Darwin the Geologist

Today Sedgwick conservators attempted to reconstruct one of the Sedgwick Museum’s oldest skeleton replicas. Megatherium is an extinct giant ground sloth from the Pleistocene era in South America. An imposing specimen, it has the rather dubious distinction of having the world’s largest pelvis, bigger even than much larger creatures such as dinosaurs.

Megatherium fragments were some of Darwin’s most celebrated fossil finds, discovered on a beach in Punta Alta in 1833. His was not the first fossil of the species to be found but some of Darwin’s Megatherium parts were the first of their kind to be seen in Britain and of considerable interest to the palaentologists of the time.

The exhibition team were understandably interested in displaying an example of this creature. Since the Sedgwick is not in possession of Darwin’s larger fossils from the Beagle collection Museum staff had to cast about for alternatives for the display. Which is when they found this lithograph:

It depicts Adam Sedgwick’s museum as it appeared before it was moved to its current site on Downing Street and features a certain distinctive pelvis and leg.

Although incomplete – a partial pelvis, one leg and a tail – the cast is housed in pieces at the Museum’s stores and is a historic mount that wound have greeted Queen Victoria when she visited the old museum on its opening as well as Charles Darwin when he accompanied his old mentor to visit old friends in Cambridge.

However, piecing together this gargantuan fragment has proven no easy task. An attempt made earlier this week had conservators exhausted and baffled. ‘It looks like some pieces are still to be found and it will take at least four people to hold the metal frame in place while the partial skeleton is fully assembled’ reports conservator Esther Sharp. Another attempt has been scheduled for mid-August.

Once the Megatherium cast has been reassembled measurements can be taken and the design team can decide how best to display these distinctive and fascinating pieces of Darwin and the Museum’s past.