BUILDINGS. A conspicuous object is the great dome of the Capitol, 288 feet high, the central feature of a structure which stretches along the brow of a hill for 751 feet. Its width is 350 feet. The main structure is of sandstone painted white, while the two wings occupied by the Senate and the House of Representatives are built of white marble. As a whole the building, with its porticoes and lobby dome (of iron), ranks as one of the most impressive and beauti ful examples of architecture in the world. In general, the style is classic. with Corinthian details. Beneath the dome is the Rotunda, Oil feet in diameter and 180 feet high, adorned with historical paintings. What is now known as Statuary Hall was formerly the chamber of the House of Representatives, and the court room of the Supreme Court was once the Senate chamber. Since 1897. when the build ing for the Library of Congress, just east of the Capitol. was completed at a cost of over $n,000, 000, the books of the great national collection have been housed in the new• structure, instead of in the inadequate quarters in the west front of the middle section of the Capitol building. The Library building is an elaborate specimen of Italian Renaissance. and its ornamentation both inside and outside is more profuse than in any other structure which has been erected at public expense. A tunnel connects the Library and Capitol buildings. See LIBRARY OF GRESS, with Plate.
About a mile and a half northwest of the Capitol is the President's house, or White House (q.v.). Owing to the unfortunate location of the granite structure occupied by the Treasury Department, the view from the Capitol down the broad expanse of Pennsylvania Avenue is in terrupted by the southern portico of the Treasury building, instead of ending with the White llouse and its garden. Flanking the White Ilonse on the east is the Treasury Department build ing, with its vast colonnade, and on the left, the massive granite structure occupied by the State, War, and Navy departments. About mid way between the White 'louse and the Capitol are two marble buildings situated on opposite sides of Street. One of these, an imposing specimen of the Dorie, is the home of the In terior Department. The l'atent Office is here, and in the building across the street are the Indian and Laud offices. Still farther to the east along F Street is a great structure of brick, where the clerks of the Pension Office do their work. The building consists of a tier of olliees, three stories high, surrounding a court protected by a roof of glass and iron. A feature of the
exterior is the terra cotta frieze, depicting scenes from army life during the Civil War.
The only type of modern 'skyscraper' building for office purposes erected by the Government, in Washington is the nine-story granite structure occupying an entire square on Pennsylvania Ave nue, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets. It is the home of the Post Office Department, with offices on the first floor for the city post ollice. Directly north of the Capitol is another lofty structure \Odell forms a part of the plant of the Government Printing Office. the largest concern of its kind in the world. Another great workshop of the Government is the ordnance factory, which ocenpie; the old Navy Yard site to the southeast of the Capitol. The great guns are forged elsewhere, but in this shop, which employs hundreds of men, they are finished. An other workshop of interest is that in which the paper money and the postage stamps of the Gov ernment are made. This is known as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and is situated in a large brick structure on the south side of the Mall and at the west end of the line of structures occupied by Government institutions. Its neighbor on the east is the building of the Agricultural Department. Plans were being prepared in 1003 for a building of marble to cost $3,500,000, to take the place of the present structure, which is of brick. Farther to the east rise the Norman towers of the Smithsonian In stitution, and near by is the low-lying but ex tensive building occupied by the National Museum. Even with the large door space provided, there is not sufficient room, and Congress has author ized the expenditure of more than $3.000,000 in the construction of a building on the south side of the Smithsonian grounds west of Seventh Street. Not far from the National Museum is the Army :Medical Museum of the Surgeon-Gen eral's Office, U. S. A., which has come to have a wide reputation as the home of the largest medi cal library in the world. Still farther to the east is the home of the United States Fish Com mission.
As the dome of the Capitol building closes in the vista of the Mall to the east, so at the ex treme west rises the impressive marble obelisk erected to the memory of the first President of the United States. It was begun in IS4S and completed in 1884. (See WASHINGTON MONU