814 THE JOURNAL OK BOTANY 



plants are housed at the British ]\[useum, we should in a certain 

 sense he going heyond our instructions, and he taking up a definite 

 attitude towards pah^ontology, if we were to recommend that fossil 

 phmts, heing hotanic specimens, should, together with the hotanic 

 collections, he transferred from the British ^luseum to Kew. ^Ye 

 therefore make no recommendation concerning the collection of 



fossil plants 



lurom)HtiuIations. 



We accordingly recommend : — 



1. That the whole of the hotanic collections at the British 

 Museum now administered hy the Keeper of the Department of 

 Botany under the Trustees, with the exception of the collections ex- 

 hibited to the public, be transferred to the Royal Botanic Gardens, 

 Kew, and placed in the charge of the First Commissioner of His 

 Majesty's Works and Public Buildings under conditions indicated 

 below, adequate accommodation being there provided for them. 



2. That a Board, on Nvhich the Trustees of the British Museum, 

 the Royal Society, and certain Departments of His Majesty's 

 Government should be directly represented, be established in order 

 to advise on all questions of a scientific nature arising out of the 

 administration of the Gardens, the powers and duties of the Board, 

 its relations to the First Commissioner and to the Director, as well 

 as the position of the latter and the functions of the Gardens, being 

 defined by Minute of the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's 

 Treasury. 



3. That the illustrative botanic collections now pubhcly ex- 

 hibited at the British Museum be maintained, and, so far as it is 

 possible and expedient, enlarged and developed with the view of 

 increasing popular interest, and imparting popular instruction in 

 the phenomena of the vegetable world, and be placed under the 

 charge of an officer of adequate scientific attainments, responsible 

 to the Director of the Natural History Departments. 



4. That upon the transference of the botanic collections from 

 the British Museum to the Royal Botanic Gardens, such arrange- 

 ments be made both in respect to the accommodation of the 

 collections and the staft" administering them, that they shall fully 

 serve the purposes which they have hitherto served. 



5. That the botanic collections consisting of fossil plants, now 

 in the charge of the Keeper of the Department of Geology in the 

 British Museum, be maintained for the present under the same 

 conditions as heretofore. 



Lord Avebury's Memorandum. 



I regret that I am unable to concur with my colleagues in their 

 recommendation that the herbarium now in the British Museum 

 should be transferred to Kew. 



It seems no doubt at first sight an anomalous arrangement that 

 there should be two national herbaria ; firstly, on account of the 

 expense ; and secondly, because botanists in some cases have to 

 consult two collections instead of one. But the evidence shows 

 that the saving of annual expense through the suggested fusion 



