This floor has two main stairways and two elevators, as in the Senate wing, though one of these " lifts " rises at the south end of the western corridor, rather than at the west end of the northern. A private staircase leads from a hallway, opening off the eastern corridor, to the main floor of the House; and there is another to the west, similar alike to the two which lead to the private lobby of the Senators. These are of marble with the exception of the railings, which are wrought in bronze. Brumidi made the attractive designs of the eagle, deer and cherubs for all of the railings upon paper; they were then modeled by Charles Baudin, a Frenchman, and cast in Philadelphia. The drawings were after the Italian school, but Baudin changed them into the French style in working up the models, an alteration principally noticeable in the different way in which the scrolls and flowers are made apparently to grow out of one another. Archer, Warner, Miskey & Co. received $22,498.12 for the four railings; no one seems to know what the artists were paid for the designs.

Bronze Stairways 64