STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 529 



The soot from the iiii' of the city does not penetrate too much into the 

 huildino-, since, with the exception of the skylights, there are no win- 

 dows in the halls; a double glass roof, moreover, otfers considerable 

 protection. The ventilation arrangements are primitive. 



The library comprises 50,000 volumes and does not incorporate any 

 books relating to systematic zoology. There is a card catalogue 

 arranged by authors and subjects. 



The collections contain upward of 11,000 comparative-anatomy 

 preparations, among them upward of 3,700 fossil and nearly 2,700 

 pathologico-anatomical. Excellent printed catalogues concerning 

 them are published, among others a Descriptive Catalogue of the 

 Osteological Series contained in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons of England (2 vols., London, 1853, quarto, xlv, 914 pp.); 

 a Catalogue of the Specimens illustrating the Osteology and Dentition 

 of Vertebrated Animals, recent and extinct, coptained in the Museum 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, I-III (London. 1879-1S91, 

 octavo, Ixvii, 1036 pp.); a Descriptive Catalogue of the Teratological 

 Series in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of P^ngland 

 (London, 1893, octavo, xxiii, 192 pp). The collection is, first of all, 

 scientific, and as such is a true ornament to the nation. 



The illustration given is reproduced from the Souvenir of the Cen- 

 tenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1800-1900 (Lon- 

 don, 1900, quarto, 33 pp.). 



SOUTH KENSINGTON OR VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. 



This famous museum of art and industry is unsuitable as a building, 

 the lighting being in some parts very bad and the installation much 

 too croAvded and not well adapted for inspection.^ The labeling is 

 ver}" good throughout, though the cards are printed in such small type 

 that in the insufficient light the}' are often quite illegible. On the 

 other hand, the former India Museum (Indian section), that now" 

 belongs to it, is installed in a primitive, unsystematic manner, and 

 insufficiently labeled. Furthermore, the ethnographic section, part of 

 which is ver\' valuable, is not well arranged. The management of the 

 oriental art collections, which, with the Indian one just mentioned, are 

 now located in the adjacent Imperial Institute (which, intended in the 

 first place for collections, is now occupied by the university), is not 

 entirely satisfactor3^ New halls, however, are now being erected for 

 both these large collections. It is impossible for me to do justice to the 

 tremendous whole of the South Kensington Museum in the space of 

 this report. Besides, it is generally known. Its excessive abundance 

 of objects quite oppresses the receptive faculty of the most alert sight- 



« "The worst possible conception of the mode of arranging museums is exemplified 

 at South Kensington." W. S. Jevons, iSocial Reform, 1883, p. 59, 

 NAT MUS 1903 34 



