HAND-BOOK OF WASHINGTON. 65 and embraces the idea of a grand circular colon naded building two hundred and fifty feet in diameter, one hundred feet high, from which springs an obelisk shaft seventy feet in diameter at the base and five hundred feet high, making a total elevation of six hundred feet. The vast rotundo, forming the grand base of the Monument, will be surrounded by thirty col umns of massive proportions, twelve feet in diam eter and forty-five feet high, elevated upon a base of twenty feet in height and three hundred feet square, surmounted by an entablature twenty feet high, and crowned by a massive balustrade fifteen feet in height. The terrace outside the colonnade will be twenty-five feet wide, and the walk within the colonnade twenty-five feet. The front portico will be adorned with a triumphal car and Statue of the Illustrious Chief; and over each column around the entire building will be sculptured es cutcheons, coats of arms of each State of the Union, surrounded by bronze civic wreaths, band ed together by festoons of oak leaves, while the centre of the portico will be emblazoned with the coat of arms of the United States. Around the rotundo will be stationed statues of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence: in niches prepared for the purpose, statues of the Fathers