ty. There is a
still greater objection when small pieces of hot chalk fall on your
bald head, an annoyance which has been lately (1880) entirely removed
by placing a receptacle beneath each burner. You require also to become
accustomed to the whiteness of the light before you can altogether
forget it. But with all its faults it confers a great boon upon
students, enabling them not only to work three hours longer in the
winter-time, but restoring to them the use of foggy and dark days, in
which formerly no book-work at all could be pursued.[1]

[1] 1887. The system in use is still "Siemens," but, owing to long
experience and improvements, is not now open to the above objections.

Heat alone, without any noxious fumes, is, if continuous, very injurious
to books, and, without gas, bindings may be utterly destroyed by
desiccation, the leather losing all its natural oils by long exposure
to much heat. It is, therefore, a great pity to place books high up in
a room where heat of any kind is as it must rise to the top, and if
sufficient to be of comfort to the readers below, is certain to be hot
enough above to injure the bindings.

The surest way to preserve your books in health is to treat them as
you would your own children, who are sure to sicken if confined in an
atmosphere which is impure, too hot, too cold, too damp, or too dry. It
is just the same with the progeny of literature.

If any credence may be given to Monkish legends, books have sometimes
been preserved in this world, only to meet a desiccating fate in the
world to come. The story is probably an invention of the enemy to throw
discredit on the learning and ability of the preaching Friars, an Order
which was at constant war with the illiterate secular Clergy. It runs
thus:--"In the year 1439, two Minorite friars who had all their lives
collected books, died. In accordance with popular belief, they were at
once conducted before the heavenly tribunal to hear their doom, taking
with them two asses laden with books. At Heaven's gate the porter
demanded, 'Whence came ye?' The Minorites replied 'From a monastery of
St. Francis.' 'Oh!' said the porter, 'then St. Francis shall be your
judge.' So that saint was summoned, and at sight of the friars and their
burden demanded who they were, and why they had brought so many books
with them. 'We are Minorites,' they humbly replied, 'and we have brought
these few books with us as a solatium in the new Jerusalem.' 'And y