Chapter IV: Part 4

HEARTH AND HOME, with all its attractiveness, is regularly on our table. This periodical is most creditable to the illustrated serial literature of our country, and we are satisfied of its being a fixed fact, from the evidence before us of the liberality of its publishers and zeal of its gifted editors and staff of contributors. The prize song is a gem well worthy of a fitting setting in music equal to its own.

THE PRINTER’S CIRCULAR for July is filled with the interesting proceedings and intense enjoyment of the recent meeting of the National Union at Albany.

THE AMERICAN BUILDER for July has its usual amount of racy readings, its smart comments, and general information. It speaks well for the spirit of the western architects that our Chicago contemporary has laid in its foundation, and goes on with the work.

DESIGNS FOR STREET FRONTS, SUBURBAN HOUSES AND COTTAGES. By Cummings and Miller. This is a quarto volume containing fifty-two plates, with letter-press description of details for interior and exterior ornaments required in domestic architecture and the designs for the same. The former to a scale of a quarter inch, and the latter three-quarters of an inch to the foot. Besides this several designs are given for villas, country houses, and cottages. But the main advantage this work has over most of its predecessors, is in the very full and exhaustive hints, suggestions and instructions it gives to those in need of such; by which any practical man can readily apply any required embellishment to the house he proposes to construct. In fact the book before us supplies a very great want, by presenting to the builder remote from the professional aid of city architects an array of useful practical information which is inestimable to him, and is most desirable to the progress of tasteful construction throughout this wide country. The plates are unexceptionably executed, and the evident care with which this excellent guide to practical building has been put through the press renders it a most fitting work for those to whose wants it is so well adapted.

We highly recommend it as a faithful monitor and admirable assistant of the carpenter and builder. A. J. Bicknell, Troy, N. Y., is the publisher.