STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 371 



prepared, is accessible to everybody. The reading- room is open on 

 week days (with only four exceptions duriiio- the year) from 8.30 

 o'clock in the mornino- till 11 o'clock at nij^ht; during the summer 

 holidays (July to September) till 10 o'clock. The library is enviably 

 easy of access. Up to a late hour in the evening everyone has 

 unlimited freedom of reference in all rooms open to the public. 



The order cards are forwarded ])y pneumatic tubes, the books 

 return on small lifts driven by compressed air. In the evening the 

 lofty reading room, in addition to the direct electric lighting, suffi- 

 cient in itself, is brightened up by a so-called "moon," that is, a great 

 globe suspended in the middle, on which electric light is thrown from 

 the eight corners of the upper galleries and retlected from it. Beside 

 the central hall is located a special library with its own reading 

 room — the architectural library with 10,000 volumes. The valuable 

 folios are kept in a horizontal position in separate iron repositories on 

 copper rollers, and are thus very easily handled without injury to the 

 binding. This ai'rangement is as perfect and as artistic as that of 

 the above-mentioned bookstacks. 1 may note also among the special 

 sections, a Goethe library of 1,200 volumes and a Kant library of 600 

 volumes. 



The books are consulted chiefly by professors and students, who are 

 permitted to take them away. Last year more than 77,000 volumes 

 were thus taken out by about 8,000 persons. No record is kept of the 

 attendance within the library, but all the seats in the reading rooms 

 are usually occupied. Outsiders may consult books only in the library 

 itself. Mine librarians and 22 assistants and cataloguers attend to the 

 needs of the library, together with 29 copyists and messengers. 

 Altogether 67 persons are emploj^ed, including 33 women. 



The building itself is of fireproof construction throughout, but has 

 wooden furniture (except most of the })ookstacks) and wooden doors 

 and window frames. The floors are stone, covered parth" w^ith par- 

 quetry and corticine, a very elastic kind of linoleum. 



A wonderful spirit of care and order is everywhere apparent. 

 Even in the anterooms the same elegant solidity prevails as in the 

 sumptuous main rooms. Very few institutions of the kind could be 

 compared with this one. 



The cost of the library amounted to $1,250,000, $600,000 of which 

 were for the interior furnishings. It was opened in l.s!>7. 



I must refrain from describing in detail the four following build- 

 ings with their institutes already completed, and must limit myself to 

 short accounts: 



1. The building for natural history and psychology (Schermerhorn 

 Hall) is 215 feet long and 85 feet wide. The two basement floors, the 

 first story, and half of the second story are devoted to mineralogy and 

 geolog}^; the other half of the second stor}- to psjx'hology, with labora- 



