Dry Storeroom No. 1; The Secret Live of the Natural History Museum

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. First United States Edition. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/good. [10], 335, [5] pages. Further Reading. Index. DJ has some wear, soiling, and a small scuff at front. Richard Alan Fortey FRS FRSL (born 15 February 1946 in London) is a British paleontologist, natural historian, writer and television presenter, who served as President of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007. Fortey has had a long career as a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London; his research interests include above all, trilobites: at the age of 14, he discovered his first trilobite, sparking a passionate interest that later became a career. He has named numerous trilobite species and still continues his research despite having retired from the Museum. He studies trilobites and graptolites, especially those from the Ordovician and their systematics, evolution and modes of life; he is also involved in research on Ordovician palaeogeography and correlation; arthropod evolution, especially the origin of major groups and the relationships between divergence times, as revealed by molecular evidence and the fossil record. His scientific output includes over 250 papers on trilobites, Ordovician stratigraphy and palaeogeography. Derived from a Kirkus review. This thoroughly entertaining, beautifully written book displays the author's robust curiosity about scientific history and a gift for telling anecdotes. Each section focuses on a specific aspect of the museum's work: nomenclature, paleontology, zoology, botany, entomology and so forth. Each gives fascinating details about various aspects of its subject. The author also provides a wealth of detail about the scientists themselves, often as entertaining as the objects they study. We learn that Linnaeus named a particularly useless weed after one of his rivals and that the museum's technicians used to cook sausages over Bunsen burners in the back. He relates how various collections got started,. The famous controversies and hoaxes are here as well, notably the faked "Piltdown Man" fossil, which fooled two generations of anthropologists before it was exposed. The author offers a good explanation of why the establishment fell for the Piltdown hoax. We also learn how the museum has evolved with changing ideas about its function, especially since the last Conservative government decided that it needed to be self-supporting.