Report of a Journey Around the W'orld. 69 



should have had some trouble in finding a conveyance to the hotel. 

 Vienna quiet on a Sunday! The trees on the Ringburgstrasse 

 had leafed out since my last visit in the early Spring of 1896, and 

 other changes were noticed, but the Hof museum was externally 

 the same. We had met Dr. Heger in London and did not expect 

 him here, but his assistants afforded us all needed help, and Dr. 

 Steindachner, head of the natural history portion of the grand 

 museum, was there and welcomed us most hospitably. In the 

 hallway was a group of Gangetic gavials that showed the most 

 advanced of modern taxidermy. 



Dr. Steindachner personally conducted us through the collec- 

 tion. After seeing the gavials I thought the birds would be found 

 even better treated, but we were told that they had not money to 

 mount the birds as might be desired. A fine giraffe had a steel 

 (or bronze?) case to himself, but the cost (about $240) was too 

 expensive for general use. Still, all the cases were good, and the 

 arrangement of shells on black cards with gold border very effec- 

 tive. The Testudinata were the finest I have seen. The skele- 

 tons of fish were exquisite. 



The building is so fine and artistically decorated with a ceiling 

 by Makart, among other color schemes, that I was surprised to 

 learn that the}- were not rich and had not the income so large a 

 museum needs. When the city fortifications were destroyed the 

 land was sold and the proceeds furnished the fine halls and some 

 other public buildings, but no fund was set aside for endowment. 

 The Government grants are not liberal and the great number of 

 attendants and the large staff must require much of the income. 

 In the attic were eight cases of coral Dr. Steindachner had collected 

 in the Red Sea ; there were also several dismounted skeletons of 

 whales. We looked into the herbarium, which is in the upper 

 story, but there was no one to open the cases which, like the doors, 

 were carefully locked. This herbarium contains 950,000+ sheets 

 and 20,000+ morphological numbers. As it was about the hour 

 for dejeuner we left the museum and in the afternoon had a long 

 drive about town. July 4th early we were at the Ethnological 

 Museum and went carefully through the whole. The Mexican 

 feather work had faded since my last visit ; the curious New Bri- 

 tain musical instrument described in my last visit was labeled 



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