1846-47 LETTER FROM LORD F. EGERTON 
375 
museum is, therefore, between those series of 
skeletons of which they present intermediate or 
transitional structures.’ This excellent plan, 
though approved by the Council, and carried out 
in the museum, never appeared in print. 
Lord Francis Egerton to Richard Owen 
18 Belgrave Square : March 27, 1846. 
‘ My dear Sir, — I have a strong inclination 
to take some opportunity after Easter of moving 
for a committee of inquiry into the state of the 
Various collections of the British Museum. My 
general view of the case is this. Books and anti- 
quities are accumulating there at a rate which 
ntust soon raise the question of further and very 
extensive accommodation. For the moment, per- 
haps, space enough is left to allow of the whole 
subject being considered without the hurry of 
immediate pressure. 
‘ This, therefore, seems to me a fit and conve- 
nient juncture for considering whether it may not 
he possible to effect a great and salutary rearrange- 
ntent of the public collections, founded on the 
simple and intelligible principle of the separation 
nf mind from matter, placing in one department 
Everything which concerns intellectual man, and 
in one or more other departments everything 
Else. 
‘ If it could be feasible to make incidental 
