MINERAL, VEGETABLE, AND ANIMAL. 99 



the domain of Natural History, have not found a place in the 

 Natural History Museum. It is only the results of the 

 working of these processes or laws, as shown in the modifica- 

 tions of the arrangement of the elementary substances of which 

 the material of the Universe is composed, which can be fully 

 illustrated by specimens admitting of being readily preserved 

 and permanently exhibited in a museum. A Natural History 

 Museum, therefore, in the sense ia which the term is now 

 usually understood, is a collection of the various objects, 

 animate and inanimate, found in a state of nature. It will 

 be readily understood that as the study of such objects is 

 one of the principal means by which the laws leading to 

 their formation or arrangement may be traced out, it is of 

 the utmost importance for the progress of those departments 

 of knowledge which the Museum is designed to cultivate, to 

 bring together as full an illustrative series of these objects as 

 possible. 



Although the validity of the division of natural objects Division into 

 into inorganic and organic or living has been the subject of y *^^lg 

 some discussion, and although the separation of the latter and AnimaL 

 into vegetable and animal is perhaps less absolute than once 

 supposed, yet for practical purposes. Mineral, VEaETABLE, 

 and Animal remain the three great divisions or " kingdoms " 

 into which natural bodies are grouped, and this classification 

 has formed the basis of the arrangement of the collections in 

 the Museum. 



I. Inorganic substances occur in nature in a gaseous, JCneralogioal 

 liquid, or solid form. With very few exceptions, it is Department 

 only in the latter state that they can be conveniently 

 preserved and exhibited in a museum, and it is to such that 



the term "mineral" is commonly limited. The collection, 

 classification, and exhibition of specimens of this kind is the 

 ofi&ce of the Mineralogical Department of the Museum, to 

 which, as already mentioned, is devoted the large gallery on 

 the first floor of the east wing of the building. 



II. The study of the vegetable kingdom, so far as it can be Botanical 

 niustrated by preserved specimens, is the province of the ''^p*"^™®"'- 

 Department of Botany, which occupies the upper floor of the 



east wing. 



H 2 



