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                        PREFACE.
    BUT little preface is deemed necessary to the publication of this
series of Designs.   All will admit that popular works on Archi-
tecture are a desideratum of the day and nation, which the indus-
try and ability of Architects must be heavily taxed to supply.
Society needs to be awakened, and, where the light has already
dawned, to be encouraged and assisted in the development of the
highest charms belonging to that spot of which so much has been
said and sung-HOME.
    No influence is more potent in producing changes in the work-
ings of the great machinery of society than that of the PRESS.
The reforms wrought by its agency are heralded too constantly
and praised too loudly for this fact to be overlooked or forgotten
a moment by those who wish to wield their influence in the great
cause of a(lvancement; and the present rapid development and
general application of the art of WOOD-ENGRAVING opens a field
for the interchange of ideas by linear illustrations totally un-
heard of in former times.   With these influences at work, guided
by intelligent minds, among an industrious nud energetic people
the future Qf American Architecture promises to take as high
rank in the Art world as is allotted to the productions of any age
or country.
    DoMEsTIc ARCHITECTURE having its foundation in the simplest
wants of our nature, is in its first stages a rude manifestation of
art.  But as society emerges from a state of simplicity, its con-
comitants become in proportion more complex and varied, and
furnish in the one department of making provision of suitable
dwelling-places a wide and ever-expanding field for the genius
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