+THE WAR PERIOD.+ The period from 1850 to 1876 was one of intense political activity and rapid industrial progress. The former culminated in the terrible upheaval of the civil war; the latter in the completion of the Pacific Railroad (1869) and a remarkable development of the mining resources and manufactures of the country. It was a period of feverish commercial activity, but of artistic stagnation, and witnessed the erection of but few buildings of architectural importance. A number of State capitols, city halls and churches, of considerable size and cost but of inferior design, attest the decline of public taste and architectural skill during these years. The huge Municipal Building at Philadelphia and the still unfinished Capitol at Albany are full of errors of planning and detail which twenty-five years of elaboration have failed to correct. Next to the dome of the Capitol at Washington, completed during this period, of which it is the most signal architectural achievement, its most notable monument was the +St. Patrick’s Cathedral+ at New York, by _Renwick_; a Gothic church which, if somewhat cold and mechanical in detail, is a stately and well-considered design. Its west front and spires (completed 1886) are particularly successful. Trinity Church (1843, by _Upjohn_) and Grace Church (1840, by Renwick), though of earlier date, should be classed with this cathedral as worthy examples of modern Gothic design. Indeed, the churches designed in this style by a few thoroughly trained architects during this period are the most creditable and worthy among its lesser productions. In general an undiscriminating eclecticism of style prevailed, unregulated by sober taste or technical training. The Federal buildings by _Mullett_ were monuments of perverted design in a heavy and inartistic rendering of French Renaissance motives. The New York Post Office and the State, Army and Navy Department building at Washington are examples of this style.