The New World Compared with the Old Author:George Alfred Townsend Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 1. 1 I', i . i; v x j i.jjM-i v Of ,1 CKAPTER IV. THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS. United States Capitol and British Houses of Parliament compared... more ». Sketches of Westminster Hall, Abbey, and Palace.The House of Lords architecturally. The lords and the senators in their scats, relatively. Officers of tho House of Lords. Business of that body. Descriptions of various scones in that house. Opening of Parliament. Impeachment. Trial of a peer. Riotous scenes. Parliamentary law and manual. A Mile from either arm of the Potomac River, on a commanding hill, ninety feet above tide-water, stands the United States Capitol. It is of Greek architecture, in order, Corinthian. Two white marble wings, connected by a middle building of white freestone, over the latter of which rises a white dome of iron, that is the Capitol at Washington. Take three dominos, and place two of them lengthwise against the ends of the middle one, stand a pullet's egg on the middle domino, and you obtain a suggestive miniature of the building. It is the most extensive and costly edifice on the American continent. It cost twelve millions of dollars, covers one hundred and fifty three thousand one hundred and twelve square feet, or about three and a half acres of ground, is seven hundred and fifty-one feet long by two hundred and thirty-nine feet wide, and the dome is more than two hundred and eighty-seven feet high, or two hundred and seventeen feet, clear, above the main building. The Capitol, as it stands, is the work of many persons, of whom but two or three are noticeable. Dr. Thornton made the first design, said by Washington to combine " grandeur, simplicity, and convenience." The architects retained but two or three features of Thornton's design, nnd preferred one by Mr...« less