HUMMAUY OF I'KKVIOIS KXgUIRIES. 



1*3 



r 



ments I made in answer to (lucstion 7205 have been in 

 several respects contradicted. 



With regard to the comparative advamtages of the 

 llotanical Jiu^eums of Kew and the Bruisli Museum, 

 these ma.v be in a great measure matters of opinion upim 

 which it would be useless in me to enter into any furtlier 

 discussion. I would only observe tliat my oslunate has 

 been gradually formed from long experience, that 1 have 

 at various inten-als paid frequent visits to the British 

 Museum for the pui-j>ose of consulting the collections 

 there from the year 1827 to the present lime, that I 

 have uniformly met witli the greatest courtesy and the 

 utmost facilities, consistent with the regulations, on the 

 part of Mr. Brown and his successors, Mr. Beiaiett 

 and Mr. Carruthers, and that I have steadily worked 

 in the Herbarium at Kew since the private collections of 

 Sir William Hooker and my own were there brouglit to- 

 gether in 1854. From this experience I cannot but .adhere 

 to my opinion that the facilities for study intheButanical 

 Department of the British Museum (owing I believe mainly 

 to regulations and other circumstances independent of the 

 Keepers), very limited during Mr. Brown's time, consider- 

 ably enlarged under Mr. Bennett, still more so under the 

 present Keeper, Mr. Carruthers, but stiU very far below 

 those afforded by the Kew Herbarium and Museum. I 

 shall be ready at any time to substantiate the details upon 

 which this opinion is founded. 



Mr. Carruthers's experience I presume to result chiefly 

 from his connection with the British Museum since Mr. 

 Brown's death in 1858. I am not aware what personal 

 experience he has of the Botanical Museum and Her- 

 barium at Kew ; I never recollect having the pleasure of 

 seeing him there, and to this circumstance I must attri- 

 bute some statements in the above-mentioned paper 

 from which I think it right to record my dissent. 



He includes in the " scientific collection of the Britisb 

 Museum " a " structural series " which we are given to 

 understand was due to the different views taken by 

 Robert Brown of the proposed study of plants from that 

 which I had alluded to. To this I beg to observe that 

 the Botanical Museum at Kew includes "a fruit collec- 

 tion," "a collection of gum resins and other products," 

 and " a general collection exhibiting the form and struc- 

 ture of plants and consisting of the larger specimens 

 chiefly exhibited to the public," infinitely superior to 

 those of the British Museum, and occupying three large 

 buildings specially devoted to them. The exhibited 

 ]iortion in the British Museum 'was only formed after 

 the example of the one at Kew, as was evident to all 

 those who, like myself, watched its progress during the 

 three years it was ini the course of formation before it 

 was opened to the public. The only portion of the British 

 Museum collection not represented at Kew is the fossil 

 series. 



It is also to the want of personal acquaintance with the 

 history of the Kew collections that I must attribute the 

 following statements : — 



That Sir W. J. Hooker "had no public herbarium 

 from the time of his appointment in 1841 tUl 1855. It 

 is therefore evident that a great scientific herbarium is 

 not a necessity to the efficiency of the gardens at Kew." 

 >Sir William, during all this time, allowed his own private 

 herbarium, the richest in Britain, to be used as a public 

 herbarium in connection with the garden, although kept 

 entirely at his own expense. 



That the primary object for which 'Sir W. J. Hooker 

 accepted my herbarium in 1855 was for the use of the 

 Gardlens. This was not the case. My 'henbariiiim and 

 botanicial libnary, of upwards of 1,000 volumes, were 

 accepted in 1854 (not 1855), expressly for the use of 

 scientific botanists. 



I would add that I am quite at a loss to discover in 

 which of my works I can have committed the error of 

 treating as duplicates whatever I do not estimate at the 

 value of species. 



, I have the ihonour to be, Sir, 



Tour obedient servant, 



Geobge Bentham. 

 J. Norman Lockyer, Esq., 



Secretary, Royal Scientific Commission. 



D. — Communications from Mr. John Ball. 

 (See Question 7229, Vol. I., p. 473.) 



Athenffium Club, Pall MaU. 



28 ISTnv. 1872. 

 Sir, — In accordance with the desire of the Royal Com- 

 missioners on Scientific Instruction, conveyed ito me in 



3499. 



your letter of the 15tli inst., I ibcg that you will have 

 the goodness to lay before thom the following state- 

 ment with reference to the evidence given by me on the 

 28th March, 1871: — 



My attention has been called by Mr. Carrutliors, of 

 the British Museum, to the answer given by me to 

 question 7229, which, in his opinion, conveys a charge 

 against him in his capacity as Keeper of the Botanical 

 Department. 



As printed in the first volume of the e\adence taken 

 before the Commissioners, p. 473, my reply to a ques- 

 tion whether there was, at that time, a large accumu- 

 lation of unnamed collections in the British Museum, 

 stands as follows : — • 



" There is an accumulation. I cannot venture to say 

 how large it is. I know, because I have had a recent 

 instance of one, that some very interesting collections 

 have, I will not saj- disappeared, but cannot now be 

 found, and they may very possibly be lying in cases 

 there." 



I may be allowed here to mention the fact that I re- 

 ceived a proof of mj' evidence on the evening preceding 

 my departure from England for a joirmey to Morocco, 

 and thus had not the opportunity usually allowed! for 

 carefully correcting errors arising either from slight 

 mistakes on the part of the reporter or from inaccuracy 

 on the part of the witness. 



From whichever cause the error may have arisen, the 

 answer above quoted is in one respect inaccurate. It 

 should have stood : " I have heard a recent instance," 

 or otherwise conveyed to the Commissioners the fact 

 that, with the exception of a single visit early in the 

 same year, my recent knowledge of the collections at the 

 British Museum was derived from others, and not from 

 personal observation. 



It seems umiecessary to add that my answer was not 

 intended to convey, and did not, in my opinion, convey, 

 any charge against the recent management of the Museum 

 collections, since the remainder of my evidence renders 

 such a disclaimer superfluous. 



In the course of a correspondence with Mr. Carruthers, 

 having special reference to certain collections which had 

 been supposed to have disappeared, wiholly or in part, 

 from the Museum, that gentleman has assured me that 

 all the plants referred to are now in the Museum ; and 

 he, moreover, states, with regard generally to all the 

 Botanical collections originally belonging to Sir Joseph. 

 Banks, that " everything that became national property 

 in 1827 is still in the collection and available for science." 

 I place the same reliance on any statements made by 

 Mr. Carruthers, or his assistants, Mr. Trimen and Mr. 

 Britten, as to facts within their own knowledge, that I 

 do on those of other men of science whose experience 

 has been apparently at variance with the above asser- 

 tions ; but I venture to doubt whether, in so general 

 a form, the above quoted statement is capable of full 

 verification. In any case, it appears to me simply im- 

 possible that, along with the current duties of their 

 department, the gentlemen above named can have 

 verified, speoimen by specimen, the existenice and right 

 Wassifieation of plants that must be numbered by tens 

 of thousands. 



I have no doubt, however, that, under the manage- 

 ment of the late and the present Keepers of the Botanical 

 Department, considerable progress has been made to- 

 wards putting in order and making accessible the un- 

 named and unarranged collections at the Museum. 



That a large accumulation of such collections existed 

 under the management of Mr. R. Brown, and that some 

 of them, being unprotected by poison, were extensively 

 attacked by insects, are facts of which I was personally 

 cognisant, and which were well known to many botanists 

 at home and abroad, as I can testify from my personal 

 acquaintance with a majority of the eminent European 

 botanists for the last 30 years. Knowing, from a rather 

 extensive acquaintance with herbaria, public and private, 

 how difficult it is to get rid of accumulated arrears, I 

 was not surprised to hear, from time to time, specific 

 statements from various botanists as to the impossibility 

 of finding, at the British Museum, plants belonging to 

 some of the old collections ; but I cannot say that I 

 made enquiries with a view to fix the precise date to 

 which such statements referred. Having, after many 

 years' absence, resided in London since the beginning of 

 1870, I have but once visited the Museum collections 

 since that date, and on that occasion, as stated in my 

 evidence, I examined a collection which apparently had 

 not been opened since the time of Sir Joseph Banks. 



Under these circumstances, it appears to me that the 

 facts justified a belief in the substantial accuracy of my 



T 2 



