112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In one of his communications to the Royal Society (April, 1872), on 

 the fossil mammals of Australia, he remarked, touching upon some 

 generalizations suggested by the then present stage of discovery, that 

 " the disappearance of the larger species was explicable on the princi- 

 ple of the ' contest of existence,' as applied by him to the problem of 

 the extinction of the fossil birds of New Zealand (' Transactions of 

 the Zoological Society,' vol. iv, 1850), and subsequently by Darwin 

 to the incoming of new species, as ' the battle of life.' " In concluding 

 this paper he remarked that "it is neither creditable nor excusable 

 that so great a divergence should still be maintained, chiefly through 

 theological teaching, in the ideas of the majority of men ' of ordinary 

 culture' as to the cause and conditions of the distribution of living 

 species over the globe from those suggested by the clear and multi- 

 plied demonstrations of science." One of his studies in the London 

 clay, in 1873, brought to light the Odontopteryx, a fossil bird, having 

 the peculiarity not found in any existing bird, and one previously un- 

 known in birds, of jaws provided with long, conical, bony processes, 

 like the serrations in a coarse saw. 



When he assumed the position to which he was called at the British 

 Museum, Professor Owen's attention was at once directed to the insuffi- 

 ciency of the space the museum afforded for the accommodation of 

 the natural history collections. Repeated representations had already 

 been made on this subject in vain. The Government would not en- 

 large the provisions at the museum, and finally intimated that it would 

 prefer the alternative of having the collections removed. Professor 

 Owen determined to accept this alternative, and had plans prepared for 

 a large new museum at South Kensington, which would afford a super- 

 ficial space of five acres to well-arranged collections. The plan was ap- 

 proved by the Government, but did not receive the favor of the House 

 of Commons. Professor Owen then published a pamphlet " On the Ex- 

 tent and Aims of a National Museum of Natural History" (1862). 

 After ten years more of agitation, a parliamentary appropriation was 

 obtained, in 1872, with which the present magnificent range of build- 

 ings, now rapidly filling with the nation's treasures of natural history, 

 were erected. "In the obtaining of this splendid casket in which to 

 display Nature's gems," says " Nature," " Professor Owen has seen ac- 

 complished one great object of his life." " Nearly a quai'ter of a cen- 

 tury," said the same journal in 1880, "has elapsed since he entered on 

 his duty at the British Museum, and the record of his contributions to 

 science during this period equals, if it does not surpass, that of the pre- 

 vious thirty years' period. Among the more important of these we 

 must notice: 'Memoir on the British Fossil Reptiles of the Mesozoic 

 Formations Pterodactyles,' 1873-1877; ' On the British Fossil Rep- 

 tiles of the Liassic Formations Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs,' 1865- 

 1870 ; * On the British Fossil Cetacea of the Red Crag,' 1870 ; ' On 

 the Fossil Reptiles of South Africa,' 1876 ; 'On the Classification and 



