When the erection of the new Library and Reading-Room was suggested, it was stated that that Library would hold eight hundred thousand volumes; that is, the annual increase for forty years, calculating that increase at twenty thousand volumes. But the annual increase has been, during the last five years, at the rate of upwards of thirty thousand volumes, and during the last four years at the rate of about thirty-five thousand, which number, however, is ultimately reduced by the practice of binding two or more volumes of the same work in one; while, on the other hand, the new building will certainly contain two hundred thousand volumes more than it was originally estimated to hold; so that if the present rate of increase continues, as it ought, the new Library will be full in about twenty-five years from this date. It was necessary to say thus much, as a notion seems prevalent that a great deal more was promised when that building was suggested, and that the number of books, which that new Library can hold, may reach an almost fabulous quantity, and the space be sufficient for an extravagant number of years. [Sidenote: ROOMS IN BASEMENT TRANSFERRED TO PRINTED BOOKS.] The rooms on the basement floor of the north side, both marked 15 on the plan of that floor, and now occupied by Geology, cannot be otherwise appropriated than to the Department of Printed Books; the same is to be said of the seven small rooms, marked 17, now used for Geology, as well as of rooms 18 and 19 on the east side, now used for Zoology; all these rooms are immediately under the Department of Printed Books, and naturally belong to it. The rooms marked 13, 14, and 16, from west to east, were formerly appropriated to the Department of Printed Books, to which they should now be restored. When the first importation of Halicarnassian Antiquities took place, they were deposited temporarily in these rooms, as no other space whatever could be found in which to shelter and unpack them. In this space are now arranged the Inscriptions, which have had to be removed from under the colonnade to make room for the Marbles recently arrived from Cyrene. Appropriate space for the Inscriptions will be found without difficulty in the Department of Antiquities, enlarged according to the foregoing suggestions, or, at all events, in the basement, either now existing or to be built under the galleries for Antiquities on the west side of the Museum, where sufficient light may be procured for objects like these, which are of no great interest to sightseers, and therefore need not be publicly exhibited; enough that they be easily accessible to the small number of antiquarians and scholars who may wish to examine them. [Sidenote: PART OF NORTH GALLERY IN UPPER FLOOR TO PRINTED BOOKS.]