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ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS.
pretensions to scientific education. Who, with a healthy spirit of
inquiry, does not care to learn something about the sources and mode
of preparation of those vegetable substances which are used as
articles of food or of medicine, as materials for textile industries, or
for constructive art ? The admirable Museum of Economic Botany
at Kew attained, under Sir J. Hooker, to a state not far removed
from perfection; and thus offers a model which other museums
might seek to imitate in humble measure. But an immense amount
of information can be imparted to an intelligent visitor by the exhibi-
tion of a very unambitious collection, got together with comparative
ease and at moderate cost.
The strictly scientific portion of the botanical department would
of course be represented by an Herbarium, which ought to
contain a complete illustration of the Flora of [Essex], But a well-
filled Herbarium, though valuable to the student who wishes to con-
sult a typical collection, scarcely forms a feature in a public museum ;
and the dried specimens hidden in their cabinet appeal but little to
the ordinary visitor. To give, however, a popular insight into plant-
structure, a few large sectional models might be advantageously ex-
hibited in the general collection. Thus, the flower of a buttercup
and a rose, a dandelion and the oak, would illustrate respectively the
large divisions of thalamifloral and calycifioral, monopetalous and
apetalous exogens ; whilst a lily and a grass might severally repre-
sent the petaloid and glumaceous groups of endogens. The larger
divisions of the flowering plants being thus represented, it would
remain for a few models and diagrams to convey some general
notions of Cryptogamic structure. The display of diagrams, or large
drawings, should indeed be encouraged in all departments ; and an
intelligent curator will thus utilise every foot of wall-space. Where
resources are not limited, an attempt should be made to illustrate the
local flora by a collection of living specimens. A botanical garden
becomes, in fact, as valuable an adjunct to the vegetable department
as an aquarium to the animal department; but there are few
museums in this country so fortunately situated as to secure such an
association.
Turning to the mineral section of our typical museum, it is neces-
sary to somewhat expand our view. For, in order to give anything
like a fair notion of the mineral kingdom, it is absolutely necessary
to exhibit a tolerably large series of the more commonly occurring
species. Especial attention should of course be paid to those