S2 



Society used to indulge in — alas, many years ago — no man was hap^ 

 pier or made more enjoyment for the rest. He had a warm heart, 

 direct and gallant purposes, little aptitude of disguise, too little indeed 

 for promiscuous communion with the world. 



His educated taste in matters of art became more and more severe 

 as he grew older, till he seemed to value decoration too little. Yet 

 he understood the beauty of flowing lines, and I have sometimes 

 thought he purposely risked the harsh and rectangular style, lest he 

 should be seduced by a native fondness for the ornate. But I need 

 not criticise his works; they designate the marble sera in our Phila- 

 delphia architecture, that one which has given place to the sand stone 

 and cast iron. 



No doubt, there are features in some of his buildings, not many, I 

 think, that a just censure may condemn. It might be uncharitable to 

 blame him even for all of these. An architect like a lawyer, does 

 not make the cause that engages his services. He does the best he 

 can with it as it comes to him, and is lucky if he is not called on to 

 defend or at least palliate by his silence faults that belong to others. 

 He has to satisfy the wants of his employer; to disguise incongrui- 

 ties which no art can reconcile, to modify his designs after he has be- 

 gun to execute them, in deference to the uncertain judgment of a 

 changing committee of supervisions, to cheapen this moulding, or 

 leave a combination undeveloped, because funds are growing scarce: 

 and after all ; it may be, that the building as it stands before us for 

 our criticism is devoted to uses the architect never dreamt of, that his 

 airy quadrangle has become a smoking refinery, or his deep groined 

 arches are hid above a canvass ceiling. No man need satirise the 

 architectural eccentricities in some of the buildings that bear Strick- 

 land's name with more unsparing wit than he used to do himself. 



He became a member of the American Philosophical Society in 

 1820, and was about 65 years old when he died. 



Dr. I3oyc exhibited a small apparatus to show certain vibra- 

 tions caused by heat. 



It consists of a very thin compound bar or spring of platinum and 

 silver, such as is used in the construction of Breguct's Thermometers, 

 placed in a vertical position. When the flame of a s|)irit lamp is 

 placed in close proximity to the silver side of the spring, it is thrown 

 into rapid vibrations. These vibrations were first noticed by Mr. 

 Wygandt, of this city. Dr. Boye thought there was nothing new in 



