856 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 857 



tion these extraordinary and most objection- 

 able proposals. To judge from the correspon- 

 dence which we have printed on the subject, 

 they appear to find favor with no one — ^for 

 even Sir Henry Eoscoe could only find some- 

 thing to say for them by making a sugges- 

 tion for the removal of the Spirit Museum to 

 a distant site which other equally high au- 

 thorities have shown to be inadmissible — and 

 they have elicited protests of unanswerable 

 cogency from naturalists of such high au- 

 thority as the master of Christ's and Dr. Gil- 

 bert Bourne, as well as from the Linnean So- 

 ciety, the Entomological Society, and the 

 Royal Horticultural Society. Moreover, the 

 emphatic protests on other grounds and from 

 other points of view of Lord Wemyss and of 

 Lord Dufferin and those associated with him 

 are by no means to be overlooked. 



The plain truth is that, as the trustees put 

 it in their final letter to the Office of Works, 

 " to attempt to accommodate three important 

 institutions, the Natural History Museum, the 

 Imperial College of Science, and a much en- 

 larged Science Museum, on so restricted a 

 site shows a want of appreciation of the in- 

 evitable future of these institutions which is 

 bound to lead to confusion and a waste of 

 public money. Not only the Natural History 

 Museum, but all three institutions, would 

 soon be hampered in their growth." The 

 propositions here advanced scarcely admit of 

 dispute. The trustees point out that they have 

 recently been enabled by the government to 

 purchase land at Bloomsbury sufiicient to pro- 

 vide for the extension of the departments lo- 

 cated there in such a manner as to satisfy 

 prospective needs of those departments for 100 

 years to come. Yet all that the Office of 

 Works can say on behalf of its unhappy 

 scheme for extending the Science Museum at 

 the expense of the Natural History Museum is 

 that " the vacant space to the east and west 

 of the Natural History Museum is so great 

 that it is hardly possible to suppose it will not 

 afford abundant facilities for any extension 

 of the Natural History Museum which may 

 be required for the next twenty-five years " — 

 which is just a quarter of the period for which 



the government have empowered the trustees 

 to make provision at Bloomsbury. The com- 

 ment of the trustees on this significant con- 

 trast appears to us to be quite unanswerable. 

 They " feel bound to protest against the re- 

 versal at South Kensington of a policy so 

 carefully considered and so universally en- 

 dorsed " — as regards the departments at 

 Bloomsbury, that is — " and they can not 

 therefore, with due regard to their responsi- 

 bilities, consent to give up land which will 

 be urgently required in the near future for 

 the extension of the Natural History Mu- 

 seum." To this most reasonable non possu- 

 mus — reasonable because based on indisputable 

 facts as well as on the authority of all com- 

 petent experts — the Office of Works could only 

 reply by a departmental hoc volo, sic jubeo, 

 backed by the authority of the government. 

 " The question of the revision of the boun- 

 daries has been considered by his majesty's 

 ministers, and they have decided that such a 

 revision can not be avoided in view of the 

 pressing necessity for the building of a Sci- 

 ence Museum." So far as we are aware no 

 one disputes the pressing necessity for the 

 building of a Science Museum. But surely 

 no one who has studied the official correspon- 

 dence or who has followed the discussion in 

 our columns can defend or approve the policy 

 of building such a museum at South Kensing- 

 ton in such a manner as must fatally hamper 

 its own expansion and that of the Natural 

 History Museum in the near future. There 

 is manifestly no room for all three institutions 

 on the same site. Two of them are there al- 

 ready, therefore the third must go elsewhere. 

 That is the only rational solution of the prob- 

 lem, and it certainly ought not to be rejected 

 by the mere fiat of his majesty's ministers 

 without giving parliament and public opinion 

 an opportunity of pronouncing judgment on 

 the matter. — London Times. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Principles and Methods of Geometrical 

 Optics. By James P. C. Southall. 8vo. 

 Pp. xxiii +626. New York. The Mac- 

 millan Company. $5.50 net. 



