^2 ACCOUNTS, &,C., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM. 



The total number of visitors to the Museum during the year 1884 lias been 375,231, 

 beino- an increase of 97,900 over those of the previous year; 10,453 visits of students or 

 persons requiring special information from officers of departments have been recorded. 



The proo-ress of arrangement in, and the additions to, the various departments, are re- 

 corded in the reports of the respective keepers. In the departments of Geology, Mineralogy 

 and Botany, the arrangement has been confined to improvements in detail. The Zoological 

 collections, having been the last to be removed from Bloomsbury, as well as the most 

 extensive, are naturally in a less forward state for exhibition, and much remains to be 

 done before all of the numerous rooms in which they are distributed can be opened to the 

 public. In the early part of the year the Osteological Gallery, containing a magnificent 

 series of articulated skeletons and skulls of all the orders of mammalia, other than the 

 Catacea, was completed and opened, and the collection of skeletons of whales and 

 dolphins, too large for exhibition in tlie Galleries, has been arranged in a room in the 

 basement, which is now ready for public inspection. 



Of the Central Hall, which is especiaUy under the charge of the Director, more must be 

 said. In the original plan of the Museum it was designedfor the purpose of exhibiting a 

 collection of specimens supijlementary, or rather introductoi-y, to the main collections in 

 the galleries, and -which has been at various times styled an " Index " collection and a 

 " Type " collection. Owing to the urgent requirements of other departments, little progress 

 had been hitherto made in collecting and arranging the specimens for this collection. A 

 definite commencement has, however, now been made upon a systematic plan, the intention 

 of which is to illustrate the leading points in the structure of each large group (such as those 

 to "which the term "class" is commonly applied) by carefully selected and prepared 

 specimens accompanied by explanatory descriptions, pointing out the typical form, and 

 the most important deviations I'rom it, and the terms by which these are designated in 

 current zoological literature. 



The illustrations to such a series will be mostly of a different nature from those at 

 present in the other parts of the Museum, as they will not be merely specimens, but 

 preparations, usually not comjjlete animals, but parts, the corresponding or homologous 

 organs of different animals being brought into juxtaposition for comparison, in away which 

 cannot be effected in the galleries, where the specimens are necessarily arranged in 

 systematic zoological or botanical sequence. In such a series the illustrations will 

 naturally be derived equally from living and extinct forms, therefore there will be no 

 necessity for any portion of the collection being exclusively devoted to palaeontology, but 

 it will be very desirable, wherever practicable, to show examples of sequence of modifica- 

 tion of the same type or the same organ in successive geological epochs. 



With regard to Botany, it is obvious that such an introductory series will be equally 

 applicable and equally instructive, as in zoology, and should be in sequence Avith it in any 

 general exposition of the leading modifications of the organic world. 'J'he Kee2)er of 

 Mineralogy has already formed an admirably arranged collection introductory to the study 

 of his department, which allowing for the great difference in the nature of the objects, 

 gives a good idea of what an introductory collection to the other departments may 

 be. It has, however, been arranged, not in the Central Hall, but in a part of the Gallery 

 devoted to minerals. The far superior illumination of the specimens in tlieir present 

 situation to that which they would receive in one of the bays of the Centi-al Hall, a 

 matter which is of the greatest importance in the case of minerals, is a strong reason 

 against any disturbance of the present arrangement. 



Such an arrangement as is here contemplated must be a work of considerable time to 

 complete, owing to the difficulty of obtaining the most illustrative specimens when required, 

 and the labour and skill needed to be expended upon them, but, if jiroperly carried out, 

 will doubtless be both instructive and attractive. 



Although only one new guide-book has been actually published dui-ing the year, that 

 to the collection of Minerals, great progress has been made in many others. One for 

 the collection of Fossil Fishes, and another for the Mammalian, Osteological and Cetacean 

 collections, all fully illustrated, are in the press. 



An important publication issued during the year has been the report on the Zoological 

 collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean during the surveying voyage of H.M.S. 

 Alert in 1881-1882, mostly collected by Dr. Coppinger, surgeon to the ship, and 

 presented to the Trustees of the Museum by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. 

 These specimens, amounting to 3,700 in number (irrespective of duplicates), referable to 

 1,300 speciss (of which more than one-third were new to the Museum), have been worked 

 out and described by the various members of the staff of the Zoological Department, and 

 the volume in which the results of their investigations are published is a valuable 

 contribution to the advancement of zoological science. The work is illustrated by 54 

 lithographic plates. The other publications of the year have been a catalogue of Fossil 

 Sponges by Dr. G. J. Hinde, illustrated by 38 quarto lithographic plates, and the Ninth 

 Volume of the CataL)gue of Birds, by Dr. H. Gadow. 



Catalogues 



