202 J. HOPKINSOIf FOKMATIOIS' AND 



In entering now upon the consideration of the arrangement of our 

 own proposed museum, it will be evident that if anything which 

 is not local, which has not been found within the limits of our 

 county, is to be admitted, the museum should consist of at least two 

 departments, kept perfectly distinct — a local in one room, and an 

 educational in another — and I think that our Society should only 

 undertake the responsibility of forming the local collection. The 

 educational collection would more appropriately be formed by the 

 Public Library Committee, as representing the Watford School of 

 Science and Art, and working under the Public Libraries and 

 Museums Act, and therefore able to command funds and acquire 

 specimens which it would be impossible for our Society to do. 

 Such an arrangement would also, more effectually than any other, 

 insure the carrying out of the most important feature in any pro- 

 vincial museum, the entire separation of the local collection from 

 the educational and from everything else. 



All objects may primarily be classed as natural and artificial. 

 Two distinct departments of any local collection are therefore 

 clearly indicated. Natural objects may be classed as mineral, vege- 

 table, Q-ndi animal ; artificial objects as archaeological and of recent 

 production. One department of a local collection should therefore 

 be devoted to geology, botany, and zoology, the other to antiquities 

 and modern art. 



The department of art and antiquities, as not within the scope of 

 our Society, need not be further considered. I may, however, 

 suggest in passing that the formation of a collection illustrative of 

 the antiquities of Hertfordshire, and of the fine and industrial art- 

 works of its inhabitants — the latter especially designed to show the 

 several processes in the conversion of the raw produce of the county 

 to economic purposes — should be one of the first objects aimed at 

 if our museum is to worthily represent our county, and to contain 

 something of interest for all who may visit it. 



The separation of our natural-history collection into a geological, 

 a botanical, and a zoological division requires a little explanation 

 before the sections into which these main divisions may be separated 

 are treated of ; for the geological division will not strictly represent 

 the mineral kingdom of nature. In addition to minerals it may 

 contain plants and animals in a fossil state. It has been urged 

 that fossil plants and animals should rightly be arranged with the 

 recent forms ; but although there may be some advantage in such 

 an arrangement when the intention is to illustrate the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms as completely as possible, for which purpose 

 the fossil forms may be intercalated Avith the recent in one series, 

 for a local collection I think that it is undoubtedly best to keep 

 the fossil and the recent forms entirely distinct.* 



* There is much diversity of opinion upon this point. Dr. Sclater says : "I 

 do not hesitate to support the view put forward by Prof. Flower and other 

 naturalists, that the palajontological department of the British Museum, as at 

 present constituted, ought to be abolished, and its contents distributed amongst 

 the zoological and botanical collections." (' Eep. Brit. Assoc, for 1870,' Trans. 



