No. 394.] NOTES ON EUROPEAN MUSEUMS. 77% 
South America form a feature. Of these only the actual bones 
are mounted, no attempt being made to restore the missing 
parts. While this method has the advantage of truthfulness, it 
cannot be said to produce a pleasing effect. To see, for example, 
scattered limb bones, vertebrz, and ribs of a Megatherium, 
mounted in the upright position of the animal, but with no 
head, gives a grotesque and ludicrous impression rather than 
one calculated to encourage scientific study. 
Bern, — The Natural History Museum, built by A. Jahn in 
1879-81, is a handsome stone building of three stories. The 
mineralogical and paleontological collections occupy the ground 
floor, the zodlogical the two upper floors. The alcove system 
of installation is employed and good lighting is secured. Both 
installation and labeling are neat and careful throughout, and 
one has a general sense of comfort and satisfaction in look- 
ing through the museum. Of greatest interest is the mag- 
nificent collection of crystals from the St. Gothard. One 
perfectly clear crystal of smoky quartz is 3% feet long and 2 
feet in diameter; another, doubly terminated, is 4 feet long. 
There are also large and showy groups of albite from the same 
region and of epidote from the Untersulzbachthal. Of interest 
in the paleontological collection are perfect skeletons of the 
cave bear and Irish elk. The museum is open free three hours 
a day on Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays; on other days 
admission is one franc. 
Neuchâtel. — The natural history collections exhibited in the 
Collége Latin are extensive and of permanent interest for their 
association with the memory of the great naturalist who founded 
them. The collection of fishes is unusually large, as is also 
the collection of marbles. The animal groups by Challande are 
also unique and attractive and embody an idea which one could 
wish to see more widely carried out. The installation is, how- 
ever, in general antiquated, and while perhaps the best that 
funds will allow, furnishes an impressive illustration of the 
advance in museum methods since this collection was estab- 
lished. The cases employed are flat-topped floor cases and 
