Use of the term Natural History.

Natural History is an old term, used to describe the study of all the processes or laws of the Universe, and the results of the action of those processes or laws upon such of its constituent materials as are independent of the agency of man.

It is thus contrasted with the history of Man and his works, and the changes which have been wrought in the World by Man’s intervention.

This distinction afforded a convenient and rational basis for the division of the numerous and multifarious objects which had been collected together in the British Museum at Bloomsbury. When it was decided to effect a separation of the collections, those that were purely the products of what are commonly called “natural” forces were removed to South Kensington, while those showing the effects of Man’s handiwork remained at Bloomsbury. Like most others of the kind, this distinction cannot be applied very rigidly. Such lines of demarcation almost always overlap. For instance, examples of modification of animal or plant structure under Man’s influence legitimately find a place in a Museum of Natural History, especially as they may afford illustrations of the mode of working of natural laws. Prehistoric stone-implements, again, are shown in the Geological Department, in order to illustrate the co-existence of Man with extinct Mammals.

Processes or laws cannot, however, be satisfactorily demonstrated in a museum; therefore such branches of knowledge as deal chiefly with these, as Astronomy, Geology (in the stricter sense of the word), and the experimental sciences, as Physics, Chemistry and Physiology, though essentially belonging to the domain of Natural History, have not found a place in the Natural History Museum. It is only the results of the working of these processes or laws, as shown in the modifications of the arrangement of the elementary substances of which the material of the Universe is composed, which can be fully illustrated by specimens admitting of being readily preserved and permanently exhibited in a museum. A Natural History Museum, therefore, in the sense in which the term is now usually understood, is a collection of the various objects, animate and inanimate, found in a state of nature. It will be readily understood that as the study of such objects is one of the principal means by which the laws leading to their formation or arrangement may be traced out, it is of the utmost importance for the progress of those departments of knowledge which the Museum is designed to cultivate, to bring together as full an illustrative series of these objects as possible.

Although the validity of the division of natural objects into inorganic and organic or living has been the subject of some discussion, and although the separation of the latter into vegetable and animal is less absolute than was once supposed, yet for practical purposes, Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal remain the three great divisions or “kingdoms” into which natural bodies are grouped, and this classification has formed the basis of the arrangement of the collections in the Museum.

I. Inorganic substances occur in nature in a gaseous, liquid, or solid form. With few exceptions, it is only in the latter state that they can be conveniently preserved and exhibited in a museum, and it is to such that the term “mineral” is commonly limited. The collection, classification, and exhibition of specimens of this kind is the office of the Mineral Department of the Museum, to which is devoted the large gallery on the first floor of the east wing of the building.

II. The study of the vegetable kingdom, so far as it can be illustrated by preserved specimens, is the province of the Department of Botany, which occupies the upper floor of the east wing.

III. In the same way the animal kingdom belongs to the Department of Zoology, from which it has been found necessary to separate an Entomological Department. To these two is assigned the whole of the western wing of the building.

There is, however, a fifth department, which owes its separate existence to a time when the terms Zoology and Botany were limited to the study of the existing forms of animal and plant life, and the extinct or fossil forms were associated with minerals, rather than with their living representatives. This arrangement prevailed in the British Museum until the year 1857. The fossils were then severed from this incongruous connection, and placed in a separate department to which the name of “Geology” was given.3 The result is that there are two distinct zoological and botanical collections in the building, one containing the remains of the animals and plants which lived through successive ages of the world’s history from the earliest dawn of life down to close upon the present time, and the other including those living at the particular period in which we dwell. Notwithstanding the objections which may be urged against this separation, it prevails largely in museums, and (owing to certain conveniences, as well as to the difficulty and expense of rearranging extensive collections and reorganising the staff in charge of them) will probably be retained for some time to come. It should, however, be mentioned that a few specimens illustrating some of the more important extinct forms have been intercalated among the recent Mammals and Reptiles; while, conversely, skeletons and other specimens of recent animals have been introduced among the fossil Vertebrates in the Geological Department. Again, the more important remains of extinct Cetaceans are now shown in the Whale-Room, and some of the specimens of recent Elephants, as well as all the Sea-Cows, in the Geological Department.

Besides the five Departments, into which the collection is divided for the purposes of custody and administration, each of which is under the charge of an officer styled “Keeper” and a staff of Assistants, there is a sixth, under the supervision of the Director, and arranged in the Central Hall, some of the specimens in which are intended to serve as an introduction to those exhibited in the others.

Inclusive of the last-named collection, the whole of the specimens contained in the Museum, whether Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral, are arranged in the three following distinct series, as follows:—

I. An Elementary or Introductory Series, by which the study of every group should commence. In this series, limited, so far as the cases in the Central Hall are concerned, to Vertebrated Animals and Botany, the leading features of the structure, and, so far as may be, the development of the various parts of some of the more typical members of each group, are demonstrated in a simple manner, and the terms used in describing and defining them explained by means of illustrative examples. This idea is carried out in the Department of Minerals in a series of cases placed on the north or left-hand side of the gallery containing the rest of the collection.

II. The Exhibited Systematic Series, in which the more important types of animals, plants, or minerals are shown, by means of specimens, arranged in a systematic manner; or one which exhibits, so far as may be, their natural relations to each other. Classification is an important feature in this series, which properly should be so extensive and so arranged as to enable visitors to the Museum, without recourse to assistance from the officials, to find every well-known and markedly distinct type of animal, plant, or mineral, and satisfy themselves about, at least, its external characters. In practice, with the amount of space available, and the resources at the disposal of the authorities, it has, however, been found impracticable to carry out this ideal in anything like its entirety, and in most instances only a selection of specimens is in consequence exhibited.

While the two series above mentioned have for their object the diffusion of scientific knowledge, the next ministers mainly to its advancement, so that between them the twofold object of a National Museum of Natural History is carried out.

III. The Reserve or Study Systematic Series contains the exceedingly numerous specimens (in many groups the great bulk of the collection) showing the minute distinctions required for working out the problems of variation according to age, sex, season and locality, for fixing the limits of geographical distribution, or determining the range in geological time: distinctions which, in most cases, can only be appreciated when the specimens are kept under such conditions as to admit of ready and close examination and comparison. It is to this part of the collection that naturalists resort to compare and name the animals and plants collected in exploring expeditions, to work out natural-history problems, and generally to advance the knowledge of science. In fact, these reserve collections, occupying comparatively little space, kept up at relatively small cost, and visited by comparatively few persons, constitute, from a scientific point of view, the most important part of the Museum; for by their means new knowledge is obtained, which, given forth to the world in the form of memoirs and books, is ultimately diffused over a far wider area than that influenced even by the exhibited portions of the Museum. Indeed, without the means of study afforded by the reserve series, the order displayed in the arrangement of the exhibition galleries, and the instruction which may be gleaned from the same, would not be possible.

It is important to bear in mind that if all the specimens required for enlarging the boundaries of knowledge were displayed in the public galleries, so that each could be distinctly seen, a museum many times larger than the present one would not suffice to contain them; the specimens themselves would be inaccessible to those capable of deriving instruction from their examination, while, owing to the effects of exposure to light upon preserved natural objects, many would lose their chief characteristics. This portion of the collection must, in fact, be treated as are the books in a library and used for consultation and reference by accredited students.4

In some parts of the Museum the reserve collections are contained in drawers beneath the cases in which the corresponding exhibited portion is placed. This applies principally to the fossil specimens, the shells, and the minerals. The reserve birds and insects have special rooms devoted to them, and the extensive series of reptiles, fishes, and other animals preserved in spirit is kept, for the purpose of safety, in a separate building behind the Museum. In the Botanical Department the reserve collections are kept in the well-known form of an Herbarium, or Hortus siccus.

The great bulk of the specimens being arranged in these three series, supplementary collections for facilitating the study of the distribution of animals and plants in space and in time would be advantageous. The first, constituting a geographical series, might show by illustrative examples the leading characteristics of the fauna and flora of each great region of the earth’s surface; the second, or palÆontological series, would give examples of the fossil remains found most abundantly in each formation, arranged so far as may be in chronological order.

The only attempt hitherto made at exhibiting a geographical series in the Museum is the collection of terrestrial and fresh-water vertebrated animals of the British Isles, arranged in the pavilion at the west end of the bird gallery. It would be difficult in the present building to find room for other geographical collections, however interesting and instructive. With regard to palÆontological collections, although the specimens in the Department of Geology, so called, are mainly arranged not geologically, or according to stratigraphical position, but according to their natural affinities, yet, in many cases, it has been found convenient to adopt a mixed arrangement, the specimens within each large natural group being classified according to the sequence in age of the strata in which they were buried. Such an arrangement, however, is only applicable to the fossils of a particular region, owing to the difficulties in accurately determining the correspondence in age of formations occurring in distant parts of the earth’s surface; hence a large and varied palÆontological collection, such as that of the British Museum, is best arranged in the main upon a systematic or zoological and botanical basis. A limited series showing the more characteristic British rock-formations with their included fossil remains, placed in chronological sequence, is arranged in one of the galleries of the Geological Department.

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