AMERICA - Joel Cook

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in the lifetime of Washington. It is nevertheless a comfortable mansion, though rigid in simplicity. The parlor of the house, the "East Room," is the finest apartment, occupying the whole of that side, and is kept open for visitors during most of the day. The public wander through it in droves, walk upon the carpets and recline in the soft chairs, awaiting the President's coming to his almost daily reception and handshaking; for they greatly prize this joint occupancy, as it were, and close communion with their highest ruler. This is an impressive room, and in earlier times was the scene of various inauguration feasts, when Presidents kept open house for their political friends and admirers.

      The "East Room" was a famous entertainment hall in President Jackson's time. On the evening of his inauguration day it was open to all comers, who were served with orange punch and lemonade. The crowds were large, and the punch was mixed in barrels, being brought in by the bucketful, the thirsty throngs rushing after the waiters, and in the turmoil upsetting the punch and ruining dresses and carpets. The punch receptacles were finally taken out into the gardens, and in this way the boisterous crowds were drawn off, and it became possible to serve cake and wine to the ladies. Various traditions are still told of this experience, and also of the monster cheese, as big as a hogshead, that was served to the multitude at Jackson's farewell reception. It was cut up with long saw-blades, and each guest was given about a pound of cheese, this feast being the talk of the time. Jackson's successor was Martin Van Buren, who came from New York, the land of big cheeses. Being bound to emulate his predecessor, an even larger cheese was sent him, and cut up in the "East Room." The crowds trampled the greasy crumbs into the carpets and hangings, and all the furniture and fittings were ruined. Now no guest comes unbidden to dine at the White House; but the change in the fashion aided in defeating Van Buren, who was a candidate for a second election in 1840. He stopped keeping open house in order to save the furniture and get some peace, and during several months preceding the election many persons arrived at the White House for breakfast or dinner and threatened to vote against Van Buren unless they were entertained. This, with the fact noised abroad that he had become such an aristocrat that his table service included gold spoons, then an unheard of extravagance, proved too much for him. Van Buren was beaten for re-election by "Old Tippecanoe"—General William Henry Harrison.

      A corridor leads westward from the "East Room," through the centre of the White House, to the conservatories, which are prolonged nearly two hundred feet farther westward. A series of fine apartments, called the Green, Blue and Red Rooms, from the predominant colors in their decorations, are south of this corridor, with their windows opening upon the gardens. These apartments open into each other, and finally into the State Dining Hall on the western side of the building, which is adjoined by a conservatory. North of the corridor the first floor contains the family rooms, and on the second floor are the sleeping-rooms and also the public offices. The Cabinet Room, about in the centre of the building, is a comparatively small apartment, where the Cabinet meetings assemble around a long table. On one side of it, at the head of a broad staircase, are the offices of the secretaries, over the East Room; and on the other side, the President's private apartment, which is called the Library. Here the President sits, with the southern sun streaming through the windows, to give audience to his visitors, who are passed in by the secretaries. One of the desks, which is usually the President's personal work-table, has a history. The British ship "Resolute," years ago, after many hardships in the fruitless search for Sir John Franklin, had to be abandoned in the Arctic seas. Portions of her oaken timbers were taken back to England, and from these, by the Queen's command, the desk was made and presented to President Grant, and it has since been part of the furniture in the Library. An adjacent chamber, wherein the Prince of Wales slept on his only visit to America, and the chamber adjoining, are the two sleeping-rooms which have been usually occupied by the greatest Presidents. The accommodations are so restricted, however, that a movement is afoot for constructing another presidential residence, on higher land in the suburbs, so that the White House may be exclusively used for the executive offices.

      ELABORATE PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

      The great public buildings used for Government purposes are among the chief adornments of Washington. To the eastward of the White House is the Treasury Building, extending over five hundred feet along Fifteenth Street, enriched by a magnificent Ionic colonnade, three hundred and fifty feet long, modelled from that of the Athenian Temple of Minerva. Each end has an elaborate Ionic portico, while the western front, facing the White House, has a grand central entrance. This was the first great building constructed for a Government department, and is the headquarters of the Secretary of the Treasury. Upon the western side of the White House is the most splendid of all the department buildings, accommodating three of them, the State, War and Navy Departments. It is Roman Doric, built of granite, four stories high, with Mansard and pavilion roofs and porticoes, covering a surface of five hundred and sixty-seven by three hundred and forty-two feet. The Salon of the Ambassadors, or the Diplomatic Reception Room, is its finest apartment, and is the audience chamber of the Secretary of State, who occupies the adjoining Secretary's Hall, also a splendid room. This great building is constructed around two large interior courts, the Army occupying the northern and western wings, and the Navy the eastern side, where among the great attractions are the models of the famous warships of the American Navy. To the northward of the White House park and furnishing a fine front view is Lafayette Square, containing a bronze equestrian statue of General Jackson by Clark Mills; beyond, on the western side, is the attractive Renaissance building of the Corcoran Art Gallery, amply endowed by the late banker, William W. Corcoran, and containing his valuable art collections, which were given to the public. The foundation of his fortune was laid over a half-century ago, when he had the pluck to take a Government loan which seemed slow of sale. His modest banking house still exists as the Riggs Bank, facing the Treasury.

      The most admired of the newer public buildings in Washington is the Congressional Library, on the plateau southeast of the Capitol, an enormous structure in Italian Renaissance, a quadrangle four hundred and seventy feet long and three hundred and forty feet wide, enclosing four courts and a central rotunda. It was finished in 1897, and cost about $6,200,000. Its elevated gilded dome and lantern are conspicuous objects in the view. This great Library, the largest in the country, is appropriately ornamented, and its book-stacks have accommodations for about five millions of volumes, the present number approximating one million, with nearly three hundred thousand pamphlets. The Pension Building is another huge structure, northwest of Capitol Hill, built around a covered quadrangle, which is used quadrennially for the "Inauguration Ball," a prominent Washington official-social function, which was adopted to relieve the White House from the former feasting on the inauguration night. This house, accommodating the army of pension clerks, has running around the walls, over the lower windows, a broad band, exhibiting in relief a marching column of troops, with representations of every branch of the service. Seventh Street, which crosses Pennsylvania Avenue about midway between the Capitol and the Treasury, has to the northward the imposing Corinthian Post-office Building, formerly the headquarters of the postal service. Behind this is the Department of the Interior, popularly known as the Patent Office, as a large part of it is occupied by patent models. This is a grand Doric structure, occupying two blocks and embracing about three acres of buildings, the main entrance being a magnificent portico, seen from Pennsylvania Avenue. The new General Post-office Department Building is on Pennsylvania Avenue, covering a surface of three hundred by two hundred feet, and having a tower rising three hundred feet. It has just been completed. The Government Printing Office, where the public printing is done, and the Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where all the Government money issues and revenue stamps are made, are large and important buildings, though not specifically attractive in architecture.

      THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.

      Upon the Mall stands the Smithsonian Institution, of world-wide renown, one of the most interesting public structures in Washington, its turrets and towers rising above the trees. The origin of this famous scientific establishment was the bequest of an Englishman, James Smithson, a natural son of Hugh Smithson, Duke of Northumberland, born in 1765. He was known as Louis Macie at Oxford, graduating under that name; early developed scientific tastes; was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the friend and associate of many of the most learned men of his time, and lived usually in Paris, where in the latter part of the

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