I am overwhelmed. This thread began with an innocent question about the
meaning of "leg." on labels, and has turned into a historico-philosophical
treatise on museum exhibits. A most stimulating conversation among friends!
Charles Sturm is right: Moderation is called for. It is boring to have only
one kind of exhibit, even if it is a very good exhibit. Why see museums
when you travel, if they are just like the one you have at home? Exhibits
are best when they are unique. Rare specimens, unusual items, complete
collections, or material presented in unusual ways: These are worth
traveling to see. Here are some of the exhibits that spring to mind from
the thousands that I have seen, mostly in the last ten years. All are in
the United States. If they emphasize one small corner of the U.S., that is
because I do a lot of traveling there for work and pleasure. Draw from this
list what you may.
Thatcheria mirabilis: One of many shells on display at the Delaware Museum
of Natural History (Wilmington, Delaware) when I was a teenager. I had
known the snail only in photos, and I wanted to see a real one. Here it
was, along with hundreds of others that I no longer remember. It was worth
the wait.
The tracks of two dinosaurs: a sauropod (herbivore) being followed
(stalked?) by a theropod (carnivore), in limestone at the American Museum
of Natural History (New York). With a mounted skeleton of a theropod shown
"eating" from the spine of a sauropod on the ground. Huge, long teeth.
Deliciously gruesome!
The chalk sketches of dinosaurs on the wall, high above the floor in the
same dinosaur hall. I later learned that the artist had originally intended
the sketches only as a guideline for a mural, but the sketches were so good
that the exhibitors decided to leave them as they were.
The cave at the Anniston Museum of Natural History (Anniston, Alabama).
It's plastic, but the water drips and it looks like the real thing. The
placards are all at the entrance, so you can read as much or as little
about the cave before you enter. There are no labels inside; visitors are
left to their own thoughts. This is a very effective modern exhibit.
Tools. Hundreds of tools at the Appalachian Museum in Norris, Tennessee,
all close enough to touch and none behind glass. You can see every detail.
Most museums would show one example of, say, a handmade hammer and leave it
at that. This one displays twenty or thirty hammers, no two quite alike, to
show what it really means for hammers to be handmade, not
mass-manufactured. In fact, the museum consists of a whole village of
buildings that have been brought here as exhibits in themselves.
Dinosaur National Monument, on the Utah-Colorado border. The rock with its
many dinosaur skeletons is housed in a glass enclosure, and you can watch
the technicians cleaning the bones on the rock face.
A set of extinct birds at the Anniston Museum. Only a photo for the dodo,
of course, but the others are represented by actual stuffed birds:
incredibly rare today.
An underwater scene from the Eocene, at the Florida Museum of Natural
History (Gainesville, Florida). Really a huge diorama in which the lighting
shifts to simulate the wave-refracted sunlight overhead. And the exhibit of
reconstructed animals, seagrass, etc. is backed up by actual fossils.
An assortment of tools and teeth at the Red Mountain Museum (Birmingham,
Alabama), showing how different kinds of teeth act as tools do. This is
another "modern" exhibit designed for children. Like other exhibits at this
museum, this one appeals about equally well to adults.
Winnie McGlamery's boots, pants, and field notes under glass at the Alabama
Museum of Natural History. This one means a lot to me, and not much to
anyone else, because she was curator of paleontology from the 30's to early
60's for the collection I now serve. I never met her. McGlamery's clothes
are those of a small woman. The trousers are riding pants: practical
clothes for a woman doing field work in the 30's in rural Alabama. She had
spunk. The field notes are the key to the localities of thousands of
specimens in the Survey's collection, and they were lost for thirty years,
until I rediscovered them on display in the museum next door.
The Clarke County Museum (Grove Hill, Alabama) has a big relief map of
Clarke County, showing how the roads hug the ridgecrests. I am certain that
this is the only relief model of Clarke County in existence. It is one of
the most fossiliferous areas in Alabama, and includes the famous Little
Stave Creek. Even a small, local museum can have a unique and appropriate
exhibit.
The gold exhibit, viewed through thick glass set just inside the door of a
big safe in the library of the Colorado School of Mines (Golden, Colorado).
Nuggets and wires and sheets of gold, all in their natural forms from mines
that no longer exist.
A replica of the first motorcycle at the visitor's center at the Mercede
s-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The seat was a curved piece of leather
over the engine. Talk about a hot seat!
The Great Seal of the United States, rendered in fossil shark teeth, at the
Fisk Museum in Oakley, Kansas. Some people just have too much time on their
hands! This museum also displays, indoors, a complete sod house from the
pioneer days. And <shudder> real crinoids ("sea lilies") painted in garish
colors to look more like flowers. This museum is such a mixture of the
good, the bad, and the ugly that it is a "must-see" for anyone traveling on
the interstate highway east of Denver, Colorado.
A room crammed with Cretaceous crinoids, fish, and marine reptiles at the
Sternberg Museum in Hays, Kansas. Stunning fossils: Sternberg excavated and
prepared fossils from Kansas and sold them to museums all over the world,
but he kept the best for Kansas. And every label faithfully displays the
name of the landowner who donated the fossil, even after fifty and more
years.
The circular tank in the Steinhart Aquarium (San Francisco, California).
The exhibitors wanted to show live fish from the California Current, but
the fish require a constant current to live. The answer? A big, circular
tank with a hollow interior where the visitors stand surrounded by fish.
The silvery fish swim into the current, around and around, as the visitor
gets dizzy watching them. Only the sharks move against the current.
A formal herbal garden at the Cloisters in New York, done in the medieval
manner. And the Unicorn tapestries inside.
The Mona Lisa. We stood in line at the Metropolitan Museum (New York) for
two hours for this travelling exhibit, and were allowed to gaze at her for
eight seconds from a distance. I won't ever forget my disappointment.
King Tut's mask. We stood in line for NINE hours outside the Delgado Museum
in New Orleans to see the objects from his tomb, including the golden mask
(which made the crowded people literally gasp). I was fascinated by
Egyptian art as a child, and here was the best of it, not just one piece,
but tens of them. Worth the wait.
But I see that I have gone on at length most immoderately. Before I leave
Conch-L for the night, a request to Conchland. I have never been to a shell
show, but one us has stated that some of the best exhibits are put together
for them. Can you tell us about some of your favorite exhibits at shell
shows?
Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama
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