"DEAR SIR: We have the honor of acquainting you that there exists in this city a committee for the celebration of the quadro-centennial whose purpose is to co-operate, to the extent of its ability, in celebrating here the memorable event. [Illustration: TOSCANELLI'S MAP.] "This committee has learned with the greatest satisfaction that it is proposed to erect a monument, on the site of Isabella, over the ruins of the first Catholic church in the New World. Here, also, we have had the same idea, and we rejoice that what we were unable to accomplish through lack of material means, you have brought to a consummation. And therefore we offer you our co-operation, and beg your acceptance of our services in any direction in which you may find them useful. With sentiments of high regard, we remain, "Your very obedient servants, "S. IMBERT, _President_. "JUAN GUARRIDO, _Secretary_. _Direction_, GEN. IMBERT, _President de la "Junta Para de la Celebracion del Centenario._" The statue consists of a bronze figure of Columbus eight feet two inches high, including the plinth, mounted on a pyramid of coral and limestone twelve feet high, and which, in its turn, is crowned by a capstone of dressed granite, on which the statue will rest.[42] The figure represents Columbus in an attitude of thanksgiving to God, and pointing, on the globe near his right hand, to the site of the first settlement in the New World. The statue and pedestal were made from designs drawn at the Massachusetts State Normal Art School by Mr. R. Andrew, under the direction of Prof. George Jepson, and the statue was modeled by Alois Buyens of Ghent. The plaster cast of the monument, which has now been on exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston for some time, has been removed to the foundry at Chicopee for casting. In a few months it will be transformed into enduring bronze, and the Columbus monument will no longer be a growing thought but a living reality. To say it has stood the critical test of art connoisseurs in the Boston public is to say but little; for, from every quarter, comments on the work of the sculptor have been highly commendatory--the bold and vigorous treatment of the Flemish school, of which Mr. Buyens is a disciple, being something of a novelty in these parts, and well calculated to strike the popular fancy, which always admires strength, especially when combined with gracefulness and high art. Not a few of the best critics have pronounced it superior to the average of similar statues to be found in and around Boston, and all unite in declaring it to be unquestionably a work of art, and one meriting great praise.