“a 
FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] 
salt on account of the cheapness of the former. 
Trepani was, on the contrary, found to contain 
very little. Dr. Farlow advocated that the walls 
and all the wood-work be scraped, and washed 
in hot water to kill the plant, and that painted 
wood be used in preference to the rough natu- 
ral walls in order to afford as little room as 
possible for the Clathrocystis to lodge itself. 
He further advised that Trepani salt be used 
instead of Cadiz. A number of fish-dealers 
have adopted his suggestion in regard to the 
salt, and they all inform me that for two sum- 
mers not a single fish has been lost by ‘ red- 
dening.’ The wood-work contained the plant ; 
and in warm weather old butts turned red on 
the outside, while the new ones, in which no 
pickle made from Cadiz salt had been kept, 
remained perfectly intact. The fish saved by 
this means more than paid for the difference 
in price between the two salts. Trepani salt 
seems to prevent the rapid growth of the plant, 
while Cadiz rather favors it. Here, as in many 
other cases, we see that a little scientific 
thought will accomplish that which would never 
be brought about without it. 
Rateo S. Tarr. 
MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY IN 
THE UNITED STATES.} 
THE state of its public museums, laboratories, and 
other scientific institutions, gives a very reliable meas- 
ure of the appreciation and culture of science by a 
nation. We are often inclined to consider America 
as a country where money-making suppresses all other 
interests, where learning, art, poetry, —in one word, 
all the finer manifestations of the human mind, — — 
can enjoy even a poor existence only in a few places, 
and find in general very unfavorable ground. One, 
however, who has had an opportunity of carefully 
observing American literature during recent years, 
could certainly not help seeing its intellectual activi- 
ty; most of all, perhaps, in the case of the sciences, 
they being intimately connected with practical life, 
and among these especially those of geology and pale- 
ontology. Most of the states created geological sur- 
veys for the investigation of the country, and the 
publication of maps and other results: the general 
- government extended these investigations to the ter- 
ritories. The elegant publications of these geographi- 
cal and geological institutions, distributed with the 
greatest liberality, form already a library which con- 
fains information of the greatest value concerning 
the vast country of the United States. 
We have often enough heard that they were found- 
ing public museums in America, and that, together 
with their indigenous treasures, they were desirous 
of obtaining the material of the old world for com- 
+ By Prof. K. A. Zirtex of the University of Munich. Trans- 
lated from the supplement to the Allgemeine zeitung of Dec. 16. 
SCIENCE. 
191 
parison, if, as now and then happened, a valuable 
private collection had to make its way across the 
ocean. It would form a long ‘list of the missing,’ 
should we enumerate all the valuable scientific ob- 
jects, which, during the last thirty years, have gone to 
America from Germany alone. ‘The contributions of 
England and France towards the enrichment of the 
transatlantic museums are, of course, not less. But, 
in spite of all this, the American museums are hardly 
known among us. While among the eminent learned 
men of America there are only a very few who have 
not travelled in Europe at least once, the new world 
is usually not studied with the same care by the 
learned men of the mother-countries. The Ameri- 
cans, however, have begun to make their treasures in 
natural science accessible to the public, as well as to 
the specialist, in a way which in many respects de- 
serves admiration aad imitation. 
The following observations on some of the most 
prominent museums of natural history, made during 
a short stay in North America, will undoubtedly 
prove to be incomplete, one-sided, and perhaps in 
many respects even inaccurate. Their main object is 
merely to call the attention to those institutions more 
carefully than has hitherto been done. 
Up to the middle of this century, Pitiladelphia was 
at the head of scientific investigation in America; 
and even to-day, when the principal city of Pennsy]- 
vania has almost lost its leading position, a visit at 
the fine museum of natural history will show every- 
where the traces of a celebrated past, and of a com- 
paratively old civilization. Among all the larger 
museums of North America, the museum of Phila- 
delphia shows the strongest European influence in its 
whole organization, and in the arrangement of the 
collections. The handsome building belonging to 
the Academy of natural sciences is in the centre of 
the city, near one of those beautiful squares fuil 
of trees which are the pride of Philadelphia. The 
first floor contains a rich library, the meeting-rooms 
of the academy, rooms for officials and for special 
investigators. The collections are in the upper part 
of the building, in one large hall surrounded by wide 
galleries. Stuffed mammals, skeletons, and several 
large fossil vertebrates occupy the centre of the vast 
room. Among them a fossil gigantic saurian, with its 
strong hind-legs and short fore-legs, is conspicuous 
by its enormous size. The bones which were found 
at the ‘Hopkins’ farm in New Jersey, and which 
furnished the material for the restored skeleton of the 
Hadrosaurus, have been well prepared, and are now 
kept in show-cases near by, together with the rem- 
nants of another gigantic fossil lacertian (Laelaps), 
and together with the nearly complete skeleton of an 
Elasmosaurus, found in the chalk of Kansas, which 
has much resemblance to Plesiosaurus. The resto- 
ration of the Hadrosaurus was made before the time 
of Marsh’s great discoveries, and before the twenty- 
four skeletons of Iguanodons had been found near 
Bernissart in Belgium. We must therefore not too 
severely criticise a few errors made by the restorer in 
the restoration of the missing parts. By the pur- 
chase of the collection of birds from the famous 
