The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-03

and seem to have been designed to safe. guard and restrict the use of the books rather than to provide for their free use. \ A folio was to be returned for their | free use. A folio was to be returned l within three weeks, @ decimo within one. No member was to receive more than one folio, one quarto or two oe- taVos or duodecimos within the terms l aforesaid, unless where so connected as to be otherwise useless" The penal ties for the detention of a book beyond the time allowed were severe: For a | folio, $3 per day; for a quarto, $2, and 1 for an octave, $1. This was modified in | the revision of 1872 to $1 for a folio 50 cents for a quarto and 25 cents for an octave. The fines were still further re- duced in 1916. The president of the Senate and speaker of the House how ever might for good cause remit the penalty in whole or part. No book was to be issued within ten days of the ter imitation of q session of Congress and all books were to be returned five days before adjournment.
 command of General Ross, burned the
 capitol, August "A, 1874, the library, then consisting of little over 5000 vol- umes, was destroyed Less than a
 month after this, on September 21, fSl4
 ex-President Jefferson, who had always
 taken an interest in the library wrote
 from Monticello to his friend, Samuel
 Harrison Smith. founder of the Ma
 tiona lntelligencer, asking him to tend
 CT his library to the library committee
 of Congress. This was done, and Con-
 gress October 21, 1874 authorized the
 library committee to contract for the
 purchase of the library, and on January
 30, 1915, after some discussion, an act
 was passed authorizing the committee
 to draw upon the treasury for the sum
 of $23, 950, to be applied to the purchase.
 This collection contained not quite 1000
 volumes, and has been described by MT.
 Spofford as ''an admirable selection of
 the best ancient and modern literature
 up to the beginning of the present cen
 tury"
 The catalog of the collection was pre-
 pared by Jefferson himself, and publish
 ed in 1915. The system of classification
 used was based upon Lord Bacon's di-
 vision of knowledge, and this system
 was maintained in the arrangement of
 the books on the shelves and in the
 catalogs of the library until 1864.
 Early in May, 1915, the Jefferson li-
 brary was packed in wagons and sent
 to Washington. It was first placed in
 a room in the hotel building tempor- arily occupied by Congress, and re- mained there for three years, while the north wing of. the capitol was being re-
 b,,;I T+ i,, to rooms in the north wing of the capitol, and ultimately placed in the long hall occupying the western front of the newly erected center of the capitol, and here it m1ined-eXcept for short period after the fire of 1851. when it was temporarily housed in adjoining com mittee rooms-until the removal to the new building
 For period of 36 years from the foundation of the existing collection by the acquisition of Jefferson's library, the library increased gradually, mainly by purchase, until it numbered 55,000 volumes, being an average annual in- crease of over 1900 volumes. A fire broke out in one of the galleries of the on the evening of December 22 1855. It is interesting to note that Ed ward Everett, on his way home from an evening party, was the first to notice the fire, and he and Daniel Webster, with other members of Congress, helped | to eXtinguish it. Only few books were | destroyed December 24, 1852 another | and more disastrous fire occurred, caus- ed by defective fiue. and out of 55,000 | volumes only 10000 Were saved. The l portion saved included the divisions of | political science and | American history and biography Two .llirds of tine Jefferson collection were destroyed by this fire.
 As early as 1871 MT. spofford, in his annual report for that year. called at -ention to the crowded condition of the ibrary and recommended that Congress lake action looking to the erection of a library building to accommodate the 'apidly growing collection The first step in, this direction was taken when ! Congress, by the act of March 3, 1873, ereated commission to select plan for a building for the library. and ap oripriated $5,0O0 to procure. plans.
 Finally after nearly 15 years of dis eussion and postponement an act was passed April 15, 1886, authorizing the of a building substantially according to the plan submitted to a oint select committee by John l. Smithmeyer in the Italian renaissance style of architecture. with such modifi- ,ations as might be found necessary or l 4dvanta geous, The construction of the | building was placed in charge of a com mission composed of the secretary of
 he interior, the architect of the capitol extension and the librarian of Congress Five hundred thousand dollars was ap- Oropriated to commence the conStruc- ion of the building and $550 900 to pur- .hase the site. Under this commission, with J. l.. Srnithmeyer as architect, the 'ite was cleared of houses, and excava- ions for the fOundati made during SS7-SS By act of October 2 1888, this was abolished, and the con-
 truction placed under the direction of General Thomas L. Casey the chief of engineers of the army. The original lesigns for the building were furnished y John l.. Smithmeyer and Paul J. oelz. and the architectural details were worked out by Paul J. Pelz and Edward ? Casey Upon the death of General 7asey March 25 1896 the charge of the construction devolved upon Bernard R. ireen. and under his superintendence