12 ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



X. General Progress at the Museum, Bloomsbury. 



During the early part o£ the year the whole work o£ the Museum 

 was conditioned by the warning, received towards the close of 1917, 

 that air-raids in greater force, and utilising much heavier bombs, 

 might be expected in the spring. Since the Museum offered a 

 large and conspicuovis area for attack, and no building could be 

 considered proof against a direct hit by a heavy bomb, it was 

 resolved to remove (so far as might be practicable) the most 

 valuable objects in the collections to positions of greater safety. 

 Accordingly the most important among the portable objects in 

 the Departments of Antiquities (including the Frieze of the 

 Parthenon, the best of the Greek vases and bronzes, the chief 

 Assyrian bas-reliefs, the Rosetta Stone, and the finest objects of 

 mediaeval art), together with practically the whole collection of 

 Coins and Medals, were transferred to a station on the newly 

 completed Postal Tube Railway, some fifty feet below the surface 

 of Holborn. Special provision for their accommodation and for 

 their protection against damp was made by His Majesty's Office 

 of Works ; and the station was continuously warded by members 

 of the Museum staff. 



For the printed books, manuscripts, and prints and drawings, 

 accommodation was offered by the Governors of the National 

 Library of Wales in their new buildings at Aberystwyth, and some 

 fifteen van-loads of the most precious literary and artistic treasures 

 of the Museum were transferred thither, together with a portion of 

 the staff. A small selection of exceptionally valuable printed books 

 was housed by Mr. C. W. Dyson Perrins in the strong room of his 

 house near Malvern. 



A further selection of objects, ranking next in importance to 

 those removed, was placed in the strong rooms in the basement of 

 the Museum, where they were believed to be safe against anything 

 except a direct hit from a bomb of the heaviest type. In the 

 basement also were placed, under coverings of sandbags, the 

 sculptures which were too heavy for removal to the Tube, including 

 the figures from the Pediment of the Parthenon, and the collection 

 of mummies. The Assyrian bulls, the larger Egyptian sculptures, 

 and the metopes of the Parthenon, which could not be removed 

 from their positions in the galleries, were protected in situ by 

 sandbags. Much of the glass and china, which could not be 

 removed, was protected against the risk of concussion by being 

 stored in packing cases. 



In view of this partial clearance of the galleries (which, 

 however, was very far indeed from emptying the Museum), it 

 was suggested that the vacant space might be utilised for the 

 accommodation of Government Departments, thereby relieving 



