THE LARGEST BUILDING IN AMERICA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 224, 10 January 1877, Page 2

THE LARGEST BUILDING IN AMERICA.

A*t.iila4elphia paper gives the following dimensions of the new public building in tnai city :—" It is 425ffc. square, exclusive *£ all projections, and is the largest buiidicg in this country, exceeding in area at Washington by considerably Jxer 20,000 square feet. To the top of tl(e figure of William Penn, sur-

mounting the dome of the tower, from the pavement, ireisures 510ffc., which is the highest architectural point ever reached by man. Strasbourg Cathedral reaches 486ffc. ; Cathedral at Milan, 438 ft. ; at Utrecht, 464ffc. ; at Antwerp, 476ffc. ; Capitol at Washington, 287 ft, 6in., and the Pyramid of Cheops is supposed to have been at one time nearly 500 ft. high. The excavation for the cellars and foundations required the removal of 141,500 cubic yards of earth. Of concrete, 74,000 cubic feet has been laid ; 636,400 cubic feet of foundation stone ; 22,737,025 bricks; 135,334 cubic feet of marble ; 3,317,7611b. of wrought and rolled iron ; 377,6671b. of cast iron ; 27,708 cubic feet of buff sandstone ; 188,020 feet of granite. 3,036 cubic feet of polished granite; 15,239 superficial feet of slate ; 3,281 barrels of cement, and 945,721 feet of lumber. The foundations of the immense tower are laid on a bed of solid concrete 8 feet thick, at a depth of 20 feet below the surface of the ground, and its walls, which at the base are 22 feet thick, are built of stones weighing from two to five tons each. Many of the granite blocks in the basement are upwards of ten tons in weight, but even this enormous weight is overtopped by a huge granite slab lately placed in the tower, whose weight is 33 tons, being the heaviest stone by many tons ever brought into Philadelphia.