Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/488

 428 AHISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO of the great rooms of the University, was on the third floor, occu- pying the whole of the middle section of the building, and seating at reading-tables three hundred and sixty-four readers. Adjoin- ing the Reading-Room, in the West Tower was the Public Cata- logue and General Delivery Room. From this floor bridges led directly to the libraries in the Haskell Oriental Museum and the Law Building. Eventually there was to be an immediate com- munication with the reading-rooms of the other buildings of the Library Group. There were four public entrances to the Library, three on the north from the quadrangles and one on the south from Fifty- ninth Street. The central court of the Library Group bounded on the south by the Library, on the east by the Law Building and Rosenwald Hall, and on the west by Haskell Oriental Museum and the space set apart for the Theological Building, was named Harper Court, and it was planned that in the center of it there should stand a bronze statue of President Harper. In the chapter on "The Earlier Buildings" mention was made of the addition of the Annex to the Ryerson Physical Laboratory. This was really a separate building and of most attractive exterior. The story of its erection belongs to the period this narrative has now reached 1911-12. Its cost, which, with the improvements in the original building, amounted to about two hundred thousand dollars, was wholly met by Mr. Ryerson, and did not pass through the treasury of the University. The authorities did not ask Mr. Ryerson to provide this additional laboratory for Physics. It was built by him because of his intimate knowledge of the needs of the department and his deep interest in its work. The contract was let and work on the Annex was begun in September, 1910. The Annex was located north of the main Laboratory with which it was connected on the first floor. It occupied sixty-four by fifty-six feet of ground area, with a basement and three floors. The construction was fireproof, and was designed to match and supplement the architectural features of the original Laboratory. Great improvements were made in the latter. The first floor and basement were completely reconstructed. President Judson stated in his Annual Report for 1911-12 that by these improvements the