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’S _Parliamentary 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 none have 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 Robert SMIRKE, and then Mr. Sydney SMIRKE—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?
[Sidenote: 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 one fourth more of
accommodation for the National Collections. The British Museum buildings
have afforded a salient instance of the truth of BURKE’S words: ‘Great
expense may be an essential part in true economy. Mere parsimony is
_not_ economy.’ 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. [Sidenote: 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 Antonio PANIZZI.
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. Thomas WATTS was thus expressed in
his letter to the Editor of the _Mechanics Magazine_:—
[Sidenote: THE SUGGESTIONS FOR BUILDING ADDITIONAL LIBRARIES OF 1837 AND
OF 1847.]
Mr. WATTS began 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 Robert SMIRKE
on 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 accommodation _for 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, and been 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. [Sidenote:
_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.’ [Sidenote: _Ibid._]
[Sidenote: 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
Antonio PANIZZI.
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’S scheme was drawn up, for private circulation, in February,
1848 (thirteen months after the writing of my own pamphlet entitled
_Public Libraries in London and in Paris_, and more than six months
after its circulation in print), when it was first submitted to Lord
ELLESMERE’S Commission of Inquiry. It was first published (in _The
Builder_) in June, 1850. His object was to provide a grand central hall
for the Department of Antiquities.
When Mr. HOSKING called public attention to his design of 1848—in a
pamphlet entitled _Some Remarks upon the recent Addition of a
Reading-Room to the British Museum_—Mr. Sydney SMIRKE wrote to him
thus:—‘I recollect seeing your plans at a meeting of the Trustees, ...
shortly after you sent them [to Lord ELLESMERE]. When, long
subsequently, Mr. PANIZZI showed 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]
[Sidenote: Sydney Smirke to William Hosking. (_Remarks_, &c.)] Whilst to
Mr. SMIRKE himself belongs the merit of practical execution, that of
design belongs no less unquestionably to PANIZZI.
Mr. PANIZZI himself 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. [Sidenote: 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 of
BEDFORD, Mr. PANIZZI recommended 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 general arrangement of
the Museum building at large, at the date of the erection of the new
Reading-Room.
[Sidenote: BLOCK-PLAN OF MUSEUM (1857), DISTINGUISHING THE LIBRARIES
FROM THE GALLERIES OF ANTIQUITIES, &C.]
[Illustration:
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
the _Library_. The unshaded part is assigned, on the ground floor, to
the Department of _Antiquities_, and (speaking generally) on the floor
above—in common with the upper floors of the Library part—to the
Departments of _Natural 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:—
[Illustration:
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:—
[Illustration:
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’S Principal-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.
[Sidenote: 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 the _Natural-History_ Collections should be
removed from Bloomsbury, to make room for the inevitable growth of the
Collections of _Antiquities_?
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-History Collections 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. [Sidenote:
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 two hundred 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 of those 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.”’
[Sidenote: 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. SMIRKE
at 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 space should 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.’
[Sidenote: 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 be applied 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: INTERNAL ECONOMY:—REORGANIZATION AND SUBDIVISION OF
DEPARTMENTS. 1856–66.]
In the same year in which Mr. PANIZZI became Principal-Librarian (1856),
one of the recommendations of Lord ELLESMERE’S Commission-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’S
Principal-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.
[Sidenote: 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 third of 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’S decade 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 Winter JONES, 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 Frederick MADDEN’S energetic 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
Augustus BOND, 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. GRAY in 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 of the 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. _Some_ of 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
of GOD could not hide,’ [Sidenote: 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 hath GOD wrought?’
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 Professor OWEN’S Annual 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. [Sidenote: 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 preserved in 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, the _Herpeton 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, the _Emys Livingstonii_,
dedicated to its discoverer in Africa, and the _Emys 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 basement room, are in good
condition. The entire class of _Tunicata_ is 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, Professor OWEN
made 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 of _species_ of 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 of _specimens_ had 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 of _species_ adequately illustrated was only about
two thousand against 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
of _Reptilia_, 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. [Sidenote: See, hereinafter, Chap. VI.]
This, it will be remembered, was anterior to the great accession of the
CUMING Collection, which already, in 1862, contained more than sixteen
thousand _species_—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 the _two 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.
[Sidenote: GROWTH OF THE MINERALOGICAL COLLECTIONS. 1858–1862.]
Coming to the Department of Mineralogy, we find that the registered
specimens had increased, within about four years, from fifteen thousand
to twenty-five thousand. This increase was mainly due to the acquisition
of the noble ALLAN-GREG Cabinet formed at Manchester. But large as this
increase is, the national importance of the Mineralogical Collections is
very far from being adequately represented by the existing state of the
Museum series, even after all the subsequent additions made between the
years 1862–1870. [Sidenote: Owen, _Report_, as above (1862).] A Museum
of Mineralogy worthy of England must eventually include five several and
independent collections. There must be (1) a Classificatory Collection,
for general purposes; (2) a Geometrical Collection, to show the
crystalline forms; (3) an Elementary Collection, to show the degrees of
lustre and the varieties of cleavage and of colour; (4) a Technological
Collection, to show the economic application of minerals—the importance
of which, to a commercial, manufacturing, and artistic country, can
hardly be exaggerated. Last of all, there is needed a special collection
of an ancillary kind; that, I mean, which has been called sometimes a
‘teratological’ collection, [Sidenote: (Ibid.)] sometimes a
‘pseudomorphic’ collection. Call it as you will, its object is
important. Such a series serves to show both the defective and the
excessive forms of minerals, and their transitional capacities. These
five several collections are, it will be seen, over and above that other
special Collection of Sky-stones or ‘Meteorites,’ which is already very
nobly represented in our National Museum.