The chief buildings of the Academy occupy relatively a small area of ground. Just north of the Cadet Mess and flanking the main road are the two Academic buildings, known as the East and West Academic. The East building is new, having been completed in 1913, one of the last provided for in the rebuilding of West Point. The West Academic building, which was completed in 1895, is built of Massachusetts granite and cost about five hundred thousand dollars. In this building are located the Departments of Civil and Military Engineering, Mathematics, Law, Drawing, Ordnance and Gunnery, and English and History; in the East building the Departments of Modern Languages, Chemistry and Electricity, Natural and Experimental Philosophy. The latter building is provided with the most modern lecture rooms, electrical and chemical laboratories, besides a mineralogical and geological museum. The major portion of both buildings contain the section rooms for recitation purposes. Visitors are admitted if accompanied by an officer. The architecture of both of these buildings is Gothic, but that of the new or East building is of a more exquisite beauty. Splendidly situated, it gives the impression of bulk and mass, much the same feeling that one has in regarding a dreadnought for the first time, but this impression soon gives way to an appreciation of a certain delicacy of treatment, a simple dignity that pleases. One of the best impressions of its beauty is obtained about dusk when the evening mists dim its outlines and its surface is bathed in shadows relieved only by the glimmering of the mediæval lanterns on either side of the main door. Immediately facing the center of the East Academic Building and across the road, is a large opening known as a sally-port through which the sections of cadets must march to recitations in the East Academic building. This passageway connects the main road with the area of barracks, a space of ground that derives its name from the brown-stone buildings that bound a portion of its perimeter. Along one side is a cement walk on which the cadets form to be marched to their recitations, and a sidewalk borders the barracks. With the exception of a small plot of grass near the Academic building the area is devoid of verdure, but is covered with a fine gravel that gives a clean and well-groomed appearance to the ground. The word “Area” has great connoting power. To a large number of cadets, it vividly brings to mind the punishment tours that they wearily trudged on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons across its surface. To the majority, however, it is the “hub” of cadet life, the assembly place for recitations, sometimes for meals; the scene of many an inspection or a guard mount, and most important of all, it contains a small insignificant building with a clock tower where dwell the Commandant of Cadets and his assistants, the Tactical officers.