464 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
Two other collections devoted to somatology were examined, one in the Natural History Museum at Vienna, and the other in the Ethnographical Museum of Berlin, the latter being the prop- erty of the Anthropological Society of that city. Neither of these collections is accessible to the public, and owing to imper- fect labeling and lack of data in connection with the individual specimens, they are not readily available to the general student. By reason of the absence of Professor Virchow, I was not permit- ted to see the very large and valuable collection of crania in the Pathological Institute.
Ethnology, the second great division of anthropology, is fully represented in but one museum, namely, the Ethnological Museum of Oxford. In other museums, both in England and on the continent, may be seen series in which certain phases of man's development are shown, but the Oxford museum alone is devoted completely and entirely to an exposition of the history of culture. It is next to impossible to study in this museum the arts and industries of any given race or people, but it is possible to study here as nowhere else the development of any one of man's many lines of industry. The scope of the museum may best be shown by quoting a few of the case-labels : Fire-making ; Mortuary customs ; Animal forms in savage art ; Defensive armor and helmets; Primitive food and water vessels, substitutes for pottery ; Ancient wheel-made pottery ; Bark-cloth making ; Primitive light-appliances ; String-making ; Development of writ- ing ; Toilet-appliances ; Bronze-casting ; Deformation of ears, lips,. etc. This idea of grouping all objects by classification based on use or purpose instead of by races, it will be remembered, was for a long time the scheme of exhibition in vogue at the United States National Museum, but recently that plan of classification has been abandoned to a large extent, and the museum has been rearranged on an ethnographical basis. I cannot but think that a great deal of extremely valuable material in the Oxford museum, which would throw light on the various races of the
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