MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



13 



186. It is confined to the professor and the research 

 student ?— Yes. The private part of the Herbari um and 

 the Library is confined to them. The casual students 

 who attend" lectures, and are being taught, confine theni- 

 eelves to the public galleries and to the morphological 

 oollection in the Hall. 



187. Have they any access to the Library? — No. 



188. (Mr. Spring Bice.) Do you allow any professors 

 to take a class into your private gallery? — Certainly 

 not. Such groups as pay us visits are field clubs and 

 so on, and they are invariably addressed. The lecture 

 or instruction is given by one of the members of the 

 staff of the Botanical Department. I do not think that 

 a private lecture has ever been given in the herbarium. 



189. Have you never allowed even the Government 

 Professor of Botany over the way to give a lecture in 

 your place? — If he specially proposed such a thing I 

 should not object to it. I know that on the occasion of 

 ihe visits of Dr. Scott and Professor F. W. 

 Oliver, and occasionally Professor Farmer, the in- 

 struction to the students has been of a more or less con- 

 versational character. I have not the slightest doubt 

 that they addressed their students in that way, but not 

 in the sense of giving a lecture or expositions to the class 

 as a whole. 



190. {Chairman.) "Would you allow him to use the 

 Herbarium as a lecture theatre ? — No, because he would 

 be disturbing 60 many other students. 



191. You wiould allow him to use your Herbarium 

 as one connected with an institution? — No, it would be 

 mischievous. 



192. (Lord Avehury.) Would it not be the case that 

 "the outside collection is very much better adapted for a 

 lecture of that sort, and that he is likely to use that more 

 than the other? — Undoubtedly. I could not imagine a 

 lecture in the Herbarium profitable to a student. 



193. (Mr. Spring Eice.) Do you recognise that the 

 -position of Professor Farmer, and the College as a 



(iovernment Institution, give him, if anything, special Mr. G. It. M. 

 treatment? — No, certainly not: we treat all institu- Munny, 

 tions in absolutely the same way. r.R..s. 



194. (Lord Avehury.) You express a very strong i Nov. 1900. 



opinion in favour of having one collection in London, but 



you would recognise, would you not, that it is very neces- 

 sary to the work of Kew that they should have a collec- 

 tion ? — Undoubtedly. It is necessary that they should 



have a collection for the purpose of naming plants in the 

 garden. They have such collections in Edinburgh and 

 iniiversity towns where botany is taught. It is necessary 

 to have a herbarium for that purpose, but the herbarium 

 needed for that is one that need not have type specimens, 

 and might be, as compared with the present herbarium 

 at Kew and the one at the British Museum, a mere skele- 

 ton of a lierbarium. That is done in institutions scattered 

 all over the Continent, and in this country as well. 



195. I suppose if any special facilities were to be given 

 to the authorities of the Royal College of Science, it would 

 be a matter rather for the Trustees in the first instance ? — 

 It would have to be done with their sanction. 



196. I think I am correct in saying that the Trustees 

 have never refused any application made by the Royal 

 College of Science? — Never. 



197. (Professor Balfour.) What would you think of the 

 proposal involving — if there was any separation in the 

 herbaria — ^the maintenance of the cryptogamic collection 



in one place and the phanerogamic collection in another? > 



— It would lead to what I might call a mutilation. There 

 are very strong objections to it. Personally I see great 

 objection, especially in the description of new collections. 

 If you had cryptogams in one part of London and flowering 

 plants in another, I think it would lead to great popular 

 inconvenience ; people would never know where to go to 

 get a plant named. 



198. Paris, perhaps, is not a good place to quote for 

 convenient access to collections, but there is a separa- 

 tion there? — That is a disastrous separation, I think. 



SECOND DAY. 



WESTMINSTER PALACE HOTEL. 



Wednesday, *7th Noijember, 1900. 



PRESENT 



Sir Michael Foster, k.c.b., m.p., sec.e.s., etc. (in the Chair), afterwards Sir John Kirk. 



The Right Hon. Baron Avebury, p.c, f.r.s. 

 Sir John Kirk, g.c.m.g., k.c.b., f.r.s. 

 Professor Isaac Bayley Balfour, d.sc, f.r.s. 



Mr. Francis Darwin, m.b., f.r.s. 



Mr. Horace Alfred Damer Seymour, c.b. 



Mr' Stephen Edward Spring Rice, c.b. 



Mr. Benjamin Daydon Jackson, Secretary. 



Sir George King, k.c.i.e., f.r.s., retired Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sibpur, Calcutta, 



called and examined. 



199. (Chairman.) You have, I think, held an official 

 •position in India? — Yes, I was superintendent of the 

 Botanical Gardens at Calcutta for twenty-seven years, and 

 Director of tihe Botanical Survey from its foundation. 



200. And your whoie life, I believe, has been devoted 

 to systematic botany ? — Yes. - 



201. Have you made constant use of various herbaria? 

 — I have. 



202. Have you made use of the herbarium at Kew and 

 tlhe herbarium at the British Museum ? — I have made use 

 of hoth, hut chiefly of tihat at Kew. 



203. Can you say that you have used the one herbarium 

 for certain purposes and the other for other purposes, or 

 that you used them both for the same purpose ? — I have 

 jised them botii for the same purpose. 



3499. 



Nov. 1900. 



204. ^ Is it, in your opinion, of iimteresit that the two ^j,. q^ King 

 herbaria should be maintained in their present condi- k.c.i.e., 

 tion? — ^Not in their present condition. F.R.S.' 



205. What change do you think is demanded in the „ 

 interests of botanical science? — ^In the interest of sys- 

 tematic botany, which is the only interest I am con- 

 cerned with, there ought, in my opinion, to be one her- 

 barium for soienitific work. 



206. No dourbit you have been led te> that by your own 

 experience ? — Yes. 



207. Will you kindly tell the Committee what your 

 experience has ibeen in working at the two herbaria which 

 has led you to this opinion? — ^I have prepared mono- 

 graphs of certain genera, and I am now employed in 

 writing a flora of the Malay Peninsula. I work at Kew 



