Edwin Chadwick, and Sir Lyon (now Lord) Playfair. He was one of the commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1851. But his greatest public service most would consider to be the establishment of the Natural History Museum at Cromwell Road, South Kensington.

searches were begun at the same date | scientific treatises, but were of national as those of Richard Owen. At inter-importance. He was one of the Comvals he has paid visits to the old country, mission on the Health of Towns, and a and we welcomed him in our office only second Commission on the Health of a few years since. He was one of the Metropolis. Many results followed Owen's oldest friends. the reports of these commissions, as Born on July 20, 1804, Richard Owen | well as that on the meat supply of in early life entered the navy; but London, which led to the removal of when peace came, in 1814, the hopes old Smithfield Market, and the new of advancement for the youthful middy centres of supply, with other public were clouded. He returned to school, and sanitary movements. He worked and in due time studied medicine under in this cause along with the late Sir a surgeon at Lancaster, his native town. Thence he went to Edinburgh, where he studied for two years; and going to London he was a pupil of the famous Dr. Abernethy, who quickly recognized the genius and noted the industry of the young anatomist. After spending some time at Paris, studying comparative anatomy under Cuvier, then at the zenith of his fame, he returned to London, and was recommended by Abernethy to assist Mr. William Clift, F.R.S., then engaged in sorting and cataloguing the collections of John Hunter, which had been purchased by government and transferred to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1853 he married Miss Clift, the daughter of his predecessor as conservator of the Museum, and she shared for many a year the delights of the lovely home which he soon after received by royal kindness in Richmond Park. The use of this house, Sheen Lodge, is, we understand, continued to Sir Richard's daughter-in-law during her life.

In 1881 Professor Owen attended the jubilee meeting of the British Association at York. He had been president of the association at the Leeds meeting in 1858. The only survivors of the illustrious presidents of the first twentyfive meetings, at the York jubilee, were Airy, at Ipswich in 1851, and the Duke of Argyll, at Glasgow in 1855. Almost all the early members had passed away, and it was pleasant to see Owen at York, one of the last veterans of the "Old Guard." We saw him during the days of the meeting, and on the Sunday, in the grand cathedral, he was among the crowded audience who listened to the admirable sermon preached by Dr. Fraser, the Bishop of Manches

ter.

selecting as the topic of his opening
address, "The Genesis of the Natural
History Museum at South Kensington,'
a subject which has occupied his atten-
tion for a quarter of a century, with
very beneficial results to the nation
and to science.

During all the period of his duties as In the business of the meeting he conservator of the Museum, and subse-presided over Section D (zoology), quently when appointed Hunterian professor at the College of Surgeons, Fullerian lecturer at the Royal Institution, professor of paleontology at the Royal School of Mines, and finally superintendent of the natural history collections in the British Museum, an office expressly created for him by the urgent wish of Prince Albert, and his influence with the trustees, scarcely a year passed without the appearance of original works on a great variety of subjects.

Some of these were more than mere

The transference of the national biological collections from Great Russell Street to South Kensington was one of the chief public services of his life. It was a long and arduous task to accomplish this, which now seems so natural and necessary a movement. The re

66

moval of these collections from the pressing her delight and sense of wonover-crowded galleries of the old British der. Madam," the professor replied, Museum had been often urged by the speaking with reverence and emotion, trustees, and resisted by the government" it is a temple where everything on economical grounds. After many speaks of the glory of the Lord." adverse votes, year after year, Sir Richard Owen at length succeeded in getting the assent of the House of Commons to the purchase of the land, and the erection of the Museum, at South Kensington. He had been appointed superintendent of the natural history department in the old Museum as long ago as 1856. Not till 1871 was the first grant towards the building of the new Museum voted by Parliament. Owen lived to see the completion of the new house, and he soon after retired, and resigned his appointment in 1883.

In his last official year, while occupying the position of superintendent of natural history in the old Museum, he was indefatigable in every variety of useful service. Men of science of all classes sought his aid and his counsel, and many a traveller was urged by him to send objects of interest, and taught how to collect and preserve them. He gave lectures to scientific students, and on Saturday afternoons to working men. We can see him, big bone in hand, his tall frame and broad shoulders dominating the crowd, and his kindly face beaming with intellect, as he sketched the structure and habits of the extinct animal of which it once formed a part, and carrying the eager and interested circle of listeners with him as he told the story of the earth's inhabitants before man lived on its surface. He was by nature a raconteur, and he knew how to bring his marvellous store of scientific experience to the level of a popular audience.

He had proclaimed the same sentiments forty years ago, in a popular lecture delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association, at Exeter Hall, giving a lucid exposition of some natural history facts, yet also animated throughout by the reverent spirit of the religious philosopher. An anecdote was told in the Times by a clergyman who said he had met the professor at dinner thirty years before, and was impressed with the kind trouble taken by the learned man to give information, and to reply to inquiries made by him, then only a young curate, on the scientific question in which he was interested. On rising to leave the table, he added as a last remark, "But after all, what is the greatest of these discoveries compared with the simplest truth which you are teaching your poor people from day to day?" It was the thought and word of a true Christian philosopher.

In Richard Owen there passed away one of the line of the truly great men of science who have maintained the harmony of the works of nature and the words of revelation. Sir Isaac Newton was the leader of this band, wisest interpreter of God's works, and reverent student of God's word. Herschel and Dalton, Brewster and Faraday, Sedgwick and Forbes, were among the many who kept up the "philosophical succession," in days before the "eclipse of faith," in our age of agnosticism, unbelief, and materialism. Nevertheless, to see and to adore God in nature is He delighted in arranging and dis- still the position of the highest men in playing the treasures of biological science. Owen, the pupil of Cuvier, science for which he had at length ob-held the same views, and never stooped tained a new and worthy home. Once to depreciate the "argument from dewhen he had shown a party of distin- sign" as taught by Paley, and by the guished visitors through the Museum, authors of the Bridgwater Treatises, introducing them to the different gal- such as Whewell, Chalmers, and Sir leries, and pointing out their contents Charles Bell. Lord Kelvin and Sir and intended purposes, an American George Stokes need alone be named lady exclaimed, "Why, it is just like a among the living representatives of cathedral," thus characteristically ex- "the old school," of which.Sir Richard

Owen was a noble example. He re- when we consider that these stonemained to the last ever a humble, mod- masses would have to slide down into est, and devout searcher after truth in their position. With a greater inclinaevery department, while so many were tion it would have been difficult to mistaking theories about material things guide the blocks in their descent, and for true wisdom and philosophy. Here with a less it would have been difficult is the concluding paragraph of his work to move them. The great masses are on the "Homologies of the Vertebrate accurately hewn just to fill and to fit Skeleton." "In every species ends into the mouth of the passage, so as to are obtained, and the interests of the | bar unauthorized access to the royal animal promoted, in a way that indi- tomb." cates superior design, intelligence, and forethought, in which the judgment and reflection of the animal never were concerned, and which, therefore, we must ascribe to the 'Sovereign' of the universe, in whom we live and move and have our being.”

"His must be a cold nature," says the professor," who can view unmoved all these constructions and contrivances, majestic in their seeming simplicity.'

In a letter to the editor of the Leisure Hour, dated May 10, 1876, he says:

There are about one hundred pyramids orientated, and in the main built on the more or less recognizably preserved -all intention of resisting time and conserving the carcase within-other intention can now be logically inferred from the whole premisses.

"The beginning of that civilization," he goes on to say, which had culminated in a creed, a ritual, a priesthood, So much has been said about his re- in convictions of a future life and judgsearches in anatomy and natural history, ment, of the resurrection of the body, that we prefer to mention here papers with the resulting instinct of its preseron "The Antiquity of Egyptian Civil-vation - an instinct in which kings ization," written for the Leisure Hour, alone could indulge to the height of a one object of which was to correct Pyramid, these are not the signs of an the received opinion that the building incipient civilization." of the Great Pyramids marked the beginning of Egyptian civilization. Professor Owen showed from their construction that evidences existed of skilled systematic quarrying operations, displaying, as Sir John Hawkshaw, the celebrated engineer, president of the British Association, 66 said, a degree of perfection in all the different branches of the art of construction." The limestone, of finer texture than the rude, nummulitic limestone of which the Sphinx was formed, was brought from the Arabian bank of the Nile, and conveyed skilfully to the opposite or Libyan shore. The red granite, or Syenite, was brought from Syene or Assouan, and shaped by art such as has never since been seen in Egypt, under Roman or Mohammedan rule. The highest order of scientific skill, both in engineering and architecture, are apparent. The director-general of the Ordnance Survey, Major - General Sir Henry James, in his notes on the Great Pyramid in 1869, as quoted by Owen, remarks of the passages or galleries in the interior of the Pyramid, that "their inclination, which is just the angle The allusions are to discussions about of rest,' is particularly well chosen, the antiquity of Egyptian civilization,

Cheops' happens to be the largest, the next to it, Cephrenes', is the best preserved. If a man were to moon about the relations of present measures to old cubits, etc., he might work out an intention differing from that he would sink into from the like work on Cheops' Pyramid.

The Hebrews were not a nation when

Cheops reigned, any more than the Assyrians, but were wandering, fighting, and groping their way thereto, the which was taught them by the wholesome discipline they received, when made slave-hunting grounds by Thotmes and others, who captured gangs and brought them to Egypt, whence returned slaves introduced some of the light they got from their task-masters. the development of the Hebrews as a Nation. Solomon, contemporary of Sheshouk, shows

- Yours sincerely,

RD. OWEN.

and she was comforted.

RD. OWEN.

which was far anterior to the time of and truthful pictures of Egypt in the beauthe Hebrews as a nation. Whether tiful book you have so kindly sent, I said I this early knowledge of art and science, think I can manage my egg this morning, and the possession of knowledge of a Very truly yours, higher sort"all the knowledge of the Egyptians," such as Moses is said to have possessed-whether this was the Sir Richard had an only son, who relic of primitive truths conveyed to predeceased him; but his declining Egypt by those who migrated from the years, after this sad affliction, were earlier settlements of divinely taught comforted by the devoted care of his men; or whether it arose by a develop-daughter-in-law, Mrs. William Owen, ment, necessarily slow, and requiring and the bright presence of his grandcountless ages to achieve, — these are discussions requiring larger light and more perfect exploration. Owen was ever prepared to seek truth, free from every prepossession. Accepted interpretations of Scripture may have to be modified, when read in the light of natural science and inquiry; but a true philosopher, as Owen was, never can lose hold of the revelations of divine truth on matters above and beyond the domain of physical research.

"This

children.

We had almost forgotten to mention that Sir Richard Owen possessed nearly every honor and distinction which it was possible for a man of eminence in science to have. The Royal and the Copley medals of the Royal Society, the Wollaston medal of the Linnæan the honorary fellowship or membership of almost every English or foreign learned society; the highest degrees of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh; Orders of Merit and Crosses of Honor from all the chief courts and nations in the civilized world. The C.B. conferred in 1872, followed by the K.C.B., most gratified his loyal and patriotic spirit.

In a note written March 12, 1878, referring to a brief memoir of Robert Were Fox, F.R.S., which had appeared in the Leisure Hour, he says: notice of a most esteemed and very old Cornish friend, Robert Were Fox, I keep as a cherished memorial of a true Since this was written, the meeting Christian man." Those who knew at the rooms of the Royal Society, Robert Fox of Falmouth-his noble Burlington House, proposing a suitable character and beneficent deeds will understand how Owen loved him and lamented his loss.

memorial to Sir Richard Owen has taken place. H.R.H., the Prince of Wales presided, and was supported by a noble array of all the men best known in science. The speech of the prince

After the death of his wife, an aged sister came to the Lodge, and was the devoted companion and comforter of was as admirable in statement as it was the widower. How attached they were genial in spirit. Lord Kelvin, Promay be seen in the following character-fessor Huxley, the Duke of Teck, Sir istic note, dated Sheen Lodge, Rich- W. Flower, Mr. Sclater, Lord Playfair, mond Park, March 29, 1876.

Dear Dr. Macaulay, Whatever shortcoming your too good appreciation of my MS. may have made me feel, was more than made up by the unexpectedness of the return I had the agreeable surprise to receive this morning.

It greatly added, collaterally, to the comfort of my old sister, who had been grumbling for two or three mornings because I didn't eat my egg. I have been a little off my feed lately, but when I opened the packet and showed her the really excellent

and all the speakers, vied in doing honor to the memory of one whom they regarded as worthy of perpetual remembrance. It is arranged that a statue is to be placed in the hall of the South Kensington Museum; and we hope that this memorial which is to adorn the Natural History Museum will, to use the concluding words of the Prince of Wales, "be worthy of a great sculptor, and of the great man that it represents."

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