71 



beautifully arranged by the celebrated German, Mr. Konig ; but ex- 

 cept some very rare unique specimens, it is inferior to the two col- 

 lections at Paris, belonging to the Museum and the Ecole des Mine?, 

 as well as that of the Academy at Munich. Two tables that we 

 saw here, covered with beautiful specimens of Carpolitha, would en- 



P 



gage the attention of Count Sternberg for weeks ; and he Avould be 

 delighted to compare them with those treasures that he is himscli' 

 so well acquainted with, and has so liberally communicated to tlie 

 public. An immense building is in progress ; with the addition of 

 which the British Museum, now of inconsiderable size, will fill an 

 entire square of the city of London. But to render this institution 

 as rich in subjects of Natural History as it is in antiques, or as the 

 Museum d'Histoire Nalurelle at Paris was, or as is the collection 

 of Leyden in the department of the animal creation, w^ould be the 

 work of half a century. It is really incredible that a nation, pos^ 

 sessed of the greatest conquests and making the most extended disr 

 coveries in all parts of the world, should have collected so scantily 

 for its public Museum : and the more so, as England boasts of men 

 of the most distinguished character in all branches of Natural Hi- 

 story, How is it possible that the British can allow tlie two neigh- 

 bouring nations whom they look down upon in many respects, to 

 excel them in this way as much as they are outdone by them in others ? 

 This enigma would be to me perfectly inexplicable, if a solution to 

 it were not afforded by the state of the two Universities of Oxford 



and 



an 



at so low 



Except the periodical works on Botany, and the Second Part of 

 the publication on the genus Pinus by Count Lambert, we neither 

 saw nor heard of any novelties in this department j except that we 

 were informed that twenty sheets of Wallich's and Carey's Flora 

 Coromandeliana had arrived in London. Mr. * * * * therefore was 

 wrong, when he asserted with a haughty look three years ago, " A 

 Second Part of this work will never appear !" 

 - We have visited the celebrated flower-market of London ; of which 

 no German who has not seen it, could form a proper idea. What 

 chiefly struck us is, that the greatest rarities and most trifling 

 articles are here exposed for sale together, and that both are eagerly 



B^ 



