McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-01-01

ed it. At first it appeared great
white shaft rising above sheds and
buildings. and looking to be a solid
monument of perhaps three feet square.
The massive scaffolding which still
hangs about its head looked like a net
work of straw. and with the naked eye
the men working upon it could not be
seen. AsIwent nearer the monument
grew with every step, and when
came within quarter of mile OF it,
its immensely began to be appreciate.
l sat down on the steps of the bureau
of printing and engraving and looked
at its massive shaft rising out of big
square mound of earth over the vel
vety lawn about five blocks away. At
chat point each side of its base looked
to be about fifteen feet long, and where
the pyramidal point began they had
shrunken to four. The scaffolding
there looked like the whiting OF
boys playhouse, and the men on top
appeared SO many dolls ut play. The
frame of the net was visible, but its
meshes [ could not see. The first
third of the monument, which was
built away back in the iifties, was OF a
different color from the new work.
The weather has so varied it that it
looks like mosaic of yellow fossilized
rock. | could here see that the monu-
ment was made up of a thousand of
little squares, and they seemed like
myrlads of marble paper weights piled
one upon another.
| moved two blocks nearer and sat
down to write on the railroad which
was used to carry the great marble
blocks from the depot TO the masons,
1t was not over five hundred feet from
the base of the monument, and had 1t
fallen in my direction it's pyramidal
cap would have crushed me to pow
der. The monument has now jumped
to many times its former size. The
symmetry of it's sides as it stands away
up there running into the blue sky, is
beauty and symmetry combined,
and this sublimity increases as one
goes nearer and nearer. At the base
of the mound it overpowers you, and
if you will, as did, climb up close to
one of those big walls and putting
your chin against the marble, gaze
up for five hundred feet, it will take
your breath away. Here it seems the
Chinese wall running up into heaven,
the tower of Babel approaching COM
pletion, or Jacobs ladder nodded into
marble. Look at the marble in front
of you, now! It's beautiful stone, as
polished as Michael Angeles statue of
David, and speckled with scales or
spots of frosted silver. A close OBJ
server will note that these old stones
are all cracking at the corners where
they are joined together, and that the
thousands of tons which press down
upon them have cracked the weaker
stones so that long, ugly marks appear
here and there to blot the symmetry
of the whole.
Step around to the front and there
is door eight feet wide and sixteen
feet high leading into the interior.
This door faces the capitol, and there
is one opposite it looking out upon the
Potomac. Go inside. The walls are
fifteen feet thick, and the interior
makes a room at the bottom of twenty
five feet square. In this an immense
iron framework. with steel wire ropes
two inches thick, supports the machin
cry of the elevator, and at one side
begin the stairs which, by easy flights,
run round and round for nearly nine
hundred steps until they reach the
top. There are fifty flights, and
eighteen steps to each flight. At the
end of every flight there is a platform,
and in the wall opposite this the me-
mortal stones are to be placed and
lighted with electric lights. Go to the
center of the interior at the base,
throw your head back and look up
ward. For five hundred feet there is
nothing but darkness, and at the top
you see few rays of light creeping in
at the windows. There is a noise made
by one of the workmen. 1t comes
down through the monument like the
booming of a cannon, and l jumped
| quickly aside, looking at the big hole
in the boards at my feet. The hole
was made by crowbar which slipped
from mans hands at the top, the
other day, and fell clear to the bot
tom, goirg through these boards like
a shot. So far no one has been killed
in connection with this monument, and
it is probable that it will be completed
without loss of life. When done it
will make splendid place for suicides.
and if the windows are not grated it
may become as famous as the Column
| Vandomo