686 The American Naturalist. [August, 
Compare the National Museum of France, to wit, that of St. 
Germain, with my department of the National Museum of the 
United States. The St. Germain Museum is installed at St. 
Germain-en-Laye, a few miles out of Paris, in the palace of 
that name, built by Francis I. I have not the exact dimen- 
sions, but it is in the form of a triangle. The front or shortest 
leg is, I should say, 400 feet long. It is given up entirely to 
the officers of the institution, and the chambers are living 
apartments of the officers. The other leg of the right angle 
has been fire-proofed throughout and completely restored, and 
it now consists of exhibition halls. This restoration is being 
continued upon the other wing. The work began in 1879 and 
is not yet completed. The building is four stories high, and 
there are now twenty-five halls filled with prehistoric objects 
open to the public. One entire story is devoted to each the 
_ paleolithic and neolithic periods of the stone age, and one to 
the bronze age, while the basement contains the heavy stone 
principally architectural monuments of the Roman occupa- 
tion. Except in the latter, the display made, the objects shown, 
the epochs, periods, or ages represented, are the same as those 
now crowded into my one hall. With all her wealth of anti- 
quity, with all the extent of territory, eighteen times greater 
. that of France, the United States devotes to the objects and 
implements of her prehistoric races less than one-eighteenth 
part of the museum space occupied by France. 
In the management and direction of this museum and of 
the matters pertaining to this new science there exists about 
the same difference. The Director of the Museum of St. Ger- 
main is a member of the Institute, and approximates in the 
dignity and importance of his position, to that of the Secre- 
tary of the Smithsonian Institution and Director of our entire 
National Museum. The work belonging to our Bureau of | 
Ethnology is in France committed into the hands of a com- 
mission of savants, to which M. Henry Martin, the great 
French historian, was and M. Gabriel de Mortillet, Depute 1s 
the chief. : 
I shall not attempt to compare the work of this commission 
with its representative in the United States, but I may indi- 
