TREASURES

My museum is full of treasures, and here are just a few of them
  • NATURAL GLASS

Glass made by nature

Nature makes beautiful glass.

The black glass on the top left is obsidian. It is made in a volcano.

The black glass on the top right is a tektite. A tektite is silica-rich ground that was melted when a big meteorite hit Earth, splashed up into our atmosphere, where it cooled and hardened and then fell back to Earth.

On the bottom is a fulgurite. A fulgurite is a glass tube formed by the heat of a lightning strike hitting the sand.

  • THEY AREN’T WHAT THEY SEEM

Dendrites

Dendrites look like fossil plants. But they aren’t.

They are formed when a crystal grows on a rock and branches outwards and looks like a fern or tree. I have four very pretty dendrites in my museum.
  • OUR COOLEST VISITOR

Meteorite

This is a nickel-iron meteorite. It is from an asteroid. It has been sliced so that you can see its structure. It is very cool to have a visitor from space in my museum.

  • RAINBOWS EVERYWHERE

Newton Ball

I have a lead crystal prism that used to hang on an old chandelier. It breaks up the beam of sunlight that comes through the window in the morning and casts beautiful rainbows all over the place.

 
  • DIFFERENT COLOURED SALT

Kalahari & Himalayan Salt

The hunk of white salt came from a salt pan in the Kalahari near Askham.

My pink museum light is made from Himalayan salt that is mined in Pakistan. It looks very pretty at night.

  • MAGNETS ARE STRANGE THINGS

Magnets

Magnets are super cool. These are rainbow haematite magnets. I also have some of the strongest magnets in the world. They are called rare-earth magnets and are made from stuff called Neodymium.

 
  • AFRICAN IRON AGE

Tuyère

In my museum I have a thing called a tuyère from the African Iron Age which began about 1,800 years ago in Southern Africa.

  • RED SAND

Kalahari sand

Kalahari sand is amazing. It is red and very fine and soft. It is red because each grain of sand is coated with rust (iron oxide). The cool thing is that Mars is also red for the same reason!

When I was a little kid I was the only kid in Phalaborwa who had a sand box filled with red Kalahari sand!
  • BEAUTIFUL COLOURS

Mother of pearl

Abalone is a type of sea snail and they are known as perlemoen in South Africa,. The inside of their shells is iridescent mother of pearl called nacre. The glowing colours change when you move it around in the light.

I have some lovely examples in my museum – they were found on the beach outside Cape Town.

  • ANCIENT TOOLS

Bushman arrowheads

I have a few Bushman arrowheads in my museum that were found in the Eastern Cape. They were lying in an area that had lots of Glossopteris fossils lying in the veld. I wonder if the Bushman thought the fossils were strange?
  • GREAT HOMES

Wasp nests

I also have some paper and mud wasp nests in my museum. I really like wasps and two wasps built mud nests in my museum. The wasps flew in and out and did not sting me or my assistant because wasps are our friends. Bees are also our friends.