Natural History in London. IBS 



shells in the Museum. They are placed without any reference whatever to 

 their geological position, and the localities of the English fossil shells is 

 seldom given. In the cases in the ante-room, the very important distinction 

 of the marine and fresh- water shells is not made, nor is any information 

 afforded whether the shells belong to the series of strata below the gypsum, 

 or the series above. Thus, those persons who are not already acquainted 

 with the fossil conchology of the different formations, will derive much less 

 instruction from this collection, than they might do were the shells geolo- 

 gically arranged. Indeed, fossil conchology, without a reference to geology, 

 is as useless, as the stud}' of history would be, without any reference to geo- 

 graphy and chronology. The want of gaological arrangement is still more 

 striking in the fossil collection placed in t'he room No. 9. The locality, or 

 the name of the formation in which they were found, is not, I believe, given 

 with any of the English fossil shells or zoophytes. On this account, the 

 fossil conchology in the British Museum may be said to remain in a very 

 defective state. 



Round the room No. 9., there are, however, numerous interesting speci:- 

 mens of vertebrated animals of the saurian or lizard family, and also of fossil 

 fish ; the localities of the foreign specimens are annexed. There is also an 

 interesting collection of fossil bones of the larger mammalia, and of the 

 carnivorous animals found in caverns, and some fossil remains of birds ; 

 these are all as well placed and arranged, as the form of the cases will 

 admit of. 



The large room No. 10., is occupied with what is called, in the catalogue, 

 " the rudiments of a collection of British simple mineral substances ; " but 

 many of the cases, after a lapse of several years since the collection was 

 began, are still empty, or nearly so. It is to be regretted that a large space 

 is so injudiciously appropriated, in an establishment wheife room is much 

 wanted. The minerals of each county are in separate cases, but there can 

 be little utility in having specimens of common galena, calamine, Sec. from 

 all the counties in which they occur*; to enumerate their localities in a 

 catalogue would surely be sufficient. The waste of room is the more to 

 be lamented, as there is at present no geological collection of rock specimens 

 in the Museum, either illustrative of general geology, or the geology of our 

 own country. A foreigner visiting the British Museum, might suppose that 

 the science, and even the very name of geology, were unknown in England. 

 In this respect, the former mineral collection was preferable to the present, 

 as it contained illustrative specimens of the primary and transition rocks. 

 There is ample space in the room No. 10., for specimens of each known 

 species of simple minerals in England, and for the principal varieties ; and 

 also for a well-arranged collection of geological specimens, comprising the 

 strata in all the formations in Great Britain. It would be difficult to offer 

 a satisfactory reason why such a collection is not placed there. 



The zoological collections in the British Museum may be briefly dis- 

 missed. The whole collection of insects is contained in four small cases ; 

 nor are these completely filled. The birds, and mammiferous quadrupeds, 

 are arranged according to the orders of Linnaeus, but want of room prevents 

 their being placed in situations sufficiently accessible for inspection. The 

 species of quadrupeds are not numerous, owing, I believe, to the decay 

 which too speedily takes place in stuffed specimens, particularly in the at- 

 mosphere of London. From the liability to decay, the difficulty with which 

 they are replaced, and the great space they occupy, stuffed specimens of 

 quadrupeds might, perhaps, be conveniently dismissed from our collections, 



* The counties being artificial divisions, the minerals in adjacent counties 

 are generally identical, or at least as much so as the same minerals from dif- 

 ferent parts of the same county. 



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