National Museum of Natural History

“ British Museum Library, London.—There is probably no other public institution in Great Britain which is regarded with so great and general interest as the British Museum. By the variety of its departments, this splendid national depository of literature, and objects of natural history and antiquities, meets in some way the particular taste of almost every class of society. The department of Natural History, in its three divisions of Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy, contains a collection of specimens unsurpassed, probably unequalled, in the world. ”

“ The degradation of museums to the present zoological ignorance of the masses is not desired, but a levelling up of the latter is the thing needful, when natural history may be seen to be a thing of national importance, and worthy of real national support. At present, as Sir William observes, "the largest museum yet erected, with all its internal fittings, has not cost so much as a single fullyequipped line-of-battle ship, which in a few years may be either at the bottom of the sea, or so obsolete in construction as to be worth no more than the materials of which it is made." ”

“ The natural history collections contained in the museum of science, although the institution was only founded in 1896, are large and important, and are particularly rich in mineralogy, geology, paleontology, botany and zoology. The entomological collections are among the most important in the new world. The conchological collections are vast, and the paleontological collections are among the most important in America. ”

“ He formed a collection of natural history specimens at the cost of many thousands of pounds, and under the title of the London Museum and Institute of Natural History admitted the public freely in 1807 and for many years afterwards. ”

“ The Museum and Hall of the Natural History Society, in Peter-street, can only be entered on presenting an order from a subscriber. The Museum is very rich in almost every description of natural history; we believe in ornithology it is particularly so; its collection of British birds is said to be unequalled, and its entomological department is becoming exceedingly extensive. ”

“ A third museum is found to be full of stuffed birds, eggs, and nests; some of the birds stuffed in their natural surroundings are very beautifully done. The zoological library adjoins. A fourth museum, built in 1894, contains a large collection of stuffed animals and a collection of shells. Here is a huge skeleton of an African elephant, with good tusks, and a stuffed giraffe; a whole unmounted hippopotamus skin, and a stuffed quagga, now extinct.
Close by this museum are some pens containing zebras and wild asses. The new bear house, built in 1897, contains a fine collection. ”

“ Without doubt there are no helps to the study of Biology, or rather to some branches of it, which are, or may be, more important than natural history museums; but, in order to take this place in regard to Biology, they must be museums of the future. The museums of the present do not, by any means, do so much for us as they might do. I do not wish to particularise, but I dare say many of you, seeking knowledge, or in the laudable desire to employ a holiday usefully, have visited some great natural history museum. ”

“ There are five galleries devoted to natural history, and are named thus: the Botanical Museum, Mammalia Gallery, Eastern Zoölogical Gallery, Northern Zoölogical Gallery, and the Mineral Gallery. The specimens in all these are very fine. Nothing can be finer than the mammalia. The preservation has been perfect, and far surpasses what I have been accustomed to see in museums, where decay seems to be often rioting upon the remains of nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whilst we should patriotically aspire to render the local collection as perfect as possible, I would not by any means have the usefulness of museums stop here. Comparing any local collection with a general collection, it will, of course, be found that many important groups of 'animals, vegetables, and minerals, are but imperfectly represented, whilst others are altogether blank. There is, consequently, great danger of very limited and inadequate notions of the great system of Nature being formed by the student who confines his attention to local natural history. ”

“ But in the animal or vegetable branch of natural history there is a great deficiency, and altogether the Museum is not worthy of a country which seems destined by nature to be the great emporium of all natural science. ”

“ An important activity of the museum is its generous distribution of duplicate specimens in natural history to scientific societies, colleges, and other educational institutions throughout the United States. ”

“ The study of these and of the tsetze flies by skilled entomologists employed in the museum has been a necessary part of the steps now being taken everywhere to preserve human population from the [Pg 220] attacks of certain deadly kinds among them, distinguished from the others which are harmless.
Thus, then, it seems that the first and most important purpose for which great "museums" exist is that of "the making of new knowledge"—the increase of science—by furnishing carefully gathered and preserved "specimens" of all kinds, and by working out the history and significance of those collections. ”

“ The amphi [298] theatre for lectures will hold twelve hundred persons; and among the lectures on the list, which is posted up at its entrance, and also at the entrance of the gardens, were the subjects of chemistry, geology, anatomy, physiology, botany, and zoölogy. Many scientific men of celebrity received their education here, and the different museums are rich in rare specimens of their departments. The Zoölogical Museum has a fine collection of stuffed specimens of natural history, zoöphites, birds, butterflies, large mammiferous animals, &c. ”

“ When the boys left this museum, they went to another and saw a wonderful collection of fossil animals, skeletons, birds, minerals, precious stones, and other natural specimens, but as they were not learned men, they could only walk about and stare, enjoy the little knowledge of natural history they possessed, and wish with all their hearts they had acquired more. ”

“ On this principle all the large museums of the world are arranged, and the result is that no student who has previously acquired an elementary knowledge of an art or science from text-books should experience any difficulty in finding his way about a museum. It is true that, for purposes of popular display and to tickle up juvenile interest in natural history, some museums exhibit fine specimens of birds or mammals out of their order, where they will attract notice, but the bulk of the collection will be found in strictly classified order. ”

“ According to Huxley's views a complete system demanded a triple museum for each subject, Zoology and Botany, since Geology was sufficiently provided for in Jermyn Street—one typical or popular, "in which all prominent forms or types of animals or plants, recent or fossil, should be so displayed as to give the public an idea of the vast extent and variety of natural objects, to diffuse a general knowledge of the results obtained by science in their investigation and classification, and to serve as a general introduction to the student in Natural Science" ”

“ The opening of this Museum to day is an important event in the annals of American science, and one from which great results are sure to follow. We see around us here, already, treasures of Nature from every land, and representing all periods of the earth's history. Not merely a few typical specimens, as in most new museums, but rich series, illustrating the marvelous diversity of Nature, both in the present and in the past. ”

“ It is well to remember in what Museum a fauna, or section of a fauna, is best represented. Again, well-known private collections are constantly, through death or other circumstances, either sold in their entirety or disposed of in parts by the auctioneer or natural-history agent ”

“ Lately the ruling spirits of the Natural History Museum, on the principle, probably, that "all is Fish that comes to their net," have commenced a rival Collection of Antiquities, which contains indeed some valuable and interesting specimens, but these are so jammed together that they cannot be seen or studied to advantage, while every canon of good taste is violated by the incongruity of their surroundings. ”

“ It affords glimpses into the mysteries of the Animal Kingdom, with all its varieties, its wonders, its traceable progresses, its past and extinct forms, its promises of future developments. Then the mineralogical galleries afford the general visitor a peep at the formations of the earth; the various developments of minerals; the natural state of ores and stones which most men see only in their manufactured state. From the mineralogical tables the visitor stepped aside to examine the wondrous revelations of extinct animal life recovered from the bowels of the earth ”

“ The loss the city has sustained through not possessing a properly appointed natural history museum, presided over by a competent curator, at the time when this great collection was handed over to the custody of our authorities, is absolutely irreparable, and the fate which has befallen the bulk of that collection forms one of the strongest arguments which could be advanced for the establishment of a museum, for there are still a few gems left in that collection which ought to be saved. ”

“ If the American Museum of Natural History, opened to-day under such favorable auspices, does not take a prominent part in this great work, it will not do justice to its founders, or to its opportunities. ”

“ One may well dream in this zoological museum, amid the staring glass-eyed skins of an inferior brotherhood—of the long, long time ago when the fossils, which are now scattered here and there, to assure us of their former vitality, moved about the world, before they were stricken with universal death, and buried by nature, deep in her teeming bosom, to flourish presently in the veins of plants—the plants to die again, and be dug, long ages after, from our deep coal-fields. ”

“ A museum of this kind should further be supplied with specimens of all the natural productions of the vicinity, which may be collected from time to time by those who are, or may become, most interested in the study of natural history. ”

“ Since then these collections, with additions of similar character, have formed by far the most important feature of the British Museum. But in the mean time archaeology has become a science.
Within recent years the natural history collection has been removed in toto from the old building to a new site far out in South Kensington, and the casual visitor is likely to think of it as a separate institution. The building which it occupies is very modern in appearance as in fact. ”

“ OWING to the establishment of new natural history museums in different parts of the United States, western exploration for the past history of the reptilian and mammalian life of North America is becoming more active and energetic every year. ”

“ He returned to the question in reference to the arrangement of the new National Museum, and, although no longer advocating so complete an incorporation of the two series, apparently in consideration of the interests of the division into ‘departments’ which he found in existence there, he says: ‘The department of zoology in such a museum should be so located as to afford the easiest transit from the specimens of existing to those of extinct animals. ”

“ The museum would therefore be educative in its making, and when it is made, it would have immense value to the community, not only to the children but to all the people. In this museum, of course, should be found the minerals, rocks, soils, insects,—particularly those of economic importance,—birds, and also specimens of the wild animals of the locality. If proper appeal is made to the natural desire of the children, this instinct would soon be made of service in producing a very valuable collection. ”