iii 
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 here is Grecian Doric. The ceiling, trabeated 
and deeply coffered, 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. depart¬ 
ment. On the West the Principal Staircase, and a Gallery 
which forms the approach to the Collection of Antiquities. 
The centre flight of stairs is seventeen feet wide, flanked by 
two pedestals of grey Aberdeen granite, intended to receive 
sculpture. The walls on either side of this centre flight 
are cased with red Aberdeen granite. On the first landing 
are pedestals and carved vases of Huddlestone stone. The 
balustrades are of the same. The ceiling and w-alls are 
painted partly in oil and partly in encaustic colours, the 
former being trabeated and coffered to correspond w r ith the 
Entrance Hall, and similarly decorated. 
At the top of this Staircase commences the suite of 
rooms appropriated to Natural History, w'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 
is devoted to the smaller Egyptian Antiquities, to the Greek 
Religion. He is next personified as a Hunter and a Tiller of the Earth, 
and labouring for his subsistence. Patriarchal simplicity then becomes in¬ 
vaded, and the worship of the true God defiled. Paganism prevails, and 
becomes diffused by means of the Arts. 
“ The worship of the heavenly bodies and their supposed influence led 
the Egyptians, Chaldseans, and other nations to study Astronomy, typified 
by the centre statues : the key-stone to the composition. 
“ Civilization is now presumed to have made considerable progress. 
Descending towards the Eastern angle of the Pediment is Mathematics; 
in allusion to Science being now pursued on known sound principles. 
The Drama, Poetry, and Music balance the group of the Fine Arts on 
the Western side, the whole composition terminating with Natural His¬ 
tory, in which such objects or specimens only are represented as could be 
made most effective in Sculpture.’’ 
B 2 
