200 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1076 



than any scientific order. The arrange- 

 ment of the Wormian museum, which was 

 one of the most celebrated museums of the 

 seventeenth century, probably typifies that 

 of many. "On the floor and on two 

 shelves above it, ' ' we are told, ' ' were boxes 

 and trays containing small objects, begin- 

 ning with earths and salts and proceeding 

 in order through the mineral, vegetable and 

 animal kingdoms, till they ended with parts 

 of animals. Interspersed amongst these 

 there was a miscellaneous assemblage of 

 statuary, antiquities, birds, fish, bones, 

 corals and petrifactions. The upper part 

 of the wall was covered with tortoises, croc- 

 odiles, lizards, skeletons, spears, lances, 

 arrows, paddles and costumes from Green- 

 land. Between the windows hung horns, 

 antlers and heads of deer and other ani- 

 mals; underneath on the floor lay vertebrtB 

 of a whale. From the roof were suspended 

 a great polar bear, a shark and other fish, 

 various birds and an Esquimaux kayak." 

 The anatomical collection at Dresden is said 

 to have been arranged like a pleasure 

 garden, skeletons being interwoven with 

 branches of trees in the form of hedges so 

 as to form vistas. In the anatomical mu- 

 seum of Frederick Ruysch at Amsterdam, 

 plants disposed in nosegays, and shells ar- 

 ranged in figures, were mixed with skeletons 

 of animals and anatomical preparations. 

 The so-called decoration of a cabinet or mu- 

 seum was also deemed of much importance 

 in these times. The tops of the presses or 

 cases, we are told, were frequently orna- 

 mented with shells of great size, wasp nests, 

 rhinoceros horns, an elephant's trunk, the 

 horn of a unicorn, urns and busts of ala- 

 baster, jasper, marble, porphyry, or serpen- 

 tine. Here likewise were placed figures of 

 antique bronze, large lithophytes, animals 

 made of shell, gourds cut in two; little 

 trunks of bark, books made of the palm 

 tree, globes, spheres, etc. Even of the 



British Museum as late as 1786 a visitor 

 said that "it contains many collections in 

 natural history; but, with the exception of 

 some fish in a small apartment, which are 

 begun to be classed, nothing is in order, 

 everything is out of place; and this as- 

 semblage appears rather an immense maga- 

 zine in which things have been thrown at 

 random than a scientific collection destined 

 to instruct and honor a nation." Amid 

 such chaos it is little to be wondered at that 

 the great naturalists of the time, such as 

 Linnffius, Cuvier and Buffon, set them- 

 selves above all things to the task of bring- 

 ing about order, so that system and syste- 

 matists ruled the eighteenth and nineteenth 

 centuries till their dominance became in 

 turn so great that a revolt appeared which 

 we have witnessed in our own time. The 

 chaotic condition of these centuries was in 

 part the result of the times. The discovery 

 of the new world had brought a fiood of 

 new material to the old, and inquiry and 

 interest were active on every hand. The 

 acquisition of new material was deemed 

 more important than the study of that al- 

 ready possessed. Moreover, it was still the 

 age of wonder, and the exceptional things 

 were sought after instead of the common 

 things. The wonder excited by an object 

 of course depends largely iipon the inter- 

 pretation given it, so that many things 

 which seem common and ordinary enough 

 to us to-day were at that time deemed of 

 great interest. Again the museums had in 

 but few cases attained to the dignity of 

 public support, so that those who were in 

 charge of them had to depend upon fees for 

 most of their maintenance. This led to a 

 tendency to procure and exhibit material 

 possessing some morbid or vulgar interest 

 in order that greater attendance might be 

 secured and larger remuneration thus ob- 

 tained. 



Murray says : 



