Amongst other works at the head of this article, is one entitled _Observations on the British Museum, National Gallery and National Record Office, with suggestions for their improvement, by James Fergusson. London, 1849_. In this work Mr. Fergusson, anticipating Panizzi’s purpose and choice of site, proposed to construct in the inner quadrangle of the British Museum, a Reading-Room about 175 feet by 105 feet. The writer of the article gives Panizzi no credit for the soundness of his scheme, and its adaptability to the requirements of the occasion, but attributes his recommendations simply to his zeal for the efficiency of his Department, and wonders how Mr. Smirke could have lent these ideas his professional concurrence. With Mr. Fergusson’s project he disagrees as likely to spoil the effect of the inner court, as touching _the grandeur and impressiveness in its naked severity_; in this he assumes that there is a peculiar merit in the eyes of those who have seen it, though it must be granted that, to the few who had done so, this peculiar merit was not so clearly visible. He proposes as an improvement to cover in the whole court with a glass roof, after the fashion of the original Crystal Palace of 1851, in Hyde Park, and to use the grand room thus obtained as a receptacle for antiquities, sculpture, etc., with other details of improvement, which, as they were never carried out, do not require to be particularized in these pages. This was, in fact, the scheme submitted in 1853 to the Trustees of the British Museum by Sir Charles Barry. The report made by the Trustees respecting this plan is, as may be supposed, too long to quote _verbatim_, but is, substantially, as follows:— That Sir C. Barry’s plan, so far as it related to increased accommodation in the British Museum, was absolutely impracticable. That it betrayed great ignorance of the wants of the Museum, and indifference as to the safe-keeping of some of its most valuable contents. That the large skylight covering the 75,200 square feet of quadrangle would darken every window therein, and, in many seasons, obscure the whole space. That the communications between Departments would be more inconvenient than at present, and that the new Reading-Room, proposed by Sir C. Barry, would be deficient in light, air, and accommodation, and be attended by increased expense and delay in the procuring of books. That the supervision of the Reading-Room would be less effective, and risk of loss incurred. That access to parts of the Library would have to be through the Reading-Room; the Cataloguers would be separated by a great distance from their books, and the Catalogues themselves suspended during the progress of the works. That the Exhibition of Prints and Drawings would be in like manner affected; that no additional space is provided for printed books; and that general displacement and confusion in this Department would be the result of the scheme.