Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/525

Rh

zoology, botany and archeology. The principal room is 570 feet in length and 50 feet in width, and is lighted from above. The offices of the director of the museum, Dr. J. W. Clarke, and his assistants are placed on a mezzanine, adjacent to the exhibition rooms.

The building should have been completed on January 1, 1911, in which case the collections of the education department and the state library would have escaped the serious injury caused by the fire which destroyed the west half of the capitol on March 29, 1911. The legislature has, however, appropriated a million and a quarter dollars to | reestablish and enlarge the state library, which in size ranks fourth among the libraries of the country. The state museum has admirable collections due to the long line of distinguished men who have been connected with it. New York state spends annually about seventy-five million dollars for education, and it is becoming that it should now have a building which suitably represents the magnitude and importance of its educational work.

value of the farm products of the United States has been increasing year by year. If their value in 1899 is represented by 100, the increase for each of the following six years was about six points; for 1906 the increase was 10, for 1907 it was 15 and for 1909 it was 16. There was a lowering in 1910 of the rate of increase to less than two, the point then reached being 184.3, or nearly double the value twelve years before. In 1911, the decline shown in 1910 became emphasized, and the index number fell to

178.4. The total value of farm products was $277,000,000 under the total for 1910.

In the report of the secretary of agriculture, from which these figures are taken, the decline is attributed to conditions of climate, there having been a combination of hot weather and a deficiency of rainfall in the early part