Ph ila delp h ia — Wa sh ing ton. 55 



tree a man was painting memoranda of historical events of the cen- 

 turies the tree had lived and formed its rings. The Palseontologi- 

 cal Rooms are wonderful, but the collecftion of Moa bones does 

 not equal that at Christchurch, New Zealand. The Hall of Min- 

 erals above it is rather dismal { I remember that was its chara(5ter 

 when thirty-three 3'ears ago I visited it in Great Russell Street 

 with all the enthusiasm of a 5'Oung mineralogist), as nothing 

 breaks the flat uniformity of the cases. Vienna and Paris present 

 a much more attractive exhibition. The Cetaceans in the base- 

 ment were well worth a visit*. The British colledlion is capital and 

 very accessible to students and amateurs. The statue of Darwin 

 at the head of the stairway and that of Sir Joseph Banks higher up 

 at the other end of the hall seemed where and what they should be. 

 The former looks down upon cases filled with illustrations of the 

 special studies to which the elaboration of the Darwinian theory 

 gave rise." 



lycaving England June 13 on the "St. lyouis" from South- 

 ampton for New York, the first museum visited in America was 

 that of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Here Dr. 

 Sharp, Prof. Heilpron, and Mr. Pilsbry did all in their power to 

 make the collecftions accessible. While this museum is strongest in 

 mollusks and birds, there were in the ethnological department some 

 good kapas brought by Rembrandt Peale of the United States Ex- 

 ploring Expedition from the Hawaiian, Society and Tongan Islands. 

 This department was not yet arranged in the new wing recently 

 completed. Washington was reached June 24th and the National 

 Museum was the chief attraction. The late Dr. J. Brown Goode, 

 who was at the head of the museum, and Professor Otis T. Mason, 

 the Curator of Ethnology, were exceedingly obliging, the former 

 promising to send to the Bishop Museum a complete set of the pub- 

 lications of the U. S. P'ish Commission of which he was also 

 Director. With Prof. Mason the Pacific collections, largely from 



* Since then a verj' admirable system of exhibition has been adopted; the skeleton is 

 enclosed on one half by a covered framework representing the outer surface of the whale. 



