76 
GENERAL ARRANGEMENT. 
Zoological 
Department 
Geological 
Department. 
Introductory 
Colleotion. 
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 have 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 containing only those 
living at the particular period in which we dwell. Notwith- 
standing the objections which may be urged against this 
separation, it prevails largely in museums, and (owing to cer- 
tain 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 intercallated among the recent mammals; 
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 
Room. 
Besides the four above-mentioned departments, into which the 
collection is divided for the purposes of custody and administra- 
* Palaeontology, or the study of fossil animals, would have been a more 
ajipropriate designation, as Geology, the science which investigates the 
history of the earth, and the clianges which its surface has undergone in 
attaining its present condition, has a much wider scope. 
