610 TRANSACTIONS OF THK 



hundred per cent upon the outlay. In a word, it is not only the 

 most economical, but the best method that is known, being end- 

 less in duration, unchanging and beautiful in appearance, and 

 susceptible of the richest and most elaborate design that artistic 

 skill can devise. A new residence has been built about four years 

 in Philadelphia, the front of which will compare favorably with 

 any stone front in the country, and seven stores, which were old, 

 unsightly buildings, having these fronts upon them, are referred 

 to as specimens in that city. Also five stores and dwellings in 

 Baltimore, Md.,and two stores in Norfolk, Va., and the right has 

 already been granted for several first class dwellings in the city 

 of New- York, now being erected in the most fashionable part of 

 the town. 



James K. Fisher — The difference of strength between iron and 

 all other building material is so great that new orders of architec- 

 ture must aiTive and greatly increased amount of light admitted 

 to the interior. 



A member from Michigan seemed much pleased with the future 

 demand for iron, and said — our Michigan can furnish you with 

 all the iron you can use ! 



The Chairman took the floor, and Mr. Pell the chair. 



He referred to the peculiar tendency of the American people, 

 in their disregard of old customs and precedents, to carry new 

 discoveries and inventions to excess in their application, and to 

 be governed by changing fashions. I consider the increasing 

 attention given to the use of iron as ill directed. Instead of 

 making better buildings, men only seek by its means to make 

 them cheaper. Instead of applying iron to purposes for which 

 other materials are not adapted, and thus accomplishing new and 

 desirable results, they imitate old forms of ornament and con- 

 struction better produced by stone or brick, for which they were 

 originally designed. Instead of making larger roofs, and stronger 

 and more durable structures than the ancients could achieve with 

 any resources available to them, the prevailing desire is to imi- 

 tate in inferior casting the richly wrought ornaments of costly 

 marble. The value of ornament was greatly dependent upon its 

 cost, and the labor bestowed upon it as the term " elaborate'' in- 

 dicates, any imitation in inferior materials, or by cheaper pro- 

 cesses, would not only be vastly inferior in point of execution, 

 and soon be considered mean from the fact of its being a cheat, 

 like gilt jewelry or paste gems, but was a kind of deception, de- 

 moralizing to the principles and taste of the community. Espe- 



