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rooms of the royal palace. His Majesty the present King of 

 Denmark, whose great zeal for the promotion of literature and 

 science is well known, and His Royal Highness the Crown 

 Prince, are both most anxious to make this collection still 

 larger and more important. The real founder of the Museum, 

 about whom I spoke above, the present Councillor of State, 

 C J. Thomsen, has had the gratification of seeing his extra- 

 ordinarily energetic efforts crowned with the most signal suc- 

 cess. In order to give some idea of the extent of the Museum, 

 I shall only mention, that it contains more than three thousand 

 specimens of implements of stone; a very large room is filled 

 with antiquities of brass, among which are complete shields, 

 and several large trumpets of war, between two and three 

 hundred complete swords and daggers of brass, several hun- 

 dred celts and brass hatchets, lance-heads, ornaments, &c. As 

 many specimens as possible, even of the most common things, 

 are collected, because true historical results can be deduced 

 only from a long series, showing that the various articles were 

 in common use. Among the antiquities of the bronze and iron 

 periods are to be seen a great number of rings, and other or- 

 naments of silver and gold, I should say a larger number than 

 1 have found in any other collection. It was formerly a law 

 in our country, that all antiquities of silver and gold, which 

 were found in the earth, must be surrendered to the Crown, 

 without any recompense to the finder, the effect of which was, 

 that most of those things were melted and made away with. 

 The King, therefore, ordered, that the finders of antiquities of 

 silver and gold should receive the full value of the articles, 

 when they sent them into the Royal Collection ,• and that they 

 should get more than the real value when the specimens were 

 uncommonly rare, or when particular pains had been taken to 

 find or preserve them. I am happy to say, that the Museum 

 now gets very nearly all the antiquities of silver and gold 

 which are found in our country, particularly as they are paid 

 for by the Government out of a peculiar fund. 



