Spirit Collection work at the Booth Museum

In preparation for the upcoming event, ‘An evening at the BOOth Museum’, at the end of October, some specimens from the spirit collection have been rehoused in individual jars to enable visitors to get a closer, more detailed look at them on the night.

Some of the more unusual specimens in the collection will be on show at the event, including the deep-sea fish specimens in the images below.

These examples highlight the importance of reviewing the historic spirit specimen jars. There are many jars in the collection that look like the Sloan’s Viperfish jar, where multiple specimens are housed in a jar together, not mounted onto a backing board or in another way, and sometimes they’re very tightly packed in together, which risks damage and deterioration to the specimens.

There are also multiple jars of specimens stored in 5% Steedmans fluid. Steedmans was introduced for long term preservation of spirit specimens in the mid-late 1950’s. However, more recently, research has shown that this preserving fluid is not as stable as originally believed, and there have been examples of specimens starting to deteriorate in this fluid. A review of the specimens will help their long-term preservation.