NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS 



the materials of which museums are constructed. The various 

 methods by which the mind of man has been able to reproduce 

 the forms of natural objects or to give expression to the images 

 created by his own fancy, from the rudest scratchings of a 

 savage on a bone, or the simplest arrangement of lines 

 employed in ornamenting the roughest piece of pottery, up to 

 the most lovely combinations of form and colour hitherto 

 attained in sculpture or in painting, or in works in metal or 

 in clay, depend altogether on museums for their preservation, 

 for our knowledge of their condition and history in the past, 

 and for the lessons which they can convey for the future. 



Apart from the delight which the contemplation of the 

 noblest expressions of art must produce in all cultivated minds, 

 apart also from the curiosity and interest that must be excited 

 by all the less successfully executed attempts to produce 

 similar results, as materials for constructing the true history of 

 the life of man, at different stages of civilisation, in different 

 circumstances of living, and in divers regions of the earth, such 

 collections are absolutely invaluable. 



But I must pass them by in order to dwell more in detail 

 upon those which specially concern the advancement of the 

 subjects which come under the notice of this Association 

 museums devoted to the so-called " natural history " sciences, 

 although much which will be said of them will doubtless be 

 more or less applicable to museums in general. 



The terms natural history and naturalist have become 

 deeply rooted in our language, but without any very definite 

 conception of their meaning or the scope of their application. 

 Originally applied to the study of all the phenomena of the / 

 universe which are independent of the agency of man, natural 

 history has gradually narrowed down in most people's minds, 

 in consequence of the invention of convenient and generally 

 understood and accepted terms for some of its various sub- 

 divisions, as astronomy, chemistry, geology, etc., into that 

 portion of the subject which treats of the history of creatures 

 endowed with life, for which, until lately, no special name had 

 been invented. Even from this limitation botany was 

 gradually disassociating itself in many quarters, and a 

 " naturalist " and a " zoologist " have nearly become, however ^ 



