A NOTEWORTHY ANNIVERSARY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7733, 1 March 1909, Page 4

A NOTEWORTHY ANNIVERSARY.

January 8 was the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the British Museum. It originated in a, bequest of Sir Hans Sloanc, in accordance with which his extensive collection of objects of natural history, Avorks of art, books and manuscript was offered in 1753 to the Government for the sum of £20,000, or two-fifths of its original cose. The offer was accepted, the necessary funds were raised by a lottery, and the collection, along with the Harleian and Cottonian Libraries, was arranged in Montagu House, which had been purchased for £10,250. The new institution, thenceforth called the British Museum, was opened in 1759. It is said that there are twenty-five miles of bookshelves in the Museum, and in the printed books department, which is the largest in the Museum, there are about two million 'volumes. The animal increase of volj umes under the Copyright Act is, ! roughly, 50,000 volumes. In the manuscript department there are upwards of 60,000 volumes, not taking into account the Greek, Coptic, and Latin papyri and the charters and seals. Then there are departments for prints and drawings, Oriental antiquities, coins and medals, and British and medieval antiquities and ethnography. The natural history department, which includes botany, geology, zoology, and mineralogy, was removed to West Kensington in 1881. The cost of the new museum there very nearly reached the sum of £400,000.'