45 



brick and freestone, measuring ninety-five by one hundred 

 and five feet. The height of the basement above the ground 

 is six feet; the first story is sixteen feet high, the second 

 eighteen feet, and the third eighteen feet, with a lantern 

 roof above, making the total height of the building, to the 

 top of the pediment, eighty feet. It is built in the classic 

 style of architecture, with Corinthian pilasters and capitals. 

 The foundation ot the building is of heavy hammered gran- 

 ite ; the first story of freestone, and the second and third 

 of brick, with walls three feet in thickness, having an air 

 space in the interior. The exterior trimmings are worked 

 from freestone. Over the main entrance is carved the seal 

 of the Society, with the head of Cuvier, from drawings fur- 

 nished by the Du-ectors of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. On 

 the keys of the front windows of the first story are cut heads 

 of the Hon, the bear, the boar and the zebra ; on the south 

 window keys, the jaguar, the camel, the bison, the gnu and 

 the walrus ; and on the north side, the wolf, the tapir, the 

 rhinoceros, the gorilla and the kangaroo. The pediment is 

 surmounted by a carved eagle facing the east. In the friezes 

 of the second story are the names of three great naturalists, 

 — Aristotle, Linnseus, Cu^der. 



On entering, the visitor is confronted by two large bears, 

 cut in walnut, supporting carved walnut candelabra at the 

 foot of the oak staircase leading to the. grand hall. On the left 

 is a hbrary room thirty feet square. Here are placed the por- 

 traits of Linnaeus and Nuttall, and other well-known natural- 

 ists, and a plaster cast of Cuvier from the Directors of the Jar- 

 din des Plantes. This room is connected by the Secretary's 

 ofiice with a room in the rear of a like size, and to be used for 

 a similar purpose. In the rear of the vestibule is the lecture- 

 room, forty by forty feet, and on the right are the ethnologi- 

 cal and botanical rooms, each thirty by thirty feet. Between 

 these two, and connecting them, is a small room for the mi- 

 croscopical department. 



Ascending the staircase to the grand hall on the second 

 floor, the skeleton of an elephant is met, placed on the plat- 

 form constructed over the heating apparatus. A similar 

 platform directly in the rear of the stairway is designed for 



