Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/161

Rh 5. That the space between Pennsylvania avenue and the Mall should be occupied by the District building, the Hall of Records, a modern market, an armory for the District militia, and structures of like character.

The city of Washington, during the century since its foundation, has been developed in the main according to the plan made in 1791 by Major Peter Charles L'Enfant and approved by President Washington. That plan the commission has aimed to restore, develop and supplement.

The 'Congress house' and the 'President's palace,' as he termed them, were the cardinal features of L 'Enfant's plan; and these edifices he connected 'by a grand avenue four hundred feet in breadth, and

about a mile in length, bordered by gardens, ending in a slope from the houses on each side.' At the point of intersection of two lines, one drawn through the center of the Capitol, the other drawn through the center of the White House, L'Enfant fixed the site of an equestrian statue of General Washington, one of the numerous statues voted by the Continental Congress but never erected.

When, in 1848, the people began to build the Washington Monument, the engineers despaired of securing on the proper site a foundation sufficient for so great a structure; and consequently the Monument was located out of all relations with the buildings which it was intended to tie together in a single composition. To create these