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Show TIIE NATION'S LIBRARY. I IT IS TO BE HOUSED IN A MAG- MFICENT BUILDING. j ; Ilerc In a Description from Our Washing- toil C'orrc.poiMlrtit, AVho II;ia Intervlew-1 Intervlew-1 r1 Mr. rani .1. IVIx, the Arrliltcrt Whu J Iigticd lind fclahnrated the Plan. . SiHrial CoiTesiwudew'e.l Washington, Five or six years hence tint western republic, still an i:i ftint nnio:i; nations, will possess tho grandest library in the world. It is the library if congress, as it is loyally known, though tlio nut innul library would lie a better name. Tho work of building has hrfti going on now some two years, and wo MH-, live or six hundred feet fro'n the Capifol, on tli:it noble Capitoline hill i 1 which are surfaced with ivory white enameled bricks made iu England, and costing, without import duty, 7 J cents per brick. Tho light reflecting power of these bricks is very great, and it is expected ex-pected the attendants will be able to read the titles of the books without ar-tifici;d ar-tifici;d light even in the most remote parts of tho "stacks." Pneumatic tubes will convey orders for books from the rotunda reading room to tho stacks, and the books will be sent down by means of slides lending from the shelves to the office in the rotunda. Books will bo returned to tho stacks by ; the sumo means. j These two huge tiers of Imok shelves are to have space for some three millions if books. Other parts of the building will accommodate l,!i00,000 more, and it is calculated that provision lias been , made for the librury as it now is, 700,00.) volumes and 200,00(1 pamphlets, and for the natural and expected increase of 110,000 volumes a year for more than a century. If 100 years bonce the National library shall have grown to the mammoth mam-moth proportions of 5,000,000 volumes the greatest library in the world, tho National library lit Paris, has now only one-half that number another million hooks can be accommodated by the erection erec-tion of lesser stacks in the four courts, and that, too, without, interfering with tho harmony and beaaty of the plan or with tho light. This library, therefore, is built to meet all requirements which may be made upon it for considerably more than 100 years, probably for 123 years, and it is questionable if it need ever lie larger than it is. There is, or ought to be, some limit to tho usefulness of a library in the direction direc-tion of its capacity. . It is conceivable that there are bookc which will not be worth keeping, and besides, as Architect Pelz points out, when tho bulk becomes so great it will no doubt bo found desirable desir-able to specialize by dividing the collection collec-tion into classes, such as a scientific annex, an-nex, an artistic annex and so ou. At any rate, posterity may bo trusted to work out that problem for itself. The library is certainly great enough. No other library structure, built as such in a compact mass, approaches it in size or capacity. It is as large as the Capitol 1 4s nir. r.rn.iMSu am it wru, pe. which George Washington himself chose as the seat of empire, a vast expanse of rising walls, derricks, hoisting machinery, machin-ery, heaps of material and two or three hundred workmen flitting in and about But already there is promise of the magnificence mag-nificence to come. , There is the ground plan all worked up. The noble wall of granite, stretching away for hundreds of feet, shows tho bold lines of relief which the architect has so deftly woven in. The huge courts mo shining with their ivory white pressed brick, and giving giv-ing a taste of tho treatment which is to make their corners massive and enduring endur-ing as the hills. The floor of the great rotunda is here, on which one may picture pict-ure in his mind's eye tho students and savants of the near future sitting at their studies under the magnificent dome. Only the basement is finished now, but in its halls and corridors one may wander for an hour, at every turn finding find-ing that which will amnzo und delight in the beauty of Gothic arches, the ingenuity in-genuity of the vaulted ceilings, tho long jierspectives, and in the suggestions of f uthre glories of marble finish. This will be not only one of the greatest great-est buildings in the world in size and magnificence, but it will be the most artistic large structure on this continent, if not on the globe. Books will bo written writ-ten about it, jiorttolios will be filled with drawings of its beautiful parts, architects archi-tects the world over will visit and stndv NORTHWEST COURT YARD. itself in area of ground covered, though not in floor space, for the Capitol, though only four acres in extent, has no courts within its walls. In addition to the great book 6tacks, the new library will have innumerable rooms for special classes of works, consultation rooms, administrative ad-ministrative offices, and a number of noble apartments and corridors for display dis-play of the huge collection of engravings, newspapers, maps, music and sketches of value which are pilod mountain high in the present library, and inaccessible to the general public. Probably there will bo an acre of such space in the new building, while the walls of the long corridors will be resplendent re-splendent with examples of the graphic arts. The National library is built of granite from Concord, N. H., and the contract amounts to fl,200,000. It is a beautiful bluish gray stone with a sparkle in it. and when raised to its height of about 100 feet, with a front of nearly 600 feet, ! will make an exquisite wall of color. The enameled bricks nre from Leeds, England, because none of the right quality nre made in America; the iron work is from New Jersey, and the common com-mon bricks, of which 25,000,000 will be used, are from the District of Columbia. The building is to cost, complete, $0,-000,000. $0,-000,000. It will be finished in 1896. It is to be fireproof in every particular, nothing noth-ing that will burn entering into its corn- it. .Yet its artist, its creating genius, is a modest young man, till recently unknown un-known in tho world, and not long since a draughtsman in the office of the supervising super-vising architect of tho treasury, Paul J. Pelz. - ' ., . , .. It is with-pardonable pride Hiatal r. Pelz turns over a mass of drawings; which show how this idea was born, how it was developed and perfected. The first complete designs provided for a magnificent building, and if tho work of evolution had stopted there all the world would have admired the result. But it did not stop, and in the light of what has followed the earlier designs seem crude indeed. For once congress, which usually economizes in the wrong place, decided in favor of the best, provided pro-vided the money, put a famous engineer in charge, and in so doing builded better bet-ter than it knew. This library building will be 470 feet long and 310 feet wide, with basement, three full stories and an attic. It covers nearly four acres of ground, and is surrounded sur-rounded by a park containing three acres more. To provide this site a score of the oldest houses iu Washington were torn dowu and several streets were vacated. va-cated. It lies contiguous to Capitol park, whence a broad driveway will lead to the purte cochere under tho main approach. ap-proach. Just within is to le the grand staircase, which the designs show is to excel in beauty all other staircases in the world, even that in tho Grand Opera position, and the boilers and heating apparatus ap-paratus being in a separate building. Gen. Casey, tho distinguished engineer, who won fame by putting the Washington Washing-ton monument on stilts whilo a new foundation was packed under it, is in charge of tho work, and pledges himself not only to complete it in the time set, but to turn over a be.lance of (lie money appropriated. He is assisted by Mr. I). R. Green, an engineer aud executive officer of-ficer of marked genius, both aided by the architect, who watches every brick and stone go into the structure, which is to be his monument. Walter Wei.lman. House, of Pans. It will be of white marble, with quiet tones of onyx for enrichment, en-richment, Next, the visitor of the future will find, is the great rotunda iu the center cen-ter of the building. This floor, built on the cantilever principle, is to be the reading room, and UStlfllP PROC1RESS OF TIIE WORK. a wonderful reading room it will lie 100 feet in diameter, witli the soft light streaming down from the dome overhead, over-head, and through the many windows which will pierce its octagon walls not :i shadow or shade anywhere. Think how largo this reading room will be! Otie hundred feet in diameter, or five feet larger than the rotunda of the Capitol Cap-itol itself, :00 feet in circumference, and with accommodations for two or three hundred readers. Tho dome will not be as high as that which surmounts the rotunda of tlie Capitol, but it will be of rare beautv and iniiuvssiveuess. Including the sjiace which surrounds the rotunda, behind the pillars, the diameter diame-ter will be 140 feet, practically all in one vast apartment. The books aro to be stored chiefly in two buildings, which run from the rotunda ro-tunda to the outer walls "stacks" they are called, because they consist simply of tiers of shelves, nine stories of them, each story being only 8 feet high, so that the attendants may reach the topmost top-most shelves without using stepladders. Those shelves will run toward the courts, -f'' - ' |