MINERAL, VEGETABLE, AND ANIMAL. 
99 
the domain of Natural History, have not found a place in the 
J^atnral History Museuni. It is only the results of the 
working of these processes or laws, as shown in the modifica- 
tions of the arrangement of the elementary substances of which 
the material of the Universe is composed, which can be fully 
illustrated by specimens admitting of being readily preserved 
and permanently exhibited in a museum. A Natural History 
Museum, therefore, in the sense in which the term is now 
usually understood, is a collection of the various objects, 
animate and inanimate, found in a state of nature. It will 
be readily understood that as the study of such objects is 
one of the principal means by which the laws leading to 
their formation or arrangement may be traced out, it is of 
the utmost importance for the progress of those departments 
of knowledge which the Museum is designed to cultivate, to 
bring together as full an illustrative series of these objects as 
possible. 
Although the validity of the division of natural objects Division into 
into inorganic and organic or living has been the subject of vegetable 
some discussion, and although the separation of the latter and Animal, 
into vegetaUe and animal is perhaps less absolute than once 
supposed, yet for practical purposes, Mineral, Vegetable, 
and Animal remain the three great divisions or " kingdoms " 
into which natural bodies are grouped, and this classification 
has formed the basis of the arrangement of the collections in 
the Museum. 
I. Inorganic substances occur in nature in a gaseous, Mineralogical 
liquid, or solid form. With very few exceptions, it is Department, 
only in the latter state that they can be conveniently 
preserved and exhibited in a museum, and it is to such that 
the term " mineral " is commonly limited. The collectiouj 
classification, and exhibition of specimens of this kind is the 
office of the Mineralogical Department of the Museum, to 
which, as already mentioned, is devoted the large gallery on 
the first floor of the east wing of the building. 
II. The study of the vegetable kingdom, so far as it can be Botanical 
illustrated by preserved specimens, is the province of the Department. 
Department of Botany, which occupies the upper floor of the 
east wing. 
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