Two fine hotels are the Wissahickon Inn and the Devon Inn, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The first is without a conspicuous feature either centrally or peripherally placed, yet, with its extensive piazzas and long fronts, fits well with its picturesque surroundings. The Devon, though more pretentious and lofty, is yet the least attractive structure of the two. The Montezuma Hotel, Las Vegas, New Mexico, has its principal angle accentuated by a picturesque lookout-tower. The Raymond, at Pasadena, near Los Angeles, and the Del Monte, at Monterey, are two the many fine hotels which have recently been erected in California to accom modate summer tourists and visitors. Among the mountain-hotels of the East may be mentioned that at Cresson, on the Pennsylvania Railway, and the Kaaterskill, on the summit of the Catskills, while the West End at Bar Harbor is sufficiently unlike most seaside hotels to be noticeable. The Nantasket at Nantasket Beach, the Brighton at Coney Island, and the Manhattan Beach Hotel, Long Island, may be cited as examples of the ordinary seaside hotel—all piazza and pavilion.
Memorial monuments are really architectural piles. The obelisk form is much favored, but American obelisks are too large to be monolithic. That on Bunker Hill is 221 feet high, with a base 30 feet square, while the Washington Monument at Washington, D. C.— the loftiest tower in the world—rises 555 feet above the marshy banks of the Potomac. Its foundation is 126 feet square, with walls 15 feet thick, and the shaft measures 34;< feet square at its summit, just below the ter minal pyramidion.
Bartholdi grandest monument in the United States, and the most colossal statue in the world, is the great figure of Liberty which rises from a rock in New York harbor. The pedestal is feet high, while the statue itself—a work of the famous Bartholdi—reaches a height of 152 feet 2 inches. The weight of this immense statue, before which the Colossus of Rhodes sinks into insignificance, is 200,000 kilo grannnes, of which the coppex reySousse work of the statue itself weighs So,000, and the iron supports 120,000.
But statues must not be included among architectural works, and unfor tunately it is seldom the case that their pedestals or other environment have received -the attention they deserve, and but few of the numerous monuments erected need he mentioned here. An exception may be made in favor of the base of the Farragut Monument in Madison Square, New York City. The statue of the famous commander stands upon a
kind of stone settee, the seat of which is interrupted by a tapering base stone. The arms of the seat are carved into dolphins veiled by water, and carved billows run across the back of the seat and the base of the statue,' against which lean two figures in low relief.
the foregoing pages it will be seen that the history of Architecture is almost, if not quite, coeval with that of civilization. The peoples of European blood who inhabit the American continent are the heirs of the Architecture of all preceding ages, but it is only during the last few decades that the study of the styles of former ages has entered into the culture of the people of this country. At the present date such studies are more or less in the mode, and to them we owe various passing fashions, each started in the hope of attracting attention through novelty. But each of these manners, whatever be its name, has more nominal than actual resemblance to the ancient manner which it attempts to imitate.
Habits and modes of life have changed more during the last half cen tury than at any previous period since the Renaissance, are still changing with such rapidity that it is impossible to foresee what the re sult will be when another quarter of a century shall have elapsed. New materials are perpetually coming into use, and each new material brings with it a necessary change in construction, and to some extent in orna mentation, the more so since the creed of honest construction—that is, construction which permits each material to assume its proper external forms—is daily receiving more and more acceptance. Two of these materials, paper, or artificial wood, and glass, are not unlikely to revolu tionize the present modes of construction within the course of a few years —the former for the cheaper class of buildings, the latter for more sub stantial work. New methods of lighting and heating, increasing com pactness of kitchen-arrangements, motived by the scarcity of servants and the corresponding necessity of self-help, the growing importance of apartment-houses and of methods of co-operation generally, and other circumstances of a similar nature, have also their influence upon both the interior arrangement and the exterior Architecture.