466 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1903. 



seventeenth 14, from the eighteenth 22, and from the nineteenth 109 

 English, 187 French, and 40 various. All are chronologically arranged, 

 so that they can be studied according to periods, countries, and individ- 

 uals. The walls of the museum are, like the antehalls, decorated with 

 pictures and busts. As early as 1888, the American painter, G. P. A. 

 Healy, living in Paris, presented a collection of nearly 50 oil portraits, 

 painted by himself since 1841, among which are portraits of Lincoln, 

 (xrant, Sherman, Sheridan, the founder Newberry, and the painter 

 himself; of busts there are, in the same place, Dante, Shakespeare, 

 Newberry, and Henry Clay. In the antehalls there are busts of 

 Blaine, Thiers, Guizot, Lesseps, Liszt, Stanley, and others, as well as 

 reliefs of Demosthenes, Shakespeare, Wagner, Handel, and Men- 

 delssohn, and also three high reliefs by J. Gelert, each 13 feet long 

 by 5 feet wide, representing La Salle's expedition through Illinois, 

 1680, Fort Dearborn in 1812, and a scriptorium — Benedictine monks 

 working on manuscripts, 1456. All these constitute the beginning of 

 an art collection whose special advancement will be deferred to a 

 future time. 



In the second story is a large reading room (48) with 100 seats, 

 where there are immediately accessible to the public 340 volumes of 

 general reference works, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. ; 801 volumes 

 of current periodicals and papers of societies, 94 Rudolph indexer 

 books, with shelf catalogues for philosophy, sociology, and religion, 

 which subjects are to be found in the neighboring hall, No. 44; 133 

 Rudolph indexer books, with author catalogues for general works, and 

 finally, a map case, with 10 maps on rollers. Nearby (49) are periodi- 

 cals. In 1900 there were 1,260 periodicals taken, among which, as 

 already mentioned, were 459 on medical subjects, the others being 

 distributed, by nationalities, as follows: 569 American, 246 German, « 

 215 English, 126 French, 3T Italian, 12 Belgian, 11 Swedish, 8 Cana- 

 dian, 7 Swiss, 6 Dutch, 5 Spanish, 3 each of Norwegian, Danish, Rus- 

 sian, Japanese, 2 each of Chinese and Bohemian, and 1 each of Mexican 

 and North American Indian. Further, history (42), with subsection 

 of history, biography and genealogy, geography and travels, antiqui- 

 ties, and manners and customs; also philosophy (44), with the subsections 

 philosophy and religion, sociology,^ and instruction. 1 will mention a 

 collection of 88 rare old Bibles from 1476 on, as well as an example 

 of the 16mo. "Caxton" Bible of 1,052 pages, which on June 30, 1877, 

 was printed within twelve hours at Oxford, in an edition of only 100 

 copies, as well as finely bound in London. '^ There is also a large and 



f'Not only is German well represented in the periodicals, it also plays a prominent 

 part in the books, both in the Newberry and the John Crerar liliraries. 



^ Sociology is in fact also represented in the John Crerar Library, bnt in this 

 case, as well as in some others, an exception has been made. 



t-'See Report of the Newberry Library, January 5, ISSO, pi>. 7 and 8. 



