and Laboratory Methods. 



2121 



lines, are two long buildings connected by a narrow hall of one or many stories, 

 which is a corridor of connection and which can be devoted attractively to the 

 illustrative uses of maps, photographs, and pictures (Fig. 10). A still further 

 modification, which provides an almost uninterrupted series of equally lighted 

 halls, is the erection of a prow-shaped terminus to the quadrangle of buildings, 

 formed from two inclined wings meeting in a common entrance (Fig. 10). In 

 this case again the dimensions contemplated are rather greater than is usual, 

 and the complete inspection demands a fatiguing journey, and the conveniences 

 of intercommunication are reduced to a minimum. Still, ideal conditions only 

 are here regarded, and the human factor must retire into extinction. 







Fig. 11. — The Museum of Natural History, Manhattan Square, New York, as it will appear 



when completed. 



A museum building can be erected in the form of a rectangle connected by 

 four arms from a central tower, as is the case with the projected complete struc- 

 ture of the American Museum of Natural History (Fig. 11). But the criticism 

 to be made here is the great width- — 500 feet — of the wings on the south and on 

 the north sides of the rectangle, which are not meant to be connective members 

 simply, but form exhibition halls, which yield defectively illuminated halls on 

 account of their cardinal position east and west. The same length of building 

 north and south would have been preferable. The National Museum at Wash- 

 ington is in the shape of a Greek cross with a central rotunda. The four main 

 arms or " naves " around this rotunda are 101 feet in length and 62 feet wide, 

 and the rotunda rises 108 feet. The exterior angles are filled in with the 

 "courts," 65 feet square, and these are again flanked by the "ranges," whose 

 outer walls form the extension of the whole building, which is thus filled out 

 into a complete square. This plan would be most objectionable as far as illu- 



