One of Spain's greatest buildings, the Escurial, the great monastery
built by Philip II., in the form of an up- turned gridiron, and dedicated to St. Lawrence, some thirty miles from Madrid, has had even a narrower escape from destruc- tion than our Canterbury Cathedral the other day, and appears to have been much more seriously, damaged. It was struck by lightning on Wednesday, and the flames spread in the direction of the palace, library, and church. Special trains with engines. and firemen were sent from Madrid to extinguish the flames, in which they succeeded, after the fire had destroyed two of the towers and some of the roofs. The damage is said to be esti- mated at some £30,000. The library and other stores of- valuable- objects were not injured. The damage, though sufficiently great, is small compared with the alarm. Some notion of the size of the- Escurial may be gathered from the fact that it is said to con- tain 14,000 doors and 11,000 windows, and the original coat of the building was estimated to be 6,000,000 -ducats, or say, over £.1,000,000 sterling. But the Escurial had long ago lost a great deal of its ancient splendour.
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