Oct. 6, 1870] 
penter and the author in H.M.S. Lightning, and since then by 
investigations carried on in H.M.S. Forcupine, with the 
additional help of Mr. Jeffreys, nut only had the number of new 
species found been very great, but animal life had been found 
abundant to the enormous depth of upwards of a mile, Confining 
himself now to the Echinoderms, he might say that the fauna 
became not so much a local fauna as one of depth and tempera- 
ture. All the well-known Scandinavian forms were met with in 
the ‘‘cold area”—such as Pteraster, Euryale, &c. ; while in 
the ‘‘warm area,” such wonderful genera as Pourtalesta and 
Brissinge, having possibly its nearest ally in forms found in the 
Ludlow rock, but also a new soft-bodied genus belonging to the 
Diademidz, were met with. All the new forms, embracing both 
new genera and species, would be described in full in the forth- 
coming report. 
Dr. M‘Intosh, F.L.S., read a preliminary report on Certain 
Annelids dredged in the expedition of H.M.S. Porcupine. 
_ The specimens were chiefly procured from water under 500 
fathoms off the coast of Ireland. They are on the whole of a 
northern type, many of the rarer having been previously pro- 
cured by Mr. Jeffreys off the Shetland Islands, and well known 
in the northern seas generally. There were several new and 
most interesting species, including a S¢herc/ais—a form allied to 
Leanira Malmgreni, but probably requiring a new genus for its 
reception ; a Lusice, Nothria and Chatozone, the Antinoe Sarsi of 
Kinberg, and the Petta pusi/la of Malmgren were, besides, added 
to our fauna. The author tendered his thanks to Professors 
Carpenter and Wyville Thomson, and more especially to Mr. 
Gwyn Jeffreys, for their kindness in securing the collection. 
_ Dr. G. W. Child read a Paper on Protoplasm and the Germ 
Lheory. Mr. Samuelson read a Paper Ox the Controversy on 
Spontaneous Generation, with new experiments. In the in- 
teresting discussion which followed, the President, Dr. Hooker, 
Mr. G. Bentham, and Mr. Crace Calvert took part. 
Mr. P. L. Sclater read a Paper on Certain Principles to be 
observed in the Establishment of a National Museum of Natural 
History. [This Paper will be found i ex¢enso in another column, 
with a woodcut. The following is an epitome of the interesting 
discussion which followed. ] 
Mr. Wallace entirely agreed with all the main principles 
advocated by Dr. Sclater, such as the separate government of 
the Natural History Museum, the association of Palzeontology 
with Zoology, and the separation of the collections into a ‘‘ typical 
and a scientific series,” both of which should be at all times 
available ; but he differed from him on a point which he con- 
sidered to be no less important than any of these, viz., as to the 
mode of arrangement of the specimens which would be most 
efficient for all the purposes such a museum should fulfil. In 
a national institution, if any part of it was set apart for the 
elevation, instruction, and amusement of the public, these pur- 
poses should be carried out in the most efficient manner, and this 
could not be done by the system of wall-cases advocated by 
Dr. Sclater, and which he (Mr. Wallace) believed to be radically 
wrong. ‘The objections to these wall-cases were numerous :— 
1. They admit of any object being seen by the smallest number 
_ of persons at once, so that any one person studying an object, 
_ almost necessarily monopolises it, and prevents others from ap- 
| proaching it, an inconvenience that reaches its maximum in the 
recessed cases exhibited in Dr. Sclater’s plan. 
2. Objects in wall-cases can be seen only on ove side, which, 
as a// sides of natural objects require to be seen, would necessitate 
many specimens to do the duty of one. 
3. The observer on the one side, from which alone he can see 
an object, will generally stand in his own light, and will often 
haye distinct vision further impaired by reflection from the glass. 
4. When small objects occur alternately with large ones, a 
great waste of space occurs, and the attention is distracted from 
the less conspicuous object. 
5. The use of wall-cases on one side of a gallery for an entire 
museum, is an expensive and wasteful mode of arrangement. 
Objections (1) (2) and (3) are of the greatest importance. A 
public national museum must accommodate the thousands who 
throng to it on holidays, when alone the working classes can 
reap its benefits ; and they should be invited and induced to ex- 
amine and study, not merely to gaze and pass on. Teachers and 
parents should be able to give information as to the groups ex- 
hibited without interfering with other visitors, none of which 
things are possible with a range of wall-cases. The system 
advocated by Mr. Wallace was that of detached cases on 
NATIURE 
465 
tables or on the floor, of various sizes, and each exhibiting 
one typical object or group of objects, capable of being seen 
on adl sides, and admitting of convenient examination in the 
best light by the gvzafest number of persons at once. The system 
had been adopted in a new museum at the India House, and at 
South Kensington, and was advocated by Dr. Gray, and partially 
exemplified in the great gorilla case, the groups of birds of 
paradise, and other detached cases in the British Museum. The 
numerous and very great advantages of this system should 
not be lost for the sake of an infinitesimal increase of convenience 
to scientific men. The great majority of specimens exhibited in 
the public galleries would consist of common spectes, of which 
an ample series of specimens would be preserved in the scientific 
collection for study. Of the few rare species which it might be 
advisable to exhibit to the public, perhaps not more than one a 
week would be required for scientific examination, and all such 
might be so mounted as to be easily brought into the students’ 
room, adjacent to the gallery, when required. The man of 
science would thus /ose sothing, while the public would gain in- 
calculably ; and so greatly was Mr. Wallace impressed with the 
educational superiority of one mode of arrangement over the 
other, that he believed it would be better to have the very rare 
and unique species represented by drawings or models only in the 
public department, rather than have the whole collection 
arranged in wall-cases, for the one purpose of allowing the 
scientific man to get them out more easily on the rare occasions 
when he required them. 
Prof. Archer, of Edinburgh, said : However some of us may 
differ from Dr. Sclater in his opinions about the arrangements of 
the contemplated National Museum of Natural History, none 
of us will, in the slightest degree, differ from him in his belief 
that this is a subject of paramount importance. I am com- 
pelled to say that I do not agree with him as to his arrange- 
ment of wall-cases and back entrances, for some considerable 
experience has convinced me that unless under some peculiar 
circumstances, as in narrow galleries where there is too little 
space for detached cases, wall-cases are entirely a mistake. In 
this respect my own personal experience perfectly coincides with 
the opinions of Mr, Wallace, but Mr. Wallace has even underrated 
the advantages of the system he advocates, for he has only indi- 
cated by his diagrammatic illustrations a series of cases similar 
in size, placed at equal distances. But at South Kensington, 
where the question of constructing cases best adapted for the 
display of objects in a Museum, has received a greater arnount of 
intelligent attention than in any other museum, they have shown 
that you can make cases which will admit of a perfectly symmetri- 
cal arrangement, and yet be of various sizes, so that small objects 
as well as large ones may be so exhibited as to permit of their 
being examined from all sides, instead of from only one point of 
view as in wall cases. Wall space is valuable for illustrations, 
especially pictorial ones, but when you arrange groups of animals 
in them, it is certain that if they are tolerably suitable for the 
exhibition of large specimens they cannot be equally fitted for 
small ones. There is one other point in which I cannot agree 
with the author of the paper, and that is, in the line he draws 
between the requirements of a Public Museum and one for the 
use of students in natural history. My own views are to exhibit 
as much as you can without injury to the specimens, because 
you never know what portion of your visitors are earnest 
students or pleasure-seeking idlers ; and still further, you do not 
know how soon this class may be converted into the former. 
Prof. Newton thought that being connected with a museum 
which was emphatically ‘‘national,” he should be wanting in 
his duty if he did not express his general agreement with the 
principles laid down in Mr. Sclater’s paper. What might be 
called the ‘structural ” part of this very important question had 
been dwelt upon by previous speakers, but there was another 
part on which they had scarcely touched. This was the consti- 
tution of the governing body and officials of the New Museum. 
First it had been stated in the paper (and the statement was 
true) that of the fifty trustees of the British Museum only two or 
three were scientific men. That the museum was what it was, 
reflected, then, the greatest credit on the energy of those two 
or three. But care must be taken that the museum of the 
future, whether sent to South Kensington or kept in Blooms- 
bury, should be relieved of the burden of the Trustees ; it was 
essential that their authority should cease, and that scientificautho- 
rity alone should be supreme. Secondly, with regard to the mode 
of appointment of the officials—that was a matter for great de-| 
liberation. He believed that the system adopted a few years 
