54 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER CHAP. 



no detail unessential. The invention of movable 

 type for printing, as the result of a clear aim at a 

 principle and great object, benefited the whole world 

 by one mechanical aid to knowledge. Flower 

 determined that in future museums Nature itself 

 should be printed in movable type and illustrate its 

 own story, subject only to the intervention of man 

 as Naturae minister et interpres. In the chambers 

 and galleries in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as he found 

 them, the skeletons were the books, the bones the 

 pages, and the "preparations" of particular parts 

 the illustrations ; but it was a library which needed 

 almost re-creating. To begin with, the " books " 

 were inaccessible and the " pages " could not be 

 turned. The galleries and cases were filled with 

 the frames of the mammalia, from men to mammoths, 

 and from mammoths to mice. But the larger books 

 were out of reach. The skeletons stood on high 

 stands, and no one could compare the skull or the 

 bones of one animal with those of another unless a 

 pair of steps were available. The skeletons were 

 also rigid, all the parts being fastened together. 

 Thus, at a time when comparative anatomy was 

 engaging earnest attention, there were few or no 

 facilities even for looking first at a part in one species 

 and laying it beside a corresponding part in another, 

 and much that required examination was practically 

 out of sight. One of the earlier improvements made 

 by the new Conservator was to reduce the height of 

 the stands to as low as six inches or a foot, so that 



