IG ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



VIII.— General Progress at the Museum, Bloomsbury. 



A serious fall in the number of visits to the Museum 

 during the year 1905 has to be recorded. In recent years 

 the numbers have been steadily increasing, and in 1904 they 

 reached the large total of 954,4-H. There has now been a 

 reaction, with a loss of upwards of 140,000 ; the number for 

 the year being 813,659. It is impossible to account for such 

 fluctuations ; but it is to be observed that the reduction took 

 place in the latter half of the year and on weekdays, the 

 attendance on Sundays being larger than that in 1904. 



The number of visits of students to the Reading Room 

 has also diminished slightly, the number for 1905 being 

 214,940, as against 226,323 in 1904; a daily average of 711. 



The average numbers of persons in the room, counted at 

 the later hours of the afternoon, were : — 



The number of visHs of students to particular Depart- 

 ments in 1905 was 57,557, as against 58,109 in 1904 ; a 

 reduction of 552, due chiefly to the smaller number of visits 

 to the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities. 



The excavations which have been in progress since 1903 

 on the site of ancient Nineveh were brought to a close in 

 February 1905. The mound of Kouyuujik has now been 

 fully explored, testing trenches having been cut in all 

 directions in order to be sure that no remains have been 

 overlooked. The principal recent discovery is the site of 

 the Temple of Nabu, the War God. The ruins were cleared, 

 but the building had been so utterly destroyed and burnt, 

 presumably by the Elamites at the capture of the city, that 

 it was not possible even to make a complete plan of it. The 

 library of tablets, which it probably contained, must have 

 been entirely destroyed. So thorough, indeed, was the 

 destruction of the city by the conquerors, to judge from the 

 condition of the remains, that the preservation of the collec- 

 tion of tablets now in the Museum, and forming only a part 

 of the great library of Sennacherib and Ashur-bani-pal, must 

 be attributed to some accidental falling in of debris, which 

 thus covered them and saved them from the enemy. 



The excavations on the site of the Temple of Artemis at 

 Ephesus were brought to a close on the l7th of June. The 

 result of the two seasons' excavations is as follows : —The 

 remains of four temples superimposed one on another have 

 been examined. Taking these temples in order, from the 

 latest to the earliest, they are : 1. The temple of the middle 

 of the 4th century B.C., which was the main object of Mr. 

 J. T. Wood's exploration. Mr. Wood removed almost every 

 relic of it, and his work proves to have been very thorough. 

 The remains which he discovered are those now' in the 

 British Museum. 2. The temple builr in the middle of 



