Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/483

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Utah. These efforts have met with some degree of success, but radium from carnotite is not yet on the market.

The plans for the new buildings for the National Department of Agriculture contemplate a group of ten buildings, arranged in the form of a quadrangle, with an administration building as the central feature. The nine laboratory buildings will be units, and will be connected with the administration building by covered corridors. They will be 60 by 200 feet each in size and 4 stories in height above a high, well-lighted basement. The administration building will be about 135 by 160 feet and 5 stories high. The latter, with a laboratory building on either side, will present an imposing front of 700 feet, which will face south on the broad parkway planned to extend from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.

The appropriation of $1,500,000 made by congress will provide for the i erection of three laboratory buildings, leaving the administration building and the others to be provided for later. As the new site is some distance removed from the site of the present buildings, the latter can remain in use in the meantime. The three new buildings will provide accommodations for the laboratories and offices of the department now occupying rented buildings, as was directed by congress.

The buildings will be classic in design and will probably be built of marble. The construction will be of the most substantial character, with thick walls carrying heating and ventilating flues. The interior space will be divided into units 20 by 20 feet, and each unit will have access to a conduit furnishing water, steam, gas, electricity, air pressure and exhaust. The actual arrangement of the laboratories has not yet been settled, nor has it been definitely decided which three of the laboratory buildings will be erected now.

The department is now occupying very inadequate and in many cases temporary quarters, and is paying an annual rental of about $25,000 for buildings located outside the department grounds. Its main building was long since condemned and is in no sense a modern structure. The staff of the department at the time it was erected included less than 100 persons; the present enrollment is about 4,200