Atigust 15, 1878] 



NATURE 



403 



OVR NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS 



n^HE Bill to enable the trustees of the British Museum 

 to remove the natural history collections to South 

 Kensington, on which we commented in our issue of 

 August I, has passed both Houses and virtually become 

 law. The measure having been introduced at a late 

 period of the session, and hurried through all its stages, 

 evidently for the express purpose of eluding observation, 

 it could hardly have been expected that the result would 

 have been otherwise. The assent of the Treasury was of 

 course secured before the Bill was introduced, and it is 

 by no means surprising that, what with Cyprus and 

 Turkey, and the enormous pressure of other more in- 

 teresting business, it was never discovered by the Govern- 

 ment that the Bill was exactly contrary to the recom- 

 mendations of the Royal Commission on Science, So 

 far, therefore, the trustees have it all their own way, and 

 are now authorised to continue at South Kensington the 

 system of government that has made the state of our 

 national natural history collections at Bloomsbury so 

 long a byeword amongst naturalists. There remains, 

 however, still one more chance of introducing some 

 salutary reforms into the present system. Following on 

 the authority to remove the collections, which the trustees 

 have now obtained, money will be required to carry out 

 the transfer, and to obtain the requisite funds a fresh 

 application to Parliament will be necessary. 



This application will, no doubt, be made in the ensuing 

 session, but before it is complied with we trust that some 

 sort of terms will be obtained from the trustees. In the 

 first place they should be required to delegate the control 

 of the New Natural History Museum to a small com- 

 mittee, in which should be included the two or three 

 naturalisis who now happen to be members of the trust. 

 It is obvious that most of the great dignitaries of state 

 and eminent noblemen who form the trustees of the 

 British Museum, neither know nor care anything about 

 natural history. Until recently, indeed, there has not 

 been a single person who could fairly be called a natural- 

 ist on the trust. Lately, however, two excellent natural- 

 ists (Sir John Lubbock and Lord Walsingham) have 

 become ordinary members of the trust, and Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, as president of the Royal Society, is ex 

 officio one of the trustees. A committee consisting 

 of these gentlemen and of a few others, who might be 

 presumed to have some general acquaintance with the 

 requirements of modern science, would, we need hardly 

 say, completely command the confidence of naturalists, 

 and would answer to the board of visitors, which the 

 Royal Commission on Science in their Report suggested 

 should be constituted to look after the director. In the 

 second place the chief executive officer of the new museimi 

 should be appointed secretary to the trustees ad hoc, and 

 the estimates for the two buildings should be kept entirely 

 separate. So long as there remains any sort of subordi- 

 nation of the natural history to the principal librarian, 

 who is the sole executive officer of the trustees at Blooms- 

 bury, the old policy will be continued. The natural 

 history will be starved in order to feed the overgrown 

 library, and the petty restrictions and regxilations which 

 have so long vexed the souls of the visitors to the 

 British Museum will be continued at South Kensing- 



ton. The best chance of obtaining the necessary reforms 

 lies in an entire change of administration, and for this 

 reason it is much to be lamented that the recommend- 

 ation of the Royal Commission on Science to place the 

 New Museum of Natural History directly under the control 

 of the Government has not been attended to. Still if the 

 Trustees can be induced to commit the management of 

 the new institution to a well-selected delegacy and to 

 appoint a director free from the evil influence of Blooms- 

 bury, there is every hepe that our New Museum of Natural 

 History may be worthy of the nation, and take rank with 

 the sister institutions of Paris, Leyden, and Berlin. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 



Dublin, Monday 

 'X* 0-DAY the Reception Room was opened in Trinity 

 -*- College, the Examination Hall being used for this 

 purpose ; and the doors were scarcely opened before a 

 rush for tickets took place, and 500 associate tickets 

 were sold in the course of two or three hours. As 

 usual, the local honorary secretaries are working vigor- 

 ously, and so far the arrangements they have made seem 

 to be excellent ; in fact, it is generally admitted that at 

 few places has the British Association had so excellent a 

 reception nor so convenient and complete accommoda- 

 tion. One feature in this meeting is the shilling lunch 

 tickets, which every member can procure, and that en- 

 titles him to an excellent lunch, costing at least double 

 the price of his ticket. The numerous foreign visitors 

 have been lodged at the chief hotels, and private hospi- 

 tahty has been offered to the leading members of the 

 Association who have announced their intention of being 

 present. 



With regard to a paragraph in a contemporary on the 

 soreness which has been produced in Dublin by the 

 cavalier treatment local scientific men have received 

 from the Council of the Association, and stating that 

 local papers would be withheld, we are able to contradict 

 the latter part of this statement, although it cannot be 

 denied that considerable umbrage has been given by the 

 singular omission of some most distinguished local names 

 from the first list of sectional officers ; notably is this the 

 case in Section G, Mechanical Science. But the list is 

 stated to be incomplete, and doubtless the omissions will 

 be repaired at the first meeting of the General Committee 

 before these lines are published. 



The guide-book which is issued to the Association has 

 each year become a more and more important work, 

 and that to Dublin is certainly the most complete and 

 most carefully compiled of any that we have seen. Nine 

 months ago a guide-book committee was formed, and 

 this committee, after breaking up into different sections, 

 has worked unremittingly to make their undertaking as 

 accurate and complete as possible. No better editors, 

 could have been chosen than Professors MacAlister and 

 McNab, who, besides the distinguished position they hold 

 in their own departments of zoology and botany, possess 

 an intimate acquaintance with the topography and biology 

 of the neighbourhood, and who, since the beginning of 

 the year, have unsparingly devoted their time to their 

 arduous editorial labours — labours that have been largely 

 augmented by the unexpected and unfortunate delays on 

 the part of the firm of printers to whom the MSS. was 

 first sent months ago. Thus it comes about that a 

 somewhat awkward division is made into two unequal 

 parts; but the division is one created by the printers 

 and not by the nature of the contents. It is right to add 

 that the thanks of the Association are due to Messrs. 

 Dollard for the energy and skill which they have shown 

 in the final printing of the guide-book. The book is illus- 

 trated with three maps ; the first is a ten-mile to the inch 

 map of the County Dublin ; the second an admirable 



