MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



107 



roughly calculate, the outside capital expenditure on Kew 

 ever since it was founded. If the British Museum her- 

 barium were moved to Kew we should house it in a 

 building which would cost £10,000 at the outside, and 

 that space at South Kensington would be available for 

 something else. But it is really not my afifair. 



1330. Looking at the British Museum herbarium ab 

 having the character you have described, you say there 

 would be a va^t amount that would be really no use to 

 you at Kew ? — It is my conviction — I have no ocular evi- 

 dence of the fact, but "it is my conviction that there is an 

 enormous amount of unarranged material at South Kens- 

 Lngt-on. 



1331. Of cotuse, there must be an enormous amount of 

 duplicates. There are tliese collectors which are con- 

 stantly being sent out from America. They bring home 

 collections, and no doubt the Museum buy them as you 

 do? — You have a tj-pical case in the Beschere'le Her- 

 barium, which I have mentioned. The British Museum 

 bought that. I do not want those 15,000 specimens forced 

 on to me, as I have already declined, as I told you, to 

 purchase them. 



1332. One of tlie things- tliat Kew prides itself upon 

 is that it is a clearing liouse for the Empire. Do not 

 you think that if the British Museum herbarium was re- 

 moved to Kew, it would be a very good bit of work for 

 Kew to distribute the duplicates and get rid of them? — 

 Where am I to find storage room and the staff? 



1333. But supposing the staff was provided ? — You must 

 have trained people for distributing a herbarium. 



1334. Did you not distribute the collection of the India 

 OfBce ? — That was done with reference to the investigation 

 of the flora of India ; that was part of the general opera- 

 tion. But simply tu undertake to deal with the accumu- 

 lation of another establishment seems to me an ungrateful 

 sort of undertaking without very much practical outcome 

 as far as I can see. 



1335. Is it your opinion that Kew ought to be the 

 chief national collection ? — 'It is not for me to answer all 

 these questions. I am put in charge of a particular in- 

 stitution which I administer 



1336. Then in your administration do you endeavour 

 to make Kew the chief national botanical collection? — I 

 endeavour to do my duty by the establishment. 



1337. You would do so if you were doing your duty ? — 

 I do not go in for swaggering about the national collection. 

 We try to make the instrument of research committed to 

 us as perfect as possible, just as the Astronomer Boyal 

 w^ould naturally try to get the best telescope an optician 

 could make. As to calling it national or anything of that 

 kind, that is another matter. 



1338. In your endeavour to make it such as you de- 

 scribe, would it be an advant^age to you to have the best 

 collection, but not duplicates, under your charge? — ^Cer- 

 tainly. I have already stated that I should like to have 

 the collections even from Paris. 



1339. Would you like to have the Wallich collections 

 from the Linnean Society ? — ^Yes ; but I am not very keen 

 about it. I want the Committee distinctly to understand 

 that I am not an accumulator. I want things as perfect 

 as possible for a particular kind of research, but as for 

 grabbing everything that comes in my way, I do not do it. 



1340. You are aware that a certain number of people 

 do go to the British Museum to work, and do no come 

 to Kew? — ^I know nothing about it. 



1341. Do you think it would be — for those people who 

 work at the British Museum — any inconvenience to go to 

 TJew, as compared with the British Museum ? — As I have 

 said, the two adjacent railway stations are 22 minirtes 

 apart. 



1342. {Mr. Darwin.) In one of your answers you stated 

 that collocation would be the only way of dealing with 

 collections' from the British Museum in the case of their 

 being moved to Kew. I should like to understand what 

 you mean by collocation. Would it mean that the collec- 

 tions as a whole from the British Museum would be moved 

 and planted in a building built for that special purpose, 

 or would it be possible to have a kind of modified amal- 

 gamation ? Assuming you have a new building altogether 

 at Kew for the herbarium, which I suppose you must have, 

 would you put the cabinets, say, 'of certain natural orders 

 from the British Museum in the same room with the 

 ■cabinets holding those natural orders of Kew ? — I do not 

 think it is possible. 



1343. You think it is not a practicable suggestion ? — I 

 ■do not think it is. I have thought it out, but I think it is 

 impracticable. I think the only plan, supposing the 



3499 



Briti.sh Museum herbarium or any otlier licrbarium were ^'„. jy_ j. 

 brought to Kew, would be to put some plain simple buOd- Thisclton- 

 iiigs adjacent to the buildings now there. We have plenty Dyi^r, 

 of^'room, and we could have another wing connected to k.c.m.Q., 

 the existing Herbarium by a corridor. The advantage i'-.r..S. 



would be tliat people, instead of having to leave Kew to 



go to South Kensington, would go into anotlier wing. -J JNOv^auu. 

 That is all it amounts to. If tlie British Museum her- 

 barium came to Kew, I should stop its growth at once ; 

 and no doubt gi-adually it would have to be weeded. 



1344. (Chairman.) It was represented to us by one of 

 the gentlemen who have given evidence before us that for 

 the purpose of botanical research it was of very great im- 

 portance to have all the specimens spread out 'before them 

 on a table at the same time. Of course, that could not 

 be done in your plan? — Certainly it could. You could 

 bring the specimens from the two herbaria and spread 

 them out, and then put them back again. We borrow a 

 collection from Paris or from Copenhagen, and it is spread 

 out. We get them even from Calcutta. 



1345. {Mr. Darwin.) I should like to ask you one ques- 

 tion if you can answer it as a private individual rather than 

 as an official ; if you cannot answer it as a private in- 

 dividual, I do not care for an answer. Can you in the 

 least estimate the amount of advantage it would be having 

 this collection brought doAvn and placed in a wing of your 

 herbarium ? — I really do not think I could estimate it, 

 because my knowledge of the present British Museum 

 herbarium is really very limited. Ever since the removal 

 to South Kensington, when the great extension of the 

 British Museum herbarium began in 1880, I have 

 been incessantly occupied at Kew, and the num- 

 ber of times I have been in the British Museum 

 could be counted on the fingers of one hand. 

 The Banksian herbarium I know very well, but 

 that, I imagine, is only a very small part of the whole 

 thing. Therefore, not knowing what the nature of the 

 present British Museum herbarium is, I could not offer an 

 opinion as to its value. I may say I have not a very high 

 opinion of it. I do net see how a herbarium rapidly accu- 

 mulated in a short period, as most of it has been, can be 

 worked up so closely as to be of much assistance. From 

 hearsay evidence, I understand that iithough there is a 

 vast amount of material, the inform ition got from it is 

 rather disappointing. 



1346. {Mr. Spring Bice.) I should like to ask you on a 

 hypothetical case what the effect would be on +he her- 

 barium for which you are responsible. Supposing two 

 people go out independently, let us say, to Madagascar, 

 and one of them has been in relation with yoii.in the way 

 in which you described the gentleman in China to have 

 been ; the other happened to have got into similar rela- 

 tions with the British Museum. They come back, each 

 with a collection of plants, including novelties, rarities, or 

 what you will, and because of these accidental previous 

 rektions one of these collections goes to one institution 

 and one to the other. Would you say that state of things 

 was advantageous to the institution in your charge ? — Cer- 

 tainly not. 



1347. Should you say that that state of things was dis- 

 tinctly disadvantageous ? — Of course, it limits the material 

 available for studying the flora of Madagascar, but, on the 

 whole, the resources of Kew are so overwhelming that I 

 do not grudge the British Museum occasions on which it 

 is able to secure something we have not got. The fact 

 of it is, that the amount of material at Kew is so vast 

 that we cannot keep pace with working up what we 

 have got, and therefore we lok philosophically on the 

 other institution. 



1348. You are so great that you can afford to be gener- 

 ous ? — Yes. I mean these little things, relative to the 

 amount of material we have, are so inconsiderable that it is 

 not worth while vexing one's soui about it. 



1349. But you do not think it is happening to an ex- 

 tent that is materially injurious to you I — It might. 



1350. I want to know whether you have any impression 

 on the point ?^ — They have begun too late in the day to 

 do us much harm — ^that is the fact. 



1351. {Chairman.) It would be desirable that you 

 should have at Kew the whole of the flora obtainable at 

 Madagascar, instead of part of it going to Kew and part 

 of it to the British Museum ? — Certainly it would be. 



1352. That is a disadvantage not only to yourself but to 

 botanical researchers who visit Kew? — You cannot help 

 it. You have to put up with fhese little disadvantages 

 in research. With regard to Madagascar, as Madagascar 

 is now governed by France, the bulk of the material th^t 

 used to cometo-usthroug'h missionaries now goes to Paris. 

 Supposing you could suppress the activity of the British 



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