REPORT OF THE BOTANICAL WORK COMMITTEE 313 



such a purpose among others, and that the Economic Museums at 

 Kew form in part also a popular exhibition. The installation at 

 Kew of a popular illustrative botanic exhibition similar to that 

 existing in the public gallery at the British Museum would be a 

 continuation of the work already done at Kew. And the value of 

 such an exhibition as a means of developing botanic knowledge 

 among the people would be increased by its being placed in con- 

 tiguity with the living plants. Indeed, we recommend that steps 

 should be taken, as opportunity offers, in this direction. But we 

 do not think that such a popular exhibition at Kew should be 

 substituted for the exhibition at present existing at the British 

 Museum. On the contrary, led by the following considerations, we 

 have come to the conclusion that this should be maintained. In 

 the first place, the argument based on the distance of Kew from 

 the centre of London, though not having, in our opinion, an 

 importance in reference to research, does seem to us to be very 

 strong in reference to an exhibition intended for the general public. 

 We believe that it would be a serious evil if the opportunities for 

 learning something about the vegetable kingdom, which are now 

 placed before the visitors to the British Museum, were done away, 

 and such opportunities were open only to those able to make the 

 longer journey to Kew. 



Fossil Plants. 

 The British Museum contains botanic collections other than 

 those which we have hitherto considered, namely, the fossil plants. 

 Concerning these we have received conflicting evidence. On the 

 one hand, we have been told that from the point of view of scientific 

 research the interest and value of fossil plants is greater to the 

 botanist than to the geologist, and this has afforded a reason for 

 transferring them as well as the herbaria to Kew ; to this may be 

 added the further reason that, in many respects at least, for the 

 study of these fossil plants access to living plants is especially 

 useful. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the fossil 

 plants which are preserved in the British Museum are with some 

 few exceptions placed in, and regarded as belonging to, the Depart- 

 ment, not of Botany, but of Geology, and it has been stated to us 

 that the removal of the fossil plants to Kew would mean a dis- 

 memberment of the geologic collection. It must be borne in mind 

 in reference to this question that the Geological Department of the 

 British Museum is not in the ordinary sense a geologic collection, 

 that is, one having relation to what is called stratigraphic geology ; 

 it is essentially a paL^ontologic collection. And it is by reason of 

 this nature of the collection that fossil plants are placed in the 

 collection together with the fossil animals. The position of pale- 

 ontology in the scientific hierarchy is a peculiar one. It is often 

 ranked as a separate science ; and yet from one point of view, one 

 namely which does not regard the geologic side of the matter, it 

 appears as a mixture of zoology and of botany. From the stand- 

 point of botany it would be satisfactory were the National Botanic 

 Collections at Kew completed by the inclusion of the fossil plants ; 

 but we feel that, considering the circumstances in which the fossil 



