May 14, 1891] 



NATURE 



manners and customs of our Government Departments in relation 

 to science will be surprised to hear that this magnificent offer was 

 refused ; and it is to prevent a like disastrous mistake being 

 now made that the strong memorial was presented to Lord 

 Salisbury. 



The ideal arrangement for a great national collection of scien- 

 tific apparatus which is to do for the sciences of experiment and 

 observation what the British Museum does for literature and 

 antiquities, the Natural History Museum for biology, and the 

 National Gallery for art, is that it shall be in close connection 

 with laboratories where the apparatus can be used, presided 

 over by experts who are familiarly acquainted with its construc- 

 tion and uses. 



This was the ideal recommended to the Government by the 

 Duke of Devonshire's Commission in 1874, and such is the 

 ideal now being carried out by several of our provincial Colleges. 



As all Londoners know, at present the Science Schools and 

 the collection of scientific apparatus, which are both necessary 

 for the realization of this scheme, are placed one on the east 

 side of Exhibition Road, and the other chiefly in the Western 

 Galleries, If the apparatus is employed in teaching, it must 

 necessarily be transported about a quarter of a mile and back 

 from the one to the other. And this accounts for the strange 

 processions occasionally met in the neighbourhood of the Museum 

 carrying delicate apparatus along the street alike in wet and dusty 

 weather. 



When the new piece of land was purchased last year on the 

 recommendation of a very strong Treasury Committee, it was 

 naturally expected that, as the overcrowded state of the existing 

 school buildings rendered immediate action imperative, plans 

 would be at once drawn up for an extension in the closest 

 possible contiguity with the present building — that is to say, on 

 the part of the newly-acquired plot immediately fronting it. 



It was also believed that the Science Museum would be built 

 in close and organic relation with the new laboratories, and 

 that a scheme would be initiated which would supply pressing 

 needs, and could, in course of time, be developed into the ideal 

 institution which has been sketched. 



These plans, to the carrying out of which the friends of 

 science confidently looked forward, would be rendered abso- 

 lutely futile by the grant for art purposes of the particular 

 plot the alienation of which from the use for which it was pur- 

 chased will render the objects of its purchase nugatory. 



All hope of a compact site, therefore, for the future worthy 

 representation of physical science would disappear as the result 

 of this action of the Government. 



The public have a right to know who is responsible for this, 

 and how far the scientific officers of the Science and Art 

 Department have been consulted. If they have in any way been 

 consenting parties, it seems probable that they will have a 

 viauvais quart d'/ieure with their scientific brethren who have 

 signed the memorial and who attended the deputation ; if they 

 have not been consulted, the whole transaction is a disgrace to 

 our administrative system. 



An idea of the impasse in which this decision has landed 

 matters scientific at South Kensington was to be gathered from 

 one of Mr. Goschen's replies as to the makeshift arrangements 

 at first proposed : — 



(i) The second half of the Science Schools is to be built 

 somewhere at the back of the new Art Gallery. This at once 

 prevents all close relationship between the two halves of the 

 same institution. 



(2) The scientific apparatus is to be distributed in galleries 

 which, although built for artistic purposes, are not considered 

 good enough for art. 



These, I presume, are the Western Gallery, the present 

 terminus a quo of the processions to which reference has been 

 made, a corresponding Eastern Gallery, now occupied by the t 

 Indian Museum, and the upper part of a new gallery, also de- i 

 signed for art, situated between the Imperial Institute and the I 

 Royal College of Music. All these galleries are as far removed as ; 

 the limits of the Government estate will permit from the Science 

 Schools, with which they are supposed to be in organic connection. 



It appears, therefore, that the provision to be made for the 

 Science Museum, which ought to rank, and in the future must 

 rank, with the British Museum,, the National Gallery, and other 

 like institutions, is that the two halves of the Science Schools 

 are to be widely sundered, while any organic connection with the 

 Science Museum is to be rendered impossible. 



I do not think. Sir, I need occupy any more of your space 

 with recent history ; the whole question stands thus : — 



(1) In our museum system Art, Antiquities, Literature, and 

 Natural History are magnificently provided for. 



(2) Science is not provided for at all in any permanent 

 manner. 



(3) During the last twenty years Royal Commissions, Treasury 

 and Departmental Committees without number, and deputations, 

 have pointed out this gap. 



(4) Last year the Government bought, and the Royal Com- 

 missioners for the Exhibition of 1851 sold cheap, a plot of land 

 to be used for this purpose, and for this purpose alone. 



(5) The plot is less than half of that on which the Natural 

 History Museum stands. 



(6) The Government now barter away a large portion of this 

 small site for a mess of pottage. 



I am, Sir, 



Your obedient servant, 



F.R.S. 



! NOTES. 



The ladies' soiree of the Royal Society will take place on 

 ( Wednesday, June 17. 



On Tuesday the Convocation of the University of London 

 considered the Draft Charter drawn up by the Senate. A 

 resolution to the effect that the scheme should be approved was 

 moved by Lord Herschell, seconded by Sir Richard Quain, and 

 supported by Dr. Pye Smith. Mr. Bompas, Q.C., Mr. R. H. 

 Hutton, and others spoke on the other side. In the end the 

 scheme was rejected, 461 voting against it, and only 197 

 recording their votes in its favour. The whole subject needs to 

 be thoroughly reconsidered, as the question of the higher 

 teaching, one of the points first insisted on, seems to be drop- 

 ping out of view. To educationists this is, of course, the 

 really important element of the subject ; and it cannot be for 

 ever tolerated that the existence of an Imperial Examining 

 Board, because it has been wrongly named, should prevent the 

 largest city in the world from securing educational advantages 

 which have for centuries been possessed by many a small 

 German town. 



The Government of New South Wales have granted for the 

 purposes of the Sydney Biological Station a plot of land of two 

 acres on the north shore of Port Jackson at a part where the 

 littoral fauna is particularly rich, and where the conditions are 

 in other respects highly favourable. The Royal Society have 

 made a grant of ^^50 towards the cost of the proposed new 

 station. 



The annual meeting of the German Ornithological Society is 

 being held this year at Frankfort, and the attendance is some- 

 what larger than usual, as several ornithologists have stopped at 

 Frankfort on their way to the Congress at Budapest. The sub- 

 ject of zoological nomenclature was considered on Tuesday, 

 when a discussion on the rules proposed by Dr. Reichenow and 

 Graf von Berlepsch ensued. The question will be further con- 

 sidered at the forthcoming Ornithological Congress at Budapest, 

 where Dr. Reichenow will be the exponent in the systematic 

 section. 



The conversazione of the Society of Arts will be held at the 

 South Kensington Museum on Wednesday evening, June 17. 



M. Edmond Becquerel, son, and successor as Professor, of 

 Antoine Cesar Becquerel, died on Monday, in Paris, at the age 

 of 71. He was the author of treatises on the solar spectrum, 

 the electric light, magnetic phenomena, and other scientific 

 subjects. 



Prof. James Geikie, of the University of Edinburgh, has 

 been delivering a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute, 



NO. I 124, VOL. 44] 



