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II.—ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS.1
By F. W. RUDLER, F.G.S.,
Curator of the Museum of Practical Geology, Secretary to the Anthropological Institute,
formerly Professor of Natural Science in the University College of Wales.
HAVING for many years been officially connected with a large
museum in London, I have naturally taken much interest in
the formation and arrangement of collections, and have seized every
opportunity of studying natural history museums—metropolitan,
provincial, and continental. In this way I have been led to carefully
note the characteristics of a large number of public collections, and
to compare what appear to me to be their respective merits and
demerits. On coming to Wales I was of course anxious to learn
something of the local museums. "When a naturalist goes from one
country to another," said the late Professor Edward Forbes, "his
first inquiry is for local collections. He is anxious to see authentic
and full cabinets of the productions of the region he is visiting."
Such collections, however, not only exhibit the natural productions
of the province in which they are situated, but they may be taken as
standards by which to gauge the scientific spirit of the neigh-
bourhood.
In forming such a museum, the one great object to be steadily
kept in view must be that of collecting, arranging, and exhibiting all
the natural productions of the district. Every animal and vegetable,
whether recent or fossil, every mineral and rock, to be found within
such limits, must be adequately represented, so that the museum
shall ultimately form a complete exponent of local natural history.
But I would go beyond this. Not only should the indigenous pro-
ductions be exhibited, as presented in their original condition, but
the application of these products to the arts of life should equally
be illustrated. In other words, the purely scientific department
should be supplemented by a technological collection, exhibiting the
uses which we make of the natural resources at our command. Such
a collection might even be extended with advantage to the local
1 Extracts from this paper, which contained so much that is pertinent and valuable in connec-
tion with the Club's proposed Museum, are printed here H kind permission of Mr. Rudler. The
paper was read before the Cymmrodorion Society on June 9th, 1876, Prof. A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S.,
being in the chair. The main object was to urge the formation of a central museum in Wales,
but the observations made are, with a few exceptions, equally applicable to Essex. Although
the paper was read nearly fifteen years ago, it has not been considered desirable to introduce any
alterations, except the occasional substitution of the word "Essex" for "Wales."—Ed.