HORTICULTURAL AND OTHER NOTES ON ST. LOUIS. 



155 



through to the kitchen, by which all the dishes 

 may be received, and returned again when 

 empty, without the labor of carrying them 

 through the house, or the savory odor Avhich 

 that process often disseminates. 



Our readers will notice that the chimneys 

 are all kept in the body of the house, and 

 not allowed to expend their warmth in out- 

 side walls — an arrangement to the benefit 

 of which we canfully testify from experience. 



This dwelling is one which it is proposed 

 to build of wood, after the A^ertical mode of 

 weather boarding described in our last num- 

 ber. As this is a dwelling of a grade su- 

 perior to those represented in figs. 30 and 

 31, the best materials (" sound and clear 

 stuff") should be chosen for this weather- 



boarding, which may be carefully planed, 

 painted and sanded. 



On the rear of the house, where the ve- 

 randa does not extend, it is proposed to 

 have a large area, leading to a fuel cellar 

 under the kitchen, and to a dairy and other 

 cellars under the rest of the house. 



The form of the house is a square of 

 forty feet, and the arrangement of such a 

 space is so simple that it may be varied at 

 pleasure. What we chiefly desire, at the 

 present moment, is to draw attention to the 

 simplicity, good taste and economy, of the 

 exterior of the design, which we conceive 

 to be quite in accordance with our own 

 views regarding the principles of propriety 

 in simple rural architecture. 



Horticultural, Topographical, and other Notes on St. Louis. 

 BY THOMAS ALLEN, OF CRYSTAL SPRINGS, MO. 



[The following is from the pen of our oblig- 

 ing Missouri corespondent, Thomas Allen, 

 Esq. of St. Louis. We have seen no ac- 

 count of any part of the great west so full 

 of real information to those interested in 

 rural affairs, or with that intelligence so 

 concisely, justly and correctly conveyed. 

 Had we such data, as this article furnishes, 

 from every great natural district in our 

 country, we should consider ourselves pos- 

 sessed of quite a treasury of knowledge, 

 which might be brought to bear almost daily 

 on the subjects within our province. — Ed.] 



The parallel of latitude in which the city 

 of St. Louis is situated, is 38° 37' 28". It 

 is about the parallel of Cape Henlopen 

 on the Atlantic, of Lisbon in Portugal, and 

 of the Bay of San Francisco on the Pacific. 

 The city is 1,390 miles from the Gulf of 

 Mexico ; 850 from Washington City ; 174 

 above the mouth of the Ohio river, and 18 



miles below the mouth of the Missouri. It 

 is 3S2 feet higher than the level of the Gulf 

 of Mexico. The Mississippi runs past it 

 with a current of from four to six miles per 

 hour, and with a fall of about one foot in 

 six miles. The city stands about eighty feet 

 above ordinary low water of the river. This 

 eminence extends along the river bank many 

 miles above and below the city, with occa- 

 sional intermissions, and is, in some places, 

 a limestone bluff, and in others a succession 

 of small hills or knolls. The substratum 

 of the whole is limestone rock, on which 

 rests a dry and tough yellow clay, suitable 

 for making brick, overlaid generally with 

 about a foot in depth of mould. In the 

 valleys and prairies further west, this mould 

 is much deeper, and in the intervals or bot- 

 toms near the river, the soil is alluvial, black, 

 deep, and fertile. An extensive alluvial in- 

 tervale, called the " American Bottom," lies 

 along the river opposite St. Louis in Illinois. 



