National Museum of Natural History

When you walk in the front door of this museum you are confronted with this. It is The Berns Quartz, a giant specimen of Arkansas Quartz. I realized after taking this picture that it's impossible to understand the size.

So I took another photo with a little kid in it for scale. It's big!

At the suggestion of Ira's Aunt Laurie, we first took a quick spin around the gift shop to get an idea of what we might expect to see featured in the museum. There was a section on the Hope Diamond and some Van Gogh Starry Night trinkets. This confused me since I was fairly certain Starry Night was not in DC (I checked, it's in New York).

As it turned out, it was part of the "Lights Out: Recovering Our Night Sky" exhibit. There was an interactive display of what the painting would look like with various amounts of light pollution. I thought that was kind of sneaky but nevertheless the exhibit was eye-opening. It explored the impact of light pollution on astronomy, natural ecosystems and human cultures, and encouraged visitors to consider the importance of dark nights. 

Most species on Earth evolved under predictable cycles of sunlight, moonlight and starlight. Nearly all organisms rely on external light cues to time sleeping, eating, mating and migrating. There is a growing consensus that light pollution is a big problem for organisms and ecosystems.

Corals use moonlight to trigger the synchronized release of eggs and sperm. But artificial lights disrupt mass spawning by masking natural cues. Some corals only reproduce once a year, so missed cues can be disastrous for the next generation. 

Stars fill the sky over Zion National Park, while just 160 miles away (a 2.5 hour drive) the lights of Las Vegas render the same vista completely blank. Ignore the reflections in the photo, it was difficult to take it without them. Suffice it to say, you could see nothing of the stars.

I found it interesting that Paris, "The City of Light" and more widely France updated their lighting regulations in 2019 to balance reducing light pollution with the cultural importance of lighting, especially on monuments and churches. There is now outdoor lighting curfews that turn out lights when no one's around and limits on glare and blue light emissions.

The Japanese town of Bisei -- whose name means "beautiful stars" enlisted the help of Panasonic to design streetlights to become Asia's first designated Dark Sky Community. The new fixtures meet the goal of zero upward light leakage. 

Flagstaff, Arizona became the first designated International Dark Sky Place in 2001. The Dark Skies Coalition says, "protecting the night sky just for astronomers would be like preserving the Grand Canyon just for geologists.".

Above is a photo of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, also in DC. The bronze facade keeps inside lights in. "The porch" uses just enough light to meet safety codes and is shielded from above, keeping light from shining into the sky.

Needless to say, I found this exhibit very interesting and enlightening. 

Next stop based on the gift shop clues was the Hope Diamond Exhibit. This is the diamond that inspired the "Heart of the Ocean" necklace from the movie Titanic. We arrived at the exhibit only to find this.

Due to ongoing
construction, the
Harry Winston Gallery
and Hope Diamond
exhibit are temporarily
closed.
We apologize for the
inconvenience.

Dagnabit! We're 0 for 2. It didn't stop us from buying the Christmas Ornament though, LOL! Maybe next time, it's not going anywhere soon. So we consoled ourselves with a visit to the National Gem Collection.

More than 7,500 individual gemstones, ranging from less than a half-carat to almost 23,000 carats fill the cases of this gallery. All the gems were cut from a mineral crystal that grew naturally within the Earth.

This collection totals more than 10,000 specimens of which virtually all the pieces are gifts from individuals. The gems now belong to the people of the United States.

Hall Sapphire and Diamond Necklace / Bismarck Sapphire Necklace

The Sapphire and Diamond Necklace features 36 matched sapphires from Sri Lanka totaling 195 carats. The deep sky-blue color contrasts brilliantly against the 455 diamonds weighing 84 carats, designed by Harry Winston.

The deep blue sapphire in the platinum Bismarck necklace designed by Cartier, Inc., is surrounded by 312 diamonds. It is named after it's donor, an American socialite who married German Count Eduard von Bismarck in the late 1930s.

Gifts from Napoleon

The French Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821) gave these two pieces of jewelry to his second wife, Empress Marie Louise. The diadem was a wedding present in 1810. Napoleon gave his wife the necklace a year later to celebrate the birth of their first son. Both were made by the French jewelers Nitot et Fils. 

  

There she is, wearing the necklace on the left and her diadem on the right. More than 100 diamonds totaling about 700 carats surround the Persian turquoise in the diadem. I guess the turquoise replaced the original stones before it was donated to the Museum. But still very cool to see the tiara up close. The necklace contains 172 diamonds totaling about 260 carats set in silver.

  

This is the Dom Pedro Aquamarine (10,363 carats). The crystal on the left was found in the late 1980s, the largest known aquamarine gem. The original crystal was almost two feet in length and weighed nearly 60 lbs. In 1992-1993, gem artist Bernd Munsteiner fashioned the gem and named it after the first two emperors of Brazil. A pattern of tapering "negative cuts" faceted into the two reverse faces of the obelisk, reflect the light, making it appear to glow from within. The vertical "lines" near the base are hollow tubes that formed naturally in the original crystal.

The Minerals and Gems Gallery

The minerals in this gallery are the most spectacular of a collection of more than 300,000 specimens discovered in all corners of the world. They represent more than a century of acquisitions by this Museum. Those not on display are maintained for scientific research.

Really, the display was overwhelming and difficult not to take pictures of everything. I include just a few of the ones that I thought were unusual.

Giant Gypsum

This is also gypsum and although they look so different, they all have the same chemical composition and atomic arrangement. Impurities or even slight changes in temperature or in the concentration of the solution feeding the gypsum's growth can trigger drastic differences in form. Did you ever experiment with growing crystals in science class? Fascinating!

Argonite

Geyserite

Geyserite, aptly named since it was collected in 1881 in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Steam and hot water erupted from its 17 vents to a height of 9m (30 ft). As the water cooled and evaporated, it deposited geyserite silica, a variety of opal. 

As I stepped back into the atrium, I found Ira by this display. You know how he loves ammonites. This one is from Alberta, my old stomping grounds.

They estimate this iridescent ammonite to be 71 million years old. The red, blue, orange and green colors are caused by the reflection of light from layers of aragonite that compose the shell. Because of it's similarity to opal, these shells are mined, cut, polished and sold under the gemstone name of "ammolite".

One quick shot of the atrium before heading down for lunch. Beautiful, right?

This was the view above our heads at lunch.

After lunch we meandered through a few other exhibits before hitting the gift shop on our way out. We were requested to arrive at Ira's cousin Charlotte's house by 3:00pm to put in our sous chef shift for "Paella night". 

Two of her friends were celebrating birthdays and she invited us over to visit and help celebrate. As guests began to arrive, each was in charge of chopping something that ended up in the paella. Charlotte was very excited to try out her new extra large paella pan. 

Not knowing anyone else there, we were expecting to be in and out and back at Phil and Laurie's for another game of Settlers of Cataan. But we were pleasantly surprised at how much fun we had with her friends and cousin Natalie. Natalie's grandmother, Jean was Ira's grandpa's sister. She was super fun and invited us to stay with her next time we were in town. Coincidentally, her boyfriend Jim up until recently, owned property in Southern Italy. He speaks Italian and loves Tuscany. So perhaps we might be hosting them soon?

That's it for today. More sightseeing tomorrow!

A dopo!