^0 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



Cambridge suitable to receive, to protect, and to exhibit 

 advantageously and freely to all comers, the collection of 

 objects in natural science brought together by Professor 

 Louis Agassiz, with such additions as may hereafter be 

 made thereto." 



The general plan of the building and the arrangement 

 of the contents were carried out in accordance with Pro- 

 fessor Agassiz's views, while the collections have l^een 

 greatly increased by the results of the great Thayer 

 expedition to Brazil, by numerous gifts from private 

 collectors, and especially by the many dredging expedi- 

 tions carried out by Professor Alexander Agassiz, at his 

 own cost, and by extensive purchases of specimens by the 

 same gentleman, who, since his father's death, has occupied 

 the post of curator of the museum, and has devoted his 

 time and large private means to the development of the 

 institution, so as to render it a worthy monument to his 

 father's memory. 



Plan of the Building. 



The portion of the building already erected is about 280 

 feet long by 60 feet wide, inside dimensions. This forms 

 the northern wing of the proposed museum, which, when 

 completed, will consist of two such wings, connected by a 

 front of 400 feet. A central partition wall runs length- 

 ways through the building, dividing it into rooms, each 

 30 feet wide and 40 feet long, except in the centre of the 

 wing, where a projection increases the width to about 

 70 feet, and this is left open on one floor, forming a room 

 70 feet by 40 feet for the exhibition of the larger mam- 

 malia. The angles connecting the wings with the front of 

 the building are also somewhat larger, and are occupied 

 by laboratories, professors' rooms, staircases, &c. The 

 museum thus consists essentially of rooms of the uniform 

 size of 40 feet by 30 feet, and from 10 to 12 feet high, 

 each being well lighted by a row of windows on one of its 

 sides, forming a building of five floors above the basement. 

 In some of the public rooms the upper floor consists of a 

 gallery, leaving the centre of the room open for the height 

 of two floors. 



