The construction is very simple. The architect was, in fact, asked to use the strictest economy. The first floor, built over a cellar, consists simply of a vestibule, A, which opens into a dining room, C, a bed room, D, a kitchen, B, the water closets, E, and the stairway. The latter is constructed of wood and leads to the second story, which serves as both studio and drawing room. This room is lighted by the large window shown in our perspective view. The walls of the building are of stone—stone from Meudon, nicely colored—and Bourgogne bricks of different shades form the design of the frieze. The basement is of dressed stone; the pediments of the gables and the cornice are covered with a plaster of sand and mortar colored in imitation of stone. The tops of the pediments are decorated with Parvillee faience. The perron is of Bagneux stone and the mullions and supports of Euville stone.
The following is a detailed list of the expenses:
Masonry $1,480 Carpenter work 265 Plumbing, etc. 166 Joiner’s work 462 Locksmith’s work 315 Heater, etc. 74 Painting and glazing 92 —————— $2,854 Salaries 200 —————— $3,054
According to latest estimates, we consume yearly, with our present population of sixty millions, not less than twenty billion cubic feet of wood. The amount is made up, in round figures, in the following manner:
2,500,000,000 feet for lumber market and wood manufactures;
360,000,000 feet for railroad construction;
500,000,000 feet for fence material, etc.;
To this it will be safe to add, for wasteful practices and for the destruction by yearly conflagrations, at the least, twenty‐five per cent.
The average yearly growth of wood per acre in the well stocked and well cared for forests of Germany has been computed at fifty cubic feet. Applying this figure to our present requirements, we should have an area of not less than five hundred million acres in well stocked forest to give us a continual supply of all kinds for our present needs. Now, a careful canvass made four years ago developed the result that the existing forest area in the United States, excluding Alaska and Indian Territory, comprised almost five hundred million acres (489,280,000); but it is well known to everybody who is acquainted with our forests that they cannot compare in yield with the average European Continental forests under systematic management. Much of what is reported as forest is useless brush land or open woods, and depreciated in its capacity for wood production by annual fires, by which the physical structure of the leaf mould is destroyed, and thus, too, its capacity for storing the needful moisture, reducing wood production, and killing all young growth.