THE MUSEUMS. 
The Director of Museums furnishes the Fifty-fifth Annual 
Report upon the conpucr and procress of the Museums. 
I.— GENERAL. 
Tue Free Pusric Musrums comprise : — 
(A) the Lorp Dersy Museum, of which the nucleus was the 
collections bequeathed in 1851 to the City, by the Thirteenth Earl of 
Derby. It contains both the Local Area and the Systematic Zoological, 
Geological, Mineralogical, and Botanical Departments, and in 
addition an Aquarium, containing both Fresh and Salt Water 
Animals, Amphibians and Reptiles. 
(B) the Mayer Muvsevm, the larger part of which was collected 
and presented to the Corporation in 1867, by Joseph Mayer, Esq., 
F.S.A. These collections are specially rich in (a) Egyptian, 
Babylonian, and Assyrian Antiquities ; (b) Medieval European Ivories, 
Bronzes and Illuminated Manuscripts; (ce) the unrivalled Brian- 
Faussett Anglo-Saxon Collection ; (d) the Mather Mimatures ; and (e) 
the very important Pottery Collections, conspicuously rich in Wedgwood 
and Old Liverpool Wares, arranged now in the section devoted to the 
handiwork of the Caucasian race. Associated with this Museum, as 
belonging to the subjects illustrated by it, though not forming to 
any large extent part of the Mayer Bequest, are (/) the collections 
illustrating the ethnography of the Mongolian and Melanian races. 
_ These collections are housed in a building, the older portion of 
_ which was erected at the cost of the late Sir William Brown in 1860, 
and a large new extension, completed in 1902, erected by the City, 
and formally opened in 1906, which has nearly trebled the 
exhibition area of the Lord Derby Museum. 
The Exhibition Galleries are open free to the public, as under: — 
During January, November and December, from 10 to 4; February, 
from 10 to 4-30; March and October, from 10 to 5; April to 
September, from 10 to 6; also on Monday Evenings during January 
to March, and October to December, from 7 to 10. 
