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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1108 



cupied practically all the building except the 

 three and a half floors in the east wing and an 

 office which were used by the National Gal- 

 lery. Each hall and wing is practically one 

 hundred and twenty feet long by sixty feet 

 wide. The central hall was temporarily vacant 

 and here the post office for the House of Com- 

 mons, telephones, and two telegraph offices 

 were installed before noon, or within less than 

 fifteen hours after the fire started. 



About ten a.m., February 4, the morning of 

 the fire, the survey staff was informed of the 

 intended use of the building as a temporary 

 home for the Dominion Parliament. The 

 large auditorium with its gallery, which was 

 only partially furnished and had been but 

 little used for lectures, was immediately re- 

 leased from museum uses and prepared by the 

 Department of Public Works, so that the 

 House of Commons was enabled to begin its 

 session at 3 p.m. or in less than twenty hours 

 after its deliberations had been disturbed by 

 the fire. The throne, used by the Governor- 

 General in the privy-council room, which was 

 rescued from the fire, served for the speaker 

 of the House of Commons. A press gallery 

 was built back of the speaker. 



The west hall was occupied by the tentative 

 exhibit of minerals. This exhibit was packed 

 and removed in six hours or by 4 p.m., Friday, 

 which was less than twenty hours after the 

 fire began. The costly cases in which these 

 minerals were exhibited had meanwhile been 

 taken apart and placed in storage. Rooms for 

 the members of the Senate were made here. 



The west wing, which was being prepared 

 for geological and mineralogical exhibits, was 

 cleared before Monday noon. The southern 

 half of this hall was decorated, carpeted with 

 the traditional scarlet carpet, and furnished 

 with furniture, most of which had been saved 

 from the Senate chamber. The walls were 

 hung with portraits also rescued from the 

 chamber, placed in order, King George III. 

 and Queen Charlotte leading the others, which 

 consist of the portraits of the speakers of the 

 Senate, ranged in the order of precedence. 

 The Senate met at 8 p.m. on Tuesday in this 

 new chamber within seventy-five hours after it 



became known that the Senate would meet in 

 the museum. North of the aisle the Senate 

 Post Office and other rooms for their conveni- 

 ence have been built. 



The east hall with invertebrate paleontolog- 

 ical exhibits, similar in size to the other ex- 

 hibition halls, contained thousands of small 

 and delicate specimens. These were all care- 

 fully wrapped, packed and taken away. The 

 work of dismantling had progressed so far by 

 midnight or within twenty-eight hours after 

 the origin of the fire, that the Public Works 

 carpenters were enabled to begin erecting the 

 walls of the offices for the convenience of the 

 members, and twelve hours later or forty hours 

 after the beginning of the fire all the museum 

 specimens and cases had been moved from 

 this part of the building, which was made into 

 offices for members of the House of Co m mons. 



Of the east wing containing tentative ver- 

 tebrate paleontological exhibits, three quarters 

 were cleared and these exhibits were stored, 

 with those of the other quarter, along the 

 walls of the southern half of the hall. This 

 clearing involved not only the moving of small 

 exhibits in cases, but also of such heavy frag- 

 ile specimens as the titanotherium and the 

 skulls of dinosaurs and mammoths, yet it was 

 all done within two hours after this notifica- 

 tion, that is by noon, or in less than twenty 

 hours from the time that the fire broke out. 



The ethnological specimens were taken out 

 of the tower hall, which was then fitted up 

 and used before Friday noon as a newspaper 

 library corresponding to the one where the fire 

 originated. 



Before noon, that is within less than two 

 hours after notice, the tentative exhibit of 

 Canadian archeology in seventeen cases, cov- 

 ering three quarters of the west hall, was 

 cleared of specimens and cases, while the 

 tables upon which the cases stood were left for 

 the use of the members of parliament. The 

 specimens were transferred to sixty-eight 

 trays and stored in the archeological labora- 

 tory in the basement. Meanwhile the remain- 

 ing quarter of the hall had been cleared of a 

 tentative exhibit of entomology in four cases. 

 In this hall a place for the press gallery staff 



