Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/515

Rh now in the possession of the Government, ilhistrating the development and progress of man and his works, if properly placed on exhibition, would occupy the entire space in the present museum building. The great collections in biology, botany, economic geology, general geology, and paleontology should be placed in a building properly constructed for their study and exhibition. A considerable portion of the collections are still in the Smithsonian building, where the crowding is scarcely less than in the museum building.

Moreover, in the present building there is great deficiency in laboratory facilities. Curators and assistants are hampered for want of room in which to lay out, arrange, classify, mount, and label specimens. There should also be rooms in which students could bring together and compare various series of objects, and have at hand books and scientific apparatus. The present museum building contains a few rooms suitable for the purposes mentioned, but the majority have to be used as storerooms, laboratories, and offices, and are therefore too much crowded to serve in any one of these capacities. Owing to the pressure for space, courts, halls, and galleries intended for exhibition purposes, both in the Smithsonian building and in the museum building, are unavoidably occupied to a considerable extent as laboratories and storerooms. There is also need of storage room, an increase of the scientific staff, and a purchasing and collecting fund. The American Museum of Natural History expends annually $60,000 for the increase of its collections; the National Museum has from $3,000 to $4,000 for the purpose.

The immediate and greatest need, however, is a suitable museum building. The present building is 375 feet square. The space on the ground floor is 140,625 square feet, and that in the galleries 16,000 square feet; exhibition space, 96,000 square feet. The entire cost is $315,400.

For comparison with the above figures, the following statistics relating to the American Museum of Natural History in New York are given: Total floor space, 294,000 square feet, divided as follows: Exhibition space, 196,000 square feet; laboratories, library, etc., 42,500 square feet; workrooms, storage, etc., 42,000 square feet; lecture hall, 13,500 square feet. These figures include the portions of the building now being completed. The total cost of the museum to date, including the completion of the new wings, is $3,559,470.15. The buildings, and the care of them, are provided for by the city of New York. The expenses of the scientific staff, increase of collections, etc. (the income for which for the present year is approximately $185,000), are defrayed from