xxxiv 
INTRODUCTION. 
sities; and 4. the Department of Antiquities, 
Coins, Drawings, and Engravings. The duties of 
these officers are to arrange and keep in order the 
several collections committed to their charge, to 
correct the old, and when required, to compile 
new catalogues of their contents, to pay proper 
attention to visitors of distinction, either for rank 
or learning, and some of them, in rotation, to 
attend the Reading Room, which it is strictly or- 
dered should never be left without an inspecting 
officer. Besides these, a Secretary, a Surveyor, 
five ordinary and eight extra- Attendants, a Mes- 
senger, a Porter, a Gardener, and a few inferior 
servants complete the establishment. 
rhe Reading The chief use of the Museum consists, no 
Room. 
doubt, in the means it affords to men of letters 
and artists to recur to such materials as they may 
want in the prosecution of their studies or la- 
bours. For this purpose a very commodious 
apartment has been set aside, by the name 
of the Reading Room, which is open every 
day, Saturdays and Sundays excepted, and to 
which persons not wholly strangers are freely ad- 
mitted, and there readily supplied with whatever 
books, or manuscripts, they may desire to con- 
sult ; as also with such productions of art or na- 
ture, of which they may wish to have a closer 
inspection 
