explained in a small work entitled ' On the Extent and Aims of a 

 National Museum of Natural History,' published in 1862, being an 

 expansion of the lecture he gave at the Royal Institution in the 

 previous year. Much controversy arose about this time as to the best 

 principle of museum organization, Owen adhering to the old view of 

 a public exhibition on a very extensive scale, while the greater 

 number of naturalists of the time preferred the system of dividing 

 the collections into a comparatively limited public exhibition, the 

 bulk of the specimens being kept in a manner accessible only to the 

 j-esearches of advanced students. The Royal Commission on the 

 Advancement of Science, of which the Duke of Devonshire was 

 Chairman, investigated the subject fully, and reported (in 1874) in 

 favour of the latter view ; but in the new building at South Ken- 

 sington there was, unfortunately, little provision made for carrying 

 it oat in a satisfactory manner. 



As long ago as 1859, in one of his reports on the subject to the 

 Trustees, Owen recommended that the new museum building, "besides 

 giving the requisite accommodation to the several classes of natural 

 history objects, as they had been by authority exhibited and 

 arranged for public instruction and gratification, should also include 

 a hall or exhibition space for a distinct department, adapted to 

 convey an elementary knowledge of the subjects of all the divisions 

 of natural history to the large proportion of public visitors not 

 specially conversant with any of those subjects." The same idea, in 

 a later publication, is thus described : " One of the most popular and 

 instructive features in a public collection of natural history would be 

 an apartment devoted to the specimens selected to show type charac- 

 ters of the principal groups of organised and crystallised forms. 

 This would constitute an epitome of natural history, and should 

 convey to the eye, in the easiest way, an elementary knowledge of 

 the sciences." In every modification which the plans of the new 

 building underwent, a hall for the purpose indicated in the above 

 passages formed a prominent feature, being in the later stages of the 

 development of the building, called, for want of a better name, the 

 " Index Museum." Though Owen gave the suggestion and designed 

 the general plan of the hall, the arrangement of its contents was left 

 to his successor to carry out. 



In another part of his original scheme he was less successful. 

 The lecture theatre which he had throughout urged with great 

 pertinacity as a necessary accompaniment to a natural history 

 museum was, as he says in the address referred to above, " erased 

 from my plan, and the elementary courses of lectures remain for 

 future fulfilment." 



On several other important questions of museum arrangement, 

 Owen allowed his views, even when essentially philosophical as well 



