£15,500, of which there is still in hand, £10,000 for the purchase of
books. The precaution of insuring such an institution and its contents
had of course been taken, and most fortunately the requisite
endorsements on the policies had been made to cover the extra risk
accruing from the alteration in progress. The insurances were made in
the "Lancashire" and "Yorkshire" offices, the buildings for £10,000, the
Reference Library for £12,000, the Lending Library for £1,000, the
Shakespeare Library for £1,500, the Prince Consort statue for £1,000,
the models of Burke and Goldsmith for £100, and the bust of Mr. Timmins
for £100, making £25,700 in all. The two companies hardly waited for the
claim to be made, but met it in a most generous manner, paying over at
once £20,000, of which £10,528 has been devoted to the buildings and
fittings, nearly £500 paid for expenses and injury to statues, and the
remaining £9,000 put to the book purchase fund. In the Reference Library
there were quite 48,000 volumes, in addition to about 4,000 of patent
specifications. Every great department of human knowledge was
represented by the best known works. In history, biography, voyages, and
travels, natural history, fine arts, all the greatest works, not only in
English, but often in the principal European languages, had been
gathered. Volumes of maps and plans, engravings of all sorts of
antiquities, costumes, weapons, transactions of all the chief learned
societies, and especially bibliography, or "books about books" had been
collected with unceasing care, the shelves being loaded with costly and
valuable works rarely found out of the great libraries of London, or
Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, or Glasgow. Among the collections lost
were many volumes relating to the early history of railways in England,
originally collected by Mr. Charles Brewin, and supplemented by all the
pamphlets and tracts procurable. Many of those volumes were full of
cuttings from contemporary newspapers, and early reports of early
railway companies, and of the condition of canals and roads. Still more