of the United States of North America, 19 



ported from Carara in Italy, whence a very large quantity is 

 annually exported to America. For similar purposes black 

 marble is also imported into the States from Ireland. If, how- 

 ever, I might form a judgment from the quality of some of 

 the specimens which I procured, I should think that were the 

 American'quarries efficiently worked, there could be very little 

 necessity for applying cither to Italy or Ireland for so great an 

 annual supply. Those buildings which are constructed of the 

 whitest description of American marble carefully selected for 

 the purpose, such as the Capitol and the President's house at 

 Washington, the Bank of the United States, the Mint, and 

 other public buildings at Philadelphia, and the monument 

 erected to the memory of Washington at Baltimore, have cer- 

 tainly a most imposing and gorgeous appearance, owing to 

 the fineness and beauty of the material. But the buildings 

 which are constructed of the blue or unsclected marble, such, 

 for example, as the State Capitol at Albany, or the Town- 

 House at New York, have a bloated and dingy look, and the 

 general eifect produced by the marbles in these buildings is 

 greatly inferior to that of some of the sandstones from Craig- 

 leith and other British quarries. 



The white marble retains its purity of colour much longer 

 in the United States than it would do in this country, owing 

 to the clearness of the atmosphere and the absence of smoke, 

 the use of anthracite coal, which produces no smoke during 

 combustion, being common in most of the towns. These 

 circumstances may also account for the seemingly permanent 

 vividness of the various colours, such as red, white, brown, 

 yellow, and green, with which, according to the taste, or rather 

 want of taste, of the occupiers, the exteriors of the brick 

 houses in New York, and many other towns in the United 

 States, are generally painted. 



I must now make haste to speak of the mf.terials of car- 

 pentry, the other department regarding which I proposed to 

 offer a few remarks. 



The forests, to the British eye, are perhaps the most inte- 

 resting features in the United States, and to them the Ame- 

 ricans are indebted for the greater part of the materials of 

 which their public works are constructed. These forests aro 



