A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



hands, yet for the moment it proved to them some- 

 thing of a white elephant. Montague Mansion was al- 

 ready crowded ; moreover, its floors had never been in- 

 tended to hold such heavy objects, so it became im- 

 peratively necessary to provide new quarters for the 

 collection. This was done in 1807 by the erection of a 

 new building on the old site. But the trustees of that 

 day failed to gauge properly the new impulse to growth 

 that had come to the museum with the Egyptian an- 

 tiquities, for the new building was neither in itself 

 sufficient for the needs of the immediate future nor 

 yet so planned as to be susceptible of enlargement with 

 reasonable architectural effect. The mistakes were 

 soon apparent, but, despite various tentatives and 

 "meditatings," fourteen years elapsed before the pres- 

 ent magnificent building was planned. The construc- 

 tion, wing by wing, began in 1823, but it was not until 

 1 846 that the last vestige of the old museum buildings 

 had vanished, and in their place, spreading clear across 

 the spacious site, stood a structure really worthy of the 

 splendid collection for which it was designed. 



But no one who sees this building to-day would sus- 

 pect its relative youth. Half a century of London air 

 can rival a cycle of Greece or Italy in weathering effect, 

 and the fine building of the British Museum frowns 

 out at the beholder to-day as grimy and ancient-seem- 

 ing as if its massive columns dated in fact from the 

 old Grecian days which they recall. Regardless of age, 

 however, it is one of the finest and most massive speci- 

 mens of Ionic architecture in existence. Forty -four 

 massive columns, in double tiers, form its frontal col- 

 onnade, jutting forward in a wing at either end. The 



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