Scpf. I, 1881] 



NATURE 



421 



SECTION D 



BIOLOGY 



Opening Address by Richard Owen, C.B., F.R.S., 

 President of the Section 



The recent construction of the edifice of the British Museum 

 (Natural History), Cnmwell Road,^ and the transference thereto 

 of three of the Depa-tments, the systematic arrangement of 

 whicli in their respective galleries approaches closely to comple- 

 tion, have left me little leisure in the present year for other 

 scientific work. The expression, moreover, in divers forms and 

 degrees of the satisfaction and instruction such partial exhibition 

 of the national treasures of natural history has afforded to all 

 classes of visitors since ihe galleries were open to the public, in 

 April last, encourages me to believe that a few words on this 

 great additional instrument in ailvancing biological science may 

 not be unacceptable to the Section of the British Association 

 which I have now the honour to address. 



It is true that when we last met at Swansea, my accomplished 

 colleague. Dr. Albert Giinther, F.R.S., selected a general de- 

 scription of the building as the subject of his address to 

 Section D. 



I was unwilling then, in consideration of the time of the 

 Section already given to the matter, to respond to appeals of 

 some of our fellow-members for information as to how, and 

 through whom, tlie new Museum came to be, and to be where it 

 is ; but now, honoured by my present position, I venture to hope 

 that a brief outline of its genetic history, which I have been pre- 

 paring for publication in a fuller form, may be condoned. 



In the actual phase of our Science, its cultivators, especially 

 the younger generation, do not rest upon the determination and 

 description, however minute and exhaustive, of the acquisitions 

 so rapidly accumulating of objects or "new species"; but devote 

 themselves also, and more especially, to the investigation of their 

 developmental phenomena. 



It has, therefore, seemed to me that it would not be inap- 

 propriate, as being germane to the present phase of research, to 

 submit to the Section a few words on the genesis of this new 

 national edifice, generously provided by the .State for the promo- 

 tion of Biology. 



On the demise, in 1856, of Sir Henry Ellis, K.T., then 

 Principal Librarian of the British Museum, the Government, 

 made aware of the growth of the Departments of natural history, 

 more especially of geology and palieontology, since the founda- 

 tion of the Mu-eum in 1753, when the collections of prin'ed 

 books and manuscripts predominated, determined that, together 

 with a principal librarian, there should lie associated a new 

 official having special charge of the collections of natural 

 history, but under similar snbor linate relations to the Trustees. 

 To thii official was assigned the title of "Superintendent of the 

 Departments of Natural History," and I had the honour to be 

 selected for this office. - 



Almost my first work was to ascertain the extent of my 

 charges, and I confess that I was unprepared to find that the 

 galleries assigned for the arrangement and public exhibition of 

 the several natural history series in the British Museum were so 

 inadequate to these ends as to necessitate the storage of many 

 unexhibited, and in gi'eat proportion rare and valuable specimens. 

 This condition affected principally the collection of fossil 

 remains, but in not much less degree that of the recent natural 

 history. 



One of my colleagues, Mr. Charles Konig, then Keeper of the 

 Department of Mineralogy, and most eminent in that science, 

 applied the gallery assigned thereto principally to the rare and 

 beautiful specimens of his favourite subject. When the newer 

 science of palteontology entered upon its rapid growth, and, on 

 the demise of Mr. Konig, led to the formation of a distinct 

 Department of Geology, the proportion of the British Museum 

 set apart for natural history could not afford for the exhibition 

 of the fossils and rock specimens more or other space than 

 might be gained from or intercalated among the mineral cabinets 

 in one and the same gallery, viz. that which had been originally 

 assigned to Mr. Konig. 



The store-vaults in the basement of the Museum became 

 accordingly invaded by the rapidly-accumulating unexhibited 

 geological specimens, as those receptacles had been, and con- 

 tinued to be, needed for the storage of such specimens, and 

 especially the osteological ones, of the Department of Zoology. 



* The official designation assigned by the Trustees to the building and its 

 contents. 

 - The date of my appointment is May 26, 1856. 



In 1S54 Dr. John Ed. Gray, Keeper of the Zoology, reported 

 on the unfitness of the locality of his stored specimens, and 

 prayed for additional accommodation for them.' But, on the 

 report of the architect, to whom such appeal was referred, the 

 Trustees "declined to adopt Dr. Gray's suggestion," and recom- 

 mended "that steps should betaken to obviate the deterioration 

 of the specimens complained of by Dr. Gray in consequence of 

 the damp condition of the vaults in which they are contained." ^ 

 To renewed appeals by the experienced Keeper, and agreeably 

 with his ideas on the natnre and extent of the required additional 

 space for the zoology, the Trustees recommended : — " An addi- 

 tional gallery to the Eastern Zoological Gallery, and the substi- 

 tution of skylights for the side windo\\s," with a view to an 

 additional gallery at an elevation abjve the floor of the one in 

 use; they also resolved: — "That accommodation be provided 

 for the officers of the Natural History Departments on the roof 

 of the Print-room."^ 



But the inadequacy for exhibition purposes of additional space 

 which might be gained by the new gallerj', or by the accessory 

 wall-gallery attainable by stairs in the one in use,'' was so im- 

 pressed on my convictions, that I determined, in 1857, to submit 

 to the Tnistees a statement embodying estimates of s ace required 

 for exhibition of all and several the departments of natural 

 history, "ith the grounds of such estimates, including considera- 

 tions based upon the ratio of increase during the ten years pre- 

 ceding my npp-)intment, and the conditions likely to affect the 

 proportional number of future annual additions. 



This jiurpose, which I deemed a duty, I endeavoured to effect in 

 a "Report, with a Plan," submitted on Februar)' 10, 1S59, which 

 Report, being forwarded by the Trustees to the Treasury, and 

 being deemed worthy of consideration by Parliament, was 

 "Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, nth 

 March, 1S59," and can slill be obtained at the Office of Parlia- 

 mentarj' Papers or Blue Books. '^ 



The Report included, as I have stated, estimates of space for 

 the then acquired specimens of the several departments of 

 natural history, tognher with space for the reception of the 

 additional specimens which might accrue in the course of a 

 generati m, or thirty years. It further reconmiended that such 

 museum-building, besides giving the requisite accommodation 

 to the several classes of natural history objects, as they had been 

 by authoi itv exhibited and arranged for public instruction and 

 gratificali m. should also include a hall, or exhibition-space for a 

 distinct department, adapted to convey an elementary knowledge 

 of the sulijects of all the divisions of natural history to the 

 large proportion of public visitors not specially conversant with 

 any of lho;e subjects. 



I may crave permission to quote from that part of my Report 

 which has received the sanction of the "Commission on the 

 Adv.ancement of Science" of 1874 : " One of the most popular 

 and instructive features in a public collection of natural historj- 

 would be an apartment devoted to the specimens selected to 

 show type-choracters of the principal groups of organised and 

 crystallise 1 forms. This would constitute an epitome of natural 

 history, rr.d should convey to the eye in the easiest way an 

 elementary knowledge of the sciences."" 



An estimate of the space required for such apartment is 

 given, and it has been obtained in the new Museum of Natural 

 History. 



I ventured also on another topic in connection with the more 

 immediate object of my Report. Previous experience at the 

 museum of the Royal College of Surgeons had impressed me 

 with the influence on improved applications of collections and 

 on the ratio of their growth, through Lectures expository of their 

 nature. I felt confident that, with concurrence of authorities, 

 both relations would be exemplified under the actual superin- 

 tendence at the British Museum. Moreover, such museum of 

 natural history has wider influences over possessors and collec- 

 tors of rarities and of desiderated specimens than one of re- 

 stricted kind, as in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I concluded my 

 Report, therefore, by referring to the lecture theatre shown in 



■ See P.irhamentarj- Paper, or Blue Book, folio 1858, entitled :-;-" Copies ol 

 all Communications made by the Officers and Architect of the British Museum 

 to the Trunees. respecting the want of space for exhibiting the Collections 

 in that Institution," p.4. -' Ji. p. 5. 3 lb. p. 25 and p. 28. 



* In his report of December 29. 1856, Dr. Gray states :— " Scarcely half of 

 the zoological collections is exhibited to the public, and their due display 

 would require more than twice the space devoted to them." — //>. p. 21. To 

 any removal of the natural history to another site Dr. Gray was strongly 

 opposed. 



3 Parliamentary Papers, "Report with Plan," &c. (126, i.), fol. 1S59. 



^ Report, lit sicpra, p. 22. 



