renewed annually; on this the bears take air and exercise, and practise a variety of gymnastics, to the great amusement of the spectators. Probably next in interest to the bear-pit comes the _Zeitglockenthurm_, or clock-tower. A minute or two before the hour strikes, a wooden chanticleer, as large as life, seated on a projection of the tower, flaps his wings and crows a warning twice, and at the corresponding time after the striking of the hour he repeats his salutations. A figure, representing Father Time sitting on a throne, marks the hour by reversing his hour-glass, a mail-clad figure strikes the hour on the bell at the top of the tower, then a circle of bears emerge and move round Father Time, who at every stroke of the bell slowly opens his mouth and inclines his sceptre as if he himself were rather bored with Time. Of other objects of interest there may be mentioned the military depot, erected at a cost of 5,000,000 francs, and used as a drilling-school for that military district; the Federal Palace, a handsome stone structure of the Florentine style, and though only in use since 1852, will soon be relegated to subordinate federal offices and a more modern and capacious building, now under construction, will take its place as the federal capitol; a public library, founded at the time of the Reformation, and containing more than fifty thousand volumes; a museum where is to be seen the stuffed skin of the famous St. Bernard dog Barry, who rescued and saved the lives of more than twenty persons overcome in snow-storms and drifts; botanical garden; mint; University, with its faculties of law, medicine, theology, science, languages, etc.; art gallery, and numerous scientific collections, and societies; arsenal with its mediæval treasures, and a most complete system of charitable institutions, including foundling, orphan, blind, mute, and lunatic asylums. The Münster, or Cathedral, is an immense Gothic structure, dating from 1421, with a most elaborate sculptured group on the principal portal, representing the last judgment and the wise and foolish virgins; it is otherwise adorned with endless carvings in stone and flanked with two lofty square towers, which still remain in an unfinished condition; few sacred edifices on the continent are better calculated to make a strong impression. In front of the Cathedral stands the fine bronze equestrian statue of Rudolph von Erlach, the brave defender of Bern at Laupin; it is a name celebrated in the Confederation for five hundred years. An ancestor led his countrymen in the fourteenth century, and Rudolph led the forces of the Canton against the French invasion at the close of the eighteenth century; descendants of the name still live in Bern and enjoy the highest respect and esteem of the people. The Cathedral _platz_, a small well-shaded park, raised and walled at a great expense, a hundred and eight feet above the river, overhangs the lower town, built on the narrow margin of the rapid Aar.