the first president in 1774 and 1775, and Hancock, the second.  Congress meets on the 1st December, and sits till June.  Representatives are paid two dollars a-day.  The rotunda has been the inaugural scene of General Jackson, Van Buren, and General Harrison.  It was here Lawrence, the maniac, attempted the life of General Jackson.  The statuary in the rotunda is, “William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians:”  he is in the act of delivering the treaty to a couple of chiefs.  There is “The Indian Princess Pocahontas rescuing Capt.  Smith from the Indians.”  There is “Boone’s Combat with the Indians;” and over the eastern door is represented “The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth.”  They were persecuted in England, and fled to New England, amongst wild savages, enemies to civilization and Christianity.  The Puritans landed at Plymouth (Massachusetts), and commenced the first English settlement.  The Capitol cost 3,000,000 dollars.  There are fifty-two senators, and twenty-two representatives.

The President’s house is in the western part of the city; and stands on a plot of twenty acres, forty-four feet above the Potomac.  It is 170 feet front, and eighty-six deep; built of freestone, with Ionic pilasters.  It was shown to us by one Martin Renehan, an Irishman; and as the President was absent, we visited all the rooms, which were meanly furnished—­indeed, carpets and chair-bottoms worn out; a common pine dining-table, which the Prince de Joinville, Lord Ashburton, Lord Morpeth, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Pakenham, our present minister, with others, to the number of forty-four (they never have more), dined off.  My house is much better furnished; and the President only keeps eighteen servants, including master of the household, &c.  The private drawing-room is the best, but that is bad.  We saw the bed General Harrison died in.  We visited the Treasury department:  this is a noble structure, 457 feet in length, and after the architecture of the temple of Minerva, at Athens.  There are 250 rooms.  It is adjoining the department of state.  The Post-office is of the Corinthian style, marble front.  The plan is a parallelogram, 204 feet in extent, and sixty-five wide.  The Patent-office is 280 feet in length, and seventy in depth, where patents are taken out at the cost of 30 dollars.  We saw one that astonished us not a little—­a machine for making railways, called a Pile-driver, which makes a railway over a lake, swamp, or forest, and finishes it straight away.  It is in operation in the southern states, and found to answer, at one-tenth the cost in England.  It is so incredible, I will not describe it.  There is another, called the Excavator, that bores through hills, &c. and quickens the work fiftyfold to manual labour.  Both these are worked by steam, and the most incredible inventions I ever saw.  Otis is the inventor of the latter.  There is also a screw-patent in operation in Rhode Island.  In the spacious room above are preserved Washington’s equipments