Realising to the full that complete success in any undertaking is only possible where all the conditions affecting it are thoroughly understood, the Congo State, early in its career, established nineteen scientific stations, at various points throughout its territories, for the collection of data relating to anthropology, botany, ethnography, geology, philology, pisciculture, mineralogy, zoölogy, etc., and for trigonometrical and astronomical surveys. Each of these stations is in charge of an expert, with properly qualified assistants. They have transmitted to Europe a whole literature of monographs, of great interest and value, upon all sorts of subjects, and their field of work is still far from being exhausted. The study of the Congo climate by these _savants_ has proved especially valuable, their recommendations as to regimen, dress, habitation, etc., for travellers and settlers, having reduced the death rate of the whites to six per cent., thus dispelling for ever the old notion of the deadliness of Central Africa, and showing it to be at least as healthful as India, and healthier than either German East Africa, the Cameroons, the Niger Territory, or Cochin China. A small, but continual and increasing, influx of Europeans and Americans demonstrates the gradual abandonment of fear of the Congo climate, and faith in the hygienic system inaugurated by the Belgians,—a system which maintains sixteen State doctors to watch over and report upon the health of the various stations, and a permanent Hygienic Commission, which sits at Boma. [Sidenote: Museum at Tervueren.] At the royal palace of Tervueren, near Brussels, now used as a public museum, are exhibited nearly eight thousand objects illustrating industry and art among the primitive peoples of Central Africa, such as costumes, dwellings, musical instruments, and implements of hunting, fishing, agriculture, river navigation, and war. The museum also contains several thousand geological, mineralogical, and zoölogical specimens, and a very comprehensive herbarium, all collected within the borders of the Congo Free State. The latter is of particular interest, containing specimens of more than four hundred new species.