The story of the house really ends with the period of the renaissance. Since the sixteenth century nothing really new in architecture has been discovered and men have been wedded to no particular style. When we want to build a house we choose from all the styles and build according to our tastes. Our story of the house, however, will not be complete without a brief account of what has been called elevator architecture. The high price of land in large cities makes it necessary to run buildings up to a considerable height if they are to be profitable. Now if a building is more than five stories high it must have an elevator, or lift, and if an elevator is to be put in, the building might as well be run up nine or ten stories. American business men learned this thirty or forty years ago and began to build high, and they have been building higher and higher ever since. There are tall buildings in other countries but the "sky-scraper" of twenty-five and thirty stories is found only in the United States (Fig. 16).
(Copyright 1911 by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.)
FIG. 16.—ELEVATOR ARCHITECTURE.
The tower-like structure in the distance is a building more than forty stories in height.
Thus we may see in the house of to-day a long and unbroken story. Where the roof is flat it is Egyptian; where it slants gently in two directions it is Greek; where it is steep or sharply pointed it is Gothic. The columns are Greek, the rounded arches are Roman. The whole is the result of the thousands of years of effort which man has given to the task of providing for himself a safe, convenient and beautiful home.
[THE CARRIAGE]
We are very proud in our day of our means of transportation. If one wishes to send a present to a friend a thousand miles away a few cents spent in postage will take the article to its destination. If for the sake of higher prices a fruit grower wishes to sell his crops in a distant city, the railroad people will haul it for him at a very small cost. If you wish to visit a friend in town several blocks away, there is the electric car ready to take you for a nickel. If your friend is several hundred miles away, the steam car will take you in a few hours at a cost of not more than two or three cents a mile. I am living in the country sixteen miles from the city in which my work lies, and for nine cents I am carried to the place of my business in less than half-an-hour. What has been the history of the inventions which make transportation so comfortable, rapid and cheap? Our subject divides itself into two parts, transportation on land and transportation on water or the story of the Carriage and the story of the Boat. We will have the story of the carriage first.