108 
HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
Mr. Waterhouse was not long in submitting to the Trustees his 
plan and model of the building, with a disposition of galleries as 
required, and these were formally accepted by the Trustees in 
April, 1868. It was not, however, until February, 1871, that 
the working plans had been thoroughly considered, and received 
the final approval of the Trustees. 
Completion of The actual work of erection was commenced in the year 1873, 
remo^ of ^ building was handed over to the Trustees of the British 
Collections. Museum by Her Majesty's Commissioners of Works in the 
month of June, 1880. Immediately that the exhibition cases 
were completed, and the galleries were sufficiently dry to receive 
the collections, the great labour of removing the Natural History 
Collection from Bloomsbury was commenced. The departments 
of Geology, Mineralogy, and Botany were arranged in their 
respective sections of the Museum in the course of the year 1880, 
and the portion of the Museum which contained these departments 
was first opened to the public on April 18th, 1881. It was not 
until the following year that the cases destined to receive the 
larger collections of the Zoological Department were sufficiently 
near completion to allow of these collections following, and 
three more years were required before all the rooms could be 
brought into a state fitted for public inspection. 
The following description of the structure has been contri- 
buted by Mr. Waterhouse : — 
Description of " The New Natural History Museum will, from its position, 
the building, g^^^g^yg more or less identified with the International 
Exhibition of 1862, which occupied the whole of the site 
between the Horticultural Gardens and Cromwell Eoad. It 
was at one time thought that a portion, at any rate, of the 
Exhibition buildings could with advantage have been converted 
into a Museum of Natural History. Parliament, however, 
decided against the preservation of any part of these buildings, 
and they were accordingly entirely removed. 
" In designing the present building. Captain Eowke's original 
idea of employing terra-cotta was always kept in view, though 
the blocks were reduced in size, so as to obviate, as far as 
possible, the objection to the employment of this material, 
arising from its liability to twist in burning. Eor this and 
other reasons the architect abandoned the idea of a Eenais- 
