SIR RICHARD OWEN. 419 



1830 he read a paper on the Ourang before the new committee 

 on science of the Zoological Society, which marked the begin- 

 ning of the scientific activity of that Society. At the age of 

 thirty he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society ; and in 1834 

 he had the signal honor of being chosen the first Hunterian Pro- 

 fessor at the Eoyal College of Surgeons. He held this position 

 till 1856, when he was appointed Superintendent of the Natural 

 History Department of the British Museum. Here he found 

 himself confronted with the great difficulty which has baffled so 

 many curators before and since, — wan of space. We cannot 

 go into the history of his arduous struggle for what he felt was 

 necessary; suffice it to say, it is largely to him that the collec- 

 tion of Natural History of the British Museum owes its mag- 

 nificent hew home at South Kensington. He resigned this 

 position at wellnigh fourscore years, in 1883. Though he retired 

 early from the practice of medicine, he served more than once 

 or twice on boards dealing with sanitary questions. He was on 

 the commission to inquire into the health of towns in 1843 and 

 in 1846. He wrote a special report on the condition of his native 

 town, Lancaster, in 1848. He was on the Board of Health 

 of the metropolis in 1846 and 1848. This is by no means the 

 full list of his services of this nature. When one remembers 

 the vast amount of original research he was always engaged 

 in, his mental activity seems indeed phenomenal. From the 

 beginning of his writing with, if we mistake not, the first instal- 

 ment of the "Catalogue of the Hunterian Museum," in 1830, 

 catalogue, book, and memoir followed one another in constant 

 succession. His writings did not wholly cease even Avith his 

 final retirement from office. The range of his studies was enor- 

 mous. In 1832 appeared his memoir on the "Pearly Nautilus," 

 and in 1885 was completed his "History of the British Reptiles," 

 in three volumes. His researches were not confined to organisms 

 visible to the naked eye. He was the first to put in its proper 

 place the Trichina Spiralis. Among his more important works 

 may be mentioned his "Odontography," "The Archetjq^e and 

 Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, " and his " Comparative 

 Anatomy of Vertebrates." 



Wonderful has been the progress in science during the long 

 period of Owen's activity. Perhaps even more wonderful is the 

 entire change of lines of thought and of methods of study since 

 the promulgation of the Darwinian hypothesis. This event 



