124 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



resistance is feeble, and it may more easily collapse with 

 a crash. 



I lost no time in having the model arch removed, and 

 the room finished as if there had been no arch. I caused 

 also a wide trench to be excavated outside, all around the 

 room, and the earth-banks to be sustained by the masonry 

 of stone walls whitened, so that a cheerful light was thus 

 reflected into a large and lofty room, whose windows were 

 now free to the external radiance of the atmosphere and 

 the solar beams from the west. 



Still the place was a very unfortunate one, to which, had 

 I been seasonably informed, I should have objected de 

 cidedly. When I stood on the floor of the room, my head 

 was still six feet below the surface of the ground, and of 

 course the room was very damp : all articles of iron were 

 rapidly rusted, and all preparations that attracted water 

 became moist or even deliquesced. 



I devoted the spring and early weeks of the summer to 

 the finishing and arrangement of my half subterranean 

 working and lecture room. There was no remedy; the 

 College was not able to construct another, and I was afraid 

 of alarming them with the prospect of expenses which I 

 was well aware must be considerable, and would be an 

 nual and always recurring. There was therefore no way 

 but to make the best of a faulty location. The room was 

 now paved with flag-stones; a false floor of boards was 

 constructed, rising from the lowest level as high as the 

 ground-sill pf the outer door, arid thus affording an eleva 

 tion an inclined plane sufficient to prevent the vision 

 of the rear from being obstructed by the front rows of hear 

 ers. A gallery was erected on the side of the room oppo 

 site to the windows, access being made from the front of 

 the tower or steeple through the intervening cellar, over a 

 paved walk. Tables were established on the floor of the 

 laboratory, in a line with a large hydro-pneumatic cistern 

 or gas-tub, and a marble cistern for a mercurial bath. The 



