25 



tive. Without such an exhaustive dis- 

 tribution, the actual classification on the 

 shelves, which is all I have undertaken to 

 describe here, can never be conterminous 

 with the ideal classification of the study. 

 If, however, the Museum library has been 

 unable to achieve an infinity of space, it 

 has secured a practically indefinite nume- 

 rical expansiveness by the elastic system 

 referred to in our President's address, in 

 further illustration of which I may be al- 

 lowed a few words. On the removal of the 

 books from Montague House, about 1838, 

 the cumbrous and antiquated, but I imagine 

 then nearly universal system of press-no- 

 tation by Roman letters was exchanged 

 for one by Arabic numerals.* These num- 



* It deserves to be recorded that at this period, 

 and for some time afterwards, books were not 



