=The General Arrangement.=--The character of the Rotunda is warm and rich in ornament as befits a room where people remain to read. It is naturally not so formal as the Rotunda of the Capitol. The height of the room from the floor to the top of the dome, where it converges upon the lantern, is one hundred and twenty-five feet, and from the floor to the crown of the domed ceiling of the lantern itself, one hundred and sixty feet. This latter point, however, is quite shut off from the view of a person standing in the gallery and can be seen only from a position near the centre of the room. The ground plan of the room is octagonal in shape, measuring one hundred feet from one side to another. Eight massive clustered piers, each set some ten feet forward from a corner of the octagon, support a series of heavy arches running entirely round the room. These piers serve, as it were, to stake out the limit of the Reading Room proper; between them are marble screens arcaded in two stories, and behind they are connected with the outer wall by partitions which divide the octagon into eight bays or alcoves, each fourteen feet deep and thirty wide. In each alcove, at the height of the screen, is a gallery like that which the visitor has already entered, one connecting with another, through doors pierced in the partition walls, so as to form a continuous promenade--as it may be called, considering its purpose--in which the sightseer may walk without fear of disturbing the readers below. [Illustration: LAW. BY PAUL W. BARTLETT.] The alcoves are arched and enclose great semi-circular windows filled with stained glass, which furnish the greater part of the light needed for the room. The arches springing from the piers support a heavy circular entablature, immediately above which is the dome, arched in the line of an exact circle and supported upon eight ribs dividing it into eight sections or compartments. The ribs are the essential feature of the dome construction, and continue naturally the line of support of the great piers which are the ultimate support of the whole interior--a fact which is more clearly brought out to the eye by paired consoles or brackets introduced in the entablature between the two and seeming to carry the weight from one to the other. The surface of the dome is of stucco, attached to a framework of iron and steel filled in with terra cotta, and richly ornamented with coffers and with a very elaborate arabesque of figures in relief. At the top, where the dome prepares to join the lantern, the ribs terminate against a broad circular “collar,” so called, containing a painted decoration by Mr. Edwin Howland Blashfield. Finally comes the lantern, thirty-five feet in height, and pierced by eight windows, recalling the octagonal arrangement with which the construction began. The shallow dome which covers the lantern is ornamented with a second painting by Mr. Blashfield, summing up the idea of his decoration in the collar.