Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 60.djvu/390

382 would have to be reduced, and each speaker and his listeners would have to occupy a certain space to the exclusion of all others. Under these conditions a given speaker's demonstration of his power to make himself heard over a distance of many miles would scarcely be looked upon as of practical importance, unless indeed it were seriously questioned whether his associates might have the right to restrict the exercise of their vocal powers. The proper field of wireless telegraphy appears to be the overspreading of limited areas, especially areas of water, with telegraphic facilities.

who wish to know something of the educational (educational in the broadest sense of the word) advantages enjoyed by the eastern United States can not do better than to consult Dr. A. B. Meyer's memoir on the museum of this section. Dr. Meyer came here in the summer of 1900 to obtain all possible information concerning our museums, their construction, arrangement, methods of installation, and the scope of his inquiries was extended to libraries and art museums. The results of his observations are being published by the Royal Museum of Dresden and the second part of the memoir, for it amounts to that, has recently been issued and comprises one hundred quarto pages with fifty-nine illustrations. It is devoted to the museums, libraries. Art Institute and University of Chicago, and Chicago has every reason to feel gratified at the showing made in this paper. At the head of the text stands Chicago's motto 'I will' (Ich will), and Dr. Meyer has frequent occasion to refer to the energy and creative power of this million-inhabited city, if one may paraphrase the author, of the west. In fact we doubt if many in Chicago, to say nothing of those living in other portions of the United States, realize the rapid strides she has made in—using the term in its widest sense—great educational institutions. Like the former part this gives a brief history of each institution considered, its origin, aims, endowment, expenditure, and the methods by which it endeavors to accomplish the desired ends. Then follows a detailed account of the collections, be they of natural history, art or books, with special notice of any original or important device for installation, labeling or cataloguing. As Dr. Meyer is not only a museum director, but one acquainted with the mechanical details of the various branches of work, and one who has devoted much time and thought to the construction of cases and methods of installation, he here speaks by the book.

The illustrations show an exterior view of each of the buildings considered, and noteworthy features of the interior, as well as of special cases and fittings. There are also in most instances plans giving the arrangement of the various floors, and sections showing special modes of heating or ventilating, and of the construction of modern iron frame buildings.

Dr. Meyer considers that the existence of the Field Columbian Museum should stimulate rather than deter the growth of the collections of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and that not only do these two institutions supplement one another, but that two museums are a necessity for a city which like Chicago covers an area of 180 square miles. The plans for the Academy of Sciences are well conceived, and it would be well to consider them carefully in the event of erecting a new and permanent building to replace the present Field Columbian Museum. As we all know this was taken for a museum in default of any other available building, and Dr. Meyer may well criticize its halls as being on too large a scale to fit them for the best arrangement of a museum. One of the results of this is to bring about a somewhat heterogeneous arrangement of the