36 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. n. 



recommendation being supported by Professors 

 Huxley and Maskelyne, Drs. Gray and Sclater, 

 Messrs. Waterhouse, Thomas Bell, Gould, Sir 

 Roderick Murchison, and Sir Benjamin Brodie. 



' Lest, however, the House might attach undue 

 weight to this exceptional testimony, the chairman 

 of the committee deemed it his duty, in bringing 

 up the report, to warn the House of the character 

 of such testimony, and his speech left, as I was 

 told, a very unfavourable impression as regards 

 myself. I was chiefly concerned to know what 

 might be put upon record in " Hansard." In 

 that valuable work hon. members revise their re- 

 ported utterances before the sheets go to press. 

 I was somewhat relieved to find Mr. Gregory 

 merely regretting that " a man whose name stood 

 so high should connect himself with so foolish, 

 crazy, and extravagant a scheme, and should per- 

 severe in it after the folly had been pointed out 

 by most unexceptionable witnesses. 



1 " They had on one side, and standing alone, 

 Professor Owen and his ten-acre scheme, and on 

 the other side all the other scientific gentlemen, 

 who were perfectly unanimous in condemning 

 the plan of Professor Owen as being utterly 

 useless and bewildering." ' 



One point in particular was especially ridiculed 

 by Mr. Gregory in the course of the debate in 

 the House of Commons, and that was 'galleries 

 850 feet in length for the exhibition of whales.' 



