Barnett lecture - In My Library

49. A.

The business section - some 2,000 vols. devoted to Science Engineering and Architecture, is limited in its attractions except to the technically trained student; - never the less, a two - volumed Parisian folio of 1559 graphically illustrating the architecture of various dwellings, big and little, usually interests because many of the houses and in some cases the barns and stockyards are surrounded by a moat, and the single entrance closed by the lifting of a hinged bridge. The drawings [struckthrough] plans in no case show a human figure, yet they vividly suggest times of unrest and insecurity - when the ladies of the house - if alone - where not anxious to received either morning

49. B.

or evening callers.

This professional collection is enriched with engineers autographs & bookplates - and some of its items throw interesting light on the early history of our Rys. and Canals - those most potent of forces in our modern social and industrial evolution.

It is probably the "Envelope Room" that gives the most surprise to the unsuspecting visitor. Some form of pigeonholing or indexing is adopted by the youngest amateur lover of facts or things, if it be only a stamp album or a mixed scrapbook, but a small room deeply shelved to a height of 8 ft carrying some 800 thick envelopes 15in wide by 20in deep, filled with cuttings

49. C.

pamphlets, tractates, drawings sketchings and engravings, is, I think, in Canada at least a rare sight. The envelopes are home made (show a sample) and provided with stiffeners of cardboard, and wrappers to isolate the various sections enclosed within each.

For reference consultation there is a card catalog, and an alphabetical index in book form. The Shakespearian section occupies over 60 such envelopes averaging from 300 to 400 items. The whole is a flexible expansive encyclopaedia, that would, I expect, be an effective addition to the working tools of an active newspaper man or magazine writer.

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out, like the patient gravers have died who cut with deliberate such slow skilful hands their blocks and plates.

There is a fair working collection for the study of early Ballad English Dialect the English Drama, Folklore, fables, early Romances, early games (including most autorities on modern whist,) some curious information on mathematics, including the circle squarers - the angle bisectors, the perpetual motion cranks, and the lunatics who endeavour to show that the world is flat - or at least not globular. A wide selection of proverbs and sententiae, university history, philology, physology, metaphysics many versions and imitation of Bunyans Pilgrim's Progress, with works on the Gypsies, N. A. Indians and music - also a few nice

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bindings including some mummy cloth literature, a shelf or two of Elziners one each devoted to old Homer - Horace - Dante and least of all some very minute books.

Having got down to the smallest items I will close, and thus not tax your patient kindness any longer.