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Honor Paid to the Builders of the Dome of the National Capitol.

Washington, January, 1866.

The time has come when our wealthy citizens need not to go abroad to see the finest specimen of architecture of the kind in the world. Visitors to the shrine of St. Paul and St. Peter return westward and award the palm of superiority to the dome of the nation’s Capitol. Towering 300 feet from the base to the summit, its superb proportions unsurpassed in the world of art, at once attract the attention of all beholders, and, as the king of the landscape, it reigns supreme. But to see it in all its regal beauty it should be aflame of a night, with its innumerable gas jets; then it becomes in every sense of the word, a “mountain of light,” and shares the honors of the evening with the “Pleiades,” “Orion,” and the “Milky Way.”

The Pharaoh who built the mighty pyramid of Egypt simply constructed his own monument, and in the same way the architect of the dome, a citizen of good old Philadelphia, has woven his name into a fragment of the web of Time. Thomas U. Walter—do you know him?—the man who held this mighty tower in his brain, in all its perfection, long, long before it ever saw the light of day. When you and I, dear reader, are not so much as a pinch of dust—when the names of Washington and Lincoln are as remote as the sages who lived before Christ—the great architects of the world will live, whether they sprung from the tawny mud of the Nile, the soil of classic Greece, or the rich vegetable mould of the western hemisphere.

Previous to 1856 a dome had been constructed of brick, stone, and wood, sheathed in copper. Its height was 145 feet from the ground. This was torn away to give place to the present structure, which is composed entirely of iron and glass.

At the commencement of the rebellion the labor of completing the dome was progressing rapidly. Strangers visiting Washington will remember what seemed to look like acres of ground strewn with immense piles of iron. Facing the east and west fronts of the Capitol, immense timbers were raised to fearful heights, to which pulleys and ropes were attached that looked strong enough to lift the world. Weather permitting—for workmen had to lie by for either wind or rain—little black objects might be seen crawling in and out, building up a nest after the most approved waspish fashion. A closer inspection showed these to be workmen. Now let Charles Fowler, esq., one of the firm of New York builders, tell his story:

“I never had a comfortable night’s sleep during all the time the work was going on. I lived in perpetual fear of some horrible accident. We could not keep people out of the rotunda. Suppose there had been a weak place in one of the timbers, a flaw in an iron pin, a rotten strand in one of the ropes—and against neither of these things could we entirely guard—there is no knowing how many lives might have been lost.” “What precautions did you take?” “We made everything four times as strong as it was necessary to lift two tons of iron to a given height.” “Were any lives lost?” “I only had three men killed in all the time. We had stopped work for dinner one day, and when the workmen returned they found one of their number dead on the ground. No one saw him fall, but it was plain he had missed his foothold on the scaffold and been precipitated to the ground. His head had come in contact with some projecting beam. That was the end of him. Another lost his life in the same way; but the third, poor fellow! it makes my hair stand on end to think of it—a rope gave way and caught him.” “The lightning hug of an anaconda?” “Yes, yes; that is it. Poor Charlie! he never knew what hurt him. It chopped him up in an instant. You don’t know how quick a big rope can do that thing.”

The dome might have been completed in five years, but the Secretary of the Interior during the dark days of the rebellion stopped the work, at a great pecuniary loss to the contractors. On the average 200 men were employed in building the dome, including those who were working on the castings in the foundry. The largest pieces of iron weighed two tons each.

The chief engineers employed were Gen. M. C. Meigs and Gen. Wm. B. Franklin. These engineers were detailed from the War Department because the building was Government property. Everything pertaining to this work is under the care of the engineer, and for its faithful execution he is responsible. It is the engineer who accepts the plan of the architect and judges of strength and merit. It is the engineer who makes the contracts and disburses the money. The word of the engineer is law. He is the autocrat in his own dominion, from whose fiat there is no appeal.

As we have already said, the dome is composed wholly of iron and glass, whilst the image which crowns it is made of bronze, designed by Crawford, and executed by Clark Mills. The weight of this goddess is about 1,700 pounds. Everything included, the dome weighs 10,000,000 pounds, which if turned into gold by the enchanter’s wand would about pay the national debt.

This brief and imperfect sketch is gathered from glances from the outside. The interior of the dome from the floor to the rotunda requires the pen of a genius to do justice to the so-called works of art found scattered in all directions. It is a long mathematical calculation to find out how many square inches of canvas have been ruined. A plaster caricature of our beloved Lincoln occupies the center of the floor, made by the tender hands of a youth of 17 summers. The fruit of genius, in all stages of the ripening process, its maturity forever arrested, lies gently decaying. It is enough to make the cheek of an American blush, if the spectacle were not so pitiful. A few gems gleam out of the rubbish. Exclusive of art, the dome of the Capitol cost the nation $1,000,000.

Olivia.