The history of the origin of public libraries is simple. Very few
persons who possessed a desire to own books of great value could, in
early times, afford to gratify their wish, owing either to want of the
necessary means, or the very great scarcity of many works of intrinsic
value. Before the invention of the great art of printing it is well
known that all communicated learning was, of necessity, confined to
manuscript on vellum. And that the only mode of repeating books was by
transcription. The number of copies being extremely limited, it became
necessary to have public places at each of which a copy might be placed
for the use of those who desired to read, and as that number was in
those days limited also, it was customary for some man of learning to
read aloud to an audience.
These folios of manuscript, in time, accumulated to thousands, and the
places of their deposit became institutions, and received the name
of _librarium_. The term “librarian,” however, was applied in those
days to the transcriber of books (_librarius_), rather than to the
custodian, the latter officer being entitled _custos librariarum_, and
who was nothing more than a janitor.
The enormous impetus given to education by the invention of printing,
although it multiplied copies of books to such an extent as to render
them cheap enough to become the property of individuals, still public
libraries suffered no diminution, and the very increase of the draught
seemed to promote the thirst for information, especially in that
class in whom a taste for reading was controlled by a limit of means
to become possessed of the necessary books. And although in our day
the newspaper, the journal, and the serial, do much to disseminate
knowledge among the millions, yet are libraries as much an institution
of positive necessity as ever; for, in fact they whet the appetite for
reading, and the brief paragraphs and condensed essays editorial are
but so many stimulants to more extensive acquisitions of information.
The taste grows, and the patronage of libraries increases, and such
a progress must continue and enlarge whilst the mind of man lives to
accomplish the task set by Him in whose likeness the favored being is
made.
The history of libraries is one of great interest to the lover of
mental progress and the active civilization of our race, and might
well call out the most industrious efforts of learned writers to do
it justice. However, our business just now is with a local event—the
inauguration of a new building by a most popular institution, the
MERCANTILE LIBRARY of this city, which took place on the 15th of the
past month, in the presence of a large and intellectual number of
visitors of both sexes.
The rise and progress of this admirable institution is interesting.
Started in 1822 in a small second-story room, with few books and fewer
members, pinched to pay the rent of $150 per annum, by degrees it
gained vigor and steadily advanced to its present position, occupying
now a building admirable in all the arrangements of room, light, heat,
and ventilation.
This spacious building, occupying a prominent position on Tenth street,
north of Chestnut, in this city, was purchased and fitted up at a cost
of a quarter of a million dollars, and possesses a choice collection of
books amounting to fifty-two thousand volumes, besides a well supplied
news room, where will be found a great variety of journals from all
parts of the civilized world, together with magazines, reviews,
quarterlies, and annuals in abundance. The ladies having a separate
department to themselves, unapproachable by the masculines.
The arrangement by which the reading rooms have been studiously kept in
the rear of the building out of the reach of street disturbances, is
one which gives it a great advantage over the public libraries of most
other cities.
There is a well furnished chess room for the lovers of that mental
game, and conversation, waiting and other rooms requisite to perfectly
complete a truly desirable city institution.
We understand that the membership exceeds fifty thousand, and judging
from what has been done, there is no reason to doubt its ultimately
doubling that number in so large a city as this.
* * * * *
ARTIFICIAL STONE.—At the recent meeting of the Polytechnic Association
of the American Institute, Mr. Thomas Hodgson exhibited and explained
two methods of manufacturing and moulding artificial stone ornaments,
blocks, etc., for buildings. One of these is prepared by treating
lime with a solution of four ounces of oxalic acid in a gallon of
water, thus producing an oxalate of lime, which is mixed with from
two to four times its weight of sand. In this condition the material
is a moist, friable powder. It is then moulded to the required form
in Plaster-of-Paris moulds, removed from the latter, and suffered to
dry. It is then preferably placed in a bath of dilute oxalic acid,
which causes it to harden throughout, after which it is ready for use.
In making the other variety, the inventor treats the oxalate of lime
with a solution of silicate of potash, thus bringing it to a semi-fluid
condition, whereupon it is poured into moulds and suffered to indurate.
Dr. Van der Weyde said that the oxalate of lime, being one of the
most insoluble substances known in chemistry, its employment in the
fabrication of artificial stone was a lucky thought. The use of
potash and soda compounds for such purposes had been extensively
attempted with very poor results, but the oxalate of lime was free from
objections which hold good against such compounds.—_Railroad and Mining
Register._
* * * * *
THE NEW TREASURY BUILDING, at Washington, D. C., is now completed.
This addition or north wing of the Treasury building is 65 by 195
feet, and occupies the site of the old State Department. The entire
Treasury building covers an area of 520 by 278 feet, that is 144,550
square feet, or three acres and a half, including two large courts.
On the eastern side of the building is a colonnade of thirty pillars,
extending 336 feet north and south. On each of the other sides is a
portico, each shaft of the columns of which is a monolith or single
block of stone, 32 feet in height, and 4 feet 6 inches in diameter,
that is 14 feet in circumference. The buttress caps, which partially
inclose the steps of the porticoes, are single slabs of granite, 20
feet square by 2 feet thick. The granite was quarried on Dix’s island,
off the coast of Maine, and the larger slabs were taken to Washington
in the rough, and there dressed. Fronting the north entrance is a
fountain, the base of which is 12 feet in diameter, and the height 5
feet. It was cut from a single block of granite.