Geoff Arnold

The joy of minerals

This morning I took the T to Harvard Square¹ to meet Kate and Tom for lunch, after which we headed over to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Our immediate objective was the exhibit "Origins: Life's First 3 Billion Years", which is closing soon. (Good exhibit, a bit smaller than I expected, but worthwhile.) However it was my first visit to the museum, so we explored. The famous glass flowers were breath-taking; it was interesting that I found the extraordinary accuracy of tangled roots, stalks and leaves more impressive than petals and stamens. The dinosaur fossils were fun, as always, and the ornithological section was remarkably comprehensive.

But the exhibition that stole my heart was in the Mineralogical and Geological collection. I took quite a few pictures: here are some thumbnails:

¹ A very dangerous place: I discovered the philosophy books section of the Harvard Coop, which cost me over a hundred dollars. More on that anon.