Yale University’s Peabody Museum is looking for “gemstones on steroids”
Veteran gemologist C.R. “Cap” Beesley is overseeing this year’s expansion of the Peabody Museum of Natural History’s Gem and Mineral Hall.
The museum, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, is located on the Yale University campus in New Haven, Conn. Beesley, founder and former president of American Gemological Laboratories, currently chairs the museum’s Mineral Advisory Board.
The expanded hall is set to open in October. Planned additions to its current collection include an 1,800-lb. Namibian quartz crystal, as well as major pieces of lime-green fluorite and aragonite. Beesley also hopes to add other large specimens—what he calls “gemstones on steroids”—to its collection.
The hall’s expansion is due to funding from David Friend, a mineral collector and cofounder of Carbonite.
“My interest in funding this important project is the hope that it will stir the imagination of visitors, as well as touch the lives of the next generation of museumgoers to develop and active interest in science,” Friend said in a statement.
Anyone interested in contributing to or loaning to the museum’s collection can contact Beesley at capbeesley@yahoo.com.
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