Darwin's pickles

The Natural History Museum in London launched this month the first phase of a major project that will allow visitors not only greater access to its vast collections of specimens, but also the sight of researchers working with the material on several major research projects. Phase one of the new Darwin Centre at the museum, allows the public showing of 22 million zoology specimens preserved in jars of alcohol. The collection covers more than 200 years of scientific discovery and includes creatures collected by Captain Cook on his Endeavour voyage in 1768 and animals collected by Charles Darwin on his historic HMS Beagle expedition. The collection is stored in 450,000 glass jars of alcohol and needs to be kept in carefully controlled conditions. The collection is now housed in a cold store where the temperature is kept at 13 o C, below the flash point of alcohol. The constant low temperature greatly reduces fire risks and special alcohol sensors in the storerooms alert the extraction systems if there is an alcohol spillage. The Victorian approach to museum building was to maintain a distinct barrier between staff and public areas. But in the Darwin Centre, the public can go behind the scenes and explore the museum's work. Visitors can look through a glass screen into the storerooms and up through the six-storey atrium to appreciate the volume of material kept there. Illuminated floor-to-ceiling cases allow a close-up view of specimens. Guides lead visitors among the collections to explain their importance. Another significant improvement is the introduction of the tank room, which houses large stainless steel containers for bigger specimens such as swordfish, loggerhead turtles, conger eel and giant squid. The largest tank is four metres long. Phase two of the Darwin Centre, due to open to the public in 2007, will house the museum's entomology and botany specimens. The collections include important material collected by Sir Hans Sloane in the 17 th century, given to the nation on his death in 1753. The 'dry' collections of phase two are susceptible to attack from pests and we need to be made airtight. " Our beetle collection is the principle point of reference for scientists across the world wishing to combat crop blight, " says Martin Brendell, lead curator of entomology. " Built up over 100 years, it's still mostly stored London's Natural History Museum has one of the largest and oldest collections …