Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878, page 29 by Various Authors
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that it has a gala air. Its central dome, tall minarets and wings widespread toward the river crown the height and seem to foster the beauties they partly enclose.
The circular corridor of the rotunda is surmounted by the Muses and other figures typical of the future purposes of the building. The rotunda-walls are themselves castellated, the towers being interplaced with windows of Saracenic arched form. The béton pavement of the corridors and balcony is made of annular fragments, facets upward, of black, red, white and slate-colored marbles, feldspar and other stones. It is as hard as natural rock and as smooth as half-polished marble. A tessellated fret pattern is made along the borders of the corridor floor, consisting of triple rows of smooth cubes of marble inserted in the cement. The square balusters are of red-mottled marble, with base and entablature of dull rose. The square corner pillars support figures allegorizing the six divisions of the earth.
The vestibules at the sides of the tower are open east and west for the passage to and from the garden, and at the sides have doors which admit to the Grande Salle and the flanking galleries respectively. The interior red scagliola columns of the vestibule are in pairs, with white bases and capitals, the latter combining the lotus-leaf with the volute. The soffits of the ceiling have panels of yellow with orange border, contrasting with iron beams painted a chocolate brown.
The uniformity of the long and curved colonnades which form the wings of the building is broken by square porticoes, which have entrances to the galleries and small terraces in front, with steps leading to the garden. The wall back of the white pillars of this long promenade is painted of a warm but not glaring red. The roof is of tile and skylight. The base of the colonnade beneath the balustrade and pillars is a rough concrete wall hidden by a sloping bank of evergreens, upon which the eye rests pleasantly amid so much wall-space