BRITISH MUSEUM AND KEW 381 



the public were never admitted) and where the specimens 

 would be arranged for work and not for show. . . . Prox- 

 imity to the Zoological Gardens and its live beasts and 

 birds is however, I fear, the only pretext that could be offered 

 for not accepting the K. Gore offer. 



The real secret of our anxiety is, not that the separation 

 from Art at Gt. Russell Street would be injurious, but that 

 we would lack support as a National Museum of Nat. Hist, 

 except we huddled our collections under the wing of art. 

 This gives our cause a bad look. 



I do truly say that we at Kew do not want the Brit. 

 Mus. Herbarium here at any price ; it is no use to us, and 

 if it be the means of breaking up the Brit. Mus. Nat. Hist, 

 collections, or withdrawing support from them, I shall deeply 

 regret its coming here ; but as an honest man I must say 

 (with every working Botanist) that it is for the interests of 

 Botanical Science it should come here ; it would take 22 

 years and as many thousand pounds to make the B. M. 

 Herbarium anything like ours here, and there are no men 

 to do it. Besides which, a working herbarium cannot be 

 kept clean enough to work with in London ; it must, if 

 worked with, be exposed for hours daily to dust by great 

 portions at a time. 



So far as the Bot. Department is concerned the Trustees 

 are in an awful fix, and my opinion being clearly that they 

 should clean, poison, and stop adding to the Banksian Herb, 

 and the Govt, should take my Father's as the National Herb., 

 keep the plants at Kew and increase it so as to keep it as 

 far ahead of all others as it now is, I am far too deeply 

 personally interested in the matter to take any prominent 

 part with decorum. 



I am further for having at the British Museum a Botanical 

 collection, illustrating Plant life such as Henslow could best 

 plan and develop, and for which perhaps our friend Lindley 

 or Henfrey would be a highly quahfied keeper. It should 

 be as popular as Bentham suggests in every respect, but 

 also as scientific in its details and completeness as the most 

 profound vegetable Physiologist and Anatomist could wish. 

 This would cost httle, be very instructive to the Pubhc, and 

 useful to men of Science. It would be unique, there would 

 be nothing hke it in the world. I had often planned such 



