18S THE BEITISII ISLES. 



bridge across the river below Londou liridge witliout unduly interfering- with the 

 traffic, and recourse has been had to tunnels. One of these vmderground passages, 

 through which a railway now runs, has become famous on account of the difficulties 

 which Brunei, its engineer, was compelled to surmount in the course of its 

 construction. In 1825, when he began his work, his undertaking was looked upon 

 as one of the most audacious efforts of human genius ; for experience in the 

 construction of tunnels had not then been won on a largo scale, and nearly every 

 mechanical appliance had to be invented. Quite recently a second tunnel has 

 been constructed beneath the bed of the Thames, close to the Tower. Instead of 

 its requiring fifteen years for its completion, as did the first, it was finished in 

 hardly more than a year ; its cost was trifling, and not a human life was lost 

 during the progress of the work.* At the present time a third tunnel is projected 

 for the Lower Thames, and the construction of a huge bridge near the Tower is 

 under discussion. In order that this bridge may not interfere with the river 

 traffic, and yet permit a stream of carriages to flow uninterruptedly across it, it is 

 proposed to place two swing-bridges in its centre, which would successively be 

 opened in order to permit large vessels to pass through. 



Amongst the public buildings of London there are many which are not visited 

 because of their size or architecture, but for the sake of the treasures which they 

 shelter. Foremost of these is the British ]Museum — a vast edifice of noble pro- 

 portions, with a lofty portico. But no sooner have we penetrated the entrance 

 hall than we forget the building, and have eyes only for the treasures of nature 

 and art which fill its vast rooms. Its sculpture galleries contain the most admired 

 and most curious monuments of Assyria, Egypt, Armenia, Asia Minor, Greece, and 

 Etruria. It is there the lover of high art may contemplate with feelings akin to 

 religion the tombs of Lycia, the fragments of the Mausoleum, the columns from 

 the Temple of Diana of Ephesus, the Phygalian marbles, and the sculptures of the 

 Parthenon. Since Lord Elgin in 1816 brought these precious marbles from 

 Athens to the banks of the Thames, it is to London we must wend our way, and 

 not to Hellas, if we would study the genius of Greece. Here, too, we find the 

 famous " Rosetta stone " which Young sought to decipher, and which furnished 

 Champollion with a key for reading the hieroglyphics of Egypt. Papyri of three 

 and four and perhaps even five thousand years of age, and the brick tablets which 

 formed the library in the palace of Nineveh, are likewise preserved in the British 

 Museum. In the course of its hundred and twenty-seven years of existence between 

 1753 and 1880 the British nation has expended upon this Museum the respectable sum 

 of £5,600,000. The library attached to the Museum, notwithstanding its 1,500,000 

 volumes, is as yet less rich than the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, but, being 

 liberally supported, it increases rapidly, whilst its admirable arrangements 

 attract to it scholars from every part of the world. The reading-room itself, a 

 vast circular apartment covered by a dome 140 feet in diameter and 106 feet in 

 height, and lit up during the evening by electric lights, is deserving our admira- 



* Brunei's tunnel cost £454.715, the " subway " near the Tower only £16,000. The former consists, 

 however, of two archud passages 1,200 feet long, 14 feet ^v^de, and 16^ feet in height ; whilst the latter, 

 though 1,330 feet in length, is merely an iron tube of 8 feet in diameter. 



