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84

    In its public buildings Washington has begun to resemble

an European Capital. Every one has seen engravings of the Capitol. It is a large marble building with a central dome, very well placed on an eminence at one end of the city. From some reason arising out of the proprietorship of the land, no private residences, or shops have sprung up in its immediate vicinity. The main street of about a mile in length connects it with the Executive Mansion, as the Presidents House is called in Newspaper language. This also is of white marble. It is about as large as the country house of an English gentleman who is in receipt of an income of British pound symbol 10,000 a year. The ground sinks between the Capitol & the Presidents House. Most of the public offices are in the immediate neighbourhood of the latter. The chief part of the city lies around & beyond the Presidents House. The Treasury, which has been built since the war, is in its dimensions worthy of the enormous business carried on in it, that is the printing & issue of the Greenback currency. It also is of white stone, I believe a kind of granite. The only other building worthy of notice, either from its dimensions or uses, is the Patent Office. In this is contained a model, or specimen, of every thing for which a Patent has been issued in the United States. One ought at least to walk through the numerous & spacious, & well-filled apartments of this building, to get an idea of the activity of the Inventive Faculty in America, & of the great honour in which it is held.

     I understood from Americans that every facility & security