was destined to be the period of the world's greatest progress; which was embraced in the life of the subject of this memoir, 1803 to 1891, and was due to the development of rapid transportation, accomplished by steam, and rapid communication by electricity. In both of these John H. B. Latrobe took an active part.

In Mr. Latrobe's "West Point Reminiscences" we find the following:

"In December 1817, when I was fourteen years old, I was appointed a cadet and directed to report myself at West Point for examination in September of the following year. On my last visit to West Point, in 1886, I left Baltimore in a luxurious railroad car, between 8 and 9 o'clock a.m. and dined the same day at the West Point Hotel, at 5 p.m. In 1818 I left Baltimore between 8 and 9 o'clock a.m. in one of the earlier steamboats and reached Frenchtown towards evening, when I was carried by stage across the Peninsula to New castle, where I slept; and on the following morning reached Philadelphia by a Delaware River steamboat, about noon. The next day a steamboat took me to Trenton, and by stage again I got to New Brunswick where I slept; and the day after by another steamboat I was landed in New York.

"At this time, there were but four steamboats on the Hudson. I was told at the hotel where I dined that if I took an Albany sloop, numbers of which were at the wharves close by, I would reach West Point in season for breakfast the following day.

I thus began what might have been called the seventh instalment-by steam, stage and sail of a journey which had grown to be as important in my eyes as though I had been Hendrick Hudson himself, seeking by this route a highway to Cathay."

In order to give an account of Mr. Latrobe's early life and associations, it is necessary to consider the character and life of the elder Latrobe, at least from the time of his landing in this country at Norfolk in 1796 to his death in New Orleans in 1820. He had passed three years at the University of Leipsic, one of the leading Universities of Europe. He subsequently studied architecture and civil engineering and was appointed Surveyor of public buildings in London. He was offered the office of Surveyor to the Crown, with a salary of £1,000 per annum; but the death of his wife and his desire to cast his lot in a new country led him to decline this offer, and, as above related, we find him in Norfolk, Va. He left Norfolk and went to Richmond, in order to investigate the James River navigation. During his stay in Virginia he made several surveys for the Dismal Swamp Company. He visited President Washington at Mount Vernon. Like his son, John H. B. Latrobe, he was a great admirer of beauty, and his tribute to Miss Custis shows his high appreciation of that lady's good looks. He writes as follows:

"Miss Eleanor Custis, the only one of four sisters who is unmarried, has more perfection of form, of expression, of color, of softness, and of firmness of mind than I have ever seen before, or conceived consistent with mortality."

While in Virginia, he designed the penitentiary, reported upon the Appomattox and James Rivers and designed a number of houses in Richmond. He left Virginia in 1798 to live in Philadelphia. There he was employed to build the Bank of Philadelphia; and he also superintended the introduction of the water supply into the city. The Bank of Philadelphia is the work most strongly relied upon to establish Mr. Latrobe's reputation as an architect of high merit. The compliment which he treasured most and which

he has taken pains to record is a criticism which he overheard in a conversation between two French officers who were looking at the building. One exclaimed: "C'est beau, et si simple.

It was in Philadelphia that he met the lady he made his second wife, Mary Elizabeth Hazlehurst, daughter of Isaac Hazlehurst who was the partner in business of Robert Morris, the great financier of the American Revolution. He made his residence in Philadelphia until the year 1807. He was engaged in 1803 in making a survey and route of a canal to connect the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. He had reported it as feasible in 1799. He was then called to Washington by President Jefferson and employed to complete the Capitol, commenced under the administration of General Washington. Mr. Latrobe moved among the best people of the day. He was a highly educated man; had command of several languages; was a naturalist of considerable reputation, and, like his son, was a man of many accomplishments.

In the "Journal of Latrobe," published by D. Appleton & Company in 1905, Mr. Benjamin H. Latrobe gives an interesting account of the habits of the mud-daubers, a species of wasps.

"As a boy I was fond of collecting spiders, and in an old, abandoned stone house, minus the window frames, I found the mud-daubers had constructed their nests, generally consisting of three cylinders of mud. An egg was laid in each outside cylinder, and the center cylinder was filled with the most beautiful spiders. These seemed to be stupefied-not dead. Here they awaited their fate. The egg hatches into a grub or worm-the grub eats through the division wall, and consumes the spiders.

"There is much discussion as to whether insects and

animals act from reason or from instinct. The results are the same.

"There are two other instances which have come under my observation where insects show great intelligence or great instinct. One is the case of the ant eater (I do not know its proper name). A small insect of very slow locomotive power, about one-half the size of the thumb nail, with strong mandibles or jaws, incapable of securing his food except by strategy. It is very difficult to detect the insect in the dust. Its color (brown) gives it the same complexion as the dirt it lives in. Under the eaves of the houses in the country where the ground is protected from the rain, it digs a pit-a funnel shaped affair. At the bottom, or what would be the apex of a cone, it takes up its position. Woe to the ant that attempts to pass along the sloping sides of the inverted cone. Immediately a cloud of dust appears the ant eater fillips up with its legs and feet small particles of sand, which striking the ant, he is carried down and disappears. Like the hunter who met the bear, there are no remains.

"The other case is that of the caddis-fly. In its pupa state, it is a water insect, built somewhat like a wasp. The head and body from which the legs emanate are hard and horny. The tail of the portion of the body which contains the abdomen, connected by a slender wasplike waist to the rest of its anatomy, is soft and mushy. Almost any attack would result fatally. This insect makes a most beautiful cylinder of mosaic work, cemented together-open at one end, and closed at the other. It backs its vulnerable body into this, and with a coat of mail is ready for the battle of life, and its enemies are unable to destroy it."

A description of the elder Latrobe is contained in a letter written by his son John H. B. Latrobe to his cousin, John Frederick Bateman.

"My dear Cousin

"8 June, 1870.

"I have forwarded to your London address a copy which I made of Reinhart Peale's very poor portrait of my father, the only merit of my work being that it is pretty nearly a facsimile.

"My father was 6 feet 2 inches, of erect and military carriage. In repose his face was almost dull. In conversation it was all animated, and his listeners thought him handsome. His hair was very dark, with a slight wavy curl. He spoke most living languages-German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian with fluency, and understood most dead ones, Greek and Latin thoroughly, and knew a good deal of Hebrew; was a clever poet and an accomplished musician."

Benjamin H. Latrobe writes in Virginia, May 31, 1796. "I have had considerable pleasure since my arrival here in attending the different courts of justice held in the Capital."

He then discourses upon the absence of wigs in America, and says that in England 'about a century ago a full bottom wig was as necessary to a beau as at present a tight pair of pantaloons are to a Virginian.' He then ridicules the wigs. The ladies of those days, not to be bested in the adornment of their heads, built up magnificent structures, works of art, which could not be done away with, but remained so built for some time; with dire results in some cases, for in Coke of Holkham we find in Vol. 1, Folio 232: 'Did you hear that my cousin Mrs. Coke was brought to bed of a dead son, occasioned by fright. A mouse got into her night cap and demolished the heir of Holkham.' The head dress having once been built, remained so, and by reason of the poma