BRITISH MUSEUM. 



STEW EEADDsG-EOOM AND LIBBAEIES. 



The new Reading-Room and Libraries of the British Museum 

 are now completed. The Times, in a leading article 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 granted 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 structure 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. 



Inckease of the Libkaey. 

 " The present number of volumes in our great 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- 



