32 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 



PI. I. — Facade of the north wing. The lower row of windows 

 belongs to the basement ; the second and third row- to the first story 

 and its gallery ; the fourth and fifth row to the second story and its 

 gallery ; the upper row and the skylights to the attic. 



PI. II. — Represents the basement, which is devoted to the storing 

 of duplicates and apparatus and to the temporary arrangement of such 

 alcoholic collections as cannot, for the present, be put up in the exhi- 

 bition-rooms. 



PI. III. — Plan of the first story. Devoted to the synthetic room, 

 containing a summary exhibition of the whole animal kingdom ; with 

 work-rooms to the east and exhibition-rooms to the west, containing the 

 domesticated animals and the collection of characteristic fossils. 



PI. IV. — Plan of the second story. The great central hall is de- 

 voted to a systematic exhibition of the Vertebrates, while the rooms to 

 the east contain the Articulates, Mollusks, and Radiates, and the rooms 

 to the west the faunae of North and South America and of Europe. 



PI. V. — Plan of the attic. The central room contains the large 

 skeletons, whales, &c. ; the rooms to the east are laboratories, with the 

 library, the photographic apparatus, and the microscope room. On the 

 west side are the fossil plants, with the collection of palms and tree- 

 ferns, etc. 



The dotted lines on PI. II, III, IV, and V represent parts of the 

 north wing not yet built. 



Rooms are still wanting for the faunal collections of the Arctics, 

 and of Asia, Africa, and Australia, and for the faunae of the pri- 

 mordial, secondary, and tertiary geological periods. 



