Sept. I, 1881J 



NA TURE 



42; 



to the other, and none of them probably would ever live to see 

 an end of the expense." ^ 



Permit me to give one more example of the baneful influence 

 of the opening speech on our great instrument of scientific 

 liro^ress. Mr. Henry Seymour, Member for Poole, said : — 

 " If a foreigner had been li-,tening to the debates of that evening 

 it must have struck him that it was, to say the least, a rather 

 curious coincidence that a proposal to vote 600,000/. for a new 

 collection of birds, beasts, and fishes at South Kensington should 

 have been brought forward on the very evening when the Leader 

 of the Opposition had made a speech denouncing that exorbitant 

 expenditure— a speech, he might add, which was re-echoed by 

 many Liberal members of the House." - 



It was however not a "curious," but a "designed coincid- 

 ence." Mr. Disraeti, knowing the temper of the House on 

 the subject, and that the estimates for the required Museum of 

 Natural History were to be submitted by Mr. Gladstone, chose 

 the opportunity to initiate the business by an advocacy of 

 economy which left its intended effect upon the House. In vain 

 Lord Palmerston, in reply to the Irish denunciators, proposed as 

 a compromise to "exclude whales altogether from disporting 

 themselves in Kensington Gardens." ^ The Government was 

 defeated by a m.ijcjriiy of ninety-two, and the erection of a 

 National or British Museum of Natural History was postponed, 

 to all appearance indefiuitely, and in reality for ten years. 



Nevertheless, neither averments nor arguments in the House 

 on May 19, 1862, nor testimonies in the hostile Committee of 

 i860, 1861, had shaken my faith in the grounds on which the 

 " Report and Plan of 1859 " had been based. The facts bearing 

 thereupon, which it was my duty to submit in my " Annual 

 Reports on the Natural History Departments of the British 

 Museum," would, I still hoped, have some influence with hon. 

 members of the legislature, to whom those Reports are 

 transmitted. 



The annual additions of specimens continued to increa-^e in 

 number and in value year by year. I embraced every oppor- 

 tunity to excite the interest of lovers of natural history travelling 

 abroad and of intelligent settlers in our several colonies to this 

 end, among the results of which I may cite the reception of the 

 Aye-Aye, the Gorilla, the Dodo, the Notornis, the maximised 

 and elephant-footed species of Dinornis, the representatives of 

 the varijus orders and genera of extinct Reptilia from the Cape 

 of Good Hope, and the equally rich and numerous evidences of 

 the extinct Maisupialia fi'om Australia, besides tuch smaller 

 rarities as the animals of the Nautilus and Spirula. 



Wherever room could be found in the exhibition galleries at 

 Hloomsbury for these specimens, stuffed or as articulated skele- 

 tons, or; as detached fossils, they were squeezed in, so to speak, 

 to mutely manifest to all visitors, more especially administrative 

 ones, the state of cram to which we were driven at Bloomsbury. 



Another element of my Annual Reports was the deteriorating in- 

 lluence on valuable specimens of the storage vaults and the danger 

 of such accumulations to the entire Museum and its priceless 

 contents. And here perhaps you may deem some explanation 

 needful of the grounds of the latter consideration addressed to 

 economical granters of the national funds. 



The number of specimens preerved in spirits of wine amounted 

 to thousands ; any accidental breakage, with conflagration, in 

 I he subtenaneous localities contiguous with the heating-apparatus 

 of the entire British Museum, would have been as destructive to 

 the building as the gunpowder was meant to be when stored in 

 the vaults beneath King James's Houses of Parliament. 



At this crisis the " Leading Journal," after the stormy debate 

 of May 19, 1862, made the following appeal to me : — " Let Mr. 

 Owen describe exactly the kind of building that will answer his 

 purpose, that will give space for his whales and light for his 

 humming-birds and butterflies. The Houe of Commons will 

 hardly, for very shame, give a well-digested scheme so rude a 

 reception as it did on Monday night." * 



My answer to this appeal was little more than some amplifica- 

 tion, with additional examples, of the several topics embodied 

 in the original Report. The pamphlet "On the Extent and 

 Aims of a National Museum of Natural History," with reduced 

 copies of the plans, went through two editions, and no doubt 

 l.ad the effect anticipated by the able Editor. 



Anotlier element of reviving hope was the acceptance by Mr. 

 Gregory of the government of a tropical island. 



The sagacious Prime Minister accurately gauged the modified 



" Hansard," p. 19; 

 The Times, I\lay ; 



lb. t86j, p. 



feeling — the subsiding animosity — of Parliament on the subject, 

 and submitted (June 15, 1863) a motion " for leave to purchase 

 five acres for the required Natural History building." The 

 choice of locality he left to honourable members. Lord 

 Palmerston pointed out that the requisite extent of site could be 

 obtained at Bloomsbury for 50,000/. per acre, and that it could 

 be got at South Kensington for io,coo/. per acre; and his lord- 

 ship distinctly stated that the space, in either locality, would be 

 bought for the purpose of a Museum of Natural History. The 

 purchase of the land at South Kensington was accordingly voted 

 by 267 against 135, and thus the Government proposition was 

 carried by a majority of 132. By this vote the decision of Mr. 

 Gregory's Committee was virtually annulled. 



In a conversati m with which I was favoured by Lord Palmer- 

 ston, I interposed a warning against restriction of space, and 

 eventually eight acres of ground were obtained, mcluding the 

 site of the Exhibition Building of 1862, opposite Cromwell 

 Gardens, and that extent of space is now secured for actual and 

 prospective requirements of our National Museum of Natural 

 History. 



I am loth to trespass further on the time of the Section, but a 

 few words may te expected from me of the leading steps to the 

 acquisition of the present edifice, occupying a portion — about 

 one-third— of that extent of ground. 



Mr. Gladstone, adhering to the convictions which led him to 

 submit his financial proposition of May, 1862, honoured me, at 

 the close of that session of Parliament, with an invitation to 

 Hawarden to discuss my plans for the Museum Building ; and, 

 after consideration of every detail, he requested that they might 

 be left with him. He placed them, with my written expositions 

 of details, in the hands of Sir Henry A. Hunt, C. B., responsible 

 adviser on buildings, &c., at the Office of Works, with instruc- 

 tions that they should be put into working form, so as to support 

 reliable estimates of cost. I was favoured with interviews with 

 Sir Henry, resulting in the comjiletion of such working plans of 

 a museum, including a central hall, an architectiual front of two 

 storeys, and the series of single-storeyed galleries exteiiding at 

 right angles to the front, as shown in my original Plan. I was 

 assured that such plan of building affording the space I had 

 reported on, would be the basis to be submitted to the profes- 

 sional Architect whenever the time might arrive for Parliamentary 

 sanction to the cost of such building. 



Here I may remark that experiments which preceded the sub- 

 stitution, in 1835, of the actual Museum of the Hunterian 

 Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeon--, for the costly, cam 

 brou', and ill-lit building, with its three-domed skylights, which 

 preceded it, had led to the conclusion that the light hejt fitted 

 for a museum was that in which most would be reflected from 

 the objects and least directly strike upon the eye; and this was 

 found to be effected by admittance of the light at the angle 

 between the wall and roof. But this plan of illumination is 

 possible only in galleries of one storey, or the topmost in a 

 many-storeyed edifice. Such system of illumination may be 

 seen in every gallery of the mu-eum described to you last year 

 at Swansea, save those of the storeys of the main bjdy below 

 the sky-lit one which necessitate side windows. 



I subjoin a copy of the letter from Sir Henry A. Plunt, con- 

 veying his conclusions respecting the plan of building discussed 

 with him : — 



"4, Parliament Street, September 25, 1862 



" My Dear Sir, — I return you the drawings of the proposed 

 Museum of Natural History at South Kensington. In May last 

 I told Mr. Gladstone that the probalde cost of covering five 

 acres with suitable buildings would be about 500,000/., or 

 loo.ooc/. per acre. , 



"The plan proposed by you will occupy about four acres, and 

 will cost about 350,000/ , or nearly 90,000/. per acre. 



" Having prepared sketches showing the scheme suggested by 

 you, I have been able to arrive more nearly at the probatde cost 

 than I had the means of doing in May last. But, after all, the 

 difference is not great ; although the pre ent estimate is a more 

 reliable one than the other. It is right, however, to state that 

 the disposition of the building as proposed by you will give a 

 greater amount of accommodation, and admit of a cheaper mode 

 of construction, than I had calculated upon in May (relatively 

 with the space intended to be covered), and therefore I think 

 your plan far better adapted for the Museum than the plan I 

 took the liberty to suggest to Mr. Gladstone. 

 " Believe me, &c , 

 "(Signed) Henry A. Hunt" 



