Editorial Comment. 379 
well lighted and entirely available for use. The main and 
second stories will contain the exhibition collections, while 
the basement and upper story will be allotted to the many 
other requirements of a large museum. 
In a general way it may be said that the building will 
consist primarily of a main part in the shape of a broad T, 
comprising three wide wings or sections diverging at right 
angles from a large rotunda at the southern or principal 
entrance. Ranges of narrower width, one on each side and 
two at the north, will connect the three ends of the T or 
main sections so as to inclose two large open courts (each 
128 feet square), and thus complete the quadrangle. The 
two south sections, which, with the rotunda, comprise the 
front part of the building, will project slightly at each end 
beyond the walls of the side ranges. 
The new structure will be located on the north side of 
the Mall, in the so-called Smithsonian park, about midway 
between Ninth and Twelfth streets, directly in front of the 
Smithsonian building, and with its center, like that of the 
latter, on the axis of Tenth street. While the main front 
and entrance will face southward, or toward the middle of 
the park, there will also be a commodious entrance by way 
of the basement on the north, as an approach from Tenth 
street. The northern facade will be about 78 feet from the 
sidewalk of B street north, while the central projection 
thereof, containing the entrance, will reach about 25 feet 
nearer to the street. 
As the land rises rapidly southward from B street, it 
has been planned to have the basement floor slightly above 
the level of that street, but at the south the top of the base- 
ment will be nearly on a level with the ground. Suitable 
embankments will be built along the sides of the building, 
inclosing a broad area, which will also extend along the 
south front, thus making the basement equivalent to a fiill 
story for at least workroom, laboratory, storage, and heat- 
ing purposes. Its hight will be 14 feet. 
The first and second stories, intended for the public, 
will be 20 feet and 19 feet 5 inches high, respectively. The 
windows will measure 14 feet 9 inches high in the first and 
12 feet high in the second, the corresponding ones in the 
