The four arches bordering the Great Hall are dedicated to four institutions of learning that preceded the US Academy of Sciences. The Museum of Alexandria, founded by Aristotle's student, Alexander c. 300 BCE was the greatest center of learning in antiquity. George Ellery Hale wrote, "Of all the ancient prototypes of the modern academy, the great Museum of Alexandria holds the first place." The Museum of Alexandria housed perhaps the largest collection ever known of scholarly writings assembled from other institutions far and wide - Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and elsewhere. It was a site for research, teaching, and advancement of knowledge, as well as for translation, criticism, and synthesis of a vast array of accumulated works in science, philosophy, and religion into Greek. Scholars in all fields of knowledge worked at the Museum, often producing compendia and syntheses of ancient knowledge as well as original works. Many scholars traveled to Alexandria, often spending part or most of their productive careers there, including: Euclid, the "father of geometry"; Archimedes, mathematician and developer of practical applications; Ptolemy, astronomer, geographer, and astrologer; Galen, the physician; and Hypatia, a learned woman who wrote in mathematics and philosophy, served as its last librarian, and is said to have perished in its defense. The library was part of a complex that included teaching facilities, workshops, laboratories, artifacts, and even a collection of living animals. The Museum and library were gradually destroyed through a series of calamities, beginning most famously with a fire that erupted in 48 BCE during the Roman conquest by Julius Caesar. A secondary library in Alexandria survived until end of 4th century CE.
