Editorial Comment. 381 
on the east, west, and north, will be 55 feet in interior 
width and have solid floors, one above the othe, the light 
being obtained entirely from windows. 
The main and second floors will, as before stated, be 
used wholly for the public exhibition collections, while the 
upper floor will be divided into laboratories and storage 
rooms for the reserve collections. The basement will have 
the same dimensions as the first floor, but under the main 
halls it will require to be lighted artificially. The side areas 
will be of sufficient width for teams, which may enter the 
building at both ends of the south front. One of the south 
wings of the basem.ent will be utilized for the boilers, power 
plant, mechanical workshops, etc. ; the other, as well as the 
ranges, probably for laboratories and for the storage of 
such specimens as can best be accommodated there, though 
some parts of the ranges may be used for exhibition pur- 
poses. 
The northern entrance will be by way of the basement, 
into a large vestibule with elevators and stairways. There 
will also be passageways leading in all three directions, the 
central one communicating directly with a small lecture 
hall occupying the center of the middle section of the base- 
ment. On each side of this hall will be a series of small 
rooms, some of which can be used for committee meetings. 
The net floor area of the building will be about 411,374 
square feet, or about 9.44 acres, subdivided as follows : 
Basement and main floors, each about 116,732 square feet; 
second and third floors, each about 88,955 square feet. 
The building thus described will, as shown by the floor 
plan (plate xxviii), be occupied by the three departments of 
anthropology, biology, and geology. As the space occupied 
by the department of geology in the present building falls 
a little short of 20,000 square feet, it will be seen that the 
new structure will ofifer ample opportunity for expansion. 
A few words may be added relative to the mate- 
rials from which the building is to be constructed. As is 
well known, there has been a decided preference manifested 
of late by architects for light-colored material — a prefer- 
ence which, naturally, could be fully satisfied only by the 
adoption of marble. By many, however, it is felt that 
