28 J YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



The Museo contains public collections of the animals, woods, 

 native pottery and prehistoric goldsmith work, maps, arms 

 and armor of Costa Rica, an extensive herbarium, a scientific 

 library and study collections in various groups of animals. 

 One of its earliest acquisitions was the important collection 

 of Costa Rican antiquities formed and bequeathed to the 

 Government by don Jose Ramon Rojas Troyo of Cartago. 

 Connected with the Museo at different times have been the 

 naturalists Paul Biolley (born in Switzerland, 1862, died at 

 San Jose, 1908), George K. Cherrie, an American (member 

 of Colonel Roosevelt's Brazilian expedition of 1913-14), 

 Cecil F. Underwood, an Englishman, and J. Fidel Tristan, a 

 Costa Rican. To Director Alfaro and to the botanist of the 

 Museo, M. Adam Tonduz, we were greatly indebted for 

 assistance in our work. The first volume of the Anales of 

 the Museo was published in 1887, since which time nine 

 volumes have appeared, some of them under the joint title 

 of Anales del histituto Fisico-geografico y del Museo Nacional. 

 The Instituto Fisico-geografico was established by Pres- 

 idential decree April 7, 1888, under the name of the Insti- 

 tuto Meteorologico Nacional, although meteorological obser- 

 vations were begun by its director, Professor Henri Pittier 

 (de Fabrega), a native of Switzerland, on December 12, 

 1887. Its title was soon changed to that of Fisico-Geo- 

 grafico, indicating its enlarged scope. Professor Pittier 

 served as Director of the Instituto until 1904, developing it 

 to such an extent that Dr. Karl Sapper, who visited it in 

 1899, wrote of it as being entirely on the plane of European 

 institutions of a similar kind. In addition to the Anales 

 above mentioned, the Instituto published a Boletin in 1901- 

 03. In later years the Instituto has become the meteoro- 

 logical section of the Museo Nacional whose building it 

 immediately adjoins, and the yearly operations of both es- 

 tablishments have been described in the Memorias de Fomento 



