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enriched with beautifully hand-carved moldings, notably an egg and dart
ovolo between cornice and frieze and foliated moldings about the mutules
and the panels of the soffit and metopes. It is a hall of charming
vistas in a noble architectural frame,--straight ahead to the Chestnut
Street entrance; back through the great single arch to the staircase; to
the left through an arcade of three pilastered arches into the west or
Supreme Court chamber; to the right through a broad, double doorway into
the east or "Declaration" room, the original Assembly chamber.

The treatment of the latter wall of the hall is most elaborate. Three
cased arches correspond to the open arches opposite. On the wall within
the two end ones are handsome, pedimental-topped, inscribed tablets,
while in the middle one is located the doorway with an ornate, broken,
pedimental doorhead taking the form of a swag.

Like the hall, the Supreme Court chamber is Doric with fluted pilasters
instead of engaged columns, and walls entirely paneled up. There are
three windows at each end and two back of the judge's bench with its
paneled platform and rail, and balustraded staircases at each end. In
this room the convention to form a new constitution for Pennsylvania met
July 15, 1776, and unanimously approved the Declaration of Independence,
and pledged the support of the State. Delegates to Congress were elected
who were signers of the Declaration. In this room now stands the statue
of Washington carved out of a single block of wood by Colonel William
Rush, after Stuart.

Across the hall is the Declaration chamber, forty feet and two inches
long, thirty-nine feet and six inches wide and nineteen feet and eight
inches high. As in size, its architecture is substantially the same as
the chamber opposite, and like it the two corners near the hall are
rounding. Also it is of spacious appearance, light, beautiful and
cheerful, a room to inspire noble deeds. Instead of the high judge's
bench at the side opposite the entrance, there is a relatively small
platform or dais of two steps on which stands the presiding officer's
desk in front of a large, elaborate, pedimental-topped frame with
exquisitely enriched carved moldings, within which is a smaller frame
containing a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence. To either
side, between fluted pilasters, are segmental arched fireplaces with
heavy mantel shelves above, supported by carved consoles, while beyond