Xil INTRODUCTION. 



sioners of each country among its exhibitors, who display their 

 objects subject to certain general rules of classification as they 

 -consider most advantageous, retaining the custody of their own 

 property. The expenses of transport, arrangement, etc., are borne 

 T}y the countries who exhibit. And the Exhibitions appeal 

 naturally, more or less exclusively, to the industrial or trade- 

 producing interests of those countries. 



This was not the idea of the proposed Loan Collection at 

 South Kensington. For that Collection it was desired to obtain 

 not only apparatus and objects from manufacturers, but also 

 objects of historic interest from museums and private cabinets, 

 where they are treasured as sacred relics, as well as apparatus in 

 present use in the Laboratories of Professors. The transport of 

 all objects was undertaken by the English Government, and they 

 were to be handed over absolutely to the custody of the Science 

 and Art Department for exhibition j the arrangement being not 

 by countries but strictly according to the general classification. 



So soon as the object and scope of the Collection were 

 thoroughly understood, the Committee of Council on Education 

 met with the most gratifying responses to their invitations, which 

 were communicated officially through the Foreign Office. Her 

 Majesty's Ministers at Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburgh, Vienna, 

 Florence, Brussels, the Hague, Stockholm, Madrid, Berne, and 

 Washington, have personally interested themselves in the matter ; 

 and the Foreign Governments have afforded every facility and 

 encouragement in forwarding this strictly international under- 

 taking. The subjoined list of the foreign members of the General 

 Committee speaks for itself, by the eminence and European 

 reputation of its members. 



BELGIUM. 



M. Stas, Membre de 1'Academie Royale (President). 



M. le General Brialraont, President de 1'Academie Royale et Inspecteur 



General du Genie. 

 M. Devvalque, Membre de 1'Academie Royale, Professeur de Geologic et de 



Mineralogie a 1'Universite de Liege. 



