(11) 
the necessary expense, nor is it practicable now for me to 
recommend this course with our present income. 
It will soon be necessary for us to consider increasing the 
shelf capacity of the library, as the shelves already provided 
will not accommodate more than about 2,000 additional books. 
The architect’s plan for increasing the shelving has always 
been to construct a set of bookcases above those already built 
in the stackroom, by means of a steel frame, thus bringing 
the collection on two levels, and floor beams of sufficient 
strength to permit this were used when the building was 
constructed. 
Museums and Herbarium 
The incorporation of additional specimens into the collec- 
tion has gone forward actively, and the accumulated quantity 
of specimens hitherto stored has for the most part been in- 
stalled, or distributed to other institutions, the total additions 
to the permanent collections amounting to 102,716, of which 
60,552 were obtained during the year, and 42,164 were 
previously stored. The museum cases are ample to receive 
the natural growth of the collection for some time, but we 
now need additional herbarium cases, which it is hoped may 
be obtained during the year. The growth of the herbarium 
has been very rapid, owing to the great number of specimens 
that have been given to the Garden, and the several private 
herbaria which have been purchased, so that the nucleus of 
a collection of dried plants comparable in size and importance 
to the larger ones of the Old World has now been formed. 
Dr. Rusby informed me when he returned from Europe in 
the autumn, that he thinks the size of our herbarium is now 
between one fourth and one third that of the Royal Gardens 
at Kew. The very rapidity of our accumulation of speci- 
mens has prevented their critical study in many instances, 
and it is proposed, now that the specimens secured have 
nearly all been mounted, to devote special attention during 
the next year to their study and arrangement, looking for- 
ward to a much less rapid accumulation of material in the 
in the immediate future. 
