Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/118

94 and is much more easily kept in condition than this latter. To avoid reflection the shellac or varnish must be rubbed down until the gloss has disappeared. The waxed floor is the most agreeable, but here the museum man must be cautioned that it requires very frequent cleaning and polishing. If a floor is allowed to go too long without polishing, the wood becomes worn by the dirt brought in on the visitors' shoes and will never look as well again. In a museum with the ordinary number of visitors, the floors should be polished by the janitors once a month; if the attendance is especially large, every two weeks.

Certain museums, both in this country and abroad, have used linoleum or some sort of cork compound on their floors, and this has two advantages. In the first place it is much less tiring for the museum visitor to walk upon and in the second place the clicking of heels that is often so annoying, especially on marble and the floors, is almost completely silenced by the linoleum. The disadvantages are, in the first place, its great expense, and in the second place, the disagreeable odor that it emits when wet. Many of the Italian museums protect their floors with strips of rope carpet which are very strong and durable, also very difficult to clean. A vacuum cleaner is the only thing that can be used on them