Hintze Hall

If it had looked like a cathedral from the outside then the Hintze Hall definitely looked like one from the inside, with its huge space and a plethora of Romanesque arches stacked on top of each other. Even the roof panels had pretty paintings of flora and fauna on them. The multi-coloured brick theme from outside had continued inside too. The arched windows at the end of the hall contained stained glass. It was absolutely stunning. I don’t think there are many cathedrals though that have a 25.2m skeleton of a Blue Whale suspended from its ceiling. Its size was unbelievable. I walked from its jawline, under its rib cage , along to the tip of its tail. What a beast. The Hintze Hall displayed some other key natural world displays and I made a tour. A display showed one of the most complete dinosaurs ever found in the UK. The Mantellisaurus didn’t look particularly pleased to be constrained in a glass case. I’ve seen quite a selection of fossilised trees in museums, but the four on display in the hall were much larger. Not quite as large as the cross-section of a Giant Sequoias tree that I found on the upper landing. The massive slice had been taken from a 100 metre-tall tree and felled in 1891. To put that into perspective, it had been 1/3rd the height of The Shard. Nature is a wonderful engineer when you consider how much wider The Shard is in comparison. 

I climbed the main staircase to the upper landing. I was closer to those intricately painted roof panels now. This place must be a nightmare to spring clean and decorate. I loved some of the detail on this building. I came across a stone monkey climbing up one of the arches. Tucked away in a quiet corner on the upper landing was a statue of Alfred Russel Wallace. The base of the statue said ‘Co-discoverer of Natural Selection.' You have to feel a bit sorry for Wallace. It was only when Wallace published a paper on Natural Selection in 1858 that Charles Darwin got his arse into gear to ‘rush’ the publication of ‘On The Origin Of Species’ in 1859. This was why I found the white marble statue of Darwin, at a prime viewing spot on the landing of the main staircase of the hall, and Wallace's tucked away in an upstairs' corner. Darwin's marble face appears to gloat at his adoring fans climbing the staircase. Ironically, some say that the stone monkeys that I’d found climbing up the arches actually resembled Darwin. To be honest, I couldn’t see any resemblance. Maybe it was said by Wallace supporters, or even Creationists. 

Blue Zone

I bought a map and tried to formulate a plan, but as with all these places, I have a tendency to feel overwhelmed. I reverted to my usual strategy of just grazing the exhibits, letting curiosity be my lead and to trust in serendipity. This led me into the ‘Blue Zone’ which seemed to incorporate everything from dinosaurs to mammals. I started off in a very crowded corridor that was lined with exhibits. I was attracted to the skeleton of a large snake. I’d never really thought of snakes having much of a skeleton and  I was surprised at the actual number of bones. It reminded me of one of those metal spiral Slinky toys that can step their own way down stairs. Those Slinkys were so efficient at getting downstairs (better than my knees anyway), I wondered why humans hadn’t evolved 'Slinky' legs. I then thought of Mancunians and the similar 'Slinky' gait of their walk. Admittedly, they also wildly swing their arms out at their sides and point their noses skywards, but maybe they’ve got a little bit of a 'Slinky' gene. 

Further along was an Anglerfish before and after a meal. They have a very stretchy stomach that allows them to swallow prey much larger than themselves. A useful evolutionary feature to have, especially at Christmas. 

The female Football fish had a luminous lure to attract prey. The lure was more than twice the length of the fish. Again, it does make you wonder why humans haven’t evolved anything like this. That light would be so useful for reading in bed at night and finding that tin of Cannellini Beans at the back of the kitchen cupboard. 

There were selections of wonderfully formed  corals. They are actually animals and not plants. The shell selection looked like a selection of sweets from a first class confectionery shop. Some of the shells looked like the rib cages on a skeleton; they would be definitely painful to stand on. 

The King Crab looked like some nightmare from the Alien film franchise. Oddly enough they aren’t crustaceans, but belong to a species which includes spiders and mites. For some reason, I felt that was even more disturbing. 

One of the Starfishes had a forked arm. Apparently they are renowned for their ability to regenerate limbs, but the process can sometimes result in deformities, such as forked or branched arms. It does make you wonder why most life forms don’t have this regeneration ability… although I’d probably not want to regenerate two heads, thinking about it.

I reached a large hall that was crammed full of exhibits. It seemed that every spare space was displaying something. Huge skeletons and massive models of fish were suspended from the ceiling. This was excellent in the way that it allowed you to compare the relative sizes of these beasts. One of the skeletons was from a 15m Sperm whale. I’ve always wondered how they got their name, since I doubted it would be the obvious thing that came to my mind. Spermaceti is actually a waxy oil that’s held on the head of a Sperm Whale. Even now, the chin-rubbers aren’t totally sure of its purpose, but they think it might have something to do with the way the whales control their buoyancy. Much like the wax in one of those 1960s oil lamps, rising when it heats and sinking when it cools, the Sperm Whale might control its buoyancy by altering the temperature of its Spermaceti. I’ve always wondered what Ambergris looked like and a couple of examples were on display. This substance is created in the gut of some Sperm Whales, which they then excrete. The substance is highly prized and used in the manufacture of expensive perfumes. At least I know what to look out for when I walk the beaches now. 

It’s hard to believe that some of these massive sea mammals exist by eating the tiniest sea animals. They do this by filtering large amounts of sea water through hairy filters attached to their upper jaw called baleens. A baleen was on display from a Bowhead Whale’s mouth. It was massive and the Bowhead has 600 of these things!

I found myself in an art gallery of nature paintings. You’d think photography would have taken over the business of documenting nature, but illustrations still have their place today. They are better at highlighting specific features. 

I joined a conveyor belt crowd through the Dinosaur Hall. This was obviously a big pull for the family visitors. I gathered around the inevitable Tyrannosaurus Rex robot that growled at us and made some arthritic movements. The kids liked it though. Amazingly, one of the dinosaur fossils I'd see later showed evidence that it suffered from arthritis. The bones of dinosaurs had small cavities within them that made their bones light. This enabled them to grow very large. Birds have a similar bone feature, but the lightness is beneficial for flight rather than size. Birds are of course living dinosaurs. The Dinosaur Hall was quite dark making some of the displays hard to see. I was intrigued to see some fossils of dinosaur eggs, with one of them being hatched. A model of a dinosaur nest was on display with some baby dinosaurs looking out of the top of hatched eggs. An information board told me about layers of these Maiasuara nests that were found in Montana, USA. It seemed that they travelled in herds across the plains of western North America and then returned to the same nesting site each year, pretty much like modern birds do today. 

One of the displays was a large fossil of a ‘tale club’ from a Euoplocephalus. I reckoned this was one evolutionary adaptation that I was happy not to possess; especially when the associated note informed me that the club was formed ‘...by two large bony knobs fused together.’ 

The fossilised teeth on display seemed ridiculously large. The Megalosaurus even had coarsely serrated edges for slicing like some kitchen knives. There were thumb spikes too from a Torvosaurus and Iguanodon. They were useful fighting editions and no doubt helpful when scratching that awkward itch. There were plenty of fossil defensive shields too. Part of the purpose of human fingernails is to prevent damage to the end of the fingers and I wondered if they have evolved somehow from defensive shields. 

A fossil of an Iguandodon’s hip bone showed where it had broken and healed, slightly out of line, during the animal’s lifetime. Next door was the foot of a very large Iguanodon. Some of the toe joints have small frills of bony overgrowth, showing that the dinosaur suffered from arthritis. 

There was a lovely fossil of an Edmontosaurus. The duck-billed dinosaur was lying in its death position. Patches of fossilised skin could be seen over the backbone just in front of the hips. Most of the tail was missing, possibly eaten by a scavenger. 

It was hard to comprehend that we can relive these dramas millions and millions of years later. It had been an education walking through the Dinosaur Hall. I could have done with that illuminated lure from the female Football fish to see some of the displays though.

Green Zone

Blue Zone ticked (mostly), I headed to the Green Zone. According to my map, this contained areas as diverse as Birds, Insects, Fossils and Minerals. I walked into quite a large hall that sported the impressive skeleton of a Marlin at its entrance. The exhibits in the hall were part of a ‘human impact on nature’ theme. Since industrialised fishing began in the 1950s, the number of large predators such as marlin, tuna and sharks has reduced by 90%. How depressing. 

One jar contained an African Clawed Frog. These were exported to labs around the world from South Africa and were used for pregnancy testing from the 1930s to the 1960s. Female frogs were injected with urine, and if they spawned afterwards, it indicated a positive pregnancy test. Some of the frogs escaped and spread fungal diseases, critically endangering local wildlife. Thank goodness a more convenient test is used nowadays. 

There were some examples of nests that birds had partly built using rubbish. They were first recorded using human waste in the 1780s.  Today, birds use cloth, metal waste and single-use plastic. I thought of the squirrel that I’d seen this morning on the south bank of the Thames scampering away with a plastic bottle top. An information note said that some urban birds make use of discarded cigarette butts. The chemicals in the butt keep troublesome ticks, fleas, lice and mites away, but are toxic to the chicks. 

I left the hall and joined a corridor that had a huge collection of fossils, some of them massive. A lot of them were so high up,  they were impossible to see or read their notes, which was a bit of a shame.

I walked into a smaller hall that contained a collection of stuffed birds. There was a model of a Dodo that appeared, perhaps unsurprisingly, to have some frown lines. I was delighted to see a Bearded Vulture. It actually seemed smaller than the one that kept crossing paths with me in the Peak District in 2022 (see Dog Rock Dally). There was quite a nice example of a Griffon Vulture on display. An exhibit from 1800 showed a mass of Humming Birds. I wasn’t really sure whether these were models or stuffed birds. The colours had faded over time, but it was still an intriguing display. 

Leaving the birds behind, I came across some Bamboo. A note said that these are some of the fastest growing plants on Earth. Some species can grow up to 91cm in one day. 

Red Zone

I drifted into the Red Zone, a ‘rock’ section of the museum. This wasn’t as popular as the other parts of the museum and it was nice to get away from the crowds. It was maybe not as exciting, but there were still plenty of interesting items on display. I was particularly enchanted by a Gogotte. I’d never heard of these before. They were incredibly beautiful. You could almost imagine them being a sculpture in the Tate Modern. Millions of years ago in northern France, sand dunes deposited pure sand that subsequently formed sandstone. The contours and creases of a gogotte are the result of later geological processes where water rich in silica gradually filtered through the loose, pure sand. The silica then cemented the sand together to form the gogotte’s fluid lines. A natural wonder. 

A beautiful Ammonite fossil was on display. Ammonites thrived on earth 140 million years ago. As Ammonites grew, the chambers behind it became sealed off, leaving only a small connecting tube. It lived in the last chamber, called the body chamber. 

The Giant Clam Shell was beautiful too.  The ridges formed as the mollusc grew. These species thrived in warm, algae-rich water and stopped growing when exposed to stress factors such as changes in the seasons, tides and pollution. By counting the ridges on the shell, it’s possible to estimate its age. 

I was intrigued by an example of Stibnite. The mineral is so soft it can be bent over a candle flame. The mineral is the chief source of Antimony that is used in lead batteries and the semi-conductor industry. It was used as an eyeliner in Ancient Greece and Egypt which was a bad idea since it is poisonous. 

Similarly, I quite liked the mineral example of the crystal of Calcite. The mineral is the basis of limestone and chalk rocks and so is quite common. The crystals in the displayed specimen formed over a very long time in an empty gas cavity in volcanic lava. 

There was quite a nice display of the evolution of humans in the form of a timeline of skulls. These species evolved after our human branch split from the line that led to the Chimpanzee and the Bonobo. The split is estimated to have happened about 7 million years ago. Homo Sapiens are the only surviving human species. The chin-rubbers are still undecided as to who our direct ancestors were within this family tree.  I wondered what Creationists make of this display. 

In the Earthquake zone I entered a  replica of  a small supermarket and waited for the earthquake to occur. The simulation occurred at regular intervals and I’d heard the previous one on my approach to the display. It seemed to take a long time to build up to the earthquake and I got a bit bored and so moved on. Of course, a few seconds later when I was 20 yards away, I heard it rumbling again. 

Reflections

I reckoned that there were a few exhibition halls that I missed on my tour. Even so, I managed to cram a huge amount into the 4 hours I spent there. The exhibits were really fascinating and well presented. There are so many diverse items on display in the museum that you could spend many hours, if not days investigating the exhibits. It’s not surprising that the museum is so popular. Maybe a cold Sunday winter day wasn’t the best time to pay a visit. In some corridors and halls you really did feel as though you were on a conveyor belt of people and it was sometimes difficult to stop and concentrate on a particular exhibit. The building itself was remarkable and it was worth spending a little bit of time just studying its architecture and interior design. Don’t forget to pay homage to Wallace, tucked away in the dark corner on the upper landing of the Hintze Hall. 

I walked out of the exit into darkness. I’d now stretch my legs on a long walk back to my base at Blackfriars.