Saturday, November 24, 2007

Natural History Museum

Natural History Museum


The Natural History Museum located at Exhibition Road, Kensington is a virtual treasure trove of life and earth science collections. This astonishing museum is home to a staggering 70 million species.

The collections can be classified into five wings paleontology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, botany and entomology. Wildlife Garden exclusivity is also inside the premises, with a bewildering array of flora and fauna.

From the moment you enter the museum, you will be attracted by the giant Diplodocus, which is set at the entrance. The museum of the central room is in itself a wonderful architectural creation.

The museum owes much to the late Dr Irish Sir Hans Sloane, who bequeathed his collection composed of the skeletons of humans and animals and plants dried museum and the museum initially worked Montague House, but with the arrival of Professor Richard Owen, then Superintendent of the British Museum, looking for an exclusive museum site was launched and the government has allocated land in South Kensington where the museum is now. Work on the building began in the year 1873 and was completed by 1880 and the museum was opened to the public in a big ceremony in the year 1881. The building design is essentially Roman in style.

The museum has three distinct wings - The Earth Galleries, The Life Galleries and The Darwin Center. The Earth galleries exclusively displays the museum's mineral collections while the Life galleries display specimens from life science.

A recent addition to the museum is the newly constructed Darwin Center with a collection of millions of species and inclusive of working areas meant for scientists to carry out research. The museum has successfully launched the concept of "shared space" wherein the visitors can watch from up-close how scientists carry out their research and experimentation.

The Natural History Museum is dedicated to promote our understanding of the phenomenonal natural world and the Museum is housed in one of London's architecturally superb buildings. Terracota bricks have been used predominantly and one can find engravings of plants and animals.

The building is remarkable and its columns, the dome and its enormous entry bordered by two rounds of some, it resembles some of the magnificent Gothic cathedrals that dot much of the British landscape.

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