Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland, described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington, Alexandria and Mount Vernon electric railway . rweighing 2100 pounds from Lake Michigan. Its foundations are of blue stone laid 16feet in depth. The topmost stone weighs over 3000 pounds. The whole structure issurmounted by a point of aluminium 9^^ inches high and ^j4 inches square at its baseweighing 100 ounces, the cost of which was ^225. Whiter than silver and not liable tocorrosion this point as the sunlight strikes it, glistens like a huge diamond or an intenseelectric light


Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland, described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington, Alexandria and Mount Vernon electric railway . rweighing 2100 pounds from Lake Michigan. Its foundations are of blue stone laid 16feet in depth. The topmost stone weighs over 3000 pounds. The whole structure issurmounted by a point of aluminium 9^^ inches high and ^j4 inches square at its baseweighing 100 ounces, the cost of which was ^225. Whiter than silver and not liable tocorrosion this point as the sunlight strikes it, glistens like a huge diamond or an intenseelectric light. The base of the shaft is 55 feet square, with walls 15 feet thick. Thewhole structure weighs more than Socco tons. Just under the pyramidon or pinnacestone is a platform with an area of 1167 feet from which, through eight windows, thevisitor has magnificent prospects of the surrounding countiy. Here, the walls are 18inches thick. The cornerstone was laid July 4th, 1848, ard the whole was finished in1885 at a cost of $1,500,000. On an average 500 visitors ascend the monument dailyat a yearly cost to the government of ^20,000. 6 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS. WASHINGTON .M<J.\LMKNT. The top of the great structure is reached by anelevator, and also a stairway of 50 flights of steps,each flight consisting of eighteen steps—900 in \ithin the walls of this structure there is roomenough to contain a thousand persons. Like thegreat dome of the Capitol, this massive shaft from itscommanding height is a conspicuous land mark formany miles distant in all the approaches to Washing-ton. Being so high and isolated from other sur-rounding objects it has been struck numbers of timesby lightning but without material injury. Strangeto say, but it is nevertheless a fact established by niceand careful experiments, that this massive monumentso deeply and broadly founded, has a daily leaningmovement toward the sun, amounting at times tofour or five inches. In close proximity to the monumen


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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecthistori, bookyear1904