Basement Cleaning and Questions

We have a basement. Some of you know that it was once called "Man Town" by a plumber who was impressed with how much space we had down there. That space is shockingly full of crap. Oh, there's some important stuff down there (like the furnace and hot water heater) and some stuff that gets used sometimes (like skis, snowshoes, snow tires and the like) and then there's all the tools and workshop and bike stuff.

But then there's the crap. Like stuff left from previous owners, like this ugly lighting fixture and these roller skates/blades:












We're putting the lamp in the trash and the roller skates/blades out for the neighborhood kids to claim (should we get takers to sign an insurance waiver?). But then there's this totally bizare contraption that claims to be Admiral Fitzroy's Barometer.
If any of you know Admiral Fitzroy, please tell him to come pick up his barometer, which appears to be filled with a lot of mercury. Actually, I guess our first reader question is: what should we do with the Admiral's barometer?

We're working on getting the basement a bit cleaned up so that we can set up some exercise equipment down there and make the space a bit more useful. Today, while working towards this plan, we came up with a few of our

QUESTIONS FOR FAITHFUL READERS:

QUESTION 1) What can we do with this:

To explain, we think this is probably where the oil tank once was. The rest of the basement floor in this area is finished and painted concrete, but there's this oddly cut out square that goes down to the dirt, and there are some pipes showing. The question is, can we safely fill in this area with concrete?

QUESTION 2) This is an opinion question. There are no right or wrong answers (except that the answers that agree with my answers are righter.) Jake and I have a disagreement regarding lighting in the basement. We are in agreement that we could use a light fixture right inside the basement door to the outside. There is a switch already wired up to an outlet, so it would be a light that you could turn on as you came in from the outside. I think we should get some kind of wall-mounted flat fixture, like a simple tube-kinda thing (like we have elsewhere in the basement). Jake favors this arrangement:

Yes, that is a table lamp suspended from the wall and ceiling rafter with bungee cords.


In other basement news, we're getting the boiler cleaned and checked out tomorrow. Hopefully all is well with it! I'll continue with a few more basement questions later, so stay tuned.