The Architecture of Georgetown. 99 
building has an unfortunate ailment ; it suffers from two 
excrescences in the back, of quite modern growth. 
So much then for its architectural merits to which 
such scanty justice has been done. 
From a constructional point of view, considering its 
mighty weight and massive walls, the building has stood 
well, and kept its head fairly above the ground, and we 
are tempted to add, fairly above the water too ; consider- 
ing how soon we come upon that element out here. For 
on our Georgetown soil, as many to their cost well 
know, our difficulty consists not so much in raising 
our buildings, as in preventing them from sinking down. 
Our public building has had its trials, and its failings 
too, in spite of much money sunk, or the many timbers 
driven down, in forming its foundation : however, in 
spite of its expensive piling we may learn a lesson and 
be taught perhaps to trust more to vertical wood than 
horizontal sand. 
Let us consider just one more matter connected with 
the Public Buildings ; and that is, the material o* 
which it is constructed. It is not built of mar- 
ble ! or solid stone ; nor is it ashlered, or fronted 
with the best of bricks well faced, nor have the hard- 
woods of the colony found favour there, but it is 
built of good stock bricks well stuccoed over. Now 
stucco is an unwholesome sounding word in the ears of 
many good English architects, though salvation to the 
builders ; but in our Georgetown public buildings, may 
we not fairly make allowance for its use, all things and 
many circumstances being well considered ; and no doubt 
the architect with a well balanced mind considered them 
one by one, and thus he might have argued to himself : 
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