144 



Appendix I 



answer to question 7,229. The degree in which that 

 answer is inapplicable to the present state of the col- 

 lections affords a measure of the activity and success 

 that have marked the recent management of the col- 

 lections, and must be a matter of satisfaction to all 

 students of botany. 



That I may not appear wanting in justice to the late 

 Mr. Robert" Brown, whose name is revered by _ all 

 botanists, I may be allowed to remark that his position, 

 in regard to the Museum collections, was peculiar and 

 exceptional. During the lifetime of Sir Joseph Banks, 

 the herbarium was altogether under his management, 

 and after the death of the original owner, it became his 

 private property. The arrangement by which the Bank- 

 sian Herbarium was transferred to the British Museum, 

 still remaining under the management of Mr. Brown, 

 very naturally did not change the habit of mind of that 

 eminent man. Fully engaged in his own studies, he 

 had no desire to encourage the visits of strangers, a fact 

 obvious to those who sought to consult the collections, 

 though the impression might be diminished through 

 the courtesy and kindness of Mr. Bennett, his assistant, 

 who afterwards took Mr. Brown's place at the Museum. 



At that period, the example of other large public 

 collections on the continent afforded, to some extent, a 

 precedent for deficiencies in order and the accumula- 

 tion of arrears. So far as my knowledge extends, the 

 first instance of a very large collection, of which every 

 portion was maintained in a state available for im- 

 mediate reference, was afforded by the herbarium .at 

 Kew, under the management of the late Sir "^ . J. 

 Hooker. 



Trusting that the Commissioners will be pleased to 

 publish this statement in the Appendix to their next 

 report, I have, &c., 



John Ball. 



J. Norman Lockyer, Esq., F.R.S. 



n. 



Atheneeum Club, Pall Mall, 



December 2nd, 1872. 



My Lord Duke, — In accordance with the desire of 

 the Boyal Commissioners on Scientific Instruction, I 

 have addressed to their Secretary a note respecting a 

 passage in the evidence given by me in March 1871, to 

 which exception has been taken by Mr. Carruthers of 

 the British Museum. 



I did not consider myself authorised to take that 

 •occasion for offering any suggestion to the Royal 

 Commissioners with reference to the course they may 

 adopt with regard to the national botanical collections ; 

 but I think I may without impropriety submit to your 

 Grace the following observations, with the hope that in 

 the event contemplated the suggestion made therein 

 may appear to you not undeserving the consideration of 

 the Commissioners. 



I have reason to know that there is a nearly uniani- 

 mous agreement amongst the most competent British 

 botanists as to the inexpediency of uniting in a single 

 museum the collections now existing at Kew and at 

 the British Museum. 



To remove the collections from Kew would be to 

 destroy the scientific character of the foremost botanical 

 establishment in the world, and would be regarded as 

 an act of vandalism, not only by all competent judges 

 in our islands, but by all cultivators of natural science 

 in other civilised countries. 



The value and extent of the Kew collections, and 

 especially the fact that they have served as the founda- 

 tion for many of the most important botanical works 

 published during the last 25 years, make it frequently 

 necessary for the authors of new works to resort to 

 Eew for the purpose of study. The space required for 

 the study and comparison of numerous specimens is 

 considerable, and. in point of fact, the accommodation 

 afforded in the present building at Kew is at times in- 

 ■conveniently limited. 



But, in addition to a comparatively small number of 

 men, engaged on works of some length and importance, 

 "who resort to the herbarium at Kew for successive weeks, 

 or even months, there is a far more numerous class 

 of students, or persons seeking useful information — 

 many of them returning from the colonies or foreign 

 countries — who seek ready access to a public collection 

 for the purpose of comparing specimens with authentic 



types, or otherwise verifying the names and characters 

 of certain plants. To require such persons to go to 

 Kew would be inconvenient to them, and doubly so to 

 the small and fully-worked staff at Kew, and to the 

 serious students, who must be disturbed if a large class, 

 of what may be called casual visitors, were encouraged 

 to frequent the herbarium. 



On these grounds, apart from others that have been 

 urged in evidence before the Commissioners, it seems 

 highly desirable that the herbarium connected with the 

 British Museum should be maintained in a state of full 

 efficiency. 



In case, however, these views should not prevail with 

 the Royal Commissioners, and they should seriously 

 entertain the project of uniting in one establishment 

 the collections at Kew with those at the British 

 Museum, it will become a matter of paramount im- 

 portance that they should be enabled to judge securely 

 as to the relative advantages and disadvantages in- 

 volved in a choice between those places. 



I venture to suggest that in such an inquiry there is 

 little to be gained by going back through the past 

 history of the collections, and that no very satisfactory 

 result will be attained by hearing statements from the 

 officers connected respectively with Kew and the British 

 Museum, or from persons who, justly or not, may be 

 supposed to have a decided leaning towards either. 



A course more likely to assist the Commissioners to- 

 wards a safe conclusion would be to request two or 

 more competent persons, holding an independent and 

 responsible position, to visit both herbaria, with a view 

 to compare their availableness for scientific research in 

 their present condition, and the resources at the com- 

 mand of each for supplying deficiencies and keeping 

 pace with the increasing range of discovery and explora- 

 tion. 



Although I have no means for knowing that they 

 would undertake such a duty, I do not doubt that the 

 professors of botany in the Universities of Oxford and 

 Cambridge would readily do so in the interest of 

 science. 



By allowing the officers in charge of each herbarium 

 to suggest for comparison the names of two or three 

 genera, and adding any others they might of their own 

 motion select, the gentlemen undertaking the inquiry 

 could, without much labour, form a fair comparative 

 judgment as to the present condition of the named col- 

 lections in both establishments. They should examine 

 into the extent and nature of the unarranged collections 

 m each establishment, and the amount of arrear exist- 

 ing in the shape of plants named, but not intercalated. 

 Besides reporting on the present condition of the col- 

 lections, the same gentlemen should be requested to 

 examine into the means possessed by eaoh establish- 

 ment for obtaining new and rare plants from countries 

 still imperfectly explored. The very extensive foreign 

 correspondence, including many remote parts of the 

 globe, set on foot by the late Sir W. Hooker, and con* 

 tinued by the present Director, has probably offered 

 opportunities for obtaining dried plants for the her- 

 barium, along with seeds, cuttings, or living plants for 

 the royal gardens, such as are not enjoyed by any other 

 public institution; but this can best be tested by a 

 comparison of the foreign correspondence of the 

 directors of each herbarium, and of the collections 

 actually received from such contributors during a term 

 of years, exclusive of those obtained by purchase. 



I may be permitted here to mention a practical diffi- 

 culty in the way of the suggested amalgamation of the 

 two herbaria which has not, I believe, been suggested 

 by any of the witnesses hitherto examined. The speci- 

 mens in both collections are glued down upon stiff white 

 paper, but this is of a different size in each — that in the 

 British Museum being the larger. As it is found that 

 plants laid down on papers of unequal size cannot be 

 intermixed without injury, it would be necessary to 

 find means to equalize them. The British Museum 

 paper could not be cut down to the Kew size without 

 serious damage to many invaluable specimens that 

 cannot be replaced, and it would be necessary to trans- 

 fer the Kew herbariusi to larger paper, or else incur the 

 certainty of damage and inconvenience from mixing the 

 two herbaria. The transference of the Kew herbarium 

 to larger paper would involve the purchase of nearly 

 1,000 reams of paper, and the employment of from 12 

 to 20 competent persons, if siich could be found, for a 

 year ; and. what is more serious, it would gravely in- 

 terfere with the publication of four of the most im- 



