TEANSACTIONS OP SECTION D. DEPT. ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 659 



in all its branches, shall be kept and preserved together in the said general reposi- 

 tory whole and entire, and with proper marks of distinction." 



The trustees appointed under the Act are of four classes : Royal, Official, 

 Family, and Elected. The tirst class includes one trustee appointed by the 

 Sovereign ; the second class includes the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord 

 High Chancellor, the Speaker of the Plouse of Commons, and twenty-two other* 

 high officials and presidents of societies. The three first in this class are designated 

 ' Principal Trustees,' and in them is vested the patronage or appointment to every 

 salaried office save one in the British Museum ; the exception being the Principal 

 Librarian, who is appointed by the Sovereign. Of the Family Trustees, the Sloane 

 collections are now represented by the Earl of Derby and the" Earl of Cadogan, the 

 Cottonian Library by the Rev. Francis Annesley and the Rev. Francis Hauljury 

 Annesley, the Harleian manuscripts by Lord Henry C. G. Gordon-Lennox, M.P., 

 and by the Right Hon. George A. F. Cavendish Bentinck, M.P. Among t!;e 

 Elected Trustees the honoured name of Walpole, associated with the origin of the 

 British Museum, is continued by the Right Hon. Spencer Horatio Walpole, M.P., 

 to whom the requisite Parliamentary business of the Museum is usually confided. 



I may call attention to the ' suburbs of London or Westminster ' as one of the 

 localities specified in the original Act of Parliament, and such situation was 

 selected for the locality of the Library and the Museum. The Government issued 

 lottery tickets to the amount of 300,000/., out of the profits of which the 20,000/. 

 for the Sloanian Museum was paid, and purchase made of a suitable building, 

 •with contiguous grounds for its reception and the lodgment of keepers. 



To the north of the metropolis, about midway between the two cities of 

 London and Westminster, there stood, in 1753, an ancient family mansion called 

 Montague House. This is defined by Smollett in his 'History of England 'as 

 ' one of the most magnificent edifices in England.' ' Its style of architecture was 

 that of the Tuileries in Paris. From London it was .shut off by a lofty brick 

 wall, in the middle of which was a large ornamental gateway and lodge, through 

 which, in my earlier years as a student of natural history, I have often passed to 

 inspect, through the kindness of the then keepers of mineralogy and zoology, and 

 maJve notes on, the Sloanian and subsequently-added rarities. 



To the north of Montague House were the extensive gardens, beyond which 

 stretched away a sylvan scene to the slopes of Highgate and Hampstead Hills. 



The original location of the British Museum was more apart and remote from 

 the actual metropolis and less easy of access than is the present Museum of 

 Natural History at the West End. 



The additions to the natural history series, which accrued from 1753 to 1833, 

 together with the growth of other departments, necessitated provision of corre- 

 sponding conservative and exhibition spaces. These were acquired by the erection, 

 on the site of Montague House, of the present British Museum, the architect. Sir 

 Sidney Smirke, adopting the Ionic Greek style. 



The extent of space afforded by this edifice, in comparison with that of its 

 predecessor, was such as to engender a conviction that it would suffice for all 

 subsequent additions. The difficulty in our finite nature and limited capacity of 

 looking forward is exemplified in such names as New College at Oxford, Newcastle,. 

 New Street, New Bridge, &c., as if nothing was ever to grow old ; and the same 

 restricted power of outlook afl'ects our prevision of requirements of space for 

 I ever-growing collections. 



. T^® Printed Book Department, which took the lion's share of the then new 



British Museum, found itself compelled, in the course of one generation, to^ 



appropriate the quadrangle left by Smirke in order to admit light to the windows 



of the galleries looking that way or inwards. 



l^ From analogy I foresee that some successor of mine may exemplify human 



J^ short-sightedness in my limit of demand to eight acres for the growth of the present 



teJ Museum. 



These acres, however, after conflicts stretching over a score or more of years 



' Edition 1825, p. 332. 

 U U 



