x Introduction. 



the Chief Commissioner of Works to take up the unfinished work 

 of Captain Fowke ; but he found himself unable to complete the 

 plan to his own satisfaction, and in February, 1868, he was 

 commissioned to form a fresh design, embodying the require- 

 ments of the officers of the Natural History Departments of the 

 Museum. 



Mr. Waterhouse was not long in submitting to the Trustees his 

 plan and model of the building, with a disposition of galleries as 

 required, and these were formally accepted by the Trustees in 

 April, 1868. It was nob, however, until February, 1871, that 

 the working plans had been thoroughly considered, and received 

 the final approval of the Trustees. 



The actual work of erection was commenced in the year 1873, 

 and the building was handed over to the Trustees of the British 

 Museum by Her Majesty's Commissioner of Works in the month 

 of June, 1880. Immediately that the exhibition cases were 

 completed, and the galleries were sufficiently dry to receive the 

 collections, the great labour of removing the Natural History 

 Collection from Bloomsbury was commenced. The departments 

 of Geology, Mineralogy, and Botany were arranged in their 

 respective sections of the Museum in the course of the year 1880, 

 and the portion of the Museum which contained these departments 

 was first opened to the public on April 18th, 1881. It was not 

 until the following year that the cases destined to receive the 

 larger collections of the Zoological Department were sufficiently 

 near completion to allow of these collections following, and three 

 more years were required before all the rooms could be brought 

 into a state fitted for public inspection. 



The original collections of the Natural History Departments 

 of the British Museum are, as stated above, those of Sir Hans 

 Sloane. The addition to these of the collections of Sir Joseph 

 Banks (1827), and the long continuous accession of new collec- 

 tions during 150 years, some purchased and many presented by 

 naturalists whose names are historical as authorities and bene- 

 factors of science has rendered the Museum at the present day 

 the richest and most important in the world. The gradual 

 development of the separate departments of Botany, Geology, 



