AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 607 



strength than any other known building material, it furnishes us 

 Avith new ideas of the proportional fitness of parts, and thus opens 

 a wide field for new orders of architecture. Hitherto its use has 

 been confined to factories, stores, lighthouses, and bell towers; 

 but we hope the day is not distant when we shall see it in our city 

 halls, our state houses, our churches, and their spires. And Mr. 

 Bogarrlus himself firmly believes that, had his necessities required 

 him to construct a dwelling house rather than a factory, it would 

 now be as popular for this purpose, as it is for stores. They 

 would have, moreover, this advantage : being free from damp, they 

 are ready for occupation as soon as finished ; nor can they absorb 

 it afterwards, and are consequently, not liable to mildew, and 

 therefore more healthful. 



When Mr. Bogardus commenced this business, the use of cast- 

 iron for building purposes, was, in this city, only to be seen in the 

 occasional substitution of a water pipe, or a rude solid pillar, for 

 the ordinary stone posts of the first story. It needs not be told 

 here how extensively it is now used. There is scarce a street in 

 our city, and scarce a city in our country, in w^hich are not to be 

 seen either copies or imitations of his beautiful and costly patterns. 

 His mode of forming capitals, a valuable invention which he did 

 not patent, is noAV in universal use : and, not content with this 

 great and honest addition to their business in the construction of 

 columns for the first story, some have already attempted to evade 

 his patent for house building. As a substitute for his safe and 

 simple joint, wedges, mortises, chairs, and other complicated de- 

 vices, have actually been patented ; and in order to secure their 

 columns, some have fastened them with tie-bai's to the wooden 

 girders ! Of these contrivances, which are, all of them, mere 

 subterfuges for the evasion of his rights, some are absolutely 

 dangerous ; and of the remainder, the best are not only inferior 

 in stability — being liable to dislocation by the displacement of 

 the. wedges — but so much more expensive, that the value of the 

 extra iron necessary for their construction, without any regard to 

 the work spent upon it, would alone be suflEicient to pay for the 

 cost of erecting a superior building. Far from attempting or 

 desiring to monopolize the business — for the demand promises to 

 be sufficient to support very many large establishments — he is 

 ready to grant the privilege to build, for a fair remuneration, so 

 small as to leave no inducement to infringe his rights as the in- 

 ventor. 



Mr. Meigs — The buildings of the myriads of men of the last 



