There has come down to us only a single manuscript plan which students have accepted as the original design and on which they have based all their comments. This drawing depicts only an intermediate stage of the plan. The first plan was much altered by L’Enfant himself at the request of President Washington, but by a careful study of internal evidence of the later drawing the designer’s masterly original may be restored. Existing documents tell us that not only were considerable changes made in the plan by order of President Washington, but alterations in the layout were also made by L’Enfant’s successors, all of which disturbed considerably its skillful symmetrical fitting to the irregular topography. If this submitted restoration proves correct, there is no ground left for further accusation of his indebtedness to both Versailles and the London plan for minor details. It is the writer’s conclusion that L’Enfant did exactly what he claimed--devised an original plan, entirely unique. He arrived at his parti only after a careful study on the spot of the best sites for the principal buildings, allocated in the order of their importance, and located with consideration of both prominence and outlook. He tied these sites together by means of a rectangular system of streets and again connected them by means of diagonal avenues. The principal avenues followed closely the existing roads. Additional avenues were extended to the “outroads” or city entrances and were laid out primarily for the purpose of shortening communication--an engineering consideration. L’Enfant mentions that the diagonal avenues would afford a “reciprocity of sight” and “a variety of pleasant ride and being combined to insure a rapide Intercourse with all the part of the City to which they will serve as does the main vains in the animal body to diffuse life through smaller vessels in quickening the active motion to the heart.” The similarity of the angles of the two principal avenues (Pennsylvania east, from Eastern Branch Ferry to the Capitol, and Maryland east, from the Bladensburg Road entrance to the Capitol) which followed closely for some distance the existing roads, doubtless suggested the radial pair-avenue idea. This was entirely accidental and the outgrowth of existing conditions. The system of a rectangular-street plan with radial avenues is not only borne out by the mention he makes himself in his descriptions but was followed by Ellicott in his redrafting of the plan for the engraver. Our artistic, hasty-tempered genius refused to give Ellicott any documents or any information. Ellicott states in his letters on the subject that, although he was refused the original plan, he was familiar with L’Enfant’s system and had many notes of the surveys he had made of the site himself, so it is possible that the plan was recreated by Ellicott.