PLACE OF CONSECRATION. 81 



address, and a closing prayer, with an original hymn, to 

 be sung by the assembly, and other appropriate music. 

 This report was accepted, and a consecrating commit- 

 tee of nine members, viz., Hon. Joseph Story, H. A. 

 S. Dearborn, Charles P, Curtis, Rev. Charles Lowell, 

 Zebedee Cook, jun., J. T. Buckingham, George W. 

 Brimmer, George W. Pratt, and Z. B. Adams, was chosen 

 to make the arrangements recommended. Messrs. 

 Curtis, Buckingham, and Pratt were appointed a 

 sub-committee to invite the orator and clergymen, 

 and to provide an appropriate hymn and suitable 

 music. The persons designated to prepare the grounds 

 at Mount Auburn, and to make arrangements for the 

 accommodation of the company, were Messrs. Dear- 

 born, Brimmer, and Cook ; while Mr. Pratt and Mr. 

 Cook were made a committee to appoint suitable mar- 

 shals and other officers, and to arrange all matters of 

 police for the occasion. 



The account of the place of consecration as printed 

 at the time is as follows : 



"The site selected for the performance of the consecration cere- 

 monies was a deep circular dell, formed by the united bases of 

 four beautiful hills, in the south-western portion of the cemetery 

 grounds. In the centre was a small pool supplied by perennial 

 springs, and from its margin the acclivities on three sides grace- 

 fully rose for more than a hundred feet in extent, presenting a 

 magnificent amphitheatre, sufficiently capacious to accommodate 

 from six to eight thousand spectators. The flanks and summits of 

 each eminence being covered with majestic forest trees, shrubs, 

 and ' manj 7 a wood flower wild,' an area of more than six hundred 

 feet in circuit, extending up the broad escarpments for at least 

 seventy feet, was divested of the underwood, and lined with seven 

 ranges of seats for the accommodation of the audience. Near the 

 northern margin of the miniature lake a rostrum was formed, a few 

 feet above the surface of the water, for the orator, clergy, and offi- 



