The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-11-19
A MOUNTAIN OF GOLD
What the Dome of the
State House Will
Look Like.
VIEW FROM THE DIZZY HEIGHT
A Reporter Stands on the High
Scaffold and Talks With the
Workmen-The Breeze
Blows Stiff.
VIEW FROM THE DIZZY HEIGHT
Special to the Jerseu city Ne,es.

TRENTON, Nov. 10, 1894. Say
is that real gold them fellers is
putin up Thereof asked the dilapidated
stranger of a reporter, as he stood watch
ing a horde of tiny manikins swarming
about the State House dome yesterday
afternoon.
Shading his eyes from the glittering
hemisphere ending of the Capitol build
ing, the reporter solemnly assented.
"Wuth a pile o. stuff, I reckon, hey?
Much. as $20,00o?"
Again the reporter nodded his head.
From the, depths of the strangers shoes
came a sonorous sigh, and he anbled
off as though the force of the amount
striking against the building, in sweep
ing back, generously waited him from the
scene of a great temptation. The last
seen of him. as he crossed the street,
was his face. as he stretched his neck
arou a corner Of a building to take a
last look at the tiny workmen spreading
gold over the dome panels as a boy
spreads sugar on his huge slice of bread.
The wayfarer put an idea into the re-
porter's head, and he went to see how
it was done.
Hunting up Superintendent Meseroll,
permission was readily granted and the
reporter was accompanied to the main
roof by Mr.. MeserolPs assistant and State
Operator Richard Smith. Through the
library, where sat2 Colonel Hamilton
busily engaged in asserting some newly
acquired books, up a long fight of stairs,
then up some shorter winding steps,
through loft holes containing an abund-
ance of ropes, pulleys, ~rafters, etc, and
so on out upon the roof of the main en-
trance.
KEEN NOVEMBER BLAST.
AS the reporter stepped Upon the roof
A keen November blast caused him to
draw his coat closer about him.
An instantaneous glance about showed
the tortuous, glittering silver thread of
the Delaware, the smoke of a hundred
furnace stacks and a prosy conglomera-
ton of tin, slate, single and tiled roofs.
But there was a higher altitude yet to
scribe slid down a cheated board to the
top of the main dome, and above that,
even with the gilded ball or the far
famed flagstaff, was the crown or lantern
dome.
Preparing for the task before him, the
scribe slide down a cheated board to the
footwalk at the base of the huge con-
vexity, to the foot of a straight iron
ladder.
Ascending this he reached another lad
der that followed the curve of the dome
to still another-an angle ladder this
time, which, as he climbed the last hump"
brought his head above the floor level,
and exposed it to one of those chilly
flows that pierced the blankets of the
Revolutionary heroes.
Grasping one of the supporting col
umns, it was an easy task to swing
upon the platform, where a forty-mile-
an-hour-breeze gently sang through the
pillars.
A VIEW OF THE COUNTRY.
From this height all the surrounding
mountains of New Jersey and the Key
stone State shut off any view beyond,
whilst within the pale, like dots on a
miniature landscape, hazed over by the
attendant dimness of a gray November
day, could be seen Park Island, Yardley,
the County Farm, Langhorne, Morris
vile, Princeton, Ewing and Bordentown.
Close at hand was the Y. M. C. A. build
ing, the Hub" State Street Church, the
new Methodist sanctuary, the Govern
ment Building, Maddock's white trimmed
pottery and the munyon's stacks and
kilns of factories and botteries: Promi-
nent above all, Washington Monument
and the majestic figure of the hero of
'76 seemed almos on a eve
Close below pedestrians appeared as
puppets and the electric cars as winding
yellow snakes
Coming back to the immediate sur
~roundings the numerous scaffolding, fast
tened in an intricate manner, supported
many busy orkm
The two about whom the most inter-
est conferred were Jasper Scott, the cele-
U. Weld, the picture frame maker and
glider, both Trentonfans. These men
were standing en- a common twelve inch
c~oncernedly as could be. Close at their
feet, weighted down by a heavy ham
mer head, was a pile of gold heaters leaf
such as is used in all fine book work.
The leaf was being pressed on a repara-
ton of fat oil with which the dome was
first coated, as a printing coat, to which
Mr.. Weld stated that j. D. Margerum,
who has the contract for the work, had
estimated that seventy packs of the leaf
OVER A MILE GOLD.
AS there are twenty books in a pack
and twenty-four leaves in a book, 3x3
inches square, a little arithmetic will
required would reach 400 feet, making
over a mile and a half of beaten gold.
The main dome consists of twelve panels.
containing 15 square feet. 1t is estimated
that one pack of gold leaf will cover 20
| square feet of surface. The first circle
, made at the base of the dome took 400
squares of leaf to span it.
The contract specifies that all iron work
is to be painted in imitation of stone
work, and that all copper work is to be
covered with gold beaters' leaf.
The lantern dome, $50 feet from the
%ground, has already been completed and
work is being pushed as fast as the
weather will allow.
When finished the glittering mass can
be seen for a distance of ten miles in any
direction.
But this winter, when it is lighted by
a flaming circle of electric lights, it will
be a magnificent sight.
When the wiring is finished and the
current is turned on, George Washington
will watch from the gloom surrounding
his memorial shaft, the prosperity attend-
ing the walls he helped to save while for
him, Che revered father of a noble u
try, there is only an insufficient appro-
pfiation.