BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY) 13 



GENERAL PROGRESS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 

 (NATURAL HISTORY). 



In the Birthday Honours, Dr. L. J. Spencer, F.R.S., was awarded the 

 C.B.E., and Miss A. Lorrain Smith, unofficial scientific worker in the 

 Department of Botany, the O.B.E. 



The total number of visitors to the British Museum (Natural History) 

 during 1934 was 631,782 as compared with 606,712 in 1933, both of 

 which were larger numbers than in any previous year. The visitors 

 on Sunday afternoons numbered 108,240 as against 101,347 last 

 year. The total number of visitors attending the tours of the 

 official Guide Lecturer during 1934 was 21,776, being an increase of 

 3,074 on the figure for 1933. 



From the beginning of February lectures were given in the Museum 

 on Sunday afternoons. 



The Treasury agreed to the inclusion in the Estimates for 1935 of 

 provision for the recruitment during the year of six additional Assistant 

 Keepers and five subordinate posts, one of the new Assistant Keepers to 

 be assigned to the Department of Mineralogy for work on the Collection 

 of Deep Sea Deposits. They also sanctioned the addition to the Museum 

 establishment of a second post of Guide Lecturer. 



The contractors for the erection of the new Spirit Building Extension 

 took possession of the site on 14 May, and those concerned with the 

 erection of the first half of the New Western Block took over the site on 

 9 July. Good progress has been made with both buildings. A 

 Sub-Committee of the Trustees, with Lord Macmillan as Chairman, 

 has been appointed to examine the whole position as to accommoda- 

 tion, and to consider afresh the measures necessary to relieve the 

 existing and impending congestion. 



Exhibition Galleries. 



Minor rearrangements and renovations were made in the upper and 

 lower Mammal Galleries. The mounting and suspension of four 

 skeletons of large whales was completed in the new Whale Hall, and a 

 fifth is in process of mounting. The Hall was temporarily opened to 

 the public on two occasions during public holidays, and will be perma- 

 nently opened as soon as the work remaining to be done is of a kind that 

 can be carried on while the Hall is open. In the Bird Gallery the 

 arrangement of the British series was completed. A coloured cast of 

 a Komodo Monitor, which recently died in the Zoological Gardens, was 

 placed in the Reptile Gallery, and the exhibit of marine Turtles was 

 rearranged. Progress was made with the rearrangement of the Fish 

 Gallery, and work was done on the exhibits of Coelenterates and Sponges. 

 A very fine specimen of the giant Hydroid Branchiocerianthus, prepared 

 by a new process, was placed in the Coral Gallery. 



