Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, Part 2 of 2: With Notices of Its Chief Augmentors and Other Benefactors, 1570-1870.Edwards, Edward
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Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, Part 2 of 2: With Notices of Its Chief Augmentors and Other Benefactors, 1570-1870.
Edwards, Edward
Book collectors -- Great Britain; British Museum
In the ‘Asian Room’ are placed the larger objects from the Pacific, such
as spears, clubs, and paddles. The collection of spears is very large
and interesting.
[Sidenote: AUSTRALIA AND PART OF NORTH AMERICA.]
The Australian Collection is very complete, and it would not be easy to
replace it, inasmuch as the native races are dwindling in most parts of
that continent.
[Sidenote: NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA.]
The American department in chief includes antiquities and recent
implements and dresses from the North American Indians; ancient Carib
implements; and recent collections from British Guiana, and other parts
of South America. The most valuable part of the contents of this room is
the collection of Mexican antiquities, which is not only extensive, but
includes some specimens of great rarity. Among them should be especially
mentioned the following:—An axe of Avanturine jade, carved into the form
of a human figure; a remarkable knife of white chalcedony; a sacrificial
collar formed of a hard green stone; a squatting figure, of good
execution, sculptured out of a volcanic rock; and three remarkable
specimens coated with polished stones. The latter consist of a wooden
mask covered with a mosaic of blue stones, presumed to be turquoises,
but more probably a rare form of amazon-stone; a human skull made into a
mask, and coated with obsidian and the blue stone mentioned above; and a
knife with a blade of flint, and with a wooden handle, sculptured to
represent a Mexican divinity, and encrusted with obsidian, coral,
malachite, and other precious materials. [Sidenote: Franks’ _Report_, as
above.] There is also a small but choice collection of Peruvian pottery.
A catalogue of the collection was privately printed by Mr. CHRISTY in
1862; but it embraces only a small part of the present collection. A
more extended catalogue is in preparation.
It is due to accuracy to add that the aspect of the rooms devoted to the
CHRISTY Museum in Victoria Street, and the facilities of study which
they afford, are utterly unsatisfactory to real students. They are
adapted only to holiday sightseers, who look and go, and but to very
small groups, indeed, even of them.
Every praise is due both to the Trustees and to their officer, for
having done their best, under strait and lamentable limitations, the
_removal_ of which is the duty of Parliament and of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, not that of the Trustees. Under the Premiership of such
an eminent scholar and writer as Mr. GLADSTONE, humbler students of
history and of literature would fain hope that a long-standing reproach
will speedily be removed; but his ministerial surroundings are
unfriendly to such anticipations. After words which we have recently
heard, _from the Treasury Bench itself_, about Public Parks, there is
only scanty ground for hope that much improvement can, under existing
circumstances, be looked for in respect to Public Museums.
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