With respect to the advantage of this site for the national pictures, as regards immunity from soot and dust, I fear that too much importance is attached to that circumstance, owing to the enormous neighbourhood both existing and arising around it, and to the consequences of its position as regards the denser portions of the Metropolis; for in the more lofty and airy neighbourhood of Hyde Park Gardens, Westbourne Terrace, &c., much inconvenience is felt from the falling of blacks, particularly during an easterly wind. From this and other considerations, I am inclined to think that the heart of London is not more subject to the effects of a sooty atmosphere than its immediate suburbs. All furnace smoke is likely to be soon abated under the provisions of the recent Act of Parliament for that purpose, and it is to be hoped that ere long such a stigma upon Science as the continuance of a similar nuisance from open fires will be removed. As to dust, the site at Kensington, with the open and airy spaces and macadamized roads surrounding it, is likely, I think, to suffer as much from that inconvenience, as the crowded and more frequented parts of London, particularly where the streets are paved with granite. With reference to the capabilities of the site, in an æsthetic point of view, its lowness and flatness are not favourable to a fine architectural display, and the loftiness of the buildings which it is proposed to erect upon it, if properly proportioned to their lengths, will effectually shut out all view of the loftier background of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, with their fine trees, when viewed from the principal road out of Brompton. Having thus described the doubts and misgivings which I entertain with respect to the site at Kensington, and as to the possibility of carrying out a perfect and efficient concentration of all that relates to science, art, and literature upon that spot, I proceed to notice the advantages and capabilities, which the existing institutions, to which I have adverted, would offer for such purposes, conjointly with the newly-acquired site. FIRST. As regards the present British Museum, which I would propose to call the “British Museum of Arts and Literature.”