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BOOK III,
Chap. III.
HISTORY

OF THE

MUSEUM

UNDER SIR

A. PANIZZI.

THE NEW

OR PANIZZI
READING-

ROOM.

Mr. PANIZZI himself preferred, at first, the plan of extending the building on the eastern and northern sides. His suggestions had the approval of the Commissioners of 1850. But the Government was slow to give power to the Trustees to carry out the plan of their officer and the recommendation of the Commissioners of Inquiry, by proposing the needful vote in a Committee of Supply. Plan and Report alike lay dormant from the year 1850 to 1854. It was then that, as a last resort, and as a measure of economy, by avoiding all present necessity to buy more ground of the Duke of BEDFORD, Mr. PANIZZI recommended the Trustees to build within the quadrangle, and drew a sketch-plan, on which their architect reported favourably. Sixty-one thousand pounds, by way of a first instalment, was voted on the third of July, 1854. The present noble structure was completed within three years from that day, and its total cost-including the extensive series of book-galleries and rooms of various kinds, subserving almost innumerable purposes amounted in round numbers to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It was thus only a little more than the cost of the King's Library, which accommodates eighty thousand volumes of books and a Collection of Birds. The new Reading-Room and its appendages can be made to accommodate, in addition to its three hundred and more of readers, some million, or near it, of volumes, without impediment to their fullest accessibility.

To describe by words a room which, in 1870, has become more or less familiar, I suppose, to hundreds of thousands of Britons, and to a good many thousands of foreigners, would now be superfluous. But it will not be without advantage, perhaps, to show its character and appearance with the simple brevity of woodcuts.

The following illustrative block-plan shows the general

arrangement of the Museum building at large, at the date Book III, of the erection of the new Reading-Room.

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Chap. III.
HISTORY

OF THE
MUSEUM
UNDER SIR
A. PANIZZI.

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GREAT

RUSSELL

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STREET.

I. GENERAL BLOCK-PLAN OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM,
AS IT WAS IN 1857.

The shaded part of the building itself shows the portions allotted to the Library. The unshaded part is assigned, on the ground floor, to the Department of Antiquities, and (speaking generally) on the floor above-in common with

BLOCK-PLAN

OF MUSEUM
(1857), DIS-

TINGUISH-
ING THE

LIBRARIES

FROM THE
GALLERIES
OF ANTI-

QUITIES, &c.

STREET.

BOOK III,
Chap. III.
HISTORY

OF THE
MUSEUM
UNDER SIR

A. PANIZZI.

the upper floors of the Library part-to the Departments of Natural History. The Print Room' is shown on the ground-plan between the Elgin Gallery and the northwestern extremity of the Department of Printed Books.

The next illustration shows, in detail, the ground-plan of the new Reading-Room and of the adjacent bookgalleries:

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II. GROUND-PLAN OF THE NEW OR PANIZZI' READING-ROOM,

AND OF THE ADJACENT GALLERIES, 1857.

The general appearance of the interior of the Reading- BOOK III,

Room may

be shown thus:

Chap. III.
HISTORY
OF THE
MUSEUM

UNDER SIR

A. PANIZZI.

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III. INTERIOR VIEW OF THE NEW READING-ROOM, 1857.

BOOK III, Chap. III. HISTORY

OF THE MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PANIZZI.

PARLIA

MENTARY
INQUIRY

INTO PRO

POSED EN

LARGEMENT

MUSEUM

IN 1860.

Of course, the improvements thus effected did but solve a portion of the difficulty felt, long before 1857, in accommodating the National Collections upon any adequate scale, which should provide alike for present claims and for future extension. This more effectual provision became one of the most pressing questions with which both the Trustees and their officers had now to deal. During the whole term of Sir A. PANIZZI's Principal-Librarianship this building question increased in gravity and urgency, from year to year. Both the Trustees and the PrincipalLibrarian were intent upon its solution. But the latter was enforced, by failing health, to quit office, leaving the matter still unsolved.

Most of the little information on this part of the subject which, within my present limits, it will be practicable for me to offer to the reader, belongs, properly, to a subsequent OF BRITISH chapter. But some brief notice must be given here of the important inquiries, how far, and in what way, it may be desirable to find increased space for the extension and arrangement of the various Collections of the British Museum, and the best means of rendering them available for the promotion of Science and Art,' which were made, between the months of May and August of 1860, by a Select Committee of the House of Commons.

The first question to be answered by the Committee of 1860 was this: Is it expedient, or not, that the NaturalHistory Collections should be removed from Bloomsbury, to make room for the inevitable growth of the Collections of Antiquities?

After an elaborate inquiry, spreading over three months, the Committee reported thus:-The witnesses examined have, almost unanimously, testified to the preference over the other Collections, with which the Natural-His

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