BRITISH MUSEUM. 



NEW READIXG-EOOM AND LIBEAEIES. 



The new Reading-Room and Libraries of the British Museum 

 are now completed. The Times, in a leading ai'ticle on the 

 7th of May last year, contained a general description of the 

 building then in progress, and we gladly avail ourselves of 

 the permission liberally gi-anted by that Journal to extract 

 from its pages the substance of another article which ap- 

 peared on the 21st of April last, containing concise but very 

 accurate details of the construction as it exists in its state 

 of completeness. 



*' Its site, in the internal quadrangle of the Museum, has 

 concealed its progress from the public eye, although the 

 lofty and capacious edifice occupies an area of 48,000 super- 

 ficial feet. This site was indeed its proper and only situation, 

 from the obvious necessity of the new Reading-room being 

 adjacent, to the vast magazines of books and manuscripts 

 contained in the various apartments of the Museum. 



Increase of the Library. 

 " The present number of volumes in our gi'eat public 

 library is upwards of half a million; but even that large 

 figure does not represent the far larger collection of separate 

 and distinct articles — in tracts, pamphlets, and manuscripts. 

 They are legion, and not yet accurately catalogued or com- 



