Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/134

 at the annual congress of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies. Upon one of these occasions the specimens were seen by one of the trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). That gentleman told me that the specimens were quite a new departure in her- barium work, and that there was nothing to equal them in the various collections at the Museum.

"In the several occupations in which I have been en- gaged I have had considerable experience in mechanical work of yarious kinds, and I soon found that Mr. Hume also was very ready at devising mechanical appliances. Between us we designed a system of iron racks and cabinets for the herbarium by means of which specimen of any species are immediately accessible ; and I believ our system is to be adopted in one department of the British Museum of Natural History.

"When I joined Mr. Hume in 1901 his British her- barium consisted of between 2000 and 3000 sheets. There are now more than 40,000 sheets of these plants, every one of which passed through Mr. Hume's hands for critical examination before it was mounted.

"The late Mr. Frederick Townsend, F.L.S., an eminent botanist, who died in 1905, left instructions that after his death his herbarium and botanical library should be given to Mr. Hume for the purposes of the institute, which was then in contemplation ; and in February 1906 Mr. Hume took me with him to Honington Hall, near Shipston-on-Stour, Mr. Townsend's former resi- dence, to arrange for its transfer to Norwood. After this, until the end of 191 1, every moment which Mr. Hume could spare from other duties was occupied by him in going through the general collection of European plants formed by Mr. Townsend and giving them out for mounting. Then, in 1910, the late Mr. W. H. Beeby, F.L.S., another eminent botanist, who had formed