Growth of the Natural History Collections of the Museum. 1836–49.
In March, 1849, the course of inquiries pursued by LordEllesmere’sCommission led to a new review of the growth of the Natural-History Collections, and more especially of the Zoology. It applied in particular to the twelve or thirteen years which had then elapsed since the prior inquiries of 1835–1836. The statement possesses much interest, but it is occasionally deficient in that systematic and necessary distinction between species and specimens which characterised the evidence of 1836. In brief, however, it may be said, that in the eight years extending between June, 1840, and June, 1848, twenty-nine thousand five hundred and ninety-fivespecimensof vertebrated animals were added to the Museum galleries and storehouses. Of these, five thousand seven hundred and ninety-sevenwere mammals; thirteen thousand four hundred and fourteen were birds; four thousand one hundred and twelve reptiles; and six thousand two hundred and seventy-two were fish. The number of specimens of annulose animals added during the same period was seventy-three thousand five hundred and sixty-three: and that of mollusca and radiata, fifty-seven thousand six hundred and ten.
These large additions comprised extensive gatherings made byDysonin Venezuela, and in various parts of North America; byGardinerandClausenin Brazil; byGossein Jamaica; byGould,Gilbert, andStephenson, in Australia and in New Zealand; byHartwegin Mexico; byGoudotin Columbia; byVerreauxandSmithin South Africa; byFrazerin Tunis; and byBridgesin Chili and in some other parts of South America.
Of the splendid collections made by Mr.Hodgsonin India, some more detailed mention must be made hereafter.
Check in the growth of Natural-History Collections on the Continent, 1845–1855.
Meanwhile, on the Continent of Europe, political commotion had seriously checked the due progress of scientific collections. Britain had been making unwonted strides in the improvement of its Museum, at the very time when most of the Continental States had allowed their fine Museums to remain almost stationary. In mammals, birds, and shells, the British Museum had placed itself in the first rank. Only in reptiles, fish, and crustacea, could even Paris now claim superiority. Those classes had there engaged for a long series of years the unremitting research and labour of such naturalists asCuvier,Dumeril,Valenciennes, andMilne-Edwards; and their relative wealth of specimens it will be hard to overtake. In insects, the Museum Collection vies with that of Paris in point of extent, and excels it in point of arrangement.
Not less conspicuous had been the growth of the several Departments of Antiquities. And this part of the story of the Museum teems with varied interest. Within a period of less than thirty years, vast and widely-distant cities, rich in works of art, have been literally disinterred. In succession to the superb marbles of Athens, of Phigaleia, and of Rome, some of the choicest sculptures and most curious minor antiquities of Nineveh, of Calah, of Erech, of Ur-of-the-Chaldees, of Babylon, of Xanthus, of Halicarnassus, of Cnidus, and of Carthage, have come to London.
The growth of the subordinate Collections of Archæology has been scarcely less remarkable. The series of ancient vases—to take but one example—of which the research and liberality of Sir WilliamHamiltonlaid a good foundation almost a century ago, has come at length to surpass its wealthiest compeers. Only a few years earlier, it ranked as but the third, perhaps as but the fourth, among the great vase collections of Europe. London, in that point of view, was below both Naples and Paris, if not also below Munich. It now ranks above them all; possessing two thousand six hundred vases, as against two thousand at Paris, and two thousand one hundred at Naples.[32]
Another department, lying in part nearer home—that of British, Mediæval, and Ethnological Antiquities—has been almost created by the labours of the last twenty years. The ‘British’ Museum can no longer be said to be a misnomer, as designating an establishment in which British Archæology met with no elucidation.
CHAPTER III.INTRODUCTION TO BOOK III(Continued):—GROWTH, PROGRESS, AND INTERNAL ECONOMY, OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM DURING THE PRINCIPAL-LIBRARIANSHIP OF SIR ANTONIO PANIZZI.
CHAPTER III.INTRODUCTION TO BOOK III(Continued):—GROWTH, PROGRESS, AND INTERNAL ECONOMY, OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM DURING THE PRINCIPAL-LIBRARIANSHIP OF SIR ANTONIO PANIZZI.
‘Whatever be the judgment formed on [certain contested] points at issue, the Minutes of Evidence must be admitted to contain pregnant proofs of the acquirements and abilities, the manifestation of which in subordinate office led to Mr. Panizzi’s promotion to that which he now holds under circumstances which, in our opinion—formed on documentary evidence—did credit to the Principal Trustees of the day.’—Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Management of the British Museum(1850).
‘In consideration of the long and very valuable services of Mr. Panizzi, including not only his indefatigable labours as Principal-Librarian, but also the service which he rendered as architect of the new Reading-Room, the Trustees recommended that he should be allowed to retire on full salary after a discharge of his duties for thirty-four years.’
Hansard’sParliamentary Debates(27 July, 1866).
Hansard’sParliamentary Debates(27 July, 1866).
Hansard’sParliamentary Debates(27 July, 1866).
Hansard’sParliamentary Debates(27 July, 1866).
The Museum Buildings.—The New Reading-Room and its History.—The House of Commons’ Committee of 1860:—Further Reorganization of the Departments—Summary of the Growth of the Collections in the years 1856–1866, and of their increased Use and Enjoyment by the Public.
No question connected with the improvement of the British Museum has, from time to time, more largely engrossed the attention, either of Parliament or of the Public at large, than has the question of the Buildings. On nonehave the divergences of opinion been greater, or the expressions of dissatisfaction with the plans—or with the want of plan—louder or more general.
Yet there is no doubt (amongst those, at least, who have had occasion to examine the subject closely) that the architects of the new British Museum—first Sir RobertSmirke, and then Mr. SydneySmirke—have been conspicuous for professional ability. Nor is there any doubt, anywhere, that the Trustees of the Museum have bestowed diligent attention on the plans submitted to them. They have been most anxious to discharge that part of their duty to the Public with the same faithfulness which, on the whole, has characterised their general fulfilment of the trust committed to them. Why, it is natural to ask, has their success been so unequal?
Causes of the unsatisfactoriness of many parts of the new Museum Buildings.
Without presuming upon the possession of competence to answer the question with fulness, there is no undue confidence in offering a partial reply. Part of their failure to satisfy the public expectations has arisen from a laches in Parliament itself. At the critical time when the character of the new buildings had practically to be decided, parsimoniousness led, not only to construction piecemeal, but to the piecemeal preparation of the designs themselves. Temporary makeshifts took the place of foreseeing plans. And what may have sounded like economy in 1830 has, in its necessary results, proved to be very much like waste, long before 1870.
Had a comprehensive scheme of reconstruction been looked fully in the face when, forty years ago, the new buildings began to be erected, three fourths at most of the money which has been actually expended would have sufficed for the erection of a Museum, far more satisfactory in its architectural character, and affording at least onefourth more of accommodation for the National Collections. The British Museum buildings have afforded a salient instance of the truth ofBurke’swords: ‘Great expense may be an essential part in true economy. Mere parsimony isnoteconomy.’ But, in this instance, the fault is plainly in Parliament, not in the Trustees of the establishment which has suffered.
The one happy exception to the general unsatisfactoriness of the new buildings—as regards, not merely architectural beauty, but fitness of plan, sufficiency of light, and adaptedness to purpose—is seen in the new Reading-Room.|The new Reading-Room.|And the new Reading-Room is, virtually, the production of an amateur architect. The chief merits of its design belong, indubitably, to Sir AntonioPanizzi. The story of that part of the new building is worth the telling.
That some good result should be eventually derived from the large space of ground within the inner quadrangle had been many times suggested. The suggestion offered, in 1837, by Mr. ThomasWattswas thus expressed in his letter to the Editor of theMechanics Magazine:—
The suggestions for building additional Libraries of 1837 and of 1847.
Mr.Wattsbegan by criticising, somewhat incisively, the architectural skill which had constructed a vast quadrangle without providing it even with the means of a free circulation of air. He pinned Sir RobertSmirkeon the horns of a dilemma. If, he argued, the architect looked to a sanitary result, he had, in fact, provided a well of malaria. If he contemplated a display of art, he had, by consenting to the abolition of his northern portico, spoiled and destroyed all architectural effect. ‘The space,’ he proceeded to say, which has thus been wasted, ‘would have afforded accommodationfor the whole Library, much superior to what is now proposed to afford it. A Reading-Room of ample dimensions might have stood in the centre, andbeen surrounded, on all four sides, with galleries for the books.’ Afterwards, when adverting to the great expense which had been incurred upon the façades of the quadrangle, he went on to say: ‘It might now seem barbarous to propose the filling up of the square—as ought originally to have been done.|Mechanics’ Magazine(1837); vol. xxvi, pp. 295, seqq.|Perhaps the best plan would be to design another range of building entirely [new?], enclosing the present building on the eastern and northern sides as the Elgin and other galleries do on the western. To do this, it would be necessary to purchase and pull down one side of two streets,—Montagu Street and Montagu Place.’|Ibid.|
See Chap. ii of Book III, p. 566, and the accompanying fac-simile.
As I have intimated already, this alternative project was unconsciously reproduced, by the present writer, ten years later, without any idea that it had been anticipated. But neither to the mind of the writer of 1837, nor to that of the writer of 1847, did the grand feature of construction which, within another decade, has given to London a splendid building as well as a most admirable Reading-Room, present itself. The substantial merit, both of originally suggesting, and of (in the main) eventually realising the actual building of 1857, belongs to AntonioPanizzi.
As to the claims on that score advanced by Mr.Hosking, formerly Professor of Architecture at King’s College, they apply to a plan wholly different from the plan which was carried into execution.
Mr.Hosking’sscheme was drawn up, for private circulation, in February, 1848 (thirteen months after the writing of my own pamphlet entitledPublic Libraries in London and in Paris, and more than six months after its circulation in print), when it was first submitted to LordEllesmere’sCommission of Inquiry. It was first published (inThe Builder) in June, 1850. His object was to providea grand central hall for the Department of Antiquities.
When Mr.Hoskingcalled public attention to his design of 1848—in a pamphlet entitledSome Remarks upon the recent Addition of a Reading-Room to the British Museum—Mr. SydneySmirkewrote to him thus:—‘I recollect seeing your plans at a meeting of the Trustees, ... shortly after you sent them [to LordEllesmere]. When, long subsequently, Mr.Panizzishowed me his sketch for a plan of a new Reading-Room, I confess it did not remind me of yours, the purposes of the two plans and the treatment and construction were so different.’[33]|Sydney Smirke to William Hosking. (Remarks, &c.)|Whilst to Mr.Smirkehimself belongs the merit of practical execution, that of design belongs no less unquestionably toPanizzi.
Mr.Panizzihimself preferred, at first, the plan of extending the building on the eastern and northern sides. His suggestions had the approval of the Commissioners of 1850.|The new or Panizzi Reading-Room.|But the Government was slow to give power to the Trustees to carry out the plan of their officer and the recommendation of the Commissioners of Inquiry, by proposing the needful vote in a Committee of Supply. Plan and Report alike lay dormant from the year 1850 to 1854. It was then that, as a last resort, and as a measure of economy, by avoiding all present necessity to buy more ground of the Duke ofBedford, Mr.Panizzirecommended the Trustees to build within the quadrangle, and drew a sketch-plan, on which their architect reported favourably. Sixty-one thousand pounds, by way of a first instalment, was voted on the third of July, 1854. The present noble structure was completed within three years from that day, and its total cost—including the extensive series of book-galleries and rooms of various kinds, subserving almost innumerable purposes—amounted in round numbers to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It was thus only a little more than the cost of the King’s Library, which accommodates eighty thousand volumes of books and a Collection of Birds. The new Reading-Room and its appendages can be made to accommodate, in addition to its three hundred and more of readers, some million, or near it, of volumes, without impediment to their fullest accessibility.
To describe by words a room which, in 1870, has become more or less familiar, I suppose, to hundreds of thousands of Britons, and to a good many thousands of foreigners, would now be superfluous. But it will not be without advantage, perhaps, to show its character and appearance with the simple brevity of woodcuts.
The following illustrative block-plan shows the generalarrangement of the Museum building at large, at the date of the erection of the new Reading-Room.
Block-plan of Museum (1857), distinguishing the Libraries from the Galleries of Antiquities, &c.
I.General Block-Plan of the British Museum, as it was in 1857.
I.General Block-Plan of the British Museum, as it was in 1857.
I.General Block-Plan of the British Museum, as it was in 1857.
The shaded part of the building itself shows the portions allotted to theLibrary. The unshaded part is assigned, on the ground floor, to the Department ofAntiquities, and (speaking generally) on the floor above—in common withthe upper floors of the Library part—to the Departments ofNatural History. The ‘Print Room’ is shown on the ground-plan between the Elgin Gallery and the north-western extremity of the Department of Printed Books.
The next illustration shows, in detail, the ground-plan of the new Reading-Room and of the adjacent book-galleries:—
II.Ground-Plan of the new or ‘Panizzi’ Reading-Room, and of the adjacent Galleries, 1857.
II.Ground-Plan of the new or ‘Panizzi’ Reading-Room, and of the adjacent Galleries, 1857.
II.Ground-Plan of the new or ‘Panizzi’ Reading-Room, and of the adjacent Galleries, 1857.
The general appearance of the interior of the Reading-Room may be shown thus:—
III.Interior View of the new Reading-Room, 1857.
III.Interior View of the new Reading-Room, 1857.
III.Interior View of the new Reading-Room, 1857.
Of course, the improvements thus effected did but solve a portion of the difficulty felt, long before 1857, in accommodating the National Collections upon any adequate scale, which should provide alike for present claims and for future extension. This more effectual provision became one of the most pressing questions with which both the Trustees and their officers had now to deal. During the whole term of Sir A.Panizzi’sPrincipal-Librarianship this building question increased in gravity and urgency, from year to year. Both the Trustees and the Principal-Librarian were intent upon its solution. But the latter was enforced, by failing health, to quit office, leaving the matter still unsolved.
Parliamentary inquiry into proposed enlargement of British Museum in 1860.
Most of the little information on this part of the subject which, within my present limits, it will be practicable for me to offer to the reader, belongs, properly, to a subsequent chapter. But some brief notice must be given here of the important inquiries, ‘how far, and in what way, it may be desirable to find increased space for the extension and arrangement of the various Collections of the British Museum, and the best means of rendering them available for the promotion of Science and Art,’ which were made, between the months of May and August of 1860, by a Select Committee of the House of Commons.
The first question to be answered by the Committee of 1860 was this: Is it expedient, or not, that theNatural-HistoryCollections should be removed from Bloomsbury, to make room for the inevitable growth of the Collections ofAntiquities?
After an elaborate inquiry, spreading over three months, the Committee reported thus:—‘The witnesses examined have, almost unanimously, testified to the preference over the other Collections, with which the Natural-HistoryCollections are viewed by the ordinary and most numerous frequenters of the Museum. This preference is easily accounted for; the objects exhibited, especially the birds, from the beauty of their plumage, are calculated to attract and amuse the spectators.|The Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1860.|The eye has been accustomed in many instances to the living specimens in the Zoological Gardens, and cheap publications and prints have rendered their forms more or less familiar. It is, indeed, easily intelligible that, while for the full appreciation of works of archæological interest and artistic excellence a special education must be necessary, the works of Nature may be studied with interest and instruction by all persons of ordinary intelligence. It appears, from evidence, that many of the middle classes are in the habit of forming collections in various branches of Natural History, and that many, even the working classes, employ their holidays in the study of botany or geology, or in the collection of insects obtained in the neighbourhood of London; that they refer to the British Museum, in order to ascertain the proper classification of the specimens thus obtained, and that want of leisure alone restrains the further increase of this class of visitors. Your Committee, in order to confirm their view of the peculiar popularity of the Natural-History Collections, beg to refer to a return from the Principal-Librarian, which shows the number of visitors in the several public portions of the Museum, at the same hour of the day, during fifteen open days, from the fifteenth of June to the eleventh of July, 1860. From this it appears that two thousand five hundred and fifty-seven persons were in the Galleries of Antiquities at the given hour, and one thousand and fifty-six in the King’s Library and MSS. Rooms, while three thousand three hundred and seventy-eight were in the Natural-History Galleries; showing an excess of twohundred and twenty per cent. in the Natural-History Department over the King’s Library and MSS. Rooms, and of thirty-three per cent. over the Galleries of Antiquities, notwithstanding that the latter are of considerably greater extent than the Galleries of Natural History. The evidence received by your Committee induces the belief that the removal of these most popular collections from their present central position to one less generally accessible would excite much dissatisfaction, not merely among a large portion of the inhabitants of the metropolis, but among the numerous inhabitants of the country, who from time to time visit London by railway, and to whom the proximity of the British Museum to most of the railway termini, as compared with the distance of the localities to which it has been proposed to transport such collections, is of great practical importance. Similar evidence shows that the proposed removal of those collections from the British Museum has excited grave and general disapprobation in the scientific world. Your Committee cannot here employ more forcible language than that made use of in a memorial signed by one hundred and fourteen persons, including many eminent promoters and cultivators of science in England, and presented to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1848. The following are their words:—“We beg to add the expression of our opinion that the removal of the Natural-History Collections from the site where they have been established for upwards of a century, in the centre of London, particularly if to any situation distant from that centre, would be viewed by the mass of the inhabitants with extreme disfavour, it being a well-known fact that by far the greater number of visitors to the Museum consists of those who frequent the halls containing the Natural-History Collections, while it is obvious that many ofthose persons who come from the densely peopled districts of the eastern, northern, and southern parts of London, would feel it very inconvenient to resort to any distant locality.”’
Recommendations of the Commons’ Committee of 1860.
After an elaborate examination into the nature and extent of those enlargements which the present growth and probable increase of the several Collections of Antiquities and of Natural History render necessary, the Committee proceed thus:—
The ground immediately surrounding the Museum, says the reporter, speaking of the adjacent streets to the east, west, and north, ‘comprises altogether about five and a half acres, valued by Mr.Smirkeat about two hundred and forty thousand pounds. As the proprietary interest in all this ground belongs to a single owner, your Committee are of opinion that it would be convenient, and possibly even a profitable arrangement, for the State at once to purchase that interest, and to receive the rents of the lessees in return for the capital invested. The State would then have the power, whenever any further extension of the Museum became necessary, to obtain possession of such houses as might best suit the purpose in view.
‘Independently, however, of this larger suggestion, your Committee are fully convinced, both from the uniform purport of the papers printed at different times by the House of Commons, and from the statements of the various witnesses whom they have now examined, that it is indispensable, not merely to the appropriate exhibition of our unequalled National Collections, but even to the avoidance of greater ultimate expense, through alterations and re-arrangements, that sufficient space should be immediately acquired in connexion with the British Museum, to meet the requirements of the several departments which have been enumerated under the last head, and that such spaceshould throughout be adapted, by its position, extent, and facilities of application, to the arrangement of the collections on a comprehensive, and, therefore, probably permanent system. They will now proceed to point out several sites, either on or adjoining the present ground of the Museum, which seem to them to present the greatest advantages for the accommodation of the respective departments.’
Natural History Collections.
Although, the Committee proceed to say, the amount of space which, on the foregoing estimate, would be requisite for the Natural-History Collections is not so great as to involve the necessity of their removal from the British Museum on that ground alone, your Committee, nevertheless, attach so much weight to the arguments in favour of preserving the various departments of the Museum from the risk of collision with each other, that, should it be determined to provide new space for Natural History in connexion with the Museum, they would make it a primary object to isolate its collections, as far as possible, from all others in the same locality. The chief part of the Natural-History Collections is now on the upper floor, where they occupy, according to the return of Mr.Smirke, in November, 1857, forty-eight thousand four hundred and forty-two superficial feet. The remainder of that floor, containing, exclusively of a small space not reckoned by Mr.Smirke, twenty-one thousand five hundred and thirty-two feet, is occupied by Antiquities. It appears to your Committee that if, by any adaptation of ground to be acquired adjoining the Museum, adequate space should be provided elsewhere for the Antiquities now on the upper floor, the most expedient arrangement would be to appropriate the whole of that floor to the Natural-History Collections. If this space proved insufficient for all such collections, your Committee would then recommend that the newly acquired portion should beapplied exclusively to the Department of Zoology; and that a sufficient portion of ground should be purchased on the north side of the Museum as a site for galleries to provide for Mineralogy, and thus also indirectly for Geology.
Prints and Drawings.
A convenient site for this department would, in the opinion of the Committee, be provided by the suggested acquisition of additional ground on the north side. A building might there be erected in continuation of the present east wing of the Museum, to contain, on its upper floor, the Mineralogical Collections, and on the lower the Prints and Drawings, with adequate space both for their preservation and exhibition.
Antiquities.
In determining the site most suitable for the large additional accommodation required for this department, the Committee thought it most prudent that the Trustees of the Museum should be guided, partly by the greater or less cost of purchasing the requisite amount of ground in different directions, but chiefly by the greater or less fitness of the different portions of ground for the best system of arrangement.
Internal economy:—Reorganization and subdivision of Departments. 1856–66.
In the same year in which Mr.Panizzibecame Principal-Librarian (1856), one of the recommendations of LordEllesmere’sCommission-Report of 1850 was carried into effect by the creation of the new office of ‘Superintendent of the Natural-History Departments.’ And the former partial subdivision and reorganization of those departments was, in the following year, carried further by the formation of a separate Department of Mineralogy. In subsequent years, the old Department of Antiquities was, like the Natural History, divided into four departments, namely, (1) Greek and Roman Antiquities; (2) Oriental Antiquities; (3) British and Mediæval Antiquities and Ethnography; (4) Coins and Medals.
At present (1870), it may here be added, the entire Museum is divided into twelve departments, comprising three several groups of four sections to each. The Natural-History group being comprised of (1) Zoology; (2) Palæontology; (3) Botany; (4) Mineralogy. The Literary group comprising (1) Printed Books; (2) Manuscripts; (3) Prints and Drawings; (4) Maps, Charts, Plans, and Topographical Drawings. Experience has amply vindicated the wisdom of the principle of subdivision. But it is probable that the principle has now been carried as far as it can usefully work in practice.
Increased efficiency and rapidly growing collections brought with them enlarged grants from Parliament. In the first year of Sir A.Panizzi’sPrincipal-Librarianship, the estimate put before the House of Commons for the service of the year 1856–7 was sixty thousand pounds, as compared with a grant for the service of the year immediately preceding of fifty-six thousand one hundred and eighty pounds. In his last year of office, the estimate for the service of the year 1866–67 amounted to one hundred and two thousand seven hundred and forty-four pounds, against a grant in the year preceding of ninety-eight thousand one hundred and sixty-four pounds.
Statistics of Public Access.
There had also been, in that decade, a marked degree of increase—though one of much fluctuation—in the number of visits, both to the General Collections and, much more notably, to the Reading-Rooms and the Galleries for Study. In 1856, the number of general visitors was three hundred and sixty-one thousand seven hundred and fourteen; in 1866, it was four hundred and eight thousand two hundred and seventy-nine. But in the ‘Exhibition Year’ (1862), it had reached eight hundred and ninety-five thousand and seventy-seven, which was itself little more than one thirdof the exceptionally enormous number of visitors recorded[34]in the year of the first of the great Industrial Exhibitions (1851).
It was during Sir A.Panizzi’sdecade that the largest number of visitors ever recorded to have entered the Museum within one day was registered. This exceptional number occurred on the ‘Boxing Day’ of the Londoners, 26th December, 1858, when more than forty-two thousand visitors were admitted. Under the old system there had been a dread of holiday crowds, and the largest number ever admitted on any one day, prior to 1837, was between five thousand eight hundred and five thousand nine hundred. That number had been looked upon as a marvel. On the Easter Monday of 1837, twenty-three thousand nine hundred and eighty-five were admitted. Neither then nor on the 1858 ‘Boxing Day’ was any injury or disorderly conduct complained of.
The highest number of visits for study made to the Reading-Room, prior to 1857, occurred in 1850, when the number was seventy-eight thousand five hundred and thirty-three. The number in the year 1865 was one hundred thousand two hundred and seventy-one, but in the interval it had risen (1861) to one hundred and thirty thousand four hundred and ten. For several years, between 1856 and 1866, the average number of visits for study to the Galleries of Antiquities averaged about one thousand nine hundred annually; those to the Print Room, about two thousand eight hundred; those to the Coin and Medal Room, about one thousand nine hundred.
The rapid growth of the Collection of Printed Books, more especially between the years 1845–1865, which had, as we have seen, resulted from the unremitting labours of Mr.Panizzi, was well kept up, both under his immediate successor, Mr. John WinterJones, and (after Mr.Jones’promotion to the Principal-Librarianship, towards the close of 1866) by the next Keeper, Mr.Watts. As is well known, the increase of the Library is still more remarkable for the character of the additions purchased than for their mere number. But recent years have afforded no such instance of individual munificence in this department of the Museum as that which will presently call for detailed notice when we record the acquisition (in 1846) of the Grenville Library, nor could any such instance, indeed, be reasonably looked for.
Sir FrederickMadden’senergetic researches and labours for the improvement of the Collection of MSS. would well merit a fuller account than it is here practicable to give of them. They have been perseveringly and worthily continued by his successor, Mr. Edward AugustusBond, to whom students also owe the great and distinctive debt of the commencement of an admirable “Index of Matters” to the Collection generally. No greater boon, in the way of Catalogues, was ever given within the walls of the Museum, though, as yet, it is necessarily a beginning only. The special labours of Dr.Grayin that sphere, for the Natural-History Collections, comprised the extended advantage of printing and sale. Not less, I hope, will eventually be done for the service of manuscript students. There is the desire to do it, and the means must, sooner or later, follow.
The wonderful growth and development of the Collections of Antiquities in recent years is the special subject ofthe next chapter. That growth derives no small part of its permanent scientific interest and value from the impressive way in which it illustrates the teachings of Holy Scripture.Someof the collections amassed in the British Museum have, more than once, by dint of human vanity, been made to subserve a laudation of the wonderful achievements of Man, rather than of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God; but for the ebullitions of human vanity there is extremely little room when a visitor stands beside the sculptured memorials of that vast empire which ‘the cedars in the garden ofGodcould not hide,’|Ezek. xxxi, 8 to 13. Comp. Habak. ii, 14.|which was ‘lifted up in the pride of its height,’ only to become a marvel for desolation, so that upon its ruin ‘the fowls of the heaven remain.’ When before our own eyes and ears the very stones cry out in the wall, and the beams out of the timber answer them, the man vainest of his science or of his philosophy must needs be led to ask himself: ‘What hathGodwrought?’
Some very advanced men of science have become, of late, fond of ‘Sunday-evening Lectures’for the instruction of the working classes. That would be a tolerably impressive Sunday-evening Lecture which a competent scholar could give in the Assyrian Gallery of the British Museum.
Here, and now, the recent increase of the Department of Antiquities may be wholly passed over. But to that part of the history of accessions which bears upon the Natural-History Galleries some attention must needs be given, by way of continuing our former brief epitome of the improvements made between the years 1836 and 1850.
Of the state of the Department of Zoology, during the earlier part of the decade now more immediately under review, a good and instructive account was given in ProfessorOwen’sAnnual Report of 1861. Its most material portions run thus:—
‘The proportion of the stuffed specimens of the class Mammalia, exhibited in the glazed cases of the Southern Zoological Gallery and Mammalian Saloon, is in good condition.|The Growth of the Natural History Collections. 1850–1861.|The stuffed specimens, which, from their bulk, or from want of space in the cases, stand on the floor, have suffered in a certain degree from exposure to the corrosive smoke-dust of the metropolis, the effects of which cannot be wholly prevented.’
The proportion, continues Mr.Owen, of the Collection of Mammalia consisting of skins preserved in boxes, the Osteological specimens, including the horns and antlers, and the specimens kept in spirit, are all in a good state of preservation. The unstuffed, Osteological and bottled specimens are unexhibited and restricted in use, as at present located, to scientific investigation and comparison; but it is with difficulty that the special visitor for such purposes can now avail himself of these materials, owing to their crowded accumulation in the Basement Rooms in which they are stored.
‘The exhibited Collection of Birds is in a good state of preservation, is conveniently arranged for public inspection, and is usefully and instructively named and labelled. The interest manifested by visitors, and the satisfaction generally expressed in regard to this gallery, indicate the amount of public instruction and gratification which would result from a corresponding serial arrangement and exposition of the other classes of the animal kingdom.
‘The stuffed and exhibited selections from the classes of Reptilia and Fishes, are in a very good state of preservation; they suffer less from the requisite processes of cleaning than the classes covered by hair, fur, or feathers.
‘Of these cold-blooded Vertebrates the proportion preservedin spirits is much greater than in Mammals and Birds, and, consequently, through the present allotment of space, the majority of the singular specific forms of Reptiles and Fishes are excluded from public view. Upwards of two thousand specimens in spirits of these classes have been added in the past year to the previously crowded shelves of the basement store-rooms, where access to any individual specimen is a matter of some difficulty, if not hazard. Of the above additions, fourteen hundred and fifty-six have accrued from the donation of the Secretary of State for India in Council. The interest and novelty of the specimens have constrained their acceptance, and the same reason has led to the acquisition of many additions from other sources.
‘Amongst them deserve to be specified two specimens of that singular snake, theHerpeton tentaculatum, known for a century past only by a single discoloured example in the Paris Museum; those now in the stores of the British Museum were acquired from Siam, and have served to enrich Zoology with a complete knowledge of the species, through the descriptions and figures by Dr.Günther.
‘The following may be also specified, namely, the burrowing Snake from South Africa,Uriechis microlepidotus; a new genus of tree-snake,Herpetoreas; a new genus,Barycephalus, of Saurian, from an altitude in the Himalayas of fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea; also two new species of freshwater Tortoise, theEmys Livingstonii, dedicated to its discoverer in Africa, and theEmys Siamensis. Among the additions to the class of Fishes has been acquired a new genus,Hypsiptera, of the Scomberoid family; with several new species, including one,Centrolophus Britannicus, belonging to this country.
‘The specimens of the Molluscous classes showing the entire animal, preserved in spirits, and stored in the basementroom, are in good condition. The entire class ofTunicatais so preserved; also the families or genera devoid of, or with rudimental, shells, in the other Molluscous classes. A small proportion of such “naked” Mollusca, and the soft parts of a few of the testaceous kinds, are represented by coloured wax models in the exhibited series of shells arranged in the Bird Gallery.
‘The whole of the exhibited collection is in an excellent state of preservation. The system or scale on which the genera, species, and local varieties of shells are exhibited, with their names and localities, gives to the ordinary visitor a power of comparing his own specimens, and, in most instances, of determining them, without the necessity of special application to the keeper or assistant in the department. The extent to which students and others avail themselves of this facility of comparison, and the value attached to it, show that the above principle and scale of exhibition of specimens are proper to be adopted in a National Museum for public use.’
In the year following the presentation of this Report, ProfessorOwenmade a more elaborate review, both of the condition and of the needs of the Zoological Department, from which I gather broadly, and by abridgement, the following striking results:—
The number ofspeciesof Mammals possessed by the British Museum was a little over two thousand, exemplified by about three thousand individual specimens. In the year 1830, the number ofspecimenshad been about one thousand three hundred and fifty; in 1850, it had risen to nearly two thousand. It follows that, within thirty-two years, the number of specimens in the Museum Collection had been somewhat more than doubled. But still the number ofspeciesadequately illustrated was only about two thousandagainst three thousand five hundred species of Mammals which are known, named, and have been more or less adequately described, by zoologists.
Of Birds, about two thousand five hundred species were, in 1862, exhibited in the galleries of the British Museum, and in its store-rooms there were the skins of about four thousand two hundred species. The number of species already known and described, in 1862, was not less than eight thousand three hundred. And, it is hardly necessary to add, vast explorations have since been undertaken, in the years which have elapsed, or are now about to be undertaken in Africa, in Madagascar, in Borneo, in New Guinea, and in many parts of Australia.
Of Fishes, the Museum contained, in 1862, about four thousand species. These were then represented, by way of public exhibition, irrespectively of the unexhibited stores, by about one thousand five hundred stuffed specimens, illustrating about one thousand species. The total number of recorded species, already at that date, amounted to more than eight thousand.
Of Reptiles, little more than two hundred and fifty species were publicly shown in the Museum Galleries, but its collections, unexhibited for want of space, were already much larger. The number of known species ofReptilia, in 1862, exceeded two thousand.
Coming to the Invertebrata, it appears that, in 1862, about ten thousand species of molluscs, illustrated by about one hundred thousand specimen shells, were publicly exhibited.|See, hereinafter, Chap. VI.|This, it will be remembered, was anterior to the great accession of theCumingCollection, which already, in 1862, contained more than sixteen thousandspecies—and is the finest and most complete series ever brought together.
About forty-five thousand specimens of molluscs were, in 1862, stored in the drawers of the galleries and other rooms, or in the vaults beneath. These, on a rough computation, may have illustrated about four thousand five hundred species.
Within thetwo years only, 1860–1862, the registered number of specimens of Fossils was increased from one hundred and twenty thousand to one hundred and fifty-three thousand, but of these it was found possible to exhibit to the Public little more than fifty thousand specimens.