3 
The level of the principal floor of the building is reached 
by a flight of twelve stone steps at the foot of the Portico, 
one hundred and twenty-five feet in width, terminating on 
either side with pedestals intended to receive colossal groups 
of sculpture. 
The Tympanum of the Portico is proposed to be enriched 
with historical or allegorical sculpture in full relief, and 
colossal statues are to surmount the Pediment. 
The Principal Entrance to the Museum under this Portico 
is by a carved oak door, hung to a door-frame of stone nine 
feet six inches wide, and twenty-four feet high. The 
Entrance Hall is sixty-two feet by fifty-one feet, and thirty 
feet high. 
The Order is Grecian Doric. The ceiling is trabeated 
and deeply coffered, and is enriched with Greek frets and 
other ornaments in various colours, painted in encaustic. 
On the East side are the apartments devoted to the MS. 
department. On the West is the Principal Staircase, and a 
Gallery which forms the approach to the Collection of An- 
tiquities. The centre flight is seventeen feet wide, flanked 
by two pedestals of grey Aberdeen granite, intended to re- 
ceive colossal sculpture. The walls on either side of this 
centre flight are cased with red Aberdeen granite, highly 
polished. On the first landing are pedestals and carved 
vases of Huddlestone stone. The balustrades are of the 
same. The ceiling and walls are painted partly in oil and 
partly in encaustic colours, the former being trabeated and 
coffered to correspond with the Entrance Hall, and similarly 
decorated. 
At the top of this Staircase commences the suite of 
rooms appropriated to Natural History, w r hich occupy, on 
the upper floor, the Eastern portion of the South front, and 
the whole of the Eastern and Northern sides of the Quad- 
rangle. The remainder of the Upper Floor of the Museum 
B 2 
