The site of the Library originally comprised two city blocks,
containing seventy houses, with an extent, as has been said, of ten
acres. It is bounded by First, East Capitol, Second, and B Streets,
and forms a partial continuation of the band of parks which stretches
east from the Washington Monument, including the Agricultural
Grounds, the Smithsonian Grounds, Armory Square, the Public Gardens,
the Botanic Garden, and the Capitol Grounds. The general effect of
the grounds enclosing the Library is that of an extension of the
Capitol Grounds, the street separating the two, for example, being
treated, so far as possible, as a driveway through a park, and both
being enclosed by low or “dwarf” walls of the same height and design.
[Illustration: PLAN OF FIRST STORY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS]
The Library faces exactly west. It is four hundred and seventy feet
long (from north to south), and three hundred and forty deep (from
west to east). It occupies, exclusive of approaches, three and
three-quarters acres.
The general disposition of the building may best be seen by a glance
at the ground plan given on the present page. The exterior walls are
thus seen to belong to a great rectangle, which encloses a cross
dividing the open space within into four courts, each one hundred
and fifty feet long by seventy-five or one hundred feet wide. At the
intersection of the arms of the cross is an octagon, serving as the
main reading room, and conspicuous by reason of its dome and lantern,
which, rising well above the walls of the Rectangle, are the first
feature of the building to attract the attention of the visitor.
The lantern is surmounted by a great blazing torch with a gilded
flame--the emblematic Torch of Learning--which marks the centre
and apex of the building, a hundred and ninety-five feet above the
ground. The dome and the domed roof of the lantern are sheathed with
copper, over which, with the exception of the ribs of the dome, left
dark to indicate their structural importance, is laid a coating of
gold leaf, twenty-three carats fine. The surface covered is so large
that one’s first thought is apt to be of the expense. As a matter of
fact, however, the total cost--including the gilding for the flame of
the torch--was less than $3,800. Since it will require to be renewed
much less frequently its use was considerably more economical than
painting.
=The Façades.=--The exterior walls of the Library are constructed
wholly of granite, quarried in Concord, New Hampshire. The stone is
a close-grained variety, so even and light in tone that when the
sun is shining upon it the effect is almost as brilliant as if a
white marble had been used. The massive buttresses which support the
Octagon at each of its eight corners, and so much of the Octagon wall
as is visible from the outside, are also granite, but of a different
quality, slightly darker in hue, and coming from quarries in Maryland.
[Illustration: NYMPH AND SEA-HORSE, FROM THE FOUNTAIN.]
The Library is in three stories: the basement story of fourteen feet;
the first story, or main library floor, of twenty-one feet; and the
second story of twenty-nine feet-making a height of sixty-four feet
for the three stories at the lowest point. Adding to this the base
at ground level, and the simply designed balustrade which surmounts
the whole, the total height is seventy-two feet above the ground.
Beneath the entire structure is a cellar, below the level of the
ground outside, but within opening upon the interior courts. The
granite of which the walls are constructed is rough, or “rock-faced,”
in the basement story; much more finely dressed in the story above;
and in the second story brought down to a perfectly smooth surface.
The windows in the basement are square-headed, as also on the library
floor, except along the west front, where they are arched, with
ornamental keystones. Throughout the second story they are again
square-headed, but with casings in relief, surmounted by pediments
alternately rounded and triangular, and, along the west front, railed
in at the bottom by false balustrades.
To prevent the monotony incident to a long, unrelieved facade, the
walls are projected at each of the four corners and in the centre
of the east and west sides, into pavilions, which, in addition to
being slightly higher than the rest of the rectangle--thus allowing
space for a low attic-story--are treated with greater richness
and elaboration of ornamental detail. The corners are set with
vermiculated granite blocks--blocks whose surface is worked into
“vermiculations” or “wormings.” The keystones of the window-arches in
the first story are sculptured with a series of heads illustrating
the chief ethnological types of mankind. Along the second-story
front runs a portico supported upon a row of twin columns, each a
single piece of granite, with finely carved Corinthian capitals.
The pedestals which support the columns are connected by granite
balustrades, so that the portico forms a single long balcony, with an
entrance through the windows which look out upon it.