you; the
  dwellings of this day are really combustible, and highly
  dangerous; much more so in fact than before burning fluids
  came so much into use. We also agree with you that the roofs
  of houses should not be of a material so liable to take fire
  on the occasion of a pyrotechnical display, or the passing
  of a spark-emitting locomotive.

    Shingles could be easily rendered fire-proof by steeping
  them, before use, in a strong solution of alum. But most
  people would willingly “lose the sheep, to save the
  pennyworth of tar.”

    R. D., Baltimore.—The silica coating of any building
  material renders it very durable. It is the combination of
  carbonate of lime, or chalk, with silicate of soda, or what
  is more commonly known as “soluble glass,” and by the old
  chemists called “oil of flint,” which, under heavy pressure,
  produces extraordinary hardness, and causes the great
  adherence of this cement to iron, brick, stone, or wood. And
  it is but one more proof of the practical property of the
  silicate, when applied to purposes such as those in which
  building most requires its valuable aid.

    W. A., Ellsworth, Maine, asks for information as to the
  best manner of polishing instruments. We would recommend his
  getting a piece of buckskin and straining it on a square
  stick, covering one surface with pulverized rotten-stone, or
  whiting, perfectly free from “grit.” For the instruments in
  which ink is used, having unscrewed and opened the hinged
  joints, clean off the ink first with a wet, then with a dry
  rag. Next rub the blades on the coated side of the buckskin,
  and lastly on the plain buckskin, until the appearance is
  satisfactory. We repeat that the pens should not be put away
  wet, but be carefully dried and rubbed on the buckskin after
  use. A drop of watchmakers’ oil on the screws and springs
  occasionally, will tend to insure the long and good service
  of instruments. Velvet is the best bed for them in the
  box; and the mould of their tray would be better cut
  out of cork than of wood. Any one can fit up his own
  instrument-case to suit his wants. Our advice is to buy
  only the instruments you have use for, _and get the best_,
  keeping them in constant order.

    L., New York.—We agree with you, the names of streets
  should be painted on the lamps, and when a light of glass is
  broken and replaced the name should also be replaced.

    S. R., Reading, Pa.—The idea is not new. Nay, it is as
  old as the hills. The ancients used hot air flues under
  their tiled floors. As long as we use boarded flooring we
  cannot do likewise, for reasons which any insurance office
  will freely give you.




PUBLICATIONS.


We have pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of the first number of
THE ENGINEERING AND MINING JOURNAL, a weekly publication which was most
desirable to our civil engineers in this country, who have hitherto
had to depend for professional information on European sources. The
American Journal of Mining was a popular periodical, and this prefixed
addition to and modification of its title will go far to increase its
well earned fame; for, judging by the specimen number, (and we know
that cannot do its future full justice,) this new effort of Messrs.
Western & Company is already a success as a most welcome co-laborer in
the great constructive art. We tender it our best wishes, and place it
on our exchange list.

MOORE’S RURAL NEW YORKER is an old and well tried friend of everything
pertaining to agriculture and domestic economy. No country can boast of
better serials of this class than ours, and foremost amongst the best
we conscientiously place the Rural New Yorker. In its issue of July
10th, we find an illustrated suggestion for “a roomy house,” in which
we detect some defects which render its execution inadvisable. There
is no provision for chimnies, and the stairs are impracticable. Such
a house would be far more expensive than comfortable. However, it is
pleasing to see men ready to contribute their mite to the general fund
of information on a subject so intimately connected with home life and
happiness.

THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN comes to us with its full share of the
practical and the useful, amongst which we would particularly note an
improved brick kiln. It has often surprised us to see the clumsy way in
which bricks are usually burned and the serious waste of fuel arising
from the loss of such a large percentage of heat, not to speak of want
of uniformity in baking or burning. The kiln to which we allude is
decidedly good and greatly superior to all its foreign predecessors,
even Hoffman’s, which it more nearly resembles.

HEARTH AND HOME, with all its attractiveness, is regularly on our
table. This periodical is most creditable to the illustrated serial
literature of our country, and we are satisfied of its being a fixed
fact, from the evidence before us of the liberality of its publishers
and zeal of its gifted editors and staff of contributors. The prize
song is a gem well worthy of a fitting setting in music equal to its
own.

THE PRINTER’S CIRCULAR for July is filled with the interesting
proceedings and intense enjoyment of the recent meeting of the National
Union at Albany.

THE AMERICAN BUILDER for July has its usual amount of racy readings,
its smart comments, and general information. It speaks well for the
spirit of the western architects that our Chicago contemporary has laid
in its foundation, and goes on with the work.

DESIGNS FOR STREET FRONTS, SUBURBAN HOUSES AND COTTAGES. By Cummings
and Miller. This is a quarto volume containing fifty-two plates, with
letter-press description of details for interior and exterior ornaments
required in domestic architecture and the designs for the same. The
former to a scale of a quarter inch, and the latter three-quarters of
an inch to the foot. Besides this several designs are given for villas,
country houses, and cottages. But the main advantage this work has over
most of its predecessors, is in the very full and exhaustive hints,
suggestions and instructions it gives to those in need of such; by
which any practical man can readily apply any required embellishment
to the house he proposes to construct. In fact the book before us
supplies a very great want, by presenting to the builder remote from
the professional aid of city architects an array of useful practical
information which is inestimable to him, and is most desirable to the
progress of tasteful construction throughout this wide country. The
plates are unexceptionably executed, and the evident care with which
this excellent guide to practical building has been put through the
press renders it a most fitting work for those to whose wants it is so
well adapted.

We highly recommend it as a faithful monitor and admirable assistant
of the carpenter and builder. A. J. Bicknell, Troy, N. Y., is the
publisher.