NATURE 



[July 6, 191 1 



models and inventions iu those employed in the 

 mechanical and productive arts of the country must 

 know that it is ut great importance that they should 

 have access to a repository in which they can iind 

 everything connected with that particular department 

 of industry to which they have devoted themselves. 

 In America, a country not supposed to be addicted 

 to unnecessary ornament, but where a great disposi- 

 tion is shown to practical improvement, there is a 

 Patent .Museum which covers eleven acres. Well, we 

 do not propose a museum of such dimensions. I 

 think that about three acres will be sufficient for all 

 present needs in regard to a Museum of Patents." 



He then passed on to the British Museum require- 

 ments : — 



'•Then we want an addition to the British Museum. 

 The question then arises where that addition is to be 

 found — whether the land is to be had by purchasing 

 land in immediate contiguity to the British Museum, 

 or by the purchase of land at Kensington, as we pro- 

 pose. Calculations have been made that eight acres 

 are required, but that is, I think, more than is neces- 

 sai \ . 1 think that five acres would be a nearer ap- 

 proximation, and three acres have been named as the 

 smallest amount of space that is required." 



Next we have a reference to the National Portrait 

 Gallery, room for which was eventually found else- 

 where : — 



•' We have got together, at some expense and 

 trouble, a most interesting collection of portraits of 

 distinguished men connected with the history of the 

 country. They are now placed in a house where they 

 cannot be seen, and it is urgently desirable to have a 

 better building in which to place that Portrait Gallery, 

 Then we have a Museum at Kensington, full of most 

 valuable and instructive productions, and a Committee 

 of the House of Commons that sat two or three years 

 ago strongly recommended additions to that institu- 

 tion." 



" Now, we calculate the cost of these various 

 augmentations — supposing that the land were bought 

 in the metropolis and at the rate which it now bears 

 — as follows : — If eight acres are taken for the British 

 Museum, the cost of land will be 390,000/. , and the 

 buildings 824,000/., making a total of 1,214,000/. If 

 five acres only are required, the land will cost 240,000/. 

 and the building 567,000/., making a total of 807,000/. 

 Supposing the lowest estimate of three acres to be 

 sufficient, the land will cost 150,000/. and the building 

 300,000/., making a total of 450,000/. I then take 

 the Patent Museum, which will require three acres. 

 The land is set. down at 100,000/. and the building at 

 100,000/., making together 200,000/. . . . The Portrait 

 Gallery will require half an acre, and we calculate 

 will cost 25,000/. for land, and 25,000/. for the build- 

 ing', or together 50,000/. These sums would come to 

 the following total : — If you take eight acres for the 

 British Museum, the total for all these buildings will 

 be 1,514.000/.; if you take five acres, 1,107,000/.; if 

 three acres, 750,000/. Assuming that these are wants 

 which Parliament may think it proper to meet, these 

 would be the sums you would require if you took land 

 now occupied by houses in any central part nf town. 

 Now, the proposal thai we make is one which the 

 Committee will see is a very economical one. By the 

 plan which we recommend we should have much more 

 and it far smaller expens"- The arrangement 

 that we propose is, that the public should purchase 

 seventeen and a half acres, (Several hon. Members: 

 Sixteen 1 No seventeen acres of the land belonging to 

 the Commissioners, which is now covered with the 

 building in which the Exhibition took place. For that 

 land the Commissioners are willing to take 120,000/. 

 My hon. friend will admit that to get seventeen acres 

 2175, VOL. 87] 



of land at about 7000/. per acre, for which we should 

 pay 50,000/., 00,000/., or 70,000/. an acre elsewhere, 

 is a considerable advantage." 



It will be gathered from this speech what an 

 enormous saving had been effected bv paying such a 

 low price for the land. The plot in question was 

 sold lor half its then value, thus presenting the public 

 with 120,000/. In the conveyance a covenant was 

 inserted restricting the use of the land to purposes 

 connected with Science and the Arts. 



In 1863 the onlv land to be obtained on these low 

 terms was the large plot purchased from the Royal 

 Commission of 1851, capable of containing the Patent 

 Museum, the Natural History Museum, and other 

 institutions; but by 1869 there was another plot avail- 

 able for the building of a Natural History Museum. 

 This plot consisted of land reclaimed from the Tha 

 near Hungerford Bridge by the construction of the 

 Embankment. As no action had yet been taken on 

 the Cabinet decision of 1863, referred to in Lord 

 Palmerston's speech, concerning the Natural History 

 Museum, it was suggested that it should be built 

 here, and a Select Committee was appointed to in- 

 quire into the matter. Their first report was published 

 on May 10, 1869 (Report of Select Committee on 

 Hungerford Bridge), and this was soon followed by 

 a second. 



These reports and their accompanying plans are 

 a mine of information, especially in relation to the 

 then stated requirements of biologists with regard to 

 the natural history collection. 



It has already been shown that the demands for 

 space for these collections before the Government 

 in 1863 were three acres and eight acres, and thai 

 Lord Palmerston compromised with five acres, which 

 were to be provided for out of the sixteen and a half 

 acres purchased from the Royal Commission of 185 1. 



In the interval between 1863 and 1869 further 

 inquiries had been made, as will be gathered from 

 the following extracts of the evidence (second Re- 

 port) :— 



" Examination of Prof. Owen, p. 107. 



"2343. [Mr. Cowper.] Will you state, according 

 to your present views, what area you think necessary 

 for properly providing for the natural history collec- 

 tion? — Mr. Hunt, in 1863, went carefully into all 

 those details and questions with me and ultimately 

 embodied them in a plan, which is printed in a Par- 

 liamentary paper. He arranged the building for pre- 

 sent actual wants on a space of three acres, and I 

 asked for two additional acres for later additions, 

 looking forward to the next thirty years." 



"2344. Is that your present view of the subject?— 

 It is so." 



"Examination of Prof. Huxley, p. 112. 



" 2422. TMr. Tite.l Probably three acres might in- 

 clude it all? — Yes. I reckon that five times the space 

 now occupied bv the bird-room in the British Museum 

 (taking that space at 15,000 square feet) would suffice 

 for the erection of a building in which the largest 

 zoological collection that can ever be formed may be 

 displaved and preserved in a manner most advan- 

 tageous to the public and to men of science. Thus, 

 for yoologv, I ask, sav, an acre and three-quarters; 

 I should provide another t^.ooo square feet for the 

 fossils, and half as much for the mineralogical col- 

 lections; and half as much for the botanical collec- 

 tion, if any such collection is to he taken to the new- 

 site. This makes a sum total of about two acres and 

 a half, and half nn acre for margin, offices, and resi- 

 dences, and the like, and I believe that ample pro- 

 vision will be made not onlv for all present, but for 

 all future, needs of a great national natural history 

 museum. In saying that, I think the building ought 



