ry at his command. A register is
placed near the distributing librarian's desk, in which on entering each
visitor to the alcove is required to sign his name, and in this register
each year is accumulated a roll of autographs of which any institution
might be proud. Famous scholars, scientists, authors, journalists,
poets, artists, and divines, both of this country and of Europe, are
included in the lists.

Of its treasures of literary and artistic interest it is impossible to
give categorical details. Perhaps the library prizes most the
magnificent elephant folio edition, in four volumes, of Audubon's "Birds
and Quadrupeds of North America," with its colored plates, heavy paper,
and general air of sumptuousness. The work is rare as well as
magnificent, and, though the library does not set a price upon its
books, it is known that three thousand dollars would not replace a
missing copy. In an adjoining alcove is an equally sumptuous but more
ancient volume, the Antiphonale, or mammoth manuscript of the chants for
the Christian year. This volume was used at the coronation of Charles
X., King of France. The covers of this huge folio are bound with brass,
beautiful illuminations by Le Brun adorn its title-pages, and then
follows, in huge black characters, the music of the chants. In its
immediate vicinity are many of the treasures of the library,--Zahn's
great work on Pompeii, three volumes of very large folios, containing
splendidly-colored frescos from the walls of the dead city; Sylvester's
elaborate work of "Fac-Similes of the Illuminated Manuscripts of the
Middle Ages," in four large folios; and also Count Bastard's great work
on the same, seeming more sumptuous in gold, silver, and colors. Another
notable work is Count Littar's "Genealogies of Celebrated Italian
Families," in ten folio volumes, emblazoned in gold, and illustrated
with richly-colored portraits finished like ivory miniatures. There are
whole galleries of European art,--Versailles, Florence, Spain, the
Vatican, Nash's Portfolio of Colored Pictures of Windsor Castle and
Palace, the Royal Pitti Gallery, Munich, Dresden, and others. A work on
the "Archaeology of the Bosphorus," presented by the Emperor of Russia to
the library, is in three folio volumes, printed on thick vellum paper,
with two folding maps and ninety-four illuminated plates: but two
hundred copies of the book were printed, for presentation solely. Other
notable gifts are the publications of