The aspect of the commercial quarters of the two cities has more points of difference than of resemblance. The differences proceed mainly from the fact already noted, that the commercial quarter of St. Paul is cramped as well as limited by the topography, and that it is all coming to be occupied by a serried mass of lofty buildings, whereas the lofty buildings of Minneapolis are still detached objects erected in anticipation [Illustration: LUMBER EXCHANGE, MINNEAPOLIS. Long & Kees, Architects.] of the pressure for room that has not yet begun to be felt. It is an odd illustration of the local rivalry that although the cities are so near together, the architects are confined to their respective fields, and it is very unusual, if not unexampled, that an architect of either is employed in the other. Such an employment would very likely be resented as incivism. Eastern architects are admitted on occasion as out of the competition, but in the main each city is built according to the plans of the local designers. The individual characteristics of the busiest and most successful architects are thus impressed upon the general appearance of the town, and go to widen the difference due to [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO BANK OF COMMERCE, MINNEAPOLIS. Harry W. Jones, Architect.] natural causes. The best examples of commercial architecture in Minneapolis, such as the Bank of Commerce and the Lumber Exchange, before its partial destruction by fire, have the same straightforward and severely business-like character as the buildings designed by Mr. Root in Chicago, and, indeed, they seem to owe not a little to suggestions derived from him. The treatment of the Lumber Exchange, in particular, indicates an admiring study of his work. Here the centre of the front is signalized by projecting shallow oriels carried through the five central stories of the building on each side of the ample opening in each story directly over the entrance, and by flanking this central bay in the upper division with narrow and solid turrets, corbelled and pinnacled. The scheme is not so effectively wrought out as it deserves to be, and as it might be. The central feature is not developed into predominance, and the main divisions of the building are no more emphasized in treatment than the divisions between the intermediate stories. The observer may recur to the Vicar of Wakefield to express his regret that the promise of so promising a scheme should not have been fulfilled, although, in spite of its shortcomings, the result is a respectable “business block.” These remarks apply to the original building, and not to the building as it has since been reconstructed by the addition of two stories which throw out the relations of its parts, and make it difficult to decipher the original scheme. The Bank of Commerce is as frankly utilitarian as the Lumber Exchange, the designer having relaxed the restraint imposed upon him by the prosaic and