Running all around the circular wall and immediately under the dome opening, we note an unfinished frieze, so done in neutral tints as to convey the suggestion of relief sculpture, depicting the most notable events in the history of America from the landing of Columbus to the discovery of gold in California. Six of the fourteen scenes were painted by Constantino Brumidi, and the others after sketches left by him. It was an ambitious design, in view of the rapidity with which history is made now and the brevity of the space. Only a trifling gap is left for all that has happened in the last sixty years or so, and Congress has had more than one debate over what ought to be crowded into the record of this interval. Among the subjects considered have been the emancipation of the slaves, the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, and the freeing of Cuba; but the proposal which has met with most favor is a symbolic treatment of the Civil War, not as a breach between the sections but as the cementing of a stronger bond. This was set aside because the design outlined was a representation of Grant and Lee clasping hands under the Appomattox apple tree--the objection being based on the discovery that the apple tree existed only in fiction, and that the real meeting-place of the two commanders was too unromantic for artistic use. From the frieze our eyes ascend to the canopy, or inner lining of the dome, which hangs above us like an [Illustration: _Survivals from “Before the War”_] inverted bowl enclosing an elaborate fresco in colors. This, too, is from the brush of Brumidi. Although it is ostensibly allegorical, many of its sixty-three human faces are recognizable portraits, including those of Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Robert Morris, Samuel F. B. Morse, Robert Fulton, and Thomas U. Walter, who was architect of the Capitol while the work was in progress. In a group representing War, with an armed goddess of liberty for its center, are heads resembling those of Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, Robert E. Lee, and John B. Floyd. Whether the likenesses are there by the deliberate intent of the artist, or merely by accident, no one will ever know, as Brumidi died in 1880.