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SCIENCE 



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



different species of plants, and this was the 

 first large accession to his collection. His 

 museum and library were said to have cost 

 upward of £50,000, and their value, accord- 

 ing to his own and other accounts, was to 

 have been £80,000. At his death he be- 

 queathed his whole collection to the British 

 nation on condition that £20,000 should be 

 paid to his family. The terms in which the 

 bequest was couched showed a keen appre- 

 ciation of the best means of making such a 

 collection of public use. The will read: 



Whereas from my youth I have been a great 

 observer and admirer of the wonderful power, wis- 

 dom and contrivance of the Almighty God appear- 

 ing in the works of his creation, and have gathered 

 tier . . . books, both printed and manuscript 

 natural and artificial curiosities, precious 

 , . dried plants, . . . and the like, . . . 

 amounting in the whole to a very great sum of 

 money: Now, desiring very much that these things, 

 tending many ways to the manifestation of the 

 glory of God, . . . the use and improvement of the 

 arts and sciences and benefit of mankind, may 

 remain together and not be separated, and that 

 chiefly in and about the city of London, where 

 they may by the great confluence of people be of 

 most use, I do hereby request that . . . (my) 

 trustees ... do make their humble application to 

 Parliament ... to pay . . . £20,000 . . . unto my 

 executors ... in consideration of the said col- 

 lection . . . and also to obtain . . . sufiScient and 

 effectual powers . . . for the preserving and con- 

 tinuing my said collection, in such manner as they 

 6hall think most likely to answer the public bene- 

 fit by me intended. 



Sloane's gift was accepted by the British 

 Parliament, and in 1773 an Act was passed 

 for the purchase of the Sloane library and 

 museum and of the Harley collection of 

 charts and manuscripts, which was in the 

 market at the time, for uniting them with 

 the Cotton Library, and for providing one 

 "general repository" for these and other 

 additions that might thereafter be made. 

 The act authorized the raising of the funds 

 required by means of a lottery, and fully 

 £90,000 was thus obtained. The three col- 



lections thus acquired and housed became 

 the British Museum, which opened to the 

 public on Monday, January 15, 1759. As 

 originally organized, the British Museum 

 was divided into three departments: (1) 

 Manuscripts, medals and coins; (2) nat- 

 ural and artificial productions; and (3) 

 printed books. In 1802 the great collection 

 of Egyptian antiquities acquired under the 

 capitulation of Alexandria passed into the 

 museum. This was followed in 1805 by the 

 purchase of the Townley marbles and terra- 

 cottas, and the bronzes, coins, gems and 

 drawings in 1814. These acquisitions rend- 

 ered it necessary to create a new depart- 

 ment, that of antiquities and art, to which 

 were united the prints and drawings as 

 well as the medals and coins. Botany was 

 added as a fifth department in 1827, after 

 the bequest of Sir Joseph Bank's collection. 

 In 1837 the prints and drawings were sepa- 

 rated from the department of antiquity and 

 became an independent department. At 

 the same time the department of natural 

 history was divided into two, one of geol- 

 ogy, including paleontology and mineral- 

 ogy, and the other of zoology. In 1857 

 mineralogy was constituted a separate de- 

 partment. In 1861 the department of an- 

 tiquities was subdivided into (1) Greek 

 and Roman antiquities, (2) coins and med- 

 als, (3) Egyptian and Assyrian antiqui- 

 ties; and in 1866 the British and medieval 

 antiquities were formed into a separate de- 

 partment along with the ethnographical 

 collections. Between 1880 and 1883 the 

 natural history collections were transferred 

 to the new Natural History Museum in 

 Cromwell Eoad. 



In our own country the earliest general 

 collection of natural history objects formed 

 is said by Goode to have been one made at 

 Norwalk, Conn., by a Mr. Arnold. This 

 was prior to the E«volution. It was de- 

 scribed as " a curious collection of American 



