The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

188 THE BRITISH ISLES.
bridge across the river below London Bridge without unduly interfering with the
traffic, and recourse has been had to tunnels. One of these underground passages,
through which a railway now runs, has become famous on account of the difficulties
which Brunei, its engineer, was compelled to surmount in the course of its
construction. In 1825, when he began his work, his undertaking was looked upon
as one of the most audacious efforts of human genius ; for experience in the
construction of tunnels had not then been won on a large scale, and nearly every
mechanical appliance had to be invented. Quite recently a second tunnel has
been constructed beneath the bed of the Thames, close to the Tower. Instead of
its requiring fifteen years for its completion, as did the first, it was finished in
hardly more than a j-ear ; its cost was trifling, and not a human life was lost
during the progress of the work.* At the present time a third tunnel is projected
for the Lower Thames, and the construction of a huge bridge near the Tower is
under discussion. In order that this bridge may not interfere with the river
traffic, and yet permit a stream of carriages to flow uninterruptedly across it, it is
proposed to place two swing-bridges in its centre, which would successively be
opened in order to permit large vessels to pass through.
Amongst the public buildings of Loudon there are many which are not visited
because of their size or architecture, but for the sake of the treasures which they
shelter. Foremost of these is the British ^Museum—a vast edifice of noble pro-
portions, with a lofty portico. But no sooner have we penetrated the entrance
hall than we forget the building, and have eyes only for the treasures of nature
and art which fill its vast rooms. Its sculpture galleries contain the most admired
and most curious monuments of Assyria, Egypt, Armenia, Asia Minor, Greece, and
Etruria. It is there the lover of high art may contemplate with feelings akin to
religion the tombs of Lj^cia, the fragments of the Mausoleum, the columns from
the Temple of Diana of Ephesus, the Phygalian marbles, and the sculptures of the
Parthenon. Since Lord Elgin in 1816 brought these precious marbles from
Athens to the banks of the Thames, it is to London we must wend our way, and
not to Hellas, if we woiJd study the genius of Greece. Here, too, we find the
famous " Rosetta stone " which Young sought to decipher, and which furnished
ChampoUion with a key for reading the hieroglyphics of Egypt. Papyri of three
and four and perhaps even five thousand years of age, and the brick tablets which
formed the library in the palace of Nineveh, are likewise preserved in the British
Museum. In the course of its hundred and twenty-seven years of existence between
1753 and 1880 the British nation hasexpended upon this Museum the respectable simi
of £5,600,000. The library attached to the Museum, notwithstanding its 1,500,000
volumes, is as yet less rich than the BibHotheque Nationale of Paris, but, being
liberally supported, it increases rapidly, whilst its admirable arrangements
attract to it scholars from every part of the world. The reading-room itself, a
vast circular apartment covered by a dome 140 feet in diameter and 106 feet in
height, and lit up during the evening by electric lights, is deserving oui- admira-
• Brunei's tunnel cost £404,715, the " subway " near the Tower only £16,000. The former consists,
however, of two arched passages 1,200 feet long, 14 feet wide, and \6k feet in height ; whilst the latter.
though 1,330 feet in length, is merely an iron tube of 8 feet in diameter.