Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1881-03-17
TIE PATENT OFFICE.

i n t-Nt Atls
The business of the Department; of
the Interior is carried on in an immense
edifce that is built round quadrangle,
and occupies two whole squares, half
way between the Capitol and the White
House. IL is in the Doric style; aud al
though it is injured bv the close proN-
unity of the graceful Corinthian Post
Office, Just across the street, il is very
imposing, and is said 10 be absolutely
perfect in dimension and proportion.
The main poriico of double rows of col
umns is a copy Of the Parthenon at
Athens, although the Athenians would
never have set such magnificent OBJ
ject on the side of the street.
Inside, one meets stone stairways.
long corridors and groined and vaulted
ceilings upheld by mighty piers; but
one is not apt 10 linger in any Of the
comfortable rooms where the clerks ex-
anime and grant and rescind patents,
but rather hurrics 10 the grand museum.
which occupies the four huge halls of
the second floor; encirc,ing the build
ing. and filed with great glass eases,
holding more than hundred and fifty
thousand models.
These halls are also superb rooms,
lofty. long and wide, some with paneled
ceilings. and others with arches upheld
by massive pillars, the south hall being
the most attractive, finished in Pom
peiian colors, the columns, dressed in
very deep shades OF blue. seeming to be
cut from blocks of lapis- lazuli, and sup
porting arches OF black and dull red.
On either side of the hall stand cases
filled 10 the top with models OF many of
our inventions since the great lire of
1856, which destroyed the earlier mod
els, and above there are galleries equal
ly full.
The Pompeiian hall has something of
the air of hail dressed Tor legerde-
main. and if you pause to think. you
will note strange wizardry at work
there. You linger before little print
ing-press, and as If magical clouds rose
and shut out the work day world, the
skies of Greece are overhead. and the
Ancient searching for his lever, with
which to move the world, passes down
the room, and fingers with YOU; for
kurely he has found the lever. and sure
I)E the world has been moved with it,
the boundaries of empires broken up,
kings discrowned. republics ruined.
Go farther: case OF toys. harmless
tribes enough. arrests you-cannon a
finger long, batteries the SIZE of lady's
spoo-siand, but the reduced models OF
deaih-dealing engines, whose power of
wholesale slaughter NAV one day revo-
luiionize the codes of Nations. and
abolish warfare. In another case YOU
observe only lump OF coal. vial of
pitch, flask OF oil; and the necroman-
Ger of the place has dipped his rod
down into the central darkness of the
earth and drawn up light like the days
Yet beyond; an iron stirrup and
slender spur, and the sewing girl has
but to set her foot there, aud escape the
shapes tina. dog her. Not far away,
again. we remember the oriental magi-
clan, who rs often as the King cut of
his head, grew another in its place, as
we see the machinery for feat almost
AS wonderful in the exact anatomy of
steel springs and leather ligaments
made TO iii upon the very nerves of vo-
lition themselves, till the halt walk. and
the MANNED are made whole. In this
spot is the jar into which the fisherman
shut the afrite; in that are the great
genii who gather in harvest; and in
still another there lies tiny thing an
swering Your tcGch with no louder
noise than buzz and click, but its