X PROPOSAL FOR CENTRAL HALL 139 



Hall, the one feature in the building which survived 

 from among the proposals of Owen, In it he, as 

 we have said before, intended to place his ** Index 

 Museum." Flower at once determined to use it for 

 a different purpose from that of the other parts of 

 the building. But while so far accepting Owen's 

 idea, he entirely changed the concept. 



In his report to the Trustees, dated January i, 

 1885, after referring to the progress made in the 

 departments of Geology, Botany, and Mineralogy, 

 in which the arrangement after the transfer from 

 Bloomsbury was almost complete, and to the Zoo- 

 logical Department, the collections in which, being 

 the last to be moved from Bloomsbury, were in a 

 less forward state, Flower wrote : — 



Of the Central Hall, which is more especially under the charge 

 of the Director (himself), more must be said. In the original 

 plan of the Museum it was designed for the purpose of exhibiting 

 a collection of specimens . . . which has been at various times 

 styled an "index" collection and a "type" collection. Owing 

 to the urgent requirements of other departments, little progress 

 has been made in collecting and arranging specimens for this 

 collection. A definite commencement has, however, now been 

 made upon a systematic plan, the intention of which is to illustrate 

 the leading points in the structure of each large group (such as 

 those to which the term " class " is erroneously applied) by care- 

 fully selected and prepared specimens, accompanied by explana- 

 tory descriptions pointing out the typical form, with the most 

 important deviations from it, and the terms by which these are 

 known in current zoological literature. 



The illustrations to such a series will be mostly of a different 

 nature from those at present in the other parts of the Museum, 

 as they will not merely be specimens but parts, the corresponding 



