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 rnoist 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 of 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 



