The University is admirably situated, chiefly upon two hills lying a mile to the west of the State House and commanding wide views of the surrounding country. The grounds comprise about 350 acres of hill and plain, the western half of which is occupied by the buildings and experimental farm of the College of Agriculture. Mendota, the largest and most beautiful of the chain of lakes, lies directly to the north, its attractive shores often rising into steep bluffs, surmounted by summer cottages, or swelling into distant hills besprinkled with prosperous farmsteads, while the towers and chimneys of the State Hospital for the Insane fret the sky-line beyond the farthest bay. A broad straight avenue leads directly eastward to the ridge crowned by the white dome of the State House; while to the south the view ordinarily ends with the silvery expanse of Lake Monona, glistening through the trees, but when the foliage has thinned, the southern horizon is sufficiently extended, both from town and university vantage-points, to comprise the far-off waters of Lake Waubesa. The outlook from University Hill, over-topping the tree-embowered town, which spreads gracefully, with up-thrust tower and dome and steeple, over Monona Ridge, is, particularly upon a moonlit night in summer, one of the most charming in America; while from Observatory Hill, just westward, one obtains a widely extended view of lakes and forest and purple hills which, especially under the glow of sunset, has won the unstinted plaudits of competent critics, some of whom have likened it to Old World scenes far-famed in song and story. Few of the buildings of the State University are architecturally worthy of mention here. The original structures were North and South Halls, mere four-story stone boxes. The Doric University Hall, surmounting University Hill, and one of the early buildings, has of recent years been greatly improved and extended, and now has some dignity of outline as well as historic association. The new Engineering Building, in gray brick, is pleasing in form and color; Science Hall and the Gymnasium, great piles of staring red brick, are conspicuous examples of the average college buildings of our day; while the best one can say of the old Library Hall, Chemical Building, Machine Shop, and Chadbourne Hall (the women's dormitory) is that they will continue to serve a useful purpose until the day when the State feels inclined to replace them with creditable structures. Upon Observatory Hill is the dignified Washburn Observatory, and upon the western slope the growing mass of buildings appertaining to the State Experimental Farm maintained by the College of Agriculture. [Illustration UNIVERSITY HALL, STATE UNIVERSITY.]