The Girard college and its founder : containing the biography of Mr. Girard ... and the will of Mr. Girard / by Henry W. Arey.

  • Arey, Henry W.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Girard college and its founder : containing the biography of Mr. Girard ... and the will of Mr. Girard / by Henry W. Arey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The incom3 for the support of the Institution is derived princi- pally from the rental of the real estate left by Mr. Girard, as the cost of erecting the buildings, and the immense losses sustained by the depreciation of the stocks and loans, had completely absorbed the 2,000,000 dollars and the accruing interest devoted to its construction and maintenance. DESCRIPTION OF THE BUILDINGS* THE MAIN BUILDING. The general design of this building is that of a Greek temple, having eight columns on each end, and eleven on each side, count- ing the corner columns both ways, making in all thirty-four co- lumns. The order of architecture in which the exterior is com- posed, is the Grecian Corinthian. The columns are six feet in diameter, and fifty-five in height ; the bases are nine feet three inches in diameter, and three feet two inches high, and the capitals are eight feet six inches high, and nine feet four inches wide on the face of the abacus. The corner columns have one and one- half inches more diameter than the intermediate ones, for the pur- pose of overcoming the apparent reduction in their size arising from their insulated position. Each frustrum composing the shafts, as well as the bases, consists of a single piece without vertical joints. The shafts are composed of frustra, measuring from two feet six inches to six feet three inches in height, accurately jointed and set on milled lead; each shaft is channelled in twenty-four semi-circu- lar flutes, with fillets terminating under the capital, in water-leaves. The capitals are each constructed in four courses. The first course consists of a single piece of one foot seven inches in height, embracing an annular row of sixteen water-leaves; the second is * Condensed from the Report of the Architect.
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