I respectfully ask your consideration for the fact that the air of the Capitol is always, during the larger part of the year, charged with poisonous miasma.

If the fact is questioned I will submit reasons for asserting it. For the present I assume it, and also that no session of Congress can be carried into the spring, or held during the summer or fall, without a distinct impairment, because of this miasmatic poison, of the health, vigor, and ability for their duty of its members, while, in the usual interval between the sessions of Congress, the efficiency of all who are employed in the business of the Capitol is lessened by it.

The source of the poison is the low ground lying from half a mile to a mile south of the Capitol. Rising from this locality it is floated northward by the summer winds to the Capitol.

The evil may in time be cut off at its origin by embankments and drainage, but adequate operations for the purpose will be costly, and are likely to be prolonged. While in progress their immediate effect will be an aggravation of the evil.

The movement of the poison may, however, be arrested by means, which will not be costly, of planting the strip of land now held by the United States along the base of the Capitol Hill on the south. The situation and the scope of the planting required are indicated on the subjoined map.

Should there be doubt with your committee of the value of the purpose of the expedient thus proposed, it is respectfully suggested that it might be removed by inquiring of the National Board of Health.

The proposition originated in a question addressed to me in 1879 by Mr. Edward Clark, the Architect of the Capitol, my reply to which, attached to the map below, more fully defines the very simple scheme. I will add here that the trees required to carry it out could probably be obtained without cost from the overstock now in the nurseries of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia; that the proposition is in all respects a frugal one, and that it would have very desirable incidental advantages, which, should your committee be pleased to entertain the question, I would ask the honor to be allowed to explain from the windows of the committee room.

Illustrations are here presented for the more convenient consideration by your Committee of the plan of an architectural terrace, designed to supersede the present earth-work covering the unfinished base of the Capitol.

The perspective on this page {see page 578} is taken from the point which would be occupied by a man coming up the hill in a carriage, where the first unobstructed view of the building would be had. It is at this point that the obscuration of the main walls by the new construction would be greatest. A few yards farther to the eastward there would be none. As this effect of the terrace is the only objection raised to the plan, poles with cross-bars at top have been set in the ground south of the building, showing the height and position of its upper line; and in passing to or from the Capitol on the House side, the Committee may readily see what the objection amounts to. The granite base-course of the present marble walls of the Capitol will be found in looking from the road within the grounds to appear a little above the cross-bars. What remains to be seen of this granite above the line, will in the end be obscured by the foliage to be introduced upon the terrace, and the effect of the arrangement will be to re-establish a granite base on the natural surface of the ground, all the visible structure above being of marble. A better understanding of the facts may be had from the small section on the right of the third page.

The above plan {see page 580} shows the enlargement of the basement room of the Capitol to be gained through the construction of the terrace. The additional space is 1,400 feet long by 60 feet wide, divided into rooms opening from a central corridor. Ten of these correspond in form and dimensions with the best of the present upper committee rooms, each having two or three windows looking upon the existing courts in the same manner as those of the architect’s office in the present basement. These court-yards are to be made attractive winter gardens. (The rooms in question are marked A on the [578]

[579] plan, which differs from that lately submitted to the committee, in accordance with suggestions made by some of the members. A small perspective at the top of the next page shows the character of the rooms. The walls are 14 feet high to the spring of the arch). The other rooms shown are expected to be used (1) for the storage of coal and other materials now within the walls of the Capitol; (2) for the keeping, with convenient arrangements of access and reference, of the archives and documents, now stored in bulk and inaccessible in rooms within the walls of the Capitol, and every year rapidly accumulating; (3) for the temporary deposit of current documents of Congress, sorting, folding, packing and other working purposes; (4) for extraordinary committee and clerks’ rooms when needed. These rooms will be fire-proof, dry, and may be gas-lighted and steam-heated at pleasure. They will have day-light and be ventilated through the construction to be shown on the next page, and will also be furnished with deck-lights. Of the class of rooms thus described there are 78, but any number of them may be thrown into one by archways in the walls; disconnected, they vary from 20 to 44 feet in length and from 16 to 24 feet in breadth. Most of them will resemble the present basement committee rooms. The plan of this floor provides for a sub-way, by which coal, ashes, and all goods not desirable to be passed through the upper entrances, may be conveyed underground to or from a postern in the government work-yard on South B street. It also provides for an enlargement of the present boiler-rooms.

The above plan {see page 581} shows the esplanade or deck of the terrace. It is to be in two parts, the division running midway between the outer walls of the present building and the outer walls of the proposed new work. The inner one of these two parts is to be level with the foot of the several short flights of steps opening from the porticos, the outer one four feet lower. The two levels are to be connected by flights of steps opposite those from the porticos. (The arrangement will be most readily understood from the small section on the right.) In line with these lower flights, and following the division between the two levels, there is to be a channel eight feet wide and four feet deep, the bottom of it on the lower level, the top a little higher than the upper. (See section on the right.) This is to be filled with soil and planted and decorated in the Italian manner of gardening, consistently with the architectural style of the Capitol. Sufficient openings are to be made through the outer wall of this terrace garden for lighting and ventilating the corridor below. By thus setting the outer part of the terrace at a lower level than the inner part, its parapet will not harmfully obstruct views from or toward the building, while it is believed that the architectural effect to result will be in all other respects fitting and satisfactory.

The Committee is asked to consider:

That it is more than twenty years since the problem of a suitable treatment of the northern, western and southern bases of the Capitol was first forced upon Congress; that the present plan has been prepared under special orders of Congress as a solution of it; that it is five years since it was presented [580]

[581] [582] and adopted by Congress as a satisfactory solution; that while other plans have from time to time been devised for occupying the ground, none of them have met with favor, none have contemplated as small an outlay; none would involve as little destruction of work already done, and none have been designed with a single eye to support, sustain and augment the primary architectural motive of the Capitol; finally, that the merit neither of what has been obtained in the Capitol, nor upon its grounds, can be realized until the gap between the two is harmoniously closed, as it is designed to be by the proposed construction.

And in view of these considerations the question whether it is sound economy to further delay entering upon the work is respectfully submitted.