48 



DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON BOTANICAL WORK : 



28 Nov. 



iJy. H. in order to save our balance, if one department had over- 

 Wnodivard, spent its annual grant and another department had under- 

 1". R.s. spent it, of borrowing. We go to the Director, and ask 



him to induce the other keeper who has a credit balance 

 1900. to assist us temporarily with a loan. I find that in 1895 

 - I borrowed money from the Botanical Department, £425, 

 and that money should have been returned in 1896, but 

 the emergency of the Williamson collection was so great 

 that I had again to apply to the Director to ask him to 

 use his influence with the Keeper of Botany not to press 

 for the return of the borrowed money, and therefore the 

 money was again borrowed. At that time it was stated in 

 Mr. Murray's report to the Trustees that he forgave the 

 debt, and the money was consequently spent on the 

 Williajnson collection. But it had been actuaBy bor- 

 rowed and .spent the year before. 



1091. Then practically it was bought with the money of 

 the Botanical Department? — Only a portion of it. 



1092. {2Ir. Spring Bice.) You are awai'e that that sys- 

 tem of expending balances has been altered now ? — Yes, 

 we now have the liberty to retajin, or the Trusitees have 

 the liberty to retain, the unexxoended balance at the end 

 of the year, and therefore hurrying purchases tlirough is 

 now h'aippily avoided. 



1093. {Professor Balfour.) In your library you have 

 palajo-botanical books, have you not ? — Yes, a very large 

 and valuable series. 



1094. Have they got them in the Botanical Department 

 as well ? — Xo. only works on recent botany. 



1095. I should like to understand a little more about 

 this. How do you expose specimens in your 

 galleries? What is the idea you have in ex- 

 hibiting your series? I take it that you look 

 to researchers first of all, and then I suppose you 

 have also a popular exhibition ; you endeavour to attract 

 the public by some popular display. But you have fre- 

 quently spoken about students : what do you understand 



really by them ? — The majority of them are satisfied with 

 the exhibited series displayed, which they see through the 

 glass, but if a student applies for a student's ticket he gets 

 access to the geological library and to the student's col- 

 lection, which for the sake of the limited space that we 

 are able to allot to it is arranged stratigraphically, and 

 contains an exhibited series of each formation, consisting 

 of seventy-eight drawers. 



1096. Are there fossil plants in that series ? — ^I believe 

 there are some fossil plants in that series, but only a 

 limited number. That is a very small collection, merely 

 for such students as come to us from the Royal College 

 of Science, or from the Birkbeck, or from Professor Judd's 

 class. 



1097. So far as the general display is concerned, it is 

 entirely a popular display, as it were? — ^There is no at- 

 tempt made to popularise the labels in the Gallery of 

 Fossil Plants ; the labels are generic and specific labels 

 attached to the plants, with the formation and locality 

 of every specimen, and the name of the donor. There 

 is at the present time a special collection of coal plants 

 given by Mr. McMurtrie, which occupies two cases in 



the centre of the gallery. It is a fine illustrative series- 

 of the coal plants from the Radstock coal field. 



1098. I understand from what you have said before that 

 the removal of the whole of the herbaria, leaving a typical 

 collection, would not interfere much with the geological . 

 work ? — N'ot with the actual conservation of the collection, 

 but if the work of a paleeo-botanist was to go on it might 

 be detrimental to such work. 



1099. That is to say, the investigation of plants as fossils ■ 

 and as representatives of the plant kingdom, but from the 

 geological side, say from the stratigraphical side, the re- 

 moval of the herbarium would not be prejudicial, would 

 it? — I think stratigraphical geologists would, as a rule, go- 

 to Jermyn Street for the stratigraphical series. 



1100. (Mr. Seymour.) Jermyn Street is only British, 

 is it not? — Yes, ours is wider; we take in the whole- 

 world. 



1101. (Mr. Darwin.) Is there anything palseo-botanic- 

 at Jermyn Street ? — They have a series of fossil plants to 

 illustrate the coal measures, some good specimens, but 

 not a very large series. The Museum is a small 

 museum, although a very compact one, and has a very 

 admirable and well-arranged collection. 



1102. I am not quite sure that I understand the general 

 point of view that is followed in the work of your Depart- 

 ment. I suppose the palseontological material may be 

 used either to study the classification of the whole of the 

 animal and vegetable kingdom, including their geographical- 

 distribution, or what has been spoken of as the strati- 

 graphical, where the specimens are used as a means of 

 recognising certain strata, and so on? — Of course, they 

 are frequentlv used as a means of determining horizons, 

 because although it was stated the other day, I believe, 

 before this Committee that there was a fashion in these 

 things, one fashion has never changed since the- 

 beginning of this century, and that is the discovery which 

 William Smith made, and which has lasted, and will last, 

 namely, that certain formations are characterised by 

 certain forms of life, and those forms are of the greatest 

 value in stratigraphical geology. I think that is a 

 fundamental principle of geological teaching which has 

 never been destroyed by any subsequent discoveries. 



1103. The bearing on stratigraphical geology is a side 

 which is practically not of importance in the Cromwell 

 Road? — Not .so largely, because the arrangement has been 

 subordinated to the zoological. In most of the galleries 

 however, you will find, if you walk through them, that 

 the forms of life, as we have always believed they 

 would do, follow an orderly succession in the rocks. 

 Therefore the earliest rocks have the simplest and 

 lowest forms, and the latest have the highest and most 

 complex forms of life, and that is to be seen all through 

 the palpeontological galleries. I believe there can be- 

 no doubt with regard to that. Tliere are certain groups 

 like the sharks which begin in the Devonian, and have 

 lived on to the present day, and in groups of very great 

 antiquity it must necessarily follow that to a certain 

 extent you lose the geological aspect, which is swal-- 

 lowed up in the far larger zoological aspect of the group. 



Dr. DuKiN-FiELD Henbt Scott, F.R. S. , Honorary Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Gardens, Kew, 



called : and examined. 



J)r. D. H. 



Scott, F.R.S. 



1104. (Chairman.) You have, I believe, paid special 

 attention to fossil plants ?— Yes, I have for some years 

 past. 



1105. Do you know the botanical collections both at the 

 British Museum and at Kew? — Yes. 



1106. At Kew there are a certain number of fossJi 

 plants, are there not? — ^Very few. 



1107. And at the British Museum there are a very large 

 number ? — Very large indeed. 



1108. I think you have especially studied the so-called 

 Williamson collection of fossil plants ? — I began with that. 

 My earlier work was chiefly on that, but lately I have 

 worked at other specimens as well. 



1109. Those at present are in the Museum?— Yes. 



1110. You are yourself a botanist? — Yes. 



1111. What is your opinion of the value of fossil plants 

 for the purpose of research ? Do you think they are of 

 more value to botanists in botanical research than they 

 are to geologists in geological research? — I should say, 

 on the whole, they are of more value to botanists. I look 

 at the matter as a botanist myself, which may prejudice 

 me to some extent, but I think on the whole, having re- 



gard to the work that has been done, they have been more 

 important to botanical than to geological research. 



1112. Allowing for any bias you may have had ? — ^I 

 have tried to allow for that. 



1113. You still think they are of greater value for the- 

 purpose of botanical research ? — I think so, on the whole, 

 but no doubt a great deal of important work has been also 

 done on the geological side. 



1114. The question has been placed before us as to 

 the desirability of uniting the botanical collections at 

 Kew and at the British Museum in one place, either 

 at Kew or at the British Museum. Supposing that 

 they were united at Kew, do you think that the fossil 

 plants which are at present in the British Museum 

 should be retained at the British Museum, or trans- 

 ferred with the living plants to Kew? — I think, on that 

 supposition, according to which Kew would become 

 the one gi'eat centre for the botanical collections of the 

 country, certainly fossil plants should He represented 

 there. I should go as far as that, but that would not 

 necessarily involve the transference oi the entire fossil 

 collection. 



1115. That is to say, you would transfer to Kew wEat 

 may be called representative specimens? — Yes. 



