architectural lineage, for the intrinsic excellence of the structures they erected and the lessons they can still teach us in craftsmanship but, most of all, for the honesty and sincerity of the vernacular forms they developed, forms created by ready ingenuity in response to local needs and void of all pretence and hollow affectation. These forms, one and all, are full of vitality. Their very fitness for the conditions they were designed to meet in the neighbourhoods where they were evolved and the successful event of their application to modern demands for characteristic and informal domestic architecture drive home the extent of our present debt to the forgotten and nameless architect-carpenters of a by-gone generation. With the dawn of the eighteenth century it becomes easier to connect buildings and the names and personalities of those that designed them. When we are not able to say with certainty that such a structure was designed by such a man, we know, at least, that there were then living in the different cities men of acknowledged architectural attainments, that their work is to be seen in this house or that church as a matter of indubitable record and that there is a strong presumption that their influence is to be traced in the design of houses or public edifices where there is no documentary evidence to support attribution to an individual architect. One of the earliest personalities known to us in a distinctly architectural connexion is James Portius “whom William Penn induced to come to his new city to ‘design and execute his Proprietary buildings.’” He was “among the most active of the Carpenters’ Company and, at his death, in 1736, gave his choice collection of architectural works to his fellow members, thus laying the foundation of their present valuable library.” This Carpenters’ Company of Philadelphia was the organisation that, at a later date, erected its gild house, known as Carpenters’ Hall, where the Continental Congress for a time held its sessions. It is still in an excellent state of preservation and still houses the collection alluded to. The skill of the resident artisans of early Philadelphia was of no mean order, as their handiwork amply attests to-day, and, in 1724, the master carpenters of the city “composed a gild large and prosperous enough to be patterned after ‘The Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London,’” an organisation founded in 1477. Unfortunately we cannot with certainty ascribe any buildings now standing to the plans of James Portius. We can only make conjectures. It is highly probable that Penn’s house, which originally stood in Letitia Court until its removal to a site in Fairmount Park, was designed and erected by the Proprietary’s architect. The Manor House at Pennsbury was also, in all likelihood, designed by him or at least carried out under his superintendence. It is a source of never ending regret that it was allowed to fall into a state of utter decay and was then demolished. Had