Natural history museums focus on three major themes: Rocks (Earth), Living Things (Plants and Animals, including Fossils), and Human Culture. The emphasis at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is on Animals. Almost all of the main floor consists of displays of fossil bones of dinosaurs and mammals, alone with taxidermy models of just about every bird, fish, amphibian, reptile and mammal known to exist. On the other hand, with the exception of a well-known Human Origins exhibit, human culture gets relatively little attention. That was all right by me because I wasn't interested in either the living things or the cultures. I was interested in the rocks, and I spent most of ten hours over two days pouring over those exhibits.
My interest in rocks is a follow-on to my reading the textbook Historical Geology referred to in a prior post, as well as my following along in the book series Roadside Geology on my recent trip. I found I knew quite a bit about much of what was on display. But there were clearly areas of new interest. I spent the first day mostly on viewing the minerals and gems in the National Gem Collection. The pride of the show is the Hope Diamond, a 44-carat blue diamond that was gifted to the people of the United States by jeweler Harry Winston in 1956. The origin diamond, weighing over 100 carats, was found in India in the 1600s. Among its owners was the French queen Marie Antoinette. It was stolen during the French Revolution in 1792 and remained hidden for 20 years, turning up in London the day after the French statute of limitations on the theft had expired.
Most of the minerals on display, and most of the collection, are the result of three gifts of private collections, two of them in 1926, and the other one (I think) in 1894. The most dramatic donated collection was that of Washington Roebling, the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge. Many of the mineral finds appear to be the result of mining activity. Most of the high-end gems in the collection are the result of individual gifts. The museum has an ongoing program, funded by a foundation set up by Tiffany, Inc., to acquire additional and unique gem and mineral specimens. The nice thing about a collection like this is that it saves the rest of us from having to be collectors. You get a hankering to see "your" gem collection, and you just wander over to the second floor of the National Museum of Natural History and there it is.
There is an outstanding display about meteorites. Study of meteorites has been used to determine the composition of the early solar system, and to evaluate the results of impacts of celestial bodies such as asteroids and planets. Scientists used the study of moon rocks recovered by the Apollo astronauts to determine that the Moon resulted from the glancing collision of a Mars-sized planet with Earth about 4.5 billion years ago, with the debris from collision going into orbit around Earth and coalescing as the Moon. When originally formed the Moon was much closer to Earth that it is now, and apparently it is still gradually moving away from Earth.
