Is there a museum in the United States - or in the world, for that matter - that is more of a sure thing than the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City? Any resident of Manhattan's West Eighty-first Street will tell you that the stunning, new, glass-enclosed Hayden Planetarium continues to draw swarms of summer campers, student groups, and tourists to an already well-attended and well-loved campus. How many careers in science will be sparked by one of these visits, continuing a long tradition that includes paleontologists Alfred Romer and Stephen Jay Gould, as well as the current director of the planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson, whose fellow alumni of the Bronx High School of Science have stated that he's nabbed "the coolest job" of all?

For most of us, our experience at the museum, although a rich one, is largely superficial. A typical visit is confined to the curated collections made available for public viewing, the educational displays arranged by the museum's scientific staff, and the architecture that houses it all. Of course, there is much more to the museum, which is one of the great institutions of American science. Joseph Wallace's A Gathering of Wonders: Behind the Scenes at the American Museum of Natural History is a reasonably interesting and entertaining grab bag of portraits of the men and women who built and stocked the museum. It also provides quick overviews of the fields of science that their work has enriched since the museum was founded in 1869. Many may know of Roy Chapman Andrews' swashbuckling expeditions to the Gobi Desert in search of dinosaur skeletons, for instance, but Wallace's work is an attempt to educate casual museum goers in the lesser known lore of the AMNH.

The year of the museum's birth was an auspicious one in the history of science, with the founding of the journal Nature and the discovery of nucleic acids by the Swiss scientist Friedrich Miescher. In 1869, the museum's collection was in its embryonic stages and its physical plant essentially nonexistent. Wallace, also the author of The American Museum of Natural History's Book of Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Creatures, has not written a chronological, detailed history of the museum from those modest beginnings. As novelist John Nichols writes in the foreword, Wallace crams in "all the riches, tidbits, stories, information, personalities, gossip, and love of science . . . its history, and all its backroom maneuverings . . . a wonderful colorful gumbo." One might ordinarily skip a foreword, but Nichols has written an eloquent account of his love affair with the AMNH through the experiences of his grandfather John T. Nichols, at one time the curator of fishes at the museum. At its best, Wallace's writing lives up to the quality of Nichols's vivid reminiscence, though perhaps not often enough to make A Gathering of Wonders a consistently riveting read.

Wallace is very effective at outlining the museum's efforts in promoting natural resource conservation and the preservation of biodiversity, in cataloguing episodes of extinction, and in changing our view of the tempo and mode of evolution. His fondness for its scientific pioneers is evident throughout the book, beginning with his portrait of the legendary Carl Akeley. Akeley was a sculptor, preparator, and preservationist whose efforts to save African mountain gorillas and their habitats led to the establishment of Parc National Albert, "one of the first true sanctuaries established on the African continent," in 1925.

Those visiting the museum in New York may not realize the extent to which their experience of its offerings have been shaped by the technical skill and innovations of Akeley as a preparator of animal specimens. Wallace describes how Akeley introduced painted backgrounds behind taxidermic groups, and, more importantly, how he abandoned the old method of specimen preparation while working at Chicago's Field Museum. Instead of stuffing skins with straw, Akeley developed a more complex procedure involving clay mannequins, wood-and-wire armature, plaster models, cheesecloth, papier-mâché, and shellac - a complex mélange responsible for the realistic presentations that have graced the AMNH for most of this century. Akeley's work, in Wallace's telling, was always in the service of a reminder to protect "such spectacular, irreplaceable animals and perhaps . . . inspire us to help prevent their destruction."

Other figures of importance include Mary Cynthia Dickerson, whose work and accomplished career are rescued from obscurity by Wallace in his chapter on the museum's admirable efforts in collecting and protecting rare species. Dickerson, born in 1866, paid her own way through the Universities of Michigan and Chicago on her way to becoming a pioneer in a male-dominated field. Her efforts were varied and tireless, including leadership of the museum's Department of Herpetology, where she produced exhibits and organized the work of talented collectors. In addition, she wrote popular books, wrote and edited for the American Museum Journal (now Natural History), and, amazingly, led the Department of Woods and Forestry. Wallace shows how her natural reserve may have prevented her from garnering the accolades she surely deserved from the wider scientific community. Although her untimely death at the age of 57 cut short her career, Wallace's use of written and oral tributes from Dickerson's colleague, Maud Slye, gives us a moving impression of an inspirational life.

Among the "tidbits, information, and personalities" in the book are accounts of former presidents Henry Fairfield Osborn and Morris K. Jesup, and of curators such as Bashford Dean (ichthyology), Charles Myers (herpetology), George Harlow (mineral and gems), Robert Parr Whitfield (geology), and many others. Also considered are the studies of museum personnel in systematics, molecular biology, biodiversity, evolutionary theory (punctuated equilibrium), and their efforts in public education.

At times, Wallace sacrifices depth for breadth and leaves the reader wishing for a more thorough discussion of the most compelling chapters in the museum's history. The book also suffers occasionally from a bit of hero worship, which might be explained by the author's previous association with the AMNH through his work on dinosaurs, and by the fact that this book is published "in conjunction with the AMNH." The result is a bit of cheerleading for the museum, which, however understandable, leaves the reader with the impression that the work is partly an effort at public relations.

That said, A Gathering of Wonders does give the reader a nice introduction to some of the museum's scientists, history, and holdings. At its best, it conjures up some of the museum-related magic of E.L. Konigsburg's classic children's book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which tells of the adventures of two children who hide overnight in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wallace quotes Leslie Van Gelder, daughter of longtime chairman of mammalogy Richard Van Gelder:

To go to the museum from our home in New Jersey meant we had to get up at 5:30 A.M., which made the whole experience seem dreamlike. . . . The lights would just be coming on as we walked through the museum's halls. We would have the run of the place - as long as no one saw us - and we felt somehow that the museum was ours. As if we had some sort of special claim on this incredible place.