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rooms of the royal palace. His Majesty the present King of 
Denmark, whose great zeal for the promotion of literature and 
science is well known, and His Royal Highness the Crown 
Prince, are both most anxious to make this collection still 
larger and more important. The real founder of the Museum, 
about whom I spoke above, the present Councillor of State, 
C. J. Thomsen, has had the gratification of seeing his extra- 
ordinarily energetic efforts crowned with the most signal suc- 
cess. In order to give some idea of the extent of the Museum, 
I shall only mention, that it contains more than three thousand 
specimens of implements of stone; a very large room is filled 
with antiquities of brass, among which are complete shields, 
and several large trumpets of war, between two and three 
hundred complete swords and daggers of brass, several hun- 
dred celts and brass hatchets, lance-heads, ornaments, &c. As 
many specimens as possible, even of the most common things, 
are collected, because true historical results can be deduced 
only from a long series, showing that the various articles were 
in common use. Among the antiquities of the bronze and iron 
periods are to be seen a great number of rings, and other or- 
naments of silver and gold, I should say a larger number than 
I have found in any other collection. It was formerly a law 
in our country, that all antiquities of silver and gold, which 
were found in the earth, must be surrendered to the Crown, 
without any recompense to the finder, the effect of which was, 
that most of those things were melted and made away with. 
The King, therefore, ordered, that the finders of antiquities of 
silver and gold should receive the full value of the articles, 
when they sent them into the Royal Collection ; and that they 
should get more than the real value when the specimens were 
uncommonly rare, or when particular pains had been taken to 
find or preserve them. Iam happy to say, that the Museum 
now gets very nearly all the antiquities of silver and gold 
which are found in our country, particularly as they are paid 
for by the Government out of a peculiar fund. 
