THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13380, 1 April 1912, Page 3

THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

ITS ORIGIN.

Sir Archibald Geikie, tho president of the Royal Society, in opening the new r lecture' hall and reading room which f have be-o-u presented to the Horniman Museum by Mr. Emslio J. Homiinan, said that some two hundred years ago there wore a great many collections, but they were in "the hands of private individuals, and these men ransacked the country and made collections, some- of the most extraordinary kind, sonic; containing exceedingly valuable objects., but many—perhaps most of them—containing a great deal of rubbish. About the beginning and towards the middle of tho seventeenth century the - effect of Francis Bacon's works began to be Been, and there grCw up a rej markable group of men, very distinguished in science, but modest _ and quiet, and in those very troublous time:: of the Civil War they retired for purposes of study, and laid the foundation;-, of physical and biological .science in this "country. Some of them were collectors, and as soon as they formed themselves, as they eventually did, into the Royal Society, they gave themselv-r:: no end'of trouble in collecting spocimeiMi of national history and objects of scientific interest, and these they mrt into the building which they called their repository. By and by tho Royal Society, finding that all collections were being rangcu under the aegis of the Govarniuent, gave tip its own repository and itr> contents, and the whole formed the British Museum. That was reallythc origin of. the greatest museum of scienco. national history, archaeology, and literature which existed in the world. There has been somo talk recently in the German Press about a possible reorganisation of the German troops i;i Alsace-Lorraine. "With regard to thi.i the "Stvassburger Post" says:—Thenis an idea of forming a third army corps command in Alsace-Lorraine, the headquarters of which would ho at JMuihausen or Colmar, preferably the. latter, for military reasons. The objection to Mulhausen is its too great vicinity to the frontier, which in peace time _would render it liable to espionage, and in \v-.r timo to surprise during mobiliß;;ti);!. Mulhauseii would be more suitable- for the headquarters of a cavalry diivision.