The sum of two millions of dollars was set apart by his will for the construction of the college, and as soon as was practicable the executors appropriated certain securities for the purpose, the actual outlay for erection and finishing of the edifice being one million nine hundred and thirty-three thousand eight hundred and twenty-one dollars and seventy-eight cents ($1,933,821.78). Excavation was commenced May 6, 1833, the corner-stone being laid with ceremonies on the Fourth of July following, and the completed buildings were transferred to the Board of Directors on the 13th of November, 1847. There was thus occupied in construction a period of fourteen years and six months, the work being somewhat delayed by reason of suits brought by the heirs of Girard against the city of Philadelphia to recover the estate. The design adopted was substantially that furnished by Thomas U. Walters, an architect elected by the Board of Directors. Some modifications were rendered advisable by the change of site directed in the second codicil of Girard’s will, the original purpose having been to occupy the square bounded by Eleventh, Chestnut, Twelfth and Market streets, in the heart of the city of Philadelphia. But Girard having, subsequently to the first draft of his will, purchased for thirty-five thousand dollars the William Parker farm of forty-five acres, on the Ridge Road, known as the “Peel Hall Estate,” he directed that the site of his college should be transferred to that place, and commenced the erection of stores and dwellings upon the former plot of ground, which dwellings and stores form part of his residuary estate. The college proper closely resembles in design a Greek temple. It is built of marble, which was chiefly obtained from quarries in Montgomery and Chester counties, Pennsylvania, and at Egremont, Massachusetts. The building is three stories in height, the first and second being twenty-five feet from floor to floor, and the third thirty feet in the clear to the eye of the dome, the doors of entrance being in the north and south fronts and measuring sixteen feet in width and thirty-two in height. The walls of the cella are four feet in thickness, and are pierced on each flank by twenty windows. At each end of the building is a vestibule, extending across the whole width of the cella, the ceilings of which are supported on each floor by eight columns, whose shafts are composed of a single stone. Those on the first floor are Ionic, after the temple on the Ilissus, at Athens; on the second, a modified Corinthian, after the Tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, also at Athens; and on the third, a similar modification of the Corinthian, somewhat lighter and more ornate.