xxn RICHARD OWEN 369 



intendent of the Natural History Departments of the Museum. 

 It was thought that hitherto these departments, being under 

 the direct control of a chief who had been invariably chosen 

 from the literary side of the establishment, and whose title 

 in fact was that of " Principal Librarian," had not obtained 

 their due share of attention in the general and financial 

 administration, and that if they were grouped together and 

 placed under a strong administrator, who should be able to 

 exercise influence in advocating their claims to consideration, 

 and who should be responsible for their internal working, 

 their relative position in the establishment would be im- 

 proved. Owen was accordingly placed in this position, and 

 bade farewell to the College of Surgeons, its museum, and 

 its lectures. At the British Museum, however, he encountered 

 the difficulties which are nearly always experienced by an 

 outsider suddenly imported into the midst of an existing 

 establishment without any very well-defined position. The 

 Principal Librarian, Sir A. Panizzi, was a man of strong will 

 and despotic character, and little disposed to share any of 

 his authority with another. The heads of the departments, 

 especially Dr. J. E. Gray, Keeper of Zoology, preferred to 

 maintain the independence to which they were accustomed 

 within their own sphere of action, and to have no intermediary 

 between them and the Trustees, except the Principal Librarian, 

 who, though perhaps with little sympathy, had also, from lack 

 of special knowledge, ^but little power of interference in detail. 

 Hence Owen found himself in a situation the duties of which 

 were little more than nominal, probably for him the best that 

 could have been, as it gave his indomitable industry full play 

 in the directions for which his talents were best fitted, and 

 with the magnificent material in the collections of the Museum 

 at his command, he set to work with great vigour upon a 

 renewed series of researches, the results of which for many 

 years taxed the resources of most of the scientific societies 

 of London to publish. It followed from the nature of the 

 materials that came most readily to his hand, and the smaller 

 facilities for dissection now available than those afforded by 

 the College of Surgeons, that his original work was henceforth 

 mainly confined to osteology, and chiefly to that of extinct 



2 B 



