Full text of "Field Museum of Natural History bulletin"

See other formats

January
1979

Field Museum of Natural History B

Field Museum

of Natural History

Bulletin

January, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 1

Editor/Designer: David M. Walslen
Production: Oscar Anderson
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff photographer: Ron Testa

CONTENTS
3 Field Briefs

9
10

The Borden-Field Museum 1927 Alaska Arctic
Expedition

By Ted Karamanski

Soviet Union Tour for Members

Chance Encounter of a Good Kind

By Alan Solem, curator of invertebrates

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
Goerge R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

William R. Dickinson, Jr.
Thomas E. Donnelley II
Marshal] Field
Nicholas Galitzine
Paul W. Goodrich
Hugo J. Melvoin
William H. Mitchell
Charles F. Murphy, Jr.
James J. O'Connor
James H. Ransom
John S. Runnells
William L. Searle
Edward Byron Smith
Robert H. Strotz
John W. Sullivan
Mrs. Edward F. Swift
Edward R. Telling
Mrs. Theodore D. Tieken
E. Leland Webber
Julian B. Wilkins
Blaine J. Yarrington

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
William V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

14 Of Land Bridges, Ice-Free Corridors, and Early
Man in the Americas

By Glen Cole, curator of prehistory

22 Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology

By David M. Raup, curator of geology

30 Index to Volume 49 (1978)

Prepared by Kenneth Grabowski, library assistant

back January and February at Field Museum
cover Calendar of coming events

COVER

Lake Michigan and the Indiana Dunes. Photo by ]ohn
Kolar.

Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin is published monthly, except combined July/August
issue, by Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, II.
60605. Subscriptions: $6 a year; $3 a year for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin
subscription. Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the policy
of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster: Please send form 3579 to
Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago II. 60605. ISSN:
0015-0703. Second class postage paid at Chicago, It.

FIELD BRIEFS

Scanning Electron Microscope
Adult Education Course

The SEM course will again be offered this
spring, beginning March 20. The course will
meet once a week for five weeks, each
session lasting from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Instructors are Alan Solem, curator of
invertebrates, and Christine Niezgoda, her-
barium assistant. Department of Botany.
Course fee is $60.00. Enrollment is limited
to 24 persons.

Information on dates and registration
may be obtained by calling 922-y410,
X-382, or by writing: Adult Courses: SEM;
Dept. of Education, Field Museum of
Natural History, Roosevelt Rd. at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, III. 60605.

The Place for Wonder:
Opportunities for Volunteers

The Department of Education announces
that volunteer opportunities are now avail-
able in the Place for Wonder, Field Muse-
um's ground floor gallery where natural
history specimens may be examined first
hand by visitors both young and old. Place
for Wonder volunteers will participate in a
unique teaching situation that utilizes the
hands-on and inquiry method approach to
education. Who may serve as a volunteer?
Persons with one day a week to share, who
enjoy working with children and families,
and want responsibility are invited to call
Vicki Grigelaitis, the volunteer coordinator,
at 922-9410, ext. 360.

CORRECTION

In the article "Solem and Snails " by
Patricia Williams, which appeared in the
November, 1978, Bulletin, an incorrect
number of pages was given for the
monograph Endodontoid Land Snails from
Pacific Islands (MoUusca: Pulmonata:
Sigmurethra), Part I, Family Endodontidae,
by Alan Solem (Field Museum Press, 1976).
The correct number of pages is 508.

Loren Woods Retires

Loren P. Woods, curator of fishes, has
recently retired after more than 40 years of
service to Field Museum. Woods first came
to the Museum in 1938 as a staff member of
the James Nelson and Anna Louise Ray-
mond Foundation (now part of the Depart-
ment of Education). He was assistant
curator of fishes from 1941 to 1947 and was
then appointed curator.

Over the years he has participated in
expeditions to the Indian Ocean, Western
Atlantic, Southeastern Pacific, Western
Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Surinam, Puer-
to Rico, Virgin Islands, Florida Keys, and to
many of the states, particularly in the
Midwest.

As curator emeritus, Woods is continu-
ing his research on the beryciform and
pomacentrid fishes. Associate curator of
fishes Robert K. Johnson has succeeded
Woods as head of the Division of Fishes.

Borden Expedition Film

Saturday, February 3, is the day to see the
exciting feature-length film, "The Cruise of
the Northern Light," taken during the
Borden-Field Museum 1927 Alaska Arctic
Expedition. (The expedition is the subject of
a two-part article concluded in this issue;

see p. 4.) The 60-minute film will be shown
at 1:30 p.m. in James Simpson Theatre. Ad-
mission is $3.00 for nonmembers, $1.50 for
members and students with I.D.

Mrs. Rochester B. Slaughter, a member
of the expedition, shot the film and it was
subsequently shown at various places in the
Chicago area. In 1976, the film was given to
Field Museum by Mrs. George L. Simpson,
of Eau Claire, Wis., niece of Mrs. Slaughter,
who died in 1949.

Introducing the film on February 3 will
be Mrs. Foster Adams (the former Mrs.
John Borden), who accompanied the expe-
dition. The film narrator will be expedition
veteran Rev. Theodore Purcell, S.J., of
Washington, D.C., who was only 15 at the
outset of the expedition.

Egypt Tour for Members

Three seats are still available on the Field
Museum tour to Egypt departing Chicago
February 15. The per-person all inclusive
price is $2,950. (Includes a $500.00 tax-
deductible donation to Field Museum.)

Join with us and visit Cairo, Beni
Hassan, Ashmunein, Luxor, the Valleys of
the Kings and Queens, Aswan, and much
more of this fabled land. The luxury of a
Nile River cruise is also in the itinerary.
Write or call Michael J. Flynn, Field
Museum Tours, Roosevelt Road at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, III. 60605 (922-9410)

The Place for Wonder: volunteers needed

Ronlbsta

\ The Borden-
^ Field Museum
1927 Alaska

♦ Arctic

Four of the surviving Sea Scout veterans of the Northern Light's
cruise, shown at the helm of another schooner during a 1978 reu-
nion. Left to right: Bruce Andrews, Rev. Theodore Purcell, Ken Mc-
Clelland, and Otto Carstensen. Rev. Purcell will he at Field Museum
on Saturday, Feb. 3. to narrate a feature-length film on the 1927 ex-
pedition.

The first installment of the account of the Borden-Field Mu-
seum 1927 Alaska Arctic Expedition appeared in the Novem-
ber 1978 Bulletin. That segment told of preparations for the
adventure, of the group's departure from San Francisco on
April 21, 1927, aboard the schooner Northern Light, and
subsequent events to July 15. At this point the vessel was in
the Arctic Ocean at Cape Serdzekamen, on the northeastern
coast of Siberia.

Mrs. John Borden (now Mrs. Foster Adams), wife of
the expedition's sponsor and a member of the expedition, sub-
sequently wrote a book-length account of the venture. The
Cruise of the Northern Light (MacMillan, 1928). The follow-
ing text (italics), with the author's permission, is excerpted
from the book:

]uly 15: All ive could think of when we made out the
grotesquely familiar forms was Alice in Wonderland: ' 'The
time has come' the walrus said." The tremendous ugly
creatures were a shapeless mass until their heads were raised to
peer around; then they jabbed one another with their tusks
and a few minutes later were again asleep. The light-colored
boat with its white figures probably seemed to them a cake of
moving ice .... The great Nansen and fohansen and other
explorers on their dash to the North Pole, have been attacked
by these huge monsters. We cruised up in the launch and took

Expedition

Part II

By TED KARAMANSKI

some moving pictures as the enraged bulls neared us, somer-
saulting their huge bodies in and out of the water, showing us
their stupid whiskered faces as they came up snorting.

July 16: An umiak is the most valuable part of an
Eskimo's equipment, an efficient craft, fully equal to one of
our ship's boats, and in some ways preferable. [It] is about
thirty feet long and in smooth water will hold a cargo of more
than two tons yet it is so lightly constructed that two men can
carry it over the ice, an important feature north of Bering
Strait where a boat may be hemmed in by the ice for a long
period, and inability to escape means serious suffering. A
whaleboat is much heavier and the slightest accident may
stove it in, while the skin boat can be jammed into ice and re-
main uninjured. Its broken ribs need not be repaired until
convenient ....

]uly 17: Our position was 55 miles east of Wrangel and
forty-three miles south of Herald Island, 330 miles north of
the Arctic Circle, and 180 miles from the Siberian shore. We
were swallowed up within the Arctic whiteness of the North.
The great Polar ice-pack, that relentless terror, nearly sur-
rounded our little ship on its sweep across the Pole of Inac-
cessibility and a million square miles of unexplored
territory ....

Leaving the Siberian coast, the Northern Light headed
eastward again, and after several days reached Pt. Hope,
Alaska.

]uly 23: Primitive implements of carved ivory and
jade, which the Eskimos are beginning to realize are in-

Ted Karamanski is a doctoral candidate in history at Loyola
University.

teresting to white men, have recently been excavated from
underneath the mounds. We made an important collection of
these articles which were pressed upon us by the male popula-
tion, and they are now part of a much larger collection that
we presented to the Field Museum. There were ivory labrets
formerly used by the men as chin ornaments, whaling knives,
flints, and crude stones for killing birds ....

The igloos that the Eskimos live in today stand above
ground, mere hovels of moss-covered whalebone. We called
on the native mayor {of Tikeraq, a Pt. Hope Eskimo settle-
ment! i^rid were nauseated by the stench of seal blubber, and
intestines lying in the main entrance. The center chamber was
a small square box, used for sleeping and eating, into which
light penetrated from (a gut-covered] aperture in the mud
roof .... Four squaws sat on the floor, each holding a small
child and anxiously watching the supper that hissed on a very
modern stove. Sugar, tea, and tobacco, luxuries beyond the
reach of the less fortunate Chuckchees, were in evidence ....
The oldest woman, . . . became ecstatic over my gay colored
coat, although Mrs. Slaughter was wearing a far more attrac-
tive blue parka ....

July 25: Little John lone of the Eskimo guides] joined
us near the pilot-house, where we were standing enjoying the
shimmering, golden sunshine, and announced, "Now Capt'n,
you can come see your kayak."

"My kayak?" my husband looked a trifle puzzled.

I followed, and witnessed the formal and touching gift
of a kayak, harpoon, poke, and immamidik. They were
childishly happy in their ability to please "Cap'n"; their black
eyes fairly sparkled with delight. Little John explained: "Wood
in boat seven years old — skin new every two years." — And
then — "You give Museum."

The gut coat and harpoon was given by the older and
more silent John. We shook hands all round, — and nearly
kissed.

August 1: Mr. Hine, [Field Museum's chief bird taxi-
dermist], while waiting for us, stopped at the [Nomej hotel
and made trips back into the foothills for bird specimens.
[The U.S. Department of Agriculture had issued a special per-
mit for Hine to obtain migratory and nonmigratory bird
species for the Museum.] He collected fox, golden-crowned,
and Savannah sparrows, an Alaskan longspur, red poll, and a
golden plover, rare in that vicinity. The plover, he explained,
migrates through China and India to Australia and Polynesia
covering many thousand miles. The Eskimos came on board
just before we sailed, seemingly delighted to be with us again.

August 2: We stopped at Fairway Rock, a small granite
formation five or six hundred feet high, to let Mr. Hine shoot
water birds. The soft colors of green, yellow, pink, and
lavender were lovely rising out of a dull blue sea and as the
fog came and went we had a full view of the turreted, castle-
like rock. We could just see thousands of little heads above a
soft green carpet, and after the first shot millions of birds flew
in all directions. We there acquired murres, paroquet auklets,
horned and tufted puffins, pigeon guillemots, and a glaucous-
winged gull. The feathers of the tufted puffin are like silk. It
was interesting to compare the many yellow vermilion,

The Borden-Field Museum 1927 expedition is
the subject of a feature-length film to be shown
in James Simpson Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 3,
at 1:30 p.m. Mrs. Foster Adams (the former
Mrs. John Borden) will introduce the film, and
the narrator will be Rev. Theodore Purcell,
S.J., who. like Mrs. Adams, served as a mem-
ber of the expedition.

The 60-minute film was a recent gift to
the Museum by Mrs. George L. Simpson, a
niece of Mrs. Rochester B. Slaughter, who was
the expedition's official photographer.

Admission to the film is $3.00 for non-
members, $1.50 for members and for students
with I.D.

orange, and scarlet vermilions in the bird's legs and claws, —
the colors still brilliant in the first hour after death. In fact, a
notable change can be seen almost instantly in the flesh part
of a bird as the warmth of life leaves its body. What surprised
us most about the Arctic water birds is the exact similarity of
coloring of male and female in auklets, murres, and
guillemots ....

In Nome my husband later acquired a collection of
ivory carvings, valuable to a museum of Natural History,
which had been dug up by the natives themselves from an up-
per and two lower stratas of earth below the present settle-
ment on Little Diomede. There were three distinct periods of
civilization represented. We added this collection to the Pt.
Hope articles and presented them to the Museum.

August 5: The next day was beautiful, thank good-
ness, and a glorious day in the Arctic is more wonderful than
anything any of us had ever seen anywhere else in the world.
We realized why explorers, such as Stefansson and Amund-
sen, continually return to the Frozen North and gladly
undergo many hardships along with the glorious life. We had
heard in Unalaska that "north of St. Lawrence Island the sun
would shine. " We found it to be true. Good weather in the
Polar Sea meant calm waters, radiant sunsets, and the long
white nights burning with sunshine, more exquisite than any
hour on the blue Mediterranean or any clear white day in
Switzerland. The North has a weird, intoxicating beauty
which is indescribable . No one can grasp the full ecstasy of an
Arctic summer night without having drunk deep of its
spell . . . . A thrilling element of hovering danger followed
us always. There were no harbors for hundreds of miles at a
stretch and no lighthouses of a civilized coast to guide
us ... .

There are summers when navigation to Wrangel is im-
possible at any time. We of course could not take any chances
on being caught in the pack north and west of Alaska, and off
the Arctic coast of Siberia, or our helpless vessel would drift
to a cold, unmarked grave. On the other hand if a ship is

caught in the ice of the European Arctic it usually drifts south
into open water and freedom. The danger was so constantly
with us that I began to feel that the pack was a giant octopus,
thrusting its deadly tentacles in all directions. The mere word
"ice" brought shivers and goose-flesh. My readers may think I
overestimate this silent, white enemy and wonder why we
continued — but they must remember that we were sailing in
search of Museum specimens in the graveyard of the seven
seas. More ships have gone to "Davy Jones' Locker" in the
waters north of Bering Strait, considering the comparatively
short span of years sitice the Bering Sea was first discovered,
than on any other body of water in all the world. The great
polar ice-pack, that fiend of the North, continues to take its
relentless toll.

August 6: That night Captain Borden and a mate
sighted Wrangel Island at 10:30. After a continuous watch of
thirty-six hours my husband then went below, but two hours
later was suddenly awakened by the engines being signalled
off. Hearing much confusion on deck he dressed hurriedly
and disappeared; in a few minutes I heard: "Ice
ahead!" . . . Ice! Ice! — What a word! — The water was now
29° (one degree over the freezing point of salt water) ....

Climbing down from the high bed I pulled on my
heaviest trousers, two sweaters, two parkas, and the in-
valuable mukluks over many woolen socks, and started up
the steps .... Everyone was staring out toward land not far
distant .... There lay Wrangel ....

Turning my head in the other direction there shone
nothing but an endless sweep of ice. Out there — a thousand
miles or so — challenged the North Pole. The veil that hid it
from view — and continually lured ambitious, strong men to
their doom— had been torn away by Peary, Amundsen,
Ellsworth, and Byrd. How simple it seemed — to be able to fly
from the deck of the Northern Light— still further north— out
over that field of both solid and floating ice ....

August 11: "May wc hang our flags to the shrouds?"
asked Ryan. In a few minutes the Jackson Park and Columbia
Yacht Club pennants fluttered, one above the other, from the
turnbuckles. These little flags waved into shreds before the
boys took them down, preparing to bring back in triumph
"flags that had flown at Wrangel Island."

Mr. Hine was equally excited. His thrill lay in the pros-
pect of bringing the first birds from this Arctic island to the
Field Museum .... Suddenly — "We see polar bear!" cried
both Eskimos in the same breath.

Nothing can adequately describe our feelings. "Polar
bears! Polar bears!" rang over the ship .... Here were the
wild beasts we had sailed thousands of miles to find. I believe
we did not know whether to laugh or cry in our frantic
excitement.

"Look at them! — They are just standing there, " called
Mrs. Slaughter .... Yes — there they were — two huge white
bears on that gleaming streak of moving ice. We could even
see them with our naked eye. Whether they saw the boat we
didn't know, because bears are supposed to have poor
eyesight. But their smelling powers are excellent .... Both
animals were evidently startled ....

We went below for warmth and relaxation. Sometimes
I was Caliban secretly fearing the elements, but on this night
of many thrills, the dangers and the possible fate of seafarers
were soon forgotten. The victrola played incessantly and we
sang loudly to our favorite tunes. Strange as it may sound on
reading this, while sitting snug and safe at home, we knew we
were safer on the Northern Light, although riding out a
storm, or piloting through dense fog among reefs and shoals,
than we would have been crossing State and Madison Streets,
Chicago ....

August 12: Wrangel Island is approximately 75 miles
long and 25 wide. So far — we had been steaming along only
one shore — the east. We knew from the chart that there is a
good harbor on the south coast where both the Corwin and
the Rodgers anchored in 1881. There also Stefansson's little
colony had landed in September, 1921, and made their camp.
But they each met a tragic death before August, 1923 . . . .A
stark barren island — shadowed by tragedy.

We now sought Rodgers Harbor as the logical place for
the recent Russian settlement, the probability of which we
were strongly doubting as we had carefully watched for any
possible trace of human life or activity ....

We were steaming nearer and nearer to the tiny group
of houses we were watching so intently. Smoke poured out of
only one chimney, curling lazily through the crisp, cool air up
into the mountains behind .... We managed to stand in
toward the village, about a half mile off shore. On deck lay
cases of sugar, tobacco, tea, cartridges, canned goods, and
other necessities of life. Also we hoped to send out for these
wretched people, any radio news for the outside .... Three
blasts of our whistle echoed shrilly against the brown
mountains.

At first we saw no one. Except for the smoke it could
have been an abandotxed village. There were three small,
well-built wooden houses .... From the center house smoke
continued to rise. Huddled near these larger houses were ten
or twelve much smaller dwellings .... Further to the right
were three other houses, probably wood .... While we
watched, hoping for some sign of human activity, a woman
came to the door of the house from where we had seen
smoke .... She stood there, it seemed to us, several
minutes, but no other sign of life was noticeable .... We
blew the whistle again, — merely a friendly salute. (If only
others could imagine how terribly exciting it was to stand
there — not knowing what would happen next. — My heart
was in my throat most of the time.)

When still no other people were visible a red flag of the
"Union of Soviet Socialist Republic" suddenly flung out from
the flagpole behind this same house. Someone had at last
admitted our arrival ....

A few minutes later quite a considerable number
assembled on the beach, looking out toward the
schooner .... We thought that they would immediately find
their umiaks and set out toward the boat, in the way that we
were visited by the Chukchees. But no — there was no boat of
any description along the beach. — They made not the
slightest attempt to speak with us.

That was a strange turn in events! These human
beings, perhaps thirty or thirty-five Cossacks and Siberian
natives in all, were living on a desolate, ice-bound island, not
far from the very edge of the Pole of Inaccessibility. The great
polar ice-pack hemmed them in on the north and west coasts,
leaving them only the exceedingly slim possibility of a
navigable passage opening in the drift ice near the island
again the following summer — perhaps not again for two or
three years. Yet, — they did not make a move to beg for any
supplies we would undoubtedly be carrying .... Whether
the Cossacks kept the natives from coming out, whether they
had no boats, — whether they one and all feared us, — perhaps
we may never know.

As anxious as we all were to climb on those shores— to
be able to collect specimens of flora and fauna on that much-
wrangled-over Wrangel Island — Captain Borden did not per-
mit anyone to go ashore. We were glad enough to be safe on
the yacht, in those uncertain ice-filled waters.

How we would have enjoyed giving food or help to
those lonely, stranded inhabitants! .... But we reluctantly
and even sorrowfully left them to continue in their desperate
struggle for food and existence in that ice-bound solitude of
the Frozen North ....

It was then we first realized that Eskimos are deathly
afraid of a polar bear. This savage beast has meant destruc-
tion of Eskimo hunters, women, and children .... They
would not paddle nearer to the wounded prey that was
thrashing angrily in the water, much too close. Instead they
wanted to back away — jumping up and down in the boat,
frantically excited, trying to scare off the offending, raging
animal. We stood by, hardly daring to breathe at the thrilling
scene enacted before our eyes. The whaleboat, — a hunter
standing in the bow, — gun raised, two frightened natives, and
a plunging, furious beast.

August 13: Having acomplished everything and even
more than we dared hope for on leaving San Francisco, our
thoughts turned toward home, and the flags were hoisted.
From the main mast soon floated a lovely thin streamer over a
hundred feet long with thirteen stars in a row, followed by the
red and white stripes. It was our Homeward Bound Pennant,
following the time-honored custom of whaling ships on the
Arctic after they had boiled down their fill of whale oil ....

Before reluctantly turning away from our hunters'
paradise everyone came on deck to watch the lavender-tinted
hills of the island, and the pink afterglow of a wonderful Arc-
tic sunset. Over the bow hung a large round pink moon
covering the white vessel in its silvery radiance. By ten
o'clock we were under full sail. The sea-scouts beamed with
delight and everyone forward and aft rejoiced in a splendid
climax to a long successful voyage. We had cruised for four
cloudless days along the shores of this thrilling Arctic island.
We had been sailing for many weeks along the white upper
crust at the "Top of the world." And we were the first white
women ever to reach Wrangel Island. Our party was the first
to see the Russian village. Anyone with a spark of romance in

%h%

Mrs. Foster Adams (the former Mrs. John Borden), author of The
Cruise of the Northern Light, with her husband at the Prague,
Czechoslovakia, airport in 1976. Mrs. Adams notes that she and her
husband continue to be "inveterate travelers, " adding that their re-
cent trips have been by airliner rather than by schooner. Mrs. Adams
will be at Field Museum on Saturday, Feb. 3, to introduce a film on
the expedition.

his or her city-bred soul could not help but feel the enchant-
ment of that pale but glowing night. A magical lure gripped
our senses. A fresh breeze blew almost caressingly, the flap-
ping of the sails filled one with passionate ecstasy. It was a
moment when one could easily appreciate a sailor's love for
his ship, far greater than his desire for home. A fair wind, a
fine ship and we were homeward bound!

August 16: The next morning at eight o'clock Cape
Onman came in sight. A fine warm day with a light northwest
breeze and smooth sea. I had noticed the crew staring through
their glasses most of the day and wondered why, then decided
to ask my husband.

"We are searching for a lost Hudson Bay steamer that
was abandond two years ago and has been reported to have
drifted south near Kolyuchin Island two different times, " was
my answer.

This was certainly blood-curdling! And here is the
story:

The Lady Kindersleys, insured for three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, was crushed in the pack and aban-
doned August 31 , 1924, about 34 miles northwest of Pt. Barrow.
Everything had been all right until her engines broke down.
While the men worked on the engines, the ice closed in. They
hurriedly wired the Boxer, the Board of Education boat, but
she was unable to get any nearer than five miles on account of
the solid ice-field. The men left the trading steamer almost im-
mediately to escape with their lives, taking nothing with them
but the clothes on their backs and managed to get over the
five miles of ice where the Boxer picked them up. A vessel
with a valuable cargo, and one insured for a heavy amount,
now started on its helpless drift, not sinking immediately as
was expected.

In 1925 natives from Cape Onman and Kolyuchin
Island reported seeing a stranded ship, caught in pack-ice,
and drifting off Cape ]inretlin.

In 1926 the same ghostlike apparition appeared again,
this time inside Kolyuchin Island.

The steamer had evidently missed the northwest cur-
rent, and like the Vigilant was caught in the drift that circles
south off the Siberian shore. It probably went north in the
winter, and again south the following summer. The drift that
the ship followed is of course, only problematical. A Russian
in Nome informed [the Coast Guard] that he had visited
among Chukchees who had served him butter packed in tin
cases marked Lady Kindersleys. Whether the natives and Rus-
sians succeeded in stripping the deserted, crumbling vessel, or
whether she sank — no one knows.

August 24: At 4 P.M. we were lying to, off the south-
west side of Bogoslof Island in water too deep to anchor,
sixty-five fathoms less than four hundred yards from the
beach. We went ashore, the crew following in two separate
watches. In the launch we were surrounded by hundreds of
sea lions. Two persevering large bulls swam under us, a
strange sensation. We had good opportunities for moving pic-
tures and snapshots as the beasts came nearer and nearer.
Here, in 1916 my husband had much the same experience: he
was literally attacked by an angry herd of these huge
monsters. The men in the boat were at first frightened but
soon realized the ferocity was a bluff.

On reaching shore we were amazed at the millions and
millions of Pallas murres roosting in ledges of New Bogoslof,
or Castle Rock .... We walked round old Bogoslof to see
the new eruption which had arisen in the center of the crater.
The first thing we did was to take the temperature of the hot
sulphur water which surrounded it and found it to be 72Vi °.

lAy husband and most of the crew decided to swim in
the hot crater; Frances Ames and I hurriedly walked along the
spit to get away. They had a beautiful time splashing about
the greenish and copper colored water, finding below the sur-
face a slimy green ooze in which they sank until their feet
reached a hard strata too hot to stand on ... . The crater
continually threw off steam, and strong sulphur fumes
enveloped the adventurous men.

While the men had their small boys' picnic, we crossed
a narrow piece of lava-covered land toward the sea, and here
sat on one of the many lava deposits to watch the hundreds of
sea lions. The animals were over cautious on our approach
and stampeded into the breakers before we could approach
very close. When the sand colored beasts reached the water
they bellowed and snorted at us from their safe distance. The
bulls were larger and heavier than bull hair-seals but much
smaller than the Pacific Walrus. More extraordinary still, the
cows were smaller than hair-seal cows, and our first impres-
sion was that of many bulls and half-grown pups. We sudden-
ly realized, however, that sea lions also have harems. There
were the useless bulls, and small groups of bachelors who
seemed to be "talking it all over."

On September 10, 1927, the Northern Light sailed
through the Golden Gate back into San Francisco harbor.

nearly five months since her departure. More than 10,000
miles of water had passed beneath her keel. As a scientific
enterprise the expedition had fulfilled all expectations and, to
all accounts, it had proven to be a thrilling, highly enjoyable
venture for everyone aboard. Ashley Hine returned to his
duties at Field Museum, the Bordens, the Goodspeeds and the
Slaughters resumed their professional and social activities in
Chicago. Frances Ames returned to San Francisco and the Sea
Scouts rejoined their families.

In very short order the Museum took stock of the
specimens acquired by the Borden expedition. On October
12, Museum director D. C. Davies wrote Frances Ames in ap-
preciation for her collected plant specimens:

"I am informed that the plants recently received by Field
Museum from the Borden-Field Museum Alaska-Arctic Ex-
pedition were collected by you. It is found that 106 of the
plants are good specimens which will be a most welcome
addition to the Herbarium. On the whole they are much
better than the usual collections received from Alaska,
some are very excellent indeed, and they are very accep-
table to the Department of Botany. Permit me to con-
gratulate you and to thank you for your interest . . . ."

On October 14, Berthold Laufer, head of the Depart-
ment of Anthropology, filed with Davies the following report
on the ethnological specimens acquired by the expedition:
"I beg to report that the Eskimo material collected by Mr.
John Borden . . . has been duly accessioned and listed, and
consists of a total of 533 objects. The collection is most in-
teresting and attractive, and has been brought together
with intelligence and discrimination. It represents a very
valuable addition to the Museum's previous collections
relating to Eskimo life, and many objects in it are entirely
new to the Museum, above all, copper knives and copper
arrowheads from the so-called Blond or Copper Eskimo of
northern Canada, of which the Museum heretofore did not
have a single example, and a wonderful series of ancient
mammoth ivory carvings engraved with designs of a style
which reveals an ancient phase of Eskimo art hitherto
unknown. The abundance of walrus ivory carvings, many
of great beauty and artistic merit, renders the collection
particularly valuable to the student of Eskimo art and very
attractive to the general public.

"I am exceedingly grateful to Mr. Borden for having ex-
ercised so much care in labeling his material exactly accor-
ding to the localities where it was obtained, and this ac-
curate information enabled me to make a temporary ex-
hibit of selected material from this collection in Stanley
Field Hall within a short time.

"As an interesting incident I may mention here that one
day while I was going over Mr. Borden's collection Mr.
Collins of the United States National Museum of Washing-
ton called on me. He had just returned from an expedition
to Alaska on behalf of the National Museum, hunting for
old Eskimo material. 1 showed him Mr. Borden's collec-
tion, and he was amazed at its fine quality and rarity,
especially the stone and pottery cooking vessels, and said
with reference to several objects that he had been unable to
obtain them or that they were not even in the National
Museum — all of which no doubt will be gratifying to you
and the Board of Trustees as it is to myself."

(Continued on p. 29)

Treasures of Russia and the Ukraine

20-day tour for Field Museum
Members and their families

i nv hremlin. Moscow

ViE SPLENDORS OF OLD RUSSIA, the excite-
ment of the New are in store for Field
Museum Members and their families who
Join the tour "Treasures of Russia and the
Ukraine," leaving Chicago's O'Hare Airport
June 1 9 and returning July 8.

Highlights of this exclusive tour will
include visits to the cities of Moscow,
Vladimir, Kiev, Leningrad, Petrovorets,
Novgorod, and Petrozavodsk. The group,
limited to 35 persons, will be led from
Chicago by two Russian-speaking escorts,
with additional guides while in the Soviet
Union provided by Intourist (the Soviet
Travel Bureau).

The tour cost — $2,970 (which in-
cludes a $500.00 donation to Field
Museum) — is based upon double occupan-
cy and includes round trip air fare from
Chicago to Moscow, with intra-Russian air

transportation where required. The trans-
atlantic airline is Swissair.

Deluxe hotel accommodations will
be used throughout or, where necessary, the
best hotels available. The package includes
all meals, including inflight meals; all
sightseeing via deluxe motor coach; all ad-
missions to special events and sites, where
required; all baggage handling throughout,
plus all necessary transfers; all applicable
taxes and tips; all applicable visa fees.
Advance deposit required: $250.00 per
person.

For full itinerary, additional details,
and registration information, please write or
call Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours,
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive,
Chicago, IlL 60605. Phone: (312)
922-9410, X-25L

1. Green peach
aphid air dried onto
rubber cement and
coated with gold for
viewing in the 5EM.
Magnification 204x.

Chance Encounter
Of A Good Kind

BY ALAN SOLEM

Scientists have been defined as "children who
never lost their sense of wonder and never
stopped asking 'Why?'." There is no question
but what the thrill of discovery and satisfaction of
finding out "Why?" is a major part of our profes-
sional world.

Part of the joy of science at Field Museum
is continually being surprised by the variety of
structure and function in nature. Often, these sur-
prises come very unexpectedly. One such occur-
rence is shared with you here.

As part of the evening adult education
course on scanning electron microscopy offered
last spring at Field Museum, I prepared objects
and specimens brought in by the students for ex-
amination and photographing in later sessions of
the course. The range of things contributed includ-
ed semiconductors, millipore filters, human hairs,
snow leopard claws, spiders, flies, and an aphid
off a house plant. One of the participants, Mary
Ellen Rinkus, had asked how to get rid of aphids
from a new house plant and a week later brought
in one lone survivor on a leaf of the purple velvet
plant, Gynura aurantiaca.

When prepared for viewing and first seen.

the limp and shrunken aphid did not look par-
ticularly impressive (fig. I). Its mouthparts were
hidden and the abdomen and legs were far less
spectacular than those of a fly or spider. Just as I
was about to abandon this aphid for a different
sample, I noticed a couple of little bumps on its
antenna. A slight reorientation and higher
magnification view (fig. 2) confirmed my interest.
This picture would have been past the limit of
viewing with a dissecting microscope. Another
click of the dial and refocusing showed that these
bumps were hollow (fig. 3). Here would have been
near the limit of a compound microscope.

Later, I found out that the presence of these
"bumps," or "primary sensoria," had been known
for many years. Indeed, whether there are one or
two on each antenna is significant to en-
tomologists trying to identify families and genera
of aphids. Standard monographs on aphids il-
lustrate these "primary sensoria" as circles on
outline drawings of the antenna (fig. 4). The
limitations of optical microscopes had prevented
more detailed study. But this evening we had fun
in seeing something that was equally unknown
and marvelous to teacher and students.

Quickly focusing on the lower sensorium
(fig. 5) and a nearby seta (projecting sensory hair)
showed that the former had a hard covering,
center hole with flanged edges, and a large, partly

Alan Solem is curator of invertebrates.

2. Portiott of aphid
antenna.
Maf^nificatiou 338x.

collapsed pillowlike structure inside. Viewing at
another angle and slightly higher modification
(fig. 6) confirmed the type of edges and the col-
lapsed internal soft structure.

The upper sensorium proved to be much
more complex. The entire structure was subdivid-
ed into six areas (fig. 7), each with a separate little
organ inside. The low partitions between each
area are clearly seen at the lower left, and the pro-

tective nature of the "canopy" which mixes open-
ness with narrowing projections shows more
clearly than at lower magnifications. A slight
change in viewing angle (fig. 8) was followed by a
high magnification look at one of the individual
sense organs (fig. 9). The actual function of these
organs can only be guessed at. Probably they sam-
ple minute traces of chemicals in the air, but since
previously they were not even recorded in the

3. Portion of
antenna at 876x
magnification.

...Terminal
filameni

Primary sensorio
Secondory sen^oria

oceilijs

Tarsus..

4. External anatomy of aphid.

Drawing from "The Plant
Lice, or Aphiidae, of Illinois, "

Bulletin of Illinois Natural
History Survey, 19 (3).

technical literature, our lack of understanding as
to their function must be expected.

The next morning, our entomologists were
visited by me with a sheaf of pictures in my hand.
They were as amazed and delighted as the class
and I were with these photographs. Quick checks
in standard taxonomic works showed the publish-
ed level of knowledge revealed in fig. 4. Our
minds filled with many questions. First we had to
find out which of the many thousands of aphid
species we had been looking at. Field Museum has
no specialist on aphids and, with the commerce in
cultivated plants, aphids are continually being in-
troduced to new areas. Mary Ellen Rinkus search-
ed her plant in vain, visited the florist where two
weeks before she had obtained her purple velvet
plant, and triumphantly delivered aphid-loaded
leaves to the Museum's shipping room. The aphids
were preserved in alcohol. Curator of Insects
Henry Dybas was planning to visit a major agri-
cultural insect laboratory in California and agreed
to hunt for an aphid specialist willing to identify
the aphid. In due course, the specimens were ship-
ped to Dr. T. Kono in Sacramento, who identified
them as the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae
(Sulzer).

5. Lower primary sen-
sorium and seta of aphid
antenna at 2,697 x
magnification.

6. Lateral view of lower
sensorium at 7,250x
magnification.

7. Upper primary sensorium in vertical view at
8,316x magnification.

Specialists in insect structure and function
will have to work out the meaning and variation
of these structures. Are most aphid sensoria alike
or do they differ radically among groups? What
are their functions? Are they unique to aphids or
found in related insects? These and new questions
derived from seeking the answers can occupy
scientists in many places, since initial chance
observations such as these only open the door to
research.

In the same way that in the early 1600s the
original Dutch and English microscopists looked
into a new world with their new tool, the optical
microscope, this generation of biologists is
looking at a new submicroscopic world with our
new tool, the scanning electron microscope.
Thousands of scientists since the 1600s have used
and continue to use optical microscopes to in-
vestigate the world too small for our eyes to see,
and have far from exhausted research possibilities.
It will take thousands of scientists working for
hundreds of years to exploit the research oppor-
tunities revealed by use of the scanning electron
microscope. To be able to participate in the begin-
ning phases of this exploration is indeed one of the
great joys in science at Field Museum, even know-
ing that following up most of the queries raised
must be left to others, perhaps even generations
removed in time.

Other chance encounters occur in my own
research and some are followed up by me, but this
is a series of different stories. □

8. (Middle) Slightly lateral view of upper
primary sensorium at 5,544x magnification.

9. (Below ) Detail of one organelle from upper
primary sensorium at 24.092x magnification.

Of Land Bridges,
Ice-Free Corridors,
And Early Man
In The Americas

BY GLEN COLE

Photos by the author
Artwork by Louva Calhoun

Several questions which have long intrigued
scholars interested in the native peoples of
the New World are: Where did these people
come from?, how did they get to this hemisphere?,
and how long have they been here? Present day
students of Early Man* in the New World are still
concerned with these questions or certain aspects
of them, although the emphasis has shifted to the
time of arrival of the earliest immigrants. In
general, there is no longer any real question as to
where the ancestors of the American Indians came
from although more specific problems remain.
The means by which they arrived, particular
routes taken after arrival, and manner of dispersal
through the Americas remain unsettled issues.

Individual papers devoted to Early Man in
the New World have long been standard fare at
scholarly meetings. Sessions within such meetings
and occasionally an entire meeting might be given
over to the subject. These are usually held under
the aegis of anthropological or archeological
organizations, and although contributions from
persons in disciplines outside anthropological ones
are usual enough, probably none has heretofore
had such a diversity of input as did a recent
meeting of the American Quaternary Association
(amqua) held in Edmonton, Alberta, in Septem-
ber 1978.

Ten years ago AMQUA was founded for
the purpose (amongst others) of promoting the
study of the North American Quaternary, a

period of geologic time covering the last 1.6 or 1.8
million years, and facilitating communication be-
tween workers in different fields. These com-
munications are facilitated by the sponsoring of
biennial scientific meetings that are built around a
sympKjsium on a topic of broad interest to con-
stituent AMQUA groups. These groups include
general disciplines ranging from archeology to
zoology, narrower disciplines such as climatology,
ecology, limnology, physical geography, soil sci-
ence and various biological and geological subdis-
ciplines.

Archeology might seem somewhat out of
place in this company, at least from the viewpoint
of the academic scheme of things in the United
States; here it is usually grouped with the social
sciences, as a subdivision of anthropology. As
such, it is the only major discipline within AMQUA
which falls outside the biological and physical
sciences. More importantly, archeology is peculiar
in that it is the only one of the disciplines repre-
sented which is concerned only with a particular
part of Quaternary time. Whether one considers
that humans have been in the New World for
15,000 years or twice that long, this constitutes a
very small portion — less than 2 percent — of the
Quaternary Period.

This doubtless has been a factor in deter-
mining the symposium topics of the four AMQUA
meetings held previously. Three of these focused
on particular aspects of the last part of the Quater-
nary. The fifth biennial AMQUA meeting in Ed-
monton followed this pattern but, in addition,
was the first to use an archeological subject as a
theme of the symposium. Accordingly, this sym-
posium on "The Ice-Free Corridor and Peopling
the New World" drew a large contingent of ar-
chaeologists.

AMQUA symposium topics and meeting
places are not unrelated. Edmonton lies in the "ice-
free corridor" area and field sessions before and
after the regular meeting permitted participants to
examine glacial features pertaining to mountain
and continental glaciation.

The whole subject of peopling the New
World is marked by a dearth of sound evidence
and, as a usual corollary to such situations, by a
wealth of speculation. There is general agreement
that the ancestors of the native American popula-
tions must have come from Asia and, for want of
reasonable alternatives, that they must have

'"Early Man," as used here, refers to Early Man in the
New World. From the vantage point of the Old World,
Early Man in the New World is very late indeed.

'Athabasca Glacier. One of several descending from the
Columbia Icefield in the Canadian Rocky Mountains
southwest of Edmonton, Alberta. This is a remnant of a
once extensive glacial system which extended beyond
the mountain front to meet Laurentide ice and form the
southern end of the late Wisconsin ice barrier.

Glen Cole is curator of prehistory. He describes himself
as "an Old World prehistorian who is generally con-
cerned with a much earlier time period than is covered in
this article." Cole is, additionally, a charter member of
the American Quaternary Association (AMQUA) and
has followed with interest studies relating to Early Man
in the New World. In this article he discusses recent
developments in North American Early Man studies as
presented at the 1978 biennial meeting of AMQUA, at
Edmonton, Alberta.

2,000 -_

r--y-'

1,000 -

200 -

100 -

^ ^

50 -

<
2
0
U

I i

40 -

z Q- m

t c

30 -

3 8

20-

^ tc

0^ 5

+- o

CO o

~ CO

10-

f if

T/ie Quaternary Period, which covers the last 1.6-1.8
million years of geologic time, is divided into two
epochs, the Pleistocene and the Holocene. The last
major glacial stage, ending 10,000 years ago. is known,
in North America, as the Wisconsin. The Wisconsin,
punctuated by several cold stadials and warmer inter-
vals has been variously subdivided. For purposes of this
article, it is simply divided into an earlier and a later
portion. The more recent, late Wisconsin, will be that
period from 23,000 before present (B.P.) to the beginning
of the Holocene. The figures represent thousands of
years.

entered the New World through Alaska. The ob-
vious place to seek the "roots" of the native
American, then, is the adjacent part of Asia. But
vast areas of northern Asia — Siberia, Mongolia,
Manchuria along with much of the rest of China
— and much of the northwestern part of North
America for that matter, are virtually unknown
archeologically. Students of Early Man in the New
World have had to seek comparative material as
far afield as the Ukraine and other eastern Euro-
pean areas. Some of the more important sites- in
the Lake Baikal region of central Siberia, although
a good deal closer to the Bering Straits area, are as
far removed from it as are many well known
Paleo-Indian sites in the lower 48 states. Nor is
much known of the later Pleistocene archeology of
the maritime provinces of China and other Asian
countries of the north Pacific area.

As more students of the American Quater-
nary have been learning the languages of the coun-
tries concerned, increasing amounts of informa-
tion on the little that is known of those vast areas
is becoming available. Even so, the New World
archeologist has little comparative data to draw
on. Not only are the data sparse, but the scholar
who takes the trouble to learn Russian (or
Chinese) soon finds that many of the Asian
prehistorians are not nearly as interested in prob-
lems of peopling the New World as he or she
might have wished, and their reports are often not
very informative or useful in this regard.

Probably because of this paucity of direct
evidence, students of Early Man in the New World
have relied heavily on nonarcheological data in at-
tempting to answer these questions. Incursions of
people into the New World have been assigned to
periods when land connections existed between
Asia and North America. And then it has been
supposed that man would not have been able to
reach the central part of North America until the
ice barrier separating the extreme northwestern
portion of the continent from the rest of it was
breached.

Unfortunately, the nonarcheological data
have been none too secure either. Not too many
years ago there were those — including some
geologists — who denied the existence of an Asian-
American land connection. More recently there
has been, and remains a lack of agreement on
whether an ice-free corridor came into existence
before the Paleo-Indians were well established in
the New World.

The single most important contribution to
Early Man studies in recent years (and to ar-
cheological studies in general) has been the
development of radiometric dating techniques.
These, especially radiocarbon dating, have been
making possible a much more concise chronology
than was attainable a generation ago and new
dates are appearing regularly. And, other new
data are continually being produced. New ar-
cheological finds pertaining to Early American

Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets and Bering land bridge boundaries at the time of the late Wisconsin maximum.
Dashed lines indicate approximate position of the ice-free corridor, perhaps 12,000 years ago.

Man are being made and some long standing
studies are continuing. In addition to new and
ongoing geological mapping projects, there are
studies in geomorphology, glacial geology,
sedimentology, and stratigraphy. There are
paleontological and climatological investigations,
studies of plant successions and faunal distribu-
tions, to cite a few — studies that are not directed
to the question of peopling the New World, of
course, but which often provide information rele-
vant to that subject.

Before discussing some of the contributions
presented and more pertinent information
disseminated at the AMQUA sessions, it would be
well to go over a little background material:

Although ice in the form of mountain
glaciers and polar ice caps has been on the earth
since long before the Pleistocene Epoch, it seems
that the period of the classic "Ice Age" marked by
extensive continental glaciation in the Northern
Hemisphere did not set in until ¥4 million years
ago. There is considerable debate concerning ear-
lier Pleistocene glaciations and correlations be-
tween those of North America, Europe, and Asia;
but that need not concern us here — there is quite
enough disagreement concerning late Pleistocene

glaciation. What is relevant to the question of get-
ting Early Man to North America is the last major
glacial period. A warm interglacial interval which
ended an earlier glacial stage about 125,000 years
ago was terminated by a cooling trend 75,000
years ago. The following period of extensive con-
tinental and mountain glaciations punctuated by
intervals of glacial retreat is known in North
America as the Wisconsin Age. By common, if not
unanimous agreement, the Wisconsin is consid-
ered to have ended at the convenient figure of
10,000 years ago. The present nonglacial interval
in which we are now living is known as the
Holocene.

The ice-free corridor was a narrow strip of
land along the eastern flank of the Rocky Moun-
tains, which was exposed when coalescing moun-
tain (Cordilleran) and continental (Laurentide)
glaciers had begun to retreat after the late Wiscon-
sin glacial maximum. This is not to say that there
were not earlier glacial episodes. It is this last cor-
ridor that has loomed large in discussions of
peopling the New World which is conventionally
referred to as the ice-free corridor and which was
the concern of the AMQUA symposium and field
sessions.

Rated Clovis point
(actual size) from
Blackwater Draw
locality no. 1 near
Clovis, New Mexico.
This type of point
characterizes earlier
Paleo-Indian occur-
rences Cca. 11,500-
11,000 B.P.).

Perhaps the area most crucial to the ques-
tion of peopling the New World is the so-called
Bering land bridge, a broad plain joining Asia and
North America which was dry land from time to
time during the Pleistocene but which now lies
beneath the sea. Sea level fluctuated considerably
during the Pleistocene because of climatic events
which favored formation of enormous masses of
ice at higher latitudes and elevations of the earth.
On occasions when sea level had dropped by 150
feet, enough of the floor of the Bering and
Chukchi Seas emerged to form a land connection
between Siberia and Alaska. This "vast arctic
lowland," the land bridge along with the con-
tiguous low-lying areas of Siberia and Alaska plus
a little of the Canadian Yukon Territory, is known
as Beringia. Much of Beringia was not glaciated
even during periods of maximum glacial advance
and so provided a refugium for arctic plants and
animals. So much water was locked up in ice dur-
ing the maximum extent of the late Wisconsin
glaciation that sea level was lowered by more than
300 feet, exposing a land bridge over 1,000 miles
wide.

The question of when man first arrived in
the New World is a vexed one. Most students of
Early Man have been inclined to see the existence
of the Bering land connection as necessary for
people to have been able to reach the New
World. In this view hunters would have drifted
gradually eastward into new terrain as directed by
the presence of the large mammals upon which
they preyed. The most likely time would have
been during the period of 22,000 to 15,000 years
ago, although people, if any were living in western
Beringia then, could have reached the New World
during an earlier period of reduced sea level before
30,000 B.P. (before present).

Others argue that man could just as well
have moved across the Bering strait on winter
pack ice or negotiated small passages between ice
floes and islands by boat. Also in favor of the
idea that boats were used are a few who are in-
clined to favor colonization by seafaring people
from Asiatic maritime provinces. By either of
these views there would be no reason to restrict
the time of man's entry into the New World to a
period of low sea level.

In any event, the entry of human im-
migrants into the Americas would have depended
on the degree of technological advancement they
had reached. A string of islands such as the Aleu-
tian chain would have been useless to people
without boats, but it is now known that man, with
the aid of boats or other means of crossing ap-
preciable stretches of open water, reached
Australia as much as 40,000 years ago. There is no
reason to think that other people farther north in
the Asian Pacific coastal area wouldn't have been
similarly advanced technologically, and such peo-
ple could have worked their way around the
Pacific Rim, eventually reaching parts of the
Pacific coast of North America.

The presence of the Bering land bridge
would be of no use to man if the cultural
paraphernalia which would permit living in an
arctic or subarctic environment had not yet come
into being. Man does seem to have been able to
exist in cold environments 200,000 years ago in
the European area at least. Closer to Beringia, we
know that Peking Man was living in northern
China some 300,000 years ago, although under
somewhat milder conditions, and there is no
reason to suppose that this represents the nor-
thernmost extension of human distribution at that
time.

None of this, of course, can be taken to in-
dicate that humans actually did reach the New
World at these early dates, but it does mean that
certain arguments that have been used to discount
claims for Early Man in the Americas can no
longer carry the weight they once did.

Firmly dated archeological evidence is
needed to determine when peopling of the New
World occurred, but no really secure evidence is
found until the very end of the Pleistocene. This is
now available in relative abundance since about
12,000 years ago. Between 11,500 and 11,000 B.P.
there is a rash of Early Man occurrences. Most of
these in North America are characterized by a
distinctive, fluted projectile point known as
"Clovis" (after a site near Clovis, New Mexico,
one of several in the Llano Estacado, where such
points have been found). The complex of artifacts
and activities centered around hunting of large
Pleistocene mammals, particularly elephants, is
known as the Llano, or Clovis, Culture (this is to
be discussed in more detail later). There is sparse
evidence of other big game hunters in Central and
South America at the same time or even somewhat
earlier.

By 10,000 B.P. evidence of Paleo-Indian
occupation is widespread in the Americas, ex-
tending from the tip of South America to Alaska.
Before 12,000, however, the evidence is much
more meager. There is a mere handful of likely
Early Man sites in the Americas between 15,000
and 12,000 years ago. One of the most promising
is the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania,
now being excavated, which has good evidence of
human occupation as early as 15,000 to 16,000
years ago and perhaps even before.

There are a few possible Early Man sites
which have been dated to the 20,000 to 30,000
years ago range, notably a couple in Mexico, and
a few more on the basis of equivocal evidence, to
even greater ages.

Probably the most exciting recent evidence
in this very Early Man area, vying in interest with
the Meadowcroft site, has been coming from the
Old Crow Basin of the Canadian Yukon Territory.
Although the work along the Old Crow River
wasn't discussed per se at the symposium, some of
the results of the work were presented at a "poster
session" and during an informal talk given during
the post-meeting field session. Two groups of

Canadian researchers have been working in the
area and a number of participants were present at
Edmonton and on the field sessions, so there was
ample opportunity for discussion.

The Old Crow River has entrenched itself
in a thick sequence of old lake and alluvial
deposits. Large glacial lakes were formed in the
basin on two separate occasions when the Por-
cupine River, to which the Old Crow is tributary,
was blocked by glaciers. During the interval bet-
ween the lakes, deposits from coalescing alluvial
fans covered much of the basin.

Bones of various later Pleistocene mam-
mals have been found in abundance at numerous
sites along the Porcupine and Old Crow. Along
with these bones were found several hundred bone
artifacts; that is, bones that have been altered by
man, whether from butchering activities, breaking
to extract marrow, or as raw material for tool
making. These have come mainly from secondary
alluvial deposits, which means that earlier sedi-
ments have been reworked by riverine activity
so that material of different ages has been mixed.
An age cannot be assigned, therefore, to the few
stone tools that have been found associated with
the worked bone on gravel bars in the river, but
the bone pieces themselves can be directly dated
by means of the radiocarbon in them. Several
bone tools have yielded dates in the range of
25,000 to 29,000 radiocarbon years B.P. R.
Morlan of the Archeological Survey of Canada, a
member of one of the projects, reported that some
recently obtained dates on broken or flaked
bones, which are apparently artifactual, are con-
siderably older, in some cases exceeding the limits
of the carbon 14 method.

There is a possibility that the bone tools
and other artifacts were made in the relatively re-
cent past by Indians using the old mineralized
bone, or perhaps, old nonmineralized bone
preserved in frozen condition in permafrost and
released from the river bluffs by stream action. Ex-
perimental work on mineralized bone from the
Old Crow basin sediments indicates that such
bone cannot be worked, as can green bone, to pro-
duce the kind of fractures seen in Old Crow arti-
facts. The possibilities concerning frozen bone are
still being explored.

During the last few field seasons, two
horizons in the river bluffs have been located from
which the bone artifacts seem to be coming, but
none have yet been found in undisturbed context.

The presence of humans in Beringia 25,000
to 30,000 and perhaps to more than 50,000 years
ago doesn't necessarily mean that these people
figure in the peopling of the Americas. Eastern
Beringia has on occasion been connected with
Asia at times when it was more or less isolated
from the rest of the North American continent. At
these times it can more properly be considered as
an extension of northeastern Asia than as a part of
North America. Various Asiatic animals are
known from eastern Beringia that either never

established themselves elsewhere in North
America or did so at a time long after their ap-
pearance there. This may also have been true of
some early human inhabitants of the area.

There are a few archeological sites scat-
tered throughout Alaska which have yielded
material for radiocarbon dates in the range of
10,000 to 12,000 years ago. A long gap separates
these dates from the 25,000 years and older dates
from Alaska and the Yukon. This gap also pertains
to the situation as known so far from the Old
Crow Basin. This could simply be a chance result
of the incomplete archeological record but, as one
AMQUA discussant, T. D. Hamilton of the U.S.
Geological Survey, suggested, other factors may
also be involved. Hamilton has worked for the last
16 years in another part of the Yukon drainage on
the south side of the central Brooks Range in
Alaska. Although he has studied and mapped
more than 100 late Pleistocene to Holocene ex-
posures in this area, no artifacts or other evidence
of man's presence before about 6,000 years ago
has been found. The absence of such evidence for
a relatively well studied area "suggests that the
distribution of Early Man in northwestern North
America may not have been continuous in either
space or time."*

J. D. Jennings, in introducing his recently
edited book on Ancient Native Americans (W. H.
Freeman & Co., 1978), states that "at once the
most important and least dramatic event in
American history was the passage of the first man
from Asia into the New World 30,000 or more
years ago." In writing this, Jennings evidently sup-
poses that the first people to set foot in the New
World would ipso facto have become the
ancestors of the Paleo-Indians and eventually the
American Indians found at the time of European
contact. Actually, there would be nothing par-
ticularly odd in the early human inhabitants of
eastern Beringia dying out or withdrawing during
the deteriorating climate of the late Wisconsin
glaciation. Within historic times we know of large
areas of the American arctic that have become
depopulated and of the extinction of entire local
populations. It should also be remembered that
technologically more advanced peoples in recent
times were unsuccessful in establishing themselves
on the opposite corner of the North American
continent. Norse settlements founded in the tenth
century A.D. failed to survive, evidently due to
deteriorating climatic conditions in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. Although not without in-
terest, the presence of those early colonists was
essentially irrelevant to the peopling of the New
World. So may it have been with the early
Beringians.

From time to time during the Quaternary,

"All quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken
from the Abstracts of the fifth biennial meeting,
American Quaternary Association, Edmonton, Alberta,
1978.

at the maxima of certain glacial episodes, con-
tinental ice encroaching on the mountain front
was met by tongues of Cordilleran ice to form a
continuous ice sheet. Just how often this happened
is not known, since deposits of the earlier glacial
episodes are much less well preserved or exposed
than are those of recent glaciations. But even the
configurations of late Wisconsin ice are unclear.
Earlier Wisconsin glacial deposits are more exten-
sive than those of the late Wisconsin in the cor-
ridor area. It is not always easy to distinguish be-
tween the earlier and later deposits occurring
there. Organic material which would be suitable
for radiocarbon dating is usually absent from
these deposits.

Not all fronts of an ice sheet were syn-
chronized. An ice lobe in one area could be advan-
cing while another front was at a standstill or even
retreating. A warming trend, which could result in
ice thinning and accelerated flow at the terminus,
could effect separate ice masses, or discrete por-
tions of the same one, differently. Effects of the
warming could be manifest at the toe of a moun-
tain glacier system long before they would be felt
at the front of the more massive Laurentide ice
sheet. Such seems to have been the case in Alber-
ta, where Laurentide ice overran deposits of the
retreating Cordilleran ice. (Because of the very dif-
ferent rocks contained in the deposits derived
from the two glacial systems, it is not difficult to
distinguish between them.) However, the Lauren-
tide ice did not reach the mountains in this area
and did not encounter Cordilleran ice until much
farther north. Laurentide ice did reach the Rich-
ardson and MacKenzie mountains in the North-
west Territories, but there the late Wisconsin
glaciation was not extensive. Terminal moraines
of the valley glaciers occur well back from the
Laurentide ice margin so a rather rugged ice-free
zone remained. Thus, even at the height of late
Wisconsin glaciation there were appreciable ice-
free reentrants at either end of the incipient cor-
ridor. It was in the central part of the corridor
mainly along the mountains in northeastern Brit-
ish Columbia and a little of adjacent Alberta that
there seems to have been a formidable late Wis-
consin ice barrier.

In summarizing geological evidence per-
taining to the corridor area, N. W. Rutter, a
University of Alberta geologist, concluded "there
was only a short period of time when Laurentide-
Cordilleran ice could have coalesced in Wisconsin
time .... This could have been in Early Wisconsin
time, which we know little about, and in Late
Wisconsin time . . . for a maximum of about
10,000 years." That is, the corridor has been
blocked by ice for only about 10,000 of the past
70,000 years.

According to geologist W. H. Mathews of
the University of British Columbia, who has been
working in the British Columbian part of the cor-
ridor, retreat of the ice there seems to have begun

about 13,500 years ago. He estimated that it took
nearly 2,000 years for the ice to withdraw to a
point 150 miles to the northeast.

Even after converging ice masses had
withdrawn sufficiently to provide an ice-free cor-
ridor, one shouldn't think that easy passage
southward would have been assured. Melting ice
provided a large volume of meltwater to supple-
ment runoff from the mountins and local rainfall.
Old drainage lines were still blocked by Lauren-
tide ice and local drainages choked with glacial
debris so that much of the floor of the corridor
must have been inundated by the water of lakes-
some of them very large — and by bogs and
streams. These features in themselves would not
necessarily have been serious obstacles to the
movement of man and other animals, for they
became quite passable when frozen over — a condi-
tion which must have prevailed for at least several
months of the year.

A more crucial factor for human occupa-
tion than water barriers would have been the
availability of sufficient food plants to support the
animals upon which man, in turn, depended for
subsistence. (Such environments provide little in
the way of vegetable foods suitable for human
consumption.) It would seem likely that the ap-
propriate regional vegetation would have become
established quickly enough in suitable terrain
within the corridor, but it is difficult to guess how
long it might have been before this was sufficient
to support sigificant numbers of game animals. It
may be that this situation would not have been
realized before a normal drainage connection with
the MacKenzie River had been reestablished. At
present there seems to be no very good estimate as
to just when that might have been.

Unfortunately, "The Paleoecology of the
Ice-Free Corridor," discussed at the AMQUA
meeting by J. C. Ritchie, a University of Toronto
biologist, is too poorly known to contribute much
to the subject of peopling the New World. There
are a few scattered indications that the late
Wisconsin glaciation was preceded by a period of
environmental conditions similar to modern ones.
There is no evidence as yet from the southern half
of the corridor area for conditions prevailing from
the time of the beginning of ice retreat until about
13,000 B.P., at which time forested conditions
already existed in many localities. Ritchie suspects
a prior one or two thousand years may be unac-
counted for in the known sections. In the northern
corridor area there is a little general information
on regional changes in vegetation patterns be-
tween 14,000 and 13,000 B.P., but nothing, it
seems, that might apply to the early stages of the
corridor itself.

With the abundance of water in the early
corridor, one might think that fish would have
provided a possible food base. Zoologist C. C.
Lindsey, of the University of Manitoba, in discuss-
ing "Aquatic Zoogeography and the Ice-Free Cor-

'^^

View across the toe
of the Athabasca
Glacier. Such views
with wasting ice,
meltwater streams,
and lakes would
have been common-
place to any inhabi-
tants of the ice- free
corridor in its earlier
phases.

ridor," cited distribution of Yukon varieties of fish
to indicate that streams normally tributary to the
MacKenzie River, while still dammed by Lauren-
tide ice, backed up to eventually spill over to the
Yukon drainage; this temporarily extended its
headwaters far to the southeast. Besides indicating
that this part of the corridor, at least, was a very
watery place, this suggests that fish may have
been introduced at a very early stage of its
development but again, no precise age can be
assigned to the event. It may also be that refugia
for fish persisted through the late Wisconsin. Lind-
sey cited one such possibility somewhat farther
south in the corridor.

The results of recent field work have tend-
ed to indicate that late Wisconsin ice was less ex-
tensive than had once been supposed. A. MacS.
Stalker, a geologist with the Geological Survey of
Canada, is primarily responsible for working out
the geology of the southern corridor area and is
one who advocates a relatively weak advance of
late Wisconsin ice. He nevertheless strongly
doubts that an ice-free corridor had opened early
enough to account for human occupation south of
the ice sheet as early as 14,000 or 15,000 B.P.
However, with the possibility that an essentially
ice-free corridor may have come into being much
earlier than currently seems to have been the case.
Stalker, in his prepared comments for the Edmon-
ton symposium, considered the nature of such a
corridor.

He finds it difficult to imagine that passage
of Early Man through a corridor at this early time
would have been feasible, for reasons such as have
already been given. In addition to lingering spurs
of ice, bogs, and barren landscape left by
retreating glaciers, frigid glacial lakes, and tur-
bulent rivers, "there would have been the chilling
winds blowing from the glaciers . . . and extended
periods of intense cold as man slowly worked his
way 1,000 km south through the narrow part of

the corridor, not knowing where he was going or
what he had to face. . . ."

Although some of the obstacles and dis-
agreeable conditions Stalker envisages probably
loom larger to the geologist studying the deposits
and landforms left by long departed glaciers than
they did to a people adapted to an arctic environ-
ment, he stresses an important point: if anyone
emerged from the southern end of the corridor, it
was incidental to occupation of the corridor area.
There is no reason at all to think that Early Man
arrived either in eastern Beringia or in the central
part of North America as the result of purposeful
migration. Traversal of the corridor would not
necessarily have taken a great deal of time. It is
not inconceivable that a group of individuals,
within the lifetimes of some of them, might have
worked its way the length of the corridor and
emerged onto the plains of southern Alberta and
into Montana, but they could not have done so
until sources of subsistence — food, clothing, and
shelter — were available there. The concept of an
ice-free corridor involves a good deal more than
simply some more or less dry ground to walk on.

On the basis of evidence currently
available, the corridor does not appear to be a
very promising route for immigrants into the cen-
tral part of North America before 12,000 to 13,000
years ago. Stalker suggests that "perhaps it is just
as well that the finding of indications of the
presence of man in North America prior to the
maximum of the [late] Wisconsin renders an ice-
free corridor unnecessary, and offers the possibili-
ty that man may have migrated south in comfort
and ease much earlier."

("Of Land Bridges, Ice-Free Corridors, and Early
Man in the Americas" will be concluded in the
March Bulletin.)

y J" J' f /' ^ jc J" .r^ ^ ,j' --■■-jrr.^V" J" J' y^ JT"^

CONFLICTS

BETWEEN

DARWIN

AND

PALEONTOLOGY

REPUBLIC of MALDIVES

Part of our conventional wisdom about evo-
lution is that the fossil record of past life is
an important cornerstone of evolutionary
theory. In some ways, this is true — but the situa-
tion is much more complicated. I will explore here
a few of the complex interrelationships between
fossils and darwinian theory, but let me first set
the stage by commenting about the geologic rec-
ord itself.

There are about 250,000 different species of
fossil plants and animals known. These have been
named and described and specimens have been
deposited in museums throughout the world. Field
Museum has in its collections representatives of
perhaps 20 percent of these known species. In
combination with other museums, we thus have
an enormous amount of statistical information on
changes in the biological world that have occurred
since the origin of life on Earth. In spite of this
large quantity of information, it is but a tiny frac-
tion of the diversity that actually lived in the past.
There are well over a million species living today
and known rates of evolutionary turnover make it
possible to predict how many species ought to be
in our fossil record. That number is at least 100
times the number we have found. It is clear that
fossilization is a very chancy process and that the
vast majority of plants and animals of the past
have left no record at all.

To many people, the most interesting fos-
sils are the oldest ones and the youngest ones. The
oldest ones (up to 3,500 million years old) give us
information about the origin and early evolution
of life — at a time when physical and chemical en-

vironments were very different from those that
prevail today. The youngest rocks, on the other
hand, are of interest because they include fossils of
early man. These, of course, have been worked on
with particular success by the Leakeys in East
Africa.

But these extremes account for only a small
part of the quarter of a million fossil species —
and for one interested in the broad range of evolu-
tionary change, the extremes do not contribute
much. In between is a long geologic interval which
contains the basic record of the evolution of all
major groups of plants and animals. Time control
and quality of preservation are excellent compared
with the rather thin record of the oldest or young-
est fossils. (I might point out here that the East
African material the Leakeys have worked on is
relatively poor, there are only a couple hundred
specimens, and age-dating is very uncertain.)

Darwin's theory of natural selection has
always been closely linked to evidence from fos-
sils, and probably most people assume that fossils
provide a very important part of the general argu-
ment that is made in favor of darwinian interpre-
tations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is
not strictly true. We must distinguish between the
fact of evolution — defined as change in organ-
isms over time — and the explanation of this
change. Darwin's contribution, through his theory
of natural selection, was to suggest how the evolu-
tionary change took place. The evidence we find
in the geologic record is not nearly as compatible
with darwinian natural selection as we would like
it to be. Darwin was completely aware of this. He

By David M. Raup, curator of geology

1 meter

1978 W. H. Freeman & Co.

was embarrassed by the fossil record because it
didn't look the way he predicted it would and, as a
result, he devoted a long section of his Origin of
Species to an attempt to explain and rationalize
the differences. There were several problems, but
the principal one was that the geologic record did
not then and still does not yield a finely graduated
chain of slow and progressive evolution. In other
words, there are not enough intermediates. There
are very few cases where one can find a gradual
transition from one species to another and very
few cases where one can look at a part of the fossil
record and actually see that organisms were im-
proving in the sense of becoming better adapted.
To emphasize this let me cite a couple of state-
ments Darwin made in his Origin of Species: At
one point he observed, "innumerable transitional
forms must have existed but why do we not find
them embedded in countless numbers in the crust
of the earth?"; in another place he said, "why is
not every geological formation and every stratum
full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly
does not reveal any such finely graduated organic
chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection
which can be urged against my theory."

Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of
life, what geologists of Darwin's time, and geolo-
gists of the present day actually find is a highly
uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in
the sequence very suddenly, show little or no
change during their existence in the record, then
abruptly go out of the record. And it is not always
clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants
were actually better adapted than their predeces-
sors. In other words, biological improvement is
hard to find. Let me give an example: During the
interval from about 65 to 200 million years ago
there were a lot of flying reptiles known as ptero-
saurs (see "Pterosaur," by John Bolt, in the May,
1976, Bulletin). Their fossil record is quite good in
spite of the fact that the skeleton of these animals
is difficult to preserve. The giant Pteranodon was
particularly spectacular. It was much larger than

any bird living today and was widely distributed,
particularly in the southern and southwestern
parts of the United States.

Figure 1 shows a reconstruction of Pterano-
don as it probably looked. The mountains in the
background are not there by accident: it is felt by
some people that these reptiles could become air-
borne only by climbing up on cliffs and jumping.
Figure 2 shows the skeleton. Wings were formed
by greatly extending the bones of one finger on
each hand and filling in with skin the area enclosed
by the dotted line. This is basically the device used
also by some modern bats. There is little question
that this animal was capable of flight — a conclu-
sion based on sophisticated engineering studies
involving extensive analysis of weight, lift, drag,
and other aerodynamically important factors —
along with wind tunnel experiments with scaled
models.

Figure 3 shows what Pteranodon probably
looked like at rest and when flying. The most strik-
ing aspect of Pteranodon is its size, demonstrated

From Science, March
1975 (Vol. 187. No. 4180)
cover illustration.
Copyright '^ 1975 The
American Association
tor the Advancement of
Science. Courtesy D. A.
Lawson.

in Figure 4, where it is shown in comparison with
other flying objects. On the left is a modern tailless
aircraft — the Northrop YB-49 — with a wingspan
of about 170 feet. Next to it is the largest known
pterosaur, which had a wingspan of about 50 feet.
Next is a smaller pterosaur. The drawing on the
far right shows one of the largest living birds — a
condor with a wingspan of about nine feet. Thus,
some pterosaurs were larger than all flying birds
and even many small airplanes. They achieved
this size and were still able to fly because their
design was nearly optimal.

So here we have an adaptation which was
apparently successful for many millions of years
but which is now extinct and has not been
repeated. That this animal went extinct implies
some sort of failure. At least that is the conven-
tional wisdom. Pteranodon, along with most
other large reptiles, was replaced by mammals and
birds. Mammals and birds were already around,
but in small numbers. We assume in darwinian
fashion that the big reptiles went extinct because
there was something wrong with them; that is,
they either couldn't compete with new forms that
had evolved, or there was some change in environ-
ment that they couldn't adapt to fast enough to
survive. As we will see, this interpretation may
not be correct. We don't have any real evidence
that there was anything wrong with the flying rep-
tiles— in fact, they lived on the earth for a much
longer time than humans have been around. Dur-
ing their tenure on earth the flying reptiles diversi-
fied into several quite distinct species but it is very
difficult to put these species into any sort of series
of improvement.

Here is another example: Figure 5 shows a
fossil trilobite — a member of an extensive but
now extinct group of arthropods. Figure 6 is a
closeup of one eye of a trilobite. The eyes were

generally large and quite similar to the eyes of
modern insects, crabs, and other arthropods. But
if we look at the individual elements of the trilo-
bite eye, we find that the lens systems were very
different from what we now have. Riccardo Levi-
Setti (a Field Museum research associate in geol-
ogy and professor of physics at the University of
Chicago) has recently done some spectacular work
on the optics of these lens systems. Figure 7 shows
sketches of a common type of trilobite lens. Each
lens is a doublet (that is, made up of two lenses).
The lower lens is shaded in these sketches and the
upper one is blank. The shape of the boundary be-
tween the two lenses is unlike any now in use —
either by humans or animals. But the shape is
nearly identical to designs published independent-
ly by Descartes and Huygens in the seventeenth
century.

The Descartes and Huygens designs had the
purpose of avoiding spherical aberration and were
what is known as aplanatic lenses. The only sig-
nificant difference between them and the trilobite
lens is that the Descartes and Huygens lenses were
not doublets — that is, they did not have the
lower lens. But, as Levi-Setti has shown, for these
designs to work underwater where the trilobites
lived, the lower lens was necessary. Thus, the tri-
lobites 450 million years ago used an optimal
design which would require a well trained and
imaginative optical engineer to develop today —
or one who was familiar with the seventeenth cen-
tury optical literature.

Most fossils are not as easily understood as
this. We have no idea why most structures in
extinct organisms look the way they do. And, as I
have already noted, different species usually ap-
pear and disappear from the record without show-
ing the transitions that Darwin postulated.

Darwin's general solution to the incompati-

bility of fossil evidence and his theory was to say
that the fossil record is a very incomplete one —
that it is full of gaps, and that we have much to
learn. In effect, he was saying that if the record
were complete and if we had better knowledge of
it, we would see the finely graduated chain that he
predicted. And this was his main argument for
downgrading the evidence from the fossil record.
Well, we are now about 120 years after
Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has
been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of
a million fossil species but the situation hasn't
changed much. The record of evolution is still sur-
prisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer
examples of evolutionary transition than we had
in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the
classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil rec-
ord, such as the evolution of the horse in North
America, have had to be discarded or modified as
a result of more detailed information — what
appeared to be a nice simple progression when
relatively few data were available now appears to
be much more complex and much less gradualistic.
So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in
the last 120 years and we still have a record which
does show change but one that can hardly be
looked upon as the most reasonable consequence
of natural selection. Also the major extinctions

upper lens
unit

optical
nterface

intralensar bowl

sclera

Eye of trilobite
Crozonaspis struvei (Henry)

such as those of the dinosaurs and trilobites are
still very puzzling.

Now let me step back from the problem
and very generally discuss natural selection and
-what we know about it. I think it is safe to say that
we know for sure that natural selection, as a proc-
ess, does work. There is a mountain of experimen-
tal and observational evidence, much of it predat-
ing genetics, which shows that natural selection as
a biological process works. Darwin's strongest
evidence for selection actually came from the ex-
perience of plant and animal breeders who were

employing artificial selection to produce evolution
by breeding. And selection, be it natural or arti-
ficial, can clearly lead to better adapted types
through a series of generations and through
gradual transformation of a population.

So natural selection as a process is okay.
We are also pretty sure that it goes on in nature
although good examples are surprisingly rare. The
best evidence comes from the many cases where it
can be shown that biological structures have been
optimized — that is, structures that represent opti-
mal engineering solutions to the problems that an

animal has of feeding or escaping predators or
generally functioning in its environment. The
superb designs of flying reptiles and of trilobite
eyes are examples. The presence of these optimal
structures does not, of course, prove that they
developed through natural selection but it does
provide strong circumstantial argument.

Now with regard to the fossil record, we
certainly see change. If any of us were to be put
down in the Cretaceous landscape we would
immediately recognize the differences. Some of
the plants and animals would be familiar but most

"The average duration of a
species on the earth is less than
10 miUion years. And the
record of really abundant life
goes back at least 600 million
years, so there has been
complete turnover in the
biological world many times."

would have changed and some of the types would
be totally different from those living today. The
average duration of a species on the earth is less
than 10 million years. And the record of really
abundant life goes back at least 600 million years,
so there has been complete turnover in the biologi-
cal world many times. This record of change
pretty clearly demonstrates that evolution has oc-
curred if we define evolution simply as change;
but it does not tell us how this change took place,
and that's really the question. If we allow that
natural selection works, as we almost have to do,
the fossil record doesn't tell us whether it was
responsible for 90 percent of the change we see, or
9 percent, or .9 percent.

The very obvious question at this point is:
what alternative mechanisms do we have to ex-
plain the changes that we observe? A great many
alternatives have been suggested both before and
after Darwin. Some of the evolutionary theories
that have been proposed belong to the lunatic
fringe, but others are serious propositions by com-
petent scholars. A currently important alternative
to natural selection has to do with the effects of
pure chance. It has been suggested that there are
traits which are not important enough to the
organism to be "seen" by natural selection, and
that a purely random system of evolution could
work for these traits. Let me give an example
which may be important in the fossil record:
Many organisms have shells which are coiled in a
spiral fashion, such as snails, the pearly nautilus.

and a great many other fossil and living organ-
isms. Sometimes the spiral is left-handed, some-
times it's right-handed. One is just the mirror im-
age of the other. In most cases, whole species of
snails are either exclusively left-handed or exclu-
sively right-handed. In a few cases, both left-
handed and right-handed forms occur within the
same species. And it is pretty clear that this is a
hereditary trait — although the genetic mechan-
ism is often complex.

In most cases, it's difficult to find an advan-
tage the left-handed form would have over the
right-handed form, or vice-versa. In such cases,
the coiling direction that dominates the species
may just be a matter of chance; that is, the one
that got there first, or happened by chance to have
more offspring gradually came to dominate the
population. This is the sort of trait that might be
subject to random evolution — a clear difference
between animals but one not seen by natural selec-
tion because it does not affect the general life and
hard times of the organism. I should add that in
some snails it has been shown that this situation is
a little bit more complicated because copulatory
behavior is affected by coiling direction; specifi-
cally, the left-handed ones get along better with
other left-handed ones than with shells of opposite
coiling direction. This gives a selective advantage
to homogeneity in a population without giving
preference to left or right. So a left-handed strain
that got started might be aided by natural selec-
tion even though its origin was a matter of chance.
In the general case, however, the symmetry differ-
ence is probably neutral.

It would seem that if evolution of shape
and form in animals were a random affair, the
result would be one of chaos. This, of course, is
one of the major counter-arguments to the idea of
random evolution (or random walk evolution as it
is sometimes called). It is certainly true that one
would be most unlikely to develop a functioning
flying insect, reptile, or bird by a chance collection
of changes. Some sort of guidance is necessary.
And in these cases, of course, natural selection is
the only mechanism we know of to produce a
workable combination of characteristics. On the
other hand, it may be that a great many of the dif-
ferences that we observe within major animal
groups are differences which do not have much
effect on fitness. We are thus talking about the sur-
vival of the lucky as well as the survival of the
fittest.

A large number of evolutionary biologists
these days are studying the question that I've just
considered — it's called neutral or nondarwinian
evolution. Much of this research is concentrated in
the Chicago area. Most of the work so far has
been done with proteins of relatively minor impor-
tance in the biological scheme where the case for
selective neutrality can be made much more easily.
Paleontologists have to work with obvious traits.

and therefore, traits which are more likely to be
seen by natural selection, so paleontologists are
working at a scale different from that used by
biologists. The whole problem of neutral evolu-
tion represents a very exciting area and is one of
the most hotly debated topics in evolutionary
biology today.

I would like now to concentrate on just one
aspect of the problem. This has to do with the
extinction of large groups such as the dinosaurs,
the trilobites, and also somewhat smaller groups
such as the flying reptiles that I have already
discussed.

We know that the dinosaurs went extinct
about 65 million years ago and we know they
went extinct rather suddenly. Now, when we say
the dinosaurs went extinct we are saying that a
couple of prominent reptilian orders died out at
about the same time. It is important to remember
that what taxonomists call a class or an order does
not exist as such. It's an abstraction denoting a
collection of species descended from a common
ancestor. It is an abstraction just as a family name
in a human community is an abstraction. There-
fore, when we say the dinosaurs went extinct what
we are actually saying is that the dinosaur species
living at a certain time didn't leave any descen-
dants which we would call dinosaurs. The conven-
tional wisdom is that the dinosaurs must have had
traits in common or requirements in common such
that they couldn't cope with changes in environ-
ment. And paleontologists have gone to great
lengths to try to find out what happened.

Conventionally, the approach is a com-
pletely darwinian one based on the faith or belief
that extinction can only be explained by finding
some sort of Achilles heel shared by all members
of the group. Along with this is the strong implica-
tion that the successor group — mammals in the
dinosaur case — was somehow better than the
dinosaurs, and this implies that if both were living
today, the dinosaurs would again lose out to the
mammals. This scenario may be true, but it is a
very difficult one to prove. We don't have any
convincing arguments for why the dinosaurs died
out. It has even been suggested that we have a
tendency to make what can only be called a moral
judgement in cases of extinction. If a group went
extinct, it must have been bad. The good prosper,
the bad die.

What I would like to develop is an idea
based on chance or randomness which may lead to
the conclusion that the dinosaurs were simply
unlucky. One way to approach this is to look at a
completely different but analogous situation: one
having to do with the evolution of surnames in
human families. We know that family names die
out. Surnames disappear from our communities.
And the same question could be asked of them
that is asked of the dinosaurs — does a human sur-
name die out because its members are weak, or do

"It was clever of the pterodactyls to think of
flying, but that's all you can say for them.
They were doomed from the start because
they had no feathers and no wishbone, or
furcula, as flying vertebrates should have.
They didn't belong in the picture and public
opinion was against them. The Archaeop-
teryx was not much of a bird, but at least it
had feathers. As for the pterodactyls, the
best thing to do is just forget them. Bats are
going to flop, too, and everybody knows it
except the bats themselves. " — How to
Become Extinct, by Will Cuppy (1941)

something wrong, or does the family just have bad
luck?

One reason to turn to the evolution of sur-
names for help is that the subject has been worked
on extensively for about 150 years and several
effective mathematical techniques have been
developed for working with the problem.

One of the first references to extinction of
family names is found, of all places, in Malthus —
in his famous Essay on Population. We normally
associate Malthus with birth and population
growth rather than death and extinction. But he
mentioned in passing some data on the extinction
of families in the town of Berne, Switzerland. He
noted that over the 200-year period from 1583 to
1783, fully three-quarters of the prominent
families that were present at the start of the period
went extinct before the end of the 200 years. This
was a startling figure. The same phenomenon was
found later in other situations — including the
English peerage and various European royal fam
lies. Wherever information was available,
showed that the average life expectancy of a fam
ly name is surprisingly short. This was intuitively
unreasonable. Because all the data came from the
upper classes of society, it was assumed that there
was something debilitating or weakening about
membership in the upper classes — and this gave
rise to all sorts of sociological theory and specula-
tion. But these speculations could not be checked
because information was not available for the
lower classes of society.

It turned out, after some now classic mathe-
matical analysis by Galton and Watson* that what
Malthus and others had observed was exactly
what should be expected by chance alone, and the
social class had nothing to do with it! This was
later confirmed by studies of whole communities.

What this means is that families are inher-

*F. Galton and H. W. Watson. 1875, "On the Probabil-
ity of the Extinction of Families, "in the Journal of the
Anthropological Society of London, Vol. IV, pp. 138-44.

ently prone to extinction even though the popula-
tion as a whole is stable — or even growing. Now
this is still counter-intuitive and hard to accept.
We all know of families that are enormous and
which have long histories. The biography shelves
of any library are full of examples. But the fact is
that the ultimate extinction of any family name is
statistically inevitable. The only uncertainty is
when. It is perhaps best understood by noting that
a family has about an equal chance of increasing
or decreasing in size during a single generation.
This is because the chances are about 50-50 of any
marriage producing a male heir unless, of course,
the couple keeps having children for the express
purpose of having a male heir. I must apologize
for my emphasis on the male line but since it is the
name-bearing line, it is easier to work with. The
same results can be gotten with the female lines
but it is less convenient to analyze. Anyway, the

A good example of such disappearance is
that of the earldom of Rochester. Henry Wilmot
was declared the First Earl of Rochester in 1652
but died seven years later leaving one son, John,
who became the Second Earl. John died 21 years
after that and his only son died as a child and the
title became extinct. Now all three earls died of
specific causes — John died of syphilis for exam-
ple. One can say that John was unlucky, but the
extinction of the line cannot be said to have hap-
pened without cause. But if we look at a whole
group of such families, their histories are indistin-
guishable from a system controlled only by
chance. By assuming a system of chance, we can
accurately predict the approximate number of
families that will be short-lived — even though we
cannot predict in advance which families will be
short-lived.

Now, suppose we have an imaginary hu-

number of males in a family fluctuates up and
down as a random walk. If the number happens to
drop to zero, the family is, so to speak, out of the
game. The surname is extinct and cannot recover.
But there is no such limit on the high side. That is,
success cannot guarantee immunity to extinction
to the degree that extinction guarantees immunity
from success. Thus, ultimate extinction is inevit-
able and the smaller a family, the greater the
chances of its becoming extinct in the next genera-
tion. Most families die out quickly because they
generally start out small and thus are dangerously
close to extinction at the beginning. Most pub-
lished family histories are written about those
families which do survive to become large. And
most family histories are written by family mem-
bers and thus are about families that have not yet
become extinct. The biography shelves of a library
thus contain a most unrepresentative sample of
families. And even these families are doomed in
the long run by the random walk nature of family
evolution.

For the reader who is still skeptical, I rec-
ommend any of the published catalogs of the
English peerage. The English peerage provides a
particularly clear-cut situation. When a single
individual is declared to be a peer of England, with
the title to be inherited through the male line, we
have the start of what is, in effect, a new family
with a single founder. Some lines last a long time
but most disappear in the first one, two, or three
generations.

man community which has a variety of surnames.
Most of the families will be small — either because
they just started or because they are on the verge
of extinction. Only a few families will be large.
This imaginary community would have a tele-
phone book much like that of Chicago in the sense
that a few names are very abundant but most are
not. Now suppose that the population were sud-
denly reduced by epidemic disease. And suppose
that family affiliation was not a factor in the
reduction: that is, assume that Smiths were not
more susceptible to disease than Browns. If this
were to happen, there would be simultaneous ex-
tinction of many families. Most of the disappear-
ing families would be the small ones but some
large ones would be included. If someone were to
look at family records later, it might appear that
the reduction in population size was due to extinc-
tion of families — rather than the other way
around — and one might be tempted to search for
common denominators of failure among the
families that died out in order to find out why they
died out. But this would be entirely wrong because
surname extinction was the effect rather than the
cause of the population drop.

I can illustrate the general principle by a
hypothetical example. The left side of Figure 8,
above, shows a random array of 15 letters — rang-
ing from A to E. Each letter may be thought of as
representing a different surname; A is the most
common and B the least common. Now, if we
remove letters randomly, we may get something

like the middle of Figure 8. Ten letters were select-
ed for removal by using a table of random num-
bers. The letter A survived which is not surprising
because it was the most common to begin with.
But B also survived — by good luck. D and E went
extinct. The right side of Figure 8 shows another
try with the same original pattern. This time, A
and D went extinct and B, C, and £ survived. B
was lucky both times.

Let me return now to the fossil record of
evolution. The dinosaurs died out at the end of the
Cretaceous period (about 65 million years ago).
Several other important animal groups also died
out at about the same time. The groups seem to
have little in common. Some lived on land, others
in the sea. Some were large animals, some were
small. And so on. (There is nothing surprising, by
the way, in the fact that all these groups died out
near the boundary two periods in the geologic
time scale because the boundary itself is defined
on the basis of the extinctions.) Many paleontolo-
gists have spent years trying to figure out what
failing was shared by such different animal groups.
Some explanations have been suggested but none
of them is really convincing (to me, at least). The
only thing we know for sure is that a lot of groups
died out at about the same time. The fact of the ex-
tinctions is not geologically unusual — only the
number of extinctions in a short time.

The business about extinction of human
surnames may provide a solution. We may postu-
late that the end of the Cretaceous period was a
time when an unusually large number of species
died out. This could have resulted from some sort
of epidemic, or a worldwide change in climate, or
from a rare astronomical event. If a lot of separate

species died out, some families and orders would
inevitably also die out, as we have seen through
the surname analogy. Some species would survive
by luck and some would survive because they
were fit. But these differences in fitness need not
have anything to do with membership in a group
such as reptiles and mammals.

Thanks to the mathematical techniques
developed by people working with surnames, it is
possible to test the geologic case against the prop-
osition that species extinctions are not biased by
the group to which the species belongs. It turns
out that tests of several mass extinctions in the
fossil record show that group membership (family
name, if you will) is not statistically correlated
with the extinctions. The dinosaur extinctions
have not been fully tested yet. But experience with
other extinction events leads one to look at the
dinosaur extinctions as a possible chance phenom-
enon. It may be that the mammals were not better
than the dinosaurs but just luckier at a time when
an unusually large number of species were dying.
This leads to the rather disquieting conclusion that
if the Cretaceous extinctions were to be reenacted,
a different suite of groups might have survived
and this suite might not include our ancestors.

The ideas I have discussed here are rather
new and have not been completely tested. No mat-
ter how they come out, however, they are having
a ventilating effect on thinking in evolution and
the conventional dogma is being challenged. If the
ideas turn out to be valid, it will mean that Darwin
was correct in what he said but that he was ex-
plaining only a part of the total evolutionary pic-
ture. The part he missed was the simple element of
chance!

BORDEN EXPEDITION

Continued from p. 8

The Museum's Annual Report for 1927 car-
ried this description of the zoological specimens
collected:

". . . The zoological results of this expedi-
tion include a . . . group of Peninsula Brown Bears
{Ursus dalli gyas) which are the largest carnivor-
ous animals now living, rivalling in size the Cave
Bear of Pleistocene times. Of the four specimens
selected for a group, two were shot by Mrs. John
Borden, one by Miss Frances Ames, and the
fourth, ... by Mrs. R. B. Slaughter. The expedi-
tion also obtained . . . Polar Bears and the com-
plete skin and skull of a large male Pacific Walrus,

Five of the eight Sea Scouts survive today:
Andrews, Purcell, Carstenson, Ram and McClel-
land. Andrews, who became an engineer, and
Carstenson, who became a tool and die maker, are
living in Florida. Ram, the only scout to become a
professional mariner, is with the merchant marine.

Purcell, a Jesuit priest, is a research professor at
Georgetown University and a distinguished indus-
trial labor relations authority. McClelland, a
Chicago resident, is a retired physics teacher.
Shortly after the expedition, McClelland made a
name for himself by skippering the winning
schooner. Blue Moon, in the 1929 Chicago-Macki-
nac yacht race.

Frances Ames, who collected botanical
specimens on the expedition, is now Mrs. Douglas
Wolseley, of Santa Barbara, CA. Mrs. Charles B.
Goodspeed, widowed and remarried, is now Mrs.
Gilbert W. Chapman, of New York. Mrs. John
Borden (nee Courtney Letts), subsequently wife of
the Argentine ambassador to the United States
(1931-43), Felipe Espil (deceased), is now Mrs.
Foster Adams, of New York. Mrs. Adams will be
at Field Museum on Saturday, February 3, to in-
troduce the film "The Cruise of the Northern
Light," which will be shown in James Simpson
Theatre. D

Index to Field Museum of N€itural History Bulletin, Volume 49 (1978)

prepared by KENNETH GRABOWSKI

Articles

Adventures in Patagonia, by Larry G. MarshaU: March 4-11
Ancona School Comes to Field Museum, by Carol Burch-Brown

and Mary Hynes-Berry: Oct. 16-21
Archaeologist as Witch, The, by Thomas J. Riley: June 6-11
Archaeology in the Electronics Age, by Robert A. Feldman and

Alan Louis Kolata: July/Aug. 4-8
Beauty, Wealtfi, and Spirit: Feather Arts from Five Continents,

by Phylis Rabineau: Dec. 3
Bolivian Adventure: In Search of the Bones of Giants, by Larry

G. Marshall: May 16-23
Borden-Field Museum 1927 Alaska Arctic Expedition, The,

(Part I) by Ted Karamanski and Dave Walsten: Nov. 6-9,

20-24
Buddhism and Taoism in Chinese Schulpture: A Curious Evolu-
tion in Religious Motif by Art Pontynen: June 16-21
China-Watchers of Yesteryear, by Audrey Hiller: Nov. 10-15
Close Encounters of the Zeroth Kind by Edward C. Olsen: Sept.

6-13
Conservation of a Woven Hat Cover, The, by Christine Danziger

and Jim Hanson: March 24
Dayflowers. by Robert Faden: April 23-25
Festival of Anthropology on Film, A, by Ira Jacknis and Jane

Swanson: July/Aug. 16-21
Gamelan, The, by Sue Carter-De Vale: Jan. 3-12
Life in the Pre-Columbian Town of Galindo, Peru, by Garth

Bawden: March 16-23
Male and Female: Anthropology Game, by Michael Story: April

12-13
Mazon Creek Census, by Gordon C. Baird: Sept. 15-18, 20-21
Mazon Creek Studies: The First 120 Years, by Matthew H.

Nitecki: Sept. 22-26
Natural History Quiz, by Ken Grabowski: July/Aug. 15, 22
New Guinea Adventure: Sketch of a Working Anthropologist,

by Susan B. Parker: May 4-9
Peru 's Golden Treasures, by Robert A. Feldman: Feb. 3
Prehistoric Missionaries in East Central Illinois, by Thomas J.

Riley and Gary A. Apfelstedt: April 16-2/
Restoration of the Gamelan, by Louis Pomerantz: Jan. 13-18
Royal Burials of Ancient Peru, by Geoffrey W. Conrad: Feb.

6-11, 21-26
Solem and Snails, by Patricia Williams: Nov. 16-19
Terror Bird The, by Larry G. Marshall: Oct. 6-15
Thumbelina: House Guest in Miniature, by Ivan Barker:

April 22
Versatile Gourd, The, by Alfreida RehUng: May 24
Virunga: Or Whatever Happened to Albert National Park?, by

Burt A. Ovrut and Susan Ovrut: April 4-9

Authors

Apfelstadt, Gary A.: Prehistoric Missionaries in East Central

Illinois (with T. J. Riley), April 16-21
Baird, Gordon C: Mazon Creek Census, Sept. 15-18, 20-21
Baker, Ivan: Thumberlina: House Guest in Miniature, April 22
Bawden, Garth: Life in the Pre-Columbian Town of Galindo,

Peru, March 16-23

Burch-Brown, Carol: Ancona School Comes to Field Museum

(with M. Hynes-Berry), Oct. 16-21
Carter-De Vale, Sue: The Gamelan, Jan. 3-12
Conrad, Geoffrey W .: Royal Burials of Ancient Peru, Feb. 6-11,

21-26
Danziger, Christine: The Conservation of a Woven Hat Cover

(with J. Hanson), March 24
Faden, Robert: Dayflowers, April 23-25
Feldman, Robert A.: Archaeology in the Electronics Age (with

A. L. Kolata), July/Aug. 4-8
Feldman, Robert A.: Peru's Golden Treasures, Feb. 3
Grabowski, Ken: Natural History Quiz, July/Aug. 15, 22
Hanson, Jim: The Conservation of a Woven Hat Cover (with

C. Danziger), March 24
HUIer, Audrey: China-Watchers of Yesterday, Nov. 10-15
Hynes-Berry, Mary: Ancona School Comes to Field Museum

(with C. Burch-Brown), Oct. 16-21
Jacknis, Ira: A Festival of Anthropology on Film (with J.

Swanson), July/Aug. 16-21
Karamanski, Ted: The Borden-Field Museum 1927 Alaska

Arctic Expedition (with D. Walsten), Nov. 6-9, 20-24
Kolata, Alan Louis: Archaeology in the Electronics Age (with

R. A. Feldman), July/Aug. 4-8
MarshaU, Larry G.: Adventures in Patagonia, March 4-11
Marshall, Larry G.: Bolivian Adventure: In Search of the Bones

of Giants, May 16-23
Marshall, Larry G.: The Terror Bird Oct. 6-15
Nitecki, Matthew H.: Mazon Creek Studies: The First 120

Years, Sept. 22-26
Olsen, Edward C: Close Encounters of the Zeroth Kind, Sept.

6-13
Ovrut, Burt A.: Virunga: Or Whatever Happened to Albert

National Park? (with S. Ovrut), April 4-9
Ovrut, Susan: Virunga: Or Whatever Happened to Albert

National Park? (with B. Ovrut), April 4-9
Parker, Susan B.: New Guinea Adventure: Sketch of a Working

Anthropologist. May 4-9
Pomerantz, Louis: Restoration of the Gamelan, Jan. 13-18
Pontynen, Art: Buddhism and Taoism in Chinese Sculpture: A

Curious Evolution in Religious Motif June 16-21
Rabineau, Phyllis: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit: Feather Arts

from Five Continents, Dec. 3
RehUng, Alfreida: The Versatile Gourd, May 24
RUey, Thomas J.: Prehistoric Missionaries in East Central

Illinois (with G. A. ApfelsUdt), April 16-21
RUey, Thomas J.: The Archaeologist as Witch, June 6-11
Story, Michael: Male and Female: Anthropology Game, April

12-13
Swanson, Jane: A Festival of Anthropology on Film (with I.

Jacknis), July/Aug. 16-21
Walsten, Dave: The Borden-Field Museum 1927 Alaska Arctic

Expedition (with T. Karamanski), Nov. 6-9, 20-24
WiUiams, Patricia: Solem and Snails, Nov. 16-19

Kenneth Grabowski is Field Museum Library assistant.

Subjects

Abbott, J. B.: March 4, 8, U

Abiera, C: Jan. 17

Abrams. C: Dec. 3

Acad, of Sci. of USSR: Sept. 11

Adamec, T.: Feb. 19

Admiralty Islands: Feb. 15; May 5; Nov. 9

Adonis (asteroidi: Sept. 8

Advanced Tech. Lab. Advisory Bd.: Sept. 3

Adventures in Patagonia (article): March 4

African wildhfe: May 11: Oct. 23

Agate. S.: Oct. 18

Agricola, G.: May 7

Agric. Res. Serv.: Oct. 5

Akeley, C: April 7

Alaska: Nov. 6

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act:

Feb. 15
Alaskan Peninsula: Nov. 20
Albert Nat. Park: April 4, 7
Albert Nile: April 6
Albrecht, C. J.: Feb. 12; June 4
Allen, C: April 17
Allen, J. P.: Oct. 3
alligator: July/Aug. 10
Ameghino, C: March 4, 8
Ameghino, F.: March 5
American Forest Inst.: June 15
"American Indian Dwellings" (program):

Nov. 28
American Law Inst. -American Bar Assoc:

Feb. 12
American Mus. of Nat. Hist.: Feb. 2, 16
American Philosophical Soc.: Nov. 18
American Soc. of Ethnohistory: May 26
Amers, F.: Nov. 20, 22
Ancient Irrigation Project (PRA): July/

Aug. 4
Ancona School Comes to Field Museum

(article): Oct. 16
Andalgala, Argentina: Oct. 6, 8, 10
Andalgalornis: Oct. 6
Anderson, O.: Sept. 3
Andrews, B.: Nov. 7
Andrews, C. W.: Oct. 14
animal hybrids: Feb. 12
anklung: Jan. 7; Sept. 14
Anna's hummingbird: April 22
Anstey, E.: July/Aug. 17
antelope: Oct. 23

anthropology film series: July/Aug. 11, 16
Anthropology internships: May 26
Apfelstadt, G. A.: April 16
Apollo asteroids: Sept. 6, 13
Archaeologist as Witch. The (article): June 6
Archaeology in the Electronics Age {article):

July/Aug. 4
"Ark, The Stationary" (program): July/Aug.

23' Sept. 4
Ariki Tafua: April 18, 21
Armstrong, K.: Oct. 26
Art Institute of Chicago: May 9
"Art of Basketmaking, The" (program):

Feb. 27
Asia House Gallery: Sept. 19
Asian Art Museum: April 14
asteroid: Sept. 6
Astrapotherium: March 6
Atahualpa: Feb. 3
Attu Island: Nov. 20
Audubon Society: Oct, 5
Ayer, E. E.: Nov. 26
Ayer Lecture Series: Feb. 18
Aymara Indians: Feb. 27
Aztalan (Wis.): April 20

baboon: April 8

Baird, G, C: Sept, 15, 18, 21

Baker, B,: March 12

Bakhtiari: July/Aug, 2, 24

Baranof Isl.: Nov, 9

Bardack, D.: Feb. 19

Barker, I.: April 22

Barnett, R.: Jan. 16

Barringer Crater: Sept. 6

Bartlett, Capt,: Nov, 23

barung: Jan. 9, 1 1

Batara Guru: Jan. 5

Bateson, G.: July/Aug. 18

Baumgarten, D,: Jan. 16

Bawden, G.: March 16

Beagle, H, M, S.: March 5

Beals, C, S.: Sept. 8

Bear VaUey Nat. Wildl. Ref,: Oct, 5

Beatty, V.: March 13

Bedno, E.: Oct. 3

bedug: Jan. 2, 4, 6

Bellinger, F.: Feb. 18

Bennett, H. H.: March 14

Bering Sea: Nov. 22

Berliner, P.: Nov. 28

Bernice P. Bishop Museum: Nov. 17

Bjerre, J.: Feb. 18

Blackjack, A,: Nov. 23

Blackmon, C: Sept. 4; Nov. 26

Blackstone, Mrs. T. B.: June 16

Blair, B.: March 3

Block, M. (Mrs. P. D., Jr.): June 5

Board of Trustees, F, M,: March 3

Bolivian Adventure: In Search of the Bones

of Giants (article): May 16
Bolt, J. R.: Feb. 19
bonang: Jan. 3, 8, 11
bonang barung: Jan. 3, 12
bonang panerus: Jan. 4
Book of Chao: June 20
Borden, C: Feb. 18
Borden, C. L, (Mrs, J,): Nov, 6

Borden-Field Museum 1927 Alaska Arctic

Expedition (article): Nov. 6
Borden, J.: Nov. 6-8, 24
Boreel, N.: Jan. 6
Boscoreale: Nov. 26

Boundary Waters Canoe Area: July/Aug. 9
Braidwood fauna: Sept. 16, 18, 25
Brault, M.: July/Aug, 21
British Museum: Sept. 4; Oct. 14
British Mus. of Nat. Hist.: Feb. 14
Brent Crater: Sept. 9
Brooks, H. K.: Sept, 23
Boule, M.: May 17
Bronson, F.: Jan. 6, 13; April 12; May 9;

June 5
Brown, B, (Mrs. R, O,): June 5
Brown, G.: May 25
Buddhism and Taoism in Chinese Sculpture:

A Curious Evolution in Religious Motif

(article): June 16
buffalo, African; April 5, 7; Oct, 23

"Bugaku" (program): Sept. 28

Burch-Brown, C: Oct. 16

Burd, J,: March 12

Burger, W. C: Jan. lOa-lOb; Feb. 19; April 3;

June 3
burial platform, Peru: Feb. 6
Bushman (bust): Feb, 12
Butler, R. F.: Nov. 26
Butler, W.: Oct. 26

Cahokia: April 16

Calhoun, L,: March 12

California Inst, of Tech.: May 11

CampoU, A,: Jan. 16

canoe trip for F. M. members: April 26

Cape Serdzekamen (Siberia): Nov. 24

cariama: Oct. 14

Carnes, A.: Sept. 4

Carpenter, F. M.: Sept. 23

Carr, A.; Oct, 24

Carr, J. C: Sept. 22

Carstensen, O,; Nov. 7

Carter, D. A.: Jan. 2-3

Carter-De Vale, S.: Jan. 2-3; March 12

Case, D.: March 25

Cassai, M. A.: June 3

Castrop, J.: April 26

Catamarca (Argentina): Oct. 6

cattail: March 26

Century, S.: March 12

Center for Advanced Studies, F. M,: May 26

Chaffetz, S. (Mrs. H.): June 5

Chagnon, N.: July/Aug. 19

Chan Chan: Feb, 6; July/Aug. 8

"Chan Chan, The Andean Desert Empire"

(lecture): Feb. 16
Chatham Strait: Nov. 9
cheetah: Oct. 23
Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau:

May 3
Chicago Visitor Promotion Award: May 3
Chimor: Feb. 4

Chimu: Feb. 4; JulyfAug. 4, 7-8
China House: April 14
China-Watchers of Yesteryear (article):

Nov. 10
Chinese folk art: April 14
"Chinese Puppet Plays and Lecture

Demonstrations" (program): May 27
Ch'ing Dynasty: Nov. 15
Chiquimil: Oct. 6
Chiquitoy Viejo: Feb. 21
Chou Wang: June 22

Chubb Crater (New Quebec Crater): Sept. 8
Chubb, F. W.: Sept. 8
Chugach Nat. For.: Feb. 15
Chukchee: Nov. 24
Clark, J.: May 26

Clark, S.: Jan. 17; March 13; Dec. 3
Close Encounters of the Zeroth Kind (article):

Sept. 6
Collins site: April 17
colobus monkey: Oct. 23
Columbian Expos, of 1893: Jan. 6, 13
ColweU, R. K.: June 3

Commonwealth Edison Co.: May 3; Sept. 18
Conference on Legal Aspects of Museum

Operations: Feb. 12
Conrad, G. W.: Feb. 6
Conservation of a Woven Hat Cover, The

(article): March 24
Cook, Capt. J.: Dec. 2
Cooke, Jr„ C. M.: Nov. 17

Cope, E. D.: Sept. 22

Cornell Univ.: Nov. 5

coyote: Oct. 5

craters, meteorite: Sept. 6

Crequi-Montfort, Count: May 17

Cruise of the Northern Light, The (book):

Nov. 6
Curtis, E. S.: July /Aug. 17
Cuzco: Feb. 22

Dalgaranga Crater: Sept. 9

Dalzell, B.: Oct. 7

Dana, J. D.: Sept. 22

Daniel, G.: May 26

Danziger, C: March 24

Darrah, W.: Sept. 23

Darwin, C: March 5; May 21

Davey, E. H.: Oct. 16

Davies, D. C: March 4; May 16; Nov. 6, 20

Dayflowers (article): April 23

DeCosta, Mrs. E. J.: Jan. 6

Deis, B.: May 26

demung: Jan. 9, 11

Dence, M.: Sept. 8

DeVere, A.: March 13

Devil's Doorway (Wis.): March 14

Devil's Lake (Wis.): March 14

Diadaphorus: Oct. 7

dik-dik: Oct. 23

dike (lava bed): March 8

Dillingham, Mr. and Mrs. L. S.: April 15

"Discovering the Moche" (program): Feb. 27

divining: June 6

Dixon Mounds Museum: April 20

dog, wild: Oct. 23

Domenici, P.: May 25

Donnan, C: Feb. 17

Dorsey, G. A.: May 5; June 17

Douglas, J.: April 20

Dowager Empress: Sept. 19; Nov. 10

dowsing: June 6

Dreessen, M.: March 13

Droit, G.: Feb. 14

Dune Country (book): May 16

DurreU, G.: Sept. 4

Dybas, H. S.: Feb. 19

eagle, African fish: April 7

eagle, bald: Oct. 5

Eastern Timber Wolf Recovery Team: July/

Aug. 9
Eastman, C. R.: Sept. 23
Echezu, L.: May 17
Edinburgh Univ.: Sept. 4
Edward E. Ayer Film Lecture Series: Feb. 18
Edward E. Ayer Foundation: Nov. 27
Egypt tours: Sept. 5; Oct. 3
elephant, African: April 5; May 11; Oct. 23
Emeus (moa): Oct. 12
"enchanted city," Wolfe's: March 6
Endangered Species Act of 1973: April 10;

Oct. 4
endangered species: April 10, 11; Oct. 4
Endangered Species Scientific Authority:

April 10
Endodontoid Land Snails from Pacific

Islands (book): Nov. 16
Energy Policy and Conserv. Act of 1975:

June 13
Energy Res. and Develop. Admin.: April 11
Engel, J. J.: Feb. 19; April 3
Environ. Educ. Program: May 3
erosion, beach: Oct. 22
erosion, soil: May 11

Eskimo: Nov. 5

Essex fauna: Sept. 16

Etruria: Nov. 26

Etruscan art: Nov. 26

Even, J.: Sept. 22

Expedition, Borden-Field Museum 1927

Alaska Arctic: Nov. 6
Expedition, Joseph N. Field South Pacific:

May 4
Expedition to Argentina, Second Marshall

Field Paleontological: Oct. 6
Expedition to Patagonia (1922-24),

Marshall Field Palaeontological: March 4
Eyre, Mr. and Mrs. D.: April 15

"Fabulous Rio: Portraits of Brazil" (lecture):

Feb. 18
Faden, R.: April 23; June 3
Fairfax County Office of Consumer Affairs:

June 12
falcon: Nov. 10
Falk, D.: Feb. 19
Fawcett, W.: June 3
"Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit"

(exhibit): Dec. 1-3
Fed. Council on the Arts and Humanities:

Feb. 2
Fed. Endangered Species Permit Office:

April 10
Fed. Energy Admin.: Nov. 5
Fed. Highway Admin.: July/Aug. 10
Feheley, M. F,: Nov. 3
Feldman, R. A.: Feb. 3; July/Aug. 4
Felton, Don C: March 6
Festival of Anthropology on Film, A (article):

July/Aug. 16
"Festival of Intl. Music and Dance Series"

(program): Oct. 27
Fieldiana: Feb. 19
Field, S.: Nov. 6, 21
Firth, R.: April 18
"fish dog": June 15
Fitzpatrick, J. W.: June 3
Flaherty, R.: July/Aug. 17
Fleming, E.: Oct. 18
Flynn, M. J.: Oct. 3
Fogg Museum: June 16
Forney, G. G.: Feb. 19
Foxfire (book): April 10
Francis Creek: Sept. 16
Freeman, P. W.: Jan. 10b
Frest, T. J.: Feb. 19
Friend, M.: Feb. 15
FuUer, Capt. A. W. F.: Dec. 2

Gagaku: Sept. 28

Galapagos Islands: Nov. 27

Galindo: March 16

Gallo, M. M.: Feb. 2

Gambian sleeping sickness: April 7

gambang gangsa: Jan. 4, 7, 10

gambang kayu: Jan. 4, 7

gamelan: Jan. 1-18; March 25

Gamelan, The (article): Jan. 3

gamelan master class: Feb. 26

Garuda: Jan. 8

Gayford, P.: March 12

gazelle: April 5

"Gem Room," Field Museum: June 2

Gemeentemuseum: Jan. 6

geothermal heat: Nov. 4

Gerlach, N. H.: Feb. 12

Oilman, B. I.: Jan. 6, 8

ginseng: April 10

giraffe: Oct. 23

Glassman, S. F.: Feb. 19

glyptodont: May 19, 21

Godard, J.-L.: July/Aug. 20

"God's Eyes" (Ojos de Dies): Sept. 14

gong ageng: Jan. 2, 4, 9

gong chime: Jan. 3, 12

gong, hanging: Jan. 2, 4

Gonzales, L.: March 12

Goodden, R.: Feb. 14

Goodspeed, Mrs. and Mrs. C. B.: Nov. 9

gorilla, mt.: April 6, 9

Goudvis, A.: Oct. 18

Gould, S. J.: June 3

gourds: May 24

Grabowski, K.: Jan. 10c; Feb. 12; July/

Aug. 15
"Grand Canyon by Dory" (lecture): Oct. 26
"Great Sailing Adventures" (lecture): Feb. 18
Greaves, G. F. (Mrs. D. C): June 5
Grebe, H. C: Nov. 6
Greenfield, D. W.: Feb. 19
Greenpeace: May 10
Grierson, J.: July/Aug. 17
Grigelaitis, V.: March 12
groin (pier), Longard: Oct. 22
ground sloth: May 18, 21, 23
guayule: May 12
Gurewitz, S.: March 12

Haas, F.: Nov. 18

habitat rating system: Feb. 15

Haida Indian hat, hat cover: March 24

Hallagan, J.: Oct. 23

Han, K.-H.: Oct. 27

Handhrsch, A.: Sept. 23

Hanson, J.: March 24

Ham, A.: April 10

hartebeest, Swayne's: Oct. 23

Hartz, J. (Mrs. W. H., Jr.): June 5

Hatcher, J. B.: March 6

Heins, E.: Jan. 6, 18

Helen L. Kellogg Trust: June 4

Henze, M.: May 25

Herculaneum: Nov. 26

Herdina, J.: Sept. 26

Hermes (asteroid): Sept. 6, 8

Hickman, J. C: June 3

Higinbotham Hall, H. N.: June 2

HiUer, A.: Nov. 10

HiUers, J.: July/Aug. 16

Hine, T. A.: Nov. 6

hippopotamus: April 4, 7; Oct. 23

Ho, P.: Nov. 27

Hodge, F. W.: July/Aug. 17

Holbrook, J.: Nov. 7

Holleford Crater: Sept. 9

Holmes, B.: July/Aug. 18

Homalodotherium: March 6

Honolulu Academy of Art: April 14

Houk, R.: Oct. 25

"Houses of North Amer." (program): Nov. 26

Howard, C: March 12

Hsuan T'ung: Nov. 10

Huaca del Sol: March 16

Huffman, J. W.: Jan. 17

Huichol Indians: Sept. 14

Hume, I. N.: June 7

hummingbird, Anna's: April 22

hybrid names, animal: Feb. 12

Hynes-Berry, M.: Oct. 16

Icarus (asteroid): Sept. 13

lU. Audubon Soc: Jan. 19; Feb. 27

lU. Dunes State Park: May 26

m. fossil bed: Sept. 15-18, 20-26

m. Geol. Soc: Sept. 25

111. Nat. Hist. Surv.: May 25

impala: Oct. 23

Inca: Feb. 11, 16, 21-26

"India" (lecture): Feb. 18

Indiana Dunes: May 26

Inger, R. F.: Jan. 10a; June 3

Insect Educ. Centre: Feb. 14

Institute de Pesca: Oct. 24

Intl. Comm. for the NW Atlantic Fisheries:

May 10
Intl. Fest. of Music and Dance: Sept. 28,

Oct. 27
Intl. Program in Anthro., F. M.: May 26
Intl. Union for the Conserv. of Nature and

Natural Resources: May 11; Oct. 24
"Iran" (lecture): Feb. 18
Iranian locks: June 5
irrigation project, ancient: July /Aug. 4-8
ivory: Oct. 23

Jackman, B.: Feb. 14

Jacknis, I.: March 13; July/Aug. 16

Jackson, W. H.: July/Aug. 16

James, F. A.: June 2

Janssen, R.: Sept. 23

Jay, J.; Oct. 26

jengglong: Jan. 4

Jenkins, D. T.: Feb. 19

Jersey Bluff: April 19

Jersey Wildlife Preserv. Trust: Sept. 4

Jivaro: Dec. 2

John G. Searle Herbarium: March 3

Johnson, Capt. I.: Feb. 18

Johnson, R. G.: Feb. 10; Sept. 16, 26

Johnson, R. K.: Feb. 19; June 3

Jones, K.: May 26

Jones, M.: March 12

Jones, W.: March 4

Joseph N. Field South Pacific Exped. of

1909-1913: May 4-8
Joseph, W. F.: Nov. 8
"Journey into the World of Money"

(program): Sept. 28
Judson, M. (Mrs. R. D.): June 5

kacapi: Jan. 7

Karamanski, T.: Nov. 6

Karisimbi volcano: April 7

kasekten: Jan. 5

Kellog, J. L.: June 5

Kellogg Trust, Helen L.: June 4

kempul: Jan. 4, 9

kendang: Jan. 6

Kennedy, J. (Mrs. R. L.): June 5

kenong: Jan. 4, 10

Kent, L.: Jan. 17

Kerkhoven, E. J.: Jan. 7

Kersh, I.: Sept. 14

Kethley, J. B.: June 3

ketuk: Jan. 10

Keynes, Q.: Feb. 18

King Cove: Nov. 21

King Tutankhamun Exhibit: Jan. 10b; May

3; Sept. 5; Oct. 3
Klein, L.: Sept. 3
Klaune Ntnl. Park: Feb. 15
Koeppen, R. C: Jan. 15
Kolar, Janet: Sept. 2
Kolar, John: Sept. 2; Oct. 2; Nov. 2
Kolata, A. L.: July/Aug. 4
Kondo, Y.: Nov. 16

Korbecki, J. A.: Nov. 26

KragUevich, J. L.: Oct. 8

Kraus, D. H.: Feb. 19

Kroc, Mr. and Mrs. R. A.: May 3

Kuang Hsu: Nov. 10

Kudu: Nov. 28

Kukailimoku: Dec. 2

KuUk, L. A.: Sept. 11

Kummel, B.: Sept. 3

Kutkuhn, J. H.: Oct. 25

Land and Water Conserv. Act: Oct. 5

"Land of the Rio Grande" (program): Feb. 27

Langford, G.: Sept. 23, 25

Lansdowne, J. F.: Nov. 3, 28

Lao Chun: June 20

Lao Tzu: June 20

L'Argentiere-la-Bessee: Feb. 14

Late Woodland culture: April 19

Laufer, B.: June 16-18, 22: Nov. 10, 14

lead poisoning, waterfowl: Feb. 15

lechwe, black: Oct. 23

"Leon Mandel 1941 Zoological Exped. to the

Galapagos" (program): Nov. 27
Leonard. A.: March 12
leopard: Oct. 23
Lerner, C: May 26
Lesquereux, L.: Sept. 22
Levy, A.: Oct, 18
Lewis, A. B.: May 5-9
Lib. of Cong.: Jan. 6
Lietz, W.: Jan. 6
Life in the Pre-Columbian Town of Galindo,

Peru (article): March 16
Link, C: April 2
Linnaeus, C.: April 23
lion: April 8; Oct. 23
Litton, M.: Oct. 26
Livingston, J. A.: Nov. 3
Livingstone, D.: April 6
locks, Iranian: June 5
"Locks from Iran: A Key to Culture"

(exhibit): April 27
Lomax, A.: July/Aug. 21
Longard tube: Oct. 22
Lor: July/Aug. 1

"Lords of the Labyrinth" (program): Feb. 27
Los Angeles County Mus. of Art: April 14
Lund, R.: Feb. 19

MacDougall, D.: July/Aug. 16, 20

MacElvane Pit: Sept. 25

Madesen, B.: Oct. 26

Male and Female: Anthropology Game

(article): April 12
Malle, L.: July/Aug. 20
Mammoth Hot Springs: Nov. 4
Mandel, L.: Nov. 27

Manicouagan-Mushalagan Crater: Sept. 9, 13
maria basin: Sept. 13
Marshall Field Palaeontological Exped. to

Patagonia (1922-24): March 4-11; May

16-23
Marshall, J.: July/Aug. 19
Marshall, L. G.: March 4, 11; May 2, 16; Oct.

6; Nov. 26
Martin, H. T.: March 6
Martin, R. E.: Jan. 10b
Martling, M.: March 13
Marx, H.: Feb. 19
Matthew, H. M.: Jan. 10b
Mazon Creek Census (article): Sept. 15
Mazon Creek fossils: Sept. 15-18, 20-26
Mazon Creek Studies: The First 120 Years

(article): Sept. 22

Mbira music, African: Nov. 28

McClelland, K.: Nov. 7

McCrone, W. C: Jan. 15

McVey, J.: Oct. 24

Mead, M.: July/Aug. 18-19

Mech, D.: July/Aug. 9

"Mediterranean: East to Istanbul" (lecture):

Feb. 18
Meek, F. B.: Sept. 22-23
Megatherium: May 19
Mellema, R. L.: Jan. 15
Mellinger, M.: April 10
memorial fund. Field Museum; May 25
Mendez, F.: Oct. 6, 9
Mendez, J.: Oct. 6, 9
Mentes, M.: Oct. 26
Mentes, S.: Oct. 26
mercury poisoning: Nov. 5
metallophone, gamelan: Jan. 5, 8-9, 11
meteorites: Sept. 6-13
"Mexico: Legend of a Lost Crown" (lecture):

Feb. 18
Meyers, H.: Feb. 18
Meyers, L.; Feb. 18
Middlefork River: April 20
MiluUc, D. G.: Feb. 19
Minn. Dept. Nat. Res.: July/Aug. 9
Mississippi waterbirds: June 14
Mo. Dept. Conserv.: Feb. 15
moa: Oct. 12
Moche: Feb. 4, 8, 17, 20, 25; March 16-23;

July/Aug. 4
"Moche; Ancient Peru's Mastercraftsmen,

The" (lecture): Feb. 17
Moche Valley; March 16-23; July/Aug. 4-8
monkey: April 8, Oct. 23
Montagnais-Naskapi Indians: June 11
Moodie, R.: Sept. 23
Moore, O. K.: June 11
Moran, L. H.: Nov. 26
Moran, M. A.: Nov. 17
Moran, R.: March 25
Morin, E.: July/Aug. 20
Morris, C: Feb. 16
Morris, R.: June 12, 14
Moseley, M.: Feb. 9, 16, 22
Moses-in-the-cradle (oyster plant): April 23
Mt. McKinley Nat. Park: Feb. 15
Mt. Meru: Jan. 8
Mt. St. EUas: Feb. 15
Mt. Vesuvius: Nov. 26
Moyer, J.: Feb. 12
Muller, L.: March 13
Mullen, M. F.: Sept. 3
Mundt, G. C. F. W.: Jan. 6
munggang: Jan. 5
Museo Oro del Peru: Feb. 2-3
Museum fiir Volkerkunde: May 5
Mus. of Cult. Hist.: Feb. 17

Nabokov, P.: Nov. 26

Nadler, N. (Mrs. C. F.): June 5

Nagle, C: Feb. 18

Naples Nat. Mus.: Nov. 26

Nastapoka Islands Arc: Sept. 9, 13

Nat. Acad, of Sci.: May 12, 25

Nat. Endowm. for Arts: Jan. 2, 6, 10b, 13

Nat. Fish, Wildlife Lab.: March 26

Nat. Geog. Soc: Nov. 26

Nat. Mar. Fisheries Serv.: June 15: Oct. 24

Nat. Oil Recycling Act: June 13-14

Nat. Park Serv.: Oct. 24

Nat. Park Syst.: Feb. 15

Nat. Sci. Found.: Nov. 18

Nat. Wild. Scenic Rivers Syst.: Feb. 15
Nat. Wildl. Fed.: April 10: May 10, 25: June

12. 14: Oct. 23. 25
Nat. Wildlife Health Lab.: Feb. 15
Nat. Wildl. Ref. Syst.: Feb. 15
Native American Program: Jan. 10b
Natural History Quiz (article): July/Aug. 15
Nazca: Feb. 9

Nevling, L. I.: Jan. 10a; April 3: June 3
Newberry. J. S.: Sept. 23
New Guinea: May 4-8
New Guinea Adventure: Sketch of a Working

Anthropologist (article): May 4
New Quebec Crater (Chubb Crater): Sept.

8-10, 12
Newton, E.: March 13
1976 UA (asteroid): Sept. 6, 8
Nitecki, M. H.: Feb. 19: Sept. 22
Noe, A.: Sept. 23
Northern Light (ship): Nov. 6
Northwest Coast Indian basketry: Jan. 10b
Northwestern Univ.: Jan. 10b
Nyamuragira Vole: April 7-8
Nyiragongo Vole: April 7

O'Brien, J.: March 12-13

OCLC (library computer): June 3

O'Connor, J. J.: March 3: May 3

octopus: March 26

Ohio College Libr. Cent.: June 3

oil crisis: June 12-14

"Ojos de Dios" (God's Eyes): Sept. 14

Okefenokee: July/Aug. 9

Olsen, E. J.: Sept. 6

"Orchestral Ensembles of China, Thailand,

and Indonesia" (program): Oct. 27
oribi: Oct. 23
Oriental Inst.: Oct. 3
Osaka Garyo-Kai: Sept. 28
Osterburger. L.: Sept. 18
"Outback Australia" (lecture): Oct. 26
Ovrut, B. A.: April 4
Ovrut, S.: April 4
Owen, R.: May 21
oyster plant (Moses-in-the-cradle): April 23

Pachakuti: Feb. 22

Pacific Island snails: Nov. 16-19

Padnos, A.: March 13

Padre Isl.: Oct. 24

Painted Desert Nat. Mon.: March 11

Paleontological Soc.: Sept. 20

Panjan. T. A.: Jan. 10b

paper cutout, Chinese: April 1-2

"Papua New Guinea: Twilight of Eden"

(program): Jan. 19
Paris Mus. of Nat. Hist.: March 6
Parker, S. B.: May 4
Patagonia: March 4-11
Patterson, B.: Feb. 19: Oct. 8, 10, 14
Paul, R. C: Feb. 19: Nov. 16
Pawnee Earth Lodge: Jan. 10b: Oct. 16-21
Peabody Museum: Jan. 6; Feb. 3: March 16
Peacock, E.: Jan. 16-17
peat: July/Aug. 10
Peking: Jan. 9, 11, 18
Pelliot, P.: June 16
Peppers, R.: Sept. 25
peregrine: Oct. 5
Perenyi, T.: June 3
Perrault, P.: July/Aug. 13
Peru's Golden Treasures: Jan. 10b; Feb.

Ml, 16-17, 20-26; March 3; April 3
Peru's Golden Treasures (article): Feb. 3

Peru's Golden Treasures Lecture Series: Feb.

16-17
"Peruvian Music Performance" (program):

Feb. 27
Peruvian tour: Feb. 9
Peters, G.: April 20
Petrified Forest: March 11
Petrunkevitch, A.: Sept. 23
Pfefferkorr. H.: Sept. 25
Phillips, T.: Sept. 25
pigeon, carrier: May 11
pigeon, homing: Nov. 5
Pit 11 (Mazon Creek): Sept. 15, 17-18, 21-22,

24-25
Pitts. A. H.: June 24
Pizarro, F.: Feb. 3
Plains Indians: Dec. 3
poaching: Oct. 23-24
Podkamenaia Tunguska River; Sept. 10
poisoning, waterfowl lead: Feb. 15
"Poland " (lecture): Oct. 26
Pola de Ayala, F. G.: Feb. 3
"Policy Statement of F. M. on Antiquities;

May 9
pollution, air; April 11
Pomerantz, L.: Jan. 6, 13
Pomo Indians: Dec. 3
Pontynen, A.: June 16
"Potato Planters " (program); Feb. 27
pot gong; Jan. 3
Poulson, T. L.: June 3
Power, J.; Nov. 7-8
Pozorski, S.: July/Aug. 7
Pozorski, T.: July/Aug. 7
Pratt, D.: March 26
Pray, L. L.: Oct. 13
Prehistoric Missionaries in East Central

Illinois (article); April 16
Pribilof Islands: Nov. 22
Princeton Univ.: March 6
Pritchard, P.: Oct. 24
Programa Riego Antiguo; July/Aug. 4-8
Puerta de Corral Quemado: Oct. 7-8, 10-11
"Puerto Rico " (lecture): Oct. 26
puppet play, Javanese: March 25
Purcell, T.: Nov. 7-8
P'u-Yi, H.: Nov. 10

Quetico Wilderness canoe trip: April 26
Quinn, J. H.; Feb. 12-13, 19: May 23

Rabb, G. B.; Feb. 19

Rabineau. P.; Dec. 1-3

Rada, Col. M. E.; Nov. 27

"Rails of the World " (exhibit): Nov. 3

Ram, S.: Nov. 7-8

Rancho Nuevo; Oct. 24

Ransom, J. H.; March 3

Raup, D. M.; Sept. 3

rebab: Jan. 4-6

Red October (ship): Nov. 23

Reed, C. A.; Feb. 19

Rehling, A.: May 24

Restoration of the Gamelan (article): Jan. 13

Reykjavik (Iceland); Nov. 4

rhinoceros, prehist.: Feb. 13

Rich N. (Mrs. J. E.): June 5

Richardson, E. S.: Feb. 19: Sept. 16, 22, 25

Richter, K.: Feb. 18

Riggs, E. S.: March 4, 6, 11; May 2, 16; Oct.

6, 14: Nov. 26
Riley, T. J.; April 16; June 6
Rio Moche: March 17, 22
Ripley, S. D.; Nov. 3

Roberts, J. W.: Oct. 26

Roman art: Nov. 26

Rouch, J.; July/Aug. 19-21

Royal Burials of Ancient Peru (article); Feb.

6, 21
Royal Imp. Mus.: Sept. 23
Royal Ontario Mus.: Sept. 8
Royal Trop. Inst.: Jan. 15
rubber: May 11-12, 25: July/Aug. 10
Runnells, J. S.; March 3
Rutshuru River: April 6
Ruwenzori Mts.: April 5-6
Rwindi River: April 6
Ryan, J.; Nov. 7-8

Sabaro, M.: June 20

Sabatini and Sons; Nov. 26

Sack, S.: June 13

Sakai. S.; Feb. 14

salmon, Atlantic: June 15

Salmonella: March 26

salt bag, Bakhtiari; July/Aug. 2, 24

salt bag. Lor: July/Aug. 1-2

San Bernardino Mts.: March 11

San Diego Mus. Nat. Hist.; Sept. 26

Santa Cruz Formation; March 6, 9

saron: Jan. 4, 8-9, 11, 14

scapulamancy; June 11

Scelidotherium: May 1-2, 21

Schneider. A.: March 12

Schram. F. G.; Sept. 26

Schueppert, S.: March 13

Schultze, H.-P.; Feb. 19

Schumacher. C; March 13

"Scotland " (lecture): Oct. 26

Scudder. S. H.: Sept. 23

seal, harp: May 10-11

Searle Herbarium. John G.: March 3

Searle, J. G.: March 3

Searle, W.; March 3

Second Marshall Field Paleontological

Expedition to Argentina; Oct. 6-15
seismograph: July'Aug. 4-8
Semantics Symposium: June 3
Semliki River; April 7
Senosastroamidjojo: Jan. 8
Sewell, J.: May 9
Shabanou of Iran; April 27
shadow play, Javanese: March 25: Sept. 14
Sharpe, Sir A.; April 7-8
Shell Makers: Introducing Mollusks, The

(book): Nov. 19
Sherwin-Williams Co.: Jan. 17
Silverman, D.: Oct. 3
Siren, O.; June 18
Skiff. F. J. v.; May 5
Slaughter, R. B.; Nov. 9, 21
Slaughter, Mrs. R. B.; Nov. 9, 20
slendro: Jan. 5
Smith, E. B.; March 3
Smithsonian Inst.; Feb. 12
snail; Nov. 16-19

Society of Typographic Arts: Sep. 3
Sohn, I. G.: Feb. 19
Soil Conserv. Serv.: May 11
soil erosion; May 1 1
Solem, A.: Nov. 16
Solem and Snails (article): Nov. 16
"Soul of Japan, The" (lecture): Feb. 18
sparrow, house: March 26
"Spell of Ireland, The" (lecture); Oct. 26
Spelliscy, S.; June 15
Spicehandler, J.: Jan. 16
spider fossil: Sept. 17

spiderwort: April 23-25

Spondylus (moUusk): Feb. 10

Stahlecker, R.: Oct. 6, 9

"Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural

History" (exhibit): Nov. 27
Stanford, J.: Feb. 15
Stanley, H.: April 5
Stanley, S. M.: Sept. 3
"Stationary Ark, The" (program): July'Aug.

23; Sept. 4
Stein, L.: March 13
Stein, M. A.: June 16
Sternberg, G. F.: March 4, 8-9, 11
Stevenson. A. E.: Nov. 6
Stohler, R.: Nov. 16
Stolze, R. G.: Feb. 19
Stoner, B.: March 4
Story, M.: March 13; April 12
Straus, M. (Mrs. R. E.): June 5
Strong. S. S.: Sept. 22
Strucco, J.: May 1-2, 17, 20
Stuessy, T. F.: Feb. 19
Sulek, J.: Oct. 3
suling: Jan. 7, 12
Sullivan, J. W.: March 3
Suminta Mein, Pak: Jan. 5
Superior Nat. For.; July/Aug. 9
swamp fire: July/Aug. 9
Swanson, J.: May 26; July/Aug. 16
Swartchild, J.: March 2, 12
Swartchild, Jr., W. G.: March 3. 12; May 3
Swearingen, Mrs. R. O.: June 5
Swift, C. (Mrs. E. F.): June 5
Sylvester, W.: Oct. 26

tabasco sauce: Oct. 5

Tahitian bridal veil (plant): April 23

"Tahuantinguyo Music of the Andes"

(program): May 27
Taiei Company Ltd.: Nov. 5
Takahashi, Y.: March 24
Talbot, P.: March 12
tarawangsa: Jan. 7
Tarija: May 16-17, 22
Taylor, K.; Feb. 19
teak. Thai: Nov. 5
Telea polyphemus: March 1
Teteoceras fossiger Feb. 13
Tenn. Val. Auth.: July/Aug. 10
Terrell, J.: Feb. 19; May 26
Terror Bird. The (article): Oct. 6
terror bird [Andalgalornis): Oct. 6
Testa, R.: Jan. 3, 10a; June 4; Dec. 1-3
Texas Parks, Wildl. Dept.: Oct. 24
Thevenin, A.: May 17
Thomas, H. (Mrs. R. L.): June 5
Thompson, D. H.: June 14
Thompson, 1.: Feb. 19
Thome, R. C: May 19-20, 22; Oct. 6, 9
threatened species: July/Aug. 3; Oct. 4
"Through Cloud and EcHpse" (Javanese

shadow play); March 25
Thumbelina: House Guest in Miniature

(article): April 22
Tibet: June 16
Tieken, Mrs. T.; March 3
T'ien Tsun: June 20
Tiffany, L.: June 2
Tiffany window: June 1-2
Tikopia: April 18-19
Tilghman N.: Oct. 5
tires, recycled: July/Aug. 10
"To and Fro: Migration of North American

Animals" (program); June 23

Tongass Nat. For.: Feb. 15

"touch bone" (dinosaur femur): March 8, 11

Tournouer, A.: March 6

toxodont; May 21

Traylor, M. A.: Jan. 10a

"Treasures Lost" (lecture); Feb. 16

"Treasures of Italy" (lecture): Feb. 18

Triloka: Jan. 8

Truffaut, F.; July/Aug. 20

Tsavo Park: Oct. 23

tsetse fly: April 7

TuUy, F. J.: Sept. 25

"Tully monster": Sept. 18, 21, 25

Tunguska explosion: Sept. 9

TurnbuU, W.: Feb. 13

Turner, R.: Jan. 10b

turtle, Atlantic ridley: Oct. 24

turtle. 111. mud: Oct. 4

turtle, ohve ridley: Oct. 25

turtle, Pacific ridley: Oct. 25

Tutankhamun Exhibit: Jan. 10b; May 3;

Sept. 5; Oct. 3
Tz'u Hsi: Sept. 19

Unalaska Harbor: Nov. 22
U. of Amsterdam: Jan. 18
U. of Chicago: Jan. 10b; May 3, 9; Sept.

23, 25-26; Oct. 3
U. of Fla.: June 15
U. of Hawaii: April 14; May 9
U. of Kans.: March 6
U. of Minn.: March 26
U. of Ore.: Sept. 4
U. of Va.; Oct. 22
U. of Wis.: June 14
Urban, H.: Jan. 16-17; March 13
U. S. Army Corps of Engin.: Oct. 22
U. S. Dept. of Agric: May 25
U. S. Dept. of Energy: June 13
U. S. Dept. of the Int. Geol. Surv.: Sept. 9
U. S. Fish and Wildl. Serv.: Feb. 15; April 10;

May 11: June 15; July/Aug. 9; Oct. 4, 24
U. S. Forest Prod. Lab.: Jan. 15
U. S. Marine Mammal Protection Act:

May U
U. S. Nat. Geothermal Energy Res. Prog.:

Nov. 5
Used Oil Recycling Prog.: June 13

Vanderstappen, H.: May 9

Vanik, C: Feb. 13

VanStone, J. W.: Feb. 19

Versatile Gourd, The (article): May 24

Virunga National Park: April 4-9

Virunga volcanoes: April 6

Virunga: Or Whatever Happened to Albert

National Park? (article): April 4
Vitshumbi: April 8
volunteers. Field Museum: March 12
von Beringe, O.; April 9
von Le Coq, A.: June 16
Voris, H. K.: Feb. 19; Sept, 3
Voyageur Wilderness Prog.: April 26
Vredefort Ring: Sept. 9-10

Wagener, A. P.: Jan. 17

Walter E. Heller Foundation: Jan. 2, 6

Walsten, D.; March 11; Nov. 6

wandering Jew (plant): April 23

warbler, Kirtland's: Oct. 5

Ward, J.: July/Aug. 14

Warner, L.: June 16

wart hog: April 8

waterbuck; April 8

Watson, D. M. S.: Sept. 23

Watson, O. M.: July/Aug. 14

Wauer, R.: Oct. 24

Wayang Puppets. Carving. Coloring, and

Symbolism (book): Jan. 15
wayang shadow puppet play: Sept. 14
Weaver, B. L.: Oct. 3
weaving, nomadic: June 23
Webber, E. L.: March 3, 12
Weekend Discovery Prog.: Nov. 14
Weiss, B.: July/Aug. 14
Weiss, D.: March 12
Wells, J. (Mrs. R.): June 5
Wenzel, R. C: Jan. 10a
Wertime, J.: July/Aug. 2
Wertime, S.: July/Aug. 2
Western Rift Valley: April 5
Westoll, T. S.: Sept. 23
Whipple, F.: Sept. 12
Whitmire, G.: April 26
Whittlesey Foundation; April 17
Wieser, Col.: Oct. 6
Wilcox, K.: April 10
wild dog: Oct. 23
wildebeest: April 8
Wildfowl Trust: Sept. 4
Wildlife Management Inst.: May 11
Willard, D. E.: June 3
WiUiams, P.: Nov. 16; Dec. 3
WiUiams, T. P.: Feb. 19
Willow Slough State Game Preserve:

Sept. 1-2
"Winter Magic Around the World" (lecture):

Oct. 26
Wisconsin Dept. Nat. Res.: Oct. 5
Witrock, R. B.: Sept. 3
Wodinsky. J.: March 26
Wolf Creek Crater: Sept. 9, 12
Wolf, G.: July/Aug. 19
wolf, gray: July/Aug. 9
Wolfe, J. G.; March 7-9
Wolfgang, K.: Feb. 18
Women's Board Officers, F. M.: June 5
Women's Board Presidents, F. M.: Sept. 3
woodpecker, red-headed: May 25
Woods, L.: Nov. 27
Woody, J.: Oct. 24
World Music Prog.: Sept. 14
World's Columbian Expstn. of 1893: Jan.

6-7, 13
Worthen, A. H.: Sept. 22-23
Wrangell Isl.: Nov. 23
Wrangell-St. Elias: Feb. 15
Wright, B.: July/Aug. 17

"xylophone, " gamelan: Jan. 5, 7, 10
xylophone (true), gamelan: Jan. 4-5, 7-8

Yang Jen: June 22

Yarrington, B. J.: March 3

Yellowstone Nat. Park: Nov. 4-5

Yokoyama, Henry: May 25

"Yoruk: Nomadic Weaving Tradition of the

Middle East" (exhibit): June 23; July/Aug.

1-2, 24
Yueh Lung Shadow Theatre: May 27
Yu-ho Ecke, T.: April 14; May 9

Zallinger, J.: Oct. 15

Zallinger, R. F.: Oct. 15

zebra, Grevy's: April 11

zebra, Hartmann's mountain; April 11

zither, gamelan; Jan. 5, 7

Zool. Soc. of London: Sept. 4

January & February at Field Museum

(January 15 through February 15)

New Exhibits

Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit from Five Continents. Opens
February 15. Conceived and created by Field Museunn's own staff, this
exhibit features exotic feather objects from around the world. Assembled
almost entirely from in-house collections, "Feather Arts" will travel to
three other museums nationwide after its four-month stay at Field
Museum. The 260 artifacts, drawn from 1 ,000 years of history, include
such rarities as an Hawaiian king's feather mantle which was given to
George IV of England in 1821, and the feather shoes of an Australian
sorcerer. This fascinating exhibit examines the symbolic and religious
meaning of feathers over the centuries and illustrates the importance of
featherwork as a universal art form. Hall 26. Through June 15. (Mem-
bers' preview February 14, 1 to 7 p.m.)

A Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural History. Opened December 8.
This new exhibit unites 63 natural history specimens with samples of
philatelic art. Planned on a rotating basis to cover the four disciplines of
natural history, the first 8 months of the exhibit will be devoted to
zoological specimens and their representations on stamps from all over
the world. "A Stamp Sampler" was conceived by Field Museum volun-
teer CoJ. M. E. Rada, exhibit guest curator. The exhibition was designed
by Peter Ho, a University of Illinois graduate student.

Continuing Exhibits

Rails of the World. Through Jan. 28. An exhibition of 42 watercolors,
painted by J. Fenwick Lansdowne, represents the little-known bird
family of Rallidae. The exhibition is part of a national tour organized by
the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. A combination
of art, science, and artistic realism, the works were painted to illustrate
the book Rails of the World, by S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smith-
sonian. Hall 21.

The Hall of Chinese Jades contains beautiful jade art spanning over
6,000 year* of Chinese history. An exhibit in the center of the hall illus-
trates ancient jade carving techniques. Hall 30, second floor.

Birds. Exhibits in Halls 20 and 21 examine the varied world of birds,
from the antarctic emperor penguin to the common American sparrow.
Three scenes are devoted to Chicago-area birds. Recently extinct birds
(e.g., the Mauritius dodo, the passenger pigeon) and restorations of
fossil birds are also on view.

New Programs

Under Coyote's Eye: A Play about Ishi. Sunday, Jan. 21 , 2 p.m. Ishi, a
Yahi Indian from a now extinct California tribe, emerged into Western
society in 1911 and shared the lost art, mythology, philosophy, and
songs of his culture with a modern world. The Other Theatre of the Ber-
nard Horwich Jewish Community Center interprets Ishi's way of life.
Admission: nonmembers $3.00; members, students with ID, $1.50.
James Simpson Theatre.

"The Cruise of the Northern Light," a one-hour film taken during the
Borden-Field Museum 1927 Alaska Arctic Expedition. Saturday, Feb. 3,
1:30 p.m. Narrated by Rev. Theodore V. Purcell, S.J., who at 15, was
the youngest expedition member. Unseen by the public for 50 years, this
film documents the acquisition of valuable ethnological specimens.

plants, birds, and mammals for Field Museum's scientific collections.
Admission: $3.00; members, $1.50. James Simpson Theatre.

The Galapagos— Las Islas Encantadas. Saturday, Feb. 10. This illus-
trated lecture by J. de Navarre Macomb, Jr. looks at the natural wonders
of the Galapagos Archipelago that influenced Darwin when he developed
his theory of evolution. The physical terrain and wildlife of these fasci-
nating islands are examined by experts in geology and Darwinian theory.
Admission is free at the West Entrance of the Museum. 2:30 p.m. James
Simpson Theatre.

Courses for Adults, Winter Series. Beginning January 16, the Museum
offers a variety of noncredit, undergraduate-level courses in anthropol-
ogy and the natural sciences. These courses, available to persons 18
years of age or older, include "Plants of the Great Lakes Region,"
"Aspects of Daily Life in Egypt," and "Documentary Films about Man."
For more information call 922-9410, ext. 362.

Continuing Programs

Armchair Expeditions. Adult groups (clubs, p.t.a., societies, etc.) can
now attend special slide programs; tour selected exhibits. Arrangements
can be made to dine in one of the Museum's private dining rooms.
Winter programs include "Life in Ancient Egypt"; "The Weaver's
Walk"; and "The American Plains Indian." For more information call
(312)922-0733.

Winter Journey. "American Indian Dwellings." Through February 28.
This self-guided tour for families and children describes different types
of American Indian homes found on the main floor of the Museum. Free
Journey pamphlets are available at the North Information Booth, and at
the South and West doors.

Friend or Foe? The Natural History Game. Field Museum's popular
"Anthropology Game" has been expanded to include botany, geology,
and zoology. The object here is to determine which one of a pair of
apparently similar specimens is harmful and which is not. See if you can
distinguish a vampire bat, a headhunter's axe, a poisonous mineral, or a
deadly mushroom from its benign look-alike. Ground floor; no closing
date.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets, adult- and
family-oriented, are available for 25(1 each at the entrance to the
Museum Shop, main floor north.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Guided tours, demonstrations, and par-
ticipatory activities. Every Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Volunteer Opportunities. Limited opportunities are available in botany,
geology, and zoology. Weekend volunteers with an interest in natural
history are needed to develop and present weekend programs. For more
information call 922-9410, ext. 360.

January and February Hours. The Museum opens daily at 9 a.m. and
closes at 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. On weekends the
Museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Fridays the Museum remains
open until 9 p.m. throughout the year.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Obtain a pass at
the reception desk, main floor.

Museum telephone: (312) 922-9410

FIELD MUSECafcdF NATCIRAL HISTORY BULLETIN

■V.\'

#^ #'

ii^

Jl'

.JC

Field Museum

of Natural History

Bulletin

February, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 2

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walslen
Production: Oscar Anderson
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff photographer: Ron Testa

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

Jr.,

William G. Swartchiid

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
Goerge R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

William R. Dickinson, Jr.
Thomas E. Donnelley II
Marshall Field
Nicholas Galitzine
Paul W. Goodrich
Hugo J. Melvoin
William H. Mitchell
Charles F. Murphy, Jr.
James J. O'Connor
James H. Ransom
John S. Runnells
William L. Searle
Edward Byron Smith
Robert H. Strotz
John W. Sullivan
Mrs. Edward F. Swift
Edward R. Telling
Mrs. Theodore D. Tieken
E. Leland Webber
Julian B. Wilkins
Blaine J. Yarrington

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel InsuU, Jr.
William V. Kahier
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

CONTENTS

3 Field Briefs

4 Metals and Man in the Prehistoric Midwest

By Thomas ]. Riley

6 Edward E. Ayer Film Lecture Series

March and April schedule

7 Feather Arts

Featherwork exhibit opens February 15
By Phyllis Rabineau, custodian of the
anthropology collections

13 A Glimpse of the Porcupine Mountains

Text and photos by John and Janet Kolar

20 The Solar Eclipse of February 26

By Edward Olsen, curator of mineralogy

22 Our Environment

23 Soviet Union Tour for Members

27 February and March at Field Museum

Calendar of coming events

COVER

Feather headdress made by the Jivaro tribe of Peru. A
mosaic of feathers is mounted on barkcloth and orna-
mented with equally colorful buprestid and scarab
beetles. This unusual piece, one of 260 to be on view in
Hall 26 beginning February 15, was collected in 1891 for
the World's Columbian Exposition. Length 64 cm, width
31 cm. Cat. no. 6052. Photo by Ron Testa. Cover story
on p. 7.

field hAuseum of Natural History Bulletin is published monthly, except combined July /August
issue, by Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive. Chicago, 11.
60605. Subscriptions: $6 a year; $3 a year for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin
sufjscription Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the policy
of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster: Please send form 3579 to
Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 11. 60605. ISSN:
0015-0703.

' 'c^^s--&^yt'S^}^'

Marshall, Turnbull, and Testa
On South American Fossil Dig

Chubut Province, southern Argentina, is
the site of a recent fossil dig by Field
Museum paleontologists Larry G. Marshall,
visiting assistant curator of geology, and
William D. Turnbull, curator of fossil mam-
mals. The object of their search is mammals
of the Cretaceous period (135,000,000-
65,000,000 years ago). Ron Testa, head of
the Division of Photography, accompanied
the paleontologists to document their work
on film. Marshall's work was supported by
a National Geographic Society grant.

The Museum's first acquaintance
with the Chubut Province fossil beds was
more than half a century ago, when Elmer
S. Riggs, former curator of paleontology,
made significant finds there.

Botanists Join Staff

Two recent additions to the Department of
Botany staff are Michael O. Dillon, visiting
assistant curator, and Timothy C. Plowman,

assistant curator. Dillon, a native of Kansas
City, MO., received his B.A. and M.A.
from the University of Northern Iowa and
his Ph.D. from the University of Texas
(Austin). A special interest of Dillon's is the
Compositae (daisy family); his field work
has included activity in Peru and Mexico.
Plowman, a native of Harrisburg, Pa.,
received his B.A. from Cornell University
and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard Uni-
versity. He then served as a lecturer at Har-
vard and was a postdoctoral research
fellow at the Harvard Botanical Museum.
Plowman has done special work on medici-
nal plants of the Upper Amazon Basin.

Vandenbosch Named
Women's Board Secretary

The new secretary of the Field Museum
Women's Board is Susan E. Vandenbosch.
She succeeds Alexandra Mente, who had
held the position since March, 1976.
Previously Miss Vandenbosch was with
Marshall Field & Company, where she
coordinated special merchandising events.

"Earthquake Charlie," Field Museum's newest resident, is eased onto the Museum's freight
elevator by Museum employees. The Alaskan polar bear had just arrived from Franklin
Park, a Chicago suburb, where he had been the "guest" of sporting goods retailer James
Bell, Sr.

A gift of Bell's to the Museum, Earthquake Chairlie has chosen as his permanent den
The Place for Wonder, the ground-floor gallery where specimens may be touched, handl-
ed, or otherwise closely examined. The bear is 8'5" long and d'S'/z" high (including plat-
form): 38 inches is the girth of one front leg.

The date of Charlie's installation in The Place for Wonder will be announced in a
future issue of the Bulletin.

benefit fashion shows, and other promo-
tional activities. A native of Alma,
Michigan, she holds a B.A. from Michigan
State University.

Anthropology Internship Program

Stop, look, and recognize the roadsign of
the 1979 poster for the Anthropology In-
ternship Program offered by the Center for
Advanced Studies at Field Museum. The

program is supported by a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts, a federal
agency.

The postmark deadlines for applica-
tions are April 3 for summer internships
and July 3 for fall-winter internships, 1979.
Applications may be obtained by writing:
Anthropology, Center for Advanced Stud-
ies, Field Museum of Natural History,
Roosevelt Road at Lakeshore Drive, Chi-
cago, 111. 60605.

Scanning Electron Microscope
Adult Education Course

Information on dates and registration
may be obtained by calling 922-9410,
X-382, or by writing: Adult Courses: SEM;
Dept. of Education, Field Museum of
Natural History, Roosevelt Rd. at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, 111. 60605.

METALS & MAN

in the

PREHISTORIC MIDWEST

By THOMAS J. RILEY

Metals are one of the cornerstones of western
technology, and they possess many proper-
ties which other materials such as stone,
wood, and bone do not have. Yet, for more than
two million years of man's existence on earth,
metals and their uses were unknown. Technologies
depended on the inherent limitations imposed by
stone, wood, bone, clay, and plant materials for
tools to provide subsistence and basic creature
comforts. It might be argued that human ingenuity
peaked in the complex primary tools that were
made from combinations of these materials. The
lethal efficiency of prehistoric eskimo harpoons,
for instance, is a function of the complex use of
bone for point and toggle, sinew for hafting and
line, and wood for both the foreshaft and the
mainshaft. For modern man, the uses to which
Solutrean flint projectile tips were put is over-
shadowed by their delicate beauty suggesting an
aesthetic in stone materials some 18,000 years ago.

But, no matter how complex or beautiful,
the tools made from these materials show a rela-
tionship between man and material where man
had to fit his ideas of utility within narrow limits
imposed by the stone or bone that he was working
with. The sculptor who works with marble must
bow to the properties of stone as well as to limita-
tions of talent and vision.

Metals, on the other hand, have a vast ar-
ray of properties that broaden the range of man's
technological and aesthetic capacity. Copper, the
first metal used by man. in both the Old and New
World can be beaten into pins and beads, heated
and annealed to make it soft and ductile, melted
for casting, smelted from ores, and combined with
other metals in alloys with different characteristics.

The Bronze Age was one of the turning
points of Old World technology. It began some-
time before 7300 B.C. with the discovery of some
of the more limited uses to which copper could be
put. This was the first of a long and arduous series
of discoveries that led to casting and alloying. The

development of metal technology in the Old World
saw the invention of new and more durable tools,
more efficient weaponry, and a whole array of
household conveniences that had been impossible
with a technology based on stone, bone, plant
fiber, and sinew.

The study of the development of metal
technology in the Old World has provided a
number of important insights into the processes of
cultural change that have led to our own industrial
technology. The crucial question that has never
been satisfactorily answered, however, is how the
properties of copper first came to be recognized by
ancient peoples. The occurrence and use of pure
native copper in the ancient world is limited, and
the artifacts that we have left for us to study are
few and far between.

Oddly enough, while deposits of pure cop-
per are rare in the Old World, the metal is abun-
dant here in North America. Few people realize
that as the Bronze Age was unfolding in Asia, the
Near East, and Europe, Native Americans were
discovering on their own the properties of metals
such as copper, silver, and even iron. For several
thousand years eastern North American Indians
tottered on the brink of the "metal ages." This
American Indian experience with metals is giving
archaeologists some new and valuable insights in-
to the transition from stone-based to metal-based
technologies.

The first use of metals in North America
occurred in a context quite different from that of
the Old World. The discovery of copper and its
uses in the Near East was by people already engag-
ed in village agriculture. In North America, on
the other hand, copper was first used by hunters
and gatherers in the upper Midwest around 4200
B.C. Agriculture would not become an important

Thomas J. Riley is assistant professor of
anthropology at the University of Illinois.

part of these Indian cultures until the introduction
of maize into the area some 4,000 years later.

The North American copper-working
tradition was heavily dependent on large, rich
deposits of extremely pure native copper around
the southern shores of Lake Superior and on Isle
Royale (in Lake Superior) near its southwest
margin. A second important source of copper for
Native Americans in the midwest was in the tills of
the great glacial advances of the Pleistocene. Large
copper nuggets were pushed forward by the ad-
vancing ice sheets from the area of the present-day
Great Lakes to places as far south as central
Illinois and Indiana. Even today Illinois farmers
sometimes find in their fields large rounded
fragments of pure copper that were deposited
there more than 18,000 years ago.

Between 4000 and 2000 B.C. Indians of
Wisconsin were making a startling variety of tools
from copper. By 2000 B.C. axes, spearheads,
knives, awls, and even fishhooks were being pro-
duced by ancient craftsmen in such numbers that
well over 20,000 of them have been recovered by
collectors and archaeologists. At this time, too,
copper and the implements made from it were
being traded south and east from Lake Superior,
apparently over well established trade routes
following major river courses.

pits into copper-bearing deposits. Although most
have been destroyed by modern mining, the re-
mains of some of these pits can still be seen at Isle
Royale and on Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula.

Estimates of the copper removed from the
Great Lakes area from the beginnings of the
prehistoric copper industry at 4000 B.C. to Euro-
pean contact are hard to come by, but at least one
source has placed the possible yield at between
200,000 and 1,500,000 tons of metal! More recent-
ly Claire Patterson, a California Institute of
Technology geologist, has estimated that about
5,000 tons of copper was mined during the
thousands of years of Indian copper exploitation
in the Midwest. Even Patterson's low estimates
represent a massive labor input over time with
some ten million pounds of copper finding its way
south to the Gulf of Mexico and east to Penn-
sylvania and New York in trade and gift
exchanges.

For quite a long time archaeologists assum-
ed that most of the copper tools made by
prehistoric Indians were simply cold hammered
from native copper nuggets, and that the
technology that they represented was basically
uninteresting. Unfortunately, few archaeologists
have any training in metallurgy and cold hammer-
ing was thought to be the simplest technology that

Copper bird effigy. Eye is of
pearl. From Hopewell Site, Ross
County, Ohio. Cat. no. 56356.
Gift of W. K. Moorehead.

The trade in copper decreased during the
thousand years before Christ and then increased
again at about 150 B.C. with the development of
what archaeologists have called the Hopewell In-
teraction Sphere. Copper appears to have been
considered an important metal by people who par-
ticipated in this massive trade network that en-
compassed the eastern United States from upper
New York state to Florida. It is found in associa-
tion with burials in conical mounds and was ap-
parently used both for decoration and for the pro-
duction of ceremonial objects.

The exchange of copper from the Lake
Superior region was so heavy that Native
Americans had turned from collecting surface cop-
per outcrops and nuggets to sinking deep mining

could produce the array of tools that they re-
covered from prehistoric Indian sites in the Mid-
west. They did not realize that cold hammering is
often accompanied by annealing — heating the
copper to a temperature below its melting point to
soften it so that the metal can be more easily
reduced.

At first glance, copper seems to be an easy
metal to shape by cold hammering. Indeed, a
number of simple tools such as awls can be pro-
duced by simply hammering a lump of copper into
an elongated form with a point at one end. But
with extensive cold hammering alone, copper
becomes brittle as it is reduced. After awhile the
hammer-wielder finds his hammer bouncing off
the deformed nugget with no appreciable results in

(Continued on p. 24)

Edward E. Ayer Film Lectures

March and April

Saturdai;s. 2:30 p.m.
James Simpson Theatre

The ground-level west door entrance provides free admission to James Simpson Theatre.
However, access to other museum areas requires the regular fee or membership identifica-
tion. These illustrated lectures are approximately 90 minutes long, and are recommended
for adults. Doors open at 1:45 p.m.

March 3 '

Venezuela: Land of Natural Wonders
by George Lange

Beginning in tiie modern capital city of Caracas and
ending at Angel Falls, the world's highest waterfall,
this film includes exotic wildlife, rugged scenery,
and scenes of Venezuela's diverse peoples.

March 10

Russia

by Dick Reddy

A tour of Russia, taking you- to some of her great
cities and historical landmarks: Moscow, Leningrad,
and Kiev; the Kremlin, the Winter Palace, and the
Hermitage. The Bolshoi Ballet and Black Sea re-
sorts are also on the itinerary.

March 17

Sweden — A Midsummer's Dream
by Ric Dougherty

See Sweden from the south at Malmo to the north
at Kiruna. You will visit the famous glassmaking
region around Orrefors and accompany the Lapps
on a reindeer roundup. Folk arts and customs are
also the subjects of Dougherty's camera.

March 24

German}; — Once upon a Time
by Kathy Dusek

Germany is rich in myth and legend. Think of all
the folktales that originated there: Snow White,
Hansel and Gretel, The Pied Piper, and many
more. Travel to the land and the people that still
exist in story-book Germany.

March 31

Egvpt-Gift of the Nile
by Doug Jones

One of the world's most ancient cultures is also in
the forefront of modern events. From King Tut to
Sadat, this film traces Egypt's remarkable history.

April 7

China after Mao
by Jens Bjerre

This is a rare opportunity to travel through modern
China. Every scene abounds in unexpected sur-
prises. You will see how the world's most populous
nation is striving to become one of the most ad-
vanced.

April 14

The Marsh —A Quiet Myster};
by Tom Sterling

In an effort to increase public awareness of the value
of wetlands, Tom Sterling has explored, studied,
and filmed the marsh and its life. Filmed most ex-
tensively in the Michigan marshlands, this work also
incorporates the marshlands of Utah, Oregon, and
Ontario.

April 21

O Canada!
by Ken Richter

"O Canada!" is a filmed exploration of two facets of
Canada's identity: that 200 years ago Canada
decided not to cut its ties to the Old World; since
then it has made an effort to preserve the cultural
heritages of many peoples who now live there.

April 28

Discover Japan
by Ted Bumiller

Japan, with its civilization so profoundly different
from our own, both surprises and excites the trav-
eler. Among the places you will visit are: Mount
Fuji, Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

BY PHYLLIS RABINEAU
Photography by Ron Testa

On February 15, Field Museum will open the
doors of a new exhibition, Feather Arts: Beauty,
Wealth, and Spirit from Five Continents.* For
four months, 260 beautiful objects from many
cultures, all made from feathers, will be on public
view in Hall 26; the exhibit will then travel to
hosting museums throughout the United States for
an additional 18 months. This is the first major
travelling exhibit to be drawn almost entirely from
Field Museum's own permanent collections. Most
of the objects have never before been on display,
but were selected from the extensive research col-
lections housed in the Museum's storage area.

All colors of the rainbow, all sizes, shapes,
textures, and moods will be found in the feather
works drawn from cultures of all parts of the
globe. In addition to explaining the techniques in-
volved in creating the objects, the exhibit will ex-
plore several themes, each a universal aspect of
feather arts: plumage as body ornamentation,
feathers used for wealth and status, and the sym-
bolism of feathers in religious beliefs. (See the
December 1978 Bulletin for additional informa-
tion on the exhibition content.)

As curator for this exhibit, it is an exciting
time for me. A project I have worked on for over
three years is about to be completed — something
which has been a private research endeavor is at
last to become quite public. Already, I have
marvelled at the growing number of Museum

* Members' preview Wednesday, February 14

specialists working on various aspects of this pro-
ject: preparators putting together Plexiglas display
mounts, the conservator cleaning and reconstruc-
ting long-unseen artifacts, the editor refining
catalog copy, the ornithologists identifying
specific feathers in each artifact, the photographer
patiently adjusting the lighting for catalog
photographs, the designer arranging a model of
the exhibit hall. All of these people are using their
special talents to create a marvelous experience for
the Museum visitor. I have truly enjoyed the col-
laborative effort which is making my idea a
reality. By working closely with this team, I have
learned a great deal — from our discussions have
resulted fresh ideas about the artifacts as well as
new insights into the process of collaboration. In
the long run, while I will be happy to see Feather
Arts in its final form, my greatest reward will be
the invaluable experience of having participated in
this undertaking.

For most people working at the Museum —
and undoubtedly for most of our visitors — feather
arts are a revelation. They've never seen most of
the objects, or at least never paid attention to
them. Everyone knows what a Plains Indian eagle
feather war bonnet looks like, but how many peo-
ple know what kind of feather headdresses are
worn in Brazil, the Philippines, or New Guinea?
Even in the professional anthropological
literature, feather arts are virtually ignored.

Phyllis Rabineau is custodian of the anthropology
collections.

Overleaf. P. 8:

Topknot plumes of
the crowned pigeon
decorate a man's
ornamental comb
from Papua New
Guinea (detail).
Total length 41 cm.
Cat. no. 276369.
P. 9: Two different
styles of men's
headdresses from
Brazil. Above, a
simple string of
brown, yellow, and
red, made by the
Kayapo; length 112
cm. Below, an in-
tricately crafted
and brilliantly col-
ored feather "visor"
made by the
Urubu; diameter 32
cm. Cat. nos.
288190 (above),
168283 (below).

^am -'

' '* ''^^^^^I^^^^^^^^H

lyj^^^^^^M

.J'

li^^i

rk.

'^^^^^H

..iil

^^ 1

IHp

'Jl^

^^^H

Jt\

^*^e^ j/

\. '^o

p-»^^^

^^1^^

n/ 1

A pair of head ornaments from the Philippines
shows cut and trimmed feathers. These buoyant

plumes responded to every movement, of the
wearer's head. Height 49 cm (each). Cat. no.
109407/1,2.

though they are made almost everywhere.
Volumes are written about ceramics, woodcarv-
ing, textiles, and metallurgy, but these more
delicate artifacts made from plumage are seldom
mentioned.

I began thinking about feather headdresses
in my graduate studies at Brown University,
whose small anthropology museum has a
remarkably well-documented collection from the
Cashinahua, a native people of eastern Peru.
There were almost 100 feather headdresses, and I
studied the individual variations among them. I
soon became fascinated with the symbolic mean-
ing of these objects and began to research not only
featherwork but the religious ceremonies in which
it was employed. To my surprise, I found that an-
thropologists had given very little attention to this
material, even though feather headdresses are the
most striking form of visual art to be found in all

of tropical South America.

When I came to Field Museum as custodian
of anthropology collections in 1974, I had a
fabulously rich resource at hand: one of the
world's great anthropology collections. My job
was to care for the storage collections, and to help
visiting researchers use them — to be a "librarian"
of artifacts rather than books. From the start, I
spent a great deal of time in storage rooms, learn-
ing what riches could be found at Field Museum,
so that I could help others locate collections they
might need.

In this "library" I found myself constantly
drawn to the artifacts made from feathers, objects
recently added to my experience. Delicate feather
inlay jewelry from China, eerie black feather
costuming from Melanesia, buoyant dance
ornaments from the Philippines — it was an incred-
ible discovery! Once again, I set out to read what I

A rare headdress from the Tor- 1
res Straits (Papua New Guinea) was worn
during special dances whose strenuous
movements demonstrated the virility and
stamina of the male performers to an ad-
miring female audience. Length 50 cm,
width 36 cm. Cat. no. 276369.

^^v*"

4fc*^ri^

'?^v

^ r-i'i

::j..,,

~S."

."«.,

ii'.l

.z'.

/>/

■*■ :t • r ;.

Gifts of feather
capes were tradi-
tionally used to
seal political
agreements among
Hawaiian chiefs.
This use was later
extended to Euro-
pean dignitaries,
and this cape was
presented to
England's George
IV by the Hawaiian
King Kamehameha
in 1821. Diameter
80 cm. Cat. no.
272588.

could about these objects and their cultural con-
text and, as before, I was surprised to find that
there was precious little to go on. A few scholars
had examined the techniques, the psychology, and
the use of feather ornaments in scattered areas of
the world, but it was largely unexplored terrain.
One had to dig ever deeper for a few nuggets of
fact or theory, and so it was only natural to try to
relate information about feather arts from the
Pacific, for instance, to additional data from
South America. The similarities and the dif-
ferences were always of interest to me.

The idea of putting all these beautiful ob-
jects together in an exhibit, comparing their uses
and meanings, came about from the simple im-
pulse of wanting to be able to walk into a room
full of the things I had been looking at in widely-
scattered corners of our storage areas. I began to
talk about the idea at the Museum, and then I had
a stroke of the most wonderful luck. A new collec-
tion of Brazilian featherwork was given to the
Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Theodore W. Van Zelst
of Glenview, Illinois; they also offered a grant to
cover part of the expenses for an exhibition as well
as for a catalog on feather arts!

And so the real work began: the final detec-
tive work with scholarly sources, looking for data
on cultural contexts of the artifacts; the intensified
search in storage collections. Finally, last spring, I
began to work closely with the exhibit designer.

Clifford Abrams. We made the final selection of
artifacts to be displayed, defined the theme areas,
and decided which artifacts would best typify
those themes. I set to work writing labels and
catalog text while he designed the installation.
Gradually we picked up more and more co-
workers to take care of the hundreds of details in-
volved in a project of this kind.

There are still many problems to be solved,
especially the thorny question of how to pack and
ship these delicate and fragile objects. While cer-
tainly not as valuable as the golden treasures that
have recently been displayed around the United
States, these objects are important as beautiful art
works, fragile survivors of craft traditions no
longer practiced, and often embodying spiritual
beliefs which we must respect. However, most of
the work has been completed, and for me this par-
ticular project is almost ended. The designers and
preparators will move on to the next exhibit— and
I will return to the storerooms. For me, in a sense
the work has only begun on feather arts. In the
course of assembling this project, I have un-
covered several provoking questions, some
mysteries about the craft and context of feather-
works. There is a lot more research waiting to be
done, more feathers to be seen, and — it is
hoped — some fieldwork to be done in a living
craft tradition. I'm looking forward to the next
step. D

A Glimpse

Of The

Porcupine

Mountains

Text and photos by
John and Janet Kolar

About 1,500,000,000 years ago a convulsion
of volcanic activity devastated the southern
edge of the Canadian Shield — a vast plain
of Precambrian rock covering the northeastern
fifth of our continent. Immense volumes of lava
spread across the surface until the crust sagged
beneath its weight, creating the trough of what is
now western Lake Superior.

Simultaneously, the edges of this basin
lifted above the surrounding surface, forming, on
the north. Isle Royale, and south of the lake, a
ridge running from the Keweenaw Peninsula to
near the present Wisconsin-Michigan border.
Then, sections of the southern edge of this ridge
broke off and lumped back toward their original
elevation, forming lines of alternate cliff and
valley, parallel to the lake shore. Today, these
ridges, polished by glaciers and eroded by rivers
draining northwestward into Lake Superior, are
known as the Porcupine Mountains, the name
originally given them by the Indians.

Before the coming of white settlers, most of
Michigan's Upper Peninsula was covered by a
mixed conifer-northern hardwood forest. Then,
around the mid-1800s, the hardwood component
of this forest began disappearing into charcoal
kilns. The charcoal, in turn, was used to fuel
smelters that produced pig iron, which went to
manufacturing centers of southern Lakes

The photographic art of ]ohn and Janet Kolar fre-
quently appears in the Bulletin. John Kolar is a
Field Museum volunteer.

Michigan and Erie. Because of the distance to
lumber markets, the pines (softwoods) were not
cut in great quantities until near the end of the cen-
tury, when the Soo Canal was opened. The pro-
ducts of the saw mills could then be shipped
economically down the Great Lakes. As a result,
accessible stands of pine were readily depleted.
But within the mountain region, the irregular ter-
rain and the turbulent rivers succeeded in preserv-
ing many virgin stands of pine and hemlock,
together with their original associations of ferns
and lichens. Today, even areas that were logged
are now tending toward stable native climax
forest, passing through a natural succession of
plant communities. Only in continuously disturb-
ed areas along roads and in campgrounds do the
introduced Eurasian weeds occur in abundance.

Some 85 miles of trails are arrayed in a net-
work across the Porcupine Mountains. A few
cross the scrub oak cliffs above Lake Superior and
eroded escarpments overlooking the interior river
valleys; others descend to these valleys, following
streams and rivers that acknowledge each
geological stratum with a waterfall or rapids.
Some trails come to abrupt ends at peaks or at
overlooks; others meander along lake shores and
swamps that are reminders of the last glacier.
Several routes follow old logging and mining
roads which were not prohibited until 1945. At
that time, the state of Michigan designated 91
square miles a state wilderness area in a modest
gesture of deference to a land that was ancient
when our species was new. D

The Kolars camera
lens found these
mushrooms (family
Agaricaceae ) nestl-
ing in a shaded
wood.

Overleaf. Falls and

rapids on Lower

Presque Isle River.

wm'

. -"tc

.4»li^^iR^W!2SS^^ML ^

*feo^-«

*-^>%

''^ ■■

,HB«*-

,;ir^ 'Vr^

/^^^

>'*=:-■ V,

■^^!^g::>v-.>^.

^ •■•*^

mm:

*«;

tlrr''

■.'■ryr\

msf%tar

r-yr'^^'

ri^

■•ier%^

^^^^i^:

B^fe^

,^^:

^:^

— *-nir — as«-

"^dii^i^:^^

.y..

X V

9$^^-

^■* . • -C--

Lake of the Clouds, east end. At upper right may be seen marshes
of Inlet Creek. Hills at left are overgrown with virgin stands of
white pine and hemlock.

Falls on the Union River

Mushroom, family Agaricaceae

Patches of lichen grow on
exposed rock face of Cana-
dian Shield.

Quiet section of the Carp

River, west of Lake of the

Clouds

Edge of Presque Isle River is lush with
American arbor vitae and brilliant sugar
maple. Clearly visible is graze line, or
browse line, of resident deer.

The Solar Eclipse
Of February 26

BY EDWARD OLSEN

In Mark Twain's novel, A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur's Court, the hero at one point, fin-
ding himself in a tight spot, invokes the heavens to
blot out the sun. When this happens, the
populace, including the knights and ladies of the
court, cry out in amazement and declare him a
magician of the greatest kind — much to the con-
sternation of his arch-rival. Merlin, the magician.

In a similar situation one of the heroes of
H. Ridger Haggard's nineteenth-century thriller.
King Solomon's Mines, pulls off the same stunt
and saves the expedition from the hostile designs
of a large tribe of Africans.

What these tricksters did, of course, was to
wave their arms in the air and chant a "magic
word" or two at the very moment a total solar
eclipse was to begin. You have to agree it's pure
magic for someone not only to remember, down
to the minute, when a solar eclipse is going to take
place, but to remember even the path of totality
across the face of the earth. Anyone with that kind
of memory deserves all good things that come to
him.

Eclipses are indeed awe-inspiring sights.
On February 26, we in North America will have a
chance to see what will be the last total eclipse to
be visible from this continent in this century. Un-

fortunately, the Chicago area will not be in a posi-
tion to see a total eclipse; a partial one will be visi-
ble, however.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon
passes directly between an observer on earth and
the sun. The moon travels around the earth, and
the pair — the moon and earth — travel around
the sun. The moon, however, doesn't move
around the earth in the same place as the earth
goes around the sun. If it did, then every month,
or twelve times a year, an eclipse would take place
at lower latitudes on earth. Because of the tilt of
the plane of movement of the moon around the
earth, only an average of 2.37 total eclipses occur
each year (that is, 237 eclipses in 100 years).

Even when a total eclipse is taking place, it
cannot be seen everywhere on earth. It's obvious
that those parts of the earth on the side opposite
the sun — the night side — cannot see it at all. For
those places on the day side, it depends on
whether you are in direct line with the moon and
sun. Predicting where and when total eclipses will
take place was one of the first real successes of the
modern mathematical sciences, although there is
some hint that primitive builders of stone rings —
like the famous Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England
— may have had some notion of how to predict
this phenomenon several thousand years ago.

For the eclipse on February 26, the path of
totality will run from the northwestern United
States (including parts of Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota) across
Canada, passing close to Winnipeg, then north-
eastward across Hudson Bay, Labrador, and en-

i::,:.,.r..f!|H'l"'lf""

Viewing the solar eclipse of Oct. 19, 1865, in New York

ding in Greenland. In Chicago we are situated at
an angle so that we'll see the moon blot out only
about half the sun's face.

When viewing an eclipse, total or partial,
there is a real danger of eye damage. Viewing the
sun directly by eye can cause searing of the retina,
which could lead to impairment of vision and, in
extreme cases, blindness. Using ordinary
sunglasses is not protection enough!

The safest way to view the eclipse is this:
Take a big cardboard box, large enough to get
your head and shoulders inside of it. With a large
nail, punch a small hole through one side. Then
stand inside the box, facing away from the direc-
tion of the sun, and move the box around so the
image of the sun is projected through the hole onto
the back wall of the inside of the box. When the
moon's shape passes over part of the sun's face
you'll see the image projected on the back wall of
the box. Since you're only looking at a projected
image of the sun you can't hurt your eyes. What
you are doing is actually standing inside a simple
lens-less camera — a so-called pinhole camera.

Because the sun is the central luminary
body of our solar system it is of great scientific in-
terest to us. Also, since it is a star, it is the only
star we can study at close hand. Is it getting more
active? Is it getting less active? How does its radia-
tion affect radio communications here on earth,
and the atmosphere of the earth? These are ques-
tions that can be studied during solar eclipses.
Although it is possible to make scientific
measurements of the sun on any clear day, certain
kinds of measurements and observations can only
be made during a total eclipse. This is why many
astronomers set up temporary field stations along
the path of totality prior to the eclipse. Most of
their observations are made photographically.

By pure coincidence, the sizes and distances
of the moon and sun viewed from the earth are
such that they each subtend about a half degree of
arc. This means that under the conditions of a
total eclipse, the moon can almost exactly cover
the sun. Were the moon much larger, or much
closer to earth, then the sun would appear
somewhat smaller than the moon and disappear
completely behind it. As it is, under the best con-
ditions, the thin outer fringe of the sun's
atmosphere is just visible with the bright center
blotted out. This permits photographic
measurements to be made on the solar atmosphere
without being ruined by the glaring light from the
face of the sun.*

'Because the paths of the earth around the sun. and the
moon around the earth, are not perfect circles, the
earth-moon and earth-sun distances change sUghtly at
different times of the year. This means that for some
total eclipses the outer fringe and a thin edge of the sun's
disc show around the outside of the moon. This is called
an annular total eclipse.

When the bright center of the sun is blotted
out we can see long, streaming flares of hot gases
shoot out thousands of miles into space from the
sun's surface. From study of these flares we can
determine some of the features of the magnetic
and electrical fields that are generated around the
sun. By means of the spectrograph we can also
determine what chemical elements occur in
various levels in the sun's atmosphere.

One of the most dramatic uses of solar
observations during a total eclipse first took place
in 1919. Einstein's theory of relativity had already
predicted that a ray of light can be bent from a
straight path when it passes close to a very
massive body. By measuring the apparent position
of a star whose light rays pass close to the sun on
their way to earth, it was indeed found that the
star's light was slightly bent by the right amount.
Since 1919 this bending of light rays has been
measured many times during solar eclipses and
verified with greater accuracy each time.

Some measurements, however, made many
times during total solar eclipses, have created a
scientific puzzle that has still not been completely
solved: The sun's surface has a temperature of
about 6,000°C (about 11,000°F). Surrounding the
surface is a region of gas called the chromosphere,
which is hotter than the surface — around
25,000°C (about 45,000°F). Above this is the sun's
upper atmosphere, the corona. Its temperature is a
scorching 1 million degrees C (1.8 million degrees
F). How is it that the temperature way above the
sun's surface is about 140 times hotter than the
surface?

This question, and others, will be studied
during the coming eclipse. What a disappointment
it will be if February 26 is a cloudy day! Q

Edward Olsen is curator of mineralogy.

1462 diagram of
how an eclipse
occurs

OUR ENVIRONMENT

Crustacean's Last Toehold:
Rusty Drainpipe

A 90-foot piece of iron drain pipe leading to
an abandoned bath house in New Mexico is
the only home for 2,500 remaining Socorro
isopods.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has
proposed that this relative of the common
sowbug be listed as an endangered species
because of the link it may provide in the
ecological and evolutionary web.

This half-inch freshwater crustacean,
which eats the algae lining the drain pipe, is
one of only two freshwater species in a
family that is otherwise entirely ocean-
dwelling.

Biologists think it may provide the key
to understanding how this and other land-
locked relic animals evolved from ancient
marine isopods that lived in the oceans once
covering much of the western U.S.

The Socorro isopod adapted to the
warm, fresh water of a spring, where it
lived for millions of years until the spring
was capped in 1949. After that, the only
place left to this small creature was the sec-
tion of drain pipe.

This, the isopod's last toe hold, now is
threatened by periodic drought and flushing
of the pipes.

Dogs for Combating Coyotes

Komondors, which are shaggy, heavy dogs
first bred in Hungary to keep wolves from
preying on sheep, are the subjects of a
$33,000 US Department of Agriculture ex-
periment to see if they can do the same for
western sheep ranchers who claim coyotes
are killing their sheep. Weighing as much as
120 pounds and costing up to $500, the dogs
may be the sought-after alternative to
shooting, trapping, and poisoning the
clever coyotes. Komondors have already
been found to frighten caged coyotes simply
by walking past them. The tests, to examine
ease of handling the dogs and their effec-
tiveness in repelling coyotes, will be con-
ducted'at Colorado State University in Fort
Collins and the U.S. Sheep Experiment Sta-
tion in Dubois, ID.

Tipsy Birds

Around Perryville, R.I., the small, red ber-
ries of the Russian olive bush, overripe and

slightly fermented, have been intoxicating
flocks of birds that snack on them. Local
farmers and motorists watch in amazement
as birds haphazardly swoop down and over
the highway, many missing their mark and
slamming into trucks and cars. Such dive-
bombing antics have strewn dead birds
along the roadside, yet police are loath to
charge the birds with f.w.i. — "flying while
intoxicated."

Feds Act to Reduce
Bird-Aircraft Collisions

The Federal Aviation Administration and
the Interior Department's U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service have stepped up measures
to prevent collisions between planes and
birds and to further advance airline passen-
ger safety.

Bird strikes, numbering about 1,200
annually, cost an estimated $20 million
each year in damage to military and civilian
aircraft. A 4-pound bird striking a plane
moving at 500 miles per hour impacts with
a force of 80,000 pounds and has been
known to shatter a windscreen and badly
dent the opposite cabin bulkhead. More
often, however, birds are sucked into the jet
engines, which can be instantly knocked
out.

Bird strikes, or collisions, have also
been blamed for the loss of 140 human lives
in this country since such record-keeping
was started in the 1940s. The most serious
accident occurred in 1960 in Boston, where
62 persons died after their airliner flew into
a flock of starlings.

Most bird strikes occur during take-off
and landings, but the birds are also a threat
in the air during the spring and fall migra-
tion season when millions of ducks, geese,
swans, and other birds migrate in dense for-
mations at altitudes as high as 20,000 feet.
Bird populations at airports also swell
significantly at these times.

Situated in many cases near water,
mud flats, or marshy areas and quite often
close to solid waste disposal sites, airports
also attract birds because of architectural
features that invite roosting, and decorative
pools that birds use for bathing and drink-
ing. Other attractions include standing
water on runways or adjacent areas, tall
grasses, fruit trees, and other vegetation,
and the related insect and rodent food
supply.

Simple techniques include draining
pools, filling the low spots on runways,
removing certain trees and shrubbery, and
cutting grasses to certain heights. Other
techniques include relocation of existing
garbage dumps that may be in air traffic
corridors, and operating regular motor
patrols of the runways to disperse birds.
Dispersal methods such as distress calls and
explosive noise devices are also used to
reduce the risk of bird strikes. All of these
deterrents are aimed at denying food,
water, and roosting areas to the birds in an
effort to make them seek other, safer
habitats.

Mastodons as Fox Bait

A Siberian native has probably found the
ultimate in well-aged trapping bait. The
trapper had exceptionally good luck catch-
ing foxes on his trapline using meat he had
found frozen out on the tundra. Paleontol-
ogists then discovered that the bait was
from the leg of a 13,000-year-old mastodon.
The paleontologists also found traces
of an ancient settlement near the mastodon
site. They estimated the age of the campsite
to be about 13,000 years.

Ultrasonic Pest Repellent

Bob Brown, a California guitar player crip-
pled by polio, has invented a device capable
of making sound so shrill that it drives
rodents wild, kills cockroaches, and sends
fleas flying. The frequency of the sound is
over a million cycles a second; the human
ear can hear up to about 20,000 cycles.

In a recent 12-month period. Brown
sold 18,000 of his so-called "rat-repellent
boxes." The government of Venezuela
ordered 300 to kill cockroaches in food
stores; 1,000 were bought by Spain to elimi-
nate rodents from granaries.

Treasures of Russia and the Ukraine

20-day tour for Field Museum Members and their families

ThE SPLENDORS OF OLD RUSSIA, the excite-
ment of the New are in store for Field
Museum Members and their families who
join the tour "Treasures of Russia and the
Ukraine," leaving Chicago's O'Hare Airport
June 1 9 and returning July 8.

The tour cost — $2,970 (which in-
cludes a $500.00 donation to Field
Museum) — is based upon double occupan-
cy and includes round trip air fare from
Chicago to Moscow, with intra-Russian air

transportation where required. The trans-
atlantic airline is Swissair.

Red Square, showing Lenin's Tomb, Moscow

Copper ornaments and pendants from Hopewell
Site, Ross County, Ohio. On view in Hall 4.
The headdress is of two parts: a thick, solid
headplate and wooden antlers covered with thin
sheet copper. (Cat. no. 56080). The ear orna-
ments (56201-2) and pendants (56114, 56128) are
of copper. (The necklace is of freshwater
pearls.) Gifts of W. K. Moorehead.

Continued from p. 5

forming his tool. The metal, made brittle by cold

hammering, often cracks and fractures.

It took trained metallurgists interested in
ancient technologies to begin to unravel the
mysteries of native copper technologies in native
North America. They did this by applying the
techniques of metallography to the study of Indian
copper working. Their research has shown that
either hot working or successive anneals were im-
portant to the manufacture of native copper arti-
facts in the prehistoric Midwest. Unfortunately, a
number of archaeologists have not understood the
importance of their work, and at least two recent-
ly published textbooks in American prehistory
still cling to the notion that Native American cop-
per from the Midwest was produced by simple
cold hammering.

Metallography, simply put, is the study of
the internal structure of metals by various techni-
ques including the use of powerful optical and
electron microscopes. Metallographers most com-
monly study the structures of metals to discover
the physical properties that determine the utility
of metals for commercial and industrial purposes.
A few metallographers, however, have turned
their attention to the study of ancient metal arti-
facts to determine techniques of manufacture as
well as the possible uses to which these tools were
put. Native copper, like all metals, is crystalline
in structure. When it is subjected to different
treatments in manufacturing, the structure of the
metal realigns itself in certain predictable ways.
Extensive cold working, for instance, will deform
the regular crystal alignments that metallo-
graphers call grains by compressing them or
breaking them up. Reducing copper by cold ham-
mering produces lines of flow perpendicular to the
force of the hammer blows. Metallographers can
see these patterns of deformation through an op-
tical reflecting- microscope when the metal is
polished and etched with different corrosive
solutions.

Annealing is accomplished by heating cop-
per to a temperature above 200° to 225 °C but well
below its melting point of 1,083 °C. This allows
the metal to recrystallize, often with the formation
of distinctive paired linear structures called
"twins" within the grains.

Melting and alloying produce other, more
complex structures within the metal. These
microscopic structures permit the metallographer
to reconstruct the techniques of manufacture of
metal artifacts. In some instances they can deter-
mine the temperature at which the artifacts were
worked and whether or not they were heated and
worked in an oxidizing or reducing atmosphere.

In the spring of 1978, with the aid of Pro-
fessor Heather Lechtman of the M.I.T. Center for
the Study of Materials in Archaeology and
Ethnology, I prepared a number of metallographic
samples from copper artifacts found at several
Hopewell Indian sites in Illinois. The samples were

carefully cut from the artifacts with a jeweller's
saw, mounted in a resinous medium, then ground
and carefully polished so that surface abrasions
were smaller than the wavelength of light. After
this they were treated with solutions that would
differentially etch the grain boundaries of the cop-
per and accentuate the different planes of crystal
alignments.

One of the samples from a Hopewell burial
mound group near Utica, Illinois, is shown below:
a small piece of native copper that has been par-
tially rolled by cold hammering after an apparent
anneal in a reducing atmosphere, probably under
the ashes of a wood fire. When the sample was
subjected to analysis under the microscope, the
different techniques of manufacture become clear.
At a magnification of X50, the rolled end shows
signs of the deformation of the metal perpen-
dicular to the lines of force expected of cold ham-
mering. On the thick end of the sample the grains
are only partially deformed, and a number of par-
tially bent "twins" suggest that the artifact was an-
nealed before the final hammering process was
begun. This part of the metal had not been reduc-
ed as much as the rolled end, and it is likely that
the hammering had occurred after the metal had
been allowed to cool. It also appears that the
metal was hammered on the end that was rolled
before the turning process began.

The tools of the metallographer, in this
particular instance, permit the archaeologist to
reconstruct the craft techniques of a Hopewellian
craftsman who lived some 2,000 years ago in cen-
tral Illinois.

An interesting feature of prehistoric mid-
western copper working for the archaeologist is
that it seems to occur in association with an in-
novation in stone tool technologies in the
Midwest. Flints and cherts were one of the major
materials from which prehistoric primary tools
were made in North America. In Prehistoric North

America some 10,000 to 3,000 years ago, Indian
stone tool craftsmen began to treat flint with fire,
"annealing" it before flaking stone tools from it. It
is quite possible that the extensive copper working
that is found in the Midwest from Archaic through
late prehistoric times was simply an extension of
the heat treatment of flint. Copper then, would
have been considered just another stone which,
when heated, showed properties different from
those of flint in that it became soft and malleable
rather than brittle and subject to fracture. It is
possible that in the central part of what is now
eastern United States the development of an exten-
sive copper-working tradition depended on the in-
novation of annealing flint and other stone
materials, and that a copper industry of any
magnitude and duration would have been im-
possible without this innovation.

We know that one of the early stages of
copper manufacturing in the Old World, too,
depended on annealing the metal to make it
workable. Is it possible that the copper industry
there began with the extension of heat treatment
techniques from flint and chert to the new
material, native copper? At present little work has
been done on the occurrence of heat treatment of
flint in the Old World, but I would expect that this
particular innovation in stone-working precedes
the extensive use of copper for tools and artifacts
wherever native copper appears in western and
eastern Asia.

But copper was not the only metal used by
prehistoric Americans. Small amounts of silver
have been found in Hopewell sites in many of the
Great Lakes states as well as in sites in Ontario.
The silver has been beaten into thin sheets and
used to cover reed whistles shaped like classical
panpipes. Silver was also beaten onto a copper
base to form large round earplugs shaped very
much like large spools. Beads and head ornaments
of silver have been found at a number of sites in
western Wisconsin and Illinois.

Meteoric iron, too, has been found at sites
both in Ohio and Illinois. A set of meteoric iron
beads was recovered from a Hopewell mound near
Havana, Illinois, by researchers from the Illinois
State Museum in 1945. When subjected to
metallographic analysis, it was discovered that the
small beads had been cold hammered around a

Stylized serpent
made of copper,
restored. From
Hopewell Site,
Ross County,
Ohio. Cat. nos.
56701 (left), 56206.
Gift of W. K.
Moorehead.

small cylindrical object to create center holes of
the beads, then subjected to a light annealing pro-
cedure. The manner of production parallels the
manufacturer of copper objects.

Prehistoric American craftsmen in the
Midwest obviously recognized the importance of a
number of native metals. Why didn't they develop
that tradition into a regime of smelting, casting,
and alloying that would have led to the beginnings
of a bronze age in eastern North America? We
shall probably never know the answer completely.
It is probable that the abundance of native copjjer
around the Lake Superior region made it un-
necessary to develop procedures for smelting metal
from copper oxide deposits, and thus the first
major advance towards true metallurgy was not
necessary in this part of the New World.

In the Near East, on the other hand, the
scarcity of native metals made it necessary to melt
deposits of copper oxide ores to maintain the nas-
cent copper industry. From that start the develop-
ment of more difficult techniques for smelting cop-
per from sulfide ores followed rather quickly.

It is likely, then, that the eastern North
American metal industry in prehistoric times suf-
fered from an abundance rather than from a scar-
city of relatively pure metals. Nevertheless, the
achievements of prehistoric American craftsmen
in extending the techniques of stone technology to
copper, silver, and other native metals cannot be
overlooked. It is an area where the metallurgists of
our day using the sophisticated techniques of their
trade can answer questions that the archaeologist
left to his own devices cannot even begin to
fathom.

Above: Pan pipe of
bone, with copper
sheathing, original
(left) and restora-
tion. Cat. no.
56708. Gift of W.
K. Moorehead.

Early engraving
(1565) of Florida
Indian chieftains
adorned with cop-
per pendants.

February & March at Field Museum

(February) 15 through March 15)

New Exhibits

Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit from Five Con-
tinents. Opens Feb. 15. Conceived and created by Field
Museum's own staff, this exhibit features exotic feather ob-
jects from around the world. Assembled almost entirely from
in-house collections, "Feather Arts" will travel to other
museums nationwide after its four-month stay at Field
Museum. The 260 artifacts, drawn from 1,000 years of
history, include such rarities as an Hawaiian king's feather
mantle given to George IV of England in 1821, and the
feather shoes of an Australian sorcerer. This fascinating ex-
hibit examines the symbolic and religious meaning of
feathers over the centuries and illustrates the importance of
featherwork as a universal art form. Hall 26. Through June
15. (Members' preview February 14, 1 to 7 p.m.)

A Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural History. Opened
Dec. 8. This exhibit unites 63 natural history specimens with
samples of philatelic art. Planned on a rotating basis to cover
the four disciplines of natural history, the first 6 months of
the exhibit are devoted to zoological specimens and their
representations on stamps from all over the world. "A Stamp
Sampler" was conceived by Field Museum volunteer Col.
M. E. Rada, exhibit guest curator. The exhibition was de-
signed by Peter Ho.

Continuing Exhibits

Primitive Art. Art objects from Africa, the Americas, and
Oceania are presented for comparison of the primitive
societies. The relationship of primitive art to modern art are
also considered. Hall 2.

Gems. This anthropological/geological exhibit contains
Field Museums fine collection of primitive jewelry from
India, Algeria, South America, Italy, Egypt, and the Philip-
pines. Second floor, south.

The Place for Wonder. This gallery provides a place to
handle, sort, and compare artifacts and specimens.
Weekdays, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.; weekends, 10 a.m. to noon and
1 p.. to 3 p.m. Ground floor, near central elevator.

Field Museum Gamelan. Field Museums 19th-century
Javanese gamelan, an ensemble of 24 fine bronze and wood
musical instruments, has been completely restored for ex-
hibition. Hall K, ground floor.

The Edward E. Ayer Film Lectures are scheduled every
Saturday afternoon in March and April at 2:30 p.m. James
Simpson Theatre. Reserved seating is available for members
and their families. Doors open at 1:45 p.m. For complete
March-April schedule, see page 6. March 3: ""Vene-
zuela—Land of Natural Wonders," by George Lange;
March 10: "Russia, '" by Dick Reddy.

Continuing Programs

Armchair Expeditions. Adult groups (clubs, P.T.A.,
societies, etc.) can now attend special slide programs; tour
selected exhibits. Arrangements can be made to dine in one
of the Museum's private dining rooms. Winter programs in-
clude "Life in Ancient Egypt"; "The Weaver's Walk "; and
"The American Plains Indian." For more information call
(312)922-0733.

Winter Journey. "American Indian Dwellings."' Through
February 28. This self-guided tour for families and children
desribes different types of American Indian homes found on
the main floor of the Museum. Free Journey pamphlets are
available at the North Information Booth, and at the South
and West doors.

Friend or Foe? The Natural History (Botany, Geology, An-
thropology, and Zoology) Game. Field Museum's popular
Anthropology Game has been expanded to include the
Museum's three other scientific divisions. The object is to
determine which of a pair of similar-looking specimens is
harmful and which is not. For instance, which South
American tree frog is the source of poison for Indian darts?
Or which shell animal contains a poison four times more
deadly than cyanide? Ground floor.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets,
adult- and family-oriented, are available for 25"^ each at the
entrance to the Museum Shop, main floor north.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Guided tours, demonstra-
tions, and participatory activities. Every Saturday and Sun-
day, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Volunteer Opportunities. Limited opportunities are
available in botany, geology, and zoology. Weekend
volunteers with an interest in natural history are needed to
develop and present weekend programs. For more informa-
tion call 922-9410, ext. 360.

New Programs

"Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit." An illustrated
lecture by Phyllis Rabineau, curator-in-charge of the new
"Feather Arts" exhibit. Feb. 28, 8 p.m. James Simpson
Theatre. A lecture on diverse featherworking techniques; the
use of feathers as ornamentation; and the cultural, religious,
and symbolic significance of feather arts over the past 1,000
years. Members, $1.50; nonmembers, $3.00.

February and March Hours. During February the Museum is
open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. March
Mon.-Thurs. hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. February and March
Saturday and Sunday hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Fridays
the Museum is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. throughout the
year.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Closed Feb. 19 (Presidents' Day). Obtain pass at the recep-
tion desk, main floor.

Museum telephone: (312) 922-9410.

',:>>.^a-»J3Ss:".«ag'.^av:^.. :^i--»

FIELD MGSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN

Field Museum

of Natural History

Bulletin

March, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 3

Editor/ Designer: David M. Wakten
Production: Oscar Anderson
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff photographer: Ron Tesla

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

WiUiam G. SwartchUd, Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
Goerge R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

William R. Dickinson, Jr.
Thomas E. Donnelley II
Marshall Field
Nicholas Galitzine
Paul W. Goodrich
Hugo J. Melvoin
Waiiam H. Mitchell
Charles F. Murphy, Jr.
James J. O'Connor
James H. Ransom
John S. Runnells
William L. Searle
Edward Byron Smith
Robert H. Strotz
John W. Sullivan
Mrs. Edward F. Swift
Edward R. Telling
Mrs. Theodore D. Tieken
E. Leland Webber
Julian B. Wilkins
Blaine J. Yarrington

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Qifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
Waiiam V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

CONTENTS
3 Field Briefs

6 War and Peace — Pigeon Style

By Patricia Williams, managing editor, scientific
publications

10 Adult Group Programs

By Linton Pitluga, group resource coordinator.
Department of Education

12 China: A Photographic Portfolio

Photos by Stanton R. Cook, Field Museum trustee

20 Of Land Bridges, Ice-Free Corridors, and Early
Man in the Americas, Part II
By Glen Cole, curator of prehistory

28 Field Museum Tours

32 Our Environment

35 March and April at Field Museum
Calendar of coming events

COVER

Camera portrait of a man of Inner Mongolia, by Stanton
R. Cook (below), chairman and publisher of the Chicago
Tribune and a member of the Field Museum Board of
Trustees. Cook visited China in September, 1977, with a
group of Associated Press directors. Photo essay on page
12. Photos courtesy Chicago Tribune.

Stanton R. Cook

Field Museum of Natural History BuUetirt is published monthly, except combined July/August
issue, by Field Museum oi Natural History. Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. U.
60605. Subscriptions: $6 a year; S3 a year (or schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin
subscription- Opinions expressed by autt^ors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the policy
of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster: Please send form 3579 to
Field Museuiirof Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive. Chicago U. 60605 ISSN:
(»154)703.

NSF Grant for Summer
Anthropology Course

High school students must complete appli-
cation forms by April 6 for this year's col-
lege-level, tuition-free anthropology course
(June 25 through August 3, 1979) at Field
Museum of Natural History. A $25 field
trip fee is required for bus charters. The
program is open to 27 high-ability high
school students (priority given to juniors)
who have the academic ability and interest
in an intensive six weeks of anthropology.

Students are selected on the basis of
academic achievement, teachers' recom-
mendation, and personal interviews. Appli-
cation forms are available from high school
officials or may be obtained from Miss Har-
riet Smith, director of the N.S.F. Summer
Anthropology Program, Department of
Education, Field Museum of Natural His-
tory (922-9410, X-361).

Now in its fourteenth year, this pro-
gram has been the only National Science
Foundation-funded program in the U.S.
that introduces all fields of anthropology
for the career choice of high school
students.

Monday-through-Friday sessions
(9:15-3:00) involve students in concepts of
man's relationship to his environment and
his fellow man, with varied activities that
include individual research projects, work-
shops, the study of museum specimens, and
lectures by visiting professors and museum
staff anthropologists. Representative of
program and faculty are Today's Careers in
Anthropology, by Phillip H. Lewis, chair-
man. Department of Anthropology, Field
Museum; Fossil Man. by Ronald Singer,
physical anthropologist. University of Chi-
cago; Midwestern Archaeology, by Stuart
Struever, archeologist. Northwestern Uni-
versity; Environmental Life of American
Indians, by Merwyn Garbarino, ethnolo-
gist. University of Illinois at Circle Campus;
Africa — Tradition and Change, by Peter
Knauss, political scientist. University of Illi-
nois at Circle Campus; China, Longest
Continuum, by Kenneth Starr, director,
Milwaukee Public Museum; With the Gyp-
sies in Pakhistan, by Joseph Berland, cul-
tural anthropologist. Northwestern Univer-
sity; Chicago's Ethnic History, by William
Adelman, labor relations program. Uni-
versity of Illinois at Circle Campus; and
Behind-the-Scenes Demonstration of An-
thropology Exhibits in Production at Field
Museum, by James A. VanStone, curator.
Department of Anthropology, Field
Museum.

A week of archeological field work at a

local site provides application of the previ-
ous weeks of study. The excavation is under
the direction of David Keene, S.J., histori-
cal archeologist. University of Wisconsin-
Madison, with the cooperation of Edward
Lace, naturalist-historian. Cook County
Forest Preserves. Past participants have dis-
covered abundant prehistoric and historic
artifacts at this purported site of an 1828-32
fur-trading post.

Christopher Legge 1905-1979

Christopher Legge, custodian of Field Mu-
seum's anthropology collection from 1962
to 1974, died on January 24, 1979. He will
be long remembered for his dedication to
the Museum and for his scrupulous devo-
tion to the collection.

Christopher Legge

Chris Legge was an extraordinary
man. His coming to Field Museum after a
career in the British Foreign Service was in
itself remarkable — as well as a stroke of
very good luck for the Museum. But the
event was hardly fortuitous. Chris's grand-
father, James Legge (1815-97), was an orien-
talist, famed for his translations of Chinese
classics, and Chris seemingly inherited his
grandfather's own love and fascination for
the Orient.

Born in Chelsea, England, in 1905, he
graduated in 1928 from King's College,
Cambridge, where he was an honors stu-
dent and an outstanding athlete. Following
graduation, Chris took a post with the
Nigerian government, remaining in Africa
for six years. He then — characteristically —
did the unexpected, by going to Denmark

for a year to study physical education. For
the next two years he was a grammar
school instructor in Australia. In 1938 he
joined the British Foreign Service and was
assigned to the Fiji Islands as district com-
missioner. He remained there until 1961,
then retired.

When Chris applied for a position at
Field Museum, he noted on his application
form a special interest in "Oceanic archae-
ology and ethnology, " never dreaming that
in a few short months his responsibility
would be one of the finest collections of
such material in the world. So, at age 57, he
embarked on an exciting new career — per-
haps the one for which he was best suited.

The union of Chris Legge with the Field
Museum was a perfect match. The collec-
tion of half a million artifacts required the
attention of someone who was entirely
devoted; and that devotion was embodied
in Chris Legge. Colleagues in the Depart-
ment of Anthropology would remark, half
seriously, that Chris knew every single
piece in the vast collection. But if he was
respected for his dedication and knowledge-
ability, he was equally loved for his man-
ner. His pleasant charm, his gentle ways,
and his desire to accommodate endeared
him to everyone.

After his retirement in 1974, Chris con-
tinued to frequent his beloved Museum as
he pursued the various projects that ap-
pealed to his far-ranging intellect. Just
before his death he completed a short
biography of Richard Parkinson, an early
explorer of the southwest Pacific.

To have known and worked with Chris
Legge was a rare privilege. Field Museum
was immeasurably enriched by his pres-
ence.— Ed.

Anthropology Department Receives
National Science Foundation Award

The National Science Foundation in Wash-
ington D.C. has awarded the Department
of Anthropology a grant of $38,579 for the
first of two years in support of systematic
collections in anthropology (Phillip H.
Lewis, principal investigator). This grant is
for preventive and technical conservation
of the Museum's outstanding textile hold-
ings, numbering over 12,CXX) specimens
from around the world, which have been
described by one leading authority recently
as "an incredibly rich resource."

Impetus behind Lewis's successful pro-
posal to the NSF came from three directions.
First, the Department of Anthropology has
declared development of its conservation

division to be its first priority, now that the
vast new four-floor Central Anthropology
Storage Area (CASA) has been built within
the Museum as a result of our recently com-
pleted Capital Campaign.

Second, new plans for textile care and
storage were initiated by Joan B. Andrews
of the University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee)
in 1977. She was then one of the first "In-
terns in Anthropology" at Field Museum
sponsored by a grant to the department and
the Museum's Center for Advanced Studies
from the National Endowment for the Arts
in Washington D.C. Andrews drew up

many of the guidelines and proposals which
later formed the basis for the successful pro-
posal to the NSF.

Third, and perhaps most important,
during 1978 Jeannette Leeper, now registrar
for the Laguna Beach Museum of Art, dem-
onstrated conclusively that the economical
procedures outlined by Andrews could be
implemented effectively at the Museum to
improve care and storage of the beautiful
collections of tapa or "bark cloth" from the
tropical regions of the world. At the same
time. Museum Volunteers Sylvia Schuppert,
LeMoyne Mueller, Karen McNeil and Judith

John Terrell, associate curator of Oceanic archaeology and ethnology, presents ]eannette
Leeper with honorary tapa specimen.

Spicehandler carried out similar improve-
ments for storage of African and North
American textiles and comparable
materials.

In the photograph at left, Jeannette
Leeper is seen in front of the new tapa stor-
age facility she installed at the Museum
with the aid of Museum Volunteer Lorraine
Peterson. She is shown being presented last
year with an honorary tapa specimen (from
the Museum's Shop) by John Terrell, associ-
ate curator of Oceanic archaeology and
ethnology, prior to her departure for Cali-
fornia.

Through this grant from the NSF, the
work of Joan Andrews and Jeannette Leeper
is being extended to all of the Museum's tex-
tile collections by conservation assistants
Anna Campoli and Jan Di Girolamo, under
the supervision of Christine Danziger, con-
servator, and Phyllis Rabineau, custodian
of collections. Volunteers Sylvia Schuppert
and LeMoyne Mueller have also expanded
their own work on preserving our large
and impressive textile collections, which are
of both great aesthetic and scientific value.

Adult Education Course:

Operation and Use of the

Scanning Electron Microscope

The scanning electron microscope has revo-
lutionized the study and photography of
small objects by research scientists. With
500 times the depth of field obtained by op-
tical lenses and the ability to magnify be-
tween 20 and 100,000 times life size, it is an
important and versatile instrument. Prepa-
ration of specimens for study, basic
machine operation, and adjustments for
viewing difficult specimens are featured in
the first two sessions of this course. In the
last three sessions, material brought in by
some of the participants is viewed and pho-
tographed. All pictures become the proper-
ty of the participants.

The course is taught by Alan Solem,
curator of invertebrates; and by Christine
Niezgoda, assistant. Department of Botany.
It meets once each week for five weeks,
beginning March 20 or 21. Sessions last
from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. The class is divided
into four sections of six participants each.
Course fee: $60.00. For additional informa-
tion call Lynne Houck, 922-9410, X-362.

Gamelan Master Classes

Two courses on Indonesia's remarkable or-
chestral ensemble, the gamelan, are offered
in March. An introductory course includes
basic techniques of performance, musical
structure, and the cultural background of
gamelan music in social and ceremonial
uses. An intermediate course features Java-

nese singing and simple gender accompani-
ment on the gamelan. Prerequisite for the
intermediate course is an introductory gam-
elan course at Field Museum or at a univer-
sity school of music. When the courses are
completed, participants will give a public
concert held at Field Museum. The instruc-
tor for both courses is Sue Carter-De Vale,
gamelan program director. Field Museum.
The introductory course meets Tues-
day evenings from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. for 10
weeks beginning March 13. The intermedi-
ate course meets Wednesday evenings from
7:00 to 9:00 p.m. for 8 weeks beginning
March 28. Participants should be physically
able to remain seated on the floor for sev-
eral hours— the position for playing many
of the instruments. For information and
registration, please call the Department of
Education, 922-9410 X-362.

The scanning electron microscope, which
can magnify 20 to 100.000 times life size,
has opened new worlds for the scientific
investigator.

A gamelan master class practice session

War and Peace
— Pigeon Style

The author's son

feeding pigeons in

Trafalgar Square

BY PATRICIA WILLIAMS

Robins signal spring. Eagles symbolize power and
authority; peacocks, pride. But the pigeon?
Pigeons definitely have trouble with their image —
especially among city dwellers, who are most like-
ly to associate the bird with whitish droppings
staining buildings, park benches, and, more per-
sonally, clothing. However, this is a rather one-
sided view. In matters of love and faith, war and
peace, the pigeon has long played a symbolic —
and sometimes active — role.

Wendell Mitchell Levi, in his weighty book
The Pigeon, wrote, "In the religions of early man,
it held a place excelled by no other speechless
creature. In martial strife, it has served its masters
from earliest days. As a message-bearer in general,
it had no equal. Poets, philosophers, and his-
torians have extolled this bird."

Poets, philosophers, historians, and, in
fact, most nonscientific writers have tended to use
the terms "pigeon" and "dove" interchangeably
and that's o.k. Pigeons and doves are both
members of the family Columbidae and, as stated
in the Dictionary of Birds, "no sharp distinction
can be drawn between Pigeons and Doves, and in
general literature the two words are used almost
indifferently while no one species can be pointed
out to which the word Dove, taken alone seems to
be proper."

The pigeon commonly seen strutting down
train platforms and roosting high on city buildings
is the Rock Dove, a bird that also travels under the
names Street Pigeon and Blue Rock. It might be
said that a pigeon by any other name coos as
sweetly — or makes just as big a mess, depending
upon your point of view. However, just calling
the bird a "dove" seems to improve matters. Can
you imagine referring to the "pigeon of peace"?
Hardly.

Under both names, pigeon and dove, the
bird's history has been linked with man's for
thousands of years. As Levi pointed out,
"Wherever civilization has flourished, there the
pigeon has thrived." Archeological investigations
have turned up carvings, inscriptions, and
representations involving pigeons that date back
thousands of years to the Sumerians, Egyptians,
Greeks, and Romans.

It has been said that at the coronation of
King Arthur of England four kings walked before
him, each carrying a sword of gold, and four more
kings walked before the queen, each of these car-
rying a white pigeon. At coronations in France
large numbers of white pigeons were released to
commemorate the happy occasion.

In more modern history, Samuel Pepys
added a pathetic note when he included the
pigeons in his description of the Great Fire of Lon-
don, saying, "Among other things the poor
pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their
homes, but hovered about the windows and bar-
buies till they burned their wings and fell down."

Wars stud the pages of history books and,
although they are seldom mentioned, pigeons
have been effective military allies since ancient
times. Carrying messages to and fro, homing
pigeons were used by Julius Caesar in his conquest
of Gaiil and by many generals over the years, but
really flew into their own on an international basis
following the Franco-Prussian War. During the
siege of Paris (November 1870 to January 1871)
pigeons flew to Paris from other cities bearing
thousands of messages.

Although you might assume that advances
in communications techniques would have out-
moded the homing pigeon by the time of World
War I, this was not so. Telephone or telegraph
wires could be tapped or cut; rockets or flares
become impractical, but the pigeon flew on.
Major General Fowler (an amazingly appropriate
name), chief of the British Army's Department of
Signals and Communication, was reported as say-
ing: "When troops are lost, or surrounded in the
mazes on the front, or are advancing and get
beyond known localities, then we depend ab-
solutely on the pigeon for our communications.
Regular methods in such cases are worthless and it

Patricia Williams is managing editor of scientific
publications.

is at just such times that we need most messengers
that we can rely on. In the pigeons we have them.
I am glad to say they have never failed us." It has
been estimated that from 20,000 to 500,000
feathered fighters served all forces in World War I.
Again, in World War II, pigeons were ac-
tive participants and in the United States the
Pigeon Corps numbered 3,000 enlisted men, 150
officers, and 54,000 pigeons. G. I. Joe, the best-
known American pigeon hero of this war, was sta-
tioned in Italy when he flew 20 miles in 20 minutes
to stop allied planes from bombing a village just
taken by British infantry troops. The planes'
motors were warmed and they were ready to take
off when G. I. Joe flew in with news of the take-
over. The speedy pigeon was decorated by both
the Americans and the British.

Most recently, pigeons were field-tested in
Viet Nam to serve in an ambush-detection system.
Each trained pigeon was equipped with a small
transmitter that emitted a steady signal as the bird
flew ahead of a convoy and watched for concealed
humans. If the bird saw anyone lying, kneeling, or
hiding off the road, it was trained to land. When it
landed, the transmitter's signal stopped and the
convoy was warned of potential danger.

In contrast to its role in wars and despite
the fierce and bloody battles which occur between
males, doves are popular symbols for valentines,
wedding cakes, and poems of love. Of course, not
only do doves bill and coo as lovers do, but they
are — even in this time of rising divorce rates —
believed to mate for life.

Doves are connected with both Venus and
Aphrodite, mythical goddesses of love, and
literature is filled with allusions linking the bird
and love. Shakespeare often refers to pigeons and
doves in his plays and, for example, has Rosalind
say to Orlando in As You Like It, "I will be more
jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over
his hen."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was very fond
of doves and was known to present friends with
pairs of the loverlike birds. Tennyson often includ-
ed pigeons in his poems, but certainly the most
sentimentally romantic pigeon-poem must be
Verses Written in a Garden by Lady Mary Wortley
Montague:

See how that pair of billing doves
With open murmurs own their loves
And, heedless of censorious eyes.
Pursue their unpolluted joys:
No fears of future want molest
The downy quiet of their nest.
Kamadeva, the Hindu god of love, is
represented with a dove for his steed and, cupid-
like, is armed with an arrow of flowers and a bow
whose string is formed of bees. Not only Hin-
duism, but many of the world's religions have
employed pigeons and doves in rites and as sym-
bols. Ingersoll, in his book Birds in Legend Fable
and Folklore, points out that the dove, "by which
is meant the prehistorically domesticated blue

rock-pigeon, almost deserves a chapter to itself"
and he proceeds to almost give it one, tracing the
bird's history "back to the misty dawn of civiliza-
tion and religion in Mesopotamia, the Garden-of-
Eden land, where arose the dual 'nature-worship'
of the combining elements heaven and earth, male
and female."

G. /. Joe^ the best-
known pigeon hero
of World War II,
was decorated by
both the Americans
and the British

Mohammedans hold the pigeon in
reverence and Levi states that "as recently as 1925
a near riot was caused in Bombay when two Euro-
pean boys ignorantly killed some street pigeons.
The stock exchange and general market were clos-
ed and a widespread strike threatened."

References to pigeons abound in both the
Old and New Testaments of the Bible. While many
of those in the Old Testament concern the pigeon
as a sacrificial offering, the bird plays a more ac-
tive role in the story of Noah and the deluge.
Noah sent forth a dove to see if the flood waters
had subsided. On the first attempt, "the dove
found no place to set her foot, and she returned to
him in the ark, for the waters were still on the face
of the whole earth" (Genesis 8:9). After a time,
Noah sent the dove out again "and the dove came
back to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth a
freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the
waters had subsided from the earth" (Genesis
8:11). This must certainly be the best-known ex-
ample of the pigeon's trustworthiness and homing
instincts.

In the New Testament, scripture states that
on the occasion of Jesus' baptism by John the
Baptist, "he went up immediately from the water,
and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw
the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and
alighting on him" (Matthew 3:16). It is this
reference that has inspired so much Christian art
over the centuries. The Holy Spirit is depicted as a
dove in stained glass windows, paintings,
tapestries, and sculpture. Similarly, the spirit of
man, or the soul, is also represented by the dove in
various art forms.

There are many stories concerning the
multitudes of pigeons in St. Mark's Square in
Venice and one of them asserts that the birds fly
three times daily around the city in honor of the

Trinity. Another story which offers an explana-
tion for the great numbers of pigeons in the square
holds that at one time it was the Palm Sunday
custom of the clergy of St. Mark's to release
pigeons fettered with little screws of paper to pre-
vent their flying high. The people scrambled for
the disabled birds and caught many of them. A
few, stronger than the rest, managed to escape and
fly to the safety of rooftops around the square.
These sturdy high-fliers were, according to one
writer, "regarded as sacred forever with their
descendants" and the state provided them with
food.

Why do people enjoy feeding the pigeons?
In 1887 the ardent English pigeon-fancier Rev. ].
Lucas tried to explain, "I have seen men of the
careworn face and restless eye pause in the court-
yard of Guildhall and watch them. Their anxious
features relax into a smile; they become interested
and amused at the docility and dignity of the
birds, whose composure in the midst of a throng
of pedestrians is exquisite."

Alright. The pigeon is obviously a bird to
be reckoned with: a war hero, religious symbol,
and romantic model. Further, pigeon breeding and
racing has given pleasure to hobbyists for cen-

Pigeons in St. Mark's Square, Venice, 1887

Although Chicago now has no central
pigeon hangout to rank with St. Mark's or
Trafalgar Square in London, the city's fairly new
Civic Center seems to be a likely candidate.
Already popular with the birds, the vast open
square has ample room for soaring and wheeling
between buildings, a large monument for staining,
and a sizeable crumb-tossing population. Until her
death in December, 1978, "the Pigeon Lady," a
small, white-haired woman shod in tennis
sneakers, was a familiar sight in downtown
Chicago as she fed bread crumbs to the birds.

turies; the bird has served as a medium for scien-
tific research in the study of genetics, disease, and
nutrition; and squabs (young pigeons from one to
about 30 days old) are enthusiastically enjoyed as
food. All very commendable, but, still, there are
those who just don't have a good word to say for
the bird. Why not?

Well, there are several reasons — and good
ones, too. In September 1963, the Chicago Daily
News complained "It seems to us that the pigeon
feeders are about the only people allowed to keep
their pets at large." In reaction to a New York City

health department study which showed that the
average New Yorker inhaled 3 micrograms of
droppings daily — courtesy of that city's five mil-
lion pigeons — the Daily News editorialized, "It
may be a good idea to keep flocks of pigeons
around on the off-chance that the next Depression
will get really desperate, but in the meantime they
are a frightful, filthy nuisance. . . ."

If during a "desperate Depression" you eat
a wild street pigeon, you may get more than you
bargained for. Although a pigeon may seem to fly
overhead in solitary splendor, it is not really
alone. Austin Rand, former chief curator of
zoology at Field Museum, wrote, "The bird is like
an island with its own flora and fauna, carrying at
least some of the 70 or so plants and animals that
have been recorded as living on or in the domestic
pigeon. These include two species of ticks, eight of
mites, a fly, a bug, six lice, nine roundworms,
eighteen tapeworms, three flukes, eight proto-
zoans, two fungi, nine bacteria, four viruses, and
doubtlessly many others." He went on to state that
"A thousand tapeworms have been found in the
intestines of a single pigeon, 30 pigeon flies among
the feathers of a single bird, and 20 lice on a single
feather."

Mourning dove

Not surprisingly then, feral pigeons have
been indicted as transmitters of disease and have
been a source of continuing interest to the U.S.
Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Pigeons are known to be carriers of encephalitis,
for example, and the disease is transmitted from
birds to man by mosquitoes. Some other pigeon-
related diseases are pigeon ornithosis, Newcastle
disease, aspergillosis, thrush, salmonellosis, cryp-
tococcosis, and histoplasmosis.

Pigeon droppings garner the most com-
plaints and cause the greatest number of pro-
blems. Dr. H. C. Scott of the U.S. Communicable
Disease Center ran up a short list of problems
caused by pigeon droppings: "Pigeon droppings
deface and accelerate deterioration of buildings,
statues, and automobiles, and may be deposited
on unwary pedestrians. Large amounts of pigeon
excrement may kill lawns and shrubbery. In addi-
tion, pigeon droppings, regurgitated pellets,
feathers and nesting material are common con-
taminants of grain destined for use as human
food."

The Armed Forces Pest Control Board has
cited the great number of man hours needed per
year to clean up and repaint government installa-
tions as a result of pigeon fouling. Further, at air-
ports bird droppings on helicopter rotor blades
can cause the blades to be unbalanced. This, in
turn, causes a severe vibration when the engine is
readied for take off.

Pigeon nests, too, get their share of
negative reaction as they clog drain pipes, in-
terfere with awnings, and make fire escapes hazar-
dous. Mites and insects residing in pigeon nests on
window sills and building ledges may easily enter
and infest the host building.

An industry devoted to the repelling and
barring of pigeons does a lively business as a result
of the bird's untidy practices. Workers for these
firms, however, often report that they are harass-
ed as they go about their jobs by irate pigeon
admirers.

Dr. Rand's tally of pigeon residents, listed
above, inspired Carl S. Miner to compose the
following poem with which many of us may sym-
pathize:

Till now when I saw pigeons fly
Away up yonder in the sky
I much enjoyed their graceful motion.
Then I had not the slightest notion
That they were hosts to noxious things
That crawl or creep or fly on wings.
Now when I see them overhead
I'm filled with fear, also with dread.
Of what might happen. So in fright
I pull my hat down very tight.
Knowledge is power, but sometimes it
Limits enjoyment quite a bit.

Here you have both sides of the pigeon
issue: dirty bird versus noble creature. The choice
is up to you. Just remember this word of warning:
You may choose to admire the pigeon, but never
look up to it. LJ

The late, lamented passenger pigeon, cousin of the
Rock Dove

Adult Group Programs

BY LINTON PITLUGA

Thursday, April 20, 1978. The time: 9:45
a.m. The first group of the day is just arriv-
ing at Field Museum; they leave the bus and
enter the West Door. The group of 33 has
been traveling since nearly 7 a.m. and they
look slightly dazed from the droning of the
bus. They welcome the end of the ride and
the chance to shake off traveler stiffness.

A museum volunteer greets the group
and confers briefly with the leader. The rest
of the group, unoccupied for the moment,
forms into clusters to engage in revitalized
conversation. The cavernous classic Greek
lobby echoes with their voices. They are
then invited to leave their wraps in the
nearby coat closets. Some use the
restrooms. The others are encouraged to
enter the A. Montgomery Ward Theater for
the slide lecture, which will begin as soon as
all are seated. They are greeted by lecturer
Bob Feldman, a Field Museum research ar-
cheologist.

At 10:05 a.m. the slide lecture begins.
It will last nearly an hour. At about 11 a.m.
the volunteer for this group returns to
escort them to Hall 26 where they will see
what they came for: Gold. Artifacts
fashioned from gold are here in quantities
that would astound even the conquistadors,
comprising the temporary exhibit, Peru's
Golden Treasures. Like the Treasures of
Tutankhamun exhibit, which visited Field
Museum in 1977, Peru's Golden Treasures
seems to possess a magic that renders all
other exhibits pedestrian.

This is only one of the 15 adult groups,
totaling 654 people, to visit Field Museum
on this Thursday. Some will visit the Peru
gold exhibit only briefly, while others will
have arranged for a slide lecture, an audio
tour, and even a catered meal in one of the
Museum's private dining rooms. Three
shifts of staff and volunteers will be on
hand to greet and escort, and to ease each

party through its schedule. Some staff and
volunteers will still be at the Museum at 10
p.m. when the last groups are leaving.

Why did the groups come? Probably
for a variety of reasons. Some, like the
group from the University of Wisconsin at
Green Bay, came for academic reasons; as
did the group from the Lakeview Museum
in Peoria. Others, from women's clubs,
churches, travel agencies, social clubs, and
corporations, came for the cultural enrich-
ment of the experience, and also because
such visits provide an interesting and
unusual social experience.

In recent years, there has been a grow-
ing realization at Field Museum that a
special need exists for programs and ser-
vices designed specifically for adult groups.
Certainly, a number of special temporary

Linton Pitluga is group resource coordina-
tor, Department of Education.

The Pawnee earth lodge is an exciting highlight of the American Plains Indian program for adults. Volunteers present a program about
Pawnee culture. The sculpted figures shown here stand upon the roof of the lodge.

:\tl#ti;i,-j.V

'*^-<-

•IS .

"-.^

^m-

Special temporary exhibits such as Peru's Golden Treasures have proven particularly popular with adult groups.

exhibits, such as the Treasures of
Tutankhamun, have attracted sizeable
numbers of such groups, but what would
happen if an ongoing selection of programs
featured Field Museum's permanent ex-
hibits? Now, with funding from the Na-
tional Endowment for the Arts, Field
Museum is finding the answer to this ques-
tion. Since July 1977 a selection of adult
group programs have been under develop-
ment. These programs, described below,
last for about an hour and a half and in-
clude a slide presentation and a guided tour
of exhibits.

Life in Ancient Egypt

This program, which draws upon the
Museum's superb Egyptian collection
presents the unique culture of ancient Egypt
as reconstructed and interpreted from arti-
facts found in the Nile Valley. The artifacts
are viewed in the rich setting of the newly
renovated Hall ].

The American Plains Indian

Before the arrival of Europeans, the Great
Plains were only sparsely populated by the
Indians. After the introduction of the horse
from Europe, the plains became a source of
plenty, and Indians migrated there from
regions where game and other life staples

had become more difficult to come by.
Then the white settlers arrived and much of
the game — notably the buffalo — was no
longer abundant, and a radical change of
Indian lifestyles came about.

Groups explore these cultures of the
American plains Indian during the time that
they flourished. Highlights of this program
are a tour of the Pawnee Earth Lodge (a
full-scale replica of a Pawnee dwelling) and
the outstanding exhibits of art, clothing,
personal and religious articles, and
weaponry of the plains Indians.

The Weaver's Walk

Well before the dawn of history, in-
habitants of this planet had mastered the art
of interlacing strands of fibers together to
create cloth. Since then, a rich variety of
weaving techniques and textiles has been
created. The Weaver's Walk explores this
development and includes Field Museum's
fine collections of exquisite textiles produc-
ed for costume and decoration by cultures
around the world.

Special Temporary Exhibits

Each year Field Museum hosts a number of
special temporary exhibits, which adult
groups are invited to tour. Group reserva-
tions are now being accepted for Feather

Arts: Beauty, Wealth and Spirit from Five
Continents (see December 1978 and
February 1979 Field Museum Bulletins).
This exhibit, which opened February 15,
will be on view until June 15. A special slide
lecture by Phyllis Rabineau, costodian of
collections. Department of Anthropology,
may be arranged in conjunction with an
Armchair Expedition. Other temporary ex-
hibits to be featured in 1979 include Art of
the Huichol, May 5 to September 3, and
Treasures of Cypress, June 14 to September
16.

Dining at Field Museum

Many Museum visitors, accustomed to the
culinary pleasures of Chicago's fine
restaurants, have also been pleasantly sur-
prised by the high quality of Field
Museum's cuisine, served in private dining
rooms. With a range of attractive prices, a
special selection of menus is available for
breakfast, luncheon, and dinner. The
menus include such delights as boned breast
of chicken Kiev, roast prime rib of beef au
jus, and delicate broiled fresh whitefish. For
light meals, the crab bisque with date-nut
finger sandwiches and French pastries are
among the many items. An afternoon tea
and a wine and cheese buffet may also be
arranged as part of an Armchair Expedi-
tion.

A PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTFOLIO

BY STANTON R. COOK

In 1977 Field Museum Trustee
Stanton R. Cook, chairman
and publisirer of tiie Chicago
Tribune, toured Ciiina witli a
group of other Associated
Press directors. During their
16-day visit they traveled to
Peking, in the north; Shang-
hai, and Hangchou, on the
central coast; Ch'ang-sha and
Kweilin, in south-central
China; and Canton, in the
south. They also spent time in
Inner Mongolia, a region

which Western visitors have
rarely been privileged to see.
Armed with two Nikon
cameras. Cook took hundreds
of photos of contemporary
Chinese life — laborers, school
children, artisans, dancers,
street vendors, even horsemen
in Inner Mongolia. The result
is a remarkably vivid portrait,
a sampling of which we see on
these pages. Photos courtesy
Chicago Tribune.

Countryside outside Kwei-lin, praised in many poems,
is famous for its superb landscape. Town was founded
in 214 B.C., is now becoming industrialized.

Upper left: Like the man on this
month's cover, this youth is a
resident of a commune in Inner
Mongolia, some 250 miles west
of Peking.

Upper right; Work was begun
on the Great Wall during the
reign of Huang Ti, more than
2,000 years ago.
Left: Sign painters on Orange
Island, not far from the city of
Ch'ang-sha, in south-central
China.

Facing page, top: Part of the
Temple of Heaven, in Peking,
first built in 1420. The message
reads: "Crab hold of revolu-
tion. Increase production. Work
hard. Get ready for the war.
Improve effectiveness in all
aspects of endeavor. '
Right: An artisan does
cloisonne in the Peking Arts &
Crafts Factory, in which 1,300
men and women produce goods
for export. The average salary:
$22.50 per month.
Far right: Dancers who stopped
to perform at the Li An Tuge
commune, in Inner Mongolia.

^mi^f^m mi^i'mii^^«^

--Wr'^fte;' -^i Cil^VO-. s

^t^lali^lQite^^^,^

Silll¥ifiHfi^?^'t£If^»1£«§»ffi^?^ffittIt^«(1*!l» o

-m

Above: Looking across Kunming Lake to the slope of
Wan Shou Shan, site of the summer palace of the Chin
dynasty, six miles from Peking.

Left: Monument to the People's Heroes in Peking.

Facing page, top: Ceiling in Summer Palace, just outside
Peking.

Right: One-third of a primary school student's time is
spent learning characters. About 1,500 characters are
needed to be literate, but only about 5,000 of some
50,000 are in regular use.

frP^kr.

^w>

iir-^

:^*i=*j..'

•.:-«.>W- pE

Y^.

Left, above: Entrance to
cave at Kweilin

Left, below: Peking school

children sing in Tien An

Men Square, day before

one-year anniversary of

Chairman Mao's death.

Above: The face of young

China reflects optimism

and, here, perplexity.

Right: Bridge to Kunming

Lake, near Peking. In

winter, the lake's ice is cut

into chunks and stored for

summer use.

Of Land Bridges^

Ice-Free Corridors^

And Early Man

In The Americas

Part II

BY GLEN COLE
Artwork by Louva Calhoun

The previous installment of this article (January,
1979, Bulletin) considered the Bering Land Bridge
and the late Wisconsin ice-free corridor across
Canada — the land bridge as the obvious route by
which Asians moved into North America and the
corridor as a route for people moving between
Beringia and the mid-continent. It was seen that a
feasible passageway through this corridor prob-
ably did not exist until after 13,000 B.P. (before
present).

Nevertheless, there is good evidence that
humans were living south of the ice sheet by
15,000 B.P.; much more tenuous is evidence sug-
gesting that Early Man may have been in mid-con-
tinental North Anierica considerably before that.

A big game hunting economy with a spe-
cialized stone and bone technology appeared in
North America south of the late Wisconsin ice
boundary around 12,000 B.P.. Attention will be
directed here to this well documented Paleo-Indian
occupation, which was the main focus of the
AMQUA (Atnerican Quaternary Association) ses-
sions devoted to the peopling of the New World. *

Curiously, much of the debate on Paleo-
Indian origins hinges upon a single distinctive kind
of artifact, the Clovis projectile point, which read-
ily identifies this early cultural horizon. However,
this artifact creates problems when it comes to
searching for antecedents. The Clovis point has
not been found in the Old World. It seems to have
been an American innovation after the time when
free interchange across the Bering Land Bridge oc-
curred. Much weight tends to be given this artifact
type by many of the investigators who have exam-
ined Asian materials for sources of the Clovis
culture. It is generally supposed that the kinds of
stone tools — if not actual fluted points — made by
the ancestors of the Paleo-lndians should include
forms which anticipate such points. As nothing

'To avoid confusion, the term "Paleo-Indian" will be
used here to apply only to these big game hunters whose
tool kit was characterized by fluted projectile points.

reminiscent of fluting has been found, many stu-
dents of Early Man in the New World suppose that
stone working traditions that include "bifaces"
(foliate or lanceolate artifacts shaped by removal
of flakes from both surfaces or faces) would be
appropriate as possible sources.

Despite the fact that the Clovis point comes
in a variety of sizes and shapes, it is easy to recog-
nize and is an excellent horizon marker. This is
largely because of the distinctive fluting. Fluting is
a technique of trimming the central portion of a
point at its basal end, probably to facilitate the
attachment of a shaft. This is done by removing
one or more shallow flakes from the butt end in
the direction of the point. The fluting, which may
be on one or both faces, usually does not extend
more than half the total length and it may be much
less than that. The fluting technique was eventual-
ly so perfected that a single fluting flake might
remove the entire central portion of a point for
much or all of its length. These later artifacts,
which also tend to be smaller and more delicately
trimmed, are known as Folsom points, after a site
near Folsom, New Mexico.

Clovis points have been found over most of
North America beyond the limits of the late Wis-
consin ice, including all of the contiguous 48
United States. For some 50 years it has been
known that these fluted points are of considerable
antiquity, since they have been found with the
bones of extinct Pleistocene mammals. It was the
evidence of fluted points found with the bones of
an extinct bison species at the Folsom site in the
late 1920s which led to the abandonment of the
widely held opinion that man had been in the New
World for only a few thousand years. With the
advent of radiocarbon dating, the actual extent of
that antiquity has been measured and, surprising-
ly, it has developed that Clovis points, when
found in datable contexts, cluster within a rela-
tively narrow time span; nearly all of the securely
dated finds occur between 11,500 and 11,000 B.P.
The Folsom variety of fluted point is dated to a
rather longer period, from about 11,000 to 10,000
years ago.

The Clovis culture is best known from sites
in the central and southern Great Plains, especially
in the Llano Estacado, because there Paleo-Indian
artifacts were first found in stratified contexts.
Such was the case at Blackwater Draw, near
Clovis, New Mexico. Here there had been a large

spring-fed pond which served as a water hole for
end-Pleistocene and early Holocene animals. For
this reason it was attractive to the Paieo- and later
Indians, who hunted and camped there on occa-
sion for several thousand years. Clovis points and
other artifacts were found in sands overlying grav-
els which were the aquifer for the pond. It was
during the quarrying of these gravels that evidence
of Paleo-Indian occupation was discovered.
Folsom material occurred in more recent, higher-
lying deposits. Unfluted projectile points, other-
wise similar in size and shape to those of the
Clovis and Folsom cultures, were found at still
higher levels. No archeological material has as yet
been found stratified beneath a level of Clovis ar-
tifacts'Clovis points are sometimes found in asso-
ciation with other artifacts. For example, Clovis
hunters, at least on some occasions, would camp
close enough to a slain elephant or other animal so
that butchering tools and other implements used
about the camp might be associated with points
included with the skeletal remains.

Clovis points have also been found — and in
considerable abundance — in more easterly por-
tions of the United States; less frequently they
have been found in the western states and in
northern Mexico. Unfortunately, nearly all of the
eastern finds have been from the surface or have
been turned up from superficial deposits by plow-
ing and other surface disturbances, so they are
devoid of context and cannot reliably be dated.
Radiocarbon dates from sites in several eastern
locations are consistent with those from the more
westerly sites.

Vance Haynes, a University of Arizona
geologist and geochronologist, while recognizing
possible regional variations in the Clovis tool kit,
and noting considerable variation in size and
shape in the projectile points, suggested that "the
basic Clovis tool kit was essentially the same
wherever it is found. . . . This implies a high
degree of mobility and lack of dependence on a
restricted environment. "**In this view, the Clovis
hunters wandered over extensive areas in search of
large game animals, especially elephants.

'At the Meadowcroft site, artifacts older than 12.000
years B.P. occur irj a stratified sequence, but no Clovis
material seems to be present nor, apparently, have any
other kinds of artifacts been reported in the 11,500 to
10,000 years B.P. time period. Also, last year, artifacts
found below an occurrence containing fluted points of
the Folsom variety were reported from a site in north-
western Missouri. These artifacts are not of a kind that
could be regarded as part of the Clovis tool kit. The
excavators estimate that the material must be older than
15,000 years B.P.

""All quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken
from the Abstracts of the fifth biennial meeting, Ameri-
can Quaternary Association, Edmonton, Alberta, 1978.

But some investigators doubt that an immi-
grant population could have spread so rapidly;
they attach more weight to the apparent regional
variations. Dennis Stanford, a Smithsonian Insti-
tution archeologist, sees "Clovis as a technology
diffused within a population already inhabiting
the New World." He suggests that the technologi-
cal concepts necessary for the fashioning of Clovis
points — whether introduced from Asia or derived
independently — "spread to populations already
exploiting a variety of environments." Similarly,
Robson Bonnichsen, a University of Maine arche-
ologist, sees in Clovis points "structural patterned
variation of shape and technological attributes
[which] appear to occur on a regional basis." He
thinks this would not be so "if these points repre-
sent a single migration."*

Haynes has observed that "the spread and
development of the Clovis culture throughout
North America and northern Mexico took place
during a period of the greatest environmental

'These days migrations are not in favor with most an-
thropologists, including those who practice archeology.
This is not to say that anthropologists deny the occur-
rence of migrations in human history and prehistory but
it is certain that such have often been misused as easy
"explanations" for observed cultural distributions. It is a
good deal simpler to dismiss discontinuous distributions
of cidtural traits and complexes as a result of migrations
than to try to understand them in terms of complex in-
teractions between social, economic, and environmental
factors which are unquestionably much more important
in the overall picture of human cultural development.

A Folsom and 2
Clovis points (actual
size). The smaller,
more delicately
trimmed and com-
pletely fluted
specimen is the
Folsom point. The
Clovis point at the
left is from the
Blackwater Draw
locality in New
Mexico; that in the
center is from Union
County, Illinois. The
Folsom point is from
the collection of Col.
M. E. Rada.

ARCTIC OCEAN

1,000 KM

BERING STRAIT

BERING
SEA

^^^^

°^.

SIBERIA

^^h

'er

^enr

*^'/9.

KAZAKH S.S.R.^-

T^\

MONGOLIA

Distribution of important
late Pleistocene Siberian
sites. The clustering of
sites near population
centers in major river
valleys is a better indica-
tion of the activities of
prehistorians than distribu-
tion of prehistoric popula-
tions. Nevertheless,
prehistoric human activi-
ties probably were concen-
trated in the river valleys
and sites certainly have
been better preserved
there: so future discoveries
can be expected to extend
the range of sites into
unexplored ranges of river
valleys to a greater extent
than elsewhere in Siberia.
The shaded areas indicate
positions of the more
important late Pleistocene
ice sheets.

change since the end of the Sangamon interglacial"
(the interglacial which preceded the Wisconsin).
He notes that "... major vegetation changes oc-
curred locally and regionally, there were marked
changes in erosional-depositional processes and
hydrology, and many forms of Pleistocene ani-
mals became extinct." As a geologist, Haynes is
interested in the causes, effects, and interrelation-
ships of these factors. Bonnichsen, as an anthro-
pologist, emphasized in addition that this was
doubtless "also a period of cultural stress marked
by new innovations — man's primary way of
readapting." As an alternative to the hypothesis
that the Clevis culture was brought by migrants
from Beringia, he proposes that the introduction
of a single hunting tool, the atlatl* and its atten-
dant stone-working technology (pressure flaking
and, perhaps, heat treatment of stone to improve
its flaking properties) could have diffused rapidly
to pre-existing populations. Such rapid diffusion
of these generalized innovations could account for
the sudden appearance of Clovis and other fluted

points throughout the Americas. Also, as the real-
ization of the more sophisticated hunting tool
would have been left to craftsmen practicing
regional technologies and influenced by local
styles, one can account for the regional variations
which Bonnichsen sees in Clovis projectile points.
Once the matter of fluted points and their
antecedents is put aside, many students of Early
Man in the New World have no difficulties in find-

*The atlatl is an implement devised to add propulsive
force to a thrown spear or dart. It is a rod or board
shaped for gripping at one end, with a device designed
to engage the butt end of the dart shaft at the other. The
use of the atlatl implies the use of a special kind of dart,
perhaps compound with one or more shaft components
armed with a bone or stone point. The use of this imple-
ment doubtless facilitated the hunting of the thick-
skinned mammoth. The atlatl was eventually replaced
by the bow and arrow in most of North America but its
use lingered in certain cases, as with the Aleuts and Eski-
mos, until historic times.

ing similarities between Clovis cultural material
and its context and that of certain Eurasian sites.
Haynes cites a number of traits, including kinds of
artifacts, stone- and bone-working technologies,
and certain site features, and notes the similarity
to those of sites from Siberia's Lake Baikal area
and further west along the Yenisei River. He sug-
gests that "to invoke independent development of
all these traits in the New World from a popula-
tion base for which there is only tenuous evidence
does not seem as reasonable as does an origin from
the Siberian Paleolithic during a time when the
Arctic-Steppe biome existed on the Beringia plat-
form." Further, Haynes thinks there may have
been "a close temporal link between the Clovis
culture and its Old World antecedents." However,
he is hard pressed to find suitable antecedents in
Beringia; he suggests, nonetheless, that the Clovis
culture developed from one of two contemporary
traditions there before 11,000 B.P.

Whether or not the immediate antecedent
of the Clovis culture was imported in toto or
whether it is the result of the introduction of a new
hunting tool with its attendant technology to an
indigenous population, there seems to be general
agreement that there was some movement of peo-
ple around 12,000 B.P. As one AMQUA discussant,
Donald Clark of the Archeological Survey of
Canada, pointed out, previously unoccupied ter-
rain was becoming available with climatic amelio-
ration and retreat of ice. That is, if contact was
established between populations in eastern Ber-
ingia and the mid-continent, people would have
had to move into the intervening area; but, it
should be noted, people living south of the late
Wisconsin ice could have moved north as well as
vice versa. So far, none of the very few dated
fluted points from Alaska have proved to be as old
as some of the Clovis points from south of the ice
limits. Many investigators thus argue that the
technology associated with the Clovis point was
developed in the south, then moved northward as
climatic and geographic conditions permitted.
Those who are inclined to see the Clovis culture as
introduced by an infusion of people from Beringia

feel that it is merely a matter of time before older
fluted points will turn up in Alaska and the Yukon,
since that area is scarcely known archeologically.

In any event, the prevailing opinion seems
to be that people living in eastern Beringia in the
waning phases of the late Wisconsin glaciation
worked their way southward, very likely through
an ice-free corridor; with them came the incipient
Clovis culture, whether or not the distinctive
fluted point had yet been developed.

Most students of Early Man in North
America investigating possible Old World roots of
the Clovis culture direct their attention to material
from north Eurasian sites. (The main interest in
the western Pacific Rim is as a source of possible
earlier American populations.) One of these inves-
tigators, William Powers, a University of Alaska
archeologist, cited cultural material from sites
along the Aldan River in central Siberia. This in-
cludes bifacial points and knives dating to the
18,000-20,000 B.P. time range. A technology for
the production of long thin flakes, or blades —
another characteristic of the Clovis tool kit — is
also present; and it may be that certain aspects of
the Siberian ivory and bone technology, e.g. . atlatl
dart foreshafts, also appear in the Clovis culture.
Otherwise, the similarity to the Clovis tool kit is
not striking. Unfortunately, the tool kits from
Alaska that most closely resemble this Aldan
River material lack the bifacial points. In the Alas-
kan case, simple stone projectile points seem to
have been replaced by composite tips comprised
of laterally grooved bone points armed with inset
microblades.

Many investigators favor the idea that
there occurred multiple migrations of people into
North America via Beringia, while others believe
that there was a single incursion towards the very
end of the Pleistocene. Powers favors the first
position as does James Hester, a University of
Colorado archeologist. Hester holds that separate
migrations account for different cultural entities
which he detects in the North American archeo-
logical scene. He sees these migrations as occur-
ring "over a long period of time beginning as early

Detail of diorama in
Hall 4 demonstrating
use of atlatl.

2,000 -_

, 1

-'•r-y--

1,000 -

200 -

100 -

^ ?

50 -

LU C

I ii

40 -

b Q- ^

< c

30 -

1 ,J

20 -

■*-' o

CO o

~ CO

f 1

f i^

10-

(D
O
O

T/ie Quaternary Period, which covers the last 1.6-1.8
million years of geologic time, is divided into two
epochs, the Pleistocene and the Holocene. The last
major glacial stage, ending 10,000 years ago, is known,
in North America, as the Wisconsin. The Wisconsin,
punctuated by several cold stadials and warmer inter-
vals has been variously subdivided. For purposes of this
article, it is simply divided into an earlier and a later
portion. The more recent, late Wisconsin, will be that
period from 23,000 before present (B.P.) to the beginning
of the Holocene. The figures represent thousands of
years.

as 25,000 to 35,000 years B.P. and extending to a
date as recent as 8,500 B.P." The Clovis culture
would have developed from one of these migra-
tions. The "single migration" position is held by
many others. The prime advocate of this position
who participated in the AMQUA symposium was
Christy Turner, an Arizona State University physi-
cal anthropologist. Turner, who has studied dental
characteristics of a wide range of people around
the Pacific Basin, argued that "low dental and
other biological variability of Paleo-, skeletal, and
living Indians suggests the initial founding migra-
tion was singular, small, and late in the Pleisto-
cene." He finds Paleo-Indian dental characteristics
to be very much like those of living Indians, which
suggests direct descent. The opinion of a majority
of physical anthropologists who have studied the
question is probably reflected in Turner's conclu-
sion that "most of the ice-free New World appears
to have been occupied by one people [via Beringia]
. . . before the close of the Pleistocene."

Turner also detects evidence for another
past population network with its New World dis-
tribution limited to the coastal areas of the north-
western and arctic portions of North America.
This past population network extended "from
north China through the Amur basin, along the
Sea of Okhotsk and southern Beringia to at least
the Gulf of Alaska. When rising seas forced the
removal of these Beringians, their descendants,
namely Aleuts, Eskimos, and possibly Northwest
Coast Indians, were the Holocene 'migrants' to
Alaska." This group would be that represented by
Hester's last "migration." It should be noted that
Turner is not arguing that the ancestral Aleuts and
Eskimos migrated to the New World in Holocene
times. Rather, they were stranded there, so to
speak, early in the Holocene. Although it is possi-
ble that Hester's Holocene migration actually oc-
curred, it seems more likely that these people were
living in Beringia at the same time as the ancestral
Paieo-Indians, much as Athabaskan Indians and
Eskimos have co-existed in the American arctic
and subarctic.

General, as well as some very specific, simi-
larities in archeological material in northern Asia
and Alaska have led many investigators to recog-
nize a paleoarctic tradition which encompasses
several variants. Don E. Dumond, a University of
Oregon archeologist, has observed that it "seems
clear that the Alaskan representatives of the Paleo-
arctic tradition hark back to the time when Alaska
was a peninsula of Asia, thrusting against the con-
tinental ice of the New World."* Within such a
model, Beringia would have been populated in the
late Wisconsin by people adapted to the exploita-
tion of different resource bases. One such base
would clearly have been the large mammals living
on the arctic steppe of Beringia; a second would

"Chapter! in Ancient Native Americans. /. D. fennings,
editor, 1978.

BERING SEA

Anangula

■*=3.

4=a»<

Map of North
America indicating
localities mentioned
in the text. The
shaded area indicates
the Llano Estacado.

have been the sea mammals and other marine life
of the southern coastal biome. With the submerg-
ence of the central Beringian area, crucial evidence
has been lost or has become inaccessible and it has
not been possible to define the tool kits of the
groups who exploited these resources. Despite the
rudimentary state of terminal Pleistocene prehis-
tory in Alaska, or perhaps because of it, the possi-
bility of other variations has been suggested.
Beringia was available for human habitation for a
very long time so that regional variations had
ample time to develop within these adaptations. It
was the arctic steppe hunters, or some of them
who did not use microblades, that Haynes viewed
as likely antecedents of the Clovis population and
culture. The Aleuts and Eskimos, in this view,
would have descended from people adapted to life
in the coastal zone, especially to the hunting of
marine animals.

Although some ancestral Paleo-Indian sites
in eastern Beringia may have survived, any ances-
tral Aleut-Eskimo sites that existed before about

8,500 B.P. along former coastlines were submerged
by the rising sea level at the end of the Pleistocene
and early Holocene. In exceptional cases, high
points occurred in the old land bridge and remain
today as islands. Anangula, a small island just a
mile or so from Umnak Island at the eastern end of
the Aleutian chain, is such a case. Rather than
retreat across considerable distances of gently
shelving coastal plain before the rising water,
people living there were able to move to higher
ground locally. A low-lying portion of Anangula
was occupied from ca. 8,700 to 7,200 years ago.
Rising sea level finally caused this site to be aban-
doned. Continuing occupation of the island is
found in another more recent site on higher
ground. Although it may be that the 8,700-year-
old occurrence represents the earliest Paleo-Aleut
occupation, it is quite possible that older, lower-
lying sites have been destroyed by the wave activ-
ity that has left a wave-cut terrace on the island —
an earlier phase of the activity which is today
destroying the older of the existing Anangula sites.

o
o

Schematic represen-
tation of 6 of the 8
Clovis points found
associated with a
single mammoth
skeleton at Naco,
Arizona. All of these
points are fluted on
both faces. This
association is par-
ticularly informative
in that it provides an
excellent example of
the considerable
variation in size and
shape in the projec-
tile points used by a
single band of Paleo-
Indian hunters or, at
least, of the varia-
tion that can be
expected within a
restricted geographi-
cal area. If the
points from other
nearby Clovis sites
are included, an
even greater range of
variation is evident.
Although certain
varieties may be
more common in
some areas than in
others, forms similar
to those from Naco
and nearby sites
have been found
from widely scat-
tered portions of ice-
free North America.

As is, perhaps, inevitable in a situation
where so little factual evidence is available, a wide
diversity of opinion has been expressed concerning
the peopling of the New World. The following,
though based largely on data presented at the
AMQUA sessions, should not be taken as an attempt
to present a consensus of AMQUA participants, nor
of the anthropological contingent. In some cases I
am unsure where a consensus, if any, might lie.
These comments, rather, should be regarded as
incorporating views which seem reasonable to an
outsider — to an Old World prehistorian who lacks
firsthand knowledge of the evidence.

In conclusion then, let us return to the sev-
eral traditional questions posed at the beginning of
the first installment: Where did the ancestors of
the native Americans come from? How did they
get to the New World? How long have they been
here?

There is no question that the ancestors of
the native Americans came from Asia, but this is
not really saying very much. Apart from the
ancestral Aleuts and Eskimos (who only figured in
populating the extreme north and northwestern
part of North America), it should be recognized
that the peopling of Beringia is a question separate
from that of peopling the New World. It is possible
that people bearing different cultures, perhaps of
varied genetic background, at one time or another,
lived in Beringia. This would have depended on
development of cultural paraphernalia adequate
to cope with a severe subarctic and arctic environ-
ment. After all, Beringia was a large area available
for a very long time —long enough to allow for
the area to be occupied, abandoned, and reoccu-
pied. Cultural differentiation could also have oc-
curred within a once homogeneous population,
and there was room enough for distinct popula-
tions to co-exist in their own areas of economic
specialization.

Just when people actually did live there is
another matter. The majority of datable Siberian
sites have fallen into the 20,000-to-10,000-years-
ago range. Radiocarbon dates from two sites along
the Aldan River in central Siberia have recently
been obtained for archeological material in the
35,000-30,000 years B.P. range. Undated material
suspected of being older is also known, but this is
from sites farther south and west in Siberia.

R. Klein, an Old World prehistorian famil-
iar with the Eurasian evidence, has suggested that
it was not until 35,000 or 40,000 years ago that
Early Man had achieved the cultural capabilities
necessary for living in the more continental por-
tions of Europe where the most rigorous climatic
conditions existed. He argues that it would not
have been until some time later that these people
would have been able to cope with the even more
severe climatic conditions of northern Asia and to
have reached its extreme northeast corner. If true,
that would impose a limit on when the earliest
immigrants from or via this area could have

entered Beringia. Klein suggests 30,000 years ago
as a basement date. At the Siberian end of Berin-
gia, however, nothing that early has been found.
The oldest dates reported from the sparse informa-
tion available from northeastern Siberia are on the
order of 13,000 years ago. As one AMQUA partici-
pant observed, the best inferences that can be
drawn on the nature of late Pleistocene occupation
of northeastern Siberia are from evidence obtained
from sites in Alaska and the Yukon.

The climate of Beringia during the later part
of the Pleistocene was in general probably less
severe than that of much of central and northern
Asia. Conceivably, such conditions could have
permitted the survival of coastal populations ex-
panding their terrain northward and into Beringia.
However, until the very end of the Pleistocene,
there is no evidence for human occupation along
the Pacific Rim north of the Amur River.

It could be that only those who occupied
Beringia's eastern end and were on hand to take
advantage of new land (including, perhaps, an ice-
free corridor made available by retreating ice),
provided the founding population for the Paleo-
Indians. Whether or not anyone had managed to
get into the New World south of the Wisconsin ice
limits earlier is uncertain. But it does seem clear
that if any did reach the mid-continent, they left
no clear-cut archeological evidence; seemingly
they contributed little if anything to the genetic
constitution of the American Indian.

There is a consensus that Early Man came
to the New World via Beringia; but there is no
agreement as to the route or routes by which the
early Americans gained access to the rest of North
America. The AMQUA symposium was oriented
towards the ice-free corridor, so there was no con-
sideration given to possible alternate routes. The
Pacific coast is one sometimes proposed; among
less plausible routes suggested is the north Atlantic
by means of boat from ice floe to ice floe. The ice-
free corridor very likely served as a route by which
people passed, one way or another, sometime
around 12,000 B.P.; but we have no firm archeo-
logical evidence from the corridor itself for that
period of time.

The question of greatest interest to most of
those concerned with the peopling of the New
World is when it occurred. Despite improved
dating techniques, continued field work, and bet-
ter knowledge of the Old World literature, we still
don't have a very good idea of when the very first
people reached eastern Beringia. Nor do we know
when the first people reached the mid-continent
or, if it was a different event, when the first viable
population was established south of the Wisconsin
ice limits. The evidence is good that Early Man
was in Beringia at least 30,000 years ago, but not
that it was continuously occupied from that time.
However, apart from a few situations which for
one reason or another are not entirely certain,
claims for human presence elsewhere in the West-

ern Hemisphere earlier than 15,000 years ago are
dubious at best. Evidence has been accumulating
to indicate that Early Man had become established
somewhat earlier than the 12,000 years ago or so
that until recently had seemed the best estimate. In
at least one situation, there is good evidence for
regional occupation through the period 12,000 to
15,000 years ago and there are a few other dates
from scattered sites in the Americas that fall into
that time range. If future geological work deter-
mines that the ice-free corridor opened earlier than
is now thought or that it closed considerably later,
a simple solution to some rather sticky problems
will be at hand.

It may be wondered why some Quaternary
scholars are so interested in determining just when
humans established themselves in North America.
For anthropological archeologists, the time that a
viable human population was established could
make a big difference in the way they regard the
archeological data. In the case of the Clovis hunt-
ers we have seen that two quite different points of
view are dependent upon the dating of this event.
If the New World south of late Wisconsin ice limits
was largely or entirely uninhabited when the bear-
ers of the incipient Clovis culture arrived, the ar-
cheologist is then faced with this question: How
did a small founding population spread so rapidly
throughout the Western Hemisphere, adapting in
the same short time to very different environments
and developing considerable cultural diversity?
On the other hand, if the Americas were populated
before the Clovis culture appeared, the investi-
gator is faced with another problem involving a
different set of cultural processes: How did the late
Pleistocene big game hunting complex come to
appear more or less simultaneously in North, Cen-
tral, and South America from a pre-existing popu-
lation base that had previously followed quite a
different mode of existence?

One of several aspects of the AMQUA symposium
not dealt with in this two-installment article con-
cerned the post-Pleistocene dispersion of people
throughout North America. For the reader inter-
ested in pursuing the subject further. Ancient
Native Americans, edited by Jesse D. Jennings (W.
H. Freeman, 1978) can be recommended. This
book also covers Pleistocene peopling of the New
World and provided some of the background in-
formation in these articles. The Bering Land
Bridge, edited by David M. Hopkins (Stanford
University Press, 1967), was another much used
source of information and can be recommended.
Much of the literature concerning the late
Pleistocene prehistory of Asia is to be found in
scholarly journals such as Arctic Anthropology,
which are not apt to be generally available. How-
ever, a useful book. Northeast Asia in Prehistory
by C. S. Chard (University of Wisconsin Press,
1974) may be easier to locate.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

Exclusive Tour Packages for Members and Their Families

Fabulous Machu Picchu, one of the sites to be visited on Field Museum's Peru tour

PERU

In 1978 Field Museum was host to a dazzling exhibit of
golden treasures from ancient Peru. Now Field Museum
members and their families can visit some of the archeo-
logical sites where those treasures were discovered. A
20-day tour (Oct. 27-Nov. 15) will visit the famed ruins of
Machu Picchu, Chan Chan, Pachacamac, Purgatario, and
others. Also on the itinerary are the Plains of Nazca
(viewed from low-flying aircraft), the offshore Guano
Islands, and the famous Pisac Indian Fair. The group,
limited to 20 persons, will be led by Dr. Michael Moseley,
associate curator of middle and South American arche-
ology and ethnology, and by Robert Feldman, assistant in
archeology. Both Moseley and Feldman have done exten-
sive archeological work in Peru; a tour escort will also

accompany the group.

The tour cost— $2,998 (which includes a $500
donation to Field Museum)— is based upon double occu-
pancy and includes round trip air fare between Chicago
and Peru, as well as local flights in Peru. Delta Airlines will
be used between Miami and Chicago, connecting with
Aeroperu.

Deluxe hotel accommodations will be used through-
out. The package includes all meals, including inflight
meals; all sightseeing via deluxe motor coach; all admis-
sions to special events and sites, where required; all bag-
gage handling throughout, plus all necessary transfers; all
applicable taxes and tips; all applicable visa fees. Advance
deposit required: $250.00 per person.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

COOK ISLANDS

The Unique Opportunity to see a hidden comer of the
fabled South Seas awaits a select group of Field Museum
Members. Accompanied by three staff scientists, from July
14 to 31, a visit to the Cook Islands will involve comfor-
table living in a still-unspoiled paradise. It will be the dry
season, with clear lagoon waters, sunshine guaranteed,
and comfortable temperatures.

For millions of years the tiny islands of the Pacific
have undergone a cycle from birth as a volcano to death
as an atoll sinking slowly beneath the ocean's surface. For
a brief span of geologic time they stand as verdant moun-
tains rising thousands of feet into cloud cover. Perhaps
one, perhaps 10 million years later, they sink slowly into
the water, with reefs formed from the bodies of billions of
tiny animals and plants providing nooks and crannies for
a profusion of marine organisms to dwell. Occasionally
such a reef will become re-elevated, providing a honey-
comb warren of caves and crevices with rich pockets of
soil in which man can raise subsistence crops.

The Cook Islands, located between Tahiti and Fiji,
and only recently serviced by jet aircraft, offer one of the
last relatively undeveloped island areas. Rarotonga, the
largest and youngest island with towering peaks and nar-
row valleys, is surrounded by a narrow, fringing reef and
with small off-shore coral islands. A new, 150-room hotel
provides a base with modern comforts. Aitutaki, only an
hour away by small aircraft, is a classic atoll lagoon, rich
in marine life and superb for snorkeling and scuba diving.
There, a comfortable country-style motel provides ac-
commodations right next to the lagoon reef, and the
friendly, simple services of the Polynesian community.
Mangaia, also a short flight away, is a raised reef island
with small population and no tourist facilities. On a day's
trip, transportation on a flat-bed truck or school micro-
bus will supplement hiking into the raised limestone reef
and journey to the lagoon areas themselves.

Accompanying this trip will be Dr. Alan Solem,
curator of invertebrates. Dr. Robert K. Johnson, associ-
ate curator of fishes, and Dr. Elizabeth L. Girardi, re-
search associate, Division of Invertebrates. Dr. Solem

has traveled through many islands and published exten-
sively on Pacific Island organisms, concentrating both on
the native animals of the forests and reefs, plus the
changes wrought by the accidental and purposeful intro-
ductions caused by human commerce. Through his eyes
you will see the patterns of change through time, both
before and since man's colonization of these islands.

Dr. Johnson, a certified SCUBA diver and expert on
coral reef fishes, has led and participated in many diving
expeditions in the Caribbean and Pacific. He will be in
charge of SCUBA exploration on the outer reefs and deep
lagoon areas, comparing and contrasting the fish and in-
vertebrate communities as they vary from wave expo-
sure, depth, and substrate types.

Dr. Elizabeth L. Girardi, on several trips to Aus-
tralia and the Pacific Islands, has collected and studied
shallow water marine invertebrates, particularly species
of the fish capturing and eating cone shells. In addition,
she has published on several native land organisms from
the Pacific Islands.

There thus will be presented an overall view of
Pacific Islands, their geologic and faunistic history, their
contemporary diversity on land and in water, a view of
the changes produced by man's habitation, all from the
comforts of an international-class hotel, plus two nights
on an atoll in simple comfort and a day on a little-visited
island without tourist accommodations. The last three
days of the tour will be spent in Hawaii.

The Cook Island tour group, limited to 25 persons,
will travel via Air New Zealand. The tour cost — $2,650
(which includes a $400 donation to Field Museum) — is
based upon double occupancy and includes round trip air
fare from Chicago to the Cook Islands. The package
includes all inter-island transportation, all meals (except
lunches in Hawaii) and all inflight meals, all admissions
to special events, where required; all baggage handling
throughout, plus all necessary transfers, all applicable
taxes, and tips. Advance deposit required: $400 per
person.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

THE
SOVIET
UNION

A travelogue on the Sovi-
et Union will be shown
on Wed., March 28, at
7:00 p.m. in Dining Room
E. Experts on the Soviet
Union will be present to
answer questions. Re-
freshments will be
served.

St. Basil's Church. Moscow

The Splendors of Old Russia, the excitement of the

New are in store for Field Museum Members and their
families who join the tour "Treasures of Russia and the
Ukraine," leaving Chicago's O'Hare Airport June 19 and
returning July 8.

Highlights of the exclusive tour will include visits to
the cities of Moscow, Vladimir, Kiev, Leningrad, Petro-
vorets, Novgorod, and Petrozavodsk. The group, limited
to 35 persons, will be led from Chicago by a Russian-
speaking lecturer and a Russian-speaking escort, with
additional guides while in the Soviet Union provided by In-
tourist (the Soviet Travel Bureau) .

The tour cost— $2,970 (which includes a $500.00
donation to Field Museum) — is based upon double occu-
pancy and includes round trip air fare from Chicago to

Moscow, with intra-Russian air transportation where re-
quired. The transatlantic airline is Swissair.

Deluxe hotel accommodations will be used through-
out or, where necessary, the best hotels available. The
package includes all meals, including inflight meals; all
sightseeing via deluxe motor coach; all admissions to
special events and sites, where required; all baggage
handling throughout, plus all necessary transfers; all appli-
cable taxes and tips; all applicable visa fees. Advance
deposit required: $250.00 per person.

For full itinerary, additional details, and registration
information for all tours, please write or call Michael J.
Flynn, Field Museum Tours, Roosevelt Road at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, 111. 60605. Phone: (312) 922-9410,
X-251.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

ILLINOIS ARCHEOLOGY FIELD TRIP

For many of us, the word "arche-
ology" conjures up visions of
great architecture in distant
places: Egypt's Pyramids and
Sphinx, Cambodia's Angkor
Wat, and Mexico's Pyramids of
the Sun and Moon at Teotihua-
can. These sites, with their relics,
are limitlessly fascinating.

But right here in Illinois we
also have exciting archeological
sites, including the largest
aboriginal structure north of
Mexico— Monk's Mound at Ca-
hokia. One of the most broadly
based archeological research

centers in the country is the
Foundation for Illinois Archeo-
logy, at Kampsville; and one of
the largest covered excavations
with the longest continuing
research programs is at Dickson
Mounds, near Lewistown.

If you are interested in
learning more about Illinois pre-
history, as well as how scientific
archeological research is con-
ducted, you can join the Field
Museum field trip of June 1-5,
which will visit Dickson Mounds,
Kampsville, and Cahokia
Mounds. Limited to 30 partici-

pants, the trip includes site visits,
lecture and slide presentations,
workshops and discussions led
by staff archeologists working at
the respective sites. The field trip
director is Robert Pickering, a
doctoral candidate at Northwest-
ern University.

For full itinerary, additional
details, and registration informa-
tion on the field trip, please write
or call Michael J. Flynn, Field
Museum Tours, Roosevelt Rd. at
Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, 111.
60605. Phone: (312) 922-9410,
X-251.

Helton Mound, in the Lower Illinois Riuer Valleii, is ti/pical of the type oj site to he visited during
the June archeology field trip.

'?- -> f-'- '.:-v-i'*^isr^-,^> --Hit

■i)^J».i>Jj^>

OUR ENVIRONMENT

Wood as Fuel

Doing a slow burn over high heating costs?
Decided to save fuel dollars by turning to
wood? The next logical question is, what to
burn it in? Fireplaces, while decorative and
romantic, have a meager efficiency of heat
energy output of about 10 percent. In other
words, the other 90 percent of the heat goes
up the chimney. Controlled draft, metal
stoves, on the other hand, boast an efficien-
cy of 50-60 percent, but they vary greatly in
heat-output capacity, steadiness and dura-
tion of output, tendency to form creosote
deposits, safety, durability, and ease of
loading.

Some antique stoves, such as the
famous Franklin, are leaky and inefficient.
But others, like the Art Sparkle, built in
1894 by the Portland Stove Foundry, con-
tain intricate baffle systems which allow
smoke to rise until it hits the top of the
stove, then draws it down around the sides
of the firebox, through a stove pipe in the
back of the stove, and finally, out the flue.
The stovepipe stays cool while the smoke
circulates numerous times through the
stove, which retains most of the fire's heat
and disperses it into the room.

The masonry stove, or "Russian
fireplace, " is a closeable fireplace with a
convoluted flue. Unlike a conventional
fireplace, the masonry fireplace absorbs the
heat into its mass. A variation, the
Kachelofen wood (or coalburning) heater,
features a central core of cast iron sur-
rounded by a ceramic tile wall.

The single most important factor in a
stove is the control of draft which regulates
the crucial element, oxygen. In general, air-
tight units have higher combustion efficien-
cy, and double (or smoke) chambers pro-
vide more surface area for heat transfer and
more volume for better combusion. With
these general principles in mind, wood
stove buying still requires a great amount of
homework and comparison shopping. Re-
cent information indicates that more than
500 companies are manufacturing wood
stoves in the United States, offering more
than 2,000 models. To confound the situa-
tion, presently no standard safety re-
quirements or installation regulations have
been issued.

One good source of information on
woodburning is The Woodburner's En-
cyclopedia, by Jay Shelton, a professor at
Williams College and a pioneer in modern
research on wood stoves. Shelton indicates
that wood at $63 a cord is competitive with
fuel oil at 50c a gallon (based on a wood
stove efficiency of 50 percent and a furnace
efficiency of 65 percent).
32

Wood is usually divided into two
categories, hardwood or softwood, depen-
ding on its density. Softwoods like pine are
less dense, thus have a lower overall energy
content and contain more volatiles, so they
burn with more flame. Hardwoods, mostly
deciduous trees like oak and hickory, burn
longer and hotter.

It is important to use dry wood,
because "green" wood leaves a heavier
creosote residue, a fire hazard. "Green"
wood is heavier than dry wood because of
the water content. How to tell? Two wet
logs knocked together will resound with a
dull thud rather than the sharper, ringing
sound of dry logs. Also, freshly cut wood
shows clear growth rings while dry wood
will have darker-colored ends and cracks
radiating from the center.

Look for a 12-14 inch base on a tree to
yield about half a cord. Fall, and preferably
winter, are good times to cut wood, allow-
ing plenty of time for the wood to dry
before the next season, and reducing the
chance of sprouting. Most important, wood
holds only a fraction of water in the winter
that it does in summer.

If everyone turns to wood, will air
pollution worsen? In large cities with dense
housing, it is conceivable. But in suburban
and rural area it has been found that wood-
burning poses fewer air pollution problems
than coal and many types of fuel oil. The

Species

Available BTU's
in one cord
(in 1,000's)

Heat
Value
Rating

Apple 23,877 1

Beech, Amer 21,800 1

Hickory 24,600 1

Ironwood 24,100 1

Oak, white 22,700 1

Ash, white 20,000 2

Birch, white 18,900 2

Birch, yellow 21,300 2

Maple, sugar 21,300 1

Oak, red 21,300 1

Elm, Amer 17,200 2

Maple, red 18,600 2

Tamarack 18,650 2

Aspen 12,500 3

Pine, white 12,022 3

1 = best

2 = average

3 = poor

sulfur content in wood is low and although
carbon dioxide is produced by woodburn-
ing, it is released in the same amount by
naturally decaying wood.

Some volatile substances are released
in the woodburning process, but what they
are or what health problems they might
cause are simply not known.

A decision to burn wood should be
based on more than economics. It will
likely involve some change in lifestyle
although many profess that it is a satisfy-
ing, fulfilling change. It will likely involve
manual labor — some splitting, stacking and
hauling, and a strong constitution — to grab
the longjohns on a cold morning and go
downstairs to start or stoke a fire. For those
who are less than purists, a conventional
home heating system alongside a new, "old"
wood stove has proved a more than happy
compromise. —Carol Waite,

National Wildlife Federation

New Hope for Snake bite Victims?

Two Mississippi scientists may have found
a new substance for treating snakebite vic-
tims that is much more effective than the
treatments now in use.

Van Philpot of Houston, Mississippi,
and Rune Stjerholm, a biochemist at Tulane
Medical Center, have isolated the substance
in the blood of pit vipers that prevents them
from dying when bitten by their own kind.
The isolation is believed to be the first ever.

Snakebite victims are currently treated
with an antitoxin obtained from immunized
horses. One problem with the current treat-
ment is that roughly a third of the popula-
tion receiving the antitoxin has allergenic
reactions, which sometimes prove fatal.
The antitoxin also isn't effective for water
moccasin bites.

The new substance that has been
isolated in the blood of the viper family
would be effective for treating ail viper
bites, which include rattlesnakes, asps,
bushmasters, copperheads, and water
moccasins.

Jogging Can Be Hazardous

A young man who was jogging near Old
Faithful in Yellowstone National Park spot-
ted a grizzly bear following him. When he
stopped jogging, the bear came up to him,
stood up, and slapped him once on each
shoulder. The bear then ran off, leaving the
jogger unhurt but surprised.

Eleven days later another attack oc-
curred on a man jogging in Kansas City,
Missouri. According to an AP report, the
185-pound jogger was knocked to his knees

by the attack, which left him with three
scratches and four puncture wounds. The
jogger described his assailant as a bird with
a white underbelly and tail and a wing-
spread of 5 or 6 feet.

Tecopa Pupfish Presumed Extinct

The Tecopa pupfish, a IVi-inch fish native
to the Amargosa River near Death Valley in
California, is being removed from the en-
dangered species list — but not because it is
no longer endangered. For the first time, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing
removal of an animal because it is presumed
extinct. Since 1970, FWS has been unable to
find any trace of the fish which lived in the
highly saline, warm water of the river. It
apparently met its match with stream chan-
nelization, pollution, and introduction of
nonnative, competing species, said FWS.
"The most depressing thing about this loss
of life form is that it was totally avoidable.
The human projects which so disrupted its
habitat, if carefully planned, could have en-
sured its survival," said Interior Assistant
Secretary Robert L. Herbst.

Although not included on the endan-
gered species list, another of the 12 subspe-
cies of pupfish, the Shoshone pupfish of the
same area, is also mentioned in the rule-
making as being extinct for the same
reasons.

Poaching Ring Broken Up

The gamey flavor of freshly killed wild
animals was so irresistible to many Detroit
residents that they created an outlet for one
of the nation's largest organized commer-
cial poaching rings, which illegally killed
more than 100,000 ducks, geese, deer, squir-
rels, rabbits, fox, fish, and other animals in
the last few years. The ring was broken up
recently by federal and state wildlife law
enforcement officers.

An intensive 15-month undercover in-
vestigation climaxed on January 20 when 25
special agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and 125 Michigan conservation offi-

cers simultaneously arrested 53 people in
the Detroit area for illegally killing, selling,
buying, and marketing dozens of species of
fish and game.

"The entire operation is one of the
most extraordinary cooperative wildlife law
enforcement efforts ever engaged in be-
tween a state and the federal government,"
observed a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
official. "Thanks to the teamwork and
cooperation between the two enforcement
organizations, the largest and most highly
organized market hunting ring uncovered
in recent years has been destroyed."

The illegal commercialization involved
nearly 300 deer, 1,700 squirrels, 4,400
ducks, over 11,000 rabbits, and thousands
of pounds of walleye fish. The poachers
also killed and sold badgers, raccoons, red
fox, pheasants, partridge, and geese.

The existence of a poaching ring was
first suspected in late 1975 when the Michi-
gan Department of Natural Resources
learned from tipsters that an organized
group was supplying several Detroit retail
markets with wild game. Federal law en-
forcement officers were called in a year
later to investigate possible violations of
two federal wildlife laws. The Migratory
Bird Treaty Act makes it a federal offense to
kill, possess, or transport protected migra-
tory birds, while the Black Bass Act outlaws
interstate transfer of illegally caught fish.

In the fall of 1977 and throughout the
remainder of the investigation, four federal
and two Michigan DNR undercover agents
penetrated the organization. The agents
posed as route men and customer suppliers
and dealt frequently with ring members
who routinely carried weapons. In their
undercover capacity to obtain evidence,
agents bought the carcasses of illegally
killed game and fish more than 75 times.

As route men, the agents would pick
up the slaughtered game from poachers in
southern Michigan and deliver it to another
member of the ring for further processing.
Customer suppliers would then deliver the
meat to various retail meat markets in De-
troit. The prices paid by the customers for
the wild game were often much higher than
for the same domestically produced species
which could be bought legally.

"We suspect market hunting rings exist
in and around several other major U.S.
cities," said an FWS official. "However, we
hope that our success in dismantling this
large operation and the publicity surround-
ing it will reveal to the thousands of Ameri-
can consumers just what they are doing to
the nation's wildlife."

Some of the methods used to obtain
game and fish illegally included deer shining
(locating the animal with a powerful light
and then shooting it); luring flocks of ducks
to baited feeding areas for slaughter; and
cutting down trees with chain saws to drive
raccoons from their dens for easier capture.

U.S. Attorney James K. Robinson of
the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit
said that those arrested under federal war-
rants may be charged with violations of the
Black Bass Act and/or the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act which carries both misdemeanor
and felony penalties. Robinson said that the
matter would be presented before a federal
grcmd jury in the near future.

Chemical Company President
Convicted of Polluting Waterway

In a landmark environmental decision, a
federal jury convicted the president of a
Kentucky chemical firm of illegally dump-
ing toxic chemicals into Louisville, Ken-
tucky's, sewage system nearly two years
ago.

The conviction marks the first time
that an individual has been convicted of
criminal charges for polluting a waterway.

It is also the first time that evidence ob-
tained through a sophisticated chemical
technique known as "oil spill profiling," or
"fingerprinting," has been admitted into a
federal court. The chemical test was done
by a U.S. EPA lab and showed that samples
taken from the Louisville sewer plant's
entry chamber matched samples taken from
a tank owned by the offending company.

The chemical dumping caused the shut-
down of the wastewater treatment plant for
Louisville and other parts of the surround-
ing county. During the three months the
plant was closed, about 90 million gallons
of raw sewage a day were dumped into the
Ohio River. Two of the sewer's lines were
still closed as of Dec. 27, causing from 7
million to 15 million gallons of sewage to be
channeled into the river daily.

Research on PCBs in River Systems

PCBs and Midwest weather have much in
common. Both are cussed and discussed at
great length, but there is not much that can
be done with either.

PCBs (short for a family of chemicals
known as polychlorinated biphenyls) are
highly stable, nearly indestructible com-
pounds formerly used in electrical trans-
formers, hydraulic fluids, plastics, paints,
and a host of other products. High tempera-
ture incineration (2700 °F.) is the only ap-
proved method for their disposal.

Although they have been manufac-
tured since the 1920s, an accidental discov-
ery in 1966 found the contaminant to be
widespread in the environment. The dis-
covery caused a clamor among ecologists
and health authorities in speculation about
their effects in the food chain, especially in
aquatic organisms where toxic levels of
PCBs can be found.

Chronic exposure to PCBs can cause
serious health effects to animals and man.
In 1968, over 1,(XX) Japanese developed
physical abnormalities when exposed acci-
dentally to large doses of PCBs in rice oil.
Their symptoms included severe acne, eye
discharges, darkening of the skin, birth
defects, and miscarriages. Very little is
known, however, about the long-term ef-
fect of PCBs on human health.

PCBs characteristically accumulate in
the body fat of animals — and man — and
because of the stability of the chemicals
organisms rid themselves of the contami-
nant at extremely slow rates.

The production for domestic use of
PCBs was finally halted by the passage of
the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1977.
But the catch is, roughly one-half (250 mil-
lion lbs.) of all PCBs ever manufactured are
still in existence and much of it will be
entering the environment for a long time.

Their entry into the environment
through the "back door" via leakage from
landfills, runoff, accidental spills, and other
means has been a concern to the Interior
Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

(FWS). Agency researchers are attempting
to better understand just what happens to
PCBs entering the environment, particular-
ly through our river systems.

Previous research has concentrated on
freshwater bodies such as the Great Lakes,
which act as a catch basin for the by-prod-
ucts of human society. The present FWS
concern is what happens to PCBs and simi-
lar contaminants entering the environment
through river systems. In addition, they are
trying to see what happens to living organ-
isms that come into contact with the con-
taminant. The strategy of the FWS is to
concentrate its efforts on the Mississippi
River and apply the knowledge to other
similar rivers throughout the United States.

PCB levels in the Mississippi below
Minneapolis and St. Paul are rather high,
but at nowhere near the level at other loca-
tions. Lake Pepin, 80 miles down river from
the Twin Cities, receives a rather stiff dose
of contaminants, which tend to settle out in
the lake. High water levels during the spring
thaw carry much of the sediment and con-
taminant load to Lake Onalaska, 70 miles
further down river at LaCrosse, Wise,
where research efforts are concentrated.

"There should be no cause for alarm or
panic along the Mississippi concerning PCB
levels," says an FWS spokesman. "They are
there, but not in excessive quantities."

Various fish in the Great Lakes system
contain PCB levels in excess of the "5 parts
per million" health authorities have estab-
lished as safe to eat. Certain fishes, namely
carp, exceed this 5 ppm base in Lake Pepin.
The commercial sale of this fish was banned
in the lake, curtailing a local business.

FWS researchers are studying the bot-
tom sediments, which range from clay and
silt to sandy material. They hope to corre-
late bottom types and PCB levels with the
living organisms found in this type of habi-
tat. The research pays particular attention
to fingernail clams and the mayfly, which
act as indicator species because they are
common, widespread, and act as carriers
for contaminants found in bottom sedi-
ments. Fingernail clams and mayflies are

fed upon heavily by other wildlife species.
Fish are fond of mayflies and waterfowl,
particularly scaup, dine on the tiny finger-
nail clam.

Cage Birds Continue Popular

The cage-bird trade booms. Exports global-
ly are around 7.5 million birds a year (1972
figures). Japan alone imports over one mil-
lion. Of birds now in cages in U.S. homes,
80 percent started life in the wild in foreign
lands. They are the "fortunate" ones; the
survival rate between catcher and customer
is around 20 percent.

Rare species are especially prized. Wild
populations are declining alarmingly — at
least nine have plunged into the endangered
category. Some countries have introduced
import controls but most have not.

Future Carburetors
May Be Nonadjustable

The EPA has announced changes in emission
test procedures that could lead to nonad-
justable carburetors in the early 1980s. The
changes are being made because many car
owners are adjusting their carburetors to
improve performance, with a resulting in-
crease in pollution.

Under existing rules, prototype vehicles
must meet emission rules when carburetor
and spark timing settings are as specified by
the manufacturer. Under the new rules,
which take effect with 1981 models, cars
must pass such tests at whatever settings are
physically possible.

As a result, auto companies will either
have to produce nonadjustable carburetors
and distributors or greatly reduce the ad-
justment range of these devices.

Auto industry reaction has been favor-
able, with estimates that the rule change
will cost less than $10 per car. However,
there have also been warnings that during
the first 600 to 1,200 miles of engine opera-
tion, the cars may not run as smoothly as
they might be expected to.

March & April at Field Museum

(March 15 through April 15)

New Exhibits

Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit from Five Conti-
nents. Opened February 15. Conceived and created by Field
Museum's own staff, this exhibit features exotic feather objects
from around the world. Assembled almost entirely from in-
house collections, "Feather Arts" will travel to other museums
nationwide after its stay at Field Museum. The 260 artifacts,
drawn from 1,000 years of history, include such rarities as an
Hawaiian king's feather cape given to England's George IV in
1821, and the feather shoes of an Australian sorcerer. This
fascinating exhibit examines the symbolic and religious mean-
ing of feathers over the centuries and illustrates the impor-
tance of featherwork as a universal art form. Hall 26. Through
June 15.

A Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural History. Opened
December 8. This exhibit unites 63 natural history specimens
with samples of philatelic art. Projected to eventually cover the
four disciplines of natural history, the exhibit for the first 8
months is devoted to the animal kingdom as illustrated on
stamps from all over the world. 'A Stamp Sampler " was con-
ceived by Field Museum volunteer Col. M. E. Rada, exhibit
guest curator. The exhibition was designed by Peter Ho, a
University of Illinois graduate student.

Continuing Exhibits

Birds. Exhibits in Halls 20 and 21 examine the varied worlds of
birds, from the antarctic emperor penguin to the American
sparrow. Three scenes are devoted to Chicago-area birds.
Recently extinct birds and restorations of fossil birds are also
on view.

Man in His Environment. Gain a worldwide perspective of en-
vironmental problems through the multi-media presentation
of this thought-provoking exhibit. The center of the hall con-
tains a recreated portion of a Georgia salt marsh encased in
glass. The reconstruction allows visitors to study basic
ecological principles visually, within a total marsh environ-
ment. Detailed reading rails surround the exhibit. Main floor.

The Hall of Chinese Jades contains beautiful jade art span-
ning over 6,000 years of Chinese history. An exhibit in the
center of the hall illustrates ancient jade carving techniques.
Hall 30, second floor.

New Programs

Music from Around the World: Programs for Adults and
Children. In March and April, the Museum hosts a series of ex-
otic musical programs from the Far East.

■Qamelan Mini-Concerts. " Sunday, March 18 at 2 p.m. and 3
p.m. The Gamelan Master Class, under the direction of Dr. Sue
Carole De Vale, offers free concerts on the Museum's 24-piece
Javanese gamelan in Hall K. Ground floor.

"Music of the Orient" with Ira Kersh. Saturdays, March 24 and
March 31. This two-part program introduces children to the
Oriental cultures through musical instruments and perfor-
mances. Part 1: "Music of Asia." Enables children to use in-
struments from Tibet, China, India, Indonesia, and Asia. Part
II: "Indonesian Wayang Shadow Puppets." Introduces children
to the music and folklore of Java and Bali. Participants learn
to use puppets and accompany the action on bamboo rattles;
advance reservations required. Parents, also invited, should
purchase tickets if planning to attend with their children.
Members admission: $1.50; nonmembers: $3.00. Tickets:
922-9410, X-364.

(Continued on back cover)

March and April at Field Museum

(Continued from inside cover)

"The Japanese Koto: A Program of Traditional and Contem-
porary Music." Sunday, March 25, 2 p.m. With Ricardo D.
Trimillos, professor of music at the University of Hawaii. This
concert, presented in traditional Japanese dress, offers 17th-
and 18th-century classical compositions for the koto (a
zitherlike instrument), followed by avante garde American and
Japanese compositions. Admission: members, $5.00;
nonmembers, $6.00. Pre-concert members' brunch available
at 12 noon for $6.00. A post-concert reception, open to the
public, will also be held. Admission: members, $4.50;
nonmembers, $5.00. James Simpson Theatre. For tickets
phone 922-9410, X-364.

"On Music in India" with Mazir Ali Jairazbhoy, professor of
music at the University of California at Los Angeles. Sunday,
April 1 at 2 p.m. This multimedia lecture/demonstration ex-
plains the fundamental concepts of Indian music, the role of
music in the life of an Indian musician, and Indian musical
styles. The sitar, a long-necked lute, will be played. Admission
for members is $5.00; nonmembers, $6.00. A members' pre-
concert brunch is available at 12 noon. Admission is $6.00. A
post-concert reception, open to the public, will also be held.
Admission: members, $4.50; nonmembers, $5.00. James
Simpson Theatre. Tickets: 922-9410, X-364.

Spring Journey. "The Meaning of Feathers. " Through May 31.
Self-guided tour leads families and children through exhibits
to discover what birds and their feathers mean to various
cultures. Free Journey pamphlets are available at the North
information Booth, and at the South and West doors.

The Edward E. Ayer Film Lectures resume during March and
April. These free, adult-oriented travel films begin each Satur-
day afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in Simpson Theatre. Reserved
seating is available for Members and their families. Admission
free at the West entrance. Doors open at 1:45 p.m. March 17:
"Sweden — A Midsummer's Might Dream. " March 24: "Ger-
many— Once Upon a Time. " March 31: "Egypt — Gift of the
Mile. " April 7: "China After Mao." April 14: "The Marsh— A
Quiet Mystery."'

Continuing Programs

Armchair Expeditions. Geared for adults, these in-house "ex-
peditions" include special slide lectures and tours of selected
exhibits. Dining arrangements available. During March, the
Museum features slide lectures on "Feather Arts" by Phyllis
Rabineau, curator-in-charge of the exhibit. The following dates
are available by reservation only: March 21 at 7:30 p.m.,
March 24 at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and March 28 at 7:30 p.m!
Phone 922-0733 for more information.

Friend or Foe? The Natural History Game. Field Museum's
popular ""Anthropology Game" has been expanded to include
botany, geology, and zoology. The object here is to determine
which one of a pair of apparently similar specimens is harmful
and which is not. See if you can distinguish a vampire bat, a
headhunter"s axe, a poisonous mineral, or a deadly mushroom
from its benign look-alike. Ground floor, no closing date.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets,
adult- and family-oriented, are available for 25C each at the en-
trance to the Museum Shop, main floor north.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Guided tours, demonstrations,
and participatory activities. Every Saturday and Sunday, 10
a.m. to 3 p.m.

Volunteer Opportunities. Limited opportunities are available
in botany, geology, and zoology. Weekend volunteers with an
interest in natural history are needed to develop and present
weekend programs. For more information call 922-9410.
X-360.

March and April Hours. The Museum is open every day, 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m., except Fridays. On Fridays the Museum is open 9
a.m. to 9 p.m. throughout the year.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed
Good Friday, April 13. Obtain a pass at the reception desk,
main floor.

Museum telephone: (312) 922-9410.

>s^1!m»A.

- .^^Y

r?^^:

^ FIELD i?5 OF riW%8AL HlS-fetW BCILI^p-^il^

%>*«!*-

^•u^ -i» *:

:.■!

*-. ^

>s' ::r

j(r

, -i> was»r.

■-^:

-^t^ . '

:y^

±^

*^f>^i"

_^:'

.:>-f

■-=:#!

i^&^:3

■Sii^^^iS^

/ :--|aa%

■.:^W^^

r^j

■^*

■■■'^a*.

VX'*^

vl^S

.'.r •>•>

r>^-

Field Museum

of Natural History

Bulletin

April, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 4

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walslen
Production: Oscar Anderson
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff photographer: Ron Testa

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leiand Webber

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild. Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
Goerge R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
William V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pine, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

CONTENTS

3 Field Briefs

4 Kimberley Snail Hunt — Round V

By Alan Solem, curator of inver-
tebrates

8 Soviet Union Tour for Members

9 Red Square and Beyond

By Rev. Maurice ]. Meyers, S.J.

10 Butterflies

By Vladimir Nabokov

15 Members' Tours to Galena,
Starved Rock, and Baraboo

16 What Is a Curator?

By John Terrell, associate
curator of Oceanic archaeology
and ethnology

18 Meteor-wrongs

By Edward Olsen, curator of
mineralogy

22 Field Museum Honors Its Volun-

teers

24 Ross's Rosy Gull

By Janette Neal

27 Quetico Wilderness Canoe Trip

28 Illinois Archaeology Field Trip

29 Observations on the Mutability
of Time

By Alan Edward Rubin

32 Members' Tour to Peru

33 Members' Tour to the Cook
Islands

35 April and May at Field Museum

Calendar of coming events

COVER

Spring ferns at Waterfall Glen, DuPage
County. Photo by John Kolar.

field Museum of Natural History BuUetirt is published monthly, except combined July /August
issue, by Field Museum of Natural History. Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive. Chicago. 11.
60605. Subscriptions: $6 a year; S3 a year for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin
subscription. Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the policy
of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster: Please send form 3579 to
Field Museum of Natural History. Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive. Chicago U. 6C605. ISSN:
COlS-0703,

Field Trips for Adults and Families

With the long winter finally over, it's time
at last to enjoy outdoor activities that don't
involve snow. The Ray A. Kroc Environ-
mental Education Program, resuming in
May and June, features one-day trips to
local areas of special biological and
ecological interest. Groups are accom-
panied by Field Museum staff or guest
scientists with expertise in botany, zoology,
or geology. The current schedule includes
trips to the Starved Rock area, Volo Bog,
Gensburg-Markham Prairie, the Indiana
Dunes, and areas especially abundant with
spring wildf lowers.

Both adult trips and family trips are
available, but early registration (by mail) is
strongly recommended.

Field Museum members are
automatically mailed the field trip brochure
with trip dates and registration form.
Nonmembers may receive the brochure by
calling 922-9410 ext 362, or by writing to:
Department of Education — Field Trips,
Field Muesum, Roosevelt Rd. at Lake Shore
Drive, Chicago, II. 60605.

Environmental field trips are geared for family groups as well as for adults

Borden Expedition Members Reunited. On Feb. 3 several members of the Borden-Field
Museum Alaska Arctic Expedition of 1927 were reunited at Field Museum for a reception in
their honor. Left to right: Bruce Andrews, of Ellenton, Fla.; Mrs. Foster Adams, of New
York City; Rev. T. V. Purcell, of Washington D.C.; Dr. Courtney Cazden, of Stanford,
Calif.; Kenneth McClelland, of Chicago; and Foster Adams, of New York. Andrews,
Purcell, and McClelland were Sea Scout crew members of the expedition. Mrs. Adams, then
Mrs. John Borden, was the wife of the expedition leader and a member of the expedition
party. Dr. Cazden is the daughter of Mrs. Adams.

Following the reception in their honor, a film of the expedition was shown in James
Simpson Theatre, introduced by Mrs. Adams and narrated by Rev. Purcell. The film will be
shown at the Museum again in the near future, date to be announced.

Field Museum Selected as
NEH Learning Museum

A three-year Learning Museum grant has
been awarded Field Museum by the Nation-
al Endowment for the Humanities, a federal
agency. The purpose of the $300,495 grant
is to provide public, adult education courses
in the humanities. Field Museum's collec-
tions will provide the resource base and
largely determine course content. Courses
will involve multimedia instruction, per-
forming arts presentations, cultural festi-
vals, and lectures by distinguished special-
ists. "China, its History, Culture, and Art"
is the Learning Museum theme for 1979,
with course activities beginning in May.
Details will be announced.

The Learning Museum program direc-
tor is Susan Stob; program coordinator is
Anthony Pfeiffer. For further information
contact Learning Museum Program, De-
partment of Education, Field Museum, 922-
9410, X 395.

Kimberley Snail Hunt
Round V

BY ALAN SOLEM

Readers of the Field Museum Bulletin have often
seen there articles about the thrills, traumas,
adventures, and even misadventures during the
course of a curator's field work. The accompany-
ing photographs frequently show spectacular
scenery; scruffy looking scientists in camp or hill-
side; and animals, plants, or cultural relicts being
collected, prepared, measured, or photographed.
Our first flush of nostalgic writing about field life
can be read with fascination even years later.
Often these articles are penned hurriedly while we
are in the initial culture shock of re-entry to city
and museum life after the simplicity and uninter-
ruptedly focused efforts in the field. Fun to do,
sometimes dramatic, and a standard duty for the
returned scientist, such Bulletin fare will continue.

It is far more difficult, totally undramatic,
much more fragmented, and quite unusual for us
to try to write about the aftermath — the long
period of specimen processing, data-taking and
manipulation, idea-organizing, describing, writ-
ing, synthesizing, illustrating, publishing, and the
lecturing to scientific groups that normally follow
from major field programs. We are subject to the
everyday interruptions and multiple duties of
working for a complex organization, plus the
varied and complicated demands of living in a
large city. Inevitably, the progress of such work
must be fragmented and sporadic. The project
may have to be put aside for weeks, or even
months, while pressing deadlines and accumulated
problems are met. Rarely is it possible to produce
the research quickly or even to have a coherent
follow-up story for presentation two years after a
major collecting effort.

My last field station in Australia was in the
Olgas, barren red rocks near Ayers Rock in Cen-
tral Australia, on May 27, 1977. After the incred-
ible heat and humidity of the Kimberley (see
March, October, November, 1977 Bulletin), the
last camp-out, a few days and a thousand miles
south, was memorable, since windshield, tent,
and gear were frost-covered by dawn. A night
spent in Mt. Gambier with friends, then drive

through a storm that deposited a full half-inch of
snow on the highway near Melbourne. The next
morning, Melbourne papers heralded that record
low temperatures for May (33° fahrenheit) had
resulted in a total lack of reported crime in that
city of 2 million people. Frantic packing of speci-
mens and gear preceded flying back to the United
States.

Then began the long wait for the specimens
to come. It took three months for the crates to go
from Perth and Melbourne to New York; two
months from New York to Chicago; and one
month from a Chicago freight terminal to the
Museum— a sad commentary on modern trans-
portation efficiency. This delay did permit my
partly catching up on letters and reports. At long
last the by-now slightly battered green shipping
cases, still with their coating of red Australian
dust, lay on my office floor. Immediately, 150
pint, half-pint, half-liter, and liter jars filled with
specimens had to have their alcohol changed,
since body fluids from the thousands of preserved
snails had drastically diluted the original 95%
alcohol level.

Snails had been collected at some 300 dif-
ferent stations. Often the same station had been
visited on several different dates, over a period of
months. Could I remember exactly what had been
collected where? Of course not. Since most were
unknown species and genera, this is not surpris-
ing. Most of my time in the next two months was
spent in sorting and organizing these specimens
for study. Why my time? Why not an assistant?
For several reasons. First, I didn't have an assistant
available for such work. Second, this was an in-
valuable chance for me to take an overall look at
what I had collected. Two-thirds of the species had
never been found before, and many that lived in

Alan Solent is curator of invertebrates. His "Kimberley
Snail Hunt — Round I" and "Kimberley Snail Hunt —
Rounds II through IV" appeared in the March and Oc-
tober, 1977, Bulletins, respectively.

What Happened When

Continuation^
of work

First monograph published.

First monograph page proof

■^1979

Worl< on third monograph^

"First monograph prepared'

Second monograph prepared

"Await arrival at Field Museum
-of collections

1978

Collections processed .
and sorted

^ Study in Perth

^^1977

^r Major field work

Dissect a

nd ^/'
^r Equi

illustrate

pment shipped

/l976

"Details of

Grant funding

received^^

major field work planned

Grant proposal prepared.
Australian field program^/'1975
developed

Field

reconnaissance .^1974

Funding for field
reconnaisance
— sought-

Project idea^l973

different ways at the same station looked super-
ficially very much alike to the untutored eye. At
the same time that I was doing "routine sorting
and processing," I was trying to evaluate subjec-
tively the patterns of variation and make tentative
guesses as to what order of study might make the
most sense. Besides, actually handling specimens
can be and remains a pleasant break from the ac-
cumulated mass of letters from twelve-month
absence, plus, asked-for reports and memos. Most
important, detailed study and writing could not
commence until sorting of the field collections had
been completed.

From October 1977 through January 1978,
preliminary sorting, labeling, and cataloguing of
the specimens continued. From my 1976-77 Aus-
tralian field work, 1,843 lots and 42,000 specimens
were processed. This was added to the 798 lots
and 22,000 specimens collected in 1974. About
two-thirds of these were camaenid land snails, the
group I was mainly interested in. Now the work of
detailed study and publishing could begin.

The cold and snow of winter, 1978, was a
marked physical contrast to the summer heat and
blue skies in Perth the previous year. For illus-
trator Elizabeth Liebman, work was much the
same. I dissected, she illustrated the anatomy of
species belonging to several genera that are com-
mon in or restricted to the Kimberley region. We
had made a major start on this material January
through April, 1977, in Perth, based upon speci-
mens I had collected from September through
December, 1976. Many more specimens had been
gathered by Laurie Price, Carl Christiansen, and
myself in January through May, 1977. None of
them had been studied yet. These specimens all
had to be measured, checked for reproductive
stage, and analyzed for similarity or structural dif-
ferences from populations sampled in neighboring
ranges. The whole package of information about
each species then had to be organized for compari-
sons with related taxa.

All of the above tasks were my responsibil-
ity. Snatching research work from interruptions

proved, at times, to be extremely difficult. I have
between 135 and 150 species of Western Australian
camaenids, only 40 of wfiicfi had been named pre-
viously, and their interrelations are unknown.
Which species should I study arid write up first?
Should I try to publish one massive monograph?
A series of shorter reports? Where should I start?

Dissections made in 1975 and 1976 on the
materials collected in 1974 had "sampled" the
anatomy of the Pilbara, Central Australia, and
southwestern Western Australian taxa. My late
1976 collections from the Kimberley had been
similarly "sampled" by dissections in Perth. Com-
paring the many drawings and dissections showed
that the Southern, Pilbara, and Central Australian
species had many features in common, but that
the center of diversity was in the Kimberley. The
snails there showed many variations. This made it
necessary to start the major revisionary work with
the Kimberley fauna. Did those species from the
other areas have relatives in the Kimberley, or
were they very different? Only study of the Kim-
berley camaenids could determine this, so thor-
ough study of the many Kimberley camaenids
became the first order of business. But this area
had almost a hundred species. Where should I
start with this mass of material? Preliminary dis-
sections had confirmed that several species were
related to those from the Pilbara (these could wait
until last), others seemed to have no relatives else-
where (second priority), while a comparative few
looked very much like species described from
Eastern Australia (first priority).

Materials borrowed from museums in Syd-
ney, Melbourne, and Perth provided comparative
anatomical material, and specimens collected for
Field Museum in the 1960s and 1970s by Field
Associate Laurie Price of New Zealand proved in-
valuable. Since no anatomical work on Australian
members of this family had been published in this
century, every dissection was important. We
found four groups of Western Australian species
that had close relatives in Eastern States. But to
define these groups properly, 20 other Eastern
Australian genera had to be dissected and 10 illus-
trated immediately; 4 closely related species had
to be dissected and illustrated; and finally the 14
Western Australian species in these four groups
reviewed. A few other probably related species
could not be dissected, but were reviewed as to
shell variations. So a first project of reviewing
these "Trans-Australian" taxa evolved into a logi-
cal package, with a total of 29 species, 7 new to
science, belonging to 10 genera, one new to sci-
ence. Thus the dimensions of the first publication
came into focus.

What information should be published
about each species? Some things are basic. Illus-
trations to enable identification of the shells,
words summarizing how the species differs in shell
and anatomy from closely related species, data on
the anatomical structures that vary within the
genus or among closely related genera, a list of

localities from which it has been collected, a sum-
mary of the range in size, shape, color, and sculp-
ture variation condensed into a formal description
— all these are basic data in a systematic revision
of a little known or previously unknown group of
snails. But I was asking additional questions in my
research. What are the overall geographic patterns
of variations, i.e.. are members of the same spe-
cies bigger (smaller) in the West Kimberley than
the East Kimberley; are species commoner (rarer)
than other taxa in the same (different) areas? What
is the reproductive cycle in the camaenids from
different parts of Australia? Are they reproduc-
tively active at the same time, different times, over
a short season, throughout the year, different
times in different areas? Do they have special feed-
ing habits when several species live together? How
do species recognize members of the same species
when ready to mate? Do parts of the anatomy
vary seasonally in size and shape? Where do the
snails shelter and what strategy do they use to sur-
vive periods of drought?

Besides, research papers are designed as
much to focus on problems and pose currently
unanswerable questions, as to provide answers.
By providing data on local shell variation (or lack
of it), seasonal variations in anatomical structures,
species recognition mechanisms, where available,
and the attention of Australian workers could be
called to areas where data was inadequate.

So these decisions led to the basic content
of the report. Since it was to be published in the
Records of the Western Australian Museum,
Perth, Australia, the format of the report had to
follow their style. With dimensions, content, and
format decided, "all" that remained was to pro-
duce the report.

Up to this point, most of the work had been
done by scientist and illustrator. Specimen-pro-
cessing had involved label typing by Sharon Baco-
yanis, then cataloguing by Andy Cawthon and
CETA (Combined Employment Training Act)
workers, but the dissecting, measuring, sorting,
and grouping into species had been done by Alan
Solem. Elizabeth Liebman had prepared 70 sepa-
rate anatomical drawings, varying in complexity
from simple outlines to highly detailed full page
illustrations, and 42 outline drawings showing
shell structure. Photographs of shells made in
Perth, and scanning electron microscope pictures
of shell sculpture details were organized into 11
plates, while the shell and anatomy drawings, in
consultation between Solem and Liebman, were
sorted into groups and laid out as 35 text figures.
Associate Dorothy Karall, as she has so skillfully
for many years, mounted and labeled the plates
and text figures for reproduction. The latter then
were photographed, both to retain a working copy
here in Chicago, and as security when the origi-
nals, representing at least six months of work by
Elizabeth Liebman, were sent to Perth for publi-
cation.

Meanwhile, I sat at microscope and type-

writer for days and many nights composing page
after page of manuscript. When the write-up of
each genus was finished in rough form, I then
lightly (if composed on a good day or evening) to
very heavily (if composed on a bad day or during
a period of constant phone or visitor interrup-
tions) edited the rough manuscript in preparation
for typing. Therein lay a problem. My highly effi-
cient secretary for the past three years moved to
California with her husband, .and it was nearly
two months before Valerie Connor-Jackson was
hired to take her place. Valerie was uniquely qual-
ified after working through a 4,000-page manu-
script on monkeys*, and her experience as a
department secretary in botany enabled her to
immediately take over office routine and produce
the final manuscript. So on March 9, 1978, the
first of several reports, 211 typed pages, 35 text
figures, 11 plates, and 10 tables, was mailed to
Perth for publication. Proof is expected this sum-
mer, and publication is scheduled for September,
1979. The team of Solem, Liebman, Karall, and
Connor-Jackson then swung into high gear, and
progress on Part II, dealing with another 28 spe-
cies from the Kimberley, all belonging to one
genus, was rapid. Assists from volunteer Kleinie
Fieberg; CETA employees Loretta Brown, Joseph
Strotter, and Jarmaine Leftridge; new Custodian
of Collections, Margaret Baker, in preparing lists
of the material studied and analysis of measure-
ments, were essential.

This time, three plates of photographs, 79
drawings of shells and 102 anatomical illustra-
tions, plus a map organized into 38 text figures.

'Philip Hershkovitz's Living New World Monkeys
(Platyrrhini), with an introduction to Primates. Vol. 1.
(1,117 printed pages, figures, plates, tables, maps.)

and 23 tables accompanied 281 typed pages of
manuscript to Perth on September 15, 1978. This
was the second "package," and months before it
was finished, certain facts were obvious. I was suf-
fering from an embarrassment of riches. The field
work had been successful well beyond expecta-
tions, and the material obtained was far more
diverse in number of species and extensive in terms
of number of specimens than had been anticipated.
It would not be possible to complete study or illus-
tration of all the species within the period for
which I had grant funding. Available funds would
carry Illustrator Elizabeth Liebman through Octo-
ber, 1978, but that was the end.

It was obvious that, when I had finished
the basic systematic review, interesting answers
would come to many of my general questions, and
a whole host of new research questions, would be
raised. But until the systematic revisions were
completed, publication on these would be inadvis-
able to impossible. Additional funding had to be
sought, first to complete the systematic reviews,
then to extract the general interest conclusions,
and hopefully to build upon this foundation of
work by extending the survey of camaenid snails
to other regions. So illustrator and scientist
worked frantically to complete dissection, meas-
urements and illustrations of materials for Part III,
review of a remarkable fauna from the Ningbing
Ranges, by October 30.

In a flurry of activity, this was successful,
and the problem of the next stage of study could
be faced. But that is another part of the continuing
story, and for the future. Here you have a glance
at a complex publishing project in mid-stream, a
pay-off from the planning, sweat in the field, and
infinitely longer hours of museum work that fol-
lowed.

So, the next time you read of an expedition,
think of what must follow. . . .

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

THE
SOVIET

Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow

The Splendors of Old Russia, the excitement of the
New are in store for Field Museum Members and their
families who join the tour "Treasures of Russia and the
Ukraine," leaving Chicago's O'Hare Airport June 19 and
returning July 8.

The tour cost— $2,970 (which includes a $500.00
donation to Field Museum)— is based upon double occu-
pancy and includes round trip air fare from Chicago to

Moscow, with intra-Russian air transportation where re-
quired. The transatlantic airline is Swissair.

Deluxe hotel accommodations will be used through-
out or, where necessary, the best hotels available. The
package includes all meals, including inflight meals: all
sightseeing via deluxe motor coach; all admissions to
special events and sites, where required; all baggage
handling throughout, plus all necessary transfers; all appli-
cable taxes and tips; all applicable visa fees. Advance
deposit required: $250.00 per person.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

Red Square and Beyond

Stand in the middle of Red Square in Moscow and slowly turn in a
full circle. To the south you see before you the bizarre cathedral that
Ivan the Terrible had erected in thanksgiving for his victory over the
Tartars of Kazan, dedicated to the protection of the Virgin and St.
Basil the Blessed. You are back in the mid-16th century when Russia
was just emerging as one of the great powers of Europe. As you turn
to the right you are soon looking at the Kremlin Wall, pierced by the
Spassky Gate that predates Ivan's cathedral by 100 years, though the
walls, originally of oak, were first thrown up as a rampart 300 years
before that.

Through the opening of the Spassky Gate and peeking over the
walls you see the towers of the great churches, the Ivan Belltower, as
well as the palaces old and new in which so much of Russia from the
Tsars to the Soviets flowed. Continue your pivot and before you is
the cubist granite tomb of Lenin and you are back in our violent cen-
tury, recalling the worldwide tumult and upheaval caused by that
man on whose embalmed figure you can gaze by joining the crowd
and silently entering that mausoleum.

Further on at the far end of the square you see an odd building
in red brick that clashes with the other decor of the square, the
Historical Museum, built a century ago on the Russo-Victorian
design of an Englishman. Turn your back to the Kremlin and you are
looking at GUM, the State Department Store, the largest in the Soviet
Union. It is not a flashy modernistic building, but an old-fashioned
series of shops arranged along an open arcade that runs the whole
great length of the building and several floors high. Thus, when one
gets tired of sightseeing, the recreation of shopping is right at hand,
or repose, symbolized by the Stalinesque hotel that rises beyond
GUM, the newest addition to tourist comforts in the capital.

With a final spin you have St. Basil's in the background once
more. You may now notice that before the entrance to the cathedral
there is a heroic statuary group dedicated to the popular heroes,
Minin and Pozharsky, of the struggle against the Poles following the
Troubled Times after Ivan the Terrible's death and Boris Godunov's
usurpation, when Moscow and western Russia were overrun by
foreign legions.

If one could lengthen his range of vision on each gyration in the
square, he would see the far reaches of Moscow with its remnants of
the old in churches and monasteries and its new Soviet institutions,
the university, the great stadia, the Exhibition of Culture and Pro-
gress, out of the Moscow River that wanders in and out of the city
and curves around most of it.

Then in a longer stretch of vision we could look back into the
past of Russia in its ancient cities surrounding Moscow— Vladimir,
Suzdal, Tver, that were rivals of budding Moscow when the Tartar
invasions overran the country in the thirteenth century and dealt a
crippling blow to old Kiev. Kiev with Novgorod in a further projec-
tion was the center of civilization that received the Viking invaders
from the North and formed the River Road for trade with Constan-
tinople. Both cities were cradles of Old Rus', the original state
founded by the invading Norsemen. Kiev is now a great modern city
with its ancient treasures overshadowed by modern construction and
the rush of commerce, whereas Novgorod has not grown back to
modern greatness but shines forth in its great Kremlin with the sister
church of Kiev's Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom that date back to the
twelfth century. A visit to these cities is a look back into the very
origins of Rus'. In the Kremlin of Novgorod stands proudly with the
blessing of the Soviet government the beautiful bronze memorial,
erected during the last century in commemoration of the thousandth
anniversary of the christianization of Rus', even as St. Vladimir in
bronze holds up a colossal cross high above the Dnieper River at
Kiev where the baptism of the peoples took place.

Four hundred miles from Moscow and centuries removed in
spirit is the city that Peter built to be a window on the West. For two
centuries it was St. Petersburg, then when wartime enmities made
the German-sounding name unwelcome, it became briefly
Petrograd, only to end up as Leningrad. Peter had made it his
capital, and all the tsars and their families lie entombed in the chapel
of the Fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul from Peter to Alexander 111.
Though it is no longer the capital, it is certainly a most interesting
and unique city to visit. Peter's spirit and Catherine's energy still
reflect from its gracious palaces and churches. The world-famous
museum, the Hermitage, is here, as is Russia's greatest church, St.
Isaac's, with Kazan Cathedral a ways up Nevsky Prospect a close
second. No palace is more intriguing, especially in its gardens, then
Petrodvorets, once Peterhof, the Russian Versailles. The miracle of
Leningrad is that it was mostly rubble just thirty odd years ago after
the merciless pounding the Germans gave it during a siege of almost a
thousand days.

So the Soviet Union is not just an industrial colossus, not a
testing ground for communist change, not a military monster strain-
ing to break loose and spew death on all the world. It is the inheritor
of a great civilization that grew up on the steppes and in the forests of
Eastern Europe and produced some of the greatest regal, eccleastical,
political monuments in the world together with some of the greatest
music and literature — a country well worth visiting and studying to
catch some of its mystique and come to an understanding of its
physical and spiritual power. Here is a giant that sprawls a quarter of
the way around the globe, holding aloft the star of the North that
casts long shadows on East and West. — Rev. Maurice ]. Meyers,
S. ]., guest lecturer, Soviet Union Tour

Cathedral of St. Basil, Moscow

BUTTERFLIES

BY VLADIMIR NABOKOV

On a summer morning, in the legendary Russia of
my boyhood, my first glance upoti awakening was
for the chink between the shutters. If it disclosed a
watery pallor, one had better not open the shutters
at all, and so be spared the sight of a sullen day sit-
ting for its picture in a puddle. How resentfully
one would deduce, from a line of dull light, the
leaden sky, the sodden sand, the gruel-like mess of
broken brown blossoms under the lilacs — and that
flat, fallow leaf (the first casualty of the season)
pasted upon a wet garden bench!

But if the chink was a long glint of dewy
brilliancy, then I made haste to have the window
yield its treasure. With one blow, the room would
be cleft into light and shade. The foliage of birches
moving in the sun had the translucent green tone
of grapes, and in contrast to this there was the
dark velvet of fir trees against a blue of extraordi-
nary intensity, the like of which I rediscovered
only many years later, in the montane zone of
Colorado.

From the age of six, everything I felt in con-
nection with a rectangle of framed sunlight was
dominated by a single passion. If my first glance
of the morning was for the sun, my first thought
was for the butterflies it would engender. The
original event had been banal enough. On some
honeysuckle near the veranda, I had happened to
see a Swallowtail — a splendid, pale-yellow crea-
ture with black blotches and blue crenulations,
and a cinnabar eyespot above each chrome-rimmed
black tail. As it probed the inclined flower from
which it hung, it kept restlessly jerking its great
wings, and my desire for it was overwhelming. An
agile footman caught it in my cap, after which it
was transferred, cap and all, to a wardrobe, where
the reek of napthalene was fondly expected to kill
it overnight. On the following morning, however,
when my governess unlocked the wardrobe to
take something out, the butterfly, with a mighty
rustle, flew into her face, then made for the open

window, and presently was but a golden fleck dip-
ping and dodging and soaring eastward, over
timber and tundra, to Vologda, Viatka and Perm,
and beyond the gaunt Ural range to Yakutsk and
Verkhne Kolymsk, and from Verkhne Kolymsk,
where it lost a tail, to the fair Island of St. Law-
rence, and across Alaska to Dawson, and south-
ward along the Rocky Mountains — to be finally
overtaken and captured, after a forty-year race,
on a bright-yellow dandelion in a bright-green
glade above Boulder.

Soon after the wardrobe affair I found a
spectacular moth, and my mother dispatched it
with ether. In later years, I used many killing
agents, but the least contact with the initial stuff
would always cause the door of the past to fly
open; once, as a grown man, I was under ether
during an operation, and with the vividness of a
decalcomania picture I saw my own self in a sailor
suit mounting a freshly emerged Emperor moth
under the guidance of my smiling mother. It was
all there, brilliantly reproduced in my dream,
while my own vitals were being exposed: the soak-
ing, ice-cold absorbent cotton presed to the lemur-
ian head of the moth; the subsiding spasms of its
body; the satisfying crackle produced by the pin
penetrating the hard crust of its thorax; the careful
insertion of the point of the pin in the cork-
bottomed groove of the spreading board; the
symmetrical adjustment of the strong-veined,
"windowed" wings under neatly affixed strips of
semi-transparent paper.

I must have been eight or nine when, in a store-
room of our country house, among a medley of
dusty objects, I discovered some wonderful books
acquired in the days when my mother's mother

First published in The New Yorker Magazine, June 1948.

had been interested in natural science and had had
a famous university professor of zoology (Shimke-
vich) give private lessons to her daughter. Some of
these books were mere curios, such as the four
huge brown folios of Albertus Seba's work (Locu-
pletissimi Rerum Naturalium Thesauri Accurata
Descriptio . . .), printed in Amsterdam around
1750. On their coarse-grained pages I found wood-
cuts of serpents and butterflies and embryos. The
foetus of an Ethiopian female child hanging by the
neck in a glass jar, used to give me a nasty shock
every time I came across it; nor did I much care for
the stuffed hydra on plate CII, with its seven lion-
toothed turtleheads on seven serpentine necks and
its strange, bloated body which bore button-like
tubercles along the sides and ended in a knotted
tail.

Other books I found in that attic, among
herbariums full of edelweiss flowers and crimson
maple leaves, came closer to my subject. I took in
my arms and carried downstairs glorious loads of
fantastically attractive volumes: Maria Sibylla
Merian's (1647-1717) lovely plates of Surinam
insects, and Esper's noble Die Schmetterlinge
(Erlangen, 1777), and Boisduval's Icones His-
toriques de Lepidopteres Nouveaiix on Pen Con-
nus (Paris, begun in 1832). Still more exciting were
the products of the latter half of the century-
Newman's Natural History of British ButterfUes
and Moths, Hofmann's Die Gross-SchmetterUnge
Europas, the Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich's
Memoires on Asiatic lepidoptera (with incompar-
ably beautiful figures painted by Kavrigin, Ryba-
kov, Lang), Scudder's stupendous work on the
ButterfUes of New England.

By my early teens, I was voraciously read-
ing entomological periodicals, especially English
and Russian ones. Great upheavals were taking
place in the development of systematics. Since the
middle of the century. Continental lepidopterol-
ogy had been, on the whole, a simple and stable
affair, smoothly run by the Germans. Its high
priest. Dr. Staudinger, was also the head of the
largest firm of insect dealers. Even now, half a
century after his death, German lepidopterists
have not quite managed to shake off the hypnotic
spell occasioned by his authority. He was still
alive when his school began to lose ground as a
scientific force in the world. While he and his
followers stuck to specific and generic names sanc-
tioned by long usage and were content to classify
butterflies by characters visible to the naked eye,
English-speaking authors were introducing nomen-
clatorial changes as a result of a strict application
of the law of priority and taxonomic changes
based on the microscopic study of organs. The
Germans did their best to ignore the new trends
and continued to cherish the philately-like side of
entomology. Their solicitude for the "average col-
lector who should not be made to dissect" is com-
parable to the way nervous publishers pamper the
"average reader" who should not be made to
think.

There was another more general change,
which coincided with my ardent adolescent inter-
est in butterflies and moths. The Victorian and
Staudingerian kind of species, hermetic and homo-
geneous, with sundry (alpine, polar, insular, etc.)
"varieties" affixed to it from the outside, as it
were, like incidental appendages, was replaced by
a new, multiform and fluid kind of species, made
up of geographical races or subspecies. The evolu-
tional aspects of the case were thus brought out
more clearly, by means of more flexible means of
classification, and further links between butterflies
and the central problems of nature were provided
by biological investigations.

The mysteries of mimicry had a special at-
traction for me. Its phenomena showed an artistic
perfection usually associated with man-wrought
things. Such was the imitation of oozing poison by
bubble-like macules on a wing (complete with
pseudo-refraction) or by glossy yellow knobs on a
chrysalis ("Don't eat me — I have already been
squashed, sampled and rejected'). When a certain
moth resembled a certain wasp in shape and col-
our, it also walked and moved its antennae in a
waspish, un-mothlike manner. When a butterfly
had to look like a leaf, not only were all the details
of a leaf beautifully rendered but markings mim-
icking grub-bored holes were generously thrown
in. "Natural selection," in the Darwinian sense,
could not explain the miraculous coincidence of
imitative aspect and imitative behaviour nor could
one appeal to the theory of "the struggle for life"
when a protective device Was carried to a point of
mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in
excess of a predator's power of appreciation. I
discovered in nature the non-utilitarian delights
that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic,
both were a game of intricate enchantment and
deception.

Ill

Few things indeed have I known in the way of
emotion or appetite, ambition or achievement,
that could surpass in richness and strength the
excitement of entomological exploration. From
the very first it had a great many inter-twinkling
facets. One of them was the acute desire to be
alone, since any companion, no matter how quiet,
interfered with the concentrated enjoyment of my

mania. Its gratification admitted of no compro-
mise or exception. Already, when I was ten, tutors
and governesses knew that the morning was mine
and cautiously kept away.

In this connection I remember the visit of a
schoolmate, a boy of whom I was very fond and
with whom I had excellent fun. He arrived one
summer night from a town some fifty miles away.
His father had recently perished in an accident, the
family was ruined and the stouthearted lad, not
being able to afford the price of a railway ticket,
had bicycled all those miles to spend a few days
with me.

On the morning following his arrival, I did
everything I could to get out of the house for my
morning hike without his knowing where I had
gone. Breakfastless, with hysterical haste, I gath-
ered my net, pillboxes, sailor cap, and escaped
through the window. Once in the forest, I was
safe; but still I walked on, my calves quaking, my
eyes full of scalding tears, the whole of me twitch-
ing with shame and self-disgust, as I visualised my
poor friend, with his long pale face and black tie,
moping in the hot garden — patting the panting
dogs for want of something better to do, and try-
ing hard to justify my absence to himself.

Let me look at my demon objectively. With
the exception of my parents, no one really under-
stood my obsession, and it was many years before
I met a fellow-sufferer. One of the first things I
learned was not to depend on others for the
growth of my collection. Aunts, however, kept
making me ridiculous presents — such as Denton
mounts of resplendent but really quite ordinary
insects. Our country doctor, with whom I had left
the pupae of a rare moth when I went on a journey
abroad, wrote me that everything had hatched
finely; but in reality a mouse had got at the
precious pupae, and upon my return the deceitful
old man produced some common Tortoise-shell
butterflies, which, I presume, he had hurriedly
caught in his garden and popped into the breeding
cage as plausible substitutes (so he thought). Better
than he was an enthusiastic kitchen boy who
would sometimes borrow my equipment and come
back two hours later in triumph with a bagful of
seething invertebrate life and several additional
items. Loosening the mouth of the net which he
had tied up with a string, he would pour out his
cornucopian spoil — a mass of grasshoppers, some
sand, the two parts of a mushroom he had thriftily
plucked on the way home, more grasshoppers,
more sand, and one battered Cabbage butterfly.

I also found out very soon that an entomol-
ogist indulging in his quiet quest was apt to pro-
voke strange reactions in other creatures. How
often, when a picnic had been arranged, and I
would be self-consciously trying to get my humble
implements unnoticed into the tar-smelling chara-
banc (a tar preparation was used to keep flies
away from the horses) or the tea-smelling Opel
convertible (benzine forty years ago smelled that
way), some cousin or aunt of mine would remark:

"Must you really take that net with you? Can't
you enjoy yourself like a normal boy? Don't you
think you are spoiling everybody's pleasure?"
Near a sign NACH BODENLAUBE, at Bad Kissingen,
Bavaria, just as I was about to join for a long walk
my father and majestic old Muromtsev (who, four
years before, in 1906, had been President of the
first Russian Parliament), the latter turned his
marble head toward me, a vulnerable boy of
eleven, and said with his famous solemnity:
"Come with us by all means, but do not chase but-
terflies, child. It mars the rhythm of the walk." On
a path above the Black Sea, in the Crimea, among
shrubs in waxy bloom, in March, 1918, a bow-
legged Bolshevik sentry attempted to arrest me for
signalling (with my net, he said) to a British war-
ship. In the summer of 1929, every time I walked
through a village in the Eastern Pyrenees, which I
was exploring lepidopterologically, and happened
to look back, I would see in my wake the villagers
frozen in the various attitudes my passage had
caught them in, as if I were Sodom and they Lot's
wife. A decade later, in the Maritime Alps, I once
noticed the grass undulate in a serpentine way
behind me because a fat rural policeman was wrig-
gling after me on his belly to find out if I were not
trapping song birds. America has shown even
more of this morbid interest in my doings than
other countries have — perhaps because I was in
my forties when I came here to live, and the older
the man, the queerer he looks with a butterfly net
in his hand. Stern farmers have drawn my atten-
tion to NO FISHING signs; from cars passing me on
the highway have come wild howls of derision;
sleepy dogs, though unmindful of the worst bum,
have perked up and come at me, snarling; tiny tots
have pointed me out to their puzzled mammas;
broadminded vacationists have asked me whether
I was catching bugs for bait; and one morning on a
wasteland, lit by tall yuccas in bloom, near Santa
Fe, a big, black mare followed me for more than a
mile.

When, having shaken off all pursuers, I took the
rough, red road that ran from our house toward
field and forest, the animation and lustre of the
day seemed like a tremor of sympathy around me.

Black Erebia butterflies ("Ringlets" as the old
English Aurelians used to call them), with a special
gentle awkwardness peculiar to their kind, danced
among the firs. From a flower head two male Cop-
pers rose to a tremendous height, fighting all the
way up — and then, after a while came the down-
ward flash of one of them returning to his thistle.
These were familiar insects, but at any moment
something better might cause me to stop with a
quick intake of breath. I remember one day when I
warily brought my net closer and closer to a little
Thecla that had daintily settled on a sprig. I could
clearly see the white W on its chocolate-brown
underside. Its wings were closed and the inferior
ones were rubbing against each other in a curious
circular motion — possibly producing some small,
blithe crepitation pitched too high for a human ear
to catch. I had long wanted that particular species,
and, when near enough, I struck. You have heard
champion tennis players moan after muffing an
easy shot. You have seen stunned golfers smile
horrible, helpless smiles. But that day nobody saw
me shake out a piece of twig from an otherwise
empty net and stare at a hole in the tarlatan.

their nervous wings half open butterfly fashion,
the lower ones exhibiting their incredible crimson
silk from beneath the lichen-grey primaries.
"Catocala adultera!" I would triumphantly shriek
in the direction of the lighted windows of the
house as I stumbled home to show my captures to
my father.

However, if the morning hunt had been a failure,
one could still look forward to mothing. Colors
would die a long death on June evenings. The lilac
shrubs in full bloom before which I stood, net in
hand, displayed clusters of a fluffy grey in the
dusk — the ghost of purple. A moist young moon
hung above the mist of a neighbouring meadow.
In many a garden have I stood thus in later years
— in Athens, Antibes, Atlanta — but never have I
waited with such a keen desire as before those
darkening lilacs. And suddenly it would come, the
low buzz passing from flower to flower, the vibra-
tional halo around the streamlined body of an
olive and pink Small Elephant Hawk-Moth poised
in the air above the corolla into which it had
dipped its long tongue. Its handsome black larva
(resembling a diminutive cobra when it puffed out
its ocellated front segments) could be found on
dank willow-herb two months later. Thus every
hour and season had its delights. And, finally, on
cold, or even frosty, autumn nights, one could
sugar for moths by painting tree trunks with a
mixture of molasses, beer, and rum. Through the
gusty blackness, one's lantern would illumine the
stickily glistening furrows of the bark and two or
three large moths upon it imbibing the sweets.

The "English" park that separated our house from
the hayfield was an extensive and elaborate affair
with labyrinthine paths, Turgenevian benches,
and imported oaks among the endemic firs and
birches. The struggle that had gone on since my
grandfather's time to keep the park from reverting
to the wild state always fell short of complete suc-
cess. No gardener could cope with the hillocks of
frizzly black earth that the pink hands of moles
kept heaping on the tidy sand of the main walk.
Weeds and fungi, and ridgelike tree roots crossed
and re-crossed the sun-flecked trails. Bears had
been eliminated in the eighties (two such stuffed
giants stood on their hind legs in our entrance
hall), but an occasional moose still visited the
grounds. On a picturesque boulder, a little moun-
tain ash and a still smaller aspen had climbed,
holding hands. like two clumsy, shy children.
Other, more elusive trespassers — lost picnickers
or merry villagers — would drive our hoary game-
keeper Ivan crazy by scrawling ribald words on
the benches and gates. The disintegrating process
continues still, in a different sense, for when, now-
adays, I attempt to follow in memory the winding
paths from one given point to another, I notice
with alarm that there are many gaps, due to obliv-
ion or ignorance, akin to the terra-incognita

blanks map-makers of old used to call "sleeping
beauties. "

Beyond the park, there were fields, with a
continuous shimmer of butterfly wings over a
shimmer of flowers — daisies, bluebells, scabious,
and others — which now rapidly pass by me in a
kind of coloured haze like those lovely, lush
meadows, never to be explored, that one sees from
the diner on a transcontinental journey. At the
end of this grassy wonderland, the forest rose like
a wall. There I roamed, scanning the tree trunks
(the enchanted, the silent part of a tree) for certain
tiny moths, called Pugs in England — delicate little
creatures that cling in the daytime to speckled sur-
faces, with which their flat wings and turned-up
abdomens blend. There, at the bottom of that sea
of sunshot greenery, I slowly spun around the
great boles. Nothing in the world would have
seemed sweeter to me than to be able to add, by a
stroke of luck, some remarkable new species to the
long list of Pugs already named by others. And
my pied imagination, ostensibly, and almost gro-
tesquely, grovelling to my desire (but all the time,
in ghostly conspiracies behind the scenes, coolly
planning the most distant events of my destiny),
kept providing me with hallucinatory samples of
small print: ". . . the only specimen so far known
. . ." ". . . the only specimen of Eupithecia petro-
politanata was taken by a Russian schoolboy ..."
"... by a young Russian collector ...""... by
myself in the Government of St. Petersburg, Czar-
skoe Selo District, in 1912 . . . 1913 . . . 1914 "

Then came a June day when I felt the urge
to push on still farther and explore the vast marsh-
land beyond the Oredezh. After skirting the river
for three or four miles, I found a rickety foot-
bridge. While crossing over, I could see the huts of
a hamlet on my left, apple trees, rows of tawny
pine logs lying on a green bank, and the bright
patches made on the turf by the scattered clothes
of peasant girls, who, stark naked in shallow
water, romped and yelled, heeding me as little as if
I were the discarnate carrier of my present remi-
niscences.

On the other side of the river, a dense
crowd of small, bright-blue male butterflies that
had been tippling on the rich, trampled mud and
cow dung through which I had to trudge rose all
together into the spangled air and settled again as
soon as I had passed.

After making my way through some pine
groves and alder scrub I came to the bog. No
sooner had my ear caught the hum of diptera
around me, the cry of a snipe overhead, the gulp-
ing sound of the morass under my foot, than I
knew I would find here quite special arctic butter-
flies, whose pictures, or, still better, non-illus-
trated descriptions I had worshipped for several
seasons. And the next moment I was among them.
Over the bilberry shrubs, with fruit of a dim,
dreamy blue, over the brown eye of stagnant
water, over moss, over mire, over the intoxicating
racemes of the lone and mysterious marsh-rocket.

a dark little Fritillary, bearing the name of a Norse
goddess, passed in a low, skimming flight. I pur-
sued rose-margined Sulphurs, grey-marbled
Satyrs. Unmindful of the mosquitoes that coated
my forearms and neck, I stooped with a grunt of
delight to snuff out the life of some silver-studded
lepidopteron throbbing in the folds of my net.
Through the smells of the bog, I caught the subtle
perfume of butterfly wings on my fingers, a per-
fume which varies with the species — vanilla, or
lemon, or musk, or a musty, sweetish odour diffi-
cult to define. Still unsated, I pressed forward. At
last I saw I had come to the end of the marsh. The
rising ground beyond was a paradise of lupines,
columbines, and pentstemons. Mariposa lilies
bloomed under Ponderosa pines. In the distance,
fleeting cloud shadows dappled the dull green of
slopes above timber line, and the grey and white
of Longs Peak.

I confess I do not believe in time. I like to
fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as
to superimpose one part of the pattern upon
another. Let visitors trip. And the highest enjoy-
ment of timelessness — in a landscape selected at
random — is when I stand among rare butterflies
and their food plants. This is ecstasy, and behind
the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to ex-
plain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which
rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun
and stone. A thrill of gratitude to whom it may
concern — to the contrapuntal genius of human
fate or to tender ghosts humouring a lucky mortal.

-'M . ^-^

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

Weekend Field Trips for Members

to
Starved Rock, Illinois

Galena, Illinois

Baraboo, Wisconsin

Historic Galena

By popular demand, Field Museum's weekend trips to Starved
Rock, Galena, and Baraboo are being offered again this year,
with two weekends to choose from for the Galena and Baraboo
trips.

Starved Rock. Dr. Gordon Baird, assistant curator of fossil
invertebrates, will lead the group on the weekend of June
16-17 to Starved Rock State Park; Buffalo Rock State and
Matthiessen State Park will also be toured. Eighty miles south-
west of Chicago, Starved Rock is so named for a 125-foot-high
sandstone outcrop, where a group of Illini Indians more than
200 years ago took refuge from another attacking tribe. The
park is notable for its 19 canyons and their remarkable vistas.
Tour members will stay at Starved Rock Lodge. Tour cost:
$82.00.

Baraboo. Dr. Edward Olsen, curator of mineralogy, will lead
tour members through the Baraboo range and along the shores
and hinterland of beautiful Devil's Lake. Two tours are sched-
uled: May 19 and 20, and June 9 and 10.

The Baraboo Range is of special interest as a monadnock
—what is left of an ancient mountain range and which now
stands out above the younger rocks and sediments. The range
consists of quartzite — more than one billion years old — which,
although compressed in places into vertical folds, retains the
original sedimentary structures. The mountains were further
modified by glaciers, forming the lake and the picturesque

glens, and changing the course of rivers.

Hiking clothes are strongly recommended for the sched-
uled hikes. The trip is not suitable for children, but younger
people interested in natural history are welcome. The cost of
the Baraboo trips is $70.00 per person.

Galena. Dr. Bertram G. Woodland, curator of petrology, will
conduct two study tours through the geological area (once a
lead-producing region) of this history-laden river town, which is
built on rocky limestone bluffs. In addition to viewing geological
features, tour members will have the opportunity to explore
historic Galena's charming downtown area, with its unique
variety of pre-Civil War architecture.

An overnight tour is offered for the weekend of May 5-6;
per person: $98.00. A two-night, three-day tour is offered for
October 12, 13, 14 at a rate of $150.00. Accommodations are
at the Chestnut Mountain Lodge.

Rates quoted for all above tours are per person, double
occupancy (single accommodations on request). Included are
all expenses of transportation on charter buses and accommo-
dations in first class resort hotels. The rate also includes all
meals and gratuities, except personal extras such as alcoholic
beverages and special food service. An advance deposit of
$15.00 is required upon registration for each trip.

For additional information and reservations, call or write
Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours, Field Museum, Roose-
velt Rd. at Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, 111. 60605. Phone: 922-
9410, X-251. 15

What Is a Curator?

BV JOHN TERRELL

As A Museum Curator I am always uneasy when
people ask me innocently enough: "What do you
do?" It is my experience that if you say you are a
curator, their eyes will glaze over with incompre-
hension. You are likely to get in reply something
as noncommittal as "Oh, how nice." Or possibly:
"Oh . . . How fascinating." Few people seem to
feel comfortable admitting they are not sure what
a curator does.

I became a museum curator more than
seven years ago when I was hired at Field Museum
of Natural History as an assistant curator in the
Department of Anthropology. I had had absolute-
ly no formal training in "muscology." Throughout
graduate school I had always assumed that I
would end up as a professor, not a curator.

When I arrived at Field Museum in Septem-
ber 1971 I had in my mind the vague idea that
curators look after museum specimens, do re-
search that interests them, and help with public
exhibitions. I suspect I would not have thought
very differently even if I had taken museology
courses, for it is my impression that such courses
do not add up to very much. Today I think none
of us can afford to be as naive as I was back then.
What museum curators do is changing. We need
to be aware of what those changes are. We also
need to take a hand in bringing them about.

Traditionally a curator has been someone
who is steward of a collection of things housed in
a museum. This conception of the role of curator
in a museum is, as far as it goes, perfectly correct.
If I have any quarrel with it, my argument would
be that today this traditional role is far too limited.

Like it or not, museum curators in the 1980s
and beyond will have to be more than stewards of
things. If museums are to take their place in the
mainstream of life once again, all of us who call
ourselves curators are going to find that we must
increasingly also be managers of people.

By this I am not saying that the goals of
museums as modern institutions should be altered.
There appears to be considerable agreement
throughout the museum world that the goals of
any museum are at least these three: to foster
scholarly research, to preserve artistic, historical,
and scientific collections, and to be a force in pop-
ular education. Surely these are proper goals for
museums, today and in the future. What is chang-
ing— and what I think needs changing — are the
means to those important ends. And what a cur-
ator does is — or should be — part of those means.

According to convention, at least at our
larger museums where the luxury of curator-spe-
cialists has been possible, the stereotype of a
curator would be roughly as follows. A museum

curator (inevitably portrayed as a man) is some-
one who is terribly dedicated to some esoteric part
of human knowledge, such as the artistic achieve-
ments of Greece in the 4th century B.C., the peculi-
arities of frog genitalia, or the potential of thermo-
luminescence in artifact dating.

Also according to their frequent portrayal,
a curator is someone who works quiet, long hours
all by himself behind the closed doors of his office
or laboratory. There he works for years surround-
ed by piles and piles of trays and boxes of miner-
als, or stuffed owls, or pinned spiders, or human
bones and ancient stones. Finally one day this
aging curator produces what we have all been
waiting for all these years: a great monograph
recording all that he has learned and all that he has
discovered.

Like all stereotypes, this image of the dedi-
cated curator-as-scholar is at best only a half-
truth. Curators, especially at smaller museums,
have always been more active in all the daily
chores that need to be done around a museum. But
what is changing today is that curators are being
asked more and more to take on tasks that may
have nothing to do with their scholarly interests
and training. Their new responsibilities are taking
them away from the things they love. Grumblings
are growing louder in the curatorial ranks.

What is happening to museum curators?
How reasonable are their complaints? The ques-
tion is not only "What does a curator do?" but also
"What should a curator do?" Let us consider some
of the tasks of the modern curator.
Research: It is doubtful that a curator's office was
ever an unassailable sanctuary for scholarly pur-
suits free from the cares and demands of running
museums. Yet no museum official would seriously
contest the view that scholars and scientists are
not going to be very useful people to have around
museums if they cannot do what their training has
equipped them to do. The question then is: How
should curators balance their research tasks
against other demands on their time and energies?
Since even curators are human beings, the ines-
capable conclusion is that curators cannot do too
many things at once and still get anything done
that is worth doing. And this is the reason why I
say curators are going to find more and more that
they must be managers of people as well as stew-
ards of things. The solution, after all, to not being
able to do something yourself is to help someone
else do it.

Preservation: The technical, scientific skills recog-
nized today as essential to be able to conserve and,
if necessary, to restore ancient artifacts, works of
art, and the like are only rarely part of a curator's
training as a research scholar. Nonetheless, be-
cause they are stewards of museum collections.

John Terrell is associate curator of Oceanic archae-
ology and ethnology.

curators must keep a watchful eye over how col-
lections are stored, handled, studied, loaned, and
exhibited. In short, they are responsible for the
survival of the collections under their care, and at
very least they must know when to call upon the
services of the professional museum conservator.
Teaching: According to the Oxford English Dic-
tionary the first definition of a curator is "One
appointed as a guardian of a minor, lunatic, etc."
This definition would shock many, if not most,
curators, because traditionally museums have
been successful in attracting scholars to be curators
precisely because they could avoid there the ter-
rors and frustrations of teaching the young. In-
deed, one well-known curator years ago is said to
have defined teaching as "throwing dubious pearls
before genuine swine"! This attitude against teach-
ing appears to be changing today. And it needs
changing, although no one even now would pro-
pose that museums should stop being museums
and become colleges or universities instead. On
the contrary, we are beginning to see that muse-
ums can offer a kind of teaching experience that is,
unfortunately, all too rare in colleges and univer-
sities. Stated simply, the kind of teaching that can
be done very effectively at museums is what used
to be called apprenticeship education, i.e., learn-
ing by practical experience. I might add that if
museums are to maintain both their academic ex-
cellence and the quality of museum exhibits and
public programs, curators must help the institu-
tions in which they work to compete aggressively
in the academic market place for the best talent be-
ing produced by our nation's educational system.
To do so, museums must assume part of the bur-
den of educating potential museum professionals.
Lecturing: It is traditional for museum curators to
give public lectures on their specialized fields of
scholarship. Today curators should also be ready
to lecture on the goals and programs of the muse-
ums they serve.

Exhibitions: Curators customarily help plan and
execute public exhibitions designed both to edu-
cate and to entertain the museum visitor. As schol-
ars and scientists, however, I think curators (and I
include curators of education and the departments
they direct) need to be concerned more than they
often seem to be about making museology itself a
true discipline. It may come as a surprise to many,
but for the most part all of us in museums know
next to nothing in a scientific way about how to
make our exhibits entertaining, educational and
genuinely effective. Too much of what we do in
designing an exhibit is done by the seat of our
pants. In truth, there is no way at present, for in-
stance, to know beforehand how well an exhibit
will work. This confused, frustrating state of af-
fairs is a luxury museums can no longer afford.
With their academic training, curators ought to be
able to help improve that body of knowledge and
technical skills called museology.
Decision making and management responsibility:
The extent to which the curatorial staff at any

given museum is pressed into such vital areas as
fund-raising, personnel recruitment and manage-
ment, and the like appears to vary greatly from
one institution to another. It has not been unusual
in smaller museums to find curators saddled with
far too many administrative tasks, for which they
may be little suited both in training and in psycho-
logical makeup. Unquestionably it is the duty of a
museum's appointed management to make the best
use of the training, talents, and inclinations of all
personnel — including the curatorial staff — under
its supervision. Yet it will not do to say that
curators are not themselves part of the manage-
ment team at most museums. It seems increasingly
obvious that more and more people are reporting
to them for advice, supervision, and daily guid-
ance. At Field Museum, for example, curators
customarily serve as legally recognized project
directors for major museum exhibitions supported
by state and federal grants. It has been said that a
good manager is not someone who tells other peo-
ple what to do, but rather someone who facilitates
the work of those for whom he is responsible. Like
a good museum director, therefore, I think we can
also expect that a good museum curator will come
to be judged more and more in the years ahead on
how effectively he or she can serve as a good facili-
tator of the work that museums, as responsive
institutions, should be doing in promoting re-
search, education, and the preservation of artistic,
scientific, and cultural collections that constitute
the heritage of mankind.

Planning for the future: Curators as privileged
scholars working on their own research goals
without interference from the institutions that are
their tolerant patrons are a thing of the past. But if
curators are to be shouldered with museum re-
sponsibilities and problems, then they must also
have a real voice in setting the near and more dis-
tant goals of their institutions. It may be naive of
curators to view the time and effort taken away
from their research work as a regrettable sacrifice.
But it is only human to want to do what excites
you most. And hopefully every curator likes his
academic calling. Therefore, the sacrifice must be
worth it. It is my feeling that people are willing to
make such a "sacrifice" if they find that their con-
tribution pays off in observable ways. For this
reason I suspect curators must be asked to do
more than participate in committee work and
come up with helpful advice. They will need to
feel that they are directly affecting management
decisions about the goals and programs of the
museums in which they work.

After only somewhat more than seven
years as a museum curator I can hardly claim that
my answer to the question "What is a curator?" is
in any way the sole or best one that could be of-
fered. But 1 do think that most of my colleagues at
museums would agree that what a curator does is
changing. That is the reason why it so difficult to
know what to say when someone asks: "What do
you do?' D

METEOR- WRONGS

BY EDWARD OLSEN

Photos by Carol Small Kaplan

It Is Estimated that somewhere around 70 million
meteorites fall into the earth's upper atmosphere
each day. Only about 500 of them each year sur-
vive burning up and make it through to the
ground. Over two-thirds of these end up in the
oceans, because that much of the earth is covered
with water. Most of the remainder fall in unin-
habited places — deserts, bogs, grassy prairies,
mountains, etc., where the chance of one being
recovered is very slim indeed. Nevertheless, the
sight of a "falling star" grabs the imaginations of
people.

Most of the meteorites that are recovered
result from the interest and curiosity of ordinary
people. A rock that looks out of the ordinary, or
out of place, will raise a question in a person's
mind. Often such curious rocks are collected and
saved — sometimes for a couple of generations—
before being reported. Unfortunately, all the
things collected are not necessarily meteorites. In
fact, the vast majority are not.

Over the past eighteen years as a museum
curator of a large meteorite collection I have been
impressed by the number and variety of "meteor-
wrongs" that have been brought in for identifica-
tion. They are tributes to the ability of people to
notice the unusual and try to find out what they've
found:

• About 15 years ago I received a phone call
from a gentleman in Los Angeles. He said he had
recently taken a vacation trip to a remote lake in
Oregon, and described in detail getting to the lake
— a main highway to a county road, turning onto
a jeep trail, and finally walking cross-country to
this beautiful trout lake, nestled in the mountains.
There, while fishing, he had seen a large, strange,
hackly rock. It was so weird, in this remote place,
that he just knew it had to have fallen there — a
meteorite. So, he broke off a hunk and later, in a
nearby town, arranged to have some men go to

the lake and fetch the main mass to town. It
weighed several hundred pounds and had to be
hoisted onto a truck. When it got to town he had it
crated and sent it on its way to the Field Museum
in his old home town of Chicago. As a boy he had
enjoyed the Museum and the idea of giving it a
large meteorite tickled his fancy. On the phone he
said he was flying to Chicago on business and
would bring the sample piece he'd broken off with
him. The crate would arrive by railway freight
shortly afterward.

It really sounded good! The remote locality,
especially in a low population state like Oregon,
had everything going for it.

Well, he arrived a day later. When he un-
veiled the sample my heart fell. It was a fragment
of coal-furnace ash — more commonly known as a
"clinker." He was chagrined to say the least. A
careful examination left no doubt. It was a clinker
of the kind that used to be dumped from coal-fired
home furnaces, or from steam locomotives. How
did it get to such a remote valley in the Oregon
mountains? Perhaps a prospector had long ago
had a coal furnace for smelting ore. There were,
however, according to the man, no signs of aban-
doned habitation. Besides, the clinker was so big it
had to have come from a sizeable furnace.

Well, we never figured it out. For me it was
the first of a long list of such mysteries.
• One day a farmer from southeastern Mis-
souri dropped into the Museum with a paper sack
containing — he believed — a meteorite. He spilled
the contents onto a table. Out tumbled large
fragments of green bottle glass! They were all in ir-
regular shapes and looked like hunks that had
been scaled off the sides of the large steel ladles
used to pour molten glass in a glass factory. (When

Edward Olsen is curator of mineralogy/.

A "right" and a "wrong": At the right is a pyrite nodule (3.5" long). Nodules of this kind
form inside some sedimentary rocks. At the left is an iron meteorite (7" long). Both
specimens have the same type of surface sculpting and the same color. A very close look-
alike, the pyrite nodule is often brought to the Museum as a possible meteorite.

the walls of the large ladles become too encrusted
with glass they are hammered out and dumped.)
The only trouble was that the farmer had plowed
them up in his field! How did they get there? We
never figured out that one either. His farm was
nowhere near a glassworks.

• A few years later, a farmer from southern
Illinois came in with some "meteorites" he'd
plowed up in his field. They were fragments and
shards of bottle glass again — only this time it was
deep blue glass! No explanation could be found.
No glassworks were known in the area. It is, and
has been, agricultural land since the first settlers
came there, and the Indians before them did not
make glass.

• One day in the mid-1960s, a man from
Chicago's North Side phoned. He had been on a
hike with his sons in the woods near the Wisconsin
border and had come across a strange rock. It was
shiny and metallic inside and had a thin black

i^^niM

Manganese is mixed with iron, in a steel mill, to
make certain special alloys. This meant that a
large mass of a refined man-made metal from
some mill had somehow gotten hauled out to -the
woods along the Wisconsin-Illinois border north
of Chicago. How did that happen?

Since that time, over the past ten years, I
have had chunks of the same stuff, from the same
general area, brought in at least four more times!
• Not too long after the first manganese inci-

dent I got a call from a man who said he'd found
some bright, shiny, metallic object while digging
in his yard. He wasn't able to get in to the Museum
but mailed the object in. The first thing I noticed
about the piece was how "undense " it was — very
light stuff, indeed. Well, it took some time, but
tests finally showed it to be a piece of very pure
metallic silicon. Well, silicon doesn't occur natur-
ally either; it also has to be refined by man, chiefly
from its oxide form, called quartz. It is a difficult

These three "meteor-wrongs" are all man-made. That in the rear (8" long) is a light, frothy siUceous
slag from a steel mill. A chunk of furnace clinker (3.5" across) from a coal-fired furnace is at the left.
At the right is a piece of dark blue bottle glass (4" across) — slag residue from a bottlemaking
operation. Each of these specimens was brought in as a suspected meteorite.

coating on the outside. It weighed many hundreds
of pounds, by his estimation. He found a small
chunk that had broken off the main piece and said
it was very dense, like a piece of iron — certainly
more dense than an ordinary rock. It sounded en-
couraging.

A few days later he came into the Museum
with his sample. It was much as he described it. It
has a density like metallic iron, but was utterly
nonmagnetic. This one took the better part of a
day for testing. It turned out to be a fairly pure
piece of metallic manganese. Manganese oxide is
black, and that accounted for the coating on the
outside. Manganese metal does not occur natural-
ly; it has to be refined in a mill from its oxide ores.

refining process. Silicon metal is used to make
transistors and devices for electronic calculators.
I never figured out how it got into the yard
of a suburban house. Since then I've had at least
half a dozen more pieces of the same stuff sent in
or brought in, each from an unlikely place.
• A man who had been on a fishing trip in

the Great Okeefenokee Swamp region of southern
Georgia called one day. He told of putting his tent
up on an island one evening. As he hammered in a
tent peg it struck something metallic just a few
inches below the surface of the soil. He dug it out.
It was rusty on the surface, but very dense, like
iron, and very magnetic. This sounded like a win-
ner at last.

He finally managed to bring the object in to
the Museum. It looked just like a weathered iron
meteorite. It was flattish and almost two inches
thick. I cut off a piece and went to work on it. It
took most of a day. It had iron in it all right, and
some nickel. But there was too little nickel to be a
meteorite. It also contained a lot of chromium as
well as small amounts of vanadium. Meteorite
metal has neither of these. It was a chunk of man-
made steel.

What was this piece of metal doing in a
swamp, hundreds of miles from anything? It was
too chunky and irregular to have been a part that
might have fallen from an airplane. It was so rusty
it had obviously lain there for a long time— so it
couldn't be part of a satellite. It was another one
we gave up on.

• On the near northwest side of Chicago the
owner of a three-storey apartment building re-
ported finding a meteorite on his roof. He de-

ested? Yes, indeed!

She said she would go back to the ranch
and bring it into town, where she had a house and
yard. She called back a couple of days later to tell
me she had it in town in her garage. She and her
son had had to set up a block-and-tackle to lift it
to the bed of their pickup truck. When it was low-
ered into the truck it bounced a bit and put a deep
dent into the truck's steel bed. I told her that the
best thing to do was to cut off, with a hacksaw, a
small piece — say, something about the size of a
25(t piece. That is usually big enough to make all
the necessary tests.

About a week later she called again to tell
me that she and her son were taking turns working
the hacksaw. They had worn out at least a dozen
blades and were nowhere near through. Finally,
after another week had passed I received a pack-
age in the mail from the lady. I opened it eagerly,
because I was convinced it had to be a winner. The

A type of quartzite, a terrestrial metamorphic rock known as a "graywacke. " it
occurs in outcrops in northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Specimens found
in the Chicago area were carried there thousands of years ago by glaciers, and are
frequently thought to be meteorites. This specimen is 6" long.

scribed a white-to-pale gray rock that weighed at
least 50 pounds. It didn't sound at all like a
meteorite. I told him that even if it had been one,
there would be no way for it to land on his
roof — and stop there! A fifty pound meteorite
would go right through to the basement.

He said it had to be a meteorite because he
was thoroughly familiar with the flat roof of his
apartment house and it was not there the last time
he went up to the roof, some months before.

I went to his house one evening after work
and looked at it. It was a large fragment of lime-
stone, complete with some fossils in it. I left him
with the problem of how a fifty pound chunk of
limestone was hoisted onto the roof without him,
knowing about it — and why it was done at all!
• In the summer of 1977 I received a phone
call from a lady in Wichita, Kansas. She said she
had grown up on a ranch over 30 miles from
Wichita, and ever since she was a child remem-
bered a large iron meteorite her father had talked
about that was out on the ranch. Were we inter-

piece of metal they had cut off was much larger
than necessary. It was four inches across. They
did a monumental amount of sawing by hand to
get such a large piece.

The metal was bright and shiny, just like a
freshly cut iron meteorite. But clinging to one side
of it was a black-colored slag that had thin finger-
ings into the metal. The metal was from a smelter
— man-made! The main piece weighed many hun-
dreds of pounds. It was smelted iron that had been
dumped 30 miles from a city that is not a steel mill
town. She found that hard to believe — and so
did I.

I could go on and on about hunks of metal
or strange rocks that are found in crazy places.
I've long ago' stopped being amazed over such
stuff. My biggest problem is trying to figure out
what the objects are. People who bring in meteor-
wrongs are always disappointed they are not
meteorites, and are naturally curious about the
true nature of the objects they've collected. Of
course, many, many of these things brought in are

ordinary terrestrial rocks that people think might
be meteorites. Farmers are usually familiar with
the bedrock of their area, so when they see some-
thing that is definitely not the local bedrock they
suspect it might be a meteorite. All of the Midwest
was glaciated thousands of years ago. The ancient
glaciers carried boulders from regions in the north
and dropped them in this central region. So, it's
not unlikely for a piece of dark, gray or black
basalt to end up in an area where the local bedrock
is white limestone or tan sandstone. Such a mass
of basalt stands out. Also, there's a process called
frost-heave. A farm field that is clear of glacial
boulders can have such boulders many feet down

wrongs. A while back we were visited by a curator
from the British Museum, which has the largest
meteorite collection in the world. He told us about
a supposed meteorite that fell on the evening of
September 25, 1580:

It seems that Sir Francis Drake was engaged
to a charming young lady. Before they were to be
married, however, Drake was going on a sea jour-
ney. He left, and two years passed by as he went
around the world. The girl despaired of his return,
and her father, who wanted her married, arranged
with another family for their son to marry her.
The eve of the wedding arrived. Farmers in the

A stone "right" and a metal "wrong": The specimen at the left is an average stone
meteorite (5" long). The other object is a close look-alike: a piece of refined manganese
metal (5" long). The latter is man-made. The black coating on the outside of the
manganese is manganese rust, which is pitch black in color. In appearance it closely
matches the black fusion crust coating on the outside of the meteorite.

at the base of the soil. A series of hard winters can
freeze the soil to a considerable depth. When the
freezing takes place, the ice expands', and a buried
glacial boulder can be pushed upwards slightly.
After many years the boulder appears on the sur-
face. A farmer, knowing it was clear land before,
naturally concludes it had to have come from
above — a meteorite.

Such natural terrestrial rocks are relatively
easy to identify. The man-made metals, alloys,
slags, clinkers, glasses, and such, are not so easy.

The Field Museum isn't, of course, the only
museum to face the problem of identifying meteor-

area reported the fall of an iron meteorite. The girl
said it was a sign from heaven that Sir Francis was
returning, and called off the wedding. Well, sure
enough, the next day Drake sailed into Plymouth
harbor. All ended happily — the girl got her man,
and the meteorite ended up being kept in Drake's
large manor house. Centuries passed and the
meteorite was always kept as a memento of the
event. It got to be known as "Drake's meteorite."
The curator from the British Museum recently
visited the fine old English estate to examine this
ancient treasure. Alas, another meteor-wrong — it
was a cannonball!

These specimens are the products of metal
refineries. That on the left (2" long) is a piece
of metallic silicon. That on the right (4" long) is
of chromium-iron alloy. Both were brought to
the Museum as suspected meteorites.

Volunteers Honored

An impressive, record total of 49,621 hours were contributed
by 280 Field Museum volunteers in 1978. Volunteer work was
performed in a variety of Museum departments and divisions:
anthropology, photography, botany, education, exhibition,
geology, zoology, the library, membership, public relations,
and publications, among others.

Expertise was provided in cataloguing new acquisi-
tions, textile conservation, collating, specimen identification,
reorganizing old collections, typing, editing and writing, in-

structional facilitating, filing, and even in routine mainte-
nance tasks.

In honor of their outstanding contributions, a buffet
dinner was held for the volunteers in Stanley Field Hall on
February 27. Museum President and Director E. Leiand Web-
ber presented gifts of appreciation to the volunteers; he gave
special tribute to Sol Gurewitz, a Field Museum volunteer for
eighteen years. The evening was concluded with a presenta-
tion of songs by Field Museum staff.

22 -. -' »^;y«a-:

Solomon Gurewitz

Solomon Gurewitz:

The Volunteer as Unpaid

Museum Professional

Most of Field Museum's staff rarely appreciate how unusually
lucky we are in our volunteers, even though we seem to have
more of them, and to get more and better work from them,
than any comparable institution in the area. Visiting staff
from other museums tend to be astonished when told that
many volunteers here put in as much as several hundred man-
or woman-hours in an average year. We, however, are not
surprised. We take such remarkable performances almost for
granted, and all because of one man: Mr. Solomon Gurewitz,
the volunteer who set the pattern 18 years ago. He still works
three days a week every week. Though unpaid, he is as pro-
fessional as any member of the paid staff. All of us have come
to expect that other volunteers will have at least part of the
talent and dedication of a Gurewitz.

He came to the Museum in 1961, freshly retired and
enthusiastically interested in Asian culture. As there was no
regular volunteer program in those days, he had to talk his
way in. He succeeded easily, being then as now a good talker.
Within a month he had shown he was capable of doing many
of the tasks of a trained museum anthropologist. Within a
year he was an indispensable member of the Anthropology
Department's staff.

He was given responsibility for rearranging and re-
storing the Museum's large Oriental collections. He became
expert enough on these materials to give many lectures and to
guide high-powered professional visitors to materials they
wished to study. He was often asked to advise on materials
for exhibition, on the selection and packing of loans, and on
cataloguing. He helped with almost everything and took
charge when necessary, having become a true jack-of-all-
museum-trades.

About 15 years ago, he started to branch out in a new

Carol Small Kaplan

direction. Much of the Museum's collection had never been
photographically recorded even though, as he pointed out,
contemporary museological standards required this for
reasons of both security and research. He convinced the
authorities that the Museum's regular photography depart-
ment could hardly keep up with new accessions, much less
work its way through the enormous backlog of unrecorded
material acquired in earlier years. He received authority to set
up a special photography section within the Anthropology
Department. Since then he has been the departmental
photographer. He and several associates, all volunteers, take
several thousand highly professional pictures annually.

In the midst of this never-ending task, Sol still finds
time to help orient new volunteers, to advise on numerous
problems, to act as unofficial Departmental historian, and to
be active in the Museum's professional and social life. It is an
amazing achievement and, although we may appear to take it
for granted, we are naturally both impressed and grateful. To
show this gratitude, Sol was several years ago made an
Associate of the Museum, and this year the annual Volunteer
Party is being dedicated to him. But we have an ulterior
motive besides gratitude. We want to publicize him as an
example. His influence has already produced a few unpaid
staff members almost as good as Sol. We hope that his exam-
ple will help bring in more Gurewitzes in future years. —
Bennet Branson, associate curator of Asian archaeology and
ethnology

Special Recognition

Over 500 Hours

Patricia Talbot (828 hours): Geology; compiling Mazon Creek fauna
guide

James Swartchild (742 hours): Anthropology; photography of new
acquisitions and objects for special research and exhibition projects

Sol Century (714 hours): Anthropology; cataloging new acquisi-
tions; working on plans for more efficient storage of collections

David Weiss (702 hours): Anthropology; working as general assis-
tant to the curator; helping develop new security routines

Miya Esperanza Diablo (671 hours): Education; educational
facilitator and statistical analyst

Jeanette Leeper (611 hours): Anthropology; textile conservation

Claxton Howard (607 hours): Library; sorting, typing, and reading
room assignments

James Burd (606 hours): Anthropology; general assistant to the
curator; in charge of planning departmental reorganization;
cataloger

John O'Brien (598 hours): Education; assisting in preparation of
Harris Extension materials and resources

Sol Gurewitz (579 hours): Anthropology; photography of new and
unphotographed specimens; advising on Chinese collections

Peter Gayford (578 hours): Anthropology; editorial and research
work connected with forthcoming catalog of Chinese rubbings

Alice Schneider (574 hours): Anthropology; editorial and research
work on Chinese rubbings catalog

Burke Smith, Jr. (501 hours): Zoology (Division of InscLtsi;
curatorial assistance with orthoptera collection

Over 400 Hours

Louva Calhoun: Anthropology; illustrating stone tools for publica-
tion

Anne Leonard: Anthropology; tapacloth project researching

Margaret Martling: Botany; cataloging library reprints

Carolyn Moore: Anthropology; research and cataloging on Japanese
collections

LeMoyne Mueller: Anthropology; conservation of North American
Indian beadwork collection

Sylvia Schueppert: Anthropology; conservation of North American
Indian beadwork collection

Eleanor Skydell: Education; researching and developing the
Weaver's Walk for Adult Group Programs

Over 300 Hours

Virginia Beatty: Botany; organizing and cataloging collection of New
Zealand hepatics and general assistant to curator

Rose Buchanan: Education; educational and public facilitator

Mark Clausen: Public Relations; editing and writing

Eugenia Cooke: Zoology, Division of Mammals: cataloging
specimens; filing in departmental library

Connie Crane: Anthropology & Exhibition; researching Northwest
Coast mythology and working on related projects

Julie Hurvis: Education; educational and public facilitator, and
resource coordinator for Place for Wonder

Ira Jacknis: Education; co-developer for "Festival of Anthropology
on Film"

Carol Landow: Education; educational and public facilitator

Withrow Meeker: Anthropology; cleaning and conservation of
Chinese shadow puppets; work on Philippines collections

Debra Moskovits: Zoology, Division of Birds; researching and com-
piling a gazetteer for bird collecting localities in Brazil

Gary Ossewaarde: Education; exhibit facilitator

Elizabeth Rada: Botany; cataloging botanical periodicals and typing
research monographs

Robert Rosbert: Anthropology; cataloging Kish and Pompeii
collections

James Skorcz: Library; compiling reference statistics, interfiling
directory additions, and reading room projects

Llois Stein: Anthropology; cataloging and researching Oceanic
collections

Lorain Stephens: Zoology, Division of Birds; researching and com-
piling a gazetteer for bird collecting localities in Peru

Beatrice Swartchild: Anthropology; research on Philippine textile
collections — to be published as a catalog. Education; statistical
analyst

Volunteer list continued on p. 34

ROSS'S ROSY GULL

Twice in the past four years
this beautiful arctic species
has been a mysterious
visitor to the lower 48 states
— once to Chicago, once to
Massachusetts.

^'---^ BY JANETTE MEAL

Not many birds make the front page of the New
York Times, but the Ross's gull did. The
appearance of one in Newburyport, Massachu-
setts, in 1975 was called the birding event of the
century, and caused a sensation among bird
lovers. The bird was seen and identified on March
2 of that year. On the morning of March 3, a
group of 50 or so people, including the
distinguished naturalist Roger Tory Peterson, who
had left his Connecticut home at 3:45 a.m., waited
and watched in the cold. At 10:00 they saw the
Ross's gull feeding with a flock of Bonaparte's
gulls. It was the 668th bird on Peterson's U.S. life
list. As the word spread and the excitement grew,
flocks of birders from the U.S. and beyond
crowded into Newburyport. They lined the sea
wall overlooking the Merrimack River estuary
and the state beach on the Salisbury side of the
river to see the gull. They frequently saw it feeding
with Bonaparte's gulls three times daily. It didn't
leave Newburyport until early May.

Then, less than four years later, another
Ross's gull briefly made the bird-watching
headlines. This one happened along the wintry
shoreline of Lake Michigan, not far from the
Chicago Loop. The bird was first spotted mingling
with Bonaparte's gulls on November 29, 1978. The
following day it was seen by several expert birders
in the vicinity of Lincoln Park, a few miles north.
The news spread quickly, and by December 2, a
Saturday, dozens of eager birders braved the bit-
ter onshore winds in search of the bird. It was seen
fleetingly only once more, and never again. Hun-
dreds of birdwatchers around the country waited
in vain for one more sign that the bird was going
to be as cooperative as the famous Newburyport
gull, but this second sight record for the the "lower
48" vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

The Ross's gull is usually found in the high
arctic. Before the 1975 sighting, never before had
one been seen so far south. This was the first

sighting of the bird in the U.S. outside of Alaska.
We can only speculate on how the bird, in 1975
and 1978, came to be so far from its usual habitat.
It may have become separated from its own kind,
joined a flock of Bonaparte's gulls in their
breeding grounds in northern Canada and flown
south with them. It may have been blown south
by bad weather. Or it may have suffered from a
case of mistaken identity and believed itself to be a
Bonaparte's gull.

The Ross's gull has a circumpolar distribu-
tion in the arctic. It is seldom seen south of the
Arctic Circle, although there are occasional
sightings of the bird in northern Europe and
Canada. Our knowledge of the gull is limited by
the remoteness and inaccessibility of its habitat;
however, we do know the basic facts of its life
history. The gulls breed in Siberia, arriving there
in late May or early June. They nest and raise their
young quickly. By August they have left their
nesting grounds and begun an eastward migra-
tion. They pour through the Bering Straits in
September and October. They continue north-
eastward until they meet the pack ice and spend
the winter at sea among the ice fields. In spring
they follow the ice north as it melts, returning to
their breeding grounds.

The Ross's gull is small for this particular
bird group — 12 to 14 inches (30. 5-35. 5cm.) long.
In breeding plumage the head, neck, underparts,
and tail are a delicate rosy pink. The back and
wings are soft pearl gray. The trailing edges of the
wings are white with gray outer tips. A narrow
black band encircles the neck. The eyes are red,
the feet vermilion. The beak is black and
somewhat smaller and weaker than the beak of
other gulls. The wingspan is about 10 inches
(25.4cm.). The distinctive wedge-shaped tail is 5
inches (12.7cm.) at the center, 4 inches (10cm.) at
the outer edges. The bird weighs 8 to 10 ounces
(200-250gms.).

In winter the pink color fades to white, and
the necklace disappears. A patch of gray appears
on the back of the crown.

In Juvenal plumage, the crown, neck, and
mantle are brownish-black. The forehead and
cheeks are white with dark patches behind the
eyes. A dark band runs along the upper sides of
the wings and back forming a W. The tail is white
with a wide black terminal band. The feet are
plum. The rest of the plumage is white with gray
wing linings and considerable brown in the wing
tips and coverts.

Newly hatched chicks are about 5 inches
(13cm.) long. Their down is dusty yellow with
flecks of gray and black. The flecks tend to be
darker on the head and lighter on the flanks. The
breast is unspotted and whitish. The eyes are dark
brown. The legs, feet, and bill are flesh-colored or
gray, with a brown tip on the bill.

The distinguishing characteristics of the
Ross's gull are its pink color, its wedge-shaped
tail, and the collar around its neck.

The bird has a higher, more melodious,
and more varied voice than other gulls. Its flight is
more buoyant and ternlike.

In summer the gull's diet consists of gnats,
beetles, small moUusks, aquatic insects and lar-
vae, worms, and crustaceans. In winter the diet
consists of small fish and crustaceans.

The history of the Ross's gull is as in-
teresting as the bird is beautiful. The first scientific
discovery of the bird was made by Sir James Clark
Ross, a nineteenth-century British arctic and
antarctic explorer. Ross was born in 1800 and
joined the Royal Navy at the age of twelve. Be-
tween 1819 and 1827 he sailed on four arctic ex-
peditions with Sir William Edward Parry. In 1831
he was a member of Booth's expedition, and with
his uncle. Sir John Clark, helped determine the
position of the north magnetic pole. Ross led an
expedition to the antarctic in 1839 with two ships,
the Erebus and the Terror. He led an attempt to
rescue Sir John Franklin in 1848/49 with the ship
Endeavor. He was recognized as an expert on the
arctic and antarctic until his death in 1862.

On June 27, 1923, Ross shot a gull at
Igloolik on the east side of the Melville Peninsula
in the Canadian Arctic. Parry's journal records the
event:

Mr. Ross had procurred a specimen of a
gull having a black ring around its neck, and
which, in its present plumage, we could not find
described. This bird was alone when it was killed,
but flying at no great distance from a flock of tern,
which latter it somewhat resembles in size as well
as in its red legs; but is on closer inspection easily
distinguished by its beak and tail, was well as by a
beautiful tint of most delicate rose-colour on its
breast. *

This was probably the first written descrip-
tion of the Ross's gull. Several days later another
member of the expedition shot another gull. The
two skins were prepared and carried back to Great

Britain. One was given to the University of Edin-
burgh Museum, the other to a Joseph Sabine.

The bird was described from the Edinburgh
skin by Dr. John Richardson and named the
cuneate-tailed gull (Larus rossii) in 1824. At the
same time William MacGillivray, assistant keeper
of the museum, gave the bird the temporary name
of Ross's rosy gull (Larus roseus). Both men in-
tended for Richardson's names to be used, but
somehow it was MacGillivray's names that stuck.
Today the scientific name for the bird is
Rhodostethia rosea, from the Greek words
rhoden, meaning "rose," and stethos, meaning
"breast"; and the Latin word rosea, meaning
"rose-colored." MacGillivray proposed this name
after he learned that the name Rossia was used as
the generic name of a mollusk.

Virtually nothing more was learned about
the Ross's gull for the next 50 years. In the 35 years
after its discovery only two individuals were seen,
one of them by Ross at Spitzbergen in 1827. In
1844 Audubon wrote that the only two Ross's
gulls known to exist in museum collections were
the two from the second Parry expedition.
Audubon did not see or paint a Ross's gull. He
confessed that, "not having met with this beautiful
little gull, I am obliged to refer to Dr.
Richardson's description of it in the Fauna Boreali-
Americana."**

By 1881 only 23 specimens could be found
in the world's museums, and no eggs or nests had
been collected.

To illustrate the rarity and value of Ross's
gull specimens, consider the story of R. L.
Newcomb. In October 1879 Newcomb shot eight
Ross's gulls from the ship Jeannette, which was
imprisoned in the ice and drifting away from
Wrangall Island towards the northernmost of the
New Siberian Islands. Large numbers of the gulls
were seen flying over the ice. In June 1881 the
Jeannette foundered near Henrietta Island. Many
men perished during the journey in the ship's
boats across ice and water through the New
Siberian Islands, across the Laptev Sea, to the
Siberian mainland at the Lena River delta.
Throughout the long ordeal Newcomb kept three
skins under his shirt. Not only did he save the
skins, they helped to save him by providing in-
sulation against the cold.

In the late ninteenth and early twentieth
centuries our knowledge of the Ross's gull in-
creased greatly. Sightings were recorded and
specimens collected. The basic facts of the bird's
life history were determined.

In August 1894 Fridtjof Nansen shot eight

*Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a
Northeast Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Per-
formed in the Years 1821-22-23 in His Majesty's Ships
Fury and Hecla Under the Orders of Captain William
Edward Parry {London: John Murray, 1824), p. 449.

**Audubon, John James, Birds of America
{Philadelphia: Audubon, 1944), VII, 130.

Ross's gulls from the ship Fram. which had been
frozen in the ice pack for 10 months. Nansen left
the Fram and saw more gulls about 30 miles north-
east of Hvidtenland, the northeast group of the
Franz Josef Archipelago. From July 11 to August 8
Nansen and his companion, Johansen, saw single
birds and sometimes small flocks. The crew of the
Fram who remained on the ship also saw Ross's
gulls about the same time. Nansen saw the gulls
again in August 1899 near Franz Josef Land. This
made it clear that the birds inhabited the pack ice
north of Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen, and
suggested that they bred farther west in Siberia, or
that they migrated westward.

In 1897 S. A. Andree died attempting to
cross the North Pole in a balloon. His body and
diary were found in 1930 on White Island, which
lies off the coast of North-East Land and between
it and Franz Josef Land. The diary reported that
after the balloon crashed Andree and his com-
panions struggled 200 miles south. They saw 15 to
17 Ross's gulls 120 to 190 miles north of White
Island in late July and August.

John Murdoch observed Ross's gulls at
Point Barrow, Alaska, in the fall of 1881. For a
month, beginning September 28, he saw the gulls
traveling northeast. The next year he saw them
from September 20 to October 9. In 1897 he saw
only two Ross's gulls, on September 9 and 23.
Murdoch reported seeing large loose flocks of the
birds. He took more specimens, mostly immature
birds, than were contained in all the world's
museums at that time.

The gulls appeared at Point Barrow on
gray overcast days with easterly winds. They flew
in from the southwest, sometimes stopping to feed
on the beach, then continued on to the northeast.
They appeared and disappeared quickly. The
birds were seen in the fall more or less regularly,
but their numbers varied. Some years many were
seen, some years few, or none at all. The fact that
the birds were not seen at Point Barrow in spring
or summer led Murdoch to guess correctly that
their breeding grounds were west of Wrangall
Island, and that they reached the breeding
grounds by following the melting ice north, not by
a return migration through Point Barrow.

Dr. Charles Brower was in charge of the
trading post at Barrow in the 1920s. On
September 26, 1928, thousands of Ross's gulls
passed through Barrow. Brower wrote that he
could have killed several hundred if he'd had the
time. The skins were once so rare that they
brought up to $200. By 1929 they were no longer
so valuable. Although they were still eagerly
sought by museums and collectors, they com-
manded a price of only $10 or so. Ross's gulls were
shot for food by Eskimos and were eaten fried or
roasted. They tasted like golden plover!

Sergius Buturlin conducted the major study
of the species on its breeding grounds in 1905. He
described the limits of the breeding area in north-
eastern Siberia — from the Kolyma River delta

near the Arctic coast, south to Aby Mlaya and
Svedne Kolymsk, east to the Chaun and Indigirka
Rivers, and west to Swjatai Nos. The southern
part of the area is forested, but most of it is a mix-
ture of swamp, moor, wet ground, lakes and
rivers. The birds nest in dense alder thickets, not
on the open tundra.

Buturlin reported that the first gulls arrived
on May 30. The next day he saw several dozen.
They appeared tired, sitting quietly on the ice and
not flying far away if they were approached.
Buturlin found the gulls on a small shallow lake
formed by snow melt, accompanied by terns and
Sabine's gulls. They spent their time swimming,
catching insects, and resting. The gulls were con-
stantly seen in pairs, the males identifiable by their
more intense coloration. The males courted the
females by pecking at their heads and necks with
open beaks, as if they were trying to kiss the
females. The males stepped around the females,
trilling, with their heads and breasts lowered, their
tails and wings raised.

After June 3 the gulls dispersed and
established territories. The males, and sometimes
the females, defended the territories. The nests
were constructed of dry grass, sedge stalks, dwarf
willow and dwarf birch leaves and twigs, and
often lined with lichens. They were built on small
mossy areas free of wet grass or on small islands
above the water. Some nests were built in hollows
in patches of dry dead grass. The nests were
shallow cups about 4 inches (10cm.) in diameter
and Vi inch (.6cm.) thick, standing 4 to 10 inches
(10-25. 4cm.) above the surface. The nests were
generally damp.

The gulls nested in small colonies of four to
thirty birds, almost always in the company of
arctic terns. Other birds that shared the breeding
grounds were glaucous-winged fulls, hoary red-
polls, snow buntings, white-tailed eagles, willow
ptarmigan, pectoral sandpipers, curlew sand-
pipers, dunlin, red and northern phalaropes,
snipe, golden plovers, ruff, oldsquaw, white-
fronted geese, bean geese, and whistling swans.

Buturlin found the first incubated eggs on
June 13. By June 23 he had collected 36 eggs and 38
skins. On June 26 he found an egg close to hatch-
ing. There were usually three eggs per nest, but
some nests held two or four eggs. The eggs
measured 1.7 inches (43.3mm.) long and 1.2
inches (31.6mm.) wide. They were dark olive
green spotted with chocolate brown. They were
roundish, the small ends not pronounced, and
more spotted towards the longer ends. The spots
were not sharply defined and varied in color,
some being lighter and some darker.

The incubation period lasted more than 3
weeks. Second clutches were sometimes laid if the
first clutches were lost. During the day the females
left the nests to feed. At night the males defended
the colonies. The gulls constantly fought with the
terns, making the colonies noisy places. The gulls'

Continued on page 34

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

Quetico Wilderness Canoe Trip for Members

July 19-29

Quetico Provincial Park, in western Ontario, is a mosaic of
pure glacial lakes, pre-Cambrian rocks, and virgin boreal forest.
Together with Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area,
which it adjoins, this park is one of our continents's last remain-
ing wilderness areas.

Field Museum is sponsoring for the fifth consecutive
year, a canoe trip to Quetico for its high school-age members.
The Voyageur Wilderness Program, of Atikokan, Ontario, is
cosponsor. The ten-day trip is not primarily for fishing, nor is it
a crash course in ecology; rather, it is intended as a wilderness
experience and, as such, can mean different things to different
participants. To truly experience wilderness is to forsake many
of the comforts and crutches of civilized life. It means hard work
—paddling long hours and carrying canoes and gear over por-
tage trails that range from a few yards to more than a mile long.
But it also means entire days during which one's group will
encounter no others; it means lakes clean enough to drink
from; it means periods of intense silence and opportunities to
see wild animals and to experience the northern lights.

Martin Oudejans

The group of 30 will be divided into single-sex units of
five or six persons, each with a counselor or guide. All equip-
ment, food, and guide services, as well as bus transportation
between Field Museum and Quetico are included in the trip
cost: $225.00. Applicants must be between 14 and 19 years
old. Previous camping or wilderness experience is not neces-
sary. The prime qualifications are proven swimming ability,
good health, maturity and reliability. All applicants will be inter-
viewed by Field Museum counselors; the deadline for applica-
tions is May 25. Those chosen for the trip will be so notified by
June 2.

Slide presentations by Voyageur Wilderness Program
representatives will be given on Field Museum's Members'
Nights, May 2, 3, and 4. Program times and location will be an-
nounced in Members' Night literature or may be obtained by
phoning 922-9410, X-251. For an application or additional
information, phone or write Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum
Tours, Field Museum, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive,
Chicago, IL. 60605. 27

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

ILLINOIS ARCHEOLOGY FIELD TRIP

But right here in Illinois we
also have exciting archeological
sites, including the largest
aboriginal structure north of
Mexico — Monk's Mound at Ca-
hokia. One of the most broadly
based archeological research

The per person cost of this
field trip is $240.00. For full
details and registration informa-
tion, write or call Michael J.
Flynn, Field Museum Tours,
Roosevelt Rd. at Lake Shore
Drive, Chicago, 111. 60605.
Phone: (312) 922-9410, X-251.

Helton Mound, in the Lower Illinois Riuer Valleii, is ti;pical of the sites to be visited during
the June archeology; field trip.

Observations

On the Mutability

Of Time

BY ALAN EDWARD RGBIN

About 600 years ago Geoffrey Chaucer wrote:
The tyme, that may not sojourne,
But goth, and never may retourne,
As water that doun renneth ay,
But never drope retourne may,
and therein expressed the obvious irreversibihty of
time. More recently, in "Chronomoros," Edward
FitzGerald told of time's unvarying flow:
Whether we wake or we sleep,
Whether we carol or weep,
The Sun with his Planets in chime,
Marketh the going of Time.
These phrases typify the concept of time as in-
exorably ticking away, marking the passage of
innumerable events and relegating them to an in-
different oblivion. The sands of time flow on.

Contrary to the notions of Chaucer and
FitzGerald, however, time cannot be considered as
flowing at a constant rate along a one-way street.
The measurement of the finite velocity of light
(first performed by the Danish astronomer, Olaus
Roemer, in 1676) lay the groundwork for the des-
truction of this concept.

Light is the carrier of information, be it the
spectral type of the nearest stars, the radial
velocity of a remote galaxy, or the fact that there
may be an ideal green wall clock on the other side
of my office indicating a time of 9:07:04 to me.

At a speed of approximately 300,000
km /sec, the light reflected off the clock will span
the five meters to my eye in less than 0.000000017
second. For all practical purposes, then, when I
observe the clock to say 9:07:04, it actually is
9:07:04.

Suppose I sent my cousin (of whom I'm not
very fond) 300,000 kilometers away, lent him a
telescope, and asked him to observe my wall clock.
Clearly, it would take light precisely one second to
travel from the clock to my cousin. When he reads
9:07:04, fully one second will have elapsed since
the clock indicated that time to me. At that point.

Alan Edward Rubin is a graduate student at the Univer-
sity of Illinois at Chicago Circle. He has been a lecturer
at the Adler Planetarium and has taught a course on
"Geology of the Solar System" at Field Museum.

I will read 9:07:05. Another observer, 600,000
kilometers from my clock would judge it to be just
9:07:03. It can now be seen that there must be a
quantum of light carrying that information of
9:07:04 along with it, and if one were to ride on
the light beam, it would stay 9:07:04 forever.

At the speed of light, time stands still — in
contradistinction to what I observe while sitting
and watching my clock successively ticking off
9:07:04, 9:07:05, 9:07:06. . . .If I were astride the
light beam, however, I would be moving at
300,000 km/sec relative to the clock, while in
reality I'm not moving with respect to the clock at
all. If I were to suddenly increase my velocity
relative to the clock, I would notice a correspon-
ding slow-down in the passage of the clock's time.
The faster I went, the longer it would take the
clock to get from 9:07:04 to 9:07:05. I would be
able to measure how sluggish my wall clock had
become by glancing at the Timex on my wrist. My
Timex would tick away the seconds at the same
rate my wall clock did before I started moving. But
since my wristwatch would not be moving relative
to me, it would be keeping what is referred to as
"proper time." We can define proper time as the
time kept by a clock that is stationary with respect
to the observer.

Let us imagine that my cousin has come
back to earth for the moment to find me. I owe
him money. As he enters my office, he notices me
jumping out the window at 259,000 km/sec.
Quickly, he pulls out his telescope and focuses on
my wristwatch. He notes that two seconds of the
wall clock pass for every one second indicated by
my Timex, and concludes that my wristwatch is in
bad adjustment. But the sluggishness he observes
on my Timex is exactly equivalent to the slug-
gishness I observe on the wall clock back in my
office. It can now be seen that an observer will
note that every relatively moving clock is slow;
the faster the relative velocity, the slower the
moving clock seems to run.

This effect is known as "time dilation" and
has been experimentally verified in the decay of
high-speed muons. Muons are unstable massive
sub-atomic particles that break down very rapid-

ly. In fact, half of the muons that are stationary
with respect to an observer will have decayed in
about one millionth of a second. However, if an
observer locates some muons which are moving
relative to him, he will note that the muons live
longer. The faster the muons are moving, the
longer they will seem to live.

So far, I have only discussed the apparent
sluggishness of time in systems which are in
relative motion. Many of the examples presented
above are derived from Einstein's special theory of
relativity. Time also appears to slow down,
however, when it is being measured in a system
that is being accelerated or in one that is experi-
encing a gravitational field. Before we discuss this,
it is germane to illustrate Einstein's "principle of
equivalence," which states that the effects of
gravitation are completely indistinguishable from
the effects of uniform acceleration.

Suppose I were to go to the moon (where
the effects of air resistance are zero) and take
along with me a cough drop and a silver dollar.
Placing the cough drop in one hand and the silver
dollar in the other, I will experience the weights of
each of these objects as pressures on my hands and
will judge that the weights differ. If I were to move
my hands quickly downwards, the pressures
exerted by these objects on my hands would
decrease. An increase in the downward motion of
my hands would correspond to a decrease in the
pressure exerted by these objects. If I were to con-
tinue this motion ever more rapidly, there would
come a time when the objects would fly off my
palms and lag behind in the downward motion.
This will occur when the downward motion of my
hands exceeds the free fall velocity of the objects.
Now, the cough drop and silver dollar will fall at
the same rate, remaining at an equal height,
although they are no longer in contact with my
hands.

Let me now capture a scientifically minded
small green demon and imprison him in an opaque
box along with the cough drop and the silver
dollar. The box rests comfortably in my hand.
When my hand is at rest, the demon will note that
the cough drop and silver dollar have different
weights by placing them on a tiny green scale he
always carries in his pouch. If I were to bring my
hands downwards, the demon would note a
sudden decrease in the weights of the objects. He
would not be able to tell that the box was moving
since he could not see through the walls. Again, if
the free fall velocity of the objects were exceeded
by the downward movement of my hand, the
cough drop, silver dollar, scale, and demon would
all start flying upwards. It would be as if these
formerly heavy objects had suddenly aquired a
negative weight, or that gravitation, which had up
to that moment always acted downwards,
suddenly began acting upwards.

The demon could conclude that either the
box was being accelerated in the direction of the
unaltered gravitational field or that the masses

below the box, which previously had pulled
everything down, had disappeared, and new
masses had appeared above the box, pulling
everything toward the ceiling. There is no known
experiment that the demon could perform inside
the box to distinguish between these two
possibilities.

Let us now examine how time is altered by
the presence of either a uniform acceleration or a
gravitational field. Imagine a freely floating glass
room which is far out in space and subject to no
gravitational influences. My cousin and I are in-
side, having tea. Outside the room is a circular
disk which is rotating at a constant velocity. After
synchronizing our watches, we decide to perform
a little experiment. My cousin leaps onto the cir-
cular disk and fastens himself there securely. After
a while, we decide to compare watches and I
notice that my cousin's watch is running a bit
slow. We repeat this experiment several times
more, varying only the distance from the center of
the rotating disk to the point where my cousin
straps himself down. I observe that the farther my
cousin is from the center of the disk, the faster he
is being accelerated and the slower his watch
appears to run. Since Einstein's principle of
equivalence equates an accelerating system with
one that possesses a gravitational field, it can be
concluded that clocks will also run slow when sub-
jected to gravitational attraction.

In an intense gravitational field, time will
be much slowed down with respect to a distant
observer. In the vicinity of a black hole, the
distortion of time is maximized. A black hole gets
its name from the fact that no light can escape
from it and it can therefore never be directly
observed. Around every black hole there is a
spherical boundary called the event horizon,
which lies at a radius (numerically equal to 2.95
kilometers times the mass of the black hole in solar
mass units) from the singularity inside. Any shoe,
cat, rocketship, cigar, gastropod, or light beam
that penetrates the event horizon will be swal-
lowed up by the black hole and never emerge. The
closer these objects come toward the event
horizon, the slower the time will appear on their
clocks as judged by a distant observer. Conse-
quently, such an observer would never actually
see any of these objects penetrate the event
horizon. They would appear frozen at the surface
of this boundary with their clocks remaining stop-
ped for all infinity.

Let us assume that I have just discovered a
nonrotating black hole of ten solar masses and
decided to send my cousin to investigate it. His
mission is to approach and penetrate the event
horizon, while keeping his clock on display at the
stern of his spacecraft. I remain a good safe
distance away. When my cousin is only 33 km
from the hole, three seconds on my Timex will
pass for every one second recorded by his clock.
Events at this distance from the black hole
transpire at one-third their normal rate.

As my cousin's spacecraft came closer to
the event horizon, his clock would run ever more
slowly. It would take an infinite time for the clock
to tick at the event horizon and the spacecraft
would appear to be suspended there forever.

My cousin, however, would not see himself
as being frozen against the boundary of the event
horizon. He would pass through it in what he
would judge to be a reasonable amount of time
and notice no strange pathological effects what-
soever. A glance at his clock would indicate to
him that his was functioning quite normally and if
he were to look back outward toward my Timex,
he would find it corresponds rather well with the
clock in his ship. (The only discrepancy he would
notice would be due to the relative motion of his
clock with respect to mine, as discussed above.)
The observation of his ship being frozen against
the event horizon is therefore only a consequence
of my point of view from the outside.

Although I would be able to see my cousin
poised in space forever, he himself would be
heading toward the center of the black hole. As he
approached the center, the tidal forces would
grow ever stronger. Assuming the hole was ten
solar masses, he would reach the center in 67
millionths of a second according to his clock after
he penetrated the event horizon. The tidal forces,
however, would have torn him apart long before
this. At the center of the hole there would be a
singularity, a mathematical point containing all
the mass of the hole, including, now, my cousin's.
It is an object of zero volume, and consequently of
infinite density. I could then assume that my
cousin would not participate in any of my future
experiments.

I have stated above that "time cannot be
considered as flowing at a constant rate along a
one-way street." I have shown that time slows
down with increased velocity according to the
postulates of special relativity and that gravita-
tional fields also will cause clocks to slow in
accord with general relativity. So much for time's
constant rate. But what about the second part of
my statement? Can time still be thought of as
flowing along a one-way street? Perhaps time can
be slowed down and stopped, but can it ever
actually flow backwards? Is the irreversibility of
time absolute?

According to electromagnetic quantum
field theory, an anti-particle moving forward in
time is equivalent to a particle moving backward
in time. In the nuclear physical process of pair
production, a photon is annihilated and an elec-
tron and a positron (an anti-electron) are created.
The positron can be represented by an electron
going backwards in time. This postulate was first
presented by R. P. Feynman in 1949, but it must
be kept in mind that this time-reversal anti-
particle equivalence has not been empirically
verified. Perhaps it is empirically unverifiable.
Nevertheless, mathematically, at least, time can
be considered as occasionally flowing backwards

when dealing with particle — anti-particle pairs.

There is yet another mathematical solution
dealing with the reversibility of time that stems, in
this instance, from some of the theoretical specula-
tion about black holes. If you recall, the black
hole that I sent my cousin into was nonrotating.
But just how reasonable is it to suppose that any
star (including black holes) would possess no rota-
tional velocity? Our sun rotates (with a period at
its equator of 25.4 days); the pulsar— neutron star
in the Crab Nebula rotates (about 30 times each
second); in fact, all stars rotate. In general, the
more massive the star, the greater is its rotational
velocity. In order for a star to have collapsed upon
itself to form a black hole, it must have been at
least three times as massive as the sun. As the
star's radius decreased, the potential black hole
would have had to rotate more rapidly in order
for angular momentum to have been conserved.

From this we can conclude that a non-
rotating black hole is most likely a fictitious
entity. It was necessary to consider the
nonrotating hole, however, because up until 1963
there were no known mathematical treatments
that could account for rotation of black holes. In
that year, R. P. Kerr published such a treatment.
Instead of the black hole having one event
horizon, there are actually two. Also, a trip
through the first event horizon does not necessari-
ly doom the traveller into being sucked up by the
singularity. It is possible for him (if he chooses his
course carefully) to pass through the event
horizons and emerge in another universe. Once
there (wherever that might be) our adventurer
could conceivably find another rotating black hole
and return to our own universe at any point in
time that he may choose. The Kerr solution allows
him to possibly return to earth a million years in
the future or ten billion years before he left.

The main flaw in this solution is that it is
necessary when performing the calculations to en-
tirely disregard the star that created the black hole
in the first place — a most fundamental oversight.
This "wormhole" to the future or the past must
therefore be regarded as a purely mathematical
construction, and one that, given our present state
of knowledge, cannot be taken too seriously.

What, then, is time? It cannot be defined as
flowing at a constant rate, as has been shown by
special and general relativity. Moreover, there are
certain mathematical solutions which seem to
question time's apparent irreversibility. But in the
daily personal worlds of most of us, time seems to
exhibit no behavioral abberations, for this is in
fact the world for which the concept of time was
created, as a classically useful and fundamentally
human expedient. D

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

Exclusive Tour Packages for Members and Their Families

Fabulous Machu Picchu, one of the sites to be uisited on Field Museum's Peru tour.

PERU

In 1978 Field Museum was host to a dazzling exhibit of
golden treasures from ancient Peru. Now Field Museum
members and their families can visit some of the archeo-
logical sites where those treasures were discovered. A
20-day tour (Oct. 27-Nov. 15) will visit the famed ruins of
Machu Picchu. Chan Chan. Pachacamac. Purgatario. and
others. Also on the itinerary are the Plains of Nazca
(viewed from low-flying aircraft), the offshore Guano
Islands, and the famous Pisac Indian Fair. The group,
limited to 20 persons, will be led by Dr. Michael Moseley.
associate curator of middle and South American arche-
ology and ethnology, and by Robert Feldman, assistant in
archeology. Both Moseley and Feldman have done exten-
sive archeological work in Peru: a tour escort will also

accompany the group.

The tour cost— $2,998 (which includes a $500
donation to Field Museum) — is based upon double occu-
pancy and includes round trip air fare between Chicago
and Peru, as well as local flights in Peru. Delta Airlines will
be used between Miami and Chicago, connecting with
Aeroperu.

Deluxe hotel accommodations will be used through-
out. The package includes all meals, including inflight
meals; all sightseeing via deluxe motor coach: all admis-
sions to special events and sites, where required: all bag-
gage handling throughout, plus all necessary transfers: all
applicable taxes and tips: all applicable visa fees. Advance
deposit required: $250.00 per person.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

COOIC ISLANDS

The Unique Opportunity to see a hidden comer of the fabled
South Seas awaits a select group of Field Museum Members.
Accompanied by three staff scientists, from July 14 to 31, a visit
to the Cook Islands will involve comfortable living in a still-un-
spoiled paradise. It will be the dry season, with clear lagoon
waters, sunshine guaranteed, and comfortable temperatures.

Located between Tahiti and Fiji, the Cook Islands offer
one of the last relatively unspoiled island areas. Rarotanga, with
towering peaks and narrow valleys, is surrounded by a reef and
coral islets. A new 150-room hotel provides a base with modern
comforts. Aitutaki, an hour away by small plane, is a classic atoll
lagoon, rich in marine life and superb for snorkeling or SCUBA div-
ing. There, a comfortable, country-style hotel will provide two
nights' accommodation right next to a lagoon reef, with the sim-
ple, friendly services of the Polynesian community. Mangaia, also
a short flight away, will be visited for a day, with an inland hike
and a journey to the lagoon areas. The last three days of the tour
will be spent in Hawaii.

The tour's scientific lecturer/escorts will be Dr. Alan
Solem, curator of invertebrates. Dr. Robert K. Johnson, associate

curator of fishes, and Dr. Elizabeth L. Girardi. research associate
in invertebrates. Dr. Solem has participated in many expeditions
to this part of the globe and has written extensively on its fauna.
Dr. Johnson, a certified SCUBA diver and expert on coral reef
fishes, has participated in many diving expeditions to both the
South Pacific and the Caribbean. Dr. Girardi has also made many
collecting trips to the South Pacific, concentrating on marine
invertebrates.

The tour, limited to 25 persons, will travel via Air New
Zealand. The tour cost— $2,650 (includes a $400 donation to
Field Museum)— is based upon double occupancy and includes
round trip air fare to and from Chicago. Also included is all inter-
island transportation, all meals (except lunches in Hawaii) and all
inflight meals, all admissions to special events, where required; all
baggage handling, plus all transfers, all applicable taxes and tips.
Advance deposit required: $400 per person.

For full itinerary and other information, write or call
Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours, Roosevelt Road at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, III. 60605. Phone: (312) 922-9410,
X-251.

Tour members will staii at the Rarotangan. the Cook Islands' new luxury/ hotel.

VOLUNTEERS continued from p. 23

1978 Volunteers

Bruce \hib()rii
Ainv Xlluisi
Carrie Anderson
Cleo Anderson
Si^ne Anderson
Dolores Arbanas
Judv Armstronj^
Beverlv Baker
Mar<;aret Baker
Dennis Bara
Owen Barnett
Sanda Bauer
DcMiie Baum«arlen
John Bayalis
Vir»;inia Beatty
Marvin Benjamin
Frances Benlley
Phoebe Bentley
William Benlley
Leslie Beverly
Kulh Blazina
Marv Ann Bloom
Sharon Boeniniel
Marjorie B<)hn
Julie Borden
Idessie Bowens
Hermann Bowersox
Kristine Bradof
(^arol Bris<'oe
Rose Buchanan
Teddy Buddinfjton
James Burd
Katherine Burdick
Michael Burns
Louva Calhoun
Jean Carton
Cathe Casperson
Gilda Castro
Sol ("enturv
Karen Chesna-McNeil
June Chomsky
Robert Clark
Mark Clausen
John Collins
June Connors
Eugenia Cooke
Collenane Cosey
Richard Cox
Mary Ann Cramer
Connie Crane
Velta Cukurs
Alice Culbert
Eleanor DeKoven
Mary Derby
Carol Deutsch
Anne DeVere

Miva Esperanza Diablo
Marianne Diekman
Jennifer Dillon
Delores Dobberstein
Stanlev Dolasinski
Carolyn Donovan
Marjjaret Dreessen
Janet Duchossois
Stanley Dvorak
Bettie Dwinell
Milada Dyl>as
Sharon Ebl>ert
Alice Eckley
Anne Ekman
Lee Erdnian
Audrey Faden
Martha Farwell
Suzanne Faurot
Lee Fefferman
Linda Finney
Marc Fleischer
Gerry Fofiarty
Gerda Frank
Arden Frederick
Nancv Frederick
Werner Frey
Royla Furniss
Peter Gavford
Patricia Geor^ouses
Nancv Gerson
Elizabeth Louise Girardi
Shirlev Goldman
Loma Gonzales
Helen Gornstein
Evelyn Gottlieb
Carol Graczyk
Ralph Greene
Paul Gritis
Patrick Gullev
Kathy Gunnell
Sol Gurewilz
Michael Hall
Marjorie Hammerstrom
Judith Hansen
John Harding
Marjiaret Hardinj;
Patricia Hastings
Shirley Hattis
Maureen Hawkridge
H.J. Hedlund
Katherine Hill
Audrey Hiller
Vicki Hlavacek
Patricia Hogan
Ralph Hogan
April Hohol

Claxton Howard
Ruth Howard
Elmer Hulman
David Humbard
Julie Hurvis
Adrienne Hurwitz
Diane Hutchinson
Lucinda Hirichison
Ellen Hyndman
James Jack
Ira Jacknis
Penny Jacobs
Mabel Johnson
Ernest Paul Jones
Malcttlni Jones
Julia Jordan
i^titia Kaminski
Dorothy Karall
Dorothy Kathan
Gayle Kedrick
Ruth Keller-Petilti
Shirley Kennedy
Marjorie King
Elaine Kinzelberg
Ann Koopnian
Carol Kopeck
Eva Kopel
(^arol Landow
Betty Langedyk
Viola Laski
Katharine Lee
Jeanette Leeper
June Lefor
Steve LeMay
Anne Leonard
Margaret Litten
Elizabeth Lizzio
Susan Lynch
Edna MacQuilkin
David Magdziarz
Anna Main
Judy Main
Richard Main
Catherine Majeske
Kay-Karol Mapp
Gabby Margo
Gretchen Martin
Margaret Martling
Geri Matsushita
Joyce Maluszewich
Melba Mayo
% illiam McCarthy
Mark McCollam
Ann McCorkle
Patsy McCoy

Jodie McNeel
Elizal>eth Meeker
Withrow Meeker
Beverlv Mever
Joanne Mitchell
(Carolyn Moore
\^ iley Moore
Patricia Morin
^cndv Morton
Debra Moskovits
LeMoync Mueller
Anne Murphy
Roger Mvers
(^harlita INachtrab
Mary Naunton
JoAnn Nelson
John Ben Nelson
Mary Nelson
Louise Neuert
Natalie Newberger
Ernest Newton
Herta Newton
Barbara Nielsen
Suzanne Niven
Bernice Nordenberg
Janis (VBove
John O'Brien
Joan Opila
Gary Ossewaarde
Anita Padnos
Raymond Parker
Susan Parker
Sally Parsons
Delores Patton
Frank Paulo
(Vleste Perry
Mar\ Ann Peruchini
Lorraine Peterson
Diane Pieklo
Kathleen Porter
Elizabeth Rada
Lori Recchia
Erin Reeves
Sheila Reynolds
Elly Ripp
Addie Roach
William Roder
Barbara Rooh
Rr>bert Rosberg
Brcnda Rosch
Sarah Rosenbloom
Marie Rosenthal
Anne Ross
Dennis Roth
Helen Ruch

Marc ftamet
Linda San<lberg
Tim Schalk
Alice Schneider
Sally Schoch
Sylvia Schuepperl
Carole Schumacher
Sandy Schweitzer
Beverlv Scott
Laura Seidman
Jean Sellar
Ruth Shaffner
Ann Shanower
Albert Shatzel
Louise Sherman
Judv Sherry
Elaine Sindelar
James Skorcz
Eleanor Skvdell
Burke Smith. Jr.
Kav Snook
Richard Spears
Beth Spencer
Irene Sjwnsley
Steve Sroka
Llois Stein
Lorain Stephens
Susan Streich
Jane Swanson
Beatrice Swartchild
James Swartchild
Patricia Talbot
Terri Talley
Jane Thain
Clare Tomaschoff
Peter Tortorice
Dana Treister
Harold Tsunehara
Karen Urnezis
Judv Valentine
Barbara Vear
Harold Voris
Harold Waterman
David Weiss
Peyton Wells
Fred Werner
LaDonna Whitmer
Ron \^ inslow
Kurt Wise
Reeva ^olfson
Ken Young
Karen Zaccor
Joanne Zak
Lvnn Zeger
Faith Zieske

GULLS continued from page 26

only enemies were skuas and vega gulls, which
took eggs and chicks. Buturlin found that the gulls
showed little fear of humans. If he disturbed them
from their nests, they would return if he remained
quiet as close as 30 or 40 yards away.

Buturlin found three-day-old chicks on July
1. On July 6 and 7 he found seven downy young in
different stages of growth. The chicks hid from
humans in clumps of carex, where they were well
camouflaged, or they avoided humans by creeping
through the grass to water and swimming away.
The adults tried to distract humans by fluttering
low over ground or water, then settling on the
water, calling, and looking here and there.
Sometimes they even tried to draw the human's

attention to terns' eggs or nests by fluttering near
them or landing near them. Fights with the terns
were likely to ensue.

The gulls began to leave the breeding
grounds as soon as the young were strong enough
to fly. This could be as soon as 20 days after
hatching. On July 22, Buturlin found only three
immature birds, and by August the breeding
grounds were deserted.

Relatively little has been learned about the
Ross' gull since Buturlin's study. Much remains to
be learned, but no matter how much is learned
about the bird, it will retain its aura of mystery
and fascination. It is a symbol of the endless en-
chantment of the arctic. This small dainty-looking
bird not only manages to survive in one of the
most severe climates on Earth, it thrives there. D

April and May at Field Museum

(April 15 through May 15)

Mew Exhibits

"The Art of Being Huichol." Opens May 5. Members preview
May 2, 3, and 4 during Members' Migiits. A major traveling
exhibition of more than 150 objects of Huichol Indian art. The
exhibit was organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco and Is sponsored by a grant from the National
Endowment for the Arts and by the Museum Society of the Fine
Arts Museums of San Francisco. The exhibit includes costumes,
votive objects, weavlngs, embroidery, beadwork, and yarn
"paintings." The "art of being Huichol" is the act of living a
devout life, and spiritual themes dominate their art. The Huichol
also value visionary experiences produced by the
hallucinogenic peyote and these images are reflected in their
dramatic yarn paintings. The Huichol live In an isolated area of
Western Mexico, and they remain one of the few traditional
Indian groups whose ancient beliefs and practices remain
unchanged even today. Through September 3, Hall 27.

"Lacquer Arts of Japan." Opens May 9. More than 150 delicate
objects comprise this exhibit of exquisite lacquer art from 1 8th-
and 19th-century Japan. "Lacquer Arts" Is planned in
conjunction with "Japan Today," an international festival being
held nationwide during April, .May, and June. The objects
displayed include items recently donated to the Museum by
John W. Leslie as well as specimens loaned by another Chicago-
area collector. On view will be finely crafted inro (small sectional
lacquer cases used to carry medicine), ojime beads, and nelsuke
(miniature carved pendents which hang from silk cords).
Portable shrines made of pins can also be seen. Examples of
early Chinese lacquer art will be exhibited for comparison.
Hall 32.

Continuing Exhibits

Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit from Five Continents.

Opened February 15. Conceived and created by Field Museum's
own staff, this exhibit features exotic feather objects from
around the world. Assembled almost entirely from In-house col-
lections, "Feather Arts " will travel to other museums nationwide
after its stay at Field Museum. The 260 artifacts, drawn from
1,000 years of history. Include such rarities as an Hawaiian
king's feather cape given to England's George IV In 1821, and
the feather shoes of an Australian sorcerer. This fascinating
exhibit examines the symbolic and religious meaning of feath-
ers over the centuries and illustrates the importance of feather-
work as a universal art form. Hall 26. Through June 15.

A Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural History. This exhibit
unites 63 natural history specimens with samples of philatelic
art. Projected to eventually cover the four disciplines of natural
history, the exhibit for the first 8 months is devoted to the ani-
mal kingdom as illustrated on stamps from all over the world.
"A Stamp Sampler" was conceived by Col. M. E. Rada, exhibit
guest curator. The exhibition was designed by Peter Ho, a Uni-
versity of Illinois graduate student.

New Programs

"Peru and Its Birds." An illustrated lecture with David E. Will-
ard, custodian of Field Museum's bird collection. Wednesday,
April 18, 1979, at 8:00 p.m. Peru has one of the most diverse
bird populations in the world. Dr. Willard spent 10 months there
studying fish-eating birds and searching for new species. He
surveys the major groups of Peruvian birds and discusses their
ecology and behavior in this slide lecture. James Simpson
Theatre. Members, $1.50; Monmembers, $3.00. A Members'
dinner precedes the lecture at 6:30 p.m. Dinner: $7.50. Phone:
922-9410, X 364 for reservations.

"American Indian Featherwork." A free demonstration of
American Indian featherworking techniques with Dixon Palmer,
an Indian of Kiowa and Choctaw descent. Saturday and Sunday,
April 21 and 22, 1979. 10:00 a.m. • 12 noon; 1:00p.m. - 3:00
p.m. Stanley Field Hall. Mr. Palmer, whose Indian name Is Tsain-
Sah-Hay or "Blue Hail, " Is a well-known expert in Indian feather-
work. His specialty is creating beautiful feather warbonnets; he
will demonstrate how these pieces are made, and explain what
they mean in Indian culture.

"Wings, Feathers, and Tales." Story Theatre with Maria Thes-
pians. Directed by Zivlle Numgaudus. Saturday and Sunday,
April 21 and 22, 1979, at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Delightful
story-telling sessions about the Importance of birds and their
feathers in folklore of cultures around the world. Ms. Num-
gaudus, a drama teacher at Maria High School In Chicago, reads
selected tales from North and South America, Canada, Hawaii,
and New Zealand while her brightly costumed group interprets
them through song, dance and drama. A program that will
fascinate adults and children alike. Lecture Hall II. Members,
$1.50; Nonmembers, $3.00. Tickets: 922-9410, X 364.

(Continued on back cover)

Members' Nights

Mark your calendar now for Members' Night, Field
Museum's annual open house for its Members, to be
held this year on Wednesday, May 2; Thursday. May 3;
and Friday. May 4.

As in the past, free round-trip charter bus service
will be provided between the Loop and the Museum.
These CTA buses, marked FIELD MUSEUM, will origi-
nate at the southwest corner of State and Jackson,
with stops at the southwest corner of Michigan and
Balbo. Two buses will be making continuous circuits,
beginning at 5:45 and passing at about 15-minute

intervals, until the Museum closes.

Plenty of free parking is available In Soldier Field
lots and the Planetarium parking area, with a shuttle
bus continuously circling the areas and collecting and
discharging passengers at the Museum's south steps.

From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. the Museum's food service
area will provide complete dinners or snacks.

So plan your Members' Night visit now, reacquaint
yourself with your Museum. Entertainment and educa-
tional programs will be offered on each of the three
evenings, from 6 until 10 p.m.

April and May at Field Museum

(Continued from inside cover)

New Programs

"The Edward E. Ayer Film Lectures" take place throughout
April. These free, adult-oriented travel films begin at 2:30 p.m.
on Saturdays. James Simpson Theatre. Admission is free at the
West entrance. April 21: "O Canada!" April 28: "Discover
Japan."

"Free Gamelan Concert." Friday, April 20, at 7:00 p.m.
Directed by Dr. Sue Carole DeVale. Field Museum's gamelan
master class will demonstrate the Museum's 19th-century Java-
nese gamelan to members of the American Musical Instruments
Society. Open to the public. Hall K, ground floor.

"The American Bald Eagle." A documentary filmed in the
Florida Everglades, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands which tells
the story of America's endangered national bird. Saturday, April
28, 1979, at 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. This 16-minute film
identifies the characteristics, life cycle, habitat, nesting and
breeding habits of the majestic bald eagle, and stresses the need
to continue vital conservation efforts. James Simpson Theatre.
Admission is free at the Museum's West entrance.

"Our Bald Eagle: Freedom's Symbol Survives." With Thomas
Dunstan, associate professor of biology at Western Illinois Uni-
versity. Sunday, April 29, 1979, at 2:30 p.m. Dr. Dunstan's slide
lecture on the plight of the American bald eagle is based on his
research of the last 10 years. He discusses the vital efforts being
made to conserve the American bald eagle population. Harvey
Webster, of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, joins Dr.
Dunstan and brings with him a live male bald eagle from the
project on artificial breeding of captive populations in progress
at the Cleveland Museum. James Simpson Theatre. Members,
$1.50; Honmembers, $3.00. Tickets: 922-9410, X 364.

"Great Scientists Speak Again." A series of six weekend film
programs honoring the world's great scientists. Professor Rich-
ard M. Eakin, University of California at Berkeley, impersonates
famous men of science and creates an authentic atmosphere
using the language, dress, and manner of the times. Professor
Eakin relives the important scientific discoveries, methods of
study, theories, and personal philosophies of these historic
figures through his imaginative portrayals on film. Admission is
free at the West entrance of the Museum. "William Harvey"; Fri-
day and Saturday, May 4 and 5 at 2:30 p.m. A. Montgomery
Ward Lecture Hall. "William Beaumont"; Friday and Saturday,
May 1 1 and 12, at 2:30 p.m. A. Montgomery Ward Lecture Hall.

A series of anthropological films about Japan will be presented
in conjunction with "Japan Today" cultural festivities;
"lyomande; The Ainu Bear Festival." Sunday, May 6, at 11:00
a.m. and 2:00 p.m. A. Montgomery Ward Lecture Hall. Made in
the 1930s, this film studies the Ainu tribe on Japan's northern
island of Hokkaido. Admission is free at the Museum's West
entrance.

"Discovering the Music of Japan." Sunday, May 13 at 11:00
a.m. and 2:00 p.m. A. Montgomery Ward Lecture Hall. Three
major Japanese instruments — the koto, the shakuhachi, and the

samisen — are demonstrated by skilled Japanese musicians in
this film.

"Members' Nights." Wednesday, May 2; Thursday, May 3; Fri-
day, May 4. Field Museum's behind-the-scenes open house will
be held on three consecutive evenings this year. From 6 p.m. to
10 p.m., the Museum offers a thrilling selection of activities —
special displays, lectures, games, tours, and demonstrations —
especially for Members. Research areas open at 7 p.m.

Continuing Programs

"Armchair Expeditions." Geared for adult groups, these in-
house "expeditions " include slide lectures and tours of selected
exhibits. Dining arrangements available. Special "Feather Arts "
slide lectures, presented by Phyllis Rabineau, curator-in-charge
of Field Museum's current "Feather Arts" exhibit, are available
in April. A visit to the exhibit follows. Reservations are required.
Call 922-0733 for more information.

Spring Journey. "The Meaning of Feathers." Through May 31.
Self-guided tour leads families and children through exhibits to
discover what birds and their feathers mean to various cultures.
Free Journey pamphlets are available at the North Information
Booth, and at the South and West doors.

Friend or Foe? The Natural History Game. Field Museum's
popular "Anthropology Game " has been expanded to include
botany, geology, and zoology. The object here is to determine
which one of a pair of apparently similar specimens is harmful
and which is not. See if you can distinguish a vampire bat, a
headhunter's axe, a poisonous mineral, or a deadly mushroom
from its benign look-alike. Ground floor, no closing date.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets,
adult- and family-oriented, are available for 25C each at the en-
trance to the Museum Shop, main floor north.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Guided tours, demonstrations,
and participatory activities. Every Saturday and Sunday, 10
a.m. to 3 p..

Volunteer Opportunities. Limited opportunities are available in
botany, geology, and zoology. Weekend volunteers with an
interest in natural history are needed to develop and present
weekend programs. For more information call 922-9410, X 360.

April and May Hours. During April, the Museum is open daily 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. except Fridays. In May, the Museum is open every
day 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. except Fridays. On Fridays, the Museum is
open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. throughout the year.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Obtain
a pass at the reception desk, main floor.

Museum Telephone: (312) 922-9410

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY BULL

Field Museum

of Natural History

Bulletin

May, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 5

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walsten
Production: Oscar Anderson
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff photographer: Ron Testa

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leiand Webber

CONTENTS

Field Briefs

Members' Tour of the Soviet Union

Members' Nights

The Remarkable Manatee

A Personal Adventure

By Thor Janson

Members' Tour to the Cook Islands

Members' Tour to Peru

Inro as Art

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
Goerge R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

William R. Dickinson, Jr.
Thomas E. Donnelley II
Marshall Field
Nicholas Calitzine
Paul W. Goodrich
Hugo J. Melvoin
William H. Mitchell
Charles F. Murphy, Jr.
James J. O'Connor
James H. Ransom
John S. Runnells
William L. Searte
Edward Byron Smith
Robert H. Strotz
John W. Sullivan
Mrs. Edward F. Swift
Edward R. Telling
Mrs. Theodore D. Tieken
E. Leiand Webber
Julian B. Wilkins
Blaine J. Yarringlon

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insult, Jr.
William V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

Notes on Japanese Lacquer Exhibition Opening
May 9

By Carolyn Moore, Bennet Bronson, Mary Barrett,
and Diane Zorich. Photos by Ron Testa

20 What's in a (Rock) Name?

By Edward Olsen, curator of mineralogy; photos by
Ron Testa

26 China Tour for Members

27 Project Antarctica: Members' Tour

30 Illinois Archaeology Field Trip

31 Weekend Field Trips for Members

32 Our Environment

35 May and June at Field Museum

Calendar of coming events

COVER

A frolicking shishi, or lion-dog, is depicted on this 19th-century
example of inro, a type of container used in ]apan initially for carry-
ing seals, and later for medicines. Worn exclusively by men, they
also served as status symbols. Like the one shown here, inro were
often made of lacquer and were exquisitely fashioned. This example,
9 cm. high, is executed in high relief using various elaborate gold lac-
quer techniques. Signed "Kajikawa" (a school of lacquer artists. 17th
to 19th century), ^255001. It is from a collection of remarkable
lacquerwares recently donated to Field Museum by John Woodworth
Leslie. These and other examples of Japanese lacquerware will be on
view in Hall 32 beginning May 9. Photo by Ron Testa. See story pp.
12-19.

Field Museum of Natural Histor\/ Bulletin is published monthly, except combined luly/August
issue, by Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. II.
60605. Subscriptions: $6 a year; S3 a year for schools. Museum membwrship includes Bulletin
subscription. Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the policy
of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster: Please send form 3579 to
Field Museum of Natural History. Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago II. 60605. ISSN:
0015-0703.

John Witek, of International Harvester Company, slices through a Field Museum meteorite.

International Harvester
Cuts Meteorites down to Size

Each year the Department of Geology
receives requests from laboratories all over
the world for the loan of meteorite
specimens. These are used for a variety of
experimental purposes and research
measurements.

Depending on the specific re-
quirements of the laboratory requesting a
meteorite loan, samples are frequently pro-
duced by being cut from larger specimens.
Samples of modest size can ordinarily be
cut by the saws in the Department of
Geology, but occasionally the piece re-
quired must come from a meteorite that is
too large for our saws to handle. When this
occurs the Museum has to call on outside
help.

For the second time in a decade, the In-
ternational Harvester Company, Manufac-
turing Research Division, of Hinsdale, III.,
has come to our aid in this matter. Their
saws, capable of handling objects as large as
tractor engine blocks, are ideally suited for
slicing chunks from "oversize" meteorites.

Alex V. Peterson, the division's direc-
tor of manufacturing research, recently
took eight meteorites — the largest weighing
155 pounds — and had them sawed for us.
Plant staff members Gordon Walters and
John Witek were responsible for the pro-
ject, Witek doing the actual cutting.

It was a problem, even for his heavy
duty equipment, because of the odd sizes
and shapes of the meteorites; they were dif-
ficult to clamp firmly into position. None-
theless, the cutting was completed in a
week's time. For years to come, smaller sec-

tions of these slices can be produced by the
Museum's saws as requests for specific
samples are received.

The Museum is grateful to Interna-
tional Harvester for the unique service they
have most generously provided.

Whitcomb Named to Anthropology Staff

Newly appointed as assistant curator of
Middle Eastern archaeology and ethnology
is Donald S. Whitcomb, most recently a
research fellow at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. A major, initial respon-
sibility of Whitcomb's will be a presenta-
tion of the exhibit "Treasures of Cyprus,"
opening June 14. In addition to cultures of
the Middle East, Whitcomb's respon-
sibilities will include Etruria and Rome.

Whitcomb received his B.A. from
Emory University, his M.A. from the
University of Georgia, and his Ph.D. from
the University of Chicago. His dissertation
was on "Trade and Tradition in Medieval
Southern Iran." Together with his wife,
Janet H. Johnson (associate professor at the
University of Chicago), he has worked on
an excavation at Quseir al-Qadim, an Egyp)-
tian port on the Red Sea, with Roman oc-
cupations in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D.
and Islamic occupations in the 13th and
14th centuries.

Donald R. Fischer Named Chief,
Security and Visitor Services

Field Museum's new chief of Security and
Visitor Services is Donald R. Fischer. He
succeeds Anthony DeBlase, who had held
the post since 1971. A native Chicagoan,
Fischer has returned to his home town after
more than twenty years service with the
U.S. Army Military Police Corps. His final
military assignment was as Criminal Intelli-
gence Coordinator in Hawaii.

Display case in neu' exhibit: Feather Arts:
Continents, on view until July 15 in Hall 26.

Beauty. Wealth, and Spirit froDi

Museum Cohosts Carboniferous
Congress in Urbana

Field Museum is a cosponsor of the techni-
cal sessions of the Ninth International Con-
gress of Carboniferous Stratigraphy and
Geology, to be held during the week of
May 21 in Urbana, Illinois. This important
congress, which meets every four years, last
met in Moscow, in 1975.

Members of the Department of Geol-
ogy who are taking an active role in this
year's congress include Gordon C. Baird,
assistant curator of fossil invertebrates;
Eugene S. Richardson, curator of fossil in-
vertebrates; Bertram G. Woodland, curator
of petrology; and Rainer Zangerl, curator
emeritus. These men will lead field trips to
specimen collecting localities in Illinois and
Indiana. Baird and Woodland are organiz-
ing a discussion group and will present
research results at the technical sessions. An
exhibit to be displayed at the congress is be-
ing developed by John Harris, preparator,
and other members of the staff.

Definitive Work Published
On Fossils of Mazon Creek

Mazon Creek Fossils is the title of a
581-page work published in May by
Academic Press, a subsidiary of Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich. Editor of the work,
consisting of eighteen technical papers is
Matthew H. Nitecki, curator of fossil
invertebrates. The papers were originally
presented during a symposium held at Ann
Arbor, Michigan, in May, 1978. Authors of
the papers include six members of the Field
Museum Geology staff and three Field
Museum research associates.

The study of the fossils of Mazon
Creek (some 50 miles southwest of
Chicago) had its beginnings in the
mid-1800s, when it first came to the
attention of distinguished geologists James
Dwight Dana and Edward Drinker Cope.
Today Mazon Creek is recognized as one of
the most important fossil beds in the world.
The present volume is the most
comprehensive work on the subject yet to
appear.

The 18 essays are arranged in four
groups; "Historical and Geological Papers "
(4), "Paleobotanical Papers" (3),
"Invertebrate Paleontology Papers" (8),
and "Vertebrate Paleontology Papers" (3).

Contributions by Field Museum staff
include "Mazon Creek Fauna and Hora: A
Hundred Years of Investigation," by
Matthew Nitecki; "Lithology and Fossil
Distribution, Francis Creek Shale in
Northeastern Illinois," by Gordon C. Baird;
'The Occurrence and Origin of Siderite
Concretions in the Francis Creek Shale
(Pennsylvania) of Northeastern Illinois,"
coauthored by Bertram G. Woodland;
"Polyplacophoran Molluscs of the Essex
Fauna (Middle Pennsylvanian, Illinois),"
coauthored by Eugene S. Richardson;
"Middle Pennsylvanian (Desmoinesean)
Cephalopoda of the Mazon Creek Fauna,
Northeastern Illinois," coauthored by
Richardson; "New Chondrichthyes from
the Mazon Creek Fauna (Pennsylvanian) of
Illinois," by Rainer Zangerl; and
"Amphibami4S grandiceps as a Juvenile
Dissorophid: Evidence and Implications."
by John Bolt.

Contributions by Field Museum
research associates include 'The Mazon
Creek Biotas in the Context of a
Carboniferous Faunal Continuum," by

Frederick R. Schramm; "Eviu<;ni.c lor
Subaerial Activity of Euproops danae
(Merostomata, Xiphosurida)," by Daniel C.
Fisher; and "Fishes of the Mazon Creek
Fauna," by David Bardack.

New Exhibition:
"The Art of Being Huichol"

This traveling exhibition of more than 150
objects of Huichol Indian art opens in Hall
27 on May 5. The exhibit was organized by
the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
and is sponsored by a grant from the Na-
tional Endowment for the Arts and by the
Museum Society of the Fine Arts Museums
of San Francisco. The exhibit includes
costumes, votive objects, weavings, em-
broidery, beadwork, and yam "paintings."
The "art of being Huichol" is the act of
living a devout life, and spiritual themes
dominate the art of these people. The Hui-
chol also value visionary experiences pro-
duced by the hallucinogenic peyote and
these images are reflected in their dramatic
yam paintings. The Huichol live in an iso-
lated area of western Mexico, and they re-
main one of the few traditional Indian
groups whose ancient beliefs and practices
remain unchanged even today. The exhibi-
tion closes September 3.

Spring Systematics Symposium

On May 12 Field Museum will host its
second annual Spring Systematics
Symposium. The topic of this yeju-'s
meeting is "Origins and Maintenance of
Diversity."

David M. Raup, chairman of Reld
Museum's Department of Geology, will
speak on "History of Phanerozoic
Diversity." Other speakers include Sidney
Anderson, American Museum of Natural
History; Joseph H. Connell, University of
California, Santa Barbara; Karen E.
Loeblich, University of California, Davis;
Howard L. Sanders, Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute; and Robert H.
Whittaker, Cornell University.

Museum Geologist Honored

Edward J. Olsen, curator of mineralogy,
has been awarded The Distinguished Ser-
vice Medal in Antarctic Research by the
Office of Polar Programs of The National
Science Foundation. The award is shared
with two of his colleagues, William A.
Cassidy of the University of Pittsburgh and
William P. Glass of the University of
Delaware. The award is in recognition of
the innovation of the very successful mete-
orite recovery program on the ice cap in
Antarctica. Olsen collected meteorites in
the region in 1977.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

Exclusive Tour Packages for Members and Their Families

Very little time remains to sign up for Field Museum's tour
of the Soviet Union; May 15 is the deadline for bookings.
The tour. "Treasures of Russia and the Ukraine." leaves
Chicago's O'Hare Airport June 19 and returns July 8.

Highlights of the tour, exclusively for Field Museum
members and their families, will include visits to the cities
of Moscow, Vladimir, Kiev, Leningrad, Petrovorets, Nov-
gorod, and Petrozavodsk. The group, limited to 35 per-
sons, will be led from Chicago by a Russian-speaking
lecturer and a Russian-speaking escort, with additional
guides while in the Soviet Union provided by Intourist (the
Soviet Travel Bureau).

The tour cost-$2,970 (which includes a $500.00
donation to Field Museum)— is based upon double occu-
pancy and includes round trip air fare from Chicago to

Moscow, with intra-Russian air transportation where re-
quired. The transatlantic airline is Swissair.

Treasures of Russia and the Ukraine

Church of the Assumption, Moscow

Members Nights

Field Museum's Open House for Members

May 2, 3, 4

Chicago's big social event for May will, with-
out a doubt, be Members' Night at Field
Museum. This, at least, is the opinion of
the Museum staff, which is busy preparing a
"feast" of unusual displays, "live" exhibits, dem-
onstrations, and intellectual games for Museum
Members. From 6 to 10 p.m.. on three successive
evenings— May 2. 3, and 4— Members will also
see what goes on in the non-public areas: the lab-
oratories, preparation rooms, collection storage
areas (where more than 99 percent of the Muse-
um's specimens are kept); they will also have an
opportunity to chat with curators and other staff.
Members will have the opportunity to see many
building improvements that have been made in
the past three years as part of the Museum's $25
million rehabilitation program. An additional at-
traction on these three nights is the chance to
preview the new exhibit "The Art of Being Hui-
chol" — an exciting display of more than 150 ob-
jects of Huichol Indian art.

All of this activity will, of course, be supple-

mented with food and drink, and the spacious
grandeur of Stanley Field Hall will resound with
live music.

As in the past, free round-trip charter bus
service will be provided between the Loop and the
Museum. These CTA busses, marked FIELD
MUSEUM, will originate at the southwest corner
of State and Jackson, with stops at the southwest
corner of Michigan and Balbo. Two busses will be
making continuous circuits, beginning at 5:45 and
passing at about 15-minute intervals, until the
Museum closes.

Plenty of free parking is available in Soldier
Field lots and the Planetarium parking area, with a
shuttle bus continuously circling the areas and col-
lecting and discharging passengers at the
Museum's south steps.

From 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. the Museum's food
service area will provide complete dinners or
snacks.

All Field Museum Members and their fami-
lies are urged to come, and to reacquaint them-
selves with their Museum.

The Remarkable Manatee

A Personal Adventure

B^THOR JANSON

Photos by the author

"On the previous day, when the admiral went to
the Rio del Oro, he saw three mermaids which
rose well out of the sea. . . . They were not as
beautiful as they are painted though they had
something of a human face. "
— From the ship's log of the Santa Maria, January
9, 1493.

Three months earUer, Christopher Colum-
bus's tiny ship had first come upon the shores of
the New World. Mariners, traditionally, have a
special reputation for the spinning of tall tales. But
in the case of Columbus's mermaids, we can
believe that the account in his log had some basis
in fact. Together with his discovery of the New
World, Columbus had also come upon one of the
Americas' most remarkable creatures, the
manatee.

This aquatic mammal belongs to the order
Sirenia, often described as the most endangered of
all mammal groups. Along with the order Cetacea
(whales and dolphins), the sirenians are the most
at home in a watery environment, having no hind
legs and being unable to move on land. We have
evidence that the Sirenia were evolved in North
Africa from the same stock that gave rise to the
Proboscidea (elephants). Early forms have been
discovered in Eocene deposits (55 to 65 million
years old) in Egypt as well as in the West Indies.
The presence of the manatee genus Trichechus
along the eastern and western shores of the Atlan-
tic and its avoidance of the open sea are con-
sidered further evidence that a continuous
coastline once existed between Africa and
America.

Sirenians are the only animals on earth in
which we find classical pachiostosis, which means
that all of their bones — like ivory — are very
hard and dense. They are also unique among
mammals as the only large aquatic herbivores. In
size, adults range from eight to twelve feet at
maturity and weigh between 800 and 1,500
pounds. Their bodies are fusiform, or torpedo-
shaped, and their skin is very thick, not unlike an
elephant's. This has a sparse growth of large
hairs — about one per square inch of body surface.

There are three living manatee species: the
African (Trichechus senegalensis) , the Amazonian
(T. ininguis), and the West Indian (T. manatus);
and one species of dugong (Dugong dugong). The
major difference between manatees and the

dugong is in the tail: The dugong's is fluked, like a
whale's, while the manatee's is round and rather
spoon-shaped. The largest of the Sirenia of
modem times was Steller's sea cow (Hydromalis
gigas), which lived in the Bering Sea. This species
was slaughtered into extinction in 1768, less than
30 years after being discovered.

Dugongs are listed in the I. U.C.N. Red
Data Book as "vulnerable," in terms of threats to
the species' survival. Their range is from eastern
Africa to Australia, but their numbers are now
much depleted in most of this area. The largest
concentration appears to be along Australia's
northwest coast.

The continued survival of the three
manatee species appears to be in a much more
critical state than that of the dugong. The Red
Data Book describes the African manatee, which
ranges along Africa's west coast from Senegal to
Angola, as "seriously depleted throughout its
range" and the Amazonian species as "in real
danger of extinction."

The West Indian manatee is faring no bet-
ter. It once flourished in coastal waters, rivers,
and lagoons of the United States from as far north
as North Carolina to southern Texas, the waters
surrounding the Bahamas and Greater Antilles to
the Yucatan, southern Mexico, and along the
Atlantic shores of Central and South America to
Brazil. Today, its occurrence in North America is
limited almost exclusively to Florida, where a
population estimated at 600 to 1,000 is actively
protected.

Throughout Latin America the manatees
have been aggressively hunted for their much
prized meat and oil. In some cases, as with the
Amazonian species, intensive commercial ex-
ploitation has brought them very near extinction.
Where once they were commonly seen in groups
of hundreds, even thousands, they are now so rare
as to be virtually nonexistent. Only scattered
enclaves along the South American coast continue
to offer some refuge.

Before the Spanish conquest, the manatee
was a familiar sight to the Mayan Indians of

Thor ]anson, supervisor of the Guatemalan Manatee
Project, is on the faculty of the School of Biology, San
Carlos University of Guatemala.

Guatemala. Their high regard for this animal was
not only because of its delicious meat, but because
they believed it to have certain supernatural
powers. The animal's earbone was worn as a
talisman. The Mayans had a special process for
drying manatee meat, the product being known as
buccan. The name "buccaneer," according to one
theory, was given to early freebooters and pirates
who relied on buccan as a food staple.

One of the earliest references to the New
World manatee was that of the Spanish explorer
Fuentes y Guzman, who wrote in 1700 that "not
only in Lake Izabal and the Rio Dulce, but along
the entire coast from Mexico to Nicaragua they
are caught in huge quantities during the whole
year." In the encyclopedia Biologia Centrali
Americana (London 1882) we already find con-
cern over the declining manatee population. The
encyclopedia's article on the manatee notes that
Lake Izabal was a primary reservoir for the species
but doubt is expressed concerning its prospects for
survival; hunting had already made serious in-
roads into the lake's manatee population.

In the late 1930s, Field Museum zoologist
C. M. Barber spent several weeks on Lake Izabal
collecting manatees. He described large herds that
could easily be approached by canoe, but he often
experienced days when none could be seen.
Observed Barber: "It will be interesting to hear the
facts someday from some competent field
naturalist who is not too busy accumulating
specimens so that he may spend the necessary time
(to study the habits of the manatee). Let us hope
that the manatee is not extinct before that day
comes."

"In a quick move-
ment, she pushed her
nose upward,
nudging my hand. "

At the same time that they were declining
in Guatemala, manatees were becoming all but
nonexistent along much of the Mexican and Cen-
tral American coast. In some areas the animals
had apparently begun to alter their behavior pat-
terns — adaptations which have no doubt helped
them avoid being wiped out. Their only defense
against this fate was concealment. No longer
would herds of manatee be seen grazing lazily,
surfacing at frequent intervals, like dolphins. In
1935 zoologist O. W. Barrett wrote that the
manatee of the Indio River of southern Nicaragua
were largely nocturnal and particularly surrep-
titious, seldom being found in groups.

Their continued survival in some waters
might well be attributable to this change of habit.
Hunters of manatee now had to stalk them for
hours and days at a time, and in most areas great
skill was required just to locate them. The hunter
learned to be absolutely silent, knowing that the
slightest noise could "spook" a manatee hundreds
of meters away. Hunters came to Lake Izabal even
from Honduras, hoping to bring home a supply of
fresh manatee meat, described by a contemporary
writer as "the most delicious flesh in the world,
... its parts having no less than seven different
and distinct flavors."

Until very recently, manatees in Lake
Izabal were most populous along the lake's
western end, by the mouths of two large rivers,
the Rio Polochic and Rio Oscuro. Heavy silting
and frequent inundation of adjacent land had
created there a swamp interlaced with small
canals, not unlike those of the Florida Everglades.
Among lush growth of grasses and water lilies the

(Continued
on p. 28)

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

COOfC ISLANDS

The Unique Opportunity to see a hidden comer of the fabled
South Seas awaits a select group of Field Museum Members.
Accompanied by three staff scientists, from July 14 to 31. a visit
to the Cook Islands will involve comfortable living in a still-un-
spoiled paradise. It will be the dry season, with clear lagoon
waters, sunshine guaranteed, and comfortable temperatures.

The tour's scientific lecturer/escorts will be Dr. Alan
Solem, curator of invertebrates. Dr. Robert K. Johnson, associate

curator of fishes, and Dr. Elizabeth L. Girardi, research associate
in invertebrates. Dr. Solem has participated in many expeditions
to this part of the globe and has written extensively on its fauna.
Dr. Johnson, a certified SCUBA diver and expert on coral reef
fishes, has participated in many diving expeditions to both the
South Pacific and the Caribbean. Dr. Girardi has also made many
collecting trips to the South Pacific, concentrating on marine
invertebrates.

The tour, limited to 25 persons, will travel via Air New
Zealand. The tour cost— $2,650 (includes a $400 donation to
Field Museum) — is based upon double occupancy and includes
round trip air fare to and from Chicago. Also included is all inter-
island transportation, all meals (except lunches in Hawaii) and all
inflight meals, all admissions to special events, where required; all
baggage handling, plus all transfers, all applicable taxes and tips.
Advance deposit required: $400 per person.

For full itinerary and other information, write or call
Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours, Roosevelt Road at Lake
Shore Drive. Chicago, 111. 60605. Phone: (312) 922-9410,
X-251.

Tour members will stay at the Rarotangar^. the Cook Islar^ds' r\ew luxury hotel.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

Exclusive Tour Packages for Members and Their Families

Fabulous Machu Picchu, one of the sites to be uisited on Field Museunn's Peru tour.

PERU

In 1978 Field Museum was host to a dazzling exhibit of
golden treasures from ancient Peru. Now Field Museum
members and their families can visit some of the archeo-
iogical sites where those treasures were discovered. A
20-day tour (Oct. 27-Nov. 15) will visit the famed ruins of
Machu Picchu, Chan Chan, Pachacamac, Purgatario, and
others. Also on the itinerary are the Plains of Nazca
(viewed from low-flying aircraft), the offshore Guano
Islands, and the famous Pisac Indian Fair. The group,
limited to 20 persons, will be led by Dr. Michael Moseley,
associate curator of middle and South American arche-
ology and ethnology, and by Robert Feldman, assistant in
archeology. Both Moseley and Feldman have done exten-
sive archeological work in Peru; a tour escort will also
accompany the group.

The tour cost— $2,998 (which includes a $500

donation to Field Museum)— is based upon double occu-
pancy and includes round trip air fare between Chicago
and Peru, as well as local flights in Peru. Delta Airlines will
be used between Miami and Chicago, connecting with
Aeroperu.

For full itinerary and other information, write or call
Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours, Roosevelt Road at
Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, 111. 60605. Phone: (312)
922-9410, X-251.

1 . Young man with
\ under pine tree,
III gold lacquer on a
black ground. Signed
"Kama Kansai"
(early 19th c).
Height 6.2 cm.
#255068.

INRO AS ART

Notes on a Japanese Lacquer Exhibition

BY CAROLYN MOORE, BENNET BRONSON, MARY BARRETT, AND DIANE ZORICH

PHOTOS BY RON TESTA

The LaCQUERWARE of Japan has long been famous. It is
tough, brilliant in design, luxurious to the eye, and
profoundly appealing to almost everyone. Yet on the whole it
has been surprisingly neglected by Western museums and
students of art. Perhaps because of prejudice in favor of "fine
arts" such as sculpture and painting, or perhaps just because
they have not seen enough of it, the majority dismiss Japanese
lacquer as splendid but trivial. Recently, however, a minority
has begun to take the subject more seriously. Lacquerwares
are seen as important cultural documents and also as art,
often of very considerable merit. Extremists have even
claimed that certain lacquer pieces are "the most perfect
objects ever to have come from the hand of man."

On May 9, Field Museum will open an exhibition that
may help viewers decide these issues for themselves. Entitled
Inro, Shrines, and Netsuke: the Art Lacquer of Japan, the
exhibition comprises some 350 objects that have been donated
or loaned to the Museum within the past year: 100 lacquer
inro with accompanying netsuke and ojime beads, 25
miniature lacquer shrines, and about 25 lacquer boxes, trays,
bowls, and so forth. The bulk of these come from the
remarkable collection of lacquerwares recently donated by
John Woodworth Leslie; in addition, 35 fine inro sets have
been loaned for the exhibition by another noted Chicago-area
collector. A number of objects have also been drawn from the
comprehensive Japanese collection donated to Field Museum
last year by Mr. and Mrs. G. E. Boone. Quite by chance, the
generosity of these Japan-specialized collectors coincided with
the Museum's decision to participate in a city-wide festival of
Japanese culture, Japan Today, scheduled to begin April 26.
The Museum was thus given both means and motive to install
12

its first Japanese exhibition in 50 years.

Oriental lacquer (which should not be confused with
the shiny paints known by that name in Western countries) is
technically the resinous sap of several small trees and thick
vines native to China and Japan but closely related to North
American poison ivy and poison sumac. Like those plants,
raw lacquer contains a contact poison that causes severe
dermatitis. The nonpoisonous finished lacquerware is made
by applying numerous coats of the purified resin over a very
thin base of wood or other material and letting these harden
slowly, each for several weeks or months, in a moisture-laden
atmosphere. Interestingly, lacquer will not harden at all
under dry conditions. Once "dry," the resin forms a natural
polymer that is highly resistant to chemical and biological
damage. Only extreme dryness harms it; otherwise it is as
nondegradeable as most modern plastics.

This paradoxical combination of durability and
delicacy of appearance explains why lacquerwares have been
popular in the Orient since ancient times and why they are
quite often found at archeological sites in China, Korea, and
Japan. The finds from China are the oldest. They go back
more than 2,500 years, showing that (as Chinese and Japanese
traditions have always maintained) it was the Chinese who
invented the lacquer-making process. Local manufacture of
lacquerware may not have begun in Japan until the seventh

Carolyn Moore is a volunteer in the Department of Anthropology
and a long-term student of Japanese lacquers. Bennet Bronson is
associate curator of Asian archeology and ethnology. Mary Barrett,
of the University of Pennsylvania, and Diane Zorich. of Loyola
University, are student interns in the Department of Anthropology.

century AD. However, once begun — as has happened in
several other cases of foreign technology imported into Japan
— the Japanese rapidly made up for lost time. By the
twelfth century, Japanese lacquer workers could already teach
their Chinese counterparts as much as they learned from
them. By the early thirteenth century, the lacquerwares of
Japan were unsurpassed, even in Chinese eyes. The later
Tokugawa or Edo Period, between 1600 and 1850, became the
last Golden Age of lacquer work.

It was an age of gold literally as well as figuratively,
for gold was the dominant color on lacquer of the period:
gold on translucent black; gold inlaid with iridescent shell;
gold dust mixed with other metals and mineral pigments; gold
of many forms and shades inlaid into, sprinkled and
mounded on, and cut down into golden surfaces, all by
semisecret techniques known to the connoisseur by a
bewildering variety of names. To be sure, decorative methods
were used that might require no use of gold at all — for
instance, the plain wood surfaces shown in figures 7 and 8, or
the deep-relief effects seen in figures 2 and 3. But almost
always, at least a little gold was present. It was the hallmark
of a luxurious age.

The most typical expressions of Tokugawa lacquer
work are the small sectional cases known as inro, of which 26
(all from the Leslie Collection) have been chosen for
illustrations here. The original inro seem to have been
utilitarian containers for medicines, seals, or aromatic herbs,
worn hanging by a cord from the belt and kept from slipping
by an ojime bead and a netsuke at the cord's other end. Inro
soon lost this purely practical function, however. With the
exception of pipe and tobacco cases, they were the only
costume accessory worn by men in a society where jewelry
and other adornment were not customary but where wealth
was great and social competition intense. Inro therefore
almost inevitably turned into important status symbols.

The Tokugawa shoguns deliberately encouraged
luxurious living by members of the old samurai aristocracy
and at the same time permitted the rise of a newly prosperous

urban merchant class. The result was an unprecedenieJ
demand for inro, to which the lacquer artists responded -.'>',.;,
a last great surge of creativity. Older techniques were
perfected and many new ones developed. Designs reached
new heights of technical finish and — naturally — of cost.
Certain Tokugawa inro are among the best of all lacquerware
and possibly the finest of any of the world's miniature art
forms.

Whether the most technically perfect are necessarily
the most beautiful is a matter of taste. Many modern
enthusiasts, Japanese and American alike, tend to prefer inro
with simple, understated designs — like those we see in figures
5 and 24 —to such wildly ornate "bourgeois" productions as
the one shown on the Bulletin cover. But, as careful
examination of the next few pages will reveal, even the
gaudiest pieces may show great power and subtlety as well as
an experimental, even daring, approach to problems of
design. Motifs may be drawn from mythology, from other
arts like landscape painting, print-making, and weaving, or
from direct, often humorous, observation of everyday life.
All are adapted to the constricted curving surface of the inro
with impressive skill. Looking at a photograph, one easily
forgets that the piece in question is only a few inches high.

Inro passed out of use with the introduction of
Western styles of dress in the mid-nineteenth century and
continued to be made for only a few years after that. At the
present day, lacquer arts of all sorts are in serious decline.
The surviving traditionally trained masters are said to have
few successors, and they themselves have been but a handful
during the past fifty years or so. Very little good lacquer has
in fact been made since the end of the nineteenth century, and
this leads to a conclusion of interest to collectors and
curators: Japanese lacquer, almost alone among the world's
artistic media, is now essentially unfakeable. The skills are so
rare and the traditional processes so time-consuming that a
plausible fake would be prohibitively expensive, while a
forgery made by non-traditional processes would hardly fool
an alert ten year-old. D

Opening an Inro.
Although most inro
are constructed like
the two on the lower
left, many other
arrangements of the
component parts are
possible. All inro are
designed to hang
from a cord that
passes through an
ojime bead and is
tied to a netsuke at
the other end. 13

2. Dragon and waves, executed in high relief on carved vermilion
lacquer — a Chinese-originated technique called tsuishu. Unsigned.
Height 9 cm. §255021.

3. 100 different forms of the word ju, "longevity , " excised from thick
black lacquer in tsuikoku technique. Unsigned. Height 7.7 cm.
§254995.

4. Female court figure holding peony, carved with gold lacquer
techniques in high and low relief against a rust and brown ground.
Signed "Kajikawa" (early 19th c). Unusually large — height 13.9 cm.
§255031.

5. Design of 3 birds, in flat gold and silver lacquer on a translucent
copper-red ground. Signed "]ushu" (early 19th c). Height 7.8 cm.
§254984.

6. Design of bamboo carved in high relief with leaves in gold lacquer.
Signed "S/ioto" {ISth-early 19th c). Height 8.2 cm. #255009.

7. Herringbone-patterned wood inro with gold lacquer shells show-
ing design of a court hat, or kanmuri, framed by clouds. Signed
"Shogyokusai" (early 19th c). Height 8.7 cm. #254925.

8. Carved wooden turtle with many details, covered by thin layer of
transparent lacquer. Signed "Sui" (date unknown). Height 8.5 cm.
§254916.

9. Okame. a mythological figure, admiring flowering chrysanthe-
mums. Executed in clear lacquer on cedar, with gold and silver lac-
quer details on a brown ground. Signed "Yoyusai" (1772-1845).
Height 8.3 cm. §255077.

10. Young woman playing with children performing a shishima'i
New Year's dance: in pearl shell, silver, ivory, and gold applied on a
gold lacquer ground. Signed "Nakayama" (of the Shibayama school,
probably early 19th c). Height 11 cm. §254937.

12. Toy peddler blowing bubble for attentive child. Executed in
coral, pearl shell, and other stones, on a gold fundame ground.
Signed "Nakayama" (probably early 19th c). Height 9.5 cm.
§255023.

11. Plum blossom in pearl ilieli and glass with gold lacquer leaves on
a black ground enriched with squares of cut gold. Signed 'Sakahisa'
(date uncertain). Height 10 cm. #255096.

13. Daikoku, a mythological guardian figure, scattering beans to
chase away demons. Gold and silver lacquer detailing inlay of
abalone shell. Height 9.2 cm. §255015.

14. Various species of insects, in gold lacquer and shell inlaid on a
black lacquer ground. Signed "Koma Bunsai" (late 18th-early 19th
c). Height 6.5 cm. ^254992.

16. Outline in form of a samurai in full battle dress, executed in
several gold lacquer techniques and with pearl- and abalone-shell
inlay, all over a brown lacquer ground. Signed "Yamada Joka" (a
17th century artist, this inro is later). Very large, with height of 15.5
cm. #254956.

15. A series of floral designs, in sections that exhibit various types of
nashiji (gold flake-ornamented) grounds. Unsigned. Height 9 cm.
§255058.

17. Entrance to a shrine as described in the Tale of Genji, in relief
lacquer ornamented with colored lacquer and cut gold leaf.
Unsigned. Height 9.2 cm. #255086.

18. An oni, a type of demon, poised to attack. Executed in relief with
gold and various colored lacquers. Signed "Kajikawa" (probably
early 19th c). Height 8 cm. if254962.

19. A hanging vine with leaves and gourds, signifying autumn. The
black ground is complexly textured, with the gold and silver plant
motifs in low relief. Signed "Chikakusai" (date unknown). Height 8
cm. §254919.

20. furojin. the god of longevity, seated on a deer. In shibuichi metal
alloy applied on low-relief lacquer. Signed "Tei Sai" (date unknown).
Height 10.8 cm. §255061.

21. Inro in the shape of a Buddhist prayer gong, with panels of fish
scales and confronting dragon-fish as the handle. In gold and red
lacquer. Unsigned. Height 6.1 cm. §255025.

■*■■"'■ ''"iWiliiiiiiiiiiilk

_^, ■-■■'■ ■ ■ ■*.: ■

'^B

22. Design from a Japanese print: lady with parasol. The raised panel
is framed with a mosaic of large gold flakes. Signed "Kajikawa"
(probably early 19th c). Height 9 cm. §254978.

23. Owl perching on a crooked maple branch. In cut gold-enriched
relief against a brown mokume ground simulating wood or tree
bark. Signed "Jitokusai Gyokuzan" (18th c). Height 7 cm. §254981.

24. A design of two birds on a fruiting persimmon branch, in gold,
silver and colored lacquer relief on a red-brown ground. Unsigned ,
possibly 18th c. Height 6.8 cm. §254974.

25. A coiled snake poised to strike at a frog on the other side of the
inro. High relief in gold and colored lacquers on a green ground.
Signed "fokasai" (17th c, the inro is much later). Height 6.9 cm.
§255074.

What's in a (Rock) name?

The names of rocks continue to be the bugbear
of geologists and rock hounds alike.

BY EDWARD OLSEN

PHOTOS BY
RON TESTA

It seems only logical that any of us interested in
the natural world should want to learn the names
of the creatures and objects that make up that
world. Of course, it's understood that the
creatures and inanimate objects of nature have no
names in themselves — we are only learning
names that other men have assigned them. No one
knows, for example, what a robin calls itself, or if
red trillium has any sense of its own identity.
Nevertheless, there is a real feeling of satisfaction
in being able to recognize, by name, some natural
creature or object. It gives us a sense of belonging,
a bond with others who enjoy the same things,
and, in recounting to others our joys in natural
settings, we can communicate complicated
descriptions in a few simple words.

More and more people are getting into
natural history as a hobby. Each one seeks help in
learning through a number of avenues: field guide
books, taking courses, and joining clubs with
others of similar interests. For most of these hob-
byists there is pretty good help. Peterson's classic
Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America,
for example, requires little skill to use. You spot
your birds, riffle through the pages of color plates
until you get a match, and there you have it — a
sense of real accomplishment. You read the basic
description of the bird, its habits and habitat, and
you've made a friend for life.

Edward Olsen is curator of mineralogy.

A group of crystals of the mineral quartz, from arkansas (about half life-size). Quartz is a very common mineral in the
earth's crust — a constituent of many rock types. Crystals of this size and quality, however, are rare. Most occur-
rences are colorless (as here), but quartz also may he purple, violet, pink, yellow, amber, or black.

'%J

This is a radiating cluster of gypsum crystals (life-size) from Australia. Gypsum is widespread, ranging in crystal size
from huge prisms six feet long down to dust-size grains. It is mostly colorless, but may be tan or amber in color.

If you are a wild flower freak you have a
bit hairier row to hoe. Plants come in more varied
forms than birds, so you'll probably have to spend
some time learning how to use a key to identifica-
tion. You'll have more initial frustrations, but
gradually a sense of familiarity will creep in as you
successfully identify the first few dozen spring and
summer wildf lowers in your area. With their
shapes and structures as a basis, each newly en-
countered species becomes a bit easier — just like
learning a new language.

So it goes, for those who are into all kinds
of wild things: mosses, mushrooms, stars, mam-
mals, fossils, snails, insects (especially butterflies),
and on and on and on. The most benighted soul,
however, in this whole scene is the poor fellow
who decides that rock collecting is his thing. For
him there is no avenue to the level of expertise en-
joyed by his friend who might be deeply into bird
watching. Although he may invest heavily in
books — and half a dozen "new" ones enter the
market each year — in hand lenses of different
powers, reference kits, and may even join several
organizations in the realm of mineralogy, he
seems to be forever doomed to being unable to
identify the objects of his affection — rocks.

At some stage he may decide that the cause

of this is a cabal of professional geologists, who
resent amateurs for some perverse reason, and
have invented a methodology and terminology so
complex as to exclude him. Alas, professionals
wish the answer were so simple. If it were, you can
be certain that long ago some pro, for the sake of
the kinds of royalties that Roger Tory Peterson en-
joys for his bird books, would break ranks and
publish the definitive field guide to the rocks and
minerals of the earth. He'd become a wealthy
man. The fact that it hasn't happened yet is
because it cannot be done. Let me explain.

Rock names are names given to objects that '
consist of a group of minerals. To start the process
of naming a rock you have to be able to identify
the minerals. What's a mineral? A mineral is a
natural occurring (that is, not man-made or man-
caused) chemical compound. To know even the
simplest things about minerals you have to know
a little something about chemistry — not a lot, but
you must have some basic familiarity with
chemical symbols and ideas. Right there, 95 per-
cent of the amateurs are wiped out. Most people
have never had any exposure to chemistry in
school. Sure, one can always say that old time
prospectors found minerals and didn't know any
chemistry either. True, they also made lots and

This is a 12-inch-long cluster of prisms of stibnite, the world's main ore of the element antimony. These beautiful,
large crystals are from Japan, where they were once mined as ore. They are now collectors' items. Most stibnite occurs
as tiny gray needles, or even as shapeless lumps.

^ ■' V

ff f

lots of mistakes. True stories abound of goof-ups
made by chemically-innocent prospectors and
miners — like the partners who mined out a few
tens of thousands of dollars in gold, abandoned
the mine, and left behind several millions in
platinum on their waste heaps. We're trying for
some level of understanding where we don't make
too many simple errors — like our friend the bird-
watcher who can spot a rare type of sparrow in
the dim dusk just by the way it perches on a
branch.

The next thing a mineral is, it's (usually)
crystalline. Here the confusion for the beginner
starts to compound. In his mind the word
"crystal" can mean anything from the baubles on
his rich aunt's chandelier, to the gift of glassware
he gave his sister on the occasion of her wedding.
Both are useless concepts in trying to understand
the crystalline state. Again it has to do with
chemistry, with atoms, and with three-
dimensional geometry. Here's where the books
come in.

There are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of
books on the market that purport to lead you into
mineral and rock identification. All these books
are well-intentioned, and with varying degrees of
sophistication. Some attempt, futilely, to explain
concepts of chemistry and then plunge on to
minerals and rocks. Others use chemical jargon
without much explanation, leaving the uninitiated
reader frustrated. Almost all of them make the
same fatal error — they show pictures of perfect
museum exhibit-quality crystals of the minerals
they're describing — lovely colorful prisms with
nice smooth crystal faces. One of the most com-
mon complaints of a collector is that, in the course
of his collecting, he has never seen a sample of
such-and-such a mineral that looks like the pic-
tures in the books. Of course he hasn't. The books

almost always illustrate the finest specimens that
the writer can get his hands on. Artistically these
photos please the writer and excite the potential
collector (buyer), but the average collector is
never likely to find such a specimen in a lifetime of
looking.

The next big problem encountered by the
reader and, before him, the author of such books,
is how to describe the mineral in the text. Going
back to our example of bird watching, let's im-
agine a bird book that gave the description of
some common bird like this: "Rusty brown breast
that may sometimes be blue, yellow, white, green,
or red; back and wings often black, but may also
be yellow, purple, brown, or pink; varies in size
from 1/16 of an inch to 27 feet long; found on all
continents, at all elevations, in all environments,
at all times of the year"!

It is obvious that the characteristics
described here are so inexact they are utterly con-
fusing,if not entirely useless. Well, many minerals
are like that. Let's take a very common mineral as
an example, potassium feldspar. Depending on the
atomic arrangements in the innards of this fellow,
he can be called orthoclase, microcline, adularia,
high sanidine, low sanidine, or amazonite. Only a
small change in the chemistry — adding a pinch of
sodium and withdrawing a pinch of potassium —
and you can name it anorthoclase, perthite, or
moonstone. The colors of any one of these can
vary widely. Take microcline for example. I've
seen it white, gray, pink, brown, dark red, green,
and even black — same mineral! Take the size of
the crystals. They range from pinhead-size specks
found in most beach sands, all the way up to a
single crystal mined out in Europe (it's used to
make kitchen scrubbing cleansers, among other
things) that was the size of a Chicago city bus.
This mineral has no distinctive locale — it's found

everywhere in the earth's crust, in all ages of
rocks, and in a large variety of rocks, from water-
deposited sandstones to igneous, volcanic ash falls
of the kind that buried Pompeii.

Now how are you going to put a clear,
understandable description in a book that covers
all that? You're not. You know what professionals
do when they encounter it in the field? They avoid
all those names entirely and call it "K-feldspar"
(the K is the chemical symbol for potassium).
There are, by the way, several other common
minerals, as well as several less common minerals,
that look pretty much like it, especially when the
grain size is small. So even pros can, and do make
errors for this common breed when they work
with their eyes only.

What does the pro do when he's got to get
some mineral right? He checks the more common
ones under a polarizing microscope that can cost
anywhere from $2,000 up to $30,000, depending
on its versatility. Clearly, even the cheapest of
these is beyond the pocketbook of most amateurs.

For trickier minerals he may have to resort to
x-ray methods, or even a huge device called an
electron microprobe, the cheapest of which costs
as much as a four-bedroom house.

Probably the best bet for the dedicated
amateur is to sign up for a course in basic
mineralogy at a local college evening extension
division. Here, if it's well taught, he'll see more
run-of-the-mill examples of the common minerals
that make up the bulk of the rocks he's likely to
encounter. He'll get to handle them, ask questions,
and see a number of simple, affordable lab tools
that can aid somewhat in identification of some
minerals. With that under his belt he can then arm
himself with a couple of-the available books, being
better able to interpret their descriptions and over-
ly optimistic color plates.

Once he's got a grasp on some of the basic
minerals he's on his way to identifying rocks. This
is even trickier, if one can imagine that. Let's con-
sider a common rock, one called granite. Granite
has three basic ingredients: K-feldspar, quartz.

Fluorite is the state mineral of Illinois. This specimen, however, is from England. The crystal group shown here is
about 20 inches across. The violet-colored fluorite is embellished here with strings of small, white quartz crystals.
Though commonly violet, fluorite is also found in purple, blue, white, yellow, green, or amber, or maybe colorless.

^O^-

and some ferromagnesian (I won't explain that)
mineral like hornblende or biotite. Now these
minerals have to be within a range of proportions,
otherwise it's not called granite. If you have, for ex-
ample, 30 percent quartz (by volume), 20 percent
hornblende, and 50 percent K-feldsar, it's granite.
In fact, if you've got 80 percent K-feldspar, 10 per-
cent hornblende, and 10 percent quartz, it's still
granite. But if the quartz content drops down to 4
percent, it's not granite — it's a syenite. If,
however, the hornblende content gets as high as,
say, 50 percent or 60 percent, you're going to find
some geologists who'll call it an amphibolite. On
top of this, names of our granite depend on the
relative sizes of the mineral crystals in it, as well as
on their relative proportions.

Let's suppose the rock is 50 percent
K-feldspar, 30 percent quartz, and 20 percent
hornblende. We just got through calling this
granite in the above paragraph. But let's suppose
the K-feldspar crystals are great big things — a

couple of inches across, with hornblende and
quartz grains of smaller dimensions. The rock is
then called a pegmatitic granite. A pegmatitic
granite must not be confused with a granite
pegmatite, which is a somewhat more complicated
creature (cannot explain that here). Now, let's
suppose that instead of all this, our granite con-
sists of those same minerals, smaller now (below a
half inch), not just randomly packed together but
with the hornblende lying in separated parallel
layers alternating with quartz-feldspar bands.
Then it's called a granite gneiss (pronounced
"nice"). Now let's suppose the hornblende content
is really low, say under a few percent, and the
K-feldspar and quartz occur in grains of about
equal size, and those grains are pretty tiny,
around a sixteenth of an inch. Now the rock is
called an aplite.

I can vary the proportions of just those
three minerals and their relative grain sizes, and
the geometry of their arrangements, and generate

Malachite (green) and azurite (blue) from Bisbee, Arizona, where these minerals are mined as ores of copper. This
specimen is about 8 inches long. Malachite and azurite, happily, only come in the colors shown here, which should
make them easy to learn. Unfortunately, there are other minerals that occur with these same colors, often in the same
localities.

more names yet. But I'll stop here for this one —
you either have gotten the idea by now or quit
reading.

I think you can imagine how the horrors of
names compound when you have a rock that con-
sists of four or more mineral ingredients. You can
also imagine the knitted eyebrows when you bring
a chip of a rock to a museum geologist and ask
him what it is. Let's suppose the rock was a granite
in the first place, but when you bopped it with
your hammer only a piece of a large K-feldspar
grain broke off. You're going to be told you've got
a single mineral, and it could be from any of a
huge number of kinds of rocks because K-feldspar
occurs in granites, pegmatitic granites, granite
pegmatites, aplites, granite gneisses, syenites,
granodiorites, quartz monzonites, monzonites,
granophyres, granulites, arkoses, and on and on
and on. Suppose, on the other hand, you only
broke off a piece that had mostly hornblende.
Your expert would call it an amphibolite. Well,
you get the picture. No one would dream of bring-
ing in a single bird feather to find out what the
bird was, yet people bring in unrepresentative
samples of rocks all the time. Worse yet, they may
take different pieces to different experts and get
different answers — concluding, of course, that
the experts are real dummies.

Rock names are a mess. Yet no one has
been able to come up with a better system. For the
professionals, the names communicate, in a word
or two, whole paragraphs of descriptive informa-
tion. How do the pros handle this system? The
same way that physicians handle all the masses of
muscles, bones, nerves, tissues, etc. in your
anatomy — they memorize it all. If they should
get into some branch of geology where they
seldom use most of the names, then they gradually
forget them. I challenge any long-experienced
marine geologist, geophysicist, geochemist, or
petroleum geologist to define a jacupirangite or a
pseudoleucite tinguaite for me!

Even those professionals — known as
petrologists — who work with many rock types
do not seriously attempt to make identifications
by eye in the field. I once knew an experienced and
canny field petrologist who spent years mapping a
complex area of numerous rock types. He found
that he could spot certain features of certain rocks
by eye, well enough to use these distinctions as
mapping units in order to be able to interpret the
complicated sequence of igneous intrusions,
metamorphic events, ore formation, and crustal
folding and faulting. For years he just called them
"A," "B," "C," and so on. He didn't give a hoot
what the official names were. When he was finally
collating and writing out his final report, each
rock type was sent out for an expensive chemical
analysis, which in combination with microscope
study allowed him to assign an officially recog-
nized name. He gave them names that would give

the maximum information, in a few words, to
other professionals. Alas, however, the report
would be like classic Greek to an amateur.

The crust of the earth is highly varied, yet
certain rock types are frequently seen: granite,
gabbro, diabase, basalt, limestone, sandstone,
shale. These names can be learned by an amateur,
and he can learn to spot many of these in the
course of his collecting. It is, however, not very
satisfying to be able to know no more than eight
or ten names. It's like knowing only a few com-
mon birds for a bird-watcher.

It's sad, but a rock collector will never be
able to bootstrap himself into the kind of expertise
that his friend the bird-watcher has achieved. No
book will give him what a good field guide to
birds, or wildflowers, or mosses, or et cetera, can
give other natural history hobbyists.

The situation of naming rocks is not pleas-
ing to the professionals either. Each one yearns for
a better system. Through the early part of the
twentieth century a dozen schemes were devised
for giving useful and informative names to rocks.
They all became either hopelessly complicated or
impossible to apply without having expensive
chemical analyses made of every rock collected.
The present system is a patchwork compromise of
all these competing systems.

Tom Barth (only recently deceased) was a
superb petrologist — trained in Germany and
Scandinavia — who worked with and studied the
rocks that compose the earth's crust on all the con-
tinents of the world. In his book Theoretical
Petrology he starts his first chapter, entitled
simply "Rocks" with this paragraph:

"Rocks are made up of definite mineral
assemblages. We may use an analogy from the
zoological science and note that a mineral species
will correspond to an animal species, whereas a
rock corresponds to a fauna. It has become
customary, and probably also necessary, to name
the rocks according to their mineral content, tak-
ing into consideration the qualitative mineral con-
tent and relative proportions of the constituent
minerals on the one hand, and the mechanical and
textural relations on the other. In zoology this
would mean that one had to introduce a special
name for a fauna consisting of hares, foxes, fleas.
Not only this; new names should be introduced as
the relative proportions of these three animals
were changed, and according to whether the hares
are big and strong with silken fur or small and
miserable from hunger and flea bites. Such
analogies demonstrate how difficult it is to
develop a satisfactory system of rock names, and
explain why more than six hundred different rock
names have been introduced (not counting com-
pound names). They explain also why petrologists
are helpless and, generally speaking, unhappy
about it".

Amen.

CHINA TOUR
FOR MEMBERS

.^^ ^.aviSt

Looking toward the slope of Wan Shou Shan, site of summer palace of the Chin d{;nast{;. outside Peking

Peking's Forbidden City, the Summer Palace of the
Dowager Empress, the bustling activity of Canton,
the ancient pagodas of Kunming. These are just a
sampling of the exciting sights that lie in store for the
23 persons (Field Museum members and their fami-
lies) who will visit China on Field Museum's exclusive
tour this November. The tour is for 21 days and goes
by way of Europe.

The tour departs Chicago's O'Hare Airport
November 5 and returns November 25. In addition
to fourteen days in China, three days and two nights
will be spent in London. The tour escort will be Mrs.
Katharine Lee, a Field Museum volunteer in the
Department of Anthropology who is fluent in five
Chinese dialects. Additional guides in China will be
provided by the China International Travel Service.

The tour cost— $4,400 (which includes a
$500 donation to Field Museum) — is based upon

double occupancy and includes round trip air fare
from Chicago to China. The airlines used will be
TWA, British Airways, and Air Ethiopia.

Deluxe Hotel Accommodations will be used
throughout or. where necessary, the best hotels
available. The package includes all meals (except in
London), including all inflight meals; all sightseeing
via motor coach; all admissions to special events and
sites, where required; all baggage handling through-
out, plus all necessary transfers; all applicable taxes
and tips; all applicable visa fees. Advance deposit re-
quired: $500.00 per person.

For full itinerary, additional details, and regis-
tration information, please write or call Michael J.
Flynn, Field Museum Tours, Roosevelt Road at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, III. 60605. Phone: (312)
922-9410, X-251.

PRO JECT ANTARCTICA

An exclusive for Field Museum Members and their families

A 24r-day cruise to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands on the

MS World Discoverer

>V'

« *

■^^B^jlp

y*m% t ■•■■

iiiiHii II ••

^m jtf* '••II

:' iiiiiiininn!r::iii • ••

MS IVor/d Discoverer

Until recently only explorers were able to view antarctica's
wondrous beauty. There is no destination more remote, more
unspoiled by the encroachments of civilization. Today only a
virtual handful of adventurous travelers have experienced its
majestic icebergs, extraordinary wildlife and fascinating natural
history firsthand.

Our itinerary includes the Islas Malvinas (Falkland
Islands) with its rich concentration of unusual wildlife, a visit to
the Patagonian coast, and of course the antarctic peninsula
with its spectacular scenery, fascinating wildlife, and interna-
tional scientific stations. The South Georgia Islands and the
South Orkney Islands will also be visited. Dr. Edward Olsen,
curator of mineralogy and a veteran of antarctic exploration,
will be on hand as tour lecturer. Join us for this outstanding
travel adventure that will certainly be one of your most unusual
and memorable journeys.

The cruise vessel will be the 3.200-ton tourist ship M.S.

World Discoverer, which will take us from Punta Arenas on-
wards. Built in 1974, the one-class vessel has all outside cabins
with private lavatories and showers. There is a fully qualified
physician on board.

The tour leaves Chicago January 6, 1980 and returns
January 30. Prices for the antarctica cruise per person: C deck
twin: $3,230; C deck single: $4,870; B deck twin: $3,570; B
deck single: $5,390; A deck, twin: $3,930. Air fare, in addi-
tion, is $1,225 (round trip between Chicago and Punta
Arenas, Argentina). Included in the tour price is a tax-
deductible donation of $500.00 to Field Museum. Deposit re-
quired at lime of registration: $1,000.00.

For full itinerary, additional details, and registration
information, please write or call Michael J. Flynn, Field Mu-
seum Tours, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, 111.
60605. Phone: (312) 922-9410, X-251. 27

Village along the
Rio Duke

MANATEES con't from p. 9

remaining manatees were able to find some refuge.
For many years the area was considered the only
good place to hunt manatees in the entire region.
Today they are gone, and the general feeling
among local fishermen is that the vacas marinas,
or "sea cows," have been frightened off by a large
refinery that was recently built along the lake's
northwestern extremity. Whatever the reason for
their disappearance, the animals have apparently
learned that it is to their advantage to avoid man;
they will rarely be observed near sites of human
activity.

Fascinated by what I had heard and read of
these remarkable creatures and appalled by the
realization they could soon become extinct, I
decided to do what I could to forestall that fate.
The first step was to observe and study them in
their natural habitat. I chose Guatemala for my
study area because it is the only region where
manatees are known to live in a freshwater lake. It
also seemed likely that this relatively isolated
body of water — Lake Izabal — and the Sweet River
(Rio Dulce), connecting the lake with the Atlantic,
might offer some potential as a permanent,
established refuge.

I found encouragement at San Carlos
University of Guatemala, where I was offered a
situation as associate investigator with the univer-
sity's school of biology. My first goal was to
gather data on the population, distribution, and
general ecology of the Guatemala manatee. This
information could then be used in designing con-
servation and management programs. Since very
few studies have been made of the manatee in its
natural habitat, I also hoped to gather raw data
that was new to science. I secured enough addi-

tional support to buy a small boat, an outboard
motor, and a dugout canoe. A tent, camping
equipment, a camera, and a notebook rounded
out my basic needs for field work.

I was to find the manatees most numerous
in lagoons and waterways along the northern edge
of el Golfete, a widening of the Rio Dulce, and
here I was most successful in observing them.

On April 1, 1977, while in my canoe, I
entered the following in my notebook:

"5:00 a.m. As I watched, totally cap-
tivated, five forms slowly entered the lagoon. I
was not seeing actual bodies, but fairly regular
patterns of bubbles — three large arrays and two
small ones. The formation entered very slowly
and the fairly constant flow of bubbles gave the
group the appearance of symmetry. The group
reached the middle of the lagoon and paused, the
larger bubbles in the lead followed at a distance by
the smaller ones. Nothing happened for two or
three minutes and I lost track of their position.
Then at the other side of the lagoon I saw one
large nose come above the surface of the water.
Manatee! I watched them for more than half an
hour. The small animals, infants or juveniles, sur-
faced for air more often than the adults and re-
mained longer on the surface. I observed behavior
that I could only describe as play: nudging, bump-
ing and tail-nipping. This play was always be-
tween the two small ones or between the young
and the adults. It was always the young inciting
the play. They were very quiet. The only sounds I
could hear were those made during their normal
respiration and sometimes a spash. At about 5:45
the family (?) swam out of the lagoon, as slowly
and as peacefully as they had come."

Of my many observations, the follow-
ing— in which I made actual physical contact with
the animals— is the most memorable. On
November 8, 1977, I entered the following in my
notebook:

"Upon awakening I looked over the side of
my boat and saw evidence of two manatees graz-
ing on the other side of the lagoon. Then one head
broke the surface and looked over in my direction.
During the morning the two edged closer and
closer to the boat. One was a juvenile male about
six feet long; the other, an adult female, measured
about 11 feet.

"As I watched, I felt an unusually strong
and persistent attraction towards them, a feeling I
was not familiar with. I had the strongest, though
unexplainable, impression that they were trying to
communicate with me. I lowered my hand and
lightly splashed the water. To my extreme sur-
prise, the adult manatee, seeing this, came right up
to the side of the boat and lifted her head above
the water. I slowly lowered my hand until it was
within an inch of her nose. In a quick movement
she pushed her nose upward, nudging my hand,
and disappeared back into the water.

"I could hardly believe what had happened,
and felt a tingling sensation over my whole body.
I put my hand back into the water and in a few
seconds found myself stroking a big, soft, manatee
nose. She would stay for a few moments and then
go away, only to return again in a minute or two.
This went on for quite some time, until I decided
to see what would happen if I entered the water.
"I could not have been better received. The
huge, but graceful, sirenian swam over to me and
brushed up against my body. I rubbed her back.
This she seemed to like very much. We swam
together around the lagoon. I had begun to
wonder what had happened to the young male,
when I suddenly noticed him following at some
distance. Eventually, he, too, came over and
allowed physical contact. This interspecies
meeting continued for most of the day, and the
young manatee became increasingly playful. He
would allow me to come just within reach and

then would rocket away at full speed — which for a
young manatee is about 12 to 15 miles per hour.
At other times he would allow me to put my arms
around the middle of his body and we would swim
together. Unexpectedly, in a quick, jack-knifing
movement, he would throw me off and swim
around in circles. The older female was not in-
terested in this sort of play, preferring to solicit
my scratching and rubbing.

"Near dark, after grazing for a time on
tender grass along the bank, my new friends swam
over to me. I realized that they were about to
leave. I can only say that I feel that a (special)
bond . . . existed between us. I watched from the
middle of the lagoon as they swam out of sight.
This had been one of the most joyful days in my
hfe."

I have not seen my manatee friends again
and I am filled with sadness as I realize that little
time remains in which to save them. As part of my
program in Guatemala, I began to use all available
channels to create public concern for the
manatees' plight: the local press, magazine ar-
ticles, radio programs, and materials for use in the
public schools. I tried to impress government
agencies with the need for conservation measures,
and pointed out that the manatees could be useful
in controlling water weeds. (Some waterways,
once navigable, had become so badly choked with
weeds that only the smallest canoes could now get
through them. The so-called "English Channel,"
near Puerto Barrios, had formerly carried freight
and passenger traffic; now, thanks to a heavy
weed growth, the channel was completely useless
for traffic.)

The Guatemalan government is currently
designing a "master plan" for tourist development
of Lake Izabal and Rio Dulce, and in connection
with this I have attempted to point out that since
tourists often have a strong interest in the local
wildlife, it would be economically advantageous
to also set up a program for the active protection
of the manatee and other wildlife. The prospects
for establishing sujch a refuge at el Golfete appear
promising.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

ILLINOIS ARCHEOLOGY FIELD TRIP

Helton Mound, in the Lower Illinois River Valley, is tijpical of the sites to be visited during
the June archeologi; field trip.

"wsr's*^-

j-'y:.^.-^. ^ •»».'.

FIELD MUSEUM TOURS

Weekend Field Trips for Members

to
Starved Rock, Illinois

Galena, Illinois

Baraboo, Wisconsin

Historic Galena

By popular demand, Field Museum's weekend trips to Starved
Rock, Galena, and Baraboo are being offered again this year,
with two weekends to choose from for the Galena and Baraboo
trips.

The Baraboo Range is of special interest as a monadnock
—what is left of an ancient mountain range and which now
stands out above the younger rocks and sediments. The range
consists of quartzite— more than one billion years old— which,
although compressed in places into vertical folds, retains the
original sedimentary structures. The mountains were further
modified by glaciers, forming the lake and the picturesque

glens, and changing the course of rivers.

For additional information and reservations, call or write
Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours, Field Museum, Roose-
velt Rd. at Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, 111. 60605. Phone: 922-

9410, X-251.

OUR ENVIRONMENT

Once hailed as a solution to many problems such as soil erosion,
hillsides, trees, telephone poles — even abandoned automobiles.

the kudzu is now regarded as a pest, covering

The Rapacious Kudzu

Kudzu! The very word has an alien, sinister
sound. It conjures up the image of author
Sax Rohmer's legendary villain. Dr. Fu
Manchu, slipping a potion of deadly poison
into the drink of an unsuspecting victim.

However, kudzu is not a potion. It is
merely an exotic, leguminous vine with a
broad, three-pointed leaf, and woody stem,
first introduced to the United States from
Japan in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial
Exposition.

But what a vine! In a century, kudzu
(Pueraria lobata) has virtually engulfed
large parts of the South, spreading north-
ward as far as central Kentucky, Virginia,
and Maryland and westward into eastern
Texas and Oklahoma. The region's long
growing seasons, mild winters and abun-
dant precipitation have enabled kudzu to
grow — and spread — at phenomenal rates.
The plant begins growing in the early spring
with green tendrils radiating from its deep
tap roots. Producing great quantities of
foliage, the tendrils can grow 60 feet in a
season, often climbing vertical obstacles as
high as 40 feet. Allegedly, kudzu can shoot
up as much as 12 inches in 24 hours!

By late summer, when the plant pro-
duces clusters of fragrant purple flowers,
32

the ground is covered with a thick maze of
vines, sometimes several feet deep. The
plant then produces pods, but they seldom
contain seeds in this country. But not to
worry! Although kudzu loses its leaves
after a killing frost and dies back to its root,
the perennial vine regenerates each spring
and continues to spread year after year as it
establishes new tap roots at nodes along the
stems. To make matters worse, the plant is
bothered little, thus far at least, by disease
or insects.

An estimated million acres or more of
southern farm, forest, and pasture land are
now covered by the spooky-looking
growth. Little is safe from "attack." Fences,
abandoned houses, unused railroad beds,
junk cars, even telephone poles are quickly
enshrouded. Predictably, that has led
Southern folk — with wry humor — to tag
kudzu with such descriptive nicknames as
"mile-a-minute vine," "foot-a-night vine,"
or simply "the vine." With tongue in cheek
farmers tell visitors, "When you plant kud-
zu, drop it and run!"

But how did this happen, you ask?
Why didn't America's highly-respected
agricultural scientists nip this viny. Oriental
invader in the bud? Well, the truth of the
matter is that these experts, for what was
good reason at the time, actually aided and

abetted the spread of kudzu — at least until
the mid-1950s.

First used in the U.S. as an ornamental
vine to shade porches of southern homes,
kudzu — by the early 1900s — was found to
provide inexpensive forage for livestock.
Later, spanning the Great Depression years,
kudzu's deep roots, dense foliage, and rapid
growth, along with its nitrogen-fixing qual-
ity, provided the kind of ground cover
needed to control gully erosion, stabilize
road banks, and rejuvenate nitrogen-defi-
cient soil.

In fact, southern farmers were so en-
thusiastic about kudzu that through World
War II many communities formed "kudzu
clubs" and elected "kudzu queens." Federal
agencies gave away kudzu seedlings by the
millions, and the Civilian Conservation
Corps planted kudzu to help curb soil ero-
sion. In those days the plant, now consid-
ered a pest, was called the "miracle vine."
And for good reason. Experiments at the
Soil Conservation Service's (SCS) Southern
Piedmond Conservation Experiment Sta-
tion at Watkinsville, GA, for example,
showed that land planted to kudzu had
nearly 80 percent less water runoff and
more than 99 percent less soil loss than land
under cotton.

The South's love affair with kudzu

didn't last, however, farmers found that
kudzu, as forage, had serious drawbacks. It
was easily overgrazed and much of the vine
is woody stem, useless as hay. Further, it
could be mowed for hay only once a year
and still remain healthy. (In fact, overgraz-
ing and too-frequent mowing are about the
only ways of controlling kudzu's spread in
pastures or cultivated fields, short of using
chemical herbicides.)

Thus, as the serious soil erosion prob-
lems of the 1920-40S diminished, govern-
ment agencies slowly became disenchanted
with kudzu, especially as the vine continued
to spread — and spread — and spread. In fact,
by the mid-1950s state highway depart-
ments were employing chemical herbicides
to eradicate kudzu stands along rights-of-
way.

In 1953, the U.S. Department of Agri-
culture (USDA) removed the plant from the
list of cover crops permissible under the
Agricultural Conservation Program. In
1962 the SCS began limiting its recommen-
dations of kudzu planting to areas widely
separated from orchards, forests, fences,
farm buildings, and other properties that
could be overrun by the vine. The crowning
blow came in 1970 when USDA finally listed
kudzu as a common weed in the southern
states!

True, some farmers still use kudzu as
forage for livestock. However, the more af-
fluent agriculturalist has turned to other,
more productive feed crops such as bahia
grass, coastal bermuda, and fescue despite
the fact that such vegetation requires fer-

tilizing and more of the farmer's attention.

Thus, although kudzu can still control
soil erosion, stabilize soil, and grow well in
nutrient-deficient soils, its aggressive grow-
ing behavior has become an overwhelming
liability. Many tree farmers, orchard grow-
ers, woodlot owners, and the wood prod-
ucts industry are especially critical of kud-
zu's tendency to engulf all vegetation in its
path. Trees both large and small, mature or
sapling, are stifled and eventually killed.

So that is the story of kudzu. Once —
not long ago — highly acclaimed, it has
fallen into disrepute. No longer do southern
towns stage "kudzu festivals" or elect "kud-
zu queens." Like water hyacinth and other
exotic (introduced) plants which eventually
proved to do more harm than good, kudzu
is a pest. Its almost uncanny ability to grow
and spread under the most adverse condi-
tions— the very characteristic that once
made it so popular, especially in reducing
sedimentation and controlling soil erosion
— now poses a problem for the South.

Unfortunately, the vine has spread so
widely throughout the South that only a
massive eradication effort involving,
among other things, extensive use of chemi-
cal agents, could be effective. However, the
great economic and environmental costs
associated with such a campaign make its
undertaking highly unlikely.

Interestingly, kudzu is still considered
a useful plant in China and Japan. The
Chinese, for example, greatly value the
plant's root, which contains a starch used in
making a popular kind of flour. Also, the

ancient Chinese revered the plant ;.;; i,
alleged medicinal values. It was used app.ir-
ently to treat such ailments as influen?,!,
dysentery, and snake bitel

The resourceful Japanese, who permit
kudzu to grow wild on steep, uncultivated
slopes, use the entire plant. Besides making
hay from the leaves and using them as
forage, the Japanese make a coarse cloth
from the stem and derive a starch from the
root. The starch is then used in making
noodles and candy.

Thus, although unlikely, it's possible
that American researchers, too, will iden-
tify new uses for kudzu. It remains effective
in stabilizing steep road cuts and stream
banks, partly because of the plant's deep
roots. Because of the vine's ability to grow
in poor soil, it is also useful in revegetating
denuded strip-mined areas. But each of
these uses also depends on that same char-
acteristic of kudzu that resulted in its classi-
fication as a pest plant in the first place —
the vine's rate of growth!

Is it difficult to locate "the vine" as you
drive through the South? Hardly. During
the growing season, it would be almost
impossible to miss the many distinctive
patches of leafy vines blanketing road
banks, covering road fields and shrouding
trees beside the region's highways. But if
you stop along the road to examine the
plant more closely, watch out! Don't get
too close or tarry too long or you might get
more wrapped up in kudzu than you in-
tended!— Ken Hampton, National Wildlife
Federation.

No Longer a Wilderness
Of Monkeys

The world's primates are in trouble. As a
species, Homo sapiens appear to be one of
the few primates with a relatively secure
future. The reasons for concern are varied
but they generally all stem from human ac-
tions.

Of the 166 species of primates living
today, nearly a third are considered en-
dangered. Primates are subject to a wider
variety of population pressures than any
other mammals. Not only do they have to
cope with the severe problem of habitat
loss, but they are also subjected to sub-
sistence hunting for food, trapping for zoos
and medical research, and for sale as pets.
Primates, as other large advanced mam-
mals, are slow to mature and breed,
resulting in slow recovery of depleted wild
populations.

The most serious problem confronting
the world's primates is loss of their habitat
to development, heightening the severity of
the previously mentioned factors. Zoologist
Jaclyn Wolfheim states, "The destruction of
habitat overshadows all other proximate

factors that influence the survival of
primate populations. No degree of adap-
tability or regulation of trade in animals can
save a species if all of its habitat has been
bombed with napalm, razed by bulldozers
or planted in soybeans. Conversely it is dif-
ficult to hunt a species to extinction if its
original habitat is left intact."

The above quote especially applies to
the prosimians, one of two suborders of
primates, that includes lemurs, indrises,
lorises, tarsiers, and the aye-aye. Pro-
simians, which have never been in demand
for pets, food, or research, have experi-
enced radical population declines almost
exclusively in response to their loss of
habitat. They are strictly Old World species
living on the island of Madagascar and in
some parts of Africa and Southeast Asia.
This geographical restriction, their high
degree of specialization, and their
dependence on trees has been their
downfall.

Lemurs, indrises, and the aye-aye, all
limited to Madagascar and to the nearby
Comoro Islands, have lost the trees upon
which they depend for food and shelter (85
percent of Madagascar has been

deforested). Exotic introductions have
edged out Madagascar's prosimians, unable
to compete with other mammals because
the island's isolation prevented adaptations
to selective pressures.

Mainland prosimians, such as tarsiers
and lorises, have better succeeded in
adapting to changing habits, perhaps
because they have been subjected to a wider
variety of pressures throughout their
development.

The future of the anthropoids, the
other primate suborder, is closely linked to
the fate of tropical forests in Africa, South
America, and Asia. Anthropoid species, in-
cluding the marmoset, monkey, ape, and
human families, are considered more flexi-
ble than the prosimians: they have adapted
to changing environments and their
habitats are not as restricted.

But the world's tropical forests are cur-
rently under an alarming seige by
developers to provide charcoal, lumber,
and agricultural land in Third World na-
tions to promote rapid economic expan-
sion. Gibbons, gorillas, orangutans, mar-
mosets, and many monkey species are los-
ing the large tracts of forest they need to

live. Habitat deforestation has placed three
marmoset species under extreme pressure
throughout their restricted range in Brazil.
Several agricultural development schemes
threaten the remaining habitat of the golden
lion marmoset {Leontopithecus rosalia
rosalia), the most acutely endangered
subspecies. Negotiations are underway to
try to preserve an adequate portion of this
dwindling habitat for the 400 golden lion
marmosets remaining in the wild. This
subspecies breeds well in captivity, and
reintroductions will be conducted as soon
as suitable areas are identified.

The Research Controversy

The use of anthropoid primates in
medical research has long been a point of
controversy among conservationists,
medical researchers and humane activists.
Primates, closer to humans phylogeneti-
cally than any other animal, are very well
suited for research in a variety of
physiological, morphological, and
behavioral studies. For some pathological
and neurological research no alternatives
exist.

The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is
the only animal other than humans that is
susceptible to hepatitis B, making it in-
valuable for vaccine development and
testing. The U.S. Center for Disease Con-
trol in Atlanta estimates an incidence of
150,000 cases of hepatitis B for 1976, of
which 1,500 were fatal. Chimpanzees are
also the only animal model available for
research on non-A, non-B hepatitis which is
responsible for more than 80 percent of the
post-transfusion hepatitis diagnosed in the
U.S. Chimps are also important in research
on other infectious diseases such as malaria,
gonorrhea, and trypanosomiasis.

Two macaque species, the rhesus
macaque (Macaco mulatto) and the long-
tailed macaque (Macaca fasicularis), have
long been the most popular general purpose
primates for experimental use. The rhesus
macaque has been the most widely used
primate for the safety testing of polio-
myelitis and other vaccines. It was also
used in the discovery of the Rh factor, an
indicator of a blood disorder that can
affect the developing human fetus. Baboons
(Papio spp.) are also important as research
models particularly in the areas of surgical
technique development and neurophys-
iology.

Tougher To Get

Several recent developments have
caused heated debates among factions in-
terested in the use and supply of experimen-
tal primates. Continued population declines
of chimpanzees, rhesus macaques, and
other primate species have led to reevalua-
tion of the use of these primates and of their
capture methods. In April, 1978 India
34

banned the export of rhesus macaques,
citing severe population declines and the
violation of an agreement with the U.S.
that rhesus macaques would not be used for
research involving nuclear arms. Suddenly
the U.S. was left without a supplier of its
most heavily used primate. It was hoped
that Bangladesh would be able to supply
some macaques, but for various reasons
this has not been the case. Since captive
stocks are limited, many researchers are at-
tempting to replace the rhesus with long-
tailed macaques but are finding these in
short supply also.

A major U.S. pharmaceutical com-
pany wants to purchase 125 chimpanzees
from suppliers in Sierra Leone, in western
Africa. Trade in primates is regulated by
the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and
Flora (CITES) requiring permits for the im-
porting company from the importing
and/or exporting nation. So far the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service's Wildlife Permit
Office has refused the permit on the basis
that not enough information is available on
Sierra Leone's chimp population and also

captive bred primates. A captive bred
chimp, for example, may cost $5,000 to
$10,000. Its wild counterpart may run less
than half that amount. Also, researchers
are only beginning to learn about primate
social behavior, a prime determinant of
breeding success.

Because primates generally breed and
mature slowly, large colonies would be
needed to keep pace with yearly demands
and to ensure genetic diversity and correct
social unit size. The Southwest Foundation
for Research and Education's (SFRE) baboon
colony in San Antonio, TX, the world's
largest, contains more than 1,100 baboons
(Papio cynocephalus) . SFRE also maintains
small chimpanzee and squirrel monkey
colonies. Although SFRE's colonies are non-
commercial, the Charles River Breeding
Laboratories' Florida Keys facility is.
Charles River has established a colony of
2,500 rhesus macaques on an island
previously uninhabited by primates. This
year Charles River will sell its surplus of 560
primates to researchers for $500 to $1,000
each. Before India's rhesus ban, wild
macaques could be purchased for less than

Number

Required

Species

1977

Availability

Rhesus macaque

14,000

Unavailable from the wild. Limited domestic

(Macaca mulatta)

production.

Long-tailed macaque

6,000

Wild specimens commercially available.

(Macaca fascicularis)

Chimpanzee

200

Commercial trade only by special permit.

(Pan troglodytes)

Limited domestic production.

Baboons

1,300

Wild specimens commercially available.

(Papio spp. )

African green monkey

2,100

Wild specimens commercially available.

(Cercopithecus aethiops)

Squirrel monkey

4,500

Wild specimens commercially available.

(Saimiri sciureus)

that unsound collection methods would be
used.

A major point of contention in this
permit application and in wild primate col-
lection in general is the common methods of
capture. Wild primates, given their agility,
intelligence, and their often rugged habitat,
are difficult to capture. Often they are
trapped in snares and nets, resulting in the
deaths of numerous animals. Sometimes the
mother is killed to capture the young. Since
most primates bear and raise only one or
two of the young at a time, many adults
may be killed to fill an order.

One possible solution to the supply
problem is development of captive breeding
programs. So far, the success of these pro-
grams has been limited, primarily because
they have not been encouraged. Until
recently, the supply of wild primates was
adequate, and they were less expensive than

$300. Continued primate behavior research
may allow more colonies similar to SFRE's
and Charles River's to be established.

In 1974 the National Institutes of
Health established the Interagency Primate
Steering Committee (IPSC). Composed of
representatives from the National Science
Foundation, the Department of Defense,
the Department of Health, Education and
Welfare, and the NIH, the committee's
stated goal is "... to develop a unified ap-
proach to assure both short and long-term
supplies of non-human primates for bio-
medical research activities." IPSC has
developed a "National Primate Plan" which
outlines future requirements for govern-
ment agencies and proposes methods for
obtaining primates. By coordinating use, it
is hoped that sufficient experimental
primate supplies can be maintained.

— John Hallagan, Conservation News.

May and June at Field Museum

Huichol shaman's hat, on view beginning May 5, with other examples of Huichol Indian art, in
American Museum of Natural History.)

Hall 27. (Specimen on loan from the

(May 15 through June 15)

New Exhibits

"The Art of Being Huichol." Opened May 5. A major traveling
exhibition of more than 150 objects of Huichol Indian art. The
exhibit was organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
and is sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Arts and by the Museum Society of the Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco. The exhibit includes costumes, votive objects,
weavings, embroidery, beadwork, and yarn "paintings." The "art
of being Huichol" is the act of living a devout life, and spiritual
themes dominate their art. The Huichol also value visionary
experiences produced by the hallucinogenic peyote and these
images are reflected in their dramatic yarn paintings. The Huichol
live in an isolated area of Western Mexico, and they remain one of
the few traditional Indian groups whose ancient beliefs and
practices remain unchanged even today. Through September 3,
Hall 27.

"Lacquer Arts of Japan." Opened May 9. More than 150
examples of finely crafted inro, (small sectional lacquer cases
used to carry medicine); nelsuke, (tiny carved pendants which

hang from silk cords); and ojime beads, the status symbols of
cultured merchants and a warrior aristocracy from 18th- and
19th-century Japan. Planned in conjunction with "Japan Today"
festivities, some of these objects surpass the finest Renaissance
goldwork in delicacy and perfection of design. The pieces
displayed include items recently donated to the Museum by John
Woodworth Leslie. Miniature landscapes, dreamlike still lifes,
and mythic dragons are flawlessly carved into these lacquer
ornaments, forming a microscopic universe out of gold dust and
inlaid pearl. Examples of Chinese lacquer art will be exhibited
for comparison. Hall 32. See story on page 12.

"Treasures of Cyprus." Opens June 14. An exhibit of jewelry and
pottery that pre-dates Tutankhamun by 6,000 years. Bowls, jugs,
vases, and religious idols made of stone, clay, and bronze reveal
the Cypriot talent for using their natural resources to make
important contributions to Western civilization. Situated at the
crossroads of three continents — Europe, Asia, and Africa —
Cyprus produced an art reflecting a remarkable assimilation of
these foreign influences. Through September 16. Hall K.

(Continued on back cover)

May and June at Field Museum

(Continued from inside back cover)

Continuing Exhibits

"A Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural History." A one-case
exhibit that combines 63 natural history specimens with samples
of philatelic or stamp art. Planned on a rotating basis to cover the
four disciplines of natural history, the first phase is devoted to
zoological specimens and their images on stamps. Exquisite
seashells and butterflies are among the specimens mounted with
a leaping jaguar and fox in the second floor lounge. "A Stamp
Sampler" was conceived by Col. M. E. Rada, exhibit guest
curator, and was designed by Peter Ho, a University of Illinois
graduate student.

"Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit from Five
Continents." A breathtaking exhibit of 260 rare feather objects,
assembled almost entirely from Field Museum's own collections.
Headdresses adorned with iridescent beetles; hummingbird
breasts glowing like gold on a shaman's headband; and an eerie
hooded dance costume from the Cameroons, are just a few of the
feather wonders on display in Hall 26. "Feather Art. " is divided
into five theme areas: the visitor can explore the amazing
structure and function of the the feather, and learn how feathers
are used to express man's ideas about beauty, wealth, and spirit.
After its July 31 closing here, "Feather Arts" will travel to three
other museums across the country.

New Programs

Field Museum is honored to take part in "Japan Today," an
international festival celebrating the cultural, intellectual, and
economic heritage of contemporary Japan. The Museum has
opened an exquisite exhibit of Lacquer art from 18th- and 19th-
century Japan; special weekend programs are also planned to
coincide with this event:

"Nagashizuki — Japanese Hand Papermaking. " Saturday, May
19, 1:30 p.m. To coincide with "Japan Today" cultural festivities,
the Museum holds a multimedia lecture program on this ancient
art form. With Timothy D. Barrett, craftsman and author. James
Simpson Theatre. Admission: $3.50; Members, $2.00.

"Japan's Living Crafts." Sunday, May 20, at 1 1 a.m. and 2 p.m.
A film introduction to the lacquerware, silk, pottery, paper art,
ironwork, and enamelware designed by Japan's senior craftsmen.
Running time: 22 minutes. A. Montgomery Ward Lecture Hall.
Admission is free at the West door.

"The Path." The filming of an entire Japanese tea ceremony — an
ancient tradition that has been described as a microcosm of
Japanese culture. Sunday, May 27. 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Running
time: 34 minutes. For free admission to A. Montgomery Ward
Lecture Hall, enter at the West door.

"Great Scientists Speak Again." Free weekend film programs
honoring the world's foremost scientists. Dr. Richard M. Eakin,
Professor Emeritus of Zoology, University of California at
Berkeley, impersonates great men of science on film and makes a
personal appearance as Charles Darwin for the final program.
Humorous and dramatic, the films are also scientifically and
historically accurate.

"Louis Pasteur": Friday and Saturday, May 18 and 19, at 2:30
p.m. Running time: 24 minutes. "Gregor Mendel ": Friday and
Saturday, May 25 and 26, at 2:30 p.m. Running time: 24 minutes.
"Hans Spemann": Friday and Saturday, June 1 and 2 at 2:30 p.m.
A. Montgomery Ward Lecture Hall. For free admission, enter at
the West door.

"Charles Darwin." A live dramatic presentation with Professor
Eakin impersonating the great naturalist: Saturday, June 9, at
2:30 p.m. James Simpson Theatre. Members, $2.00;
nonmembers, $3.50.

Summer Journey: "A to Z at Field Museum." Self-guided tour
leads families and children through a cross section of exhibits
introducing them to the Museum's four main areas:
anthropqiogy, botany, geology, and zoology. Free Journey
pamphlets available at the North Information Booth, and the
South and West doors.

Continuing Programs

"Armchair Expeditions." Geared for adult groups, these in-house
"expeditions" include slide lectures and tours of selected
exhibits. Dining arrangements available. Reservations are
required. Call 922-0733 for more information.

Spring Journey. "The Meaning of Feathers." Through May 31.
Self-guided tour leads families and children through exhibits to
discover what birds and their feathers mean to various cultures.
Free Journey pamphlets are available at the North Information
Booth, and at the South and West doors.

Friend or Foe? The Natural History Game. Field Museum's
popular "Anthropology Game " has been expanded to include
botany, geology, and zoology. The object here is to determine
which one of a pair of apparently similar specimens is harmful
and which is not. See if you can distinguish a vampire bat, a
headhunter's axe, a poisonous mineral, or a deadly mushroom
from its benign look-alike. Ground floor, no closing date.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets, adult-
and family-oriented, are available for 25C each at the entrance to
the Museum Shop, main floor north.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Guided tours, demonstrations,
and participatory activities. Every Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.
to 3 p.m.

Volunteer Opportunities. Limited opportunities are available in
botany, geology, and zoology. Weekend volunteers with an
interest in natural history are needed to develop and present
weekend programs. For more information call 922-9410. X 360.

May and June Hours. The Museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6
p.m. except Fridays. On Fridays, the Museum is open from 9 a.m.
to 9 p.m. throughout the year.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed
Memorial Day. May 28. Obtain a pass at the reception desk, main
floor.

Museum Telephone: (312) 922 9410

r^r'f

■^u'J\ \

:\^

:l£3*^^"'

# HEmmaSEUM (!

■ r

'■ ^^^

■^ate'j^":

-^^

;r?-

■#-■

-■■■„:/■ |>J^/k*i

-4)

r* :r.- •

v-t..

'.'■^^

■"^t^,

Field Museum
of Natural History
Bulletin

June, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 6

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walsten
Production: Oscar Anderson
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff Photographer: Ron Testa

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
George R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

William R. Dickinson, Jr.
Thomas E. Donnelley 11
Marshall Field
Nicholas Galitzine
Paul W. Goodrich
Hugo J. Mitchell
Charles F. Murphy, Jr.
James J. O'Connor
James H. Ransom
John S. Runnells
William L. Searle
Edward Byron Smith
Robert H. Strotz
John W. Sullivan
Mrs. Edward F. Swift
Edward R. Telling
Mrs. Theodore D. Tieken
E. Leland Webber
Julian B. Wilkins
Blaine J. Yarrington

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
William V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

CONTENTS

3 Members' Tours to China and Antarctica

4 Who Were the Lusignans?

A medieval approach to Cypriot archaeology
highlights new exhibit "Treasures of Cyprus,"
opening June 14

By Donald Whitcomb, assistant curator of middle
Eastern archaeology and ethnology

The Tsavo Man-Eaters

By Lawrence Kolczak

Members' Tours

Taylor Camp, Hawaii

The Life and Death of a Hippie Community
By Thomas J. Riley and Karma Ibsen-Riley

Our Environment

June and July at Field Museum

Calendar of Coming Events

17
18

COVER

Waterfall at Starved Rock State Park. Photo by John Kolar.
Sign up now for ]une 16-17 tour of Starved Rock, Buffalo
Rock, and Matthiessen state parks. See page 17 for details.

Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (USPS 898-940) is publisfied monthly,
except combined July/August issue, by Field Museum of Natural History,
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, II. 60605. Subscriptions: $6 a
year; $3 a year for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin subscription.
Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the
policy of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster:
Please send form 3579 to Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at
Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, 11. 60605. ISSN: 0015-0703.

Field Museum Tours to
Antarctica and China

China, Nov. 5-25

Peking's Forbidden City, the Summer Palace of the Dowager Em-
press, the bustling activity of Canton, the ancient pagodas of Kun-
ming. These are just a sampling of the sights that lie in store for the 23
persons (Field Museum members and their families) who visit China
on Field Museum's exclusive tour this November .

In addition to fourteen days in China, three days and two nights
will be spent in London. The tour escort will be Mrs. Katharine Lee, a
Field Museum volunteer in the Department of Anthropology who is
fluent in five Chinese dialects. Additional guides in China will be pro-
vided by the China International Travel Service. The tour
cost— $4,400 (which includes a $500 donation to Field Museum)— is
based upon double occupancy and includes round trip air fare from
Chicago to China. Advance deposit required: $500.00 per person.

For full itinerary, additional details, and registration information
on all tours, please write or call Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours,
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. III. 60605. Phone:
(312) 922-9410, X-251.

Antarctica, Jan. 6-30, 1980

Until recently, only explorers were able to view antarctica's wondrous
beauty. There is no destination more remote, more unspoiled by the
encroachments of civilization. Our itinerary includes the Falkland
Islands, a visit to the Patagonian coast, the South Georgia Islands, the
South Orkney Islands, and of course, antarctica. Dr. Edward Olsen,
curator of mineralogy, will be tour lecturer.

The cruise vessel will be the 3,200-ton tourist ship M.S. World
Discouerer, registered in Hong Kong, which will take us from Punta
Arenas, Argentina, onwards. Built in 1974, the one-class vessel has all
outside cabins with private lavatories and showers. The ship's staff in-
cludes a fully qualified physician. The tour leaves Chicago Jan. 6,
1980 and returns Jan. 30. Prices per person: C deck twin: $3,230: C
deck single: $4,870; B deck twin: $3,570; B deck single: $5,390: A
deck, twin: $3,930. Air fare, in addition, is $1,225 (round trip be-
tween Chicago and Punta Arenas. Argentina). Included in the tour
price is a tax-deductible donation of $500.00 to Field Museum.
Deposit required at time of registration: $1,000.00 per person.

» in.ini»i II !_ 1 0f)nmU:

•^^^^:^,.i'W*».

Deception Island, antarctica

Who Were the Lusignans?

A Medieval Approach to Cypriot Archaeology

BY DONALD WHITCOMB

Treasures of Cyprus
Exhibition Opens Jun

Ruins of Salamis THOSE WHO ARE FAMILIAR WlTH the history of

the Crusades may know of the principalities and

feudal kingdoms which were established on the

Levantine (eastern Mediterranean) coast and lasted

Photos Courtesy f^j. hundreds of years; they may also have some

The Smithsonian In- , i. V- i i i r

g^ii-^^iQi^ ji^^y^i ij^^ understanding of the tremendous exchange of

Exhibition Service ideas concerning government, society, culture,

Donald Whitcomb is Field Museum's newly appointed
assistant curator of Middle Eastern archaeology and
ethnology.

and the arts that prevailed between these Euro-
peans and their oriental neighbors.

An aspect of this history which is perhaps
less widely known but which was one of the im-
mediate results of the Crusades was the establish-
ment of a Crusader kingdom on the island of Cy-
prus. This Lusignan kingdom (named for its ruling
family, the Lusignans, who came from western
France) lasted for almost three centuries
(1192-1489) after the fall of the Levantine
kingdoms.

Probably even enthusiasts of this segment
of Cypriot history have not considered that the

Lusignan period is but a late chapter in the long
story of European and oriental interchange on this
island. Much of the information we now have
about this interchange has been revealed to us
through archaeological research, and the ar-
chaeology of medieval Cyprus can be seen as a
beginning point in the unravelling of the history of
civilization on this island and throughout the
Mediterranean.

On June 14 the exhibition "Treasures of
Cyprus" will open at Field Museum. This collec-
tion of some 150 artifacts, representing the art and
archaeology of Cyprus, was organized by the

government of Cyprus to honor the American
Bicentennial and loaned to the United States. The
exhibition is being circulated by the Smithsonian
Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. In view-
ing this exhibition, we are reminded of the pivotal
importance of this small island (about twice the
size of New York's Long Island) in the historical
changes and political vicissitudes from the earliest
phases of western civilization. Patterns of present
day international relationships often have start-
lingly similar antecedents in earlier historical
periods.

The archaeological collections in the
"Treasures of Cyprus ' exhibition include a
number of very beautiful glazed vessels dating
from the medieval period. Many of the finest were
found in graves of the Lusignans, this practice of
depositing valuables with the dead barkening back
to some of the earliest archaeological periods. One
of the richest Lusignan graveyards was at Episkopi
near Limassol, on the southern coast, where Ri-
chard the Lion-Hearted first landed in 1191. The
medieval Cypriot view of this English king dif-
fered greatly from the one we usually hear; one
contemporary commentator on the effects on Cy-
prus of the Third Crusade stated

England is a country beyond Rumania in the north,
out of which [came] a cloud of English with their
sovereign, embarking on large vessels called smacks,
and sailed towards Jerusalem. . . . The wicked
wretch achieved naught against his fellow wretch
Saladin, but achieved only that he sold our country
to the Latins. . . .

It was as a result of the failure of the Third
Crusade that this orthodox Christian part of the
Byzantine empire was taken over by the Lusignan
dynasty founders. When an Arab sultan finally
reclaimed all of the Levant for Islam with the fall
of Acre in 1291, many more European knights set-
tled in the feudal principality of Cyprus. The
Lusignans, who continued to be crowned as both
King of Cyprus and King of Jerusalem for almost
300 years, turned the island into an almost perfect
model of chivalry and a sort of Camelot — if one
neglects the interests and aspirations of the "hum-
ble folk."

The growth and prosperity of the island
kingdom during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies was due mainly to the vigorous trade be-
tween Europe and the Moslem East. This was
conducted via Cyprus by Genoese and Venetian
merchants. The latter, who were particularly im-
portant, ruled the island in the late fifteenth and in
the sixteenth centuries. (The real-life model of
Shakespeare's Othello is generally believed to
have been, not a black Moor, but an Italian mer-
chant named Moro who lived in the great port of
Famagusta.) A fourteenth-century traveller des-
cribed Cyprus:

Moreover there are very rich merchants, a thing
not to be wondered at, for Cyprus is the furthest of
Christian lands, so that all ships and all wares, be
they what they may, and come they from what part

80 Km

Fnkomi

F-iinaiiusta

' I inusM,!

<J-

<i-

CYPRUS

<c-

of the sea they will, must needs come first to
Cyprus, and in no wise can they pass it by, and
pilgrims from every country journeying to the lands
over sea must touch at Cyprus.

The growth of these merchants is reminis-
cent of earlier success of the Phoenicians (first half
of the first millenium B.C.), specialists in commerce
who were drawn to Cyprus for its great copper re-
sources. (The word "copper," or its root, cuprum
or cyprium, may be from the name of the island,
or vice versa.) The Phoenicians settled in strategic
coastal sites such as Kition (Citium, or Biblical
Chittim), on the eastern coast and established rela-
tionships with towns like Tamassos and Idalion in
the copper-bearing mountains of the interior.

Commerce in copper also occupied the
Mycenaeans in the middle of the second millen-
nium B.C., a search echoed in Homer's Odyssey:

So now, going down to my ship and sailing with
my companions across the wine-dark sea, towards
men speaking strange tongues, 1 carry shining iron
to Temese (Tamassos) in quest of copper.

Cyprus in this period (the Late Bronze Age,
called in Cyprus the Late Cypriot period) was
known to its trading partners as the country of
Alashiya. These trading partners included not
only Mycenaean Greece but the kingdoms of the

Levant and Egypt, where Cypriot ceramics today
bear mute witness to commerce that occurred dur-
ing the eighteenth dynasty (1570-1293, the dynas-
ty of Tutankhamun). The influence of neighboring
regions upon Cypriot history becomes clearer dur-
ing the first millennium B.C. (the Iron Age), for
which patterns of political domination are better
documented. The island was divided into separate
city-states, each with its king; most of these were
part of the Mycenaean legacy. By 708 B.C., these
kings had submitted to the Assyrian Sargon II;
subsequently the political domination shifted
briefly to the Egyptians and then to the Persian
empire. Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) rein-
troduced a Greek element, but his successors, the
Ptolemies, ruled Cyprus from Egypt into the first
century B.C.

The Romans introduced what might be
considered a first Italian influence upon the island,
an interest which was two-fold. On the one hand,
the commercial role of Cyprus in the empire
fostered the development of copper mining on an
enormous industrial scale, while cities such as
Salamis became cosmopolitan centers of wealth
and beauty. The Romans also seem to have re-
sponded to the natural beauty of the island and to
its reputation as the birthplace of Aphrodite, god-
dess of love. The very ancient cult center at
Paphos was adorned with a popular and famous
temple and it is probably no accident that Mark
Antony gave the island as a love-gift to Cleopatra
in 36 B.C. (The lingering power of Aphrodite may
perhaps be seen in the twelfth century, when Ri-
chard the Lion-Hearted landed on Cyprus with

his betrothed, the beautiful Berengaria, and mar-
ried her.)

Aphrodite and the pagan rites on her island
soon gave way to stronger, more spiritual in-
fluences. In 45 A.D. the Apostle Paul and Bar-
nabas, the early Christian missionary, landed on
the island and managed to convert Sergius Paulus,
the Roman consul. Cyprus remained Christian,
eventually becoming part of the eastern Byzantine
empire, although the newer eastern power based
on Islam made occasional attempts to bring Cy-
prus under its control. It was the Arab geographer

CHRONOLOGY

Period

Estimated Date

Neolithic

lA: 5800-5250 B.C.

IB; 5250-4950 B.C.

II: 3500-3000 B.C.

Chalcolithic

1:3000-2500 B.C.

II: 2500-2300 B.C.

Early Bronze Age

1:2300-2100 B.C.

OR Early Cypriot

II: 2100-2000 B.C.

Ill: 2000-1850 B.C.

Middle Bronze Age
OR Middle Cypriot

Late Bronze Age
OR Late Cypriot

Iron Age
Cypro-Geometric

Cypro-Archaic
CyproClassical
Hellenistic
Roman

Medieval

Byzantine
Lusignan

Venetian

Turkish Occupation

British Occupation

I: 1850-1800 B.C.

II: 1800-1700 B.C.

Ill: 1700-ca. 1550 B.C.

IA:ca. 1550-1450 B.C.
IB: 1450-1400 B.C.
IIA: 1400-1300 B.C.
MB: 1300-1230 B.C.
IIIA: 1230-1190 B.C.
NIB: 1190-1150 B.C.
IIIC: 1150-1050 B.C.

Begins circa 1050 B.C.

I: 1050-950 B.C.
II: 950-850 B.C.
111:850-725 B.C.

I: 725-600 B.C.
II: 600-475 B.C.

I: 475-400 B.C.
II: 400-325 B.C.

I: 325-150 B.C.
II: 150-50 B.C.

I:50B.C.-150A.D.
II: 150-250 A.D.
Ill: 250-330 A.D.

330-1191 A.D.
1192-1489 A.D.

1489-1571 A.D.

1571-1878 A.D.
1878-1960 A.D.

Declaration of Independence
of THE Republic of Cyprus

August 16, 1960

Shams-eddin Muqaddasi who neatly summarized
the political patterns of the island: "The island is
in the power of whichever nation is overlord in
these seas."

The tides of political change may be seen
most vividly in the archeology of Cyprus's major
ports. During the Lusignan and Venetian periods,
the very prosperous trade with the Saracen coun-
tries of the Levant and Egypt was centered on
Famagusta, located on the island's eastern coast.
Not far from Famagusta are the remains of Con-
stantia, the Byzantine manifestation of the

the island can even be seen in the final fall of the
Lusignans when, abandoned by their Venetian and
Genoese allies, they were defeated by an Egyptian
Mamluk army at the Battle of Khirokitia, the site
of the oldest and most important Neolithic settle-
ment in Cyprus. This Mamluk control of Cyprus
is especially interesting to me, even though it was
short-lived, because my wife, Janet Johnson, and I

Theater at Kourion
(Ciiriimil.

classical emporium of Salamis. Salamis was pre-
ceded by Enkomi, a Late Bronze Age port already
thriving in the second millennium B.C. A similar
succession of port-sites may be seen in the south
with the early Kourion followed by Curium, then
Amanthus, and finally by Limassol. A second geo-
graphical constant is the succession of towns on
the central plain of the interior where early city-
states such as Tamassos, Idalion, and Ledra found
a final manifestation in the country's present
capital, Nicosia.

The recurring importance of a given area of

are currently excavating Mamluk remains in
Egypt. In fact, our site, Quseir al-Qadim, a small
port on the Red Sea, has glazed ceramics some-
what similar to those used by the Lusignans. We
also found one Crusader coin in the excavations
— perhaps a piece of change from the sale of some
spices from the East. I have, therefore, special in-
terest in the archaeology of medieval Cyprus as a
parallel to the "Islamic archaeology" of its
neighboring countries.

Both medieval Cypriot and Islamic ar-
chaeology fall into the range which many ar-

Khirokitia, the oldest and most important Neolithic settlement in Cyprus

Bull-shaped vessel. Early
Cypriot period. Height: 12.5
cm.

Eiikonii (Alasia). on
northeast coast.

chaeologists rather disdainfully call the "late"
periods; some of the materials which I study are
hardly archaeological at all. But these sherds and
pots, even if only a few hundred years old, have a
story to tell — they are evidence, albeit fragmen-
tary — of how people lived. Some aspects reflected
in the pottery record were never written down;
other information may be checked against
documentary sources. Because modern ar-
chaeology is asking increasingly difficult questions
about cultural processes and interactions, it is
useful to have such a field of archaeology —
where inferences and interpretations may be
checked occasionally — to ensure we do not ex-
plain too many things as "religious ritual" or as
flying saucers.

Thus, from looking at the archaeological
remains of the Lusignans, we may be able to
answer many questions about how the Crusaders
lived and how their feudal society worked. But
perhaps more important, as I have tried to suggest
here and as suggested in the arrangement of the
"Treasures of Cyprus" exhibition, the glazed
ceramics of the Lusignans can show us something
about the interpretation and appreciation of ar-
tifacts from earlier archaeological periods. The Lu-
signan pieces in the exhibition are not displayed all
together, within the series of chronological cases;
rather, each individual piece is grouped with
earlier pieces which it illuminates in one fashion or
another. (Thanks to John Carswell, curator of the
Oriental Institute Museum, at the University of

.ft- ,, --i-iiSSS

Chicago, a few medieval sherds from that mu-
seum's collections have been included in the ex-
hibition for purposes of comparison.) For in-
stance, on the bottom of a medieval goblet a sgraf-
fito, or "scratched " design, depicts a wedding
scene in which the design of the clothes of an em-
bracing couple intermingles; the artistic concep-
tualization is rather similar to a so-called plank-
shaped idol from the Early Cypriot period {ca.
2000 B.C.). The gestures of a dancer shown on
another medieval goblet seem to reflect the pos-
tures of little figurines made over 2,000 years
earlier, and designs on a medieval wine jar seem to
imitate designs of earlier periods. What we might
have here is conscious reproduction of earlier ar-
tistic shapes or motifs and, on the other hand, a

graphic illustration of more basic, shared human
characteristics.

On a more abstract scale, the patterns of
settlement and commerce suggested above might
also be seen as conforming to atemporal patterns
of human interaction stretching across different
and unconnected time periods. This is not to sug-
gest so much a cyclicality of history as an isolation
of certain constraints which may produce super-
ficial, or even deeper, nearly identical responses.
When the Mycenaeans or Ptolemies are described
as a "warrior aristocracy," just how different might
their society have been from that of Lusignan cru-
saders? It is through juxtapositions such as are
possible within this exhibition of Cypriot antiqui-
ties that questions like these might be raised and
ideas suggested.

Terracotta figurine. Cypro
Archaic 11 period, from
Kouklia. Height: 14.5 cm.

\ X

Plank-shaped idol of Red
Polished ware. Early Cypriot
III period. Height: 28.5 cm.

Lusignan glazed bowl: 14th
cent. A.D Height: 9 cm.

Jug decorated in "free-field"
style. Cypro-Archaic period.
Height: 22.5 cm.

Bronze ring from top of tnpoi
stand. Inscription is in Cypro
Minoan script. Late Cypriot
111 period. From Myrtou-
Pigadhes. Diam.: 11.9 cm.

Marble head of satyr. Roman
(Julio-Claudian period). From
Kourion. Height: 19 cm.

"Treasures of Cyprus

»»

These and other art objects from nearly

8,000 years of Cypriot history will

be on view in Hall K beginning June 14.

Lusignan glazed vase; brown
and green sgraffito: 14th cent.
From Nicosia. Height: 30.5
cm.

The Tsavo
Man-Eaters

BY LAWRENCE S. KOLCZAK

Unlike the Other Specimens in Hall 22 at Field

Museum, these two male lions are not attractive
representatives of their species. Their skins are
covered with scars, and they lack even the hint of
a majestic mane. Their contribution to the African
exhibit lies not in their physical appearance, but in
their bizarre and macabre story. They are the
documented killers of twenty-eight human beings.
Their insatiable appetite for human flesh disrupted
construction of the Uganda Railroad for nine
months.

In March, 1898, Col. J. H. Patterson, a
British engineer, arrived in what is now Kenya.
Only 130 miles of track had been completed on the
railroad which would connect the coastal city of
Mombasa with the shores of Lake Victoria, about
750 miles inland. Thousands of laborers had been
brought over from India to work on this project,
and most of them were camped at the railhead, an
outpost called Tsavo. Patterson was assigned to
direct construction of a railroad bridge across the
Tsavo River at this location. It is from the pub-
lished account of his ordeal with the man-eaters
that the quoted excerpts here are taken.

A few days after Patterson's arrival at
Tsavo, a lion entered one of the camps and
dragged a sleeping workman from his tent. Patter-
son followed the trail.

On reaching the spot where the body had
been devoured, a dreadful spectacle presented
itself. The ground all round us was covered
with blood and morsels of flesh and bones,
but the . . . head had been left intact, . . . the
eyes staring wide open with a startled, hor-
rified look in them. . . . we found that two
lions had been there and had probably
struggled for possession of the body.

Thinking the lions might return to the same
camp that night, Patterson lay in wait. But the
lions attacked another camp, a half-mile away.
The camps were scattered along eight miles of
track, and there were several thousand workmen
to prey upon.

Despite the heat, tent doors were no longer

left open at night. The workmen constructed
bomas (barriers made from thorn bushes) around
their camps. Still, every few nights, a man was
carried off and devoured. Time after time, the
lions eluded Patterson's ambush attempts.

Occasionally, the man-eaters made a
mistake. One of them tore into a tent occupied by
fourteen men, and made off with a sack of rice. In
another incident, a man was rudely awakened as a
lion stole his mattress out from under him.

As the railhead moved further inland, most
of the laborers went with it. The few hundred
workers remaining behind to complete the bridge
became more conscious of the lions' activities.
They strengthened the thorn bomas encircling
their camps, and kept fires burning all night.
Watchmen rattled empty oil cans to frighten off
marauders. Animal carcasses, laced with poison,
were left outside the camps.

Despite these precautions, on April 22, a
lion penetrated the boma of the hospital camp,
mauled two men, killed a third and dragged the
victim out through the thorns. Immediately, the
hospital was moved closer to the other camps.
That night while Patterson stood watch at the
abandoned hospital, a lion attacked the new
hospital camp. It jumped over the boma, poked its
head under the side of a tent, and seized a man by
the foot. It pulled the struggling man from the
tent, took him by the neck and killed him with a
few vicious shakes.

The brute then seized him . . . like a huge cat
with a mouse, and ran up and down the boma
looking for a weak spot to break through.
This he presently found and plunged into,
dragging his victim with him and leaving
shreds of torn cloth and flesh as ghastly
evidences of his passage through the thorns.

Patterson found the man's remains the next morn-
ing. "Very little was left . . . only the skull, the
jaws, a few of the larger bones and a portion of the
palm with one or two fingers attached."

The hospital camp was again moved to a

more secure location and encircled by a thicker,
higher boma. At the abandoned camp, some tents
were left standing and a few cattle were tied as
bait. Patterson and the medical officer concealed
themselves in a nearby boxcar.

The men heard the growls of a lion ap-
proaching the camp. Then there was silence, and
they knew the lion was stalking its prey. They
moved into the open doorway, expecting at any
minute to see the lion enter the boma. After a few
more minutes of silence, the lion suddenly lunged
at the boxcar's open door. The startled men fired
simultaneously, but missed the lion. The noise of
the shots echoing in the empty car were enough to
frighten him off.

The boxcar experience apparently
discouraged the lions from frequenting Tsavo. For
more than six months, they restricted their ac-
tivities to a district ten miles away. But in
November, they returned and made a particularly
bold attack on one of the camps.

... in the middle of the night one of the
brutes was discovered forcing its way
through the boma. The alarm was at once
given, and sticks, stones and firebrands were
hurled in the direction of the intruder. All
was of no avail, however, for the lion burst
into the midst of the terrified group, seized an
unfortunate wretch amid the cries and shrieks
of his companions, and dragged him off
through the thick thorn fence. He was joined
outside by the second lion . . . they did not
trouble to carry their victim any further
away, but devoured him within thirty yards
of the tent where he had been seized.

Up until this time, only one of the lions
entered the camps and made the kill. The other
joined him outside to share the meal. Now, they
entered the camps together, and each of them
seized a victim. They feasted within hearing
distance of the camps, and, in one instance, ig-
nored more than fifty shots fired into the darkness
in their direction.

I have a very vivid recollection of one
particular night when the brutes seized a man
from the railway station and brought him
close to my camp to devour. I could plainly
hear them crunching the bones, and the
sound of their dreadful purring filled the air
and rang in my ears for days afterwards. The
terrible thing was to feel so helpless; it was
useless to attempt to go out, as of course the
poor fellow was dead, and in addition it was
so pitch dark as to make it impossible to see
anything.

This new reign of terror caused the
workmen to strike. By the hundreds, they piled
aboard the first passing train. The few who re-
mained did little construction work. They spent
their time fortifying their sleeping places. Beds
were perched in trees, and atop water towers.
Some men slept in pits which they covered with
railroad ties.

Patterson's request for assistance was final-
ly answered, and on the evening of December 3,
district officer Whitehead and a native soldier ar-
rived at Tsavo. But before they had walked the
half-mile from the station to Patterson's camp,
they were attacked by one of the lions. Whitehead

The notorious Tsavo man-eaters, on view in Hall 22.

was mauled, and the soldier was carried off and
devoured.

The next day, several more officials
arrived, along with a detachment of twenty
sepoys, or native police. Patterson deployed his
reinforcements, posting armed men in trees near
every camp. He also had a trap constructed of
railroad ties and concealed it within a tent. As
bait, two armed sepoys slept in a protected com-
partment at the rear of the trap.

That night, Patterson heard the clatter of
the trap door.

The bait-sepoys . . . were each armed
with a Martini rifle, with plenty of ammuni-
tion. . . . they were so terrified when he came
in and began to lash himself madly against
the bars, that they . . . were too unnerved to
fire. . . . then when at last they did begin . . . ,
they fired with a vengeance — anywhere,
anyhow. Whitehead and I were at right
angles to the direction in which they should
have shot, and yet their bullets came whiz-
zing all round us. Altogether they fired over a
score of shots, and in the end succeeded only
in blowing away one of the bars of the door,
thus allowing our prize to make good his
escape.

After a week of unproductive nightly vigils
and daylight forays into the wilderness, the rein-
forcements returned to the coast.

Within days of their departure, the lions
entered a camp and, failing to find a human vic-
tim, killed a donkey. Patterson found the half-
eaten carcass and had a makeshift scaffold erected
nearby. That night, from this unsteady perch, he
heard one of the lions approach.

... an angry growl . . . told me that my
presence had been noticed. . . . matters quick-
ly took an unexpected turn. . . . instead of
either making off or coming for the bait . . . ,
the lion began stealthily to stalk me! For
about two hours he horrified me by slowly
creeping round my crazy structure, gradually
edging his way nearer and nearer.

... I could barely make out his form
... I took careful aim and pulled the trigger.
... I kept blazing away in the direction in
which I heard him plunging about. At length
came a series of mighty groans, gradually
subsiding into deep sighs, and finally ceasing
altogether; . . . one of the "devils" who had so
long harried us would trouble us no more.

... I examined the body and found
that two bullets had taken effect. . . . The
prize was indeed one to be proud of ... . The
only blemish was that the skin was much
scored by the boma thorns through which he
had so often forced his way in carrying off his
victims.

In a similar ambush, the second man-eater
was hit twice by shotgun slugs, but managed to
escape into the darkness. Ten days passed with no
sign of the lion, and Patterson hoped it had died of
its wounds. But on December 27, it entered a

camp and menacingly circled a tree in which
several workers had taken refuge.

Patterson stationed himself in that tree the
following eveing, and succeeded in putting two
more bullets into the lion.

We awaited daylight with impatience,
and at the first glimmer of dawn we set out to
hunt him down. I took a native tracker with
me, so that I was free to keep a look-out,
while Mahina followed immediately behind
with a Martini carbine. . . . suddenly a fierce
warning growl was heard right in front of us.
Looking cautiously through the bushes, I
could see the man-eater .... I at once took
careful aim and fired. Instantly he sprang out
and made a most determined charge .... I
fired again and knocked him over; but in a
second he was up once more and coming for
me as fast as he could .... The terror of the
sudden charge had proved too much for
Mahina, and both he and the carbine were by
this time well on their way up a tree. In the
circumstances there was nothing to do but
follow suit, ... I had barely time to swing
myself up out of his reach ....

... [I] seized the carbine . . . and the
first shot I fired from it seemed to give him his
quietus, for he fell over and lay motionless.
Rather foolishly, I at once scrambled down
from the tree and walked up towards him. To
my surprise ... he jumped up and attempted
another charge. This time, however, a Mar-
tini bullet in the chest and another in the head
finished him for good ....

With considerable difficulty, Patterson
prevented the workmen from tearing the carcass
to pieces. Upon examination, he found that the
shotgun slugs had barely penetrated the lion's
back, and that there were six bullet holes in the
body. As with his companion, the second man-
eater's skin had been disfigured by its numerous
passages through the thorns.

As the news of Patterson's success spread,
the strikers returned and work on the railroad
resumed. The workmen presented him with an in-
scribed silver bowl. Patterson's ordeal was even
mentioned by the British prime minister, before
the House of Lords. And when President Theodore
Roosevelt read the story, he wrote to a friend: "I
think that the incident of the Uganda man-eating
lions, described in those two articles you sent me,
is the most remarkable account of which we have
any record. ..."

Patterson's final words on the subject:

Well had the man-eaters earned all this
fame; they had devoured between them no
less than twenty-eight Indian coolies, in addi-
tion to scores of unfortunate African natives
of whom no official record was kept.

The Tsavo man-eaters are not Field Museum's only con-
nection with Col. ]. H. Patterson. His son, Bryan Patter-
son, a distinguished paleontologist, served on the Field
Museum staff from 1926 to 1955. During the summer of
1979, Bryan Patterson returns to Field Museum as
visiting curator.

Field Museum Tours to
Peru and the Cook Islands

Peru, Oct. 27-Nov. 15

A 20-day tour will visit the ruins of Machu Picchu, Chan Chan,
Pachacamac, Purgatario, and others. The Plains of Nazca (viewed
from low-flying aircraft), the Guano islands, and the Pisac Indian Fair
will also be visited. The group, limited to 20, will be led by Dr. Michael
Moseley, associate curator of middle and South American
archaeology and ethnology, and by Robert Feldman, assistant in
archaeology. A tour escort will also accompany the group.

The tour cost— $2,998 (which includes a $500 donation to Field
Museum) — is based upon double occupancy and includes round trip
air fare between Chicago and Peru and local flights in Peru. Delta
Airlines will be used between Miami and Chicago, connecting with
Aeroperu. Deluxe accommodations will be used throughout. The
package includes all meals, including inflight meals; all sightseeing; all
admissions to events and sites; all baggage handling; all necessary
transfers; all applicable taxes and tips; all applicable visa fees. Advance
deposit; $250.00 per person.

Cook Islands. July 14-31

Between Tahiti and Fiji, the Cook islands offer one of the last relatively
unspoiled island areas. Rarotanga, with towering peaks, is surrounded
by coral islets. A new 150-room hotel provides a base with modern
comforts. Aitutaki, an hour away by small plane, is a classic atoll
lagoon, superb for snorkeling or SCUBA diving. There, a country-style
hotel will provide two nights' accommodation. Mangala, also a short
flight away, will be visited, with a journey to its lagoon areas. The last
three days will be spent in Hawaii.

The tour's scientific lecturer/escorts will be Dr. Alan Solem,
curator of invertebrates. Dr. Robert K. Johnson, associate curator of
fishes, and Dr. Elizabeth L. Girardi. research associate in invertebrates.
The tour, limited to 25 persons, will travel via Air New Zealand. The
tour cost — $2,650 (includes a $400 donation to Field Museum) — is
based upon double occupancy and includes round trip air fare to and
from Chicago. Also included is all inter-island transportation, all meals
(except lunches in Hawaii) and all inflight meals, all admissions to
special events; all baggage handling, plus all transfers; all applicable
taxes and tips. Advance deposit; $400 per person.

For additional information and reservations for all tours, call or
write Michael J. Flynn. Field Museum Tours, Roosevelt Rd. at Lake
Shore Dr., Chicago, III. 60605. Phone: (312) 922-9410, X-251.

Weekend Tours to Galena,
Baraboo, and Starved Rock

Baraboo, Starved Rock, Galena

Starved Rock. June 16-17. $82.00. Group leader; Dr. Gordon
Baird, assistant curator of fossil invertebrates. Buffalo Rock State Park
and Matthiessen State Park will also be visited. Overnight accom-
modations will be at Starved Rock Lodge.

Baraboo. June 9-10. $70.00. Group leader: Dr. Edward Olsen,
curator of mineralogy. Hiking clothes are strongly recommended for
the scheduled hikes. The trip is not suitable for children, but younger
people interested in natural history are welcome.

Galena. Oct. 12, 13, 14. $150.00. Group leader: Dr. Bertram G.
Woodland, curator of petrology, in addition to viewing geological
features, tour members will have the opportunity to explore historic
Galena's charming downtown area, with its variety of pre-Civil War
architecture. Accommodations for two nights will be provided at
Chestnut Mountain Lodge.

Rates quoted above are per person, double occupancy (singles
on request), included are all expenses of transportation on charter
buses to and from Chicago, and accommodations in first class resort
hotels; all meals and gratuities, except personal extras such as special
food service. Advance deposit; $15.00 per person.

Baraboo tour visits beautiful Devils Lake, Wisconsin, ]une 9-10.

Taylor Camp, Hawaii

The Life and Death
Of a Hippie Community

BV THOMAS J. RILEY AND KARMA IBSEN-RILEY

Photos courtesy of the authors

Most Archaeological Research focuses on the

remains of man's remote past. From ancient Egypt
to the Mayan rainforest and even to southern
Illinois the archaeologist's trowel peels away at the
hidden corners of mankind's history to reveal the
mosaic of the human condition over time. This
involvement with the distant past gives the
impression that the archaeologist's domain is
purely ancient history, the story of human
evolution and cultural development until the time
of the invention of writing.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
Archaeologists are interested in the material
aspects of human cultures right down to the
present day. Most of us rarely get the chance to
study recently abandoned archaeological sites, but
there is a continuing growing interest in what the
remains of our own society can tell us about
human behavior in other societies as well as in our
own.

Archaeologist Mark Leone has recently
studied Mormon communities in Arizona and
elsewhere, systematically demonstrating the
relationships between Mormon social organiza-
tion, ideological structure, and the technological
aspects of their community designs. Bert Salwen,
a New York University archaeologist, has had a
longstanding interest in the behavior patterns of
our own society. His research has included the
correlation of supermarket merchandise and
neighborhood contexts in different ethnic areas of
New York, studies of "territorial " and
"cooperative" behavior among students in NYU
dormitories and the effects of different kinds of
behavior on the spatial arrangements of dormi-
tory furniture, and even studies of differential
vandalism in New York public facilities.

The most famous of these studies is the
"Garbage Project" conducted by researchers at the
University of Arizona. There, garbage from a
controlled sample of neighborhoods in Tucson is
systematically collected and inspected. The idea
behind the project is to systematically relate
economic behavior at its most basic level, i.e..

products acquired and consumed — in other
words, trash, to various aspects of American
culture in this particular region.

So archaeologists are not merely interested
in the most remote past of peoples, but rather in
the ways that society operates at different places
and times, and the relationships that can be
explicitly demonstrated between the technological
and economic remains of a society and the social
and ideological structure of the human group
composing it.

Recently we had the unique opportunity to
study a small part of a modern phenomenon on
the social scene in America, a small squatter camp
in Hawaii that was an outgrowth of what has
popularly been called the "hippie movement."

The opportunity came during the summer
of 1978 when the University of Hawaii-Honolulu
and the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign conducted a joint archaeological field
school at Ha'ena, the northernmost point on the
island of Kauai in the Hawaiian chain. The
archaeological field research was designed to
study various aspects of land use at Ha'ena over
time. Our primary emphasis was on the prehis-
toric Hawaiian settlement there.

Ha'ena is a rich archaeological complex
with a large occupation of the beach area,
extensive irrigated taro terraces, some of them
buried under tons of storm borne sand, house
platforms, enclosures, and old heiaii or temples. It
is also the site of Taylor Camp, a self-styled hippie
community that began in 1969 and lasted until its
residents were evicted in 1977. Since Taylor Camp
can be considered the last major adaptation to the
Ha'ena area (it is now being proposed as a state
park), it was a legitimate area of study for our
research team. During the summer we conducted

Thomas ]. Riley, a frequent contributor to the Bulletin,
is a staff archaeologist with the Bemice P. Bishop
Museum, Honolulu, and currently on leave from the
University of Illinois-Urbana, Department of Anthro-
pology. His wife, Karma Ibsen-Riley, is a free-lance
writer.

some limited mapping, surface collection, and
excavation in the ruins of the camp. We also
interviewed former residents of the community as
well as local Ha'ena people who had watched from
the outside as the community developed,
prospered, and finally met its untimely end.

The research that we began last summer is
far from complete, but it gives an interesting
picture of life in a particular hippie community in
the 1960s and 70s. We were concentrating on the
settlement patterns at Ha'ena over time, i.e.. how
people distributed themselves across the
landscape, and subsistence, the way they
supported themselves from the land (and in the
case of Ha'ena, from the sea).

In most societies settlement and subsistence
are closely related. People choose to live close to
where they hunt, plant, or for that matter work at
a 9 to 5 job. This was certainly the case with the
Hawaiian settlements, historic as well as pre-
historic, that we excavated at Ha'ena. Most of the
native Hawaiian sites that we recorded were
behind the Ha'ena beach and just below some of
the large agricultural complexes near the two
major streams in the area. The Hawaiians who
settled at Ha'ena Point sometime before A.D. 1200
were placing their settlements in between the two
mainstays of their economy, the sea with its rich
protein resources on the one side and the large
irrigated gardens on the other.

The Taylor Camp occupation contrasted
markedly with this Hawaiian pattern. This may
have been partly due to the series of events that
led to the founding of the camp, but more
importantly it was due to the kind of economy
that supported the people living at the site.

Taylor Camp was not a planned
community. The land on which it was built had
been loaned for use by Howard Taylor, a Kauai
resident, to a small group of people {estimated at
from 17 to 22 souls) who had been squatting at
several of the county parks on Kauai during 1968
and 1969. The county police had shooed the group
from one park to another and the county was
taking legal action against them when Mr. Taylor
offered them the use of a small parcel of land
bordering the beach at Ha'ena Point.

Taylor Camp began with a series of tents,
but quickly transformed itself into a set of more
permanent structures as tents rotted and the
inhabitants saw some possibility of permanent
residence on the land.

By 1972 there were 21 permanent houses at
Taylor Camp. All of them were tree houses since
local authorities would not issue them permits for
ground dwellings. Some of these structures were
quite elaborate indeed, with large bamboo pole
foundations, clapboard siding, and windows
facing the sea. In addition to the houses in the
camp there was a communal shower, an open air

Mount Miikaua, on
the island of Kaimi.
stands behind the site
of Taylor Camp at
Ha ena, in the
foreground. Taylor
Camp residents
dubbed the peak
"Buddha Mountain."

toilet, a small church, and even a cooperative
store which operated on and oH until the camps
closing.

The community had grown in size as well
as in structural permanence, and the estimates of
population that we have obtained trom
informants centered around 60 or 70 persons
including children.

Because Taylor Camp was not a planned
community, there was no consistent theme to its
growth, but the camp's size was artificially
curtailed when Mr. Taylor, under subtle coercion

well as the shower, a contraption ingeniously
rigged from 55 gallon oil drums. A special
attraction of Taylor Camp was the sauna
constructed sometime before 1972 near the beach
on the east boundary of the community. On the
west side of the camp were the gardens, about two
acres in extent, which are still producing a few
vegetables today.

What primarily interested us was how the
inhabitants of Taylor Camp supported them-
selves. The placement of the community in such a
remote area of Kauai seemed to leave two options

Four contiguous 2x2
meter squares in
Taylor camp oc-
cupations cut
through historic
trash deposits to the
Native Hawaiian
occupations below.

from the community, asked that no more houses
be built on the land.

The limits of Taylor Camp's growth put
certain stresses on the community, but also
permitted the development of a permanent
structure to the settlement. The best and most
substantial houses were next to the beach. About
50 meters back from the beach were several other
houses constructed on the long-abandoned
irrigated taro terraces. A community trail bisected
the camp and led back through a parking lot area
to the Kuhio highway, the main road that
connects the north end of Kauai to Hanalei, the
nearest town some seven miles to the east. The
church appears to have been located on the west
side of the camp close to the cooperative store.
Near what must have been the center of the camp
was the communal toilet, an open air "throne"
mounted next to a concrete septic tank (a
requirement of the local Department of Health) as

open to community members. The first was to
attempt to establish a local resource base very
much like the native Hawaiian subsistence that we
had noted from our excavations at other localities
in the Ha'ena area. The second option was to tie
the support of Taylor Camp into the local cash
economy of Kauai. It seems that the majority of
Taylor Camp residents chose the latter option,
although an informant survey that we conducted
as part of our research produced a wide range of
opinion about the economy of the camp and the
way that its residents supported themselves.

Many local Ha'ena residents claimed that
the economy of the camp was based on welfare
support from county and state and on the
production and sale of Cannabis sativa, which
Hawaiians call pakalolo ("crazy weed") and we
often call marijuana.

One of our informants who had lived in the
camp from 1972 until it closed disagreed. He

stated that Taylor Camp was like any other
community in the U.S. The majority of its
residents worked at various jobs on Kauai and
considered the camp an inexpensive and
comfortable place to live. Some grew pakalolo for
sale or home use, and a few were on welfare. But
according to this informant there were no more
people supported by welfare in Taylor Camp than
in the community at large.

Another resident who had lived there for
the last two years of the camps existence seemed
to contradict our first informant. He claimed that
you could tell when the welfare checks came in
because "everybody was drinking Heineken's." He
also claimed that the camp was in his words
"wired to Ching Young's store." Ching Young's
was the local general merchandiser located in
Hanalei.

Our initial research at Taylor Camp tells us
little about whether the camp was dependent on
"welfare " or foodstamps for its maintenance, but
it does support the view that it was "wired to the
general store." Two massive trash pits were
located in the garden area to the west of the camp.
These were filled with glass and metal trash, all of
which reflected a heavy dependence on the cash
economy of our own society. Several smaller trash
pits in the camp were filled with commercial
containers for everything from spices to tinned
limcheon meats. The small amounts of garbage
[hat we collected from the upper levels of the site
in the course of our excavations into the earlier
Hawaiian components showed little or no use of
resources such as the local limpet called opihi. or
strombus shell. These shellfish are abundant in the
area today and appear to have been among the
chief inshore resources used by the earlier
Hawaiian settlers at Ha'ena. Taylor Camp
residents, however, don't seem to have had an
interest in the resources of the sea.

Our excavations in one particular 2X2m
square at the site produced an interesting contrast
in economy. The deep Hawaiian layers here
produced thousands of grams of garbage,
including shell, fishbone, pig and dog bone and
even fish scales. A pit from the Taylor Camp
period, on the other hand, yielded rotten tent
fabric, metal grommets, a tab top from an
aluminum beer or pop can and an empty tin of
sardines that had been packed in Maine.

The small size of the garden area — a little
less than two acres — demonstrates that planting
played a secondary role in the subsistence of
Taylor Camp residents.

The large amounts of metal and glass trash,
and the fact that the garden area of the camp, even
during its most intense planting, couldn't have
supported even one-fourth of the residents of
Taylor Camp, both suggested to us that the camp,
despite its isolation, had to be dependent on a
traditional American cash economy.

Besides these, a major sign of the

dependence of Taylor Camp on the outside is the
number of abandoned cars that still pepper the
landscape at the margins of the main camp. We
counted at least 26 cars, most of them stripped of
usable parts. The vast majority of these vehicles, if
we can believe our informants, were left behind by
Taylor Camp residents. Most were older models
that had apparently died natural deaths in the
camp parking lot. We were told by one former
camp resident that if a car died even temporarily
"it was a goner." It would be stripped of most
usable parts by other camp residents and local
outsiders in order to keep their own cars running.
A working automobile was a valuable asset since
it provided access to the general store as well as
mobility for those who either worked in conven-
tional jobs or grew their pakalolo in isolated areas
far removed from the camp.

The sheer number of these vehicles within
the confines of the camp leads to the inference that
Taylor Camp was almost completely tied in with
the cash economy of the island. The importance of
automobiles in Taylor Camp, as isolated as it
seemed to be from the rest of Kauai, reflects the
importance of automobiles to American society at
large. The residents of the camp shared an
American need for mobility. They do not seem to
have rejected the earlier Hawaiian lifestyle
represented in our excavations there so much as
they were unaware of the potentials that the sea
and the land offered them.

Several of the informants that we talked to
who were residents of the camp stressed the idea
that they considered themselves to be living close
to the land while they were at Taylor Camp. The
archaeological remains that we mapped and
uncovered there suggest to us that their
perceptions of being close to the land included
isolation from the main centers of trade and
commerce on Kauai rather than dependence on
the land for subsistence.

Taylor Camp was a somewhat bizarre
settlement in the eyes of the local residents of
Ha'ena. Its residents often sunbathed in the nude,
and some preferred to go about their daily
activities without benefit of clothing. Their
church, called the Church of the Brotherhood of
the Paradise Children, welcomed Christian,
Buddhist, Jew, and atheist alike. Worshippers
shared experiences of God, the sun, or the
mystical power of the pyramids. There were no
police in camp and community members
attempted to maintain order by good judgment,
common sense, and community meetings.

Taylor Camp was altogether unlike the
outside community in its lack of bureaucratic
structure. While the size of the community was
constrained by the number of structures, there
was a large transient population associated with
the camp. These visitors stayed sometimes for a
few days, and often for longer periods. A few of
them managed to become community residents as

Historic trash pit cuts through natural sand stratigraphy
at Taylor Camp, intruding into ancient buried taro ter-
race at its bottom. This trash pit produced tent fabric,
grommets, and a can for Maine sardines.

older members left and "willed" a transient or
friend from the mainland a house or a room in one
of the spacious treehouses.

The large number of mainland visitors to
the sparsely inhabited north end of Kauai, the lack
of participation of camp members in community
affairs and structures, the nudity, and of course
the presence of "drugs" ail contributd to the
suspicion with which the older, more fixed
residents of Ha'ena viewed Taylor Camp.

At the same time, our initial excavations

and survey there suggest to us that Taylor Camp
was well within the mainstream of the American
value system. A tremendous value seems to have
been placed upon mobility in the form of the
automobile. The subsistence of the camp was
based on a cash economy that required
considerable monetary inputs rather than on a
regime of planting and fishing. In terms of its
support system at least, the camp was little
different in orientation from the farflung bedroom
communities of the large metropolitan centers of
America.

There were, of course, certain major
differences. The residents of Taylor Camp were
apparently younger than the average middle class
suburbanite, and it is likely that they had smaller
and fewer families to support. But like most
American suburbanites they chose a lifestyle that
was comfortable to them and then went to
considerable pains to maintain it, even though it
meant long treks for work, shopping, and leisure
activities. There is little doubt that the form that
Taylor Camp took would have been impossible
without the automobile, and that cash, whether
derived from the illicit sale of drugs, welfare
fraud, or hard labor played an important part in
the success of the community.

Taylor Camp was an experiment in living
in the late twentieth century that was spawned by
an attempt at rejection of many of contemporary
America's superficial values. But it was an
experiment in alternative leisure styles rather than
a Utopian settlement designed to explore the
economic and organizational frontiers of human
settlement. It existed within a fixed and commonly
accepted value system that emphasized mobility
and depended on a cash economy. Its history and
growth can give us some new insights into the way
that frontier communities develop in the twentieth
century within our own cultural matrix and the
basic value systems of a number of people in our
society who attempted, for a variety of motives,
to develop their own community structures and
living styles.

The camp is interesing to the archaeologist
because it provides a setting to explore how
closely the alternative lifestyles developed at a
particular point in American history were tied into
the economic and social matrix of the society at
large. The externals of the camp — the church,
nudity in everyday activities, etc. — placed the
camp and its residents well outside the mainstream
of rural American life on the north shore of Kauai.
From the archaeologist's point of view, however,
there was a vast sharing of basic economic and
social values between Taylor Camp and the sur-
rounding community. Taylor Camp and commun-
ities like it may help explain this pattern of am-
bivalence— the mosaic of acceptance and rejection
of items, economic base, and social values by a
large number of people in America during the late
1960s and into the 1970s D

OUR ENVIRONMENT

Time of Death Can Be Set for Deer

The Utah Division ot Wildlite Resources
has developed a technique tor determining
time ot death in a deer. The technique could
be valuable in prosecuting poaching cases.
What's involved is analysis of the
vitreous humor, the fluid between the
retina and lens of the eyes. While the deer is
still alive the potassium level in the blood
and eye remains equal. At the time of
death, the vitreous humor begins to absorb
potassium at a constant rate. It goes from
130 parts per million at death to 1,000 ppm
after the deer has been dead tor 108 hours.
Similar techniques have been used to
pinpoint time ot death in humans to within
a halt hour.

Hunting Doesn't Affect Mallard Numbers

Research has shown that as long as hunter
harvest of mallard ducks is below an
unspecified critical level the same number
of birds will die each winter regardless of
whether they were hunted or not.

Utah State University researchers and
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently
concluded a study which found that
mallard survival did not increase during
years ot hunting restrictions. Hunting at the
rate of past years apparently did not alter
survival rates for the ducks. Death from
natural causes cuts into surplus birds.

China Tops Billion

The 1978 report of the Environmental
Fund, a Washington-based private group
with a high reputation for accuracy, puts
China's population at 1,003,900,000.

Then come India with 656 million, the
USSR with 261 million, the US with 230
million, Indonesia with 149 million, Brazil
with 122 million and Japan with 115
million.

The fastest growing country is the
United Arab Emirates at 8.9 percent,
followed by Kuwait at 5.9 percent and
Libya at 4.1 percent. One surprise is that
China is reckoned to be growing faster than
India: 2.3 percent as against 2.1 percent.
Not far behind (another surprise) comes the
US with 1.7 percent. But almost half this
figure is accounted for by illegal immi-
grants, mainly from Mexico.

World population is estimated at
4,365,300,000 — an increase of 59 million
on last year. (Other estimates put the
increase at 70 million to 80 million.) In
other words the global population, despite
a slight easing off in the rate ot climb, is
continuing to grow every year by more
than the population of the United
Kingdom, one of the planets more
overcrowded countries.

EPA Suspends Use of Herbicide 2,4,5-T

In a very unusual action, tiPA has declared
an immediate halt to most uses of the
herbicide 2,4,5-T and its closely related
counterpart, silvex.

The decision to suspend use of the
herbicide was based on animal test results
and the high level of miscarriages among
women in the Alsea Basin area of Oregon,
shortly after the chemical was sprayed
there.

While the major use of 2,4,5-T in the
Midwest is along power line rights ot way,
consumers and homeowners may have
silvex products around the house for lawn
care use. The hI'A warns that existing stocks
should be secured safely out ot reach and in
accordance with storage instructions on the
products' labeling until the agency issues a
final order after expedited suspension
proceedings conclude. The distribution,
sale, or use of a suspended pesticide is
illegal, and could result in stiff penalties.

The emergency suspension was
necessary because the spring spraying
season was scheduled to begin soon, and an
estimated four million people nationwide
could have been exposed to the herbicides.
The suspension applies to use of 2,4,5-T in
forests and pastures, and along power lines
and highways. It also applies to silvex, a
weed killer used on lawns. Use of these
herbicides is permitted on rice fields and on
sparsely populated rangeland, where there
is less human exposure.

Federal Grants for Waste Recovery

Eleven midwestern cities are now eligible
for grants to develop resource recovery
projects. The grants program, part of
President Carter's Urban Policy, will
provide funds for feasibility planning,
financial arrangements, and market studies
for projects such as recycling of paper,
glass, and aluminum, or recovery of energy
from solid waste.

The eleven cities selected are: Chicago,
Rocktord, Indianapois, Detroit, Flint, St.
Paul, Cuyahoga County (Cleveland),
Montgomery County (Dayton), Toledo,
and Wausau /Stevens Point. These

communities will share the Sl5 million
program with 57 other areas across the
country.

"Mouse Magnets" Called Useless

The February Bulletin (p. 22) reported that
a California firm was marketing a device
"capable of making sound so shrill that it
drives rodents wild, kills cockroaches, and
sends fleas flying." Since publication of that
information, however, the editor has been
apprised of tests demonstrating that such
devices are less than effective. The follow-
ing study was reported in Biosciencc (Feb.
1979, Vol. 29, No. 2):

"The legendary better mouse trap' still
hasn't been built, say two biologists at the
University of California at Davis. Under an
EPA grant to study manufacturers' claims
that electromagnetic devices successfully
control rodent populations, vertebrate ecol-
ogist Rex Marsh and wildlife biologist
Walter Howard found the devices worth-
less. 'Rodent-proofing traps, and roden-
ticides still are the best,' they say.

"Manufacturers of the devices claim
that the influence of modified low-level
electromagnet fields can so disturb a
rodent's nervous system that the animal
cannot eat, drink, or reproduce. Eventu-
ally, it starves to death. But Marsh and
Howard found otherwise. Their tests
showed no difference in food and water
consumption between wild house mice and
common Norway rats exposed to the de-
vices, and those that served as controls.

'"Howard and Marsh tested 80 rodents.
Their results confirmed earlier field tests on
pocket gophers in San Bernardino County
and mice in egg ranch housing structures, as
conducted by the U.S. Cooperative Exten-
sion Service. "There is little scientific evi-
dence that low level electromagnetic fields,
as used in these devices, could in any way
be used effectively for rodent control,' they
conclude. But there is evidence that high
levels could be dangerous to animals in-
cluding man.' "

The editor has received no additional
information concerning the effectiveness of
ultrasonic devices on insect pests.

2#'

OUR ENVIRONMENT

Uranium-Mining Residues:
A 100,000- Year Headache

What do Edgemont, South Dakota; Ship-
rock, New Mexico; and Durango, Col-
orado have in common? Located in these
western towns are sites that contain the
only remaining vestiges of now defunct and
dismantled uranium mills: millions of tons
of radioactive residue, piled high on
acreage that is often bordered by residential
communities.

Uranium mill tailings sites remain at
the more than 20 locations where uranium
was once milled and used to produce high-
grade uranium, or yellow-cake, for U.S.
defense programs and the Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC). Many of the companies
that once mined the uranium in the 1950s
and 1960s have since folded, but their
operations left more than 27 million tons of
radioactive residue at numerous sites, most
of which are located in the western part of
the country. For many years, no one paid
attention to the mill tailings piles, nor their
possible effects on the surrounding com-
munity and environment. The former AEC
was responsible for the tailings, but
management was virtually nonexistent; not
until the late 1960s did the commission
acknowledge that the tailings might pose a
significant health hazard. Indeed, in 1959
the AEC authorized several mining com-
panies to sell mill tailings to construction
companies for use as fill material, but in
1966, some astonishing and disconcerting
evidence turned up: more than 700 build-
ings in Durango and Grand Junction, CO,
and numerous other places were con-

taminated with radiation from the use of
tailings as fill.

Subsequent studies and roused public
concern over the health effects of the
radioactive residue have led to the deter-
mination that the tailings problem merits
immediate resolution and is indeed more
complicated and hazardous than previously
thought. Last year, a Salt Lake City con-
sulting firm, under contract to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, published the re-
sults of extensive studies on the 22 inactive
tailings piles in the country. The study
listed five ways in which the population can
be exposed to radiation from the tailings
sites.

The major exposure, and greatest
hazard, is associated with the inhalation of
radon gas and radon "daughters," which
are decay products of the radium contained
in the waste. Since the tailings are usually
exposed in huge, uncovered piles, they may
exude radon gas at up to 500 times the
natural background rate. These products
are alpha emitters and are known to be
associated with lung cancer. Moreoever,
radon "daughters ' are heavier than air and
so can accumulate and remain in buildings
for long periods of time. The study con-
cluded that the cancer risk was double for
persons living within about a half-mile of
piles such as a 1.9 million ton, 128-acre pile
in downtown Salt Lake City.

The second kind of exposure from the
tailings is gamma radiation. Gamma rates
drop off sharply beyond several tenths of a
mile from the tailings, but remain at least
twice background rates where windblown
tailings have drifted. These windblown
piles are the cause of a third type of ex-
posure: inhalation and even ingestion of
radium and thorium, both alpha emitters.
In towns such as Edgemont, SD, all the
2,000 inhabitants are continually exposed
to tailings which blow into homes, schools,
and businesses from the pile just west of the
town. Part of the pile has even invaded the
backyard of an adjacent home.

The study outlined a fourth possible
type of exposure: water contamination.
Radium-laced water leaching from the pile
into the groundwater can end up in a town's
drinking water and cause further harm to
the population. Finally, the study notes that
uptake of radioactive elements by plants
and animals and subsequently consumed by
humans, can be another source of internal
radiation. A tomato plant grown near the
pile in Edgemont showed a radium concen-
tration, and an area east of the old mill is
cattle-grazing land.

Slowly but surely, the grim data about
the health effects of the radioactive piles are
coming in. A South Dakota state health
department report shows a higher rate of
cancer in Fall River County — where Edge-
mont is located — than in any other county
in the state. Most of the increased deaths
were caused by respiratory cancer, exactly
what would be expected from radon inhala-
tion. In the sleeping quarters of Salt Lake
City's Fire Station No. 1, which was built
on radioactive mill tailings over 20 years

ago, it was found that the exposure to
radon daughters is fully seven times greater
than that allowed for uranium miners.
Other disconcerting stories will undoubted-
ly arise in the near future, as roughly 15-20
years pass before the appearance of cancers
associated with radiation exposure show
up.

Clearly, the radioactive waste problem
is a large one, and one that is here to stay.
In addition to the 27 million tons of wastes
at the abandoned sites, over 113 million
tons have accumulated at active sites.
Estimates show that a billion tons of tailings
could be produced by the year 2000 if uran-
ium is milled at the current rapid pace. Fur-
ther, a finding in a report issued by the
American Physical Society in 1977 grimly
states: 'For long-term waste management,
the hazard associated with radium is more
significant than that for plutonium [found
in spent fuel rods from nuclear power
plants and in high-level waste from fuel
reprocessing). In addition, for regional
population exposure, radionuclides in
uranium mill tailings are potentially at least
as important as the actinide elements in
high-level waste; the relative accessibility of
mill tailings contrasts with the isolation
proposed for other actinide-containing
wastes. "

Last fall, the uranium mill tailings pro-
blem reached the halls of the U.S. Con-
gress, where a debate raged over who
should pay for the tailings cleanup. The
states involved — among them Colorado,
Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming — argued
that the tailings were created by processing
uranium for the federal government's nu-
clear weapons program, thus they should
not have to pay for the cost of cleanup. The
Carter administration backed a measure
that would require the federal government
to pay 75 percent of cleanup costs and the
state governments 25 percent. The bill that
was finally enacted in the closing hours of
the 95th Congress provides for the federal
government to pay 90 percent of the conser-
vative cleanup estimate of Sl40 million,
with the states footing the other 10 percent
of the bill. The legislation also strengthens
the licensing and management authority of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
to ensure proper tailings management by
current uranium milling operations.

A generic environmental impact state-
ment (GEIS) on tailings disposal is scheduled
to be released by the NRC sometime this
spring, with recommendations for the
future management of uranium mills and
ways to reduce the current radiation levels
at the inactive sites. The NRC is currently re-
quiring active uranium mills to regrade the
waste piles — in order to resist erosion — and
then cover them with about 8 to 12 feet of
clay and other soil to meet the objective of
reducing radon levels to twice background
levels. Long-term plans for disposal of the
tailings — which will release radon for more
than 100,000 years— will be the topic of
much discussion and debate this year when
the CEIS is released. — Patricia Weil, Na-
tional Wildlife Federation.

Arctic Haze Studied

Climate specialists at an international con-
ference in Geneva, Switzerland, have
reported that smog and dust from Europe
and China may explain a puzzling haze that
visits the atmosphere of Alaska, Greenland,
and the Arctic Ocean each spring. Climate
experts and meteorologists from 40 nations,
discussing the arctic haze at the recent
meeting, said it contains sulfate particles,
produced from burning high-sulfur fossil
fuels, traces of vanadium and silicates.
Some of the particles were probably blown
north from the industrial regions in Europe,
while others may have originated in the
Gobi Deserts of China and Mongolia. A
similar haze also has been reported at the
South Pole; scientists are still seeking fur-
ther explanation of the phenomenon.

Winners in Dirty Air Contest

Most environmentalists can guess which
US. city has the worst air quality. Los
Angeles, famous for its smog, was the easy
"winner" in a study published by the Coun-
cil on Environmental Quality. On 318 days
in 1975 — the year on which the study was
based — its air was "unhealthful," "very
unhealthful," or hazardous."

But the list of a representative group of
cities contained a few surprises, according
to the National Wildlife Federation, which
monitors the nation's air pollution in its an-
nual Environmental Quality Index report.
The cities, and the number of days on
which their air was "unhealthful" or worse
were: Denver, 177; Albuquerque, 150; Phil-
adelphia, 150; New York-New Jersey
Metropolitan Area, 149; Boston, 147;
Houston, 141; St. Louis, 140; San Francis-
co, 127; Spokane, Wash., 126; Phoenix,
118; Fairbanks, Alaska, and District of Col-
umbia, 90; Sacramento, Cal., 88; Louis-
ville, Ky., 72; Steubenville, Ohio, 60; Cin-
cinnati, 51; Omaha, 40; Memphis, 38; and
Wichita, Kan., 25.

Fighting Pests with Pests

Insect pests cause considerable trouble,
destroying crops and carrying disease. But
the chemical poisons used to kill them can
be just as harmful to the air, water, and
people.

There is a safer, more natural way to
control insects according to "Fighting Pests
with Pests," just published by the National
Wildlife Federation, located in Washington,
D.C. The pamphlet is designed to show
children why more and more farmers in the
United States are using the natural enemies
of pests instead of harmful chemicals to
protect their crops.

This new method is called "pest
management" and relies on the "three Ps"
— insect predators, parasites, and patho-
gens. "Someday pest management may
make most poisons unnecessary," the eight-
page illustrated pamphlet suggests.

Included in the publication is a chart

that lists 34 common insect pests and
natural ways to control them. For example,
chinch bugs can be kept away from corn by
planting soybeans nearby as a "trap plant."

Sex Change in Fish

Many fish species are capable of making a
complete sex change while adults. One of
the speediest examples is the Pacific wrasse.
After a two-year study on the Australian
Great Barrier Reef, researchers have docu-
mented such changes which take only two
weeks. Male wrasses guard territories with

harems of from three to six smaller females.
If the guardian male dies, neighboring
males try to take over. If the dominant
female is able to rebuff the males she will
begin to change her sex from female to male
within less than one hour of the death of the
original male. Within two weeks the change
is complete and the new male is capable of
producing viable sperm.

Such a sex reversal seems to be con-
trolled socially. Each male controlling a
harem supresses the subordinate females'
tendency to change sex by actively domin-
ating them. Males are produced only when
a fish can successfully establish itself as a
harem owner.

The White Whales of Manitoba

The story of twentieth-century whaling in
Hudson Bay is one of use combined with
scientific study; both ongoing with inter-
related goals. The changing role of man and
his impact on the arctic is reflected in

changing attitudes towards the beluga, or
white whale. No longer extensively hunted,
beluga populations today appear both
stable and healthy.

In 1931 the Hudson's Bay Company
whaling operatings were closed down and
from 1931 to 1949 hunting was confined to
local residents and missions. Whale meat
was used mainly as dog food. The beluga
fishery came under the control of the
Federal Department of Fisheries in 1949.
Shortly after, the Adanac Whale and Fish
Products Company moved into Churchill.
Inuit, Cree, White, and Metis residents pur-
chased licences for $1.00 to hunt beluga and
were paid by the foot for each whale
caught.

The whaling season was relatively
short, lasting from mid-June to late
September. Two men in outboard canoes
formed hunting teams. The bowsman-har-
pooner located the whales and signalled the
helmsman during the chase. The oil was
sold to commercial companies for use in
margarine, lubricating fluid, soap or
cosmetics. The liver was made into animal
food and the steaks were sold in Winnipeg
stores for human consumption. The carcass
and bones were ground into 50-pound
packages for dog food and fur farms, while
the hides were made into leather.

This fishery flourished throughout the
1950s with an average annual catch of 450
whales. It was revived in 1964 after a short
period of decline and in 1965 Churchill
Whale Products Limited took over opera-
tions. By now industry was using the oil ex-
tracted from the top frontal portion of the
beluga's head to lubricate fine watches and
scientific equipment. This oil sold for $15 a
gallon. Other oil was used in margarine
which sold at 90' a gallon.

In 1965 a local Whalers' Association
was formed, but the processing plant was
already in serious financial trouble. Cons-
tant equipment breakdowns and the closure
of mink farms in Manitoba were contri-
buting factors. Then, with the assistance of
the Federal Department of Cooperative Ser-
vices, a local co-op was formed. The plant
operated successfully for two seasons
before mercury contamination and a de-
cline in commercial sales finally resulted in
its closure in 1968.

The Beluga Protection Regulations ad-
ministered by the Federal Department of
Fisheries also became law in 1965. Under
this law, sport whale hunting was en-
couraged, but hunters were required to hire
local Indian or Inuit guides. A quota was
placed on the number of whales harvested
and the amount of meat hunters were
allowed to take home. Today beluga hunt-
ing is limited to local residents of the Cana-
dian Arctic.

A tagging program which lasted two
years was started in July, 1967, by D.E.
Sargeant of the Arctic Biological Station of
the Fisheries Research Board of Canada.
This was organized to learn more about the
movement of beluga in the bay and whe-
ther different groups, or pods, intermingle
or remain separate.

Tagging operations undertaken at the

OUR ENVIRONMENT

mouth of the Seal River involved the hiring
of experienced Indian whalers from
Churchill. The canoes were formed into an
arc and then the whales were eased slowly
into the shallows. The men shouted, threw
stones into the water or banged their pad-
dles on the gunwales of the canoes in order
to keep the animals from turning back. The
whales were then jumped upon and lassoed
at the head and tail with ropes. Tags were
placed on the whale's back with a special
pair of pliers. Other whales tagged in
deeper waters were harpooned with a spe-
cial harpoon having a head which could be
easily withdrawn after each hit, leaving be-
hind a tag sunk into the hide of the animal,
with an attached plastic sleeve on which
was stamped the Federal Department of
Fisheries address.

Live whale capture techniques were
developed in Churchill. In 1966, "Marine-
land of the Pacific," hired boats and motors
from the Churchill Whalers' Co-op to cap-
ture white whales for their aquarium. The
Seal River was selected for the capture, due
to its abundance of whales and the clarity
of the water. Attempts to capture beluga
with cable hoops and nets proved unsuc-
cessful. In addition, the prospect of
transferring captured whales to a holding
tank for a lengthy 14- to 16-hour trip from
the Seal River to Churchill posed an unac-
ceptable risk for the animals. The group
returned to the Churchill River and tried
again with nets, this time they were suc-
cessful.

Techniques were learned by trial and
error. The tried and true method used to
capture beluga is similar to the cowboy's
method of rounding up cattle from horse-
back. The capture team, riding in twenty-
foot freighter canoes, locate a pod of
whales. One beluga is selected for capture
on the basis of its size and weight. This
whale is then cut from the pod and driven
into shallow water at the river's edge by
"chaser" canoes.

Once the whale is surrounded by the
canoes in the shallow water, a designated
"jumper" dives near the front of the whale
and secures the animal's head with a lasso.
To prevent escape, a back-up jumper dives
into the water behind the whale and im-
mobilizes the beluga's powerful tail fluke
which propels the animal. The captive be-
luga is then transported to a holding tank,
cradled in a canvas stretcher which is at-
tached to the gunwales alongside the boat.
To offset the weight of the whale and pre-
vent the boat from capsizing, several people
must be seated on the opposite side of the
canoe.

For the capture team, the most difficult
part of the trip is the physical effort in-
volved in restraining and carrying the half-
ton whales while they're working in the icy
waters of the Churchill River.

In transit, the safety of the whale is of
primary importance. The canvas stretcher
is slung beside the boat in a way which per-
mits most of the animal's body to remain

^ "^«^..,

Summer

distribution and

abundance of

beluga in the

Canadian

eastern arctic.

under water. To avoid the danger of
drowning, care is taken to keep the whale's
blowhole from submerging. To prevent
sunburn and to protect the delicate skin
from drying out, the beluga's back is
covered with sheets of foam which are con-
stantly moistened with water. The beluga
are given a thorough medical examination
by the veterinarians who are present at the
capture.

A large holding tank located on the
banks of the Churchill River becomes a
temporary home for the captured beluga.
The tank contains continuously circulating
salt water from the river estuary, a natural
medium for the beluga. The holding tank is
lined with styrofoam and plastic to provide
a comfortable temporary dwelling. Here
the whales are allowed to rest and become
relatively used to two new and frightening
experiences — confinement and handling
by man.

As soon as possible, the beluga are
transferred to their new aquarium homes.
Rapid air charters are arranged to transport
the whales over international boundaries.
Specially designed carrying crates have
been devised to hold the whales on-board
aircraft. Each of the beluga is moved in-
dividually in its own crate. Inside the crate,
the animal is slung onto a mattress in a
stretcher-like hammock. The hammock is
supported by foam rubber and water.
These foam-lined containers surround the
whale, conforming to the natural shape of
its body and providing a neutral buoyancy.
These elaborate precautions are necessary
to protect the whale because the skeleton of
this marine mammal lacks the strength to
support its own weight out of water.
Without proper support the beluga's lungs
will collapse. Ice packs and water inside the
crate maintain normal body temperature

NUMBERS
Large

Small

and special sprayers keep the skin moist
during the flight.

The Beluga Whale Live Capture Pro-
gram is now run by Nanuk Enterprises in
Churchill. Since 1972, beluga from the
Churchill River have been captured for
Canadian and international zoos and
aquariums where they afford visitors an op-
portunity to study and observe these mam-
mals as never before. Whales have been
successfully transported to aquariums in
Dusseldorf, West Germany; Coney Island,
New York; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and
Kamazowa, Japan.

Beluga often do not resume feeding for
two weeks after they arrive at the new
aquarium, and the fasting period has been
observed to be as long as two months. An
appetite-stimulating drug is administered
by some receiving aquariums. However,
aquariums report that the beluga adjust
quickly to their new surroundings, becom-
ing friendly and apparently enjoying con-
tact with their human trainers and keepers.

But there is still much that we do not
know about this gentle white whale. Not
only is there much that needs to be
understood, but there is much that beluga
can teach us about environmental adapta-
tion — especially in the arctic. Such lessons
may have profound meaning as man exerts
greater influence upon the arctic region
with each passing year. — Manitoba
Department of Mines, Natural Resources
and Environment.

Publication of this report in the Bulletin on
the hunting and capture of the white uyhale
constitutes neither an endorsement nor dis-
approval of the activity. Its appearance
here is for informational purposes only.
- Ed.

June and July at Field Museum

(June 15 through Julii 15)

New Exhibits

"Treasures of Cyprus." Opened June 14. These 150 objects
reflect nearly 8,000 years of Cypriot art and culture. Situated at
the crossroads of three continents — Europe, Asia, and Afri-
ca— the Cypriot people have kept their individuality while still
assimilating other cultures, The bowls, jugs, vases, religious
idols, and jewelry show the influence of many peoples while re-
maining typically Cypriot. This is the show's last stop before
returning to Cyprus. Because of the extreme age and fragility of
the objects, this exhibition will not travel to the United States
again. Through September 16. Hall K. "Treasures of Cyprus,"
developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition
Service (sites), is sponsored by the government of Cyprus and
organized by Vassos Karageorghis, director of the Department of
Antiquities, and Patroclos Stavrou, undersecretary to the presi-
dent of Cyprus. See story on page 4.

Cypriot kylix, or drinking cup. of Cypro-Geometric III period (850-725 B.C.). Height
20 cm (7.9 in.). Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution.

Continuing Exhibits

"Art Lacquer of Japan." Opened May 9. Features inro (intricately
carved and decorated sectional medicine cases), nelsuke (tiny
carved pendants), and ojime beads, which hung from the waists of
18th- and 19th-century Japanese men as symbols of wealth and
status. Planned in conjunction with "Japan Today" festivities, this
is the first Japanese exhibit installed at Field Museum in 50 years.
Miniature landscapes, dreamlike still lifes, and mythic dragons
are flawlessly carved into lacquer ornaments no larger than a
matchbox. Examples of Chinese lacquer art will be exhibited for
comparison. Hall 32.

"The Art of Being Huichol." Opened May 5. A major traveling
exhibition of more than 1 50 objects of Huichol Indian art. The ex-
hibit was organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
and is sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Arts and by the Museum Society of the Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco. The exhibit includes costumes, votive objects, weav-
ings, embroidery, beadwork, and yarn "paintings." The "art of be-
ing Huichol" is the act of living a devout life, and spiritual themes
dominate their art. The Huichol also value visionary experiences
produced by the hallucinogenic peyote and these images are
reflected in their dramatic yarn paintings. The Huichol live in an
isolated area of Western Mexico, and they remain one of the few
traditional Indian groups whose ancient beliefs and practices re-
main unchanged even today. Through September 3. Hall 27.

"Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit from Five Con-
tinents." Closes July 31. Last months to see acclaimed exhibit of
260 rare feather objects assembled almost entirely from Field
Museum's own collections. Compare an intricate feather mosaic
cloak from New Zealand with sophisticated Chinese jewelry inlaid
with brilliant blue kingfisher feathers or with colorful feather
adornments from South America's Indian tribes. Learn about the
amazing structure of feathers and how they are used to express
man's ideas about beauty, wealth, and spirit. After its closing
here, "Feather Arts" will travel to three other museums across the
country. Hall 26.

"A Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural History." A one-case
exhibit that combines 63 natural history specimens with samples
of philatelic or stamp art. Planned on a rotating basis to cover the
four disciplines of natural history, the first phase is devoted to
zoological specimens and their images on stamps. Exquisite sea-
shells and butterflies are among the specimens mounted with a
leaping jaguar and fox in the second floor lounge. "A Stamp
Sampler" was conceived by Col. M. E. Rada, exhibit guest cura-
tor, and was designed by Peter Ho, a CJniversity of Illinois
graduate student.

"Cash, Cannon, and Cowrie Shells: The Nonmodern Moneys of
the World." A fascinating collection that contains over 80
varieties of money used by ancient cultures. It explores the
origins, values, and meaning of nonmodern money in terms of
buying power for these past civilizations. The accompanying text
gives the value of each form of money in terms of how much food
it could then buy. Four general categories of moneys are on
display: metal coinage, uncoined metal, shell money, and
"miscellaneous," which includes food, fur, fiber, glass, teeth, and
stone currencies. No closing date. Between Halls K and L, ground
floor.

Field Museum Gamelan. Field Museum's 19th-century Javanese
gamelan, an ensemble of 24 fine bronze and wood musical in-
struments, has been completely restored for exhibition. It is
perhaps the finest gamelan outside Indonesia. Hall K, ground
floor.

The Hall of Chinese Jades contains beautiful jade art spanning
over 6,000 years of Chinese history. An exhibit in the center of
the hall illustrates ancient jade carving techniques. Hall 30,
second floor.

American Indian Halls trace the anthropological history and
cultural development of the original Americans, from the time of
their arrival on the North American continent (before 20,000
B.C.) to the present. Hall 5 contains a traditionally made Pawnee
earth lodge — the home and ceremonial center of Pawnee Indians
as it existed in the mid- 1800s. Halls 4 through 10, main floor east.

Tibetan Culture can be explored in Hall 32, on the Museum's
second floor. Rare film footage, shot in 1927, documents
nomadic life and religious pageantry in Tibet. The Tibetan ex-
hibits are divided into two sections. One hall displays common
possessions from the past such as weapons, yak-herding equip-
ment, and textiles. Lamaism, the Tibetan form of the Buddhist
religion, is the theme of the second hall. ^t

(Continued on back couer)

June and July at Field Museum

(Continued from inside back couer)

The Place for Wonder. This gallery provides a place to handle,
sort, and compare artifacts and specimens. Weekdays, 1 p.m. to 3
p.m.; weekends, 10 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Ground
floor, near central elevator.

New Programs

"Chinese Folk Tales." Sunday, June 17, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Sunday, June 24 at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m. The Laboratory
Company of Body Politic Theatre uses mime and improvisation
to bring alive traditional Chinese folk tales. The program is
suitable for young people and families. Members: $1.50; non-
members: $3.00. Lecture Hall II.

"The Huichol Indians: An Historical Perspective." Friday, June
22, at 8 p.m. James Simpson Theatre. With Basil C. Hedrick,
assistant museum director of the Illinois State Museum at Spring-
field. In discussing the history of the Huichol Indians from the
time of the Spanish intrusion until the 20th century. Dr. Hedrick
describes the Huichol in relationship to other tribes. Topics in-
clude physical differences, geographical location, politics,
religion, and customs. He also explores the tribe's interaction
with the surrounding Spanish people. Members, $2.00; non-
members, $3.50.

"Huichol Contemporary Social and Economic Structure." Fri-
day, June 29, at 8 p.m. James Simpson Theatre. With Phil C.
Weigand, associate professor of anthropology at State University
of New York. Dr. Weigand, who has been doing field work among
the Huichol since 1960, explains how this composite society of
native Indian groups is reacting to the pressures of acculturation.
The final program in a series planned in conjunction with "The
Art of Being Huichol" exhibit. Members, $2.00; nonmembers,
$3.50. An optional Members' dinner (for $7.50) precedes the lec-
ture at 6:30 p.m.

"Summer Fun: Field Museum Workshops." A series of
workshops for young people ages 6 through 12 will highlight
many of the interesting museum exhibits and give young people
an opportunity to become involved in diverse subject areas.
Watch for the announcement of the July workshop series.

Continuing Programs

"Armchair Expeditions." Geared for adult groups, these in-
house "expeditions" include slide lectures and tours of selected
exhibits. Dining arrangements available. Reservations are re-
quired. Call 922-0733 for more information.

Summer Journey: "A to Z at Field Museum." Self-guided tour
leads families and children through a cross section of exhibits in-
troducing them to the Museum's four main areas: anthropology,
botany, geology, and zoology. Free Journey pamphlets available
at the Morth Information Booth, and the South and West doors.

Friend or Foe? The Natural History Game. Field Museum's
popular "Anthropology Game" has been expanded to include
botany, geology, and zoology. The object here is to determine
which one of apparently similar specimens is harmful and which
is not. See if you can distinguish a vampire bat, a headhunter's
axe, a poisonous mineral, or a deadly mushroom from its benign
look-alike. Ground floor, no closing date.

Medieval Cypriot glazed bowl. A griffin is depicted on tfie inside. IStti cent. A.D.
Diam. 16.5 cm (6.5 in.). On view in new exhibit "Treasures of Cyprus," opening June
14 in Hall K. Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets, adult-
and family-oriented, are available for 25C each at the entrance to
the Museum Shop, main floor north.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Guided tours, demonstrations,
and participatory activities. Every Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.
to 3 p.m.

Volunteer Opportunities. Limited opportunities are available in
botany, geology, and zoology. Weekend volunteers with an in-
terest in natural history are needed to develop and present
weekend programs. For more information call 922-9410, X 360.

June and July Hours. The Museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6
p.m. except Fridays. On Fridays, the Museum is open from 9 a.m.
to 9 p.m. throughout the year.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Obtain a
pass at the reception desk, main floor.

Museum Telephone: (312) 922-9410

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN

Field Museum
of Natural History
Bulletin

July /August, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 7

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walsten
Production: Oscar Anderson
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff Photographer: Ron Testa

Reld Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, ]r.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
George R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

William R. Dickinson, Jr.
Thomas E. Donnelley 11
Marshall Field
Nicholas Galitzine
Paul W. Goodrich
Hugo J. Mel vein
William H. Mitchell
Charles F. Murphy, Jr.
James J. O'Connor
James H. Ransom
John S. Runnells
William L. Searle
Edward Byron Smith
Robert H. Strotz
John W. Sullivan
Mrs. Edward F. Swift
Edward R. Telling
Mrs. Theodore D. Tieken
E. Leland Webber
Julian B. Wilkins
Blaine J. Yarrington

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
William V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

CONTENTS

3 Field Briefs

4 El Nino: The Catastrophic Flooding of Coastal Peru

By Fred L. Nials, Eric E. Deeds, Michael E. Moseley,
Shelia C. Pozorski, Thomas G. Pozorski, and
Robert A. Feldman

Center insert (following p. 14): A Brief Report 1977/78

15 Field Museum Tours to China, Antarctica, and Peru

16 Jungle Islands: The Illyria in the South Seas

By Sidney N. ShurcUff

27 July, August, and September at Field Museum

Calendar of coming events

COVER

Prairie Uly (Lilium philadelphicum var. andinumj, growing
in Wolf Road Prairie, an 80-acre tract 15 miles west of the
Chicago Loop. In northern Illinois the increasingly rare plant
blooms from about June 11 to July 16.
Photo by John Kolar.

Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (USPS 898-940) is published monthly,
except combined July/August issue, by Field Museum of Natural History,
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, II. 60605. Subscriptions: $6 a
year; $3 a year for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin subscription.
Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the
policy of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster:
Please send form 3579 to Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at
I^ke Shore Drive, Chicago, II. 60605. ISSN: 0015-0703.

Loren P. Woods 1913-1979

Loren P. Woods, curator emeritus of fishes,
died suddenly on May 13. He had been on
the Museum staff from 1938 until last
September, when he retired. Since then, he
had continued his research activities at the
Museum.

Woods' first Museum appointment was
on the staff of the Raymond Foundation,
which administers the Museum's public
school programs. In 1941 he was made
assistant curator of fishes and in 1947 was
appointed curator, the position he held un-
til his retirement. From 1947 to 1948 he was
on leave with the United States National
Museum, Washington, to study fishes col-
lected in the region of the Bikini Atoll atom
bomb tests.

Born and raised near Poseyville, Indi-
ana, Woods did his undergraduate work at
Earlham College, Richmond, Ind. (B.A.
1936) and graduate work at Northwestern
University, the University of Washington,
and the University of Chicago. He pro-
duced dozens of technical papers on marine
and freshwater fishes during his career. His
field work included numerous expeditions
into Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean
waters as well as to freshwater localities
throughout North America.

Loren P. Woods

New Membership Plan

Beginning July 1, 1979, a new annual
membership plan becomes available to new
and renewing members alike. Instead of be-
ing limited to a single class of annual
membership, one will have the option of
selecting an individual member-
ship— whereby one person enjoys the bene-
fits and privileges of the membership — or a
family membership — whereby husband and
wife and all their children living in the same
household are beneficiaries of the member-
ship.

The annual rate for the individual
membership is $20.00 and that for a family
membership is $25.00. Except for the new
rate, the family membership is identical
in all respects to the single annual member-
ship plan that has been available in the
past.

Current memberships are affected by
the new arrangement only as they come up
for renewal, at which time the renewing
member may choose either the individual
or the family plan.

Life memberships continue to be
available at $500.00 (payable over a
12-month period). The privileges of this
category, like those of the family member-
ship, extend to husband and wife and all
children living in the same household.

The new membership plan reflects only
the second increase in membership rates
since the Museum was founded in 1893,- the
first increase occurred in 1971. Since then,
the costs of museum operation have risen
markedly, necessitating the present in-
crease.

Raup Elected to National Academy
of Sciences

David M. Raup, chairman of the Depart-
ment of Geology, was elected a member of
the National Academy of Sciences at its
116th annual meeting in April. He was
among 60 new members chosen.

Membership in the prestigious acad-
emy is generally regarded as the highest
recognition attainable for an American
scientist. The election of Raup was based
largely on his distinguished research in
quantitative paleontology and evolutionary
theory. He is the second staff member in the
history of Field Museum to be so honored.
(The first was herpetologist Karl P.
Schmidt, 1890-1957, former chief curator of
zoology.)

Weekend Members' Tour to Galena
October 12, 13, 14

Spaces are still open on Field Museum's fall
weekend tour to historic Galena, Illinois, in
the northwestern corner of the state. A cen-
tury ago the small city was a bustling lead-

mining center and many of the fine homes
of that era are still preserved. Geologic
features of the region continue to be of par-
ticular interest. Dr. Bertram G. Woodland,
curator of petrology, who will serve as tour
leader, will also provide commentary on
the unusual geologic features of the area.

Accommodations for two nights will
be at Chestnut Mountain Lodge. Price of
the tour is $150.00 per person, double oc-
cupancy (singles on request). Included are
all expenses of transportation on charter
buses to and from Chicago; all meals and
gratuities, except personal extras such as
special food service. Advance deposit:
$15.00 per person. For further information
call or write Michael J. Flynn, Field
Museum Tours, Roosevelt Rd. at Lake
Shore Dr., Chicago, 111. 60605. Phone
922-9410, ext. 251.

Ellen Thorne Smith Bird and Mammal
Study Center Dedicated

The memory of Ellen Thorne Smith,
founder and first president of the Field
Museum Women's Board, has been hon-
ored by the establishment of a bird and
mammal study center at the Museum. Mrs.
Smith, who died on March 16, 1977, was
Women's Board president from 1966 to
1969.

The center, dedicated following the
May 16 annual meeting of the Women's
Board, has provided additional office and
laboratory space for the bird and mammal
divisions, consolidated the major part of
the bird and mammal collections, and
greatly increased the utility and security of
the specimens. The center was made possi-
ble by a gift from Mrs. Smith's husband,
Hermon Dunlap Smith, while Mrs. Smith
was still living.

Also dedicated to Mrs. Smith at the
May 16 meeting were two new bird habitat
groups in Hall 20, the Greater Bird of
Paradise and the Mallee Fowl groups.
Establishment of the groups was made
possible by donations from Mrs. Smith's
children: Mrs. Walther H. Buchen, Mrs.
John M. Haight, Mrs. John L. Simmons,
and Mr. Farwell Smith.

In addition to Mrs. Smith's service as
Women's Board president, she served for
many years as a volunteer in the Division of
Birds. From 1943 to 1945 she was, in fact,
the Bird Division's sole staff, as the curators
were on leave for wartime military service.

Besides her activities in the Bird Divi-
sion, Mrs. Smith carried through several
projects on her own. She wrote Chicago-
land Birds, When and Where to Find Them
(1958, 1972) and planned and supervised
the preparation of the exhibit "Resident
Birds of Chicago," selecting with equal care
the birds and the plants that accompany
them.

El Nino: The

Catastrophic

Flooding of

Coastal Peru

A complex of oceanographic

and meteorologic factors

combine in one of Earth's most

devastating, recurrent disasters

eVFRED L. MIALS, ERIC E. DEEDS, MICHAEL
E. MOSELEY, SHELIA G. POZORSKI,
THOMAS G. POZORSKI, AND ROBERT
FELDMAN

Copyright : 1979 by Field Museum of [Satural History. All rights
reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without prior written per-
mission is strictly prohibited.

Along the western flanks of the Andes Mountains,
from Peru into Chile, nature has juxtaposed a
bleak and barren desert with a remarkably boun-
tiful sea. As part of the Humboldt (Peru) Current,
a narrow band of cold waters sweeps northward
along the arid coastline, creating the richest
marine habitat in the Western Hemisphere, if not
the entire world. By 1970 this remarkable resource
had enabled Peru to become the world's leading
fishing nation, supplying more than one-fifth of
the global marine harvest.

In stark contrast to the copious sea, the
bordering desert is one of the driest places on
earth, with a total rainfall for a quarter century of
less than 45 mm. The landscape's austerity is
broken by occasional streams and rivers fed by
annual rains that occur high in the distant moun-
tains. Long ago man began creating lush oases in
the desert valleys by channeling these water-
courses into large irrigation systems; these, in
turn, were able to support productive farming the

Fred L. Nials is a geologist at Eastern New Mexico Uni-
versity who specializes in archaeological applications of
geology. Eric E. Deeds is a Harvard senior who, as a PRA
consultant, first identified the effects of the Chimu
flood. Michael E. Moseley, codirector of the PRA, is
associate curator of Middle and South American archae-
ology and ethnology at Field Museum. Shelia and
Thomas G. Pozorski, codirectors of the PRA, are on the
staff of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pitts-
burgh. Robert A. Feldman is a research archaeologist
4 with the Field Museum's PRA.

year round. The bounty of the sea, the bleakness
of the desert, and the productivity of irrigation are
all interrelated expressions of complex
meteorological and marine currents that nature
holds in a delicate balance.

Occasionally this balance loses equilibrium
and the ensuing cataclysms can be staggering. The
largest such disaster known is reported in this arti-
cle. That event transpired about eight centuries
ago; our story, however, begins more recently. As
members of Field Museum's Programa Riego An-
tigua, we are studying the rise and fall of irriga-
tion systems in the Moche Valley on the north
coast of Peru.* While we were exploring desert
ruins in 1972, it suddenly began to rain— nature
had lost equilibrium! For days erratic showers
soaked, then saturated the normally parched land-
scape. With no vegetation to hold it back, runoff
transformed dry washes and quebrada (normally
dry ravine) channels into torrential streams. Flash
floods cut all the northern highways, stranding
not only the region we were in but the rest of the
nation as well. Settlements were flooded, adobe

'See also "Archaeology in the Electronics Age," by
Robert A. Feldman and Alan L. Kolata, Field Museum
Bulletin, July/ August, 1978.

houses collapsed, and mud choked down the life-
sustaining canal systems. Accounts of the dis-
aster, with its attendant death toll, appeared in
newspapers around the world, but few readers
realized that, as a consequence of the flooding,
they would soon be paying higher food prices.
Most of Peru's great marine harvest is rendered in-
to fishmeal and oil used to feed people as well as
livestock around the globe. With the rains came
warm sea currents that scattered the vast schools
of fish and inhibited their reproduction. The
fishing industry came to a standstill. Thus, as the
desert lay awash, the world lost access to one of its
major protein sources. Nature had lost her balance
and the cataclysm marked the return of El Nino!
Calamitous phenomena similar to those of
1972 had been recorded in recent historic times,
such as in 1925 and 1891. The change from normal
to abnormal conditions often began around
Christmastime and, accordingly, came to be
known by the Spanish term for the Christ Child,
El Nino. Our study of the rise and fall of ancient
irrigation systems recently led to the discovery of
an El Nino catastrophe of a magnitude far greater
and more devastating than all other such natural
disasters striking the coast since the conquistadors
first arrived in 1532. Transpiring about 1,100 A.D.,
this prehistoric nino was of unprecedented magni-

tude, and the devastation it wrought taxes the
imagination of geologists and archaeologists alike.
In order to fully appreciate the archaeological and
geological evidence of this great cataclysm, it is
first necessary to understand something of the
nature of nifios, characteristics of the Moche
Valley, and of its prehistoric occupation:

El Nino Conditions

"El Nifio" lacks a precise scientific definition and
its causal factors are still a matter of controversy.
All significant coastal rains are products of nino
conditions, yet not all nifios produce rains. All
ninos, however, are associated with marine distur-
bances. NiRos are said to occur when the trade
winds diminish or stop, when upwelling of cool
currents ceases, and when the sea and air warm to
unusual temperatures. The ultimate cause of these
abnormalities may be meteorological and relate to
changes in the high pressure cell located over the
southeast Pacific, which could influence the north-
ward flow of the Humboldt Current.

Whatever their cause, nif\os are variable in
intensity, and recurrent if not cyclical.
Oceanographic records indicate marine distur-
bances in 1925, 1930, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1951,

Fig. 1. In the early
morning hours of
March 15, 1720,
the Zona River, in
northern Peru,
flooded as a result
of nino rains,
destroying the
village of Zana in
less than four
hours. The only
reminder of the
flood today is the
massive erosion of
the lower walls of
this convent, now
abandoned.

Fig. 2. Map of lower
Moche Valley, with
major artcient canals,
settlements referred to
in the text, and area
of severe erosion
caused by Chimu
flood of ca. 1100
A.D.

LEGEND

A Prehistoric Ruin
Canal

Flood Erosion Area
Modern City

Contour lines every
10 and 50 meters

1957, 1965, 1969, and 1972. They can be
categorized as "weak" or "strong," with the
former having a statistical periodicity of about 6
years and the latter about 15 to 16.5 years. Weak
occurrences have little effect on rainfall or river
discharge in the Moche drainage. The strong nifios
of 1925, 1941, 1957, and 1972 all correlate with in-
creased river discharge, but they have not always
produced significant rainfall within the lower
valley.

Ninos occurred before the turn of the century,
but these are not always well documented. Note-
worthy rains took place in 1701, 1720, 1728, and
1747, as well as in 1891, which had floods second
only in severity to those of 1925.

The great nifio of 1925 was the most devas-
tating since the coming of the Spaniards. In mid-
Measure Equivalents

1 millimeter (mm): 0.04 incti

1 meter (m): 1.094 yards

1 kilometer (km): 0.62 mile

To convert Centigrade to Fatirentieit, multiply by
6 9/5 and add 32.

January of that year warming waters were first
noted near Peru's northern border at the port of
Talara (Lat 5°45'S). Within 10 days the water
temperature increase amounted to 6.6 °C and kept
rising. The warming waters progressed south, and
by mid-March temperatures off the Moche Valley
were as high as 28°C. Off Lima (Lat 12°S),
January began with a normal sea surface tempera-
ture of 15 °C, but within three months, highs of
26 °C were reached before the temperatures settled
to a nearly constant 22 °C. Warmer than normal
conditions were noted still further south, below
the Paracas Peninsula (Lat 14 °S), and the total
coastline length of waters affected by the distur-
bance exceeded 1,200 km. A return to normal cool
temperatures began in mid-April, but a second,
less severe temperature rise occurred late in 1925,
with warmer than usual waters persisting into
1930, when el Nifio finally departed.

During the disturbance the trade winds
diminished and then reversed themselves. Ap-
parently there was a reversal of surface currents,
and warm waters pushing south from Ecuador
swept crocodiles and other tropical life into the sea
coves of the northernmost desert. The effects of

el nino upon indigenous marine life were catas-
trophic. High temperatures and cessation of up-
welling currents cut off the supply of chemical
nutrients and phytoplankton underlying the vast
food chain that normally makes these waters the
oceans' richest.

The death among various fish populations
is difficult to calculate. However, it was
dramatically evident one step up the food chain.
The Humboldt Current supports what is probably

lapped at the base of Huaca del Sol, the great ar-
chaeological monument of the Moche Phase {Figs.
4,7). To the north the normally dry wash of
the Quebrada Rfo Seco carried flows as high as
300 cubic meters per second, inundating the
fringes of the Huanchaco fishing village (Fig. 2).
The immediate impact of the catastrophe
was death and destruction; but the long term
effects were famine and great suffering. With
many kilometers of roads and railroads washed

Fig. 3. Rains and
floods of 1925 caused
extensive flooding
near Trujillo, carrying
out this railroad
bridge across the Rio
Moche. In normal
times the stream
could be forded by
foot.

the world's largest population of oceanic birds,
whose droppings over the millennia accumulated
in island deposits more than 40 m thick, forming
one of the finest natural fertilizers known. Prior to
the 1925 cataclysm the population of these guano
birds was estimated at about 30 million, and judg-
ing from the impact of later nifios, it plummeted to
a quarter of this figure. Indeed, strong nifios, such
as that of 1925, litter the ocean floor with such
massive numbers of dead organisms that the foul-
smelling hydrogen sulfide produced by the ensu-
ing decomposition is sufficient to blacken ships'
hulls and the sides of houses along the shore. As
testimony to nature's loss of life, the gruesome
phenomenon is a harbinger of death appropriately
known as el pintor (the painter)!

The warming of the sea was accompanied
by rising air temperatures over land and by rains
that resulted in abnormal precipitation at least as
far south as the Paracas Peninsula. Threatening
black clouds accompanied by thunder and light-
ning accumulated in front of the Moche Valley
and then advanced inland early in March,
unloading 226 mm of rain within three days. By
the end of the month the city of Trujillo was
awash under 395 mm of rainwater. There are no
accurate records of what the cloudbursts unleash-
ed in the surrounding foothills, but observers
reported walls of water sweeping down normally
dry quebradas. The Rio Moche rose to its highest
point in memory, spilling over vast tracts of farm
land, destroying the irrigation system, and taking
out the river bridge connecting Trujillo with the
rest of the world (fig. 3). At its height the flood

away, supplying outside aid on the massive scope
required was difficult or impossible.
Reestablishing the food supply from farming
depended upon the time-consuming process of
reconstructing the damaged canal networks. The
fishing industry came to a standstill, and the
guano fertilizer industry would take years to
recover. All this transpired over half a century
ago, when the landscape was a rural one. Today
many people reside along the desert coast, Trujillo
is a sprawling urban center, more than four
million people reside in Lima, and the world
economy is tied to the fertilizer and fishing in-
dustry. A repeat of the 1925 events would be truly
disastrous.

The Moche Valley

The Rio Moche drains into the Pacific Ocean at a
point approximately 500 km north of the Peru-
vian Capitol of Lima. Rainfall is extremely rare: at
the fishing village of Huanchaco, on the north side
of the Moche Valley, the total precipitation bet-
ween 1943 and 1970 was only 46 mm, an astoun-
ding annual average of 1.7 mm. In contrast to
that of many deserts, the relative humidity is high,
averaging about 84 percent; but temperatures are
mild, with a yearly average of about 19 °C. Sum-
mer days are relatively clear, but during the
winter there can be almost constant low-level
clouds. At night and in the early morning the
cloud layer produces a cool air inversion resulting
in a misty drizzle, called garua, that can moisten

Fig. 4. Vi>u> of Huaca
del Sol (right back-
ground) and Huaca
de la Luna (center
foreground). A
Moche cemetery
about midway be-
tween the two huacas
provides e-cidence
that the plain be-
tween them had been
inundated by flood
waters. The present-
day course of the
Moche Riz'er is
through lighter area
near top of photo.
(Courtesy American
Museum of Natural
History)

the ground surface, but seldom results in
measurable precipitation. Thus, the normal
climatic conditions are very favorable for human
settlement wherever there is a source of potable
water.

Emerging from steep mountain foothills,
the lower Moche Valley widens as it crosses the
less rugged terrain that comprises the coastal
"plain." In this region, bedrock exposures consist
of Jurassic and Cretaceous sedimentary and
metamorphic rocks. Intrusive igneous rocks of
Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary age form most
of the higher hills. Unconsolidated alluvial
(stream sediment), marine, and aeolian (wind-
blown) deposits underlie most of the coastal
plain. Topographic features of the lower valley
are mainly products of running water, wind ero-
sion, and tectonic activity (shifting of the earth's
surface).

The Andean Cordillera is a very young
mountain belt. Although initial development
began some 200 million years ago during the

Jurassic Period, the mountains and coastline re-
main tectonically active. Historical accounts in-
dicate that the Spanish colonial city of Trujillo, on
the north side of the valley, was completely
destroyed by an earthquake in 1619, and severely
damaged by others in 1687, 1725, 1739, and most
recently in 1970. There is geologic evidence for
pre-Columbian tectonic activity, such as uplifted
beachlines along the mouth of the valley which
mark the former positions of shorelines. Some of
these features can be archaeologically dated and
correlated with the phases of prehistoric occupa-
tion summarized in Table 1. There is evidence of a
major uplift during the Salinaror Gallinazo Phase,
and subsequent periodic uplifts of smaller scale
during the Chimu Phase. The total uplift since
about 500 B.C. has been at least 6 to 8 m and must
have affected the native population as well as their
irrigation system.

A variety of active and stabilized sand
dunes occur in the valley; and aeolian sand (that
deposited by wind action) is found mixed with

'*"^ " -

PERUVIAN

RELATIVE

CHRONOLOGY

LOCAL
PHASES

MAJOR SITES

1500—

LATE HORIZON

CHIMU-INCA

[late brick

LATE

MIDDLE BRICK

INTERMEDIATE

r CHIMU

CHAN CHAN

PERIOD

1000-

EARLY BRICK

L EARLY CHIMU

MIDDLE

HORIZON

GALINDO

500-

III

MOCHE

EARLY

MOCHE HUACAS

0 AD-

INTERMEDIATE
PERIOD

GALLINAZO

Chronology of the Moche
Valley, showing cultural

phases and nnajor archaeo-
logical sites mentioned in

SALINAR

the text

TABLE I

Early Quaternery alluvial deposits, indicating a
long history of aeolian activity. Blowing off the
sea in a nearly constant direction, the wind moves
sand inland in the form of both longitudinal dunes
and transverse dune fields that originate from an
old, uplifted Chimu beachline. As the wind moves
sand across the coastal plain, small amounts are
trapped in and around occasional plants, thereby
forming small accumulations called coppice
dunes. Because these little coppice dunes are easily
washed away, their presence or absence in
drainage channels are useful indicators of past
flood activity.

Although the coast is extremely arid, most
geomorphic features are products of running
water. There are two types of fluvial features,
those produced by the Rio Moche and those pro-
duced by runoff of local origin. Dry washes
(quebradas), quebrada deposits, alluvial fans, and
deposits at the foot of mountain slopes (piedmont
slopes) are geomorphic features produced by
coastal rains and local runoff. In the foothills.

quebradas are characterized by narrow valleys
and steep gradients. In areas that are less steep,
large sediment loads have been dropped, forming
extensive alluvial fans (fig. 8) and piedmont
slopes. Most fan deposits were eroded subsequent
to deposition and a succession of three erosional
surfaces can be recognized, the oldest being of
presumed Early or Mid-Pleistocene origin. On the
coastal plain, quebradas tend to be wide and
shallow. The largest dry wash is the Quebrada Rio
Seco (north of and parallel to the Rio Moche),
which drains about 300 square km. Like other
coastal washes, it is braided, or anastomosing,
drainage with multiple interwoven channels form-
ing the flood plain. Because the drainage basin is
small and the sporadic desert showers are intense,
there is a high rainfall-runoff ratio in the form of
short-term flash floods charged with sediment,
which ranges from clay to boulders. Gravels and
larger rocks are commonly deposited in the braid-
ed channels and on intervening bars, whereas sand
and finer sediments are dropped along the margins

CERRO LA VIRGEN

LEGEND

1^ ANCIENT ROAD

7 ANCIENT CANAL

: STRUCTURES

lMk\ CEMETERY

AREA SHOWN
IN FIGURE 6

Journal of Field Archaelogy

Fig. 5. Map of Chimu village of Cerro la Virgen, showing area flooded by Chimu nino. The sector of photo view shown opposite (p.
11) is indicated by dotted lines radiating from Cerro la Virgen.

of the flow and in slack waters witfi low velocity.
The Rio Seco carried some water in its upper basin
during the 1972 rains; however, the last time a
significant flow reached the Pacific was in 1925.

In direct contrast to the dry quebradas, the
Rfo Moche is a permanent stream with a drainage
basin covering approximately 2,708 square
kilometers, 52 percent of which is located at eleva-
tions above 1,500 m. Rainfall varies from less than
2 mm at the river mouth to 1,400 mm per year at
its highland headwaters. The river flow is marked-
ly seasonal with 71 percent of the annual discharge
between February and April, and only 1.8 percent
between July and September. The average annual
discharge is approximately 300 million cubic
meters, but variations from one-sixth to twice this
figure have occurred during the period 1930 to
1970, for which river flow records exist. The
largest volume of water ever carried in the last

hundred years was during the 1925 nino, when
vast tracts of farm land were inundated. However,
there are no precise records on the magnitude of
this devastating flow. There were strong nino
disturbances in 1941, 1957, and 1972 that cor-
related with larger than normal discharge.
However, the largest river floods between 1930
and 1970 were products of excessive highland
rains, not coastal disturbances.

Within the lower valley the main river
channel is 50-150 m wide, and is incised to a depth
of about 3.5 m below the adjacent floodplain,
which is inundated only during unusually large
floods. The river is located near the southern
margin of the valley, and is actively eroding
laterally, especially to the south. The valley is
asymmetrical in cross section, with the north side
sloping gradually down to the channel, whereas
the southern river bank forms an escarpment 10 to

12 m high. Although agricuUure has modified the
landscape, at least two geologic terraces can be
recognized along the north side of the valley. At
the present time, the river is downcutting its
course, a process that was well underway during
the middle phase of the Chimu occupation. This
downcutting is presumably a response to tectonic
events, such as coastal uplift, and subsequent
readjustments of the river gradients.

The Prehistoric Occupation

Man first entered the Moche Valley as a hunter-
gatherer some 12,000 years ago. With passing
millennia he placed progressively greater reliance
upon plant foods, and by 1,000 B.C. farming had
come to support most of the population. Initially,
plant tending must have gone on in the river flood
plain where seasonal inundations moistened the
soil. The desert could not be farmed until people

built canals to divert river water onto the parched
landscape, a process that required great effort and
time.

Archaeologists divide Moche Valley
prehistory into temporal phases, the more recent
of which are named after local pottery styles
(Table 1). During Salinar and Gallinazo times
many people resided along the valley margins,
which would have been habitable only if there
were nearby canals, none of which exists today.
The following Moche occupation is divided into
five subphases on the basis of successive changes
in fancy pottery found in graves. During the third
and fourth subphase the valley assumed regional
political importance. On the south side of the river
the great platform mounds of Huaca del Sol and
Huaca de la Luna were the principal monuments
of a thriving capital city. On the north side of the
valley, Moche people extended their canal net-
work up to the edge of the Ri'o Seco, well beyond
the confines of modern farming. These are the

Fig. 6. This photo of Virgen Village (A), taken shortly after the 1925 rains, provides valuable information on the size of the worst
floods in the area in recorded history. The 1925 channel (B) is dwarfed by that of the Chimu flood of ca. 1200 A.D. (C). Small
coppice sand dunes, visible here as "freckle-like" spots (D), make it possible to calculate the depth of the 1925 flood waters.
(Courtesy Peabody Museum. Harvard University)

-gd...

Fig. 7. Partially
receded waters of
1925 flood, viewed
soon after, has under-
cut base (A) of Huaca
del Sol. Broad plain
between Huaca del
Sol and Huaca de la
Luna has built up to
about level of B. In
contrast to 1925
flood, which reached
to about 3 m above
present river level,
Chimu flood waters
were some 10-15 m
higher (C).

earliest ancient canals surviving tor scientitic
study. By the beginning of the fifth pottery sub-
phase the capital at Huaca del Sol was abandoned
and a new urban center was founded near the
valley neck, only to be abandoned at the end of
the Moche era.

At the time that Chimu pottery came into
use, the local population began to cluster around
the site of Chan Chan on the north side of the
valley. With time the local rulers united the valley
population and then began a series of foreign con-
quests. Eventually the city became the splendid
capitol of the largest empire to contest the Inca,
who finally subdued Chan Chan about 1465 A.D.
The Chimu phase can be subdivided on the basis
of its pottery and upon architectural grounds,

based upon changes in the mud bricks used to
build Chan Chan. During the early brick phase the
rulers of Chan Chan launched a series of massive
reclamation projects. On the north side of the
valley the Moche canal system was extended com-
pletely across the Rfo Seco and onto the plains
north of the quebrada, bringing far more land
under cultivation that is farmed today. This pro-
ject was a highly centralized, coordinated un-
dertaking that integrated the canals with new
field walls and road systems, and which planned
towns for rural populations that had to be
relocated. Indeed, the potentates of Chan Chan
were concerned not simply with expanding
agriculture, but with completely transforming the
landscape.

The Irrigation System

•#

*-iti.

With careful study we were able to cross-
date this great transformation process to the early
architectural subphase of the capitol. Yet, it
became apparent that all the canals showed signs
of massive erosion and had dropped from use. The
irrigation system was then reconstructed and
although it saw little significant use it also showed
much less evidence of erosion. By the middle brick
phase, Chan Chan had expanded into formerly
farmed areas, great walls incompatable with farm-
ing were built across the Rio Seco irrigation
system, and much of the valley had reverted to
desert. Something truly disastrous had happened,
and to this day irrigation agriculture has never
regained the territory it lost. We have choosen to
call the ancient cataclysm the "Chimu flood."

Many ninos struck the desert coast during the
millennia of man's residency in the Moche Valley.
Dealing with their specific impact and conse-
quences requires the capability of recognizing a
particular nino and consistently distinguishing it
from all others. If this difficult task can be ac-
complished for two or more nifios, then their
relative magnitude and impact can be compared.
This is an entirely new line of investigation that
we came upon quite by accident in the course of
studying ancient agriculture.

The most suitable archaeological remains
for dealing with past nifios are long linear
structures— such as canals, roads, and walls
—that cross a number of gullies and quebradas, To
serve their intended purpose these structures must
be intact along their total course. A canal cannot
be washed out in one or two places and still ir-
rigate fields at its terminus. Therefore, erosional
destruction is something that takes place when a
canal ceases to function. It may be the cause of
canal abandonment or it may occur sometime
after the structure ceased to be used for other
reasons. These alternatives can generally be
discerned in the more than 400 excavations we
have opened in irrigation structures. Aeolian sand
deposits are found in canals that fell into disuse
prior to experiencing erosion. Alternately, opera-
tional canals destroyed by an erosional event are
often clogged or buried by alluvial sediments.
It is evident from our excavations that the early
Chimu irrigation system was operational when it
was washed out and destroyed. Because the course
extended well beyond the Rfo Moche, we can
determine that the destruction was due to runoff
from local rainfall.

When the Chimu rebuilt the irrigation
system, they often placed the reconstruction
canals slightly higher, enabling them to parallel
but bypass sections of the destroyed system.
Therefore, many drainages are crossed by both an
old and a new canal. The cases are particularly im-
portant because the parallel canals provide means
of comparing erosional destruction. Having
surveyed and mapped hundreds of kilometers of
ancient waterways crossing all magnitudes of
quebradas, we can say the erosional destruction of
the original canal is significantly and measurably
greater than that of the rebuilt course. Where a
reconstruction phase canal stretches across a
drainage it either remains intact to this day or, if it
is washed out, the break is measurably smaller
than the break in the original canal.

It might be tempting to say that the com-
bined erosional effects of all nino-induced floods
descending after reconstruction never equalled the
destructive effects of the flood that took out the
early Chimu system. However, this pushes the
evidence a bit far, because the reconstructed
canals are often stone lined and more massive, and 13

T-Ni^-<^/;.^WT

Fig. 8. Early rains
washed out many sec-
tions of a canal (A)
near this Moche
Valley ruin
(foreground). A later
canal (B) is not as
extensively destroyed,
indicating that the
earlier rain was
heavier than subse-
quent ones. Other
linear features, such
as the prehistoric
roads (C,D), show a
similar pattern.
(Courtesy American
Museum of Natural
History)

thus more erosion-resident than the original
canals. We have considered the possibility that the
relatively greater erosion of the earlier canals is a
product of their greater age and often simpler con-
struction. However, for extensive erosion to have
occurred along the entire length of the early canal
network, a long period of abandonment and nor-
mal weathering would have been required prior to
the reconstruction phase. Our excavations have
not indicated such a lapse in canal use.

Attention has also been given to the
possibility that braided quebrada channels might
have produced differential erosion of parallel
canals. In braided drainages water normally shifts
from one channel or set of channels to another,
and one flash flood can flow in a different area
with different velocities and greater lateral erosion
than another flood. Therefore, in a channel
crossed by an early washed-out canal and by a
later, less eroded, canal the lack of destruction of
the latter could have been due to natural shifts of
later flood waters to alternative channels.

Figure 8 illustrates a wide drainage and an
incised braided stream that are crossed by parallel

canals, the earlier of which snakes along below its
straighter reconstruction course. The earlier canal
is consistently more eroded than its later counter-
part. Because the canals cross all the channels of
the drainage and because the reconstruction canal
is well preserved, it is possible to check for poten-
tial shifts in water flow from one braided channel
to another. No significant shifts are evident. In the
case of the incised stream we have found no rem-
nants of the earlier canal, and only faint tracery of
the reconstruction course. Here there is simply in-
sufficient preservation of the canals to control for
every channel in the stream bottom. Both situa-
tions in figure 8 are common along the many
kilometers of the ancient irrigation system. In
quebradas with poorly preserved canal remnants
evidence of the Chimu flood can be equivocal.
However, for the many drainages where there is
good archaeological preservation, significant
channel shifting can be checked and evidence of
the Chimu flood is unequivocal.

The story of the Peru floods will be concluded in the
September Bulletin.

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978 &

In the Past Two Years . . .

Field Museum of Natural History

1977-1978

A BRIEF REPORT

President and Director:
E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, Jr.

Chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
George R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
CHfford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
William V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

Field Museum has never before pub-
lished a report like this. It's new and
it's for you — our more than 45,000
members and supporters. By creating a
brief report and including it in the
Bulletin, we know that we will achieve
one goal: cost reduction. We hope to
achieve greater readership as well. We
want you to know and understand
what we are doing. A full report in our
traditional format also has been
produced in a limited edition. If you
would like to receive a copy of the full
report, call or write the Membership
Department. We'll be happy to send
one to you.

IN THE PAST TWO YEARS . . .

Two of the largest undertakings in
the history of Field Museum proceeded
simultaneously in 1977. Even as record-
setting crowds attending the "Treasures
of Tutankhamun" exhibition surged
through the Museum, our eight-year-
long building renovation and improve-
ment program continued apace. That
we were able to bring this $26-million
project to virtual completion during
this active period is evidence of the co-
operation of many segments of the
Museum's community and is a tribute
to the special strengths and resources
of our institution.

To begin, the collective generosity of
the Museum's friends — children,
adults, corporations, and foundations
— combined to raise a total of
$12,623,925 for the Capital Campaign
completed in 1974. This sum enabled
the Museum to qualify for a matching
$12.5 million from the Chicago Park
District bonding authority. We thus
owe thanks to our donors, the tax-
payers of Chicago, and also to our
Trustees and many volunteers from the
Women's Board and the corporate
community for their dedicated efforts
on our behalf.

Next, architects, construction mana-
gers, contractors. Museum Trustees,
and staff worked together to plan and
execute this massive program. Many of
the improvements have been detailed
in earlier reports and still others are
cited in this report. The Museum has
been changed. It has improved. And
we are proud of it.

Our new "front door" — a floor-to-
ceiling window wall enclosing a
spacious reception area in the north
portico — was completed in time to
greet the crowds queuing up for the
enormously popular "Treasures of
Tutankhamun" exhibition in mid-April,
1977. With the aid of grants from the
National Endowment for the Humani-
ties, Exxon Corporation, and the
Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Charitable
Trust, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in co-operation with the Organization
of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of
Egypt arranged this loan exhibition.
The United States tour of 55 objects
from the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh
Tutankhamun included six American
cities; Field Museum and the Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago
were co-sponsors in Chicago. Admis-
sion to the exhibition was free; the
regular Museum general admission fees
remained in effect.

Upper left: Visitors lined up to view
"Treasures of Tutankhamun." Lower left:
Dr. Saleh A. Saleh, conservator of Cairo
Museum, and Dr. Ahmed El-Sawy,
Egyptian government official, examine
statue of Selket in preparation for
'Treasures of Tutankhamun" exhibition.
Right: Workmen installing huge glass
panels in north portico. (Dave Walsten
photo)

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

^^H^^^^^^B ^^^I^^Bf^^^K^H^^^^^^B^^^^^L. li'^l

In the Past Two Years . . .

From April 15 through August 15,
1,348,000 people visited this spectacu-
lar exhibition. This is, to our know-
ledge, the greatest attendance for a
temporary exhibition in the United
States. According to the Chicago
Tourism and Convention Bureau, the
city's hotel and restaurant trade
garnered a hefty $30-million boost
from traffic related to the exhibition. It
was estimated that about 300,000 out-
of-town visitors were drawn to it. Day
after day, long lines of Tut enthusiasts
stretched down the Museum stairs and
around the building. People slept on
the stairs to be certain of gaining
admission the following morning;
others rested and chatted in lawn
chairs brought from home.

For four months the media focused
on the crowds attending the exhibition.
Radio stations set up "hot lines" to
provide up-to-the-minute information
on waiting time; newspapers offered
almost daily features on the event;
television stations provided interviews
with both visitors and staff. It was
clearly a unique phenomenon in the
Museum's history.

A second, major temporary exhibit
attracted considerable public and
critical attention during this two-year
period. From February 15 through May
21, 1978, "Peru's Golden Treasures,"
the largest collection of Peruvian gold
artifacts ever shown in the United
States, was on display at the Museum.
Like the Egyptian exhibition, this too
was the result of a co-operative effort
between funding agencies, museums,
and government. "Peru's Golden
Treasures" came to the United States
under the auspices of The National
Institute of Culture of the Peruvian
government. It was organized by the
American Museum of Natural History
and was supported by a federal indem-
nity from the Federal Council on the
Arts and Humanities, United States.
Again, like "Treasures of Tutankha-
mun," no special admission fee was
levied for this exhibition.

Field Museum's installation of this
exhibition combined pieces from our
collection with those from the Museo
Oro del Peru to establish a context for
understanding the five major periods in
Peru's prehistory. A 75-page catalog
with 32 color plates was published by
Field Museum to complement the
exhibition.

Although high attendance figures are
important, the success of exhibitions
must be measured in long-term gains as
well. As a result of these and other
outstanding exhibitions, many people
were made aware of Field Museum for
the first time; others returned to renew
old ties. Impressively, at the close of
1978 the Museum's membership num-
bered 43,457 as compared to 26,125 at
the close of 1976. We were gratified as

new members who joined the Museum
during the Tutankhamun exhibition
indicated their approval and
involvement with Field Museum by
renewing membership in 1978.

We believe that our members and
the Museum enjoy a mutally rewarding
association. During 1977-1978, the
Museum offered members a number of
special opportunities, including exhibit
previews, dinner lectures, environ-
mental field trips, tours to Egypt and
Peru, and adult evening study courses.
Our members have repaid our efforts
with enthusiasm, interest, and support
beyond the annual membership fee.

Upper left: "Peru's Golden Treasures"
catalog. Upper right: "Peru's Golden
Treasures" exhibition in Hall 26. Lower
left: Dr. Ahmed El-Sawy at ceremonial
opening of Tut mask. Lower right-
Ceremonial Chimu knife or tunti from
"Peru's Golden Treasures." (Royal
Ontario Museum photo)

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

11'/^"

In the Past Two Years . . .

Members and non-members alike
have enjoyed the many programs
offered by the Public Programs
division of the Department of Educa-
tion. For example, the number of Ray
A. Kroc Environmental Field Trips
nearly doubled, from 47 in 1977 to 85
in 1978, with 4,442 adults and families
participating in two years. These one-
day trips were led by one or more
specialists in the biology, geology, or
ecology of such locales as the Indiana
Dunes, Volo Bog, Moraine Hills State
Park, Illinois Beach State Park, and the
Ryerson Conservation Area. Courses
for adults also increased and 73 courses
were held in 1977-1978 with a total
enrollment of 2,161.

A new dimension in programming
began wdth the completed restoration
of the Museum's Sundanese (West
Javanese) gamelan. This gamelan, an
ensemble of 24 musical instruments
consisting of bronze and wood
sounding parts supported by sculptured
frames, appears to be about 130 years
old and is one of the great ensembles
of non-Western musical instruments in
existence. Unplayed since 1893 at the
World's Columbian Exposition, the

gamelan was restored by a team of
conservation volunteers who worked
under the direction of Louis
Pomerantz, art conservator; Ernst
Heins, ethomusicologist and gamelan
expert; and program director Sue
Carter-DeVale. Grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts and
from the Walter E. Heller Foundation
supported the long restoration project.

The gamelan was enjoyed in concert
January 14, 1978. This concert was the
beginning of a series of events based
on ethnomusicology, including Java-
nese shadow plays, gamelan courses, a
festival of music and dance, and
children's music workshops.

Highlights of other public programs
included the distinguished lecture series
on Tutankhamun and another on
"Peru's Golden Treasures"; the
Anthropology Film Festival; the Noh,
Inuk and the Sun dramas; lectures by
Gerald Durrell and Richard Leakey;
and the consistently popular Ayer
lectures.

The Group Programs division of the
Department of Education provides
school-curriculum oriented tours,
workshops, and loan materials free of
charge to the Chicago metropolitan
community and beyond. Although
Chicago school enrollment is declining
and this decline is reflected in Museum
attendance by school groups, program
services to schools increased 12 per
cent in 1978. During this biennium
465,388 students and teachers in 9,570
groups came to Field Museum for
programs and to use the exhibits as
classroom supplements.

The Museum's Harris Extension pro-
vides materials for in-school use.
Newly designed "Discovery Units"
feature "Experience Boxes" which
contain replicas or real artifacts and
specimens for students to handle,
examine, and study, as well as slide
packets, teacher guides, and sugges-
tions for classroom use. New topics
focus on prehistoric life, pottery, birds,
woodland Indians, Africa, Illinois
prairies, and Chicago geology.
Thirteen centers in the Chicago metro-
politan area distribute "Discovery
Units" in conjunction with other
materials that go to 385 Chicago
schools on a regular rotation schedule.

Upper left: Gamelan conservation
volimteer Helen Urban. Upper right:
Javanese dancers perform Topeng
Babakan, a village mask dance,
accompanied by Museum's gamelan.
Lower left: Volunteer Judith Spicehandler
at work on gamelan restoration project.
(Louis Pomerantz photo) Lower center:
Aimouncement of Ray A. Kroc
Environmental Education Program. Lower
right: Bi-monthly Calendar of Events.

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

In the Past Two Years . . .

Both school groups and the general
public have responded enthusiastically
to the new participatory exhibit, "The
Pawnee Earth Lodge," since it opened
on October 15, 1977. A replica of a
nineteenth-century Pawnee Indian
dwelling, the lodge is 38 feet in
diameter and 18 feet high at the central
fire hole. A grant from the National
Endowment for the Arts funded the
construction of the lodge; the National
Endowment for the Humanities funded
research and design for this project.

Members of the Pawnee (Oklahoma)
tribe served as consultants during the
design and construction of the dwel-
ling, made objects for it, and partici-
pated in taping four programs of
seasonal Pawnee activities and cere-
monies. Visitors — young and old
alike — enjoy the authenticity of the
lodge as staff and trained volunteers
invite them to sit on buffalo skin
robes, hear about Pawnee daily life and
legends, and to examine artifacts
representative of Pawnee activities.
The lodge has hosted 39,144 visitors
for special programs since it opened.

Volunteers are mentioned throughout
this report and that is most appro-
priate. They work throughout the
Museum on a regular basis and are a
source of major support to staff and
programs. Many services and research
projects simply would not exist with-
out capable volunteers to implement
them.

At the close of 1978 the Museum
was benefitting from the services of
280 volunteers. During 1977-1978
volunteers contributed 116,140 hours
— the equivalent of 66 man years. In
1978, 13 individuals each gave more
than 500 hours of volunteer service.

Volunteer work was performed in all
four scientific departments, as well as
in photography, education, exhibition,
the library, membership, public rela-
tions, and publications. During the
Tutankhamun exhibition, 350 trained
volunteers gave a stunning total of
23,854 hours to that project alone.
Many of those who were recruited for
this exhibition stayed on to work in
the scientific, exhibition, and education
departments; 150 Tut volunteers
returned to contribute 5,764 hours of
assistance to "Peru's Golden Treasures."
Further, 26 weekend volunteers share
their specially developed tours, partici-
patory activities, and workshops with
Museum visitors of all ages. Based on
permanent and temporary exhibits, 694
programs were presented to 21,659

weekend visitors in this two-year
period. Most of the weekend volun-
teers are employed during the week.
We believe that giving their weekend
time to volunteer service is evidence of
a special commitment.

The statistics are impressive and
significant, but they don't give the
whole picture. Volunteers are dedica-
ted, but it is also the willingness to
learn, the exjjertise and competency
they bring to the Museum that is so
much appreciated. The volunteer pro-
gram is a fine example, not only of
service, but of continuing education.

Upper left: Beverly Baker, education
volunteer, demonstrates artifacts to
children in Pawnee Earth Lodge. (Vicki
Grigelaitis photo) Right: Sacred buffalo
skull placed on altar mound in Pawnee
Earth Lodge. Lower left: Virginia Beatty,
volunteer in Department of Botany,
prepares specimens for storage. (Vicki
Grigelaitis photo) Upper center: Women's
Board member and volunteer Mrs. Robert
W. Carton with Mrs. Joseph W. Gibson, a
member of Chicago Service Club, in Place
for Wonder. Lower center: Young visitor
examines specimen in "hands on"
exhibit, the Place for Wonder.

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

Our Collections: Our Treasures

OUR COLLECTIONS:
OUR TREASURES

Field Museum's scientific research
programs encompass man and his total
environment — past and present. Our
collections of over 13.5 million speci-
mens comprise a vast storehouse of
data on man, plants, animals, and the
earth. New specimens are constantly
being added to this body of material
through purchase, transfer, bequests,
gifts, exchanges with other institutions,
and staff field work.

The Museum's staff bases its research
on these collections; however, that is
not the extent of their use. Today
institutions share exhibits, books, and
computerized data; they have been
sharing collection materials for many
years. In 1977-1978 the scientific
departments made loans of more than
125,000 specimens to scientists and
students for research and to other
museums for exhibition. Additionally,
more than 2,500 researchers and uni-
versity students visited the Museum to
consult with our staff or to examine
specimens.

Although the size of our collections
is one of the major strengths of Field
Museum and has done much to en-
hance our stature worldwide, we do
not acquire new material simply for
the sake of growth. Several years ago,
the staff and Trustees collaborated to
develop an accession policy which,
among other things, sets conditions
and priorities for the acquisition of
new materials in terms of our tradi-
tional and current areas of interest.
This policy has been described by one
writer as ". . . more complete, more
specific and more detailed than any we
have seen ... a polished, detailed and
sophisticated document, very evidently
compiled by a group of responsible
persons after a lengthy and serious
study of a set of very complex
problems involving the museum and its
relations with the world."

The acquisition of collections is one
of the major responsibilities of a
museum; the preservation of those
collections for generations yet to come
is another. As a means of fulfilling this
trust and, simultaneously, providing
for expansion space which will be
required even for the limited collection
increase that will result from the new
accession policy, significant new
storage areas and much-needed labora-
tory and office spaces were added in
the departments of anthropology,
botany, and zoology. This was yet
another facet of the building
renovation program.

Field Museum now has what we
believe to be one of the finest
anthropology study facilities in the
museum world. Protected by a rate-of-
rise heat indicator and sprinkler
system, as well as a security system,
the four-level, climatically controlled
area houses about 300,000 specimens
or 75 per cent of the Department of
Anthropology's collections.

In conjunction with this central
storage facility, an Anthropology
Information Management System is
being developed. Assisted by grants
from the National Endowment for the
Arts and an equipment gift from the
Digital Equipment Corporation, this
computerized system will assist in the
management of the collection, includ-
ing maintaining the inventory and
recording the location of all objects
within the facility.

Upper left: Chinese scientists visit
Museum zoology laboratory. Upper right:
A portion of the Division of Insects
collection storage area. (Fleur Hales
photo) Lower left: Video screen of
computer terminal from Anthropology
Information Management System. Lower
center: Division of Invertebrates
laboratory. Lower right: Entomologist
John Kethley examines moimted insects.
(Dave Walsten photo)

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

ll^Pkli

Our Collections: Our Treasures

On the other side of the building,
the new Ellen Thorne Smith Bird and
Mammal Study Center provides a
modern, secure, and functional facility
for the housing of one of the world's
great collections, as well as work and
study space for staff, visiting scientists,
and students. The center was made
possible by a generous gift in honor of
Mrs. Smith by her husband, Hermon
Dunlap Smith.

Also in the Department of Zoology,
the space of the Division of Insects was
almost doubled and most offices and
collections were relocated for greater
efficiency as a result of the renovation.
Further, the Division of Fishes was
enlarged by one-third through the
addition of new shelving. The Biologi-
cal Research Resources Program of the
National Science Foundation continued
to provide support for several of the
biological collections.

The Department of Botany, too,
benefitted from the renovation
program as it was both expanded and
improved.

Entirely new quarters were provided
the Division of Photography, aided by
generous gifts from Mrs. David W.
Stewart of Rochester, N. Y. in memory
of her aunt, Hedwig H. Mueller. Our
collection of more than 300,000
negatives dates back to the 1890's and
includes many photos of historic
significance.

Even as new space was being alloca-
ted, collection growth went on — as it
must. Collections of breadth and high
quality are essential to a great museum
for both scholarly and exhibition
purposes. Therefore, the selective
building of our collections continues to
be a priority of the Museum. Although
all departmental collections grew
during this biennium, a number of
particularly noteworthy gifts have been
made recently to the Department of
Anthropology.

A collection of more than 100
Japanese lacquer objects, boxes, inro,
and miniature shrines, collected with
great care and discrimination by John
Woodworth Leslie over a period of
decades, was presented by Mr. Leslie.
Many of these pieces of extraordinary
quality will be exhibited in 1979.

Mr. and Mrs. Theodore VanZelst
continued to make generous gifts,
including a collection of American
Indian trade silver and three fine
groups of Alaskan, Pacific Northwest,
and Canadian Arctic ethnological
specimens.

Mr. and Mrs. John Mayo Mitchell
presented a fine collection of American
Indian trade silver that complements
nicely both the Museum's original
collection and the collection given by
Mr. and Mrs. VanZelst.

Mrs. Helen L. Kellogg, who died in
1978, bequeathed a pair of fine T'ang
pottery horses, as well as a generous
sum of money, to the Museum.

Upper left: Curator Emeritus Emmet Blake
studying specimens from bird collection.
Upper right: Inro from collection of
lacquerware given to Museum by Mr.
John Woodworth Leslie. Lower left:
Headdress of parrot and macaw feathers;
a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Theodore W.
VanZelst. Lower right: Chinese ceramic
horses, T'ang dynasty; gifts of the Helen
L. Kellogg Trust.

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

Our Collections: Our Treasures

An outstanding collection of
Japanese art, especially strong in
ceramics and book illustrations, was
given to the Museum by G. E. Boone
in 1978. This collection will provide
the nucleus for a systematic and
comprehensive collection of Japanese
arts and crafts.

All of these gifts came from private
individuals. We believe that our
evident concern and care for our vast
collections and our efforts to maintain
their high quality offer assurance to
these collectors that their collections
will be treated with equal respect.

Collections — as well as scientific
knowledge — are also enlarged by field
work. Some field trips take our
scientific personnel only a few miles
from the Museum, others require
journeys of thousands of miles. In
1977-1978, 35 staff members from the
scientific departments conducted field

work. They went to several locations
in the United States, to Mexico, Belize,
Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina,
Antarctica, England, Australia, New
Zealand, the Philippines, Malaysia,
Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Kenya, and Southern Sudan.

Finally, publication is the end result
of most scientific research and field
work. In 1977 two especially note-
worthy books bv Museum curators
were published: Manual of Neotropical
Birds, Volume 1 bv Emmet R. Blake
(704 pp.) and Living New World Mon-
keys (Platyrrhini) Volume 1 by Phillip
Hershkovitz (1,137 pp.). Both volumes
were published by the University of
Chicago Press. These works, which
have each received laudatory praise,
are the culmination of years of
meticulous preparation.

Forty-five titles, amounting to a total
of 2,650 pages, were published in
Tieldiana, the Museum's four scientific
series, in 1977-1978. Including those
appearing in Fieldiana, Museum staff
published 153 scientific papers and
books in this period.

Of course, we buy books as well as
produce them. However, our Library is
struggling to cope with a major
budgetary problem caused by the sharp
rise in the cost of books and periodi-
cals due to inflation and the decline of
the value of the dollar with respect to
other currencies. The loss in the
purchasing power of the dollar in
many countries is a particularly thorny

problem as much of our buying is done
overseas. For these reasons, the cost of
subscriptions to on-going periodicals
accounts for a greater share of the
budget every year.

We were able, nevertheless, to in-
crease the number of books purchased
in 1977-1978 by a significant 30 per
cent. This was largely due to generous
gifts made to the Museum for this
purpose by Mr. and Mrs. Walter
Cherry in memory of their son, Samuel
M. (Cherry Library Fund); Mrs.
Chester D. Tripp (Jane B. Tripp Library
Fund); and Mr. and Mrs. Louis A.
Wagner (Louis A. Wagner and Francis
B. Wagner Library Fund).

Upper left: Researcher using auger along
Wiscansao Canal as part of Programa
Riego Antiguo (Ancient Irrigation Project)
in Peru. (Robert Feldman photo) Upper
center: Paleontologist Larry Marshall with
emu while on field trip to Argentina.
Upper right: One of 45 issues of Fieldiana
published in 1977-1978. Loiver left:
Curators Emeritus Hershkovitz (left) and
Blake at reception in honor of their books
published by University of Chicago
Press. Lower right: Plate depicting
Shoveller Duck from Jofm James
Audubon's The Birds of America, a fine
and rare work in the Library's collection.

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

; .MjK!) .r.\ i:i> M ,\SKA

Commitment to Distinction

COMMITMENT TO DISTINCTION

In 1975 we launched the Commit-
ment to Distinction program to
provide funds for operations and
necessary capital improvements over a
five-year period. We began well with
gifts to this program totalling more
than $1.7 million by the end of 1976
and our initial success has continued.
Most significantly during this period,
we received three-year challenge grant
awards from the National Endowment
for the Humanities and the National
Endowment for the Arts. These grants
total Si. 5 million. This sum is the
largest granted to any museum in the
country by the two endowments' com-
bined grants — an amount awarded to
a very limited number of the nation's
major museums. At the end of 1978,
the Museum had successfully met the
matching requirements for the first and
second years of the grants. Commit-
ment to Distinction funds have already

been used to close the income gaps for
1976-1978. In 1978 this program was
re-evaluated by the Board of Trustees
— as it will be every two years — and
was updated to 1982 with a goal of
S13.3 million.

During 1977-1978 contributions to
the program and for other Museum
purposes totalled S2, 905, 868 from
individuals and 52,034,448 from
corporations and foundations for a
total of S4,940,316. This remarkable
sum came from the more than 4,500
individuals and 500 corporations and
foundations who are currently contri-
buting to the Museum over and above
membership dues. It is these donors
who, together with government and
the users of the Museum, keep Field
Museum the strong and dynamic insti-
tution that it is. Particularly generous
donors during the biennium were:

Benefactors: Helen L. Kellogg
(bequest), Mr. and Mrs. Ray A. Kroc,
Ellen Thome Smith (bequest), Harold
E. Stuart Trust, Amoco Foundation,
Field Enterprises Charitable Corpora-
tion, The Joyce Foundation, Robert R.
McCormick Charitable Trust, and the
Woods Charitable Trust.

Major Donors: Mr. and Mrs. Walter
L. Cherry, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene A.
Davidson (Sterling Morton Charitable
Trust), Mr. and Mrs. Joseph N. Field,
Mr. and Mrs. John W. Leslie, Mr. and
Mrs. William H. Mitchell, Mr. and
Mrs. John S. Runnells, Commonwealth
Edison Company, Continental Bank
Foundation, The Chicago Community
Trust, International Harvester, The
Walter E. Heller Foundation, The
Nalco Foundation, The Dr. SchoU
Foundation, Sears, Roebuck & Com-
pany, The Frederick Henry Prince
Trust, and Arthur Young & Company.

Upper left: Plaiming and Development
Officer Thomas Sanders (right) reviews
Commitment to Distinction progress
with associate Clifford Buzard. (Flexir
Hales photo) Upper right: Museum
President-Director E.L. Webber (left)
accepts the Xerox Corporation's contri-
bution to the Conunitment to Distinction
from Marc T. Eisner. Lower left:
Commitment to Distinction proposal.
Lower center and right: Graphs depicting
Museimi income and expenditures for
1978-1982.

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

Field Museum of Nature History

Field Museum of Natural History

Sources of INCOME, 1978-1982

Itostrfcted Contributions
$1,800,000

INCOME GAP
(Contributions neecM
to oporat*)
$13,354,000
25,8%

Membership $3,050,000
~^---. 5.9%

Admissions,
Sales, Cafeteria,
Miscellaneous

$10,020,000

19.4%

Chicago Park District Tax Levy

$9,515,000

18.4%

Reld Museum of Natural History

EXPENDITURES— 1978-1982 — $51,684,000

Administration $4 221 000

Membership $2,317,000

Development & Public

/delations SI 672,000

3.2%

||iCapltal Profecle

p S3 200 000

6 2%

BuldlrtgarKl
Exh bit
Maintenance
S6 961 000
17 3%

Bookshops, Cafeteria
$5,175,000 10.0%

We Work Together

WE WORK TOGETHER

It is clear to all those close to Field
Museum that a special synergism has
developed here over the last decade.
Five parts comprise the whole. We
have already referred to our generous
donors. Our staff is talented, hard-
working, and dedicated to the institu-
tion. The Trustees carry their responsi-
bility for the current stewardship and
long-term strength of the Museum
earnestly and energetically. The
Women's Board is central to the
Museum's well being and vigor. At the
close of 1978 three Women's Board
members were serving as Museum
Trustees, eight were on Museum Board
committees, and many more served as
valued volunteers. The entire volunteer
corps, mentioned earlier, completes
this diverse yet united group.

Altogether, almost 1,000 men and
women — staff. Trustees, Women's
Board, and volunteers — combine
talent, energy, and mutual confidence
and respect with the financial support
provided by donors to keep Field
Museum strong in service to Chicago
and the nation.

Of special note during 1977-1978
was the election of William G.
Swartchild, Jr., retired, Swartchild &
Company, as Chairman, succeeding
Blaine J. Yarrington, executive vice
president. Standard Oil Company
(Indiana). Mrs. T. Stanton Armour,
Robert O. Bass, vice chairman and
chief operating officer, Borg-Warner
Corporation, Mrs. Edward F. Swift,
and Edward R. Telling, chairman.
Sears, Roebuck & Company, were
elected to the Board. Mrs. Swift was
elected President of the Women's
Board, succeeding Mrs. Joseph E. Rich.
Donald Richards, a longtime Research
Associate in the Department of Botany
and a generous supporter of the
Museum, and Remick McDowell,
former chairman. Peoples Gas Co. and
former President, Field Museum, were
elected Life Trustees in 1977. Dr. Lorin
I. Nevling, Jr. was appointed Assistant
Director, Science and Education,
succeeding Dr. Robert F. Inger, who
returned to the Department of Zoology
at his request after seven years in
administrative posts.

We have made many gains during
the past two years, but Field Museum
has also suffered great loss. On March
16, 1977, Ellen Thome Smith, one of
Field Museum's warmest friends and
most dedicated supporters, died. Mrs.
Smith shared her knowledge, exper-
ience, and friendship with the Museum
for 40 years. She formed the Women's
Board in 1966, became the Museum's
first woman Trustee in 1969, and
maintained an active connection with

the Division of Birds over a span of
four decades. John G. Searle, a long-
time Trustee and exceedingly generous
donor, also died in 1977. In
recognition of Mr. Searle's strong
interest in our research program, the
Museum's collection of preserved
plants was named the John G. Searle
Herbarium in 1972. Both Mrs. Smith
and Mr. Searle were among the great
builders of the Museum. We also
keenly felt the losses of Life Trustees
Hughston McBain, J. Roscoe Miller,
and Louis Ware.

Upper left: WUliam G. SwartchUd, Jr.,
Chairman of the Board. (James
Swartchild photo) Upper right: Women's
Board Presidents, past and present (left to
right): Mrs. Edward F. Swift (current
President), Mrs. Joseph E. Rich
(1976-1978), Mrs. Thomas E. Donnelley II
(1974-1976), Mrs. B. Edward Bensinger
(1972-1974), and Mrs. Edward Byron
Smith (1970-1972). Mrs. Hermon Duidap
Smith (1966-1970), founding President,
died in 1977. (James Swartchild photo)
Lower left: John G. Searle. Lower right:
Ellen Thome Smith.

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

i>»J5R^K»?yi«»Jp.;,i]

«'!«n-";ftp'-;;.,v'r|';,; ■r-.'^i. .,,

Planning Ahead

PLANNING AHEAD

The successes of these two years
have come about as a direct result of
personal effort and long-range
planning. We have presented
enormously successful exhibits, offered
a full spectrum of public programs,
maintained a complexity of scientific
research projects — all while executing
one of the largest building renovations
in United States museum history. Now
we look ahead.

There is much to be done: work to
be continued, new work to begin. For
example, drawing on the richness of
our collections and the creativity of
our staff, we plan the renovation of
our permanent exhibition halls — some
have been substantially unchanged for
decades. We must devote time and
resources to the conservation of our
irreplaceable anthropology collections.
It is unthinkable that this world-
resource would be allowed to succumb
to the ravages of decay.

The prospects are exciting and
stimulating — yet, we are seriously
concerned. Ever-spiralling inflation
faces Field Museum just as it does
every family, company, and institution
in the nation. If inflation continues at
its present rate — with no increase.
Field Museum will have to double its
income in less than 10 years to keep
pace. How can that be done? Finding
the answer to that question is our
single greatest challenge. New methods
of support must be found and tested;
new configurations of public and
private collaboration must be found.

One important step was accomp-
lished in this biennium when the
Illinois General Assembly passed a bill,
introduced by Representative Michael
Madigan, appropriating 53,000,000 in
support of Illinois museums on public
lands. Governor Thompson, mindful
of the legitimate responsibility of the
state for partial support of museums
that serve all of the people of Illinois,
yet painfully aware, also, of the
financial problems of the state, signed
the bill into law at the level of
$500,000, using his amendatory veto
power. Field Museum received 595,000
from this appropriation. We wish to
express appreciation to Representative
Madigan, the General Assembly, and to
Governor Thompson for this
precedent-setting action which holds
promise of a new partnership of local,
state, and federal funding of major
museums.

The newly formed federal Institute
of Museum Services granted Field
Museum 525,000, joining in a modest
way the National Science Foundation,
the National Endowment for the Arts,
and the National Endowment for the
Humanities, which for years have
granted generous and pivotal federal
fund support to Field Museum's
programs.

It is these new and old programs of
governmental support that, when
melded with steadily increasing and
generous contributions from
individuals, corporations, and
foundations, lend encouragement as we
look ahead. But, after all, we return to
the inescapable premise that inflation
must be brought under control if Field
Museum and, in fact, all private
cultural, educational, and social service
institutions are to survive in their
historic forms.

Upper left: Governor Thompson and
Museum President-Director Webber at
signing of bill granting support to Illinois
museums. (Riccardo Levi-Setti photo)
Upper right: Museiun painter Michael
Gotto at work. Lower left: University of
Heidelberg student Michael
Miiller-Karpe with 5,000-year-old
Simierian copper stag. (Fleur Hales
photo) Loiver center: Howard Bezin (left)
and Salvador Castro, Jr. caring for
Gorgosaurus. Lower right: Tools of
zoological research trade.

Field Museum of Natural History 1977-1978

A Brief Report

-""^^^

Financial Statement

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
STATEMENT OF REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES
Years ended December 31, 1978 and 1977

CURRENT FUNDS

1978

Source of revenue:
Public funds —

Chicago Park District tax collections
Government grants

Total public funds

Private funds —

Investment revenue availed of for operations:
Pooled security investments
Securities of individual funds

Total investment revenue

Unrestricted contributions
Contributions designated by Board

for future years
Memberships
Private restricted funds availed of

for operations

Total contributed revenue

Earned:
Admissions

Museum shops and cafeteria
Visitors' services and other

Total earned revenues

Total private funds

Total revenue

Operating expenditures:
Scientific

Education and exhibition
Publication and photography
Library

Building operations and security
Administration and development
Museum shops and cafeteria

Total operating expenditures

Revenues in excess of (less than) expenditures
before cumulative effect of a change in
accounting principle for membership revenue

Cumulative effect on prior years (to December 31,
1976) of changing the method of accounting
for membership revenue

Revenues in excess of (less than) expenditures

Operating
fund

Commitment

to Distinction

fund

Restricted
funds

Total

Percent
of total

$1,503,705
652,598

345,460

597,920

1,503,705
1,595,978

17%
18

2,156,303

1,424,707
174,304

345,460

597,920

225,235
114,309

3,099,683

1,649,942
288,613

1,599,011
1,158,135

671,172

339,544
85,510

1,938,555
1,158,135

671,172
85,510

1,829,307

601,694

1,185,265

317,184

85,510

1,914,817

601,694

1,185,265

317,184

2,104,143

5,532,461

425,054

5,957,515

7,688,764

1,335,687

762,372

459,961

196,882

2,405,745

1,558,874

1,112,755

345,460

1,022,974

458,849

374,535

25,761

14,332

479

149,018

9,057,198

1,794,536
1,136,907
485,722
211,214
2,406,224
1,707,892
1,112,755

100

20
13
6
2
27
19
13

7,832,276

1,022,974

8,855,250

100

( 143,512)

345,460

201,948

$( 143,512)

345,460

201,948

Field Museum of Natural History 1978-1977

A Brief Report

1977

Operating
fund

Commitment

to Distinction

fund

Restricted
funds

Total

Percent
of total

$1,514,760
327,917

375,000

592,793

1,514,760
1,295,710

11%
10

1,842,677

1,246,783
54,569

375,000

592,793

212,648
111,166

2,810,470

1,459,431
165,735

1,301,352
948,598

674,239

187,500

323,814

1,625,166
948,598

187,500
674,239

1,622,837

1,596,647

5,446,353

188,279

187,500

1,810,337

1,596,647

5,446,353

188,279

7,231,279

10,155,468

187,500

323,814

10,666,782

11,998,145

1,280,492

860,961

363,934

181,453

2,613,232

1,558,956

4,854,143

562,500

916,607

445,869

408,823

5,549

12,991
( 6,317)

49,692

13,477,252

1,726,361
1,269,784
369,483
194,444
2,606,915
1,608,648
4,854,143

100

21
13
38

11,713,171

916,607

12,629,778

100

284,974

562,500

847,474

( 101,596)

$ 183,378

562,500

745,878

A Brief Report 1977-1978

Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Rd. at Lake Shore Dr.
Chicago, IL 60605
312-922-9410

Field Museum Tours

Peru, Oct. 27-Nov. 15

A 20-day tour will visit the ruins of Machu Picchu, Chan Chan,
Pachacamac, Purgatario. and others. The Plains of Nazca (viewed
from low-flying aircraft), the Guano Islands, and the Pisac Indian Fair
will also be visited. The group, limited to 20, will be led by Dr. Michael
Moseley, associate curator of middle and South American
archaeology and ethnology, and by Robert Feldman, assistant in
archaeology. A tour escort will also accompany the group.

China, Nov. 5-25

In addition to fourteen days in China, three days and two nights
will be spent in London. The tour escort will be Mrs. Katharine Lee, a
Field Museum volunteer in the Department of Anthropology who is
fluent in five Chinese dialects. Additional guides in China will be pro-
vided by the China International Travel Service. The tour
cost— $4,400 (which includes a $500 donation to Field Museum) — is
based upon double occupancy and includes round trip air fare from
Chicago to China. Advance deposit required: $500.00 per person.

Antarctica, Jan. 6-30, 1980

The cruise vessel will be the 3,200-ton tourist ship M.S. World
Discoverer, registered in Hong Kong, which will take us from Punta
Arenas, Argentina, onwards. Built in 1974, the one-class vessel has all
outside cabins with private lavatories and showers. The ship's staff in-
cludes a fully qualified physician. The tour leaves Chicago Jan. 6,
1980 and returns Jan. 30. Prices per person: C deck twin: $3,230; C
deck single: $4,870; B deck twin; $3,570; B deck single: $5,390; A
deck, twin; $3,930. Air fare, in addition, is $1,225 (round trip be-
tween Chicago and Punta Arenas, Argentina). Included in the tour
price is a tax-deductible donation of $500.00 to Field Museum.
Deposit required at time of registration; $1,000.00 per person.

The Great Wall of China

For additional information and reservations for all tours, call or
write Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours, Roosevelt Rd. at Lake
Shore Dr., Chicago, ill. 60605. Phone: (312) 922-9410. X-251.

JUNGLE ISLANDS

The "Illyria" in the South Seas

An account of the Crane Pacific Expedition of Field Museum, 1928-29. Abridged from
Jungle Islands, by Sidney Nichols Shurcliff, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York (1930).
Reproduced here, as abridged, by permission of the author.

Above: painting of

the brigantine

Illyria, Richard T.

Crane s graduation

gift to his son,

Cornelius.

Ilyria has sailed for New York."
Thus ran the cable which we received on
September 14, 1928, from the shipyards at
Lussinpiccolo, Italy, where Cornelius Crane's
brigantine yacht Illyria had been under
construction for over a year. The fact that she was
at last in commission seemed incredible. For six
successive months the launching had been
postponed. During that length of time the
members of the projected Crane South Sea
Scientific Expedition had led a life composed of

alternate periods of frantic preparation and idle
impatience ....

However, nothing discouraged Corneliusr
From the time I had known him as a school-boy,
he had been determined some day to go through
the South Seas, even if he had to swim.
Fortunately Mr. Crane, Senior, had provided a

'Cornelius Crane (1905-62). He was the son of Richard T.
Crane, Jr. (1873-1931), a Field Museum trustee 1908-12 and
1921-31. Cornelius was also the grandson of Harlow N. Higin-
botham, who had been president of the World's Columbian Ex-
position and of Field Museum (1899-1909).

better method of transportation. The yacht lUyria
was built as a gift to Cornelius ....

The lUyria's length overall was to be
147' 6"; her height of foremast 116', mainmast
128'; her gross tonnage 356. She would carry
10,000 square feet of sail and auxiliary power
would be supplied by a 300 H. P. Diesel
engine ....

... At first Cornelius had intended to take
a group of friends on purely a yachting cruise. But
as the lUyria was designed with ample
accommodations, and as her owner was notably
fond of hunting and fishing, it was decided that
various experts in zoology, natural history and the
like should be included in the party.

The trip therefore developed into a mixture
of pleasure jaunt and scientific expedition. The
latter phase fell logically under the wing of Field
Museum of Chicago, as Cornelius is a native of
that city.

The scientists of the expedition were: Karl
P. Schmidt, herpetologist and director of scientific
work, Walter A. Weber, artist and ornithologist,
Frank C. Wonder, taxidermist, all of Field
Museum; Dr. William L. Moss, of the Harvard
Medical School, physician and anthropologist;
Dr. Albert W. Herre, of Stanford University,
ichthyologist.

Cornelius' fellow travellers were three
Harvard men; Murry N. Fairbank, Charles R.
Peavy and myself. I was semi-seriously appointed
motion-picture photographer.

We had boasted that ours was to be the
most completely equipped scientific expedition
ever to sail the Pacific. We had laid our plans to
bring an aeroplane with folding wings, two
motorcycles and a side car, twelve trunks of
medicines, several cases of dynamite, three
motion picture cameras, 50,000 feet of motion
picture film, two diving outfits, a moving picture
projector, 25 rifles and shotguns with
ammunition, complete apparatus for the capture,
preservation and mounting of specimens — and a
dog mascot. All very fine, but where to put them?

Much to the disappointment of Murry
Fairbank, we first had to give up the aeroplane.
Then we gave away the dog. We lashed the
motorcycles and side car on the quarter deck in
spite of dire warnings from the captain ....

At ten o'clock on the sixteenth |of
November, 1928] we all gathered at the dock, with
out friends and relations who came to see us
off .... There was no sign of Murry Fairbank.
At eleven forty-five the newspaper photographers
posed us all for group photographs. At twelve
o'clock the newsreel photographers who were
there to film our departure gave it up as a bad job
and went away. Then Murry Fairbank drifted in.
He had read in the paper that we were to sail and
had come down to find out if it were true.

At twelve-fifteen we did sail — not far, you

understand, just to the mouth of the harbor where
we spent the whole afternoon adjusting the
compasses — but still we sailed. [Without
Cornelius Crane, however. Taken ill at the last
minute, he planned to join the others in Bermuda,
after recovering.)

Five days later [we sailed] into the beautiful
harbor of Hamilton, Bermuda. We had spent
those five days to good advantage in accustoming
ourselves to the sea, the ship and each other ....

At Hamilton we found Cornelius, now
well, and his father, waiting at the pier to take us
to dinner .... We . , . came to several conclus-
ions— that the motorcycles would have to be sent
home — that the owner's launch, too delicately

Cornelius Crane
aboard the Illyria,
while she lay in
Boston harbor
before the expedi-
tion.

Launching of the

Illyria at Lussin-

piccolo, Italy, in

September, 1928.

built for use among coral reefs, should be left in
Bermuda ....

Murry and I pleaded that one motorcycle
should be retained, even if we had to put it in our
stateroom.

"All right',' said Cornelius laughing, "if you
can get it in your stateroom you can keep it —
otherwise it goes home."

So the next day Murry and I . . . took the
motorcycle apart. We put the frame and wheels
under his bunk and the motor into our trunk.
Then ushering in Cornelius, we asked him if the
room was in good enough order to suit him.

"Why, yes',' he said, "but what is that
curious smell of rubber? "

"Oh just the motorcycle tires under
Murry's bed',' we answered. He let us keep it ... .

We had been in high spirits during our stay

in Bermuda, but our mood changed as soon as we
left protected waters, because the Illyria began to
roll badly and everyone but Frank Wonder
became seasick ....

Supper turned out to be a hilarious meal.
Just as we sat down to the table the yacht gave a
tremendous lurch and all the books fell out of the
bookcase with a dull roar and cascadeci in an
avalanche over the floor. The two electric lamps
on the table tipped into the soup and several
dishes fell onto the floor, . . .

(Several days later] we reached Port
au Prince, Haiti.

On the afternoon of our first day [there] we
went to see some live snakes at . . . the new Ecole
dAgriculture. With surprising unconcern
Schmidty reached into the cage and pulled out the
largest one. The snake, an ugly green reptile with

.*:V'

white spots, twisted about and quickly bit our
[lerpetologist twice on the wrist. Schmidty's calm
was undistrubed. With a pleasant smile he
returned the offender to the cage and remarked,
"Yes, I thought that was a biting snake'.'

[That evening] we all listened with interest
to (an account] of Dr. (William] Beebe's recent
visit to Haiti and of his descent in a diving helmet
to a depth of nearly twelve fathoms. We knew that
we should be attempting similar feats before long.

. . . We arose early the next morning
... to start on our trip of 230 miles overland to
San Domingo City ....

Our hotel (in San Domingo] was said to be
the best in the city but we discovered on the first
evening that the food was either too highly
seasoned or had attained too great an age to be
edible. So we had to fall back on bread and boiled
eggs. While waiting for the eggs to boil we noticed
several mice who playfully scurried about the
dining room floor and later our attention was
attracted to some small bats which swooped about
amongst the diners narrowly missing their heads.

In the bedrooms the fauna was even more
varied than in the dining room. Although each
bed was provided with an elaborate mosquito net,
no provision had been made against those insects
politely known as "beetles'.' Murry discovered
several under his pillow and I found an army of
them in my closet. The advance guard entered my
suitcase. For several days I had to shake
cockroaches out of my clothes before putting them
on.

After Haiti, the lUyria's next stop was
Panama.

. . . One of the animal boxes which had
escaped a wetting on (Gatun Lake( contained
about two dozen basilisks, a type of lizard about
eighteen inches in length which is remarkable for
its ability to run on the surface of smooth water.
Schmidty had been at great pains to secure this
collection in the hope of making a moving picture
of their marathons ... we took the basilisks
down to the water and let one go.

Running along the float with surprising
speed, the creature took a mighty jump into the
water, but then instead of skimming along on the
surface he dove below and at once disappeared. A
second one did the same thing, first biting
Schmidty severely on the end of the forefinger.

Since the remaining lizards seemed to be
much weakened by their captivity we decided to
release them all at once, in the hope that at least
one would stay on the surface. We did so with the
movie camera in full operation but not a single
basilisk complied with our desires. This was all the
more maddening in view of the fact that the
lizards remained in the cove for several days and
amused themselves each morning by scampering
about on the water as we had wanted them to.
However, the instant we approached they dove
out of sight ....

(That night] Schmidty and Dunn (an old
friend of K. Schmidt's] bundled up in heavy boots
and shooting jackets. They . . . stumbled away in-
to the dark, slimy maze of twisted vines, gnarled
roots and buttressed tree trunks which make a
tropical forest almost impenetrable at night. Hard-
ly had the flicker of their lights disappeared in the
gloom than a tropical rainstorm began to beat

Sidney ShiirrHf;'.
the expedition's ;^f-
ficial photographer ,
focuses on Field
Museum herpetol-
ogist Karl Schmidt
and iguana.

Murry Fairbank
poses with Mabel,
the sea lion whose
pleasure was loung-
ing in an armchair
and listening to the
victrola.

down on us so fiercely that we half expected to see
them return at once, but for over two hours there
was no sign of them.

Finally toward midnight, they stumbled,
all bedraggled and wet, into the camp, looking
like a couple of fugitives from justice .... From
their little- collecting bags they first dragged an
alligator about four feet long, which Schmidty
had shot just after he had unwittingly stepped on a
much larger one. Then out came a live turtle
which tried desperately to bite everyone within
reach. The next exhibit was an enormous
tarantula, alive, four inches in diameter, from
whose deadly fangs we all shrank until he was
popped into a cage. The greatest find of the
evening had been reserved for the last. Dunn,
proudly reaching into his bag brought out a most
amazing frog, about three inches long. Its
triangular body and limbs were a luminous shiny
dark green above and very bright orange below;
while its enormous round eyes shone like jewels.
Schmidty jealously admitted that it was an
unknown and new species. Dunn explained that as
this frog nestles against some green leaf he covers

up all his orange colored parts, and is almost
invisible. But if he is disturbed he takes an
immense leap, flashing all his orange underparts at
the observer who, seeing nothing but that color,
hardly thinks of looking for a green frog where the
orange one alights. Here is a case where the
brightest of contrasts is the best possible camou-
flage ....

After lunch we brought out cHir prize
specimen, a full grown anteater. He had evidently
been considerably irked by his captivity for when
Schmidty hauled him out by the tip of his long tail
he quickly reversed himself, climbed up that
appendage and made a pass with heavy claws at
his captor.

After this we treated Mr. Anteater with
more circumspection. We wired him by the hind
leg to a tree and left him to cool down. Whenever
we approached he reared onto his hind legs and
tail and extended his muscular forearms in the
position favored by boxers. In this defensive
attitude, darting his long round tongue in and out,
grunting, puffing and blinking his beady eyes he
was one of the drollest animals 1 have ever seen.
Later we brought him a termite nest, over-
flowing with light brown insects and stuck it
under his long nose. The sight or smell of the
termites made his mouth water copiously but he
obstinately refused to eat. It was only after two
hours of patient waiting beside the movie camera
that 1 was able to film him in the act of darting out
his sticky tongue to a length of five or six inches
and quickly sucking it in again, with several
unlucky white ants attached. So quickly did he
manipulate his tongue that it was only a blur to
my eye. Consequently his small prey had not the
slightest chance of getting away. He finished his
meal speedily and curling up into a hairy ball with
his forepaws crossed over his head he went off to
sleep, . . .

It was the end of my stay [at Barro
Colorado Island in Gatun Lake). Packing the
equipment and some two thousand feet of exposed
film I descended to the flimsy outboard boat. It
ferried me safely to Frijoles where the afternoon
train picked me up and bore me with great speed
to Panama. I arrived at a late hour, hot and tired,
but at the Hotel I found that Cornelius was
counting on me for dinner, . . . after which we
were to go to the opera. I climbed into evening
clothes and a boiled shirt and was rushed to the
Club where we descended on the dinner party in
the middle of the second course. From there we
made a mad dash to the theatre at the other end of
the city and I who had been for a week in khaki
pants on a tropical island floundering about in
mosquito-infested swamps, found myself dazedly
sitting between two pretty girls in evening gowns
listening to an amateur version of La
Boheme ....

There followed a week of the utmost

confusion. Our motion pictures had to be
developed, printed and spliced for a test showing.
The last letters for three months had to be written.
Clothes, ammunition and other important articles
had to be bought. The many animal and bird
specimens . . . had to be prepared and shipped.
And last but not least, everything on board the
lUi/ria had to be taken out and aired to prevent
moulding ....

... on the 29th of December we found
ourselves ready to continue westward [toward
Cocos Island). On the third day out the first
excitement occurred. We were sailing along under
a light breeze when of a sudden the sailor on the
masthead shouted "Submarine to starboard off the
stern quarter!"

We reached for our glasses and observed on
the horizon a dark spot, round of outline, except
for a small projection on the top. The Captain
rejected the submarine theory and declared it to be
an overturned lifeboat with a man sitting on it.
With much flapping of canvas and bracing of
yards we headed into the wind and put about in its
direction .... I loaded up all my cameras in
expectation of great events.

Closer approach proved that not one of us
had guessed right. The floating object was a dead
whale, . . . now distended by the gases of decay
to an enormous size. Its flank floated fully five feet

out of the water and one fin stuck up almost
straight into the air. Around the carcass the water
was literally alive with enormous sharks and other
carnivorous fish ....

After a brief stay at Cocos Island, the
Illyria continued southwestward, toward the
Galapagos.

. . . The weather is cool, although we are
about to cross the equator. Schmidty says that the
cold Humboldt current which flows from the
Antarctic regions northward along the coast of
South America to the Galapagos is the reason for
the low temperature. The Galapagos are right on
the equator and yet only semi-tropical in climate.

I am ashamed to say that Murry and I
overslept this morning until we were wakened by
the anchor chain rattling down in Tagus cove [on
South Seymour Island, in the Galapagos). The
others had to wait for us before going ashore.

No vegetation or animal life of any kind is
visible from our anchorage — no beaches — no
queer animals— nothing but steep volcanic cliffs
and reddish brown hills and mountains. Across
the strait the rounded dome of Narborough,
which sweeps with one majestic curve from sea to
clouds, is also gray and barren. Yet the landscape
is on such a grand scale, so fundamental in line
and texture, that instead of being monotonous it is
strangely stirring.

About nine-thirty we all got into the launch
and, towing a small boat, went about half a mile
to the head of the cove ... As we were clamber-
ing from the boat onto the steep shore Chuck gave
a shout of alarm.

"Look out!" he yelled, "a big piece of lava
is rolling down on us"

We looked up the little valley and saw at
the top a big sea lion, which did indeed resemble a
piece of lava at that distance. He snorted loudly as
he saw us and, turning around, flounced back up
the gully. We pursued and soon surrounded him
and three other sea-lions who apparently had been
sunning themselves on the lava. They retreated to
a position under an overhanging ledge, but did not
seem very much afraid and allowed us to
approach within two or three feet without trying
to escape. Their gray brown color is almost the

lot of spiders and beetles fell in. These he picked
up with tweezers and put one by one into a jar of
alcohol, solemnly watching their dying convul-
sions ....

[Later] we came upon at least 200 iguanas
sitting on the rocks and sunning themselves. These
strange antediluvian creatures fit into the
extraordinary landscape as if created solely for it.
They have the same splotched black and gray
coloration as the lava on which they bask and
their shape is much like that of some of the ripples
left in the lava when it cooled. They are well
adapted to life along the shore, for their long
powerful toes are equipped with recurved claws
which allow them to maintain such a strong grip
on the lava that even a heavy wave cannot pry
them loose.

They vary in length from three to four feet

The "submarine"

that turned out to

be a dead whale.

same as that of the lava. We took several pictures
and then stampeded them down the gully into the
water for the movie camera, but as usual I ran out
of film in the middle of the scene.

Further up the ravine a large bright-colored
grasshopper flew into Murry's face and nearly put
out his eye. But he risked himself again about five
minutes later by picking up a dangerous stinging
scorpion, which he thought was a spider, to give
to Schmidty.

In spite of our jeers Schmidty had brought
along a big black umbrella which he had carried
defiantly under his arm though there was not the
remotest chance of rain. We soon found his reason
for bringing it. He placed it upside down under a
bush and then wacked the bush with a stick until a

when full grown ana tneir outer skin consists of
hard scales which are dull red and green after the
skin has been freshly changed but lose their color
after a short time. The crest of spines down the
middle of the back and the sharp conical scales on
the upper surface of the short head contribute to
their queer appearance ....

We found them to be very tame indeed,
perhaps because they have no natural enemies on
land .... When we did not disturb them too
violently they contented themselves with nodding
their heads at us very vigorously and blowing
little bubbles from between their sharp teeth and
goat-like lips ....

After I finished writing last night Dr. Herre
tried a fishing experiment. He lowered to the

surface of the water a bright light which attracted
a great number of mackerel. They were so
numerous that the water appeared to be alive and
squirming. We managed to catch forty or fifty
with harpoons, nets, baited hooks and we even
got one on a bare hook. Then a shark came near
and ail the fish disappeared as if by magic.

(The next day] the rest of the party un-
rolled a tremendous seine about 250 feet long and
hauled it around in a semi-circle near the beach. It
took them about half an hour of good hard work
to get the seine around the semi-circle and to haul
it up onto the shore, but all they caught were three
small puffers which, no matter how much they in-
flated themselves, could not seem a very large
catch to Dr. Herre.

Afterward I walked southward along the
beach . . . until suddenly I saw what looked like a
dead sea-lion, being battered about in the surf.
However, when I approached it came to life and
swam away.

A little further along I came upon another
large male rolling in the surf in the same way. He
would allow each inrushing wave to carry him up
the beach in a swirl of foam and then when the
water receded he would roll down into the next
oncoming breaker like a sack of cement. This sea-
lion must have been asleep, for his eyes were
closed and although I approached within ten feet
to take pictures he took no notice of me for over a
minute. Then he seemed to awake with a sudden
start, snorted loudly, glared at me and dashed
away.

[Later I caught a young female sea-lion] by
one hind flipper. It seemed pretty tame, so we
christened it Mabel and brought it back to the
lUyria with us ... .

We have just been trying some experiments
with Mabel. She likes to listen to the victrola and
to sit in a plush armchair. We put her into the sink
in the laboratory and turned on the water. When
she was only partially submerged she tried to dive,
but of course couldn't, so she became very angry
and splashed water all over us.

As I write we can see lights flashing six
miles away on Narborough, where we left the
scientists. The radio operator says the flashes are
not in code, but they well might be, for we have
found that the campers left all their blankets and
cooking utensils on board the Illyria — true absent-
minded scientists!

On another of the islands, the group met a
Norwegian settler, a Mr. Horneman, who with his
wife was trying to start a banana plantation. The
couple had an eight-month-old child.

[Mrs. Horneman] had managed to convey
to me with fragments of English words the idea
that her baby was very pale as a result of living in
such a rainy district. Wishing to be polite I said
"Nevertheless, he looks like a very intelligent
baby'.'

Of course she could not understand so I
tapped my forhead, pointed at the baby and said,
"Bright! very bright!"

Mrs. Horneman gave a great gasp and
turned frightfully pale. She directed a startled
glance at the baby and said "Not blight! Not
blight! Oh, No!"

Plainly her greatest fear was that the baby
might be taken sick so far from any doctor. I tried
to calm her by saying — "Oh, no! I meant brains!
The baby has brains!"

Unfortunately she thought brains was
another disease and it took the combined efforts of
both Schmidty and Dr. Herre, each speaking eight
different languages at once, to reassure her.

We presented Horneman with a whole
carton of cigarettes and went outside to eat our
lunch. He was too short on food to invite us to eat
with him but he and his wife started to make some
coffee for us.

Cornelius hauled out a bottle of cognac
which had been brought along and was about to
pour it into our tin army cups when there came a
great cry of "Hola!" and Horneman dashed out
with some wine glasses which he must have been
treasuring for just some such occasion.

We all drank to the health of his wife and
child and then presented him with the rest of the
bottle, still half full. He was delighted and again
ran into the house and brought out two stools and
a board, out of which he made a table. He covered

the table with a nearly clean, white linen table- .,, ^ ... „

• ■ , I 11 1 • • Albert W. Herre,
cloth with blue embroidered tnmmmgs. Stanford University-
Then he produced a tray on which were a ichthyologist,
lot of demitasse coffee cups, white with gold rims measures shark.

Alan Resetar, pre-
sent custodian of
the reptile and am-
phibian collection,
examines shell of
extinct Charles
Island tortoise, col-
lected by Karl P.
Schmidt more than
half a century ago.

and a sugar bowl with some home-refined sugar.
His wife brought out the kettle of coffee and he
poured us each a cup with the gravest of ceremony
and politeness.

"Well!" said I to myself, "here we are at the
very end of the world, where no one ever comes
and where the only inhabitants are barefoot and
dressed in ragged overalls, and have beards down
to their waists. One would hardly expect the
formality of a blue and white table-cloth and
demitasse in gold cups!"

It struck all of us as being so delightful that
we gave the Hornemans all the rest of our
supplies.

I went to sleep as soon as we got back to
the boat but Schmidty woke me up about five-
thirty. He had "found" ... a big cave with extinct
turtle shells in it, and wanted me to go down into
it with him to take flashlight photographs.

. . . we discovered several dozen shells of
the extinct Charles Island tortoise, three in perfect
condition. Schmidty is delighted to secure these
shells for the museum, for this type of tortoise has
been extinct for more than a hundred years. . . .

The Illyria headed urestward for the
Marquesas, some 3,000 miles further on.

The Marquesas were sighted early in the
morning of February fifth .... All nine of us
climbed into the skiff and attempted to make a
landing but a native policeman dressed in little
save a red straw hat motioned us away ....
Then a white man in white clothes and a pith
helmet appeared and told us in French that we
could not land until we had been O.K'.d by the
doctor. We had to wait nearly two hours for this
medical man who finally arrived in an outrigger
canoe and gave his official consent.

We learned from the governor that disease
has been prevalent in the Marquesas since the
advent of the white man and nearly all of the true
natives have died off. At present there are only
300 inhabitants on this large and beautiful island
and many of them came from Tahiti and other
outside places. There are only 3,000 inhabitants in
all the Marquesas, and the population is still
decreasing.

Most of the natives we did see were either
sick or very old and feeble — not just what one
might expect after reading some of the popular
South Sea novels. There was something very
depressing and decayed about the whole
atmosphere.

Nor is the island a good collecting ground
for scientists. There are no mammals or interesting
reptiles, and what few birds can be found are well
known. There are some ruins of moderate
anthropological value but the governor told us
that the most interesting remains of the former
high civilization could be reached only by a ten
hour ride on horse-back ....

Since there was very little of scientific
interest at Hiva Oa, we sailed away the following
day, and reached the Island of Nuka-Hiva the next
morning .... The scientists, in the meantime,
had had a far more exciting time. Dr. Herre had
persuaded some of the natives at Taiohae bay to
help him cast his big seine. The very first haul
resulted in the capture of no less than 10,000 fish.
Most . . . were a type of mackerel . . . and the
weight was so great that it took nearly half the
population of the village to pull the seine ashore.
The beach was alive with gleaming silvery shapes,
and when the net was emptied the natives ran to
their houses for receptacles to put them in. No such
catch had ever been made in the bay before and
everyone rejoiced at this addition to the food
supply. When we returned in the evening we saw
long lines of fish drying on ropes stretched
between the trees ....

After the Marquesas, the Illyria sailed
nearly due south for the Tuamotu, or Low,
Archipelago. From there the expedition proceeded
to Tahiti.

. . . The scientists had been impatient at
the length of our stay in Tahiti. They had made
some casts and paintings of fish, but in general the
collecting had not been good. Nature has been
more lavish with geographical and vegetable

forms than with animals and insects in all the
Polynesian islands. Each morning the scientists
had gone hopefully ashore with guns and col-
lecting bags, but in the evening they returned in
dejection seldom with more than a few small birds
and two or three bottles of insects. The specimens
they did get were not unusual. Schmidty felt we
were wasting time and should push on.

It is a long way from Tahiti to Fiji — over
two thousand miles — and it took us twelve days to
make the trip. We allowed ourselves only one stop
— a very short one at Borabora and there we
found anchored in the harbor the small sailing
yacht Cha)ice. On board were three bronzed
young athletes from Yale, Dodd, Brown and
Marshall by name. They had started from New
London on a South Sea cruise nearly nine months
before and had sailed all this way with the help of
only one navigator and a cook. There had been
two more Yale boys on board at the start, who, by
the time we met the party had gone on side
expeditions of their own. The three remaining
boys came aboard the Illyria for supper.

Their point of view was quite different
from ours. They sailed on no fixed schedule and
lingered wherever it pleased them. Sometimes
they would go ashore and live with the natives for
a week or more. A lazy life appealed to them, but
they assured us that they were learning a lot more
about the South Seas than were we, with all our
scientists and sailors. Who knows? Perhaps they
were.

At Ovalau, about seventy miles from
Suva, we anchored the lUyria in a large bay . . .

Richard T. Crane,
father of Cornelius,
was a Field
Museum trustee
1908-12, 1921-31.

Taxidermist Frank
C. Wonder (left)
and artist Walter
A. Weber work on
specimens in the
laboratory aboard
the Illyria.

just between twilight and dusk. Schmidty
suddenly pointed toward the mastheads. Looking
up, we saw a host of dim gray flying forms softly
silhouetted against the last faint pink of the sunset.
"Flying-foxes!" exulted Schmidty. "Fruit
bats! A whole horde of them. I had been hoping
we might see some. They are not rare in this part
of the world, but they are different on every island
—and we must get some for the museum'.' He told
us that these creatures hang upside down on trees
during the daytime and sometimes there will be so
many on one tree that the branches are broken. At
night they make a flight all together, just at dusk,
from the roost to their feeding grounds.

"Look! " he cried. "There are thousands of
them — big ones!"

They were flying across the bay to the
cocoanut plantations where they would spend the
night destroying and eating the unripe fruits ....
Schmidty decided that they would probab-
ly return just before sunrise, following the same
line of flight.

. . . The ones we got were remarkable
creatures. They were nearly five feet from wing tip
to wing tip ... . They had long snouts, sharp
teeth and pointed ears, like foxes, and their bodies
were covered with reddish brown fur. Having
tongues and palates, they could scream and make
barking noises. "Flying-fox" is a good name, for
these mammals really look like small foxes
equipped with wings.

We spent two more days at Ovalau, during
which Dr. Herre collected a number of unusual
fish and the scientists collected several more
species of land birds and insects. Except for bats,
no mammals of any sort were found. Then we
sailed back to Suva to pick up Dr. Moss, who had
stayed behind to make anthropological measure-
ments. We had also to put aboard supplies in
preparation for our trip to the New Hebrides.

... it was a relief to reach Vila, the largest
port in the New Hebrides, on March 27th. The
town itself was a great disappointment to those of
us who had not prepared by reading about it in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. I had a mental picture,
gleaned from popular books of a tiny place set on
the edge of the jungle and environed by cannibal
villages. Instead I saw a full-sized town composed
of docks, streets and red-roofed houses with auto-
mobiles parked in front of them. There was not a
single cannibal to be seen and even friendly
natives were absent for they have been displaced
by the Indonese laborers imported by the French.
Dignified Englishmen strolled about, canes in
hand or sipped cooling drinks on spacious veran-
dahs. Nothing could have been further from the
popular idea of a cannibal isle than Vila.

We soon abandoned our hope of finding

romance on shore. However, on the floor of the

harbor we met with better success. Descending in

26 about six fathoms of water with our diving helmet

we found the visibility to be very good and spent
the whole afternoon taking turns at exploring the
corals on the bottom or photographing them with
our underwater camera. . . .

There is infinite variety in the corals. Some
rise in thick coarse branches from the sandy bot-
tom like ghostly bushes which, decapitated and
bleached, have long been dead. Some formations
are rounded and soft like giant foot-stools while
others are angular, brittle and cruelly pointed.
Still other fronds are intricate and delicate in their
branchings and infinitely varied in their pastel col-
orings. The ocean floor might be compared to a
flower garden in full bloom though the latter
would suffer by the comparison since, seen
through the green-blue medium of sea water, the
colors of the undersea world although bright, are
never glaring nor unharmonious. Both color and
form are more complex, more erotically luxuriant
and more vaguely mysterious than in the world
above.

The gentle winds which sway the flowers of
the upper world have also their marine counter-
parts for the ceaseless surging of the ocean swell
imparts a sweeping motion to the seaweed and
other flexible growths on the bottom and to the
minute animal and vegetable particles suspended
in the water. The motion is slow, dignified and
almost monotonously regular. Everything sways
at the same instant and moves the same distance.
Yet there is something awe-inspiring in this inces-
sant surge of the depths — this pulse of the sea. It
began when the earth was young and it will con-
tinue just as slowly, just as irresistibly until the sea
is no more.

A man with a diving helmet could spend
days, even weeks on a fifty foot square of coral
reef and yet find something new and interesting
every hour. Nevertheless most of the white in-
habitants of the tropics are satisfied to peer
through a water-glass once in a great while and
would not dream of diving even in places where
there are no sharks. They excuse themselves with
talk of poisonous corals, of deadly jellyfish, of
spined sea-urchins and of molluscs which might
snap shut on their ankles. As a matter of fact these
dangers are mostly mere superstitions and with a
little care diving is as safe as playing golf.

Acting on advice from the officials at Vila
we sailed that same evening for Bushman's Bay on
Malekula Island to seek information regarding
bird-collecting and native life from Mr. Adam, the
District Officer. Arriving at the Bay the next
morning we were again discouraged by the civil-
ized aspect of the landscape. Several neat white
houses and sheds stood under orderly rows of
cocoanut palms and a Ford truck loaded with
cocoanuts chugged in the foreground. . . .

The adventure of the lUyria will be concluded in the
September Bulletin.

July, August, and September at Field Museum

(July 15 through September 15)

New Exhibit

"Treasures of Cyprus." Opened June 14. These 150 objects
reflect nearly 8,000 years of Cypriot art and culture. Situated at
the crossroads of three continents — Europe, Asia, and Africa —
the Cypriot people have kept their individuality while still
assimilating other cultures. The bowls, jugs, vases, religious
idols, and jewelry show the influence of many peoples while re-
maining typically Cypriot. Assembled under the direction of
Donald Whitcomb, assistant curator of Middle Eastern ar-
chaeology and ethnology. Exhibit designer was Clifford
Abrams. This is the show's last stop before returning to Cyprus.
Because of the extreme age and fragility of the objects, this ex-
hibition will not travel to the United States again. "Treasures of
Cyprus, " developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling
Exhibition Service (SITES), is sponsored by the government of
Cyprus and organized by Vassos Karageorghis, director of the
Department of Antiquities, and Patroclos Stavrou,
undersecretary to the president of Cyprus. Through Sept. 16.
Hall K.

Continuing Exhibits

"Art Lacquer of Japan." Our newest permanent exhibit. Fea-
tures inro (intricately carved and decorated sectional medicine
cases), netsuke (tiny carved pendants), and ojime beads, which
hung from the waists of 18th- and 19th-century Japanese men
as symbols of wealth and status. Miniature landscapes, dream-
like still lifes, and mythic dragons are flawlessly carved into lac-
quer ornaments no larger than a matchbox. Examples of
Chinese lacquer art are exhibited for comparison. Hall 32.
Designed by David Edquist under the direction of Bennet Bron-
son, associate curator of Asian archaeology and ethnology.

"Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and Spirit from Five Con-
tinents." Closes July 3 1 . Last weeks to see acclaimed exhibit of
260 rare feather objects assembled almost entirely from Field
Museum's own collections. Compare an intricate feather mosaic
cloak from New Zealand with sophisticated Chinese jewelry in-
laid with brilliant blue kingfisher feathers or with colorful
feather adornments from South America's Indian tribes. Learn
about the amazing structure of feathers and how they are used
to express man's ideas about beauty, wealth, and spirit.
Assembled under the direction of Phyllis Rabineau, custodian
of the anthropology collections. Exhibit designer: Clifford
Abrams. After its closing here, "Feather Arts" will travel to three
other museums across the country. Hall 26.

"The Art of Being Huichol." A major traveling exhibition of
more than 150 objects of Huichol Indian art. The exhibit was
organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and is
sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
and by the Museum Society of the Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco. Designed by Don Skinner, the exhibit includes
costumes, votive objects, weavings, embroidery, beadwork, and
yarn "paintings." The "art of being Huichol" is the act of living a
devout life, and spiritual themes dominate their art. The Huichol
also value visionary experiences produced by the hallucino-
genic peyote and these images are reflected in their dramatic
yarn paintings. The Huichol live in an isolated area of Western
Mexico, and they remain one of the few traditional Indian
groups whose ancient beliefs and practices remain unchanged
even today. Through Sept. 3. Hall 27.

The Place for Wonder. This gallery provides a place to handle,
sort, and compare artifacts and specimens. Earthquake Charlie,
the Museum's new one-ton polar bear, is the room's most
recently installed "wonder." Weekdays, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.;
weekends, 10 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Ground floor,
near central elevator.

(Continued on back cover)

Prepare for the new exhibit on view

June 14 through September 16 by purchasing

the handsome exhibit catalog:

TREASURES OF

CYPRJ^

8,000 years of Cypriot culture in 78 pages!

A limited number of catalogs are available in the
Museum Shop at $5.50 (10% discount for members).

Copies may be ordered by mail from:
Division of Publications
Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60605

Shipping and handling is 75c per copy.

July, August, and September at Field Museum

(Continued from inside back cover)

Continuing Exhibits

"Cash, Cannon, and Cowrie Shells: The Nonmodern Moneys of
the World." A fascinating collection that contains over 80 varie-
ties of money used by ancient cultures. It explores the origins,
values, and meaning of nonmodern money in terms of buying
power for these past civilizations. The accompanying text gives
the value of each form of money in terms of how much food it
could then buy. Four general categories of moneys are on dis-
play: metal coinage, uncoined metal, shell money, and "miscel-
laneous," which includes food, fur, fiber, glass, teeth, and stone
currencies. No closing date. Between Halls K and L, ground
floor.

"A Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural History." A one-
case exhibit that combines 63 natural history specimens with
samples of philatelic, or stamp, art. Planned on a rotating basis
to cover the four disciplines of natural history, the exhibit in its
first phase is devoted to zoological specimens and their images
on stamps. Exquisite seashells, butterflies, a leaping jaguar, and
fox are among the specimens mounted in the second floor
lounge. "A Stamp Sampler" was conceived by Col. M. E. Rada,
exhibit guest curator, and designed by Peter Ho, a University of
Illinois graduate student.

Friend or Foe? The Natural History Game. The object here is to
determine which one of apparently similar specimens is harmful
and which is not. See if you can distinguish a vampire bat, a
headhunter's axe, a poisonous mineral, or a deadly mushroom
from its benign look-alike. Ground floor, no closing date.

quired. The fee is $3.00 for Members; $4.50 for nonmembers.
Workshop supplies are provided. All workshops begin at 10:30
a.m. and are two hours long. Handicapped participants are
welcome and special arrangements for the hearing-impaired
have been made for selected workshops. For more information
and registration forms, call 922-9410, ext. 364.

"Drawing Dinosaurs." Learn about drawing and dinosaurs by
sketching these prehistoric creatures from the Museum's skele-
tons and dioramas. Open to ages 7 to 13. Sessions meet on
Tuesday. July 17 and on Wednesday. July 18.

"Ojos de Dios (God's Eyes)." After visiting the Huichol exhibit,
young people learn how to make their own version of this
ancient Mexican good luck charm. Open to ages 9 to 14. Ses-
sion meets on Tuesday, July 17.

"Egyptian Hieroglyphs." Learn to write your name in this
ancient symbolic script. Open to ages 9 to 14. Sessions are
Thursday, July 19, and Tuesday, July 24.

"Fiber to Fabric: Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing." After exam-
ining the Museum's displays of textiles from different societies,
the class learns how to spin fiber into thread, to weave thread
into fabric, and to dye fabric in various colors. Open to ages 9 to
14. Session meets on Thursday, July 19.

Continuing Programs

Summer Journey: "A to Z at Field Museum." Self-guided tour
leads families and children through a cross section of exhibits
introducing them to the Museum's four main areas: anthropol-
ogy, botany, geology, and zoology. Free Journey pamphlets
available at the North Information Booth, and the South and
West doors.

American Indian Halls trace the anthropological history and
cultural development of the original Americans, from the time
of their arrival on the North American continent (before 20,000
B.C.) to the present. Hall 5 contains a traditionally made Pawnee
earth lodge— the home and ceremonial center of Pawnee Indi-
ans as it existed in the mid-1800s. Halls 4 through 10, main
floor east.

New Programs

"Summer Fun: Field Museum Workshops." A series of work-
shops for young people ages 7 through 14, which highlight
museum exhibits of special interest and provide a fun, workshop
experience. Enrollment is limited and advance registration is re-

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets,
adult- and family-oriented, are available for 25<: each at the
entrance to the Museum Shop, main floor north.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Guided tours, demonstrations,
and participatory activities. Every Saturday and Sunday, 10
a.m. to 3 p.m.

Volunteer Opportunities. Limited opportunities are available in
botany, geology, and zoology. Weekend volunteers with an
interest in natural history are needed to develop and present
weekend programs. For more information call 922-9410, X 360.

July, August, and September Hours. In July and August, the
Museum is open daily 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. except Fridays. In
September, the hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Fridays,
throughout the year, the Museum is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Obtain
a pass at the reception desk, main floor. Closed Labor Day.

Museum Telephone: (312) 922-9410

'*f\

tAji

*55

Held Museum
of Natural History
Bulletin

September, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 8

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walsten
Production: Oscar Anderson
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff Photographer: Ron Testa

Held Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
George R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
William V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

CONTENTS

3 Field Briefs

4 El NiRo: The Catastrophic Flooding of Coastal Peru,
Part II

By Fred L. Nials, Eric E. Deeds, Michael E. Moseley,
Shelia G. Pozorski, Thomas G. Pozorski, and
Robert A. Feldman

11 Field Museum Tours

12 Illinois Archaeology Tour

An account of the June 1-5 tour
By Robert Pickering, tour leader

16 Jungle Islands: The "Illyria" in the South Seas, Part II

By Sidney N. Shurcliff

25 Learning Museum Fall Program: "China: A Deeper

Look"

By Anthony Pfeiffer, project coordinator

29 Book Reviews

30 Weekend Discovery Programs
32 Our Environment

35 September and October at Field Museum

Calendar of coming events

COVER

Late summer scene in Manistee National Forest, Michigan.
Photo by Robert Brudd, Tinley Park, Illinois. On Ekta-
chrome, using Cambo 4x5 view camera.

Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (USPS 898-940) is published monthly,
except combined July/Atigust issue, by Field Museum of Natural History,
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, U. 60605. Subscriptions: $6 a
year; $3 a year for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin subscription.
Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the
policy of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster:
Please send form 3579 to Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at
Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, U. 60605. ISSN: 0015-0703. Second class postage
paid at Chicago, II.

Environmental Field Trips

Thirteen field trips to take place in
September and October will offer non-
members as well as members new oppor-
tunities to learn about the local flora,
fauna, and geology. Under sponsorship
of the Ray A. Kroc Environmental
Education Program, the trips will be led
by Field Museum staff and guest
scientists.

Sites to be visited include Goose
Lake Prairie, Braidwood Dunes and
Savannah, McGraw Wildlife Founda-
tion, Morton Arboretum, Kane County
Farms, and Starved Rock State Park.
Both adult trips and family trips are
being scheduled; early registration by
mail is strongly recommended.

Field Museum members auto-
matically receive the field trip brochure
with trip dates and registration form.
Nonmembers may receive a brochure by
calling 922-9410, ext. 362, or writing:
Department of Education— Field Trips,
Field Museum, Roosevelt Road at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605.

Donald J. Stewart Appointed

Donald J. Stewart has been named assis-
tant curator of fishes. A native of Omer,
Michigan, he holds a Ph.D. from the
University of Wisconsin. He did his
undergraduate work at the University of
Michigan, where he also received his
M.A. Stewart most recently served as
research assistant for the University of
Wisconsin Marine Studies Center, at
Madison.

He has done extensive field work
in both eastern and western Africa. His
technical papers include a number of
pubUcations on fresh water fishes of
these areas, notably on cichlids and
cyprinids.

Erik K. Waering, Carl L. Hubbs

Erik K. Waering, a Field Museum
research associate in geology since 1958,
died July 16 in Naples, Florida. He was
67. Formerly a geologist for Amoco In-
ternational Oil Co., Waering was also
one of the leading authorities on fossil
scorpions, an interest which led to his
association with the Museum. He wrote
prolifically and had recently completed a
definitive monograph on the subject.

Carl L. Hubbs, who served as
Field Museum's assistant curator of
fishes 1916-20, died in La JoUa, CaUfor-
nia, on June 30. He was 85. After leav-
ing Field Museum, Hubbs went on to
become one of the world's leading

ichthyologists. He was professor
emeritus of biology at Scripps Institute
of Oceanography and founding director
of Sea World, at San Diego. During his
long and productive career, Hubbs
wrote more than 700 books and
technical papers on fishes.

"Feather Arts" Catalog Cited

The "Feather Arts" catalog, published
in conjunction with the recent exhibit
Feather Arts: Beauty, Wealth, and
Spirit from Five Continents, has re-
ceived the 1979 award for excellence
from Chicago Women in Publishing. The
catalog was written by Phyllis
Rabineau, custodian of the an-
thropology collection and organizer of
the exhibit, and designed by Clifford
Abrams, of the Department of Exhibi-
tion. Patricia Williams, managing editor
of scientific publications, was the editor.

The 88-page catalog, with many
four-color plates, was judged on the
basis of purpose and subject, writing
and editing, design and graphics, and
manufacturing. A member of the judg-
ing committee observed that the catalog
was "a piece of art— as anything from
the Field Museum should be."

Catalog designer Clifford Abrams
also received an award from Print
magazine for his design of the exhibit,
which closed July 31. His design will be
featured in Print Casebook No. 4,
published by Print.

The "Feather Arts" catalog is
available at the Museum Shop for S7.95
(10% discount for Members). Mail
orders should be directed to the Museum
Shop and include 50 C additional for
postage and handUng.

Weekend Members' Tour to Galena
October 12, 13, 14

Spaces are still open on Field Museum's
weekend tour to historic Galena, Illinois,
in the northwestern corner of the state.
A century ago the small city was a bustl-
ing lead-mining center and many of the
fine homes of that era are still preserved.
Geologic features of the region continue
to be of particular interest. Dr. Bertram
G. Woodland, curator of petrology, who
will serve as tour leader, will also pro-
vide commentary on the unusual
geologic features of the area.

Accommodations for two nights
will be at Chestnut Mountain Lodge.
Price of the tour is $150.00 per person,
double occupancy (singles on request).
Included are all expenses of transporta-
tion on charter buses to and from
Chicago; all meals and gratuities, except
personal extras such as special food ser-
vice. Advance deposit: $15.00 per per-
son. For further information call or write
Michael J. Flynn, Field Museum Tours,
Roosevelt Rd. at Lake Shore Dr.,
Chicago, 111. 60605. Phone 922-9410, ext.
251.

Illustration from
"Feather Arts"
catalog

El Nino: The

Catastrophic

Flooding of

Coastal Peru

A complex of oceanographic
and meteorologic factors i
combine in one of Earth's most
devastating, recurrent disasters

Part II

Copyright £ 1979 by Field Museum of rHatural History. All rights
reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without prior written per-
mission is strictly prohibited.

By FRED L. FHIALS, ERIC E. DEEDS, MICHAEL
E. MOSELEY, SHELIA G. POZORSKl,
THOMAS G. POZORSKl, AHD ROBERT
FELDMAN.

Part I (July/August Bulletin) summarized the com-
plex conditions that periodically combine to create
el nifio, described the nature of human occupation of
the Moche Valley (beginning some 12,000 years
ago), and sketched the ingenious irrigation system
devised by the valley's early inhabitants. The rise
and fall of irrigation systems in the valley are cur-
rently the subject of intensive study by Field
Museum's Michael E. Moseley and Robert A.
Feldman and other members of the Programa Riego
Antigua, or PRA (Ancient Irrigation Program).

The Quebrada Rio Seco

During 1978, staff scientists combined forces in a
concentrated effort to move beyond the archaeo-
logical findings and use geological evidence to
evaluate the existence of a large pre-Columbian
flood. The Quebrada Rio Seco and the Rio Moche
were chosen for intensive study because they would
register different sources of runoff, and because

fred L. Nials is a geologist at Eastern New Mexico Uni-
versity who specializes in archaeological applications of
geology. Eric E. Deeds is a Harvard senior who, as a PRA
consultant, first identified the effects of the Chimu
flood. Michael E. Moseley. codirector of the PRA, is
associate curator of Middle and South American archae-
ology and ethnology at Field Museum. Shelia and
Thomas G. Pozorski, codirectors of the PRA, are on the
staff of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pitts-
burgh. Robert A. Feldman is a research archaeologist
with the Field Museum's PRA.

they contained prehistoric remains that could be
dated and cross-correlated with erosional features.
The challenge of the undertaking was the lack of
any known geologic methods for distinguishing one
nino flood from another, to say nothing of compar-
ing magnitudes of different inundations.

Survey in the Rio Seco revealed silts and fine-
grained flood deposits typical of channel margins in
many localities and at varying heights above chan-
nel bottoms. The excellent preservation and lack of
differential weathering of these deposits proved to
be a problem because all the deposits looked iden-
tical and sediments resulting from the 1925 niiio
could not be distinguished from those of earUer or
later floods. Recognition of the extent of the 1925
flood was critical because it was the largest known
water flow since Spanish colonization. Unless the
margins of this flodd could be distinguished, no
basis existed for comparison with earlier floods.

Careful examination of ground and aerial pho-
tographs taken in 1926, 1942, and 1969 revealed

that the boundaries of the 1925 flood could be
precisely identified in most areas by comparing ero-
sional features and aeolian deposits inside and
outside the channels. Small coppice dunes were par-
ticularly important because many of the individual
dunes appearing in photographs made as early as
1926 could still be recognized and identified 52
years later! Dunes that may have been present in
channels during the 1925 inundation were either
completely washed away or were truncated by ero-
sion along the channel margins. The sequence
photos also revealed that by 1942 no new coppice
dunes had formed in the channel bottoms flooded
during 1925. Thus, by examining the distribution of
these little sand dunes it proved possible, in most
areas, to delineate the exact margins of the largest
flood to have come down the Rio Seco since the
Spanish arrived.

Continuing survey showed that throughout
the quebrada, fine-grained flood deposits were con-
sistently present at levels higher than the 1925

sediments. These high-level deposits were often
capped by coppice dunes. To demonstrate that the
sediments belonged to the Chimu cataclysm
depended upon accurately dating them, and upon
making sure there had been no significant changes
in the braided drainage of the quebrada.

The Rio Seco was extensively farmed by the
Chimu, who constructed numerous canals, roads,
and walls across the wash. Within the flood plain
they also built the town of Cerro La Virgen. The set-
tlement straddled a large road that ran up the north
bank of the quebrada, and then crossed over
culverts of a large canal. Survey and excavation
demonstrated that the canal had been destroyed by
the Chimii flood. The interconnecting road indicated
that the canal and the town had once been in con-
temporary use; therefore, the settlement should also
have been impacted by the deluge. Survey of the
ruins showed many areas buried by flood sediments
deposited at higher levels than the margins of the
1925 inundation. Excavations revealed that the

Figs. 1, 2. Photo at left
is aerial view 11942) of
the coastal village of
Huanchaco, located at
mouth of Rio Seco.
Lighter area in left
view is that eroded by
1925 nine's flood.
Photo at right, taken in
1970. shows occupation
of 1925 flood area by
new buildings— summer
homes of Trujillo and
Lima residents. If
flooding feccurred here
—as it certainly will—
the destruction would
be enormous.

flood sediments immediately overlay room floors
and occupational remains; this indicated that the
town was inhabited at the time of inundation and
then abandoned. By using evidence of ancient
canals, roads, walls, and coppice dunes in other
regions of the Rio Seco, it was possible to date addi-
tional high-level flood deposits to Chimu times and
cross-tie them to the ancient disaster that befell the
inhabitants of Cerro La Virgen.

The next problem confronting the geological
staff was possible alterations in the quebrada
drainage pattern. The coastline has undergone some
6 to 8 meters of uplift during the past several thou-
sand years, and when vertical displacement occurs,
the gradient of a stream, such as the Rio Seco, is
locally steepened adjacent to the coastline. This
causes water to flow faster in the steepened portion,
with a resultant downcutting and entrenchment of
the stream. The steepened portion will erode
upstream until the entire stream system becomes
entrenched and adjusted to the new level. If
downcutting had occurred in the Quebrada Rio Seco
during or since the Chimu flood, it would make all
floods following downcutting appear to be smaller in
volume, because the channels would be deeper and
consequently hold more water.

Gravel-quarrying operations have almost
completely obliterated the lowermost 1 Vi
kilometers of the Rio Seco. so that traditional
geologic methods of comparing terrace gradients as
a means of checking for downcutting could not be
applied. Fortunately, archaeological evidence pro-
vided clues. In numerous instances remnants of
canals, walls, and other manmade features were
found in the bottoms of channels, which indicated
that virtually no downcutting had occurred except
in the lowermost reaches of the quebrada. Also,
some of the canals crossing the quebrada were grad-
ed to the level of existing channel bottoms, so that
gravel bars between channels were trenched to the
same level as the channels on either side. Examina-
tion of the canals and channels showed that all were
still at essentially the same level. Downcutting
could therefore be ehminated as a complicating fac-
tor in the comparison of floods.

A knottier problem was caused by the type of
drainage pattern. Since the normal flow in these
streams is in the form of multiple, shallow, relative-
ly impermanent channels, it was possible that the
stream had merely shifted course slightly and
diverted more water down one channel than another
for some period of time. Deposits and erosional
features in the channel receiving the diverted water
would thus indicate higher volumes of flow. If water
were repeatedly diverted to other channels, most of
the channels would then seem to have been affected
by a Ifirge flood, although this was actually not the
case. Once more, a close comparison of floods seemed
highly problematical. Archaeological evidence again
provided a resolution of the problem. Closely spaced
parallel walls and canals crossing the Rio Seco
allowed comparison of each channel in relation to an
archaeological feature of known age. By using this
method of examination the possibility of diversion
from one channel to another was eliminated in most
cases. Indeed, the bulk of evidence suggests that lit-
tle shifting of channels has occurred during or since
the Chimu flood. This method also effectively

counters the arguments of lateral erosion and dam-
ming as factors in erosion of early archaeological
features.

Unfortunately, the nature of the evidence
allows comparison only between the 1925 flood and
the largest flood prior to that time. Deposits of
intervening floods have either been eroded away or
buried by younger deposits. The 1891 flood, also
reportedly of large magnitude, could not be
recognized on the basis of geological evidence. The
nature and number of channels, and the destruction
of the lower reaches of the quebrada make calcula-
tion of peak flow during the Chimu flood difficult.
Very conservative initial estimates of the Chimu
flood indicate a peak flow at least two to four times
the size of the 1925 inundation. No means of esti-
mating the duration of flow of either flood exists.

Geological and archaeological evidence from
the Quebrada Rio Seco clearly demonstrates the
occurrence of a large-magnitude Chimu flood which
affected drainages receiving locally derived runoff.

The Rio Moche

The lands along the north side of the Rio Moche are
intensively farmed, and this has obscured evidence
of past flooding. However, south of the river where
there is less agricultural development, we find good
preservation of geological and archaeological
features relating to the Chimu flood. Two localities
are particularly important, the Hacienda Santo
Domingo area near the valley neck, and the Moche
capital at Huaca del Sol.

Early in the 1600s Spanish looters looking for
ancient treasure diverted the Rio Moche against the
west side of Huaca del Sol, undercutting and
washing away more than half the mud brick mound.
This destruction left a large architectural profile
that by chance was photographed in 1925 as the
niflo flood waters began to recede. This photograph
{Fig. 7, in Part I, p. 12), {)rovides reference points for
the height of the inundation, the base of the mound,
emd the plain upon which it was built. The plain that
passes beneath Sol and stretches east to the foot of
Huaca de la Luna was once covered with buUdings.
In 1972 we opened a series of excavations there.
Moche Phase archaeological deposits reached a
depth of 7 m on the east side of the Sol platform,
while their depth near the foot of Huaca de la Luna
was about 2.5 m. Midway between the two mounds
we found a wide, low platform. Sand and refuse had
accumulated around the sides of this adobe struc-
ture, and its flat top was at about the same level as
the surrounding surface. While the platform was in
use, Moche burials with subphase III and IV pot-
tery were built into it. Long after abandonment, the
mound was reused as a cemetery by Chimu people
who made pottery dating no later than the middle
brick phase at Chan Chan. However, prior to Chimu
reuse the adobe structure had been completely
saturated with water to the point that the bricks
reverted to a muddy consistency and upon drying
encased the Moche burials in a soUd adobe matrix.
The Chimu graves were cut into resoUdified struc-
ture and the fill of broken adobe and sand around
these burials was loose and had not been water con-
solidated.

The differences in soil matrices around the
two sets of burials clearly indicated that massive
wetting had occurred after Moche subphase IV
times, but before the end of middle Chimu times. In
1972 we had great difficulty in accounting for the
obvious soaking of the site. Even heavy rainfall
from a strong niflo would not have produced suffi-
cient local runoff to have saturated the centred plat-
form between Huacas Sol and Luna.

During the geological studies of 1978 the
situation was reassessed. Survey upstream from Sol
located laminated silt flood deposits, datable to
early Chimu times, more than 8 m above the modern
river level. Similar deposits were then identified in
front of Huaca de la Luna, where they overlay
Moche phase archaeological deposits. The site had
been saturated by extremely high river waters. The
flood deposits in front of Luna were more than 15m
above the present river level, and more than 8 m
above the height of the 1925 inundation. Because
the river floodplain is very broad in the region of
Huaca del Sol, the Chimu inundation was of stagger-
ing proportions. In the central valley the swollen
river probably attained a maximum flood width of
nearly 4 km and a depth exceeding 15 m. These cal-

culations of magnitude are supported by other lines
of evidence from the Hacienda Santo Domingo area.

The Hacienda Santo Domingo area is located
on the southern margin of the Rio Moche approx-
imately 8 km upstream from Huaca del Sol (Fig. 3) .
The most vivid evidence yet seen of the magnitude
and erosive capability of the Chimu flood is present
in this area.

A broad, relatively flat bench varying from .5
to 1 km in width and approximately 1.5 km in length
parallels the Rio Moche between Quebrada Ancados
and Hacienda Santo Domingo. The bench surface
averages 12-15 m in height above the present river
level and is separated from the river by a steep
escarpment of similar height. A narrow belt of sand
dunes containing Early Chimu archaeological ma-
terials caps the escarpment along the upstream half
of the bench (Fig-. 5) , and other dunes are present on
the downstream end of the bench. The central por-
tion of the bench is devoid of aeolian sand and ar-
chaeological materials except for several sandy
hummocks up to 6 m high which contain Early
Chimu artifacts. These sandy hummocks are tear-
drop-shaped, with the blunt end facing upstream.

Stratigraphic investigations near the down-

Fig. 3. Map of

lower Moche

Valley, with major

ancient canals,

settlements

referred to in text,

and area of severe

erosion caused by

Chimu flood of ca.

1100 A.D.

A
I

LEGEND

Prehistoric Ruin
!'' Canal
Wi Flood Erosion Area

Modern City

Contour lines every
10 and 50 meters

Wash
Laminae

Natural
Sand

40cm

1^4KI(^%:.^K^'

Fig. 5. Above and right: Left and right portions,
respectively, of composite photo showing river bank
near the Santo Domingo area (see map, p. 7). The
uppermost alluvial sediments (A) east (right) of the
sand dunes (B) were eroded away by waters of the
Chimu flood. The entire bluff face was created by the
same flood, whose waters were about 15 m (49 feet)
above the present river level.

stream end of the bench revealed that the upper-
most strata were missing from the bench and that
the stratigraphy of the sandy hummocks was
identical with stratigraphy upstream and
downstream from the bench. Clearly, massive
erosion stripped the uppermost 4-6 m from the
surface of the bench.

Examination of aerial photographs revealed
the mechanism of erosion. The Rio Moche had risen
to a height sufficient to overtop the bench and to
breach the dunes bordering the river. The central
portion of the bench was stripped by these flood
waters, and the sandy hummocks were left as
islands during the flood.

Calculation of peak flow is difficult because it
is impossible to determine the exact level of the
river prior to flood. The area had been uplifted 6-8 m
prior to flooding, and downcutting of similar

magnitude should have occurred prior to or during
the flood. An extremely conservative estimate,
allowing for no prior downcutting and a riverbottom
level 10 m above the present one, requires flood
waters to have been at least 18 m deep in the central
portion of the valley. Width of the river during max-
imum flood stage at this location would have been
approximately 3.5 km. These figures become even
more impressive when it is realized that the annual
rainful for this location averages less than 12 mm.
Was the flood recognized at Huaca del Sol and
Hacienda Santo Domingo the same Chimu flood
described at Quebrada Rio Seco? Evidence at Huaca
del Sol places the flood during Chimu time. Early
Chimu sites on the Santo Domingo bench have been
eroded and removed. A middle brick phase Chimu
site constructed on the sand dunes at the edge of the
bench extends across areas stripped by the flood,

CANAL 2

Fig. 4. Excavations across the canals clearly show
the Chimu nino's destruction. The pre-flood Canal 1
was partially washed away, then buried under near-
ly 50 cm (20 in.) of flood wash. The reconstruction
phase waterway, Canal 2, was built at the level of
the present surface and stone lined for added
strength.

but shows no sign of erosion or melting of adobes.
The pieces of evidence place the flood between early
and middle Chimu brick phases, the same period as
the flood on the Quebrada Rio Seco. Even though
large floods can occur on the Rio Moche in non-nifto
years, events of 1925 indicate that the largest
known floods are the result of ninos. While it is not
possible to definitely say that the Rio Moche
flooding described was the result of the same niiio
responsible for Quebrada Rio Seco flooding, it is ex-
tremely unlikely that two different floods of such
unusual magnitude should occur within such a
limited period of time.

Summary Implications

'3ai*»ti f

There is conclusive evidence that a flood of unusual-
ly large magnitude occurred early in the Chimu
dynasty, within a century of the year 1100 AD. Its
effects were particularly devastating. Because the
volume of discharge was extremely high and
because tectonic uplift had occurred prior to the
flood, the large volumes of water triggered river
downcutting and eroded away significant portions
of the central valley, destroying the irrigation
system and modifying patterns of soil drainage,
thus eliminating much of the agricultural resource
area.

The peak discharge of the river and quebradas
is difficult to determine. However, a very conser-
vative estimate would be flood waters at least 2 to 4

Fig. 6. Topographic profile across the Santo Dom-
ingo area (A to B in Fig. 3, p. 7) showing present
ground level, the postulated pre-flood level, and
estimated level of the Chimu flood waters. (The ver-
tical scale is lOX the horizontal scale.)

Present Ground Surface

Pre-Flood Surface

^^.^ Maximum Flood Level

HORIZONTAL SCALE

RIO MOCHE

-100

METERS ABOVE

SEA LEVEL

times the size of the 1925 floods, the worst in the
last 400 years. The Chimu flood was undoubtedly
the result of a particularly intense niflo, because
niftos are the only known mechanism for producing
significant rainfall along the coastal desert. Ninos
£U"e known to be recurrent phenomena, and the
Chimu flood indicated that the 1925 niiio was not
some unusually severe quirk of nature. Indeed, it ap-
pears "mild" in comparison to the catastrophe that
struck eight centuries earlier.

Was the Chimu flood simply a fluke of nature?
Or were there even earlier nifios of similar
magnitude that might imply a long term pattern of
recurrence? These are truly pressing questions of
general concern. Documenting the Chimu inunda-
tion was a demanding task made possible by
unusually good preservaton of geological and ar-
chaeological features afforded by the normally dry
desert. Field Museum scientists are currently
evaluating new methods for determining the
presence and frequency of strong niiios in the past.
This is imperative because there appears to be
evidence in the Moche Valley of another large flood
that occurred about 500 B.C. If this flood is verified,
it would strengthen the probability that the Chimu
flood was not unique, and therefore call for some
serious concern for what the future may bring.

Planning for such an eventuaUty is perplex-
ing. At a global level, destruction of the fishing in-
dustry would require attention to alternate sources
of protein. At a national level, Peru would face even
greater complexities. It would be financially infeasi-
ble to construct roads, canals, and dams capable of
withstanding floods of the Chimu magnitude. Yet,
there would have to be some civil defense strategy
to minimize devastation and loss of life. Because the

coastal population has grown so rapidly, little
thought has been given to the location of new or ex-
panding settlements, many of which are built
squarely across large quebradas. Centuries ago
floods in the Rio Seco destroyed the Chimu town of
Cerro La Virgen. At the mouth of the quebrada the
1925 floods lapped the fishing village of Huanchaco.
Today, Huanchaco is a summer resort that has
grown across the mouth of the Rio Seco {Figs. 1, 2).
Even a flood of the 1925 magnitude would be
disastrous, but an inundation of Chimu scope would
bring near total destruction.

Long ago the Spanish recorded a "legend" of
more northerly Chimu people who were once early
rivals of Chan Chan. They were a powerful nation
until their king incurred the gods' wrath, and as
punishment it rained for 30 days and nights.
Devastating flooding ceased only when the populace
rose up, bound the king hand and foot, and threw
him into the ocean. There followed great famine and
pestilence, lasting for countless years, and then
Chan Chan's armies swept across the land, conquer-
ing all. A modern repeat of the Chimu flood could
well bring a repeat of this "legendary" scenario en-
tailing revolution, starvation, and eventual foreign
domination!

The research program reported above has received
major financial support from the National Science
Foundation, with additional funding from the
Frederick Henry Prince Trust and from Mrs.
Gatzert Spiegel. Logistic support in the form of
equipment and personnel was provided by Soiltest,
Inc., of Evanston, Illinois, through Mr. Theodore W.
Van Zelst.

iiffli¥iJM£^?^'iaxil?1IMt'.lt ^^^^^^J^ w^» *»

Portion oj the Temple oj Heaven. Peking, builtin 1420. one of manv sites awaiting members of Field Museum's November tour to China. (See tour description on
facing page.)

Field Museum Tours

Peru, Oct. 27 -Nov. 15.

A 20-day tour will visit the ruins of Machu Picchu, Chan Chan,
Pachacamac, Purgatario, and others. The Plains of Nazca (viewed
from low-flying aircraft), the Guano Islands, and the Pisac Indian Fair
will also be visited. The group, limited to 20, will be led by Dr. Michael
Moseley, associate curator of middle and South American archae-
ology and ethnology, and by Robert Feldman, assistant in archae-
ology. A tour escort will also accompany the group.

The tour cost— $2,998 (which includes a $500 donation to
Field Museum)— is based upon double occupancy and includes round
trip air fare between Chicago and Peru and local flights in Peru. Delta
Airlines will be used between Miami and Chicago, connecting with
Aeroperu. Deluxe accommodations will be used throughout. The
package includes all meals, including inflight meals; all sightseeing: all
admissions to events and sites; all baggage handling; all necessary
transfers; all applicable taxes and tips; all applicable visa fees. Advance
deposit: $250.00 per person.

China, Nov. 5-25

Peking's Forbidden City, the Summer Palace of the Dowager Em-
press, the bustling activity of Canton, the ancient pagodas of Kunm-
ing. These are just a sampling of the sights that lie in store for the 23
persons (Field Museum members and their families) who visit China
on Field Museum's exclusive tour this November.

In addition to fourteen days in China, three days and two
nights will be spent in London. The tour escort will be Mrs. Katharine
Lee, a Field Museum volunteer in the Department of Anthropology
who is fluent in five Chinese dialects. Additional guides in China will be
provided by the China International Travel Service. The tour cost—
$4,400 (which includes a $500 donation to Field Museum)— is based
upon double occupancy and includes round trip air fare from Chicago
to China. Advance deposit required: $500.00 per person.

Antarctica, Jan. 6-30, 1980

The cruise vessel will be the 3,200-ton ship M.S. World
Discoverer, registered in Hong Kong, which will take us from Punta
Arenas, Argentina, onwards. Built in 1974, the one-class vessel has all
outside cabins with private lavatories and showers. The ship's staff in-
cludes a fully qualified physician. The tour leaves Chicago Jan. 6,
1980 and returns Jan. 30. Prices per person: C deck twin: $3,230; C
deck single: $4,870: B deck twin: $3,570; B deck single: $5,390; A
deck twin: $3,930. Air fare, in addition is $1,225 (round trip between
Chicago and Punta Arenas, Argentina). Included in the tour price is a
tax-deductible donation of $500.00 to Field Museum. Deposit re-
quired at time of registration: $1,000.00 per person.

Archaeological Tour of Egypt
with Nile River Cruise
Jan. 31 -Feb. 17, 1980

Field Museum once again presents its popular Egypt tour with a Nile
River cruise. This is the fourteenth such tour offered to Members dur-
ing the last four years. The new and improved program offers an
11-day Nile cruise on our own chartered, private, modern Nile
steamer. In addition, we will be visiting Cairo, Memphis, Sakkara,
Aswan/Abu Simbel, Edfu, Esna, Kom Ombo, Luxor, Thebes, Valley
of the Kings and Queens, Dendereh, Abydos, Amarna, Middle
Kingdom Tombs at Beni Hasan, Pyramid at Medum, and much more.
Eighteen days exploring Egypt with our Egyptologist, Mrs. Del
Nord, a doctoral candidate at the Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago, who has traveled extensively in Egypt. Leave Chicago on
January 31, 1980, and return on February 17. Price includes all air
transportation, meals, Nile cruise, hotels, tips, taxes, transfers, visa
fees, admissions, baggage handling, escorts, and more. $3,595.00
per person based upon double occupancy. The tour price includes a
$500.00 contribution to the Field Museum. A $500.00 per person
deposit is required for reservation confirmation. The group is limited to
30 persons. Single supplement is available upon request, Nile Cruise
and land.

Kenya Safari
Feb. 13-March 5, 1980

The wildlife of Kenya, both plant and animal, will be the focal point of
this exciting 22-day tour of Kenya. An added bonus will be one of
nature's most spectacular phenomena, a total eclipse of the sun which
will occur on Feb. 16, 1980, and which you will view from the perfect
vantage point, the Taita Hills. On the tour you will visit Nairobi, Am-
boseli beneath Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tsavo West, Tsavo East, Mombasa on
the Indian Ocean, the Ark, Samburu, Mt. Kenya Safari Club, Lake
Naivasha, Masai Mara adjoining the Serengeti, and more.

The tour will be led by Dr. Robert Faden, assistant curator of
botany, and his wife, Audrey Joy Faden. Dr. Faden lived in Kenya for
more than seven years and is very well versed in the flora. Audrey
Faden, a wildlife artist, was born and raised in Kenya and has a first-
hand knowledge of the fauna.

The tour leaves Chicago on Feb. 13, 1980, and returns March
5. Price includes all air transportation, meals, transportation within
Kenya, hotels, tips, taxes, visas, transfers, baggage handling, admis-
sions, escorts, and more. The tour cost is $4,575.00 per person based
upon double occupancy from Chicago; this includes a $500.00 con-
tribution to Field Museum. A $750.00 deposit per person is required
for reservation confirmation. The group is limited to 25 persons.
Single supplement is available upon request.

For additional information and reservations for all tours,
call or write Michael J. Fl[;nn, Field Museum Tours,
Roosevelt Rd. at Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, III. 60605.
Phone: (312) 922-9410, X-251. „

Illinois Archaeology Tour

A Brief Report

By Robert B. Pickering
Tour Leader

Photos by the author

Excavation at the

Koster site will be

filled in during

1979.

The Familiar Term •Archaeology," for most,
probably brings to mind expeditions to exotic
places: the jungles of Yucatan, mysterious Angkor
Wat, or Egyptian wonders such as Abu Simbel. But
right here in Illinois we also have some highly
significant and interesting archaeological sites, as
25 participants in a recent Field Museum field trip
will readily attest.

The main purpose of the five-day field trip,
which took place during the first week of June, was
to give the participants some first-hand knowledge
of Illinois' own prehistoric wonders; but the trip was
also an opportunity to examine contemporary ar-
chaeological theory and methodology and to ob-

serve the dangers being posed to prehistoric sites by
expanding urbanization and the attendant tech-
nologies.

Dickson Mounds, near Lewistown, in west
central Illinois, was the first stop on the trip. The
Dickson Mounds Museum, built in 1972, is the
newest major structure in the Illinois State
Museum system; yet it represents one of the oldest
continuous archaeology projects in the Midwest and
perhaps the country. In 1927, Dr. Don F. Dickson, a

Robert B. Pickering is a doctoral candidate in
anthropology at Northwestern University.

chiropractor, began uncovering on his bluff-top pro-
perty the physical remains and artifacts of what are
now known as Late Woodland and Mississippian
peoples. Using his own private funds and those of
family and friends, Dickson uncovered a con-
siderable portion of the ancient cemetery there. A
remarkable feature of Dickson's work is his ap-
proach: he preserved the excavation without remov-
ing any of the artifacts, bones, or other material of
historic value. Everything was left in situ so that
visitors could see these materials in their natural
condition. Very early in his excavations, Dickson
persuaded some eminent anthropologists to visit his
discovery. Fay-Cooper Cole, Thome Deuel, George
Neumann, and other distinguished scientists thus

John White
makes fishline

cord jrom ^^Hl^^ ^L
sapling bark. ^r^Jj^g: W^

The second leg of the archaeological tour was
to the Kampsville area, not far from the confluence
of the lUinois and Mississippi rivers. Kampsville is
the center of activity for the Foundation for Illinois
Archaeology, which is involved in archaeological re-
search throughout the Lower lUinois River Valley.
Most famous of the sites in this region is
Koster— the subject of a recent best-seller by Stuart
Streuver and Felicia A. Hoi ton (reviewed elsewhere
in this issue). Much more than mere excavating goes
on in this portion of The Valley. (Capitalization is de
rigueur among those initiated early in their careers
to the archaeological rites of passage in Kampsville.)
Perhaps the most distinctive part of the FIA pro-
gram is the abundance of laboratories whose staffs

became actively involved in research there.

Today, at Dickson Mounds Museum, we see a
combination of traditional and untraditional exhibi-
tion. In the traditional vein, there are a number of
excellent displays and life-size dioramas which de-
pict aspects of Ufe during the tiine when Dickson
Mounds were being used (ca. 1100-1250 A.D.) as well
as during earUer periods. The covered cemetery
itself is the most fascinating and distinctive portion
of the museum faciUty. One can view the actual
excavation then learn more about it by means of a
sUde presentation and taped program.

Just a few hundred yards south of the main
museum building is a cluster of aboriginal dwell-
ings over which structures have been erected in or-
der to better preserve them and facilitate their view-
ing. Although construction materials used by the
Eastern Woodland Indians (frameworks of wooden
poles and daub-covered branches, roofs of grass or
bark thatching) do not preserve well, it is possible to
see the burned remains of 900-year-old buildings
and to learn something of their construction
and use.

not only anedyze local archaeological materials but
make comparative collections, do experimental
work, and train others. The zoology, botany, and
palynology laboratories attempt to identify the spe-
cies of animal remains, plant remains, and poUen, re-
spectively, from soil samples that are recovered ar-
chaeologically. What is known of these species as
they exist today is then appUed to understand how
they were useful centuries ago to the Indians.

Experimental archaeology, another Kamps-
ville program, provides information which can be
used in interpreting finds and in reconstructing past
cultures. Within this sphere are the activities of
John White (former Field Museum staff member
who was instrumental in development of the Mu-
seum's highly acclaimed Pawnee earth lodge ex-
hibit). With his own hands. White creates all variety
of utiUtarian objects of the sort once used by In-
dians, from dwelUngs to fishhooks. The raw materi-
als he uses are gathered from the natural environ-
ment and in a manner that has been recorded by
ethno-historians.

White and his helpers— often Chicago-area

Tour members

examine replica of

Woodland sty/e

home constructed by

John White and

student groups.

Plastic covering is for

protection against

school children— have built a number of Woodland
houses or lodges out of poles, daub, and thatch-
structures that are similar to lodges seen and de-
scribed by European explorers in the 1700s. We
know from the archaeological record that similar
types of dwellings were in use by the Indians for
many centuries prior to the coming of Europieans.
Does this construction work do more than keep a lot
of school kids busy? The answer is yes. By building
a number of structures. White and his fellow
workers have been able to estimate the amount of
time which would have been necessary for cutting
poles, erecting the frame, the sequence of construc-
tion steps, and perhaps even the size of the building
team. White also makes items that are much
smaller. Tour members watched him deftly cut
down a sapling, peel its bark, and fashion the bark
into strong cord. By fastening to the cord a thorn
from a honey locust tree, he created a useful
fishhook similar to those used today on so-called
trotUnes. The entire procedure required about 30
minutes; White used only tools and materials that
would have been available centuries ago in the
natural environment, including a stone hand axe.

Another member of the experimental archae-
ology project is Greg Thomas, a flint-knapper; that
is, he fashions articles from chert or flint with tools

identical to those used over a thousand years ago.
Thomas held the group spellbound as he trans-
formed a large piece of local chert into a beautiful
Snyder's point (a local type of projectile point which
dates to between 200 B.C. and A.D. 400). His only
tools were cobbles from a stream bed, pieces of deer
and elk antlers, and cold-beaten copper. (Though
copper is not native to the area, the Indians who
made the Snyder's point had access to the metal by
trading with residents of northern Michigan.)

Using traditional tools, Thomas is able to re-
produce not just the shape of artifacts but even the
flaking patterns characteristic of a particular style.
His work has enabled archaeologists who speciaUze
in the study of stone tools to better understand how
they were orginally made and used.

The final stop of the field trip was at Cahokia
Mounds State Park, a few miles east of St. Louis.
The Cahokia Mounds, of which there were originally
more than 100, have long been objects of wonder-
ment to travellers. Today, unfortunately, most of
the mounds are gone— victims of looting, bulldoz-
ing, and dynamiting by artifact-hunters and subur-
ban land-developers; many of the remaining mounds
have been defaced. All this has been done to what
was possibly the largest "city" north of Mexico at
A.D. 1000. Today, Cahokia's central portion, in-

eluding Monk's Mound— the largest of these struc-
tures, is owned by the state; much of the remednder
of the site, however, is on private land and has no
protection from vandalism or the encroachment of
land-developers .

From the eu-chaeolog^cal standpoint, the site
is so extensive that it has taken many years for the
complexity and importance of Cahokia to be fuUy
recognized. Archaeological teams from the Univer-
sity of Illinois, University of Chicago, Washington
University, Beloit College, and University of Wis-
consin at Milwaukee have been active in coordi-
nated research in the area. Rather recently, archae-
ologists discovered what is being called the Ameri-
can Woodhenge: a large circle defined by poles
spaced at regular intervals. It has been suggested
that this structure may have been used to chart the
path of the sun in its annual cycle from north to
south. It also appears that some of the mounds were
precisely positioned and that they served as

*■'

One of the larger
round-top mounds at
Cahokia Mounds
State Park. Flat area
in foreground is part
of the plaza that
extends south from
Monk's Mound.

markers of periodic celestial events. In any case,
some general pattern is evident in the Cahokia
mound group, suggesting an advanced level of
organization and planning. A tour of Monk's
Mound, the plaza area in front, the reconstructed
stockade, and the Woodhenge impressed tour mem-
bers with the size, organization, and the amount of
labor and energy needed to create the complex.

The lUinois archaeological field trip was an
ambitious undertaking. Through site visits, nature
hikes, native American craft demonstrations, slide
lectures, and group discussions, nearly 10,000 years
of prehistory and techniques of research from vari-
ous field were compressed into five short days. This
kind of crash course did not make an instant expert
of anyone, but it is hoped that each participant
came away with a deepened appreciation for ar-
chaeological research, and for the effort that is
being made here in Illinois to preserve and under-
stand part of the past.

A Snyder's point
made b^i Greg
Thomas together with
tools used to fashion it.

JUNGLE ISLANDS

The "Illyria" in the South Seas

An account of the Crane Pacific Expedition of Field Museum, 1928-29

Part II

Abridged from Jungle Islands, by Sidney N. Shurcliff. G.
abridged, by permission of the author.

P. Putnam's Sons. New York (1930). Reproduced here, as

Part I of Jungle Islands, appearing in the July/
August Bulletia covered the first several months of
the expedition. During this time the Illyria sailed
from Boston to Bermuda. Haiti. Panama, Cocos
Island, the Galapagos, and several other stops
before reaching the New Hebrides, at which point
we continue the account:

^™"iarly the next morning the Illyria anchored in
^^ protected water off the small island of Wala
•^■^ and we arose to begin a day which turned out
to be one of the most eventful of the whole trip. A
glance at the shore was most encouraging, for
instead of palm trees and tin roofs we saw a dense
jungle almost crowding the white beach into the sea.
Only a few low, thatched huts were hidden in the
undergrowth. Better still, the beach was lined with
outrigger canoes which had been drawn up above
the high-tide level and already dark-skinned figures
could be seen dragging some of them to the water.
Soon the Illyria was surrounded by friendly
natives who paddled around and around her

Sketches by Walt Weber

apparently very curious about this strange ship and
its occupants. We were as much interested in their
boats as they were in ours, for each canoe had a
carved figure-head. Most of the figures were
grotesque birds but a few other animals were
represented. We also noticed the ingenious way in
which the outriggers were joined.

Some of the natives could speak a little
"beche-la-mar, " the South Sea equivalent for pidgin
English, and of this we were soon given a sample. A
man of more intelligent appearance than the rest
looked up at me and asked, "Sip (ship) belong Vila? "

Having studied a treatise on pidgin English I
was able to answer, "Sip he no belong Vila. Belong
America!"

"Melica he stop long way?"

"Long, long way too much," I explained,
"more long way Vila."

The native frowned thoughtfully for some
time, apparently at the novel idea that anything
could be further away than Vila. Then he smiled.
"Vila more better." he said and paddled away in
triumph.

Shortly afterward we went ashore in our small
boat and scores of natives who came running at the
unusual sound of our outboard motor helped us get
our equipment ashore. But this feat once accom-
plished they became shy and constrained in their
manner. A few women who had been lurking at the
outskirts of the gathering took to their canoes and
throwing some old rags over their heads and
shoulders paddled away as fast as they could. Some
small boys retreated to the jungle and three old
men, naked, unless white hair and beards can be
called clothing, glanced at us in hostile fashion and
each produced from one of the beached canoes an old
Snyder rifle loaded with antiquated but still
dangerous cartridges.

The young men, however, continued to be
friendly and invited us to visit the "place belong
dance." As we were considering this offer a Cathohc
priest came walking along the beach. We were
surprised to find him there, but he explained in
French that he had been visiting a neighboring
island and having seen our ship had paddled over to
make a call. He said that the natives were very
friendly except those of the generation of the three
old men with the rifles. Their generation has never
recovered from the bloody customs of cannibal days
and such fierce feuds are still maintained between
the different groups that they seldom dare to

venture abroad without their weapons.

The natives of Wala once Hved across the
strait on the mainland of Malekula but the hostihty
of the bushmen from the interior forced them to
take to their canoes and seek safety on the island.
Since no bushman dares to enter a canoe the
inhabitants of Wala are safe from attack at home.
However, the women must go across the strait into
the danger zone every day in order to work in the
gardens which are still maintained in the ancient
clearings on the mainland. An armed escort always
accompanies the women and thus a desultory
guerilla warfare is carried on from year to year.

The Catholic Father explained that we need
not be apprehensive as no white man has been
molested on Wala for years. . . . He offered to show
us the dance grounds himself. . . .

Imagine yourself tramping along an ancient
trail through a dense tropical foliage so thick that
there is only a half light. The quiet of the forest is
unbroken by any sound from your barefooted guides
but occasionally you hear a few sweet, liquid notes
from the throat of an unseen bird that might well be
a woodland spirit. On rounding a bend in the trail
you look past the buttressed, creeper shrouded tree
trunks in the foreground, into an immense natural
cathedral. Its sides consist of the trunks of trees
and its arched roof is symmetrically formed more
than a hundred feet above you by their lower
branches. At the further end is a gigantic cylinder of
twisted roots and snarled vines— the trunk of a
banyan tree. The many strands join into a single
great bole some sixty feet above the ground and at a
still greater height the branches spread out into an
enormous canopy. From each branch hang vines and
tendrils, like stalactites from the roof of a cave. The
sheer beauty, the weird luxuriance, the sense of
mysticism in the "devil-devil" glades of Wala
exceeded anything we found in all the Pacific
islands.

This meirvelous setting occupies at first only
the margin of your attention for something even
more striking has caught your eye. Under the
banyan tree are a multitude of grotesque tubular
wooden forms with carved caricatures of faces,
hollow eyes and long gray bodies— the devil-devils.
They rise from the ground like toadstools, leaning at
the crazy angles of futuristic skyscrapers. Of
different heights and diameters they possess
boundless individuality.

Some of these leering wooden giants are
drums. They are made from a section of tree trunk
partially hollowed out through a long slit in the
front. When one is beaten with the fist it gives off a
low note which echoes and reverberates through the
aisles of the forest. If beaten harder with a stick the
sound can be heard for miles, so the natives make
use of the drums for signaUing as well as for dance
music. Many of the faces which have been so
carefully carved have queer, human expressions,
some of them positively humorous. They might be a
gathering of hoary mountaineers. . . .

That evening we tried an experiment to which
we had long looked forward. We gave the natives
their first motion picture show. A screen was
fastened on the boat-boom at right angles to the side
of the ship and the electrically operated projector
was placed on the gangway. By this arrangement

we could see the screen from the deck, while our
audience also had a good view from their canoes in
the water. They had promised "to come along sip
when sun he go finish," but for half an hour after
dark we saw not a sign of one. Finally the Captain
gave a few blasts on his whistle and within five
minutes our audience arrived. There were about
thirty-five canoes from different islands, each
loaded with men, women and children, and as the
title of the picture flashed onto the screen they
gasped with amazement.

The first scene, which showed an African
native beating a drum, met with great approval:
Then an audible murmur went over the audience as
a group of natives was shown and when these began
a war dance the excitement was terrific; our
spectators gave vent to excited war whoops and
made stabbing motions with their paddles. The
excitement changed to disapprobation when a white
man was seen in charge of the Africans. An
aeroplane was viewed with complete indifference,
but an automobile was considered highly amusing.

... Of course they could not understand the
story at all but they were not surprised at the
closeups and they seemed to grasp any representa-
tion of objects with which they were familiar. This
was especially interesting because the reactions of
the natives of New Guinea were in exact contrast
when later they saw the same picture. They showed
no interest in the automobile but were very excited
by the aeroplane (perhaps because one had flown
over them at some time). They were bored with the

Author-photo-
grapher Sidney
Shurcliff with his
cumbersome 35mm
movie camera. His
exciting 90-minute,
six-reel film of the
Crane Expedition
will be shown at
Field Museum on
Saturday, Septem-
ber 29. (See coupon,
p. 24).

African natives but burst into roars of laughter at a
close-up of the heroine.

At one point the audience was nearly stam-
peded. Schmidty took a flashlight picture of them
from the bridge, just above the screen, and by a
queer coincidence he exploded the powder at exactly
the same instant a man on the screen aimed a rifle at
the audience. The brilliant flash momentarily
blinded everyone and no doubt our audience
thought they had been shot and killed for they were
paralyzed with fright and did not utter a sound.
Then, finding that everything was continuing as
before, they concluded it was "something belong
white man" and roared with laughter.

truly terrifying, and I had to remind myself that
everything was all right. . . .

The climax of the evening had been reached
for afterward there was only a repetition of the same
drumming, singing and war whoops until finally it
became very monotonous. When we turned on our
Ughts to find who had been responsible for such a
remarkable vocal output we saw a queer assortment
of boys, young men and old men, about thirty in all.
Although they sang in unison, their movements
were anything but rhythmic. Apparently the
population of Rano has become so depleted of late
years that it is necessary to impress the entire male
population for the chorus and, unlike small children,
they are better heard than seen.

They watched five reels with close attention
and at the close of the performance thanked us with
an assortment of bloodcurdling war whoops.

After the picture show we went to the island
of Rano about two miles away to see a dance for
which Cornelius had arranged earlier in the day. We
were met on the beach by a handful of natives who
led us burdened with our heavy motion picture
camera, flares, lights and other equipment for half a
mile into the woods. Presently we came to a "devil-
devil" glade and with our flashlights spotted the
customary banyan tree and ten devil-devils. . . . We
retired to a corner of the glade and waited in
darkness complete except for the light of an old
kerosene lantern. . . .

As if to fulfill my expectations a low rhythmi-
cal drumming reached our ears— apparently from
the direction of the devil-devils— soft at first but
increasing in volume. Then a faint weird sound of
many human voices could be heard repeating in
unison a few eerie notes. Cornelius said it sounded
like the ancient Gregorian chant of the Roman
Catholic Church. The sound, plainly at a great dis-
tance—almost as if in another world— grew louder
and louder and then died away. After a short silence
the drumming began again and as before the
singing followed— but this time the singers had
evidently come nearer. Again and again this perfor-
mance was repeated and each time the singers
closed in. When they had reached a point we judged
not far away there came a sudden change in the
technique. The gentle drumming and eerie singing
was given as before but when we expected it to die
away there came instead a series of hair-raising
screams, not a hundred feet distant. The din was

When the dance was over we attempted to
reward our hosts by presenting them with bead
necklaces which we had selected long before at the
ten-cent store at home. One more of our illusions of
the South Seas was disrupted when the natives
disdainfully refused the beads.

"He no good," growled the chief. "Me no like.
Me want him feller whickey (whiskey). White master
gammon along me too much altogether."

The dancers were so angry when they found
we had brought none of their favorite beverage that
if we had been a smaller party or if the event had
occurred a score of years ago, I believe they would
have attempted a reprisal. As it was such hostile
looks were directed at us that we made a quick
return to the beach and pushed off at once in our
boats.

We reached the Illyria about midnight and
went quickly to bed after a long day. . . . Walt had
made several sketches and Schmidty had found four
or five unusual lizards. For my part I had exposed in
one day 830 feet of film and sixty still pictures as
well as projecting the five-reel "thriller."

The following day we anchored off the island
of Malo in the strait between that island and
Espiritu Santo. On the shore was a large cocoanut
plantation belonging to Mr. Wells, a hospitable and
well educated Australian planter. Luckily for us,
Mr. Adam, the District Officer for whom we were
looking, was visiting Wells. . . . Wells said he could
take us into the bush behind his plantation to see
some of the more friendly bush natives.

Adam was less encouraging. "So you want to
visit the Big Nambas tribe?" he said. "They're still
cannibeds and we can't trust them to behave.

Perhaps you are willing to take the chance. I 'm not.
So I can't give you permission."

His reason was that if we should get killed by
the Big Nambashe would have to send to Australia
for a battleship to punish the culprits. This very
thing has happened several times and each time the
blame for the heavy expenses incurred by the
battleship has fallen upon the head of the local
District Office. We tried to convince Adam that we
were not anxious to commit suicide. He promised to
think the matter over. . . .

Wells hit upon the happy plan of inviting all
the bushmen and their wives to come down to his
plantation the next morning so that we could
photograph them with our heavy, more efficient
cameras. At first the chief did not seem very
enthusiastic about this plan, but by good luck 1
happened to have a cheap bracelet in my pocket and
when this was presented to him and an offer made of
a similar gift to every one who could come to the
plantation he smiled and gave in. In fact he prom-
ised to bring not only several "big feller masters all
same along me," but also "marys belong masters."

When we asked him what time he would come

Field Museum taxidermist Frank C. Wonder with
young orangutan friend in Borneo, the final island to
be visited by the Crane Expedition. Wonder
(1903-1963) was on the Field Museum staff from 1926
to 1954.

he pointed into the air at an angle of about forty
degrees with the horizon and said, "Sun he stop."

"Good." said Wells, "that means eight
o'clock. I expect there will be more bushmen at the
plantation tomorrow than I have ever seen there at
one time. "

On the way back to the plantation one of our
party inadvertently touched a stinging nettle.
Within half an hour his hand began to swell and
became very painful. As soon as we reached his
house Wells treated the hand with ammonia. The
pain at once decreased and the swelling soon
disappeared. This incident reminded Wells of an
event which occurred twenty years before, when he
had first come from Australia and was the only
white man on the island.

"1 was just a kid then," he said. "I had never
heard of these rotten nettles. One day, when 1 was
helping the natives clear the land, I unwittingly
chopped down a nettle bush.

"There was hell to pay. Within an hour my
hands, face and whole body became terribly swollen.
My skin formed into such tremendous blisters that 1
could neither see nor open my mouth. Yet 1 didn't
know what had made me sick.

"1 hung between life and death for three
weeks, and was delirious most of the time. Several of
the 'boys' were faithful— they gave me water and a
little food. Then a trading schooner came to my
harbor, and by purest chance a young medical
student happened to be aboard. He brought me out
of my terrible plight by bathing me with ordinary
ammonia. " . . .

Recruiting is one of the big problems of the
British planters in the New Hebrides. The French
are allowed to import Indonese laborers, but the
English are required by their laws to find plantation
hands within their own islands.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the natives
are able to live perfectly happy lives without
working at all. Hence, the plantation owners must
offer them very attractive bait to make them "sign
on" for work. The only alternative is to kidnap
laborers.

Kidnapping has been so prevalent in the past
that the wilder natives have become wary of
recruiters and often fire upon boats which approach
their harbors. At other, times they ambush white
men who dare to land on the beaches.

Certain planters who have built up reputa-
tions for honesty and square dealing with the
natives have come to be trusted and respected.
When they go recruiting they give away valuable
presents to the chiefs. They pay well the "boys"
who work for them and they return the boys to their
homes when the working period (1 to 3 years) is
over.

These honorable planters are usually success-
ful in the long run. Nevertheless, even they take a
certain risk when recruiting, for if some dishonest
planter has recently kidnapped a native, his friends
are apt to fire upon the next white man who
approaches, whether he has a good reputation or
not. Hence landings on strange islands are always
made with two boats. One stays off shore with a
crew of riflemen and covers the landing of the other.
The landing party does not leave the beach for fear
of ambush in the jungle. All business is transacted
at the water's edge.

"But, accidents do happen," said Adam.
"Two planters were killed and eaten last year. They
had been careless. That's why I don't want you
fellows to take any chances."

"Still, there is one place I might take you," he
continued slowly. "It's an inland village of the Big
Nambas tribe on Malekula Island. The natives there
have recently shown signs of friendliness. They
have aUowed one missionary, Nicholson, to visit
their village. He went only once, and was undoub-
tedly the first white man who has ever been there,
but if we can get him to go with us I think we shall
be safe. So if you are willing to fool around for two or
three days while I get Nicholson, I will not only give
you permission to go, but I will go along with you.

... It was decided that Cornehus, Dr. Moss,
Murry and Chuck should be the lucky ones to go
inland. Schmidty, Walt and Frank elected to be left

Karl P. Schmidt
(1890-1957), herpetol-
ogist of international
renown, served on
the Field Museum
staff from 1922 until
1955. He was chief
curator of zoology at
the time of his retire-
ment. During the
Crane Expedition he
collected more than
2,000 reptile and
amphibian
specimens.

The bushmen were supposed to come at eight in the
morning, but it was not until eleven that the first
one appeared.

After "plenty long time too much" seven
more men straggled out of the underbrush. They
were dressed in shells, bead money and ferns, and
their faces were elaborately painted.

They understood nothing about the camera,
but they regarded being photographed as a great
honor. When we posed one man alone the others
were so jealous that we could hardly keep them from
crowding into the picture.

With the motion picture camera the difficul-
ties were even greater. It seems that because they
were chiefs four of the men felt entitled to stand
directly in front of the other four at all times. We
managed to get them to dance around in a circle, but
the instant I began to grind the camera the four

at Hog Harbor, fifty miles away, to collect speci-
mens while the Big Nambas expedition was under
way.* We still had our date to keep with the bush-
men, so we stayed at WeUs's plantation overnight.
I had been very much impressed by the way in
which Wells had told what time the natives would
come by the angle at which the chief pointed into
the sky. Now I began to lose faith in the method.

*Expedition members mentioned here were expedi-
tion leader Cornelius Crane; Dr. William L. Moss of
the Harvard Medical School; Murry N. Fairbank
and Charles R. Peavy ("Chuck"}, both Harvard
classmates of Cornelius; Field Museum herpetolo-
gist Karl P. Schmidt; Walter Alois Weber, Field
Museum illustrator; and Frank C Wonder, Field
Museum taxidermist.

chiefs would stop and stand in a line in front of the
others who, although they kept on dancing, could no
longer be seen. Once one of the chiefs tried to stand
in front of the other three, but they roughly pulled
him back into line. Matters of etiquette are not
taken lightly in the New Hebrides.

We were about to give up in despair when six
"Marys" came doWn the trail from the jungle. They
were very elaborately dressed for the great occasion
in many strands of colored bead-money wound
around their waists and hips. Their short curly hair
was powdered with white lime dust and they were
adorned with ear and nose ornaments. Aside from
these decorations clothes were entirely absent. They
were much more tractable about being photo-
graphed than the men, and we were able to get some
interesting pictures.

When the time came to give out the jewelry
and trinkets we had promised as a reward, great
confusion arose among the bushmen. The men
insisted that they should all receive exactly the
same kind of presents. But each woman wanted one
more trinket than any of her rivals. There seemed to
be no way to satisfy everyone until Wells, having
the advantage of previous experience told us to
close the jewelry box and to give each woman one
piece whether she liked it or not.

Then he waved his hand and said, "Master he
mad more! You feller Marys sing out too much,
altogether! You feller Marys gammon along white
feller marsters. Go! Altogether you go! Walk about!
By'n bye you stop along house belong master.
Master he catch 'em plarnty tobacco. Maybe you
feller kill him talk-talk, master givem you piecee
tobacco."

Upon hearing the word tobacco mentioned the
bushmen and their wives smiled happily and soon
departed in peace. We, also, bade goodbye to Adam
and Wells and made a late start for Hog Harbor.
But as the Illyria had to contend with a head wind
and a strong adverse current we did not reach our
destination until the next morning.

At Hog Harbor, on the island of Espiritu
Santo, we found the largest cocoanut plantation and
the most jovial planter in the New Hebrides. The
plantation occupies a broad plain between the base
of a long high cliff and the ocean. Nearly two
hundred natives are constantly at work collecting
the fallen cocoanuts and bringing them in Ford
trucks to the drying sheds. From the nuts four tons
of the juicy meat are extracted daily and this
amount when dried makes two tons of copra. The
latter sells at a price varying from $70 to $100 a ton,
so it can readily be seen that the annual income from
a plantation may be surprisingly large— especially if
the manager, like Robertson, is clever enough to get
his labor nearly free of charge.

To understand my last statement it is first
necessary to know something about Robertson. He
is a husky, hearty, deep-voiced Scotchman who has
been through more adventures in each year of his
life than has Nick Carter in several volumes. He ran
away from Scotland at a very early age (though not
so early as to interfere with the acquisition of an "A
No. 1" Scotch accent) and fought all through the
Boer War. Then he was for many years with the
British army in India— stationed near the Khyber
Pass. He went with Younghusband on his famous
expedition to Lhasa— which in itself would have
been enough of an adventure to last most people a
lifetime. Robertson, however, fought all through the
World War, first in the Gallipoli campaign and then
in France.

Now he has "retired"; he merely handles two
hundred unruly native "boys" and goes on
recruiting expeditions for three months each year!
He has grown so fond of his present life that he
hates to leave his own domain. " I'm a bit of a despot
here, you know," he said. "I'm 'Master Robie' and
when I clap my hands things begin to happen! But
when I go to Sydney I'm no better than any other
man in the street and man! I'm scared to death of
the traffic!"

But to get back to the cheap labor which
"Master Robie" secures so plentifully and keeps so

cleverly. There is a trick in how he does it. The first
part of his procedure is much like that of any other
recruiter. Since the bushmen on his own island have
plenty of food, pigs and wives, and since it is a
serious crime to sell to them the rifles and
ammunition which are the only things they desire, it
is necessary for Robertson and his assistant to
board their little yawl and search for recruits on
other islands where the necessities of life are not so
plentiful.

"I have to compete with all the other British
planters," explained Robertson, "but I attack the
problem in a different way. As an inducement to
work they offer the Kanakas money— twenty
pounds a year. But the Kanakas know from bitter
experience that the money they receive at the end of
their term of work will do them no good. They can't
eat it. They can't buy wives with it. All they can use
it for is to buy a cheap "bokkis," a chest filled with
jewelry, mirrors and trinkets. Their three years of
work are wasted.

"Now I use a little better psychology. Pigs are
what the natives want— not money. A good pig can
be swapped for a wife. On that point hinges my
whole scheme.

"When I found that the boys prefer pigs to
money I devised a scheme which leaves everyone
satisfied. When I'm recruiting I go ashore, the same
as the rest, with a second boat full of boys with rifles
which stays just off shore, you know, to deal with
any possible disturbance. I give a present to the
chief and his young men and I say to him, "Maybe
you feller Kanakas wantem Marys stop along house
belong you." Usually at least one of them will say,
"Yes, marster, me wantem Mary. Me no gotten
pig." So then I say, "Maybe boy come stop along
place belong me three years, me givem boy bokkis,
me givem boy money and me givem boy pig!"

"Well, I have a fair reputation, y'know. and
the boys believe me and they come and work for
their three years. At the end of their time they go
happy with the pigs and their 'bokkises,' and
although I keep most of their wages they often come
back to work for me again."

"Yes! Yes!" we said, "but where do you get
the pigs? We were told that no planter could keep
pigs because the bushmen steal them."

This was just the question "Master Robie"
had been waiting for. He grinned broadly. "Well,
man, you see it's like this— I've bought a little

island— nobody else knows just where it is— and I
have three men there who do nothing but raise pigs.
It's wonderful what you can do with pigs, my
boy— it's mar-r-velous!"

While we were having a glass or two of beer
with Robertson in his little unscreened summer-
house we noticed several tall, pot-bellied natives
wandering around the plantation with guns. Robert-
son explained that they were some of the friendly
bush-natives from the interior of the island. The
bushmen fight continually among themselves and
prize their ancient rifles above every other
possession. They are not allowed to buy more rifles
or rifle ammunition, but each man owns one or two
old brass cartridge cases and a bullet mold. In case
of battle each native can fire only one or two shots
and then has to run for home. There he unloads a
shotgun shell or "Kartige belong pigeon," melts the
shot to mold a rifle bullet, recaps his old cartridge
case and reloads it with the powder from the
shotgun shell.

"A bushmen never lets go of his rifle," said
Robertson. "If there is a war dance he dances with
his gun in one hand and when he sleeps he uses it for
a pillow. Some of the younger generation who have
no rifles must use a bow and arrows for their
protection. An arrow is just about as dangerous as
those old guns, for these fellows are not good
marksmen, but a rifle is necessary to the prestige of
an older man. Many a bushman has been murdered
for his gun. In fact a man died only last night from
poison put in his food because of a dispute over an
old Snyder rifle. ..."

Schmidty, Walt and Frank found Hog Harbor
an ideal place for collecting. Robertson gave them
each a bed in his house and a room in which to work.
He also detailed three of his best plantation boys to
guide them along the jungle trails and to help with
the collecting and the skinning of specimens.

Working conditions were ideal and bird and
insect life was plentiful. Frank succeeded in getting
some very unusual bats from a cave on the
mountain side. Schmidty found a new variety of
scorpion under the bark of a teak tree. Walt made a
large collection of brilliantly colored little birds, and
also shot some parrots, the first we had seen. He
continued work on his paintings and made several
pen and ink sketches.

By the time we were to return to Wells's
plantation to start the Big Nambas expedition they
had transformed Robertson's whole house into a
scientific camp. Thus we felt no hesitation in leaving

them for several days because there seemed to be
plenty of interesting work for them to do. We found
Adam and Nicholson [the missionary] waiting for
us. . . .

"I have asked Wells to come with us, too," he
said. "I think it will be an advantage to have three
experienced men on this trip. "

At dawn we left Wells's plantation for the
Northwest coast of Malekula island— the heart of
the Big Nambas territory. . . . The coast was steep,
mountainous and thickly wooded. We could find no
anchorage except in a small open bight at the foot of
the trail to the Big Nambas villages. The captain
thought it a very poor anchorage, for the ocean swell
swept in upon us, making the yacht roll badly.
However, there was no alternative. He had to make
the best of it.

"Now to tell the natives that we are here!"
said Wells. "Give me two sticks of dynamite to
explode in the water. That is the regular recruiter's
signal for a 'talk talk.'"

He lashed each stick of dynamite to a small
piece of wood and inserted fuses. Then he wet his
finger and carefully tested the direction of the wind.

"Always throw the dynamite to leeward," he
explained. "A few years ago a careless friend of mine
tossed a stick overboard without looking which way
he threw it. The wind and current brought it back to
his ship, where it exploded. The whole stern was
blown away; two natives were killed and my friend
was seriously injured."

Lighting the fuses. Wells threw the two pack-
ets overboard. A few seconds later they exploded
with a tremendous roar, which reverberated like
thunder along the shores and against the cliff.

We waited for half an hour, but no answering
shouts or any signs of response could be detected.

"I guess there is no one near the shore," said
Nicholson at last. "We shall have to send our two
plantation boys up to the village to confer with the
chief. They can speak the Big Nambas dialect, and
perhaps they can persuade the chief to come to the
shore." . . .

They returned to the shore a little after
midnight and signalled with a flashlight for the
launch. Once on board they deUvered a message
from the chief.

"Big feller marster he say he come along
beach along zip (ship) same time sun he commence.
Byme by white marster maybe go along place
belong big feller marster."

We all got up before daylight the next
morning and at the first gleam of dawn we saw five
black figures dimly outlined against the gray beach.
Nicholson was very excited.

"They have come," he said. "I will go ashore
alone to talk to them. A ship was fired upon here
recently and if too many of us go ashore at once they
will think we are a punitive expedition. Don't worry,
I shall be perfectly safe."

Savages have no sense of the value of time.
Hours are often required to make a single decision.
In this case Nicholson had to talk to the chief for
nearly an hour to persuade him to come out to the
ship. The chief and one of his counsellors finally got
up courage to come on board, but the other three
were afraid they might be kidnapped. The chief's
reputation for bravery was probably increased a

hundred fold by his short visit to the Illyria.

Maloon was the name Nicholson gave the
chief. He was about 5 feet 8 inches tall and fairly
well formed. His broad face was set with intelligent
eyes and a thick nose. He wore several bamboo
combs in his frizzly reddish hair and a thick wooden
belt around his waist.

Maloon's counsellor was older, more pot-
bellied and less intelligent in appreance. Nearly all
the time he was on board the Illyria he wore an
expression of dazed bewilderment which amounted
almost to a stupor. He took no interest in what was
going on.

Maloon, by the way of contrast, seemed eager
to understand what was around him. He had
brought a gift of yams rolled in tobacco leaves for
"man belong zip" and one of his first acts was to
present it to Cornelius. We gave him a ham sand-
wich in return. He gobbled it up at a tremendous
rate.

Maloon was overcome by the height of the
masts. Every few minutes he would lean back to
gaze up at them. His piercing glance seemed to take
in everything above decks and within a few minutes
he lost all signs of fear. He attempted to touch
everything that interested him. Apparently he was
accustomed to use his sense of touch almost as
much as his sense of sight in comprehending a
strange object.

After a short while we took Maloon into the
engine room. He was so amazed by the tangle of
pipes and machinery that for a few moments he was
quite as bewildered as his counsellor. This change
from the simple things to which he was generally
accustomed seemed to terrify him.

Cornelius gave him a small flashlight and
showed him how to operate it. This was one thing
the chief could understand. He switched it on and
off with exclamations of delight and took it up on
deck to show his counsellor. On the way up he
passed in front of an electric fan which happened to
be running full blast. As the cool air touched his
bare skin he jumped back as if he had been shot.
Then he turned and looked very closely at the fan. I
thought he was going to thrust his hand into the
blades, but instead he merely pointed at it and
laughed very loudly.

Nicholson talked to Maloon for a long time
and finally secured his consent to an inland trip by
the white men.

"All right," said Nicholson, turning to Corne-
lius, "seven of us can go up to the village. The chief
will lead the way, and he promises to protect us."

"However," he added, "no one can take any
firearms because the Big Nambas are short of
weapons and if they saw guns within their grasp
they might not be able to resist killing us to get
them."

Dr. Moss, Cornelius, Chuck and Murry were
chosen to go with Adam, Wells, and Nicholson.
They were taken ashore in the small boat with the
chief and his aide. There the three other natives who
had been waiting joined them. Burdens of food and
cameras were apportioned to everyone but the chief.
From the ship we saw them all string out into a long
procession headed by Maloon. He led them along
the beach a little way and then, parting the bushes,
disclosed the mouth of a tunnel-like trail in to the

underbrush. One by one our friends entered the
tunnel and were lost to our sight. The jungle seemed
to have swallowed them up.

I now quote from Cornelius an account of the
journey to the village—

"Hardly had we left the beach than a steep
wooded cliff 200 feet high rose before us. This was
the beginning of a terrible eight mile climb through
the tropical forest.

"The country is composed of steep knife-edge
ridges three or four hundred feet high, rising one
behind the other to mountains in the center of the
island. The trails are built along the ridges wherever
possible so that enemies can be seen approaching at
a distance. However, the natives do not hesitate to
make their paths branch into ravines whenever it
seems convenient. We followed the dry bed of a
stream for a while and then crossed more heights.
As we rose in altitude the ground became wetter and
the district more thickly wooded.

"The tall grass was an ideal place for an
ambush, as men standing within an arm's length of
the trail would have been completely hidden. \Ae
were not at all reassured by V\'ells' story of how a
punitive expedition of French and British Marines
had been forced back almost dead with exhaustion
and with many men wounded, having narrowly
escaped being entirely cut to pieces.

"The chief, however, had been trying to make
up for the bad reputation of his tribe by being as
helpful and as agreeable as possible. He cut staffs
for us to use in climbing the steep trail and several
times helped us over exceptionally bad spots.
Nicholson also pointed out that these bushmen were
carrying no firearms, which was very unusual.

"Finally, after struggling along until nearly
mid-day. we reached the village. At the first sign of
our approach all the women and girls had fled,
uttering screams, perhaps more coquettish than
frightened. A few small boys remained in sight and
we saw some bearded men peering out of the woods.

"Maloon called to his people to return. Soon a
few men straggled into the clearing, but the women
would not come back. The village consisted of a
number of thatched houses, such as we had seen at
Wala, but they were higher and of better construc-
tion. One was a club-house, but try as we would
Maloon would not allow us to enter. Through the
doorway we could see human skulls hanging inside.

"The natives were so excited and ran about so
fast that we could not take pictures of them.
Perhaps this was just as well, for they were afraid of
the cameras and might have become angry had we
insisted on using them.

"More and more men straggled into the
village until we were surrounded by at least thirty of
them. Some squatted down on their haunches and
gazed at us steadily for minutes at a time. Others
were more inquisitive. They had never seen white
men at close range before and were not satisfied
merely to see us, but insisted on feeling of us. They
squeezed our arms and legs and rubbed our
stomachs. It was not a pleasant sensation, for they
were ugly and greasy and we knew they were
cannibals. However, Nicholson and Adam had
warned us we might be handled and had told us that
if we took it amiably the Big Nambas would
consider it a sign of friendship. . . .

Sidney N. Shurcliff,
author of the
account reproduced
here and the expe-
dition 's official
photographer, is
today a landscape
architect. Inquiries
about the expedi-
tion may be
directed to him at 2
Central Square,
Cambridge, MA
02139.

"Presently the savage throng began to hem
us in entirely too much for our satisfaction. They
bumped against us and uttered unfriendly grunts,
to relieve the situation Nicholson asked Maloon to
lead us to the devil-devils. When he did so the
cannibals followed, but we kept moving about so
that they could not surround us. The devil-devils
were about the same as those we had seen at Wala.

"V\'hen the savages tried to hem us in again
we went back to the village and sitting down with
our backs to the wall of a hut. opened our lunch bags
and began to eat. We motioned the natives to keep
away to give us room to .spread out our supplies.

"Suddenly a great savage-looking fellow came
up to one of our lunch baskets and ripping it open,
began taking things out. Without any hesitation
Adam jumped up. pushed the man roughly away
and reprimanded him sharply. We were frightened,
for we feared the Big Nambas would resent such
rough treatment of one of their warriors. However,
Adam assured us he had done the right thing.

"'That fellow was deliberately trying to steal
our lunch and he knew he shouldn't,' he explained.
'If I had let him get away with it he would have
immediately . done something worse and soon the
whole pack would have been on us. You must use
child psychology with these natives— nip any

mischievous act in the bud or you will get into
serious trouble.

"Adam seemed to have the right idea. The
natives backed away slowly and squatted down on
the ground all around us without showing any signs
of anger. They were ugly looking fellows, but we
seemed to be masters of the situation.

"While we were eating Nicholson had a long
talk with Maloon.

"I asked the chief whether we could go any
further inland,' said the missionary, 'but he refuses.
He says that this village is now at war with the next
one. which is only a few miles further up the
mountain side. Although there is a lull in the
fighting today, several men have been killed during
the last week. The chief expects an attack on this
village this afternoon or evening, for his scouts have
reported that the enemy are gathering. Conse-
quently he advises us to return to the shore as
quickly as possible so as to avoid any chance of
danger. 1 think we have seen nearly everything of
interest here. We may as well follow his advice while
we are able to do so.'

"Well," concluded Cornelius, "That is about
all there is to tell. We distributed the presents of
tobacco which we had brought and gave the chief
one or two special gifts. The natives did not attempt
to impede our progress on the return trip, though
they could easily have done so, and so after walking
the eight miles again we arrived safely back at the
beach. Our trip to visit the cannibals had been as
successful as we had hoped, though not as exciting
or dangerous as we had anticipated. "

That evening we weighed anchor and sailed
away toward Hog Harbor to pick up the scientists
and deposit our guests before heading for the
Solomon Islands.

After the Solomons, the Illyria's itinerary in-
cluded New Britain, New Guinea, and Borneo. At
this point, the expedition members left the ship and
returned to the United States by other means, arriv-
ing home nearly 11 months after the outset of the
expedition. The Illyria continued westward with its
crew and arrived in Boston harbor on Oct. 16, 1929.

Specimens collected during the expedition in-
cluded 12,000 fishes, more than 2,000 reptiles and
amphibians, 1,200 birds, 881 mammals, and more
than 2,000 invertebrates. The film shot by Sidney
Shurcliff^a 90-minute account of the adventure —
will be publicly shown for the first time in many
years at Field Museum on Saturday, Sept. 29, in
James Simpson Theatre. Tickets for this showing
may be ordered by sending in the coupon below (or
facsimile).

"JUNGLE ISLANDS"

1928-29 Crane Expedition Film

Saturday, Sept. 29, 2;30 p.m.

James Simpson Ttieatre

Introduction and commentary by

Dr. Robert F. Inger, curator of

amphibians and reptiles

For tickets please send coupon (or facsimile) to:

Please send me .

PROGRAMS: Education Dept.
Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Rd. at Lake Stiore Dr.
Ctiicago, III. 60605

Members' tickets for film

number stiowing ($2.00 ea.)

Nonmembers' tickets for film

last name

first name

street

city

state

zip

number showing ($3.50 ea.)

Members' tickets for 12:30

daytime phone

evening phone

number buffet luncheon preceding film
show/ing ($3.00 ea.)

Amount of check enclosed $

Tickets will be mailed upon receipt of check.

Please include self-addressed, stamped envelope for the
return of your tickets.

Three- Year Learning Museum

Program Begins with China Study:

'*China: A Deeper Look''

By Anthony Pfeiffer,
project coordinator

1^
The expeditions to China and Tibet of Berthold
Laufer, curator of Asian ethnology/ 1908-34.
secured for the Museum many of its finest art pieces
as well as a great varieti/ of utilitarian items reflecting
the nature of dail\/ life.

China: what images does the name evoke? Initially you
may think of an immense, forbidding land or simply of
chopsticks and exquisite food. But when you dwell on it a
bit more, wildly contrasting views come to mind. On one
hand, you may imagine a Manchu warrior, schooled in
the martial arts, sinister and hard. On the other hand, you
may envision a mystically haunting painting, drawn with
few elegant lines, soft and delicate.

For centuries the West has alternately admired,
denigrated, or ignored China. For decades the United
States, the world's richest nation, has not formally recog-
nized the People's Republic of China, the world's most
populous nation. Now, as we enter a new era of govern-
mental, cultural, and economic relations with the People's
Republic, we need to know more about its land and
culture.

Field Museum announces "CHINA: A DEEPER
Look," the first in a series of courses of study made possi-
ble by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH), a federal agency. The Field Museum
of Natural History has been designated an NEH Learning
Museum. CHINA: A DEEPER LOOK offers the opportunity
to explore China's enduring culture, delving into its ori-
gins and tracing its development through time.

Field Museum's first Learning Museum course of
study is an historical examination of the multifaceted
Chinese culture. Some of its elements, such as the writing
system, date back five thousand years. It is virtually im-
possible to understand today's China without an undef-
standing of China past.

Ron Testa

Bennet Bronson,

associate curator of

Asian archaeology and

ethnology, served as

consultant and resource

facilitator for "China: A

Deeper Look. "

Before China was "lost" to the United States, two
Field Museum collecting expeditions were successfully
launched. The Mrs. T. B. Blackstone Expedition. 1908-
10, was led by Berthoid Laufer. then assistant curator of
Asian ethnology at Field Museum by special appointment.
Laufer's time in China and Tibet was fraught with physical
hardships, the intransigence of local officials, thievery,
and even dog bite. As leader of the Captain Marshall Field
Expedition in 1923, Laufer was kept out of the interior of
China by warfare and banditry. Despite all difficulties, he
collected many representative pieces, as opposed to art
for art's sake.

Field Museum's Chinese artifacts reflect the full
range of historical periods and can show a great deal
about how people lived in each cultural era. For these
purposes, they are among the best in the country. CHINA:
A Deeper Look unites the China collections at Field
Museum with an accomplished faculty. Films, annotated
references, access to a library of select materials, written
guides to collections, and a cultural performance are fur-
ther combined to give a colorful and substantive view of
what Laufer called "the most marvelous civilization on
earth."

China: A Deeper Look has been planned in con-
junction with two subject matter specialists. One of these,
Bennet Bronson, is associate curator of Asian archaeol-
ogy and ethnology at Field Museum, the position that
began with Berthoid Laufer. A large portion of Field
Museum's China holdings is not on display. That portion
is inaccessible without Dr. Bronson, not only in the sense
that he has the keys to the special storage areas, but
because he knows what's there and how it can be used.
Through Bronson, both exhibit and "behind the scenes"
artifacts are utilized as material glimpses of the roots of
Chinese culture.

The Great Wall of China

effectiueln s\/mboUzes the

agelessness of Chinese

2^ culture.

NEH Learning Museum

The NEH Learning Museum program is a three-i;ear
sequence of learning opportunities centered around
the Museum's outstanding exhibits and collections and
designed to give participants an opportunit\j to explore
a subject in depth. Each unit ofstudi; consists of one or
more special euents, a lecture course, and a seminar
for advanced work. Special euents are lectures by re-
nowned authorities or interpretive performances and
demonstrations. Course members receive an anno-
tated bibliography:, a guide to pertinent museum ex-
hibits, studv notes for related special events, and ac-
cess to select materials from Field Museum's excellent
research library;. In-depth, small-group seminars allow
more direct contact with facuiti/ and Museum collec-
tions.

Professor Ping-ti Ho, also consultant to our China
project, is a distinguished historian and sinologist who has
been based at the University of Chicago for sixteen years.
Studies in the Population of China. 1368-1953 was his
first major work. The Ladder of Success in Imperial
China, 1368-1911 and The Cradle of the East: An In-
quiry into the Indigenous Origins of Techniques and Ideas
of Neolithic and Early Historic China, 5,000-1.000 B.C.
are also among his many published works. Professor Ho
has been a leader in the movement to broaden the scope
of modern research in Chinese history. He never lost
touch with his native land, having been to 16 of 18
provinces of China proper, Chinese Turkestan, and Man-
churia. On October 10 he shares this geographic knowl-
edge with us and introduces his students who teach the
China: A Deeper Look lecture course.

China: A Deeper Look begins October 5 with a
keynote address by Jonathan D. Spence, noted historian
of China and professor of history at Yale University.
Although Marco Polo may have "discovered" China in
1275, it wasn't until after 1600, when Jesuit missionaries
settled in Peking, that the West began to get detailed
reports on Chinese life. Dr. Spence takes us through four
centuries of tangled Western feelings toward China, its
history and literature, its governmental structure, and its
demographic problems. This overview pinpoints areas of
Western understanding and misunderstanding of China.
Some of the misconceptions are unfortunately as preva-
lent today as when they originated centuries ago.

After Dr. Spence's broad perspective on studying
China, you are invited to join a lecture course which
begins by looking at the diversity of China's land, plunges
back into prehistory, and traces the development of
Chinese civilization. Seven thousand years ago the agri-
cultural base for Chinese civilization was established in the
North China Plain. While prolific crop growths supported
some of the world's first villages, the Yellow River periodi-
cally flooded and, over the millenia, took literally millions
of lives. A remarkable pageant of peasants and emperors
unfolds as major historical periods are reviewed, all illus-
trated with artifacts from Field Museum collections.

The course leads up to the Ch'ing dynasty in the
eady nineteenth century. Themes followed throughout
the course lend coherence to what might otherwise be a
bewildering succession of people, places, things, and
bygone times. The whole of China's history is seen as a
dynamic procession of dynasties, each having to deal
with population pressures, changing routes to social
mobility, and the tendency to split apart into warring

Jonathan D. Spence,
famed authority on
Chinese history and
culture, gives "China: A
Deeper Look" keynote
address on Friday,
October 5.

Anthony Pfeiffer, project
coordinator of the NEH
Learning Museum
Program, shown while
researching chimpanzee
behavior for his recently
completed doctoral work
in anthropology at
Rutgers University. 27

segments; and each one inheriting a tradition of philoso-
phy and cultural accomplishment rivaled only by its own
achievements.

A sampling of the cultural life of China is skillfully
presented in "Aspects of Peking Opera" on Friday. Octo-
ber 19. Derived from historical events and classical novels
and originating between the eighth and tenth centuries,
traditional opera selections are performed by Hu Hung-
yen, accompanied by two musicians. Her repertoire
includes "Picking up the Jade Bracelet," depicting a flirta-
tion between a coy maiden and a young nobleman, and
"The Spear Dance," showing a woman using acrobatic
skills to defeat her male enemy.

To bring looking at China up-to-date, course par-
ticipants are given the chance to follow the legacy of
China past into the development of China today. Some
historical highlights include the turmoil and fall of the
Ch'ing Dynasty, the exploitation of China by Western and
Japanese powers, and ■the emergence of the People's
Republic of China. When the Ch'ing Dynasty fell in 1912.
a sentimentalist commented: "The glory of Spring has
gone and does not return." But has the glory gone? Com-
pared to Imperial China, has the peasant's lot in life
improved in the last half century? How has village and
family life changed? What about folk culture and religion?
And what kind of new elite has emerged and how did
they get to the top? How do they dispense justice and
exert social control? The seminar deals with questions
such as these.

In short. Field Museum is mobilizing its consider-
able resources and those of an excellent faculty for a fresh
and timely look at China. CHINA: A Deeper Look should
be of interest to the traveller, the business person, and to
anyone wanting the background to an historic new era.
Chicago-area members will receive a special mailing of
program details and registration materials. For further
information please write NEH Learning Museum Pro-
gram, Department of Education, Field Museum. Roose-
velt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, II., 60605 or
phone 922-9410, ext. 395.

Hu Hung-[;en. the only

professional actress of

Peking opera now

resident in the United

States, will perform in

James Simpson Theatre

on Friday/. October 19.

Vintage scene of

Chinese shopworkers.

ca. 1910.
2S

BOOKS

CLIMBER'S GUIDE TO DEVIL'S
LAKE, hy William Widule and Sven
Olof Swarding. University of Wisconsin
Press; 198 pp., 44 illus., $8.95.

To be a mountain-climbing enthusiast in
the Chicago region would seem as
frustrating as being an avid yacht racer
in Afghanistan. There is, nevertheless, a
very active and energetic Chicago
Mountaineering Club, whose meetings
are held regularly at Field Museum.
Although it's thousands of miles to a
legitimate mountain, climbers in this
region keep up their skills, and learn new
techniques, by scaling the many faces of
the steep quartzite cliffs that rise over
400 feet (122 meters) above Devil's
Lake, Wisconsin.

This guide book is the result of
many years of climbing in the Devil's
Lake State Park by two members of this
club. In it they give details of hundreds
of climbs, how to find the starting
places, any particularly tricky points,
hazards, alternate ways, and ultimately
routes to the top. It is the most com-
prehensive guide available to this ex-
cellent climbing £a-ea, designed to serve
novices and pros alike. The guide is amp-
ly illustrated with 44 diagrams, draw-
ings, and photographs. There is an ex-
cellent introduction to the geology,
natural history, and hiking trails of the
area by Pat Armstrong (a staff member
of the Morton Arboretum).

The guide is highly recommended
both for climbers who are newcomers to
the midwest as well as old hands to
Devil's Lake. Even if you're not a
climber, it is a good hiking guide to the
trails of the area. Measuring 10.1 cm X
15.2 cm X 1.3 cm, and weighing a mere
235 grams, the book is just the right size
to tuck into your breast pocket. When
you're hanging on a line, the piton is
slowly pulling out, the rope fraying
before your eyes, and there are jagged
"teeth" of quartzite pointing up at you,
far below, it's nice to know you can pop
this guide out of your shirt pocket and
quickly look up an alternate route! —Ed-
ward Olsen, curator of mineralogy.

KOSTER: AMERICANS IN SEARCH
OF THEIR PREHISTORIC PAST, by
Stuart Struever and F'elicia A. Holton.
Anchor Press/Doubleday; 281 pp.,

$12.95.

This book is about the archaeologists
and the archaeology of one of the most
comprehensive and innovative research
programs in this discipline in the United
States. Archaeologists generally write
for their peers, using the technical
jargon and format which either fails to

discuss methods used to recover infor-
mation or does so in language familiar
only to specialists. Because of the corre-
sponding absence of general literature
on North American archaeology, many
Americans are unaware that sites con-
taining remains of prehistoric cultures
abound within each of the 50 states.
Struever and Holton make it a point to
apprise the reader of the wealth of sites
in America, though their discussion con-
centrates on the Lower Illinois Valley,
where over 1,000 sites have been located
and recorded.

Theirs is not a book about a single
site in the Lower Illinois Valley nor is it
simply about a single man's (Stuart
Struever's) research. It is a fascinating
account of a major research project, one
which integrates the individuals and
personal experiences with the actual
fieldwork, analyses, and interpretations.
The authors explain what archaeologists
do and how they reconstruct now extinct
human cultures. Therefore, while some
of Struever's trips into nostalgia may
seem distracting to another archaeolo-
gist, he successfully conveys how an ar-
chaeologist feels about his work, what
he sees and thinks— what it is like to be
an archaeologist. His feelings and per-
sonal insights convey experiences that
are common to many archaeologists,
though seldom expressed.

Although Raster is mainly an ac-
count of Struever's research in the
Lower Illinois Valley, it also integrates
the findings at Koster into a broader
framework— that of the cultural develop-
ment of prehistoric man in the New
World. Koster is fitted into this general
framework when, for example, informa-
tion from Koster is used to demonstrate
that Amerindians began living in settled,
year-round communities by 3000 B.C..
while still subsisting by hunting and by
the gathering of wild plants. Later occu-

pations at Koster demonstrate increas-
ing stability, growth, and social com-
plexity which accompanied the adoption
of agriculture.

Struever and Holton are most suc-
cessful when describing techniques for
recording the archaeological finds and
for deriving cultural and environmental
reconstructions from what a layman
would view as no more than a jumble of
artifacts. Some of these techniques were
pioneered at Koster; for example, the
separation of minute plant and bone
materials from the encompassing soil by
"floating" them out in water. The Lower
Illinois Valley archaeologists also
adopted existing analytical techniques
and applied them to problems at Koster.
For example, by examining lithic debris
and the wear and breakage patterns on
stone tools, researcher Thomas Cook has
been able to distinguish areas where
animals were butchered from localities
where animals were cooked.

While definitely not a "how to do
archaeology" book, Koster does convey
how a great deal of information can be
deduced by trained individuals from an
archaeological site. Struever also demon-
strates the valuable contributions non-
professionals have made to the Lower
Illinois Valley program. They have done
this by cooperating with and providing
information on site locations to archae-
ologists; the latter are then better
equipped to build models of prehistoric
activities and long-term development.
While emphasizing the importance of
the layman's role in archaeology, it is
apparent that only through the efforts
of many trained individuals has it been
possible to reconstruct the activities and
long-term events participated in by the
prehistoric inhabitants of Koster.
—Patricia S. Essenpreis, Department of
Anthropology, Loyola University of
Chicago.

■■-^J-K^^^¥:t^^^ld^^QM

^^^■-ir'-." •■. ■,'.:-^ ■ ■ ■ ■"

^^^^'l^g^gygMji^^^

^^^^m^^^'^Kffi-w^' ' : ::"';::-r;'.;*"\ ■;;•:■■.■ "■ ^ . ■ - ■ . ■

^^^^^^^^^^.^^^^tM

Weekend Discovery Programs

On Saturdays and Sundays, discover Field
Museum's wealth of natural history resources
via films, gallery tours, demonstrations, and
slide presentations. The activities listed below
are highlights only, of Weekend Discovery Pro-
grams. A complete listing of activities for the
day is available at Museum entrances.

Sunday, Sept. 9; 1:30 p.m.: Indian Fishermen of the North-
west Coast is a 45-minute tour illustrating fishing
methods as well as the importance of the fish in
story and song. These coastal people rely upon
the fish harvest as a primary food source and for
personal wealth and prestige.

Saturday, Sept. 15; 11:30 a.m. Earl^/ Man is a half-hour tour
that traces major trends in the physical and
cultural evolution of man.

1:30 p.m.: Film Features — African Wilderness
as depicted in the film "Mzima: Portrait of a
Spring." The hippopotamus is the central
character in this examination of African wildlife.

September Discovery Highlights

Saturday, Sept. 8; 11:30 a.m. Ancient Egypt is a 45-minute
tour that explores the traditions of ancient Egypt,
from everyday life to myths and mummies.

1:30 p.m.: Fi7m Features— African Wilderness
as depicted in film "Baobab." The giant African
tree, the baobab, is portrayed in this film as the
home and sustainer of innumerable insects, rep-
tiles, birds, and mammals. It provides a minia-
ture world where many species mutually support
each other and where protection and survival
are provided.

Its survival ensures the existence of other species
at the spring, such as crocodiles, elephants,
impalas, zebras, baboons, monkeys, kingfishers,
spiders, fish, and frogs.

Sunday, Sept. 16; 12 noon: Life in Peru is a half-hour slide
presentation of life in ancient Peru and its ties
with modern Peru, as interpreted through its
pre-Inca pottery.

Saturday, Sept, 22; 11:30 a.m. Introduction to Hopi Culture is
a half-hour tour that focuses on the rich heritage

of Hopi religion, its iconography and traditions.

12:30-2:00 p.m. Ancient Art of Spinning is a
demonstration of spinning along with informa-
tion on its history and development in several
cultures.

1:30 p.m. Film Features— African Wilderness as
depicted in the film"Kenya-Uganda Safari." The
camera ranges over the varied landscape of the
Kenya-Uganda area of East Africa, filming its
great variety of wildlife.

Sunday, Sept. 23; 1:00 p.m. Endangered Animals is a half-
hour tour focusing on animals that are in danger
of extinction.

Saturday, Sept. 29; 1:30 p.m. China through the Ages is a
look at traditional China: its inventions, court
life, and schools of thought. Rare slides taken
from turn-of-the-century lantern slides collected
by Berthold Laufer, curator of Asian an-
tfiropology from 1907 to 1934 will be featured.

Sunday, Sept. 30; 2:00 p.m. Indians of North America is a
tour that explores the life of six tribes, from the
Iroquois in the North to the Hopi in the
Southwest.

October Discovery Highlights

Saturday, Oct. 6; 12 noon. "In the Land of War Canoes,"
Edward Curtis's classic 1914 film drama captures
the life and spirit of British Columbia's Kwakiutl
Indians; 45-minute program also includes slides
of Curtis's still photos of Northwest Coast
Indians.

1:00 p.m. Endangered Animals is half-hour pro-
gram focusing on animals that are in danger of
extinction.

Sunday, Oct. 7; 1:30 p.m. Indian Fishermen of the North-
west Coast is a 45-minute tour illustrating fishing
methods as well as the importance of the fish in
story and song. These coastal people rely upon
the fish harvest as a primary food source and for
personal wealth and prestige.

Saturday, Oct. 13; 11:00 a.m. American Indian Dress is half-
hour tour that explores the construction, craft,
style, and symbolism of Indian dress from six
regions of North America, from the northern
woodlands to the Southwest.

1:00 p.m. Film Features — Arts in Native
America as depicted in 50-minute film "The
Crooked Beak of Heaven," which views the
Kwakiutl and other tribes of the Northwest
Coast. Focuses on their long winter dramas,
totem poles, and potlatch ceremonies.

Sunday, Oct. 14; 12:30 p.m. Culture and History) of Ancient
Egi;pt. An orientation film precedes this
45-minute tour of the Museum's collection of an-
cient Egyptian artifacts; tour concludes with ex-
planation of mummification process. 31

OUR ENVIRONMENT

Midwest "in the Soup":
Hazy Blobs Abound

Let's take a little cross-country trip, via
satellite.

Our guide is Walt Lyons, a
Chicago TV weatherman, who also hap-
pens to be a leading expert on air pollu-
tion transport.

"Have you ever noticed that the
summertime skies aren't as blue as they
used to be?" he asks.

"Studies done at Washington
University over the last few years have
looked at national weather service
visibility reports for the past 50 years.
What's been discovered is that visibility
in rural areas has progressively wor-
sened, with visibility running only three
or four miles in the middle of the after-
noon, with brown hazy skies, rather than
blue skies.

"From May to October, we have
these high pressure systems that come
down from Canada with 25 to 30 miles of
visibility. They move into midwestern
U.S. and sit there. They might just hang
around for two or three weeks. The air in
this system just makes big lazy
clockwise circles hundreds of miles
wide," he goes on.

"Emissions from large coal- fired
power plants in the Ohio River valley,
for example, drift lazily along with this
flow, with the sun beginning to 'bake'
these emissions. What was initially col-
orless gas is now being converted by the
sun into minute particles, including
small specks of sulfuric acid.

"So, if you consider the dozens of
power plants, especially in the Ohio
River valley, pumping tons of pollutants
into this essentially nonmoving air mass
over the midwestern United States for
weeks at a time, that's where the haze is
coming from."

This soup is not just made up of
sulfate particles, but also of emissions
from automobiles— ozone.

Lyons' theory, based on a study of
thousands of satellite photos, posits
that the hazy blob formed in the Ohio
valley turns in a clockwise direction to
the north bringing hazy days to Illinois,
Iowa, and Minnesota— then turns
towards the Great Lakes and up
through Canada, then down through
New England and out into the ocean.

"We've seen this plume 1,500
miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, and
who knows, it may end up in Europe,"
he speculates further.

Lyons is convinced that the best

way to see this process at work is not by

running ground studies, but by looking

at real-time satellite pictures that have

32 been "processed" through a sophis-

ticated computer system and can clearly
show pollutant transport.

These high pollution readings— up
to 160 parts per billion— are not
necessarily from the local area," he says.
"We're talking about a pollution mass
covering the entire mid-section of the
country— an area from Louisiana to Min-
nesota and Kentucky to New England."

Lyons' theory, presented this past
June to the Fourth Annual EPA Re-
search and Development Conference on
Energy and Environment in Washing-
ton, DC, is based on the interpretation of
thousands of satellite photographs that
have been computer analyzed over the
past few years.

Lyons characterizes this observed
"soup" as having elevated pollution
levels running generally around 80 parts
per billion.

Lyons describes a particular
episode that took place on June 30,
1975: "On this day a high pressure
system was stagnant. It drifted out
from New York, out over Cleveland,
picked up a bit more pollution in Pitts-
burgh, went through the Ohio River
valley picking up some more pollution
there."

The trajectory of the event, he
says, suggests that after it passed
through the Ohio River valley, where it
picked up most of its sulfur dioxide, it
went about as far west as Kansas City.
It then made a strong turn north to Min-
nesota.

"I was a weather forecaster up
there at the time," he notes, "and when
we would get southerly breezes like
these, I could automatically lop a few
degrees from the high temperature, and
drop the visibility to five miles."

The event that Lyons described
lasted about four days with the entire
states of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Min-
nesota covered with very polluted air
that began out in the Ohio River valley.

"It usually takes a strong Pacific
cold front from the west to blow that
stuff out to sea," he adds.

Lyons remembers one particular
"blob," as he calls these episodes, that,
after having made a path similar to the
one described above, headed 600 miles
out over the ocean, turned south, then
southwest, and three days later hit the
Florida peninsula full blast.

Lyons has also been keeping his
eye on how the blobs may be impacting
agriculture. He is especially interested
in the work being done by the Universi-
ty of Minnesota on the impact of ozone
on the Nation's $8 billion annual soy-
bean crop.

"We could be losing as much as 25
percent of that crop each year, because
of the impact of ozone from these blobs
on the plants at key times in the grow-
ing process," Lyons says.

At the University of Minnesota,
32 computer-controlled test chambers
are located out in the middle of a soy-
bean field where several varieties of the
crop are being exposed to controlled con-
centrations of the pollutant.

"They're finding that when the
smog blob passes over and you get 120
ppb for several afternoons in a row,
about a 25 percent loss could be taking
place," he says.

"We're seeing these blobs 1,500
miles off the east coast, just as thick as
the day they left the area where the
pollution came from." he warns.

Lyons says there is no doubt that
the Ohio River valley, with its large con-
centration of power plants, is the major
contributor to the nation's summer haze
problem and to acid rain damage that
comes when the blobs are sucked into
clouds to make rain.

"One of the strangest things
we've seen on these satellite pictures is
these large masses of clouds with lots of
little holes punched in them. For a long
time, we couldn't figure out why there
were these holes, but then we realized
that what had happened was rain— the
smog had been absorbed into the rain-
drops, and fallen out of the blob," Lyons
said. "We've verified this by comparing
precipitation data taken from the
ground with the satellite pictures of

these holes. What we're seeing is acid
rain actually being made."

"We can definitely see now that
pollution from any given area is not just
a local problem. Due to shifting weather
fronts, it can be a problem on a regional,
national— or even a global scale.
—Frank Corrado, director of EPA's
Region V Public Affairs Office, from En-
vironment Midwest.

Florida Establishes Manatee Refuge

Help is on the way to save the manatee,
the endangered sea mammal thought to
be a marine relative of the elephant.

The West Indian manatee {Tri-
chechus manatus) is a retiring gentle
vegeteu-ian which can reach a length of
12 feet and weigh almost a ton. Adult
manatees eat as much as 100 pounds of
underwater vegetation daily. Despite its
unflattering popular name "sea cow,"
the myth of a half woman, half fish sea
creature— the mermaid— is thought to
have stemmed from the first human
sighting of this sea mammal with the ex-
pressive face.

Manatees were once fairly com-
mon along the coast of Florida and
Georgia, but were exploited for meat,
hides, and oil during the 17th and 18th

boats, barges, or fishing ve.sseis.
Research now underway indicates that
propeller size may be a more important
factor than boat speed in manatee
deaths.

Flood control structures with
automatically-operated water level
gates are another big contributor to the
manatee's demise. Five such structures
in Dade Country, under the jurisdiction
of flood control districts, are the major
culprits. Adjustments to prevent
manatees from being caught or crushed
by the gates, such as reducing their
operating speed or adding structures to
prevent entrance, require the coopera-

Manatee diorama, HallN

The Game and Fresh Water Fish
Commission of Florida, the state with
nearly aU the nation's manatees, is work-
ing with the U.S. Fish and WildUfe Ser-
vice to create the equivalent of wildhfe
refuges for the manatee. Swimming,
boating, snorkehng, scuba diving, and
surfing have been restricted or banned
in 13 of the state's manatee wintering
areas, and another 12 may be posted
before fall.

During the cooler months, man-
atees are attracted to the warm water
outflows of power plants. When large
numbers are gathered into these
relatively small areas, the animals are
more vulnerable to disturbances than
during the summer months, when
populations are more dispersed. How-
ever, this gathering into a more well-
defined area also makes possible the
creation of refuges to protect manatees
during the winter.

centuries. Today, only about 800 to
1,000 West Indian manatees remain in
Florida, plus another 100 in Puerto Rico.

Human activities such as recrea-
tional pursuits and environmental con-
trols are the major cause of the
manatee's disastrous decline. The U.S.
Marine Mammal Commission concluded
its 1978 Annual Report with the state-
ment: "The species may well become ex-
tinct in the foreseeable future through-
out its range in this country unless
decisive, meaningful actions are taken to
cope with the basic problem, which has
been and remains one of controlling
human activities."

Manatees, with a cruising speed of
four to ten km an hour, typically float
near the surface, within easy reach of
boat propellers. These collisions are the
main known cause of death among
manatees— most bear deep ridges on
their backs from encounters with motor-

tion of these units of government.

Monofilament nylon fishing Une
discarded by fishermen causes problems
for curious manatees, who may first play
with it, but then become hopelessly
tangled. Fishing nets or crab pot lines
are another hazard.

The increasing pollution of inland
streams destroys the manatee's food
source. And sudden cutoffs of warm
water discharges from generating plants
(or extremely cold weather) may bring
on thermal shock.

To compound the problem, the
animals suffer from the curiosity or even
the maUciousness of humans. Some are
hounded to death by overeager photo-
graphers; others bludgeoned by gour-
mands of manatee venison. All told,
nearly 100 die yearly from the above
mentioned human influences.

Add to this the manatee's slow
reproductive rate— one calf every five 33

OUR ENVIRONMENT

years— and it's easy to see why its ex-
istence is threatened. Despite more than
70 years of protection, the decline con-
tinues. In 1907, Florida outlawed the
killing or molesting of the huge beast,
punishable by a $500 fine, or six months
in jail, or both. In addition, it is pro-
tected by the federal Marine Mammal
Protection Act of 1972 and the En-
dangered Species Act of 1973, violation
of which carries a maximum $20,000 fine
and one year prison sentence. Rewards
of up to $2,500 are available for persons
providing information leading to a con-
viction under the protection laws.

But these well-intentioned laws
are only now being utilized. So, in 1976,
under the provisions of the Endangered
Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service appointed a "manatee recovery
team" with the authority to write pro-
tective regulations and outline recovery
efforts, including needed research. The
team never acted or even met. A new
team appointed in 1978 adopted some
state-written regulations establishing
ten basic protection areas. To enforce
this protection, Florida has spent
$81,000 posting these areas, and assign-
ed half of its 240 marine patrol officers
to police them in winter.

These new manatee protection ac-
tivities are a step in the right direction,
but whether they're long enough strides
to span the yawning gap called "extinc-
tion" remains to be seen.— Mike Lee-
cese, National Wildlife Federation.

(See also "The Remarkable Man-
atee, by Thor Janson, in the May, 1979,
Bulletin. )

A Whale of a Singer

Humpback whales, it turns out, are true
composers of the animal world — their
songs are continuously evolving.

Analysis of songs collected over a
20-year period reveals that the songs
change progressively from year to year.
According to Roger Payne, of the New
York Zoological Society, the only other
animal to exhibit such complicated be-
havior is man. Payne even compares it
to the evolution of language.

The songs have a definite struc-
ture, even though humpback whales in,
say, Hawaii will sing a different song
than those in Bermuda. For example,
each song contains about six themes
that follow in the same order, and each
phrase contains two to five sounds. If a
theme is deleted, the others stay in
order. Since the laws of composition are
the same between two isolated herds,
Payne feels that whales inherit, geneti-
cally or through learning, a set of song
rules.

Since whales only sing in winter,

researchers first thought song changes

were the result of a flawed memory; the

34 whales, they thought, forgot part of the

song over the summer and improvised
each fall upon returning to their winter
grounds. But new recordings show that
when whales return they sing last sea-
son's song flawlessly. Improvisations
then occur as winter progresses. For in-
stance, an old phrase may decrease in
frequency as the weeks pass, only to be
replaced by a new phrase.

So far, researchers are unable to
define the purpose of these elaborate
songs. They speculate that they may be
love songs since they occur during what
is believed to be the breeding season and
they are only sung by adults. While all
singers that have been closely studied
are male, researchers are unable to deter-
mine the sex of most whales they ob-
serve. They also find it difficult to tell
which whale is singing.

Humpback whales are the only
known species to have a song, although
other whales repeat a low monotonous
loud tone that can be heard for hundreds,
perhaps thousands of miles.

Piranha Range Increasing

Piranhas are apparently extending their
range in South America. Officials in the
southern Brazilian state of Santa Cata-
rina, beyond the previous range of the
fish, reportedly have warned people
against swimming in rivers.

This follows the disappearance of
farm animals, attributed to piranhas,
and a recent attack on two fishermen
near the town of Florianopolis.

Press reports from Rio de Janeiro
said the rivers of Santa Catarina were
more than 2,500 km from the Amazon,
normal habitat of the piranha. However
officials said ducks migrating from the
region often unwittingly carried piranha
eggs stuck to their feathers, which
would explain how the fish had appeared
so far to the south.

Man Sentenced for Violating
Federal Wolf and Gun Acts

A Burton, Mich., man has been sen-
tenced to three years in federal prison
and fined $1,000 after pleading guilty to
transporting two wolves into Michigan
in violation of the Federal Lacey Act,
and for being in possession of a firearm
as a convicted felon.

He was sentenced to one year in
prison and fined $1,000 on the wolf
charge and sentenced to an additional
two years on the firearms charge. The
sentences are to be served concurrently.
The man is believed to be the first per-
son in the U.S. to be sentenced to federal
prison for violating federal and state
laws pertaining to the protection of
wolves. The lengthy investigation, in-
itiated in Minnesota, April, 1977, re-
vealed that the man purchased two
wolves from a fur farm and transported
them into Michigan on May 30, 1979.

25 Animal Species Added to
Endangered List

Several gazelles and deer, some from the
Peoples Republic of China, and the red-
necked Amazon parrot are among the 25
foreign species that have been classified
as endangered by the Interior Depart-
ment's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The rule, listing the species from numer-
ous countries in Asia, Africa, and South
America, was published in the June 25,
1979, Federal Register

Habitat destruction and subsist-
ence or uncontrolled killing are the pri-
meiry causes for most of the species' de-
cline. All are considered endangered by
the International Union for the Conser-
vation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Listing the wildlife under the En-
dangered Species Act will aid in their
conservation by prohibiting all inter-
state or foreign commerce of these spe-
cies without a permit and by requiring
federal agencies to refrain from funding,
authorizing, or carrying out any activi-
ties in the affected foreign countries that
would jeopardize the species' continued
existence. Federal agencies must also
utilize their authorities to promote the
conservation of these species. As a re-
sult of the listings, foreign currencies
and U.S. personnel also become avail-
able to assist the countries in developing
management and conservation pro-
grams.

The newly classified endangered
species and their countries of origin are:
Iriomote cat— Iriomote Island, Ryuk-
yus; Malabar large spotted civet— India;
Bactrian deer— USSR, Afghanistan; Bar-
bary deer— Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco;
Corsican deer— Corsica, Sardinia; Yar-
kand deer— Chinese Turkestan; Jen-
tink's duiker— Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Ivory Coast; western eland— Senegal to
Ivory Coast; simian fox— Ethiopia; Ara-
bian gazelle— Arabian peninsula, in-
cluding Israel; Pelzeln's gazelle— So-
malia; sand gazelle— Arabian peninsula,
Jordan; Saudi gazelle— Israel, Iraq, Jor-
dan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait.

Swayne's hartebeest— Somalia,
Ethiopia; Tora hartebeest— Ethiopia,
Sudan, Egypt; Fea's muntjac— Burma,
Thailand; Ryukyu rabbit— Ryukyu
Islands; Formosan sika— Taiwan; North
China sika— Shansi Province, China;
South China sika— Yangtze valley,
China; Zanzibar suni— Zanzibar Island,
Tanzania; Arabian tahr— Oman; red-
necked Amazon parrot— Dominica.

September & October at Field Museum

(September 15 through October 15

Continuing Exiiibits

"Treasures of Cyprus." A final opportunity to view 8,000 years
of Cypriot art and culture. . .this is the last showing before the
exhibit's permanent return to Cyprus. Ancient bowls, jugs,
vases, jewelry, and religious idols show the influence of many
peoples while remaining typically Cypriot. Assembled under the
direction of Donald Whitcomb, assistant curator of Middle
Eastern archaeology and ethnology. Exhibit designer is Clifford
Abrams. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling
Exhibit Service and the government of Cyprus. Hall K, ground
floor. Through Sept. 16.

"Art Lacquer of Japan." Our newest permanent exhibit features
inro (intricately carved and decorated sectional medicine cases),
netsuke (tiny carved pendants), and ojime beads, which hung
from the waists of 18th- and 19th-century Japanese men as sym-
bols of wealth and status. Miniature landscapes, dreamlike still
lifes, and mythic dragons are flawlessly carved into lacquer or-
naments no larger than a matchbox. Examples of Chinese lac-
quer art are exhibited for comparison. Designed by David Ed-
quist under the direction of Bennet Bronson, associate curator
of Asian archaeology and ethnology. Hall 32.

Among the mounted specimens are exquisite seashells, but-
terflies, a leaping jaguar, and a fox. "A Stamp Sampler" was
conceived by Col. M. E. Rada, exhibit guest curator, and design-
ed by Peter Ho, a University of Illinois graduate student. Second
floor lounge.

"Cash, Cannon, and Cowrie Shells: The Nonmodern Moneys of
the World." A fascinating collection that contains over 80
varieties of money used by ancient cultures. It explores the
origins, values, and meaning of nonmodern money in terms of
buying power for these past civilizations. The accompanying
text gives the value of each form of money in terms of how
much food it could then buy. Four general categories of
moneys are on display: metal coinage, uncoined metal, shell
money, and "miscellaneous," which includes food, fur, fiber,
glass, teeth, and stone currencies. No closing date. Between
Halls K and L, ground floor.

The Place for Wonder. This gallery provides a place to handle,
sort, and compare artifacts and specimens. Weekdays,
1 :00-3:00 p.m.; weekends, 10 a.m. to noon and 1 :00-3:00 p.m.
Ground floor, near central elevator.

Field Museum's newest permanent exhibit, "Art Lacquer of Japan, " in Hall 32

MISS LOITH FLEMING
946 PLEASANT STRE'lT
OAK PARK ILL 60302

September & October at Field Museum

(Continued from inside back cover)

New Programs

"Jungle Islands." Film of the 1928-29 Crane Pacific Expedi-
tion. Scientific staff from Field Museum, JHarvard and Stanford
universities joined young Cornelius Crane and three college
friends aboard the lUyria, a 150-foot sailing ship built by Field
Museum trustee Richard T. Crane as a gift for his son. This
90-minute account of their adventures documents the acquisi-
tion of exotic animals and provides a rare ethnological record of
the native peoples of New Guinea, Marquesas, New Hebrides,
and Solomon Islands. Introduction and commentary during the
silent, black-and-white film is provided by Dr. Robert F. Inger,
Field Museum curator of reptiles and amphibians. Saturday,
Sept. 29 at 2:30 p.m. James Simpson Theatre, West Entrance.
Members $2.00; nonmembers, $3.50. An optional Members'
buffet luncheon ($3.00) at 12:30 precedes the film. For coupon
see p. 24.

Coming In October. Learning Museum Program, a 3-year se-
quence of learning opportunities centered around Field
Museum's exhibits and collections and funded by the National
Endowment for the Humanities, begins with a keynote address
by Dr. Jonathan D. Spence. The noted China historian and Yale
University professor will speak on "Looking at China: When,
How Deeply, and Why?" Friday, Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. For further in-
formation see p. 25.

Continuing Programs

"Weekend Discovery Programs." Free guided tours,
demonstrations, and participatory events. Check weekend sheet
available at North Information Booth for additional programs
and locations.

"Ancient Egypt." 45-minute tour explores traditions of
everyday life, Egyptian myths, and the importance of mum-
mies. Saturday, Sept. 8 at 11:30 a.m.

"Baobab." This African wilderness film portrays the giant
baobab tree as a miniature world where various species of in-
sects, reptiles, birds, and mammals find protection and make
their home. Saturday, Sept. 8, at 1:30 p.m.

"Indian Fishermen of the Northwest Coast." The survival,
wealth, prestige, daily and ceremonial life of these people are
centered on the fish harvest. Sunday, Sept. 9 at 1:30 p.m.

"Early Man." Half-hour tour traces major trends in the
physical and cultural evolution of man. Saturday, Sept. 15 at
11:30 a.m.

"Mzima: Portrait of a Spring." This African wilderness film
focuses on the hippopotamus and shows how its springtime sur-
vival ensures the continuing existence of other species. Satur-
day, Sept. 15 at 1 1:30 p.m.

"Life in Peru." A 30-minute slide presentation of life in an-
cient Peru and its ties with modern Peru as interpreted through
pre-lnca pottery. Sunday, Sept. 16 at 12 noon.

"Introduction to Hopi Culture." 30-minute film explains the
rich heritage of the Hopi religion. Saturday, Sept. 22 at 11:30
a.m.

"Ancient Art of Spinning." Demonstration and talk on spin-
ning's development in several cultures. Saturday, Sept. 22 from
12:30 to 2 p.m.

"Kenya-Uganda Safari." An African wilderness film show-
ing the varied landscape and wildlife of East Africa. Saturday,
Sept. 22 at 1:30 p.m.

"Endangered Animals." Half-hour introduction to animals
in danger of extinction. Sunday, Sept. 23 at 1 p.m.

"China Through the Ages." Rare turn-of-the-century lantern
slides featured in this look at traditional China. Saturday, Sept.

29 at 1:30 p.m.

"Indians of North America." A film tour of six tribes, from
Iroquois in the north to the Hopi in the southwest. Sunday, Sept.

30 at 2 p.m.

Kroc Environmental Field Trips. One-day trips are held each
weekend with Museum staff and guest scientists leading the ex-
plorations. Adults and family groups can learn about local flora,
fauna, and geology by collecting fossils, hiking through nature
areas, or visiting working farms. Advanced registration by mail
is highly recommended. For more information or a field trip
brochure, call 922-9410, ext. 362, or write Department of
Education — Field Trips, Field Museum, Roosevelt Road at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, 60605.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets,
adult-and-family-oriented, are available for 25C each at the en-
trance to the Museum Shop, main floor north.

September and October Hours. The Museum is open daily
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. except Fridays. On Fridays, the Museum is
open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. throughout the year.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Obtain
a pass at the reception desk, main floor.

Museum Telephone: (312) 922-9410

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN

• • 1 — ■ '

FJt-;.

Held Museum
of Natural History
Bulletin

October, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 9

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walsten
Production: Martha Poulter
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff Photographer: Ron Testa

field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
George R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O. C. Davis

William R. Dickinson, Jr.
Thomas E. Donnelley II
Marshall Field
Nicholas Galifzine
Paul W. Goodrich
Hugo J. Melvoin
William H. Mitchell
Charles F. Murphy, Jr.
James J. O'Connor
James H. Ransom
John S. Runnells
William L. Searle
Edward Byron Smith
Robert H. Strotz
John W. Sullivan
Mrs. Edward F. Swift
Edward R. Telling
Mrs. Theodore D. Tieken
E. Leland Webber
Julian B. Wilkins
Blaine J. Yarrington

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
William V. Kahler
Remick McDowell
James L. Palmer
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (USPS 898-940) is published monthly,
except combined July/August issue, by Field Museum of Natural History,
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, II. 60605. Subscriptions: $6 a
year; S3 a year for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin subscription.
Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the
policy of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster:
Please send form 3579 to Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at
Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, 11. 60605. ISSN: 0015-0703.

CONTENTS

3 Field Museum Tours

4 Our Environment

6 Timeless Images: Museum Photography

b\/ Pat Williams

10 Of Automobiles and Meteorites

by Edward Olsen, curator of mineralogy

12 The Legacy of Malvina Hoffman

16 Archaeology at the Top of the World

by Alan L. Kolata

25 Edward E. Ayer Film Lectures

27 October and November at Field Museum

Calendar of coming events

COVER

Mosaic mirror of turquoise, mother of pearl, and shell
cemented with resin to a wooden base. The reflecting surface
on the opposite side is made of inlaid, highly polished pyrites.
This mirror is one of the finest known examples of portable
art in the Huari-Tiahuanaco style. 23.9 x 12 cm. From the
Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art, Dum-
barton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy Dumbarton
Oaks. See 'Archaeology at the Top of the World, " p. 16, by
Alan L. Kolata.

Field Museum Tours

Peru, Oct. 27 -Nov. 15.

The tour cost— $2,998 (which includes a $500 donation to
Field Museum) — is based upon double occupancy and includes round
trip air fare between Chicago and Peru and local flights in Peru. Delta
Airlines will be used between Miami and Chicago, connecting with
Aeroperu. Deluxe accommodations will be used throughout. The
package includes all meals, including inflight meals: all sightseeing; all
admissions to events and sites; all baggage handling; all necessary
transfers; all applicable taxes and tips; all applicable visa fees. Advance
deposit; $250.00 per person.

China, Nov. 5-25

In addition to fourteen days in China, three days and two
nights will be spent in London. The tour escort will be Mrs. Katharine
Lee, a Field Museum volunteer in the Department of Anthropology
who is fluent in five Chinese dialects. Additional guides in China will be
provided by the China International Travel Service. The tour cost—
$4,400 (which includes a $500 donation to Field Museum)— is based
upon double occupancy and includes round trip air fare from Chicago
to China. Advance deposit required: $500.00 per person.

Antarctica, Jan. 6-30. 1980

The cruise vessel will be the 3,200-ton ship M.S. World
Discouerer. registered in Hong Kong, which will take us from Punta
Arenas, Argentina, onwards. Built in 1974, the one-class vessel has all
outside cabins with private lavatories and showers. The ship's staff in-
cludes a fully qualified physician. The tour leaves Chicago Jan. 6,
1980 and returns Jan. 30. Prices per person: C deck twin: $3,230; C
deck single: $4,870; B deck twin: $3,570; B deck single: $5,390; A
deck twin: $3,930. Air fare, in addition is $1,225 (round trip between
Chicago and Punta Arenas, Argentina) . Included in the tour price is a
tax-deductible donation of $500.00 to Field Museum. Deposit re-
quired at time of registration: $1,000.00 per person.

Archaeological Tour of Egypt
with Nile River Cruise
Jan. 31 -Feb. 17, 1980

Field Museum once again presents its popular Egypt tour with a Nile
River cruise. This is the fourteenth such tour offered to Members dur-
ing the last four years. The new and improved program offers an
11 -day Nile cruise on our own chartered, private, modern Nile
steamer. In addition, we will be visiting Cairo, Memphis, Sakkara,
Aswan/Abu Simbel, Edfu, Esna, Kom Ombo, Luxor, Thebes, Valley
of the Kings and Queens, Dendereh, Abydos, Amarna, Middle
Kingdom Tombs at Beni Hasan, Pyramid at Medum, and much more.
Eighteen days exploring Egypt with our Egyptologist, Mrs. Del
Nord, a doctoral candidate at the Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago, who has traveled extensively in Egypt. Leave Chicago on
January 31. 1980, and return on February 17. Price includes ail air
transportation, meals, Nile cruise, hotels, tips, taxes, transfers, visa
fees, admissions, baggage handling, escorts, and more. $3,595.00
per person based upon double occupancy. The tour price includes a
$500.00 contribution to the Field Museum. A $500.00 per person
deposit is required for reservation confirmation. The group is limited to
30 persons. Single supplement is available upon request, Nile Cruise
and land.

Kenya Safari
Feb. 13 -March 5, 1980

The wildlife of Kenya, both plant and animal, will be the focal point of
this exciting 22-day tour of Kenya. An added bonus will be one of
nature's most spectacular phenomena, a total eclipse of the sun which
will occur on Feb. 16, 1980, and which you will view from the perfect
vantage point, the Taita Hills. On the tour you will visit Nairobi, Am-
boscli beneath Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tsavo West, Tsavo East, Mombasa on
the Indian Ocean, the Ark, Samburu, Mt. Kenya Safari Club, Lake
Naivasha, Masai Mara adjoining the Serengeti, and more.

The tour leaves Chicago on Feb. 13, 1980, and returns March
5. Price includes all air transportation, meals, transportation within
Kenya, hotels, tips, taxes, visas, transfers, baggage handling, admis-
sions, escorts, and more. The tour cost is $4,575.00 per person based
upon double occupancy from Chicago; this includes a $500.00 con-
tribution to Field Museum. A $7,50.00 deposit per person is required
for reservation confirmation. The group is limited to 25 persons.
Single supplement is available upon request.

For additional information and reservations for all tours,
call or write Michael J. Fl\;nn, Field Museum Tours,
Roosevelt Rd. at Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, III. 60605.
Phone: (312) 922-9410, X-251. ,

OUR ENVIRONMEHT

Sperm Whale Stranding— Why?

Why? Why did 41 sperm whales
(Physeter macrocephalus) beach them-
selves about one mile south of the Sius-
law River [on the Oregon coast] during
the early evening hours of June 16,
1979? The answer to that question as of
this writing is not known and may never
be known. However, when aU of the data
collected from this stranding is ana-
lyzed, scientists may be a Uttle closer to
fmswering this question.

The sperm whale is the largest of
the toothed whales and is found in the
Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
Male sperm whales may grow to 60 feet
in length; however, few are found that
exceed 50 feet in length. They feed most-
ly on squid and octupus although occa-
sionally they are known to feed on fish.

The sperm whale breeding season
off California and presumably in Oregon
is from May through October. After a
15-month gestation period the female
gives birth to a single calf about 12 to 15
feet in length. To nurse her calf the
mother lies on her side at the surface;
the calf, lying parallel to its mother,
takes her teat sideways in the angle of
its jaw. The milk is pumped into the
calf's mouth by means of a muscle layer
covering the mammary glands. The calf
nurses for one to two yeeu"s and may
take some solid food months before be-
ing weaned. The female does not come
into estrus again for several months to
over a year after weaning, thus she can
be£u- only one calf every three to five
years.

Sperm whedes dive to great depths
to feed on squid, octopus, and bottom

fish. Sperm whale carcasses have been
found entangled in submarine cables
at depths exceeding 3,000 feet. Re-
searchers, tracking sperm whales with
sonar, report the usual dive depth is
around 1,600 feet; however, they have
been located on sonar at over 8,000 feet.
Two animals killed off Africa after an
80-minute dive had fresh bottom fish in
their stomachs. The water in that area
was over 10,000 feet deep.

Researchers say that most sperm
whale populations are still at or above
the level that provides the maximum
substainable yield. They estimate the
present world population at about
800,000 adults (roughly 1.5 million total,
including young animals) of which
380,000 (or about 740,000 totel) are in
the North Pacific.

This was the fourth largest re-

Skeleton of 50-foot black right whale on view in Hall 19. This species is about the same size as the sperm whale, discussed above. Photo taken in
1920s; skeleton is now suspended from ceiling.

ported mass stranding of sperm whales
in the world. The most recent larger
stranding occurred New Year's evening
(1979) in the northern Gulf of California.
Why these strandings occur is not
known; however, there are some theories
as to the cause. Sperm whales detect
food and navigate with echolocation
(sonar). Three theories on the causes of
stremdings are related to echolocation:
(11 parasites may invade that part of the
inner ear responsible for "balance,"
making it hard to keep the blowhole at
the surface; this may also disrupt the
animal's ability to interpret reflected
sound; (2) long-sloping, shallow beaches
may "capture" the echolocation signals
as they reflect off the bottom so the ani-
mals do not detect this danger until it is
too late; and, (3) one or more animals in
the pod may be ill or disoriented and
swim to the beach with the remainder of
the pod following. Captain C. M. Scam-
mon, in his book "Marine Mammals of
the Northwestern Coast of North Ameri-
ca," noted that sperm whales, par-
ticularly the females, would remain with
an injured (harpooned) animal, thus
allowing several in a pod to be killed
before they tried to escape.

There is also the question of why
these smimals, normally found offshore
in deeper water, were so close to the
beach. One possibiUty is that this is the
time of year when squid are found near
shore depositing their egg capsules on
hard objects such as rocks and crab
traps. Squid were reportedly spawning
near the stranding site. Sperm whales
were observed just offshore in this area
prior to and following the stranding.
It is not known whether these whales
were from the same pod as those that
stranded or if they showed any signs of
illness.

The stranding and death of 41
sperm whales was a tragic occurrence.
The stranding fortunately coincided
with the annual meeting of the Ameri-
can Society of Mammalogists at Cor-
vallis and as a result some of the leading
mammalogists of the United States and
Mexico were nearby and gave valuable
assistance in collecting data. All animals
were measured, sexed, and will soon be
aged by observing annular laminations
of their teeth. In addition, over a dozen
animals were dissected. Tissue samples
of aU major organs were taken for
disease, parasite, and pollutant deter-
minations. Three fetuses close to birth
were examined and will contribute to our
understanding of sperm whale develop-
ment.

Many people wonder why the ani-
mals were only examined for biological
purposes and no utilization was made of
the carcasses. While it would have been
very difficult, if not impossible, to cut
the animals up and get them to render-
ing plants before decomposition began,
the greatest problem was concern for
pubUc health. Health authorities did not
think it wise to "drip" whales (possibly

diseased) to rendering plants because of
potential risk to humans, livestock, and
terrestrial wildlife. There were also legal
questions. The sperm whale is on the
U.S. endangered species list. The En-
dangered Species Act and the Marine
Mammal Protection Act specifically
prohibit the sale, use, or possession of
any marine mammal parts without spe-
cial permits. Exception to the law for
salvage rendering could have been made
if the possibiUty of disease could have
been ruled out.— Dale Snow, assistant ma-
rine region supervisor, state of Oregon, and
Bruce R. Mate, Oregon State University,
from Oregon Wildlife.

A Scent's Worth Suffices

A skunk discharges only about a twen-
tieth of a teaspoontul of fluid when it uti-
Uzes its well-known, smeUy defense me-
chanism. This fluid is under pressure
and it is released in a very fine spray
that can carry up to 20 feet.

i^m^m

Asleep in the Deep Freeze

A handful of arctic lupine seeds holds
the world's record for hving in an inert
state, according to the National Wildlife
Federation. The seeds began to sprout in
a dish of warm water after lying frozen
deep in the tundra for 10,000 years.

Hair as Repellent

Wildlife biologists at the New York
Botanical Garden's Gary Arboretum
have been letting their hair hang down
in an experiment to determine if the hair
repels deer.

Jay McAninch, staff biologist at
the arboretum in MiUbrook near Pough-
keepsie, NY, explained that bunches of
human hair wrapped in nylon nets have
been suspended from about 200 trees on
the 2,000-acre arboretum. In measuring
a hair ball's "sphere of influence" deer
consistently would come within only one
meter of the hair ball. This year the pro-
gram, funded by grants from a beauty
salon firm, has been expanded to test
what types of hair repel deer, how long
the hair balls are effective and packag-
ing techniques for different tree species.
Tresses from beauty salons and the
great unwashed mass of hair from bar-
bershops is being used.

The rationale behind the search
for a repellent is that deer browsing in
orchards, nurseries, woodlots, farms,
and gardens is a big problem— not only
in New York but anywhere that agricul-
turalists and deer share the same terri-
tory. The hair ball idea is not exactly
new. McAninch said he heard about it
from two gardeners who had read about
the idea in an organic gardening publica-
tion. Results, however, varied from one
orchard to the next; McAninch wanted
to set up an experiment that would eli-
minate many of those variables so that
more conclusive results could be un-
covered. He was also attracted to the
method because it is inexpensive, readi-
ly available, nontoxic and fully bio-
degradable.

McAninch theorizes that the hair
may be repugnant to the deer because of
some human scent associated with it,
possibly from hair follicle secretions.
Follow-up chemical analyses of the dif-
ferent types of hair are planned to sub-
stantiate this theory.

What will the deer eat if the hair
balls are too effective, one might ask?
Good question, but McAninch has an an-
swer. The number of hair balls is
"minuscule" compared to the amount of
browse on the arboretum grounds. On
the smooth sumac, for example, one of
the five preferred browse species, the
balls adorn only about one-tenth of one
percent of the available twigs and bran-
ches. "We wouldn't try to extensively
modify the deer food habits," he noted.
—Rose Houk,
National Wildlife Federation. 5

Timeless Images:
Museum^ Photography

By Patricia Williams

F< ield Museum's Department of Photography
was established in 1895 and has been snap-
ping away ever since. In those 84 years a lot of
film has gone past the shutter — enough to produce
a unique and irreplaceable collection of some
300,000 negatives, 1,500 color transparencies,
10,000 lantern slides, and 60,000 glass plates. Ac-
cording to Ron Testa, Museum photographer, one
of the greatest satisfactions of his job is being
"caretaker of that gigantic file of negatives which
we find is becoming more and more important to the
history of photography and to the history of Indians
especially. This collection will stay around for
posterity and people will have access to it hundreds
of years after I'm gone."

The department was originally set up be-
cause, according to the Museum's first annual
report, it was found that the two-year-old museum
needed photographs to illustrate pubUcations and
lectures, "as well as preserving numerous condi-
tions and objects that could in no other way be il-
lustrated in the collections of the museum."

Fulfilling that broad and rather vaguely de-
fined need has resulted in a collection of great diver-
sity. There are photographs taken on expeditions to
exotic places and to America's then barely settled
West; of people from many races and cultures; of an-
thropological, botanical, geological, and zoological
specimens; and scores of shots of exhibits. Lantern
slides and photographs by the noted photographer
of the American West, William Henry Jackson, are
in the collection, as are negatives from Adam Clarke
Vroman, the famous photographer of the South-
west. The history of the Museum itself— from its
original site in Jackson Park through the massive
move to the present building and, most recently,
through the just-completed renovation— is also
preserved on film.

Who uses all these pictures? Lots of people.
Publishers request photos for use in encyclopedias,
books, magazines, and newspapers. Students, scien-
tists, historians, and researchers from all over the
world draw on Field Museum's photography collec-
tion for use in their studies. For example, the In-
stituto Nacional de Pesquisas de Amazonia in
Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, recently placed an order
for one of each of the 55,000 negatives in the
Museum's Botanical Type Photograph Collection.
Fleur Hales, photo technician, is expected to spend

at least four years filling that order in addition to
performing her other duties.

A botanical type specimen is the original
specimen on which the description of the plant and
the Latin name is based. In systematic botanical
work, which primarily concerns the naming and
classification of plants, it is essential that
specimens be correctly identified. This can be done
only by comparison of the plant in question with the
type specimen. Photos greatly facilitate botanists in
their determinations and are almost as good for
study purposes as the original specimen— especially
if only fragments of plant material are available for
corroborative study.

The Museum's Botanical Type Photograph
Collection did not "just happen," but was the result
of a timely plan conceived in 1929 by B. E.
Dahlgren, then acting curator of the Department of
Botany, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, and
put into effect by botanist J. Francis McBride. The
basic idea was to photograph the type material in
European herbaria that was generally unavailable
to botanists who were unable, for one reason or
another, to visit those institutions.

For four-and-a-half years McBride travelled
across Europe, finally producing about 30,000
negatives of type specimens. Since that time the col-
lection has been supplemented until it now numbers.
some 55,000 negatives. Its value to science has also
grown, especially since many of the types photo-
graphed by McBride were destroyed during World
War II and Field Museum's photos are the only
remaining record of them.

Another unique record was compiled when
George A. Dorsey, curator of anthropology, travel-
led to the West and Northwest Coast to enUst In-
dians of various tribes and physical types to come to
the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Charles
Carpenter, the Museum's first fulltime photo-
grapher, photographed all of these Indians in their
native costumes against a painted background. Five
thousand negatives resulted— negatives that are
still in steady demand today.

Ron Testa explains, "Carpenter's negatives

Patricia Williams was formerly managing editor of
scientific publications.

are more authentic than those of many photo-
graphers who travelled around the Southwest bring-
ing their own costumes along." These vagabond
photographers often carried their own props and
would happily outfit an Indian subject with
whatever regaha was handy. In this way a Sioux
might be ornamented with bits and pieces from
various tribes— a headband from the Ute and a
Pawnee pipe, for example. Although the results of
such strategy might have been attractive, they were
not culturally accurate and are not useful to an-
thropologists and historians today.

Much of the Museum's early anthropological
field work was done in the Southwest and anthro-
pologists either took the Museum photographer
along or hired freelance photographers on the scene.
Donna Longo, on an Illinois Arts Council grant,
recently completed a several months' "treasure
hunt" through the Museum's photographs of the
Southwest Indians. Her purpose was to discover
what photographers between 1890 and 1920 were
doing among the Hopi; what their influence was on
Hopi life; what kinds of images of the Hopi they cap-
tured. Most of what Americans knew at that time
about these Indians they learned from photographs;
Longo's objective was to determine just how
accurate these representations were.

This was no easy task, and her conclusions are
now being prepared for a formal report. As she
observed, "You can never presume anything from
any photograph." Documentation is vital to the
value of photographs as sources of information and,
unfortunately, many of the early photographs in the
Museum's anthropology collection are poorly
documented. Some were taken to be used as "ac-
cessories" to monographs and were not seen as im-
portant in themselves; others came from photo-
graphers who made only brief notations, such as
"Sioux man, 1898." Information such as date,
specific place, name of the subject, and the name of
the photographer was simply not recorded.

Longo also drew information from published
sources, notes in Museum archives, and cor-
respondence from photographers and ethno-

Botanist J. Francis
McBride (1891-1976}
spent mort- than four
years photographing
30,000 type specimesf.
in European botamcol
collections. Since
many of these plant
specimens were
destroyed during
World War II,
McBride' s negatives,
now in Field
Museum's photo col-
lection, are in them-
selves an invaluable
scientific resource.

graphers, building a body of information and
documentation about individual photographs that
will make them useful tools in anthropological
research.

Loran Recchia, the Museum's photo resear-
cher, is doing similar work on the many other
materials in the Museum's collection of photo-
graphs. Unfortunately, over the years clerical help
was lacking in the Department of Photography and
only a chronological card file was maintained of the
huge collection. Also, in many instances
photographs were misidentified or shelved in
various departments without any documentation at
aU.

Charles Carpenter
(1859-1949), Field
Museum's first
fulltime photographer,
"shoots" Hopi while
Museum anthro-
pologist George A.
Dorsey (1868-1931)
takes notes. Ca.
1900-01.

Botanist B. E.
Dahlgren
(1877-1961) was
the originator of
Field Museum 's
Botanical Types
Photograph Col-
lection.

Pointing out the fact that the most important
part of the file is retrieval, Testa and Recchia plan to
completely recategorize the photographs in the col-
lection, gathering information and entering it on file
cards in a format suitable for transfer to a com-
puterized system. The photographer also looks
toward conservation of the negatives and glass
plates themselves. Carol Small Kaplan, Museum
photo technician who divides her responsibilities
between the scanning electron microscope labora-
tory and the Department of Photography, is
presently working on the preservation of early
negatives. Some of these negatives weren't washed
and processed properly and, warns Testa, "They
could be deteriorating and we've got to try to pre-

vent that." He continues, "To me it's a sin that
we're even making prints off of some of our glass
plates because they could be broken and lost
forever. ' '

It is Testa's goal to recategorize and document
the collection and to preserve the old negatives and
plates. The importance of this ambitious project is
generally well established today and other museums
with similar problems are also at work conserving
their photographic collections. Testa hopes to ob-
tain funding from a foundation or granting agency
to finance this necessary project.

This is all a long way from the Museum's first
foray into photography in 1895. Then, Charles F.
Millspaugh, curator of botany, added photography
to his other duties and took charge of a three-camera
set-up housed in "one of the rooms in the North
Balcony." When work picked up, as it soon did,
Millspaugh was given an assistant from the
librarian's staff.

The pace continued to accelerate and in Oc-
tober of 1899 Charles Carpenter joined the Museum
staff as full-time photographer. Obviously not a job-
hopper, Carpenter manned the shutter at the
Museum for 48 years, until his retirement in 1947.
In 1921 Herman Abendroth came to the Museum to
work as Carpenter's assistant and, following
Carpenter's retirement, served as head of
Photography until his own retirement in 1950. John
Bayaliss, who joined the Museum staff in 1925,
became Abendroth's assistant in 1948 and head of
Photography in 1950, serving in that capacity until
his retirement in 1975. Today he continues to serve
the Museum as a once-a-week volunteer, dividing
his time between Photography and the Department
of Botany. Following tradition, Ron Testa, who
joined the staff in 1975, should be on hand to docu-
ment the next turn of the century at Field Museum.

Before he came to Field Museum, Testa noted
that among museum photographers nationally there
was a tendency to- pick a spot and stay in it. He ex-
plains: "Someone has to die or retire before you get

John Bayaliss,

head of

Photography from

1950 until his

retirement in

1975, came to the

Museum in 1925.

He is still active

as a Museum

volunteer.

one of these jobs." Why? "Because people stay in it.
It's very stable. They like what they're doing. John
Bayaliss certainly liked what he was doing. I cer-
tainly like what I'm doing. Carpenter probably had a
good time. I like museums and the museum atmos-
phere is very comfortable. It's sort of like a family."

Variety is certainly an outstanding character-
istic of the job. One morning might find Testa snap-
ping away at a group of school children touring a
new exhibit and that afternoon he could be back in
the studio adjusting the lighting for shooting
fossils. He has taken the glamourous photographs
for the "Feather Arts" catalog and late in 1978 he
accompanied a geological field trip to Argentina.
The fact that every Museum department —actually,
every curator— has a different need for photography
is Testa's greatest challenge.

Having taken 5,000 negatives and 500 trans-
parencies since he joined the Museum, Testa has
seen a steady increase in the demand for photo-
graphs. Because most of the Museum's collection is
in black-and-white, many photographs are now
taken in color to satisfy the current requests from
publishers.

As part of the Museum's recent renovation
program and aided by generous gifts from Mrs.
David W. Stewart of Rochester, N. Y., in memory of
her aunt, Hedwig H. Mueller, the Department of
Photography recently moved into new quarters.
Black-and-white develeping is done in the
Museum's new darkroom, but color photographs are
developed for the department by commercial
laboratories. Testa explains that it doesn't work out
economically to develop color in-house yet. "The
color chemicals die quickly. You have to use them
almost every day or you're losing money. We have it
done outside and in the long run it's cheaper."

The department's equipment includes an
11x14 Deardorff vertical; an 8x10 roll-around
Deardorff; a 4 x 5 Sinar with a 90 mm single-angle
lens; a 500 CM Hasselblad with an 80 mm lens; and
a Nikon FM with a 55 mm lens.

^^m

^^^^^^^^^H

^^B

^^/

.^j^^^^^S

W9K^

Field Museum 's
Department of
Photography (left to
right): photo techni-
cians Fleur Hales and
Carol Small Kaplaii,
photographer Ron
Testa, and photo
researcher Loran
Recchia.

It's all— again— a long way from a little
balcony room in 1895, but, as well-known photo-
graphy authority Aaron Sussman has written,
photography can be perfectly described by "that
sage French proverb: The more things change, the
more they are the same. True, techniques have im-
proved; materials and equipment are better, faster,
or easier to use. But the eye and heart of the
photographer are still the same, and the simplest
camera with ordinary film can still make great pic-
tures if the artist sees clearly and presses the button
at the decisive moment." Field Museum has been
fortunate in having a series of photographers who
consistently saw clearly and carefully timed their
button pressing. D

Charles F. Millspaugh
(185&1923), Field
Museum's first cura-
tor of botany, also
established in 1895,
the photography
department.

Of Automobiles
And Meteorites

By Edward Olsen

Down in southern Illinois, 40 miles northeast of St.
Louis, is a little town with an odd name, Benld —
named after the late Ben L. Dorsey, who owned land
in the area. On September 29, 1938, Benld became
the site of a dubious first in the history of the
automobile: A fine old 1928 Pontiac coupe, sitting in
the garage of Mr. Ed McCain, had the honor of
being the first automobile ever hit by a falling
meteorite!

It was just after 9 o'clock in the morning, and
Mrs. McCain was out back of her house pumping
water from the well. Over the clanking sound of the
pump she heard a loud noise and glanced up, think-
ing it was a passing airplane. She'd become quite
used to the comings and goings of planes at the
nearby St. Louis airport. But seeing nothing, she
shrugged it off and continued pumping.

Meanwhile, across the alley, Mrs. Carl Crum
was doing some yard work. Suddenly, she too, heard
a sound which seemed to her like an airplane in a
dive, followed by a sharp, cracking noise. She ran
into the aUey, thinking a small plane had smashed
into the other side of her bam. Nothing appeared
wrong, so she too dismissed it as some sort of fluke
of nature — and indeed it was.

The rest of the day went along in normal
fashion until Ed McCain arrived home from the
local mine where he was employed. It was about
three in the afternoon and he decided to drive into
town to do some errands. Going out to the garage —
an old, unpainted squarish building — he opened the
doors and started to cUmb into the car. Then, to his
astonishment, he discovered in the seat cushion a
large ragged hole. McCain's first thought was that
rats during the night had foraged in the cushion for
nesting material. The old seat was made of mohair
and stuffed with the conventional seat-stuffing
materials of the day: cotton, wool, and burlap.

McCain's neighbor, Carl Crum, was just
across the alley and McCain called him over to com-
miserate with him over the depredations of the rats.
But peering at the hole, Crum expressed the opinion
that rats could not have done such damage. Then,
glancing upward, Crum noticed a hole torn through
the new roof of the car. In cars of this vintage
(before the advent of full metal roofs) the top was
covered with a weatherproof fabric. A new roof had
only been recently put on the ten-year-old car. Next,
the perplexed men could see daylight through a
spUntered hole in the garage roof. The tarpaper roof-
ing was torn and a 4" by 5" hole punched through
10 one-inch-thick pine planks! Instantly they refdized

that whatever had ripped the hole in the garage roof,
the car roof and the seat must still be there. Wheel-
ing the car out of the garage and puUing out the
seat, they found that beneath the seat the car's
thick wooden floor bo£u-ds were also smashed, and
beneath these they could see a large dent in the top
of the muffler, positioned directly beneath the hole
in the floor.

Digging into the seat they found a blocky-
shaped rock about the size of a Softball. But the rock
was so entangled in the coil springs of the seat they
had to get a wirecutter to free it. Somehow they
knew it just had to be a meteorite. The rock was
taken to town and shown off in various business
establishments; it was measured and weighed out at
just about four pounds.

Apparently this stone meteorite had smashed
first through the roof of the garage, then the roof of
the car, then through the entire thickness of the
upholstered seat where it became entangled in the
coU springs. It then went on to punch a hole through
the wooden floor boards and smash into the muffler
beneath. The springs at this state, still tangled
around the meteorite, jerked it back upward into the
body of the seat, where it finally came to rest. It
must have really been moving! Ed McCain was
sobered by the thought of what would have hap-
pened had he been sitting in the car warming up the
engine when it hit. He would never have known
what hit him!

This was indeed a first in automotive history.
Earlier, in the mid-1930s, there was a story of a car
being similarly struck, somewhere in northern In-
diana, but this turned out to be a false report.

As a matter of fact, incoming meteorites seem
to favor targets that have to do with automobiles.
In San Juan Capistrano, California (better known
for the regular return of its swallows), on March 15,
1973, sometime between midnight and four a.m., a
small stone meteorite smashed through the
aluminum roof of a carport attached to a mobile
home. This time there was no car parked inside, and
the event went unnoticed until many hours later
when the hole was seen in the carport roof and a
walnut-size meteorite was found on the ground.
About a month later a smaller piece of the same
meteorite was found in a raingutter along the side of
the carp>ort roof.

On October 27 of the same year, another stone
meteorite broke through the roof of a newly built
garage in a residential neighborhood in Canon City,
Colorado. No one knew exactly when it fell, though
it had to have been between 5:45 and 11:30 p.m.
Again, no car was parked inside. This meteorite was
especially interesting to scientists because the
garage, being new, and the floor, with newly poured
concrete, was free of oil spots, dirt, and other con-
taminants. This meant that studies of trace
chemicals, found in the meteorite in minute
amounts, could be analyzed without concern for con-
tamination — a problem that does prevail with most
meteorites that fall into soil.

On January 31, 1977, at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Edward Olsen is curator of mineralogy.

four stone meteorites crashed into Louisville, Ken-
tucky. Three of the pieces hit buildings, and one
struck a parked automobile. The four pieces pro-
bably entered the upper atmosphere of the earth as
a single object. When slowed down by the earth's
atmosphere it often happens that stone meteorites
are fractured into pieces that then fall together. In
some spectacular cases a large stone meteorite can
end up in hundreds of pieces of all sizes that rain
down like buckshot.

Every year hundreds of millions of
meteorites, most of them small bean-sized objects,
enter Earth's upper atmosphere travelling at speeds
up to 100,000 miles an hour. The vast majority of
them burn away to fine dust. Only about 500 of
tangible size survive to make it through to the sur-
face. Seventy percent of these, of course, fall into
the ocean, because that much of the earth is covered
with oceans. This leaves only about 150 that could
ever be recovered on land. Most of these fall in
uninhabited places, forests, prairies, jungles, and
mountains, and are never recovered. Those that fall
on farmland have a chance of being recovered if
farmers notice them during planting or harvesting
operations. Indeed, most of the new meteorites that
are reported each year are found by farmers and
ranchers.

It's rather amazing that so few meteorites
have landed in populated places and have done so
little damage. From 1790 to 1954 only twenty-seven
cases can be documented of meteorites striking
buildings, and major cities have only rarely been
struck. In more recent times, besides the one that
landed in Louisville, in 1967 a small stone meteorite
went through the roof of a warehouse in the north-
eastern outskirts of Denver. The exact time of its
fall is not known because the first clue that
anything was wrong came when it rained and some -
one saw that water was dripping through a hole
in the warehouse roof.

Animals, as well as people, are smaller targets
than buildings, so it isn't quite as odd that injuries
and deaths, or even near misses, are rare. Only two
cases of animals being hit are known.

At 12:45 in the afternoon of May, 1860, over
south-central Ohio, the sky shook with explosive
blasts. A very large meteorite was roaring in over
the state in a northerly direction and was also heard
over several adjacent states. It had broken into
about 30 pieces that fell over an area of some 30
square miles, near the town of New Concord.

Nathaneal Hines was plowing his field at the
time, when a piece, weighing 40-50 pounds, skim-

(Continued on p. 26)

The late
Henry W.
Nichols,
former
curator of
geology,
views the
Ben Id

meteorite ex-
hibit with
visitor short-
ly after its
installation in
Hall 34 in
1939

The Legacy of
Malvina Hoffman

Malvina Hoff-
man with
Stanley Field
in the garden
of Hoffman 's
Paris studio,
ca. 1932. Field
(1875-1964)
was president
of Field
Museum from
1908 to 1964.

On February 21, 1930, a handwritten note came to
the registrar of Field Museum from the president of
the Museum: "Please open a new a/c [account] on
the books 'Hall of Physical Anthropology' & put
Mr. Marshall Field's check to the credit. of that a/c
[signed] S. Field." That same month, a telegram to
Malvina Hoffman, the New York sculptor, "Have
proposition to make, do you care to consider it?
Racial types to be modelled while traveling around
the world," brought Miss Hoffman to Chicago and a
meeting with Stanley Field and Field Museum's
Board of Trustees.

The relationship established at this meeting
lasted for many years and produced "The Races of
Man," one of Field Museum's most famous exhibits,
and Hoffman's most monumental work, 104
bronzes, revealing, as Hoffman wrote, "man to his
brother."

The original plan of the project was worked
out at the Museum. Hoffman wrote of the Board of
the Museum, "a very alert and courageous group of
men. To keep abreast of the times, they decided,
after investigating the reasons why the anthropol-
ogy halls in all countries were generally empty and
the snake and monkey houses always crowded, to
step out of the tradition and take a long chance.
They felt that 'The Races of Man' should look alive,
and be actual figures that anyone could recognize

and feel to be authentic ... so they decided to try
sculpture. ..."

Though the conception of the plan belonged to
the Museum, the work was Hoffman's, and the final
product bore the stamp not only of her artistic skill,
but of her strong beliefs. The Museum had planned
to hire four or five artists to go to various parts of
the world. Hoffman pointed out that such an ar-
rangement could not produce a consistent, balanced
hall. She also pointed out the potential battles in-
volved in four or five artistic temperaments. She
won her point. She was commissioned alone to do
the job.

Again, the original plan called for plaster
figures. Hoffman felt strongly about this point: "I
signed up for painted plaster, real hair and glass
eyes, knowing absolutely that within six months
this part of the contract would be changed without a
struggle." She had two of the figures cast in bronze
at her own expense in Paris and when Stanley Field
saw them at her studio, that part of the contract
was changed.

She spent the next several years traveling the
world for the Museum, sketching and sculpting, and
slowly assembling the exhibit. Hoffman had con-
siderable skill in persuading normally shy people to
pose for her. She was undaunted by primitive condi-
tions, and overcame inevitable difficulties with

great courage.

Only 80 percent completed, the Hall of Man
opened on June 6, 1933, at the time of the opening of
the International World's Fair in Chicago called the
Century of Progress. More than 2,000,000 people
visited the Hall in its first year, and countless
millions more until 1967, when it was superseded, in
Hall 3, by the Anniversary Exhibit, still to be
seen there.

Many of the sculptures in the "Races of Man"
series have continued in the ensuing years to be on
view on the Museum's three exhibit floors; and now,
six more full figures, a half-figure, and ten busts
have been withdrawn from storage and added to

those already on view. All splendid pieces are to be
seen on the ground floor. The busts, in two groups,
flank the west entrance; five of the full figures:
Hawaiian Surfer, Kashmiri Man, Caucasoid Man,
Spear-thrower— Aborigine, Solomon Islander— Tree-
climber, and the half-figure, Afghan Man, may be
seen in the hallways peripheral to James Simpson
Theatre; the sixth full figure. Jinrickshaw Man, is
located just north of the entrance to the central
passenger elevator.

The "Races of Man" series, unique in the
annals of both sculpture and anthropology, are a
remarkable testament to the genius of Malvina
Hoffman, who died in 1966 at the age of 81.

Hoffman 's
Paris studio,
with assist-
ants Jean
Limet (left)
and his
father. Ca.
1932.

The Art of Malvina Hoffman

Additional Pieces Now on View on Ground Roor

Caucasoid Man

Kashmiri Man

Hawaiian Surfer

Near Bolivia's
Lake Titicaca lie
the ruins of the
prehistoric city
of Tiahuanaco.
Dominating it is
this massive,
stone-faced plat-
form mound,
Akapana, 656
feet on a side
and nearly 50
]( feet high.

Archaeology
At the Top
Of the World

By Alan L. Kolata

In the year 1549, while travelling around the shores
of Lake Titicaca in the high Andes of present-day
Bolivia, the Spanish soldier and chronicler Pedro
Cieza de Le6n came upon the remnants of a great
city whose stones even then were worn with age and
tumbled into ruins. In recording his impressions of
this encounter, Cieza provided the first written
account of the ancient archaeological site of
Tiahuanaco (or Tiwanaku as it is now called in
Bolivia). He noted that Tiahuanaco was "famous for
its great buildings which, without question, are a
remarkable thing to behold," and described one of
them as a man-made hill built upon massive stone
foundations. Cieza was even more impressed by the
enormous stone idols carved in human form which
were set within the monumental structures of this
mysterious ruined city. He wrote that these
sculptures of stone were so large, "they seem small
giants," and so beautifully carved, "they seem the
work of great artists or masters."

Ever since Cieza's initial account, Tiahuanaco
has exercised an extraordinary hold over the im-
agination of scholars and the general public alike.
The city and its monuments have been the subject
of numerous descriptive studies, as well as
speculative interpretations that purport to decipher
the meanings encoded in its stone sculptures. For in-
stance, the famous "Gateway of the Sun," a stun-
ning ceremonial portal carved from a single andesite
block, has inspired a host of ingenious, but incredi-
ble, interpretations. Common to fanciful reconstruc-
tions of the gateway's symbolic content is the belief
that this monument records events from a profound-
ly distant past. One such interpretation makes the
astonishing claim that the Gateway of the Sun is an
astronomical document in stone that records the
ecUpses, equinoxes, solstices, and peculiar cosmic
geometry of a "pre-lunar" world of unfathomable
antiquity, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years
old. Another not only ascribes to Tiahuanaco (and
the gateway) a similarly fantastic "geological date,"
but also attributes the city's immense cut-stone ar-
chitecture and sculpture to some creative, laser-
wielding extraterrestrials!

Carved stone head tenoned into the west wall of the
semisubterranean temple at Tiahuanaco.

Alan L. Kolata is a Field Museum research
associate.

*??>^'*^'

Map of part of
the ruins of
Tiahuanaco
published by the
great late 19th-
century explorer
of the Andes,
Ephraim George
Squier. After
18 Squier, 1877.

Perhaps more than any other archaeological
site in native America, Tiahuanaco has suffered
from this kind of latter-day mythologizing and
flights of speculative fancy. Part of the reason for
this can be attributed to the unique environmental
location of the city. The ruins of Tiahuanaco are
situated near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca in
an overpowering landscape of high steppe (or
altiplano) and rugged, snow-shrouded mountains.
The long, relatively narrow valley in which this an-
cient urban center evolved is set at an altitude of
3,850 meters, or some 12,600 feet. This extreme
elevation gives Tiahuanaco the distinction of being
the highest urban settlement of the ancient world
and, together with the surrounding mountain peaks
— some of the tallest in the Andean chain — imparts
to the city an exceptional aura. The panoramic wind-
swept vistas opening out from the site towards the
lake and the mountains make it clear that the
dramatic setting of the city has contributed greatly
to the myths, legends, and fantasies that have been
built up around Tiahuanaco through the centuries.

However, the single most important factor
that has encouraged speculation grounded in fancy
instead of fact is the relatively small amount of
scientific research that has been conducted at- the
site. Apart from some sporadic instances of con-
trolled archaeological excavation carried out in the
first half of this century, it was not until the late
1950s that a continuing program of systematic
research was initiated by Bolivia's Instituto
Nacional de Arqueologia (inar). This research has
established that Tiahuanaco was the focus of a long

and complex history of human occupation between
about 1500 B.C. and a.d. 1200, and has outlived five
major phases of habitation spanning the period be-
tween 250 B.C. and A.D. 1000. inar archaeologists
are continuing to probe Tiahuanaco's complicated
past, gradually isolating the city's many architec-
tural and cultural components.

Although inar investigators have unearthed
cultural remains such as ceramics at Tiahuanaco
that date back as far as 1500 B.C., the city was most
densely occupied and exerted its greatest influence
in the Andean world during the period of about A.D.
500-1000. Because of a widespread supplanting of
other regional art styles by the distinctive style of
Tiahuanaco during this time, most archaeologists
believe that this "influence" took the form of a pan-
Andean empire. If this is correct, Tiahuanaco at one
time was the capital of an imperial realm that incor-
porated into its domain the vast mountain ter-
ritories of Peru, Bohvia, and Argentina, as well as
the arid lands strung along the Pacific coasts of
Chile and Peru.

More recently, Andeanists have recognized
that the inhabitants of a second archaeological site,
the urban settlement of Huari near the modern town
of Ayacucho in the highlands of southern Peru,
adopted many of the symbols and stylistic conven-
tions of Tiahuanaco art in the sixth century. From
the sixth to the ninth century, Huari was instrumen-
tal in spreading its interpretation of the Tiahuanaco
style, and presumably the religious doctrines and
social beliefs embodied in this style, throughout the
highland and coast of Peru.

lir.rKUKNOKS. — A. Hollow pquave, level
with surface of the plain.— B, Terrace, S
I'eet hii^her than A.— C, Koctangle, part-
ly defined hy roiijjh npri^'ht stones. — D.

Aj)ron of preat mound E. Great mound,

called theFortres.* — vi. Great monolithic

ijate-way e, <*, e. Excavations.—//, h, h.

TTeapa of earth from excavations.—/, /.
^fassive stones partly worked.

-.- Si '"f 'Sri

Remarkably well preserved textile
fragment unearthed at the Necropolis
of Ancon, an ancient archaeological
site near Lima, on Peru's central
coast The figures in the design are
virtually identical to ones carved in
stone on the Gateway of the Sun at
Tiahuanaco. This textile is a splendid
example of provincial Tiahuanaco art.
After Stubel and Uhle, 1892.

Portal to Catholic Church in village of
Tiwanaku, shown in 1876. Many
stones in the church's structure were
taken from the nearby archaeological
site. The two statues flanking the por-
tal continue to guard it today. After
Stubel and Uhle, 1892.

Above: The Gateway of the Sun, restored and placed on
foundations in 1908. After Posnansky, 1945.

Left: Detail of the central figure carved on the Gateway
of the Sun. Figure may have been an emblem of Tiu-
huanaco's ruling elite. After Stiibel and Uhle, 1892.

Below: Detail from the Gateway of the Sun. One of the
elaborately attired, winged attendants that face the
central figure shown in left photo. After Stiibel and
Uhle, 1892.

The precise nature of the relationship between
Huari and Tiahuanaco remains obscure. But it is
likely that neither city held hegemony over the
other, and that Huari and Tiahuanaco functioned as
autonomous "dual capitals" of the imperial realm,
controlling the northern and southern regions of the
empire respectively. This type of political arrange-
ment is not without precedent in the history of
empires: the east-west division of the late Roman
Empire with capitals at Constantinople and Rome is
a classic example.

We do know that the empire of Tiahuanaco
had a lasting cultural impact in the ancient Andean
world. Spanish chronicles relate that the Inca, some
500 years after the disintegration of the empire,
looked to imperial Tiahuanaco as their cultural pro-
genitor. Several chroniclers note that the Inca
believed their origins to lie in the region of Lake
Titicaca, and that the Inca kings, in particular,
claimed descent from a "great creator" who hved at
Tiahuanaco. By tracing royal descent from the
ancient inhabitants of Tiahuanaco, the Inca mon-
archs were claiming their inalienable right to forge
and rule their own imperial realm.

The monumental scale and considerable
elaboration of the architecture at Tiahuanaco befits
its status as an imperial capital. The city is
dominated by two massive, stone-faced platform
mounds: Akapana, the largest structure at
Tiahuanaco, measuring some 200 m (656 feet) on a
side and over 15 m (49 feet) high, and Pumapunku, a
smaller terraced mound (150 m, or 492 feet, on a side
and about 5 m, or 16 feet, high) built of the finest
andesite and sandstone block masonry to be found
in the city. Recently INAR opened a 20-meter

These huge
megalithic andesite
and sandstone
blocks once formed
the entrance to
Pumapunku. Over
the centuries,
looters in search of
treasure have
mined underneath
the blocks, causing
their collapse.
Some, weighing
over 100 tons, were
quarried more than
six miles away.

Michael Moseley. copyright National Geographic Society

Detail of the
"Ponce Monolith. "
This colossal
carved stone statue
was discovered by
archaeologists with
Bolivia's Instituto
Nacional de
Arqueologia just in-
side the entrance to
Kalasasaya, the
principal temple at
Tiahuanaco. 21

Arthur
Posnansky,
engineer turned
archaeologist,
shown in 1903
while exploring
the ruins of
Tiahuanaco. He
poses with El
Fraile ("The
Friar"), one of
the great mono-
lithic effigies ifft^
found in the "^~
Kalasasaya.
After Posnan-
sky, 1945.

(66-foot) wide excavation on the east side of
Akapana revealing that the exterior of the mound is
terraced, consisting of three mammoth stone-faced
retaining walls set above and behind each other in
step-wise fashion. Cieza's description of a man-made
hill built upon massive stone foundations is surely a
reference to this imposing feature of the Akapana.

Other important structures at Tiahuanaco
include the semisubterranean temple and
Kalasasaya, a large rectangular precinct whose
walls were built of towering rough-cut sandstone
pillars alternating with sections of smaller, rec-
tangular blocks of high quality masonry. Both of
these structures are adjacent to the north face of
Akapana.

Cieza's view of the architecture at Tiahuanaco
430 years ago was without doubt more complete
than ours today. Since the Spanish conquest,
innumerable stones of the city have been torn from
their original context and reused in the construction
of churches, private houses, and the roadbed of the
railroad that runs through the site to the village of
Huaqui on Lake Titicaca. Yet, despite the devasta-
tion wrought by looters over the centuries, enough
architecture remains intact to enable us to identify
structures that fulfilled various religious, admini-
strative, and residential functions. For example,
abutting Kalasasaya is a building complex con-
structed of superbly cut hardstone ashlars (square
building stones) that has been interpreted as a
palace compound— a residence of the elite who ruled
from Tiahuanaco.

Set within the ritual and administrative struc-
tures of the city— the palaces, temples, and pyra-
midal mounds— were some of the finest stone sculp-
tures of ancient America. Perhaps the most famous
of these are the megalithic ceremonial gateways
that provided access to the sacred precincts of the
city. Pumapunku, Akapana, and Kalasasaya were
all furnished with impressive stone portals embel-
Ushed with friezes carved in low relief. The largest
and iconographically most complex portal, the
Gateway of the Sun, was erected in the northwest
corner of Kalasasaya. The frieze on this gateway
depicts a central figure dressed in an elaborate tunic
standing on a triple-terraced platform mound and
holding two scepters that end in condor heads.
Flanking this figure and facing him are arrayed six
rows of elegantly sculptured winged attendants who
each carry the condor-scepter.

The central figure of the frieze may portray
the paramount deity of Tiahuanaco 's pantheon. An
important, elaborately costumed deity holding two
scepters or staffs first appeared in Peru during the
Chavin horizon (ca. 1200-300 B.C.). During
Tiahuanaco's imperium, this "staff g9d," as it
appears carved on the Gateway of the Sun, was in-
troduced throughout the Andean world, clearly
reflecting the expansion of the empire's political
power and ideological prestige. In this regard, it is
possible that the central figure of the gateway was
intended to be an emblem of Tiahuanaco's ruling
elite, or perhaps even the portrait of a god-king. The
specific identity and meaning of the gateway figure
remains lost in antiquity.

Other sculptures, carved in the form of free-
standing monoliths ranging from 1.5 to 7.6 m (5 to
25 feet) in height, were erected at Tiahuanaco. Some

of these monoliths remain in situ in Kalasasaya and
the semisubterranean temple. These colossal monu-
ments, portraying human figures wearing costumes
like that of the gateway figure and holding scepters,
goblets, and other ritual equipment, were the
primary cult effigies of Tiahuanaco and an impor-
tant focus of its active religious and civic life.

Stone stelae and plaques incorporated in the
walls of royal residences and religious structures
were employed as ornaments and as objects of ritual
display. Some of these wall plaques were heraldic
devices featuring powerful opposed animal figures
such as stylized pumas, condors, or mythical com-
posite beasts. Stone tenon heads depicting
naturalistic human faces, skulls, and gargoyles were
another form of architectural ornament.

The entire range of figurative representations
in the monumental art of the imperial capital
appears in smaller-scale, portable objects that were
produced and exchanged throughout Tiahuanaco's
imperial realm. Human figures holding scepters and
other ritual paraphernalia, winged attendants,
highly stylized pumas, condors, and griffins were all
directly transposed into a variety of media: precious
metals fashioned into royal crowns, jewelry, pec-
torals, and emblematic plaques; vivid textiles used
as tapestries, mantles, and costumes; fine-grained
wood and stone carved into portrait heads, bowls,
beakers, and weapons; exquisitely modeled,
polished and finely painted ceramics executed in a
bewildering array of forms and sizes. These portable
masterpieces of Tiahuanaco art, in reproducing with
perfect fidelity the fundamental iconographic
themes carved in the monumental sculptures of the
capital, visually communicated the unifying power
of this Andean empire.

During the summer of 1978, Field Museum,
with the financial support of the Tiwanaku Archae-
ological Foundation (a private organization
established for the purpose of furthering research
and development of BoUvia's cultural resources,
particularly in the archaeological zone of
Tiahuanaco), initiated a preliminary research pro-
gram designed to complement the ongoing efforts of
INAR at Tiahuanaco and its environs. Our research
was intended to aid Bolivian investigators in
locating areas of the city that would be likely to
yield important cultural remains upon excavation.

Large and exceptionally complex ancient
settlements such as Tiahuanaco cannot be complete-
ly excavated. They are explored by means of sample
excavations that uncover only a small percentage of
the prehistoric remains. By employing sophisti-
cated techniques of geophysical prospecting, we
have been able to increase the efficiency of excava-
tion strategies at Tiahuanaco through foreknow-
ledge of what is likely to be encountered in specific
areas of the settlement. (For another archaeological
application of these techniques by Field Museum
investigators see "Archaeology in the Electronics
Age," July/August 1978 Bulletin.)

At Tiahuanaco we used two prospecting
devices provided by Soiltest, Inc. of Evanston, 111.: a
portable seismograph and a proton magnetometer.
The seismograph measures the velocity at which a
shock wave travels through the earth; the
magnetometer measures the local magnetic field of
the earth. Both seismic velocity and intensity of the 23

Ridged or
drained fields
near Lake
Titicaca 's
southern shore.
These agricul-
tural fields may
have been a ma-
jor component in
Tiahuanaco's
sustaining
economic
system. They
will be one focus
of future at-
tempts to
reconstruct the
city's economic
life.

local magnetic field are dependent upon the types of
subsurface materials that are present in the area
being explored. For instance, the characteristic
seismic velocity and magnetic field of loose soil are
generally very different from that of hard, dense
stone. Since much of the monumental architecture
and sculpture at Tiahuanaco was made of stone,
these instruments used in tandem made it possible
for us to readily detect, map, and calculate the depth
to subsurface "anomalies" that represent signifi-
cant archaeological features.

For example, a 10-square-meter section of the
southeast corner of Akapana's summit registered
some intense magnetic anomaly readings. A seismic
transect of this section indicated that the anomaly
had a high velocity characteristic of hard stone, and
was located at a depth of approximately one meter.
A subsequent test pit in the area uncovered the rem-
nants of a subterranean, stone-lined drainage
system. We recorded a number of other intense
anomaly readings in the area between the Akapana
and Kalasasaya, and on the summit of Pumapunku.
When INAR opens excavations in these areas, it is
likely that some previously undetected, major
archaeological features such as large architectural
blocks or perhaps even new stone sculptures will be
brought to light.

In the future, we intend to expand our
research program at Tiahuanaco to include an

analysis of the city's sustaining economic system.
Archaeologists have often interpreted Tiahuanaco
simply as a ceremonial center: the focus of periodic
pilgrimages from throughout the southern Andes,
but lacking a substantial resident population. This
interpretation of Tiahuanaco resulted from con-
sidering only the impressive monumental architec-
ture: Akapana, Pumapunku, and Kalasasaya. How-
ever, recent work has shown that the total occupa-
tion area of the settlement, including both public
and residential architecture, exceeds four square
kilometers, implying a much larger permanent
population than had been suspected.

To feed this population, Tiahuanaco must
have maintained an extensive agricultural system.
Immense tratts of now abandoned agricultural
fields survive around Lake Titicaca's southern
shore. These fields consist of artificially constructed
platforms or ridges that were designed to drain
planting surfaces in order to permit cultivation. It is
possible that these "drained fields" were con-
structed very early in the history of Tiahuanaco
and, as the state expanded its imperial realm,
became vast agricultural estates, chiefly responsible
for supporting its growing urban population. We
will be testing this and similar propositions, as we
try to reconstruct the economic foundations of this
spectacular city that evolved high in the mountains
of BoHvia, at the top of the Andean world.

Edward E. Ayer Film Lecture Series

Mid-October through Mid-November

James Simpson Theatre
Saturdays, 2:30 p.m.

The entrance to Simpson Theatre is conveniently located just inside
the Museum's west entrance. This is of special interest to the handi-
capped, for the west entrance is at ground level and all steps between
curbside and theatre have been eliminated. The west entrance also
provides free admission to the theatre. Access to other Museum areas,
however, requires the regular admission fee (except on Fridays) or

Venice canal, from Phil Walker's "Northern /fa/y and Rome, "showing Oct. 27.

OCTOBER 20

"Sri Lanka" Presented by Ralph Gerstle

Gerstle's camera captures the variety of Sri Lanka— lush
scenery, exotic wildlife, and tea plantations in airy mountain
settings. The ancient capital cities boast towering Buddhas
carved into vertical granite cliffs. Giant reservoirs built by the
ancient Ceylonese are engineering marvels still in use today.
Work elephants haul massive loads with great skill— the bull-
dozers of contemporary Sri Lanka. A film that transports the
viewer to a land as beautiful as the precious gems found there.

OCTOBER 27

"Northern Ital\; and Rome" Presented by Phil Walker

Lecturer Philip Walker has subtitled his film "The Italy of
Leonardo da Vinci." A pictorial essay on the life and work of
this incomparable, genius, the film show da Vinci's birthplace,
his masterpieces in oil and marble, and models of his futuristic
inventions. Cross references are made to the works of Michel-
angelo, Botticelli, and Raphael. Views of the Roman Forum,
the Coliseum, the Grand Canal, and the Bridge of Sighs are
woven together with scenes of flea markets and vineyards to
create a living tapestry of Leonardo's homeland.

membership identification . Plan to have dinner in the Museum's din-
ing area before attending the lectures.

The illustrated lectures are approximately 90 minutes long and
recommended for adults. Reserved seating is available, until 2:25, for
members and their families. Door open at 1:45 p.m.

NOVEMBER 3

"Denmark and Greenland" Presented by Arthur Wilson

Wilson takes us first to Denmark, where we visit Copenhagen,
the beauty of Tivoli Gardens, and the charm of South Jutland.
From there we journey to the vast expanses of Greenland. We
view the contrasts of mountains of ice crashing into the sea and
the delicacy of arctic flowers and spectacular scenery. Scenes
include wild caribou, grazing sheep, and shrimp factories.

NOVEMBER 10

"Mark Twain in Switzerland" Presented by Dick Reddy

In 1878 Mark Twain set sail for Switzerland to experience first-
hand its frozen beauty and magnificent mountains. Filmmaker
Dick Reddy retraces Twain's route — over the Brunig Pass, up
the jutting Matterhorn, and to the dungeons of the Castle of
Chillon.

Danish chimneysweep, from Arthur Wilson's "Denmark and Greenland,"
showing Nov. 3.

Con't from p. 11

med past him, missed his plowhorse's head by a few
feet, and plopped to earth only 500 feet away. Not
much further off it was reported that a colt was
actually struck and killed.

And, on June 28, 1911, near the village of
Nakhla, Egypt (about 24 miles east of Alexandria),
the morning sky was similarly shaken as 40 pieces
of stone meteorite pelted the ground, one kilUng a
dog.

When human habitations have been struck
there is of course a possibihty of injury or death to a
person if the meteorite is large enough. In Hamlet,
Indiana, in 1959, a stone meteorite narrowly missed
going through the roof of the house of the Hall
family. Instead, it merely clipped off the raingutter.
In Wethersfield, Connecticut, in 1971, a small stone
meteorite actually went through the roof of the Paul
Cassarino home. The meteorite must not have been
going very fast because it only went through the
roof and didn't have enough force left to pierce the
ceiling below. It was discovered in the attic.

The most famous case in meteorite lore of a
narrow escape by a person occurred at 1 p.m. on
November 30, 1954, just northwest of the small
town of Sylacauga, Alabama. Mrs. E. Hulitt
Hodges had just finished lunch and settled herself
down to take a short nap. She was soon jolted
awake, however, and leaped out of bed as she heard
a violent crash. Thinking the gas heater in the room
had exploded she looked around and saw a "rock"
lying on the floor. Then she felt a deep pain in her
left arm and hip. The rock was a 12-pound stone
meteorite that had smashed through the 3/4 "thick
wooden roof, grazed the rafter, punched through the
3/4" ceiling boards, hit a radio in the room below.

glanced off and ended its flight by smacking Mrs.
Hodges along her left side through the thickness of
two quilts! She was hospitalized briefly, mostly to
recover from the shock. Mrs. Hodges was lucky to
come off with only bruises.

At the present time, with the known influx of
meteorites, and the world population at its current
level, the chances are that one person could be hit by
an incoming meteorite about ever 4,500 years! Of
course, as the population increases, and larger por-
tions of the land become covered by towns and
cities, the chance becomes greater and greater. Even
at that, death or injury by a falUng meteorite will
probably never be considered a major hazard to life.

Some large objects, asteroids with dimensions
measured in thousands of feet, up to a mile or more,
pass the earth very closely. For example, in 1937 the
asteroid Hermes passed the earth at a distance of a
mere 465,000 miles. In terms of space, this was a
close call. Hermes and related bodies are in orbits
that cross the earth's orbit. In time, there is a
chance such a body could actually hit the earth. We
know that large meteorites have stuck earth before
because we can still see some of the craters, of huge
sizes, that they created. One such impact, centering
on a major metropolitan area, could constitute the
greatest natural disaster on record, rivaling the
largest earthquake catastrophes of history.

As time goes on, more automobiles will pro-
bably be struck by incoming meteorites, but that
soUd old 1928 Pontiac will hold the honor — such as
it is — of surviving the first such blow. It could still
be driven away under its own power. They really
built cars in those days! We can wonder what would
happen if a present-day model were ever hit. D

The "Morito" meteorite, shown in Chihuahua School of Mines, Mexico, about 1900.

October & November at Field Museum

(October 15 through November 15)

New Exhibit

"The Place for Wonder." Find out about the new feature in "The
People Center": "touchable" items from the People's Republic
of China. You can try on a bamboo backpack, ceremonial
costumes, or contemporary jewelry. Other touchable items in-
clude musical instruments, incense burners, and puppets used
in religious festivities. All of this and more is available in the
Place for Wonder, the ground floor gallery where children and
adults alike may handle what they see. The exhibits include ex-
amples from the Museum's four disciplines: geology, botany,
zoology, and anthropology. The exhibit is also equipped with
text in braille. Weekdays 1:00-3:00 p.m.; weekends 10:00 a.m.
to'noon and 1:00-3:00 p.m.

Continuing Exhibits

"Art Lacquer of Japan." The Museum's newest permanent ex-
hibit features more than 400 objects of exquisite lacquer art
from 18th- and 19th-century Japan. The objects on display in-
clude finely carved and decorated inro (small sectional lacquer
cases used to carry medicine), ojime beads, and netsuke
(miniature carved pendants hung from silk cords). These ob-
jects were worn by Japanese men as symbols of wealth and sta-
tus. Hall 32, second floor.

"Hall of Chinese Jades." The Hall of Chinese Jades contains
examples of beautiful jade art spanning over 6,000 years of
Chinese history. An exhibit in the center of the hall illustrates
ancient jade-carving techniques. Hall 30, second floor.

New Programs

Learning Museum Program. During October, Field Museum is
inaugurating a three-year sequence of learning opportunities
centered around the Museum's outstanding exhibits and collec-
tions. All the units of study will consist of special events, lec-
tures, and seminars. The entire Learning Museum Program is
being funded by the Mational Endowment for the Humanities.
The first course, "China: A Deeper Look," is an in-depth ex-
amination of this multi-faceted culture. Explore the historic
origins of Chinese civilization and its development through the
ages. Phone 922-9410, ext. 395, for more information.

"Aspects of Peking Opera." Performed by Hu Hung-yen, the
only professional actress of Peking Opera living in the United
States. Accompanied by two musicians wearing elaborate
costumes, she performs traditional opera selections. This pro-
gram is one of the special events of the Learning Museum Pro-
gram. Friday, Oct. 19, at 8:00 p.m. James Simpson Theatre,
West Entrance. Members $3.00; nonmembers, $5.00.

Kroc Environmental Lecture. "A New Look at Nature." Filmed
by Oxford Scientific Films and presented in person by Dr. John
Paling. New sequences show how nature and man can affect the
ways of birds, bees, mice, and the freshwater creatures of
Australia. Paling will give a behind-the-scenes account of how
he and his award-winning colleagues made this 90-minute film.
Friday, Nov. 9, at 8:00 p.m. A Members' dinner will precede the
film at 6:30 p.m.

9«

Dr. John Paling, shown with orphaned squirrel, presents Kroc Environ-
mental Lecture Nouember 9.

Weekend Discovery Programs. (Fall 1979 series) Free guided
tours, demonstrations, and participatory events. Check week-
end sheet available at North Information Booth for additional
programs and locations.

"Kalvak. " Half-hour film about a Canadian Eskimo who has
painted and sketched since the late 1950s. The film explores
what happens when a majority culture with its own ideas and
economics of art impinges on a minority of a very different
tradition. Saturday, Oct. 20, at 1:00 p.m.

"Ancient Art of Spinning." Demonstrations and talk on
history and development of spinning in several cultures. Sun-
day, Oct. 21, 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.

(Continued on back cover) 27

October & November at Field Museum

(Continued from inside back cover)

Weekend Discovery Programs

"Ancient Egypt." 45-minute tour explores the traditions of
ancient Egypt, from everyday life to myths and mummies. Meet
at North Information Booth. Saturday, Oct. 27, at 11:30 a.m.

"The Hands of Maria." A film showing how Maria Martinez
and her husband began to revive and extend the pueblo pottery
traditions of San lldefonso. New Mexico. Watch Maria shape a
dish, her son paint it, and Maria fire it in an old-fashioned open
kiln. Saturday, Oct. 27, at 1:00 p.m.

"The Legend of the Magic Knives." A twenty-minute film.
The KwakiutI Indians of British Columbia extolled family
prestige and tradition. Watch as artist Tony Hunt enshrines a
carver's story in a cedar log while the legend is dramatized by
masks made by Hunt and his predecessors. Saturday, Oct. 27,
at 1:10 p.m.

"China Through the Ages." Rare turn-of-the-century lantern
slides are featured in this look at traditional China. Saturday,
Oct. 27, at 1:30 p.m.

"Culture and History of Ancient Egypt." Orientation film
precedes 45-minute tour of ancient Egyptian artifacts; tour con-
cludes with description of mummification process. Sunday,
Oct. 28, at 12:30 p.m.

"The Inside Story: Some Adaptations of the Bones and
Teeth of Mammals." Looks at changes in teeth and bones that
characterize the variation in today's mammals from runners to
swimmers to flyers: and from grass-eaters to meat-eaters. Sun-
day, Oct. 28, at 1:30 p.m.

"Early Man." Half-hour tour traces major trends in the
physical and cultural evolution of man. Saturday, Nov. 3, 1 1:30
a.m.

"Yesterday's Pots Today. " One-hour demonstration of basic
pottery-making techniques from many cultures. Saturday, Nov.
3, 1 1:00 a.m. to 12 noon.

"Clay Dinosaurs." Make a clay dinosaur to take home while
learning about dinosaurs and their habitats. Sunday, Nov. 4,
11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

"What Ecologists Do." (15-minute film) Ecologists are sci-
entists who study problems related to how living things act or
depend upon one another. Saturday, Nov. 10, 1:00 p.m.

"Ecological Systems .... Antarctica." (13-minute film)
Basic features of our coldest continent show an ecologically un-
disturbed setting. Saturday, Nov. 10, 1:00 p.m.

"Culture and History of Ancient Egypt." 45-minute tour on
Field Museum collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts; tour con-
cludes with description of mummification process. Meet at
North Information Booth at 1:00 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 11, 1:00
p.m.

Edward E. Ayer Film Lectures are scheduled every Saturday
afternoon in October and November at 2:30 p.m. James Simp-

son Theatre. Reserved seating is available for Members and
their families. Doors open at 1:45. For further information see
page 25.

Oct. 20 "Sri Lanka — Resplendent Ceylon"

By Ralph Gerstle

Oct. 27 "North Italy and Rome — The Italy of Leonardo

da Vinci"
By Philip Walker

Nov. 3 "Denmark and Greenland"

By Arthur Wilson

Nov. 10 "Mark Twain in Switzerland"

By Dick Reddy

Fall Journey: "Creatures of the Night." Self-guiding tour takes
you to another world — a world of darkness. Many forms of
North American wildlife are nocturnal. Although numerous,
they are hidden by the darkness of night. Learn how these "in-
visible" animals live and thrive— as creatures of the night. Free
Journey pamphlets available at the North Information Booth
and at the South and West Doors.

Continuing Programs

"The Ancient Art of Weaving." Learn about age-old weaving
techniques and textile development during these free
demonstrations. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10:00
a.m. to noon. South Lounge, second floor.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets,
adult-and-family-oriented, are available for 25<: each at the en-
trance to the Museum Shop, main floor north.

Volunteer Opportunities. Limited opportunities available in
botany, geology, and zoology. Weekend volunteers with an in-
terest in natural history are needed to develop and present
weekend programs. For more information call 922-9410, ext.
360.

October and November Hours. The Museum is open daily from
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through October; to 4 p.m. beginning
November 1, every day except Friday. On Fridays the Museum
remains open throughout the year until 9 p.m.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Obtain
a pass at the reception desk, main floor.

Museum Telephone: (312)922-9410

FIELD MGSECJM OF NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN

;^\v^'

■«~-r

^••Siif

-.Ji^A-

Field Museum

of Natural History

Bulletin

November, 1979
Vol. 50, No. 10

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walsten
Production: Martha Poulter
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff Photographer: Ron Testa

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

CONTENTS
3 Field Briefs

22
25
26

Image and Life: 50,000 Years of Japanese Prehistory

Exhibit opens December 1 in Hall 27

Commitment to Distinction

The Natural History Museum: An Historical Sketch

B\/ Cecile Margulies

Second Annual Festival of Anthropology on Film

November 30, December 1, 2

Our Environment

Field Museum Tours

November and December at Field Museum
Calendar of coming events

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
George R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O.C. Davis

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel Insull, Jr.
William V. Kahler
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

COVER

Large figurine, Japanese: from Latest Jomon Period (1,000-300 B.C.).
Aomori Prefecture, northernmost Honshu. Photo courtesy the
University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology. This
figurine, together with more than 100 other artifacts of prehistoric
Japan will be on view in Hall 27 from December 1 through January
31. See page 4.

field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (USPS 898-940) is published monthly,
except combined July/ August issue, by Field Museum of Natural History,
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, II. 60605. Subscriptions: S6 a
year; $3 a year for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin subscription.
Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the
policy of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Postmaster:
Please send form 3579 to Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at
Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. 11. 60605. ISSN: 0015-0703.

National Science Foundation
Awards $344,933 in Grants

The National Science Foundation (NSF)
has awarded grants in support of five
research and collection areas: (1)
$182,676 in support of the fossil
vertebrate collection; co-principal in-
vestigators are WiUiam D. Turnbull,
curator of fossil mammals, and John R.
Bolt, associate curator of fossil reptiles
and amphibians. (2) $52,080 in support
of the project, "The Care and Use of
Systematic Collections of Insects"; pro-
ject director is Rupert L. Wenzel,
curator and head, Division of Insects. (3)
$5,875 for acquisition of equipment to
improve the scanning electron micro-
scope facility of the Museum's Ad-
vanced Technology Laboratory; project
director is John R. Bolt. (4) $38,579 for
continued support of the project, "Pre-
ventive and Technical Conservation of
Textiles"; Phillip H. Lewis, chairman of
the Department of Anthropology, is
principal investigator and project direc-
tor. (5) $65,723 for support of research in
"Pollen Morphology and Evolution in
the Santalales, an Order of Parasitic
Flowering Plants"; Sylvia M. Feuer,
research associate, is principal in-
vestigator.

Ownership, Management and Circulation

Filing date: Sept. 14, 1979. Title: Field Museum of
Natural History Bulletin. Publication no. 898940.
Frequency of publication: Monthly except for com-
bined July/August issue. Number of issues pub-
lished annually: 11. Annual subscription price:
$6.00. Office: Roosevelt Rd. at Lake Shore Drive,
Chicago, 111. 60605.

Publisher: Field Museum of Natural History.
Editor: David M. Walsten. Known bondholders,
mortgages, and other security holders: none. Non-
profit status has not changed during the preceding
12 months.

Av. no.

Actual no.

copies

each issue

single issue

preceding

nearest to

12 mos.

filing date

Total copies printed

59,727 .

49,793

Paid Circulation (sales

through dealers.

vendors, carriers

None .

None

Paid circulation (mail sub-

scriptions!

50,647 .

45,506

Total paid circulation

50,647 .

45,506

Free distribution

850 .
51,497 .

722

46,228

Office use, left over

8,230 .

3,565

Tbtal

59,727 .

49,793

NEH, HEW, IlUnois Arts Council
Grants

The National Endowment for the
Humanities has awarded a $29,059
grant for support of planning the project
"Tiahuanaco: Art and Empire in the
Andes," a major travelling exhibition in-
terpreting the art and culture of this an-
cient empire of South America (1500
B.C.-A.D. 1500). Project director is
Michael E. Moseley, associate curator of
Middle and South American archaeol-
ogy and ethnology.

The Department of Health, Educa-
tion, and Welfare has awarded $57,920
for support of the project "Living New
World Monkeys (Platyrrhini) Volume
2." Project director is Philip Hersh-
kovitz, curator emeritus of mammals.
This is the first increment of a projected
three-year grant that will total $171,810.

The Illinois Arts Council has
awarded Field Museum $20,000 for sup-
port of the Museum's arts-related pro-
grams for 1979-80. Program director is
Carolyn Blackmon, chairman of the
Department of Education.

James L. Palmer, Remick McDowell

Field Museum suffered a grievous loss
through the deaths, within one month,
of two Life Trustees and former presi-
dents, James L. Palmer and Remick Mc-
Dowell.

James L. Palmer, president of Field
Museum 1964 to 1969. died September
17; he was 80 years of age. Palmer had
been elected a member of the Board of
Trustees in 1963 and was Life Trustee at
the time of his death.

During Mr. Palmer's term as presi-
dent the Museum began its first corpo-
rate and individual annual contributors'
campaign; the Women's Board was
founded, and a number of very successful

I certify that the statements made by me above are
correct and complete. — Norman W. Nelson, asst.
dir., admin.

temporary exhibitions were mounted. It
was during James Palmer's tenure that
the Museum began its 75th anniversary
celebration by returning to the name by
which it had so long been known — Field
Museum of Natural History.

A native of Waterboro, Maine, Mr.
Palmer came to Chicago in 1919. He
received a graduate degree from the Uni-
versity of Chicago in 1922, then served
on the university faculty for 14 years.
He was named director of sales for Mar-
shall Field & Co. in 1937 and became
vice president of the company, a position
he held until 1964.

Remick McDowell, president of
Field Museum from 1969 to 1974 (suc-
ceeding James Palmer), died September
29 in Sarasota, Florida, at 70 years of
age. He had been elected a member of
the Field Museum Board of Trustees in
1965 and was a Life Trustee at the time
of his death.

Mr. McDowell's contribution to
Field Museum was enormous. During
his term of office, plans for the massive
building renovation were begun; the $25
million capital campaign was planned
and completed, and the Board of Trus-
tees was reorganized to provide a much
stronger policy-making and manage-
ment structure.

A native of Chicago, Remick Mc-
Dowell attended Northwestern Univer-
sity and the University of Chicago,
where he received his MBA degree. He
worked for Peoples Gas Company for 34
years, serving as chairman of the Board
and chief executive officer from 1961 to
1974.

Field Museum and the milhons that
it serves owe much to these two devoted
and energetic civic leaders, each of whom
contributed greatly to the business and
philanthropic hfe of Chicago and who led
the Museum during a pivotal, transi-
tional decade in its history.

Remick McDowell

James L. Palmer

IMAGE AND LIFE

50,000 Years of Japanese Prehistory

Opening December 1: An exhibition of
artifacts of the Palaeolithic, Jomon,
Yayoi, and Kofun periods from Japanese
collections.

This exhibit of more than 100 artifacts, on view in
Hall 27 until January 31, includes weapons,
household and agricultural tools, pottery, figurines,
jewelry, and other art objects; some of these ex-
traordinary pieces are between 50,000 and 70,000
years old. The exhibit's current tour is the first ap-
pearance of any of the pieces outside Japan.

Organizers of the exhibit are the Museum of
Anthropology of the University of British Colum-
bia, the Center for Japanese Studies of the Universi-
ty of Michigan, and the Japan Foundation. Grant-
ing agencies are the National Museum of Canada,
the Department of External Affairs of the Govern-
ment of Canada, the Koerner Foundation, the Na-
tional Endowment for the Humanities, the Associa-
tion for Asian Studies, the Japan-U.S. Friendship
Commission, the Agency for Cultural Affairs and
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government
of Japan.

The 44-page catalog of the exhibit, written by
Richard Pearson, curator of archaeology of the
University of British Columbia Museum of Anthro-
pology (and organizer of the exhibit), is available at
the Field Museum Shop.*

The following outUne of Japanese archaeology
is adapted from the catalog. Image and Life: 50,000
Years of Japanese Prehistory, by permission of the
author:

JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGY
FOUR STAGES OF PREHISTORY

Palaeolithic Period

(50,000-11,000 B.C.)

Following a breakthrough in the late 1940s,
Japanese archaeologists have found hundreds of
Palaeolithic sites in the past 30 years. Prior to that
time it was believed that humans had lived in Japan
only after about 3,000 B.C. The first Palaeolithic
sites were found in the Tachikawa volcanic ash
Loam Beds. . .in the Kanto Plain region. Previously
it was believed that human remains would never be
found in the loam because human occupation was

too recent. Other Palaeolithic sites have now been
recognized all over the Japanese islands. A few have
been dated to over 50,000 years ago, . . . Not all
archaeologists accept the early dating. . .or the iden-
tification of some of the specimens as worked by
humans. However, there seems to be a general
similarity between some of these early specimens
and the tools from early sites of the Korean penin-
sula and China, . . .

The Palaeolithic Period in other parts of the
world such as Africa, Europe, and China has been
divided into three major stages — Early, Middle,
and Late, based on the evolution of tool-making
techniques. In Southeast Asia, there is still great
uncertainty about the age of many crude-looking
assemblages; . . . The same problem has been
discussed in the case of Japan — the dating of tools
which from their crudity appear to be very old, but
on the basis of geological data and their association
with more refined tool types, may be more recent.
Their technological simplicity does not necessarily
mean that they are the very oldest. It may be that
they were used for simple tasks and rapidly dis-
carded, by people who could make more complicated
tools for fine work. . . . There are still many in-
teresting problems about the chronological relation-
ships of the stone tools which are represented in this
exhibition. . . .

Since it is very rare to find bones associated

Incised pebble with hairlike motif Incipient Jomon
(about 10,000 B.C.). Length 6 cm (2.4. in.). Ehime
Prefecture.

'$2.00 each, 10% discount for Members. Mail orders
should be directed to the Field Museum Shop and include
4 50C per copy additional for postage and handling.

with Palaeolithic implements in Japan because of
the acidic nature of the soil and the humid environ-
ment, we have little concrete evidence for the diet of
Palaeolithic people. From fossil deposits it is known
that mammoths, large elk, bison, and other Pleisto-
cene animals lived in Japan. They could have pro-
vided good game for hunters at that time. . . .It is
thought that small family groups may have con-
verged into larger groups at one time of the year to
hunt these large animals. . . . Remains of wild
peaches, wild grapes, walnuts, acorns, chestnuts,
beechnuts, and lotus root have been found. ... In
winter, supplies of pine seeds and walnuts may have
been important.

While the climate was colder than present
during the Late Palaeolithic, . . . Japan was not
covered with a continuous ice sheet. . . . Flora and
fauna, including humans, continued to exist even in
the northern island of Hokkaido. . . .

Although there are few human fossils from
Japan, . . .one enigmatic site [on the south coast of
Okinawa] has been dated to about 18,000 years. . . .
[This, together with another] dated at 30,000 years
ago. . . appears to show that humans lived even on
the offshore islands of Japan in early times. . . . By
20,000 years ago sea transport was sufficiently
developed that fine materials could be obtained
from distant islands off the coast. . . . From. . .south-
western Japan, a house. . .has been found dating to
the end of the Palaeolithic.

Many stone tools found in the Japanese
Palaeolithic are similar to those found in other parts
of the world, such as backed blades which were used
as knives, or the large blades of obsidian. Many of
the oldest techniques of manufacturing stone tools
are similar to those found in China or the Korean
peninsula. ... At least two methods [are] unique to
Japan. . . . Thus, Japan, in the final years of the
Pleistocene, shared many cultural attributes with
eastern Asia and the North Pacific region, at the
same time making several innovations. . . .

Jomon Period

(circa 11,000-300 B.C.)

As in many parts of the Old World, the end of the
Palaeolithic Period is marked by the appearance of
microliths and bifacial stone points. . . . Greater
specialization within different forms of stone tools
in the various regions of Japan may indicate greater
permanence of settlement at this time. These tools
[gave] way later to chipped arrow and spear points
and chipped and ground adzes and axes. Shortly
before 10,000 B.C., pottery — the oldest. . .in the
world — was invented in Japan. . . .

The earliest shapes of pottery vessels in
Japan, which are quite unlike those known from [the
People's Republic of China] or Taiwan, have a
pointed bottom with sharply sloping sides. From
these vessels a wide range of different forms
emerged. . . .

While the entire period is termed Jomon,
which refers to the twisted cord-mark decoration of
the pottery, the method of pressing or rolling the
various kinds of twisted cords on the wet surfaces of

' ; <

■r- z.

Jomon figurines

the clay was only one of a huge number of surface
treatments. . . . Lacquer was applied to Jomon pot-
tery as early as the Early Jomon.

We are fortunate in having a good sample of
wooden tools from Jomon sites. These. . .include
compound bowls, dishes with pedestal foot, spear
shafts, spoon-shaped objects, oar-shaped objects,
handles from stone axes, tools for making fire, and
canoes, ... In addition to objects of wood, the
Jomon people were proficient in stone and bone
working. . . .

The identity of the Jomon people has been a

Handle of single-edged sword, house ornament.
Kofun Period (2nd half of 4th century A.DJ, from
Nara Prefecture.

topic of much debate. Some scholars have suggested
that they were the Ainu, who were pushed to the
north with the coming of the Yayoi people from the
Korean peninsula. It appears more likely that there
were several different groups of people living in the
Japanese islands during the Jomon, and that the
Ainu may have been one of them. . . . Although
many Japanese feel somewhat distant from the
Jomon Period, because the people of the Jomon
were pre-hterate. there are many strands of cultural
continuity running from the Jomon to later periods.
One of these is the Japanese taste for chestnuts,
fern shoots, lily bulbs, and a host of other products
from the mountain slopes when they are fresh and in
season. The natural vitality of Japanese ceramics, in
later periods, even when exposed to almost over-
whelming continental influences, is another.

Yayoi Period

(circa 300 B.C.-A.D. 300)

The third great period of Japanese prehistory, the
Yayoi, is short in comparison with the Jomon. Con-
tact from southern Korea and the Yangtze delta
area of China and increases in population density
and higher productivity with the advent of cultiva-
tion brought changes in the society. Weaving of
fabrics, metallurgy, forms of ceramics, and wooden
and stone tools, burial forms, and house styles, all
changed with the Yayoi. . . .

The ceramics of the Yayoi Period bear a
strong resemblance to those of the Korean penin-
sula: at the same time there are many local innova-
tions which show that the Yayoi was not merely a

copy of [Korean] culture. They contrast with the
ceramics of the Jomon Period in the simplicity of
their shapes and the lack of decoration, and their
coarse orange paste. The typical shapes are flat
dishes on tall feet, jars with straight or constricted
necks, and bottles. . . .

In addition to the pottery, other new forms of
technology appeared. New wooden tools associated
with paddy agriculture made it possible to work the
wet marshy soils which were the first of rice cultiva-
tion. . . . Some of the wooden tools actually became
weaker and less functional in Late Yayoi presum-
ably under the influence of the iron tools. Most spec-
tacular, . . .were the metal objects traded to Japan.
These were swords, daggers, halberds, and
spears. . .manufactured in Korea, and Chinese
mirrors. . . .

Toward the end of Yayoi, the Japanese began
to make some of their own bronze weapons, which
were generally wider and longer than the Korean
prototypes. Many examples appear to have been
made solely for burials rather than for actual
use. . . .

From Late Yayoi sites, certain burial areas
were marked off for people of higher status, . . .
There is evidence that social groups were becoming
organized along class lines rather than in egalitarian
kinship units. In contrast, Jomon burials yield
almost no grave goods or other signs of differentia-
tion, and are not found in localized cemeteries.

One can only speculate why human represen-
tation is rare in Yayoi. Perhaps with the beginnings
of agriculture, the Japanese were led away from a
supernatural world to a more abstract world of
nature. . . .

Kofun Period

(A.D. 300-600}

The fourth great period of Japanese prehistory has
been named the Tomb, or Kofun, Period. Until
recently our knowledge came primarily from the ex-
cavations of the impressive burial mounds. . . . Re-
cent rescue excavations, carried out in preparation
for large industrial projects, have provided both the
necessity and the resources to carry out wide-scale
excavation of dwelling sites. . . .

Although many of the tombs are round, the
most typical form, . . .is. . .a round mound with a
trapezoidal extension to it. Within these tombs
which are often surrounded by one or several moats,
are stone chambers containing sarcophagi. . . .

The grave furnishings included armor,
weapons, jewelry, and mirrors which were most
often of local manufacture. . . .many of the most im-
pressive objects were made of iron or steel, which. . .
has now disintegrated to rust. These iron objects are
in contrast to the bronze materials in Yayoi burials.
Grave pottery, of a new type — grey reduced stone-
ware. . .in the form of large footed stands, footed
plates, cups, and jars — was placed in the tombs.
The weapons and prestige objects as well as the
enormous tombs, which required a great deal of
coordinated labor. . . . are signs that the social order
consisted of a number of states with clearly defined
classes, maintained by military power, and a wide
system of trade Unks. ... □

Commitment to Distinction

Major Contributions in Support of Field Museum's Program of Research, Education, and Exhibition

Field Museum depends in large measure upon the generous
gifts of individual Members, corporations, and foundations.
Because of relentless inflation, it has become endemic to all not-
for-profit cultural institutions that budgeted expenditures an-
nually exceed known sources of revenue— creating the "income
gap."

This major problem at Field Museum is being attacked in
three ways. First, the Museum is making every effort to in-
crease funding from the public authorities: the Chicago Park
District tax levy, the State of IlUnois Legislature, and various
federal bodies that award grants to museum-oriented programs
and research. Second, the Museum is in the process of

establishing a Planned Giving Program, to provide life-income
trusts to donors and aggressively to seek bequests. The third ef-
fort is the current program of seeking gifts and pledges to the
annual operating fund.

Since the beginning of the program, as of August 31,
1979, the Museum has received $7,849,318.34 in gifts and
pledges for restricted and unrestricted purposes.

This has been accomphshed through the generosity of
more than 450 corporations and foundations and more than
4,000 individual contributors each year. Those donors on the
Honor Roll (a gift of $1,000 or more) so far in 1979 (through
August 31) are:

Individuals

Jan. 1-Aug. 31, 1979

$1,000 and over

Abra Prentice Anderson

Charitable Trust
Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Angell
Mrs. Lee Winfield Alberts
Mrs. Alexander G. Armour
Mr. and Mrs. Roger O. Brown
Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Carton
Mr. and Mrs. Jerry G.

Chambers
A.G. Cox Charitable Fund
Mrs. Elliott Donnelley

(Elliott & Ann Donnelley

Foundation)
Mr. Gaylord Donnelley II
Mr. Robert T. Drake
Mrs. Harry J. Dunbaugh
Mr. and Mrs. George H.

Dovenmuehle
Mrs. R. Winfield EUis
Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Field
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Frank
Mr. David Grainger (The

Grainger Foundation)
Mr. Robert P. Gwinn
Mrs. Deborah S. Haight
Mrs. Burton W. Hales
Mrs. Anna Hanson
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hartman
Mr. and Mrs. H. Earl Hoover

(The H. Earl Hoover

Foundation)
Mr. and Mrs. R. Emmet KeUy
Mr. Robert O. Lehmann (Otto

E. Lehmann Foundation)
Mr. and Mrs. Albert E.M.

Louer

(Rose Mandel Louer Trust)
Mr. McKim Marriott
Mr. Oscar Mayer

(The Oscar G. & Elsa S.

Mayer Foundation)
Mr. and Mrs. James T. Mohan
Mrs. Mary Baker Moulding
Mrs. John Nuveen (The

Nuveen Benevolent Trust)

Mr. and Mrs. George Pagels,

Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Philip Pearlstein
Mr. and Mrs. Bruce L. Ralston
Mrs. Katherine Field Rodman
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel R.

Rosenthal
Mr. and Mrs. Roger Scholle
Mr. Ezra Sensibar
Mr. and Mrs. John W. Shields
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Smith
Mrs. David B. Stern
Mr. and Mrs. William S. Street
Mr. Bolton Sullivan (The

Bolton Sullivan Foundation)
Mr. and Mrs. John W. Sullivan
Mr. and Mrs. James

Swartchild (The CoUier-

Swartchild Foundation)
Mr. and Mrs. Phelps H. Swift

(The Ruth & Vernon Taylor

Foundation)
The Edmund B. Thornton

Family Foundation
Misses Mildred and Grace

Tress
Mr. and Mrs. Theodore H. Van

Zelst (Minnan, Inc. Foun-
dation)
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Voysey
Mr. and Mrs. Blaine J.

Yarrington

Corporations

Jan. 1-Aug. 31, 1979

$5,000 and over

Anonymous
Alcoa Foundation
AUstate Foundation
Beatrice Foods Co.
Borg-Warner Foundation, Inc.
Burlington Northern Founda-
tion

Chicago Community Trust

Consolidated Foods Corp.

Continental Bank Foundation

Esmark, Incorporated Foun-
dation

Marshall Field & Company
Foundation

Ford Motor Co.

General Electric

General Mills Foundation

Harris Bank Foundation

Hart, Schaffner & Marx
Charitable Foundation

Illinois Bell Telephone Co.

IMC Foundation

Fred S. James & Co.

Kraft, Inc.

Oscar Mayer Foundation

Gust K. Newberg Construction
Co.

Northern Illinois Gas Co.

The Northern Trust Co.

Peat. Marwick, Mitchell & Co.

Peoples Gas Co.

The Albert Pick, Jr. Fund

Power Systems, Inc.

United Airlines Foundation

United States Steel Founda -
tion. Inc.

Western Electric Fund

Westinghouse Electric Corp.

Corporations

Jan. 1-Aug. 31, 1979

$l,000-$5,000

American National Bank and
Trust Co. of Chicago

Bliss & Laughlin

Bunker-Ramo Foundation

Leo Burnett Company, Inc.

Carson, Pirie, Scott
Foundation

Chamberlain Manufacturing

Corp.
Chicago Bridge & Iron

Foundation
The Chicago Tribune

Foundation
Crane Packing Co.
Crum & Foster Foundation
DesPlaines Valley Geological

Soc.
The Ehlco Foundation (Edward

Hines Lumber Co.)
Ernst & Ernst
General American Transpor-
tation Foundation
Gould Foundation
Household Finance Co.
Interlake Foundation
International Business

Machines Corp,
Kemper Educational and

Charitable Fund
Lloyds Bank International
McLean-Fogg Lock Nut Co.
Masonite Corp.
McGraw-Edison Co.
John Mohr & Sons
Motorola Foundation
L.E. Myers Co.
National Boulevard Founda-
tion
New York Life Insurance Co.
Oak Park Trust and Savings

Bank
Pullman, Inc. Foundation
Prudential Foundation
Quaker Oats Foundation
Rockwell International
Shell Companies Foundation
SRA Foundation
Stewart-Warner Foundation
Turner Construction Co.
UOP Foundation, Inc.
Victor Foundation
Wallace Business Forms

Foundation
Harry Weese & Associates
Ben O. Warren Foundation
E.W. Zimmerman, Inc.

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

An Historical Sketch

By Cecile Margulies

As A Naturally Acquisitive Animal, man has
probably been collecting objects of one sort or
another since prehistoric times. As he has evolved,
however, the reasons for collecting and the nature of
the materials to attract his attention have, of
course, changed. The assumption is reasonable that
early man accumulated natural objects because of
their utilitarian value or for the magical properties
attributed to them. But modern man collects ob-
jects because of their scientific or educational value,
often through the vehicle of that unique institution,
the natural history museum.

In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the
priests, as custodians of the temples, decided what
went into the collections housed there. Since they
particularly valued rare or "magical" objects,
natural history specimens — especially precious
stones and objects of supposed medicinal value —
came into the collections. Today such collectibles are
often lumped under the rubric "curiosities." In his
Natural History, written 2,000 years ago, Pliny the
Elder mentions many such items, including the
bones of a monster slain by the mythical Perseus.

In medieval times, collections were to take on
an even more motley character, a condition for
which the church was largely responsible. Anything
beheved to be of rehgious value was eminently col-
lectible, especially by credulous travelers, crusa-
ders, and pilgrims. Rehgious reUcs, illuminated
manuscripts, rare coins, medals, precious stones,
elephants' tusks, as well as objects alleged to be
unicorn horns, bones from Jonah's whale, griffins'
claws, and so on filled the treasure chambers of
medieval monasteries, churches, and castles.

The kind of natural objects ordinarily present
in the collections of royalty and noblemen quahfied
on the basis of rarity or for attributed legendary
quahty. These early forerunners of natural history
collections were often housed in so-called "cabinets
of curiosities," and these, in turn, were set up in
sjjeciaUy designated rooms. The cabinet of Jean,
Due de Berry (1340-1416) contained carved crystals,
ostrich eggs, polar bear skins, and what were be-
heved to be giants' bones and sea monsters.

With the new humanistic and scientific spirit
that characterized the Renaissance, there were also
visible changes in the purposes behind collecting.
Objects of nature were now looked upon with more
concern for their intrinsic value than for symbohc or
religious significance imputed to them. Although

Cecile Margulies was formerly Field Museum Public
8 Relations assistant.

Aristotle and PUny remained the final authorities in
matters of natural history, their influence was being
eroded by an increasingly sophisticated approach to
science. Among the early naturaUsts who had collec-
tions of natural history specimens and other collec-
tibles were PhiUppus Paracelsus (1493-1541), the
noted Swiss physician and alchemist; and Georgius
Agricola (1494-1555), the so-called father of miner-
aiogy. Indeed, the writings of Agricola induced the
Elector Augustus I (1526-1586) of Saxony to form a
collection of both art and natural objects that
ultimately filled seven rooms of the royal peilace in
Dresden.

By the sixteenth century there were about a
dozen outstanding princely collections, such as that
belonging to the Archduke Ferdinand of Tirol
(1520-95) at Schloss Ambras. In these, natural
history objects were to be found together with
carved gems, montages of seashells, and decorative
items fashioned from a variety of natural sub-
stances. The special repository for them was the
Wunderkammer — the room of curiosities.
Sometimes this room was designated the "cabinet,"
a term also apphed to chests containing smaller
items.

These chests were often elaborately carved,
inlaid, and painted with naturaUstic representations
of insects and plants. A particularly elaborate
cabinet, made about 1617 for Duke Phihpp II of
Pomerania and now preserved in Uppsala, Sweden,
is several tiers high, has drawers of ebony and
numerous doors that swing open to reveal facades of
cameos and rare woods. Atop the cabinet is a chahce
of silver, coconut, and coral, adorned with a mon-
tage of minerals and shells and surmounted finally
with statuettes of Neptune and Venus. Another ex-
ceptionally fine cabinet, to be seen in the Smithso-
nian Institution, is beUeved to be partly the work of
Jan van Kessel (1626-79), of Antwerp. Made of
veneer and marquetry, it has ten drawers and a cen-
tral door panel painted with Ufe-size images of in-
sects. (See photos on p. 12.)

Such privately owned cabinets, with their ran-
dom assortments of objects, were maintained for
the edification and pleasure of the owner and his
family and friends. But by the sixteenth and seven-

"The Artist in His Museum," by Charles Willson
Peale, in the Joseph and Sarah Harrison Collection
of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
Philadelphia. The self-portrait, completed in 1806,
shows Peale in his natural history museum, the
Peale Museum, later renamed the Philadelphia
Museum.

••^

• *a. •; :m

Typical of
seventeenth-
century natural
history
museums was
this "wonder
room" of Olaf
Worm, a
Copenhagen
physician and
famous student
of natural
history. From a
woodcut made
by G. Wingen-
dorp, the fron-
tispiece to the
1655 catalog of
Worms 's
collection.

teenth centuries collecting was no longer an exclu-
sive pursuit of the nobility; wealthy merchants,
scientists, and scholars were now also collecting.
Collections of this period were notable for the em-
phasis placed on the role of an organism or object in
the scheme of nature. Entire cabinets were devoted
to animals, to plants, or to minerals, as distinct and
separate categories.

None of these early collections, unfortunately,
has survived intact. Largely because of economic
uncertainties of the times, they were frequently
sold, piecemeal, to settle the debts of their owners —
merchants, dukes, even cardinals and princes. Many
objects, however, managed to find their way into
private collections and ultimately into museums.

British collections arose in a manner different
from those on the Continent. While each of the great
Continental museums developed from a princely col-
lection that was at best an assortment of curios,
those in Britain tended to originate in the collec-
tions of scientists and educated travelers, and these
were marked by a new concern for organization and
system.

With the Age of Enlightenment and an in-
creased recognition of knowledge as a tool for
harnessing nature, universities began acquiring col-
lections for learning and teaching purposes. At the
University of Leyden, for example, a wide range of

materials, including objects of an archaeological and
ethnological nature, were assembled. The specimens
were housed in the anatomy theater, intended pri-
marily for medical lectures and demonstrations.
Birds and animals were hung about the operating
theater, and cases and cupboards crammed with
specimens stood everywhere, even in the entrance
hall.

Many collectors of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth century were scientists motivated by their
interest in the advancement of human knowledge,
and the range of their collections often far exceeded
their own professional spheres. As the vista of
science broadened, so did man's geographic hori-
zons, and archaeological and ethnological items
from exotic lands appeared with increasing regulari-
ty in Europe's natural history collections. The
French essayist Montaigne (1533-92) was among
those with ethnological collections; Valentini, court
physician to the Duke of Hesse, was a collector of
religious idols.

Three of Europe's great museums of the pre-
sent time owe their origins to seventeenth-century
men who acquired extensive private collections:
John Tradescant the Younger (1608-62) and Sir
Hans Sloane (1660-1752), both of England; and
France's Gaston, Duke of Orleans (1608-60). Trades-
cant, a naturalist and traveler, was supervisor of the

gardens of Charles I. His collection, known popular-
ly as Tradescant's Ark, an enlargement of his
father's collection, was bequeathed to a friend, Elias
Ashmole (1617-97), an archaeologist and antiquary.
It included such diverse items as "Dodar [dodo],
from the Island Mauritius; it is not able to flie being
so big." "A Cherry-stone, upon one side S. Geo: [St.
George], and the Dragon, perfectly cut: and on the
other side 88 Emperours faces, " "Anne of Bullens
silke knitgloves," and "Shooes to walk on Snow
without sinking."

Ashmole incorporated Tradescant's bequest
into his own extensive collection, and in 1675 he
donated all these materials to Oxford University;
thus was established the Ashmolean Museum,
England's first public scientific institution. It was
formally opened in 1683.

Sir Hans Sloane, president of the College of

The museum of Francisco Calceolari, the Younger
(rt.) in 1622 and that of Ferrante Imperato
(1550-1630), of Naples (below). The Worms museum
(opposite), it should be noted, included much
material of an ethnological nature as well as animal,
plant, and mineral specimens. The two museums
shown on this page, from a slightly earlier period
appear to be limited to zoological specimens.

At left and below:
the exterior and
the internal panel
work of a 17th-
century cabinet of
curiosities, now in
the Smithsonian
Institution,
Washington, D.C.
The center panel
is attributed to
Jan van Kessel
(1626-79). of Ant-
werp.

Physicians and of the Royal Society of England,
was, like Tradescant, an inveterate traveler. Over
the years he acquired other collections, supplemen-
ting his own, eventually amassing nearly 70,000
specimens. His material was to form the nucleus of
the British Museum.

One of the Continent's great collections was
that of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, a son of France's
Henry IV. This was purchased in 1660 by Colbert, a
minister in the court of Louis XIV. In 1793, in the
wake of the French Revolution, the collection was
nationalized, becoming the Mus6um Natural d'His-
toire Naturelle, of Paris.

By the eighteenth century, interest in curios
extended well beyond the sphere of scholars and
noblemen; the collecting of curiosities was looked
upon as a proper avocation for the cultivated gentle-
man, and was even recommended as an antidote for
lethargy. During the 1700s the collections came into
commercial use, as Don Soltero, a Chelsea cof-
feehouse proprietor, used his as an added attraction
for patrons.

For the most part, however, access to natural
history collections was limited to friends and ac-
quaintances of the owner. Even when the Ashmo-
lean Museum was opened to the public in 1683, it
was intended as a resource for scholars rather than
as a facility for the general public. This restriction
prevailed well into the nineteenth century.

The late eighteenth and the early nineteenth
centuries, marked by rapid political, economic, and
social changes, was also a time when a number of
the great public museums came into being. In
Europe, noble families and wealthy merchants often
found themselves forced to sell their collections; in
other cases these possessions were simply con-
fiscated by the state. The empty palaces, as a mat-
ter of political expediency, became public faciUties.
In America museums developed differently: neither
as a use for vacated palaces nor as repositories for
collections once held by the nobihty. A product of
nineteenth-century Uberal thought, the American
museum was developed almost from its beginnings,
as a public facility. Man as a rational creature
capable of continuous improvement, needed only
education and political equality to make him vir-
tuous and happy. Thus, education was — and still is
— an important function of the American museum.

The earliest collections on this continent were
modest; however, as the colonists began to prosper
in the eighteenth century, the gentleman's curio
cabinet grew fashionable among the gentry, just as
it was in England. Colleges in the colonies, too,
began to take an interest in collections. Harvard
College's natural history collection, dating from at

least as early as 1750, was to become a century later,
the University Museum at Cambridge. In 1773,
three years before the American Revolution, the
Library Society of Charles-Town resolved to collect
material for a natural history of South Carolina. The
result — what is now the Charleston Museum — was
the first public museum to be established in the
Western Hemisphere.

Many of the early American museums, lo-
cated in eastern seaboard cities, included collections
of artworks as well as of the sciences. The first im-
portant public museum, the Peale Museum, was es-
tabUshed in 1786 in Philadelphia by the renowned
portrait artist Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827),
who also had a strong interest in the natural
sciences. His museum, later named the Philadelphia
Museum, was first housed in an annex to Peale' s
house. As the collection grew in size and attracted
greater interest, the museum was moved (1802) to
the top floor of Independence Hall. Among the ex-
hibits were mounted and preserved animals which
were carefully labeled and arranged in dioramas — a
practice that was a full century ahead of its time.

A mastadon skeleton excavated by a Peale-
financed expedition in 1801 was among the
museum's more popular exhibits. The excavation

"Exhuming the
first American
Mastadon, " by
Charles Willson
Peale (painted
1806-08}. The
Peale Museum,
Baltimore.

Overleaf: A central ex-
hibit hall of the Field
Columbian Museum
(former name of Field
Museum) in 1890s,
located in Chicago 's
Jackson Park. Note the
variety of materials ex-
hibited in this one hall:
zoological, botanical,
and ethnological
material, as well as
baroque sculpture. The
lower cases, on legs,
contain molluscs and
other marine animals.
Two visitors, seated,
may be seen at left
center. 13

Hr .illk^i ' ^k

V.fi

^^ik^iwv^.

^I^VVVVUIUV

♦**-

Mj: !_3-

T- ^^— — J

iikiuuw'

yy.^^^^

i^^^R^s^

HHHkk^ii i .

■Ml

[

The Manhattan
museum of en-
treprenuer
Phineas T. Bar-
num, CO. 1858. A
circus owner and
showman, Bar-
num's interest in
the museum was
presumably just
as a business ven-
ture. He was one
of the first to
capitalize on the
fascination that
lifeless specimens
(as well as
fraudulent ones)
have for the
general public.

was the subject of Peale's painting Exhuming the
First American Mastadon (1806), now in the present
Peale Museum, located in Baltimore. The collections
in Independence Hall also included wax figures of
American Indians, a display of their tools and
weapons, and casts of famous statues.

Many of the early American museums were
founded and supported by historical and fine arts
societies. Peale had the novel idea that a public in-
stitution should draw the interest and support of
the populace. He and Benjamin Franklin were, in
fact, instrumental in developing the idea of a
membership plan for the public museum. This con-
cept never fully exploited until relatively recent
times, is now of course an important feature of the
museum in America.

A singularly important event in the develop-
ment of the American public museum occurred in
1829 when James Smithson (1765-1829), an English-
man, bequeathed his fortune to the United States
with the explicit purpose of creating a pubhc facility
for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge among
men." The resulting Smithsonian Institution,
orginally a museum, has over the years grown to en-
compass a complex of institutions concerned with a
broad range of science, technology, history, and the
arts: the National Museum of Natural History, the
National Air and Space Museum, the National Gal-

lery of Art, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Per-
forming Arts, and the National Zoological Park,
among others.

During the second half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, in Europe as well as the United States, there
was a rapid increase in the founding of museums. In
America this was in part the consequence of
geographic and economic expansion, with funds
coming from federal as well as private sources.
Federally sponsored expeditions, such as that of
Meriwether Lewis and WiUiam Clark to the Nor-
thwest (1804-06), brought back a great variety of
specimens which found their way into museums in
Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, and Chicago.
Municipalities began to support museums through
tax revenues, as in the case of the American
Museum of Natural History in New York, founded
in 1869.

The enormous private fortunes that were
amassed in the United States following the Civil
War were a boom to museums, as the uniquely
American philanthropist made contributions to the
community for its educational improvement and
moral upUft. The personal fortune of Chicago
businessman Marshall Field (1834-1906) was, in
fact, to be the cornerstone of the Columbian
Museum of Chicago, founded in 1893, and today
known as the Field Museum of Natural History. D

A main exhibit hall in
the Field Columbian
Museum {earlier name
of Field Museum) in
the 1890s, when the
Museum was located
in Jackson Park,
Chicago. (The mam-
moth shown here was
a reconstruction based
on skeletal remains.)

Exhibit cases being
removed ^ca. 1920)
from Jackson Park
quarters of what was
by then known as the
Field Museum of
Natural History
(changed from "Field
Columbian Museum"
on Nov. 8, 1905); 321
railroad cars of
specimens and equip-
ment were removed
from Jackson Park to
t}\e present Field
Museum building,
which opened formally
on May 2, 1921. 17

SECOND ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY ON FILM

Field Museum of Natural History
West Entrance

Friday, Nov. 30, 1979; 5:00 p.m. ■ 9:30 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 1, and Sunday, Dec. 2, 1979 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

The recognition that forms of human behavior still extant will inevitably
disappear has been part of our whole scientific and humanistic heritage. There
have never been enough workers to collect the remnants of these worlds, and
just as each year several species of living creatures cease to exist, im-
poverishing our biological repertoire, so each year some language spoken only
by one or two survivors disappears forever with their deaths.

— Margaret Mead

Field Museum invites you to experience the cultures of
the world on film. Ethnographic films, describing
through illustration the patterned behavior of particular
cultures, are a genre of film that is as old as the cinema
itself.

Cinematic voyages to Afghanistan, the wintry
homes of the Netsilik Eskimo, the jungles of Venezuela,
and the sands of the Kalihari will enhance your
understanding of peoples vanishing with the
encroachment of our modern world.

The Festival consists of films from seven cultural
areas: China, South America, South Africa, North
Africa, Central Asia, Melanesia, and North America.

The main culture films will be shown in James
Simpson Theatre and Lecture Hall I. Men and women,
music, drama, dance, agriculture, technology, and
humor, irony, and oarody are the topics of films to be
screened in Lecture Hall 11. Selected films not
confirmed are listed "to be announced." The complete
film schedule will be available at the Film Festival.

Friday, November 30, 1979
5:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
James Simpson Theatre

Introduction by Martha Foster Breidenbach,
Audiovisual Programmer, University of Illinois at
Chicago Circle.

Photography: Dorothea Lange, Part II: The Closer for Me
(1965) 30 m. National Education Television U.S.A. Artists
Series.

Lange's attempt to get close to the human being and to
achieve a type of photography she described as "what is
really there— the underpinning of the human condition."

CHINA

Film to be announced

Chinese Jade Carving. 10 m.
Wan-go Weng.

Kung-fu-Mah, a fourth-generation jade artisan,
18 demonstrates basic jade-carving techniques.

Film to be announced

Women in China (1976) 26 m.
Betty MacAfee

Shows many aspects of women's lives in the People's
Republic of China: childbirth, home life, at work in fac-
tories, and caring for children.

2100-Year-Old Tomb Excavated 30 m.
Grove Press, N.Y.

Records the exciting discovery of a 2,100-year-old tomb in
central China containing the body of a woman and burial
accessories in a remarkable state of preservation.

Lecture Hall 1
5:45 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

South America, south africa

The Feast (1968) 29 m.

Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon

The classic illustration of feasting practices of the

Yanomamo of Southern Venezuela.

Tapir Distribution (1971) 15 m.

Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon

Shows how the tapir, a piglike animal, is killed, cooked,

and distributed among the Yanomamo tribe.

Magical Death (1970) 29 m.

Napoleon Chagnon

Describes and underscores the role of spiritual coercion

and spirit manipulation practiced by the Yanomamo. An

intense, powerful film.

Children's Magical Death (1975) 7 m.

Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon

Shows a group of Yanomamo boys emulating their fathers

by pretending to be shamans.

Tug of War 9 m.

Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon

The women and children of a Yanomamo viUage play a

game of tug-of-war.

Film to be announced.

Saturday, December 1, 1979
James Simpson Theatre
11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Introduction by Dr. Paul Hockings, associate professor,
Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at
Chicago Circle.

CHINA, AFRICA

China Today (1972) 22 m.

NBC

An up-to-date statement on a vigorous country, which

shows the nation concentrated on economics, agriculture,

education, and medicine.

Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Dance (1965) 28 m.
Clifford Ettinger and Beate Gordon, Board of Education
of the City of New York in conjunction with the Asia
Society.

Examines the origins, history, and development of Orien-
tal dance forms.

Film to be announced.

Un Matin d'Ete a Matamata (1977) 30 m.

("A Summer Morning in Matmata")

Francois Ode

A humorous and poignant look at interactions between

Western tourists and the Berbers of Matmata, Tunisia. Chinese jade carvers

Jaguar (1953-67) 93 m.

Jean Rouch

Improvised ethnographic document of three young men

from Niger who trek south through Dahomey to Ghana

and the Ivory Coast in search of wealth and adventure.

Under the Men's Tree (1974) 15 m.
David MacDougall

Jie tribesmen of northeastern Uganda gather in their ac-
customed place under the men's tree to perform daily
chores and engage in some priceless conversation.

Mbira Njari: Karanga Songs in Christian Ceremonies
22 m.

Gei Zantzinger and Andrew Tracey
Shows use of the mbira, or thumb piano, on ceremonial oc-
casions in a Shona village from Zimbabwe (Rhodesia).
From a series of eight films exploring the music of several
southern African peoples.

Anansi the Spider (1969) 10 m.

Gerald McDermott

African folk tale tells the story of Anansi's six sons who

attempt to save him from a fish of the sea and a hawk of

the air. Anansi's efforts to reward the one who saves him

lead him to the origin of the moon.

Masai Women 55 m.

Melissa Llewelyn-Davis and Chris Curling

Masai women explain their subordinate position to the

men in their society, revealing their goals and attitudes

against the background of initiation rites, dances, and

marriage ceremonies.

Lecture Hall I
11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

CENTRAL ASIA

The Painted Truck 28 m.

Judith and Stanley Hallet and Sebastian C. Schroeder
There are but two methods of transportation in
Afghanistan — camels and trucks, and the big trucks are
taking over. The truck driver in this film tells what it is
like to live and work in Afghanistan, and unconsciously
reveals the social structure, traditions, and culture of his
country.

Nairn and Jabar (1975) 50 m.

American Universities Field Staff

Lyrical ethnographic expression of the hopes, fears, and

aspirations of two adolescent boys in rural Afghanistan.

Cinema 3 m.

Sebastian C. Schroeder

An enterprising man from Kabul, Afghanistan, attracts

quite a crowd with his home-made, hand-cranking street

cinema.

T\vo young Samoan women

Sunday, December 2, 1979

MELANESIA AND AUSTRALIA

James Simpson Theatre
11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Trobriand Cricket: An Ingenious Response to Colonialism
(1976) 54 m.
Jerry Leach

Documents the transformations of the staid traditional
British game of cricket, introduced by missionaries at the
turn of the century, into the p>olitically powerful, sensual-
ly aesthetic Trobritind version.

Film to be announced.

Coniston Muster (1973) 29 m.

Roger Sandall

Vivid collection of scenes from the life of 60-year-old

Aboriginal stockman as he and his fellow "cowboys" £U-e

shown carrying out the annual muster, or round-up on a

rsmch in central Australia.

Yumi Yet: Independence for Papua New Guinea (1977)

54 m.

Dennis O'Rourke

Yumi Yet means "we ourselves," and this film jjortrays

the diverse culture, beautiful landscape, and feelings of

the emergent nation of Papua.

Island of the Red Prawns (1978) 52 m.
Australian Broadcasting Commission
Documents Fiji Island culture by recording the tradi-
tional wedding of the children of two important chieftains.
During the wedding feast the legend of the red prawns is
told in song and dance.

Film to be announced.

Lecture Hall I
11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

NORTH AMERICA

Woven Gardens 52 m.

BBC and Warner Brothers

Studies the weaving of hand-knitted rugs by the women

of the nomadic Qashqua'i of Iran; these beautiful rugs

often contain clues to the ancestral history of a tribe.

Film to be announced.

Afghan Village (1975) 45 m.

American Universities Field Staff

Impressionistic view of daily life in Aq Kupruk, northern

Afghanistan.

Afghan Nomads: The Maldar (1975) 21 m.

American Universities Field Staff

Depicts the interactions between the nomadic Maldars

and the townspeople of Aq Kupruk, northern

Afghanistan.

Nanook of the North (1922) 55 m.

Robert Flaherty

Classic, pioneering documentary shows the Ufe of an

Eskimo family, including hunting walrus, eating, fishing,

building an igloo, and preparing for the Arctic winter.

The Owl Who Married a Goose (1974) 8 m.

Caroline Leaf

An animated Eskimo legend utilizing the voices and

sounds of Eskimos.

Fishing at the Stone Weir Parts 3 and 4 (1964) 60 m.
Asen BaHkci

BalLkci documents the Netsilik Eskimo's nomadic cycle.
Living in Canada s inaccessible Northwest Territories,
the Netsihk establish base camps according to hunting
and weather conditions.

How to Build an Igloo (1949) 10 m.

National Film Board of Canada

Presents demonstration of igloo-building in Canada's far

north. Explains why snow is carefully chosen, why blocks

are built in a spiral, and how an igloo is ventilated.

Winter Sea-Ice Camp Part III (1970) 30 m.

Winter Sea-Ice Camp Part IV (1970) 37 m.

Asen Balikci

Includes sequences on trekking across sea-ice, building a

large ceremonial igloo, seal meat sharing, trials of

strength for men, storytelling, and a drum dance.

The Vigil of Mo tana (In the Land of Headhunters) (1914)

38 m.

Edward S. Curtis

Curtis wanted his film to capture a vanishing way of Ufe,

but the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island, Canada,

had lost many of their traditional ways by 1914. He

resorted to costumes and recreation to fill the screen with

heroic conquests, great battles, and impressive wedding

dances.

Iraqi woman spinning

I Heard the Owl Call My Name (1974) 78 m.
Daryl Cuke

Sensitive and moving drama, featuring Tom Courtenay
and Dean Jagger. A young Anglican priest, unaweire that
he has only a short time to live, is sent by his bishop to a
remote Indian village in British Columbia, Canada, and
during his time there he learns "enough about Ufe to be
ready to die." Supporting cast of native Indian actors.

Legend of the Magic Knives (1970) 11m.
Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation
The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia enliven dramas
of winter ceremonies with brilliantly decorated totem
poles, masks, and carved figures.

Special Thanks to these film distributors for their
generosity in extending courtesy loans: Documentary
Educationl Resources, Watertown, Ma.; Education
Development Center, Newton, Ma.; Granada Television
International, New York, N.Y.; Grove Press Film
Division, New York, N.Y.; Indiana University Audio
Visual Center, Bloomington, In.; Learning Corporation of
America, New York, N.Y.; MacMillan/Audio Brandon
Films, Brookfield, II.; Nippon A-V Productions, Tokyo,
Japan; Pennsylvania State University, University Park,
Pa.; University of California Extension Media Center,
Berkeley, Ca.; University of Illinois at Chicago Circle,
Chicago, 11.

Second Annual Festival of Anthropology on Film

Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2, 1979.

Members: one day: $4.00; Series: $10.00
Nonmembers: one day: $5.00; Series: $13.00

Last Name

First Name

Street

City

State

Zip Code

Entire Series

Friday only

Saturday only
Sunday only

Amount enclosed

Phone: Daytime

Evening

Please use West Entrance for free admission to the Museum.
Confirmation will be mailed* upon receipt of check.
Please include self-addressed stamped envelope. Mail to:

FILM FESTIVAL. FIELD MUSEUM.

Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60605

Member

f" Nonmember

*If coupon and check are received one week or less before the program,
reservations will be held in vour name at the West Entrance.

OUR ENVIRONMENT

Acid Rain: A Long-Term
Environmental Headache

Acid rain is a relatively new environ-
mental term that is just beginning to be
understood by the general' public. But
while the actual pairing of words is new,
the conditions it describes are not, and
neither should they come as a surprise.
In the most simple terms acid rain

— and acid snow and snow melt — ex-
plains how certain kinds of air pollution
return to do more damage on earth,
where they orginated. Acid precipitation
is the more exact term, because snow as
well as rain carries pollutants from the
atmosphere, where they can be trans-
ported hundreds or even thousands of
miles from their source. Acid rain
results, basically, when sulfur and
nitrogen oxides — primarily from elec-
tric power plants, smelters, and auto-
mobiles — are chemically changed into
acids in the atmosphere. As sulfuric and
nitric acids, they are carried wherever
wind currents blow before they are
brought back to earth in rain or snow.

Acid precipitation was the subject
of major presentations at the recent In-
ternational Joint Commission (IJC) con-
ference on Great Lakes water quality in
Detroit. One was made by George Hen-
drey of Brookhaven National Labora-
tory in Upton, New York. Since the
meetings, Hendrey's straightforward
explanations and the urgings of iJC's
Science Advisory Board have formed
valuable parts of the foundation of acid
rain literature that is now becoming
available.

Acid precipitation, or acid rain, is a
global problem. The effects were first
seen in Europe; it affects the Great
Lakes and the Midwest because higher-
than-normal levels of acidity in rain are
found in these areas. Several bays of the
Great Lakes — on the Canadian side, in
upper Wisconsin and Michigan, and
perhaps in Minnesota, say some experts

— are now known to receive substantial
runoff from freshwater streams that
have been made acidic by acid rains.
These areas may cause small portions of
these bays to become acid, or to retain
high levels of toxic metals such as cad-
mium or aluminum.

The IJC, the U.S. -Canadian entity
that monitors the quality and cleanup of
the Great Lakes, estimates that emis-
sions of sulfur dioxide in North America
are about 23 million tons a year. Of this,
approximately 19 million tons are emit-
ted from U.S. sources, with 60 percent
22 coming from the thermal power indus-

try. In eastern Canada, the commission
estimates, some 60 percent of sulfur
dioxide is a product of the nonferrous
smelting industry. Mankind's nitrogen
oxides are about 22 milHon tons a year
from the U.S.. about equally from fixed
and mobile (mainly automobiles) sources.
Canada contributes some 1.4 million
tons a year of nitrogen oxides, mostly
from mobile sources.

While areas within the Great Lakes
ecosystem are vulnerable to the ravages
of acid rain, the Great Lakes themselves
will not become acid lakes. They are
"generally well buffered," says Hen-
drey. He explains that the very geology
of the Midwest and of the Great Lakes
in particular would prevent that from
happening.

The picture is not so optimistic for
another important Midwestern resource,
however. Soybeans, which are one of
Illinois' chief food crops and one of the
most important cash crops in the U.S..
are known to be affected by acid precipi-
tation.

Hendrey has done "quite a bit of
work with soybeans," and his presenta-
tion of the Great Lakes-related "group in
Detroit included slides that illustrate
the difference between soybeans grown
in nonacid conditions and those grown
in a laboratory with various higher
levels of acid "rain."

"Anything that would alter the
yield and quality of the soybean could
have an impact upon protein supply to
the world," he explains; "particularly
Third World countries, to which we ex-
port large numbers of soybean pro-
ducts." Obviously, it also would have an
important impact on U.S. farmers and
the U.S. economy.

"We have determined kinds of in-
jury one might expect to see on foliage;
we've carried out greenhouse experi-
ments, which are preliminary to field ex-
periments, in which we will attempt to
evaluate the yield and the quality of the
crop under different acid rain
treatment."

Plants exposed to acid rain "show
acid burns, or lesions, under the most ex-
treme levels (pH of 2.9 on the acidity
scale)," Hendrey says. "A rain as low as
2.1 pH has been reported, and rains as
low as 2.9 pH occur occasionally in the
northeastern United States. Rains in the
low 3 pH range occur frequently, and in
that pH range soybean damage — while
less visible, even microscopic — is evi-
dent in many places on the leaves. In ad-
dition," he says, "nutrients are leached
out of the plants by this rain, which can

be known only after chemical analyses of
the plants."

To better understand the situation,
it may be important to take a step back
and look at the terms scientists use.
Acids are chemicals that release
hydrogen ions in solutions. Scientists
use the standard symbol pH to indicate
the level of the concentration of these
hydrogen ions, on a scale from 0-14.
Number 7 shows a balance of acids and
alkalines. Numbers below 7 pH show in-
creasing acidity; numbers above 7 show
increasing alkalinity. Precipitation is
considered acid if it falls below a pH of
5.6, the normal equilibrium value of car-
bon dioxide and water.

But progression up or down the pH
scale is not simple. At 7, acid/alkaline
solutions are in balance. But at 6 a solu-
tion is 10 times more acid then it would
be at 7. At 5 it is 100 times more acid; at
4, it is 1,000 times more acid; at 3,
10,000 times more acid; and at 2,
100,000 times more acid than a solution
of 7 pH.

More simply, limes are a bit lower
than 2 pH. Household vinegar (acetic
acid) has a pH of 2.5. Moselle wine's pH
is 3.3, that for orange juice is 3.6, and
beer's pH is 4.1. Soda water has a pH of
5.3; "pure" rain, 5.6; and baking soda
(sodium bicarbonate), which is often
used to neutralize acids, has a pH of 8.5.
Toward the high end of alkalinity, am-
monia's pH value is 12.

Acid rain, then, is not a new pheno-
menon. In the 1920s it was noted that
numerous small, high-mountain lakes in
Scandinavja were becoming acid and
devoid of fish. By 1972 evidence that
this and several other problems resulted
from acid precipitation was so convinc-
ing that a major international research
program was launched in northern
Europe.

Hendrey carried out research in Nor-
way, where it was found that the
number of plants and animals is greatly
reduced by acidification. "Yet," he says,
"a few species are very tolerant and
grow very, very abundantly under condi-
tions of acidity. So diversity disappears,
while a few species become extremely
abundant, expecially sphagnum moss
and filamentous algae.

"But this — the adaptation to acidic
conditions — is not true of fish: Fish just
disappear. Major fishery problems occur
at levels as high as 5.5, and there are no
fish present when the pH reaches 4.5.
Seven major rivers formerly were a ma-
jor European source for Atlantic
salmon; today the salmon from those

seven rivers have completely disap-
peared. And we have just found out," he
continues, "that Nova Scotia is begin-
ning to look just the same as those Scan-
dinavian rivers."

The Canadians claim that 48,000
Ontario lakes are going to become
devoid of fish within the next 18-20
years if acid rain conditions continue.
This is also true of Quebec, New
Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The Cana-
dians note an alarming decline of salmon
eggs in these provinces.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is
a prime contractor for EPA (Environmen-
tal Protection Agency), and Hendrey is
its chief investigator to determine the
sensitivity of regions of the U.S. east of
the Mississippi, from Minnesota to
Florida and up through New England,
where the most devastating effects of
acid rain have been noted.

In lakes found in the Adirondack
Mountains in New York State, long con-
sidered prime tourist attractions partly
because of their excellent fishing, acid
rain has already taken a steep toll. "Peo-
ple [who are in business] in the Adiron-
dacks are very mad at environmental
scientists for losing them their tour-
ists," Hendrey says. "We've pointed
out that half the lakes in the higher
areas have lost their fish. Many [of those
lakes] are completely free of fish, lakes
that were good fishing lakes in the past.
Also, there is a rapid accumulation of
plant material in those lakes — mosses,
algae, other water plants — and leaf lit-
ter appears to be decomposing more
slowly. If these trends are true, these
lakes will become filled in with plant
matter very rapidly."

Hendrey is now also investigating
Golden Lake in the high peaks region of
the Adirondacks. "It was surveyed in
the 1930s, and no sphagnum moss was
found in the lake. Today," he says, "all
shallow portions — up to three feet deep
— are completely covered with moss,
and the moss is accumulating and not
being removed by animals or bacteria,
because those creatures have been
removed by the acid. Many species of in-
sects, invertebrates, snails are all gone;
freshwater clams, many species of ben-
thic zooplankton, mayflies, and
stoneflies are gone," he says.

In Brookhaven's studies to deter-
mine which sections of the U.S. could be
sensitive to acid rain, he has words of
general cheer for the Midwest. "There
isn't a whole lot that will happen in the
Midwest, and acid rain isn't likely to af-
fect the fresh waters [a great deal]."
Why not? "Because the Midwest is
formed primarily of bedrock that con-
tains more limestone than is found in the
Northeast or the Canadian shield."

But we in the Midwest dare not con-
sider ourselves too lucky, for he sug-
gests that it is most likely our air pollu-

tion that is creating some of the acid
rain problem for other parts of the coun-
try and the world.

"Emissions in the form of sulfur
dioxide," which come primarily from
smelters and coal- and oil-fired power
plants, begin in the Midwest and are
transported out of the area before sulfur
dioxides become sulfates and sulfuric
acid, which are what really cause the
damage. By the time this polluted air
gets to New England, Hendrey says, "it
has been mostly converted." Big emis-
sion regions, he points out, exist along
the Ohio River and along the heavily in-
dustrialized cities that outline the Great
Lakes — Milwaukee and Chicago, Gary
and Detroit, Cleveland and Erie, and
from the large steel mills in Indiana,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

What can the average person do
about acid rain?

"Become aware of the problem,"
Hendrey suggests. "Realize that acid
rain is a product of our industrial socie-
ty, and that the damage it causes is a
real cost to us all. We don't see it
easily," he says, but in addition to the
measurable changes in bodies of water
and upon plants and forests and
creatures that inhabit them, acid rain ex-
acts another cost.

"Acid rain makes our material, man-
made possessions last a shorter time. It
corrodes buildings, weakens nylon, rusts
automobiles."

In the presence of acid precipitation,
iJC's Science Advisory Board observes,
calcium and magnesium are released
more readily from soils, which can affect
soil fertility. "Low pH levels also reduce
the rate at which cellulose in plant
tissues is decomposed, [and] changes in
plant communities eventually will affect
the Great Lakes," reports the IJC.

In addition, the Science Advisory
Board warns, "the hydrogen ions in acid
rain may trigger the release of toxic
heavy metals such as mercury and lead,
which would otherwise remain bound to
soils and lake bottom sediments. The
released metals can affect fish and other
aquatic life. Further, metals are general-
ly more toxic in more acidic waters.
Some of the streams and rivers entering
the Great Lakes have become more
acidic and carry high concentrations of
heavy metals. Fish species using these
areas for spawning or as nurseries could
feel the effects.

"When the pH changes," the IJC
report continues, "species inhabiting
the water body change. As stress on the
system increases, fewer species and
decreasing numbers of those can sur-
vive. Below 4.5pH all fish are
eliminated.

"People are affected indirectly as
their recreation areas change. Fish
species and plant life alter, and the soils
lose fertility. Directly, copper and lead

concentrations in drinking water may in-
crease because acidic water is carried in
metal pipes."

What then, can be done — after
more people become better informed of
the problems and the increasing
worldwide threat of acid rain?

Hendrey suggests that people will
need to be "willing to pay the real dollar
loss to acid rain in a different way — on
our electricity bills, for instance, and not
on a degraded environment." It is possi-
ble, he proposes, "to insist on a higher
level of cleanliness from utility com-
panies — to burn cleaner coal, to clean
coal before it is burned or after it has
been burned, with smokestack scrub-
bers."

A newer technique known as
fluidized-bed combustion processes of-
fers hope, he says. This is a technique in
which "limestone is injected into the
burner of a power plant and essentially
scavenges sulfur dioxide as it's formed,
so that it removes the sulfur during the
burning process and also reduces the
temperature of combustion so that less
nitrogen oxide is formed by this
process." Some experimental work is
being done with test boilers, Hendrey
says, "but they are expensive."

Yet, he suggests further, it may be
better — say nothing of fairer — "to pay
that cost. Instead of ruining a tourist in-
dustry [such as the Adirondacks area] in
New England, or paying a large cost in a
small area, it may be better to pay a
similarly large cost, but to spread it out
over a large area."

The EPA has recently announced
final rules for new coal-burning electric
power plants. The new-plant rules are
substantially more stringent than cur-
rent standards and will permit greatly
increased coal use without increasing na-
tional sulfur dioxide and particulate —
dust, smoke, and fly ash — emissions.

In effect, the new rules will require
sulfur dioxide removal devices called
scrubbers on all 350 new power plants
expected to be built in the U.S. between
now and 1995.

The EPA estimates that the new
standard will increase the average
monthly residential electric bill in 1995
by about 2 percent over the current stan-
dard. The new regulations also contain
provisions that encourage development
of other new control technologies for
power plants. For instance, if it is found
that an emerging technology cannot
achieve the new standards but offers
superior environmental performance,
alternative standards could in the future
be established by EPA. —Susan Nelson,
EPA Environment Midwest.

OUR ENVIRONMENT

West Chicago Prairie
Acquired for Public Use

The 153-acre West Chicago Prairie, one
of the largest natural £ireas in suburban
Chicago, has been purchased by the Na-
ture Conservancy, a national nonprofit
conservation organization. Located in
DuPage County, 35 miles due west of
Chicago in the City of West Chicago, the
West Chicago Prairie contains four
naturtd ecosystems: marsh, savannah,
and two types of prairie. Three hundred
fifty plants, more than 40 percent of all
species native to DuPage County, have
been found within the borders of this
unique natural area, including the
federtdly threatened white lady's slipper
orchid (Cypripedium candidum)— on the
U.S. list of threatened sp)€cies and Carex
crawei, an Illinois endangered species.
An excellent wildlife habitat. West
Chicago Prairie is home to the vanishing
Massasauga rattlesnake and the state-
endangered marsh hawk, as well as a
variety of ground-nesting birds, deer
and raccoon. Originally zoned industrial,
and slated as part of the WESCOM in-
dustrial park. West Chicago Prairie con-
tains 12.8 percent of ail remaining
prairie of its typw in the state of Illinois.
The Nature Conservancy, which ac-
quired the suburban land valued at
$1,530,000, is holding the property for
resale to the City of West Chicago and
the DuPage County Forest Preserve
District. These two bodies wiU purchase
the land from the Conservancy with a
grant from the federal Land and Water
Conservation Fund, the local matching
acquisition doUars. The Prsiirie will be
dedicated as a state nature preserve and
be managed by the DuPage County For-
est Preserve District. The area will be
open to the public for research, en-
vironmental education, and passive
recreation.

Rain Brings Baby Crane

Ornithologists had to create artificial
rain every day for months, but finally
got two rare birds to feel at home,
become amorous, and mate, yielding a
scientific first over the weekend.

A Brolga crane, first ever to hatch
outside the species' native Australia,
came out of its shell at the International
Crane Foundation headquarters near
Baraboo, Wis.

Australian aborigines caU the cranes
Brolgas, or dancing cranes, because of
an elaborate courtship dance they per-
form during the monsoon season.

Scientists at the crane foundation

speculated it was the lack of a Wisconsin

monsoon season that kept Olga, the

mother of the chick hatched over the

24 weekend, from laying a single egg for

five years after she was brought here.

So Kate Lindsey, a student ornithol-
ogist at the foundation, came up with
the idea of sprinkling Olga and her mate,
Willie, with water for two hours a day.
The birds eventually began their mating
calls and courtship dance and an egg
soon appeared.

Brolga cranes stand 4 '/a feet tall as
adults. The silver gray chick, 5 inches
tall, was named Lindsey, after Lindsey.

Owls Enlisted for Rodent Control

Two New Jersey cities, Morristown and
Bloomfield, have substituted owls for
poison in their rodent control programs.
Adult owls can eliminate up to 35 rats
and mice each day. Although barn owls
are native to the state, they had aban-
doned the area when roosting places
became scarce and their food supply
poisoned. Reintroduced fledglings have
been provided with nesting boxes and a
renovated bam to call home, and all
poisoning has been stopped. No concrete
results yet.

Piranha in Florida Waters

Beneath the surface of Florida's inviting
freshwater lakes and streams, authori-
ties fear, may lurk a growing number of
piranha — schools of which can strip a
human to bone in minutes.

So far, only single spiecimens of the
vicious South American carnivores have
been reported in Florida waters. But
those reports have prompted Florida's
Game and Fresh Water Fish Commis-
sion to raise its guard.

"We know now that piranha could
survive and reproduce in the wild in all
of southern Florida as far north as
Daytona," said Paul Shafland, director
of the commission's non-native fish
research laboratory in Boca Raton.

The commission last month arrested
two men accused of imjwrting 735 of the
illegal fish, which officials think may
have been intended for the state's
piranha black market.

"There is definitely a black market
in piranha," said James A. McCann,
director of the national fisheries
research laboratory of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in GainesviUe.

"People have always been fascina-
ted by man-eaters," Shafland said. "The
attraction is that people Uke to have
something that nobody else has."

Florida Atlantic University biology
professor Walter Courtney estimates
there are "many hundreds, possibly
thousands" of illegal piranha in private
aquariums all over the state.

Courtney says the ban on piranha —
and the subsequent black market price
of as much as S50 each — is intended to
discourage persons who own them from
dropping the carnivorous fish into a
stream when they outgrow their
aquariums.

Even so, at least some piranha have
gotten into the wild. In April, a 12-inch
red piranha was caught in a Boca Raton
pond by a fisherman.

New Light on Skunk Scent

Although everyone knows that the
skunk, when sufficiently provoked, can
produce an odor that will make even
strong men (or women) beat a hasty
retreat, scientists recently have detailed
the noxious chemicals in the offensive
emission that do the trick.

At the turn of the century, scientists
beUeved that the defensive scent of the
North American striped skunk {Mephi-
tis mephitis) consisted, partially at
least, of 1 butanethiol, confirming earlier
work that had shown the scent to con-
tain sulfur. By the mid-1940s, it was
reported that besides thiols, the skunk
scent contained crotyl sulfide, an equal-
ly unpleasant smelling compound.

Now two chemists from the Univer-
sity of New Hampshire, Durham, Ken-
neth K. Andersen and David T. Berns-
tein, have pinned down chemical consti-
tuents of the striped offender's weapon.
Andersen and Bernstein took up the
banner of skunk scent research as a
result of some initial interest in insect
pheromones. Unfortunately, the
necessary insects for the work weren't
available, so they decided to work with
something that was— the skunk. The
skunk scent needed for the research was
plentifully available from a skunk farm
in Massachusetts where the animals are
raised— and descented— for sale as
household pets.

The chemists obtained the scent for
their analytical work by withdrawing
samples from live male and female
skunks with a syringe. The fluid was
combined and partitioned in a
separatory funnel into two layers, one
organic and one aqueous. Distillation of
the organic layer under vacuum yielded
the volatile "evil smelling part of the
scent."

Subsequent analysis of the distiUate
by gas chromatography produced three
major constituents, whose identities
were confirmed with infrared and
nuclear magnetic resonance spec-
trometry. Found in a ratio of 4:3:3 were
f ran s-2-butene-l -thiol, 3 -methyl- 1-
butanethiol, and methyl-l-Urans-2-
butenyl) disulfide. Absent, according to
the New Hampshire scientists, were the
earlier reported 1-butanethiol and
dicrotyl sulfide.

So far the only interest in the work,
says Andersen, has come from two
veterinarians he knows who are in-
terested in a method of deodorizing dogs
that have antagonized roaming skunks
into leveling a blast at them. It probably
can be safely assumed that a major new
industry based on this work won't be
developing in the near future.
Chemical Engineering News

Field Museum Tours

Archaeological Tour of Egypt
with Nile River Cruise
Jan. 31-Feb. 17, 1980

Eighteen days exploring Egypt with our Egyptologist, Mrs.
Del Nord, a doctoral candidate at the Oriental Institute of the Univer-
sity of Chicago, who has traveled extensively in Egypt. Leave
Chicago on January 31, 1980, and return on February 17. Price in-
cludes all air transportation, meals, Niles cruise, hotels, tips, taxes,
transfers, visa fees, admissions, baggage handling, escorts, and
more. $3,595.00 per person based upon double occupancy. The
tour price includes a $500.00 contribution to the Field Museum. A
$500.00 per person deposit is required for reservation confirmation.
The group is limited to 30 persons. Single supplement is available
upon request, Nile cruise and land.

Kenya Safari
Feb. 13-March 5, 1980

The wildlife of Kenya, both plant and animal, will be the focal point
of this exciting 22-day tour of Kenya. An added bonus will be one of
nature's most spectacular phenomena, a total eclipse of the sun
which will occur on Feb. 16, 1980, and which you will view from the
vantage point, the Taita Hills. On the tour you will visit Nairobi, Am-
boseli beneath Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tsavo West, Tsavo East, Mombasa
on the Indian Ocean, the Ark, Samburu, Mt. Kenya Safari Club,
Lake Naivasha, Masai Mara adjoining the Screngcti, and more.

The tour will be led by Dr. Robert Faden, assistant curator of
botany, and his wife, Audrey Joy Faden. Dr. Faden lived in Kenya
for more than seven years and is very well versed in the flora. Audrey
Faden, a wildlife artist, was born and raised in Kenya and has a
firsthand knowledge of the fauna.

The tour leaves Chicago on Feb. 13, 1980, and returns
March 5. Price includes all air transportation, meals, transportations
within Kenya, hotels, tips, taxes, visas, transfers, baggage handling,
admissions, escorts, and more. The tour cost is $4,575.00 per per-
son based upon double occupancy from Chicago; this includes a
$500.00 contribution to Field Museum. A $750.00 deposit per per-
son is required for reservation confirmation. The group is limited to
25 persons. Single supplement is available upon request.

Antarctica, Jan 6-30, 1980

Until recently, only explorers were able to view Antarctica's won-
drous beauty. There is no destination more remote, more unspoiled
by the encroachments of civilization. Our itinerary includes the
Falkland islands, a visit to the Patagonian coast, the South Georgia
islands, the South Orkney Islands, and of course, Antarctica. Dr. Ed-
ward Olsen, curator of mineralogy, will be tour lecturer.

The cruise vessel will be the 3,200-ton ship, M.S. World
Discoverer, registered in Hong Kong, which will take us from Punta
Arenas, Argentina, onwards. Built in 1974, the one-class vessel has

all outside cabins with private lavatories and showers. The ship's staff
includes a fully qualified physician. The tour leaves Chicago Jan. 6,
1980 and returns Jan. 30. Prices per person: C deck twin: $3,230;
C deck single: $4,870; B deck twin: $3,570; B deck single: $5,390;
A deck twin: $3,930. Air fare, in addition is $1,225 (round trip be-
tween Chicago and Punta Arenas, Argentina), included in the tour
price is a tax-deductible donation of $500.00 to Field Museum.
Deposit required at time of registration: $1,000.00 per person.

Geology Tour of England and Wales
June 14-July 3, 1980

Highlights of this 20-day tour, under the leadership of Dr. Bertram
Woodland, Field Museum's curator of petrology (and a native of
Wales) , will be visits to classical areas of British geology where many
fundamental aspects of geology were first discovered. The geological
history and scenic development of these areas will be emphasized,
included in the tour are visits to the South Coast, West Country
Cotswolds, Welsh Borderlands, North Wales, Lake District,
Yorkshire Dales, and the Peak District. The group is limited to 25
persons.

Cost of the tour— $2,640 (which includes a $300 donation to
Field Museum) — is based upon double occupancy and includes
round trip air fare between Chicago and London. First class accom-
modations will be used throughout. The package includes breakfast
and dinner daily, chartered motorcoach, baggage handling, all
transfers, taxes (except airport tax), and tips (except to tour guides),
all sightseeing charges and admissions to special events. Advance
deposit: $250.00 per person.

Natural History Tour of Hawaii
March 9-22, 1980

The islands of Kauai, Maui, Hawaii and Oahu will be visited on this
14-day tour of the archipelago state. Highlights of the tour will be
discussion of the natural history of the islands — their volcanic origin;
their evolution from young high islands to atolls to submarine sea-
mounts; and the sources of the distinctive flora and fauna, both
terrestrial and marine. Also to be discussed is the impact of human
activity on the indigenous flora and fauna, including ruinous habitat
alterations, and the effects of broad-scale introduction of exotic
species. Tour members will have the chance to see first-hand many
of the geological, botanical and zoological objects under discussion.
The group, limited to 30 persons, will be led by Dr. Robert K.
Johnson, associate curator and head. Division of Fishes, Field
Museum; and by Dr. John Fay, botanist with the U.S. Department of
interior's Office of Endangered Species.

The tour cost — $2,437 (which includes a $300 donation to
Field Museum) — is based upon double occupancy and includes
round trip air fare between Chicago and Honolulu and all inter-island
flights. Deluxe accommodations will be used throughout. The
package includes breakfast and dinner daily plus three lunches, lei
greeting and cocktail receptions, baggage handling, all tips, taxes,
and transfers, all sightseeing charges and admissions to special
events. Advance deposit: $250.00 per person.

For additional information and reservations for all
tours, call or write Field Museum Tours. Roosevelt
Rd. at Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, III. 60605.
Phone: (312) 922-9410, X-251. ^5

November & December at Field Museum

November 15 through December 15

New Exhibits

"Image and Life: 50,000 Years of Japanese Prehistory."

Opening December 1. Ceramics, stone tools, figurines, and
bronze weapons, and ornaments representing the Paleolithic,
Jomon, Yayoi, and Kofun periods of Japanese history are in-
cluded. Ages of artifacts range from about 50,000 years ago to
the 3rd century a.d. Hall 27. For additional information see p. 4.

"The Place for Wonder." Find out about the new feature in The
People Center": "touchable" items from the People's Republic
of China. You can try on a jacket worn by villagers, or one worn
by city dwellers. Other touchable items include Chinese
newspapers and magazines, a fortune-telling book, and a bam-
boo purse.

All of this and more i? available in the Place for Wonder, the
ground floor gallery where children and adults alike may handle
what they see. The exhibits include examples from the
Museum's four disciplines: geology, botany, zoology, and an-
thropology. The exhibit is also equipped with text in braille.
Weekdays 1:00-3:00 p.m., weekends 10:00 a.m. to noon and
1:00-3:00 p.m.

to cover the four disciplines of natural history, the exhibit in its
first phase is devoted to zoological specimens and their images
on stamps. Exquisite seashells, butterflies, a leaping jaguar, and
fox are among the specimens mounted in the second floor
lounge. "A Stamp Sampler" was conceived by Col. M. E. Rada,
exhibit guest curator, and designed by Peter Ho, a University of
Illinois graduate student.

New Programs

"Festival of Anthropology on Film." More than 60
ethnographic films examine the incredible diversity of peoples
around the world. In addition to the main culture films in James
Simpson Theatre and A. Montgomery Ward Hall, there will be
continuous screenings in Lecture Hall llof subject films on men
and women, music, drama, technology, ecology, and humor,
irony, and parody. The Festival will feature documentary
classics such as Napolean Chagnon's "Magical Death, " Jean
Rouch's "Jaguar, " as well as selections from Field Museum's
own film archives. Nov. 30 (5 p.m. - 9 p.m.), Dec. 1 and 2 (11
a.m. - 5 p.m.). Admission: Members one day $4.00, series
$10.00; nonmembers one day $5.00, series $13.00. For further
information see pages 18-21.

"Image and Life: 50,000 Years of Japanese Prehistory." Lee

ture by Ellen J. Zak, Coordinator of Education Programs, Center
for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. Friday. Dec. 7. 8
p.m. Members $2.00, nonmembers $3.50. James Simpson
Theatre. West Door.

"The Jomon Period." Free 48-min. film, 11:00 a.m. and 2:00
p.m. Fridays in December. Lecture Hall I.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Free guided tours, demonstra-
tions, and films. Check Weekend Sheet available at North Infor-
mation Booth for additional programs and locations.

"China Through the Ages." A look at traditional China through
rare turn-of-the-century lantern slides. Saturday, Nov. 17, at 12

Continuing Exhibits

"A Stamp Sampler: Postage from Natural History." A one-
case exhibit that combines 63 natural history specimens with
samples of philatelic, or stamp, art. Planned on a rotating basis

"Olympic Rain Forest." This 20-minute film studies the vegeta-
tion and animal life of a rain forest, and shows climatic reasons
for its existence. "Cave Ecology." 13-minute film showing how
the cave — a small, simple, enclosed system — is an ideal place to
study the biological principles that govern a living community.
Saturday, Nov. 17, at 1:00 p.m.

"Indians of North America." This tour explores the daily life of
six Indian tribes, from the Iroquois in the north to the Hopi in the
Southwest. Saturday, Nov. l"?, at 2:30 p.m.

"The Northwest Coast: Costume and Finery. " 45-minute slide
presentation shows how native and imported materials were
used in Northwest Coast apparel to display wealth and social
status. Sunday, Nov. 18, at 2:00 p.m.

"Ancient Ocean Environments." 1/2-hour tour and movie focus
(Continued on back couer)

Tor Christinas
Qi^e TieU Museum

Whether \;ou are trying to decide on a Christmas gift for
the small child or for "the man who has ever\^thing," agift
of Membership in Field Museum is alwa[;s appropriate.

For the adult, a Membership can provide a wealth
of opportunities to further explore the realm of natural
history;; for the child it can open the doors to a lifetime of
scientific interest or professional endeavor. Infiniteli;
more than a storehouse of fascinating specimens and ex-
hibits. Field Museum offers to its Members at euery age
level a varied selection of exciting learning experiences
via the classroom, workshop, laboratory/, film lecture, or
field trip.

Perhaps equall]j important: with a Field Museum
Membership you are giving a shared relationship, for
Field Museum is indeed its Members.

clip and mail this coupon or facsimile

to: Membership Department

Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, II 60605

I wish to send gift memberships to the following:

Gift recipient's name

My name

Street

City

State

Zip

City

State

n Individual membership $20
D Family membership $25
D Life membership $500

□ Individual membership $20
D Family membership $25
D Life membership $500

City State Zip

Check enclosed payable to Field Museum
Please bill me

Charge to Master Charge acc't #

Charge to Visa acc't #

Send gift card announcement in my name

November & December at Field Museum

November 15 through December 15
(Continued from p. 26)

on the underwater world of ancient invertebrates, some of
whose successors are alive today. Saturday, Dec. 1 , at 1 :30 p.m.

"The Vanishing Race." 1/2-hour slide presentation of E.S.
Curtis's photographs showing early 20th-century Indian life in
North America. Sunday, Dec. 2, at 1:30 p.m.

"Indian Fishermen of the Northwest Coast." The everyday as
well as ceremonial life of Northwest Coast Indians centered
around their fish harvests. This 45-minute tour illustrates the
importance of fish in story and art and also examines Northwest
Coast fishing techniques. Saturday, Dec. 8, at 12:20 p.m.

"Bitter Melons." This 30-minute film, made on the Harvard-
Peabody Museum expedition to Botswana in 1955, focuses on
the Bushman's search for subsistence in a harsh desert environ-
ment. The soundtrack for the movie is provided by blind
songmaker Clkxone. Saturday, Dec. 8, at 1:00 p.m.

"Northwest Coast Costume and Finery." 45-minute slide presen-
tation shows how local and traded materials were used in North-
west Coast apparel to display wealth and social status. Sunday,
Dec. 9, at 2:00 p.m.

"The Turtle People." This 25-minute film documents how the
Miskito Indians of the eastern coast of Nicaragua have entered
the modern economic market by their pursuit of the turtle.
Although a staple in their diet for over 350 years, the turtle is
now hunted for money rather than food. Saturdays, Dec. 15, at
1:00 p.m.

"Ancient Ocean Environments." 1/2-hour tour and short movie
focus on the underwater world of ancient invertebrates, some of
whose successors are alive today. Saturday, Dec. 15, at 2:00
p.m.

Edward E. Ayer Film Lectures are scheduled on Saturdays
through November, at 2:30 p.m., James Simpson Theatre.
Reserved seating is available for Members and their families.
Doors open at 1:45 p.m.

Nov. 17 "Yugoslavia," by Gene Wianko

Nov. 24 "Hong Kong and Macau," by F. Reidelburger

Fall Journey: "Creatures of the Night." Until December 1 . Self-
guiding tour takes you to another world — a world of darkness.
Many forms of North American wildlife are nocturnal. Although
numerous, they are hidden by the darkness of night. Learn how
these "invisible" animals live and thrive — as creatures of the
night. Free Journey pamphlets available at the North Informa-
tion Booth and at the South and West Doors.

Continuing Programs

"The Ancient Art of Weaving." Learn about age-old weaving
techniques and textile development during these free demon-
strations. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10:00 a.m. to
noon. South Lounge, second floor.

Friend or Foe? The Natural History Game. The object here is to
determine which one of a pair of apparently similar specimens is
harmful and which is not. See if you can distinguish a vampire
bat, a headhunter's axe, a poisonous mineral, or a deadly mush-
room from its benign look-alike. Ground floor, no closing date.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets,
adult-and-family-oriented, are available for 25C each at the en-
trance to the Museum Shop, main floor north.

November and December Hours. The Museum is open from 9
a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday - Thursday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday
and Sunday; and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Obtain
a pass at the reception desk, main floor. Closed Thanksgiving,
Nov. 22.

December
1979

FIELD MCSEGM OF NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN

Field Museum

of Natural History

Bulletin

CONTENTS

December 1979
Vol. 50, No. 11

Editor/ Designer: David M. Walsten
Production: Martha Poulter
Calendar: Mary Cassai
Staff Photographer: Ron Testa

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded 1893

President and Director: E. Leland Webber

Board of Trustees

William G. Swartchild, Jr.,

chairman
Mrs. T. Stanton Armour
George R. Baker
Robert O. Bass
Gordon Bent
Harry O. Bercher
Bowen Blair
Stanton R. Cook
O.C. Davis

Life Trustees

William McCormick Blair
Joseph N. Field
Clifford C. Gregg
Samuel InsuU, Jr.
William V. Kahler
John T. Pirie, Jr.
Donald Richards
John M. Simpson
J. Howard Wood

Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (USPS 898-940) is published monthly,
except combined July/August issue, by Field Museum of Natural History,
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, II. 60605. Subscriptions: $6.00
annually, $3.00 for schools. Museum membership includes Bulletin subscription.
Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the
policy of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Museum phone:
(312) 922-9410. Postmaster: Please send form 3579 to Field Museum of Natural
History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, II. 60605. ISSN:
0015-0703.

back
cover

COVER

Three Major Exhibits for 1980: "Patterns of Paradise,"
"Gold of El Dorado: The Heritage of Colombia," and
"The Great Bronze Age of China: An Exhibition from
the People's Republic of China"

Appointment Calendar for 1980

Features photos of the year's major exhibitions

December and January at Field Museum
Calendar of coming events

This ritual wine container, made of bronze and ornamented with
lotus petals and a crane, will be on view August 20 through October
29, 1980, as part of The Great Bronze Age of China: An Exhibition
from the People's Republic of China. More than 100 pieces, many of
them just recently excavated and never publicly seen prior to this
tour, will be on view. Excavated in 1923 at Xin-zheng, Henan
province, the wine container was made between the mid-7th and
mid-Sth century B.C. Height 118 cm (46~/it in.). Photo by Seth Joel:
courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dorothy S. Roder Heads Tours Program

Dorothy S. Roder, formerly head of the Membership
Division, has been chosen to direct Field Museum's
greatly expanded tours program. Mrs. Roder's 18
years' experience with the Membership Department
and her necessarily close involvement with past tour
activities qualify her eminently for the new post. As
head of the tour office, Mrs. Roder succeeds Michael
J. Flynn.

Highlights of the Museum's international tour
program for 1980 include Antarctica (January 6-30),
Egypt (January 31-February 17), Kenya (February
13-March 5), Hawaii (March 9-22), England and
Wales (June 14-July 3), and China (May 11-30). For
additional tour information, write or call Mrs. Roder
at Field Museum Tours, Roosevelt Road at Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, 111. 60605. Phone: (312) 922-
9410.

Major Exhibitions for 1980

TAPA CLOTH. COLOMBIAN GOLD. TREASURES OF ANCIENT CHINA

"Patterns of Paradise"

Tapa, or "bark cloth," is the little known but widespread art form of this exhibit, opening March
6 and scheduled to remain on view for three months. Some 200 artifacts, almost entirely from
Field Museum's own collection and representing many cultures, will comprise the show. (Illustra-
tions for the months of February and March in this calendar issue feature artifacts from "Patterns
of Paradise.") Organized by John Terrell, associate curator of Oceanic archeology and ethnology,
and by Anne Leonard, researcher. Department of Anthropology.

"Gold of El Dorado: The Heritage of Colombia"

This exhibit — the largest and most comprehensive presentation of Colombian archeology ever
seen outside Latin America — opens April 25 and closes July 5. The hundreds of objects on display
were drawn primarily from the Museo del Oro, Bogota, Colombia. (Three of the objects are
featured in this issue's illustrations for the months of April, May, and June.) The highly acclaimed
traveling exhibition had its premier showing last year at the Royal Academy, London, where it
was described as "the richest display of ancient treasure since Tutankhamun."

"The Great Bronze Age of China:
An Exhibition from the People's Republic of China"

This assemblage of 105 major bronzes, jades, and ceramic figurines will be on view from August
20 to October 29. The exhibit is being organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New
York City. Like the very successful China archeology show that traveled to Toronto, Washing-
ton, and Kansas City in 1976, this one is comprised of finds from recent excavations. Prior to the
tour none of the pieces have been seen in any western country. A selection of these extraordinary
art works are featured on following pages for the months of July through December, as well as on
this month's cover.

*-'V :-w%.

1=^

1^ g

c n,
6 °

O -M
? ■*

a m

-J I

a •=
■« .=

g) 3

g J

■3"«
" 5
S'G
o ^
3 Ji

.|o

a, ■;:
•c S

§^

cs:

W)>.

D
^

ry Pro
Iturda
day

omas
pping
ration

2 p.m.

Discovei
every Se
and Sun

Greg Th
flint-kna
demonst
HaU4
11 a.m.,

vX>
CN

:« &■?

rant
how
■ hou

"2 " S;

§ fe =•

O-Sg

ff ^

lion
un):
iles

tu Vi Z

:« n ?

£•

<
D

(X)

rth at pen

(closest ti

1.4 million

a oi

^^^ c

Ik
4)

^ — ■^ c

^;t

■;.--../,Sr. 1

^ Ol

r" 4*

CY'

V^l

CN ^1^1

m "

r^^i

vX)

Q.2

H 2

r now
;er
luca-
irses

.2'i« "

T—

to (S

Os sO ff)

U. r-

00 lO (N O

r-( fM (N

^ 1^

tN rf rH CO

rH fS fS

D§

sO ro O tx
1— < (S (N

c:;

00 ,

lO (N O -O

W r-< (N

Tf r-« CO in

r-« i-t (N

</)

fO O ir^ -^

r-l rH (N

to r-

00 in <N o

rH <N <N

^^-

fv Tf r-< 00
rH (N (N

'O fO O tN
rH fS fN

lO fM O ^0
rH rH <S

^ rH 00 m

omas
pping
ration

2 p.m.

S 1-

rH rH (S

j3 a -H

f*) O ts. ■«a' rH
rH rH (N m

GregT
flint-kr
demon!
HaU4
11 a.m.

C/5

(N O O ro Q

vr>

T-

be
a

Z
Q

D
Z

Q
Z

O Groundhog Day

Discovery Programs
every Saturday
and Sunday

Learning Museums
South Seas
film festival

last quarter

*The observance of George

Washington's birthday as a

legal holiday on Feb. 22

began in 1796. In many

states, however, his

birthday is now celebrated

on the 3rd Monday of

February, designated

Presidents' Day.

Learning Museums
South Seas
film festival

<^ O Washington's
^^ Birthday*

first quarter

^ A Valmtine's Day

Winter adult
educ. courses
begin

v£)

Winter adult
educ. courses
begin

CO
T3

J3
tn

W O Lincoln's
1 / Birthday

Winter adult
educ. courses
begin

2
cn

MARCH

S M T W T F S

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31

W Q President's Day*

Volunteer recruit-
ment week for "Gold
of El Dorado"
Monday thru Friday

LD
CN

JANUARY
S M T W T F S
12 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

5
.Q

Q
csi

Q
D

w
Z

Q
Z

ffi ^

3 B
o- C-'

©"oOo

i-H

r-4

T-H

l-H

<
05

C/5

e
«

'^ •

Ct, o " » 'I
•7;T3 3 a,

0) X B^O

<:: I— c J2C-I

3-S.

M o
u O

CO o)
-4J OB

Woo.

•a s fe

&^
o eg

en 0)^

[t, CO .

'^ 473 a

CT3 a

S)'2 3
as cow

CN
CN

S-3-a .

V ^ beg

S.S3 3

Q'm uCQ

OS c o § a

: CO «4^ 'u 00

v£>

a) no

*^ c ^

^ C- > ^
E «■»" 6

is g-e go

00
CN

> f

o
bo
o
05

•a
o

■e

o
o.

•o
e
a

.g"

o
bo

Ayer Film Tiecture
"Central America"
by Jonathan Hayes
2:30 p.m.

Ayer Film Lecture
"Bavaria— Land of
the Mountain King"
by H. & L. Meyers
2:30 p.m.

Ayer Film Lecture
"The Hawaiian Ad-
venture" by Doug
Jones. 2:30 p.m.

Ayer Film T,ecture
"The Majestic
Rhine," by John
Roberts, 2:30 p.m.

•+-A

■a

(Urn be

DC environm
film lecture
olombia— tb
des to the
anish Main"
George Lan
I.m.

LD
CN

S
.^

Q
D

Spring adult
education
courses
begin

t£:

>«

•

■3

■0 e
<fl 0 _

^ — "^ e

vT)

Spring
educati
courses
begin

ter now
roc

onmental
Trips

egis

nvir
ield

K^Hb.

Spring ad
education
courses
begin

^^1

:« feTt

to r<1

O rv T rH
t-i rH rs (^

^i§

tL- (S

O sO r^ O

^It

rH <N rO

1 s

H ,-.

CO lO fS O
rH (N (N

0 °-

>- .^

1% TJ" rH 00
i-H (N <N

^0 rO O t>'

I-H fS) fN

ID <N O sO

r-H rH (N

^—

TT rH 00 in

rH rH fS

W r-

CO ID rs O
rH (N (N

tN tT rH CO

rH (S (N

sO m o In
i-H (N rs

O CO

ei S

lO (N O *0

v.-a

mm^

.-< rH (S

^
&.

^ rH 00 lO

rH rH (N

rn O ^s ■^ rH

rH rH (N rn

icovery
iry Sati
1 Sundi

t/D

(N O sO r<l O

I-H (S m

Q ^ S

T-

VSi^^

t»
o

■«

< I*.

be
e

o
an

e
o
■B

•o

E
o

i
o

D
X
H

^
^

Q
Z

!
1

i>.

O n

5 S

iry Pr
aturd
iday

8 b"

TT"

On s^g

2. a

cch

UJX

S9o

H d

u d

U d

»"

°"

"S"

73 C

vT)

-53

■33

rsi

CC|-

lUl

£o

UjZ

"' X K

T—

v_yj

fc^

•

^—

O s «

b Im S

vX)

U5 tN Tf r-. 00

r-l fS <S

B- -O rt O Cv

►J

1-1 <S <S

H m IS o- -o

1-1 l-H (N

"^ ~-

Z < 'S' 1-1 00 lO

2 1-1 1-1 <s

S
u

[_ r*^ O tN Tjl

•^ r-1 1-1 (S

^« n o so rn o

2 rH IS ni

vX)

,_ r-l 00 lO <S O-

cn 1-1 <s <s

^r-

:« fc "c-

;a) lo <N o- -o

C S a

ri rH (N

ago

u- •>».-■ 00 in

APRIL

r w T

1 2 3

8 9 10 1
5 16 17 1

2 23 24 2

9 30

2 2qo

•^1

' rH (N (N

C >H

2 ""SP^ S

Y—

sO ro O tx

I-" .Si

i f*:

t^r?*'

tic

s§

e
►J

-a

I
«>

History

Q
bo

year's latest

sunset (Central

Standard Time):

7:26 p.m.

(June 21-28)

X' — X S

JULY

T W T F S
12 3 4 5
8 9 10 11 12

15 16 17 18 19

22 23 24 25 26

29 30 31

, ,

•

^—

CO r^i

CN Wl

•O fO o t^

4-^

(/5 r^ O ts •* rl
rH rH (N f*)

"• IS O. -O t»5 p

H rH oo m rq o-

i-H (S (N
< 5 tN TT rH OO

H-x

^ "^ rH f>J (S

IX,

^-Xl

f- *2Sf5

2 "^SSS

^■'^l

■«■ rH 00 m

(/) rH rH <S

as-^s^

year's earlii

unrise (Cent

tandard Tim

4:06 a.

(June 12,

i..

<n I/)

lis

(T^

lli-i

>«

3'0 O flJ

Mwora

y5
Z

**§

m'S «

E 3 3 Sd

3*0 O OJ

>•

< c

. O

g 3 3 Si)

^ «

-5 s 5

2o« ^

O 08

c«

1^1

2 OT3

T-

t /!

■^J

f^.

s «^

be
c
o

C
_ ^

I. c!

J, •»

tf-C

J- ?»

•S.5

u e
MS. 2

CO !>i

D
tn
w
2

ID
H

D
Z

"Gold of el Dorado"
exhibit closes

3 Earth at aphelion
(furthest from sun):
last quarter 34.5 million miles

•

new moon

Discovery Programs
every Saturday
and Sunday

►—1

HighUght
Tours 1 p.m.

O r\ HighUght
"S 11 Tours 1 p.m.

Delta Aquarid

meteor shower

(38 per hour)

8 Summer Fun
Children's
Workshops
begin
HighUght
Tours 1 p.m.

HighUght
Tours 1 p.m.

AUGUST
S M T W T F S
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31

HighUght
Tours 1 p.m.

JUNE

S M T W T F S
12 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30

v£)

first quarter

/lenumbral eclipse
moon (not visible
^— ^ in U.S.)
fuU moon

■'■\t-t;'.

55??y:^ ■.^■^^'-;^'.C'\ '•; ■**i~

* ■

^^ ■■'"^^^^

SI \; r-^-

.^«^

^^^^

< w

•+-a

1 2

1 g

2 3

-2

"-i

"i«

g 15

£ 2

S .5

° "^

c^i

o .2

3
X

a- o

1^
cq

ii:

C
?>

•M

•«

■0

•<;

1.,

4.i

"5-

to -V
=> tf

to ■■*

c gi
2 E

D
Z

Discovery Programs
every Saturday
and Sunday

v£)

CN
CN

Highlight
Tours 1 p.m.

"The Great Bronze
Age of China"
exhibit opens

Highlight
Tours 1 p.m.

r\ "7 Highlight

/ / Tours 1 p.m.

Highlight
Tours 1 p.m.

1f\ Highlight
*^ Tours 1 p.m.
"The Great Bronze
Age of China"
Members ' Preview

Highlight
Tours 1 p.m.

SEPTEMBER
S M T W T F S
12 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30

4 Register now
for Kroc
Environmental
Field Trips
Highlight
Tours 1 p.m.

Perseid

meteor shower

Highlight (65 per hour)

Tours 1 p.m. Aug. 11-13

"The Great Bronze
Age of China"
Members ' preview

^m_y Highlight
first quarter Tours 1 p.m.

to to "^

6 S.*^
•yd ^ 5 Ii

3 2 9 c ~
.SP§ 1 8 §
KH S S S

CN v_^^t

JULY
S M T W T F S
12 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

last quarter

• annular eclipse
of sun (partial
eclipse visible
new moon in S.E. U.S.)

CN \

<■

^>.^

; _^

- (J

\ «i

{T\

' 2<

) (M

■>*

3 f*

' 2.

1 W)

' S

^ S

•B

!«

,tiC

■B —

3 ^

< »

•ti B

2 "

■a 1*

8 ?

= ^

c S

■X3 •-

«i H

-^-g

§^

Kroc Environ-
mental Field
Trips begin

Discovery Programs
every Saturday
and Sunday

03
D

K
CN

OCTOBER
S M T W T F S

12 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

-as
CN ^ili

°£

-as
CN Hffld,^

C/) (N O O f*> O
rH (S rO

U-" rH oo ir> <S O

rH (S tS

ro O tN TT rH

t/) rH rH (S fO

D
X

e
o

to
eg

5
D

w
2

■

CN ^-^t

v£)

o mi

CQ
<

■11 si
CO Ml

CN
CN

ll-a

(-1 43 CO

5 c a

00
CN

e
.a

ic
c

<3
O

a
e

c
o

t>5

•^ Co

1 ^

ft; 33

1§

>-c

1^1

1-2 3

3.2

IT)

— *

^ ^r'sS

^rlsS

<: .ON

flO

° £
«&3

1^8.3

§<J

S<_§

D .

U 2 a d
HoaOoo

■« fcTt

ii C

i i °

3.2

1:* "^

/•~x 1

X — X S

vX)

J *

c: «

SS8

m^o

£"53

ii c

«•!

^m^ o

3 2

• Ox

T-

=5^ 3 S)

- S
3.2

<SSc

=3.5 3 'So

■O fc T^

tf5 i-H CO lO (N 0>
rH (S <S

|2§

tt« t>. Tf rH 00

S=o

l-^t

r-( (S (S

D
Z

CO rH (S fs)

3 m

OH ' SSS

O
CN

5^^

t/1 ^O rO O tN.

CO CO

r-. CN (N

Q g

t^ in (N c^ o

2«

rH ^ (N

-^^

LU r- -rr rH CO in

s s

Q
Z

CQ rH .— c r^

i 2 -^ 2 ^ ;^

3ii

Cl, L^ (N O O rn O

>.3^

UJ '^ ^ IN ro

^ rH 00 in (N o

2 ^ <N (N

vr>

^ ^ 2 ;3 S

CO oj-g

Q. o> j;
— . tie
c 'S

05.5
il

^ c

c .2
E ^
^^

•s g

S CO

S
^

^ S

D
tu

P
H

D
Z

Q
Z
D

Ayer Film Lecture
"Sweden," by Dick
Reddy; 2:30 p.m.

Ayer Film Lecture
"Greece" by Sherilyn
& Matthew Mentes
2:00 p.m.

Ayer Film Lecture
"Paris" by Kathy
Dusek; 2:30 p.m.

first quarter

Ayer Film Lecture
"Peoples of Romantic
Europe," by W. Syl-
vester; 2:30 p.m.

full moon

Ayer Film Lecture
"Ireland" by
Robert Davis
2:30 j>.m.

last quarter

00
(N

vX>

0
CN

z
>
0

z
<

X
H

Csl

1
CN

^ x| Veterans Day
1 1 (Armistice Day)

Andromedid

meteor shower

(10 per hour)

(Nov. 25-27)

DECEMBER
S M T W T F S
12 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31

OCTOBER
S M T W T F S
12 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31

Discovery Programs
every Saturday
and Sunday

Taurid

meteor shower

(16 per hour)

Leonid

meteor shower

(15 per hour)

\ 0
\ ^

ro \
CN \

^r^

V^N I % 'T

^SBS?,^^,,,

C5 •S'

<N» i;

•5 c
Of 2

C o
■?<

c ?
a <»

"a i
s -5

? =>

" S

o 'S

t a

S Co

•a

,_^

if)

O 2

D
Z

3rd Annual
Anthropology
Film Festival

Geminid

meteor shower

(55 per hour)

Discovery Programs
every Saturday
and Sunday

IX
CN

JANUARY
S M T W T F S
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

3rd Annual
Anthropology
Film Festiva

NOVEMBER

S M T W T F S

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

O HANUKKAH

O
ro

CN
CN

last quarter

3rd Annual
Anthropology
Film Festival

new moon

first quarter

full moon

December and January at Field Museum

December 1 5 through January 1 5

New Exhibit

"Image and Life: 50,000 Years of Japanese Prehistory."

Ceramics, stone tools, figurines, bronze weapons, and ornaments
representing the Paleolithic, Jomon, Yayoi, and Kofun periods of
Japanese history are included. Mever before shown outside of
Japan, these artifacts range in age from about 50,000 years old
to the 3rd century ad. Hall 27.

Continuing Exhibits

"The Place for Wonder." "The People Center" features
"touchable" items from the People's Republic of China. You can
try on a jacket worn by villagers or one worn by city dwellers.
Other touchable items Include Chinese newspapers and
magazines, a fortune-telling book, and a bamboo purse.

All of this and more is available in the Place for Wonder, the
ground-floor gallery where children and adults alike may handle
what they see. The exhibits include examples from the Museum's
four disciplines: geology, botany, zoology, and anthropology.
Exhibit labels are also provided in large type and braille for the
visually handicapped. Weekdays 1:00-3:00 p.m., weekends
10:00 a.m. to noon and 1:00-3:00 p.m.

"Art Lacquer of Japan." The Museum's newest permanent ex-
hibit features more than 400 objects of exquisite lacquer art from
18th- and 19th-century Japan. The objects on display include
finely carved and decorated inro (small sectional lacquer cases
used to carry medicine), ojime beads, and netsuke (miniature
carved pendants hung from silk cords). These objects were worn
by Japanese men as symbols of wealth and status. Hall 32,
second floor.

New Programs

"Flint-knapping." Flint-knapper Greg Thomas will demonstrate
his art of making reproductions of primitive stone tools from
chert and flint. Thomas, whose work has been exhibited in
museums across the country, uses methods and tools like those
of over 1 ,000 years ago. This free program will be held in Stanley
Field Hall. Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 12 and 13, 1 1 a.m. and 2
p.m.

Winter Journey: "Whales — Mammals of the Deep. " Self-guided
tour examines the world of whales. Although these marine giants
live in all the oceans, many species are dangerously close to ex-
tinction. Free Journey pamphlets are available at the North Infor-
mation Booth and Museum entrances.

"The Inside Story: Some Adaptations of Mammals' Bones
and Teeth." This tour examines how skeletons provide clues to
the life and habits of animals. Sunday, Dec. 16, 1 p.m.

""The Potato Planters."' Bolivia's Aymara tribe is the topic of
this film. Saturday, Dec. 22, 1 p.m.

""Museum Highlight Tour."" Saturday, Dec. 22, 1 :30 p.m.
"Whales — with Jacques Cousteau." The Cousteau expedi-
tion observes the behavior of several whale species in this
22-minute film. Saturday, Jan. 5, 2 p.m.

■"China Through the Ages." This 30-minute tour and slide
show looks at traditional China — its inventions, court life, and
schools of thought. Saturday, Jan. 5, 1:30 p.m.

"The Vanishing Race." E.S. Curtis's photographs of early
20th-century Indian life are shown in this 30-minute slide presen-
tation. Sunday, Jan. 6, 2 p.m.

"'Ancient Egypt." The traditions of ancient Egypt, from
every-day life to its myths and mummies, are explored in this
45-minute tour which meets at the North Information Booth.
Saturday, Jan. 12, 1 1:30 a.m.

"Whales, Dolphins and Men. " This 51 -minute documentary
considers the remarkable intelligence of dolphins and whales
and also examines the whaling industry. Saturday, Jan. 12, 1
p.m.

"Clay Dinosaurs. " Visitors may make model dinosaurs out of
clay in the Hall of Fossil Vertebrates (Hall 38). Sunday, Jan. 13,
1 1 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Continuing Programs

"The Jomon Period." Free 48-minute film shown in conjunction
with the new exhibit "Image and Life: 50,000 years of Japanese
Prehistory."" 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Fridays in December. Lecture
Hall I.

On Your Own at Field Museum. Self-guided tour booklets, adult-
and family-oriented, are available for 25C each at the entrance to
the Museum Shop, main floor north.

Volunteer Opportunities. Volunteers with scientific interests and
backgrounds are needed to work in the various departments. For
more information call Volunteer Coordinator, 922-9410, ext.
360.

Weekend Discovery Programs. Free guided tours, demonstra-
tions, and films. Weekend sheet available at North Information
Booth lists additional programs and locations:

"The Turtle People. " This film examines the changes that
took place in the life of a Nicaraguan tribe when it began to hunt
turtles for profit instead of food. Saturday, Dec. 15, 1 p.m.

"Ancient Ocean Environments. " The underwater world of
ancient invertebrates, some of whose successors flourish today.
Is the subject of this 1/2-hour tour and movie. Saturday, Dec. 15,
2 p.m.

Museum Telephone:

December and January Hours. The Museum is open 9 a.m. to 4
p.m., Monday through Thursday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and
Sunday; and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday. Closed Christmas and New
Year's Day.

The Museum Library is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Obtain a
pass at the reception desk, main floor. Closed Monday and Tues-
day. Dec. 24, 25; and Monday and Tuesday, December 31 and
January 1.

(312)922-9410

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Field Museum of Natural History bulletin"

See other formats