xxn RICHARD OWEN 375 



he gave at the Koyal Institution in the previous year. Much 

 controversy arose ahout this time as to the best principle of 

 museum organisation, Owen adhering to the old view of a 

 public exhibition on a very extensive scale, while the greater 

 number of naturalists of the time preferred the system of 

 dividing the collections into a comparatively limited public 

 exhibition, the bulk of the specimens being kept in a manner 

 accessible only to the researches of advanced students. The 

 Eoyal Commission on the Advancement of Science, of which 

 the late Duke of Devonshire was chairman, investigated the 

 subject fully, and reported (in 1874) in favour of the latter 

 view ; but in the new building in the Cromwell Eoad there 

 was, unfortunately, little provision made for carrying it out 

 in a satisfactory manner. 



As long ago as 1859, in one of his reports on the subject 

 to the Trustees, Owen recommended that the new museum 

 building, " besides giving the requisite accommodation to the 

 several classes of natural history objects, as they had been by 

 authority exhibited and arranged for public instruction and 

 gratification, should also include a hall or exhibition space 

 for a distinct department, adapted to convey an elementary 

 knowledge of the subjects of all the divisions of natural 

 history to the large proportion of public visitors not specially 

 conversant with any of those subjects." The same idea, in a 

 later publication, is thus described : " One of the most popular 

 and instructive features in a public collection of natural history 

 would be an apartment devoted to the specimens selected to 

 show type-characters of the principal groups of organised and 

 crystallised forms. This would constitute an epitome of 

 natural history, and should convey to the eye, in the easiest 

 way, an elementary knowledge of the sciences." In every 

 modification which the plans of the new building underwent, 

 a hall for the purpose indicated in the above passages formed 

 a prominent feature, being in the later stages of the develop- 

 ment of the building, called, for want of a better name, the 

 " Index Museum." Though Owen gave the suggestion and 

 designed the general plan of the hall, the arrangement of its 

 contents was left to his successor to carry out. 



In another part of his original scheme he was less success- 



