NATUEAL HISTORY BUILDING 17 



and also symmetrical in that one side of the building exactly dupli- 

 cates the other. In style, the building is modern classic, showing a 

 strong French influence in having a mansard roof with dormer 

 windows over the ranges. 



With the exception of this mansard the outer walls are entirely 

 faced with granite, which in the basement is of a warm gray color, 

 but in all succeeding stories is nearly a pure white. The basement, 

 moreover, has a heavily rusticated fagacle, which serves as a pedestal 

 member for the upper part of the building on which the surfaces are 

 smooth. The building is simple and imposing, attracting rather by 

 the restraint with which the detail is handled than by any elaborated 

 elegance, and in its main features is strongly suggestive of the pur- 

 pose for which it was designed. Most noticeable in this respect is 

 the exceptionally large size of the window piercings in all but the 

 upper story. 



The pavilion which, in connection with the rotunda, forms the 

 commanding feature of the buildingj is expressed in the fagade by 

 a projection with a portico supported by eight Corinthian columns, 

 a range of six in front with two in a second row flanking the main 

 entrance doorway. The top of the entablature of the portico rises 

 to the level of the top of the attic story of the wings and above this, 

 on each of the four longer sides of the pavilion, which is there octa- 

 gonal in shape, is a large semicircular window, surmounted by a 

 pediment. Leading to the portico from the driveway in the park is 

 a broad approach of granite steps with intermediate platform. 



Above the basement story the pavilion serves as the outer or 

 enclosing shell for the greater part of the rotunda, the space between 

 the two being occupied by galleries built at the levels of the several 

 floors of the wings. The construction of the rotunda comprises four 

 great piers of stone so built and placed on the diagonal axes of the 

 pavilion as to form the shorter sides of an octagonal enclosure, meas- 

 uring 83 feet 5^ inches across. The longer sides consist of arched 

 and screened openings across which the galleries are thrown, the 

 arches themselves corresponding to the lines of the semicircular win- 

 dows of the outer shell. The shorter sides grow into pendentives 

 supporting a circular drum which breaks through the roof of the 

 pavilion and is capped by a flat dome. 



The wings are of practically the same width as the pavilion. The 

 fronts of the east and west wings in conjunction with that of the 

 pavilion compose the main and southern, as also the longest, exposure 

 of the building. These fagades consist of a basement and two stories 

 below the main cornice and an attic. The window openings except 

 in the attic story are much wider than the intervening piers and 

 in the two main stories extend continuously throughout nearly their 

 combined height. The piers which support the cornice have Tuscan 

 80120°— Bull. 80—13 2 



