256 



NA TURE 



[July 1.3, 1893 



wards, whenever more space will be needed, at small cost and 

 with little interference with existing arrangements. I should 

 also mention that the zoological department of the University, 

 with its admirably appointed laboratories and lecture-room:, 

 and excellent working collection for teaching purposes, is in 

 immediate contact with the museum, and the two institutions, 

 though under different direction, are thus brought into har- 

 monious cooperation. 



Any one who wishes to compare and contrast the two systems 

 upon which a national zoological museum may be arranged 

 cannot do better than visit Paris and Berlin at the present time. 

 He will see excellent illustrations of the best of both. 



Of the museums of the United States of America much may 

 be expected. They are starting up in all directions untram- 

 melled by the restrictions and traditions which envelope so 

 many of our old institutions at home, and many adnirable 

 essays on museum work have reached us from the other side of the 

 Atlantic, from which if appears that the new idea has taken firm 

 root there. In Mr. Brown Goode's lecture on " The Museums 

 of the Future " (Report of the N.v.ional Museum, 1888-89) it is 

 said " In the National Museum in Washington the collections 

 are divided into two great classes. The exhibition series, 

 which constitutes the educational portion of the museu'n and is 

 exposed to public view with all possible accessions for public 

 entertainment and instruction, and the study series, which is 

 kept in scientific laboratories and is scarcely examined except 



VVI NDOWi 



In the first place, I have endeavoured to work out in detail, in 

 its application to natural history, that most original and theoreti- 

 cally perfect plan for a museum of exhibited objects in which 

 there are two main lines of interest running in different direc- 

 tions and intersecting each other, which we owe to the ingenuity 

 of General Pitt-Rivers. This was explained in his address as 

 President of the .\nthropological Section of the British .\siocii- 

 tion at Bath in 1888, and again in a lecture given about two 

 years ago before the Society of Arts. Upon this plan the 

 museum building would consist of a serie; of galleries in the 

 form of circles, one within the other, and commaniciting it fre- 

 quent interval-. Eich circle would represent an epoch in the 

 world's history, commencing in the centre and finishing at the 

 outermost, which would be that in which we are now living. 

 The history of each natural group would be traced in r.idiiiing 

 lines, and so by passing from the centre to the circumference, 

 its condition of development in each period of the world's his- 

 tory could be studied. If, on the other hand, the subject for 

 investigation should be the general fauna or flora of any pir- 

 ticular epoch, it would be found in natural association by coa- 

 fining the attention to the circle representing that period. By 

 such an arrangement that most desirable object, the unioa of 

 palaeontology with the zoology and botany of existing form; in 

 one natural scheme, could be perfectly carried out, as both the 

 structural and the geological relations of each would be pre- 

 served, as indicated by its position in the museum. Such a 



Wl NDOWb 



PUBLIC ENTRANCE 



by professional investigators. In every properly constructed 

 museum the collections must from the very beginning divide 

 themselves into these two classes, and in planning for its ad- 

 ministration, provision should be made not only for the ex- 

 hibition of objects in glass cases, but for the preservation of 

 large collections not available for exhibition to be used for the 

 studies of a very limited number of specialists." 



The museum of comparative zoology at Harvard, founded by 

 the late Louis Agassiz and now ably administered and extended 

 by his son, Alexander Agassiz, is a conspicuous example of 

 the same method of construction and arrangement. But as I 

 can say nothing of these from personal knowledge, I am obliged 

 to leave out any further reference to them on the present 

 occasion. 



From what has just been said it will be gathered that in 

 Europe at least an ideal natural history museum, perfect in 

 original design, as well as in execution, does not exist at pre- 

 sent. We have indeed hardly yet come to an agreement as to 

 the principles upon which such a building should be constructed. 

 But as there are countries which have still their national 

 museums in the future, and as those already built are susceptible 

 of modifications, when the right direction has been determined 

 on I should be glad to take this opportunity of putting on record 

 what appears to me, after long reflection on the subject, the 

 main considerations which should not be lost sight of in such an 

 undertaking. 



NO. 12^7. VOL. 



building would undoubtedly offer difficulties in practical con- 

 struction, but even if these could be got over, our extremely 

 imperfect knowledge of the past history of animal and plant life 

 would make its arrangement with all the gaps and irregularities 

 that would become evident, so unsatisfactory, that I can scarcely 

 hope to see it adopted in the near future. 



I have therefore brought before you a humbler plan, but one 

 which, I think, will be found to embody the practical principles 

 necessary in a working museum of almost any description, large 

 or small. 



The fundamental idea of this plan is that the whole of the 

 building should be divided by lines intersecting at right angles 

 like the warp and the woof of a piece of canvas. 



The lines running in one direction divide the different natural 

 sections of which the collection is composed, and which it is 

 convenient to keep apart ; the lines crossing these separate the 

 portions of the collection according to the method of treatra;nt 

 or conservation. Thus, the exhibited part of the whole collection 

 will come together in a series of rooms, occupying naturally the 

 front of the building. The reserve collections will occupy 

 another, or the middle, section, and beyond these will ht the 

 working rooms, studies, and administrative offices, all in relation 

 to each other, as well as to the particular part of the collection 

 to which they belong. A glance at the plan will show at once 

 the great convenience of such a system, both for the public, and 

 still more for those who work in the museum. 



or 



48] 



