The Mace is a bundle of ebony rods, bound together with ligaments of silver, and having on top a silver globe surmounted by a silver eagle. It resembles the fasces borne by the lictors before the Roman magistrates, and is the symbol of the Speaker's authority. The Mace is always placed on its pedestal when the House is in session, and is laid on the floor when the House is in Committee of the Whole. The Sergeant-at-Arms bears the symbol before him when executing the Speaker's commands to enforce order, or to conduct a member to the bar of the House.

House Paintings.—On either side of the Speaker's desk are full-length portraits of Washington (by Stuart, copied by Vanderlyn) and Lafayette (by Ary Scheffer), presented to Congress by Lafayette on his last visit to this country. A fresco by Brumidi pictures the incident at Yorktown when Washington declined overtures from Cornwallis for a two days' cessation of hostilities.

Clock. Over the main entrance is the famous clock whose hands are turned back on the last day of the session, that the hour of adjournment may not be marked by it before the business of the House is finished. The clock is of bronze, with figures of Pioneer and Indian, and American eagle.

Lobby. Opening off from the Hall back of the Speaker's desk are the House Lobby and the Members' Retiring Rooms. There are landscapes by Albert Bierstadt picturing The Discovery of the Hudson by Hendrik Hudson in 1609, and the Expedition under Vizcaiño Landing at Monterey in 1601. The walls are hung with portraits of former Speakers. Under the galleries are the cloak rooms. The galleries are reached from the east and west corridors by magnificent stairways of Tennessee marble. East Stairway.-Facing the East Stairway is Hiram Powers' marble statue of Thomas Jefferson. Above the first landing hangs Frank B. Carpenter's picture of the First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet, Sept. 22, 1862. The portraits, beginning at the left, are: Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War; Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Abraham Lincoln, President; Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy; William H. Seward (seated), Secretary of State; Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General; Edward Bates, Attorney-General. The picture was presented to the United States by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Thompson in 1878. Alex. H. Stephens, ex-Vice-President of the Confederacy, then a Member of the House, was one of the orators on its reception. In the corridor above are portraits of Gunning Bedford (of the Continental Congress), Charles Carroll (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) and Henry Clay (by Neagle).

West Stairway.—At the foot of the West Stairway is a bronze bust (by Vincenti) of the Chippewa Chief, Be-She-Ke. On the wall of the landing (best seen from the upper corridor) is Emanuel Leutze's spirited

painting, Westward Ho! which has for its legend Bishop Berkeley's line: Westward the star of empire takes its way,

and finds its inspiration in a phase of Western settlement.

The scene is

laid in the Rocky Mountains, amid whose defiles and passes an immigrant train is pushing forward to a fair country beyond. The picture is full of life and action. Below is Bierstadt's Golden Gate, harbor of San Francisco; and in the borders are portraits of Daniel Boone, the pioneer of the Southwest, and Capt. Wm. Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Columbia, 1803-6. In the upper corridor hangs a portrait of Chief Justice Marshall (by Brooke).

Committee Rooms.-Some of the committee rooms opening off from the House corridors merit attention for their adornment. The Ways and Means Room and the Appropriation Rooms are handsomely frescoed. The Military Affairs Room contains a series of paintings of the forts of the United States. In the basement the scheme of decoration in the Territories Room is of Western Indian and wild life, and the Indian Affairs Room has a collection of paintings by Col. Eastman of scenes among the Sioux. In the Agricultural Room, elaborately decorated by Brumidi, are pictured Cincinnatus called from his plow to the Dictatorship of Rome, and Putnam summoned to his part in the Revolution. Ancient and modern harvest scenes-Flora (Spring), Ceres (Summer), Bacchus (Autumn), and Boreas (Winter)-portraits of Washington

and Jefferson, who were both farmers, and other details make this one of the most richly adorned rooms of the building.

The Supreme Court Room, designed by Latrobe after Greek models, is a semi-circular hall, with a low-domed ceiling having square caissons of stucco work. The room is decorated with a screen of Ionic columns of Potomac marble, the white capitals modeled after those of the Temple of Minerva. The columns form a loggia and support a gallery. In front of them is the Bench of the Supreme Court. The chair of the Chief Justice is in the centre, with those of the eight Associates on either side. Outside of the space reserved for Counsel are seats for spectators. Ranged about the walls is a series of busts of former Chief-Justices: John Jay of New York, 1789-1795; John Rutledge of South Carolina, 1795-1795; Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, 1796-1800; John Marshall of Virginia, 1801-1835; Roger B. Taney of Maryland, 1836-1864; Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, 1864-1873; Morrison R. Waite of Ohio, 1874-1888. The Supreme Court Room was until 1859 the Senate Chamber, the scene of many a momentous discussion and many a history-making debate. It was here that Webster delivered the celebrated peroration of the Second Reply to Hayne: "When my eyes shall turn to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched in

may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterward; but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, blazing in all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE."

The Senate Chamber is a spacious hall, 113-ft. in length, 82-ft. wide, and lighted by a ceiling 36-ft. above the floor. The seats of the Senators are arranged in concentric rows, with the aisles radiating from the dais of the President's desk on the north side. On the right of the President's chair is that of the Sergeant-at-Arms, on the left that of the Assistant Doorkeeper, and in front are the desks of the clerks and official reporters. The room is surrounded by galleries, whence one may watch the proceedings. The walls are richly decorated in gold arabesques on delicate tints, with buff panels; and the glass of the ceiling is filled with symbolism of War, Peace, Union, Progress, the Arts, Sciences and Industries. In wall niches around the galleries are marble busts of the Vice-Presidents (Presidents of the Senate), and the series is continued in the various halls. In the main corridors are portraits by Stuart of Washington and John Adams (copy by Andrews), Patrick Henry* by Matthews, Thomas Jefferson by Sully, Daniel Webster by Neagle, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun by Darby, Charles Sumner by Ingalls, and W. B. Allison by Reaser. The mahogany hall clock has been in the Capitol since 1803 Its seventeen stars were for the seventeen States then constituting the Union, the last star being for Ohio, admitted in 1802. The busts are of Vice Presidents. There is a bust of Lafayette by d'Angers.

The rooms connected with the Chamber are notable for richness of material of construction and adornment. They are the President's Room, Vice-President's Room, Senators' Reception Room, Public Reception Room, and Room of the Committee on the District of Columbia. Marble Room.-The Senators' Reception Room, known as the Marble Room, because constructed wholly of that material, has stately Corinthian columns of Italian marble, paneled walls of Tennessee marble, and ceiling of marble from Vermont. It has a bust of Lincoln by Albert Degrout.

Vice-President's Room. The Room of the Vice-President of the United States (who is the President of the Senate) contains Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Washington; a marble bust of Vice-President Henry S. Wilson, whose tragic death occurred in this room, Nov. 22, 1875, and a portrait of Fafayette S. Foster, acting Vice-President in Andrew Johnson's term

*Cæsar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third ["Treason!" said the Speaker] may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.-Speech in the Virginia Convention, 1765.