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SOURCES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 25 



Royal Library of Madrid, contains about 200,000 printed volumes, 

 kept iri the Escurial palace. The Royal Library of Munich, in 

 Bavaria, the largest in Germany, contains 540,000 printed volumes, 

 and 16,000 manuscripts. The Imperial Library of Vienna, and the 

 Royal Libraries of Berlin, and Dresden, contain each nearly 300,000 

 volumes. The Universities of Gottingen, Breslau, and Munich, 

 have also large Libraries. The Imperial Library of Si. Petersburg 

 contains 430,000 printed volumes, and 15,000 manuscripts; and the 

 Royal Library of Copenhagen contains a like number of manu- 

 scripts, and 410,000 printed volumes. 



The Bodleian Library, at Oxford, the largest in Great Britain, 

 named from Sir Thomas Bodley, who enlarged it about A. D. 1600, 

 is said to contain 420,000 printed volumes, and 30,000 manuscripts. 

 The British Museum, in London, contains nearly 300,000 volumes, 

 besides 22,000 manuscripts : and there are also large Libraries at 

 Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Dublin. The Royal Library in Paris, 

 (La Bibliotheque du J?of,) is stated to contain 700,000 printed 

 volumes, 100,000 manuscripts, and as many medals; besides one 

 million of historical documents, and two millions of maps and engrav- 

 ings. Its annual increase is not less than 10,000 volumes. The 

 Public Libraries of Europe are said to be upwards of seven hundred 

 in number, and to contain in all about 20,000,000 volumes. 



The largest Libraries in the United States, are those of Harvard 

 University, containing about 45,000 volumes ; the Boston Athenasum, 

 32,000; the New York City Library, 35,000; the Philadelphia 

 Library, including the Loganian, 52,000 ; the National Library, or 

 Library of Congress, 25,000 ; and the Charleston Library, S. C., 

 about 15,000 volumes. The total number of books in all the Pub- 

 lic Libraries of the United States, has been estimated at 400,000 

 volumes. The imperfection of our largest libraries may be readily 

 seen by a comparison with those of Europe : but it can be fully 

 appreciated only by those who have had occasion to make extensive 

 research, and found their researches vain, for want of the requisite 

 authorities. 



D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, estimates the whole num- 

 ber of different books printed in the world prior to 1816, at 

 3,640,000 ; but Mr. Preston, in a recent report to Congress, esti- 

 mates the number at only 600,000. From these and other data, we 

 would estimate the total number of different books printed, down to 

 this date, at 1,000,000 volumes in the German language, 800,000 

 in the French, 600,000 in the English, including 25,000 American, 

 and 600,000 in all other languages ; making a total of 3,000,000 

 different volumes, or say TWO MILLION DIFFERENT WORKS. Allowing 

 only 1200 copies of each work to have been printed, and supposing 

 all the volumes to be of an average size, the)'- would form a solid 

 pile, larger than the largest Egyptian Pyramid, although it is 500 

 feet high, and 690 feet square at the base, covering 11 acres of 

 ground. The annual number of new publications in Germany, is 

 said to be 7,000; in France it is probably 5,000 ; in Great Britain 

 3,000; and in the United States about 500 works, or 700 volumes, 

 of which about three-fifths are original American productions. 

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