London Journey: Part Fourteen

The British Museum of Natural History


Bobbi and I also took in the British Museum of Natural History. This museum opened in 1881 and while it looks like a cathedral or castle, this temple was built to the glory of Science and Progress (although it's prime founder, Richard Owen did not see the two as mutually exclusive...having engaged in a running battle with Charles Darwin over the theory of Evolution). As such, it is a virtual hymn to the Victoria faith in the ever upwards march of Progress.

Upon entering, you are overwhelmed by the high vaulting ceilings, which, like the churches from which it took it's inspiration, inspire feelings of humility and contemplation.

(That's me up there on the Balcony.)

Each area of the museum is a work of art in and of itself. In the main hall, these stone monkeys climb up the walls to the sky...each one intricately detailed. Every room is adorned with it's own sculptures and decorations.

The museum is a repository for specimens from around the globe, and the collection has its origins in the private holdings of Sir Hans Sloan, physician to the Governor of Jamaica in 1687. Famous explorers, including Captain Cook have sent scientific samples here, and the museum holds them all...millions and millions of them...only a fraction of which are on display. It is an amazing storehouse, and a testament to man's struggle to know his world.

As befits the brainchild of Owen, who was the first to guess that the giant bones being found in England actually belonged to a vanished race of reptiles called: Dinosaurs... these terrible lizards hold pride of place at the museum....


But there is more here to enjoy than a giant anamatronic T-Rex - although they do have quite a nice one... in the galleries around the main hall, the skeletons of monkey gambol in the rafters, displayed so that they show their grace and dexterity...




There is, of course, the Dodo- a long extinct member of .... the pigeon family...I did not know that....did you know that....I sure didn't...a pigeon...go figure...
There is also a large collection of mammals...including a life size model of a blue whale....the museum is careful to note that these are historical specimens...there are now acknowledged to be better ways of studying an animal than stuffing it...



The fishes are also well represented...including a fascinating representation of how an angler fish from the dark depths of the ocean can swallow prey that is actually larger than itself...



We had lunch with Charles Darwin....




After which Bobbi did her little known, but always well received "Shark Impression".....

In addition to the fascinating items in the collection, was the fascinating nature of the collection itself...to amass so much information about the world, and to enshrine in a truly magnificent building... there is something awe inspiring about this...and we wondered if the will could be found to do as much today....surely, we haven't stopped learning...but there is something about this building itself which is, well, transcendent...and shows a belief in the possibilities and sacred nature of knowledge....something that I fear our age treats far too cavalierly...


At any rate, although Bobbi and I agreed that it might, perhaps, be possible to learn much more about nature from a well produced documentary on Television....we still managed to loose ourselves in the museum for an entire day....emerging tired, but moved...feeling as if, by joining in the stream of humanity who have poured through these doors for well over a century, that we had taken part in a pilgrimage to a shrine to knowledge.