SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS ENQUIRIES. 



125 



JJr. J. J. nation at a price very greitll}" below their original cost 

 BKNNraT. ajj(^^ their market value, "to remain together, and not 

 i-;ti(<, be separated, and that chiefly in and about London, 

 where I have acquired most of my estates, and where 

 they may, by the great confluence of people, be of most 

 use." The most authoritative part of our collections is 

 the herbarium of Sir Jos;oph Banks, with which the 

 more recent acquisitions have been incoi-porated, and 

 which was speciiically bequeat.lied by him to the Briiliii-h 

 Museum. Now, Sir Joseph Banks was, during the 

 whole of his life, the great promoter of the Botanic 

 Garden at Kew. It was he alone who took any scien- 

 tific interest in it, and who recommended all the scien- 

 tific arrangements connected with it. He bequeathed 

 a considerable salary to a highly talented botanical 

 artist [Francis Bauer], whom he had attached to it, 

 and did everything in his power for the promotion of 

 its interests as a garden. But he felt the i^aramount 

 importance of a central situation, and of an intimate 

 comiection with the other brandies of natural history 

 fur his herbarium, and he therefore bequeathed it, to- 

 gether viith his library, to the British Museum. Mr. 

 Brown himself, the highest botanical authority that 

 could be quoted, left his collection of fossil woods, the 

 most valuable in existence, " to be placed in the British 

 Muiseiim, but only on condition of the Trustees deter- 

 mining to allow it to form part of the botanical ex- 

 hibition, under the charge of the keeper of botany." 

 Should they decline to receive it on this condition, he 

 added, '" I bequeath it to the Edinburgh Museum " ; 

 which, like the British, is a general collection of all 

 the branches of natural history. In his evidence before 

 the Museum Commission of 1848i-9, Mr. Brown ex- 

 pressed himself strongly against a then suggested re- 

 moval of the herbarium to Kew ; and I will conclude 

 by directing the attention of the Committee to a strik- 

 ing passage at p. 36 of the Report of that Commission, 

 in which the Commissioners state their entire con- 

 currence in the objections then made to the dismem- 

 berment of the British Museum." 



1217. The amount of the estimate for the depart- 

 ment "is between £900 and £1,000. It is £150 for pur- 

 chases, £25 for books, and the salaries and wages bring 

 it up to about £950." 



1218. The removal of the collection would necessitate 

 the creation of a new botanical library. 



1219. " Of merely botanical works, 10,000 or 12,000 ; 

 but of other works necessary for the elucidation of 

 the collection, a great multitude." 



1220-1221. A very great many of them would be 

 costly. 



1222. Illustrated works, " of course, would be the 

 costly ones. There are many others, of great rarity, in 

 the Banksian Library, which would hardly be ob- 

 tainable." 



1223. He did "not think the collection would have 

 nearly so many visitors with a definite object if re- 

 moved to Kew " as it has in London. 



1224. " It is greatly referred to by students and by 

 artists, whom I have always found unwilling to go as 

 far as Kew, although I recommend them to go there to 

 study the living plant. Rather than go to Kew, they 

 will take the dried plant in the herbarium. It is also 

 a good deal referred to by mercantile men who are 

 interested in the objects which come into the market, 

 and are desirous of knowing all that can be known 

 about them." 



1225. From knowledge of Mr. Brown's request with 

 regard to his collection, if the collection were removed 

 from the British Museum, it would probably be lost 

 to the metropolis and go to Edinburgh. "I am quite 

 sure that that was Mr. Brown's intention ; I had it 

 from his own lips." 



1226. There are not, " with, the exc-eiption of gairdeners," 

 many intelligent persons of the working classes, who 

 come to examine the plants in the herbarium. 



1227. Who are the chief botanists among the work- 

 ing classes ? " The weavers," who " are specially 

 addicted to floriculture ; but I cannot say that many 

 of the working classes study botany in London." 



1228. Asked : " Supposing you endeavoured to exhi- 

 bit the entire collection of plants and botany, so that 

 the student might from those which were exhibited have 

 a general idea, if he wished to refer to any particular 

 species he must go to the herbarium 1" — ^Answered : 

 "We ca2i hardly do that. The exhibition is rather to 

 show structure than to exhibit specific distinction." 



3499. 



Mr. A. 

 P.VNIZZU 



1229. We " do not show a general arrangement of Mr. J. J. 



plants ; such a thing would occui)y a very large space, l"i!N^i''''-"i'- 



and even such an arrangement as that would only give isoo. 

 a very general idea." 



Mr. A. Piainizzi, in the course of his evidence, alluded 

 to previous evidence, and siaid : — 



246. With regard to the 'botanical collection, an in- 

 vestigation has been held by a sub-committee on the 

 natural histoiy collections of the British Museum, as to 

 w'liether those botanical collections might not (be removed 

 to Kew . . . the evidence generally given upon thali 

 occasdon, and the weight of the authority, was, that it 

 would be advantageous for the herbaria to be placed in 

 connection with the living plants, and merely to retain 

 in the British Museum a small type collection of botany. 

 "The gentlemen who gave their evidence differed very 

 much amongst themselves, and the sub-committee came 

 to the conclusiion that the botany, even according to that 

 evidence, ought to remain at the Museum." 



3524.". ... If the Committee wiU refer to the 

 answer given to Q. 847 in the evidence of Mr. Water- 

 house, they will see that botanists who lived at Hammer- 

 smith and at Turnham Green had expressed a strong 

 opinion that the botanical collection should not be moved 

 from the Museum. Now, inasmuch as Dr. Lindley lives 

 near Hammersmith, at Turnham Green, and is a great 

 botanist, I wrote to him to ask him whether he had ex- 

 pressed this opinion, and I have here his letter, which I 

 beg toread and put in. He says : " I rather think that 

 Mr. Miers, who lives at Hammersmith, and is a botanist, 

 did express an opinion in favour of keeping the botanical 

 collections in the British Museum, instead of sending 

 them to Kew. It is also just possible that the late Pro- 

 fessor Henfrey, who resided at Turnham Green, may 

 have said something of the sort, yet I should doubt it 

 much ; ibecause, first, his peculiar line of research must 

 have led him seldom to Great Russell -Street, and fre- 

 quently to Kev/ ; secondly, he was one of us working 

 men who signed the memorial to the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer on the 18th November, 1858. For myself, 

 who also live at Turnham Green, you may assure the 

 Committee that I entertain the strongest possible opinion 

 in favour of removing the botanical collections in the 

 museum to Kew, and have the greatest objection to their 

 remaiiiing where they are. All 'botanists row necessarily 

 resort to Kew for the .sake of the immense scientific 

 materials collected there, and it is a great inconvenien^^'v 

 to be obliged to travel to Great Russell Street upon the 

 mere chance of picking up some small piece of additional 

 information in the Banksian herbarium." That is thi» 

 opinion of Dr. Lindley. 



3525. Three rooms, a very good large room and two- 

 smaller ones, "are taken up by the botanical collection" ; 

 one of them is used for an exhibition of woods, and th(j- 

 other is to be used for another public exhibiition, but 

 there is nothing in it yet ; it is a small room. 



3526. If a botanical museum is established, or if a. 

 natural history museum in general, detached from the 

 British Museum, is established anywhere, I am of 

 opinion that it oug"!!* to have the very best possible 

 natural history library connected with it. If the Com- 

 mittee recollect, when I heard it stated that such a library 

 asi I have in my eyes for such an institution might be 

 purchased for £20,000, I said that I certainly thought 

 it could not be purchased for that sum. I thought sO' 

 then, and I think so still, more and more ; I mean not 

 for botany only, but for a general collection of natural 

 history ; a botanical library would cost not so much. 



3527. Very likely it would ^be more than £30,000 for at 

 general natural history collection ; but much less for a 

 botanical collection only. 



3528. But I should not say that even £30,000 would be 

 sufficient for a general collection ; a library for a botanical 

 collection only would not cost so much, .but it would 'be 

 very expensive ; it would be a library of at least 20,000 

 volumes, and many of them illustrated works. 



3529. Some of them would be very expensive in con- 

 sequence of the illustrations. 



Professor Richard Owen, Superintendent of the Depart- 

 ment of Natural History in the British Museum, in the 

 course of his evidence, said : — ■ 



773. . . . "I find, on reference to my evidence 

 before the Commission in 1848, that only two of the 

 departments of natural history had at all suggested them- 

 selves to my mind as subjects for the question of re- 

 moval or otherwise, viz., 'botany and mineralogy. At 

 that period, I inclined to think that flie evil of removinc 



Professor 

 E. Ovois. 



K 



