SUMMARY OV PREVIOUS ENQUIRIES. 



185 



TIIKKS, Ksci 



the direction of Kew. I have to-day 

 person living at Turnham Green, also 



\>i7\. 



heard of another 

 a botanist, who 

 lias said that it was more convenient to hiiu to consult 

 the herbarium in Lonchsn than at Kew. ' 



7746. "We have an intinitely better botanical library 

 rather to stop accumulation at the general herbarium at 

 Kew and increase the accumulation in London'^ — That 

 is my judgment. I conceive that the.y must have a 

 herbarium at Kew for the purposes of the garden, but 

 that the great scientific herbarium ought to be where 

 it is most easily consulted, and that is in London. That 

 there is no connexion whatever between a herbarium and 

 living plants in a garden, is clearly evidenced to by Mr. 

 Bentham, who was asked in the document to which I 

 have referred, at page 7, " Ai-e you not cited in Lindley's 

 ' Vegetable Kingdom ' as an authority for the fact that 

 in the year 1845, there were about 6,500 species of that 

 family"' (that is the Lcciuminosa) "then known? — (A.) 

 I believe I am so quoted by Dr. Lindley. (Q.) If so, 

 can you state in a general way how many of these 6,500 

 species you became acquainted with only through the 

 medium of herbaria? — (A.) I became acquainted with 

 nearly the whole Lrgiiminos(r through the medium of 

 herbaria. There are not majiy hundreds that I have seen 

 living. (Q.) What proportion of these 6,500 species may 

 you have seen in the living state in botanical gardens ; 

 ime-half, one-third, one-fourth, one-fifth, one-eighth ? — ■ 

 (A.) I have examined very few in botanical gardens ; 

 very few indeed. (Q.) In your researches on systematic 

 botany, have you been indebted most to herbaria or 

 botanical gardens? — (A.) I have published several 

 thousand new species of plants ; I have never published 

 one without examining it in a herbarium, and I have 

 examined very few in botanical gardens." So that for 

 the purposes of the systematic botanist, the value of 

 botanical gardens, on the testimony of Mr. Bentham, is 

 almost nothing. The one consideration, as it seems to 

 me, is to obtain a large and most complete herbarium, 

 thoroughly arranged, and in the most convenient place, 

 and the testimony, so far as I know, invariably is, that 

 the most convenient place is London. 



7746. "VVe have an infinitely better botanical library, 

 at the Museuan than at Kew, inasmuch as we have the 

 whole library of the British Museum. 



7747. It is " infinitely better, inasmuch as for botanical 

 purposes you require not only works specially devoted to 

 botany, but you require Transactions and Publications 

 where botany is sometimes included ; you require books 

 of travels, where occasional references are made to 

 botany ; and you require series of works which it is next 

 to impossible to collect together in any library, especially 

 in one formed for work in one department of science." 



7748. Is it not a fact that the library at Kew contains 

 the transactions of all those learned societies which give 

 space to botany? — Xot so extensively as the library of 

 the British Museum. I may say, as a matter of fact, 

 that the men who are in the habit of working at Kew 

 frequently bring references to books which they cannot 

 obtain at Kew for me to obtain for them in the British 

 Museum library. 



7749. (Professor Smith.) Is there at present any plan 

 in which the naming of the two herbaria at the British 

 Museum and at Kew is made comparative with one 

 another, and consistent throughout? — Xone whatever. 

 They are named by independent workers on their own 

 powers of determination. 



7750. Do you suppose that much discrepancy would he 

 found if a comparison were made between the two ? — 

 No doubt very great discrepancy, inasmuch as when you 

 are dealing with materials that vary so very little, and 

 have for their determination short diagnostic descriptions, 

 it is extremely difficult for two men working perfectly 

 independently to arrive at precisely the same reasons 

 as to the value of the diagnosis in relation to, say, half- 

 a-dozen allied specimens before them. 



7751. Do you suppose it would be desirable for the 

 interests of science that the two collections should be 

 compared? — Practically they are in the interests of 

 science. Workers seldom publish without working at 

 the herbaria at Paris, in London, and at Kew, and at all 

 the great herbaria. I do not mean those particular places 

 alone but also Geneva and other great herbaria. When 

 anyone is engaged in any great exhaustive work he must 

 consult all of them. 



7752. There is no arrangement at present by which 

 it is possible actually to compare those specimens about 

 the naming of which there might be discrepancies ; in 

 fact, you cannot send specimens from the museum to 

 Kew, or specimens from Kew to the museum, in order 



to compare them one with another? — No specimens of w. carru- 

 any kind received mto the museum can be allowed to thers, Esq. 

 leave the museum except under very exceptional laws, i~i_ 

 which would never be put into operation under the cir- 

 cuiust^mces to which you refer. 



7753. I believe that the maintenance of that strict 

 rule is for the interest of science on the whole. " There 

 are disadvantages connected with it, but there are ad- 

 vantages which seem to me to be more important." 



7754. I attach great importance to the proximity of 

 the botanical collection of the British Museum to a great 

 general library. 



7755. Do you think that the removal of the botanical 



Collection from its present site to South Kensington 

 will be seriously prejudicial, by depriving you of that 

 advantage? — I believe tltat it will be a serious injury to 

 science if the removal takes place, but I suppose that 

 that is decreed, and must take place ; but it will be an 

 injury to science, which it would be impossible ever to 

 recover in some aspects of scie^ntific investigation. 



7756. Do you not consider that the collection at Kew 

 and the collection in the British Museum might be scien- 

 tifically used for two* different purposes in any way? — 

 Practically it is so : acoording to the original notion of 

 the foundatiom of them, and according to the uses of 

 them, the herbarium at Kew is employed for the naming 

 of plants, as Dr. Hooker says, in the gardens, and in the 

 museum of "Economic Botany" ; and the fundamental 

 notion of the ooillection at the Britisih iMuseum is for the 

 study of systematic botanists. 



7757. {Chairman.) Are there any instances upon the 

 continent, at Paris, or Berlin, or Vienna, of duplicate 

 collections similar to those which we have in this country ? 

 — I am not aware that there are any such collections. 



7758. In most cases probably the botanic garden is 

 nearer to the capital than is the case in this country ? — ■ 

 Li Paris certainly it is in the capital ; but just there, 

 as here, the systematic botanists consult the herbarium 

 and not the garden. In Berlin it is in close proximity, 

 although not actually in the metropolis. 



7759. If the botanical and other natural history col- 

 lections are moved to iSouth Kensington, do you con- 

 sider that it will be necessary to have a subsidiary 

 library? — It would be absolutely necessary, and I believe 

 that unless the value of the hei'barium were to be greatly 

 destroyed, the Banksian library will be required to form 

 a portion of that subsidiary library, inasmuch as the 

 Banksian collection was in continual use while the Bank- 

 sian herbarium was being formed, and the volumes that 

 form that library were annotated by the workers in the 

 heAarium, so that if the books were left behind and the 

 plants separated anywhere from the annotations on the 

 books, the value of the plants in their cross references 

 to books would be completely destroyed. 



7760. I have referred to the facilities for consulting the 

 collections whicih have been the same from the beginning, 

 and, as far as I know, there is perfect freedom in exa- 

 mining anything in the herbarium accorded to everyone 

 who asks for such a liberty, and this has been the prac- 

 tice, as I believe, from the beginning of the institution 

 of the herbarium. 



APPENDIX XV. (See Questions 7739-40.) 



Papee banded in by Mr. Carrtjthehs . 



I had carefully read and considered the proposals con- 

 tained in the anonymous communication on "Botanical 

 Museums," published in "Nature" on the 23rd March 

 last, and was fully prepared to deal with them had they 

 been made the subject of examination. Indeed, at the 

 close of my answers to questions 7739-40, I was proceed- 

 ing to deal with them, when I was interrupted by a 

 question which gave a different direction to my examina- 

 tion. I treated the communication in " Nature " as one 

 is accustomed to treat anonymous papieirs, estimating 

 only the value of its arguments. Now, however, as it 

 appears with all the weight which the name of Mr. 

 Bentham carries with it, I desire to submit to the Com- 

 missioners my views : — 



1st. On the statements contained in the paper. 



And. 2ndly, on the matters naturally flowing out of 

 those statements. 



I. The statements contained in the paper. 



1. The views expressed by Mr. Bentham regarding the 

 main purposes of a botanical museum and herbarium, and 

 the requirements of a coUection for such a close study 



3499. 



S2 



