168 
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS — SECTION H. 
The careful study of the proper use and treatment of the different 
materials to be employed is quite as necessary to a successful design as 
that of correct lines, harmonious grouping of parts, and the proportions 
of the whole. A building entirely of stone, enriched and relieved by 
the workmanship, or, at the most, with slight varieties in colour in 
addition, or a well-built brick building with pressed and moulded bricks, 
and, if further relief is needed, with some harmonising variety in colour 
of the bricks, or with terra-cotta work, is always, l think, more effective 
and grateful to the eye than any arrangement and mixture of material 
essentially different in chararacter and composition. 
With regard to city architecture as a whole, I hope the day will 
yet come when a cultivated public taste shall so rouse people to the 
grace and elegance that it might exhibit in more harmonious groupings, 
and so open their eyes to the ugliness to which they have become blind 
by familiarity, that the authorities will not only employ officers to 
control structural, sanitary, and other matters for the good of all, but 
in addition, other officers, fit by training and education to exercise 
control over the architecture of the buildings erected in the principal 
portions of the cities, so that not only glaring offences may be prevented, 
but a harmonious grouping be obtained. You may perhaps smile at 
these hopes as you remember the respect demanded for the “ liberty 
of the subject”; but why should it not be kept within bounds, if 
blots, ugliness, and vulgarity result, just as a proper check is now 
exercised over the noxious trades, discordant noises, and other nuisances 
that offend against the peace and welfare of the public ? 
There appears to be much room for study in the better architec- 
tural treatment of buildings constructed of iron and steel, and necessi- 
tated by the demands of modern business and traffic in warehouses, 
manufactories, and railway stations, in order to get the best effects 
from these materials, which from their nature admit of designs of airy 
grace and lightness if boldly treated on their merits ; while their use 
as skeleton framing on which to hang a wholesale veneering of marble, 
stone, wood, or concrete, for column, cornice, pediment, &c., cannot 
be commended as good architectural practice. 
The proper place for concrete building is in the foundation, where 
its monolithic character is invaluable for distribution of the super- 
incumbent weight of the structure supported, or — used in connection 
with some of the many systems of strengthening it by a centre 
<c webbing” of iron or steel rods — for vaulting and arches. 
In engineering, the swift succession of new developments and 
applications of science makes any general review too large a task, but, 
as standing out in more prominent relief, we may note the attention 
given to large ship canal schemes, involving an expenditure of scores 
of millions sterling ; the revived interest in inland navigation, and its 
working with electric motors ; the multifarious schemes for overcoming 
the problem of best method for rapid transit in large cities ; the 
distribution and sale of power ; while looming in the not too distant 
future is some form of successful aerial navigation ; and the construction 
of the great bridge over the Hudson Hiver at New York, with its span 
of over 3.100 feet, and its accommodation for six lines of railway, the 
designs having been certified by a board of the ablest engineers in 
America. 
