GLOSSAEY.

1305
\iide, and 38 feet high, floored withmarblo, and decorated with pihistcrs and an enta-
hhiture of the Corinthian order. This library is adduced as a perfect model of
the mode of distribution, which might be carried in principle to any extetit. If
the readers be very numerous, a separate reading-room becomes a nect-ssary addition,
which should be placed as centrally as may be to the whole mass of building, so that
the labour of the attendants may be lessened, and the readers at the same time more
readily served with the books wanted. The best mode of warming the apartments is
by hot water in pipes carried round the apartments, or pumped up through the floor.
Efficient means of aflfbr.ling ventilation to the room or rooms is also necessary.
At Paris the Biblioth^que Nationale is, though of immense extent, little more tlian
a Avarehouse for holding the books. The library of St. Genevieve, in the same city, is
a well-conceived and well-designed building, and particularly suited to its destination.
This ornamental edifice was designed by M. Labrouste in 1843.
Perhaps one of the most absurd distributions of plan for the buildings under
consideration is to be seen in the Eadcliffe Library, at Oxford. It is circular on
the plan, and hence vast loss of room is experienced, but nevertheless it is a noble
building.
In London the only library of any size to which reference can be made is that of the
British Museum. With so many clubs and institutions, each possessing its own library,
it may probably be many years before an edifice, similar to the Free Library and
Museum at Liverpool, is erected in London
;
especially as the parishes have not vet
had sufficient courage to tax themselves for the establishment of free libraries, which
the Act of Parliament has for some years past enabled them to do. The king's
library at the British Museum is situated in the east wing, and was erected, 1825-28,
by Sir E. Smirke, E.A. The chief room is 300 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 30 feet
high. Little "was done for the accommodation of the readers, largely increasing in
numbers, until 1857, when the new reading-room was opened, affi^rding desks for three
hundred readers, which are very often fully occupied, who have free access to about
20,000
volumes ranged around it. The room is 146 feet diameter and 106 feet high,
having a central light of 40 feet diameter in the dome, with tall side lights in the
springing of the dome. It was designed by Mr. Sydney Smirke, E..1. The arrange-
ments for economising the space around it for holding the annual accession of new
books in narrow and well-lighted corridors, are admirably managed. The Builder
journal, xv.
p.
229, and the Building News journal, iii.
157, 449-55, contain full
details of these fine additions to the national establishment.
The library attached to the Loudon University, Gower Street, designed by Professor
T. L. Donaldson, is 91 feet long by 21 feet 6 inches wide, 45 feet through the recesses,
and 45 feet high in the centre. It is a good example of such a room, planned as a
nave and aisles, with cases projecting from the outer walls up to the piers. The
library erected by the Corporation of the City of London, and attached to the Guild-
hall, is 98 feet by Go feet, and museum, with reading room 54 feet by 20 feet, is a
well-designed edifice, by Sir Horace Jones, the City architect.
LiEENE Rib. A short rib in vaulting.
Lift, or Hoist. A machine introduced into warehouses, to raise goods from the lower
to the higher floors of the building, and worked either by manual or by hydraulic
power.
Lately it has been placed in large houses and in hotels, for the purpose of
raising fuel, luggage, &c., to each floor; in some instances the platform has been
formed into a room for the accommodation of persons while being hoisted to an upper,
or
lowered to an under floor, without the fatigue of walking up and down long flights
of steps. Por lifting stones, see Lewis.
Light,
Diffusion of. Light passing into a room through obscured glass or a blind, by
means of which the intensity of the light is broken. If the glass be placed flush with
the
outside of the wall, the obscured side being placed outside, the effect is very great
in diffusing light.
Light,
Obstruction of. The raising a building opposite a neighbour's windows,
whereby he is deprived of a certain amount of light. It used to be held that all per-
sons
building on old foundations in the City of London could carry their buildings to
any height they pleased
;
that the intervention of a street or public way justifies the
raising of a building to any extent; that a building may bo raised providing the rais-
ing is not to a height beyond a line drawn at an angle of 45 degrees from the window
opening or openings, the light of which is affected by the raising of an adjoining build-
ing; that skylights or horizontal roof lights are not subject to the same law as ordinary
vertical windows ;
but these are all fallacious notions. However distant the obstruc-
tion, or however brought about, if an ancient light which has existed twenty years is
injuriously affected by reason of the works of an adjoining owner, there is a cause for
action.