There are eighteen bookcases, or desks; namely, ten on the south side of the room, and eight on the north side (fig. 52). The material is oak; the workmanship very rude and rough. I will describe those on the south side first. Each is 9 feet long by 5 feet 5 1/4 inches high, measured from the floor to the top of the finial on the end; and the lower edge of the desk on which the books lie is 2 feet 6 1/4 inches above the floor; but the general plan, and the relative dimensions of the different parts, will be best understood from the photograph of a single desk at which a reader is seated (fig. 54), and from the elevation of one of the ends (fig. 55, A), beside which I have placed the elevation of one of the desks at Queens' College (B). The photograph shews that in fixing the height of the desk above the ground the convenience of readers has been carefully considered. The iron bar that carries the chains is locked into the ornamental upright, passes through a staple in the middle of the desk, and into the upright at the opposite end, which is left plain. This bar is half an inch in diameter, and one inch above the level of the top of the desk. It is prevented from bending by passing through a staple fixed in the centre of the desk. A piece of ornamental iron-work is fixed to the upright. It is made to represent a lock, but is in reality a mere plate of metal, and the tongue, which looks as though it were intended to move, is only an ornament, and is pierced by the keyhole. The lock is sunk in the thickness of the wood, behind this plate, and the bar, which terminates in a knob, is provided with two nicks, into which the bolts of the lock are shot when the key is turned (fig. 56). Between each pair of desks there is a seat for the reader. [Illustration: Fig. 56. End of iron bar, Zutphen.] [Illustration: Fig. 57. End of one of the desks on the north side of the Library, Zutphen.] The desks on the north side of the room differ slightly from those on the south side. They are rather larger, the ends are of a different shape and devoid of ornament (fig. 57), and there is a wider interval between the bar and the top of the desk. It seems to me probable that the more highly ornamented desks are those which were put in when the room was first fitted up, and that the others were added from time to time as new books had to be accommodated.