The American University museum, Beirut, contains zoologi cal, historical and archaeological collections of Syria and Pales tine; local Jurassic and Cretaceous fossils of Syria, also a herbarium of Syrian plants. The Constantinople museum is rich in Greek, Assyrian, Chaldean and Egyptian antiquities.
At the Imperial University at Tokio there is a wonderfully equipped museum devoted to the sciences, but more especially zoology. The Museum of Zi-Ka-Wei near Shanghai is confined almost exclusively to the zoology and botany of the valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang. Notable collections are (I) the birds of China, and (2) the mammals of the Far East. This collection contains many type specimens including Cervidae and Suidae.
The National Mexican Museum of Natural History contains general mineralogical, geological, zoological and botanical collec tions combined with the Zoological and Botanical Gardens.
The National Museum, Santiago, Chile, is devoted almost en tirely to natural history and there is also a department of anthro pology. The herbarium contains a type collection of Chilean plants. There is also a Natural History museum at Valparaiso.
The Museo d'Estado de Bahia, Brazil, is especially rich in pre cious stones and fossils, but there are also zoological and botan ical collections from the State of Bahia. The National Museum of Natural History is as its name indicates devoted specially to that subject and the local collections are a special feature. There are, however, departments of ethnology and archaeology dealing mainly with the Indians of Brazil, Bahia, and Peru. At Para there is the Museo Paraense or the Museo Goldi. At Sucre, Bolivia, there is a Natural History and Anatomy Museum.
Colombia has the Institute Museum at Bogota, containing notable collections of quaternary mammals from the Bolivian Savannah, also birds, mammals and lepidoptera from Bolivia.
There is a Natural History museum at San Jose, Costa Rica ; and at Montevideo, Uruguay, the Natural History museum con tains general geological, zoological and botanical collections, in cluding a herbarium of the flora of Uruguay; there are also departments of archaeology and ethnology.
At Buenos Aires, there is a very progressive institute, the Ar gentine National Museum of Natural History, while at Cordoba there are two University museums : the Museum of Botany and Zoology, and the Museum of Mineralogy and Geology.
See E. Howarth and H. M. Platnauer, Directory of Museums of Great Britain and Ireland, etc. (i9ii) ; H. Miers, Report on the Public Museums of the British Isles (to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trus tees, 1928). (J. J. Si.) Museums of science in the United States are varied in their origin, establishment, purposes and administration; they may be related to the educational or scientific work of some society or college, or to that of a city or State, or, even, as in the case of the United States National Museum, to that of a nation. They may be said to date from the founding of the Charleston museum in 1773 by the Charlestown (sic) Library Society. In 1815 it was transferred to the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina, in 1828 to the Medical college, and in 1850 to the Col lege of Charleston; finally (1907) it was embodied in the present Public museum.
The Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel phia, was founded in 1812 in connection with the organization of the society. This was for many years the most important scientific society, so far as natural history was concerned, in the United States, and it still remains in the front rank. It contains much material, including many types, in zoology and palaeontology, studied and described by earlier American naturalists; the col lection of molluscs is the finest in the United States.
The Boston Society of Natural History was founded in 1830 as an outgrowth of the Linnean Society of New England. Origi nally, so far as exhibits were concerned, a museum of general zoology, its scope has been restricted to New England. The study collections are large, and include many types and figured speci mens in various branches of natural history. The Museum of Comparative Zoology, a part of Harvard University, at Cam bridge, Mass., had its origin in the collections purchased from Louis Agassiz for $12,000 in 1852. It was incorporated in 1859 and, later, received most important support from Alexander Agassiz. It was one of the first, possibly the first, of American museums not founded and controlled by a scientific society. Originally mainly a museum of research, its exhibits were ar ranged to relate to courses of study in the university; recently they have been rearranged to interest and instruct the public. The reserve, or study collections, are large and varied ; they are especially rich in birds, reptiles and fishes.