16 



DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON BOTANICAL WORK: 



K.C.I. E., 



F.R.S. 



7 Nov. 1900 



Sir G. King, space nojv consists of a table between each, block of cabi- 

 net, about seven feet long. 



257. That is not a small matter of convenience, but it 

 is essential to your duly -n^orking out your results 1 — Cer- 

 tainly. If you are working at a critical genus or species 

 you want to put all your specimens on the (table at once, 

 so that you can walk along and look at them carefully 

 without any efforti, or turning over papers or taking 

 things out of a wrapper, and all that. You want to see 

 a hundred specimens in some oases at once, and you 

 cannot do that at Kew. I do not know what area of 

 table space they want, but a very great deal. Tables 

 are cheap. There is one thing I have forgotten. In the 

 provision tharf; I propose for the herbarium, I forgot to 

 say that there ought to be some arrangement for 

 palaeontologists. There ought to be collections at Crom- 

 well Road such as they could consult if they desire. 



258. {Mr. Seymour.) If your idea was carried out, of 

 bringing the herbarium' at the British Museum under the 

 same roof, or contiguous to the one at Kew, would there 

 not be a very great duplication of specimens ? — Yes. 



259. Would you weed them out, or do you propose to 

 keep them in their duphcate condition? — ^I would not 

 give away a single duplicate to begin with. As a natural 

 family gets worked up iby a man whose eye is in for it, who 

 is an expert in it, I would let him pick out what h e thinks 

 are duplicates. It is very difficult to say what is a dupli- 

 cate. You may have two sheets shown A,o one botanist, 

 and he might say these are the same things : these are 

 duplicates, and one should be given away. But the other 

 man would say they are not duplicates, but different 

 things. There is dreadful danger in giving away dupli- 

 cates hastily. I would take the whole collection over as 

 it stands, and not attempt to reduce space, or to save 

 money by giving away duplicates wholesale. Ij would 

 certainly give duplicates away ultimEutely, but slowly, 

 after the order to which they belonged has been worked 

 up by a competent botanist. Almost every order in a 

 herbarium gets some day into the hands of a competent 

 man, and I would leave that man to pick out and say 

 " This is a duplicate, and may be given away." 



260. {Frofessor Balfour.) This common housing of the 

 collections that you suggest might take place without in- 

 corporating them, would Ibe practically very mucli what 

 they have at the British Museum, where nio*w the 

 British herbarium and the general collection are kept 

 quite separate, so that if a person wants to work out 

 some European plant which is British he must go to 

 two different collections. Therefore prtactically there 

 would be no more inconvenience in that than there 

 is at the British Museum at the present time ? — There 

 would be no inoonvenience. You would be saved the 

 labour of walking,' that is all. 



261. Your reference has been chiefly to the Phanero- 

 gamic collection? — ^Entirely. I have not worked at 

 Cryptogams at all. 



262. iSupposing that the transference you suggesr was 

 made in the Phanerogamic collections, have you any 

 opinion as to whether it might be desirable to leave the 

 Cryptogamic collections at the British Museum ? — ^I can- 

 not say much about the Cryptogamic collections, because 

 I do not know the kind of people who consult them ; but 

 IDrobably it would be better to have the Cryptogamic col- 

 lection under the same roof too. However, I am not so 

 strong about that, because I have no experience of it. 



263. Have you looked particularly at the so-called 

 popular collection there? — ^Yes. 



264. Do you think that is a valuable series ? — Yes, very 

 valuable. 



265. Might it be considerably extended ? — Yes. 



266. So that, in fact, your recommendation v/culd be 

 that that popular line of exposition should be extended, 

 and that the herbarium should be placed on exactly the 

 same popular lines, and that all the real scientific 

 research and investigation should be transferred to Kew? 

 — Yes. I do not say to Kew, biit to a new building. 



267. Sepiarate from that in which the popular col- 

 lection remained ? — ^Yes. 



268. But j-ou would have all these popular collections 

 in London ? — ^Yes. 



269. At Cromwell Road ? — Yes ; there they could be 

 easily consulted. They are now in the British Museum, 

 but I would see no objection to having them in one of the 

 neighbouring buildings. There is to be a College of 

 Science building, I believe, and that would be a very 

 good place for them. All I would hold out, for is that 

 they should be easy of access, and easily consulted. 



270. As I understand you, you said before that at Kew 

 there must be maintained a herbarium as complete as 



possible ? — ^Yes. 



271. Does not that point to the fact that at Kew there 

 would require to be a research herbarium? That Kew 

 would be the place where you would put it ? — Yes. All 

 new specimens coming in I woiild have treated at Kew, 

 and if duplicates were wanted for London let them come 

 from Kew. Let it be part of the duty of that herbariuia 

 to send up what specimens are wanted. 



272. Do you think that the fact of the research her- 

 barium being placed at Kew would interfere in any way 

 with the work to be done ? — ^In some cases I daresay it 

 would. A man living in 'Cromwell Uoad would find it 

 more convenient to work at the British Museum than to 

 go to Kew, but he would find a larger collection at Kew. 

 A man's business is to do the best work he can, and he 

 will go to the place where the best material is, and in my 

 opinion the scientific material ought to be all in one place.. 



273. But the inconvenience to individuals that would 

 ensue from the transference of the whole to Kew would, 

 be more than compensated for by the advantage to scien- 

 tific men of having the whole thing under one roof ? — Cer- 

 tainly. People who know London — ^I do not profess tO' 

 do so — say that Kew is not so much out of the way. 



274. In working both at the British Museum and at 

 Kew, do you find that you can mate equally easy use 

 of both herbaria ? — No. If I am going to woi-k at Kew,. 

 it simplifies matters to live at Kew, and in working" 

 at Cromwell Road it simplifies matters to live there. 



275. _ Supposing you go to Kew, you find all your 

 collections arranged so that you can readily get your 

 plants ; when you go to the British Museum herbarium, 

 do you find you can as readily get your plants there ? — 

 Yes ; they are well arranged. 



276. Are they well arranged in both cases? — Yes. 



277. (Mr. Darwin.) There is one point I want to- 

 get at, and that is the distinction between a research 

 herbarium and a herbarium designed for use in a. 

 botanical garden. Supposing you have an ideal herba- 

 rium for the use of the garden, would it or would it not. 

 at the same time be an ideal research herbarium? — ^Yes. 



278. I understand you would practically make the 

 herbarium at the British Museum a popular herbarium, 

 it would no longer be anything _ that could be called 

 a scientific herbarium ?--It would be scientific to a 

 certain extent — the plants in it ought to be accurately 

 named. 



279. But it would be nothing at all of the character 

 of a research herbarium? — No, not in the highest sense. 



280. Supposing you were Dictator, would you still 

 have a competent botanist at the British Museum?— 

 Certainly. 



281. Would not the loss of anything that might be 

 called a researcli herbarium be a certain drawback 

 to the work of such a botanist ?—iHe would have to 

 concern himself with other matters than large groups of 

 plants. In his new position he could not do that. 



282. But he would want something more than a', 

 'herbarium simply arranged on geographical lines, re-- 

 presenting picked places of the' world. I want your 

 opinion whether he would not possibly need something 

 more complete, a representative' herbarium of the whole 

 world, say? — 'But he could not have it. There is not 

 material to have a large herbarium containing plants 

 of the whole world, in two sets. The British Museum 

 collection does not represent all the plants of the whole 

 world now : neither does Kew, but Kew will do so more 

 when it gets the British Museum herbarium. 



283. Would it not be possible to supply the British 

 Museum with what may be called a representative 

 herbarium from Kew? — It would be possible, but it 

 would take up a frightful lot of time, and where would 

 they put it in the British Museum ? There is no room 

 for it. 



284. (Mr. Spring Bice.) You spoke in rather strong 

 terms about the danger of fire to the heirbarium at 

 Kew. Are you aware that the building is completely 

 isolated? — Yes ; and I am aware also that it is com- 

 pletely built of most inflammable pine wood, that the 

 galleries and roofs are varnished, and that the windows 

 of the lower storey are within the reach of any evilly 

 disposed person, who has only to break a window and 

 shove in a bunch of shavings and a little petroleum, 

 and Kew herbarium in half an hour will not exis;. 



285. Apart from such a highly improbable 6onitingency 

 as somebody wishing to set it on fire, can you suggest 



