INTRODUCTION. 



3 



place. But the idea of a separation of the collections was 

 already freely entertained. In June of the same year the 

 Trustees discussed the question of removing the Botany to 

 Kew. In the same month, Mr. Panizzi, then Principal 

 Librarian, recommended the purchase of the buildings and 

 ground on three sides of the Museum, estimating the cost, 

 with proposed new buildings, at from £700,000 to £800,000 ; 

 and at the same time urged the discontinuance of collecting 

 mediaeval antiquities and ethnography. Suggestions even, from 

 without, were heard for transferring minerals to the Govern- 

 ment School of Mines, stuffed animals to the Zoological 

 Society's care, and insects and shells to that of the Linnsean 

 Society. The expedient of a severance of the collections, how 

 ever, was not approved at that time by the leading meii 

 of science, who, in a memorial to the Government numer- 

 ously signed, and dated on the 6th of July, 1858, made 

 strong objections to the separation of the Natural History 

 collections. 



At this juncture a great impulse was given to the agitation Report by 

 for an enlargement of the Museum by an elaborate report sub- Owen SS ° r 

 mitted to the Trustees by Professor Owen, dated on the 10th 

 of February, 1859, showing the proportionate space required 

 for each department of Natural History, and accompanied 

 with a plan of internal arrangement. The total area 

 required by this scheme amounted to 300,000 superficial 

 feet ; and to these Professor Owen proposed to add con- 

 siderably by providing for a circular building, 150 feet 

 in diameter, for an exhibition of type specimens, forming 

 as it were an epitome of Natural History, as well as for offices 

 and libraries. The report was circulated in print, and 

 the Government was appealed to. A special general meeting 

 of the Trustees, held on the 22nd of November, 1859, 

 appointed a Committee to consider the cost of purchasing 

 five or eight acres of ground, either contiguous to the 

 Museum or at South Kensington. The necessity for either 

 a great extension of the existing building or the acqui- 

 sition of a fresh site and separation of the Natural History 

 collections was pressed on all sides, and admitted by the 



