Sept. I, i8Si] 



NATURE 



425 



Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., for the realisation of the plan 

 and requirements of our Museum of Natural History, has chosen 

 an adaptation of the Round-arched Gothic, Romanesque, or 

 Romaic of the twelfth century. No style could better lend itself 

 to the introduction, for legitimate ornamentation, of the endless 

 beautiful varieties of form and surface sculpture exemplified in 

 the animal and vegetable kingdoms. But the skill in which 

 these varieties have been selected and combined to produce unity 

 of rich efiecls will ever proclaim Mr. Waterhouse's supreme 

 mastery of his art. 



I need only ask the visitor to pause at the grand entrance, 

 before he pa>ses into the impressive and rather gloomy vestibule 

 which leads to the great hall, and prepares him for the flood of 

 light displaying the richly-ornamented columns, arcades, and 

 galleries of the Index Museum. 



In the construction of a building for the reception and pre- 

 servation of perishable objects, the material should be of a 

 nature that will least lend itself to the absorption and retention 

 of moisture. This material is that artificial stone called terra- 

 cotta. The compactness of texture which fulfils the purpose in 

 relation to dryness is also especially favourable for a public 

 edifice in a metropolitan locality. The microscopic receptacles 

 of soot- particles on the polished surface of the terra-cotta slabs 

 are reduced to a minimum ; the influence of every shower in 

 displacing those particles is maximised. I am sanguine in the 

 expectation that the test of exposure to the London atmosphere 

 during a period equal to that which has elapsed since the com- 

 pletion of Barry's richly ornamented palace at Westminster, 

 now so sadly blackened by soot, will speak loudly in favour of 

 Mr. Waterhouse's adoption of the material for the construction of 

 the National Museum of Natural History. A collateral advan- 

 tage is the facility to which the moulded blocks of terra-cotta 

 lend themselves to the kind of ornamentation to which I have 

 already referred. 



In concluding the above sketch of the development of our 

 actual Museum of Natural History, I may finally refer, in the 

 terms of our modern phylogenists, to the traceable evidences of 

 "ancestral structures." In the architectural details of the new 

 Natural History Museum you will find but one character of the 

 primitive and now extinct museum retained, viz. the Central 

 Hall. In Montague House there were no galleries, but side-lit 

 saloons or rooms of varying dimensions and on different storeys. 



In its successor, the Museum developed on its site at a later 

 period, we find galleries added : that, for example, which was 

 appropriated to the birds and shells being 300 feet in length. 

 This architectural organisation still exists at Bloomsbury. 



The Museum, which may be said to have budded off, has 

 risen to a still higher grade of structure after settling down 

 at South Kensington. In its anatomy we find, it is true, 

 the central hall and long side-lit galleries ; but in addition to 

 these inherited structures we discern a series of one-storeyed 

 galleries, manifesting a developmental advance in the better 

 admission of light and a consequent adaptation of the walls as 

 well as the floor to the needs of exhibition.' 



Should the Section, as did the Academic des Sciences in rela- 

 tion to the passage cited, kindly condone such application to human 

 contrivances of the current genealogical or phylogenetic language 

 applied to vital structures, your President need hardly own his 

 appreciation of the vast superiority of every step in advance 

 which is manifested in existing as compared with extinct 

 organisms. And thus, sensible as far as human faculty may 

 comprehend them, that organic adaptations transcend the best of 

 those conceived by the ingenuity of man to fulfil his special 

 needs, he would ask whether analogy does not legitimately lead 

 to the inference, for organic phenomena, of an Adapting Cause 

 operating in a corresponding transcendent degree ? 



In conclusion, I am moved to remark that a Museum giving 

 space and light for adequate display of the national treasures of 



^_In the notable reply {Annales des Scienct-s Katurclles. 1829) to an illus- 

 tration of the unity of composition or of plan in Cephalopods and Ver- 

 tebrates, by bending one o£ the latter so as to bring the pelvis in contact 

 with the nape, advocated by Geoffrey St. Hilaire, Cuvier did not deem it too 

 trivial to call in architecture to elucidate his objections. " La composition 

 d'ltite maison, c'est le iiombre d'appartemens oil de chambres qui s'y trouve : 

 et son plan^ c'est la disposition reciproque de ces appartemens et de ces 

 chambres. Si deux maisons contenaient chacune un vestibule, une anti- 

 chambre, une chambre \ coucher, un salon, et une salle a manger, on dirait 

 que leur composition est la inejitc : et si cette chambre, ce salon, &c.. 

 etaient au meme c'tage arranges dans le meme maniere, on dirait aussi que 

 \^\1T pian est ie ittcmc. Mais si leur ordre ^tait different, si de plain-pied 

 dans une des maisons, ces pieces etaient place'es dans I'autre aux etages suc- 

 cessifs, on dirait qu'avec une composition semblable ces maisons sont con- 

 struites sur des plans differens " (p. 245). 



Natural History may be expected to exert such influence on the 

 progress of Biology as to condone, if not call for, a narrative of 

 the circumstances attending its formation in the Records of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 



Encke's Comet. — We continue the ephemeris of this come' 

 in the contracted form adopted in Nature, vol. xxiv. p. 2921 

 from the calculations of Dr. O. Backlund of Pulkowa : — 

 At Berlin jiiidnight 

 R.A. Decl. Log. distance from 



Sept. 2 ... 4 23 4 



4 •■■ 4 31 17 

 6 ... 4 40 7 



5 ... 4 49 38 

 10 ... 4 59 56 

 12 ... 5 II 6 

 14 ... S 23 16 



16 ... 5 l(y 32 



iS ... 5 51 I 



20 ... 6 6 51 



22 ... 6 24 7 



24 ... 6 42 54 



26 ... 7 3 13 



28 ... 7 25 o 



30 ■■• 7 4S S 



Oct. 2 ... S 12 13 



Sun. Earth. 



+ 35 53'2 ■•• o'i659 ■■ 0-0222 



36 35 '9 



37 19-2 ... 0-1493 ... 9-9S85 



38 3'o 



38 468 ... 0-1317 ... 9'953S 



39 3o"3 



40 12-8 ... 0-1128 ... 9-9173 



40 S3 "3 



41 30-9 ... 0-0926 ... 9-8805 



42 4-1 



42 30-9 ... 00709 ... 9-8439 



42 49 3 



42 56-3 ... 0-0474 ... 9-8089 



42 49"3 



42 24-9 ... 0-0219 ... 9-7776 

 -t-4i 40-4 



In 1848, when the perihelion passage occurred eleven days later 

 than it -nill do in the present year, the comet was remarked to 

 be "just visible" to the naked eye at Harvard Observatory, 

 U.S., on the morning of October 9, when the theoretical inten- 

 sity of light was 4-3, aiid it was " plainly visible" to the naked 

 eye on the morning of November 4, with an intensity of 9-5. 

 The latter is a greater value than will be attained at this appear- 

 ance, the maximum behig 7-5 on November 9. On October 10 

 the calculated brightness will be equ.al to that, when it was just 

 visible without the telescope in 1848, but moonlight will interfere 

 at the time. For about four weeks after September 10 the 

 comet will not set in London. As we have already stated it will 

 be nearest to the earth on October II, and in perihelion on 

 November 15. 



[Since the above was in type we learn from Mr. A. A. 

 Common that he delected Encke's comet with his three-feet 

 reflector at Ealing, shortly before midnight on Saturday Last. 

 On the following night, when it was better seen, its diameter 

 was about 2', and there was a central condensation of light.] 



Schaeberle's Comet. — This comet will soon be well 

 observable in the other hemisphere. The following track 

 depends upon elements which Dr. v. Hepperger has calculated 

 from observations to August 1 1 : — 



At Berlin Midnight. 

 R.A. Decl. Log. distance Intensity 



h. m. o . from Earth. of light. 



Sept. I ... 13 30-0 ... +11 27 ... 9-8329 ... 12-5 

 5 ... 13 527 ... -I- I 41 ... 9*8965 ■•■ 8-5 

 9 ... 14 7-7 ... - 5 32 ... 9'96o6 ... 5-7 

 13 ... 14 18-1 ... 10 52 ... 0-0198 ... 3-8 

 17 ... 14 25-7 ... 14 56 ... 0-0725 ... 2-6 

 21 ... 14 31-4 ... 18 8 ... 0-1191 ... 1-9 

 25 ... 14 36-1 ... 20 42 ... 0-1601 ... i'4 

 29 ... 14 40-0 ... 22 51 ... 0-1962 ... i-o 

 Oct. 3 ... 14 43-5 ... 24 41 ... 0-2284 ■• °'8 

 7 ... 14 46-6 ... -26 16 ... 0-2569 ... 0-6 

 The intensity of light on July 18, the date of the first European 

 observation, is taken as unity. 



NOTES 

 The Royal Gardens, Kew, have just received, through the 

 kind exertions on their behalf of Sir Ferdinand von Mueller, 

 K.C.M.G., F.R.S., Government Botanist, Melbourne, perhaps 

 the most remarkable Australian Cycadaceous stem which has 

 ever been imported into this country. It is about four feet high, 

 five and a half feet in circumference, and weighs about six 

 hundredweight. It is the type of a new species described by von 



