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collections in all departments.’ The close of the second 
period will see both the eastern and central blocks of 
the new building fully available for the uses of the 
Museum and for the development of its collections. 
The committee contemplated a pause in the building 
operations at this stage. It said that during the 
third period, which will last till the western block is 
built, ‘‘ the new eastern and central blocks with the 
existing western galleries, will afford a total accom- 
modation that may be expected to suffice for all 
requirements until there is a clear call for the western 
block.” 
The first section of the new building—the eastern 
block—was commenced in 1913. Then came the 
War: the shell of the building was put to other uses 
and continued to be so appropriated for some years 
after peace was declared. Building operations have 
now, however, been resumed on part of the block, 
and this first instalment of the new permanent 
quarters for the collections is expected to be com- 
pleted by the end of 1924. It will provide, say, 
75,000 sq. ft. of new exhibition space—only one half 
‘of the total set-out for the complete eastern block of 
the “‘ Bell’’ report. Moreover, it appears to be 
contemplated that the existing Western Galleries, 
in which are housed the collections illustrating 
mathematics, astronomy, physiography, meteorology, 
physics (part), chemistry, metallurgy and mining, 
will be vacated about the end of the present year to 
make room for part of the War Museum collections. 
The Western Galleries provide 33,000 sq. ft. of 
exhibition space, and as a part of the old building 
which provided 20,000 sq. ft. had to be demolished 
in 1913 to make way for the new eastern block, the 
total of the old exhibition space available in 1925 will 
be 53,000 sq. ft. less than that in use in 1911. The 
new space to be added in 1924 by part of the eastern 
block is 75,000 sq. ft., so that the net increase in 1925 
as compared with 1911 will be only 22,000 sq. ft. 
Meanwhile, quite apart from additions to other 
sections, accommodation has had to be found for the 
two important new sections which illustrate respect- 
ively aviation and wireless telegraphy and telephony, 
and these alone already occupy more than 12,000 sq. ft. 
For all practical purposes, on the programme as 
now understood, the Science Museum will be in 1925 
no better off in the matter of exhibition space than 
it was in 1911: that is to say, it will be still so 
grossly overcrowded that the collections cannot 
possibly be examined in the way museum objects 
ought to be. In these circumstances the obvious 
practical step is to put in hand for completion not, as 
now, merely one half of the eastern block, but the 
whole of the block that is not at present in temporary 
occupation by the Museum. Better still would it be 
to provide other temporary accommodation for the 
sections of the collections there exhibited and to 
proceed with the completion of the whole block. 
Indeed, there must be certainty of active and 
continuous progress with the building scheme as a 
whole, for not until the central as well as the eastern 
block is completed will the Science Museum have any 
appreciable increase of space for its steadily growing 
collections, Yet it is doubtful if there ever was a 
time when the progress of science and invention 
required so much of museum exhibition or when the 
Museum could do so much to spread intelligent 
appreciation of the achievements of science and of its 
applications in industry. 
Tue MusEeuM oF PRAcTICAL GEOLOGY. 
The terms of reference to Sir Hugh Bell’s com- 
mittee required the committee to consider and report 
upon the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street, as well 
NO. 2800, VOL. 111] 
NATURE 

[JuNnE 30, 1923 
as upon the Science Museum. . On each it was to 
advise as to the purposes the collections should serve, 
the lines upon which they should be developed, and 
““as to the special characteristics which should be 
possessed by the new buildings which it is hoped will 
shortly be erected on the South Kensington site to 
house these collections.”’ 
As in the case of the Science Museum, so in that of 
the Geological Museum, the report with its appendices 
gives clear recommendations on these points. The 
committee shows the need for a larger building than 
the Jermyn Street site provides, and urges the advan- 
tages of bringing the Geological Museum into due 
relation with other museums at South Kensington. 
Yet ground has not been broken for a new Geological 
Museum building. 
Now those passages in the report which deal with 
the Geological Museum are particularly helpful and 
hopeful, for it is evident that the committee gave 
special consideration to points affecting the co- 
ordination of the several national museums that are 
concerned with science, and that it saw the way to 
an effective and economical scheme by which, while 
each museum would preserve its individuality and 
its autonomy, its own organisation and responsible 
authority, all three—the Natural History Museum, 
the Museum of Practical Geology, and the Science 
Museum—might be grouped and worked so as to 
form jointly a complete and worthy national museum 
of science. The accomplishment of this ideal would 
be warmly welcomed by all workers in science no less 
than by students and the public at large. 
The committee reported that the Geological Survey 
Offices and Library and the Museum of Practical 
Geology were cramped by the limitations of the 
building in Jermyn Street, and that if the necessary 
space could be allotted at South Kensington it would 
be of great advantage to have a building giving the 
required accommodation erected as part of the 
general scheme there. The committee pointed out 
that collections in the Science Museums represent 
the general principles of geology and geography by 
examples selected from all parts of the world, while the 
economic collections in the Museum of Practical 
Geology in Jermyn Street are arranged with special 
reference to the needs of the practical man and the 
technological student, and its stratigraphical collec- 
tions deal specially with the geology of the British Isles. 
The committee added that if all these were housed 
in new buildings at South Kensington in communica- 
tion with the systematic collection of minerals, and 
the paleontological collections arranged according to 
their natural affinities in the British Museum (Natural 
History), the series would represent at a single 
centre the whole field of geological science. 
The committee further reported that the Trustees 
of the British Museum were willing that the building 
for the Museum of Practical Geology and the Offices 
and Library of the Geological Survey should be 
placed on the part of the site allotted to the Natural 
History Museum. The scheme provides that this 
building be erected in connexion with and as part, 
structurally, of the eastern extension of the Natural 
History Museum, when it comes to be built, and that 
it be brought into direct communication on its north 
side with the new Science Museum building by con- 
necting galleries carried over the roadway which 
gives access to the back of the Natural History 
Museum. (See Fig. 1.) 
The sketch plan submitted with the committee’s 
| report shows the new building for the Museum of 
Practical Geology and the Offices and Library of the 
Survey as a self-contained unit. This unit, however, 
communicates on the north with the Science Museum 
