S M I T H S O N I A N   I N S T I T U T I O N
N A T U R A L   M U S E U M   O F   H I S T O R Y

Washington D.C.

Friday, October 29, 2004

Museum: #3

Highlights: 124 million scientific specimens and cultural artifacts from around the world, interesting exhibits, three floors of Museum fun.

Lowlights: I only have 1.5 hours to tour the Museum.

Address: 10th Street and Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, D.C. 20560

Hours: Regular hrs 10:00am to 5:30pm, extended hrs May 26 through Sept 4 - 10:00am to 7:30pm.

Admission: Free!

Phone: (202) 633-1000

Access: Wheelchair accessible.

Link: Official Website

Rating:

(5 max)

I arrive at the front doorsteps of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. The Museum's publicly displayed collection, as well as its extensive behind-the-scene archives, contains over 125 million separate artifacts and specimens. A world famous center for research, the Museum is dedicated to the furtherance of public education and scholarship in the sciences, arts, as well as history.

Outside the Museum's front entrance, on either side of its stone stairway, I find two tempting teasers that give the public a small glimpse into the types of interesting exhibits that are on display within the Museum. To the right we have an excellent example of petrified wood, claiming to be over 200 million years old, it's the largest petrified display I've ever seen. To the left I see a huge hunk of banded iron ore that is both beautiful and smug with one-upmanship, claiming to be more than 10 times older than its petrified neighbor.