BUILDING STONES. 215 
the selection of stone good and bad arc mingled, or perhaps a 
first rate article lies neglected, while inferior stones are 
employed in construction. Even in our public buildings, 
erected at great cost and designed to last for centuries, we see 
some of the most absurd selections of material, resulting from 
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the prevailing ignorance in regard to the rocky strata of the 
globe. Professor Johnston states that the mateiials of which 
the Washington monument is being constructed are totally unfit 
for the purpose, and that it is not at all improbable that the 
monument will fall to pieces, from it’s own weight before it is 
completed. A specimen of the stone containing four cubic 
inches sustained a weight of only nine hundreds pounds while 
a cubic inch of good stone sustained eighteen hundred pounds. 
The Secretary of the Interior, speaking of the Capitol buildings 
says “The Capitol is a massive building, its walls are thick, 
and maintain a certain equality of temperature, changing 
slowly with changes in the temperature of the air. In a 
change from cold to warm the walls remain for a long time 
cold and there is condensed upon them a portion of the moisture 
of the atmosphere as upon a pitcher containing ice water in a 
sultry day. The stone being porous readily absorbs the mois¬ 
ture, and the natural cement which seems to be slowly soluble 
in water, is dissolved or otherwise loses its adhesive power, 
and the stone crumbles to sand. A thick coat of paint care¬ 
fully applied from time to time, has been resorted to, to preserve, 
and no doubt tends to preserve the building; but unless some 
other and more permanent protection be resorted to it is 
destined to early dilapidation. If left wholly unprotected 
from atmospheric action for one-fifth of the time that marble 
structures are known to have stood, this noble edifice would 
become a mound of sand. The Treasury building and the 
present Patent Office building arc of the same material; and 
having been in no manner protected, already show signs of 
decay. The cornice of the Treasury building, which exposes 
a heavy mass of stone to atmospheric action, begins to be 
moss grown, and pieces of the Patent Office building have 
crumbled and fallen. Besides its tendency to disintegration 
