by London 1852...

     SOUTHERN ZOOLOGICAL ROOM.—Hoofed Animals:—Giraffe;      Walrus; Rhinoceros; Buffalo; Antelope.      SOUTHERN ZOOLOGICAL GALLERY.—Hoofed Animals:—Wild Ox;      Hippopotamus; Elephant; Llama; Bison; Armadillo; Deer.      MAMMALIA SALOON.—Bears; Monkeys; Cat Tribe; Dog Family;      Bear Tribe; Mole Tribe; Marsupial Animals; Seal Tribe;      Corals      EASTERN ZOOLOGICAL GALLERY.—Birds of Prey; Perching      Birds; Scraping Birds; Wading Birds; Web-footed Birds.      NORTHERN ZOOLOGICAL GALLER

     NORTHERN MINERAL AND FOSSIL GALLERY.—Fossil Vegetables;      Minerals; Fossil Animals; Fossil Fishes; Fossil Mammalia.      THE EGYPTIAN ROOM.—Human Mummies; Animal Mummies;      Sepulchral Ornaments; Egyptian Deities; Sacred      Animals; Household Objects; Tools; Musical Instruments;      Toys; Textile Fabrics. THE BRONZE ROOM.—Greek and Roman Bronzes. ETRUSCAN ROOM.—Etruscan Vases      ETHNOGRAPHICAL ROOM.—Chinese Curiosities; Indian      Curiosities; African Curiosities; American Curios

     EGYPTIAN SALOON.—Egyptian Sculpture; Egyptian      Coffins; Egyptian Tombstones; Sepulchral Vases;      Human Statues; Egyptian Sphinxes; Egyptian Frescoes. THE LYCIAN ROOM.—Lycian Tombs; Lycian Sculpture. THE NIMROUD ROOM.—Assyrian Sculpture....

Townley Sculpture; Antiquities of Britain. PHIGALEIAN SALOON.—Battle with the Amazons.      ELGIN SALOON.—Elgin Marbles; Metopes of the Parthenon;      Eastern Frieze; Northern Frieze; Western Frieze;      Southern Frieze; Eastern Pediment; Western Pediment;      Temple of the Erectheum; Temple of Theseus;      Lantern of Demosthenes....

The money to found a British Museum was raised by a lottery in the middle of the last century. Sir Hans Sloane having offered his books and museum of natural history to Parliament, for less than half its value (20,000£.), it was purchased, together with the famous Harleian and Cottonian MSS., and deposited in Montague House, Bloomsbury, which had been bought of the Earl of Halifax, for the sum of 10,250£. Of the present British Museum this beginning forms a very insignificant part. The nucleus w

of the British Museum runs the entire length of the building. It is divided into five compartments, and its space is devoted to the display of Birds, Shells, and a few Paintings. The birds exhibited in this gallery fill no less than one hundred and sixty-six wall-cases; and the shells which are distributed throughout the central space occupy fifty large tables: the lesser tables which are placed here and there near the birds, being devoted to the display of birds' eggs. The pictures are hung abo

The sea-eggs are scattered over the first nine tables (1-9) in the room. They live on small animals and sea-weed. The varieties include a flat kind, vulgarly called sea-pancakes. The remaining cases of the room are loaded with varieties of the star-fish. The mouth of the star-fish is on its lower side, through which it takes its food. It has innumerable feet, which it displays when in the water, and by means of which it can climb rocks. Some of the varieties fall to pieces on being taken from th

On entering the British Museum for the second time, the visitor should ascend the great staircase, pass through the south, central, and mammalia saloons; traverse the eastern zoological gallery, and continue north, direct into the first room of the most northern gallery of the northern wing;—where the studies of his second visit should begin. His first visit was occupied in the examination of the varieties of animal life distributed throughout the surface of the globe. The greater part of his ti

called the Harpy Tomb. This tomb, which occupied the highest point of the hill on which Xanthus stood, is described by Sir Charles Fellows in his account of the Xanthian marbles, published in 1843. The tomb was a square shaft, in one solid block, weighing no less than eighty tons. "Its height," says Sir Charles, "was seventeen feet, placed upon a base, rising on one side six feet from the ground, on the other but little above the present level of the earth. Around the sides of the top of the sha

The visitor will now enter the museum to complete his inspection of its contents. His way lies once more to the west on entering the great hall, into the first Sculpture Gallery, or that which he will recognise as leading into the great central saloon. Here, as he pauses on the threshold of a noble room filled with splendid specimens of Greek art, he may recur to the historical points which these works illustrate. Throughout this, his last visit, he will be occupied with the examination of the w

[1: Undoubtedly the finest coral is dredged from the Mediterranean; it is an important article of commerce at Marseilles.] [2: "The shrikes, or butcher-birds ( laniadae ), are a numerous and widely-diffused assemblage, living upon the smaller birds and insects; the former of which the shrike sticks, when killed, upon thorns, as a butcher hangs up meat in his stall; hence the name of the genus."— Vestiges of Creation .] [3: Vestiges of Creation.] [4: These birds build in the crevices of precipito