GENERAL GUIDE 
TO 
THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
(NATURAL HISTORY). 
HISTOEICAL INTEODUCTIOK 
The British Museum dates its actual foundation from the year Founaaiiuu. 
1753, when an Act of Parliament was passed "for the purchase 
of the Museum or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the 
Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, and for providing One 
General Eepository for the better Eeception and more convenient 
Use of the. said Collections and of the Cottonian Library and of 
the Additions thereto/' 
Sir Hans Sloane, an eminent physician in London, was for Sir Hans 
sixteen years President of the Eoyal College of Physicians, 
and in 1727 succeeded Sir Isaac ISTewton in the Presidential 
Chair of the Eoyal Society. He had been throughout his long 
life a diligent and miscellaneous collector, having, as stated in 
the Preamble of the Act of Incorporation of the Museum, 
" through the course of many years, with great labour and 
expense, gathered together whatever could be procured, either 
in our own or foreign countries, that was rare and curious." 
His collection, which at the time of his death in 1753 was 
contained in his residence, the Manor House, Chelsea, consisted 
of " books, drawings, manuscripts, prints, medals and coins, 
ancient and modern antiquities, seals, cameos and intaglios, 
precious stones, agates, jaspers, vessels of agate and jasper, 
crystals, mathematical instruments, pictures, and other things," - 
which latter included numerous zoological and geological speci- 
