NATURAL HISTORY BUILDING 101 



the large vault-like compartment comprised within the masonry of 

 the main approach. The doorways for the delivery of fuel and 

 freight, at the outer ends of the east and west wings, respectively, are 

 large enough to admit wagons, and adjacent to them are the freight 

 elevators and service stairs. 



In recognition of the superior claims of the public, the exhibition 

 collections have been accorded the two principal stories, the first and 

 second, which they wholly occupy and which contain essentially no 

 subsidiary partition walls other than are required for carrying out 

 the schemes of installation. A large central hall and several rooms 

 in the ground story are also available for exhibition purposes, but 

 otherwise this and the third story are subdivided into many compart- 

 ments mostly used as laboratories and for the storage of collections, 

 but also furnishing accommodations for the mechanical equipment, 

 the construction and repair of furniture, the library, meetings and 

 lectures, and the offices. The attic story is utilized entirely for the 

 storage of specimens. 



The three departments of natural history established in the build- 

 ing occupy space in all stories, such an arrangement being in part 

 necessitated by the fact that no single story furnishes all of the con- 

 ditions required by any department, but with the convenient means 

 of communication the work of administering upon the collections is 

 not appreciably hampered by this circumstance. While the extent 

 of space allotted to each department varies in the successive stories, 

 its distribution has been so adjusted as to locate the department of 

 anthropology in the middle section of the building, the department 

 of geology in the eastern section, and the department of biology in 

 the western section. The divisions, in turn, have been assigned such 

 positions as best suit their individual needs or tend to associate 

 kindred subjects. 



The floor and galleries of the south pavilion above the ground 

 story furnish a large amount of space additional to that accounted 

 for above, which is accessible to the public and may in large part be 

 used for exhibition. 



Except in the south pavilion and rotunda, the north entrance 

 vestibule and lobby and the light wells, there has been no attempt at 

 elaborate or decorative treatment in the finish of the interior, al- 

 though the large piers and heavy ceiling girders, which characterize 

 most of the exhibition space outside of the three main halls, add 

 greatly to the appearance of the rooms and effectively frame the bay 

 arrangement of cases which generally prevails. The natural light- 

 ing of the exhibition halls and, in fact, of the entire building, owing 

 to the exceptional extent of window and skylight surface and its 

 arrangement, is excellent, and its distribution much better than is 

 customarily found in large museum buildings. The lighting of the 



