54 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. II. 
the facility with which the moulded blocks of terra- 
cotta lend themselves to the kind of ornamenta- 
tion to which I have already referred. 
‘ In concluding the above sketch of the develop- 
ment of our actual Museum of Natural History, 
I may finally refer, in the terms of our modern 
phylogenists, to the traceable evidences of “ an- 
cestral structures.” In the architectural details 
of the new Natural History Museum you will find 
but one character of the primitive and now ex- 
tinct museum retained — viz. the central hall. In 
Montague House® there were no galleries, but 
side-lit saloons or rooms of varying dimensions 
and on different storeys. 
‘ In its successor (the Museum developed on 
its site at a later period), we find galleries added ; 
that, for example, which was appropriated to the 
birds and shells being 300 feet in length. This 
architectural organisation still exists at Blooms- 
bury. 
‘ The Museum, which may be said to have 
budded off, has risen to a still higher grade of 
structure after settling down at South Kensing- 
ton. In its anatomy we find, it is true, the 
central hall and long side-lit galleries ; but in 
addition to these inherited structures we discern a 
series of one-storied galleries, manifesting a de- 
velopmental advance in the better admission of 
« The original building occupied the site of the British Museum. 
Bloomsbury. 
