Editorial Comment. 179 
parent that this building was not only too small, but otherwise 
unsuitable for museum purposes, as well as entirely lacking in 
dignity. For several years the matter of a new building has 
been vmder consideration, but for one reason or another the 
plans have never matured. The one for which provision is 
now made, as shown by the tentative plans, is a rectangular 
granite building, having a frontage of about 486 feet, a depth 
of 345 feet, and a hight above the ground in front of about 70 
feet, with two open courts. As designed, the building has four 
floors, inclusive of a basement, and will afford about 400,000 
square feet of floor space. The first and second floors are in- 
tended i^r the public exhibition collections and the basement 
and upper floor for the reserve or record collections, work 
rooms, offices, and other miscellaneous purposes. 
The interior arrangement above the basement is a com- 
bination of large and small halls, the three largest halls being 
lighted from above and having two series of galleries of suffi- 
cient width to permit of their being screened ofif and made into 
series of separate rooms for exhibition, and other purposes. 
This arrangement has been adopted as practically furnishing 
the largest possible amount of well-lighted floor space in a 
building of the size proposed and as presenting many other 
important advantages. 
The limit placed by Congress upon the cost of the building 
is three and one-half million dollars. While the space provid- 
ed is not all that was desired, it will, at least in connection with 
the present building, give room for expansion for several years 
to come. As may be recalled in our editorial comment on the 
Department of Geology in the National Museum, in the Aug- 
ust, 1901, number of this journal, it was estimated that the 
Department of Geology alone will require about 100,000 square 
feet of space during the next ten years. Should this estimate 
prove to be correct, the accommodations afforded this depart- 
ment in the new building will not be more than sufficient for 
the next twenty-five years. 
In consideration of the many cheap expedients to which the 
Government has resorted during years past, the scientific com- 
munity is certainly to be congratulated on the satisfactory out- 
come of the work of the Museum authorities during several 
years past. g. p. m. 
