676 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1062 



labeling, distribution as duplicates, etc., also 

 Professor M. L. Pernald's private office, and 

 finally a large and fully furnished room, whicb 

 has been placed at the service of the New Eng- 

 land Botanical Club for its extensive and 

 valuable herbarium. 



In 1912, by a second gift from Dr. George 

 G. Kennedy, it was possible to carry out an- 

 other highly important step in the general 

 plan of reconstruction by rebuilding of the 

 front portion of the original structure, raising 

 it from one and a half to three stories in 

 height and furnishing accommodations for an 

 exceptionally convenient mounting room, a 

 coat-room, a private office, a room for the col- 

 lection of " box material " (i. e., fruits, nuts, 

 cones, etc., which from form and thickness can 

 not be readily affixed to the ordinary herbarium 

 sheets), and a room for the Pterydophyta and 

 Gramineae. 



As these successive additions were made to 

 the earlier building, the collections both of 

 specimens and books had been so far as pos- 

 sible removed from the old central portion to 

 the surrounding new and fireproof 'wings. 

 Early in 1914 the last part of the old build- 

 ing, namely the main central room, a story and 

 a haK structure, with narrow wooden gallery, 

 was taken down, to be replaced by a structure 

 of greater height and much more substantial 

 construction. This final portion of the build- 

 ing is now completed. It and its steel fur- 

 nishings have been the gift of Mr. White, Dr. 

 Kennedy, Mrs. William G. Weld, Miss Susan 

 Minns and Mr. John E. Thayer. As rebuilt 

 this main room is furnished with two steel 

 and glass galleries, of convenient breadth, 

 each provided like the ground floor with a 

 series of steel herbarium cases. The room ia 

 further furnished with blocks of table-topped 

 cases, rising to counter height; also with large 

 steel tables, covered with battleship linoleum 

 and of height convenient for microscopic work 

 and plant-dissection. The room is provided 

 with copious north light, as well as overhead 

 light. The well lighted basement of this sec- 

 tion of the building has been furnished as a 

 sorting room and to that end has been pro- 

 vided with thirty tables which together furnish 



room for more than two hundred piles of her- 

 barium sheets and thus permit even the more 

 complicated kinds of sorting without crowding 

 or overlapping. These basement tables are 

 made of " transite," a neat light gray stone- 

 like material made of Portland cement and 

 asbestos fiber. 



Although the reconstruction has thus pro- 

 ceeded by sections, the building has lost noth- 

 ing in unity, for the whole was carefully 

 planned at the outset and each successive por- 

 tion was built with due regard to its relation, 

 to the whole structure. In the whole process 

 of building and furnishing there has been a 

 strenuous effort to eliminate woodwork and 

 all combustible materials. The building itself 

 is of brick with fioors and roof of reinforced 

 concrete. All doors, jambs, sash and window 

 frames are bronze, copper or steel-sheathed. 

 There is no exposed woodwork in any part of 

 the building, inside or out. As to the furnish- 

 ing there has been the same attention to safety. 

 All the plant cases, work tables, desks, book- 

 shelving, files, wall cabinets, etc., built to order 

 by the Art Metal Construction Company, of 

 Jamestown, New York, are of steel, for the 

 most part enameled in agreeable shades of 

 gray-green or deep green with bright or oxi- 

 dized brass trimmings. Even the waste- 

 baskets are of metal. At some points in the 

 furnishing it has seemed best and entirely safe 

 to make certain concessions to comfort and 

 sentiment. Thus the chairs are stiU of wood, 

 the window-shades are still of linen (though 

 they are on metal rollers), and in the curator's 

 office some articles of wooden furniture for- 

 merly belonging to Dr. Gray are kept in con- 

 sequence of association and sentiment. Eur- 

 thermore, no substitute for wooden picture 

 frames has been found, at least none which 

 has proved esthetically agreeable. With these 

 trifiing exceptions, however, all combustible 

 materials have been scrupulously avoided. 



The herbarium itself, i. e., the great collec- 

 tion of dried plants mounted on sheets of 

 cardboard, would of course prove highly in- 

 flammable, but it is preserved in cases which 

 form, as one may say, so many fire-tight com- 

 partments, so that even were a fire by some 

 accident started it could not possibly spread. 



