How a national museum of natural history might be built and arranged with advantage / by R.A. Peacock.

  • Peacock, Richard Atkinson, 1811-
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: How a national museum of natural history might be built and arranged with advantage / by R.A. Peacock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    east. The width of the room would be 48 feet and its height 9 feet. It would serve as a store for spare duplicate speci- mens until they were exchanged with other Museums, given away, or sold. Order of Arrangement of the Specimens.—This is evidently a matter of the utmost importance. It is proposed to leave it to the oflScers of the British Museum, subject to the arrangement of cetacea already proposed on pp. 13, 15, which arises from necessity. Some of the upper circuits would be each 9 ft. high, and the Cases, when the specimens were small, would only be 8 ft. high ; both because the upper foot would not be well lighted, and because it is desirable to keep small specimens near the level of the eye. Behind all the Vertical glass Cases would be the Work-rooms, according to Dr. Sclater’s excellent idea (Brit. Assoc. Eeport, 1870, Sec. p. 126), extending back to the Inner wall. These rooms would be lighted by the outside windows, and gas might be used when necessary. The writer is under the necessity of naming something (which must go for what it is worth) about the arrangement of the remaining Yertebrata, else he could not explain his plan intelligibly; and he proposes to go on with the Historic Animals next after the Cetacea. Every Family of Vertebrates would be separated each from the next by a partition of non-transparent glass. The plan of arrangement is the Cuvierian, subject to certain modifications proposed by Professors Owen, Huxley, and others. (1) Plate-glass Case containing the Bimana.—This Case would in time, as presents and purchases came in, become rich enough in specimens to satisfy and gratify Anatomists, Anthropologists, Antiquaries, Derivatiouists, Ethnologists, Evolutionists, and Naturalists, and Osteologists in general. The savage peoples might have their dress, arms, and imple- ments, if of their own manufacture; care being taken that these utensils should not be the products of the ingenious artizans of Birmingham or Sheffield; and that the stone or flint hatchets, arrow-heads, and the like, should not be the