View Room PanoramaDimensions: 14' 10"x 15' 3" (with an annex 10' 10" x 10' 1"); ceiling 10' 0"
Order: Tuscan
Color: There is evidence that this space was originally wallpapered; today painted oyster white
European vs. American Superiority
The French naturalist Comte Georges-Louis de Buffon argued in a scientific publication that the New World's life forms -- plant, animal, and human -- were smaller and inferior to those of the Old, because the New World itself was inferior. America was, according to Buffon, "a land best suited for insects, reptiles, and feeble men."
One of the best parts about our jobs as librarians is that we run across some wicked-cool bits of information. Ever since first reading Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, I've been curious about one particular passage (of course, I wonder about these things because I'm a big time science geek). The passage reads:
Late experiments shew that the human body will exist in rooms heated to 140°. of Reaumur, equal to 347°. of Farenheit, and 135°. above boiling water.
