STUDri:s ON museums and kindred INSTrTUTIONS. 593 



completed about twenty years ago. It i.s tasteful and grand alike in 

 its exterior and interior. It contains a municipal art collection. In 

 view of the fact, however, that this is yet too small to till the large 

 building, it is partlv occupied also as show rooms for the sale of art 

 industrial collections. It has magnificent, high, excellently lighted 

 halls, constituting a monumental structure of a taste and solidit}^ seldom 

 encountered among modern buildings outside of Paris. It is very 

 well worth seeing and departs widely from customary museum models. 

 It is fireproof. A large apparatus for heating by hot air is installed 

 in the very spacious, light cellars. 



NATIONAL LIBRARY. 



The National Library gives evidence of the fact that an old library 

 can also adopt new improvements. About a third of the 2,700,000 

 volumes " is installed according to the stack system in five decks, each 

 2.5 meters high, with passages which admit the light; though all this 

 is not in so perfect a manner as in the great new American libraries, 

 yet it answers the purposes for which it is intended. The reading room 

 (salle de travail), 48 meters long, 34 wide, and 20 high, by H. Labrouste, 

 with some 340 seats, is more attractive and more artistically arranged 

 than that of the British Museinn with its 300 seats. The written cata- 

 logues on the crescent-shaped northern end are easily accessible and 

 excellent. The printing of the catalogue (alphabetically by authors) 

 progresses slowly on account of lack of means, the first six volumes of 

 about 1,200 pages (down to Bancroft) having been completed only 

 after four j^ears' labor, according to which it would require sixty 

 years more to finish the work, though it is expected to accomplish it 

 in twent}" ^^ears, as additional means are hoped for. In so wealth}- 

 a country as France it is surprising that so little assistance is given 

 an undertaking of such general u"tilit3\ In this respect the British 

 Museum is unrivaled. (I tested the manuscript catalogue and found 

 there, among others, more than twenty of my writings, which speaks in 

 my eyes for the great comprehensiveness of the library.) The public 

 reading hall (salle de lecture), on the contrary, is dirty, ugly, and in 

 the highest degree unattractive; it consists of several rooms. A new 

 one, however, is about to be constructed. When all of the additions to 

 the library which are in contemplation are completed it will be mag- 

 nificent. I could onl}- cursorily examine the other rich and celebrated 

 collections there. Here the installation, partl}^ antiquated, seemed to 

 me to be historically justified and accommodated to the objects them- 

 selves. The reading rooms are open from a. m. to 4 or p. m., but 

 not in the evening, difi'ering in this respect from England and America. 

 The annual expenditure is $162,500, of which, however, only $20,000 

 may be allotted to the purchase of books and $20,000 to the printing 



«Also 250,000 copper-plate engravings, 150,000 coins and medals. 

 NAT MUS 1903 38 



