Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 57.djvu/182

172 has taken place in the last three years, and it has now entered upon the discharge of its chief functions.

The Garden comprises two hundred and fifty acres of land in Bronx Park, in the City of New York, which was set aside for that purpose by the Department of Public Parks in 1895. A fireproof museum building of stone, brick and terra cotta, 308 by 110 feet, has been erected for the Garden by the city in the western part of the grounds, near the Bedford Park Station of the New York Central Railroad. The building has a basement floor and three stories, with a total



floor space of nearly two acres, and a window area equal to half that of the floor area. The basement contains a lecture theater capable of seating seven hundred people, two large exhibition halls, preparation rooms, constant temperature laboratory, offices and storerooms. The first floor is devoted to a collection of economic plants, and the temporary installation of useful products in the way of foods, drugs, timbers, woods, fibers, gums, waxes, resins, oils, sugars, starches, poisons, utensils, etc., gives hints as to the great diversity of uses that may be made of vegetable products, together with an illustration of their method of preparation and their derivation.