The military bureaus of the War Department are under the following staff-officers: Adjutant General, Inspector General, Quartermaster General, Commissary General of Subsistence, Surgeon General (in whose department is the Army Medical Museum (p. 119), Paymaster General, Chief of Engineers, Chief of Ordnance, Judge Advocate General (the law officer of the army), Chief Signal Officer, and Chief of the Record and Pension Office (p. 76).

None of these officers, although regularly on duty, wear the slightest approach to a uniform; the clerks and attendants are all civilians, and there is not a guard or soldier (in appearance) anywhere around the place. The same is true of the Navy Department; and even the cavalrymen who used to gallop between the Capitol and the White House with messages, have been replaced by telephones. This may be very democratic, and discouraging to the ghost of "Cæsarism," which frightens people from time to time; but it is far from picturesque. If the army and navy men would let a modest amount of blue and gold appear, as though they were rather fond of the uniform of their country's service, and if the diplomatic corps (which rarely have the grace even to unfurl their national flags on their legations) would make some outdoor display of the livery and equipage to which they are entitled at home, and which they are required to exhibit in other capitals of the world, it would hurt none of these persons, and it would contribute a great deal to the color and gayety of this already brilliant and beautiful city. Something of this kind ought to be enforced for its moral as well as picturesque effect.

The Navy Department has possession of the remaining third of the building, with an entrance facing the White House, signified by anchors upon the portico. The Secretary and Assistant Secretary preside over nine bureaus, whose chiefs are detailed officers of the navy. These are:

I. Bureau of Navigation, having the practical control of the ships and men in actual service, and including the Hydrographic Office and Naval Academy at Annapolis, but not the War College at Newport. 2. Bureau of Yards and Docks. 3. Bureau of Equipment, which has charge, among other things, of the Naval Observatory (p. 170), the Nautical Almanac, and the Compass Office. 4. Bureau of Ordnance. 5. Bureau of Construction and Repair. 6. Bureau of Steam Engineering. 7. Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, under whose supervision is maintained a Museum of Hygiene, at No. 1707 New York Avenue, which is interesting to specialists. 8. Bureau of Supplies and Accounts (but the Navy Pay Office is at No. 1429 New York Avenue). 9. Office of the Judge Advocate General — the

department's law officer. IO. Office of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, who is responsible directly to the Secretary of the Navy. By the time a ship is built, equipped, armed, and manned, she has gone through every one of these bureaus, and must have had a good pilot if she escaped being dashed to pieces against some of their regulations, or crushed by collision of authority between their chiefs.

The models of ships, on view in the corridor near the entrance and on the next floor above, form an exhibit of great interest, graphically displaying the difference between the early wooden frigates and line-of-battle ships and the modern steel cruisers and turreted men-of-war. These models ought not to be overlooked; the library, also, is well worth attention, on account of the portraits of departed Secretaries, as well as for the sake of its professional books.

The Treasury.—The financial department and the actual treasury of the Government are housed in the imposing but somewhat gloomy building which closes the vista up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol, and which nearly adjoins the White House park on the east. This structure, which, suitably to the alleged American worship of money, has been given the form of a pagan temple, is of the Ionic-Greek order of architecture modified to suit local requirements. The main building, with its long pillared front on Fifteenth Street, was erected of Virginia sandstone, after plans by Robert Mills, and completed in 1841. Some years later extensions were undertaken under the architectural direction of Thomas U. Walter, which enlarged the building greatly, produced the magnificent granite porticos at each end, and resulted in the beautifully designed western façade. The whole building, completed in 1869, is 466 feet long and 264 wide exclusive of the porticos, incloses two courts, and has cost about $10,000,000.

The Treasury is a place every stranger visits, yet there is little to be seen there, unless one is satisfied to stand in gasping admiration of heaps of money which he is not allowed to touch. The building is open from 9.00 till 2.00; and between 11.00 and 12.00 and 1.00 and 2.00 o'clock, persons who assemble at the office of the Treasurer are formed into parties, and conducted to the doors of certain rooms, where the guides volubly explain the work in progress there.

Thus you may see the girls counting and recounting the sheets of specially made paper upon which all the United States bonds, notes, and revenue stamps are printed; this is the beginning of the long routine of "money making," and not one must go unaccounted for. This paper is made of components and by a composition which is a

secret between the Government and the manufacturers at Dalton, near Pittsfield, Mass. It is especially distinguished by the silk fibers interwoven with its texture, and, as a part of the monopoly of the manufacture of United States money retained by the Federal Government, the possession of any such paper by private persons is prohibited under severe penalties, as prima facie evidence of intent to defraud. The packages of 1,000 sheets, each of the proper size for printing four notes, are deftly counted and carefully examined by young women, whom long practice has made wonderfully expert. When every imperfect sheet has been picked out and replaced by a good one, the packages are sent to the printer (see Bureau of Engraving and Printing, p. 110).

Next you may be shown the large room to which piles of similar sheets, printed with the faces and backs of notes of various denominations from $1 to $1,000, have been returned, to receive here, upon small steam presses, the red seal, which completes the value of the paper as a promise to pay.

These notes, to the amount of about $1,000,000 in value, on the average, are brought over from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing each morning, being conveyed in a steel-encased wagon, guarded by armed messengers. They are first counted by three persons in succession, to reduce to the vanishing point the probability of error, and then are sent to the Sealing Room mentioned above, where the sheets of four unseparated notes are passed through the small steam presses that place upon them the red seal of the Treasury of North America, or, as it is written in abbreviated Latin upon the seal itself: Thesaur. Amer. Septent. Sigil.

United States Treasury notes bear the engraved fac-similes of the signatures of the United States Treasurer and the Register of the Treasury; but National Bank notes are actually signed in ink by the president and cashier of the bank issuing them. The latter are sent to the banks and receive these signatures before receiving the red seal, for which purpose they must be returned there, the banks defraying the express charges.

It is in the room adjoining this that the visitor sees that marvelous development of the human hand and eye which enables the ladies intrusted with the final counting of Uncle Sam's paper money to do so with a rapidity that is absolutely bewildering to the beholder. As soon as the seals have been printed upon a package of 1,000 sheets of notes, these are taken to another little machine, which slices them apart, replacing the hand-shears, to whose use, in General Spinner's day, according to tradition, is due the introduction of female assistance in the departmental service (a fact about to be recognized by a