Geological Survey of Great Britain. 231 
their relative strength, the expenses of their quarrying and 
facility of transport ; on the other hand, they also directed 
great attention to their properties of withstanding decom- 
position, as evinced by the different kinds of stone in existing 
edifices, which date from the earliest periods ; and thus, after 
long-continued exertions, they established a comparative col- 
lection, which, from having been published, not only solved 
the question for the special case, but gives every architect 
the means of choosing, with the greatest security, the most 
suitable material for every edifice to be erected in any part of 
Great Britain. 
As at every opportunity Sir H. De la Béche laboured to 
bring into general practical application the results furnished 
by science, so out of a work simply intended for the advan- 
tage of industry, he now saw how to derive a corresponding 
boon for science. According to his proposal, it was deter- 
mined to preserve all the specimens of rock collected during 
this inquiry, and to arrange them in a special museum, the 
collections of which at once increased from year to year. 
Soon afterwards it was destined to receive specimens of all 
the minerals, rocks, and petrifactions found in England, to 
add by the side of the raw materials of the mineral kingdom 
examples of the industrial products obtained from the same 
by manufacture, and to exhibit, by complete series, the gra- 
dual changes which the original material undergoes, till it is 
metamorphosed into something of utility in ordinary life. 
Moreover, a bureau was attached to the museum, under the 
name of the Mining Record Office, and under the direction of 
Mr Robert Hunt, which collects historical and statistical in- 
formation of importance to mining, maps of mines, plans, 
&e., publishing the most important, and keeping the rest 
prepared for the inspection of individuals. 
But the most important epochs in the history of the under- 
takings here described, is the reorganisation which was 
effected in 1845. Sir H. De la Béche had been till then 
always under the Ordnance Survey; but, in the above- 
mentioned year, he was placed under the department of 
Woods and Forests, and, at the same time, a new and com- 
prehensive extension of his charge was granted. 
