iiWril— iiiimii »», ^ CHICAGO/^ /£*:- * HISTORY ^^ ^,.y - MUSEUM .'/,€» fffnv 4963 \* BERTRAM G. WOODLAND Curator of Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology GLACIERS at this time of year it seems appro- XXpriate to turn our thoughts to snow and ice, and to glaciers and ice sheets. Mountain glaciers such as those in the Alps or on Mount Rainier, Washington, have long been known and studied, while our knowledge of the vast ice expanses of Greenland and Antarctica has been greatly increased during the last dozen or so years. The International Geo- physical Year, 1957-58, provided a spe- cial impetus to the exploration and scien- tific study of Antarctica. It is now known that glaciers and ice sheets cover between 5% and 6 million square miles, or about one-tenth of the total land surface of the world. Antarc- tica accounts for by far the largest pro- portion— nearly 4J4 million square miles, not including more than % million square miles of shelf ice which, although an extension of the ice sheet, is actually floating on the sea. Greenland is very largely buried beneath more than 600,- Page 2 JANUARY 000 square miles of ice. The remainder of the world's glaciers is comprised of very much smaller areas such as those of Baffin and Ellesmere Islands, Alaska, Spitsbergen, Iceland, and the mountain glaciers of Asia, New Zealand, South America, Norway, and the Alps. Where the mountains are sufficiently lofty, gla- ciers are even found near the equator such as on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tan- ganyika, and on Cotopaxi in Ecuador. Within recent years it has been pos- sible to estimate the thickness of the Ant- arctic and Greenland ice by seismic methods and by measuring the force of gravity. In the former method an ex- plosive charge is set off in the ice below the surface. The time taken for the waves produced by the explosion to reach the rock floor beneath the ice and to be reflected to the surface is a measure of the thickness of the ice at that point. The second method utilizes the fact that the force of gravity at any point depends This month's featured exhibit includes the miniature diorama of a typical valley (or mountain) glacier shown at left. Adjacent exhibits in Hall 34 show the differences be- tween such glaciers and ice sheets, give their locations around the globe, illustrate their features, and explain their origins, move- ments, and effects upon the earth's surface. This month's cover is an oblique aerial view overlooking Queen Alexandra Range, Antarctica. Part of Beardmore Glacier is shown. This official U. S. Navy photograph was taken by photo-mapping planes at an altitude of 20,000 feet. (Photograph courtesy of Richard Lewis.) on a number of factors including the density of the material lying beneath the surface. Different thicknesses of ice will, accordingly, produce variations in the force of gravity which can be measured by very sensitive instruments. Results indicate that the Antarctic ice has an average thickness of more than 1 34 miles and that over much of the central areas of both Greenland and Antarctica the ice is almost 2 miles thick. The weight of this colossal volume of ice has depressed the land of Antarctica perhaps as much as 3000 feet under the thicker ice so that large areas of the rock floor are beneath sea level. If all the ice were to melt, the land would slowly rise to compensate for the reduced load and Antarctica would truly be seen as a vast continent with towering mountain ranges whose peaks rise more than 16,000 feet above sea level. The western por- tion, probably, would become an island archipelago. At the same time, the return of all the water now locked in the ice sheets would naturally raise the level of the oceans. It is difficult to say by exactly how much because the ocean floor would presum- ably sag under the extra weight, but it might amount to about 150 feet. This would be catastrophic for many coastal cities throughout the world. Glaciers are, of course, active features of the landscape. Snow fall nourishes their surface, which gradually changes downward, by thawing and freezing and compaction, into a denser but still po- rous mass of spheroidal ice particles called firn, or neve, and then into ice of increasing density. In the initial develop- ment of a glacier the continued accumu- lation of ice eventually leads to instabil- ity. The ice tends to deform plastically and to move out under the influence of its own weight, much as a mound of pitch does on a warm day. This plastic flow, which is a complex phenomenon not yet completely understood, will start in a relatively thin mass of ice of the order of about 150 feet in thickness. Increasing thicknesses of ice lead to greater movement and spread of the ice. This movement is naturally aided by gravity. Ice accumulating around the peaks of a mountainous area flows down into the valleys, which become filled with glaciers. However, movement ac- complished by the sliding of the whole mass on its bed, is much less than that caused by the plastic flow of the ice itself. Glaciers continually lose some of their bulk by evaporation, melting — particu- larly at their extremities — and by calv- ing— that is, the breaking off of large masses into the sea to form icebergs. But as long as nourishment from snow exceeds wastage the glacier continues to expand. Expansion continues until wastage of the enlarged sheet or glacier equals additions to the surface, at which point equilibrium is reached; but al- though the glacier front is now station- ary the ice is still flowing within the glacier. If the rate of nourishment di- minishes or if the temperature increases to cause greater melting, the glacier di- minishes in size and its margin retreats. The two-mile thickness of the Green- land and Antarctic ice may represent the greatest thickness obtainable in an ice sheet because at that thickness out- ward flow appears to balance accumu- lation. The rate of movement of a glacier is controlled by many factors such as tem- perature, amount of melt-water, slope, nature of the floor, and thickness of the ice. In the Alps movements of about a foot a day are common. The coastal glaciers of Greenland which issue into the sea have unusually high velocities of up to 100 feet a day, but the main mass Schematic perspective sketch of the Chicago region about 8,000 B.C. showing glaciation. The view is northward over the ancestor of Lake Michigan. Drawing by Tibor Perenyi, Geology staff artist. of the ice sheet, and also that of Antarc- tica, moves very slowly — perhaps an inch or so a day. Advances and retreats of glaciers have been noted in many areas in recent his- torical times and they have been closely studied in Switzerland where they were readily accessible to centers of learning. Here the retreats revealed clear evidence of glacial action, such as striations on rock surfaces and mounds of debris left by the melting of the ice. During the latter part of the 18th century and the early part of the 1 9th century the loose superficial detritus which mantled much of the ground of northern Europe was believed to have been deposited by a catastrophic flood equated with the Bib- lical deluge. As this idea became un- tenable, a new concept replaced it which advocated the distribution of deposits by drift ice floating on a sea which had once submerged much of the lands. This theory, supported and elaborated by Sir Charles Lyell about 1835, was widely adopted. However, a number of scien- tists were already proposing the glacial theory for the origin of the deposits and suggesting, from the evidence studied in Switzerland, that there had been a great extension of the glaciers in former times. K. F. Schimper first used the name "Ice Age" in 1837. It was Louis Agassiz, the famed Swiss naturalist, however, who was responsible for the wide acceptance of the idea of the Great Ice Age, ex- pounding it in Switzerland in 1837. Three years later, in London, he pro- vided evidence for the conclusion that much of Britain had been covered by glaciers, and in 1846 he performed the same feat for the northeastern United States. Today the concept of the Ice Age is completely accepted as fact and a tre- mendous amount of data is available on its extent, advances, and retreats. The onset of glaciation was presumably grad- ual and is believed to have been effected less than a million years ago, at the be- ginning of the Pleistocene epoch. The ice sheets spread over large areas in the Northern Hemisphere (see map) and the areas of mountain glaciation were ex- tended, reaching to much lower alti- tudes in the Alps, Himalayas, and even (Continued on next page) January Page 3" in the tropics. The Antarctic ice sheet was undoubtedly larger, submerging even more of the present marginal moun- tain peaks and spreading out even fur- ther into what is now ocean. At the maximum extent it is estimated that as much as one-third of the world's land was under ice. The ice sheet in North America alone probably amounted to nearly 5 million square miles and was 10,000 feet thick in its central region, around Hudson Bay. The withdrawal of water from the oceans lowered sea level possibly as much as 350 to 400 feet below present levels. Study of the deposits left behind by the ice sheets in North America and Map of the northern hemisphere. Black areas show existing glaciers; dotted areas the combined maximum extent of the Pleistocene glaciations. Europe prove that the glaciation was not a single event, but was marked by repeated major advances and retreats of the ice. During the retreats or inter- glacial periods the ice disappeared from North America and there is floral and faunal evidence that the climate was even warmer than at present. There are generally believed to have been four major glaciations separated by inter- glacial periods. The latest glacial pe- riod had several partial retreats and re- advances and evidences of these oscilla- tions are found in the Great Lakes area. Confirmation of the alternating gla- cial and interglacial conditions has also been found in cores of sediments lying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean sea. It is possible by measuring the ratio of oxygen isotopes Page J, JANUARY in fossil shells to estimate the surface water temperatures at the time they lived. Also, the sediments containing the shells may be dated by determining certain ratios of radio-active elements. In this way changes of temperature equated with glaciations and deglacia- tions have been proved and dated. Thus the last major glaciation is thought to have started about 65,000 years ago and to have more or less ended about 10,000 years ago when the sea warmed up, al- though at that time ice sheets still ex- tended as far south as the Great Lakes. The vanished glaciers have left behind them many signs of their former pres- ence. The grinding moving mass of ice strongly eroded the ground beneath and modified valleys, gouged out basins which now form lakes — our Great Lakes owe their origin in large part to the ice sheets — and sculptured mountain ranges in characteristic ways. Towards the margin of the ice and in front of it large quantities of debris were dumped as the ice melted back, forming a cover of till, or drift as it is still known, recalling the old abandoned drift theory of its origin. Large temporary lakes were formed in front of the ice, and the deposits in one such glacial lake — "Lake Agassiz" — now form the fertile plains of North Dakota, Minnesota, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Modification of drainage patterns led to the formation of many waterfalls along water courses estab- lished after the ice retreated. A notable example is Niagara Falls. The erosional and depositional effects of the Ice Age were truly profound. They influence our scenery, agriculture, transportation, power supply, and urban settlement. There is still much dispute about the causes of the Pleistocene glaciations with their world-wide advances and retreats. Apart from the necessity of an adequate amount of precipitation of snow to form the glaciers, many people consider that a general lowering of the average annual temperature by some 9° to 13° F. is re- quired to initiate a glaciation. Many theories have been proposed to account for such a lowering. Changes in the atmosphere, such as greatly in- creased volcanic dust, which would cause greater humidity and cut off some of the sun's heat, have been suggested but are now little entertained. Theories which not only explain lowering of tempera- ture but would cause periodic increases and decreases have been developed around the known small variations in the earth's motion around the sun. Such periodic changes as would result, how- ever, are generally regarded as being too small in effect to explain the glacia- tions. Variations in the radiation from the sun have also been invoked. Meas- urable changes take place related to the 11 -year sun spot cycle and elaborate tables have been prepared attempting to correlate these changes with climatic records of historic times and with the glacial advances occurring in the mid- 18th and 19th centuries. These attempts are not entirely convincing, however, and the relationships that have been claimed may be illusory or coincidental. G. C. Simpson has produced one well- known theory relating the four glacial periods to two periods of increased solar radiation. In 1956 M. Ewing of Columbia Uni- versity and W. L. Donn of Brooklyn College proposed that the glaciations were controlled not by initial changes in temperature but by the interchange of Arctic and Antarctic waters. Flow of warm water into the Arctic ocean would free it of sea ice and cause greater pre- cipitation of snow on the surrounding lands. Development of the ice sheets would themselves cause a deterioration in the weather. The resulting lower average tempera- tures throughout the world would cause glacial advances, cooling of the Atlantic, and lowering of ocean levels. Eventually the lowered sea level would inhibit the flow of Atlantic water into the Arctic and the latter would freeze over. Pre- cipitation would decline drastically and the ice sheets would waste away, pro- ducing an interglacial period. This trend would be reversed when rising sea level would again permit greater north- ward flow into the Arctic and the melt- ing of the sea ice. According to this theory, the Pleisto- cene glaciation was iniatited when the upper layers of the earth slipping over the interior resulted in the present rela- tionships of sea and land relative to the north and south poles. The Antarctic ice developed as a consequence of high {Continued on page 8) CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM News C«IM»H'lvl Memorial Fund Contributions A Museum Memorial Fund was in- augurated last year for gifts made to the Museum in honor of departed friends and relatives. During 1962 con- tributions were received in memory of the following persons: Colonel George Langhorne, Mrs. Stanley Field, Mrs. Walter Strong, Holman Pettibone, Walther Bu- chen, Frederick H. Carpenter, I. H. Streicher, Colin C. Sanborn, Com- mander Frank V. Gregg, Wilfrid D. Hambly, Mrs. R. M. Strong, George T. Donoghue, Dr. Sharat K. Roy, Karl P. Schmidt. Nature Photography Exhibit Nature photographers who wish to compete in the 18th Chicago Interna- tional Nature Photography Exhibition to be held at the Museum from Febru- ary 2 to 24 should submit their entries to the Museum no later than January 14. The photographic exhibition, largest of its kind in the world, is sponsored jointly by the Chicago Nature Camera Club and Chicago Natural History Mu- seum. Last year 455 prints and 2,639 slides were submitted. This year the slides that have been ac- cepted for the exhibition will be shown at two public viewings — on Sunday, February 3, and Sunday, February 10, at 2:30 p.m., in the James Simpson Theatre. The exhibition is divided into two categories — prints and transparencies — with contest rules requiring that no more than four entries be submitted in either one. These two major categories are divided again into three separate classi- fications: 1) Animal Life; 2) Plant Life; and 3) General (any natural history sub- ject not included in the preceding, such as clouds, landscapes, ancient ruins, etc.). Silver medals and ribbons will be awarded in all of the classifications. Prints submitted from anywhere in the United States must be (and foreign entries preferably should be) mounted on 16 x 20-inch mounts. Color slides or transparencies should not exceed 3J4 x 4 inches. Contestants may enter both slides and prints. The entry fee is $1.00 plus return postage for each of the two categories. Entry forms may be obtained by writing the Museum (Roose- velt Road at Lake Shore Drive), enclos- ing a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Staff Notes Ernest J. Roscoe, a former Assistant in Lower Invertebrates, has been appointed to the staff of the Museum's Raymond Foundation. As a member of one of the Museum's educational divisions, he will organize and conduct workshops, lec- tures, and tours on the subject of geol- ogy. Roscoe graduated from the Uni- versity of Utah, and has done post grad- uate work at the universities of Michi- gan and Kansas. His master's degree Chicago Natural History Museum Founded by Marshall Field, 1893 Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5 Telephone: WAbash 2-9410 THE BOARD OF Lester Armour Wm, McCormick Blair Bowen Blair Walter J. Cummings Joseph N. Field Marshall Field, Jr. Stanley Field Clifford C. Gregg Samuel Insull, Jr. Henry P. Isham J. Howard TRUSTEES William V. Kahler Hughston M. McBain J. Roscoe Miller William H. Mitchell John T. Pirie, Jr. John Shedd Reed John G. Searle John M. Simpson Solomon A. Smith Louis Ware Wood OFFICERS Stanley Field, Chairman of the Board Clifford C. Gregg, President Hughston M. McBain, First Vice-President Joseph N. Field, Second Vice-President Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President Solomon A. Smith, Treasurer and Assistant Secretary E. Leland Webber, Secretary THE BULLETIN EDITOR E. Leland Webber, Director of the Museum CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator of Anthropology John R. Millar, Chief Curator of Botany Rainer Zangerl, Chief Curator of Geology Austin L. Rand, Chief Curator of Zoology MANAGING EDITOR Paula R. Nelson, Public Relations Counsel ASSOCIATE EDITOR Marilyn Jindrich, Associate in Public Relations Members are requested to inform the Museum promptly of changes of address. was obtained in zoology, and he has also a strong background in geology. Dr. Edward J. Olsen, Curator of Min- eralogy, has been appointed a Lecturer in the Department of Geophysical Sci- ences, University of Chicago. Dr. Olsen is the second member of the Department of Geology so honored by the University, the other being Dr. Rainer Zangerl, Chief Curator of Geology, who was ap- pointed a Lecturer in 1948. Morris Johnson, skilled carpenter in the Museum's building and maintenance department, retired at the end of 1962 after 34 years of service. Johnson, who first came to the Museum as a carpenter in February, 1928, will be missed by those who have worked with him through the years. Credit Credit for compliments received on the December Bulletin cover featuring Chinese belt toggles belongs to Theodore Halkin, artist in the Department of An- thropology, who designed the cover, and to John Bayalis and Homer V. Holdren, who made the photographs. Audubon Lecture "Pika Country," a color wildlife film by Emerson Scott, will be presented free on Sunday, January 6, in the James Simpson Theatre at 2:30 p.m. The movie is the fourth in a series of nature films scheduled at the Museum during 1962 and 1963 by the Illinois Audubon Society. Free Concert A reminder to those who have not yet written for tickets to the Gerard Sou- zay-Maureen Forrester joint recital to be presented on Wednesday, January 16, at 8:15 p.m., in the James Simpson The- atre : tickets may be obtained by send- ing a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Free Concerts Foundation, Chicago Natural History Museum, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 5. JANUARY Page 5 SUCCESS IN VIEW A third report from the W. S. and J. K. Street Expedition of Chicago Natural History Museum to Iran Tehran Palace Hotel Tehran, Iran October 77, 7962 (By W.S.S.) As reported in last month's Bulletin, at our second camp located near the village of Sama, we hunted in the forests at an altitude of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet. Then we dropped down to Chalus and camped on the shores of the Caspian Sea, 85 feet below world sea level. A highlight of the collecting at Chalus was Douglas Lay's discovery of mole burrows all over the forest floor. Though hampered by several days of heavy rain, he managed to collect several specimens. Another stimulating catch was a nice series of shrews. We also got a large series of a species of horseshoe bat for which this is the third Iranian locality. Doug was the lucky one to collect our first specimen of the jungle cat, Felis chaus. On the night of the earthquake,1 Doug was out pig hunting. Mrs. Street and I had driven back across the Elburz Mountains to Tehran for provisions, and Doug didn't even know about the earth- quake catastrophe until three days later when we returned. After about a week at Chalus, we took off for West Azerbaijan. Most of the animals that we finally got there were known to be in Russia, Turkey, and Iraq, across the border, but had not yet been found in Iran. It was rewarding to come away with incontestable evi- dence of their presence here. Thus we are fulfilling the goal of the Museum ex- pedition, which is to increase the knowl- edge of the mammalian fauna of Iran. In her last report, Janice mentioned the exciting road from Tehran to Chalus, which winds up to around 11,000 feet and then down to 85 feet below sea level, Douglas Lay and Mrs. Street in camp near Rezaiah 1 September 7. More than 7,600 people were buried in this catastrophe. Page 6 JANUARY all in four and a half hours of travel. The road was built by the Germans for Reza Shah, the present Shah's father, and is mostly paved. The road from Bandar Pahlevi (see map) to Astara is another matter. Its washboard surface left us, and the cars, quite shaken. Astara is on the Russian border — a highly sensitive spot. The U.S.I.S. in Tehran was very doubtful of our ability to get there without military passes, and the Iranian Embassy in Washington had been downright discouraging. We only had letters from the Iranian Game Council to their outlying office in Re- zaiah, but we bravely charged into Astara and were promptly escorted to the Mili- tary Intelligence headquarters. A nice Iranian officer, some pleasantries by us, and the Game Council's letter did the trick. At Ardabil the same thing happened, and we were again O.K.'d. At Rezaiah an intelligence man caught up with us. However, all was well. The local head of the Game Council to whom our letter was addressed took us in hand beauti- fully. He had me meet the general in charge of the entire West Azerbaijan area, and also the Governor General. The latter, it turned out, had a daughter at the University of California at Davis, where Janice's niece had been — a part of the University of California dear to our hearts. We were quick to advise him of this and he brightened percep- tibly and went out of his way to respond. Our scientific collecting from Camp Six, near Rezaiah, was very productive. The expedition took what Doug thinks may be a new species of bat; certainly it is at least a new record for Iran. The hunting was not too good for the large animals, but we got lots of small mam- mals: foxes, rabbits, bats, mice, otters, and wildcats. We did not get a wolf, but I was very pleased to shoot a beauti- ful otter one night for the collection. From Rezaiah we drove 180 miles northward to Maku, near the Turkish and Russian borders. It was surprising to see the number of adventurous souls driving along this road which leads from Europe to Asia — mostly Germans and English, some by car or jeep, some by motorcycle, and some even hitch-hiking ! In the vicinity of Maku we collect- ed wild goats, six kinds of bats, many kinds of rodents, two insectivores, sev- eral hares, and a wild pig. Often Doug and I, or more rarely Janice, would get up on top of the car to sit in the spare tire frame which is laid flat on the front of the top of the car. There, with our headlights on and swaying with the car, we hunted at night. On one such night two nice jerboas ran across the road in front of the car. (The jerboa looks like a kangaroo rat, with long hind legs that propel it like a rocket.) After an hour or so, with some adroit driving by Nicola above us) and a tremendous vista of Gurgan and the Turkoman plains. After leaving Tehran, we headed for Semnan. We arrived there quite late when it was very dark except for the bright starlight. We found a shelter dug into the cliffs well off the road, and there we put our lantern and kerosene burner and made a huge kettle of soup. When the moon came up, it was quite pictur- esque. That night we all slept out under the stars and we pitched the tents next morning. At Semnan, Bill, Nicola, and I took a climb, hoping to find wild goats. Up about 1,500 feet through a pass we stalked, only to find rocks and cliffs but nary a living creature. We also had a local hunter out for a day and a half, and he returned empty-handed. How- ever, we did find numbers of fat, roly- poly conies, or pikas. In the meanwhile, Doug visited an abandoned mine shaft up the mountain. He found one bat there, which he thinks may be a new one for Iran. He also shot a big sand viper on the rocks. U. S. S. R. and a lucky shot from me on the top of the car, we got one. Doug thinks it is a second record for Iran, the only other being from 500 miles away. Camp near Gurgan - October 23, 1962 (By J.K.S.) It is a wet, foggy morning. We are encamped about five miles southeast of Gurgan at an elevation of 1,100 feet and on the edge of a beautiful forest. It's a nice camp, with good water (no villages The trip from Semnan on to Gurgan was both interesting and beautiful. Fol- lowing a most winding road, we climbed through and around the bare, stark mountains. The colors were utterly fabulous — red, rosy brown, turquoise, earth brown, and bits of pale bronze. A new facet of beauty emerged around each curve. It was thrilling to see the jagged, knife-like ridge against the blue sky. When we reached the sum- mit at 8,000 feet a great plain lay be- neath us, all the soft desert colors climbed to the sky, and the villages melted into the landscape. Dark settled in early, and we couldn't find a place to camp, so we decided to go in to Gurgan and try to find a hotel. It was well after eight when we arrived, and it was raining and miserable. We entered the hotel through a nar- row, battered hall and into a court- yard. Bill took three rooms: one for Douglas and Nicola, one for Niqui, Bah- ran and Ali, and one for us. Now this wasn't like the Tehran Palace Hotel or the Blackstone in Chicago, but they allowed us to carry in our pot of chicken stew to warm in the kitchen and our own bread. And the beds looked clean. We ate dinner on a table in the second floor hall, finishing about 11:15 p.m. with everybody happy. Next morning the four of us went to see the local head of the Game Council. He was ill in bed on the floor, but re- ceived us with a beret on and cookies and fruit there on the floor beside him. His wife was charming to us and we were served cookies, fruit, and Turkish coffee in tiny cups. He called the Gov- ernor for us and made an appointment. Later Bill and Nicola saw the Gover- nor and reported that he was delightful, and that he warmed up to all the infor- mation about the expedition. From there we went to see the colonel who is in charge of this border area. We took passport pictures of Douglas with the Polaroid, and in an hour we had official permits signed and sealed for every place we wanted to go until our return to Tehran. All he stipulated was that we please don't shoot too near the Russian border. After setting up our camp near Gur- gan, Bill, Nicola, and I drove out on the Turkoman plains to within 20 miles of the Russian border. There we found things bare and bleak. A few camels and poor cows could be seen. At the town of Pahlevi Dezh the Turkoman men wear cossack hats of black caracul, with velvet crowns of emerald green, gold, or beige. The shape of their eyes is quite mongoloid. The women wear bright shawls over their heads, or a head- piece that looks like that of a Red Cross worker, in white with colors on the head- {Continued on next page) JANUARY Page 7 band in geometric patterns. On our way back we took five speci- mens of a little earth hare, the same spe- cies that we had taken near Maku. This morning we found a new shrew, and we have another small wild pig, too — mak- ing four. It was so rainy yesterday that we stayed in camp and skinned and stuffed small specimens all day. I skinned the expedition's mammal specimen number 500 — a rat ! Douglas says we're "rack- ing them up." Camp near Dasht November 1, 1962 (By W.S.S.) We have now collected two species of jerboa in good series, and a large series of the great gerbil, taken within four miles of Russia, in view of the Russian towers guarding the border. In night hunting, we have taken two specimens of the local race of red fox. We have also added three African wild- cats and two jungle cats to the collection. Two porcupines, two pigs, and two boar skulls were brought in to us. We found evidence (one good enough for catalog- ing) of hedgehog, but saw no whole ones. Jackals are all over the place and we stopped collecting them after taking four or five. We have about eight rabbits now, both from the plains and the for- ests. We have also taken field mice, house mice, shrews, and black rats and Norway rats from the village. One of the jungle cats I just hap- pened to spot one night when its eye was reflected from our car lights. It was on Doug's side, and he got it. This turned out to be a really big one, 38 inches long ! We saw the second jungle cat while going through a wooded stretch on our way back to camp after night hunting. When I went into the woods after him, making squeaking sounds on my hand, he stopped and turned around to look. There were only 8's in my 20- gauge, but he was so close that was big enough. Many of the specimens taken here were obtained in an eventful 48 hours of collecting that began at Sunday noon. Jan and I and Doug and Nicola left for an overnight stay out on the Turkoman plain. We went first to the town of Pahlevi Dezh for bats. The principal of the school said there were bats in be- Page 8 JANUARY tween the ceiling and roof of the school- house. . At 3 :00 p.m. we were climbing a rickety ladder up to the hole under the roof, to the joy of the kids and I guess the teachers, who suspended classes to watch. While we hunted, Jan took pic- tures and read English stories for the English teacher and students. We found only skeletons, so proceeded to climb into the tops of two houses in town. Got one live one there. We next drove about five miles back toward Gurgan where we put a mist net over a pond by the road. In the dark, Jan and I stood on the hood of the car with the car motor running to keep up the battery and played our big searchlight on the bats as they'd come flying by. For a box of shells, we got four bats, each of us get- ting at least one. It was fun and sporty. We had one more try at night hunting for foxes. Saw many; got none. We then drove about 30 miles north, and all three of us collected a share of jerboas before we quit at about 2 a.m. Then we put out cots, took a shot of bourbon, and went to sleep. The next morning we collected more great gerbils and Libyan jirds,2 and then drove back to Pahlevi Dezh for another bat hunt. After finding two, we turned toward camp, collecting rabbits and the big cat on the way. We arrived home at camp about 9:00 that night. Doug worked until midnight, getting Niqui started on the skinning, and then he and I took off with Nicola at 1 :00 a.m. for more road hunting. When we re- turned abo.ut 10 o'clock the next morn- ing it was with a Corsac fox. I had also bagged a porcupine, a rabbit, and one hamster, and Doug had dropped an African wildcat. I had had about one hour's sleep, and Doug none, but we had gotten what we wanted — two Cor- sac foxes instead of one. Later we found that the big jungle cat had nine mice in its stomach and a species of shrew we had not encoun- tered in the field. In the meantime, Ali had been racking up shrews and rodents from the traplines. A local hunter brought in a porcupine, and there really was a lot of skinning to do. We didn't get away from camp until 1 p.m. yesterday. So much had piled up 'AsSmall mouse-like desert rodent. that Doug took hours to get his tent cleared out, notes written up, and labels on everything. But I feel very proud of what the expedition has accomplished at the Gurgan stop. We have over 60 species of mammals represented among the expedition's (now) 600 specimens so we feel that maybe we have already reached the level of the largest single study collection of mammals that any expedition has ever been able to bring out of Iran. (To be continued) GLACIERS- (Continued from page 4) land at the pole and was not so subject to the changes affecting the areas sur- rounding the polar Arctic ocean. Thus the ice sheet there persisted through the interglacial periods as it does today. That there was a change in the posi- tion of the poles in earlier geologic peri- ods is supported by the finding of coal seams and fossils in Antarctic rocks, proving that the glaciers were absent and the climate warm even in times as geologically recent as 50 million years ago. Likewise, deposits proving a wide- spread glaciation in South America, Africa, India, Australia, and even Ant- arctica between about 310 and 280 mil- lion years ago suggest not only a differ- ent pole position but also that these con- tinents may then perhaps have been part of a much larger land mass. Since the Arctic ice at present shows signs of decreasing, it is interesting to speculate that, if the control of Pleisto- cene glaciation is something along the lines postulated by Ewing and Donn, we may be heading into a new glacial pe- riod. Of course a new Ice Age would take thousands of years to develop. It may be, however, that a world wide lowering of temperature is required for a new glaciation. In that case, the evi- dence at present of a global amelioration of climate, as shown by the general re- treat of glaciers and warming of the oceans, suggests that we may still be emerging from the last glaciation. Fur- ther contraction of the glaciers and ris- ing seas may lie ahead before the onset of a new Ice Age, many thousands of years hence. PRINTED BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS \ . l-i&<{ >Z *-3*f*w V, ^