FROM 31Y JOURNAL. 127 



you want to see a good collection of American Natural History, you 

 must go to Europe." And no wonder; the governments encourage it ; 

 they or learned societies, in part supported by governments, send out 

 agents, collectors and travellers to bring home the productions of every 

 Climate, and country, and there they now stand open to the observation 

 and study of every body. 



Jt seems almost absurd to attempt to give a description of the Brit- 

 ish Museum in a single article like this, when the reader is told, that 

 the synopsis or general description of its contents, intended for the use 

 of persons, who, like the generality of its visitors, merely take a curso- 

 ry view of it, occupies 400 closely printed pages. I can now only take 

 a glance at it and that a very superficial one. 



The British Museum, which has now become one of the most splen- 

 did national collections in the world, was established in 1759. The 

 vast and very extensive library of books and manuscripts, together with 

 the artificial and natural curiosities collected by that great physician and 

 naturalist, Sir Hans Sloane, at an expense of !^200,000, was purcliased 

 by Parliament for ^80,000, and this is the foundation of the museum. 

 The old Montague House, in whicli it was deposited, was bought for 

 ^40,000, and this building was 216 feet long and 51 high. But since 

 that time, an entire new edifice has sprung up — a magnificent and im- 

 mensely large structure, worthy of the British nation. I believe there 

 are at present more than 30 rooms occupied by the collection, and when 

 you consider that many of these are twice as long as Pennsylvania Col- 

 lege, you may have some idea of the vastnpss of tlie establishment. 



There are some apartments to which strangers are not admitted, but 

 under the wing of my friends the Curators and Professors, 1 was con- 

 ducted into many a room forever closed to the mere laical visitor. It 

 was a glorious privilege, and I was sometimes almost overcome by the 

 inconceivable extent of the literary and artistic treasures there collected. 



The library contains 300,000 volumes, and is constantly increasing. 

 Five thousand dollars a year are expended in the purchase of old and 

 foreign publications, and the library is further enriched by a copij of 

 every neio loork published in Great Brilain. The whole range of rooms 

 on one floor only allotted to books and MSS. even in the old hulding 

 was 900 feet in length, about seven times as long as your College edi- 

 fice, and I presume that now, it cannot be less than 1200 feet. The 

 collections of minerals and fossil organic remains occupy galleries more 

 than 600 feet in length. 



The first apartment you enter*, in the regular course of your circuit, 

 is the Ethnographical Room. It contains 61 large cases full of all sorts 



