64 NATURALISTS’ ASSISTANT. 
The architect draws some showy or striking “elevation” with 
useless towers and spires and narrow windows, and leaves in- 
ternalarrangements to chance. ‘The result is an ill contrived 
building, with inaccessible and useless rooms, numerous dark 
corners and disagreeable cross lights. But the greatest dis- 
advantage lies in the impossibility of maintaining anything 
like a systematic arrangement of the collections. ‘The proper 
way is first to arrange the rooms and apartments and 
then to accommodate the walls and the roof to them. It 
would be well for all having charge of the erection of build- 
ings for the display of specimens of Natural History to visit 
some of the larger museum buildings such as those at Bos- 
ton, Cambridge, New Haven and Washington and consult 
with the authorities there in charge as to the advantages and 
disadvantages of the building occupied by them. It might 
also be an advantage to visit the museums of New York, 
Princeton and above all Philadelphia,! to see how a museum 
building should zo¢ be constructed. 
The following plan is here inserted asa hint which might 
be useful in the construction of a building of moderate size. 
It contains some features of value but can of course be mod- 
ijed to suit circumstances. It is primarily designed for the 
use of the average college. 
1 The cases at Princeton are (or, were, at the writer's visit) worse if possible than the 
building, while no museum building could be less adapted for its purpose than that 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Those collections of Europe 
which are tucked away in the corners of some old castle or which are displayed in the 
cloisters of some former monastery are fully as well provided for. The building is the 
result of architects working without intelligent supervision and was constructed by the 
Academy in direct opposition to the views of its best scientific members. 
