Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/228

 great echoing spaces, crossed with girders and littered with iron work which the steeplejacks have taken down from the summit for painting and repairs, the small car rises slowly into the top of the dome, over 500 feet above the street. Then you step out onto the platform. Along the railing are the big arc lights that illuminate the pinnacle at night. Over your head is the projecting square toe of William Penn, his sturdy stockinged legs, his coat-tails and outstretched right hand as he stands looking toward the treaty ground. He loved the "fruits of solitude," and he has them here. He is not often disturbed, save by the nimble acrobats who swing in a bosun's chair at their unenvied tasks. A bosun's chair, let one add, is only a plank, not much bigger than a shingle, noosed in midair in the loop of a rope.

The street-dweller knows curiously little of the atmospheric conditions. The groundling would have said that yesterday was a day of crystal clearness. Yet from the top of the tower, even in the frank morning sunlight, the view was strangely restricted. The distances were veiled in summer haze. Camden, beyond the shoreline, was a bluish blur; even League Island was not visible. On the west the view faded away into the greenery of Overbrook, and northward the eye did not reach to the suburbs at all. Enclosed by this softened dimness, the city seemed even vaster than it is.

At that height the clamor of the city is dulled to a gentle mumble, pierced by the groan of trolleys