Upon the whole, the domestic architecture of the town has few local characteristics, besides those already mentioned, which are due to local conditions rather than to local preferences. The range of building material is wide, and includes a red sandstone from Lake Superior that has not yet made its way into the Eastern cities, of a more positive tint than any in general use there. On the other hand, the whole continent has been laid under tribute for Chicago. The green “Chester serpentine” which one encounters so often in Philadelphia--and generally with regret, though in combination it may become very attractive--quite unknown in New York as it is, is not uncommon in the residential quarters of Chicago. Another material much commoner here than elsewhere is the unhewn bowlder that Mr. Richardson employed in the fantastic lodge at North Easton, which was one of his happiest performances. In a long and low structure like that the defects of the material are much less manifest than when it is attempted to employ it in a design of several stories. One of the most interesting of these attempts is illustrated herewith. The architect has wisely simplified his design to the utmost to conform to the intractability of his material, and with equal wisdom has marked with strong belts the division of his stories. But in spite of its ruggedness the wall looks weak, since it is plain that there is no bonding, and that it is not properly a piece of masonry, but a layer of highly magnified concrete, which owes its stability only to the cohesion of the cement, and to give the assurance of being a trustworthy wall needs to be framed in a conspicuous quoining of unquestionable masonry. One other trait is common enough among such of the dwellings of Chicago as have architectural pretensions to [Illustration: A HOUSE OF BOWLDERS. Burnham & Root, Architects.] be remarked, and that is the prevalence of Byzantine carving. This is not really a Chicagoan characteristic. If it is especially noticeable here, it is because Chicago is so new, and it is in the newer quarters of older towns that it is to be seen. It is quite as general on the “West side” of New York. Its prevalence is again in great part due to the influence of Richardson, and one is inclined to welcome it as at least tending to provide a common and understood way of working for architectural carvers, and the badge of something like a common style for buildings that have little else in common. The facility with which its spiky leafage can be used for surface decoration tempts designers to provide surfaces for its decoration, in such structural features as capitals and corbels, at the cost of the modelling which is so much more expressive and so much more troublesome, when a mere cushion will do better as a basis for Byzantine ornament. [Illustration: A BYZANTINE CORBEL. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect.]