NATURAL SCIENCE 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 



No. 5. Vol. I. JULY. 1892. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



Provincial Museums. 



PROBABLY every English naturalist who has had occasion to visit 

 the Natural Science museums of the Continent, and notably of 

 Germany and Austria, has returned with feelings of the superiority 

 of the provincial museums to those of our own country. Scattered 

 in the English provinces we have museums which contain important 

 historical collections, such as those at the Universities and York ; 

 extensive series of local specimens, as at Bath ; important types, 

 such as the Labyrinthodonts at Warwick, and the x\ustin Crinoids, 

 at Liverpool ; or valuable general collections, such as the Gurney 

 Birds at Norwich, the Wallace Collection at Ipswich, Mr. Willett's 

 Chalk Fossils at Brighton, or the Marquis of Northampton's 

 Collection at Northampton. Nevertheless, in spite of the valuable 

 contents of many museums, and the extensive local series obtained 

 by the energy of. the curators and their volunteer assistants, we 

 cannot but feel that the provincial museums are not what they ought 

 to be, and, in consequence, have failed to stimulate local research, 

 and to popularise scientific education as much as they might have 

 done. 



The reasons for this are no doubt partly inherent in the particular 

 conditions of our country. In the first place, Britain is so small, 

 and internal communication so cheap and easy, that a greater centrali- 

 sation is naturally to be expected than in a Continental State, which 

 is larger in size, has fewer and slower railways, and really consists of 

 a federation of different races. Munich, Dresden, Breslau, and 

 Stuttgart occupy a very different position to Berlin than do our great 

 provincial towns to London. Most of the famous Continental 



