Modern European nat urally has the greatest number of governmental museums, the capital of almost every state claiming at least one museum of natural his tory and an art gallery, and often anthropologi cal and technological collections as well. Paris, with some 30 museums, probably leads in the matter of national collections, while Berlin and Vienna have respectively about 20 and 15 museums. Turkey forms a notable exception to the above statement, for Friedlander's Directory contains no mention of a Turkish museum, although a commercial museum has been estab lished at Constantinople. Great Britain has the largest number of local museums, those devoted to the preservation and display of objects illus trating the natural history and archaeology of the immediate vicinity, and, as a whole, these are better administered than those of other countries, great care being devoted to labeling, arranging and otherwise making the collections interesting and instructive to the public.
Europe in general 'and Germany in particu lar possess many technological museums devoted to the illustration of such subjects as mining, pottery making, weaving, shipbuilding, machine construction and operation and similar topics. Perhaps the most important of these is the Deutsche Museum of Munich, which among other exhibits has a considerable number of working models of such machines as locomo tives, so constructed that a large number of the parts is visible, and may be set in motion by the visitor.
Modern American There are now nearly 600 museums in the United States, about three-fourths of them attached to col leges or under the supervision of societies, but comparatively few of these are active or im portant. Nearly half of the whole number are entirely or chiefly devoted to natural history and about 10 per cent to art, though this pro portion seems on the increase and the past dec ade has witnessed the establishment of several important museums of art. A considerable num ber of museums are general in their character, including both art and natural history.
About 25 per cent of our museums include or are devoted to history, but here again few are active, though there are noteworthy excep tions, such as the Essex Institute of Salem, Mass., and the Historical museums of Chicago and Buffalo, the latter of which makes a specialty of publication.
The United States is strangely poor in tech nological museums or even in extensive tech nological collections, though these are steadily on the increase. There is, for example, no museum of naval architecture in this country, the nearest approach to it being the collection of the United States National Museum, in which certaip phases of the subject are well repre sented.
Our oldest existing museum, as well as the first public museum in America, is the Charles ton (S. C.) Museum, founded by the Charles Town Library Society in 1773, later incorpo rated in the College of Charleston and recently passing to municipal control, thereby taking on a new lease of life. Next to this is the Pea
body Museum of Salem, the successor of the East India Marine Society Museum, founded in 1799; it also includes the natural history col lections of the Essex Institute.
The Museum of Comparative Zoology, Har vard University, holds the first place among college museums. It is not confined to zoology, as its name might imply, but covers the entire field of natural history. The mineralogical col lection dates back to 1793 and is probably the oldest of its kind in America, while the botanical section includes the Gray Herbarium. The nucleus of the Museum of Comparative Zoology was the private cabinet of Louis Agassiz, which was purchased by subscription for $12,000 in 1852. In 1858 an allowance was made for the maintenance of the museum and in 1859 the State of Massachusetts assumed an interest in the institution, at the same time appropriating $100,000 for its increase; $71,000 was also raised by private subscription. In 1876 the State assigned its rights to Harvard College and since that time the museum has been maintained by the university, although the great increase in its collection was principally due to the liberality of Alexander Agassiz, who expended over $1,000,000 for that purpose. An im portant museum of anatomy is attached, to the Harvard Medical School. The Museum of Yale University contains the Marsh collection of fossil vertebrates, comprising many types, as well as the largest collection extant of fossil footprints, while brachiopods and sponges are well represented. In other departments are a fine series of modern corals and many rare ar chwological specimens. The Museum of Yale University is temporarily in storage and there is no immediate prospect of a new building nevertheless the collections exist. The Museum of Princeton University possesses large and im portant collections of fossil mammals from Patagonia and our Western States, a good col lection of North American birds and many ex amples of ancient and modern art. The Museum of Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania, has the best collection of Babylonian antiquities in America and is also particularly strong in America archaeology; also attached to the uni versity is the Wistar Institute of Anatomy. To Amherst College belongs the Appleton Cabinet of fossil footprints, containing the specimens de scribed by Prof. E. Hitchcock, and the Univer sity of Kansas is rich in Cretaceous vertebrates and large North American mammals. On the Pacific Coast Stanford University and the University of California both have museums; at present these are largely working collections, but both have art collections apart from these.