Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/630

 506 The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal. [Feb., large and of the members of the artistic and constructive professions are iden- tical, " The Architect" desires to strengthen its claims upon professional men by cultivating and seeking to ele- vate the public taste, and by leading the way to a better, because a more dis- cerning and judicious, appreciation of whatever works are eminently meri- torious and of a superior order of excel- lence. Characterized by a complete and ab- solute independence, " The Architect " is the special advocate of no particular style in Art, nor the partisan of any per- sons or any party. The Descriptions given in the pages of " The Architect" will be faithful, explicit, and minute, the results of careful observation and mature reflection. The Criticism of "The Ar- chitect," to whatever class of works it may be directed, desires always to be refined in feeling and generous in ex- pression, as in its principles it resolves always to be impartial and candid, just and fearless. The Illustrations, drawn by Artists of the highest ability, and executed in the perfection of lithography and wood-engraving, constitute no un- important features in this Journal. They will be freely given, and in every instance will really illustrate those pas- pages in the text with which they may be associated. Thus " The Architect" takes its own ground, and has before it its own course : and, while consistently pursuing this course on its own ground, it aspires to be recognized and accepted as the Authority. " The Architect" will be found to be a Chronicle of the practice and the progress of Architecture and the other Arts, of Civil Engineering, and of Build- ing, in Great Britain, her Colonies and British India, the United States, and in all the most important cities and towns of the Continent of Europe. Charles Boutell, M. A., Editor, 4 Monument Yard, London, E. C. No. 1 to appear January 1, 1869. OUB, PINE RESOURCES. By F. H. Williams.* IN a previous paper, we adverted to the paramount importance, and ap- parent necessity, of the presence of Good Lumber in our Buildings, and to the essential part it sustains in the practical workings of architecture. At the same time, allusion was made to the waste of that most important of all our woods, White Pine. Now, it happens, that many persons regard those, who are fearful of the ex- tinction of this commodity, as, what they are pleased to term, " Croakers ;" and believe, that it is mere " Old Fogy- ism" to entertain any such doubts and misgivings. The silly term "inexhaustible" has been so often carelessly and thought- lessly applied, that we have, in a meas- ure, become accustomed to its sound ; and, as a consequence, have learned to regard it, as we do any common-place adjective used to designate a degree of quantity or quality, and one whose presence gives no particular force to the sentence in which it occurs. This bad habit of using superlative adjectives is a growing evil; and in no instance is its pernicious influence more prominently demonstrated, than in its application to the vastness of our natu- ral National resources. On the lips of the majority of persons, it is quite as natural to speak of our
 * Lumber Merchant, Seventeenth and Spring Garden streets, Philadelphia.