BRITISH MUSEUM 



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BRITISH MUSEUM 



THE BRITISH MUSEUM 



history department from the rest and to lodge 

 them in a building by themselves. Accord- 

 ingly, a large natural history museum was 

 built at South Kensington, and the specimens 

 pertaining to natural history, including geology 

 and mineralogy, were transferred to it. 



General Features. The museum is under the 

 management of forty-eight trustees. It is open 

 daily, free of charge, and there are official 

 guards whose duty it is to point out to vis- 

 itors the most interesting points. Stupendous 

 as are the collections, they are so arranged 

 and catalogued that they are easy of access, 

 and a large staff of attendants is always ready 

 to furnish assistance. That people avail them- 

 selves of the advantages of this great institu- 

 tion which the government keeps up at a cost 

 of approximately $1,000,000 annually, may be 

 seen from the fact that the reading rooms are 

 used each year by about 200,000 persons, while 

 over 700,000 people visit the various depart- 

 ments. 



Divisions. Of the eight departments into 

 which the museum is divided, that most used 

 is the department of printed books. The vast 

 library, which has almost 4,000,000 volumes 

 and is gaining new ones at the rate of 50,000 

 a year, occupies forty-five miles of shelves and 

 requires about 600 volumes for its catalogue 

 alone. The circular reading room is 140 feet 

 in diameter and accommodates 200 readers. 

 60 



Admission is by ticket, but anybody may ob- 

 tain one by complying with a few simple con- 

 ditions. As in the United States, where a copy 

 of every book published and copyrighted must 

 be sent to the Congressional Library, so in 

 England a free copy of every publication must 

 be forwarded to the British' Museum. Fre- 

 quently, too, it receives valuable gifts. 



The manuscript collection consists of almost 

 60,000 volumes, in addition to Oriental manu- 

 scripts. Many documents important in state 

 history are to be found there, as well as un- 

 published memoirs which throw much light on 

 the history of the times in which they were 

 written. Greek and Roman antiquities, an- 

 other department, attracts many visitors, for 

 it contains the famous Elgin Marbles (which 

 see), representing the very highest period of 

 Greek art. 



Then, too, there are coins and medals, an- 

 cient and modern; British antiquities, which 

 include memorials of the time when Roman 

 civilization was carried to Britain; prints and 

 drawings, and a remarkably complete collec- 

 tion of the remains of Egyptian and Assyrian 

 civilization. Sculptures, papyri, scarabs, mum- 

 mies, the famous Rosetta Stone (which see), 

 carved inscriptions from thousands of years 

 before the Christian Era all these are to be 

 found in orderly array in the Egyptian and 

 Assyrian rooms. 



