Abstract
THE Bill to enable the trustees of the British Museum to remove the natural history collections to South Kensington, on which we commented in our issue of August 1, has passed both Houses and virtually become law. The measure having been introduced at a late period of the session, and hurried through all its stages, evidently for the express purpose of eluding observation, it could hardly have been expected that the result would have been otherwise. The assent of the Treasury was of course secured before the Bill was introduced, and it is by no means surprising that, what with Cyprus and Turkey, and the enormous pressure of other more interesting business, it was never discovered by the Government that the Bill was exactly contrary to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Science. So far, therefore, the trustees have it all their own way, and are now authorised to continue at South Kensington the system of government that has made the state of our national natural history collections at Bloomsbury so long a byeword amongst naturalists. There remains, however, still one more chance of introducing some salutary reforms into the present system. Following on the authority to remove the collections, which the trustees have now obtained, money will be required to carry out the transfer, and to obtain the requisite funds a fresh application to Parliament will be necessary.
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OUR NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS . Nature 18, 403 (1878). https://doi.org/10.1038/018403a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/018403a0