694 REPORTS OF THE BUILDING COMMITTEE. 



hundred and fifty pages of letter-press, as by the agreement with Wiley & Putnam 

 it was stipulated it should. I deemed it proper then to seek to obtain from these 

 publishers a conditional supplement to that agreement, based on the contingency 

 that the Board of Regents might vote an additional appropriation. They agreed 

 to the proposal I made to them, and signed the following supplement to the agree- 

 ment of April 3, 1847 : 



Whereas, by an agreement made the third day of April, 1847, between Wiley & 

 Putnam, publishers, of New York, and Robert Dale Owen, on behalf of the Build- 

 ing Committee of the Smithsonian Institution, regarding the publication of a trea- 

 tise, to be entitled " Hints on Public Architecture," it was stipulated that the illus- 

 trations of the said treatise (that is to say, its engravings and wood cuts) should cost 

 not less than one thousand dollars, and that the number of pages of said treatise 

 should not exceed one hundred and fifty pages of letter-press. Now, therefore, it is 

 further agreed, that in case the said Building Committee should see fit to increase 

 the value of the said illustrations, then the said Wiley & Putnam agree that the 

 number of pages of letter-press may be proportionably increased; as, if five hun- 

 dred dollars additional be expended for the illustrations, then one-half of one hun- 

 dred and fifty pages — say seventy-five pages — may be added to the letter-press ; and 

 so of any larger or smaller sum : Provided, however, that the entire number of pages 

 of letter-press shall not, in any case, exceed two hundred and fifty. 



Witness our hands and seals this 22d of November, 1847. 



WILEY & PUTNAM, [l. s.] 



In presence of Thos. B. Graves, as to Wiley & Putnam. 



ROBERT DALE OWEN, 

 On behalf of the Building Committee of the Smithsonian Institution. 



I recommended that in the report of the Building Committee to be made to the 

 Board at their next meeting, it be proposed that they should increase the appropria- 

 tion accordingly. 



I examined, with a good deal of care, most of the churches that have been recently 

 erected and are now in progress of erection in New York. They are, as a general 

 rule, very creditable to the architectural talent of the country. Among those yet 

 unfinished, one of the most promising is St. George church, (Episcopalian,) situated 

 at the corner of Sixteenth street and Stuyvesant square, built in the same style as 

 our building, namely, in the Lombard style of the twelfth century. The general 

 effect will, I think, be very fine, especially of the front towers. The rear terminates 

 in an apsis, somewhat similar to that on the north front of our west wing — a beau- 

 tiful feature. The building, when completed, it is said, will cost one hundred and 

 fifty thousand dollars ; and though I could not obtain its exact size, it will be one of 

 the largest churches in New York, being some ninety feet in width. Its galleries are 

 to be supported from the side walls without pillars. Some of its details appeared to me 

 faulty, as the corbel course along the upper portion of its side walls and on its towers 

 is feeble, and not sufficiently projecting for a building of such magnitude ; and I 

 think the architect would have done better to trust to the flat Norman buttress run- 

 ning into the corbel course above, rather than to introduce a buttress of a much 

 later date, deep and heavy, and which, from many points of view, wholly conceals 

 the windows. The latter (the windows) are both wider and higher than is usual in 

 the Lombard style ; but I think the effect is good. 



I purchased, and herewith submit, a perspective view of this church, as one of 

 the first proofs that the opinion I expressed when the style of our building was 

 objected to on the score of its singularity, (namely, that a greater objection might 

 hereafter be, that Lombard buildings would be repeated all over the country, as Gre- 

 cian and Gothic have been, until we were tired of them,) is not unlikely to be veri- 

 fied. 



I visited, also, some of the older churches — among the rest St. Paul's, in Broad- 

 way, near the Astor House. It exhibits great beauties and great defects. Its spire 

 is, in my opinion, one among the prettiest in its style (the Roman) in the world ; 

 and as such, I had it daguerreotyped, and shall use it as an illustration in our work. 

 The interior, with its Grecian pillars and broken entablatures, forming imposts for 

 the arches of its galleries, furnishes a striking illustration of the bad efiect produced 

 by that heterogenous mixture of Gothic forms and Grecian details that goes under 

 the name of Roman. 



Through the kindness of Professor Renwick, I obtained admittance to the New 

 York Society Library, and spent sometime there examining its works on archi- 

 tecture. 



