SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



49 



red colour, and as usual is rather smaller in size. 

 The great point for identification is the fourth pair 

 of legs, which are constructed in a peculiar 

 manner (fig. .">). 



LOCALITIES. — Females of this mite I have found 



Fig. 5, Fiona talipes. Fourth leg of male. 



in two places — Peplow in Shropshire and in Epping 

 Forest, Essex. Only two males have yet been found 

 in Britain, both by Dr. George — one in May 1884, 

 at Ditchington, Norfolk ; and one in April 1900, in 

 Lincolnshire. It is from this last specimen the 

 figure here shown of the leg has been drawn. 



{To be continued.) 



PROFESSOR PETRIE'S SCHEME. 



T AST month we shortly referred to Professor 

 -'—* Flinders Petrie's plan for a National Keposi- 

 tory for Science and. Art. This he propounded at a 

 meeting of the Society of Arts on May 16th. To 

 say that it has the impress of magnitude is the 

 least attribute, for as a whole it is conceived with 

 boldness and. ingenuity, however much we may 

 differ from some of the details. That such a plan 

 is wanted no one doubts, and. in creating a basis 

 for discussion Dr. Flinders Petrie has been most 

 successful. 



The general idea is that the present plan and ac- 

 commodation provided by our museums are utterly 

 insufficient and narrow in conception. Even the 

 national collections will in a few years quite out- 

 grow their present development at such a pace 

 that the Treasury must apply a break on expendi- 

 ture on buildings, and then as educational institu- 

 tions they will fall into arrear. Again, with a 

 number of competing small local establishments, 

 the "specimens" become so scattered that it is 

 beyond the means, in time and money, of the 

 ordinary student to wander all over the kingdom 

 to hunt for examples of his especial study, so as to 

 obtain a series for comparison ; even then they 

 cannot be brought into juxtaposition, and the 

 scholar must largely depend on memory. As 

 Professor Petrie said in his lecture, with the 

 expansion of Western civilisation whole races will 

 disappear before its march, or will adapt them- 

 selves to their new conditions, and so we shall 

 lose their characteristics for ever. The same 

 influences cause the annihilation of numbers of 

 species of both the wild fauna and flora of many 



districts. Examples from these sources, though 

 only a very small part of all that should be pre- 

 served for ready examination by posterity, are 

 being crowded out, and so lost for ever by the 

 limited space at the disposal of directors and 

 curators of our present museums. It is useless to 

 dilate upon this fact, for it is every day in some 

 form or other apparent. This is the beginning of 

 an age of serious exploration of the buried evi- 

 dences of the past, which will extend immensely 

 as the whole population gets more liberally edu- 

 cated. Take those countries under the influence 

 of Britain, and they could supply more material 

 from that source alone than our present arrange- 

 ments could house, to the exclusion of all other 

 subjects. 



Professor Petrie's proposal is to meet the future 

 in a manner that would provide ample room for 

 all subjects, whether geological, applying to living 

 inhabitants of the earth, to man's ethnographic 

 history, his art progress, his present civilisation, 

 and, indeed, everything of educational value of the 

 past, the present, or the future ; whether scientific, 

 artistic, or utilitarian. 



For this purpose Professor Petrie proposes that 

 the nation should acquire at least a square mile of 

 land in a dry, healthy situation, within an hour's 

 travel of London, and there create the new town of 

 Sloane, so-called in honour of the founder of the 

 British Museum. The fringe of this estate he 

 would let for building on ground-rent leases for 

 residential purposes, so as to create an income 

 towards the fund for maintenance of the central 

 buildings, especially with regard to renewals and 

 repairs. Thus he would surround the scientific 

 centre with houses that might be occupied by 

 people of culture, who would naturally centralise 

 around the National Collection. 



Dr. Petrie proposes that the plan of the museum 

 buildings should be simple as possible, with top- 

 lights only, and about 51 feet wide. That they 

 should be inexpensively constructed of iron, brick, 

 and concrete, without any wood-work, as lessening 

 the chances of destruction by fire, at a cost of 

 200Z. for each 16 feet. He proposes that these 

 buildings shall be arranged in "gridiron " pattern, 

 with broad spaces between them. 'When the whole 

 site has been occupied by the first set of buildings, 

 there would be some eight miles of galleries. 1 1 1 

 which extent they would grow by annual addi- 

 tions of about 500 feet. 



When the time came for further expansion a new 

 set of buildings would be commenced in the centre 

 of the spaces, and again between these ; so that his 

 square mile would provide comparatively inexpen- 

 sive expansion for three or more centuries to come. 

 While unoccupied by buildings the space is to be 

 used for the cultivation of timber-trees of suitable 

 species to the land covering the site. These, of 

 course, would become a source of revenue, and form 

 an ornamental park in the meantime. J. T. C. 



