Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/847

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GERMAN PALEONTOLOGICAL MUSEUMS.
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shall those obey it to whom the daily bread comes only with the daily toil, and how many of these there are among it the rich, idle world never dreams!

"... The fear that kills;
And hope that is unwilling to be fed;
Cold, pain, and labor, and all fleshly ills
And mighty poets in their misery dead."

That is the life's experience of many and many a man who bears a cheerful front enough to his fellows. While he has health and strength, while the sun is still in the heavens, he can bear the burden, uncomplaining if unresting. But as the day wears on, and the shadows grow, the question of the future grows with them, What shall be his fate when hand and brain can work no more? Happy as he may be in his work now, contented, prosperous, never can he wholly put by the thought,

"But there may come another day to me—
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty."

Such a one can put off that hour by no holiday pastimes which to the idle man of pleasure are a mere weariness of the flesh. But he can, so far as human will avails, put it off by hoarding his strength and health; and this he will most surely do by the observance of one simple rule, framed for man's conduct thousands of years before our wisdom discovered that the pancreatic juice converts starch into sugar, and that levulose is isomeric with glucose—the simple rule of moderation.—Macmillan’s Magazine.

GERMAN PALEONTOLOGICAL MUSEUMS.

By ALBERT GAUDRY.

THE Germans have many excellent paleontological museums, in which the fossil records of the ancient history of their country are preserved and arranged in regular and proper order. Each of these museums, besides its general character, is distinguished by special features illustrating the more salient peculiarities of the local geology.

Besides its general museum, in which are collected the products of different countries, Stuttgart possesses a geological and paleontological hall devoted especially to the fossils of Würtemberg. This local collection, under the direction of Professor Oscar Fraas, is justly held in high repute, because in it can be followed from age to age the paleontological history of one of those countries in Europe which have been best studied. Here are especially to be seen those wonderful reptiles that lived on the continents during the Triassic epoch: the tosaurus, the zeuglodon, the mastodonsaurus and the metopias, permit