Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/88

64 The construction of the iron floors of the book stacks in the new University Library at Amsterdam is shown in Fig. 19. The drawing is almost selfexplanatory. It will be seen that great strength is obtained from the liberal use of rolled anglework, and that the floor proper is made of squares of cast iron laid upon the angle iron framework.

The stack rooms of the British Museum surround the central reading-room on all sides. They are divided into three storeys, each being 8 feet in height, and the bookcases are a similar number of feet apart. The floors separating the storeys are of perforated iron gratings, held upon iron girders half an inch in width and 4 inches in depth. In thirty years from the building of the reading-room the stack rooms had become