The National tribune., 1897-08-19
PART ~.

RFADING-RooM AND BOOK COLLECTIONS.
UNIQUE Book-stacks and Carrying Apparatus
Connections with the Capitol-Decorations
of the Dome-Library Soon to be In
Operation.
The reading room in the rotunda, beneath
the dome. is very beautiful. The floor is of
mosaics with concentric bands OF tennessee
marble. There is circular distributing
desk in the center, and around these three
circles of reading-desks, the Utmost row being
varied with reading-tables and settees. The
alcoves are also seated, the entire woodwork
being of dark, rich mahogany, polished like a
piano.
circular counter for attendants to dis
tribute and receive books surrounds the dis
tributing desk The paneling and carving of
the whole is particularly fine.
An elevator connected with the basement
CONVEYS books UP or down by the truck load.
There is also cabinet which is the terminus
of a book-carrying apparatus. connecting the
reading-roem with the book-stacks, and
long row of pneumatic tubes that transmit
written applications for hooks from all parts
of the building, or verbal messages through
speaking-tubes One of these tubes is con-
nected with the Librarians room IN the
building and others with the United States
Capitol.
The book-carrying apparatus is an ingenious
invention of American mechanics and con-
sists of endless chains which are continuously
in motion. at the rate of about 100 feet
minute operated by an electro dynamo.
The cable carries trays which receive and dis
tribute the books.
1t is believed that when in practical opera
ton book may be ordered from the Capitol
through the pneumatic tube and furnished
BY the bookkeeping apparatus in the course
of six or seven minutes. As books are con-
stantly in demand by Representatives and
Senators for use in debate and in the COM
mittee rooms, and as the distance between
the Capitol and Library of Congress is about
a quarter of a mile. it viii be readily per-
ceived that vast outlay of time and money,
in the aggregate will be saved by these in
genious mechanical contrivances.
1t takes but three minutes for books to
travel from the Library to the Capitol after
they have been placed in the pneumatic tube.
Telephone wires connect both Houses OF Con-
gress with the distributing desk.
THE GREAT DOME.
The arrangement and construction of the
book-staclls is entirely original and unique.
They are divided into nine tiers. each seven
feet high, an arrangement by which every
book NAV be handled and its title page read
without any possible delay on the part of the
attendant. The stacks begin in the base
ment, which is IA feet below the level of the
rotunda, and run up to the hight of GO feet.
The entrances are from the rotunda galleries
and from the corridors of the surrounding
structure.
The dome is perfect example of beautiful
italian stucco work. 1t is applied to frame
of iron and steel and filled in with terra
Gotta The scheme of the surface is sys-
tenn of squares, the ornamentation of the
body being in arabesaue, which is the
Arabian system of ornamentation, consisting
of fancifnl mixture of men and animals,
plants and flowers, ideal and real.
The arabesque figures of the dome are
chiefly little cupids. standing and seated, sur
rounded by conventional designs. The squares
diminish in size as the dome rises, there
being 800 Of them in all The groundwork
is of blue in every variety of shades in
cTessing in brightness as the dome rises
The animal figures combine upwards of 80
types in interior decorations including dol
phins, lions heads, sea-horses, griffins, storks
eagles, tridents, urns and so on. On the cell
ing of the lantern floats beautiful female