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HAND-BOOK OP WASHINGTON. 31 receive the names of the general subjects on which the book in the respective alcoves treat. The galleries are all floored with cast iron plates, and protected by pedestals and railings; they are ap proached by two semi-circular stairways of cast iron, recessed in the end walls of the room. The ceiling is wholly composed of iron; it is suspended from strong iron trusses, which likewise constitute the support of the roof; it rests on twenty-four massy consoles, ornamented with foliage, fruits, and scrolls. Each of these consoles weighs nearly a ton. Their projection from the face of the walls is five feet six inches, their height five feet four inches, and their width twenty-one inches. The entire ceiling is divided into deeply sunken panels, and embellished with ornate mouldings and fo liated pendants. The room is lighted, in addition to the five windows in the western front, by eight sky-lights, in the ceiling, each six feet square, filled in with ornamented glass, and protected by an upper sky-light of seventy-seven feet in length by ten feet six inches in width, placed on a cor responding angle with the roof, and covered with thick plates of glass. The roof is covered with copper, secured by copper wire to the iron rafters. It is heated by hot water pipes. The affairs of the Library are indirectly in