In reporting upon this plan, originally framed in 1858, the Committee of 1860, after comparing with it two other but only partial plans of extension and re-arrangement, prepared respectively by Mr. Sydney SMIRKE and by Mr. Nevil STORY-MASKELYNE, observe: ‘Your Committee have reason to think that if any of these plans were adopted—involving the [immediate] purchase of not more than two acres of land, with the [immediately] requisite buildings and alterations—the cost would not exceed three hundred thousand pounds. If, however, only this limited portion of land should be at once acquired, it is probable that the price of what remains would be enhanced. If the whole were to be purchased, as your Committee have already recommended, the cost above stated would be, of course, increased.’ The recommendation here referred to has been already quoted in a preceding chapter, together with a statement of the grounds on which it was based. [Sidenote: See Chap. III of Book III.] The only additional elucidation, on this head, which it seems necessary to give may be found in a passage of the evidence of one of the Trustees, Sir Roderick MURCHISON, who, in 1858, with other eminent men of science, presented a Memorial to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, praying that the British Museum might _not_ be dismembered by any transference of the Natural History Collections to another locality. After saying: ‘I entirely coincide still in every opinion that was expressed in that Memorial, and I have since seen additional and stronger reasons for wishing that [its prayer] should be supported,’ Sir Roderick added: ‘When it was brought before us [that is, before a Sub-Committee of Trustees] in evidence, that if we were largely to extend the British Museum at once _in sitû_, and that as large a building were to be made _in sitû_ as might be made at Kensington, we then learned that the expense would be greater. But I have since seen good grounds to believe that by purchasing the ground rents or the land, to north, east, or west, of the Museum, according to a plan which I believe has now been prepared and laid before the members of the Committee [referring to that of Mr. OLDFIELD, just described], and availing ourselves of the gradual[49] power of enlargement ... [Sidenote: _Minutes of Evidence_, 1860, Q. 1243–1250, pp. 102, 103.] the Nation would be put to a much less expense for several years to come, and would in the end realise all those objects which it is the aim[50] of men of science to obtain.’ The chief alternative plan is based on the transference of the Natural History Collections to an entirely new site, and on the devotion to the uses of the Literary and Archæological Departments of the Museum of the whole of the space so freed from the scientific departments. [Sidenote: PLAN FOR THE TRANSFERENCE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS TO KENSINGTON (OR ELSEWHERE). 1861–62.]