57S 



NA rURE 



[Oct. 2 1, 1880 



the Fossil Reptiles of the Cretaceous Formations" (185 1). 

 A remarkable series of papers on the Fossil Birds of 

 New Zealand and on some Fossil Mammals of Australia 

 also about this date appeared in the Transactions of 

 the Zoological Society, and a very elaborate memoir on 

 the great American Megatherium in the Philosophical 

 Transaclions. 



But even amid a scientific activity that rivalled that of 

 his great friend Baron Cuvier, Prof. Owen had the energy 

 to devote some time during these thirty years to the more 

 direct benefit of his fellow men. He was appointed one 

 of the Commissioners to inquire into the Health of Towns. 

 This Commission sat during 1843 and 1846. A special 

 report from his pen on the sanitary state of his native 

 town, Lancaster, appeared in 1 848, and the improved 

 sewage of that town with a new water supply on the un- 

 intermittent system followed. He was appointed as one 

 of the Commissioners on the Health of the Metropolis, 

 1846, 1848, and again on the Commission on the Meat 

 Supply in 1849 ; as the result of this latter Commission 

 it will be remembered that the famous market at Smith- 

 field was suppressed, and the large Cattle Market was 

 transferred to Islington. 



Prof. Owen was also one of the Commissioners for the 

 Great Exhibition of 1S51 ; Chairman of the Jury on Raw 

 Animal Products applied to Food and Manufactures, 

 and Vice-Chairman of the Jury for " Les Substances Ali- 

 mentaires" in the Great Exhibition of Paris in 1855. 

 Labours so abundant were not without reward. In 1842 

 the Royal Society conferred on him the Royal Medal for 

 his memoirs on the General Economy of the Monotremes 

 and Marsupials. In 1846 the same society decreed to 

 him the Copley Medal. In 1851 the King of Prussia 

 sent to him the " Ordre pour le Me'rite." In 1852 her 

 Most Gracious Majesty assigned to him a residence in 

 Richmond Park, and in 1S55 the Emperor of the French 

 bestowed on him the cross of the " Legion d'Honneur.'' 

 The old Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin 

 conferred on him honorary degrees. The Royal College 

 of Surgeons of Ireland made him an Honorary Fellow 

 and most of the learned societies of Europe and America 

 numbered his name on their lists of Honorary or Corre- 

 sponding Members. 



John Hunter had left behind him a very abiding monument 

 of his labours, some idea of which could now be obtained 

 from the patient labours of the first Hunteiian professor; 

 but on terminating those labours Prof. Owen bethought 

 him of yet another way in which he could make known the 

 thoughts and works of the founder of philosophical surgery, 

 which was, by the publication of Hunter's original papers. 

 Between 1793 and 1800 Mr. Clift, F.R.S., had sole 

 charge of the Hunterian collection and manuscripts, and 

 during this period he had copied some proportion of the 

 latter before they were removed from the Museum in Castle 

 Street, Leicester Square, by the executor, Sir Everard 

 Home. A short time previous to Mr. Clift' s death he 

 placed in Prof. Owen's hands the whole of his transcripts 

 of the Hunterian manuscripts, with an autograph state- 

 ment of the important fact. These were published in 

 two volumes m 1861, and thus, after an entombment of 

 nearly seventy years, were added "to the common intel- 

 lectual property of mankind." 



Prof. Owen's connection with the Royal College of 



Surgeons ceased in 1856, when he was appointed Superin- 

 tendent of the Department of Natural History in the 

 British Museum. He was the Lecturer on Pateontology 

 at the School of Mines in Jermyn Street in 1856, and 

 Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institu- 

 tion of Great Britain in 1858. 



When Prof. Owen entered on his duties at the British 

 Museum his attention was at once called to the sub- 

 ject of the want of space wherein to stow the rapidly- 

 increasing natural history collections. For several years 

 already had Dr. Gray, to whom this Museum owes so 

 much, urgently demanded additional space. In 1851, 

 in 1854, and again in 1856, Dr. Gray implored for 

 more room ; scarcely half of the zoological collections 

 was e.xhibited to the public, and their due display, he 

 declared, would require more than twice the space 

 devoted to them. Numerous suggestions were made to 

 remedy this state of things, but without avaiL Even such 

 distinguished trustees as the late Sir Roderick Murchison 

 and Sir Philip Grey Egerton, backed though they were by a 

 large and most influential body of scientific memorialists, 

 were powerless to obtain the least of the additions to the 

 British Museum which they had recommended — additions 

 which long ere this date would have been overcrowded in 

 their turn. The Government declined to carry into effect 

 any alterations in the present building in Great Russell 

 Street, preferring the alternative of a severance of the 

 Natural History Department from the British Museum. 

 At this juncture it seemed to Prof. Owen to be unwise and 

 indeed even wrong to hazard the safety and utility of 

 these collections by persisting in the advocacy of a course 

 which was futile, and having satisfied the then Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer of the exigencies of the case, plans 

 were obtained for a large new museum at South Kensing- 

 ton which would afford a superficial space for display of 

 the collections, systematically arranged, of about five acres. 

 Prof. Owen's report (1859) was approved of, but a vote 

 on account of the new building was negatived by the 

 House of Commons. This led to the publication of a 

 pamphlet by Prof. Owen, " On the Extent and Aims of a 

 National Museum of Natural History," in 1862, and as 

 a final result the Government obtained the sanction of 

 Parliament in 1872 to the erection at South Kensington of 

 the magnificent range of buildings there just completed, in 

 which in process of time the whole of the natural history 

 treasures of the British Museum will be systematically 

 arranged. 



For long the propriety of moving this collection from 

 Great Russell Street was hotly contested, and as in other 

 great questions the weight of authority could at one time 

 be quoted as against the move. Scientific men are however 

 as a rule not often to be unduly swayed even by authority 

 and they are generally philosophical enough to accept 

 accomplished facts. In this immense building the State 

 has provided ample accommodation, so far as space is 

 concerned, for the present collections and for the probable 

 increase of these for another generation ; and not content 

 with this, there is in addition room enough for future 

 generations if they feel inclined, to nearly double the 

 available space, and thereby even add to the beauty and 

 completeness of the whole structure. In the obtaining of 

 this splendid casket in which to display Nature's gems. 

 Prof. Owen has seen accomplished one great object of 



