22 
BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY) 
TOPOGEAPHICAL DESCEIPTIOiT OF THE MUSEUM 
AND ITS CONTENTS. 
In following this short account of the contents of the various 
sections of the building, the visitor must bear in mind that the 
principal front faces the south, and that therefore on entering 
the great hall he will be looking due north, with the east on 
his rightj and the west on his left hand. 
The Central Hall. 
Central Hall. In the centre of the entrance hall is placed a specimen 
of the bony framework of one of the most colossal of animals, 
for which space cannot at present be found in its proper 
Skeleton of locality — the Cetacean gallery. It is the skeleton of the 
Sperm-whale. Qg^gj^^g^]^^)!^^ Sperm-whale {Physeter onacrocejplialus), prepared 
from an animal cast ashore near Thurso, on the north coast of 
Scotland, in July, 1863, on the estate of Capt. D. Macdonald, E.E., 
by whom it was presented to the Museum. The Sperm-whale 
is the principal source of supply of the sperm oil and spermaceti 
of commerce. The former is obtained by boiling the fat or 
blubber lying beneath the skin over the whole body ; the latter, 
in a liquid state at the ordinary temperature of the living 
animal, is contained in cells which fill the immense cavity on 
the top of the skull. It feeds chiefly on Cephalopods (squid 
and cuttlefish), and also fish, and is widely distributed through- 
out the warm and temperate regions of both Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans. The skeleton is that of a full-grown animal. It 
measures fifty feet one inch in length, but wants three of the 
vertebrae from the end of the tail. 
In order to render this skeleton more instructive, and to 
bring it into relation with the elementary specimens of osteology 
in the adjoining bay (No. I., Avest side), the names of the 
principal parts have been attached to them. This will enable 
the anatomist to trace at a glance the extraordinary modifica- 
tions in the form and relations of its component bones which the 
huge skull has undergone, and will show in the clearest manner 
