11 
of Edinburgh , Session 186C-67. 
public eye the vulgar arrangements which are required in its 
interior. Our National Picture G-allery on the Mound, from the 
beautiful designs of Mr Playfair, is lighted from above; but there 
are certain small apartments on the west side of it which cannot 
be thus lighted, and these being very useful, the architect was 
obliged to light them by little windows in the western facade. 
These windows are dark and unseemly gashes in the wall, about 
two feet high and one foot broad ; and being unfortunately placed 
near the fine Ionic portico, — the principal feature in the building, 
— they greatly interfere with the symmetry and beauty of the 
western fagade. Had there been no science in Edinburgh to 
give counsel on this occasion, the architect should have left his 
little apartments under the patronage of gas or oil; but science 
had a complete remedy for the evil, and in the hope that it may 
yet be applied, we offer it to those who have the charge of this 
noble building. Take sheets of thick plate glass the exact size of 
the present windows, and of such a colour, that when one side is 
roughly ground it will have the same colour as the freestone. 
When the openings are filled with these plates, having the ground 
side outwards, the dark gashes will disappear, the apartments will 
he better lighted, and the building will assume its true architec- 
tural character. The plates of glass thus inserted among the 
stones may, when viewed at a short distance, show their true 
outline, but this could not have happened if, during the building 
of the wall, some of the stones had been left out and replaced by 
plates of glass of the same size. This method of illumination will 
enable architects to light the interior of their buildings by invisible 
windows, and thus give to its exterior fagade the full aasthetical 
effect of their design. 
If it is important to obtain a proper illumination of our apartments 
when the sun is above the horizon, it is not less so when he has 
left us to a short-lived twilight, or consigned us to the tender 
mercies of the moon. In the one case it is chiefly in ill-con- 
structed dwelling-houses, and in large towns and cities, where a 
dense population, crowded into a limited area, occupy streets and 
lanes in almost total darkness, that science is called upon for her 
aid ; but in the other, we demand from her the best system of 
artificial illumination, under which we must spend nearly one- 
