II AMERICAN MUSEUMS 47 



contrast to Vienna, everything in the way of architecture 

 and furniture and fittings is severely plain and practical, and 

 a uniform drab colour is the pervading background for all 

 kinds of specimens. All danger from fire seems to have been 

 most carefully guarded against. The floors are of artificial 

 stone, the cases, and even the shelving, are constructed of glass 

 and iron. Wood is almost entirely excluded, both in the 

 structure and fittings. The ground floor, as I have said, is 

 entirely devoted to the public exhibition, the first story to 

 the reserve collection of vertebrates, and the upper story to 

 the invertebrates ; and the basement contains commodious 

 rooms for unpacking, mounting, preparing skeletons, etc. 

 The construction of the building allows of considerable exten- 

 sion backwards, whenever more space will be needed, at small 

 cost and with little interference with existing arrangements. 

 I should also mention that the zoological department of the 

 University, with its admirably appointed laboratories and 

 lecture rooms, and excellent working collections for teaching 

 purposes, is in immediate contact with the museum, and the 

 two institutions, though under different direction, are thus 

 brought into harmonious co-operation. 



Any one who wishes to compare and contrast the two systems 

 upon which a national zoological museum may be arranged 

 cannot do better than visit Paris and Berlin at the present 

 time. He will see excellent illustrations of the best of both. 



Of the museums of the United States of America much 

 may be expected. They are starting up in all directions, 

 untrammelled by the restrictions and traditions which envelop 

 so many of our old institutions at home, and many admirable 

 essays on museum work have reached us from the other side 

 of the Atlantic, from which it appears that the new idea has 

 taken firm root there. In Mr. Brown Goode's lecture on 

 " The Museums of the Future " (Eeport of the National 

 Museum, 1888-89) it is said: "In the National Museum in 

 Washington the collections are divided into two great classes, 

 the exhibition series, which constitutes the educational 

 portion of the museum, and is exposed to public view with all 

 possible accessories for public entertainment and instruction ; 

 and the study series, which is kept in scientific laboratories, 



