=The Lobbies of the Rotunda.=--Beyond the East Corridor, and separated from it by an arcade, is the broad passageway leading to the Reading Room. The entrance for visitors, however, is by way of the second story, the doors on the library floor being open only to those desiring to consult books. The passageway is divided by a second arcade into two transverse lobbies. The ceiling of each is vaulted, with a mosaic design of much the same pattern as those in the corridors already described. The second lobby is the immediate vestibule of the Reading Room, and contains the two main passenger elevators, one at either end. They start at the basement and ascend to the attic story, where, among other rooms, are a commodious and well-equipped kitchen and restaurant for the use of visitors and students, and the attendants in the Library. =Mr. Vedder’s Paintings.=--The lobby contains five tympanums, of the same size as Mr. Alexander’s, which are filled by a series of paintings by Mr. Elihu Vedder, illustrating, in a single word, _Government_. Small as it is, the little lobby offers the painter one of the most significant opportunities in the whole interior; work here placed, in an apartment of the Library which serves at once as elevator-hall and as vestibule to the Main Reading Room, can hardly fail to attract the attention of everyone passing through the building. It could not be more conspicuous anywhere outside the central Reading Room, and the selection of such a subject as Government is therefore peculiarly appropriate. In every sort of library the fundamental thing is the advancement of learning--illustrated in the Reading Room dome, as the visitor will see later--but in a library supported by the nation the idea of government certainly comes next in importance. [Illustration: A CEILING FIGURE. BY ALBERT WEINERT.] The painting in the central tympanum, over the door leading into the Reading Room, is entitled simply _Government_. It represents the abstract conception of a republic as the ideal state, ideally presented. The other tympanums explain the practical working of government, and the results which follow a corrupt or a virtuous rule. The figures in these four tympanums are therefore appropriately conceived somewhat more realistically. The decoration to the left of the central tympanum illustrates _Corrupt Legislation_, leading to _Anarchy_, as shown in the tympanum at the end of the lobby, over the elevator. Similarly, on the other side, _Good Administration_ leads to _Peace and Prosperity_. In all five, the composition consists of a central female figure, representing the essential idea of the design, attended by two other figures which supplement and confirm this idea.