§ MR. WISEsaid, he rose to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether any Report has recently been made on the condition of the Stone-work of the Houses of Parliament, and what has been done with the £7,280 voted last Session for the purpose of indurating the external Stone-work of the said Houses of Parliament. In 1836 a Committee of twenty-four Members considered a great number of plans, which were submitted by architects, for the New Houses of Parliament, and the one of Mr. (now Sir Charles Barry) was selected, at an estimate of £774,560, excluding a larger sum for the courts of law. But up to the present moment no less a sum than £2,198,000 had been actually expended upon it, exclusive of the charge for frescoes, statuary, and temporary offices. Before the undertaking was commenced a Commission, including Sir Henry de la Beche, Dr. Smith, Sir Charles Barry, and Mr. C. H. Smith, was appointed to consider what was the best stone to adopt. The Commission, having visited a great number of quarries and inspected many public edifices, and tested a great variety of stone, recommended the use of the Bolsover stone—a magnesian limestone—and it was then hoped that a structure would be raised which would not only last for an age, but would serve as a noble monument of the architecture of our times to a remote posterity. The Commission reported that the Bolsover stone combined the requisites of durability, economy of conversion, beauty of colour, and other qualities. But the contract entered into for the supply of the material was cancelled, and a new quarry opened belonging to the late Duke of Leeds, the stone obtained from which was, in the estimation of experienced 229 builders, of an inferior description. In 1854, understanding there was some ground for anxiety as to the durability of the fabric thus erected, he, himself, put a question in that House to the late Sir William Molesworth, then first Commissioner of Works, who replied that he had good authority for stating that the stone which had been used was, on the whole, very good, and contained no greater proportion of faulty material than was usually found in so large a quantity. Since that assurance was given they had, unfortunately, had too convincing proof to the contrary; for last year the House was asked for a Vote of £7,500 for the purpose of "indurating" it. Who was responsible for what had occurred? At a meeting of scientific men held in the month of February last at the house of the Society of Arts, Mr. C. Smith, one of the Commissioners previously appointed, as above stated, to ascertain and determine what was the best stone to employ in the erection of the Houses of Parliament, made a declaration with regard to the selection of magnesian limestone for that purpose. Mr. Smith stated his belief that if the same Commission had had to conduct their investigation over again they would have come to the same decision; but that, no person having been appointed to exercise a supervision over the stone as it was delivered from the quarry, it was not surprising if the quarrymen had been under a temptation to supply a quantity of bad stone along with the good; and that he only wondered that, in the absence of inspection, things were not much worse than they were. Here, then, was a plain charge that proper supervision had not been exercised over the delivery of the stone, and the question was who was responsible for so serious a neglect. The consequence of this was, that they now found inferior material had been used, and large sums in addition to the enormous outlay already incurred would be required to preserve these buildings from a decay which ought to have been foreseen and guarded against. Sir Christopher Wren did not so manage matters when he built St. Paul's Cathedral and the many churches which he erected. At the bottom of that state of affairs lay, he believed, the modern system of contracts, which gave great profit to the few and inflicted great injury on the many. The same remarks applied to Buckingham Palace, where the structure was in a most disgraceful condition. The adoption of an excessive ornamentation not 230 originally contemplated for the Houses of Parliament had a tendency to subject the buildings to the atmospheric influences of that metropolis, where 3,000,000 tons of coal were annually consumed, producing sulphuric acid, carbonic acid, ammonia, and many other gases, which were particularly injurious to stone-work of a porous nature, to say nothing of the ordinary action of the elements. He hoped that it would be found that he was an alarmist, but from what he had seen he was afraid that the Chief Commissioner of Works would not be able to give so satisfactory an answer to his question as the House would be glad to hear. For some time he had noticed a rapid, constant, and increasing disruption of the surface of the stone, especially on the terrace front. The decomposition was not confined to the plain face of the stone, but extended to the sills, bases, capitals, plinths, and the stone-work above and below all these. Several of the entablatures, lions, shields, and the carving generally were beginning to be affected; and he was afraid that some of the old Druids might fancy they were much older than they really were, and that King John or some other old monarch might fall from his niche, and that the only ruler in British history who had not found a place in the building might suppose that room was being made for him among the Sovereigns. He should be glad to know from the Chief Commissioner of Works what remedy he proposed to adopt for this state of things. He had seen a great deal of scraping going on, and had observed men applying several different compositions and washes, or, as he might call them, architectural cosmetics, to different parts of the building, to which they would give very much the appearance of a Joseph's coat. Some of these washes might be effectual; but, unless they entirely destroyed the porosity of the stone, it would, in his opinion, he quite impossible to prevent its decomposition. We had not yet done with building; we were to have a new Foreign Office and other public buildings, and he hoped that Her Majesty's Government would consider this great stone question, and would not leave a stone unturned until they had arrived at a satisfactory conclusion in regard to it.