Boyd Dawkins, Orgatiisation of Museums 



present d vy, in logical sequence, has been met by a classification 

 sufficiently elastic to find a place for any new development that may 

 arise in the future. 



The scheme of classification is based upon the two great principles 

 of time and evolution. It begins with the ancient history of the earth, 

 dealing first with the minerals because they are built of the elemental 

 bodies, then comes the story of the rocks built up of minerals, and 

 variously modified by earth heat and earth-movement, and the agents 

 generally at work on the surface. Next follows the history of life as 

 revealed in the rocks, in its three great stages of evolution, Primary, 

 Secondary, and Tertiary, the series ending with the groups illustrating 

 existing nature, plants, animals and man. 



Scheme of General Classification in the Museum. 



Modern History 

 of the Earth 

 (Geography) 



(VI) 

 Animals 



(VIII) 

 Man 



(VII) 

 Plants 



(VIII) 



History 



Anthropology 



Ethnology 

 (VII) Botany 

 (VI) Zoology 



Ancient History 

 of the Earth 



(V) Tertiary Life (Cainozoic) 



(V, IV, III, II, I) 

 Geology 



(Geology) 



(IV) Secondary Life (Mesozoic) 



(V, IV, III) 

 Palaeontology 





(III) Primary Life (Palaeozoic) 







(II) Rocks 



(II) Petrology 





(I) Minerals 



(I) Mineralogy 



In dealing with the third of the great periods of life, the Tertiary, 

 the evolution of the higher mammalia, is the clue to the definition of 

 the successive stages, which I originally applied to Europe, in 1870. 

 It applies equally to the whole world if the living mammalia of each 

 zoological province be taken as the starting point: the indigenous 

 Eutheria for Asia, Africa and North and South America and the 

 Metatheria for Australasia. 



There is no break in the sequence of the Tertiary fauna and flora, 

 from the earliest stage to the present day, that is sufficient to allow of a 

 hard and fast line between geology and history. The continuity is so 

 clear that the present phase of nature must be viewed as the current, 

 but not necessarily the last of the Tertiary changes. We are living in 

 the Tertiary, and the story of Modern Man begins in the remote 

 Pleistocene stage of the same period, 



