central park is growing green again . .
we were uptown in the afternoon for chanda to take an open ballet class before we visited the natural history museum.
(first we said hello to abe outside the new york historical society . . )
here we are at the natural history museum. these are kudus which are woodland antelope found throughout eastern and southern africa. these kudu came from tanzania at the base of mt. kilimanjaro where the land is rocky and arid and the vegetation primarily thorn shrub. they mainly eat shoots, leaves and buds and the male horns can grow up to six feet. they wander for food at dawn and dusk when it's cooler and rest in the shade during the hotter part of the day.
after walking through the hall of african animals we wandered into the hall of asian peoples. here we found a mural of the great wall of china . .
different chinese states built walls that protected their villages and farmland which were then joined together into one long wall when china became more unified shortly before the time of christ (i never knew this . . )
nice music they play while you walk through . . !
traditional indian sitar music . . (which i absolutely love . . )
the exhibits in the above movies reflect a traditional wedding festival and a mural of a wheat-farming village in central india about forty miles east of bhopal (their murals are always depictions of specific places).
the colossal olmec head found in vera cruz, mexico. the original is made of basalt. he wears a helmet-like headress that they think was worn for the ball game they played.
the aztec stone of the sun which can be found in the museum of anthropology in mexico city. it weighs twenty five tons and measures twelve feet in diameter. in the center is the sun diety tonatiuh who is surrounded by the four previous eras: the jaguar (top right square), the wind (top left square), the rain (bottom left) and the water (bottom right). there are different interpretations as to its meaning. you can read the wikipedia article here. i also have a picture of the tiled floor mosaic located on the ground floor of the museum here (we missed seeing the stone reproduction a year or so ago as it was being cleaned).
we finally made it to the hall of minerals and gems. in the center is a large meteorite that fell in greenland a very long time ago.
we read about how the chemical make-up of meteorites shows how far from the sun they may have been formed.
a drawing depicting the asteroid belt that circles mercury, venus, mars and earth. scientists study asteroids by spectroscopy: measuring how they absorb and reflect different wavelengths of light.
calcite! the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonite, which we were just studying a few weeks ago when we were reading about the limestone cycle.
picking out titanium on the periodic table . .
and looking for the minerals that have it such as schartzembergite . .
found in chile . .
other minerals with titanium . .
minerals with calcium . .
and mercury . .
gypsum from sicily and mooreite from new jersey, all containing mercury.
dinner at maison kayser . .
and then we met our friends to see the ballet . . which is the real reason we came uptown. justin peck collaborated with composer sufjan stevens on everywhere we go . . it was a fun and beautiful piece and we all loved it. my friend has always appreciated stevens' work (he's more of a pop musician, she says, who became involved with a more classical type of composition by working with his ballet dancer friend justin peck).
it was a beautiful night when we came out of the theatre, warm and comfortable with a full moon overhead.
