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15. Royal College of Surgeons. Soane Museum.
Floral Hall. Covent Garden Market. St. Paul's. Garrick Club.
On the S. side of Lincoln's Inn Fields rises the Royal College
of Surgeons (PL L9), designed by <S/r Charles Barry, and erected
in 183o. It contains an admirable museum. Visitors are admitted,
through the personal introduction or written order of a member, on
Mon., Tues., Wed., and Thurs. from 12 to 4 in winter, and from
12 to 5 in summer. The Museum is closed during the month of
September. Application for orders of admission, which are not
transferable, may be made to the secretary.
The nucleus of the museum consists of a collection of 10,000
anatomical preparations formed by John Hunter (d. 1793), which
was purchased by Government after his death and presented to the
College. It is divided into two chief departments, viz. the Physio¬
logical Series, containing specimens of animal organs and forma¬
tions in a normal state, and the Pathological Series, containing
similar specimens in an abnormal or diseased condition. There are
now in all about 23,000 specimens. A Synopsis of the Contents
is sold at the Museum, price Gd. Extended catalogues of the dif¬
ferent departments are also distributed throughout the Museum for
the use of visitors.
In the centre of the Western Museum, the room we first enter, is hung
the skeleton of a Greenland whale ; a marble statue of Hunter by Weekes,
erected in 1804, stands in the middle of the floor at the S. end of the
hall. The Wall Cases on the right side contain Egyptian and other
mummies, an admirable and extensive collection ot the skulls of the
different nations of the earth, deformed skeletons, abnormal bone forma¬
tions, and the like. The Floor Cabinets on the right contain anatomical
preparations illustrating normal human anatomy, and also additional
specimens of diseased and injured bones, including some skulls and bones
injured by gun-shot wounds in the Crimean war. The first five Floor
Cabinets on the left contain a collection illustrating the zoology of the
invertebrates, such as zoophytes, shell-fish, crabs, and beetles. In the
sixth cabinet are casts of the interior of crania. The Wall Cases on this
side hold vegetable fossils, human crania, and human skeletons. In the
case at the upper end of the room is the skeleton of the Irish giant
Byrne or O Bryan, 7ft. (in. high; adjoining it, under a glass-shade, is that
of the Sicilian dwarf, Caroline Crachami, who died at the age of 10 years,
20in. in height. Under the same shade are placed wax models of her
arm and foot, and beside it is a plaster cast of her face.
The Middle Museum forms the palifcontological section, where the
antediluvian skeletons in the centre are the most interesting objects.
Skeleton of a gigantic stag (erroneously called the Irish Elk), dug up from
a bed of shell-marl beneath a peat-hog at Limerick; giant armadilloes
from Buenos Ayres; giant sloth (mylodon), also from Buenos Ayres; a
cast of the Dinornis giganteus, an exlinct wingless bird of New Zealand;
the huge megatherium, with the missing parts supplied. In the Wall
Cases is a number of smaller skeletons and fossils. The FToor Cabinet
contains in one of its trays specimens of the hair and skin of the great
extinct elephant or mammoth, of which there are some fossil remains
in one of the cases.
The Eastern Museum contains the osteological series. In the centre
are the skeletons of the large mammalia: whales (including a sperm-
whale or cachalot, 50 ft. long), hippopotamus, giraffe, rhinoceros, ele¬
phant, etc. The efephant, Chunee, was exhibited for many years in En'/-
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