104 
HLSTOPJCAL SKETCH. 
Completion of The actual Avork of erection was commenced in tlie year 1873, 
re'S^! of ^ building was handed over to the Trustees of the British 
CoUections. Museum by Her Majesty's Commissioner 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 w^as 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, always be 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- 
sance building, and fell back on the earlier Eomanesque style 
wliicli prevailed largely in Lombardy and the Ehineland from 
the tenth to the end of the twelfth century. 
In 1873, a contract was entered into by the Government 
M'ith Messrs. George Baker and Sons, of Lambeth, for the 
erection of the building at a cost of £352,000. Other sub- 
