ACCOUNTS, &C.. OF TJIE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



VII. General Pkoguess at the Museum, Bloomsbury. 



A commencement has been made of an exhibition of the Greek and Roman Sepulchral 

 Monuments and other sculptures hitherto stored away in irnperfectl}'-H<ihted rooms in the 

 basement of the Museum. Numerous slabs and stelte have been transferred to the room 

 formerly occupied by the Dejmrtmeut of Prints and Drawings, and so arranged that they 

 will not need to be disturbed when intended structural alterations have been carried out. 

 These have been postponed owing to disappointment in the necessary supply of funds 

 asked for, and promised, for the past year. It is expected that provision for these works 

 will be made in the grant for the year 1888-89, and that the remainder of the Monuments 

 will find adequate exhibition space in a well-lighted lower floor of the present room. 



From apprehension of inj ury by exposure to light and changes of atmosphere it has been 

 found necessary to remove from the walls of the north-west staircase the framed Egyptian 

 papyri exhibited there for many years, but a small selection has been placed on view 

 in the Upper Egyptian Gallery. The wall-space of the staircase will be covered 

 with Mosaics from Carthage, Halycarnassus, and other sites; many of them not before 

 exhibited. 



The ceiling of the Elgin Gallery has been .cleaned and partly re-painted ; and the 

 Parthenon Pediments are being mounted on marble pedestals, with an alteration in their 

 position which will bring the finer parts of the frieze into better view. 



Two Exhibition Galleries have been opened to the public in the new building on the 

 south-eastern side of the Museum, erected from the funds bequeathed by Mr. William 

 White. In one has been re-arranged, and more fully displayed, the Persian, Damascus, 

 and Ehodian wares, the Majolica and the English pottery and porcelain, together with 

 the large collection of glass, chiefly bequeathed by Mr. Felix Slade in the year 186S, 

 removed from a smaller room in the main building. 



In the other Gallery has been placed on view an extensive series of Japanese paintings, 

 with a few early Chinese woi'ks, taken from th.e collection formed by Mr. William 

 Anderson during a residence of many years in Japan, and purchased from him in the 

 year 1883. They will remain on exhibiti(jn for some time, and will afterwards be replaced 

 by European works from the general collection of Prints and Drawings. 



Printed books and manuscripts illustrating the history of Shorthand Writing have been 

 exhibited in the King's Library, on occasion of tiie celebration of the invention. 



A new Refreshment Room, Avith entrance from the Egyptian Gallery on the ground 

 floor, has been opened, and the room in the upper floor at tlie north-east corner of the 

 building, which has been for some years in use for the purpose, will be occupied by 

 American Antiquities. 



It is necessary to recur to the subject of inadequacy of the present Reading Room for 

 accommodation of the ever-increasing number of a])plicants for admission, to which 

 attention was drawn in the Return for the year 1885. It was then stated that the 

 number of visitors to the Room had risen from 105,310 in the year 1875 to 159,340 ; and 

 it has advanced to 182,778 for the year 1887. IVo further addition can be made to 

 the number of seats without inconveniently diminishing the desk space allotted to each 

 reader. The room is frequently over-crowded: and whnt is to be feared is that literary 

 men engaged in genuine research will gradually find themselves pressed out of xise of the 

 Room by the thi'ong of Readers for general information. The wants of this numerous 

 class of visitors would be better satisfied in a separate room, suitably furnished with modern 

 works ; and, unless the principle of limiting admission to the present Reading Room to 

 purjDOses of research is adopted, which cannot be recommended and would indeed be 

 extremely difficult to enforce, a measure of this nature may be considered indispensable. 



The interruption since the year 1882 of the exploration for antiquities in Assyria and 

 Babylonia, by reason of the refusal of the Turkish Government to renew the firman under 

 which it had been carried on for many years, has caused the abandonment of important 

 sites in those countries to the operations of native diggers. It is to be feared that there 

 has been much destruction and dispersal of inscribed tablets in consequence. Partially- 

 excavated sites, in which collections of these documents were found and in which without 

 doubt more remained to be unearthed, are exposed to the reckless explorations of the 

 Arabs, and the records of these ancient Empires are being scattered, or altogether destroyed. 

 The discovery of two hoards of tablets by natives and their partial abandonment to chance 

 purchasers was lately reported. The Trustees obtained power to despatch one of their 

 Officers to Bagdad to endeavour to secure what remained, as well as to report 

 upon the state of the excavations with a view to their protection ; but the 



tablets 



