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HE finding of the body of Admiral John Paul Jones in Paris, where it had lain for more than a century, has awakened unusual national interest. For more than six years General Horace Porter, the United States ambassador to France, associated with Colonel Bailly-Blanchard, second secretary of the embassy, had conducted the researches which were made under the auspices of the "Sons of the American Revolution." Their efforts were rewarded in April by the recovery of the body in the old St. Louis Cemetery, where Protestants of foreign birth were buried. This cemetery lies near the St. Louis Hospital in the Rue Grange aux Belles, in the northeast quarter of the city.

in a new leaden casket, and encased in a handsome oak casket, and then deposited in a vault in the American Church in Paris, until it is decided what steps will be taken for bringing the body to America, which will probably be in June..

Many opinions were vouchsafed as to the proper depository for the final resting place of the famous admiral, but it was eminently fitting that the chapel of the new Naval Academy at Annapolis was chosen by the President to be so honored.

When satisfactory clews were obtained as to the probable location of the body, no definite spot was known and much excavating was occasioned from the first of February until about the middle of April, when the lead coffin was recovered. The body was found to be in a good state of preservation. The limbs were covered with tinfoil, the body wrapped in a sheet and packed with hay and straw. Every means of identification was employed and the body proven, beyond peradventure, that of the first American admiral.

The wrapping of the limbs in tinfoil and the great care exercised in packing it, would seem to affirm the contents of a letter written by one of his pall-bearers, a Colonel Blackden, which stated, "His body was put in a leaden coffin in case the United States, which he has so essentially served, and with so much honor, should claim his remains, they might be more easily removed."

After a careful examination had been made, the original leaden casket was placed

The plans for the chapel of the Naval Academy, approaching completion, provide for a cruciform domical building, having a seating capacity of 1,300. The general plan is in the form of a Greek cross, with a large circle inscribed. The inside diameter of the rotunda is eighty-three feet and four inches and its height is 112 feet. The external width of the building is 124 feet and its length is the same; the total height is 200 feet. The

nave, transepts and choir are connected with the rotunda by four great arches-forty-one feet eight inches wide and fifty-eight feet high. There is a large organ loft at the end of the nave above the main entrance vestibule and low galleries in each of the transepts. Besides the main entrance at the end of the nave, there are four lateral entrances at the base of the rotunda, above each of which is a large window. There are also very large windows in each transept end and one in the sanctuary above the altar. Twenty-four semicircular windows in the drum give light to the upper part of the rotunda, and besides these there is a large eye in the top of the vault under the rotunda.

The crypt occupies the entire space below the main floor of the rotunda. It is a circular vaulted apartment, whose dia

meter is eighty-three feet, and its height is eighteen feet. The crypt is entirely unobstructed, save for the heavy columns which support the vaulting. It has entrances from the outside, approached by short flights of steps, and also from the main vestibule of the chapel by means of two stairways.

It will seat

This chapel will be historic. more people than old Trinity Church, at the head of Wall Street, in New York City. The object for which the upper part of the chapel was designed is purely ecclesiastic, but beneath it is a crypt built especially for the purpose of perpetuating great names in American naval history and of commemorating the great sacrifices made and the great deeds performed when our navy was less renowned than it is to-day. The building completed will represent an expenditure by the Government of perhaps $15,000,000, of which sum Congress has already arranged for the laying out of $10,000,000.

The following tribute to "Paul Jones" was through the New York Herald, by Admiral George Dewey :

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John Paul Jones was unquestionably a genius. What has been learned in recent years of his life and character shows us a man far above the ordinary, not only in his services as a naval officer, where his fame is brightest, but in his powerful mentality, his ability as a diplomat, as a writer, and his achievements as a patriot.

"His letter on the necessity for general and special education of American naval officers was far in advance of his time. It was written when captains of merchantmen were relied upon to command the naval forces. They did not fulfill the requirements of even that day, and it was John Paul Jones who clearly realized that a naval officer should be familiar with international law as well as navigation; that he should be a linguist as well as a man of courage, and that, above all, he should have a trained and broad mind. Jones' idea of what a naval officer should be is the standard of today. This is shown by the fact that his letter is now put forth as one reason why his body should be buried at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, which was established for the precise purpose he urged.

Jones never knew when he was whipped. There is something of a genius in that, I think. Nelson was unquestionable a genius. He never knew when he was

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whipped, and the British people worship him to this day, despite that story that Wellington one day at the Horse Guards engaged in conversation with a man then unknown to him, who, he declared, 'talked like a fool,' only to learn the man was Nelson.

"By all the laws and rules John Paul Jones' ship, the Bonhomme Richard, a rotten old East Indiaman, was beaten when Pearson, commander of the British man-ofwar Separis, seeing the colors shot away from his enemy, hailed, 'Have you struck?' Everyone knows Jones' reply, 'I have not begun to fight.'

'But beyond his unquestioned ability as a fighter for the colonies Jones was a man of great attainments. The son of a humble gardener, he gained at sea, when yet young, some education, which steadily increased at

whatever post of life he subsequently found himself. French he spoke and wrote with as great facility as English. He was a diplomat, and what a diplomat! He gained the entree of the French and Russian courts. So successful, influential and popular did he become at the French capital that he excited the jealousy of the American commissioners.

"Jones had large ideas, and it was he who convinced Washington, soon after war began, that advantage lay not in remaining on the defensive with such slender naval forces as then were possessed, but rather in striking boldly across the Atlantic at the British in their home ports. This he did, and with what success we know.

"When I was a boy the idea was held generally that John Paul Jones was more or less of a pirate. This was due, doubtless, to the hostile view of the British, who were the first to write of him, and who were em

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bittered by his raids upon the Scottish coast. This false impression has been corrected, happily, by the later and fairer accounts, like that of Buell, which is admirable in giving an insight into the character of a man whose abilities show so plainly through his writings as well as in the records of his deeds.

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A man of high temper, John Paul Jones left this country when, after the war, he found officers less distinguished than himself were promoted over his head. He has been called eccentric, some have even termed him crazy. The line taken by genius is sometimes rather indefinite in its relation to other characteristics.

66 But it seemed that Providence intended that the services of this great citizen should not forever be forgotten. After the many years his grave was unmarked and unknown, in Paris, General Porter, American ambassador to France, with rare patriotism, despite some indifference at home and at no small cost to himself, has recovered the body, to find it well preserved, through having been treated with alcohol. The hair still retains its color. The dimensions of the skull correspond exactly with the measurements taken by the great sculptor, Houdon, who then made a bust of Jones. Everything possible after such a great lapse of time has contributed to positive identification of the body, which seemed forever lost to a grateful people.

"The return of the body of John Paul Jones to America will be an occasion of great impressiveness. As a naval officer I see the appropriateness and sentiment of the desire that the body of the first great American naval commander should be buried at the Naval Academy, there to serve as a lasting inspiration to the midshipmen fitting themselves to serve their country as officers of the forces at sea.

But above his character as a naval officer John Paul Jones was a great American citizen. He belongs to the navy, but in a greater sense he belongs to the nation.

Winston Churchill, author of "Richard Carvel," also wrote to the Herald as follows:

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"The great genius and courage of John Paul Jones entitle him to a high place among American heroes. He made the United States navy a terror to the world, even though there was but a handful of ships in it. He had a great affection for the institutions of this country, but still he was the most un-American of our heroes.

"I think men of achievement may be classed as belonging either to the Napoleonic or the Lincolnian types of greatness. John Paul Jones belonged in the former class. There is no doubt of his great genius as a sea fighter, but he was an adventurer. It was this spirit that led him, when this country had no further honors and emoluments for him, to go to Russia.

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His career was unlike that of a great majority of the careers of Americans and Englishmen. He was more meteoric. He was a man who wanted to be making a stir in the world. His was a character that demanded a quick fruition of his work.

"Let me explain how I would distinguish his career from that of other American heroes. In this country and in England those who become men of achievement are commonly forced out of certain smaller communities slowly until they are needed, and are ever afterward available for the service of the state. John Paul Jones rose to a great height by his genius. He was distinctly of the Napoleonic type, not at all, for instance, of the type of Wellington. But he was a great American hero, and is entitled to the highest place for his courage and genius."