( 2 43 ) 



room, also there referred to, became a need in the autumn, 

 and on Oct. 23d the Board of Managers approved a design 

 for this shelving, and authorized its construction ; it was at 

 once ordered, but has not yet been put into place. In order 

 to permit the arrangement and ready access to duplicate 

 books, the closet at the southern corner of the library stack- 

 room was shelved by our carpenters to the ceiling, and the 

 closet at the western corner of this room was fitted up with 

 movable sets of shelves previously in use elsewhere. The 

 herbarium of the Torrey Botanical Club presented by the 

 Club to the Garden in June was arranged in old cases pre- 

 viously in use in the store-rooms, and placed against the wall 

 in the hallway connecting the herbarium room with the taxo- 

 nomic laboratory. A case for herbarium specimens under 

 study was built at the eastern corner of the herbarium room, 

 and another for the same purpose in the small store-room 

 next the herbarium room. 



The cases containing the main herbarium are now so 

 nearly filled that the collection is being used under difficul- 

 ties and with danger to the specimens themselves in handling. 

 At least twenty additional cases are needed to accommodate 

 the collection and its natural increase during the next two 

 years ; in case of delay in obtaining an additional city ap- 

 propriation for construction, I propose to have eight such 

 cases built by our carpenters during the winter. 



The museum building has been open to the public every 

 day in the year from ten o'clock until four-thirty or five ; it has 

 been found practicable to reduce the number of janitors from 

 five to four men who have taken the entire care of it, includ- 

 ing cleaning of floors, windows and cases. Public access 

 to the building is still necessarily restricted to one of the 

 basement doors pending the completion of the front approach, 

 the contract for which has been vexatiously delayed to be- 

 yond the limits of satisfactory explanation. The main en- 

 trance cannot, for this reason, be used until spring. 



The additional ornamental terra cotta work for the pavil- 

 ions of the museum building, included in the contract refer- 



