How to See the British Museum in Four Visits

by W. Blanchard Jerrold

Read How to See the British Museum in Four Visits book online free and download in PDF, Kindle and ePub formats.

Copyright Status: Manuscript of this book is available in public domain and copyright already expired.

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.