The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-15 00:00:00

THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

The accounts and estimates of the British Museum were
issued on Friday. The expenditure for the financial year
ended 31st March last was in all £97,533, and a ba.
lance was carried to account for 1865-6 of £35,242 2s.
9d. The estimate for next year is £100,164. The sum
granted for last year was £92,127. The increase is accounted
for by a sum of £7,600, being set down to meet the ex-
penses of further excavations at Budum, the purchase of
the Bokscharow collection of minerals, and purchases at
the Pourtales and St. Angelo collections. The total num-
ber of persons admitted to visit the general collections, ex-
clusive of readers last year was 432,339. This is less than
the number in any year since 1859. In 1862 double the
number of last year visited the museum. In 1861 the num-
ber was 641,886, and in 1863 440,801. The number of visits
to, the evading-room for the purpose of study or research is
also less. Last year the visits were 105,899 ; in 1859 they
were 122,424 ; in 1861 130,410 ; and in 1863 107,821.
About 4,150 books seem to have been used in the reading-
room every day. Each reader has consulted on an average
11 volumes per day. Including music, atlases, and news-
papers, 38,842 volumes have been added to the library. Of
these 28,426 were purchased.
The additions to the department of manuscripts in the
course of the year are 609 manuscripts, 51 original charters,
and 71 bully and seals ; to the Egerton collection 17 manu-
scripts and 3 original charters.
The acquisitions in the departments of Greek and Roman
antiquities include, of course, the purchase of the statues
from the Farnese Palace, at Rome. There is also a collection
of antiquities from Camirius, in the Island of Rhodes,
where extensive excavations have been carried on by Mr.
Vice-Consul Biliotti and Mr. Salzmann. 2,560 coins and
medals, of which 1,305 are Greek, have been produced dur-
ing the year. In the report of Professor Owen we meet
with the usual complaints respecting the space allotted to
the natural history collections, which restricts the labours
of the staff in regard to a large proportion of the
specimens to the business of conservation ; " whereas,"
says the professor, " the purpose of the collections is to bo
instructively exhibited or arranged under conditions of
light and access facilitating scientific inquiry and com-
parison. Not only the shells, the birds, and the minerals
should bo shown in serial sequence, but every other
class of natural history ; nor ought the bulk of the speci-
mons in certain of these be a bar to such display; for it
is only in a national or British Museum that adequate space
for such means of advancing natural science can be afforded
or expected." Of the total number of additions, 12,873, to
the department of 'natural history, 7,688 are registered in
the department of zoology, 4,651 in the department of
geology, and 634 in the department of mineralogy.
Amongst the additions to the department of geology the
most interesting in relation to questions as to the antiquity
of man, and the cranial and dental characters of primitive
races, are the partly petrified remains of the men who in-
habited the limestone caverns of the South of France at the
Period when chamois, bouquetin, wild horse, reindeer, the
great extinct ox, &c., existed, and especially the reindeer,
abounded, in that part of Europe ; and at a period when the
use of metals being unknown, the primitive implements
were chipped flints, by means of which diverse weapons and
instruments, including needles, were manufactured from
the bones and antlers of the beasts captured and killed for
food. On some of those bone instruments the reindeer and
horse had been delineated in outline, with truth and spirit,
and those are probably among the earliest examples of the
graphic art. The value of this series of human remains,
discovered at Bruniquel by the Vicomte de Lastic in 1863,
depends upon the cale and accuracy with which every
material fact as to "matrix " "position," "chemical condi-
tion," &c., of the crania was ascertained, on which a con-
clusion as to their contemporaneity with the remains of the
extincts animals could be satisfactorily arrived at. To this
end the cavern was visited by the reporter in January and
February, 1864 ; the human remains were inspected, and
others were then exposed in situ, and one almost eutir%
cranium was removed and transferred to the British.
Museum, with the large mass of breccia, detached at a
depth of four feet from the stalagmitic floor of the cavern,
and exhibiting, with other human remains and numerous
implements, conditions of imbedding identical with• those
bf the bones and teeth of the Cervus tarandus and Bos
Priraiggn"

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

TEM DAY.—Morning, 4h. 47m.—Afternoon, sh. sm.
To-Monnow.-Morning, sh. 28m.—Afternoon, sh. 48m.