Jan., 192 1. Annual Report of the Director. 



395 



from lack of space has not been shown for some years, will be placed in 

 another alcove. In the sixteen-foot center aisle two table cases four by- 

 six feet in size are placed. These contain the diamond and part of the 

 asphalt exhibits. Against the south wall of the hall and adjacent to the 

 passage southward, a large section of an Australian coal seam will be 

 placed. In the western half of the hall the installation is composed 

 chiefly of table cases. As these do not readily lend themselves to a true 

 alcove arrangement, distribution of the cases in a manner consistent 

 with the alcove plan of the rest of the hall has been adopted. The cases 

 are placed in pairs, each pair extending from the windows toward the 

 center of the hall. There is left a twelve-foot center aisle and a narrower 

 passage between the cases of each pair. The arrangement is broken in 

 one place to give space for a diagrammatic collection of clays which 

 requires a linear arrangement of four cases. Beyond this installation of 

 twenty-two table cases at the extreme west of the hall, two square 

 cases containing large specimens have been placed, and bordering the 

 west wall an upright case and a large model of an iron mine. The 

 specimens in the hall as a whole transferred from installation in the 

 old building are to be re-instaUed in the same cases and with the 

 same arrangement as before. There will also be added, however, 

 many specimens which had been withdrawn from exhibition for several 

 years on account of lack of room. The entire coal collection is one 

 group of such material and substantial additions will also be made to 

 the exhibited collections of clays, sands and soils. The most southerly 

 of the halls of the department has been named Frederick J. V. Skiff 

 Hall. The hall contains the principal economic collections of the 

 department. It includes the ores of the precious and base metals, 

 building stones and marbles and a part of the collection of non-metallic 

 minerals of economic importance. The cases in the hall are arranged 

 according to the alcove plan, broken for a space midway of the hall 

 by the substitution of tall, square cases for the long, upright cases 

 which outline the regular alcoves. These square cases are so disposed, 

 however, that the general alcove effect is retained. A center aisle 

 fourteen and a half feet wide has been left unobstructed through the 

 entire length of the hall. The predominant type of cases used in the 

 installation of the hall is that of those which form the sides of the 

 alcoves. These are materially different in form from those employed 

 in any other hall. They are designed to keep the specimens as near the 

 eye of the spectator as possible even at sacrifice of capacity. They are 

 seven feet high, and at a height of two feet from the floor the exhibition 

 space is extended forward in a horizontal bay which not only keeps the 



