Review : Earthly presence

As impressive as a French government extravaganza, a kind of
son-et-lumière Journey To The Centre of the Earth, the Natural History
Museum’s new Earth Sciences gallery has landed. It skilfully replaces cabinets
with sound-bite geology, but the 12-year-old accompanying me commented that it
is “not properly interactive”. Since it is a London venture, it’s
sponsored—by the British conglomerate Rio Tinto Zinc. The subliminal
message? “Our Restless Earth . . . constantly changing”—or perhaps “eat
dross, eco-freaks”?