On the raw materials from the animal kingdom, displayed in the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations / by Richard Owen.

  • Owen, Richard, Sir, 1804-1892.
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the raw materials from the animal kingdom, displayed in the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations / by Richard Owen. 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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    j, Dec. 10, 1851. ON THE RAW MATERIALS FROM THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, DISPLAYED IN THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS. BY RICHARD OWEN, F.R.S. In coming before you this evening with some observations on the “Animal Substances used in Manufactures, displayed in the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations,” I am actuated rather by a deference to the august source of the suggestion that originated the present series of lectures, and by the desire to comply with the request with which the Coun- cil of this Society have honoured me, than by any confidence in the worth of what I may have to say. My habitual studies have, truly, left me little leisure for their extension beyond the structure, developement', and purely scientific relations of those parts of animal bodies which mankind have converted to their outward use; and as for their applications to the arts and manufactures, and the various processes to which they are thereto subjected, I must confess myself herein a poor scholar merely, and a very recent one, owing such ele- mentary information as I may possess to opportunities afforded during the present year by the Great and happily-conceived Exhibition; from which every one, no matter what his social or intellectual grade, must have de- rived, if he availed himself of it at all, lasting instruction and benefit. No one could feel more conscious than myself of my want of all that special knowledge and experience which might have been looked for in a Juror for the Class (IV.) of “Vegetable and Animal Substances used in Manufactures, as Implements, or for Ornaments and I w7as aware that the only grounds on which my name could have suggested itself to the Council of the Great Exhibition, as that of one likely to serve them in that capacity, were my known devotion to the science of the organization of animals.* It was, however, urged, that such scientific knowledge would help in guiding to * “ Official, Descriptive, and Illustrated Catalogue” (List of Jurors), vol. i. p. 40. D