What would my great-grandfather have seen at the Smithsonian in 1855 when it first opened?

Great-grandpa might have seen a giant barometer, a German steam machine in the "Apparatus Room," grizzly bears, portraits of famous Americans and all kinds of natural wonders and curiosities at the Smithsonian Castle in 1855. You can read more in the first 1857 guidebook to the National Museum.

I say, what an amusing apparatus! ›