MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, NEW YORK CITY, McKim, Meade & White, architects, is 465 feet long and 200 feet wide, and its walls are 65 feet high. The roof is nearly flat, but the sky-lines are broken by a colonnade which rises above the roof at the Madison Square Avenue end, and extends along either side for 100 feet, by six open cupolas with semi-spherical domes, which rise above the colonnade, by two towers at the Fifth Avenue corner, and by a great square tower which rises from the Twenty-sixth Street side with its lines unbroken for 249 feet, and then in a series of open cupolas. Along the Madison Avenue end, and extending along either side for a distance of 150 feet is an open arcade, which covers the sidewalk, and the roof of which rests upon pillars of polished granite and piers of brick. The top of the arcade is laid out as a promenade. On the top of the tower is poised a heroic figure of Diana, 332 feet from the sidewalk, designed by St. Gaudens. The materials of the building are buff brick and terra-cotta. It was completed in 1890. [Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, INTERIOR NEW YORK CITY] ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, NEW YORK CITY, was opened in 1879, although the spires were not finished until 1887. Built of white marble, its main dimensions are: length 306 feet, breadth, including chapels 120 feet, length of transepts 140 feet, height of nave 108 feet. The principal front on Fifth Avenue consists of a gable, 156 feet in height, flanked by twin spires, 330 feet high. James Renwick, the architect, was born in New York City in 1818. At the age of sixteen he graduated from Columbia College, and, following an inherited taste, entered the engineering department of the Croton Aqueduct. His training in architecture was entirely self-acquired. He early manifested a fondness for the Gothic style, and as there were then no Gothic buildings of merit in America, his knowledge of it was derived entirely from books. With such scanty preparation he designed Grace Church in New York. Later, Mr. Renwick travelled in Europe, and became still more impressed with the beauty of Gothic architecture. In 1858 the corner-stone of St. Patrick's Cathedral was laid, and it was mainly through this church that his reputation as an architect was established. It was his life work; he regarded it as his favorite child, and never ceased to grieve that his original plan, which contemplated a central lantern and a chevet, and which would have covered the entire block between Fifth and Madison Avenues, had been cut down for reasons of economy. Mr. Renwick died in 1895. "BILTMORE HOUSE," at BILTMORE, N.C., the residence of Mr. George Vanderbilt, was completed in 1897. Its main general dimensions are, 152 by 373 feet. Indiana limestone was used in its construction.