24

EXHIBITION OF 1851.

und that it is almost impossible to attempt correct classification or satisfactoryarrangement. He gives particular instances of want of space in the case of theEgyptian, Assyrian, Lycian , and other collections, the tessellated pavements andterra-cottas (now packed in boxes), the Ethnographical Collections, &c. &c.; andstates generally, that “ Europe cannot show any building so ill adapted for its in-tended purpose as the British Museum .”

The Department of Prints ami Drawings, which increases its collection atthe rate of 2300 a year, is confined to one room, which is very little larger than theone occupied by it fifteen years ago. It has been found necessary to appropriateto the Department of Antiquities, for the exhibition of the Assyrian Marbles, thegallery that had been intended for the display of prints and drawings,—the wantof which is greatly felt, but must now remain unsatisfied.

As respects the Department of Natural History, and its three divisions ofMineralogy, Zoology , and Botany, the evil is as great as in any other depart-ment. In the Mineralogical section, the keeper reports that all the objectsadded to the different collections are placed promiscuously, partly with someshow of arrangement, partly without any attempt at it, in all such vacant portionsof one of the galleries as could afford temporary accommodation for their pre-servation ; and he states that although the space devoted to the division under hischarge has been increased as far as possible, the necessity of extending the localityassigned to it on a larger scale cannot for a moment be doubted.

In the division of Zoology , it appears that the collection has increased tenfoldsince 183(5, while the space assigned to it has only been increased threefold. Nearlyone-half of the additional specimens are kept in rooms on the basement, which areonly accessible to the public on special permission. At least 20,()()() square feetadditional are required to render the present collection accessible. The Osteo-logical collection, or collection of skeletons of vertebrated animals, by far thelargest and most complete ever formed in this country, and the exhibition ofwhich is of the greatest importance to the progress of zoological science, is nowdeposited in the cellars, where the collection of animals in spirits is also placed.The chief of the division strongly urges the necessity of space being provided forthe exhibition of these two collections ; as, until they are exhibited to the public,and arranged in the same order as the stuffed animals, the students visiting theMuseum are deprived of half the assistance in their studies which the collectionsmight, and ought to afford them.

The progressive extension of the Botanical division, to which more than 50,000specimens have been added since 1836, has caused the space allotted to it (whichhad previously been nearly doubled) to be already filled, and it will soon be neces-sary to remove part of the collection to the basement, where the engraved copper-plates illustrative of the division are at present deposited.

It is thus evident that, although the Trustees of the British Museum haveavailed themselves of every resource which the existing buildings are capableof affording, and have endeavoured in every way to overcome the dif-ficulties arising from want of space, they have found it impossible, much as theMuseum lias been enlarged of late years, to make the necessary arrangements for