SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, APRIL 23, 1893. 



THE LOAN COLLECTION OF OBJECTS USED IN 

 WORSHIP. 



The ceremonies at the opening of the Loan Collection of 

 Objects used in Worship at the Museum of Archaeology of 

 the University of Pennsylvania took place on the afternoon 

 of the 16th of April, in the large hall of the library building, 

 in the presence of a large audience of invited guests and 

 members of the University Archaeological Association. Ad- 

 dresses were made by Dr. William Pepper, provost of the 

 University, the Rev. John S. Macintosh, D.D., LL.D., 

 the Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow, and Mr. Charlemagne 

 Tower, president of the Department of Archaeology. Dr. 

 Macintosh, in his address entitled "Musings in the Pantheon 

 of the East," dwelt upon the evidences of the unity of the 

 human race to be found in the various religions represented 

 in the collection. Dr. Jastrow, in conclusion, said, "Few 

 in number as yet are the universities which have endowed 

 chairs for the history of religions; a beginning has been in- 

 augurated by which to interest American thought in this 

 special work. Collections of religious emblems like the one 

 we are about to open to-day contain the way-marks on the 

 roads and by-ways which the human family has been taking 

 up to this day. As yet there exists in the world only one 

 museum where these way-marks can be studied ; it is the 

 Musee Guimet in Paris. And our collection here is the first 

 attempt of the kind in our country." 



The collection is divided into sections, each of which was 

 either arranged and described by a special student, or by the 

 curator with the aid of native oriental scholars. Each sec- 

 tion of the catalogue, a closely-printed octavo of 174 pages, 

 is prefaced by a sketch of the religion to which it refers, 

 while the details regarding each object comprised in the 794 

 catalogue entries are given in appended notes. The sections 

 comprise Religions of Ancient Egypt, by Mrs. Cornelius 

 Stevenson; Religions of India: Vedism. Brahmanism, Bud- 

 dhism, and Jainisra, to which Suamee Bhaskara Nand Sara- 

 swatee of Jodhpur lent valuable assistance; Religions of 

 China, divided into the State Religion, Confucianism, Wor- 

 ship of Ancestors, Taoism, Buddhism, and Thibetan Bud- 

 dhism, arranged with the aid of scholarly Chinese; The Re- 

 ligion of the Chinese in the United States, under which is to 

 be found an almost complete collection of the idols, shrines, 

 amulets, implements for divination, with incense, paper 

 money, and oflFerings used by our Chinese residents, includ- 

 ing two practical shrines with all of their appurtenances, one 

 of the God of War and the other the shrine erected at the 

 New-Year; Religions of Japan: Shintoism and Buddhism, 

 collated with the aid of resident Japanese students; Moham- 

 medanism, by Dr. Morris Jastrow, professor of Arabic in the 

 University of Pennsylvania; Native American Religions, 

 comprising the North-west Coast, United States, Mexico, 

 Yucatan, San Domingo, and Peru, by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton ; 

 Religions of Polynesia, by Dr. Brinton ; Religions of the 

 Baulu Tribes of Africa, by Rev. Dr. Robert Hamill Nassau; 



and, in conclusion, a section devoted to charms and amu- 

 lets. 



The collection represents forty-Bve individual donors and 

 lenders, besides several institutions and societies, including 

 the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., the Numis- 

 matic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, and the 

 Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian , Church in 

 the United States, whose Missionary Museum constitutes the 

 njcleus of the exhibition. The plan of the Musee Guimet 

 has in general been followed, but the collection has a much 

 wider range than the great Paris museum, although inferior 

 to it in point of intrinsic value and artistic beauty of the 

 specimens, every object in the Guimet Museum being a 

 gem. 



The educational value of the collection has been the first 

 thing considered, and whatever are its deficiencies, it is 

 highly suggestive throughout, and an endeavor has been 

 made to supply the notable gaps by means of notes in the 

 catalogue. 



The exhibition has been the means of bringing to light 

 many objects of scientific importance, whose possessors were 

 unaware of their significance and value, and making them 

 available for the purposes of study. It marks an event in 

 the history of scientific work in its special field in Philadel- 

 phia, where the study of the history of religions, the object 

 of a highly successful course of lectures during the past 

 winter under the auspices of the University Archaeological 

 Association, has lately received much attention. 



THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE BIOLOGICAL 

 LABORATORY. 



The location of the Biological Laboratory, at the head of 

 Cold Spring Harbor, is one of the most favorable on the 

 coast. The country around is high and rolling, with abun- 

 dant forests, glens, and small streams, affording most excel- 

 lent hunting ground for every form of animal and vegetable 

 life common to our climate. Just above the laboratory is a 

 series of three fresh-water ponds, each fertile in its own 

 peculiar forms of fresh-water life, and through which flows 

 the water of Cold Spring Creek. Just below the Laboratory 

 is the harbor of Cold Spring, divided by a sandy neck into an 

 inner and an outer basin. These basins afford a great variety 

 of marine life, and the channel between the inner and outer 

 hasins has a varied and vigorous growth of algae, molluscs, 

 and echinoderms. The outer basin has shallow flats, banks, 

 and eel grass, sheltered pools, oyster-beds, and other favora- 

 ble conditions for collection and study. The outer basin 

 opens widely into Long Island Sound, whose coast is ex- 

 ceedingly varied in character for twenty miles in either di- 

 rection. 



The main Laboratory occupies the first floor of the New 

 York State Fish Commission Building, and is a room thirty- 

 six feet wide and sixty-five feet long, provided with ample 

 light from every side. It is furnished with laboratory tables. 

 aquaria, hatching-troughs, glassvs^are, and all the apparatus 

 and appliances required for general biological work. Into 

 the Laboratory is conveyed a bountiful supply of the water 



