590 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1903. 



It is in a most happy way different from the general pattern. Every- 

 one who has a nmseum to build should study carefully this Parisian 

 one and adopt its good features. This advice can be given with 

 regard to but ver}' few museums. 



Photographs of the exterior were unobtainable. 



I am indebted to Dr. O. Richter, assistant in the Dresden Ethno- 

 graphic Museum, for the following separate data recorded by him on 

 his visit in February, 1902: 



Ground floor (see fig. 111). — Wooden cabinets, with iron doors without crossbars, 

 set in wooden frames, the latter, however, only above and below, and laterally at 

 the end of long rows of cases joined together. Doors with steel frames all approxi- 

 mate 75 cm. wide. The numbers of the cases are indicated by raised metal figures 

 on the bottom, inside; color, silver. The shelves are of glass, also the bases for the 

 installation of individual objects on the slielves, so that glass rests upon glass. The 

 stands for specimens are of German silver. The rails and brackets are of iron, the 

 latter secured by screws. The labels are of gray paper or pasteboard in red and black 

 round hand; tlie mountings are placed oblicpiely or horizontally; they are of dark- 

 blue glass if the objects are light colored. The same api>lies to alcoholics, in bottles, 

 presenting a dark-blue background. The closing of alcoholic bottles with tin foil is 

 obtrusive. The wood of the cases (and horizontal cases, see below), the bases of the 

 free-standing specimens, the floors and shelves, are uniformly light oak-brown. The 

 rails and backgrounds of the cases, however, are reddish brown. 



Second story. — Here the mountings are also of wood covered with reddish-brown 

 cloth; stands of brass, not of German silver. Horizontal cases with wooden drawers 

 below, and narrow metal frames above; no plate-glass pannels, but with crossbars. 

 The construction is as follows (see figs. Ill and 112): The wooden cases are surmounted 

 by horizontal glass cases with gold-bronze metal frames on which are tongues for 

 lifting the covers. The wooden drawers are supplied with massive round, button- 

 like, wooden handles ( two to each ) , set in hollowed recesses. A row of these drawers, 

 situated one above the other, may be locked at the same time, through a general catch, 

 which is located in the upright between the several rows of drawers. 



Gnllerij. — Anthropological collection (see fig. 113). Skulls on black bases with 

 four ball-shaped feet. The arrangement is a geographical one: skulls, skeletons 

 (on light-brown wooden bases of the same form as the skull bases), casts 

 of types, and illustrations, etc. ; illustrations of types arranged also in the shape of 

 fans. Here the cases have drawers below, as in the horizontal cases already 

 described. Labels: The general ones black on white and of larger size; special ones in 

 black on green with green borders and black on gray with red borders. Casts of 

 types (Scblagintweit Collection) also in the open, on the wall, in larger groups above 

 the cases (see fig. 113); these types have the form of medallions. Similar typical 

 heads in square frames and on gray backgrounds also in the cases. Some of the 

 skulls are iinder glass, with light-brown paper strips on the edges. 



While in Great Britain and Ireland, as well as in America, the 

 museums keep open later than they ought, the limitations in this 

 regard in the collections of the "Jardin des Plantes" are very marked. 

 Entrance is more or less beset with difficulties, and it is only by excep- 

 tion that one can go al)out without hindrance. While in the former 

 case they go too far, here, through lack of employees, they do not go 

 far enough. 



The annual expenditure of the Jardin des Plantes (museums, zoo- 

 logical and botanical gardens), is $200,000. 



