54 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. ii. 



the facility with which the moulded blocks of terra- 

 cotta lend themselves to the kind of ornamenta- 

 tion to which I have already referred. 



' In concluding the above sketch of the develop- 

 ment of our actual Museum of Natural History, 

 I may finally refer, in the terms of our modern 

 phylogenists, to the traceable evidences of " an- 

 cestral structures." In the architectural details 

 of the new Natural History Museum you will find 

 but one character of the primitive and now ex- 

 tinct museum retained — viz. the central hall. In 

 Montague House 6 there were no galleries, but 

 side-lit saloons or rooms of varying dimensions 

 and on different storeys. 



4 In its successor (the Museum developed on 

 its site at a later period), we find galleries added ; 

 that, for example, which was appropriated to the 

 birds and shells being 300 feet in length. This 

 architectural organisation still exists at Blooms- 

 bury. 



1 The Museum, which may be said to have 

 budded off, has risen to a still higher grade of 

 structure after settling down at South Kensing- 

 ton. In its anatomy we find, it is true, the 

 central hall and long side-lit galleries ; but in 

 addition to these inherited structures we discern a 

 series of one-storied galleries, manifesting a de- 

 velopmental advance in the better admission of 



6 The original building occupied the site of the British Museum 

 Eloomsbury. 



