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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The History of the Collections contained in the Natural History 

 Departments of the British Museum. Vols. I. & II. Printed 

 by order of the Trustees. 



A history of our great Natural History Museum, written by the 

 officers in charge of the collections, at the suggestion of Prof. E. 

 Eay Lankester, the Director, is a publication that will be read 

 by naturalists in all parts of the world. It records the gradual 

 accumulation of that vast collection of natural objects which it 

 contains, both animate and inanimate, with the sources from 

 which a large portion of it was obtained ; so that it is a clue to 

 the domicile of very many once private collections well known 

 by repute, and now available for examination by students. The 

 receptive process is still in progress, and one wonders what the 

 ultimate contents of this vast biological repository may attain 

 in size and number ; one also cannot refrain from sometimes 

 thinking what will be the condition of the present collection in 

 a thousand years' time ! Will time have dealt so gently with the 

 objects which we identify and study with such loving care, that 

 they may be available to posterity at the termination of another 

 millennium ? 



The nucleus of our Museum was the collections of Sir Hans 

 Sloane, and those known under the names of the Cottonian 

 and Harleian, the three being brought together under the desig- 

 nation of " the British Museum," placed under the care of 

 a body of trustees, and lodged in Montagu House, Blooms- 

 bury, purchased for their reception in 1754, and opened to the 

 public in 1759. We read : — " Admission to the galleries of 

 antiquities and natural history Was at first by ticket only, issued 

 on application in writing, and limited to ten persons, for each of 

 three hours in the day." Even these visits were limited to a 



