2118 



Journal of Applied Microscopy 



Windows, for hygienic reasons, are receiving increased attention in educa- 

 tional and commercial building. Where they best attain their object they run 

 from floor to ceiling, and are broad. Museum windows should follow closely 

 this design, and be relieved of all extraneous interferences. The columns 

 between windows in the Brooklyn Institute apparently are not obstructive 

 (Fig. 8). 



Illumination from above by skylights is the second familiar method of secur- 

 ing light in museums. The Field Museum at Chicago, many rooms in the 

 Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh, and all art galleries illustrate this system. 

 Skylights ire in use in the Natural History Museum, London ; in the museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, London; in the University Museum, Oxford; 

 Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh; Public Museum, Liverpool; the 



Fig. 8. — Brooklyn Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



Science and Art Museum, Dublin ; Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and others. It 

 obtains in one hall — the imperfect hall of Conchology — in the American Museum 

 of Natural History, New York, and there yields unsatisfactory results. 



In regard to vertical illumination, I think that, excepting in art galleries, the 

 tendency in museum construction should be toward its suppression or abandon- 

 ment. 



To begin with, its effect, owing to the usual circumstance that it is employed 

 in sealed rooms, is lugubrious and church-like. In some instances it is intoler- 

 able. It simply drives out the visitor suffocated with a sense of grave-like 

 imprisonment. This applies more exclusively to small rooms. If used at all, 

 let it be combined with lateral lights as well. Vertical illumination on plane 

 surfaces, as pictures on walls, or flat table cases with approximately plane objects, 

 maps, coins, prints, and even shells and minerals, is most serviceable. With 



