2222 



Journal of Applied Microscopy 



Stairways should be broad and terminate on landings, never entering the 

 halls ; the approach to each hall being made from a landing. 



The arrangement of the halls themselves actually varies greatly in different 

 museums, but in the standard science museum they will be either in the same 

 plane or at right angles, and in the standard art museum they will be a series of 

 intercommunicating or separate rooms, with or without court yards, or large 

 sky-lighted nucleal halls. 



As art museums are apt to break up their collections into minor groups, series 

 of subdivisions, resulting in small rooms, are common ; science museums prefer- 

 ably should use large halls. The system of division in science museums is very 

 well illustrated in the Natural History Museum in London (Fig. 19), and to some 

 extent in the Agassiz Museum at Cambridge, Mass. 



' HI — . 1 I 



II,. iisirn^. , 



.T" 



t --t 



- - - - - -— rr: 



^,..^ •••••••••«• 4*'r;*f»»-^* ♦» • ••-•-• • *'*'4 - 4 



Fig. 19. — Ground Plan. Natural History Museum, London, England. 



There is good reason to object to the system of multitudinous divisions of 

 space in science museums. Art museums from special causes, as the improved 

 effects of segregation in pictures and works of fine art, may resort to the cutting 

 up of space into small or comparatively small rooms. It is unnecessary and 

 hurtful in science museums. It generally results in poorer lighting if windows 

 are used, and the broad beauty of large halls is replaced by a series of dwarfed 

 chambers. Related topics, in a science museum, can be placed together in one 

 hall, and secure quite adequate isolation by being restricted to parts of the hall. 

 There is no conclusive reason for separating fossil cephalopods from fossil 

 moUusca, fossil corals, fossil fish, etc. 



A gem collection and a collection of meteorites can be readily and attractively 

 placed in a hall of minerals, and sufficient separation be given to them as well, 

 and the whole kingdom of invertebrates be delightfully treated in one hall. 



The only concession that should be made to this claim of separation in the 

 exhibits, is to construct a series of smaller and yet good-sized halls opening into 



