spires which surmount them are preferable to the sham of sheet-iron
turrets. Thanks, too, to the necessity of projecting an annex for
hydraulic engines from one side of the middle, the building is
distinguished by the possession of a front. The main cornice is forty
feet in height upon the outside; the interior height being seventy
feet in the two main longitudinal avenues and forty feet in the one
central and two side aisles. The avenues are each ninety feet in
width, and the aisles sixty, with a space of fifteen feet for free
passage in the former and ten in the latter. A transept ninety feet
broad crosses the main building into that for hydraulics, bringing
up against a tank sixty by one hundred and sixty feet, whereinto
the water-works are to precipitate, Versailles fashion, a cataract
thirty-five feet high by-forty wide.

The substitution of timber for iron demands a closer placing of the
pillars. They are consequently but sixteen feet apart "in the
row," the spans being correspondingly more contracted. This has
the compensating advantage, æsthetically speaking, of offering more
surface for decorative effect, and the opportunity has been fairly
availed of. The coloring of the roof, tie-rods and piers expands over
the turmoil below the cooling calm of blue and silver. To this the
eye, distracted with the dance of bobbins and the whirl of shafts, can
turn for relief, even as Tubal Cain, pausing to wipe his brow, lifted
his wearied gaze to the welkin.

Machinery Hall has illustrated, from its earliest days, the process of
development by gemmation. Southward, toward the sun, it has shot forth
several lusty sprouts. The hydraulic avenue which we have mentioned
covers an acre, being two hundred and eight by two hundred and ten
feet. Cheek by jowl with water is its neighbor fire, safe behind bars