184 THE EARLY HISTORY OF . [CHAP. IV. 



lications are regularly taken in. Twenty-four new foreign 

 publications on scientific subjects have been purchased for 

 the library, and many valuable books have been presented. 

 Nine daily newspapers are taken in. 



He goes on to say : 



One of the most interesting details of the Institution 

 still remains to be mentioned. It is the repository. The 

 measures necessary for forming it have not been neglected, 

 but from its nature it cannot be finished, nor indeed can it 

 be begun, till the establishment is quite complete in all its 

 other essential parts. Models of mechanical inventions and 

 contrivances, in order to their being really useful, must be so 

 made as to serve for imitation ; consequently they must be 

 constructed with the greatest care, and they cannot be 

 made in the workshops of the Royal Institution till those 

 shops are fitted up and furnished with the best tools and 

 the best workmen. These workshops will soon be com- 

 pleted and properly manned. In the meantime a spacious 

 and elegant room, 44 feet long and 32 feet wide, with the 

 ceiling supported by two rows of columns, has been built 

 for the repository, and will be finished in a month and 

 ready to receive machines for public inspection. [This was 

 the room beneath the theatre.] It may be useful to observe 

 here that it never was the intention of the managers, nor 

 of any of them, to expose to public view models of machines 

 of all kinds indiscriminately. Considerable alarms have, it 

 is said, been occasioned among some of our principal manu- 

 facturers from an idea that the construction of their 

 machines and the valuable secrets of their trade, on which 

 the excellence of their manufactures depend, are in danger 

 of being disclosed by means of the public lectures and 

 exhibitions of the Royal Institution, but the event will show 

 that these apprehensions are without foundation. 



The measure lately adopted by the managers for com- 

 pleting the attic story will be finished before the end of 

 November. 



