592 REPORTS OF THE BUILDING COMMITTEE. 



laboratory and apparatus room ; the book-cases, large tables and alcove desks, in the 

 library; the glass cases in the museum; the seats in the lecture rooms; the elevators, 

 with sheaves and counter-weights ; water-closets, completely fitted up ; rain-water 

 cisterns ; and the chairs and table in the Eegents' room. Flues for heating and ven- 

 tilation are provided for, but the expense of heating and lighting is not included. 

 Cess-pools are included, but no provisions for draining, according to the municipal 

 regulations of the city. 



The foundation walls, under the main central towers, are twelve feet thick at bot- 

 tom, gradually diminishing to five and a half feet at the surface of the ground, and 

 are sunk eight feet deep. The foundations of the rear central tower, excavated to 

 the same depth, are ten feet, diminishing to five feet ; of the campanile and octagonal 

 towers also ten feet, diminishing to five and six feet deep. The thickness of the walls 

 of the main building above the water table, is two feet and a half in the first story, 

 and two feet in the second, exclusive of buttresses, corbel-courses, and other similar 

 external projections, and exclusive, also, of an internal lining wall of brick, of the 

 thickness of a single brick, tied at intervals to the wall, and intended to plaster to. 

 The walls of the wings are two feet thick. The central towers are three feet and a 

 half thick in the first story, diminishing to two feet in the highest stoiy. 



Inverted arches of hard brick, are turned under all the openings of the foundation. 

 Groined arches are turned under the central towers, the campanile the octagonal 

 tower, and the tower of the west wing. 



The ashlar facing of the building is to be laid in courses from ten to fifteen inches 

 in height, with a bed of nine inches, and the joints to be nowhere over three-eighths 

 of an inch. 



The basements, to contain the heating furnaces, also the janitors' rooms and the 

 room to receive Smithson's personal effects, are fire-proofed. A pine floor, covered 

 two inches thick with cement, is carried under the roofs of the whole building. The 

 floors, where they are not fire-proofed, have a deafening of lime, clay, and sand. 



The central stair-cases, front and rear, are to be of stone to the museum floor. The 

 floor of the gallery of art, embracing the west wing and its connecting range, of the 

 laboratory, including the east wing and part of its connecting range, of the central 

 hall and the vestibules, also the floors of the basement under the laborator} 7 , under 

 the central towers, under the campanile and other towers, together with the cloisters, 

 are to be flagged with North river flagging. The floor of the principal lecture room 

 will also be flagged with flags, supported on brick cross-walls. The floors of the 

 library and museum are to be of pine ; and it is not proposed that either of these two 

 rooms should be artificially lighted. 



The laboratory wing is to be roofed with slate — the rest of the building, as the con- 

 tract now stands, with sheet tin ; but the committee propose to roof the main build- 

 ing and west wing with slate, paying the difference. 



It was made a condition of the contract that the erection of the building should 

 occupy a period of five years from its date, that term ending on the lDth of March, 

 1852. It was also agreed that the building should be erected in such proportions, 

 during each year, as the committee might direct, but so that the payments to the 

 contractor, in each of the first four years of the contract, should not exceed an annual 

 amount of $41,000; and so that the wings and connecting ranges should be com- 

 pleted in two years from the date of the contract. Fifteen per cent, on the archi- 

 tect's estimates is kept back until the completion of the building; but interest is to 

 be ultimately paid on this percentage, calculated from the dates of the several esti- 

 mates. 



On the suggestion of one of the Eegents, not a member of the committee, and of 

 the Secretary of the Institution, a supplement was appended to the contract, by 

 which it was stipulated, that if the Board of Eegents should hereafter determine to 

 make important alterations in the plan of building, or in the time of its execution, 

 then the contractor was to be paid pro rata, according to the prices in the contract, 

 for work executed, and reasonable damages, if the nature of the case should justly 

 demand it. In case of dispute as to the amount, the matter to be referred to the 

 architect of the Institution, or any other architect selected by the committee. 



The contractors gave as security for the faithful performance of the contract, W. 

 H. Winter, of Washington, and Horace Butler, of New York. The security was 

 approved by the committee ; and a bond, with a penalty of fifty-two thousand dol- 

 lars (being one-fourth of the amount of the entire contract) was executed accord- 

 ingly. 



The corner-stone of the building was laid on the 1st of May. The details of the 

 ceremonies upon that occasion, including the address delivered, in accordance with 

 an invitation from the committee, by the Chancellor, and which ceremonies were 



