Consigning dusty old museum to pages of history
On a brilliant sunny May day flags fluttered from buildings, shops closed to mark the celebration and Victorian Edinburgh squeezed into every available space to greet young Prince Alfred with what The Scotsman reported as being: "every demonstration of loyalty".
Queen Victoria's son was to open the impressive new Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art. Its cavernous interior was stuffed with curiosities like the Potomogle Velox – a giant otter shrew – specially brought from Old Calabar; the remains of an alligator from South America; and 12 live rattlesnakes transported from Philidelphia.
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