cloth.

The New Library and Museum (says Mr. Overall, the librarian), which lies
at the east end of the Guildhall, occupies the site of some old and
dilapidated houses formerly fronting Basinghall Street, and extending
back to the Guildhall. The total frontage of the new buildings to this
street is 150 feet, and the depth upwards of 100 feet. The structure
consists mainly of two rooms, or halls, placed one over the other, with
reading, committee, and muniment rooms surrounding them. Of these two
halls the museum occupies the lower site, the floor being level with the
ancient crypt of the Guildhall, with which it will directly communicate,
and is consequently somewhat below the present level of Basinghall
Street. This room, divided into naves and aisles, is 83 feet long and 64
feet wide, and has a clear height of 26 feet. The large fire-proof
muniment rooms on this floor, entered from the museum, are intended to
hold the valuable archives of the City.

The library above the museum is a hall 100 feet in length, 65 feet wide,
and 50 feet in height, divided, like the museum, into naves and aisles,
the latter being fitted up with handsome oak book-cases, forming twelve
bays, into which the furniture can be moved when the nave is required on
state occasions as a reception-hall--one of the principal features in
the whole design of this building being its adaptability to both the
purpose of a library and a series of reception-rooms when required. The
hall is exceedingly light, the clerestory over the arcade of the nave,
with the large windows at the north and south ends of the room, together
with those in the aisles, transmitting a flood of light to every corner
of the room. The oak roof--the arched ribs of which are supported by the
arms of the twelve great City Companies, with the addition of those of
the Leather-sellers and Broderers, and also the Royal and City arms--has
its several timbers richly moulded, and its spandrils filled in with
tracery, and contains three large louvres for lighting the roof, and
thoroughly ventilating the hall. The aisle roofs, the timbers of which
are also richly wrought, have louvres over each bay, and the hall at
night may be lighted by means of sun-burners suspended from each of
these louvres, together with those in the nave. Each of the spandrils of
the arcade has, next the nave, a sculptured head, representing History,
Poetry, Printing, Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Philosophy, Law,
M