DARWIN'S HOUSE TO BE RESTORED.Byline: Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune Daily newspaper published in Chicago. The Tribune is one of the leading U.S. newspapers and long has been the dominant voice of the Midwest. Founded in 1847, it was bought in 1855 by six partners, including Joseph Medill (1823–99), who made the paper Along a narrow lane just outside this quiet village sits a white, three-story house that naturalist Sir David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough, OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS (born on May 8, 1926 in London, England) is one of the world's best known broadcasters and naturalists. Widely considered one of the pioneers of the nature documentary, his career as the respected face and voice of British describes as ``one of the most important, evocative places in the history of thought.'' It is the home in which Charles Darwin spent his last 40 years. It was here Darwin wrote ``On the Origin of Species,'' which set out his revolutionary theories on evolution and, in Attenborough's words, ``changed forever our understanding of our place in the world.'' Despite its historic importance, the house has been allowed to fall into ruin. The roof leaks, the walls are under threat from damp and woodworm wood·worm n. A worm or an insect larva that bores into wood. woodworm Noun 1. a beetle larva that bores into wooden furniture or beams 2. , and the electrical and plumbing systems are antiquated. Darwin's greenhouse is badly decayed, and only a few bricks remain of his laboratory. But a government agency, English Heritage English Heritage is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) with a broad remit of managing the historic environment of England. It was set up under the terms of the National Heritage Act 1983. , and the British Museum British Museum, the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. of Natural History have combined forces and are undertaking a $4.68 million project to save Down House, as Darwin called his home, and its 36 acres of garden and parkland. Helped largely by a $2.8 million grant from the National Lottery National Lottery n → Lotto nt Heritage Fund, they have raised $3.9 million toward the overall cost. Now they are looking outside Britain - mainly to the United States and Japan - to see whether they can come up with the remaining $780,000. Attenborough and Stephen Jay Gould Noun 1. Stephen Jay Gould - United States paleontologist and popularizer of science (1941-2002) Gould , the Harvard evolutionary biologist, have played a major part in the fund-raising effort, speaking at public meetings and, in Attenborough's case, making a video for presentation to potential donors. He equates Darwin with such giants of scientific history as Galileo, Copernicus and Sir Isaac Newton. Nancy Giles, an American fund raiser for the Natural History Museum, said she hopes shortly to set up an organization in the United States to receive contributions for Down House. English Heritage hopes to reopen the house next summer and quadruple the number of visitors, to 20,000 a year. |
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