Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/113

 1868.] Descriptions. 91 under tension — without the slightest appearance of flexure, and all the other iron work, beyond mere hardware, were manufactured by the Phcenix Ikon Company of Philadelphia. The first floor is constructed with the ordinary nine-inch iron beam, bearing on a girder composed of one fifteen-inch beam, upheld by columns throughout the basement. These beams, placed four feet apart, are connected by tie-rods throughout the whole length of the building, and all are filled in between, transversely, by segmental brick arches, of five-inch perpendicular rise from their chords, one brick in thickness ; and filled up to the crown with concrete and mortar, affording a level surface to receive the marble flooring-tiles. This entire floor is laid with marble, and fitted up with marble counters, &c. The ceiling is frescoed in the most appropriate and artistic manner. The interior windows and doors are all finished in walnut wood and glazed with the best French plate glass. The principal openings on Chestnut street, with one in the return on Twelfth street, are closed up with Badger's Im- proved, Revolving, Iron Plates. The remainder of the side windows, and those on Sansom street, are pro- tected by wrought-iron guards, of neat design, all bi'onzed. All these open- ings have inside pivot-blinds, made of walnut wood, and folding into soffits, provided, in the jambs, to receive them. The rear end, or the Sansom street front, of the lower story, is arranged for the counting-rooms of Messrs. Bailey & Co., with private apartments for the most valuable articles of jewelry. Along the rear, on Sansom street, this story is divided in its height, a V entresol, in order to obtain work-rooms for fash- ioning certain kinds of articles, whose places of manufacture is necessarily kept in close proximity, and immediately under the eye of the proprietors. This story, twentjr-one feet high in the clear, is well adapted to the above arrangement. These private apartments are all sepa- rated from the main body of the store by an arcade, resting on scagliola columns, very naturally representing the finest Sienna marble, manufactured by Mr. Thomas Heath, of Philadelphia, who has become quite celebrated in his elegant art of verisimilitude, and is, perhaps, not excelled, in his particular branch, by any artist in this country The stairs leading to the second story from Chestnut street are of white mar- ble ; and two flights in the rear, or from Sansom street, are of walnut. All these stairs connect with the four stories that are occupied by Mr. White, as his Dental Depot. The flight from Chest- nut street communicates with his offices and sales-rooms. In addition to the several stairways, there is a lift, operated by steam, which is at all times in readiness for its task of conveying goods from story to story, or of receiving raw materials and dis- charging the finished products of the