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.The museum is a dignified yet humble assemblage of geological wonders, intended as much for the delight and edification of miners and millworkers, blacksmiths and butchers, as it is for the parvenu and old-money families of Capitol Hill.Professor Jeremiah Ogilvy, both founder and curator of this Colectanea rerum memorabilium, has always considered himself a progressive sort, and he has gone so far as to set aside one day each and every month when the city’s negroes, coolies, and red Indians are permitted access to his cabinet, free of charge.Professor Ogilvy would—and frequently has—referred to his museum as a most modest endeavor, one whose principal mission is to reveal, to all the populace of Cherry Creek, the long-buried mysteries of those fantastic, vanished cycles of the globe.Too few suspect the marvels that lie just beneath their feet or entombed in the ridges and peaks of the snowcapped Chippewan Mountains bordering the city to the west.Cherry Creek looks always to the problems of its present day, and to the riches and prosperity that may await those who reach its future, but with hardly a thought to spare for the past, and this is the sad oversight addressed by the Ogilvy Gallery of Natural Antiquities.Before Professor Ogilvy leased the enormous redbrick building on Kipling Street (erected during the waning days of the silver boom of 1879), it served as a warehouse for a firm specializing in the import of exotic dry goods, mainly spices from Africa and the East Indies.And to this day, it retains a distinctive, piquant redolence.Indeed, at times the odor is so strong that a sobriquet has been bestowed upon the museum—Ogilvy’s Pepper Pot.It is not unusual to see visitors of either gender covering their noses with handkerchiefs and sleeves, and oftentimes the solemnity of the halls is shattered by hacking coughs and sudden fits of sneezing.Regardless, the professor has insisted time and again that the structure is perfectly matched to his particular needs, and how the curiosity of man is not to be deterred by so small an inconvenience as the stubborn ghosts of turmeric and curry powder, coriander and mustard seed.Besides, the apparently indelible odor helps to insure that his rents will stay reasonable.On this June afternoon, the air in the building seems a bit fresher than usual, despite the oppressive heat that comes with the season.In the main hall, Jeremiah Ogilvy has been occupied for almost a full hour now, lecturing the ladies of the Cherry Creek chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.Mrs.Belford and her companions sit on folding chairs, fanning themselves and diligently listening while this slight, earnest, and bespectacled man describes for them the reconstructed fossil skeleton displayed behind him.“The great anatomist, Baron Cuvier, wrote of the Plesiosaurus, ‘it presents the most monstrous assemblage of characteristics that has been met with among the races of the ancient world.’ Now, I would have you know it isn’t necessary to take this expression literally.There are no monsters in nature, as the Laws of Organization are never so positively infringed.”“Well, it looks like a monster to me,” mutters Mrs.Larimer, seated near the front.“I would certainly hate to come upon such a thing slithering toward me along a riverbank.I should think I’d likely perish of fright, if nothing else.”There’s a subdued titter of laughter from the group, and Mrs.Belford frowns.The professor forces a ragged smile and repositions his spectacles on the bridge of his nose.“Indeed,” he sighs, and glances away from his audience, looking over his shoulder at the skillful marriage of plaster and stone and welded-steel armature.“However,” he continues, “be that as it may, it is more accordant with the general perfection of Creation to see in an organization so special as this”—and, with his ashplant, he points once more to the plesiosaur—“to recognize in a structure which differs so notably from that of animals of our days—the simple augmentation of type, and sometimes also the beginning and successive perfecting of these beings.Therefore, let us dismiss this idea of monstrosity, my good Mrs [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]