ction is intended to exemplify the development
of the art of painting in mediaeval and renascence Europe. It is
impossible to enter the Museum gallery and not be struck with this
fact. The visitor finds himself turned into a student of the history
of painting, as he wanders from room to room. The ordering of the
pictures, the information contained in the catalogue,--everything
points in the same direction. So clearly has the Museum come to be
understood at Berlin as a kind of art-history branch of a university,
that a portion of the funds devoted to it is annually spent upon the
publication of a periodical universally recognized as the leading
magazine in the world devoted to the history of art. By means of it,
students in all countries are informed from year to year of the new
acquisitions and discoveries made by the staff of the Museum, or by
the leading authors and students of the subject, of all nationalities.
The Berlin collection has thus won for itself a place as the
historical collection _par excellence_."

The Museums are under the care of a Director-General, with nine or
more Directors of Departments. Dr. Julius Meyer, Director of the
Picture-Gallery, is said to be probably unequalled by any living
writer for a wide and philosophic grasp of the whole subject of Art
History, to which his life has been devoted; while the names of
distinguished scholars and professors at the head of the other
departments are guaranties of similar excellence. A series of four
illustrated volumes is now in process of publication, which will
present, in photographs and engravings, large or small, every picture
of importance in the gallery. The text of these volumes, by Drs. Meyer
and Bode, will be extremely valuable, and the whole will doubtless
stand foremost among publications designed as exponents of European
galleries.

The fine and massive building of the Arsenal, opposite the palace of
the late Crown Prince, dates from the time of Frederick I., last of
the Electors and first of the Prussian Kings. The grand sculptures of
the German artist Schlueter, who was afterwards called to the aid of
Peter the Great in the creation of St. Petersburg, adorn the exterior
of the edifice. Any chance walk along the Linden will arrest the
attention to this building, with the remarkable heads of dying
warriors carved in the keystones of its window arches. In the
renovation of the Arsenal a few years since, no improvement was made
on the exter