Report of a Journey Around the W^orld. 255 



yellow color, being of terra cotta, ornamented with animal repre- 

 sentations in high relief. The side galleries with skylights give 



somewhat the impression of factory rooms The cases are of 



mahogany, clumsy and unprepossessing ; some of the backgrounds 

 are green. The labels have been prepared with much care and 

 taste. The arrangements for lighting are in part deficient." Dr. 

 Meyer continues in relation to the ethnographic collection: "It 

 ■contains many valuable old specimens, but has not kept pace with 

 its sister collections. While Berlin has, since the seventies, built 

 up an ethnographical collection which is scarcely to be surpassed, 

 and good collections have been brought together in many cities of 

 Europe and America, London has made little progress in the latter 

 half of the last centur>'." 



This was written some years ago, and the condition of the 

 lyondon collection has certainh' changed since the visit of Dr. 

 Mej^er, but the architectural difficulties remain. 



Let it not be supposed for a moment that I criticise the archi- 

 tectural defects in a carping or unfriendly way, especially in the 

 case in hand, for Dresden, Munich, Leiden and many other cities 

 have the same architectural difficulties, and it is perhaps by calling 

 attention to these that the new museums, or the old museums con- 

 templating new buildings, will be helped in securing the best 

 possible buildings. Then, too, the British Museum has done so 

 much for us all, in spite of its domiciliary defects, that it is true 

 praise to consider the obstacles in the way. The catalogues of 

 birds, fishes, corals, among the hundreds of volumes to which these 

 museum publications have attained, to mention only those that 

 are necessarily in every working museum library, show that the 

 vast collections at South Kensington are not simply to please the 

 eye or awaken the astonishment of chance visitors, but are being 

 made useful to all the world of scientific students. 



This must be the work of a great museum where the most 

 complete series of specimens have for years been collected with the 

 greatest care from all parts of the world. May the time be hastened 

 when the great nations will have their ej-es opened to the terrible 

 folly of "dreadnaughts" and other vast expenditures for war, and 

 turn for a while at least to the arts of peace! Let the great mu- 

 seums have sufficient funds to handle their colle6tions ; the cost of 



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