100 
GENEEAL ARRANGEMENT. 
Zoological 
Department. 
Geological 
Department. 
Introductory 
Collection. 
III. In the same way the animal kingdom belongs to the 
department of Zoology, to which is assigned the whole of the 
western wing of the building. 
It will thus be seen that a department of the Museum 
corresponds with each of the great divisions of natural objects ; 
there is, however, a fourth department, which owes its separate 
existence to a time when the terms Zoology and Botany were 
limited to the study of the existing forms of animal and plant 
life, and the extinct or fossil forms were associated with 
minerals, rather than with their living representatives. This 
arrangement prevailed in the British Museum until the year 
1857. The fossils were then severed from this incongruous 
connection, and placed in a separate department for which 
the name of "Geology" was reserved.* The result is that 
there are now two distinct zoological and botanical collections 
in the building, one containing the remains of all the animals 
and plants which lived through successive ages of the world's 
history from the earliest dawn of life down to close upon the 
present time, and the other including only those living at the 
particular period in which we dwell. Notwithstanding the 
objections which may be urged against this separation, it prevails 
largely in museums, and (owing to certain conveniences, as 
well as to the difficulty and expense of rearranging extensive 
collections and reorganising the staff in charge of them) will 
probably be retained for some time to come. It should, however, 
be mentioned that a few specimens illustrating some of the more 
important extinct forms have been intercalated among the recent 
Mammals and Eeptiles ; while, conversely, skeletons and other 
specimens of recent animals have been introduced among the 
fossil Vertebrates in the Geological Department. Again, the 
more important remains of extinct Cetaceans are now shown 
in the Whale Eoom, as are many of the specimens of Elephants, 
as well as all the Sea-Cows, in the Geological Department. 
Besides the four above-mentioned departments, into which 
the collection is divided for the purposes of custody and 
* Palaeontology, or the study of fossil animals, would have been a more 
appropriate designation, as Geology, the science which investigates the 
history of the earth, and the changes which its surface has undergone in 
attaining its present condition, has a much wider scope. 
