ey may be called into the light. Asking myself
how this can most effectively be done, I have arrived at the conclusion
that nearly two-thirds, or say three-fifths, of the whole cubic contents
of a properly constructed apartment[12] may be made a nearly solid mass
of books: a vast economy which, so far as it is applied, would probably
quadruple or quintuple the efficiency of our repositories as to
contents, and prevent the population of Great Britain from being
extruded some centuries hence into the surrounding waters by the
exorbitant dimensions of their own libraries.
--The End--
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In Der alte und der neue Glaube]
[Footnote 2: xxi, 25.]
[Footnote 3: First of all it seems to have referred to the red capital
letters placed at the head of chapters or other divisions of works.]
[Footnote 4: Cic. Pro Archia poeta, vii.]
[Footnote 5: Essays Critical and Historical, ii. 228.]
[Footnote 6: The Prayer Book recently issued by Mr. Frowde at the
Clarendon Press weighs, bound in morocco, less than an once and a
quarter. I see it stated that unbound it weighs three-quarters of
an ounce. Pickering's Cattullus, Tibullus, and Propertius in leather
binding, weighs an ounce and a quarter. His Dante weighs less than a
number of the Times.]
[Footnote 7: See Libraries and the Founders of Libraries, by B. Edwards,
1864, p. 5. Hallam, Lit. Europe.]
[Footnote 8: Hor. Ep. II. i. 270; Persius, i. 48; Martial, iv. lxxxvii.
8.]
[Footnote 9: Edwards.]
[Footnote 10: Rouard, Notice sur la Bibliotheque d'Aix, p. 40. Quoted in
Edwards, p. 34.]
[Footnote 11: The Director of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, which
I suppose still to be the first library in the world, in doing for me
most graciously the honors of that noble establishment, informed me that
they full-bound annually a few scores of volumes, while they half-bound
about twelve hundred. For all the rest they had to be contented with a
lower provision. And France raises the largest revenue in the world.]
[Footnote 12: Note in illustration. Let us suppose a room 28 feet by 10,
and a little over 9 feet high. Divide this longitudinally for a passage
4 feet wide. Let the passage project 12 to 18 inches at each end beyond
the line of the wall. Let the passage ends be entirely given to either
window or glass door. Twenty-four pairs of trams run across the room.
On them are placed 56 bookcases, divided by the passage, reaching to
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