Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/239

Rh` attention, and unless the plant be a large one the engineer will be the one man in the building who may not always be fully occupied. His hours are long, and his salary not large considering that on his knowledge and ability rests much of the safety of the objects in the museum. For instance, if he does not know how to fire his boilers scientifically the clouds of smoke issuing from the stacks will be unbearable. In some climates and with some plants it is necessary to provide a night engineer as well as a day engineer, although sometimes the night watchman can be trusted to keep the fires from going out during his watch. A certain drop in temperature is, of course, permissible but much variation must not occur or the director will find cracks in his furniture and panel pictures.

It is always a good plan to have at the door of the museum an attendant with a commission as special police officer. One of the guards can obtain this, and it gives him the right to make arrests within the building and to call other police officers with his whistle. Some museums have a regular member of the police force on their staff but if this is done there must be a distinct understanding that so long as he is in the museum building he is under orders from the director or superintendent of buildings and not from without.