Dr. Wheeler's Third Lecture.

An unusually large audience assembled in the lecture room of Jefferson Physical Laboratory, yesterday afternoon, to hear Dr. Wheeler's third lecture on the Acropolis of Athens. Dr. Wheeler had reached that interesting portion of his subject where he was to take up the Parthenon, which probably accounts for the increased interest.

He had spoken in his last lecture of the superstructure on which the Parthenoon stood, but which was evidently intended for a much larger building. The Parthenon as erected upon the foundation was two hundred and twenty-eight feet long and one hundred and one wide. The outer colonnade consisted of seventeen columns on the sides and eight on the ends. These columns were about five and one-half diameters, or thirty-four feet in height. Each was ornamented by twenty flutings, which were of the strict Doric style.

After describing the architrave, metopes, triglyphs and frieze, Dr. Wheeler touched upon the peculiar feature of the architecture of the temple known as the horizontal curves. The cellar is raised two steps above the floor of the outer colonnade. Above the columns of the cellar the ordinary plain architrave is found, but rising above this is a continuous frieze, unbroken by metopes. This frieze is sculptured along its entire length.

The cellar is divided into four compartments-the Pronaos, the Hekatompedos, the Parthenon, and the Opisthodomos. The interior arrangements of each of these apartments were described with considerable care. We do not know much of their decorations. There is good reason to believe, however, that in the Hekatompedos draperies were extensively used in the decoration.

The western part of the cellar contained the Parthenon and the Opisthodomos. Here was the state treasury and civic offices, The treasury was in charge of two boards of officers-a religious and a secular board.

Before closing the lecture, Dr. Wheeler touched upon the coloring used in the decoration of the Parthenon, describing how the different parts were colored. In his next lecture he will continue in his discussion of this, and will trace the subsequent history of the Parthenon. This lecture will be one of very great interest.