A 71 oust 26, 1880] 



NA TUBE 



395 



most prominent events in the recent history of the British 

 Museum (to which I must confine the remainder of my remarks) 

 are well known to the majority of those present ; — that the question 

 either of enlarging the present building at Bloomsbury, or of 

 erecting another at South Kensington for the collections of 

 natural history, was fully discussed for years in its various 

 aspects ; that, finally, a Select Committee of the House of 

 Commons reported in favour of the expediency of the former 

 plan ; that the Standing Committee of the Trustees, than whom 

 there is no one better qualified to give an opinion, took the same 

 view ; and that, nevertheless, the Government of the time 

 decided upon severing the collections and locating the natural 

 history in a separ.ite building as the more economical plan. 



The building was finished this year at a cost of 400,000/., 

 exclusive of the amount paid for the ground on which it is 

 erected. It is built in the Romanesque or round-arched Gothic 

 style, terra-cotta being almost exclusively employed in its 

 construction. It consists of a basement, ground-floor, and two 

 storeys, and is divided into a central portion, and a right and left 

 wing. Its principal (southern) fa9ade is 675 feet long. As you 

 enter the portal, you come into a cathedral-like hall called the 

 "Index Museum," 120 feet long, 97 feet wide, and 68 feet high ; 

 behind this there is a large side-lighted room for the British 

 fauna. On each side of the hall there is a side-lighted gallery 

 each 278 feet long by 50 feet in width ; seven other galleries of 

 various widths, and therefore adapted for various exhibitions, join 

 at right angles the long gallery of the ground floor. The first 

 and second storeys are occupied by galleries similar to the main 

 galleries of the ground-floor. 



The collections are distributed in this building thus : — The 

 western wing is occupied by Zoology, the eastern by the three 

 other departments, viz., the ground-floor by Geology, the first- 

 floor gallery by Mineralogy, and the second-floor gallery by 

 Botany. The central portion is, as mentioned above, divided into 

 the room for British Zoology and into the "Index Museum," that 

 is "an apartment devoted to specimens selected to show the type- 

 characters of the principal groups of organised beings." The 

 basement consists of a number of spacious, well-lit rooms, well 

 adapted for carrying on the different kinds of work in connection 

 with such large collections. 



There is no doubt that the building fulfils the principal con- 

 dition for which it was erected, viz., space for the collections. 

 The zoological collections gain more than twice as much space 

 as they had in the old building, the geological and minerological 

 about thrice, and the liotanical more four times. This increase 

 of space will enable the keeper of the last-named department to 

 bring the collections correlated with each other into close 

 proximity, and to prepare a much greater number of ob- 

 jects for exhibition than was possible hitherto. The minera- 

 logical department, already so admirably arranged in the old 

 building, has now been supplied with the space requisite for 

 a collection of rocks, with a laboratory and goniometrical room. 

 Geology is now in a position to exhibit a great part of the 

 invertebrata, which hitherto had to be deposited in private 

 studies, besides devoting one or two of the new galleries to a 

 stratigi'aphical series. On the zoological side we have been 

 great gainers (not with regard to the proportion of space), but 

 inasmuch as we w-ere more impeded by the crowded state of our 

 collections than any of the other departments. We are enabled 

 to avoid the exhibition of heterogeneous otijects in the same room 

 or gallery ; mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, mollusks, insects, 

 echinoderms, corals, and sponges have each a smaller or larger 

 gallei-y to themselves. With the exception of the specimens 

 preserved in spirits, the study-series can be located in contiguity 

 with, or at least close vicinity to, the exhibition-series. There is 

 ample and convenient accommodation for the students, who may 

 work in a spacious room centrally situated, and arranged for 

 their exclusive use at four other different localities immediately 

 adjoining the several branches of the collection. 



I believe that some of the members of the British Association 

 will feel somewhat disappointed that the zoological and botanical 

 collections on the one hand, and the palceontologlcal on the other, 

 continue to be kept distinct. Who will, who can doubt that the 

 two branches of biological science would be immensely benefited 

 by being studied in their natural mutual relations? and that palaeon- 

 tology more e-pecially would have made surer progress if its 

 study had been conducted with more direct application to the 

 series of living forms ? But to study the series of extinct and 

 living forms in their natural connection, is one thing, and to 

 incorporate in a museum the collection of fossils with that of 



recent forms, is another. The latter proposal, so excellent in 

 theory, would offer in its practical execution so many and 

 insuperable difficulties, that we may well hesitate before we 

 recommend the experiment to be tried in so large a collection 

 as the British Museum. I have mentioned above that in a small 

 collection such an arrangement may be fea-ible to a certain 

 degree ; but in a large collection you cannot place skins, bones, 

 spirit preparations, and stones in the same room, or perhaps in 

 the same case, exposing them to the same conditions of light and 

 temperature, \\ ithout injuring either the one or the other. Each 

 kind of those objects requires for its preservation special con- 

 siderations and special manipulations ; and by representing them 

 in each of the several departments you would have to double 

 your staff of skilled manipulators with their apparatus, which, 

 means multiplying your expense^. Departmental administration 

 generally, and especially the system of .acquisition by purchase 

 or exchange, would become extremely complicated, and could 

 not be carried on without a considerably greater expenditure in 

 time and money. Thus, even if the old departmental division 

 were abandoned for one corresponding to the principal classes 

 of the animal kingdom, each of tne new departments would 

 still continue to keep, for considerations of conservation, those 

 different kinds of objects, at least locally, separate. The necessity 

 of this has been so much felt in the British Museum, that the 

 Trustees resolved to store the spirit specimens at South Ken- 

 sington, in a building specially adapted for the purpose, and 

 separated from the main building, as the accumulation of many 

 thousand gallons of spirits is a source of danger which not many 

 years ago threatened the destruction of a portion of the present 

 building in Bloomsbury. 



I could never see that by the juxtaposition of extinct and living 

 animals ihe student would obtain particular facilities for study, 

 or that the general public would derive greater benefit than they 

 may obtain, if so inclined, from one of the numerous popular 

 books. They would not be much the wiser if the Archicopteryx 

 were placed in a passage leading from the reptile- to the bird-gal- 

 lery. And it certainly cannot be said that the separation of living 

 and extinct organisms, so universally adopted in the old museums, 

 has been a hindrance to the progress of our knowledge of the 

 development of the organic world ; this knowledge originated 

 and advanced in spite of museums' arrangements. What lies at 

 the bottom of the desire for such a change amounts, in reality, 

 to this, that museums should be the practical exponents of the 

 principle that zoologists and botanists should not be satisfied 

 with the study of the recent fauna and flora, and that palaeonto- 

 logists should not begin their studies or carry on their researches 

 without due and full reference to living forms. To this principle 

 every biologist will most heartily subscribe ; but the local separa- 

 tion of the various collections in the British Museum will not 

 offer any obstacles whatever to its being carried out. The student 

 can take the specimens, if not too bulky, from one department 

 to the other ; he may examine them in the gallery without inter- 

 ference on the part of the public ; or he may have all brought 

 to a private study, and, in fact, be in the same position with 

 regard to the use of the collections as those who have charge of 

 them. A plan which has been already initiated in the old 

 building will probably be further developed in the new, viz., to 

 distribme in the palceontologlcal series such examples of im- 

 portant living types as will aid the visitor in comprehending 

 the nature and affinities of the creatures, of which he sees only 

 the fragmentary remains. 



With regard to the further arrangement of the collec- 

 tions in the new building, it has been long understood 

 that the exhibition of all the species, or even the majority of 

 them, is a mistake, and that, therefore, two series of specimens 

 should be formed, viz. :— one for the purposes of advanced 

 scientific study— the study-series; and the other compri-ing 

 specimens illustrative of the leading points both of popular 

 and scientific interest ; this latter— the exhibition series— being 

 intended to supply the requirements of the beginner in the study 

 of natural hi-tory and of the public. As the zoological col- 

 lections are better adapted for exhibition than th.- others, the 

 following remarks refer principally to them. The bulk of our 

 present exhibition-series is the growth of many years ; and to 

 convert it into one which fulfils its proper purpose is a gradual 

 and slow process, nor can it be expected to reveal its character 

 until it has been removed into the new locality. The exhibition 

 will be probably found more liberal than may be deemed neces- 

 sary by some of my fellow-labourers ; but if a visitor should, on 

 leaving the galleries, "take nothing with him but sore feet, a bad 



