viii Journal of Proceedings.
and are, perhaps, even too ready to admit that they do such things better
in France or Germany, but Mr. Waterhouse's building may worthily take
its place beside the greatest architectural triumphs where the object kept
in view was to combine the useful and the beautiful—the greatest amount
of well-lighted space with true artistic proportions and adornments.
When the various galleries and rooms are filled with the unique series of
specimens now hidden at Bloomsbury, the new Natural History Museum
will be, as Professor Owen very justly remarked, absolutely unrivalled in
the civilised world. Precisely at the time appointed the Professor met the
party, and he was, of course, greeted with the respectful applause due to
one of the great veterans of modern biological science. After a few words
of welcome, and some preliminary observations on the general plan of the
building, he led the way into the Palaeontological Gallery, and commenced
an eloquent and pleasant exposition of some of the more striking and
scientifically valuable specimens contained in that chamber of Nature's
bizarre workmanship. Of necessity it would be impossible to reproduce
even the substance of Prof. Owen's discourses ; they were essentially
object lessons—delightfully chatty, learned, and discursive. By reason
of the large numbers attending the meeting, many who crowded round the
venerable Professor were unable to follow fully what was said, but the
brightened eye and animated smile of the narrator as he stood beside some
of his more cherished specimens spoke of a living enthusiasm unabated by
long familiarity with his subject or oft repetition of details. This was
especially noticeable as he described some huge fossil tusks of Elephas
ganesa found in a sandstone quarry in the Upper Miocene deposits of the
Siwalik Hills, in India. The animal which bore them, he showed, must
have sunk into the soft sand of some delta, where it would have lain while
the surface of the globe was going down, down, and more sand was
deposited and other strata were formed above it, so remaining through
ages, until the gradual upheaval of the earth which followed forced the
surrounding sand into the ivory at such enormous pressure as to convert
that substance into stone—a process which, from the nature of things, he
explained, must have taken place before the formation of the Himalayan
Mountains. An officer of engineers (Captain Cautley) superintending
blasting operations for cutting a canal through the rock, noticed a piece
with two round "bullseyes" embedded, and set aside this and other pieces
similarly marked. Shipped to England and shot down like rubbish in the
great square before their museum at Russell Street, the mark., proved to be
sections of these tusks, which piece by piece were cut out from the sand-
stone and mounted complete. Professor Owen endeavoured to give life
and meaning to the dry bones of high antiquity which are ranged in the
galleries in such bewildering variety—to the imperishable remains of the
massive Deinothtrium, the Mastodon, and the still more wonderful Mega-
therium, the gigantic land sloth of the late Miocene, and more particularly
the Post-Pliocene, formations of the New World. The survey of the
remains of this last-named colossal beast, with its massive hind-quarter