To all interested in old original samples of chemicals, The Chemistry Department of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris has an amazing collection of some natural products isolated well over 100 years ago, particularly some of the earliest samples of "fatty" compounds. For example I think I saw the first isolated sample of cholesterol by I think Fremy in their museum. Incidentally, their museum doubles as their lecture room with cabinets around the walls containing these historic samples and what is more remarkable there is an original _pre Mendeleev_ Periodic Table on view! Frank Riddell Frank Riddell, School of Chemistry, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9ST, Scotland, UK. Tel: + 44 (0) 1334 - 463815 Fax: + 44 (0) 1334 - 463808 E-mail: fgr@st-andrews.ac.uk Research group page: WWW: http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sc/personal/fgr Personal Photos page: WWW: http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sc/personal/fgr/Photos/ chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)