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Roy Chapman Andrews, Sc.D.
From the portrait study by S. J. Woolf .

ON THE
TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

A NARRATIVE OF THE FIELD WORK OF THE
CENTRAL ASIATIC EXPEDITIONS

ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS, Sc.D.

LEADER OF THE CENTRAL ASIATIC EXPEDITION OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF
NATURAL HISTORY IN COOPERATION WITH " ASIA MAGAZINE"

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND A CHAPTER BY

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN

PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

"With 58 Photographs by J. Shackelford

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK LONDON
1926

Asia Magazine Inc.

Doubleday, Page & Co., Inc.
(The World's Work)

Roy Chapman Andrews

Made in the United States cf America

To My

COMRADES IN THE FIELD

WHOSE COURAGE, LOYALTY AND DEVOTION TO THE
IDEALS OF SCIENCE HAVE MADE POSSIBLE THE SUCCESS
OF THE CENTRAL ASIATIC EXPEDITIONS, THIS ACCOUNT
OF OUR EXPLORATIONS IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

STAFF OF THE CENTRAL ASIATIC EXPEDITIONS
OF 1922, 1923, AND 1925

Roy Chapman Andrews, Leader and Zoologist.
Walter Granger, Chief Palaeontologist, 1922, '23, '25.
Dr. Charles P. Berkey, Chief Geologist and Petrographer,
1922 and 1925.

Frederick K. Morris, Assistant Geologist, 1922, '23, '25.
George Olsen, Assistant in Palaeontology, 1923 and '25.
Peter Kaison, Assistant in Palaeontology, 1923.
Albert Johnson, Assistant in Palaeontology, 1923.
Ralph W. Chaney, Palaeobotanist, 1925.
Nels C. Nelson, Archaeologist, 1925.

Clifford H. Pope, Assistant in Zoology, 1922, '23, and '25

(Chinese Division).
L. B. Roberts, Chief Topographer, 1925.
F. K. Butler, Assistant in Topography, 1925.
H. 0. Robinson, Assistant in Topography, 1925.
J. B. Shackelford, Photographer, 1922 and '25.
S. Bayard Colgate, Chief of Motor Transport, 1922.
J. McKenzie Young, Chief of Motor Transport, 1923, '25.
C. Vance Johnson, Motor Transport, 1923.
Norman Lovell, Motor Transport, 1925.
F. A. Larsen, Interpreter, 1922.

T. Badmajapoff, Representative of the Mongolian Govern-
ment, 1922.

FOREWORD

ASIA THE MOTHER OF CONTINENTS

IT was seldom that the Oracle of Delphi gave an
* immediate response to the solicitous inquiries of
those seeking Divine counsel; repeated libations and
other sacrifices were offered at the shrine; the final
reply of the gods was diplomatic, so that the ambi-
guity of Delphic utterance has become proverbial.
Not so with the American Museum quest in the
arid Temple of Nature in Mongolia; almost at the
very outset the invincible leader, Roy Chapman
Andrews, aided by his highly trained American
experts, met with the unequivocal response: Asia is
the mother of the continents !

The initial discovery in the Gobi Desert of the
presence of fossil quadrupeds, christened "Titan-
otheres" (or beasts of titanic size) when discovered
in South Dakota, in 1852, gave an answer to one of
the four great questions which the Expedition under-
took to solve; namely, whether ancient Asia was the
mother of the life of Europe to the far west and of
North America to the far east. It was a realization
similar to the discovery of a palseontologic Garden
of Eden — of the birthplace or Asiatic homeland

vii

FOREWORD

from which many kinds of reptiles and mammals
spread westward and eastward. The existence of
such a centre had long been a matter of pure theory
on the part of palaeontologists, and as early as 1900
the writer of this foreword summed up his faith in
the existence of such an Asiatic homeland, pub-
lishing in the columns of Science (April 13, 1900,
page 567) a prophecy which may be paraphrased as
follows:

"We now turn to the northern hemisphere, to the
Arctogaea or homeland area of animal dispersal in
the dawn period of the mammalian life on the soil
of the northern hemisphere. First, on opposite sides
of the globe we observe two great colonies, one in
Europe and one in the Rocky Mountain region of
America, which are full of different degrees of kin-
dred in their mammalian life ; yet they are separated
by ten thousand miles of intervening land in which
not a single similar form is found.

"The fact that the same kinds of mammals and
reptiles appear simultaneously in Europe and in the
Rocky Mountain region has long been considered
strong evidence for the hypothesis that "the dis-
persal centre is half-way between.' 1 In this dis-
persal centre, during the close of the Age of Rep-
tiles and the beginning of the Age of Mammals,
there evolved the most remote ancestors of all the
higher kinds of mammalian life which exist today,
including, for example, the five-toed horses, which
have not as yet been discovered in either Europe or
America. That the very earliest horses known in
either Europe or America are four-toed indicates
that their ancestors may have lost their fifth toe

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FOREWORD

while still resident in the Asiatic homeland. The
history of northern Asia remains unknown until the
period of the Ice Age, when man first appears; yet
theoretically we are certain that it was part of a
broad migration and dispersal belt which at one
time linked together the colonies of France and
Great Britain with those of the Rocky Mountain
region of Wyoming and Colorado. Though the
kinds of animals which we find in these two far-
distant colonies are essentially similar and every
year's discovery increases the resemblance and
diminishes the difference between the life of Europe
and the life of the Rocky Mountain region, connect-
ing links are entirely unknown. It follows that
northern Asia must be the unknown migration route
between these two far-distant colonies."

All this, set forth in 1900 by the writer of this
Foreword, was in the nature of a palaeontologic
oracle, but was written with such confidence in the
results of future explorations that the various kinds
of mammals were actually set down upon a chart,
a duplicate of which readers will enjoy seeing
as a matter of scientific record. By this chart
the reader will observe that in the original oracle of
1900 the home of the anthropoid apes, the chim-
panzee, the orang, the gibbon and the gorilla, was
placed in southern Asia — in India — as indicated by
the word Anthropoidea, but that the home of the
more remote ancestors of man, Primates, was placed
in northern Asia, where our Expedition went to
work.

FOREWORD

But we waited until the American Museum expe-
dition of 1922 to verify the prediction of the palaeon-
tologist as to the homeland life of northern Asia.
The verification came in that year with unexpected
suddenness, but the successive explorations leading
up to those of 1925, in which the ancestors of man
were discovered in this very region, not only com-
pleted the original oracle far beyond our fondest
hopes but also told another and a more ancient story
of the Age of Reptiles, as set forth in this narrative
volume by the leader of the Expedition.

Palaeontology is the Aladdin's lamp of the most
desert and lifeless regions of the earth; it touches the
rocks and there spring forth in orderly succession
the monarchs of the past and the ancient river
streams and savannahs wherein they flourished.
The rocks usually hide their story in the most diffi-
cult and inaccessible places. It was the genius of
Roy Chapman Andrews not only to conceive the
whole plan of these central Asiatic expeditions, but
to carry out the plan with scientific thoroughness,
with unalterable determination and with unflag-
ging faith — a combination of qualities which in-
spired his entire party, insured his brilliant success,
and aroused the enthusiastic interest of the civilized
world.

Henry Fairfield Osborn.

American Museum of
Natural History,
February 25, 1926.

Osborn's Prophetic World Map of 1899-1900.

In 1 90 1 the ancestors of the Proboscidea (elephant family)
were discovered by British explorers close to the point in
North Africa which Osborn had indicated in 1900 by the
word "Proboscidia."

Up to the year 1925 the Central Asiatic Expedition had
discovered representatives of eight of the thirteen great Orders
of Mammals, as prophesied by Osborn in 1900, in the Central
Asiatic homeland, namely, the Insectivores, the Creodonts,
the Carnivores, the Rodents, the Amblypods, the Perissodac-
tyls, the Ancylopods, and the Artiodactyls. Leaving five
orders still to be discovered, namely, the Cheiroptera (Bats),
the Tillodontia (Tillodonts) , the Taeniodonta (Taeniodonts),
the Mesodonta (early Primates), and the Condylarthra
(Condylarths).

PREFACE

'T'HE present book is a preliminary narrative of the
A field work of the Central Asiatic Expeditions.
So many requests for a collected account of the activ-
ities of the expeditions during the last four years
have come to us that we felt it was due the public to
give the story of our experience in Mongolia up to
the present time.

Since the field work has been progressing with only
one interruption since 1921, and my brief visits to
America have been occupied by lecture engagements
and problems of finance and organization, it was
impossible to find the time to prepare a book that
should be considered definitive.

No attempt has been made to give the full scien-
tific significance of our discoveries. Indeed, at the
present time it would be impossible to do so for the
study of the collections has only begun and hundreds
of specimens are still encased in rock. The prepara-
tion of only the most important has been rushed to
make them available for scientific investigation.

Fifty-four preliminary papers have been pub-

xiii

PREFACE

lished in the Novitates and the Bulletin of the Amer-
ican Museum of Natural History. These put on
record very briefly some of the most outstanding
discoveries. When the field expeditions have been
concluded in 1928, I expect to prepare a volume giv-
ing a popular account of the significance of the sci-
entific work in all its branches.

Fourteen volumes of final scientific results have
been projected. Volume II on the Geology of
Central Asia by Professors Berkey and Morris is
about to issue from the press. The maps made by
Major Roberts in the 1925 expedition already have
been published. The remaining volumes will be
prepared as fast as the work can be concluded.

I wish to take this opportunity to express my
personal indebtedness, as well as that of the Amer-
ican Museum of Natural History, to the generous
Americans who have made the expedition possible
through their financial support. Without their as-
sistance, which has been given freely for the cause
of science and education, with no expectation of mate-
rial returns, the work could not have been carried on.
The contributors number two hundred and forty-
five, representing twenty -five states, thus giving a
truly all-American character to the work. There
was also one each from Switzerland, Porto Rico and
Hawaii.

To my comrades in the field I owe a great debt of
gratitude. No matter how completely the expedi-
tion had been organized and financed, it never could

xiv

PREFACE

have been a success without the whole-hearted co-
operation which every member of the staff has
given. This splendid loyalty and personal support
will remain forever as one of my most treasured
memories.

I wish to offer thanks on behalf of the expedition
and of the President and Trustees of the American
Museum of Natural History to the governments of
China and Mongolia for permission to carry on our
field work in their dominions. Particularly are we
grateful to Mr. T. Badmajapoff who rendered great
assistance in obtaining our Mongolian permits.
President Henry Fairfield Osborn has ever been our
wise friend and counselor. Without his enthusiastic
and continued support the expedition never could
have gone into the field. It is not possible to men-
tion by name all the individuals and organizations in
China who have rendered us assistance, but I wish
particularly to thank the Director and members of
the Chinese Geological Survey and the Geological
Society of China.

Drs. Ting, Wong, Andersson and Grabau have
been our loyal friends and by their fine spirit of
cooperation have maintained the highest ideals of
international science.

The Director and staff of the Peking Union Med-
ical College and the officers of the U. S. Marine
Corps Detachment in Peking has rendered us in-
numerable courtesies.

To the Dodge Bros. Motor Corporation of Detroit,

PREFACE

Michigan, and the Fulton Motor Corporation of
Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, we are in-
debted for much assistance, also to the Standard Oil
Company of New York and the United States Rub-
ber Company who put the facilities of their great
organizations at our disposal.

I am greatly indebted personally to the editors of
Asia Magazine and The World's Work for permission
to use the material of the book which already has
appeared in their magazines.

Roy Chapman Andrews.

998 Fifth Avenue,
New York City.
February 21, 1926.

xvi

CONTENTS

PAGE

Foreword ........ vii

By Henry Fairfield Osborn

Preface xiii

CHAPTER

I. — Preparations ...... 3

II. — Some Preliminary Digressions . . 24

III. — Hunting the "Golden Fleece" . . 41

IV. — Under Way 62

V. — In the City of the Living God . . 90

VI. — Tenting in Lama Land . . . .109

VII. — A Kentucky Derby in the Gobi Desert . 126

VIII. — Finding the Baluchitherium . . .146

IX. — The Discovery of the Flaming Cliffs . 164

X. — Giant Beasts of Three Million Years

Ago 190

By Henry Fairfield Osborn

XI. — New Work and Discoveries . . . 208

XII. — Where the Dinosaur Hid its Eggs . . 224

XIII. — Professor Osborn Visits the Expedition . 241

XIV. — Bigger and Better Eggs .... 248

xvii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XV. — The Dune Dwellers of Mongolia . . 268
XVI. — A Tragedy of the Gobi Desert . .289

XVII. — On the Trail of Ancient Man . . 306

XVIII. — The World's Oldest Mammals . . 324

XIX. — Snakes and Fossils ..... 341

The Central Asiatic Expedition Fund

Contributors ..... 361

Scientific Papers of the Expedition . 365

Index 371

xviii

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

Roy Chapman Andrews, Sc.D. . . . Frontispiece
From the portrait study by S. J. Woolf.

Sketch of the general history of animal life and mountain

formation in Central Asia, by F. K. Morris . . viii

Map prepared by F. K. Morris to show the comparative

sizes of Mongolia and the United States . . ix

Granger listening to the secrets of his pet crow. Tsagan

Nor, 1922 16

Windlass at the fossil pit in Szechuan where Granger

secured specimens . . . . . .17

Skins, collected by the expedition, drying at headquarters

in Peking ........ 26

Andrews and his Chinese guide on a hunting trip in

Shensi province . . . . . . -27

The way a camel's foot is treated for stone-holes; a neat

leather patch sewed firmly on . . .66

The fleet-footed antelope of the Mongolian plains . 67

Homelife of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous beds of Iren
Dabasu. In the background iguanodonts are being

xix

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

attacked by deinodonts. In the foreground the Ostrich
dinosaurs are running away in a cretaceous panic.
Restoration made in 1923 by E. M. Fulda . . 80

One of the fierce Mongolian dogs which eat the dead and

attack the living . . . . . . .81

Merin, the remarkable leader of the camel caravan, who

never promises more than he can fulfil ... 86

Merin reading his own story in camp at Shabarakh Usu,

1925 87

Motley and colorful religious procession at the Festival

of Buddha, Urga, 1922 ..... 98

A belle of Chakhan: she is wearing the southern Mon-
golian head-dress ...... 99

One of the daily dozen. Pulling the big trucks through

the sand of the Gobi Desert . . . . .128

Wild ass going at top-speed ... 40 miles an hour . . .

Tsagan Nor, 1922 ...... 129

Mongolian musician at Tsagan Nor; the lake glimmering

faintly in the background . . . . 144

Camel caravan descending a big dune south of Tsagan

Nor, 1925 145

Mongols making felt for their yurts at Tsagan Nor, 1922 152

Field-Day at Tsagan Nor, 1922: Mongolian wrestlers 153

Buckshot gives the baby wild ass its breakfast. Tsagan

Nor, 1922 164

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

Andrews with the bighorn sheep he killed on the face of

the Altai mountains, overlooking the dinosaur beds 165

Battlement Bluffs at the Flaming Cliffs where the dino-
saur eggs were first discovered . . . .180

Andrews and Merin looking for a trail through the bad-
lands near the Flaming Cliffs . . . .181

Baluchi therium grangeri. Restoration by Charles R.

Knight . 192

Mounted skeleton of Triceratops in the American Mu-
seum of Natural History, 20 feet long. This is the
horned and gigantic relative, possibly a descendant, of
the Protoceratops found at the Flaming Cliffs . 193

Protoceratops with young. Restoration by E. M. Fulda
of the dinosaurs of the Djadokhta beds in Cretaceous
times ........ 202

Young dinosaurs coming out of their eggs. Restoration

by E. M. Fulda 203

Granger examining a Titanothere skull exposed in the

cliff at Ulu Usu, 1923 ...... 222

President Osborn, Granger and Buckshot preparing a

Titanothere skull. Irdin Manha, 1923 . . . 223

The first dinosaur nest to be found as it looked when un-
covered by George Olsen at the Flaming Cliffs in 1923 228

Dinosaur eggs partly freed from the rock in which they
have been embedded for 10,000,000 years. At the
Flaming Cliffs ....... 229

xxi

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

Protoceratops skull outlined against the rock where it
was buried. Flaming Cliffs, 1925 . . . 234

Buckshot brushing the sand from a Protoceratops skull. 235

The caravan winding down into the valley at Shabarakh

Usu 248

The caravan, with Merin walking at its head, picking a

difficult way down the Flaming Cliffs . . . 249

Mongols taking salt from a dry lake-bed north of the

Altai Mountains . . . . . . .252

Yurts of Mongolian nomads at the eastern end of Orok

Nor; Ikhe Bogdo rising in the distance, 1925 . . 253

The 1925 camp of the expedition at Shabarakh Usu with

the Flaming Cliffs in the background . . . 256

Granger and Lin excavating bones and dinosaur eggs at
the base of Battlement Bluffs, overlooking Shabarakh
Usu Valley, 1925 ...... 257

Contents of the most recently discovered dinosaur egg

nest. Flaming Cliffs, 1925 . . . . .260

Andrews uncovering dinosaur eggs . . . .261

Andrews and Olsen inspecting a nest that has just been

uncovered. Flaming Cliffs, 1925 .... 266

Andrews and Olsen preparing to remove the eggs.

Flaming Cliffs, 1925 267

Nelson sorting the primitive implements of the Dune

Dwellers of Shabarakh Usu, 1925 .... 276

xxii

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

Nelson surrounded by his collection of flint implements
of the Dune Dwellers, picked up by the thousand at
Shabarakh Usu, 1925 277

Andrews with the dog, Wolf, in his tent at Kholobolchi

Nor, 1925 286

Tiger Canyon, looking southward to the peak of Boga
Bogdo. The tents are pitched under cotton-wood
trees ......... 287

Andrews and Nelson marking the exact spot in the cliff
where the implements of the Old Stone Age men were
lodged. Shabarakh Usu ..... 308

Collection of stone and flint implements made by the

Dune Dwellers of Shabarakh Usu .... 309

The topographers of the expedition with the Gurley Ali-
dade. Left to right, they are Robinson, Roberts and
Butler. Kholobolchi Nor, 1925 . . . 320

Members of the expedition consulting on routes westward
of Kholobolchi Nor, 1925. Upper row, standing, L.
to R., H. 0. Robinson, George Olsen, Ralph Chaney,
F. K. Butler, Nels Nelson, Harold Loucks, Norman
Lovell, J. B. Shackelford. Lower row, seated, L. to
R., L. B. Roberts, Roy Chapman Andrews, Walter
Granger, F. K. Morris, C. P. Berkey, J. McKenzie
Young 321

Mongols studying electric flashlights in camp . . 330

Mongolian cowboys visiting the camp ; fascinated by the

strains of jazz . . . . . . . 331

xxiii

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

The caravan coming past the Flaming Cliffs on its way

to the camp in the Shabarakh Usu Valley, 1925 . 338

The caravan in the sand dune country, south of Tsagan

Nor ......... 339

Snowed in on the road to Urga, May, 1925 . . 348

Car sinking in the quicksand while fording one of the so-
called dry rivers ....... 348

Andre wsarchus, a huge carnivorous creodont. Restora-
tion by E. M. Fulda ...... 349

Above: skull of wolf. Below: skull of Andre wsarchus

from the Eocene beds of Irdin Manha, 1923 . . 358

xxiv

On the Trail of Ancient Man

CHAPTER I

PREPARATIONS

TVER since 191 2, when I began land exploration
in Asia, Professor Osborn's prophecy as to the
Asiatic origin of mammalian life had been in my
mind, and the determination to test the theory be-
came stronger as my travels and experience in-
creased. With that ultimate end in view in 19 15 I
presented a plan to the President of the American
Museum of Natural History for a series of expedi-
tions which should extend over a period of ten years.
They were designed to be purely zoological at first,
and in the years 19 16- 17 the First Asiatic Expedition
to Yunnan, Southwest China, and the borders of
Tibet brought large collections to the Museum.

During 191 8 I was in service in the World War
and in 19 19 spent the summer in Mongolia on the
Second Asiatic Expedition.

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Every year I was becoming more and more im-
pressed by the relationship of the living Asiatic
mammals to those of Europe and America and
realized how strongly this supported the theory of
an Asiatic dispersal centre. Moreover, the fact
that the Primates were considered to be of Asiatic
origin and that there was a possibility of throwing
light on human evolution made the plan which
was gradually maturing in my mind even more
alluring.

In all my work as a zoologist I had felt the lack
of expert knowledge in other branches of science.
Often puzzling faunistic problems presented them-
selves which could easily have been solved if I had
been a trained botanist. In Yunnan especially,
glimpses of fascinating studies of the aboriginal
natives, of fossils, geology, botany and geography
were presented on every hand and yet I was unable
to take advantage of them because I had neither
the time nor the highly specialized training. There-
fore, it was apparent that an effective attack upon
the problems awaiting us in Central Asia could be
made only by a correlation of the different sciences : i.e.,
by a group of highly trained specialists all of whom
were concentrating upon a single broad problem.

This was the ground plan upon which the
Central Asiatic Expedition was organized, and it
worked out in practice even better than it gave
promise of doing in theory. Night after night as
we sat in the mess tent discussing different questions

PREPARATIONS

which had arisen in the progress of the day's work,
the stimulation and assistance given to each man by
having expert knowledge in other branches of sci-
ence upon which to draw was apparent. As far as
I am aware the Central Asiatic Expedition is the
only large expedition which has put this plan into
actual practice.

Moreover I believe that this type represents the
exploration of the future. Today there remain but
a few small areas on the world's map unmarked by
explorer's trails. Human courage and endurance
have conquered the Poles; the secrets of the tropical
jungles have been revealed. The highest mountains
of the earth have heard the voice of man. But this
does not mean that the youth of the future has no
new worlds to vanquish. It means only that the
explorer must change his methods.

We stand on the threshold of a new era of scientific
exploration which is just as romantic, just as allur-
ing, and just as adventurous as that of Peary and
Amundsen, of Stanley and Hedin. In almost every
country of the earth lie vast regions which poten-
tially are unknown. Some of them are charted poorly
if at all, and many hold undreamed of treasures in
the realm of science.

To study these little known areas, to reveal the
history of their making, and interpret that history
to the world of today ; to learn what they can give in
education, culture, and for human welfare — that is
the exploration of the future. It is even more diffi-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

cult than the task confronting the early explorers
who brought to the world information of the broad
topographic features of the countries they had
traversed.

It requires even more careful organization and a
wider background of scientific knowledge. Virtu-
ally all of the great expeditions for geographical
exploration have included scientists who gathered
what knowledge they could of the flora and fauna,
of the geology and meteorology of the regions to be
investigated. Special studies were limited by time
and opportunity. They could do little more than
bring back superficial information of the regions
which awaited a more intimate study.

The intensive exploration of the future demands a
different approach. With a broad but very definite
problem in view every branch of science which will
assist in its solution should be brought to bear upon
it in the field.

Puzzling conditions in geology are clarified by the
palaeontologist. The palaeobotanist may be able
to give them both assistance in determining climatic
changes. The flora and fauna of the past and pres-
ent are so closely interlaced that it is impossible to
fully understand one without knowing the other.
The topographer who produces accurate maps is
essential to them all.

Such intensive exploration even if it be confined
to pure science, inevitably produces economic results.
Many of the little known regions of the world are

PREPARATIONS

rich in undeveloped resources which can contribute
much to human welfare. The scientific explorer
must lead the way, but commerce is never slow to
follow in his footsteps.

To those who imagine that exploration has lost its
romance, I may say that the qualities of courage and
endurance, the willingness to undergo hardships and
to face death, 'are just as necessary today as they
were to the first man who struggled through snow
towards the Pole or braved the sand-storms of the
desert.

I have been asked why we chose Mongolia as the
place to work. The reason was because I knew
the country fairly well from two previous trips and
believed it would be productive; also because I was
convinced that we could use motors for rapid trans-
portation. Had the same conditions existed in the
remaining parts of the Central Asian plateau, —
Tibet, and Chinese and Russian Turkestan — we
might have begun work there with equal hope of
success.

Although Mongolia had been crossed and re-
crossed by excellent explorers, mostly Russian, vir-
tually no part of the country had been studied by
the exact methods of modern science. Four pri-
mary reasons were responsible for this condition:

First, Mongolia is isolated in the heart of a vast
continent and until recently a considerable journey
was required even to reach its borders.

Second, the distances are great and transportation

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

slow. Superimposed upon a map of the United
States with its easternmost tip at Washington
D. C, the western end of Mongolia extends beyond
the Great Salt Lake and almost touches the Nevada
line. It reaches as far south as Austin, Texas, and
on the north halfway across North Dakota. In all
this vast area there is not a single mile of railroad.
Transportation is by camels, horses and ox carts.
In the Gobi Desert which extends from west to east
through the heart of Mongolia camels alone can be
used throughout the year. A camel caravan moves
at the rate of only two miles an hour and when con-
ditions are good travels fifteen or twenty miles in a
day.

Third, the climate is very severe. During the
winter the temperature drops to forty or fifty degrees
below zero and the plateau is swept by bitter winds
from the Arctic Ocean. Then, most types of sci-
entific investigations are impossible, for bare exist-
ence demands the strongest constitution. Effective
scientific work can be conducted only from April to
the end of September.

Fourth, in the Gobi Desert which occupies a large
part of Mongolia food and water are scarce and the
region is so inhospitable that there are very few
inhabitants.

After analyzing these difficulties it was obvious
that some means of rapid transportation would
largely solve them and that without it an expedition
of high-powered men, such as I had in mind, could

PREPARATIONS

not be carried out successfully. I believed that the
automobile was the answer to the problem.

In 191 8, when motors were new on the road, I had
driven a car from Kalgan to Urga and returned.
Then, it was considered something of an adventure,
but by 1920 there was a regular service conducted
by Chinese and foreign companies and the trip
had become commonplace to an explorer. Between
Kalgan and Urga the road is fine and hard, there
are no serious streams or marshes and little sand of
consequence. Moreover, if an accident does hap-
pen other cars pass so frequently that assistance
usually can be obtained. In the far west where the
Gobi is a real desert, where there are mountains and
rivers, sand and rocks, it is a different story. There
are no garages just around the corner — in fact there
are no corners.

Nevertheless from what I knew of the country I
was convinced that a properly equipped motor expe-
dition supported by a camel caravan could operate
successfully. And if it could, we would be able to
do ten years* work in five months. I needed all the
courage of my convictions, for, when it was an-
nounced that we intended to explore the central and
western Gobi Desert with five cars, two of them
one-ton trucks, and had planned a three thousand
mile journey, even those men who had driven to
Urga many times said that I was a little less than a
fool. They advanced dozens of reasons as to why
such a project could not succeed. But in my opinion

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

everyone of them were answerable on the ground of
preparation and organization.

As a matter of fact, the most frequent objection
was that it had not been done. It was rather com-
forting therefore to think of the remark made by a
prominent man who said that often it is well known
that a thing is impossible. Everyone is sure that it
can't be done. Then one day a fool comes along
who hasn't heard that it is impossible and before he
finds it out he goes ahead and does it!

When it came to a choice of cars opinion was
strongly in favor of several well known Italian and
French makes, but since this was an all-American
expedition I felt that American cars were good enough
for us. After careful investigation I chose the
Dodge Brothers cars of Detroit, Michigan, and the
Fulton one-ton trucks made by the Fulton Motors
Corporation of Farmingdale, Long Island, N. Y.
It was imperative to have light motors with a high
clearance, very strongly built and with sufficient
power to pull through sand. Those which we used
were stock cars with no especial equipment. When
the fleet arrived in China I asked virtually every
insurance company for protection only against total
loss. We had mechanics and spare parts enough to
repair any reasonable breakage but it was conceiv-
able that a car might be completely wrecked by fall-
ing over a cliff, by fire or some such catastrophe. I
argued that the moral risk was good because we cer-
tainly would not abandon a machine unless it was

PREPARATIONS

absolutely necessary in view of the fact that the suc-
cess of the expedition, if not our actual lives, de-
pended upon the motor transport.

But the insurance companies could not see it in
that light. They said the risk was too great. There
was no precedent, and that we were lucky to have a
supporting caravan for we would return on camels
if we ever got back at all. No offers of attractive
premiums could induce them to change their minds.
Even after the first season they said we "were
lucky" and probably couldn't do it again.

The success of the motor transport is shown by the
fact that we used the same Dodge Bros, cars and
Fulton trucks for two successive expeditions: that
we travelled more than six thousand miles with the
entire fleet over a virtually unknown country and
the Dodge Bros, cars did as much as ten thousand
miles: that when we returned, within three days I
had sold all the motors as they stood in Kalgan,
with no repairs, for more than they cost in America
and that the same fleet continued to do service on
the Kalgan-Urga run, in the hands of a Chinese com-
pany. The record speaks for itself and all the men
on the expedition are as proud of the cars as though
we had manufactured them. We have a new fleet
of the same make for the future work of the expedition.

We were offered discouragements in our scientific
programme as well as in the motor transport. It
was pointed out that with the exception of a single
rhinoceros tooth no fossils had been found in Mon-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

golia; that it was a waste of sand and gravel and
that we might as well search in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean as expect to find fossils in the Gobi
Desert. Also, I was told that it was little short of
criminal to take such eminent geologists as Berkey and
Morris to a country where the rocks were obscured
by grass or sand.

My feeling was that the men who had explored
Mongolia in the past had not been able to use the
modern methods which we intended to inaugurate
and that, excellent as their work was in some respects
it afforded no criterion as to what Mongolia would
yield to our scientists.

My experience in the Orient had taught me that
time and money were two of the greatest essentials for
success and I made up my mind that I would not
leave America unless both were assured. Five years
for the work and a total of $250,000 was what I
believed to be the minimum.

When I returned to New York early in 1920 and
presented my plans for the expedition to Professor
Osborn, he gave them the same enthusiastic endorse-
ment and support that I always have had from
him. Without his active cooperation nothing could
have been done and it is impossible to express the
gratitude which I owe him personally and on behalf
of the expedition.

At his suggestion I endeavored to interest the
American Asiatic Association and its official organ,
Asia Magazine. The editor of Asia, Mr. Louis D.

PREPARATIONS

Froelick, became one of my most loyal supporters and
when I look back upon the many conferences that we
held in his office I realize how freely he gave his time
and thought.

As every explorer knows, the effort and nerve
strain involved in financing a large expedition far
surpasses the difficulties of actual field work. I
would say nothing about this part for, I suppose its
interest is largely personal, had I not discovered
that at least nine out of ten people believe that the
funds for such an expedition are all provided by the
institutions under whose auspices it is launched.
The prevailing idea seems to be that all the leader
has to do is to take command in the field. Would
that it were so ! Were it true doubtless there would
be many more explorers.

The Museum did what it could but most of the
$250,000 had to be obtained from private individ-
uals. By the time we left New York for China
late in February, 1921, I felt as though ten years
had been clipped off my life. I had spoken at so
many dinners and luncheons, lectured before so
many audiences, interviewed so many financiers,
talked so much and written so much about the
Central Asiatic Expedition that it had become a
veritable nightmare. Nevertheless, there were many
pleasurable sides to the experience which I wish there
had been more time to enjoy. I learned that the
average American financier is an adventurer at
heart. Making his money has been an adventure

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

and he wants an adventure in spending it ; he likes a
sporting chance and exploration if it has a worth-
while object appeals to him.

Never will I forget the morning I went to see
Mr. J. P. Morgan. I suppose every American who
wants money for a public enterprise thinks first of
either Mr. Morgan or Mr. Rockefeller. Mr. Morgan
received me in his magnificent library on Thirty-
third Street and for fifteen minutes I told him of my
plans and hopes. I had a map of Central Asia with
me. It is characteristic of him that he asked only
a few questions but every one was straight to the
point. "How can you get there? What do you
expect to find there?" and a few others.

When I had finished he swung about, his eyes bril-
liant with interest.

"It's a great plan," he said. "How are you going
to finance it? What do you want me to do?"

I wish Mr. Morgan could realize what his faith
meant to me as well as his generous financial sup-
port, for it was at the very beginning of my efforts
to raise money for the expedition. In the later
months there were many discouragements as well as
many successes but I never will forget that beginning.

I consider it a pretty good record for the Ameri-
can people that they were willing to finance an expe-
dition which was based purely on a theory. I tried
to make it clear to everyone that we were playing an
"off chance" in the scientific race; that the dividends
would be large if we won, but that the results might

PREPARATIONS

be entirely negative. In the first three years it was
really a New York City expedition, for with the
exception of one contribution from Wilkesbarre, Pa.,
every dollar came from New York.

The organization and equipment of the expedi-
tion had to be carried out simultaneously with the
efforts to finance it. Of course selecting the staff
was the most important and most difficult single
task. The general fitness of a man for the job as
well as his scientific training needed to be carefully
considered, for personality, character, and the abil-
ity to get on with other men determine the success
or failure of such an expedition as much as any
other factor.

The Second in Command and Chief Palaeontolo-
gist was an easy choice. Years ago I had told
Walter Granger, Associate Curator of Fossil Mam-
mals in the American Museum of Natural History,
about my plans and he had promised to go when the
time came. We had been colleagues for fifteen
years; his field experience covers twice that time
and as a fossil collector and a friend he is second to
no man in the world.

Since we could not predict where our search would
lead us in Mongolia it was necessary to have a camel
caravan carrying supplies of food and gasoline. This
would give us a movable base and could be shifted
from place to place as conditions demanded.

It is impossible to get any food in the desert other
than meat and animal products so that everything

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

had to be taken with us. I selected the food with a
great deal of care to give a varied diet and even at
the end of the summer there were very few days
when we did not have sufficient dried fruit and vege-
tables to keep us satisfied and in splendid health.

To carry our supplies we made boxes with sliding
tops. As the food was exhausted we packed the fos-
sils and other collections in these containers because
there is no wood of any description to be obtained in
the desert. Each camel carried four hundred pounds.

Through the courtesy of the Standard Oil Com-
pany of New York we were supplied with 3,000
gallons of gasoline and 50 gallons of oil for the first
expedition and when this was packed we found that
it required seventy-five camels to carry our total
supplies.

With the assistance of Mr. F. A. Larsen we pur-
chased the camels. The caravan could only travel
at the rate of 2^ miles per hour and it was necessary
for them to leave considerably in advance of the
motor party. I instructed the caravan to follow
the Kalgan-Urga trail and await us at Tuerin, a mon-
astery 550 miles from Kalgan. The caravan started
five weeks before the rest of the expedition.

I knew that it would not be possible for the scien-
tific staff to remain together during all the time
that we were in field if they were to carry on their
separate investigations to the best advantage. There-
fore the motor party was divided into three units —
each one complete with its cook, Mongol interpreter,

PREPARATIONS

tents and other equipment. Any of these units
could maintain itself independently of the main
party for a considerable period. Results prove
that this plan was invaluable and is the only one
that can be followed where scientific work of a
diverse character is to be carried on without loss of
time.

When the plans of the expedition were made pub-
lic the world press seized upon the possibility of our
finding primitive human remains as a feature of
rare news value. We were somewhat appalled to
find that we immediately became known as the
"Missing Link" expedition and that the broad sci-
entific aspect of our intended work was entirely
lost.

At first I was indignant, but my protests were
futile. Moreover, it did have the advantage of
creating an enormous public interest which other-
wise certainly would have been lacking. Also, it
brought thousands of applications to join the expe-
dition. These caused a vast amount of labor, for
the staff already had been selected and most of the
applicants wanted non-technical positions. It was
impossible to explain to everyone that all camp
work could be done better and cheaper by natives
who know the language and customs and could live
on simple food, than by white men, no matter how
good they were.

The letters poured in at such a rate that I could
not read them. Sometimes we had as many as a

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

hundred a day arid scores of people came in person
to the Museum. My secretary, Miss Agnes Molloy,
saw most of them and sorted and read all the letters.
Some were amusing beyond words and I told her to
save those to show me at the times when I was so
tired that I had either to laugh or cry.

When the plans were first announced in the New
York morning papers an artist who lived fifty miles
from the city was so anxious to offer his services
that he hired an aeroplane and flew to the American
Museum of Natural History when he found that
no train would get him there until after luncheon.

A lady in St. Louis telegraphed "Regarding search
for 'Missing Link' ouija board offers assistance."

About three thousand applications were from men
and boys. Ex-army men, flyers, outnumbered the
rest. Most of them began "I can't settle down to
office work after the war, I want to get away where
I can have some excitement."

There were nearly a thousand from women. The
real gem of the collection was one of the first to
arrive. One day I heard my secretary exclaim under
her breath, when examining the mail, "Why, the
idea" Then she remarked, "I don't know whether
you will consider this amusing or not, but you had
better read it and here's the photograph."

The letter was from a woman who said, "I have
already written two books but they haven't been
accepted yet. I want to get material for a third —
something occult and stirring and I think I can find

PREPARATIONS

it with you. I could go in a secretarial capacity for
I have seen your picture in the newspapers and I am
sure that you know how to treat a lady. But even
if you don't need a secretary there are many other
things that I can do. Perhaps I could go just as a
woman friend/ I could create the 'home atmos-
phere' for you in those drear wastes. I am enclos-
ing my photograph, but could you not have tea with
me some day when your work is done? After you
have seen me I will leave it with you to judge."

The newspapers did a good deal for us in the way
of publicity but I am afraid I disappointed them
grievously in one particular. They hoped for some
thrilling stories of the dangers and hardships that
we would encounter in the Gobi Desert and when I
said that we did not expect to have either they
seemed to think that it could not be a real exploring
expedition. An explorer must have adventures!
They are what the public expects !

There are many so-called explorers who are really
travellers seeking adventure. They welcome every
opportunity for a hair-breadth escape or some thrill-
ing experience because it is their stock in trade.
When they return they write a book about their
experiences. Not having a serious objective in their
wanderings which gives them something definite
to contribute they tell the story of their hard-
ships.

My friend, Stefansson, the Arctic explorer, has a
motto, which I am very fond of quoting because it

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

expresses a great deal in a single sentence. He says,
"Adventures are a mark of incompetence."

If the explorer has a clear-cut problem to solve, and
an honest desire to contribute something of worth to
the world's knowledge, he will prepare against adven-
tures. It will disappoint the newspaper but facili-
tate his work. How infinitely more creditable it is
to eliminate difficulties through foresight and prep-
aration before they are encountered than to suffer
heroically and leave the work half done.

The explorer must first assimilate everything
that has been written about the region he is to visit,
or surrounding areas. Thus from the experience of
others he knows the general conditions to be en-
countered and what is the best method of prepara-
tion. He can study his problem, plan it out on
paper, get the best equipment, and above all the men
who are fitted physically and mentally for the job.
Then so far as human foresight can go, he is prepared
to meet and overcome the difficulties which he
knows will be encountered. After that he must
trust to his own ability to solve those problems which
could not be foreseen and prepared for.

For the last fifteen years I have spent most of the
time wandering into the far corners of the world.
During the first eight years I was studying and col-
lecting whales and was at sea a good deal on tiny
whaling vessels. Then I gave up that work and
began land explorations in Asia. In the fifteen
years I can remember just ten times when I had

PREPARATIONS

really narrow escapes from death. Two were from
drowning in typhoons, one was when our boat was
charged by a wounded whale; once my wife and I
were nearly eaten by wild dogs, once we were in
great danger from fanatical lama priests; two were
close calls when I fell over cliffs, once I was nearly
caught by a huge python, and twice I might have
been killed by bandits.

Ninety-nine out of every hundred persons think
that hardships are an essential part of an explorer's
existence. But I don't believe in hardships; they
are a great nuisance. Eat well, dress well, sleep well,
whenever it is possible is a pretty good rule for every-
day use. Don't court hardships. Then you can
work hard and steadily and if a bit of " hardship"
does come along in the course of things, you are
ready to take it in your stride and laugh while it is
going on. If you ask the members of the Central
Asiatic Expedition about their hardships they will
laugh at you. We seldom had any, and yet we were
exploring a desert where there was virtually nothing
to be obtained to eat except meat. We had twenty-
six men in the field for two years and no illness.
Could you equal that in New York?

All the equipment for the expedition with the
exception of food and tents I purchased in New York.
In the eighteen tons which were sent to Peking we
had every modern invention for camp comfort. Be-
cause it is impossible to get vegetables of any kind in
the Gobi I brought a quantity of dried onions, toma-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

toes, carrots, spinach and beets from America, but
all the other food was obtained from the American
Legation Marine Corps Detachment through the
courtesy of Colonel H. Dunlap and Lt. Colonel Seth
Williams.

We used Mongol tents and fur sleeping bags. Al-
most all explorers find that the natives have devised
the best dwellings and the best clothes for their
particular country and the conditions of life which it
involves. The Mongols are no exception to this
rule. They are nomads who are constantly moving
as they follow their flocks or the dictates of their
restless spirits. A permanent dwelling would be
of little use for the grazing may be good at a certain
place one year, but poor the next. Wind and cold
are the most serious weather conditions to be met,
they need not be worried about rain for even in the
grasslands this seldom comes. Therefore, the tent
which will stand against almost any Mongolian wind
storm is made of double cotton cloth, light in weight,
but is not particularly waterproof.

The sides sweep down to the ground from the ridge
pole in long curves which present sloping surfaces to
the wind at every possible angle. Thus if the tent
is firmly pegged it cannot be blown down. The
cloth may rip but it will still remain standing. Also,
it can be erected in a gale when it would be impos-
sible to pitch a wall tent. Under normal conditions
a man can put up a small Mongol tent alone. First
one entire side is pegged down; then the ridge and

PREPARATIONS

poles put in and with a rope the tent is pulled upright.
It will stand in position while the other side is fas-
tened.

Sheepskin sleeping bags and fur clothes are an
essential for even in the summer the nights are cold
and the rapid changes from winter to summer are
amazing.

When we went into the field in 1922 every item of
equipment and organization had been considered
and we felt that we had prepared as far as it was
humanly possible to do, for our Great Adventure.

CHAPTER II

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

\V 7E could not consider work in Mongolia during
the first summer because it was necessary to
make the diplomatic arrangements, and get the
complicated machinery of such a large expedition
under way. Therefore I sailed in advance of the
main party.

Not since 1900 had there been such a storm as that
which ushered us into Peking on the 14th of April,
1 92 1. The dust reached as far south as Shanghai
and its yellow blanket hovered over the sea sixty-
five miles beyond the coast. It came from a land
parched by fourteen well-nigh rainless months which
had cost a heavy toll of human life.

We could hardly see the great Tartar walls as the
train came into the station and for days after our
arrival the air was like a London fog. The Chinese
are Very superstitious and we were told that no
good could come from a summer which began with
such a dusty spring. It was a bad omen — it meant
famine, war, disease and death!

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

Curiously enough the foreign community is always
more or less affected by the Chinese superstitions,
and we were greeted with a flood of rumors; Peking
was certain to be attacked and looted — even the day
and hour had been set — it was impossible to go into
the interior, smallpox was raging, it would be dan-
gerous to do this and dangerous to do that!

It was the same dear old hysterical Peking! We
are rather a small community here and we must have
excitement. If no political bomb is ready for explo-
sion, something must be manufactured to furnish
conversation at the Club and on the roof garden of
the new hotel. So with dust, war, and smallpox
we felt that the summer was beginning rather well.

My spirits rose accordingly and I was more than
ever sure that in spite of all the predictions the
Central Asiatic Expedition would be able to carry
on its work without great difficulty. The dust
would not last forever, proper precautions could
be taken against smallpox, and as for war — well,
the closer one gets to trouble in the interior the less
impressive it becomes!

I was fortunate in finding an ideal house for the
headquarters of the Expedition. Its former tenant,
my old friend Dr. G. E. Morrison, was one of the
best known Britishers who has ever lived in North
China. His magnificent library, his brilliant writ-
ings for the London Times, his fascinating personal-
ity and his interest in science and exploration made
his house a Mecca for travellers of every national-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

ity. I like to think that Dr. Morrison would enjoy
seeing the house that he loved so well dedicated to
this work.

When we arrived, the great doors which had been
closed since Dr. Morrison's death were opened to
admit carpenters, masons and other laborers, and
to allow motor-trucks, laboratory supplies and boxes
of equipment to pass into the sun-lit space of the
outer court. Inside the tiled walls surrounding the
compound we had the living quarters, garage,
stables, equipment rooms, laboratories and motion
picture studio — a small city of our own devoted to
the multiple interests of the expedition.

Immediately upon arriving in Peking I visited the
Geological Survey of China. I found the Director,
Dr. V. K. Ting, Dr. Wong, Dr. Andersson, Dr.
Grabau and all the other members of the survey, most
cordial in their reception and anxious to give us the
benefit of their experience in beginning our work.

The Survey had a comprehensive and well-
advanced plan for their palaeontological investiga-
tions embracing certain provinces in which they
had already begun preliminary explorations. If we
invaded these areas it meant unhealthy competition
and a duplication of results which would at once
be discourteous and unscientific. Asia presents
such vast unexplored fields that there is room, not
only for two institutions to carry on work, but for
dozens of them. Therefore we arranged for a divi-
sion of territory in which certain regions would be

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

left entirely to them and others in which we could
work without competition. This arrangement has
proved to be admirable and there has been mutual
assistance and cooperation during all the years that
the Central Asiatic Expedition has been in the
Orient.

Since it was impossible for us to consider Mon-
golia for the first summer, and highly desirable that
our staff receive some preliminary training in the
methods of work in China, the Geological Survey
very kindly offered to turn over to us a locality at
Wanhsien in Eastern Szechuan, which promised to
yield interesting fossils. It was an excellent place
in which to begin work for it was near the Yangtze
River, above the gorges of Ichang in a region known
to abound in caves. This great river valley had
undoubtedly been a highway of travel for untold
centuries and since the caverns would furnish excel-
lent dwelling-places, it was not improbable that
remains of primitive human beings might be found
there.

Palasontological investigation in China is not
easy because there is a combination of commercial
and religious difficulties to be surmounted.

Fossils of all sorts have a highly commercial
value to the natives. They are called "dragon
bones' ' and when powdered, dissolved in acid and
mixed with a liberal quantity of superstition, are of
undoubted efficacy as a medicine for every kind of
illness, from rheumatism to gun-shot wounds. The

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

apothecary shops carry on a considerable trade in
fossils, and if a Chinese discovers a fossil-bearing
locality, he guards it as if it were a gold-mine. For-
eigners often find it impossible to obtain permission
to examine some of the long-worked beds that for
centuries have been bequeathed by one generation
to another.

Belief in "feng-shui" the "spirits of the earth,
wind and water," which guard all burial places in
China, is another active superstition which offers a
serious obstacle to scientific work. Since in many
thickly settled regions it is difficult to find a spot so
far away from a grave-site that feng-shui is inopera-
tive, the fossil-hunter must be extremely cautious in
digging without having first obtained the consent cf
the nearest villages. He needs unlimited patience,
great tact and a saving sense of humor.

Dr. J. G. Andersson, of the Chinese Geological
Survey, who is a pioneer in palseontological collect-
ing in China has had so many amusing experiences
with the natives that they would fill a book. Once
when he had gone through all the necessary formal-
ities of obtaining the owners' permission to exca-
vate, his operations were halted by the sudden
appearance of an irate old lady. Angry men are
bad enough, Heaven knows, but when a Chinese
woman works herself into a frenzy, every one hunts
cover. This particular old lady was so enraged that
she seated herself squarely in the hole that the
palaeontologist had dug and refused to move. Argu-

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

ments were useless. Andersson could not well
shovel her out except at the risk of having his face
scratched; so being a very tactful gentleman, he
tried making her ridiculous. Since it was a hot day
he borrowed an umbrella and gallantly held it over
her head while the onlookers hugely enjoyed the
joke. But the old lady comfortably settled herself
and screamed even louder. Then Dr. Andersson
bethought himself of his camera, an instrument
guaranteed to make any Chinese woman 1 'step
lively," for she hates to have a foreigner photograph
her.

Dr. Andersson politely explained to the spec-
tators that without doubt the old lady would like
to have her picture taken while she was sitting in the
hole. This was too much! Before the camera
could be focused, she leaped out, screaming with
rage. But even though she had been routed from
her strategic position, she eventually won the battle ;
for she continued to create such a disturbance that
Andersson' s native assistants advised him to retire,
leaving the enemy in possession of the field, at least
until the smoke of battle had lifted.

I engaged as helper for Mr. Granger in his first
palasontological adventures and as official inter-
preter of the expedition, Mr. James Wong, a young
Chinese student educated in an American military
academy and possessed not only of extraordinary
energy and ability but of a charming personality as
well.

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Though Mr. Granger and I had decided to accept
the courteous offer of the Chinese Geological Sur-
vey and to make the Wanhsien locality in Eastern
Szechuan the first point of palaeontological investi-
gation, I should have hesitated to ask a man less
cool and determined than Granger to visit so dis-
turbed a region as the Yangtse Valley on his first
trip into the interior of China. The fact that he
carried on his work without serious difficulty for
two winters speaks for itself. A letter from him
under date of September 27th, 192 1, tells of his initial
trip to Wanhsien:

"Our journey from Ichang to Wanhsien was inter-
esting and exciting. At Ichang we ran right into
one of the inter-provincial wars and had a chance to
watch from our decks, or from our state-room win-
dows, quite a lot of fighting on the hills opposite the
town. It was necessary to transship there, and I
managed to get my equipment into one of the
steamer godowns before the close-in firing broke out ;
then managed to get it out again before the up-river
boat arrived.

"The Lung Mow left Ichang at day-break, the
city being still in the hands of its defenders and by
breakfast time we were in the first Ichang gorge.
A British American Tobacco Company's man from
Nanking and I were sitting on the observation deck,
admiring the really magnificent cliffs and congrat-
ulating ourselves that, at least we were above the
turmoil of war when, suddenly there appeared ahead
of us a junk-load of Szechuanese soldiers coming
down river, and bang! one of them took a pot-shot

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

at us. The steamboat siren blew a warning and
we had to go below; four times I was chased off the
deck and finally got tired of it and stayed below on
the saloon-deck. Even then, later on in the day,
when the firing began to get on the crew's nerves,
we were several times ordered below where we had the
protection of the steel hull of the ship.

"About every junk-load of soldiers we met took at
least one try at us. I don't know how many hits
they made, but one bullet slipped in past four of us
who were sitting on the after-deck, went through
the paneling into the dining-saloon and fetched up
on the linoleum flooring.

"The trouble is that the river boats make such a
heavy wash that junks are sometimes sunk and
every load of soldiers lost in this way makes just one
more black mark against the up-river boats, and
there have been several such losses recently. . . .

"The steamboats in going up stream always slow
down when meeting junks, but in coming down
they must maintain a steering headway and it is thus
that most of the sinkings occur. There are warning
signals on shore at all danger points, announcing
that steamers are approaching from above or below,
but the junks mostly ignore these signals and trouble
ensues.

"The steamboats are going to continue to go up
and down wherever the stream is navigable and
soldiers ought to realize this after a while. There is
no sense in transporting soldiers on the river any-
way. If the Szechuanese would stay where they
belong everything would be serene.

"Coming up river I was reminded of a book I
have seen on sale here in China — Glimpses of the
Yangtze Gorges. That is what we got! We reached

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Wanhsien at noon on the second day and I was at
once welcomed by Mr. Asker, the Commissioner of
Customs who asked me to make my headquarters
at his place, which is a large temple on the out-
skirts of the town."

Mr. Granger discovered that all the fossils came
from near a small village called Yenchingkao, ten
miles from Wanhsien. He made his camp in a
temple at the village and for two winters carried on
his work by buying specimens from the natives.
His first letter under date of December 26th, 1921,
describes the unusual methods of collecting.

"The fossils at Yenchingkao occur in pits which
are distributed along a great limestone ridge some
30 or 40 miles in length and rising above our camp
over 2,000 feet. These pits are the result of the dis-
solving action of water on limestone and some of
them have a depth of one hundred feet or more.
They are of varying sizes — averaging say six feet
in diameter — and are filled with a yellowish and
reddish mud which is, I take it, disintegrated lime-
stone. The fossils are found embedded in the mud
at varying depths, usually below 20 feet. A crude
windlass is rigged up over the pit and the mud dug
out and hauled to the surface in scoop-shaped bas-
kets. At fifty feet it is dark in the pit and the
work is done by the light of a tiny oil wick. It is
fossil collecting under the most adverse conditions
imaginable.

"The excavation of the fossils has been going on
for a long time — possibly some generations — and it

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

is a considerable business. Digging is only done in
the winter months.

"One has to be let down with a rope around his
waist and with two or three men at the windlass.
The natives climb up and down the rope hand over
hand, but it requires practice and agility to do
this. You'd be shy one palaeontologist if I tried to
do it!

"The excavation of the pit is opening up just
now on a large scale and in the coming month will
probably give us about all that we can take care of.
The fauna is Stegodon (elephant), Bison, Bos (cow-
like animals), Cervus (deer), Tapirus (tapirs), Sus
(pigs), Rhinoceros (rhinoceros), besides many small
ruminants, several carnivores, large and small, and
many rodents; no horses queerly enough."

Until Dr. J. G. Andersson began his splendid work
with the Chinese Geological Survey, knowledge of
the palaeontology of China rested almost entirely
upon Schlosser. 1

All Schlosser's material was purchased in the drug
shops and consisted of teeth and fragments of bones.
It was impossible to get accurate information as to
the localities where it was obtained and it is amazing
that his work should have proved to be so good.
Thus, when Andersson began to discover fossils in
situ he had a virtually untouched field before him.
From his work and that of Schlosser's there was evi-
dence of at least two distinct faunas in North China,
probably separated by the Tsingling mountains of

1 Die fossilen Sangethiere Chinas (Munich, 1903).

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Shensi. To the north is the so called Hipparion
fauna, characterized by an abundance of horses.
To the south is what we have named the Stegodon
fauna, for the remains of these primitive elephants
are common.

The Chinese Geological Survey has entirely con-
fined their work to the Hipparion beds and we hoped
that their Wanhsien locality would give us some-
thing entirely different, as indeed it did.

It is disappointing that Mr. Granger has not
been able to investigate the caves along the banks
of the Yangtze River where we hoped the remains of
primitive human beings might be found. Although
he spent the two winters of 1921-1922 and 1922-23
at Wanhsien, the region which contained the caverns
was so infested with bandits that it would have been
extremely hazardous to attempt a survey of it.

Dr. W. D. Matthew, curator of Palaeontology in
the American Museum of Natural History, who
has studied Granger's Szechuan collections, has come
to the conclusion that the fauna as a whole indicates
forest conditions in this region during the Pleistocene
or Ice Age. Granger's collection is composed partly
of species identical with those still living in the sur-
rounding mountains and partly of mammals whose
nearest relatives are in Malaysia. It is extraordi-
narily interesting because it gives an accurate pic-
ture of the animal life of the region at the time of
man's appearance in Central China, and before it
had been depopulated by human agencies.

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

That Old Stone Age man was contemporaneous
with these animals which had fallen into the wells
and become fossilized is definitely shown by a stag
antler, two tines of which had been hacked off with
a stone implement. It is highly probable, there-
fore, that we may discover human bones at any
moment, although, because of his superior intelli-
gence, Palaeolithic men would not fall into the wells
as frequently as the lower animals. Nevertheless
some of them must inevitably have met death in this
way.

The primitive elephant, Stegodon, was the largest
animal that roamed this region during the Ice Age,
but it was hardly less spectacular than a giant tapir
which was as big as a modern horse. That monkeys
swung through the treetops, we know, because
Granger has obtained both gibbon and langur
skulls from the pits.

Just before we started field work Dr. J. G. Anders-
son had a piece of good fortune which shows how ex-
cellent are the prospects for making important dis-
coveries in the realm of ancient human history.

He was to go on a short expedition to Manchuria
and very kindly offered to take our interpreter,
Mr. Wong, with him in order to give him some
preliminary training in fossil hunting which would
be of value in his work with Mr. Granger. On this
trip Mr. Wong almost immediately discovered a bone
deposit in the floor of a cave which contained parts of
many human skeletons. Dr. Andersson had already

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

found a similar culture in Honan and recently has
brought back a wealth of early human material,
pottery and artifacts from Kansu and the Koko
Nor region of Tibet. Although this is post-Neo-
lithic, nevertheless, it indicates what a rich field
eastern Asia presents to the archaeologist.

After Mr. Granger had started for Szechuan, I
made a short expedition to the Eastern Tombs
(Tung Ling), eighty miles from Peking. The object
of the trip was to initiate Mr. Pope into the methods
of reptile and fish collecting in China and to train
several native assistants in the preparation of speci-
mens. At the Tung Ling several of the Manchu
Emperors and Empresses are buried in magnificent
mausoleums which stand among some of China's
most beautiful scenery.

To the north of the tombs, surrounded by a high
wall, is an enormous hunting park about a hundred
miles in length. This contains rugged mountains,
sombre valleys, and great forests of birch, pine,
spruce, and oak. It is an extraordinarily interest-
ing region to the zoologist because it stands as a
"forest island" isolated by miles of treeless country.

In its fauna are many species of birds, reptiles and
mammals which elsewhere exist only far to the
south or in the great forests of Manchuria. Thus,
there is strong evidence that in past centuries a
more or less continuous wooded belt extended from
the Yangtze River to the frontiers of Manchuria and
across an area which is now bare plains or hills.

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

That this beautiful, primeval forest, the last in
North China, is being cleared as fast as ax and fire
can do the work is one of the most disgraceful chap-
ters of recent Chinese history, and I was sick at
heart at the progress of destruction since my first
visit in 19 19. The beautiful valley where we had
camped amid one of the most splendid forests I
have ever seen, is now filled with fields of corn and
millet — not a tree remains. The mountain sides are
scarred with patches of waving grain almost to their
summits. A few more years and this glorious spot,
which should have been a national park, will be as
bare of trees as are the other hills of North China.
I like the Chinese farmer — he is the hope of the
Chinese nation — but sometimes I hate his handi-
work!

Our first camp was on the outskirts of a mountain
village Hsing Ling Shan, and Mr. Pope, who has
been accustomed to doing his own collecting, had a
real surprise at the methods we use in China. Our
tents were surrounded immediately by dozens of
curious men, women and children. We encouraged
their interest, for they were our potential collectors.

We told them that we would pay three coppers —
about one cent — for every frog, lizard and toad that
they brought us, and more for every snake. At
first they were inclined to doubt. Why would any-
one be fool enough to pay good money for something
that he could not eat? After a little one or two of the
more enterprising boys disappeared and returned

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

with several frogs. They presented them to us
with evident embarrassment, as if expecting to be
ridiculed by their friends, but when the spectators
saw them promptly paid, the affair assumed a dif-
ferent aspect. We might be temporarily insane —
probably we were — but at least we had money, and
if we wanted to squander it that was our business.
It was a Heaven-sent opportunity for quick profits
on easy work, and above all things a Chinese is a
business man. As a result, before the day was
ended, specimens were pouring in faster than we
could care for them.

During the week in which we remained at that
camp a hundred men, boys, and girls were scouring
the hills, fields and valleys, and dozens of others
were industriously fishing in the little mountain
stream beside our tent. When we had a sufficient
quantity of the more common species we reduced
the price or ceased buying altogether and offered
a special premium for the rarer forms. We collected
more than a thousand specimens, and left with a
confident feeling that we had a complete representa-
tion of the fauna in the vicinity of Hsing Ling Shan.
What those two or three hundred Chinese did not
find for us must be very rare indeed !

Later in the summer Mr. Pope carried on his inves-
tigations alone in Anhwei Province and spent the
winter of 1921-22 at the Tung Ting Lake, Honan.
In the summer of 1922, while the main expedition
was in Mongolia, he worked in Shansi Province and

SOME PRELIMINARY DIGRESSIONS

then spent nearly a year in the little known island
of Hainan, near Hong Kong.

The results of Mr. Pope's careful and enthusiastic
labor already has produced by far the largest and
most complete collection of reptiles, batrachians and
fish that has ever been made in China. So little
serious work has been done on these lower verte-
brates that the field offers almost unlimited possi-
bilities for original research. In every locality spe-
cies new to science and interesting revelations in life
histories await the investigation. Moreover, the
work is of immense importance in helping solve
the larger problems of zoogeography which have
had a profound influence upon animal and human
migrations.

Our plan is to have Mr. Pope continue his survey
of the herpetology and ichthyology in every prov-
ince of China. It is unfortunate that he could
not participate in the Mongolian expeditions, but
the reptile and fish life of the Gobi Desert is so lim-
ited that it would have been a waste of time and
we have been able to obtain a fairly complete collec-
tion for him.

He has carried on his work at times under the
most difficult and dangerous circumstances. In
1922 in Shansi on the border of the Ordos Desert, he
was in a city which was captured by bandits. By
his tact and courage he not only saved his life and col-
lections but continued his work. In the island of
Hainan it was highly dangerous to go beyond nar-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

rowly circumscribed limits because the region
swarmed with brigands: yet he remained there a
whole year and brought out a superb collection. I
regret that it is not possible to give in more detail
the progress of his work but I hope that he himself
will narrate his experiences in a future volume.

CHAPTER III

HUNTING THE " GOLDEN FLEECE M

/^\NE of the objectives of the Expedition was to
obtain the rare and typical large mammals
of Asia for exhibition in the new Hall of Asiatic Life
of the American Museum of Natural History.

As I am a zoologist, that has been my particular
work and on September 8, 1921, accompanied by
Captain W. F. Collins, I left for the Tsingling
mountains of Shensi Province to obtain specimens
of the takin (Budorcas bedfordi). This species is the
modern representative of the " golden fleece" and is
one of the rarest and most interesting animals of the
world. It was discovered by the late Mr. Malcolm
Anderson while on the Duke of Bedford's expedition
under the direction of the British Museum of Nat-
ural History.

Although takin of different species are found in
the mountains of northern India and western China,
the Shensi form has been killed by not more than
seven or eight white men. Moreover, we wished to
make a reconnaissance of the Tsingling mountains

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

which extend east and west through the centre of
China and appear to have been a faunal divide
even in geological times as they are today.

This forested range never has been carefully
investigated and offers one of the most attractive
fields for zoological work both from the standpoint of
discovering species new to science and from that of
distribution.

To the Chinese, the takin is known as "yeh niu"
(wild cow), and in truth it does resemble a cow
superficially a good deal more than it does its near-
est relatives, the chamois, Rocky Mountain goat,
serow and goral. These animals form a strange
sub-family, the Rupricaprinnce or goat-antelopes, so
called because they combine characters of both the
goats and the true antelopes. This is an excellent
example of a group that, with its origin in Asia,
has sent one branch, the chamois, to Europe, and
another, so called the Rocky Mountain goat, to
America.

Unlike the white rhinoceros, which is not white,
and the blue fox, which is not blue, the takin of the
"golden fleece" really is golden — in color at least.
From the end of their enormous Roman noses to
the tips of their abbreviated tails the Shensi animals
are a beautiful golden yellow without a patch of
darker color. I shall never forget the startling
impression when, for the first time I saw a group of
six of the great brutes, climbing about on a rugged
mountainside amid a thicket of dwarf bamboos. The

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE"

sun was shining full on their long winter coats, which
blazed like molten gold among the dull green leaves.
They wore the ''golden fleece " as surely as if they had
stepped out of the story-book of Greek Mythology.

On the way to the Tsingling mountains Captain
Collins and I had to dodge a war which was in full
operation about Sianfu, the ancient capital of China,
but late in the evening, at the end of a fortnight's
mule travel we stumbled into the little village of
Lingtai-miao, at the foot of the Ta Pai Shan (Great
White Mountain).

The village was a poor affair — only a straggling
main street bordered by mud huts in which mangy
dogs, pigs, chickens and goats lived on the most
intimate terms with the human inhabitants. Until
I saw the people themselves, I wondered how so
wretched a place could exist amid those beautiful
surroundings. Ordinary Shensi farmers are unpre-
possessing and many of them show the ravages of
opium, but these mountain folk were even lower
in the human scale.

Captain Collins and I found that the temple where
we were camping lay amid golden-yellow rice-fields
in a beautiful valley beside a brawling mountain
stream bordered by straight white poplars. A few
hundred yards away the foothills rose steeply, range
upon range, into the grey cloud- veil low-hung about
the summits of Ta Pai Shan.

We did not have the temple to ourselves, for a
dozen village soldiers had taken up their quarters

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

in the rooms on each side of the court. We spread
our belongings at the foot of the altar in the main
building, where a blear-eyed old priest had made
himself a bed of straw in one corner. His duties
consisted solely of keeping alight the tiny oil-wicks
that burned at the feet of the gods, and of changing
the bowls of food upon the altar. But he wore an
expression of utter exhaustion and always retired at
dark to sleep uninterruptedly until broad daylight.

On a beautiful morning we left the temple with
eight bearers, carrying our food, collecting outfit
and sleeping-bags. The way led up the main val-
ley, and the rocky river bed gave us splendid pheas-
ant-shooting. The birds were continually sailing
down from the foothills for their morning drink.
They were strong on the wing and seemed as plenti-
ful as sparrows. Had we really hunted them we
probably could have shot fifty in an hour. We
killed nineteen pheasants, one hare and one wood-
cock without going more than a hundred yards from
the trail.

When the trail turned abruptly to the east and
entered a side valley, which rapidly narrowed to a
canyon, climbing began in earnest and we passed
through an interesting series of floral zones. The
lower slopes of the mountain are thickly blanketed
with a dense forest of birch, oak, poplar, spruce, and
larch; at about six thousand feet the dwarf bamboo
begins; above this is the rhododendron belt, extend-
ing to timber-line at eleven thousand feet. Above us,

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE"

between the narrow walls of the gorge, we saw a
ragged sky-line of green-clad peaks ; beneath our feet
was a chaotic mass of stones and boulders on the
banks of a mountain torrent. The trail so frequently
crossed and re-crossed the stream that we were in
the water as often as out of it, and after a half mile or
so we abandoned all attempts to keep dry. I firmly
believe that the rain which falls upon the Ta Pai
Shan and the streams that flow down its sides are
the coldest in the world! It was dark when we
climbed out of the trail to a huge rock wall, which
rose sheer a hundred feet above us, leaving a narrow
basal ledge. The men cut bamboos for beds, and
we grouped ourselves about the fire, trying to dry
portions of our sodden garments.

We were on a level with the lower peaks and above
their summits could see snow-capped ridges shining
whitely in the starlight. It was very still up there.
Not even the roar of the stream reached our ledge:
not a bird-note sounded in the night. In our fur-
sleeping bags Collins and I lay propped against the
rock face, smoking silently. The wildness of the
mountains had stirred our primitive instincts. We
looked upon our lot and found it good.

A two-hour climb in the morning up a slope so
steep that we were well-nigh forced to go on all
fours, brought us to a beautiful meadow, thick-
carpeted with long brown grass. There, in a spot
that appeared to have been a wood-cutter's camp
years ago, we pitched our tents and covered a skele-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

ton of poles with grass and dwarf bamboo for the
three men who were to remain as hunters.

Behind us the meadow met a rhododendron jungle,
its brown grass giving place to dark green leaves,
which spread up the steep slope of a ridge, over the
summit and away into the peaks and chasms of far-
off mountains. Harmless enough it looked, but we
learned to dread the tangle of its thickly twisted
branches. To the east a fearsome canyon cut us off
from distant summits drifted deep with snow; to
the west lay a tumbled mass of granite boulders, old
and lichen-covered but some still poised, an avalanche
that had fallen away from the cliffs above. It was a
wild place, fit home for one of the strangest beasts of
a strange land.

For two days we hunted without success in the
region of the camp. Takin had been there years
before but there was no fresh sign. While at break-
fast on the third morning, we noticed one of the
hunters, an old man, Liu by name, busily engaged
beside a rock a few yards from the tent. He made
himself a little shrine of grass and leaves and then
produced a half dozen sticks of incense. These he
lighted and with mumbled prayers and incantations
kowtowed before his joss. We watched the per-
formance with some amusement, but the hunters
took it very seriously. At the end the old man
announced that we certainly would find takin that
day.

An hour later our hunters started eastward toward

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE"

the snow peaks, skirting the upper end of the gorge,
near camp and directly through the rhododendron
jungle. Sinking into holes, bruising ourselves on
hidden rocks, twisting, turning and crawling through
the maze of ropelike branches, we followed them on
what seemed to be a hopeless chase. At noon we
dropped exhausted on the sun-warmed stones of a
granite buttress which projected into the canyon.

We were hardly settled when Yong, one of the
hunters whispered "Yeh nui" (wild cows) and
pointed to a bamboo clad spur seven hundred yards
away. I nearly slipped off the ridge in my excite-
ment when I caught a glimpse of a yellow speck with
another beside it. The glasses showed them plainly
— huge golden-yellow brutes moving easily amid the
bamboo jungle on a slope so steep that they seemed
to be hanging by their horns.

Night after night I had had dreams of takin
but they were never stranger than the animals I
saw on that sun-lit peak of the Ta Pai Shan. Every-
thing about them seemed unreal. They were not
creatures of our world but they fitted beautifully
into Greek mythology. I cannot imagine beasts
apparently less adapted to live among the mountains
and yet, there they were, on a peak so steep and
rugged that I doubted that we could ever climb it.

We watched them for half an hour hoping they
would settle themselves for the mid-day rest but
they continued to browse upon the bamboo leaves
always slowly moving upwards. The hunters as-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

sured us that we could not reach them and return
to camp before night. We scoffed at that but for
safety's sake sent two men back to the tents to
bring our sleeping bags and a little food; then we
began the stalk. It was necessary to circle about
the upper end of the canyon into which the granite
ridge projected, descend to the stream bed and
climb the peak where the animals were feeding. It
sounds very simple and it looked so to us, but that
was the only simple thing about it.

The slopes we scrambled up and down were almost
perpendicular and we had to fight our way through
a bamboo jungle that was worse than the rhododen-
drons. The dwarf bamboo is only ten or fifteen
feet high and the stalks are not larger than one's
finger but they grow so close together that it is
impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. It
was only by main force that we could get through
at all and the whip-like stems slashed us mercilessly
until our hands and faces were torn and bleeding.
To add to the discomfort a drizzling rain began and
in half an hour we were soaked to the skin and shiver-
ing in spite of the strenuous work.

Somehow we got to the bottom of the gorge, made
our way down the stream bed, half the time knee-
deep in icy water, and started the long climb up the
thousand foot peak where the animals had been
feeding. When we reached their tracks there were
no takin and we were nearly done. Yong said they
had gone higher still.

HUNTING THE " GOLDEN FLEECE "

Collins and I had drawn for the first shot and the
lot had fallen to me. I cursed my luck then, for the
hunter assured me that the man who went up would
get the shot ; the other must remain below to inter-
cept the brutes if they came down.

Collins perched himself on a rocky pinnacle and
I went with Yong. We got to the summit just at
dusk to find the tracks leading far back into the
mountains. There was nothing for it but to de-
scend and make the best of a wet night.

We could look across the canyon to our brown
tents in the little meadow, less than a mile from us
in a straight line but as unattainable as the stars.
It had taken us nearly six hours of killing work to
reach this peak where we had seen the takin from a
point not more than seven hundred yards away.
When we got to the bottom of the gorge it was
black night and raining steadily. Fortunately the
matches in my water-proof case were dry and we
managed to start a feeble fire.

We were very low in our minds, not at the pros-
pect of a cold wet night, but because we had nothing
to eat for the morrow. We were both faint from
lack of food and it seemed impossible to face another
day of gruelling work without some nourishment.
When we killed a takin we could feast on the meat,
but the question was, could we last until the animals
were found.

We had little hope that the men who had been
sent back would find us, for it seemed absurd to think

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

that any human being could travel in the dark where
it had been well-nigh impossible to go in the day-
light. Yet about ten o'clock we heard a rustling in
the jungle and a moment later the two men whom
we had sent back to camp appeared. I could have
hugged Lao Chung (he was our own man) for they
brought food and we could find the takin on the
morrow. They had seen our fire and made their
way down that treacherous stream-bed for more than
a mile in thick blackness with only that tiny spot of
light to guide them.

The sun was high the next morning before we
reached the summit of the peak and picked up the
takin tracks where I had left them the night before.
They led up and back toward an amphitheater of
higher ridges but the trail was fresh and plain. At
eleven o'clock we struggled through a particularly
nasty patch of jungle and sank down, utterly ex-
hausted, upon the rocks in the sunlight. Both
Collins and I were somewhat shaken for I had
narrowly missed death a few moments earlier. While
crossing a tiny ledge my shooting coat had caught
on a spur and hurled me over the cliff. With one
foot I landed on a projecting shelf, grasped three
bamboo stalks and drew back to safety. Had they
not been as tough as rawhide I should have plunged,
head first, to the jagged rocks three hundred feet
below.

After a short rest our men climbed out upon a
granite pinnacle for a look about. Almost immedi-

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE"

ately they returned, trembling with excitement.
The takin were there — we could shoot them from
where we were. It was a dangerous piece of work to
reach the spot where the men had been. When we
peeped over the edge of the rock I saw nothing but
the bamboo jungle shimmering in the sunlight; then
there was a slight movement far below and an ani-
male emerged from the cover to stand quietly, gaz-
ing directly at us. It was small, I could see that,
but Yong urged me to shoot and no others were in
sight.

Holding well below the belly line, I fired. The
beast plunged forward and pandemonium broke
loose. I have no clear remembrance of just what
happened for the jungle seemed full of charging forms
and the wretched Yong to whom I had entrusted
my second rifle started a mad fusilade almost in my
ear. It was impossible for me to shoot and not
until the gun was empty did he cease his futile bom-
bardment. Only a sportsman can appreciate the
enormity of his offense.

At the first shot the six takin that had been lying-
down leaped to their feet but only now and then
could we catch a glimpse of a yellow form as it passed
through an open space. It was downhill shooting
at long range under the worst conditions possible.
Collins worked his Savage rifle coolly but we found
later had failed to kill a beast.

In less than a minute it was all over and Yong
and I descended to ascertain the casualty list while

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Collins watched from above. We found my first
animal, a nursing calf, with a broken back. A little
below, Yong put up a full-grown beast which we
thought had been wounded and I snapped at it use-
lessly as it dashed down hill. A moment later a
cow leaped out twenty feet ahead of me. I fired
quickly breaking a hind leg, but she kept on without
a pause. Finally she stopped beside a tree and I
shot through the bamboo tops dropping her dead in
her tracks.

Although we searched the jungle carefully we
found no other animals or signs of blood and came
to the conclusion that the two which I had killed
were our only bag. It was hard luck for Collins
because he had borne the work without a murmur,
like the true sportsman that he is.

Although I had wanted to shoot a takin more than
any other animal in the world, the accomplishment
left me cold. I was so utterly exhausted, physically,
that my brain was numb ; it could register only a feel-
ing of relief that the hunt was ended. Had it not
been for Yong we might have completed our Mu-
seum group in those few minutes. As it was we had
only a mother and her calf but I did not doubt that
we should get other adults to complete the family.

At two o'clock in the afternoon we started back
to camp. With the load of skins and sleeping bags
we could not go by the way we had come and even
though our tents were less than a mile away in a
straight line it was two days before we reached them.

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE"

Collins and I spent the next day in selecting a
spot with the proper background for the takin
group, making photographs and collecting the grass,
leaves, rocks and other accessory material.

We decided upon a steep cliff-side clothed with
bamboo which led up to the kind of rocky ledge on
which the animals love to sleep and sun themselves.
The background was to be the peak where we had
killed our specimens two days before. We took
enough bamboo for the entire group, first brushing
the stalks with weak formalin and then wrapping the
bundle with burlap. Of the rocks we selected vari-
ous samples with dried lichens attached and photo-
graphed the characteristic fissures and formations.
In a solution of water, formalin and glycerine we
preserved fresh sprigs of bamboo and grass from
which plaster casts will be made and wax leaves
prepared. It was a labor of love, for, in the not
far distant future the scene which we were now
viewing would be duplicated in the Museum under
my direction.

While we were gone my Chinese taxidermist had
been trapping industriously, and on our return he
presented us with a trayful of mice, shrews and
moles. Two I recognized as known only from a
single specimen of each. Three others were un-
doubtedly new to science. The mountain was most
surprising in its small mammalian fauna. Instead
of one species that far outnumbered all the others,
as is the case in most localities, here there was a

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

great variety of species with no one predominant.
The fauna of this region is so important and so
little known that the Central Asiatic Expedition will
make a careful study of the entire mountain range
before we leave China.

Another day of hunting in the vicinity of camp
demonstrated that it was useless to look for takin
there. Collins and I decided to take three bearers
with food and sleeping bags and strike into the moun-
tains near the spot where we had killed the other
"wild cow.'' The taxidermist was to continue work
at the camp in the meadow until we sent him bearers
from the village.

Halfway down the mountain we left part of our
things in a cave, and with three light loads set off
towards the snow-clad peaks where we were confi-
dent the hunt would end. It began to rain in the
afternoon and we camped early under an overhanging
rock. The weather of the Ta Pai Shan was a con-
stant source of surprise. The sun always rose in a
cloudless sky, but at any moment grey mist, accom-
panied by a drizzling rain, might steal in from
above or below. Not a day passed without rain.
It might be only enough to wet the bamboos, but
that ensured a thorough soaking for us as we pushed
through the thick bushes.

Our second hunt was a disappointment. We
found fresh tracks and followed them days at a time
hunting every inch of the forested peaks but never
did we see an animal. Once, two of them were

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE"

within fifty yards of us but they stole away noise-
lessly through bamboo so thick that we could barely
move at all. How a beast nearly as large as a cow
(for a full-grown takin weighs 500 pounds) could
move quietly in that tangle was a mystery to us
both.

At night we slept under ledges or overhanging
rocks crawling into our fur sleeping-bags so tired that
we could hardly cook our food; but in the morning
we were always fit and ready for the day's work.

At last we awoke to a world white with new-
fallen snow? and we knew that the hunt was ended.
It would be utterly useless as well as very dangerous
to climb those peaks while the snow remained. Our
hearts were heavy as we went down the mountain
toward the village for we greatly wished to finish
the work we had begun.

I decided to leave my two men with instructions
not to return until they had at least two more takin.
We felt sure that they would have success, though
it might be weeks before the snow melted suffi-
ciently to make hunting possible. We had all the
necessary data for the group and I was not needed;
for the men were well trained and I could depend
upon them to follow directions to the letter.

The hunt had been so difficult and exhausting that
I doubted whether I should ever attempt to kill an-
other takin. But even as I write, the charm of those
rugged peaks, the great stillness and the lure of the
wilderness is in my blood and I know full well that

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

some day I shall return. Not, however, in the
winter or summer months. Midsummer is the time
to hunt Shensi takin. Then the animals are in the
open on the very summits of the ridges, and it
becomes merely a question of climbing high enough
and preparing for lots of rain. With one exception
the other white men who have killed takin have
chosen the summer months and they had none of
the difficulties that we encountered.

The takin has been so seldom pursued by white
men that very little is known about its life history
and we hunted the animals such a short time that it
was not possible to obtain new information.

The natives told me that the rut begins early in
August and that the calves are born the following
spring in April. I feel sure that this is correct
for we estimated the calf I killed (September) to
be about six months old.

Takin spend the summer in the open on the highest
peaks above the rhododendron forest feeding on grass,
herbs, and shrubs. Were it not for the continual rain
and fog they would not be particularly difficult to hunt
at that time of the year, for, from what the natives
told me, I do not believe they are nearly as alert as
are sheep or ibex. In the fall and winter they spend
the entire time in the dwarf bamboos. Like their
relatives the goral and serow they like to sleep in
the sun on projecting ledges where a rock wall rises
at the back, and where in front there is an uninter-
rupted view over the surrounding country. We

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE "

found many such places with evidence that they had
been in use for years.

With his thick heavy body the animal can force
his way easily through the dense bamboo thickets
and the jungle is interlaced with such trails which
appear to be continually travelled. I was amazed
at the rapidity with which they can negotiate the
roughest country when alarmed.

When in heavy cover the animals will be abso-
lutely motionless until almost kicked out and the
natives say that at such times they often turn and
charge. I rather doubt this except in cases where
they believe themselves to be cornered.

In summer they congregate into herds of 100 or
more according to the Chinese, but in the winter
they separate into several groups with cows, calves,
and bulls together.

The Ta Pai Shan appears to be the extreme edge
of their habitat in the Tsingling mountains. The
hunters told me that some years there were a good
many there but that at other seasons there were
very few. This was confirmed by my two hunters
who subsequently made their way far back into the
mountains and found an abundance of takin.

The five days' trip back to Sianfu was made
interesting by an abundance of game. Geese had
arrived in thousands, every marsh was alive with
snipe and the shooting could be varied with bus-
tards, quail, hares, ducks and pheasants. We were
in a sportman's paradise, and within a few hundred

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

yards of the main road we could get all the birds
we wanted. I had an American goose-call, which
amused Collins greatly and which he refused to be-
lieve had any merit.

One day while I was sitting placidly atop of a
loaded mule, I saw five geese far off to the left.
After a few preliminary squawks, I drew such dulcet
tones from the call that the birds swung sharp about
and headed straight in my direction. I managed to
stop the mule but could not climb down from it be-
fore the geese arrived. Risking the animal's dis-
pleasure, I fired twice, killing one goose dead in the
air and badly wounding another. After that, Col-
lins had no more to say.

The day before our arrival at Sianfu, we travelled
a road that was a mass of gluelike mud. For ten
hours we sat on the loads in the pouring rain, getting
off only to shoot a goose or two when we saw a flock
not far away. I believe we killed eight or nine
within a hundred yards of the caravan. We could
not go farther afield, for it was well-nigh impossible
to walk at all.

At the west gate of Sianfu we were halted for an
hour, although the soldiers admitted that our pass-
ports were quite in order. They must telephone the
Tuchun, they said, before we could be admitted. It
was only one of a thousand petty annoyances to
which foreigners are subjected in the Shensi Prov-
ince. After standing in the cold and wet until our
patience was exhausted, we announced our inten-

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE "

tion of going into the city, regardless of officialdom.
And in we went.

Three days in Sianfu were few enough, but both
of us had so much to do in Peking that we could
not linger. A month later our two hunters returned
to Peking from Ta Pai Shan with a glorious bag
including three takin. Lao Chung attributed their
luck to the powers of an old man named Wang.

When I left Lingtai-miao I gave Lao Chung a rifle
that had never been used. He said that after several
unsuccessful days, when he had wounded animals
but could not kill them, Wang told him that without
doubt he had failed because the gun had killed a
man. No rifle that had killed a man was good for
hunting; it would have to be "treated." Wang
announced that he would prove to the satisfaction of
everyone that the rifle had taken human life. He
produced three pieces of bamboo, round on one
side, flat on the other, and each perforated with nine
holes. If the gun had killed a man, the sticks would
always fall with the flat sides up when he threw them
into the air. Sure enough they did. The weapon
had certainly killed a man. In the "treating"
process old Wang traced characters on the barrel
with his fingers and then stroked the rifle from muzzle
to butt, mumbling incantations. In order to prove
that it was now in proper condition for hunting pur-
poses he said he would throw the bamboo sticks
again. The first time they would fall with both
flat sides up; the second with both round sides and

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the third with one flat and one round side upper-
most. The sticks were thrown and fell as predicted.
"Then," said Lao Chung, "I went out immediately
and killed a wild boar with the first shot. I had no
more trouble."

Lao Chung told us also a strange tale about our
first takin hunt. He said that the man Liu who had
performed a sacrifice at our camp on the Ta Pai
Shan, the day we found takin, was one of a few men
who had the power to "open" or "close" the moun-
tain. When it had been closed all the game left
at once; when it was opened all the animals came
back at once.

On this last takin hunt, Lao Chung had had no
success until he found Wang, the one who had
"treated" his rifle. This old man, like Liu, had the
power to open the mountain, and when he had been
persuaded by Lao Chung to accompany him on a
hunt, he gave a remarkable demonstration of his
magic skill. He wrote several characters on three
strips of yellow paper, rolled them up and buried
them. Then, lighting sticks of incense, he chanted
strange words and the mountain was open. Lao
Chung never failed to find game when he was with
old man Wang. After each hunt the mountain was
closed by a similar ceremony. It was useless then
for anyone to hunt, because the game all departed
to unknown regions. Wang and the few others
who had this power were unpopular with their
neighbors.

HUNTING THE "GOLDEN FLEECE "

Lao Chung firmly believed all this. Like most
Chinese of the peasant class, he had a simple, super-
stitious, highly imaginative mind and would tell the
most astounding stories in such a way that you could
not possibly accuse him of lying. I remember an
instance connected with the first takin hunt. After
I had killed the cow, I went down the mountain,
hunting for wounded animals. While I was gone,
Lao Chung suddenly came upon the dead animal and,
I presume, was somewhat startled. Immediately
his imaginative brain set to work, and by the time
I returned he had a story ready. He announced
that the takin was wounded, had charged him and
chased him up a tree. "But/' I said, "I know the
wild cow was dead for I killed him myself."

That made not the slightest difference and he
stoutly maintained that the animal had not suc-
cumbed until after it had treed him.

He has dozens of other wonderful stories which he
tells to admiring friends. Neither Jason nor Tar-
tarin de Tarascon could outdo Lao Chung!

CHAPTER IV

UNDER WAY

HPHE expedition was to leave Peking on April 17,
* 1922, and for weeks beforehand the headquar-
ters seethed with activity. Every man was occupied
with his own individual preparations for the long
summer in the desert. The courtyard in front of
the laboratory was strewn with skins, boxes and
equipment which were being packed to ship to New
York or to go with us to Mongolia. Colgate had
the main courtyard filled with automobiles and all
day the whirr of motors being tested and the ring
of hammers made it seem like an open air garage.

As if to bid us Godspeed the lilacs and flowering
trees in the courtyard, in full bloom almost a week
earlier than in any other part of the city, trans-
formed the compound into a veritable Paradise.

A farewell dinner was given us by Mr. Albert B.
Ruddock, First Secretary of the American Lega-
tion, at which Mr. C. S. Liu, then Director of Chi-
nese Railroads, became so much interested in our
plans that he offered to send the motors and equip -

UNDER WAY

ment free of charge to Kalgan and give us two pri-
vate cars for the staff. His courtesy was doubly
appreciated because war-clouds were gathering
thickly in North China skies and continual troop
movements made railroad transport most uncer-
tain. There seemed to be but little doubt when we
left Peking that the expected clash between Chang-
Tso-lin, and Wu Pei-fu would take place within a
few weeks, as, indeed, it did. We had been pro-
vided by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
with a formidable looking document, which was sup-
posed to permit our cars and equipment to leave
Kalgan exempt from duty and customs inspection.
When I showed it to Chang Tso-lin's soldiers who
were stationed at the road to the Pass, they laughed
contemptuously and said, " This is from Peking. We
don't recognize Peking.' ' Therefore we had a delay
of three days while another huchao was being ob-
tained from the military commander at Kalgan.

At six o'clock in the morning on April 21st we
left the Anderson Meyer and Company compound
in Kalgan, with the three cars and two trucks. Most
of our things had been sent to the village of Miao
Tan, forty miles from Kalgan, so that the cars might
be as light as possible during the rough travel in
the Pass. Before we were out of the city gates we
were joined by two other motors. One was driven
by Mr. Charles L. Coltman, en route for Urga on
business. (In December, 1922, Mr. Coltman was
shot by Chinese soldiers a short distance out of Kal-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

gan when he was on his way to Urga. He died
shortly afterwards in a Peking hospital.) In the
other were Mrs. Granger, Mrs. Shackelford and Mrs.
Black, who were going to the summit of the Pass to
see us safely on our way. I was taking Mrs. An-
drews as far as Urga in order that she might get some
Paget color plates of the brilliant Mongol costumes.
Dr. Davidson Black of the Peking Medical College,
who had joined the expedition temporarily in order
to obtain data for his anthropological studies, was
to return from Urga with Mrs. Andrews.

The seven cars, finally under way, made a very
imposing spectacle as they wound up the long river
valley leading to the plateau. Coltman, who knew
the way better than any of us, was in front, and I
drove the next car, carrying Shackelford and his
photographic equipment. At every picturesque spot
he took a few feet of film, so that our progress was
slow, even along the dry-stream bed where the road
was fairly good. The Pass itself was reported to
be bad and it quite lived up to our expectations.
Deep ruts cut by the spike studded wheels of Chinese
carts, mud holes, and huge rocks that had rolled
down from the hills above, made it an "automobile
nightmare." It was the first real test for the cars,
and I watched them anxiously. If they nego-
tiated the Pass successfully we would have nothing
to fear on the way to Tuerin, for no section of the
road is as bad as it is at the Pass and for seventy-five
miles beyond Kalgan.

UNDER WAY

Wonderful panoramas were unfolded as we climbed
higher. When we paused to cool the engines we
looked back over a shadow-flecked bad land basin, a
chaos of ravines and gullies, to the purple mountains
of the Shensi border. Above us loomed a rampart of
basalt cliffs crowned with the Great Wall of China
which stretched its serpentine length along the
broken rim of the plateau. Roaring like the pre-
historic monsters, the bones of which we had come
to seek, our cars gained the top of the last steep slope
and passed through the narrow gateway in the wall.

Before us lay Mongolia, a land of painted deserts
dancing in mirage; of limitless grassy plains and
nameless snow-capped peaks; of untracked forests
and roaring streams! Mongolia, a land of mystery,
of paradox and promise! The hills swept away in
the far-flung, graceful lines of a panorama so endless
that we seemed to have reached the very summit of
the earth.

Never could there be a more satisfying entrance
to a new country. We stopped only long enough
to look about us however, for Berkey and Morris
were at once convinced that the geology of the Pass
would require a careful study to be properly inter-
preted. Since the Pass could be easily reached from
Kalgan, it was decided to postpone investigation
until after our return from Mongolia.

The road that we were to follow wound through
cultivated fields, green with winter wheat, passed
among brown huts, and lost itself in the mud walls

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

of a larger village. At Miao Tan we found our men
waiting for us in the courtyard of a Chinese inn,
with the gasoline, food and other supplies that had
been sent on by cart. For the next hour everyone
worked with feverish activity to load the cars so
that we might get beyond the brigand infested cul-
tivated area and camp for the night in the grass
lands. A great deal of necessary equipment had
arrived from New York too late to send by the
caravan, and when all the things were piled upon
the cars, Colgate and I were horrified. There must
have been at least two tons on each of the trucks,
which were designed for only half that weight.
There was no alternative, for the loads were largely
made up of gasoline, photographic supplies, and
automobile tires that could not be left behind.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when we left
Miao Tan in a drizzling rain. There was every
reason to believe that we would have several days of
rain and snow, which would make it impossible for
us to travel and do our work. Coltman suggested
that we try to reach the Swedish Mission at Hallong
Usu. This meant running after dark, but the road
was so smooth and hard that, somewhat against
my better judgment, I consented to go on. We
were not yet out of the region of wheat and oat fields
which the Chinese push forward every year into the
grass lands of Inner Mongolia.

Mud villages were scattered at infrequent inter-
vals and it is in this area of cultivation that the

The fleet-footed antelope of the Mongolian plains.

UNDER WAY

brigands concentrate for attacks upon caravans
coming into Kalgan. There is little danger of ban-
dits farther out in the desert for the trails are so
few and far between that the traffic is not sufficiently
heavy to furnish profitable "pickings" for robber
bands. Ever since we had left Miao Tan I had been
uneasy because the first day had gone so well. It
is almost an inevitable rule in exploration that first
days, when men and equipment are untried, are diffi-
cult, and I have come to believe that the worse the
first day the better the others will be. But before
we went to sleep that night we had had trials enough
to ensure a wonderfully successful Expedition.

We were driving through the inky blackness of a
rainy night and still had twenty-five miles to go to
reach Hallong Usu. Coltman, who was ahead, sud-
denly felt himself on soft ground and a moment later
his motor sunk in mud to the running boards. He
hurried back in time to warn the rest of us, but in
the effort to regain the trail each car became mired.
Time after time we left a motor on what seemed to
be firm ground, but when the others had been brought
up, the first had again sunk so deep that herculean
efforts were required to dig it out. It seemed an end-
less business, but by midnight all the cars were
huddled on a bit of high ground which we had discov-
ered, except Coltman's; it was in its original posi-
tion and was sinking lower. Far in the distance
dogs were barking. I sent a man who could speak a
little Mongol to bring oxen for Coltman's car. He

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

arrived finally with three small animals and a half
dozen natives. The bulls were hitched to the auto-
mobile but it could not be moved an inch. There
was no alternative except to rig the block and
tackle, which, as luck would have it, was at the bot-
tom of one of the loads.

Every man in the party was soaked to the skin,
covered with mud and shivering with cold; never-
theless there was not a murmur, all accepted the
fortune of the road cheerfully and in intervals of
chattering teeth, joked about the fact that our first
experience at the edge of the Gobi Desert should be
one of mud and rain. The sportsmanlike attitude
of the men gave me a most encouraging view of the
personnel of the expedition.

By means of the huge block and tackle we even-
tually dragged Coltman's car out of the mud. I
decided to camp where we were for fear that worse
difficulties might be encountered if we attempted to
move to a drier spot. Moreover, it was after one
o'clock in the morning and we had eaten only a few
sandwiches since breakfast. When I walked away
to find the driest spot on which to pitch the tents I
was impressed with the fantastic setting of our camp.
The roaring cars as they maneuvered for position,
the headlights cutting yellow paths through the inky
blackness, the barking of dogs and the strange cries
of the Mongols who had by this time collected in a
crowd about us, gave the scene a touch of unreality
that I could still appreciate, wet and tired as I was.

UNDER WAY

When the tents were up, Black, Granger, Shackel-
ford and Morris who had not been driving were
unanimously elected to stand watch for what re-
mained of the night. Sentinel duty was a neces-
sary precaution because a suspicious looking band of
natives heavily armed had ridden past us that morn-
ing. They were undoubtedly brigands and, al-
though we were too strong a party to be attacked
on the march, there was danger that they might
return.

The next morning dawned raw and cold. One by
one the men straggled out of their tents to look
about. We were on the far edge of a partially dry
marsh, but it was almost impossible to figure out
how we had managed to get through the mud in
the dark. I was glad to see that the men all ap-
peared to be fit and somewhat rested, after the
strenuous night. Since no harm had been done I
was not entirely sorry that the accident had hap-
pened, for it impressed upon all of us the futility
of running after dark and gave a splendid example
of the behavior of the staff, Chinese and American,
under trying conditions. Our cooks produced an
excellent breakfast, and by the time the cars were
packed and ready to leave at eleven o'clock, the sun
was shining brightly.

We were in the grassy hills but Berkey and Morris
had more than enough geology to occupy them.
From the moment we left Kalgan they had traced a
cross-section in which every mile of the structural

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

and physiographic features of the country had been
recorded. The geologists had a car to themselves
with their complete equipment. Our rapid prog-
ress made their work extremely difficult and it
would have been well-nigh impossible for less experi-
enced men than Berkey and Morris. They had to
run off the road continually to inspect whatever
rock outcrops showed above the rolling grass lands.
They were always miles behind the other cars and
every hour we had to stop to let them catch us.
After the first few days Morris devoted his chief
energies toward the physiography while Berkey
recorded the geological changes.

They found that the general structure consists
of a vast complex of ancient rocks in which granite
predominates; upon these lie basin-like areas of
those more modern sediments that often contain
fossil bones. Since the Chinese Geological Survey
has been investigating this region for some time, we
had focussed our attention upon the less known ter-
ritory of Outer Mongolia.

We camped at five o'clock in the afternoon in a
beautiful amphitheatre where the low grass-covered
hills rolled away in gentle yellow-green waves from
the granite rocks behind the basin. It was a per-
fect, windless evening — very rare in Mongolia during
the spring. Coltman had shot an antelope and a
bustard in the morning so we had fresh meat for
dinner. The tents went up like magic and in half
an hour a tiny city appeared in the grassy valley.

UNDER WAY

The early camp gave us time to organize our forces,
find necessary items of equipment and eliminate
some of the accumulated mud of the previous night.
Just as the stars appeared in a cloudless sky we
gathered about the argul fire and had our first real
meal together. Everyone was tired but happy.
Long after the fire had become only a glowing heap
of ashes we lay on the grass, talking of the interest-
ing months before us in the desert.

Now that we were well away in the grass lands, I
promised my companions a glimpse of antelope
before the day was ended. They were mildly skep-
tical about my stories of the sixty-miles-an-hour
speed of the animals and I prayed for a herd which
would give an exhibition of really high class running.
My reputation for veracity was at stake, for can you
imagine an animal, not equipped with wings and
having no gasoline-tank, which, with only four legs,
can go at the rate of sixty miles an hour — a mile a
minute?

Not long after breaking camp, we discovered a
score of yellow-white forms in the bottom of a broad
valley east of the road. Several of us, in the touring-
car, bumped down the slope over patches of short,
stiff grass, while the other motors continued on their
way. At first the gazelles gazed curiously at the
car, ran a few feet and stopped to look again. The
antelope, wild ass and some other animals invariably
try to cross in front of a motor-car, even when, with
the wide plain on either side of them, they could

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

easily get away. Therefore, I headed diagonally
toward the herd, and we were within four hundred
yards of them before they finally decided that it
was time to take their leave. They ran only half-
heartedly, sometimes bounding into the air as if they
were on rubber tires, but still we were being left
rapidly behind. Shackelford shrieked with delight
and implored me to "step on her," even though the
car, making thirty miles an hour, bounced over the
rough ground like a ship in a choppy sea. Soon the
long, yellow line, fatally attracted, bent toward us.
Then I shouted to Black and Granger, who were
half out of the car, and threw on both brakes. Be-
fore it had fully stopped, we had all leaped to the
ground and begun firing. The others, new to this
kind of work, had no luck, but I dropped an animal
before the herd was out of range. We could not
drive fast enough over the rough ground really to push
the antelopes, but even this poor exhibition of speed
sufficed to turn the doubters into my firm sup-
porters.

Of course, gazelles cannot run a mile in a minute.
I am sure no living animal can do that. But it is
true that, for a short dash, perhaps a quarter of a
mile, the Gobi gazelles, when thoroughly frightened,
reach the speed of sixty miles an hour. Ordinarily
they are curious about the car and will run only fast
enough to keep well away from it. But shoot at
them a few times and see what happens ! Then they
all flatten out and skim the ground so lightly that

UNDER WAY

their legs become only blurs like the wings of an
electric fan.

I do not know how far they can run, but Shackel-
ford and I had an illuminating experience. We
found a buck on a hard plain where it seemed pos-
sible to run him down and get some reliable data
about his endurance. He was loping along easily
at thirty-five miles an hour when we cut him out
from the herd. We overhauled him rapidly, and
he seemed surprised and somewhat hurt that any-
thing really could make him exert himself. So he
gave his accelerator a little push and shot up to
forty miles. We did likewise. More surprise on
the part of the gazelle, and a little more gas on our
side. The car was going full out then, and the
speedometer registered forty-one miles. The gaz-
elle seemed to think it about time to end matters
and, with a burst of speed, crossed in front of us and
sprinted away so fast that we could just keep his
bobbing white rump-patch in sight. But he soon
slowed down, and we chugged steadily on his trail
at forty-one miles an hour. The race settled into
an endurance test. He kept about two hundred
yards in front of us, and so we went for ten miles.
Then we got a puncture but he did not. How far
the animal could have gone, I would not venture to
say.

With our first antelope on the running board of
the car, we regained the trail just as the geologists
came over the summit of a hill. I told them that

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

we would await them for tiffin at Pang-kiang, the
first telegraph station, which stands on the southern
edge of the Gobi Desert, if the Gobi can properly
be said to have an 1 'edge/' The grass lands merge
so gradually into the arid regions of the Gobi that
it is difficult to say just where the real desert begins.
However, Pang-kiang on the south and Tuerin on
the north delineates it fairly accurately in the region
where the Kalgan-Urga trail crosses the Gobi.

"The City of Pang-kiang," as it is often referred to
in the Chinese papers, had been the scene of impor-
tant events since I last visited it in 19 19. After the
Russians drove the Chinese out of Urga, they carried
the war into Inner Mongolia, and for several months
Pang-kiang was the first line of Chinese defense.
The long hill-slope opposite the telegraph station
was pitted with large, horseshoe-shaped depressions,
reinforced with cement and arranged in regular lines.
These were the " basements" of the quarters in
which the Chinese soldiers had lived during the long
winter of 1921. Pang-kiang, with its half dozen
mud huts, is a desolate place at best, and the rav-
ages of war made it doubly depressing.

All the morning we had been running through
pleasant, rolling grass lands, yellow green with the
first touches of coming spring. As we neared Pang-
kiang, the country gradually changed, the grass was
shorter and sparser and Gobi sage-brush was plenti-
ful. But our geologists were agreeably surprised,
for they realized that we were coming into a bed-

UNDER WAY

rock desert and not one of sand. They reported
that for some time we had been passing over sedi-
mentary strata, and, since there were cuts and bad
lands depressions, Granger felt that it would be
worth while to spend the afternoon in prospecting.
Therefore, we camped on the gravel plain above the
telegraph station.

Shackelford and Colgate then rigged the wireless
outfit for its first trial. We had made arrangements
with the American Legation to have the correct time
sent out at seven o'clock every evening and to give
us any interesting news. The time was particularly
important in order that the geologists might check
the chronometers that they used in taking latitude
and longitude observations. We had purchased the
wireless receiving-set in Peking and had considerable
doubt as to its efficiency. It looked very business-
like when the aerial was erected on tent-poles bound
together, but Shackelford and Colgate could not
get a sound over the wire. As a matter of fact, the
set never did function properly, and, after we left
Urga, we were entirely without news, although the
legation sent out messages frequently during the
five months we were away. Fortunately, the inabil-
ity to check our chronometers was not serious, for
the variation was unbelievably slight : the total error
to be distributed over the entire five months was
only forty-five seconds. The taxidermists put out
a long line of traps for small mammals and for the
first time the expedition was really at work.

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

The next day, just after leaving Pang-kiang, we
stopped at a well beside the trail. Near by is a
small temple. On my previous trips to Urga I
had always looked forward to this picturesque place,
with the curious, good-natured lamas, streaming
across the plain on foot and horseback, their red and
yellow robes flaming in the sun. I had told Shackel-
ford that he would get some good pictures here, but
not a human being was in sight. The white-walled
temple, with its gay border of red, and the living-
quarters of the lamas were deserted and partially
wrecked. Scattered about the plain were dozens
of soldiers' uniforms and lamas' robes, some of them
containing weathered human bones. Pariah dogs — •
grim evidence of the fate of the unfortunate dead —
slunk in and out of the gaping walls. I suppose it
was ' ' Little Hsu's" Chinese soldiers who had de-
stroyed the place but it is certain that few of the
harmless priests escaped alive. We left this temple
of tragedy with no reluctance and gratefully turned
to the sun-drenched plains and the open road.

A little later we had our first meeting with north-
ern Mongols. A great caravan of them, camped
beside the road, had just ended the day's march.
The camels, crowded together into a compact mass,
were still kneeling beside their loads. We seemed
to be looking across a veritable forest of curving
necks and shaggy bodies, from which the long win-
ter's hair had already begun to fall away in strips
and patches. Among them walked the drivers,

UNDER WAY

pulling out the pegs that fastened the load-ropes
across the back, while the animals grunted and
screamed as though they were being tortured. On
the outskirts of the caravan some of the Mongols
were gathering argul (dried dung), the only fuel of
the desert, or riding madly back and forth after a
flock of fat-tailed sheep, carrying their own flesh and
wool to market at Kalgan.

This was the first caravan we had seen. In the
peaceful days before the Chinese invasion under
"Little Hsu" in 19 19 and the subsequent years of
war and terror, the Kalgan-Urga trail was a great
artery of trade. Dozens of camel caravans and
hundreds upon hundreds of ox- and pony-carts con-
tinually streamed across the plains; at every well,
dome-shaped yurts were grouped like giant bee-hives
and herds of sheep drifted in snow-white masses along
the sides of sheltered valleys. But the two years of
war and changing politics have left their mark upon
this wild, free land. Trade was paralyzed, yurts
were gone and the riders of the plains avoided the
travelled road. Even the telegraph-line was wrecked
beyond Iren Dabasu, or Erlien, as the Chinese call
it, which is just within the borders of Inner Mongolia.

We expected to camp at Erlien ; for I had instructed
my caravan to leave two camel-loads of gasoline at
the telegraph office, which is in the basin of a great
salt marsh. Just before descending the bluff to the
plain, I waited for all the motors to arrive. The
geologists had told us that we had been travelling

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

over sedimentary strata all afternoon, and to their
practised eyes the bluff offered a possible exposure
for fossil bones. I decided to go on to the telegraph
office five miles away and camp, while they inves-
tigated the rim of the basin. Our gasoline was wait-
ing at the station, and the Chinese agent reported
that the caravan had passed by two weeks earlier.
We then drove over to some promising-looking
ridges half a mile to the west and pitched our tents.

While my wife and I were watching a sunset,
which splashed the sky with gold and red, the last
two cars swung around a brown earth bank and
roared into camp. We went out to meet them. I
knew something unusual had happened, for no one
said a word. Granger's eyes were shining and he
was puffing violently at a very odious pipe. So I
supposed that the " something " was good news.
Silently he dug into his pocket and produced a
handful of bone fragments; out of his shirt came a
rhinoceros tooth, and the various folds of his upper
garments yielded other fossils. Berkey and Morris
were loaded in a like manner. Granger held out his
hand and said: "Well, Roy, we've done it. The
stuff is here. We picked up fifty pounds of bone in
an hour."

Then we all laughed and shouted and shook hands
and pounded one another on the back and did all
the things that men do when they are very happy.
No prospector ever examined the washings of a
gold-pan with greater interest than we handled the

UNDER WAY

little heap of fossil bones. Rhinoceroses we were sure
of, and there were teeth that could belong only to
the titanothere, a great rhinoceros-like beast that
became extinct long before the Age of Man. But
no titanotheres had been discovered outside Amer-
ica, with the possible exception of a doubtful frag-
ment from Austria! The other specimens were
smaller mammals not positively identifiable, but we
discussed and rediscussed the possible origin of
every piece of bone. While dinner was being pre-
pared, Granger wandered off along the grey-white
outcrop that lay like a recumbent reptile west of
camp. Even in the falling light, he discovered a
half-dozen fossil bits. We realized that we had a
new deposit at our very door.

We were all so eager for the next day's work that
sleep came slowly and the camp was astir shortly
after daylight. Before breakfast my wife and I
walked out to inspect a line of traps that had been
set in the sandy mounds of the basin-floor. We
had caught an interesting specimen of a new sand
rat (Meriones), several large hamsters (Cricetulus) ,
and a half-dozen kangaroo-rats (Dipus); all species
new to my collection. While we were busy at the
traps, we saw Dr. Berkey with head bent and hands
behind his back, wandering about on the ridge near
camp. Soon he came in to breakfast with both
hands filled with fossils. Granger examined them
with a puzzled expression.

"For the life of me," he said, "I cannot make

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

that anything but reptile. It might possibly be
bird, but it must have been some bird to have a leg-
bone like that. It certainly isn't mammalian."

It was about two-thirds of one of the lower leg-
bones which he held out. It had been found just
above camp. A little later, when Dr. Black was
walking to his tent, he almost stepped on the miss-
ing section, which made the specimen complete.
It had obviously weathered out and rolled down
from the ridge above. We were confident then that
it was reptilian. The geologists, with Granger and
Black, went up to the ridge where Dr. Berkey found
the bones. Just as my wife and I were starting out
on a little shooting-trip, we met Dr. Berkey on his
way into camp. "Come up with me," he said;
"we've made a discovery, and a very important
one."

He would give us no more information until we
reached the summit of the outcrop. Then he
pointed to Granger, who was on his knees, working
at something with a camel's-hair brush. "Take a
look at that and see what you make of it," he said.

I saw a great bone beautifully preserved and
outlined in the rock. There was no doubt this
time; it was reptilian and, moreover, dinosaur.

"It means," said Dr. Berkey, "that we are stand-
ing on Cretaceous strata of the upper part of the
Age of Reptiles — the first Cretaceous strata, and the
first dinosaur ever discovered in Asia north of the
Himalaya Mountains . ' '

UNDER WAY

Unless one is a scientist, it is difficult to appre-
ciate the importance of the discovery. It meant
that we had added an entirely new geological period
to the knowledge of the continental structure of
Central Asia and had opened up a palasontological
vista dazzling in its brilliance. With the rhinoceros
and titanothere teeth and the other fragments of
fossils that had been found the day before, the dino-
saur bone was the first indication that the theory
upon which we had organized the expedition might
be true ; that Asia is the mother of the life of Europe
and America.

While Granger was preparing to remove the bone,
I returned to camp and asked Shackelford to record
the discovery in motion-pictures. Berkey and Mor-
ris continued their search and brought a wealth of
specimens when they returned for tiffin. It was
evident that fossils were abundant along the entire
ridge, and the opinion was unanimous that the
region must have a much more careful study than
could be made in a few days.

The identification of this Cretaceous area and
the subsequent determination of the younger Age
of Mammals beds which lay upon it and in contigu-
ous regions were not only a personal triumph for
Berkey, Morris and Granger, but also for American
science. Other geologists had traversed the same
formations, but had failed to determine correctly
the strata and recognize their vast importance.
The splendid achievement of our men was also an

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

excellent example of the value of correlated work,
which was the principle upon which the expedition
was organized. Geology and palaeontology are so
intimately related that one is incomplete without
the other; for the correct determination of geolog-
ical horizons is largely dependent upon the fossil
remains they contain.

The method of finding fossils seems to be a mys-
tery to the layman. As a matter of fact, it is merely
a question of scientific knowledge and training. In
the first place, geological conditions must be right.
Volcanic and metamorphic rocks can never con-
tain fossils; for they have been subjected to heat and
chance, which destroy bones instead of preserving
them. Thus fossils can occur only in sedimentary
strata, such as sandstone, shale and limestone. Fos-
sils are being made today just as they were a million
years ago. When an animal dies the skeleton may
be covered with sand or other sediments. This
heaps up higher and higher and eventually is con-
solidated into rock. Then a very slow change
begins. Cell by cell the animal substance in the
bone is replaced by mineral matter and the skeleton
becomes petrified, or changed to stone. Sedimen-
tary strata must not be too old — that is, they must
not have been laid down before vertebrate animals
existed — or naturally they cannot contain the bones
of such animals. Not only must a region have the
proper age and geological formation for fossils; it
must also be opened and cut by ravines and gullies

UNDER WAY

or have bluffs and ridges that give a cross-section
through its structure.

Long before the Iren Dabasu basin was reached,
we had been driving across sedimentary strata,
but because they were not dissected there was little
possibility of finding fossils. As soon as Berkey,
Morris and Granger saw the bluffs which we de-
scended to the salt-lake flood-plain, they realized
that here was what they had been seeking — a deeply-
exposed cross-section of the rock and sediment on
the top of which we had been running for so many
miles. From that moment it was simply a question
of using their eyes to find bones that had been un-
covered by the action of wind and rain.

Contrary to the general impression, a palaeontol-
ogist seldom digs for fossils unless he sees them.
Perhaps it is only the tiniest part of a bone that
catches his trained eyes, but it may give the clue to
the discovery of an entire skeleton. Perhaps the
fossils lie completely exposed upon the surface or have
been washed by rain or streams far away from the
spot where they were originally buried. Berkey
found the first dinosaur bone on the summit of the
outcrop above camp. Black found the remaining
fragment at the base of the exposure; evidently it
had been washed down by a flood of rain, possibly
not many days before we arrived. The long ridge
beside which our tents were pitched contained
bones, teeth and claws of large and small flesh-eating
and herbivorous dinosaurs.

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

By the slow but resistless action of wind and
weather, the hundreds of feet of rock and sediment
that formerly lay upon the ridge had been worn
away, leaving exposed these strata, deposited sev-
eral million years ago, near the close of the Age of
Reptiles. Farther to the west, toward the bluff
from which the ridge takes its origin, the action of
weathering has not progressed so far and the cre-
taceous rock is still overlaid by sediments depos-
ited during the middle Tertiary, the Age of Mammals.
After I had gone, the geologists discovered other
fossil-bearing beds, far older than those of the bluff
and going back to the Dawn period of the Age of
Mammals.

At the present time the salt-lake basin is a most
God-forsaken region. Spotted by conical, sandy
mounds sparsely covered with thorny bushes and
Gobi sage-brush — a burning desert under the sum-
mer's sun and an arctic desolation in winter — it is
very different from its condition six million years
ago. The basin was evidently the floor of a great
lake or of several lakes and marshes; their margins
clothed with a luxuriant vegetation, were the homes
of the dinosaurs, turtles and crocodiles, the bones of
which we found. The climate was undoubtedly
warm and moist, not only here but all over the
Central Asian plateau, and the cold winters and ex-
treme aridity of the present day did not prevail until
comparatively recent times.

It was difficult to leave this spot where such fas-

UNDER WAY

cinating glimpses of the long-dead past were being
unfolded every day, but I knew that inevitably
there would be complications in Urga before per-
mission could be obtained to proceed farther into
Outer Mongolia, and that no time was to be lost
if the entire expedition was not to be delayed.
Leaving Berkey, Granger and Morris, and a taxider-
mist to carry on zoological collecting, I took the
rest of the party on the three hundred and fifty mile
trip to Tuerin, where we hoped to find our camel
caravan.

Long before reaching Tuerin, we could see the
ragged mass of granite, which rises like a magnificent
citadel nearly one thousand feet above the surround-
ing plain. We came to the base of the " mountain' '
just before noon and saw a great caravan camped
beside the road. As we drew nearer, I made out the
American flag flying from one of the loads and recog-
nized our boxes. It was our own caravan. Merin,
the head camel man, said that they had arrived only
an hour before. They started from Kalgan, March
21, and we met them April 28. This was the ren-
dezvous! I had told Merin five weeks before to
reach Tuerin on this day.

Merin is a remarkable native. He has led cara-
vans for two other exploring expeditions in Mon-
golia and loves the work. He is honest, resource-
ful, thoroughly sportsman-like in his willingness to
take a chance on anything under the sun, careful of
his animals and reliable as a clock. I have a very

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

real affection for him. Time after time he has
brought his camels to the rendezvous on the ap-
pointed day after traversing hundreds of miles of
unknown plains. He has carried priceless collec-
tions from the very heart of the Gobi Desert with-
out damage to a single box. He never promises
more than he can fulfil. Last summer he made a
heroic march across four hundred miles of burn-
ing desert and arrived with sixteen exhausted camels
out of the seventy odd that started. When I told
him we had been afraid he could not reach us, he
resplied: "You need not have worried. I'd have
got through somehow even if it was with only one
camel. I told you I would come." That expressed
his entire philosophy. He had told us he would
come and he never thought of such a thing as not
arriving.

The caravan was directed to remain where they
were while we continued on a few miles to the tele-
graph station, near which we intended to camp.
The line had been wrecked during the recent fight-
ing so that there was no communication north of
Iren Dabasu, but we found a good-natured Mongol
in charge. He presented me with a letter from
Larsen addressed to "Roy Chapman Andrews,
Esquire, Anywhere in Mongolia." The letter had
been brought to Tuerin by Mr. K. P. Albertson, a
very good friend of mine, who had gone to Urga to
enter into negotiations for the reconstruction of the
telegraph-line. Larsen reported that all was favor-

Merin, the remarkable leader of the camel caravan, who never promises more

than he can fulfill.

UNDER WAY

able for the expedition, but that I must come to
Urga to get passports and attend to other diplo-
matic matters before we could start west.

The telegraph station is just outside the rocks at
Tuerin, and we ran up a narrow, sloping plain to
select a camp -site. It would be difficult to imagine
a wilder or more rugged spot. The "mountain"
itself is the root of an ancient peak, ages ago of
majestic height, but reduced by wind and weather to
the present chaotic heap of granite. It made an
ideal camping-place. When the tents were up, I
sent Colgate in one of the cars to get the caravan.
Shackelford made his arrangements for the "mov-
ies" and at half past three he began singing, "The
camels are coming."

My wife and I climbed to a flat-topped ledge, just
as the great white leader, bearing the American
flag, appeared from behind a boulder at the entrance
to the plain. Majestically, in single file, the camels
advanced among the rocks and strung out in a seem-
ingly endless line. My blood thrilled at the sight;
for it impressed upon me, as nothing else had, that
the expedition was an accomplished fact. The
camels swung past the tents, broke into three lines
like files of soldiers and knelt to have their loads
removed; then, with the usual screams and pro-
tests, they scrambled to their feet and wandered
down the hill-slope to the plain, nibbling at the
vegetation as they went.

We had slept and eaten on the ground on the way

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

to Tuerin but now obtained folding-tables, chairs and
camp-cots, as well as fresh provisions, from the
caravan loads, and began to live in luxury. After I
had told Liu, our cook, to roast a wild goose for din-
ner and had arranged for the two taxidermists to
set out a hundred traps for small animals, my wife
and I climbed over the rocks to a secluded amphi-
theatre to enjoy the sunset. It was a beautiful
evening, warm and without a breath of wind. As
we stood in the little basin, looking at the magnifi-
cent battlements, which rose tier upon tier above us,
she said, "This should be a theatre setting; the
scene for some weird tragedy like Macbeth" She
had scarcely spoken when we heard a subdued roar
beyond us to the north. In an instant it was louder,
and a yellow cloud rose above the ragged peaks. The
air became suddenly colder.

I knew that one of the terrible Mongolian storms
was upon us and shouted to my wife to run for camp.
We dashed over the rocks and had just rounded a
huge boulder when the wind-cloud swept down upon
the tents. It came like a cyclone, bringing a swirl
of yellow dust and sand. We could not see twenty
feet ahead, but we heard a clatter of tins, the sharp
rip of cloth, and then a tumbling mass of beds,
tables, chairs, bags and pails swept down the hill.
Clinging to the great rock, which gave us partial
shelter, we watched the yellow cloud pass down the
slope and whirl across the plain with the speed of a
race-horse. A heavy gale still roared over the rocks

UNDER WAY

to the north, but as soon as it was possible to see
through the smother of sand, everyone dashed to
rescue some favorite article of camp equipment.
The Mongols hung to the tents, trying to keep them
upright, but cloth was ripping in every one.

The whole side of the cook-tent had been torn
away. Poor Liu thought only of his roasting goose.
When he saw his little Standard Oil tin oven jammed
against a rock and half filled with sand, it was too
much even for his Oriental calm.

"Eya, eya," he wailed, "the goose, the goose is
spoiled.' ' It was an hour later and pitch-dark
before the camp was put to rights. The tempera-
ture had dropped thirty degrees, and with that first
cold blast winter was back again. It did not leave
us finally until June 22.

CHAPTER V

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

JUST to the west of the ragged core of rocks where
we camped lies the Tuerin monastery. Three
temples nestle in a bowl-shaped hollow, surrounded
by hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, pill-box dwellings
painted red and white. There must be nearly a
thousand of them and twice as many lamas. On the
north the low hills throw protecting arms around the
homes of these half-wild men who have chosen to
spend their lives in this lonely desert stronghold.

The day after our arrival in Tuerin, we went
to the monastery, so that Shackelford might get
some motion-pictures. Before the car had stopped
on the rim of the great depression, hundreds of red
and yellow lamas poured out from the yurts and
temples, and we were surrounded and nearly suffo-
cated. The Mongols are likable but they cannot
be credited by even their most enthusiastic sup-
porters with the virtue of cleanliness. They do
not bathe. They wipe their fingers on their gar-
ments and, since their food is largely mutton, they
reek with the odor of rancid fat. All this may be

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

disillusioning to those who visualize the Tuerin mon-
astery as delicately perfumed with myrrh and frank-
incense. Nevertheless the dim interior, lighted by
the yellow candles and flaming with brilliant stream-
ers hanging from the altar and the walls, made a
fascinating picture.

The lamas, fanatics as they are, never can be
trusted very far. I have learned from experience
that it is wise to be careful in using a motion-picture
camera about the temples. Shackelford's camera,
with its battery of lenses, is a most formidable-look-
ing object. But 11 Shack" himself can allay super-
stitious fears with his winning smile and keen sense
of humor, and he wandered about the narrow alleys
between the houses of the lamas, into the temples
and among the shrines, photographing wherever
and whatever he wished and always followed by a
laughing mob of priests.

Lamaism, the religion of Mongolia, which was
introduced from Tibet, is largely responsible for the
present decadence of the Mongol race. The first-
born son of every family must enter the priesthood,
and sometimes all the boys become lamas. In the
temples, where they live, they spend their time in
chanting Tibetan prayers, which they do not under-
stand. They are human parasites, mentally and
morally degraded, who exist by preying upon the
superstitions of the lay population. If it were not
that some of them spend only a few months each
year in the temples, there would not be enough men

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

left at home to carry on the business of living; for
at least two-thirds of the male population of Mon-
golia are lamas.

Although Mongols are among the dirtiest people
on earth, their temples are always scrupulously
clean. At the far end of the main room is a statue
of the Buddha, above an altar bearing ever-lighted
candles. Rows of prayer-mats facing the centre
are arranged on the floor, and gay streamers of silk
hang from the ceilings. The walls are adorned
with paintings representing various gods and god-
desses— some of them lewd in the extreme. The
high priest sits at the right of the altar, with the
lamas on the mats below him. The monotonous
chanting of throaty voices, interrupted by the clash
of cymbals and the throb of drums, makes the serv-
ice in the dimly lighted room impressive in a bar-
baric way.

In no country have I ever seen people more fanat-
ically superstitious than the Mongols. They be-
come frenzied at any interference with their religious
practices, and yet, like the Chinese, they think they
can fool their gods. A missionary told me that one
day he found some lamas in a temple, drinking and
using the vilest language. When he asked how they
dared do and say such things in front of the images,
they replied: "Oh, that's all right! We've covered
the eyes of the gods with paper, and they can't
understand what we say because we are talking Mon-
golian and not Tibetan."

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

A priest is supposed never to take life, but some
of the lamas forget their Buddhist principles. In the
Altai Mountains I had a lama guide. He had been
a hunter, but during a severe illness had given the
Buddha his promise to become a lama if he recov-
ered. True to his vow, he shaved his head and
went into the temple for a few months each year,
but by the end of four years the lure of the moun-
tains had grown so strong that he became once
more absorbed in hunting.

Once when my wife and I were camping in a
valley north of Urga, the wife of our hunter brought
us her baby, which was suffering from eczema. In
vain a wandering lama had been exhorting the gods
to cure the child. I applied oxide of zinc and sul-
phur. In two weeks the disease had disappeared.
Thereupon the priest collected fifty dollars' worth
of sheep and goats from my hunter.

" Do you think it was the lama's prayers or my for-
eign medicine that cured your baby?" I asked the
woman. She readily admitted that it was the
ointment.

"Then why do you pay the priest ?"

"If I didn't, he would bring a curse upon our
family," she replied. "All our sheep and goats
would die, and we should have great misfortunes."

Another Mongol at the same village dislocated his
shoulder. I slipped the bone in place, and the lama
collected two sheep. So it was throughout the sum-
mer: I made the cures and the priest got the fees.

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

The lamas are supposed to be celibates, but many
of them take unto themselves a woman, either tem-
porarily or for life, when they do not live in a temple.
The Mongols are unmoral rather than immoral.
They are children of nature, with the animal instinct
unchecked. The women are careful about exposing
their bodies, but do not regard chastity as an espe-
cial virtue. Wandering lamas or travellers often
demand a woman when they stop at a yurt and
they are seldom refused. As a result, venereal dis-
ease is prevalent.

When we reached camp after visiting the temple
at Tuerin, Merin was patching the foot of one of our
camels. A most extraordinary operation it was.
Ropes were first looped about the legs and, as they
were tightened, three men pushed the animal over
by main force. Then the hind feet were drawn
between the front legs and securely tied. In one
of the great flat pads was a small cut. This was
sufficient to make the beast lame. Merin first
scraped out all the sand and then sewed a piece of
thick leather over the wound exactly as one would
patch a torn garment. He used a curved needle
eight inches long and a rawhide thong. The camel
grunted and groaned when his legs were roped and
then settled into a continuous wailing. It would
have been pathetic had we not known that the groans
all came from fright; for the brute was suffering no
more pain than does a horse when he is being shod.
But under any circumstances a camel will be sure

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

to make himself ridiculous; in spite of his colossal
bulk he is almost as easily frightened as a mouse.

In the intervals of repacking the caravan loads we
explored the innermost recesses of the rocky peaks
near camp. Everywhere the heaps of empty rifle-
shells, cartridge-clips and discarded clothing gave
evidence of battle. In that terrible winter of 1921
several thousand Chinese were encamped near the
telegraph station. Baron Ungern sent Cossacks to
attack them, but, before the Russians arrived, a
Mongol general, by doing miles of hard riding across
the plains, reached Tuerin at the head of three hun-
dred soldiers. Without regard for the enormously
superior numbers of the Chinese, they attacked at
once. The general, whom I met later in Urga, told
me about it. "We rode at full speed through the
camp," said he, " killing everyone we saw. Then
we rode back again. The Chinese ran like sheep
and we butchered them by hundreds." Except for
the modern weapons, the story might have been a
thousand years old; for this method of warfare was
a heritage from Genghis Khan: hours of hard riding,
regardless of sleep and food, a sudden whirlwind
attack and then relentless slaughter.

During the summer of 1922, when the expedition
was in the western Gobi Desert, we continually had
reports of a great band of brigands operating to the
southwest of us. They were under the command
of a well-known chief, who had declared war upon
all Russians and adherents of the Soviet-controlled

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Mongol government. Any captured Russians — and
that phrase really meant white men, since to the
Mongols all white men are Russians — were tor-
tured in the most inhuman way. One man was
skinned alive. We ourselves did not dare to ven-
ture into this region. In the winter of 1 922-1 923,
the bandits were giving so much trouble that the
same Mongol general who had operated at Tuerin was
sent against them.

I heard the account of the raid from Mr. F. A. Lar-
sen, last spring. There were more than a thousand
of the robbers. The general had six hundred sol-
diers. His methods were direct and characteristic.
He halted his men several miles from the bandits'
camp and rode in with only six men. They galloped
to the door of the chief's yurt, dismounted and went
inside. Three Mongols were with the chief. "How
do you do?" asked the general as he drew his auto-
matic pistol and shot all four men before they could
move. Then, going outside, he told the bandits
who he was. His name, and their knowledge of the
story of a charm which the Living Buddha had given
him, frightened them so that they made no attempt
to kill him and no resistance when his soldiers came
in. He agreed to spare their lives if they would
come with him and join the Mongol army. Most of
them accepted the terms, but a few refused to go. So
with the remark that they had " better make it
unanimous," he shot the reluctant ones.

On May 2 we left camp at Tuerin for Urga in one

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

car. The city of the Living Buddha had changed in
many ways since our visit in 1 9 1 9. Then, we came as
freely as if we were on the open plains; now, the
numerous visits to be paid to yamens, the endless
questioning by agents of the Secret Police, the spy-
ing and the searching of baggage made one feel as
if one were entering a hostile camp. Nevertheless,
Urga had not lost its bizarre charm. Colgate,
Black and Shackelford were just as impressed as I
hoped they would be when we finally escaped from
the outlying examination stations and drove through
the Russian section. For two miles the road is dis-
tinctly Russian; then it debouches into a large
square, which loses its individual character and
becomes a mixture of Mongolia, China and Russia.
Palisaded compounds, gay with fluttering prayer-
flags, ornate Russian houses, felt-covered Mongol
yurts and Chinese shops are bewilderingly jumbled
together.

The day after our arrival I met the Mongolian
Minister of Justice, Mr. Badmajapoff, who was to
accompany the expedition. He is a grave, hand-
some man whose charming personality made an
immediate appeal to all of us. It was entirely due
to the efforts of Mr. Badmajapoff and Mr. Larsen
that we were able to satisfy eventually all the gov-
ernment requirements and obtain our passports.

While the diplomatic negotiations were proceed-
ing, we were all busy — Shackelford taking his " mov-
ies,' ' Mrs. Andrews with her color-photographs and

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Dr. Black in the hospital, recording anthropological
measurements and observations. We never tired
of wandering with our cameras through the narrow
alleys of the Mongol quarter, just behind Larsen's
house. In front of the tiny native shops were Mon-
gols in a half-dozen different tribal dresses, Tibetan
pilgrims, Manchu Tartars, camel-drivers from Turk-
estan and lamas in robes of red and gold. Here one
could see all types of head-covering, from the high-
peaked hat of yellow and black — through the whole
strange gamut — to the helmet with streaming pea-
cock plumes. Inevitably the city had lost its gay,
free atmosphere. Those terrible days under Un-
gern, the "Mad Baron," when the streets were red
with blood and the lives of men were of less value
than those of sheep, will not soon be forgotten.
Nevertheless, Urga remains the most fascinating
city I have found in all my wanderings into the
strange corners of the world.

One day Mr. Badmajapoff and I drove over the
long bridge across the Tola Gol, to one of the palaces
of the Living Buddha, which lie at the base of the
Bogdo Ola. I had brought a rifle as a present;
for the Hutuktu still liked guns although he was
blind and old and very feeble. I hoped to be able
to see His Holiness, and we waited for a bitterly
cold hour in a small building adjoining the palace
while my gift was sent in. Hundreds upon hun-
dreds of devout pilgrims were circling the house,
prostrating themselves at intervals and gathering

A belle of Chakhan: she is wearing the southern Mongolian head-dress.

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

handfuls of sacred dust from the court within the
palisades. Even though the Living Buddha had been
shorn of his temporal power by recent political events
he kept his former glory in the minds of the Mongol
people. At last a high lama official came out and
courteously said that His Holiness was too ill to
receive me but that he appreciated my gift and in
return wished to present me with a silk scarf and
photographs of himself and his wife. The pictures
evidently were taken many years ago.

May 9th had been set for the great festival of the
Maidari, which takes place once a year. We were
all eager to see it ; for it had never been photographed
in color or in motion-film. The Maidari, or Coming
Buddha, is a most sacred Bodhisattva. A gilded
image of him reposes in a splendid temple in Urga.
On this day, which is kept in honor of his incarna-
tion, his image is placed on a huge throne, smothered
in decorations and drawn about the streets as the
central figure in an elaborate procession.

The festival began in the early morning, for the
Maidari had a long way to go. At ten o'clock,
when we reached the main square, the procession
had not yet appeared, but the air was throbbing to
the boom of drums and the deep notes of conch-
shells. As the waves of sound beat down upon us,
we could see in the east a great mass of color, advan-
cing slowly. Soon groups could be distinguished;
then slender lines and huge umbrellas blazing in the
sunlight. Every shade of the spectrum was re-

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

peated a hundred times in the gorgeous pageant of
marching lamas. As the procession neared us, I
recognized the Premier in a robe of spun gold with
a priceless sable hat upon his head. Beside him
were the four reigning khans, or kings of Mongolia,
and behind them a double row of princes, dukes and
lesser nobles dressed in dark blue gowns with bril-
liant cuffs and streaming peacock plumes.

The great throne bearing the Maidari was shaded
by a silk umbrella of rainbow colors and surrounded
by the highest lamas resplendent in cloth of gold.
From the throne silken ropes led off to flanking lines
of red and yellow lamas bearing huge umbrellas of
bright-hued silk. Behind the Maidari came other
lamas, thousands of them, and women dressed in
rich gowns with ropes of pearls about their necks and
hair ornaments of gold studded with precious stones.
Almost ten thousand lamas were with the Maidari,
and two or three thousand men, women and chil-
dren followed. When the procession reached an
open square, overlooked by the great temple on the
summit of the hill, the throne was halted and the
lamas seated themselves upon prayer-mats in con-
verging masses of solid color, with the Premier, the
reigning khans and the lesser princes at the very
centre and the highest lamas flanking the Maidari.

The seated priests were given tea and food while
a red-robed lama in the Maidari's chariot energet-
ically thumped the heads of the populace with a long
stick padded at the end. There could not be the

ioo

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

slightest doubt in the mind of a supplicant that he
had been blessed after the ball at the end of the
stick landed on his head; for the officiating lama
took huge delight in bringing it down with force
enough to rock his victim. Nevertheless, thousands
of people crowded about the throne and the priest
laid on lustily for an hour.

The princesses and wives of the higher nobles
made one gasp for breath at their splendor. The
wife of one of the great khans in particular was the
most magnificently adorned creature I have ever
seen. According to the custom of northern Mongol
women, she had her hair plaited over a frame into
two enormous flat braids, curved like the horns of a
mountain-sheep and reinforced with bars of gold.
Each horn ended in a gold plaque, studded with
precious stones, and supporting a pendant braid
like a riding-quirt ; this was enclosed in a long cylin-
der of gold, heavily jeweled. On her head, between
the horns, the lady wore a gold filigree cap studded
with rubies, emeralds and turquoises, and surmount-
ing this, a "saucer" hat of black and yellow, richly
trimmed with sable. Just above her ears great
ropes of pearls hung from her gold cap half-way to
her waist. Her skirt and jacket were of rich silk;
over all was thrown a dazzling brocade coat with
prominent puffs upon the shoulders.

The princesses had a dignity that was very becom-
ing to their high estate. They were accorded none of
their husbands' privileges, so far as the procession

IOI

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

was concerned, but, each accompanied by a servant,
they moved majestically in the midst of the vast
crowd. Now and then they stopped to talk quietly
for a moment with a friend or to acknowledge the
deep salutes from both men and women by a slight
bend of the head and just the ghost of a smile.

On the day following the festival, my wife and
Dr. Black left Urga for the return trip to Kalgan.
They rode in a large car driven by Mr. Brandauer,
and his own motor, with a German chauffeur, car-
ried a party of Chinese. Two days later, early in
the morning, I had a letter from my wife saying that
Brandauer' s car had had a serious accident. One
Chinese had been killed and among the injured was
an old Mongol whom I was sending down to guide
my caravan to the rendezvous outside Urga. His
skull had been fractured and his collar-bone broken.

At the same time news filtered into Urga that a
great battle had been fought between Chang Tso-
lin and Wu Pei-fu and that Chang had been de-
feated. It was most depressing to know that the
return trip had begun so unfortunately for Black
and my wife and that they would probably run into
a full-fledged war in the vicinity of Peking. It
would be impossible for me to know for months
whether they had returned home safely.

At last Larsen and I were asked to meet the
Mongolian Cabinet at the Foreign Office, where the
final details of the Expedition permits were to be
discussed. The Premier, the Minister of Foreign

102

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

Affairs and many other officials were arranged in
solemn conclave about the table. I was presented
with a contract in which the Expedition pledged itself
to do certain things and to refrain from doing others.
After the conditions had been somewhat modified,
the Foreign Minister and I signed the agreement.

Then the Premier asked that, if it were possible,
I should capture for the Mongolian government a
specimen of the alter gorhai-horhai. I doubt whether
any of my scientific readers can identify this animal.
I could, because I had heard of it often. None of
those present ever had seen the creature, but they
all firmly believed in its existence and described it
minutely. It is shaped like a sausage about two
feet long, has no head nor legs and is so poisonous
that merely to touch it means instant death. It
lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert,
whither we were going. To the Mongols it seems to
be what the dragon is to the Chinese. The Premier
said that, although he had never seen it himself, he
knew a man who had and had lived to tell the tale.
Then a Cabinet Minister stated that "the cousin of
his late wife's sister" had also seen it. I promised
to produce the alter gorhai-horhai if we chanced to
cross its path, and explained how it could be seized
by means of long steel collecting forceps; moreover,
I could wear dark glasses, so that the disastrous
effects of even looking at so poisonous a creature
would be neutralized. The meeting adjourned with
the best of feeling; for we had a common interest in

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

capturing the alter gorhai-horhai. I was especially
happy because now the doors of Outer Mongolia
were open to the expedition.

At Lar sen's house we found the old Mongol who
had been injured in the motor accident on the way
to Tuerin. He brought from Colgate a note that
gave me great satisfaction. Colgate said that the
plucky old fellow had made light of his wounds,
although he was painfully smashed up, and had
insisted on fufilling his duty of guiding the motors
to the appointed rendezvous nineteen miles west of
Urga. They had arrived several days before and all
was well with the party.

Nothing ever looked better to me, when we arrived
two days later, than did the blue tents of our camp
pitched on the side of a gentle slope with a great
snow-bank glistening in the distance. Beyond was
a small temple surrounded by a half-dozen Mongol
yurts; the place rejoiced in the name of Bolkuk Gol.

Not more than two hours after we reached camp,
Merin came galloping in on his great white camel.
He reported that the caravan was only half a mile
away and that all the animals were in good condi-
tion. Soon we saw the long line of camels silhou-
etted on the summit of a hill with the American flag
streaming above the leader. Thus for the first time
the entire expedition was together. It was another
instance of the remarkably close connection main-
tained throughout the summer between the cara-
van and the motors.

104

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

We should not see the camels again until we
reached Tsetsenwan's, a hundred and sixty miles
away. So I worked until long after sunset, tak-
ing food, gasoline and other equipment from the
camel-loads and putting in instead all the speci-
mens that thus far had been collected. We cele-
brated our reunion with a huge dinner, and I went
to sleep with peace and thanksgiving in my heart.
The last barrier had been passed and before us lay
an open trail to the Great Unknown.

Before we left I had the disagreeable duty of send-
ing back to Urga a French mechanic who had come
with us from Kalgan. I had engaged him because
he knew cars and spoke the three most useful lan-
guages, Mongol, Russian and Chinese.

He was one of those men who have succumbed
to the fascination of Mongolia — a fascination as
elusive as it is potent. I have known men to whom
the country was forbidden under sentence of death,
yet they seemed powerless to resist its spell. Our
mechanic had been living in Peking for several years,
he said, but the ambition of his life was to return to
the plains and deserts of Mongolia. The land of
freedom and great spaces! The land of opportuni-
ties! He was barely five feet tall, but he swelled
with emotion as he spoke the words.

Just before we left for Kalgan, he asked if he
might take strychnine and other drugs to sell to the
Mongols. Of course I refused; for the expedition
could not be connected with trade in any way, and,

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

particularly, not with drugs. He accepted the deci-
sion philosophically enough, and I dismissed the
matter from my mind.

He drove the geologists' car, and before many days
Berkey and Morris obtained some illuminating
glimpses of his diminutive soul. He volunteered the
information that he was an anarchist ; he hated gov-
ernments of any kind and he liked Mongolia because
every man there was a law unto himself. Appar-
ently he hated life in general; the sight of a skylark
pouring forth its very heart in song drew forth a shot
from his pistol or a stone when his cartridges were
exhausted. He kept a candle burning in his tent
all night, saying that the darkness depressed his
spirit and filled his mind with " black thoughts."
The slow progress of the geologists in their scientific
work drove him mad. One day he said to Granger:
"Rocks, rocks, there are plenty of rocks ahead;
too many rocks, and yet they will not go! See, in
one hour we travel only five miles! "

"Never mind!" said Granger. "The next hour,
we'll probably make only three!"

All this I did not know until I obtained our pass-
ports from the Mongol government. When I gave
the small anarchist's name as a member of our party,
startled looks passed between the Minister of For-
eign Affairs and the Soviet Adviser. They spoke
quickly in Mongolian, and the Russian left. I
heard later than he had gone to despatch a telegram
to Moscow. I was not long in learning our man's

1 06

IN THE CITY OF THE LIVING GOD

record in Urga. He was reported to have been a
member of a band of brigands in the west, which
robbed Whites and Reds alike during the bloody
days of Baron Ungern. He was a camp-follower,
subsisting on the spoils of robber-bands, a human
jackal. The Soviets wanted him badly, although
they did not tell me so. Of course, I decided to send
him back at once and I obtained a Chinese chauffeur
to fill his place.

When I told our anarchist that he must return, he
became as pale as wax. "They will hang me if I
go to Urga," he pleaded. "You'll have my blood on
your hands. It is death for me to go there."

' ' Why did you come to Mongolia with such a rec-
ord?" I asked. "You knew you would be killed."

' ' I don't know. I had to come back. The plains
called me. I thought the American flag would pro-
tect me!" he whimpered.

Perhaps I might have been affected by his terror
had I not discovered a thousand bottles of strychnine
in his bed-roll. He intended to sell it to the Mon-
gols for use in poisoning fur-bearing animals. That
was the finishing touch ; for it would have meant the
ruin of the expedition to bring this contraband into
the country. I had made strong statements to the
Mongol officials regarding the purely scientific char-
acter of the work, and they had exempted our cara-
van from customs inspection. There was only one
thing to do : to send the man with his strychnine into
Urga under escort, accompanied by a statement of

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the case to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I learned
subsequently that he escaped from Urga just one
day ahead of the hangman. Like others whose
stories I could tell, he still lives in Kalgan at the
entrance to Mongolia, not daring to cross the fron-
tier, but unable to tear himself away.

I know a dozen men who, during the bloody days
of " Little Hsu," "Mad Baron" Ungern and the
Bolshevist advance guard, saw women and children
butchered in the streets of Urga, or swinging by the
neck from their own door-posts, and dogs gnawing
at frozen bodies in every alley; men who themselves
have passed through tragedies enough to shake the
strongest nerves; men who have seen their business
ruined by war and changing policies and yet have
returned to Mongolia at the first indication of com-
parative peace. If you ask them why, they answer:
"I don't know. I like it. I believe in the coun-
try." They never have phrased to themselves the
fact that they have the frontiersman's spirit — the
same spirit that won our American West, that won
Alaska and that will continue to win the wasted
places of the earth until all have been reclaimed.
Such men feel the lure of the mountain and the des-
ert, of the vast open and of the limitless sky. The
wild, free life calls to their primitive human instincts ;
life in the raw, stripped of artificial conventions,
where strength, endurance and courage are the ulti-
mate test, where the last resource is the Man
Himself.

1 08

CHAPTER VI

TENTING IN LAMA LAND

W7HEN I awoke in camp at Bolkuk Gol on the
morning of May 19, I was filled with delight-
ful excitement. At the end of the day's run we
were in a new region.

Climbing a long slope to the ridge of a low moun-
tain-chain we passed through a rocky gateway and
carne into a country of rolling grass lands. From
the summit of almost every hill we could see groups
of grazing antelopes and sometimes herds of several
hundred. Marmots popped in and out of their bor-
rows like toy animals manipulated by strings, and
once two wolves loped across the trail in front of us.

Twenty-five miles from Bolkuk Gol we found a
well in the bottom of a beautiful valley and decided
to stop. Although we were still in pre-Cambrian
igneous rocks, which, because of their age and forma-
tion, could not contain fossils, Berkey and Morris
needed some time to study the complicated geology
of the region. The tents were pitched in the centre
of a great amphitheatre formed by rounded, grass

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

covered hills, which gave partial shelter from the
wind. We spent two days there. Granger and I
set a long line of traps, which yielded an interesting
variety of small mammals — hamsters, field-voles,
gophers, conies and kangaroo-rats, of species not in
my collection. Colgate, Larsen and Badmajapoff
went after antelopes and brought in five. Berkey
and Morris worked like mad in the daytime, running
nearly a hundred miles over the surrounding coun-
try, and sat up half the night, "shooting the stars"
for our geographical position. Shackelford hunted
marmots and kept the taxidermists supplied with
specimens.

In the northern grass lands and on the slopes of
the Altai the marmots gave us never-ending amuse-
ment. They are first cousins to our American wood-
chucks and are reported to be responsible for the
spread of pneumonic plague. They are fur-bearers
of commercial value: millions of skins are shipped
to China and Russia every year and distributed to
all parts of the world. The autumn fur is gray-
brown, soft and very thick. When the animals
emerge in the spring after their months of hiberna-
tion, they have changed their garments for a dress
of bright yellow, which is most conspicuous in the
green grass of the plains.

Though marmots can easily be trapped, the Mon-
gols always shoot them. Their curiosity and their
dislike of dogs are often utilized against them by
the hunter. One day I saw an old Mongol, with a

TENTING IN LAMA LAND

flintlock on his back and a dog's skin thrown across
his saddle, riding toward a marmot colony. He hob-
bled his horse, perhaps three hundred yards away,
and got down on all fours with the skin arranged
on his back. He advanced toward the nearest mar-
mot, now and then stopping to bark.

The little animal stood on his hind legs, whistl-
ing excitedly, and then ran to the mound of dirt
near his hole, which he mounted for a better view.
The Mongol approached closer and closer, barking
hoarsely. Then suddenly he flattened himself on
the ground and pushed his old flintlock forward into
position. The marmot seemed on the verge of ex-
ploding. Standing on tiptoe on the very summit of
his mound, whistling and chuckling, he tried to see
what had become of the "dog." His fat little body
silhouetted against the sky offered a first-rate target.
The Mongol fired, leaped forward and seized the
animal before it wriggled into the hole in its death-
struggle.

The native's more usual method of hunting is to
chase a marmot into its hole and then dispose him-
self at full length fifteen or twenty feet away with
his gun in position. Sometimes he waits for an
hour before the marmot pokes his head out of the
burrow; sometimes for only a few moments. But
hours or minutes are all one to a Mongol. He is
perfectly happy to lie there in the sun, himself half-
asleep, and await developments. I have heard from
both white men and natives of the dance that the

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

marmots sometimes perform, but I never have seen
it myself.

When the geologists reported that they had solved
the structural problems that puzzled them, we went
on to Tsetsenwan's, driving over beautiful grass-
covered hills and into valleys fresh with streams of
sweet, clear water. But there were so few inhab-
itants along the trail that it was surprising suddenly
to top a long slope and see below us, at the base of
a rounded hill, the monastery, like a miniature city
of tiny houses, temples and pinnacled shrines, walled
in by enormous piles of arguL Before the lamas
had time to give more than a yell of surprise, we
roared past the temple and sped on to our camping-
place. It was two miles beyond, in the mouth of
a deep canyon completely sheltered from the wind.

It was necessary for us to wait at Tsetsenwan's for
our caravan, although, from the palaeontological point
of view, the region was disappointing. It continued
to consist of metamorphic and igneous rocks of very
great age. Berkey, Morris and Granger came to
the conclusion that, since we were travelling parallel
with the outcrop of strata, we should find no sedi-
mentary basins until we turned sharply southward.
Nevertheless, they considered the country geolog-
ically interesting and they were busy every moment.

On the ridges and hill-slopes near camp were many
ancient remains of great archaeological interest. In
fact, the whole countryside was dotted with them.
They were of two kinds: one, a large circle of small

112

TENTING IN LAMA LAND

stones with a rock mound in the centre; the other,
a rectangular space enclosed by upright granite
slabs. The former were probably tribal meeting-
places or monuments of a ceremonial type, and the
latter were doubtless graves. The natives could tell
us nothing about them except that they were very
old and had been made by people who had lived long
before the Mongols came. Badmajapoff said that
in the country to the west, members of the Kozloff
Expedition had opened many similar graves, which
contained skeletons, together with iron and bronze
objects. Douglas Carruthers in his Unknown Mon-
golia has discussed remains from the grass lands west
by north of Tsetsenwan's and has published photo-
graphs of ruins almost exactly like those we found.
These he calls " tumuli," or " kurgans" ; i.e. "stran-
gers' graves." He concludes that southern Siberia
and the territory west of the place where we were
camping must have been very favorable for the rise
of early races. Certainly the numbers of tumuli
indicate that this was a populous region. Berkey
and Morris discovered between two lakes to the
north of our camp a well-preserved and very ancient
dam, a half-mile long by fifteen feet high. I hope
to be able some day, with the help of an archaeolog-
ical staff, to explore the tumuli in this locality; for
study of them will undoubtedly shed light on the
history of the pre-Mongol people.

When we left Tsetsenwan's for Sain Noin Khan's
residence, one hundred and fifty miles away, we

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

continued westward on a trail so faint that some-
times it was lost entirely. Yet this path goes for
hundreds of miles from Urga to Uliassutai and has
kept its identity through untold ages. The geol-
ogists were well-nigh in despair; for they found so
complicated a series of very old rocks, much folded
and crushed, that they had great difficulty in carry-
ing on their structural and topographical route-map.

Amid crashing thunder, vivid lightning and a de-
luge of rain and hail, we arrived at Sain Noin Khan's
and pitched our tents in a little gulch tributary to
the main valley and four or five miles distant from
the lamasery and the palace of the reigning Khan.
Coming to the summit of a long, grass-covered hill,
suddenly we saw the golden spires and upturned
gables of the temples glistening in rainbow colors on
the green plain below us. Just beyond, the river
has cut its way through a table-land of solid rock
and in the distance rises wave upon wave of moun-
tains white with snow. The temples are in the centre
of the "city," with the tiny wooden houses of the
lamas spread out on each side like great wings. More
than a thousand priests live in that lovely spot.
The central temple has the squat base common to
Tibetan architecture, but upon it is a typically
Chinese pagoda-like superstructure. Immediately
behind stands a large Tibetan building, rectangular
and flat-topped, decorated in black, white and red.
There are ten temples in the city, mostly Tibetan,
but some pure Chinese and still others combining

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TENTING IN LAMA LAND

the two styles. Among the dozens of objects of
religious interest in the open space in the centre of
the "city" is a large shrine plated on the sides with
Standard Oil tins and topped by a cupola heavily
covered with gold-leaf. Tiny flags bearing sacred
mottoes flutter from every compound, and near all
the temples are prayer- wheels. On a hill in front
of the temples is the largest obo I have ever seen.
It is an enormous circular base of stones with a
secondary tier and a conical centre, which is dec-
orated with prayer-flags, bits of cloth and branches.
This kind of religious monument is very common in
Mongolia; in fact, almost every high point of land
or hilltop, particularly if it be on a trail or road,
has its own obo, which grows as each traveller who
has reached the summit adds a stone or two.

The Khan's winter palace is in the northeast cor-
ner of the lama city and, with his private temple,
is surrounded by high palisades. When the Khan
is in residence, very probably he occupies a yurt in
the palace grounds; for a Mongol, however exalted
be his station, never can be really comfortable except
in his felt home.

The yurt looks like an enormous beehive, and, be-
ing circular, has no flat surfaces to resist the wind.
It can be erected in thirty minutes ; in the same time
it can be taken down and packed upon a camel.
Felt is so excellent a non-conductor that in the winter
when a fire is lighted in a sheet-iron stove or in the
open brazier, the yurt is warm even though the

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

temperature drops to forty degrees below zero. In
the summer, when the side-coverings are rolled up,
the wind has a clear sweep through the house, and
on the hottest days the interior is delightfully cool.

I sat one day in the yurt of a Mongol prince. In
the place of honor, at the far end opposite the door,
was a low dais. At the right stood a carved wood
chest for clothes and personal effects; at the left
was the altar, with a Buddhist painting before which
two candles were burning. The floor was carpeted
with skins of sheep and wolves. I noticed that the
tips of the slender poles forming the pavilion roof
were shaped like spear-points.

"Why do you make the roof -poles like that?" I
asked the prince.

He considered for a moment. " I don't know why.
My ancestors always have done it so," he remarked
finally.

"Isn't it because your ancestors, who were great
warriors, always carried spears and shields? And at
night, when a man was on a raid, would he not
stick the base of his lance into the ground with the
point against his shield and then throw a skin over
the framework to give him shelter? I think your
yurt is only an imitation of that old custom."

"Probably that is true," he said, but he was not
interested in the idea; for a Mongol does not inquire
into the cause of things. He is content to do what
always has been done and let the reasons take care
of themselves.

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TENTING IN LAMA LAND

At the time of our visit, the Khan, who is only
ten years old, was living a long way to the east of
the city, and we did not see him. His uncle, a high
lama, was at the hot spring fifteen miles from our
camp. Badmajapoff, who has suffered from rheu-
matism since 1920, when he was tortured by Chinese
soldiers in Urga, went to this spring for the baths
while we shifted camp to the north.

The tents were pitched in a beautiful patch of
woodland over a mile in length, near the Arctic
divide. It was like a drink of cold water to a thirsty
man to see trees again. There was not a breath of
wind, the sun lay warm and bright in the forest
glades and the air was sweet with perfume from the
larch-trees. A gorgeous carpet of flowers, orange,
blue, yellow and purple, was spread over the hill-
side. Every evening we gathered about a great fire
of logs and talked until far into the night. We felt
that we should like to remain there always. But
one morning Merin rode up the hill with the news
that the caravan was at the hot spring, where Bad-
majapoff awaited us. We had no longer any excuse
for staying; we must leave this paradise of trees and
flowers to travel southward to the wastes of the
Gobi Desert.

We arrived at the hot spring, which was only
forty-five miles away, early in the afternoon. Bad-
majapoff had information that filled us with enthu-
siasm. The Mongols reported that a little more
than a hundred miles to the south, just in the region

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

where we had planned to go, there were fossil-beds
— -bones, they said, as large as a man's body. Their
description sounded like that of a great sedimentary
basin.

As soon as camp was made, Granger and I went
to the hot spring for a bath. The water bubbles
out from the base of a hill and spreads over a rocky
slope in a dozen streamlets. At various spots pools
have been constructed in the rock and each is covered
by a tent. The water is crystal clear with only a
tinge of sulphur but it has a decided odor. A cold
stream that emerges from the hill- slope near the
hot spring has been cleverly directed so that each
pool has a continual flow of both hot and cold water.
The pool nearest the source of the hot water was
reserved for the lama Prince and above it a spacious
yurt had been erected for his use.

Just above the spot where the spring emerges from
the hillside there is an oho in the form of a semi-
circular rampart. In the centre is a stone altar bear-
ing three flat, upright slabs upon which pictures of
the Buddha have been erected. Scores of silken
scarfs, faded and whipped to ribbons by the wind,
drape the altar; these are the offerings of pilgrims
who have come to bathe in the water and to drink
it. There are new scarfs, too, blue as the sky above
the shrine. The Prince told us that this was a very
sacred place and that we must not step inside the
sanctum. It was built, he said, as a thank-offering
to the Buddha, for the water which he had caused

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TENTING IN LAMA LAND

to rush forth from the hillside, hot and pregnant
with the power of divine healing. We were not
surprised at this worship of the spring. Imagine a
caravan in the bitter days of winter, when the wind
cuts like a white-hot brand, winding over the hills
and pitching its tents on the plain beside the stream.
When the loads have been lifted from the tired
camels, the frost-bitten nomads walk across the
valley to find this spring that offers warmth and
comfort gushing from the frozen earth. What won-
der that the mountain behind it has been made a
holy spot where man may take no form of life.

Below the stream and at one side lay a confused
mass of stones. At first they appeared to have been
washed there by a sudden cloud-burst, and yet the
heaviest fragments gave evidence of a once orderly
arrangement. Moreover, some of them were foreign
to the mountain at the base of which they rested.
In the dim past a massive shrine or a temple must
have stood upon this spot. Certain it is that the
mountain and the spring have been sacred since
before the days of the Mongol Empire.

The Prince showed us, with the greatest care, a
dull-brown viper coiled beneath a rock fragment at
the base of the altar. Had it been found across the
stream, it would have been crushed to death, for
the Mongols know the deadly poison in its fangs;
here it was jealously protected because it had selected
this sacred spot as its home. Even the bath-tents
and the yurts below the stream are often invaded by

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

reptiles of this kind. Badmajapoff told me that
two had paid him a visit the day before. He has
a deadly fear of snakes, but he had gently persuaded
these to go outside.

The Prince is one of the few lamas I have met
whose acceptance of their religion seems deeply
emotional rather than merely superstitious. He is a
small man with delicate, tapering fingers, fine features
and a skin almost white. Although he was cordial,
always, I think I never saw him smile. His rather
sad face has a singular gentleness of expression and
his carriage and every motion are full of dignity.
When seated, he unconsciously assumes a Buddha-
like attitude that emphasizes the teachings of a
religion in which contemplation and mental com-
posure are vital tenets. He does not smoke; neither
does he drink wine. He has a naturally scientific
mind. He was delighted with Shackelford's car-
bide lamp and, when some of the grey " pebbles' 9
were dropped into a cup of water and a lighted match
was applied to the liquid, he quite understood the
principle of acetylene illumination. When Berkey
and Morris paid their farewell visit to him, Morris
asked permission to sketch him in his yurt. After
selecting the books and ceremonial objects that were
to be in the picture, he assumed his characteristic
Buddha-like pose and sat motionless, only inter-
rupting now and then to pound the little drum that
brought members of his suite to see how the draw-
ing progressed.

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TENTING IN LAMA LAND

The time we spent at the hot spring was ''moving-
week" with the Mongols. Dozens of villages were
being shifted to the hills and mountains for the
summer's grazing. In the autumn the people would
go back again to the plains and the desert to escape
the snow. All Mongolia seemed to be in motion.
One morning when we looked out of our tents, the
valley as far as we could see was alive with sheep,
ponies and camels moving northward. By noon the
sunlit slopes were deserted, but before nightfall other
herds had arrived and white yurts dotted all the
landscape. We had but to remain where we were
to watch the pageant of Mongol life pass before us.
It was wonderful material for Shackelford.

On the day we left the hot spring, he made an
excellent film of the erection of a yurt. A Mongol
with his wife and an old lama had just halted their
camels on a beautiful, grassy hill. First the lattice
framework of the yurt was opened, and all the house-
hold goods, including a baby in a basket, were moved
inside. With a long pole the woman held up the
circular piece at the top while her husband inserted
stick after stick in the framework, to form the cone-
shaped roof. Then, after the door was put in, the
side layers of felt were tied in place and the felt
strips on the roof roped down. The yurt was com-
pletely erected in a half -hour.

I was impressed by the similarity between some
of the customs of the Mongols and those of the
plainsmen of our own West in the early days. Hos-

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pitality is a law in Mongolia. If a traveller is near
a Mongol village at night, he unsaddles his pony,
turns it out to graze and goes into the nearest yurt,
certain of food and shelter. Compensation is not
considered; for every man will find himself often
in like circumstances. One summer when one of
our Mongols was out for nearly a month in search of
our caravan, he spent only thirty cents for food
during all that time. I have known a Mongol to
ride many miles to let me know that there was no
water in the direction in which I was going or to
bring in my horses, which had strayed during the
night. He would have expected like courtesy from
me under similar circumstances.

Horse-stealing is the worst crime a Mongol can
commit, and a thief is shot on sight. If a man could
not turn out his poines to graze without fear of
theft, travelling would be well-nigh impossible; for
to be left without a horse in a country of vast dis-
tances and little water is very serious. If a Mongol
reports that his ponies have been stolen, soldiers
take up the trail and follow it from one herd to
another until they find their man, even though they
may spend weeks in running him down.

Existence in Mongolia is not easy. A man cannot
obtain food enough in a day to maintain himself
for a week as in the forested tropics. If he is to sur-
vive, he must be able to ride and shoot and to endure
fatigue and hunger, cold and thirst. It was such
hardihood that made the Mongol hordes the terror

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of all Europe in the days of Genghis Khan. The
soldiers of the great chieftain could travel without
a commissary, live upon dried mare's milk and, if
there was nothing, tighten their belts and laugh at
hunger. Riding for hours without rest, sleeping be-
neath the stars or in the snow, striking lightning-
like blows at their enemies, Mongol raiders were
here today and gone tomorrow. It was not until
the poison of luxury gained from conquered western
peoples had begun to sap their strength that they
in turn were conquered.

Berkey and Morris mapped geographically and
topographically about thirty square miles of coun-
try around the Hot Springs. They worked with
feverish energy ; for I was anxious to reach the fossil-
beds reported to be to the southwest. I had des-
patched the caravan the day after our arrival at
the hot spring and we expected to find it at a small
river some fifty miles from the fossil locality.

All along the trail, which led up and down grassy
slopes, the Mongols were on their way to the sweet
grass of the hills, and great herds of antelopes were
working slowly northward from the desert whither
we were going. After running west for fifteen or
twenty miles, we turned sharply south across coun-
try. Very soon the landscape began to change. The
grass was thinner and grew in clumps, and rocky
outcrops appeared. From the summit of a hill we
made out presently with field-glasses the blue tent
of our caravan, and then we descended into desert

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country. The centre of the basin was occupied by
a salt lake and an enormous field of niggerheads;
to the west were wild, ragged peaks of granite, which
in the haze of the late afternoon showed dim and
ghostly against the sky; beneath our feet lay fine
gravel, studded with clumps of sage-brush and
bunches of long grass as stiff and hard as wire. Merin
had said that here the camels would find particularly
good grazing. There is no accounting for a camel.
In bodily form he seems to be a relic of prehistoric
times, a survival from the Pleistocene, and he has
tastes as peculiar as his appearance. In the midst
of green grass he languishes and grows thin, but
surrounded by sage-brush and thorny vegetation he
is thoroughly happy.

The desert swarmed with life. The traps yielded
such a great variety of new mammals that the three
taxidermists were busily preparing specimens every
moment. The lake was full of breeding wild-fowl,
and lizards of three species scuttled across the ground
at almost every step. In the forests from which we
had come, where conditions seemed especially favor-
able for an abundance of life, it was difficult to
catch more than three or four small mammals in a
hundred traps, and the woods were silent except for
the notes of a cuckoo or the discordant call of a
jay. I have often found it so and have come to
look upon the Asian deserts, and not the forests,
as the real collector's paradise.

The Sair Usu trail from Kalgan to Uliassutai was

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only a hundred yards from our camp. One beauti-
ful, windless evening, just as day was giving place
to night, we heard the mellow notes of camel bells
and saw the black mass of an enormous caravan
against the sky. Silently, except for the bells, the
great beasts came out of the dusk and disappeared
into the twilight glow of the western sky. We all
gathered at the trail, hoping for news of China, and
two of the men stopped to talk. They were Mahom-
medan merchants, they said, bound for Uliassutai
with tea and tobacco. Five months later they would
return with skins and wool. It was already ninety
days since they had left Kalgan — sixteen men with
two hundred camels. All their wordly goods were
involved in this venture, which calls for transcendent
business courage. Yet they were but following the
custom of their ancestors, who had traced the great
trade routes across the desert long before the travels
of Marco Polo.

With the passing of that silent line of camels in
the darkness I realized more fully than ever before
that Central Asia still lives in the Middle Ages and
that the caravan trails serve the same purpose today
as they did ten centuries ago. But their years are
numbered. We ourselves are the " trail-breakers' 1
of motor transportation and after that will come the
railroads. Instead of thrilling with pride at the
thought, I reflected sadly that we were violating the
sanctity of the desert and destroying the mystery
of Mongolia.

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CHAPTER VII

A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE GOBI DESERT

TTEE Altai, the greatest mountain system of Cen-
* tral Asia, extends east by south into the Gobi
Desert. As it reaches toward the rising sun, it be-
comes lower and less rugged and breaks up into
partially isolated ranges and spurs, which gradually
lose their identity and are merged in the rolling
desert. The fossil-bearing region that we were seek-
ing was said to lie just to the north of Baga Bogdo,
one of the mountain groups of the eastern Altai.
There were no trails, and the chance of being able
to reach Baga Bogdo in our cars looked far from
promising. But Merin reported the feed to be so
good that I decided to leave the weary, sore-backed
camels to revel in the sage-brush and thorns while
we attempted the journey by motor.

Bayard Colgate and Badmajapoff spent a day on
a fruitless hunt for a certain rich man, supposed to
live fifteen or twenty miles away. From him they
expected to get information and a guide to Baga
Bogdo. But they found only a village of six yurts

126

A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

and were directed to the poorest man in the whole
region. His yurt consisted of a few pieces of felt
thrown together, and his earthly possessions totaled
one wife, one horse, one sheep and one goat.

Taking enough food, gasoline and other supplies
to last a fortnight, on Wednesday, June 21, we set
out with our Mongol guide sitting proudly on one
of the trucks. He had never seen an automobile
before, but he was prepared to find life a series of
delightful surprises and to "try everything once."

Just before noon a great shining lake appeared in
the distance. Upon reaching the shore, we found
not a salt lake, but a lake of salt. Near the eastern
end were six camels and four Mongols. They had
a dozen or more piles of beautiful salt, as clean and
snow-white as if refined for table use, drying in the
sun, and full sacks ready to be loaded on the camels.
From the manner of crystallization Morris pro-
nounced it practically pure sodium chloride. The
entire surface of the lake consisted of a solid salt
crust, more than an inch in thickness, which rested
on mud.

As we looked over the country to the south, Col-
gate and I wondered how on earth it would be pos-
ible to cross it with the motors. It makes me
shudder even to write about the places through
which we took the cars and trucks during the next
four hours. There were ravines, ditches, walls, rocks
and washouts. Only Colgate's good driving and
resourcefulness got us through without a disastrous

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

smash. The Dodge Bros, cars climbed like moun-
tain goats, and later, in our enthusiasm, Colgate and
I agreed that we should be willing to attempt the
ascent of Mount Everest with them if the snow
could be eliminated.

Once over the mountain-range, we were immedi-
ately confronted with a river of sand. This was a
bit too much. Shackelford and I scouted up and
down the bank but found no way around; we just
had to pass that river or stay where we were. At
last we decided to try it with one of the trucks.
Roaring and snorting like an angry beast, the big
fellow went down the bank, plowed through the
sand and up the other side without even hesitating.
The others followed its broad trail and in five minutes
the entire fleet was safely across.

At a near-by well there were Mongols who said
that they had come from the desert to the south.
That morning, when they went to get their ponies,
they found with them a herd of wild asses. That
was good news; for I was anxious to get a group of
wild asses for the Hall of Asiatic Life in the American
Museum. Wild asses are found only in Asia and
Africa. The Mongolian species was but imper-
fectly known, and no museums in America possessed
specimens of it. Long ago Larsen and I devised a
plan for roping wild asses and bringing them back
to New York alive. We thought now that, if the
ground was hard enough for the car to run at high
speed, we should be able to put our scheme to the

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A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

test. At any rate we wanted skins and motion-
picture film; for the animals had never been photo-
graphed in the wild state.

The following day the geologists, with Granger,
Colgate, Larsen and the guide, took a car down the
valley to visit the spot in which the Mongols had
said there were fossils. At half past seven in the
evening the exploring party returned. They re-
ported a very difficult trip, but that the way was
not impossible for the cars. In a three-hour search
a few bone fragments had been discovered which,
although they were not very impressive were suffi-
cient to show that it was fossil-bearing terrain.
Through the glasses, moreover, Granger had seen a
wild ass comfortably switching flies as he drowsed
in the sun. The outlook was distinctly encouraging.

After a day of work near camp the geologists said
they had found fossils but kept us guessing until
after dinner. Then they spread their spoils upon
the table. There were many bones, but so frag-
mentary that it was impossible positively to identify
them, Nevertheless, Granger felt sure that one por-
tion of a rib found by Berkey must be dinosaur. In
that case, the formation from which it came prob-
ably was Cretaceous, or Age of Reptiles. This dis-
covery made the region richer than our greatest
hopes; for it gave us both Age of Mammals and
Age of Reptiles fossil-fields to work in. Morris had
a remarkable collection of insect and fish fossils in
paper-shales. One piece contained a prize exhibit —

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

a perfect mosquito, which had lived some ten or
twelve million years ago. Berkey challenged it with
a butterfly's wing so beautifully preserved that the
most delicate veins were distinctly visible under a
lens.

The geologists believe that these paper-shales were
formed in sheltered ponds of such quiet water that
insects which died upon the surface sank to the
bottom and were gently covered with a blanket of
sediment. As the animal matter decayed, their tiny
bodies left in this matrix a perfect impression ex-
actly like the mold an expert craftsman makes in
plaster. Paper-shales are composed of extremely fine
sediments deposited in horizontal layers. These sep-
arate into sheets as thin as paper and because of
their texture are especially suitable for preserving
impressions of insects.

We stayed until far into the night, examining the
specimens and discussing the possibilities suggested
by the day's work. It was so apparent that we
were in an important region that Berkey and Morris
decided to make a geological and topographical map
of it, to serve as a type section of Mongolian geology.
Since the geologists had no assistants and could not
use a motor in that rough country, it was a colossal
undertaking with the time at their disposal, but I
knew it would be done if they attempted it.

On June 26 the rest of us moved our camp to a
well at the southern end of the valley where Granger
had found fossils. From the door of my tent I

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A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

could look south to Baga Bogdo, its snow-capped
peaks whiter than the clouds which always drifted
about them. In the distant foreground was a long,
flat-topped ridge, brick-red except for an upper grey-
white stratum. Nearer were other hills and buttes
of red, white and yellow sediments, sculptured by
wind and rain. To the west the gravel peneplain,
sparsely studded with desert vegetation, stretched
away to meet the black thrust of a lava-flow; east
of us, across the broken river valley, a similar gravel
plain, extending far beyond the range of human
sight, lost itself in the ever-changing mirage.

Summer had come in a day. The flowing waves
of heat gave fantastic shapes to rocks and grass;
antelopes seemed to dance on air and flying birds
to run upon the ground. Lakes with reedy shores
and wooded islets appeared where we knew there
were no lakes, and sombre forests offered the cool-
ness of shaded glens. It was an unreal world.

As I gazed across its menacing, yet alluring, wastes,
the sky darkened and a subdued roar came out of
the north. I felt a sudden blast of cold air and
turned to see a storm sweep from the river valley
and whirl away to the west at race-horse speed. In
its wake lay a narrow trail of white — hailstones as
large as pebbles. A moment later the desert was
flooded with yellow sunlight, which seemed to have
passed through amber glass before it reached the
plain.

Larsen was standing beside me, watching the rush

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

of the storm through field-glasses. Suddenly he gave
an exclamation and pointed to a cloud of dust less
than a mile away. In the midst of it we could see
three dun-colored animals. Wild asses, as sure as
fate ! One was standing quietly while a huge stallion
chased the other in circles.

Five minutes later four of us were in a car, speed-
ing toward them. While we were still a half-mile
away, they began to run west by south, rather
slowly, now and then stopping to glance back at us.
They looked very neat and well-groomed in their
short summer coats and galloped as easily as thor-
oughbreds. Suddenly they disappeared in a shallow
draw with a narrow, rocky entrance. By the time
they were in sight again on the opposite side, we had
opened fire. But they were more than four hundred
yards away and our bullets did no harm. They
ran south into sandy ground, and we reluctantly
admitted that they had outgeneraled us.

The day after our arrival at the well, which we
named "Wild Ass Camp," I discovered my first
important fossil. We could prospect within a dozen
yards of the tents; for they were on the edge of a
red and white exposure. In the morning Shackel-
ford found a beautifully preserved foot-bone of a
rhinoceros, in the bottom of a deep gorge, and I was
stimulated to better his discovery. After setting a
line of traps in the river-bottom near the well, I
was wandering slowly along the sides of the ravine,
looking for fossils. In a spot only a few yards from

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A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

the tents, my eyes marked a peculiar discoloration
in the grey upper stratum, and bits of white, which
looked like crumbled enamel. Scratching away the
soft, claylike earth, I exposed the grinding surface
of three large teeth and felt sure that it was an im-
portant specimen. The teeth literally were in pow-
der and fell apart in a hundred tiny fragments when
the supporting earth was removed.

Although strongly tempted to dig farther and see
what lay below, I knew that, if I did, the wrath of
Granger would descend upon my head. So I re-
strained myself and shouted to him to come over
and pass judgment on the find. Because of its bad
state of preservation he was doubtful, at first, if it
would be worth removing, but he finally decided to
make the attempt. Only such a master of the tech-
nique of fossil-collecting as Walter Granger could
have got it out at all, and even he gave four days of
intermittent work to the task. By means of fine
camel's-hair brushes he removed the sand almost
grain by grain, wetting the teeth with gum arabic
as each minute section was exposed and stippling
soft, tough Japanese rice-paper into the crevices.
When the gum and paper dried, the dustlike parti-
cles of enamel were so cemented that it was safe to
expose a still larger surface. Then Granger soaked
strips of burlap in flour paste and bandaged the
fossil as if it were a broken limb; after a day of sun
this swathing formed a hard shell, in which the
specimen was safe. As the work progressed, it be-

i33

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

came evident that much more than a set of teeth
lay buried in the hill: one side of the palate was ex-
posed, then the jugal arch, which forms the cheek,
and finally the anterior part of the skull with a
pair of long, decurved nasal bones. The teeth
showed that the animal was a rhinoceros of a kind
that none of us knew. Subsequently it was studied
by Prof. Osborn and named Baluchitherium mon-
goliense.

My initial experience as a palaeontological collector
stimulated me to spend every leisure moment in
wandering over the bad lands, hunting for new
treasures. The veriest fragment of exposed bone
might lead the way to a skull or a skeleton; a single
specimen might turn one more page in the pre-history
of Central Asia. But I was far behind Shackelford
as an amateur collector. He seemed to know exactly
where the best specimens lay and always came into
camp with his hands and pockets full of teeth or
bones that no one else had noticed. We were certain
that he had developed an extra sense whereby he
could smell an animal that had died two million
years ago.

Our efforts to discover fossils met with an approval
that did not in the least apply to our efforts to re-
move them. I was inclined to employ pickax where
Granger would have used a camel's-hair brush and
pointed instruments not much larger than needles.
When a valuable specimen had been discovered, he
usually suggested that we go on a wild-ass hunt or

i34

A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

do anything that would take us as far as possible
from the scene of his operations.

I had so much to do that I spent only odd mo-
ments in searching for fossils during our first week
at the " Wild Ass Camp.'' Larsen, Colgate, Shackel-
ford and I hunted most of the day and in a very
short time we learned the country thoroughly. On
the gravel peneplain to the east of camp we had an
exciting chase after a baby gazelle. The little fellow
was about ten days old and hardly larger than a
jack-rabbit. We saw him with his mother on a
long hill-slope, but she left him before long and tried
to entice us away by running back and forth in
front of the car. We were not to be led astray, for
I had promised Dr. Hornaday that I would bring
both gazelles and wild asses to the New York Zoo-
logical Park if it were possible to catch the young
animals. The baby antelope ran like a streak of
yellow light, but with the car going at forty miles
an hour we could overtake him easily. Then he
would suddenly swerve to the right or left and, be-
fore we could turn, he had gained several hundred
yards. At first he swung in a long circle about the
spot where we had found him with his mother, and
for four miles he seldom went slower than twenty-
five miles an hour. Gradually he began to tire but
ran five miles farther at an average speed of fifteen
miles an hour. He was pretty well exhausted then
and made frequent stops, crouching on the ground
with outstretched neck, but dashing off again at

i35

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

full speed when the motor neared him. Finally he
gave up and lay down. Shackelford made a flying
leap out of the car, caught his foot and landed head
first on top of the gazelle. We made a bed of coats
in the bottom of the motor and took the little
creature back to camp to add to our already large
family of pets.

I got my first wild ass on the day when we caught
the baby antelope. Just after tiffin Larsen dis-
covered a fine stallion not more than a mile and a
half from camp, drowsing in the sun. He stood
motionless except for an occasional flick of his tail
and lazy movements of his long ears. We watched
him through field-glasses for a time, and then Lar-
sen, Colgate and I started out in the car. Profiting
by previous experience, we ran almost due south,
to cut him off from the sandy ground on the lower
plain. He seemed to divine our intentions at once
and ran for all he was worth toward Baga Bogdo.
Colgate ''stepped on the gas" and the motor leaped
forward at forty-five miles an hour. The ass could
not do better than forty miles, even when straining
every muscle to cross in front of us. He turned
back on the plain and headed straight for the black
lava-flow a mile to the west. It was thrilling when
we rushed along within fifty yards of the splendid
animal, the first we had seen in action at close
quarters. I hated to give the word to stop, but he
was dangerously close to the lava. Colgate jammed
on the brakes just as he crossed in front of us. The

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A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

first volley turned him northward and we leaped
back into the car to follow. He had a start of four
or five hundred yards but was going perceptibly
slower. I fired again at three hundred yards. He
winced, ran a few steps and rolled over, legs waving
wildly in the air. We all yelled as he went down.
It had been a great race and a new animal had been
added to my long list of Asiatic game.

I could hardly wait to examine the specimen. He
was fat, yet in perfect condition, and as large as a
Mongol pony. We wondered how he kept so well
fed on the dry sage-brush and desert vegetation.
As a matter of fact, he was the handsomest stallion
we ever killed. The yellow-faun color of the upper
parts shaded exquisitely into the pure white of the
belly, and down the back was a broad, dark-brown
band extending straight to the root of his brown,
brush-tipped tail. The short summer hair was so
fine that it seemed to have been laid on with a paint-
brush, and the coat was without a blemish save for
two or three small scars on the neck — reminders of
old battles. Larsen appraised the long-eared, trimly
built animal with the eye of an expert horse-dealer.
His enthusiasm knew no bounds. Right there he
formed a plan to capture some of the colts (or should
they be called "asslets"?) and use them for breeding
purposes. What magnificent mules they would pro-
duce!

Larsen waited by the dead ass to keep off the
kites while Colgate and I ran back to the tents,

i37

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

which were only two miles away. All the boys were
tremendously excited; for they had been watching
the chase through field-glasses from a hill. When
the truck started back with the taxidermists, it
carried every man in camp except the cook. Poor
little fellow! He stuck manfully to his job even
though he was consumed with curiosity to see the
animal. When the skin was off and the skeleton
had been "roughed out," I poisoned great chunks
of meat with liberal doses of strychnine.

In the morning Colgate and I went to the poisoned
meat and, to our intense surprise, found it untouched.
But the next night produced results. Not twenty
yards away lay a great wolf and off to the north was
another, apparently on his way to the hills when
the death-sickness overcame him. Although it was
June 29, both animals wore patches of long winter
fur and were most unsightly.

Besides the two wolves four kites, one golden eagle
and an enormous black vulture had succumbed to
the poisoned meat. At the hot spring, Larsen had
shot a similar specimen which measured nine feet
six inches from tip to tip of the spread wings. Vul-
tures of this species (Vultur monachus) are among
the largest birds in the world. I never tired of
watching them sail in great circles on motionless
wings almost beyond the range of human sight, wait-
ing for the death of some creature of the desert.
They were particularly abundant in this part of the
Gobi. I saw one which had so gorged itself on the

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A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

carcass of a wild ass that it could not lift its body off
the ground. One day when Colgate and I returned
to a dead antelope that we had left while we chased
a wounded buck, a vulture flew away, and we found
that in less than thirty minutes it had devoured more
than half of the antelope, which weighed sixty pounds.

It was now July I, and we had had no news of
the outside world since the expedition left Urga in
May. I was anxious to find out what had happened
in China and to make sure that my wife and Dr.
Black had reached Peking safely after their initial
motor smash near our Tuerin camp. I decided,
therefore, to send Bayard Colgate into Urga with
a car, to get news and mail, if we were fortunate
enough to have any waiting for us. To my regret
Larsen and Badmajapoff both said that they must
go with him; for they could not remain away from
business for the entire summer. I disliked sending
a single car on this eight-hundred-mile trip, but it
was imperative that we should have tidings.

Shackelford and I had always hoped to catch a
wild ass so far up on the gravel plain that we could
cut him off from the soft ground to the south, and
on July 5, shortly after breakfast, we saw one in
just the right position. We circled him and to our
intense satisfaction he started northward toward the
upper plain, where the ground was hard and smooth.
A dozen times he tried to cross in front of us, but
I kept well away on a long diagonal and always cut
him off. At last we came within thirty feet and,

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

going at forty miles an hour, raced behind him for
a half-mile. He lowered his head, and, watching us
from one eye, pounded along, throwing clouds of
sand and gravel against the wind-shield. Shackel-
ford half knelt on the seat beside the camera, grind-
ing off film by the dozen feet. Then, with a burst
of speed, the ass crossed in front of the car, missing
the headlights by less than a yard, and swung south
on a straightaway course of five miles down grade.
Shackelford and I were yelling at each other in sheer
excitement : it was a race to thrill the most hardened
sportsman; for we were carrying away every detail
in the film and when it was all over, the beautiful
animal still would be alive.

How Shackelford stayed in the car I can only
guess, for the ground was rough and, when we struck
a bump, there was no slowing up. The ass took us
across one shallow gully with a deep trench in the
bottom. Going at thirty-six miles an hour, we
leaped the ditch. When Shackelford came down, he
was astride the door with most of him outside. For
an instant he balanced uncertainly and then toppled
over into the car. I glanced around and under the
legs of the tripod saw his huddled mass, from which
came reassuringly wrathful groans. I knew he was
not dead. By some miracle the camera had stayed
on the tripod. We thanked our lucky stars for that
and for the fact that a few moments later Shackel-
ford successfully changed film while the car was
bouncing over the roughest part of the plain.

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A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

We kept at the wild race for twenty-nine miles
up and down the plain, east and west, twisting and
turning, sometimes managing to cut the animal off
from the lava-flow by just the narrowest margin.
For the first sixteen miles the ass averaged thirty
miles an hour; then he began to slow down per-
ceptibly but kept doggedly running for an additional
four miles, at well over twenty miles an hour. By
that time he had come to a canter and resorted to
more frequent twists and sudden turns, which brought
him ever closer to the dangerous lava. He finally
did draw us into the flow, where we were hemmed in
by great bombs and knifelike ridges. We were sure
that he was lost. But he was content to stand and
rest.

I came up slowly behind him and Shackelford
tried to throw over him one of the tripod-ropes,
which he had managed during our mad ride to turn
into a lasso. It caught the animal on the nose and
one ear. He tossed it off and, letting fly at the car
with both heels, broke in the left mud-guard. Then
he dashed out of the lava-flow and stood quietly
looking at us. He had evidently decided that he
could not rid himself of the roaring black thing that
hung so persistently on his trail, but, although he
had given up the race, he would not allow any liber-
ties to be taken with his person.

We came up to him very cautiously and he began
to walk toward camp. Just then the car of the
geologists appeared on the horizon. Shackelford sug-

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

gested that we take the wild ass into camp to greet
them. By running in first speed, I could keep be-
hind and steer him along at a slow walk. Shackel-
ford jumped off to get a film of the solemn procession,
but the animal saw that something unusual was hap-
pening and sprinted away at twenty-five miles an
hour. Alone, I followed in the car. The rush was
a short one. It brought the ass to a spot close to
the tents, where he finally lay down. After he had
had time to cool off, I sent for a pail of water, washed
his head and neck and left him to rest until such
time as he wished to leave. I should have liked to
give him a feed of hay in payment for the marvellous
pictures that Shackelford had taken of his race.

Granger made a trip with the geologists to their
old camp up the valley and late one evening dis-
covered a perfect dinosaur skeleton not far from the
spot where Berkey had found a rib. Several days*
work were required for the removal of the specimen.
It was of a small species — about six feet long — and
even the tiny bones of the whip-lash tail were beauti-
fully preserved. Subsequently Prof. Osborn named
it Protoiguanadon. Since the dinosaur material
found at Iren Dabasu consisted only of fragmen-
tary bones and teeth, this find was of the utmost
importance. It gave the American Museum a mount-
able skeleton and an opportunity of close comparison
with the European and American dinosaurs of the
corresponding group.

While the other men were occupied with their

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A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

several lines of investigation, Shackelford and I spent
the days in hunting and taking motion-pictures of
animals and birds. One morning we ran far to the
west and decided to reach Tsagan Nor, the waters
of which looked temptingly near in the clear air.
Before long we began to see herds of antelopes and
shot two or three fine bucks. As the car stopped at
a low hill, we gasped in amazement ; for on every side
were dozens of wild asses, singly and in groups of
ten or twelve, grazing on the desert vegetation.
Among them were numbers of antelopes, all bucks.
The animals were quite oblivious of the car. Shackel-
ford quickly slipped his camera on the tripod, and I
ran toward seven wild asses that were gazing curiously
at us not more than half a mile away. They were
off in a swirl of dust, but going at forty-five miles
an hour we overhauled them rapidly. Shackelford
was kneeling on the rear seat, holding the camera.
Suddenly he shouted, "Look at the antelopes — on
the left!" I just glanced at one side and saw at
least fifty antelopes, running in close formation and
trying to cut in front of us. On the right the seven
asses were doing their best to 1 'cross our bows." I
gave an extra push to the throttle and swung in
behind the antelopes, which seemed to think that
they must not run faster than the wild asses, although
they easily could have reached fifty miles an hour.
When the whole galloping mass was not more than
thirty yards away, Shackelford, with a whoop of
excitement, opened up with the camera, " shooting"

143

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

foot after foot of film. We were right in the midst
of the drove and catching clouds of gravel on the
wind-shield from the beating hoofs. Never have I
had such a thrill. It was worth a year of life!

A few minutes later, Shackelford yelled that a
mare and her colt were coming in from the left.
Out of the tail of my eye I glimpsed a little wobbly,
fuzzy thing doing his best to keep up with an anx-
ious mother. In a second I had reduced the speed
of the car and swung in beside him. The little
fellow was not more than three days old, and he
ran in a stiff-legged, uncertain manner that was most
amusing. He could not go fast, but he did not seem
frightened. Shackelford found his lariat in the bot-
tom of the car and, standing on the running board,
roped the "asslet" with no difficulty. He was a
most adorable little creature and seemed quite tame
until we lifted him into the tonneau of the motor.
Then he let fly with all four feet and well-nigh
wrecked the camera-tripod, to say nothing of pound-
ing Shackelford's legs.

Finally Shackelford had exhausted all his film,
and for tiffin we went south toward the lake. It was
marvellously beautiful. To the south Baga Bogdo,
clothed in pink and lavender, reared its noble sum-
mit among the clouds, the great alluvial fans spread-
ing like green velvet about the base. Between it
and the water lay a long line of cream-white sand-
dunes sculptured by the wind. The reedy margin
of the lake was a vivid emerald green and the mir-

144

Mongolian musician at Tsagan Nor; the lake glimmering faintly in the background.

A KENTUCKY DERBY IN THE DESERT

ror of its surface reflected mountain, dunes and grass
in all their colors. Flocks of ducks, geese and other
wild-fowl floated on the shining water, followed by
trailing wakes of downy young.

On our return to camp the little ass became some-
thing of a problem, because, though he drank tinned
milk greedily from a canteen, we did not have enough
to feed him on that alone, willing as the men were
to give him their share. We hoped to get sufficient
goat's milk to keep him strong until he could eat
grass.

Though Berkey, Morris and Granger thought it
best to remain for a time at the "Wild Ass Camp,"
Shackelford and I decided that we had better shift
the main encampment to Tsagan Nor, where we
should be in the centre of the game-region. On
July ii, accordingly, we pitched our tents by the
lake, not fifty paces from the water's edge, on a hard
gravel beach covered by a thin carpet of grass and
short weeds. We had our first dinner in the soft
afterglow of the sunset, which draped a veil of deli-
cate lavender about the fairy mountain across the
lake and edged the curving shore-line with deepest
purple. As we sat smoking in a silence broken only
by the distant murmur of restless water-fowl, glitter-
ing light suddenly flooded the water and the edge
of a golden moon showed above the sand-dunes in
the east. It was peace unutterable and beauty that
beggared description.

145

CHAPTER VIII

FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

'"THE morning after our arrival at Tsagan Nor (the
A White Lake), Shackelford and I drove over to
the Mongol village at the western end of the lake
to call upon our neighbors. We found three groups
of yurts facing a meadow. We were entertained in
the yurt of the headman of the village, who gave us
tea, cheese and kumiss, or fermented mare's milk,
the simplest of home-brews, with a kick contributed
by every mare. The headman's daughter, a charm-
ing little girl of seventeen, came up to me, shyly
holding out her hand. The middle finger was green-
black and terribly swollen — evidently from gangrene.
That night she rode with her father to our camp, and
I poulticed the finger. When the bandage was re-
moved the following day, half the finger came off,
to the terror of the poor little girl. But there was
no inflammation in the rest of the hand, and in less
than a fortnight the stump of the finger was com-
pletely healed.

Since I had cured the headman's daughter, he

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FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

was ready to do anything we wished. I particularly
asked him to keep his dogs tied up; for Shackelford
wished to do a good deal of photographing in the
vicinity of the yurts.

Because of a peculiar custom of the Mongols, the
dogs are a great menace to human life. A corpse is
the abode of evil spirits and therefore a most un-
desirable thing to have about the house; thus their
chief desire is to dispose of the dead as quickly as
possible.

Sometimes the body is placed upon a cart and
driven rapidly across rough ground, so that it will
fall off. The driver, fearful of attracting to himself
the evil spirits that possess it, hurries on without
looking back. Meanwhile dogs, birds and wolves
make short work of the corpse. Only the bones,
which every native will shun, are left. At the base
of the hill upon which the lama city is built in Urga,
there are hundreds of human skulls and bones, grue-
some reminders to the living priests of what their
own fate will be. Great black dogs slink about this
" burial-ground' ' and fight over the bodies that are
dragged out from the city. They live almost en-
tirely upon human flesh and are terribly savage.
It is certain death for a man to pass near this spot
at night unless he is armed. Even in the daytime
the dogs will attack a passer-by upon the slightest
provocation, and if one of their own number is
wounded, they seize and devour him. Berkey was
attacked by three dogs at a yurt near Sain Noin

147

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Khan's and by shooting two of them with his re-
volver, just saved himself from being pulled down.
My wife and I had a very narrow escape from death
at Tuerin when we were lying in fur sleeping-bags
near the motor-cars; the dogs thought we were dead
Mongols and a pack of fourteen had gathered for a
feast upon our unsuspecting bodies.

The Mongols object greatly to having anybody
die within a yurt, and, when one member of a family
is seriously ill, the others frequently decamp before
the end comes. They run no risks of an encounter
with a malign spirit. Once, when hunting on the
plains, I found the skeleton of a woman lying beside
the dead ashes of a fire, with a wooden bowl half
filled with food. Twenty feet away was the circular
mark where a yurt had stood. My Mongol guide ex-
plained that the woman was sick and had been left
to die alone.

The routine of life in the yurt village near our
camp might almost have been designed to please the
eye of a photographer. Shackelford, companioned
by his camera, was on hand at sunrise, when the
men and boys drove camels and horses out to graze
and the girls guided cattle, goats and sheep, and in
mid afternoon, when the herders brought their
charges in to be milked. He saw the milk that was
to yield a new supply of cheese and kumiss strained
through perforated vessels half filled with matted
hair and then poured into the goatskins that hung
on the yurt walls. He watched the women making

148

FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

string or rope from camels' wool or repairing their
summer garments of Chinese cotton. He recorded
in motion-pictures the setting up of a yurt and the
process of making felt.

One day when I was with him, we found several
families engaged in the latter task. On the plain
above the valley, where the ground was hard and
flat, a strip of felt was spread. Upon it two old
women put a thick layer of sheep's wool. This was
thoroughly soaked with water and covered with a
second felt layer. The "wool sandwich" was rolled
up on a long pole, wrapped in a thin cloth and tightly
bound, and ropes were fastened to the projecting
ends of the pole. Then a Mongol mounted on a
camel dragged the cylinder behind him over a smooth
path for more than an hour. This rolling pressed the
loose wool firmly together into a strip of felt, and all
that remained was to dry it in the sun and bind the
edges.

Shackelford and I were as pleased as children to
show off our new headquarters at the White Lake
to Bayard Colgate. He had reached the "Wild Ass
Camp" on the evening of July n, with mail for all
the men except poor "Shack," whose letters were
somewhere in the Gobi with others for the rest of
us. Colgate made the run to Urga in two days and
spent the same time on the return trip — altogether
nearly eight hundred miles. He was away just nine
days, an exceedingly creditable performance.

The Tsagan Nor region offered a fruitful field for

149

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

my studies as a zoologist. The lake and its shore
swarmed with wild creatures. We found the beauti-
ful bar-headed geese, so well known in India, breed-
ing there in numbers. We also noticed swan -geese
now and then, although they usually keep to the
rivers, and in August, while sitting in my tent, I saw
seven geese which were new to me. By wading into
the water, with my gun held above my head, slowly
I got within shooting distance and killed two. They
proved to be greylags, geese which are common in
Europe but extremely rare in northern China. Shel-
drakes of two species, grebes and a multitude of
shore-birds, waders, gulls and terns were always
running about the beach in front of our camp. One
night the taxidermists caught a shrew in their tent.
This tiny insectivore is an inhabitant of damp, soft
ground. Had I seen a wild elephant on the plains,
I should hardly have been more surprised than to
find this diminutive animal in the desert. Another
curious insectivore was the hedgehog. Almost every
evening Buckshot, one of our Chinese assistants,
spent the first hours after dark along the lake-shore,
hunting hedgehogs with a flash-light.

Shackelford adopted one of the little spiny fellows,
and he became our most amusing pet. He was
named "Johnny Tsagan Nor." He is now in the
New York Zoological Park; for, on leaving China,
Shackelford refused to be separated from him. The
hedgehog, although not more than eight inches long,
was a most voracious eater and did not limit him-

150

FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

self to insects. A short time after our return to
Peking, Clifford Pope brought a baby alligator about
fifteen inches in length from the Yangtze River. The
alligator and Johnny Tsagan Nor were left together
over night in a large packing-box in the laboratory.
The next morning the reptile was dead and partly
eaten. Johnny had been hungry.

Two genera of beautiful kangaroo-rats lived in
the plains behind the tents. If a car came in at
night, we could see them in the path of the head-
lights. I often tried to catch one, but it could jump
six or eight feet and always got over the ground
faster than I could run. There were foxes in the
long grass beside the water, antelopes and wild asses
swarmed upon the plains behind camp and bighorn
sheep and ibex roamed over Baga Bogdo.

In the land-locked lake itself there were fish, we
knew from the good-sized swirls on the surface, but
our hooks and lines yielded no results. By means
of a twelve-foot net, however, we got numbers of
minnows and small fish six or eight inches long.
Several hundred specimens of these were preserved
in formalin.

Tsagan Nor, which is fed by springs, is now three
miles long by two miles wide, but evaporation is so
rapid that the lake is becoming smaller. In 1925
it dried up entirely. Berkey and Morris counted
seven ancient beach-marks, the highest of them
twenty-eight feet above the present water-level. A
depression that was evidently the old lake-floor ex-

151

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

tends for a long distance to the west. Colgate and
I followed it for thirteen miles, and later we found
that it reaches Orok Nor. Doubtless this was once
a continuous body of water. On the south side of
the basin, at the foot of the mountains, is a long,
narrow belt of live sand-dunes. Very often in the
afternoons we watched wind- storms sweeping over
them and could see the sand streaming off the tops
of the dunes like spray from gigantic waves.

Granger, Berkey and Morris never allowed them-
selves a moment's play, but I insisted that they all
come to Tsagan Nor on July 18 to a field-meet that
the Mongols were to hold under the direction of our
friend, the headman, whose daughter's hand I had
treated. Two weeks before, he had sent out riders
to invite the people from the various yurts within a
radius of fifty miles. The programme included pony-
races, wrestling, camel-races, roping and riding of
wild horses and, best of all, a big feast of boiled
mutton.

Because of their love of athletics and of life in
the open, the Mongols seem to me less difficult than
the Chinese for a Westerner to understand. Any-
body with a sense of humor can get on well with the
Mongols; for they too have that good quality along
with their sportsmanlike point of view. They are
fond of a practical joke and can appreciate it even
when the laugh is on themselves. One day a Mon-
gol rode up to my camp, carrying a big wooden
pitcher of milk. Something frightened his pony,

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FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

which began to buck like a western bronco. At
every jump the milk splashed out, until finally it
had drenched the Mongol from head to foot. It
would have been a terrible loss of "face" to drop
the pitcher, but when finally the pony was quieted
and not a drop of milk remained, the Mongol him-
self laughed as hard as the rest of us. Many amus-
ing stories are told of the Living Buddha's love of
fun. It is related that, when he bought the first
motor-car that came to Urga, his chief delight was
to connect a wire with the batteries and stretch it
across the courtyard, into which he could look from
a window of the palace. There he would sit and
roar with laughter when his visitors and ministers
of state received a shock.

The geologists and Granger arrived a little after
nine o'clock in the morning, and with the cameras
set up in one of the Fulton trucks we went over to
the village. A crowd of men and boys, dressed in
red, yellow and plum-color, had gathered on the
plain, so that it was a gorgeous assemblage. Fifty
ponies had already gone five miles to the east, and,
when we left camp, a Mongol rode off at full speed
to start the race. I wanted them to run only two
miles, but the Mongols would not consent to that.
Their usual distance is from seven to fifteen miles,
but we finally compromised on five miles. It is
merely a question of a pony's endurance, because
the Mongols have very little real understanding of
horsemanship, although they are excellent riders and

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

will start off at full speed even at the beginning of
a race. At last we saw a cloud of dust in the dis-
tance and could distinguish the ponies, coming to-
ward us in an irregular line. The riders were all
boys, ten or twelve years old. A beautiful bay, rid-
den by a lama, came in an easy winner, and the
little lama was the proudest child in all Mongolia.
After the race the Mongols rode in a circle about a
group of priests, chanting a barbaric song. The
moving ponies and the brilliant colors made it seem
like a "Wild West" show or an enormous circus.

The race of the camels interested us greatly for
it was amazing to see how quickly the ungainly
brutes got away on the start and what speed they
could develop. At the finish a man on a fast pony
had all he could do to keep abreast of them. The
riding of wild horses was a bit disappointing, for
only one animal gave the natives a really bad time
of it. The Mongol pony does not know how to
buck or "sunflsh" as do our bronchos and contents
himself with merely plunging.

The wrestling, in which some thirty men competed
was good sport. One burly fellow, who massaged
himself thoroughly with saliva just before the match,
won two falls with ease but was eliminated on the
third, with great hurt to his pride. The winner re-
ceived a frightful cut over the eye in his last bout
but finally threw his man, although completely
blinded by blood.

When the meet was ended, we all repaired to the

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FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

headman's yurt for the feast. The Mongols obedi-
ently waited until Shackelford was ready with the
camera. Then two huge wooden troughs contain-
ing six sheep were brought out. Nothing had been
wasted. The fat and blood had been poured into
the intestines and boiled to make enormous sausages.
A most uninviting mess it was. As each of the two
hundred men secured a chunk of mutton, he retired
to a sunny corner, crammed his mouth full, and, as
he began to chew, cut off the end of the meat close
to his nose. We laughed until our sides ached while
Shackelford recorded the choicest bits of this comedy
on his film.

Berkey and Morris, who had returned to camp
with all their duffle, left us on July 28 with three
camels and three ponies besides a cook and two
Mongols. Their destination was the southern side
of the lake to complete their map to the foot of
Baga Bogdo. Thus the Expedition was pretty well
divided: Granger and Shackelford at the "Wild Ass
Camp"; Colgate and I at Tsagan Nor; Berkey and
Morris skipping about all over the south side of the
lake. When planning the work in Peking, I had
foreseen the need of such separations and had ar-
ranged three units for the Expedition; each one had
its own chauffeur, cook and camp equipment and
could operate independently.

The day after he joined Granger, Shackelford,
while prospecting a river-bed, actually stumbled over
a huge bone, which proved to be the head of the

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

ulna, one of the lower bones of the fore limb, of a
Baluchitherium. Berkey had discovered a calcaneum,
or heel-bone, of the same beast at Iren Dabasu, but
none of us had connected that fact with the report
made by the Mongols that in the locality of the
"Wild Ass Camp" there were bones as large as a
man's body. Shackelford's discovery that this story
was not mere native exaggeration set us all on edge
with excitement. I went with Granger to the place
where the ulna had been found, but no other frag-
ments of the skeleton could be located, although we
searched the dry stream-bed and the surrounding
hills.

On August 3, just as Colgate and I had finished
our dinner, we heard shouts and found that Berkey
and Morris had arrived. From then until midnight
we listened to the story of their wanderings and dis-
coveries. They had been astounded at the tremen-
dous scale of everything at Baga Bogdo. One of
the alluvial fans, which they had ascended, was ten
miles from base to crest and two thousand feet high.
Others were much larger. Berkey said that in all
his previous experience he had seen none that even
approached them. The mountain itself rose about
twelve thousand feet above sea-level. It would be
hardly possible to find a more varied and representa-
tive section of Mongolian topography. The two
men had lived with it early and late for six weeks and
had mapped eight hundred square miles. Yet when
they stood on one of the lower peaks and looked

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FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

across the vast panorama spread out below them,
they felt that they had mapped only a postage-
stamp.

The evening of the geologists' return was exciting
enough to keep me awake long after the lights were
out, but the next was still more memorable. Late
in the afternoon there was a little rain and just at
sunset a glorious rainbow stretched its fairy arch
from the plain across the lake to the summit of
Baga Bogdo. Below it the sky was ablaze with
ragged tongues of flame; in the west billowy, gold-
margined clouds, shot through with red, lay thick
upon the desert. Wave after wave of light flooded
the mountain across the lake — lavender, green and
deepest purple — colors which blazed and faded al-
most before they could be named. We exclaimed
breathlessly at first and then grew silent with awe.
We felt that we should never see the like again.
Suddenly a black car, with Granger and Shackelford
in it, came out of the north and slipped quietly into
camp. Even Shackelford's buoyant spirit was stilled
by the grandeur of what was passing in the sky.
Not until the purple twilight had settled over moun-
tain, lake and desert, did the two men tell us why
they had been so late. They had discovered parts
of the skeleton of a Baluchitherium!

During the entire Mongolian expedition the best
localities for fossils and the finest specimens were
discovered when we were on the point of leaving a
region for other fields. So it was with our greatest

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

find, the Baluchitherium. On breaking camp Granger
and Shackelford decided to walk through a still un-
inspected pocket in the bad lands and to have Wang,
their Chinese chauffeur, drive their car ahead to a
promontory two miles to the south. After a little,
Wang, bored with waiting for them, decided to do
some prospecting on his own account. Almost im-
mediately he discovered a huge bone in the bottom
of a gully that emptied into a ravine. Full of ex-
citement, he climbed back into the car, and, when
Granger and Shackelford arrived, proudly conducted
them to the spot where he had found the fossil. It
was the end of the humerus, or upper fore leg-bone,
of a Baluchitherium, and other parts were visible,
partially embedded in the earth. The most im-
portant of all was one whole side of the lower jaw.
The bones were very well preserved and the men re-
moved without difficulty all that they could discover.
They searched the sides of the gully until the ap-
proaching sunset warned them to be on the way to
Tsagan Nor if they wished to reach camp before
dark.

I went to sleep very late that night, with my mind
full of Baluchitherium, and had a vivid dream of
rinding the creature's skull in a canyon about fifteen
miles from the spot where the jaw had been dis-
covered the day before. When I asked Granger the
next morning if he was sure that all the bones had
been located in the somewhat hurried search, he
said: 1 'Well, it is possible that under the spot where

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FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

we found the jaw there may be a skull or other bones
not yet exposed by weathering.' * Since he himself
was busy packing fossils to go by the caravan, which
had reached Tsagan Nor and was making ready to
start ahead of us, he suggested that Shackelford and
I go to the "Wild Ass Camp" with Wang and dig
up the bottom of the wash.

We did not leave till after tiffin; for it was only
twenty miles — an hour's run for the car. On our
arrival Shackelford and Wang set to work with
shovels while I inspected the side of the gully, now
and then sticking my pick into a bit of discolored
earth. In about three minutes I reached the sum-
mit of the tiny ridge and looked down the other side.
Instantly I saw a fragment of bone peeping out of
the sand in the bottom of the wash. Its color was
unmistakable. With a yell I leaped down the steep
slope. When Shackelford and Wang came round
the corner on the run, I was on my knees, scratching
like a terrier. Already a huge chunk of bone had
been unearthed and a dozen other fragments were
visible in the sand. They were beautifully fossil-
ized and so hard that we had no fear of breaking
them. Laughing in hysterical excitement, we made
the sand fly as we took out piece after piece of bone.

Suddenly my fingers struck a huge block. Shackel-
ford followed it down and found the other end; then
he produced a tooth. My dream had come true!
We had discovered the skull of a Baluchitherium !
One end of the block was loose and easily removed;

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the remainder appeared to extend indefinitely back
into the earth. When Shackelford loosened the first
tooth, I knew that it was time to stop if the wrath
of the palaeontologist was not to descend on our
heads. Therefore we collected all the fragments and
carried them up the slope to the car. No new-born
baby ever was handled with more loving care than
we bestowed upon those precious bones as we packed
them in coats and bags, so that they would ride
safely.

At six o'clock, while the men were having tea,
we burst into camp, shouting like children. Granger
has made so many interesting discoveries in his
palaeontological career that he is not easily stirred,
but our story brought him up standing. Then
silently and carefully he inspected the bones in the
car.

We held a council over the largest of them, which
was partly embedded in rock. It was difficult to
identify at first; for we were dealing with an animal
virtually unknown. At last Granger decided that
the bone was the front of the skull. Then we made
out two great incisor teeth and the bones of the
maxillae and premaxillae. There was no doubt that
we had also the posterior part of the skull; for I
had identified the great occipital condyles and the
neural canal, through which runs the spinal cord.
Even though we had realized that the Baluchitherium
was a colossal beast, the size of the bones left us
absolutely astounded. The largest known rhinoc-

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FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

eros was dwarfed in comparison ; for the head of this
animal was five feet long and his neck must have
been of pillar-like proportions.

Early in the morning Colgate, Granger, Shackel-
ford, Wang and I set merrily forth in one of the
Fulton trucks for the scene of the great find. Shack-
elford and Walter lay back in camp-chairs, singing
at the top of their voices. I suppose that fossils
never were collected under happier circumstances.

When we arrived at the bottom of the gully, Gran-
ger and I made a careful examination of the skull.
We decided that it was lying on its right side and
that the left arch and tooth-row were gone. Later
we found these conjectures to be correct.

Granger, Wang and I sifted every inch of the sand
and gravel in the bottom of the wash, salvaging bits
of bone and teeth. Granger carefully worked around
the skull itself. While he whisked out the sand,
grain by grain, the rest of us scattered over the sur-
rounding bad lands to see if we could locate other
bones. The skeleton had evidently lain near the
summit of a ridge left between two gullies and had
broken up as the earth weathered away and heavy
rains fell. Part of it had gone down one side of the
slope; this was what Wang had found the first day.
The rest had rolled into the main wash, where I
discovered it. And now Shackelford picked up a
half-dozen important skull fragments, out on the
plain at least three hundred yards from the ravine.

It took Granger four days to remove the skull;

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

for it had to be encased in a shell of burlap and paste
for safe transit by motor, camel, railroad and steam-
ship, to New York.

In the meantime we made several short excursions.
But it was already August 9 and, although the
weather was still hot, geese and ducks were flocking
and sand-grouse were flying eastward in countless
thousands. I did not need these signs to tell me
that winter was approaching and that it was time
for us to take the trail. Yet we could not leave
until we had spent a day at a grey bluff across the
lake where Berkey and Morris had found Pliocene
fossils. Cars could not possibly cross the sand-
dunes; so on August 10 we set forth on camels.

The next afternoon the other men found some
fine things in the grey beds, but I had the best luck
of all. While inspecting a knoll of yellow gravel, I
noticed a few fossil bits at the very base. Following
them up, I came to a slight discoloration in the earth
and saw a half-inch of bone exposed. Since I had
found the calcaneum of a mastodon a few moments
earlier, I thought that this was the end of a tusk,
which very likely was fastened into the skull of a
proboscidean. I scraped away the earth and soon
realized that the fossil was not an elephant's trunk,
but the antler of a stag — as perfect as if it had been
dropped the day before instead of nearly a million
years ago. I had long been interested in the living
Asiatic wapiti because of its relationship to the elk
of western America and to the red deer of Europe,

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FINDING THE BALUCHITHERIUM

and it was probable that in this very fossil we might
have the ancestor of them both.

The actual removing of the antler was too delicate
an undertaking for my pick-and-shovel methods; so
I walked to the end of the knoll and fired three shots
with my automatic pistol to bring up Granger and
Shackelford, who, I knew, were somewhere in the
maze of gullies below me. Before long they ap-
peared, hot and puffing; for among the members of
the Expedition such a signal meant that every man
within hearing distance should not stand upon the
order of his coming, but come as fast as his legs could
carry him. Though it was then six o'clock, Granger
was able to paste the antler with gum arabic and
rice-paper and remove it.

As the sun was setting, we started for the long
ride to camp. Before we had entered the dunes,
darkness had fallen and a strong wind blew from the
east. We urged our camels to their best speed; for
it would have been decidedly dangerous to become
lost in that drifting maze when a sandstorm was in
progress. But before we left the last of the fan-
tastic waves behind us, the wind dropped as suddenly
as it had risen, the thickly piled clouds on the horizon
disappeared and a glorious moon lighted us home.

163

CHAPTER IX

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

D Y noon of the second day after the reassembled
units of the Central Asiatic Expedition had set
out from Tsagan Nor, we were opposite Artsa Bogdo,
a low-lying, rounded mass ten miles south of the
trail.

The tents were pitched on a grassy slope a thou-
sand feet above the plain and right at the base of the
mountain. Before us unfolded a magnificent pan-
orama of desert and "bad lands," and about the
camp itself there was a delightful atmosphere of
cleanliness, height and freedom. We all looked for-
ward to a pleasant fortnight, for the Mongols as-
sured us that there were many sheep and ibex in the
mountains, and the bad lands looked decidedly pos-
sible for fossils.

But it was necessary first to plan the days ahead,
for we must reach Sair Usu, a well in the desert,
three hundred miles to the east on the homeward
trail, by September 5. Almost as soon as Merin
and the camels arrived at Artsa Bogdo, we started

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DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

the caravan on its way to Sair Usu. But before it
left, Berkey and Morris hired ponies and camels to
use on a seventy-mile trip across the Altai Moun-
tains to the Gurbun Saikhan. Then I saw Granger
off on a fossil hunt to the north.

So far everything had gone well at Artsa Bogdo
except for the death of the baby wild ass that had
lived with us for two months. Buckshot, our
Chinese boy, had fed the little animal on tinned milk
and then on the milk of three goats purchased for
its benefit, and in our new camping-place he had
obtained for it plenty of cow's milk. The ass only
tolerated the rest of us, but it looked upon Buck-
shot as " father, mother and great provider." It
followed him around like a dog and did not like being
separated from him even when he was busy in the
cook-tent. Yet in spite of his care, it did not thrive,
and on August 18 I had to tell him that I thought
his pet would die. So, according to Chinese cus-
tom, Buckshot dug a grave in the bottom of the
valley. When he returned, the ass was standing up.
Buckshot was radiantly happy, for he thought that
it would recover. But it died that night. It was
with tear-filled eyes that the poor boy heard us
speak of it at breakfast next morning. He was
inconsolable.

Soon after Granger set out to look for fossils, I
left the camp in charge of Shackelford and Colgate
and started with Tserin and a lama hunter for the
western peaks of Artsa Bogdo. The hunter said

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

we must have the lightest outfit possible and sleep
among the peaks wherever we found animals. We
took only sleeping-bags, therefore, and food enough
for five days on a led pony.

After riding for nine miles along the base of the
mountains, the hunter discovered a herd of ibex on
the very summit of one of the highest peaks. With
the glasses I could make out three bucks among
them — one a perfectly splendid fellow with long,
annulated horns that swept backward in a graceful
curve. On the climb to the peak where they were
wandering among the rocks, now and then cropping
the grass, we were delayed for a half -hour by a female
ibex and three young. They stood motionless not
fifty yards away, gazing at the boulder behind
which we were concealed, and I thought that they
would never go. When they finally decided to
leave, we slipped over a ledge of rock and looked into
a deep valley. Three hundred yards below us were
the bucks in all their majesty. I waited until my
heart had stopped pounding and then fired at a
big fellow who stood out like a giant among his
children. He dropped in the long grass at the crash
of my rifle and the others sprang away out of sight.
A few moments later they reappeared on the opposite
side of the ravine and stopped to look about them.
It was long range — -well over four hundred yards —
but in the crystal-clear air they were perfectly vis-
ible, and I sent one of them tumbling off the rocks
with a broken neck.

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DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

The Mongol was wildly excited, for he had never
seen a high-power rifle in action and thought it mad-
ness to shoot at such a range. But our joy was
changed to chagrin a half -hour later when we reached
the spot where the big buck had fallen. There was
a pool of blood but no ibex. Because of the long
grass we could not follow the trail more than a few
feet and at last we had to admit that the animal was
hopelessly lost. The other, which was stone dead,
did not compare with the leader of the herd, but he
carried a beautiful pair of horns. While I ate tiffin,
the Mongols skinned the carcass.

Then we continued eastward and soon turned into
a canyon that led us deep into the mountains. The
river-bed was dry except at one spot. We filled
our canteens and two water-bags, for the hunter said
we must sleep that night on the very summit of a
mountain that rose like a sheer wall two thousand
feet above. The summit of the peak was marked
by a series of projecting rocks like the spine of a
gigantic reptile. In one side was a narrow cave just
big enough for a man to lie at full length, and in this
I spread my fur bag. The hunters slept on the
opposite side of the ridge.

The next day we saw much game but got little
and camped in the evening under even greater diffi-
culties. Tserin had remained in the bottom of a
canyon while the hunter and I went up the mountain
and, when we signalled him to come, he lost himself
in a maze of undergrowth. We both had to go down

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

to help him, and it was after midnight before we had
half pulled, half lifted the ponies to the peak. All
of us were done for. Nevertheless we were there,
and in the morning would be right among the game,
without wasting time in a heart-breaking climb.

Two buck ibex were seen within five hundred
yards of camp shortly after daylight. Though their
horns were not bad, I decided to let them go. Ten
minutes later I was devoutly thankful, for on the
far side of a steep ravine nineteen ibex were quietly
feeding. All were bucks and eleven of them had
such magnificent horns that it was difficult to select
the largest. The Mongol hunter made a fine stalk,
and a half -hour later we slithered down a grassy
slope to the shelter of a huge boulder. When I
peeped from behind it, the whole herd was within
a hundred and fifty yards. Just as one fine animal
was nipping a bunch of grass, my bullet struck him
in the side. There was a rush of brown bodies,
and eighteen ibex swept up the mountain. I waited,
hoping that they would stop, but they charged over
the summit like a troop of cavalry. I got in two
more shots and saw a superb buck roll down the
hill. Then the ravine was silent save for the whistl-
ing of a frightened cony. In ten minutes it was over,
but in my life as a sportsman that day stands out
above all the others.

The next summer McKenzie, Young and I had a
more interesting hunt in these same mountains. We
had left camp early in the morning and after a day

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DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

of gruelling climbing we lay in our fur sleeping-bags
on the very summit of Artsa Bogdo looking up at a
bespangled sky. The weird hoot of an owl came
faintly from the rocks to the west, and presently the
great bird sailed on noiseless wings across the face
of the moon. A breeze fanned our cheeks; then
came a frightened snort and a clatter of hoofs as a
band of mountain sheep, feeding on the lower slopes,
caught the man-scent on a swirling gust of wind.
It was very still up there. Perhaps it was the silence,
and the clear brilliance of the night, that long kept
sleep from our tired eyes.

Somewhere in the chaos of ragged peaks to the
north of us was a band of ibex. We had come upon
them suddenly late in the afternoon, but a silhouette
of curved horns and tossing heads was all we saw
as the herd paused for an instant on the crest of a
knifelike ridge. It was enough to show that the
animals were bucks and big ones.

As we slowly studied each ridge and slope through
our field-glasses, there came into the circle of vision
a long valley, tinged with the yellow-green of de-
parting summer. Two black dots showed in the
very bottom, and farther up the side a dozen more.
Certainly they must be sheep; for they were at least
a mile away and ibex never would feed so far from
the higher rocks.

A series of beautiful grassy slopes led down the
valley, and our ponies were fresh. When we were
in the saddle, our lama hunter and Tserin looked

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

back with a laughing challenge; for a Mongol values
horsemanship above all else and has come to believe
that a white man at best can only be a poor second
in a race. But here, just the same, we rode together.
Kicking our ponies, we swept down a gentle slope
and up the other side, four abreast. Then we swung
along a hillside, still racing neck and neck, and came
to a halt behind a rampart of grey rocks.

Slipping out of the saddles, we hobbled our ponies
and stole up to the summit of the outcrop. The
sheep were there, much closer than we had thought,
but the four in sight were ewes. While we watched, a
female with two kids appeared from around a corner ;
then a second and a third, until thirty animals were
quietly feeding not more than two hundred yards
below us. As each sheep appeared, we hoped for a
sight of big horns, but not a ram was in the herd.

It was too late to find others, so we settled our-
selves comfortably to observe the ladies with their
children. The youngsters frisked about, kicking
their little legs in the air, now and then having
friendly tilts with their companions and rushing at
one another in the most determined way. Even
though the sheep felt themselves to be safe, they
continually raised their heads to stare in every direc-
tion or to sniff the air. Never for an instant did
they relax their watchfulness. What a life to lead,
always with the fear of death present in their minds !
Death from men and death from wolves ! Even then
it lurked behind the rocks with us; for, had we not

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DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

been there, our Mongols would have slain the females.
Meat is meat, and the flesh of ewes is better than that
of rams.

Not a breath of wind had stirred the grass until
just as the sun sank below the western peaks; then
the evening breeze came lazily up the valley, played
for an instant among the rocks and passed over the
crest. Instantly there were startled snorts, a rush
of feet, and the hillside lay empty in the twilight
shadows. The abrupt ending to the peaceful family
scene left us thoughtful. We lighted our pipes and
wandered slowly back to the grazing ponies.

11 Let's go home/' I said to Mac, and, as we rode
on in the stillness of the summer night, I thought of
what the word had meant to me since I had begun
to wander fifteen years before. Tonight "home"
was the spot where we had left our sleeping-bags on
the saddle between the peaks ! In the painted desert
of Gobi; in steaming Borneo jungles; among palm-
trees on the enchanted islands of the East Indies;
in the wilderness of Korean forests; on the summit
of the Himalaya; along the fog-bound shores of
Bering Sea — wherever I made my little camp-fire,
there was "home." But it has been a happy life
and a full one. Not for an instant would I have
changed it for the static existence of a palace on
Fifth Avenue. As I looked across toward the peaks
where we had seen the ibex, I thought that there was
the "Valley of Content."

Ibex, of course, are true wild goats, with curving,

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

annulated horns and long beards such as any re-
spectable goat ought to wear. They live in Abys-
sinia, the Caucasus and the mountains of Central
Asia, and they hold an enviable place among a
sportsman's trophies; unless a man has nerve, en-
durance and skill in stalking, and unless he can shoot
straight, he had better not follow their trails. In
the summer it is useless to hunt them during the
middle of the day. Then they sleep, but, when the
shadows lengthen in the ravines and valleys, they
rise from their hillside beds to feed upon the dark-
ened slopes. A saddle or depression on a ridge is a
favorite sleeping-place because there the wind reaches
them from every side. They depend less upon sight
or hearing than upon the sense of smell to protect
them from enemies. They know by instinct those
places " where the baffling mountain eddies chop and
change/ ' and the slightest taint of man-scent in the
air sends them off.

The Mongols have wonderful eyesight — twice as
good as that of an ordinary white man — and we had
learned to trust it far more than our own. There-
fore, whenever we came to a ridge, our lama and
Tserin would give it the first survey. With their
heads barely showing above the rocks, they would
scan every inch of the hills and valleys. It is diffi-
cult enough to see an ibex even when he is standing
up; for his brown hair is exactly the color of the
rocks and grass; when he is lying down and motion-
less, he is well-nigh invisible.

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DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

Ibex never are off guard. Two or three sentinels
are posted even when a herd is feeding. One day
Mac and I watched forty of the animals graze up
an almost perpendicular mountain-side until the last
inch of shade had disappeared, and then dispose
themselves comfortably among the rocks. They
were plainly visible while they remained standing,
but one by one they faded from sight and seemed
absolutely to sink into the ground. Only two bucks
were left. They climbed lazily to the highest peak
and took stations side by side but facing in opposite
directions. One surveyed the vast complex of moun-
tains to the south; the other gazed over the plain,
which stretched away like a calm sea. For two
hours they stood motionless, living statues sil-
houetted against the sky. Then at the same in-
stant they left the sentinel post and lay down to
sleep. "Ten o'clock and all's well."

As for that early morning hunt, our lama, with
the uncanny instinct of the native who has spent
all his life in watching game, knew exactly where
the ibex we had seen the night before ought to be,
and he went there as straight as the crow flies.
When we had been examining the hillsides for ten
minutes, Tserin, with an excited exclamation, pulled
me violently backward behind the ridge and pointed
to a low saddle five hundred yards away. "Horns,
ibex horns," he whispered in Chinese. I could see
them clearly with the glasses, but they lay in such
a position that I thought they must have been left

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

by a native hunter who had killed an ibex on the
ridge. Mac thought so, too, but the Mongols were
insistent. For fifteen minutes we watched those
horns; then they moved slightly, and we knew that
an ibex, very much alive, was wearing them. For-
tunately the wind was blowing from him to us, and,
after a long circle to keep out of sight, we stopped
at the base of a spur just over the crest of which he
was lying as he drowsed in the sun.

Tserin and the lama went up the steep slope like
cats, but Mac and I took our time. It was useless
to arrive with our hearts beating like trip-hammers.
Hidden by a spire of snow-white quartz rock, we
waited until we were breathing smoothly. Then I
motioned to the little hunter. He slowly raised his
head, got to his knees and stood upright. Taking a
cautious step, he sharply ducked his head and pointed
below. As he moved forward, I saw a splendid buck
ibex, looking fixedly at me, less than a hundred yards
away. He was off with a snort of surprise just as I
caught a glint of his horns through my peep -sight
and fired. The bullet struck the ground on the
opposite side, and he staggered slightly but kept on.
Mac's rifle was crashing like a machine-gun beside
me, and I saw an ibex roll over and over down the
hill. Just as the herd rounded a sharp corner of
rock, I snapped at the rearmost animal, a fine buck
with long scimitar-like horns. He went to his knees,
got up and disappeared behind the outcrop, but I knew
I had him. We sat down quietly to watch the herd.

i74

DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

The echoes of the last shot lost themselves in dull
mutterings in the depths of a black canyon across
the valley. Heavy silence settled upon the moun-
tains. A flock of snowcocks sailed across the ra-
vine, uttering their weird call — a note like that of
no other bird on earth — which seems to fit these
wild peaks. Then came a rush of wings and a
shadow. I looked up to see a lammergeier, that
splendid vulture of the Altai, sweep down in a mag-
nificent curve toward a tiny, whistling cony, which
dived to shelter just as the bird's great claws clicked
upon the rocks.

Far in the distance a line of black dots moved
slowly on a mountain- side stretching up and up —
so vast that it seemed to reach the sky's blue canopy.
With the glasses we could see that one lagged far
behind the others; then it was cut from sight by a
giant boulder and did not reappear. Without doubt
it was the ibex that I had hit at the first shot.

When we arrived, he was lying among the rocks,
and jumped out so suddenly that he almost upset
Mac, who was waiting directly in his path. Two
more shots and he was down for good. He carried
a beautiful pair of horns, thirty-six inches long, which
swept up and back in a graceful curve to form half
the arc of a circle. His long brown beard tipped
with black gave him a patriarchal look, and his
yellow eyes were very like those of a goat.

I looked at him with little pride in what I had
done. He was so splendid a creature, had weathered

175

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

so many storms, fought so many battles among his
kind, and had struggled so gamely at the last, that
I would gladly have sent him on his way with the
others of the herd, could I have given him back his
life.

Years of shooting have bred a change within me,
and I care less and less to kill. I was born a sports-
man. In memory I see myself, an eager little boy
with a single-barrelled shotgun on my shoulder, trudg-
ing through the forests of southern Wisconsin. Every
waking moment out of school I spent in a canoe on
the river or in the fields. In the spring the damp,
sodden smell of the marshes, the honk of a wild
goose sounding faintly through the fog, the sight
of a long black line of flying ducks, sent the blood
rioting through my veins. I was tortured by school
and mad to be out. Cold, wet, hunger meant nothing
in the exquisite delight of seeing a duck pitch head-
long into the marsh at the roar of my gun. One
bird in a day's hunt made it all worth while; two or
three sent me home walking on air, blissfully happy.
On Sunday, when I was not allowed to take my gun,
field-glasses and a note-book were the substitutes.
I walked just as far and worked just as hard, but
often returned at night with fever in my blood, be-
cause on those days I saw the rarest game.

It was inevitable that I should live a life that
gave me the wild places of the world as a playground.
It was never a matter of choice; I could have stood
nothing else. I wanted it so intensely that, had I

176

DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

been shut within the four walls of an office, I should
certainly have sickened and died.

In years of wandering I have shot many kinds of
game in many countries of the world. There have
been moments when I thought my cup was full of
happiness as I gazed down upon an animal that, by
skill in stalking and straight shooting, I had taken
as a trophy. But now that satisfaction comes less
often. The last breathless moments of the stalk,
the tense concentration of the first shot and the
thrill of seeing an animal go down are too quickly
over. My triumph leaves a vague unhappiness. I
wish it could be undone. I would give back life
to the creature against whom I have matched my
skill — and won. Rather a thousand times carry
away his portrait on a camera negative or a motion-
picture film! That is the real sport. All the thrills
of the stalk and the final shot are there; for the
achievement is not only ten times more difficult but
it leaves the beast his life.

We left the camp at Artsa Bogdo on August 30,
so that the geologists might have an opportunity to
look over the country where Granger was working.
But the increasing sharpness in the air was a warn-
ing to put the long stretch of unknown desert be-
hind us without delay, and the appearance of a
blanket of new snow on Baga Bogdo, eighty miles
westward, forced me to announce that nothing ex-
cept the discovery of the "Missing Link" himself
would keep us after September 1. It was not the

177

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

fear of cold but the prospect of early snow that
worried us. We had had an experience with snow
and mud on the way from Urga to Tuerin and re-
membered the helplessness of the motors. In the
winter, when the ground is frozen, light snow is of
little consequence; but in the autumn it forms a
sticky mud that is the most difficult terrain imagin-
able for cars to plow their way across.

On reaching the spot where Granger had been
camping, we found that he had moved to a well
twelve miles away. But there was still a day's re-
spite, and after tiffin Berkey, Morris and Colgate
put their sleeping-bags in a car and set out for the
well while Shackelford and I amused ourselves shoot-
ing sand-grouse. They are birds remotely related
to the pigeons and have a strange combination of
characters. The wings are so long and narrow that
the birds can fly like bullets. The body is like a
pigeon's. The head resembles that of a grouse.
Most interesting of all are the feet, which are pad-
ded, as are those of a camel, to facilitate walking on
the sand and gravel of the desert. The birds were
in countless thousands in certain localities, and every
morning they used to pass over our camp on the
way to pools of water of which they alone had
knowledge. We did not find their eggs or young
during the first season in Mongolia and never saw
any immature birds. Walter Granger insisted that
we had discovered a new bird — one that did not
lay eggs but reproduced itself full-grown ! However,

178

DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

we did find both eggs and young, in the summer of
1923, and convinced Granger, much against his will,
that sand-grouse were only ordinary birds after all.

When the men returned on the evening of August
31, they had a wonderful story to tell. Granger had
discovered an enormous Cretaceous bad lands basin
in which there was a dinosaur "under every bush."
He had not wasted an hour of daylight for over a
week and had removed two complete, excellently pre-
served skeletons of small dinosaurs. Even the tini-
est bones of the lashlike tails were intact. He had
also found parts of giant herbivorous and flesh-eating
dinosaurs and had left several skeletons marked for
future excavation. During his entire stay he had
prospected only a half -day and with Wang, the
chauffeur, had found such an abundance of fossils
that he could not attempt to remove them all. Just
think — this in a country where never a dinosaur was
known until we came! Since Granger pronounced
the bones found by the geologists on the Gurbun
Saikhan to be dinosaur, the Cretaceous deposits were
thus extended far to the south and east.

Everyone was enthusiastic over the beauty of the
great flat-topped mesa on the border of the bad
lands basin. Its surface was covered with black
lava but the sides were blood-red. Even as I saw
it thirty miles away through field-glasses, from the
summit of one of the peaks, it was an impressive
sight. The men said that against the sunset glow it
surpassed anything of its kind that they had ever seen.

179

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

September I , the day of our departure, was marked
by perfect autumn weather with air like wine. We
ought to have made good progress, but spent the
better part of three days in a futile search for a small
trail said to lead north to the old Chinese post-road
that would take us to Sair Usu.

We had seen no Mongols for nearly one hundred
miles and when, at last, three yurts were sighted a
considerable distance off the trail, the fleet halted
while I ran over to make inquiries. In the mean-
time Shackelford walked one-half mile toward the
north to investigate some peculiar looking mounds
that were conspicuous on the plain. He found that
he was on the edge of a great red basin which was
invisible from the small trail that we were following.
He decided to spend five minutes looking for fossils,
and if he did not see bone immediately to return to
the cars. Walking over the cliff half way down the
steep slope to the basin floor, he discovered a white
skull about eight inches long resting on the summit
of a sandstone pinnacle. He picked it off and hur-
ried back to the fleet. We all examined it with the
greatest interest. None of us had ever seen its like.
Granger was only able to say that, without doubt,
it was a new type of reptile. The find was obviously
so important that we camped where we were and
spent the two remaining hours of daylight in search-
ing for fossils in the beautiful ravines and on the
slopes of the sandstone buttes which filled the basin.

The spot was almost paved with bones and all

1 80

Battlement Bluffs at the Flaming Cliffs where the dinosaur eggs were first discovered.

DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

represented animals which were unknown to any of
us. Granger picked up a few bits of egg-shell which
made us believe that we had discovered a late Ter-
tiary deposit. These eventually proved to be bits
of dinosaur egg-shell, and the great basin with its
beautiful sculptured ramparts was the richest locality
of the world from a palaeontological standpoint. We
named it The Flaming Cliffs.

It was not until the following summer, however,
that we discovered what a valuable deposit it was.
Our first indication was when I received a cable
from the American Museum of Natural History stat-
ing that the unknown reptile skull which Shackel-
ford had found was in reality the ancestor of the
Ceratopsians, a group of great horned dinosaurs of
unknown ancestry, which were known only from
America.

The next morning, when we started with a Mongol
guide through the basin to the Sair Usu trail, one
hundred and fifty miles away, we ran into a maze
of "nigger-heads" and sand. It was one of the
hardest days of our entire trip, but in the late after-
noon we came out on a hard, gravel pene-plane which
we named the "hundred-mile tennis court." It took
us to a great temple on the bank of the Ongin River
and eventually we reached the Sair Usu trail with-
out incident. For the first time we felt that we were
really bound for home.

Two days later we saw the ruins of a half-dozen
mud houses and a small temple in a sandy basin.

181

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Such was Sair Usu. A little to one side of the well
stood the blue tent of our caravan and the long line
of boxes with Old Glory in the centre. Merin and
his Mongols welcomed us joyously; the day was
September 5 and we had kept our appointment.

We gave the caravan all the specimens and super-
fluous equipment, and told Merin to reach Kalgan
not later than October 20. Actually, I may note
here, he arrived ten days earlier than that date.
On September 7 the rest of us started in the motors
on the last leg of our journey.

That day we saw grim evidence once more that
for the preceding three years a human life in Mon-
golia had been worth much less than that of a sheep.
At one spot Shackelford and I ran over to two yurts
to inquire about the road. Three men rode like
mad to the hills and we found that only four women
were left. Two were very old, one was about fifty
and the fourth was a beautiful girl of eighteen or
twenty. They had spread a clean white felt before
the yurt and were lined up, trembling and kowtow-
ing. As we stopped the car a few feet away, the
girl ran to get another felt and one of the women
rushed inside to bring milk and tea. In a few mo-
ments our Mongol explained that we were Americans
and would not hurt them. They had never heard
of America nor of any white men except Russians.
When I gave them a few trinkets, they were pitifully
pleased. They clung to one another, crying, and
explained that they had expected to be killed in-

182

DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

stantly. They had wanted to run away but the
men had taken all the horses, and we came so fast
that they could not hide. A short time later we
stopped at another yurt, and one of the two women
had an attack of violent nausea from sheer fright.

Much of the country was desert-like in the ex-
treme: a rolling gravel floor with only the scantiest
vegetation and with hardly a trace of animal or
human life. The monotony was depressing. I can
well understand why many years ago Sir Francis
Younghusband called the western Gobi one of the
most desolate regions he had ever seen.

Two days after leaving Sair Usu we crossed a
long stretch of sand and came into a basin more than
a hundred miles in width. In the distance the blue
line of an enormous bluff met the trail. It was
much too good to pass, so the men made camp while
the rest of us scattered over the exposure to search
for fossils. An hour later I walked around the cliff
and saw Shackelford on his knees near the top,
scratching at the earth with his prospector's pick.
He had found some large bones, which Granger iden-
tified as rhinoceros. Soon Berkey, who had been
studying the side of the bluff intently for sometime,
called to me. He had traced the bed of an ancient
stream, which more than two million years ago ran
upon the surface.

It was easy to follow the course. We were look-
ing at a cross-section of it and could see the succes-
sive layers of heavy gravel, small pebbles, sand and

183

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

fine silt. Berkey showed that near the spot where
Shackelford had found the rhino bones, there was
an abrupt drop. Below was a heterogeneous mass
of pebbles and large stones, which indicated a pool
at the base of a small waterfall or rapid. An animal
that died in the upper reaches of the stream very
probably would be carried into the pool, sink to the
bottom and be covered with silt. Berkey suggested
that we dig into the bank at this point. In less
than five minutes I located a jaw and directly
below it a large skull. Then Granger put an
abrupt stop to my excavations. Meanwhile Shack-
elford had discovered a beautiful rhinoceros jaw
partly embedded, but in plain sight, and a set of
teeth of a small artiodactyl — an even-toed hoofed
animal.

We remained for three days at this great bluff,
because, every time Granger began to remove a
skull, he discovered another a few inches from it.
I finally threatened to put him under arrest if he
excavated further than just enough to remove the
specimens already in sight.

The fauna was abundant, but there predominated
a strange semi-aquatic rhinoceros. This was sub-
sequently named Cadurcotherium ardynense by Pro-
fessor Osborn. The region must have swarmed with
turtles also, for we found shells of both large and
small species in great abundance.

Granger spent almost every daylight hour in "the
hole," as we named the fossil-pool. He even had

184

DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

his tiffin sent up to him. At first he allowed human
visitors, but one after another we did something that
incurred his palseontological displeasure and were
ordered off the premises. Finally only our camp
dog, Mushka, and the two pet crows remained to
keep him company. On the second day Mushka
tipped over a tray of bones and was banished. The
crows behaved themselves fairly well and were most
amusing; for they had an absurd way of getting
their glossy black feathers so covered with flour
paste that they could hardly fly. But at last one of
them committed an unpardonable sin. Granger had
taken out a skull that lacked only a tiny piece of
bone from one side. After nearly an hour's search
he discovered the missing fragment and carefully
pasted it in position. The moment his back was
turned one of the crows hopped on the specimen,
picked off the bone and swallowed it. Granger never
forgave the bird, and, after he returned to Peking,
he was still berating it as he packed the skull for
shipment to New York.

The night of September 12 was so warm that we
could not use our fur sleeping-bags, but daylight
brought rain and wind and a drop of forty degrees
in temperature. Winter had returned in a few hours.
The trail we followed on that bitter day led up and
down low ridges and hills, which were mostly of
schist and decidedly uninteresting. The camp at
night was in a dry valley containing a grove of
cottonwoods. We gathered a great pile of branches

185

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

and had our first wood-fire since leaving the forest
of Sain Noin Khan.

There were various kinds of bad going during the
next morning, but in the afternoon we sped at thirty
miles an hour over a great rolling plain. Here the
geologists were thrown into a fever of excitement by
coming upon a series of Carboniferous and Permian
beds full of invertebrate fossils. Except for the
single piece of rock picked up by Berkey near Gur-
bun Saikhan, this was the first evidence found in
Mongolia of these extremely ancient periods in the
history of the earth. It extended these strata for
hundreds of miles north and west of their previously
known occurrence and was a discovery of immense
importance, for it fulfilled a prediction made by
Professor A. W. Grabau that a great sea way had
extended from the Central Asian Plateau to the
Pacific Ocean in Palaeozoic times.

About forty miles beyond the site of these de-
posits, Granger and I, who were riding together,
saw a grey-white bluff a few yards to the north of
the road and walked out to the exposure. The
place was covered with fossil bones and after we had
selected some of the best specimens from which to
identify the horizon and were on our way back to
the car, I noted a long bone partially buried. In
five minutes it was evident that here was a complete
titanothere jaw with all the teeth in position.

The problem was whether we should leave it or
spend the day or two that would be required for

186

DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

pasting and bandaging it properly. Since we de-
cided that it was unwise to stop, Granger said he
could remove one complete tooth-row, which would
serve for positive identification of the specimen and
for comparison of it with American titanothere fos-
sils. It would fall apart in a hundred pieces, no
doubt, but they could be fitted together at the
laboratories in Peking. The next half-hour saw an
example of heroic methods in fossil dentistry. Every
fibre of Granger's collector's soul rebelled against
the crime he was committing upon a priceless speci-
men, and his groans, as he extracted each tooth,
indicated as great pain as the titanothere itself would
have felt had it been alive. When the thing was
done, we carefully covered the remainder of the jaw,
took bearings upon its location and went on to join
the rest of the men, who were impatiently awaiting
us.1

Farther along the trail we passed several other
exposures that evidently were a part of the same
formation. They indicated a vast region for palaeon-
tological study. Granger was convinced that it was
a western extension of the Iren Dabasu basin, on
the Kalgan-Urga road, where we had found the first
fossils on our way to Urga in the spring.

The next morning we had a foretaste of what I
had been expecting every day. Rain and a bitter
wind sent us into our heaviest clothes. Hour by

1 This locality was named Ulu Usu or the " Well of Mountain Waters "
and subsequently proved to be one of the richest deposits in all Mongolia.

187

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

hour the weather grew colder. The rain changed
first to sleet and then to snow. We lost our way a
dozen times and finally had to draw up in the shelter
of a dry riverbed. The snow came so thickly that
we could not drive or find our way. But just as I
had about decided to camp, the storm suddenly
ceased. The ground was so warm still that the
snow melted quickly, and again it was possible for
us to see the tiny path. We camped near a half-
dozen yurts under the lee of a great rock-spine, over
which the wind howled like a charge of Mongolian
demons. We ate dinner with our gloves on and
then sought our sleeping-bags and felt warm for
the first time that day. And yet, three days before,
we had been uncomfortable in our tents because of
the heat.

The remaining three hundred miles were unevent-
ful but strenuous. The road, which had been fairly
good, became steadily worse as we neared the area
of Chinese cultivation and the traffic of Chinese
spike-studded carts. In the valleys there were mud
and ruts and on the hills there were ruts and rocks.
At the Chinese village of Miao Tan, which we reached
late in the afternoon of September 18, a cart was
engaged to take the heavy luggage the remaining
forty miles to Kalgan. It was well that we had no
excess weight, for I had never known the Pass to be
in worse condition. Our average speed was only
four miles an hour. We had made so close an es-
timate on our gasoline supply that all the cars except

188

DISCOVERY OF THE FLAMING CLIFFS

Colgate's reached the compound of Andersen, Meyer
& Co. We had to send a bottle of gasoline to bring
that one car the last half-mile from its stopping-
place just inside the city gate.

Larsen was in Kalgan and we had much to tell
him. His first question was, "Did you get the wild
ass you were after when we left you on the crest of
the hill in the Gobi?" The first thing we asked him
was how soon we could get a bath. Berkey and
Morris stayed with Larsen, and the rest of us went
to the British-American Tobacco Company's mess,
where the doors are always open to travellers from
the interior.

Each one of us had some article of adornment that
he had been cherishing for the homecoming. Shack-
elford appeared in a wonderful blue shirt. I had a
purple necktie and Colgate and Granger each pro-
duced a pair of new shoes. Yet when we came into
the dining-room for tea, where a half-dozen visitors
had assembled to welcome us, we felt uncomfort-
able! There was something almost pitiful about our
efforts to be civilized once more.

We left Kalgan for Peking on September 21, ex-
actly five months from the day on which we started
for the great plateau to test our theories. We had
gone with stout hearts and courage but all of us
knew that it was a colossal gamble. Everything
was staked on the turn of a card, but we had won.

189

CHAPTER X

GIANT BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

By Henry Fairfield Osborn

'"THE Central Asiatic Expedition is revealing much
A more than a new chapter in the earth's history;
it is revealing a new volume composed of many chap-
ters, some of which belong in the Age of Man, others
in the Age of Mammals, others in the still more re-
mote Age of Reptiles. We have penetrated the
homeland not only of the mammals of the world
but of the reptiles, and we hope before the Expedition
is concluded to be able to demonstrate that this is
the homeland of the ancestors of man.

The high deserts of Mongolia reveal a former ver-
dure and a wealth of life filled with the ancestors of
the mammals and the ancestors of the most ancient
reptiles, all of which will be fully and minutely
described in time. The present chapter is devoted
to two of the first and most brilliant discoveries
made; namely, of a giant extinct rhinoceros and of
the ancestral horned dinosaur.

190

BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

Three great explorers had crossed Mongolia be-
fore our party entered this field; namely, Raphael
Pumpelly (1870), Ferdinand von Richthofen (1877)
and V. A. Obruchev (1894-1896). None of these
explorers and geologists reported extinct animals with
the exception of Obruchev, who mentioned having
found a few rhinoceros teeth. Our men set out with
the warning, "You will find rock and sand but few
fossils." Consequently it was a very great surprise
when they came upon three distinct fossil-beds, in-
cluding one belonging in the Age of Mammals, soon
after they had passed the Mongolian frontier, at
Iren Dabasu. Here, in fact, they came across the
first evidence of the giant extinct rhinoceros of Cen-
tral Asia and by its very size recognized its resem-
blance to an animal previously discovered in far-
distant Baluchistan. The significance of the name
Baluchitherium is the "wild beast (therion) of Balu-
chistan"; for it was on the western confines of India,
in the now forbidden territory of Baluchistan, that
the first fossil bones of this giant rhinoceros were
discovered, by C. Forster Cooper, in 191 1.

Cooper, a graduate of Cambridge University, had
been trained in American Museum of Natural His-
tory field-methods and was fired with ambition to
restore the somewhat waning prestige of his country-
men in the fossil lore of Asia. He was fortunate in
gaining admission to this partly subjugated outlier
of the British Empire in India, which has been denied
to our American Museum explorers during the past

191

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

two years because of the present unrest among the
native tribes of Baluchistan.

He came across a rich fossil-bed near the Bugti
Hills of eastern Baluchistan, and among many other
petrified treasures he unearthed three gigantic verte-
brae of the neck and parts of the limb- and foot-
bones of a land mammal quite unprecedented in
size, which he named Baluchitherium in reference to
its native country, with the specific terminal osbomi
in honor of the present writer. Between 191 1 and
1923 he wrote preliminary descriptions of this an-
imal, recognizing it from the first as new to science,
and finally in a recent paper he wrote:

" Baluchitherium may then be described as belong-
ing at the end of a series of odd-toed, hoofed an-
imals remotely related to the tapirs, horses and
rhinoceroses, with closest affinity to the latter family;
distinguished by its long and massive neck and by
its tall and relatively narrow feet; closer of kin to
the rhinoceroses than to either the horses or the
tapirs, but unknown either in its past history or in
its descendants.' '

In the meantime the Russian geologist, A. Boris-
siak, not knowing of Forster Cooper's discovery,
came across an animal of similarly astounding size
in Turgai, a province of northern Turkestan, which
he described during the years 191 5-1 91 7 and named
Indricotherium asiaticum. The generic name has
reference to a monster called the "Indrik beast"

192

Baluchitherium grangeri. Restoration by Charles R. Knight.

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BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

occurring in an old Russian legend, "The Tale of
the Dove," of the thirteenth or fourteenth century.
The Indrik beast could walk, run and fly above the
clouds; when he walked, the earth trembled.

A little more fortunate than Cooper, Borissiak
found additional parts of both the fore and hind
limbs, which were of almost exactly the same length
as in Cooper's animal from Baluchistan. He also
found parts of the teeth, which positively confirmed
Cooper's suspicion that this was a member of the
rhinoceros family. There are rumors that he found
even other parts, including remains of the skull,
which he has been unable to publish, owing to the
depleted condition of the scientific resources of his
country at the present moment. If this is true, it
renders our discovery of a complete skull all the more
timely, and the fact that we have been able to hurry
this skull around the world for immediate restora-
tion and description all the more fortunate.

Our Central Asiatic Expedition first ran across
the remains of this extraordinary animal at Iren
Dabasu in southeastern Mongolia, finding only the
foot-bones and other fragments of the skeleton.
This was on the journey north toward Urga. The
second and most important find, namely of the skull
described in this article, was made on August 5,
1922, northeast of the Altai Mountains, near Loh
in the Tsagan Nor basin, in beds which have been
named the Hsanda Gol. The exhumation and trans-
portation of this skull is a little romance in itself.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

It presents us with a concrete example of how long
it takes to bring a wonderful new fact of nature from
the other side of the globe and put it within the
reach and understanding of the vision and mind of
the people in the city of New York.

It took several days to work the skull out of the
earth. It was transported across the desert of Mon-
golia and reached Peking on October 20, 1922. It
reached the American Museum on December 19,
1922 — a red-letter day in the Department of Verte-
brate Palaeontology, which received it. The scientific
preparation began immediately and continued un-
remittingly in the hands of two, three and sometimes
four preparators, until its completion on April 6,
1923. It was then ready to be reproduced a thou-
sand-fold in still photographs and by the moving-
pictures of Mr. Shackelford, and thus distributed in
this country and all over the world.

The Baluchitherium was placed in a large case near
the centre of the American Museum, with a map
showing its long journey and a label giving its his-
tory, together with a complete restoration showing
how it appeared in life. Within nine months of its
discovery this animal was known to millions of
people! This is not quite so rapid as Jules Verne's
Tour of the World in Eighty Days, but the record is a
good one when one considers the very difficult sci-
entific problems involved, the years of experience and
training necessary rightly to interpret this animal,
and the faultless restoration of this skull, which ar-

194

BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

rived at the Museum in three hundred and sixty
pieces of fossil bone.

Our first estimate of the height of the animal was
that it stood between eleven and twelve feet at the
shoulders, or one foot higher than the tallest of
the living elephants of Africa, the largest existing
quadrupeds. It is our agreeable duty to announce
that this first estimate was under rather than over
the truth. The Baluchitherium certainly stood over
thirteen feet at the shoulders, and in reaching up
for food his head may have attained a height of
between seventeen and eighteen feet above the
ground. This compares favorably with the reach
of a tall giraffe while browsing on the uppermost
leaves of the African mimosa. The giraffe rises to
over seventeen feet and according to some observers
to twenty feet. The head of the giraffe is small and
delicate while the neck is proverbially long and
slender. The neck of the Baluchitherium was of
relatively the same length as in the horse; it did
not by any means attain the long-drawn-out pro-
portions of the neck of the giraffe.

The head of the Baluchitherium was of enormous
size and weight, yet relatively small when compared
with the height and bulk of the animal as a whole,
as shown in the accompanying restorations. Two
great tusks which terminate the head may have
served the animal as offensive and defensive weapons,
also as a means of hooking down high branches of
trees in order to consume the leaves. We know

i95

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

that the African elephants, which are chiefly brows-
ing animals, pull down the high branches of the trees
by means of the proboscis; where they cannot reach
them in this way, they throw their immense weight
against the tree and bring it to earth, thus felling a
tree from six to twelve inches in diameter.

Another reason for regarding the Baluchitherium
as a tree-browser is the structure of the grinding
teeth, which are short and broad, with sharp cutting-
edges like those of the browsing rhinoceroses still
living in the forests of eastern India and of Sumatra.
The teeth are in very wide contrast to those of the
great rhinoceroses of Africa and India, which are
fond of grazing and which adopt principally the
grazing habit. A third reason for regarding the
Baluchitherium as a tree-browser is the great eleva-
tion of the fore limb and shoulder. These bones
have exactly the same height as in the largest exist-
ing African elephant, but the Baluchitherium differs
widely from the elephant in the possession of tall,
stilted feet.

These tall feet, far exceeding in relative height
those of any other member of the rhinoceros family,
raise the shoulder of this remarkable animal two
feet above the shoulder-level of the living African
elephant, which seldom exceeds eleven feet, four
inches. This elevation had a meaning: it carried
the head aloft like a watch-tower so that the Balu-
chitherium could see its enemies approaching from
a distance and thus either escape or stand at bay,

196

BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

defended by its strong tusks. The other browsing
rhinoceroses, especially the "black" rhinoceroses of
Africa, carry their heads close to the ground within
easy reacjjj^of the shrubs and bushes on which they
browse.

The very wide contrast in size and in proportions,
in the length of the neck, in the height of the limbs
and in the smoothness of the top of the head, between
the Baluchitherium and all other rhinoceroses, living
or extinct, is shown in the accompanying outline
drawing, in which the Baluchitherium towers above
its relative in the rhinoceros family. The nearest
approach to the baluchithere is the elasmothere,
an extinct single-horned rhinoceros of Siberia, which
we have hitherto regarded as the largest member
of its family. The giant two-horned "white" rhi-
noceros of Africa is silhouetted from a magnificent
specimen now mounted in the American Museum;
as shown in the first restoration, it appears like an
infant when placed beneath the elevated head and
neck of the Baluchitherium. The Indian rhinoceros
is invaluable for comparison, because it has always
been a more familiar object in natural history, and
it would also appear like an infant offspring were it
not for the powerful horns which point to its adult
age.

The greatest anomaly in the Baluchitherium skull
is that in the original sense of the word rhinoceros
(derived from the Greek, rhino, nose, and keras,
horn) it is not a rhinoceros at all. The top of the

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

skull is perfectly smooth polished bone, beautifully
arched, with very long, slender nasal bones abso-
lutely devoid of any rugosity upon which a horn
might be fastened. The absence of horns, which
are the sole defensive weapons in the "white" and
the "black" rhinoceroses of Africa, and in the single-
horned rhinoceros of India, is amply compensated
for by very powerful tusks. These are totally un-
like the tusks of any other rhinoceros, living or fossil,
and enable us to pronounce the Baluchitherium as
representing a new branch of the rhinoceros family
which may be popularly known as the baluchitheres.

These baluchitheres ranged from eastern Mongolia
westward into Turkestan, southward into Balu-
chistan. This was their minimum range; the max-
imum range was probably very much greater. It
would appear that they were the giant quadrupeds
of the roof of the world in Miocene times, in the
very mid period of the Age of Mammals.

It seems that in every one of the five geologic
stages into which the Age of Mammals is divided,
namely the Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene
and Pleistocene, as if by a law ruling the mammalian
world, there was one and only one quadruped dom-
inating all others in size; such dominance we may
safely assign to the baluchitheres of the heart of
Asia during Miocene times. We know that the
horses of the corresponding period barely reached
up to the wrist of these animals ; that the mastodonts
and other ancestors of the elephant family barely

198

BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

reached to the level of the chest-bone. It is not
at all probable that during the five years' field-work
of the Central Asiatic Expedition we shall find any
mammal comparable in size to the Baluchitherium.
Its reign in Miocene times will in all probability be
unchallenged.

With the Baluchitherium there lived a much smaller
rhinoceros of normal size, an indication that this
was a good rhinoceros country, like the region in-
habited by the "black" and the "white" rhinoceros
in the uplands of Africa today. We cannot as yet
fully picture the climate and vegetation of central
Mongolia as it was in Baluchitherium times, but we
shall probably be able to do so from the rich beds
of fossil plants and fossil insects which our parties
are discovering, also from the other extinct animals
that have already been found but have not yet
reached the American Museum for examination.
The teeth and the feet of the quadrupeds will also
tell the story of the climate and vegetation.

The feet of the Baluchitherium indicate a rather
resistant soil, certainly not anything of a swampy
nature. They are widely different from the broad,
padded feet of the elephant or even from the broad,
spreading feet of the living rhinoceroses. They ter-
minate in relatively narrow and closely compressed
hoofs like those of some of the three-toed horses.
This in an indication that over the entire homeland
of the Baluchitherium the climate was south-tem-
perate, not tropical; the country was open, not

199

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

densely forested ; the footing was fairly resistant, not
soft and yielding.

A country of this kind, which is gradually passing
from a stage of luxuriant vegetation and moisture
into a more arid stage, lends itself to the develop-
ment of a plains and savanna fauna. We anticipate
finding a great variety of quadrupeds, prominent
in the midst of which will be small ancestors of the
three-toed horses known as Hipparions, swift, desert-
loving equines which spread from this Central Asiatic
home westward into Europe and eastward into
North America. We also shall find ancestors of the
true elephants, at first greatly inferior in size to the
baluchitheres, but finally superseding them as the
monarchs of the country. In the forests we shall
find insect ivores, bats and numerous rodents; and
on the border-line between the forests and the savan-
nas we may look for the Primates, discovering among
them, we hope, some of the anthropoid apes related
to the human ancestral stem.

The fertility of Central Asia during the Age of
Mammals and especially during Upper Oligocene
time, when the giant rhinoceroses just described
roamed over this country, made this by far the most
genial and attractive centre of life on the earth.
It was a veritable Garden of Eden. It was probably
not many thousand feet above sea-level — a plateau
country with low gradients traversed by meandering
river-courses. Very similar conditions also prevailed
in the Rocky Mountain region in Oligocene time,

200

BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

because exactly the same types of quadrupeds in-
habited both countries. Among animals, as among
men, conditions of free migration and partly open
country are far more favorable to evolution than
either a densely forested condition or the desert
condition of the present time.

The geologists of the Central Asiatic Expedition
have demonstrated that these favorable conditions
to varied animal life in Central Asia were of tremen-
dously long duration, probably beyond our powers
of imagination even to conceive. The explanation
goes very far back into the middle period of the Age
of Reptiles, when one of the most important events in
the life history of the earth took place ; namely, when
Central Asia emerged from the sea-level and became
a continent which has endured to the present day.

The Rocky Mountain region of North America
and the whole region of western Europe were still
at or near sea-level, subject to repeated subsidence
and emergence. In other words, while Central Asia
became a continent and a very important centre of
reptilian evolution, western Europe and western
North America were still struggling with the sea.
This momentous change in the earth's history oc-
curred in Asia at the close of Jurassic time in the
very midst of the long Age of Reptiles. Whereas in
western North America and western Europe, the
marine Reptilia continued to flourish in the bays
and estuaries of the hardly emerged lands, in Cen-
tral Asia new types of land Reptilia began to evolve.

201

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

There can be no question, from our discoveries
already made, that Central Asia was the chief
theatre of evolution, not only of the land Mammalia,
but of the giant land Reptilia of the world. This
land evolution took place chiefly among those rep-
tiles which, from their great size, are known as
dinosaurs or giant saurians, and this reptilian society
soon divided into two chief classes.

This two-fold division of land dinosaur life started
in a very modest way in the ancient continent
which now makes the roof of the world. Defensive
herbivorous types were of relatively small size and
their defensive horns or armature were not very
well developed. Similarly the offensive, flesh-eating
types were of moderate size and power, capable of
capturing all the small, herbivorous prey. Step by
step, like the evolution of the modern armored
battle-ship and the long-range, high-powered pro-
jectile, the herbivorous dinosaurs became larger and
more stoutly defended, while their carnivorous en-
emies became more powerful and diversified.

Both in western North America and in western
Europe, we witness the culminating stages of this
remarkable offensive and defensive reptilian evolu-
tion. We are at or very near to the climax of the
Age of Reptiles, when the powers of offense and de-
fense had reached the very summit. Such a picture
of offense and defense is shown in the accompanying
restoration of a scene in Montana at the very close
of the Age of Reptiles. At the right is a group of

202

BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

herbivorous dinosaurs, known as Triceratops because
each skull is protected by three sharply pointed
horns. These dinosaurs have their heads lowered
and are preparing for a charge from the animal in
the left foreground, a gigantic carnivorous reptile
known as Tyrannosaurus rex, or "king of the tyrant
saurians." This tyrannosaurus was the most terrible
engine of destruction which the earth has ever seen;
it is improbable that we shall ever find an animal
which surpasses him. Nevertheless he is represented
as contemplating whether an onslaught on the pha-
lanx of herbivorous dinosaurs will really pay, or
whether he may not be impaled on those long and
sharply pointed horns !

This picture illustrates the universal principle in
nature that the offensive and defensive powers in
animals are always evenly balanced, and this even
balance is brought about through a very long and
slow process of offensive and defensive evolution.

The second and, from the purely scientific stand-
point, the most brilliant discovery by the Central
Asiatic Expedition was the skull of a small herbivor-
ous land reptile which has been named Protoceratops,
signifying the "first horned dinosaur," because after
prolonged study it was recognized as the long-sought
ancestor of the Triceratops. It is of relatively dim-
inutive size; it has a smooth head without horns;
yet we find in the structure of the teeth and of the
jaw and in the general shape of the head unmistak-
able proofs of such ancestral relationship. This re-

203

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

lationship has been worked out with great care by
Dr. William King Gregory of the American Museum
and of Columbia.

This little fossil dinosaur came from beds of much
more ancient geologic age in the western part of
Mongolia. It was discovered on September 2, 1922,
in exposures of red shale formation east of Artsa
Bogdo, near one of the old caravan trails. The age
of this formation is probably Lower Cretaceous or
even Upper Jurassic; by reasonable estimate of
geologic time it is two or three million years older
than the age of the three-horned dinosaurs occurring
in Montana. Whereas the largest of the three-
horned dinosaurs are gigantic animals with skulls
sometimes attaining a length of eight feet and with
two formidably developed horns, the little skull of
western Mongolia is entirely hornless and barely
attains eight inches in length. The hornless dino-
saur is thus only one-twelfth the size of its great
Montana descendant.

In allusion to its very primitive character, Pro-
toceratops is assigned its name, signifying ' ' the most
primitive of the ceratopsians. " The full name is
Protoceratops andrewsi, the species being dedicated
to Mr. Roy Chapman Andrews, in recognition of
his splendid qualities as organizer and leader of the
Central Asiatic Expedition. It represents a new
species, a new genus, a new family, and possibly a
new suborder of reptiles. Thus from the scientific
standpoint the discovery of this diminutive reptile

204

BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

is even more epoch-making than that of the Balu-
chitherium. The manner in which Dr. William King
Gregory determined that the Protoceratops was a
real ancestor of the great Triceratops is a long story
in itself. The absence of horns presents little diffi-
culty because all very primitive reptiles as well as
mammals are without horns; horns evolve especially
in herbivorous animals, whether mammalian or rep-
tilian, as a means of defense against their carnivorous
enemies.

The discovery of the Baluchitherium skull has a
very important bearing on the general theory of
evolution, which is now being so widely discussed;
it has an indirect bearing even on the problem of
the evolution of man. Consider first the Baluchi-
therium skull as another striking example of evolu-
tion unchecked by environment, uncontrolled by
enemies more powerful or more cunning than the
Baluchitherium itself, speeding on rapidly to a great
climax in a certain given direction. Such a group
of animals in a favorable environment, like a group
of men in a favorable environment and a favorable
civilization, always increase in number with sur-
prising rapidity, and increase in size when it is an
advantage and not a disadvantage. In the Baluchi-
therium mere size counted for a great deal, enabled
the animal to ward off or frighten off all the enemies
of the period ; it also enabled the animal to browse
from the sides and tops of the trees not reached by
any other browsers. This new source of food supply

205

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

was practically unlimited. As to mere size, it is
certainly the largest land mammal which has ever
existed with the possible exception of some of the
imperial members of the elephant family.

The Baluchitherium appeared at a relatively early
point in geologic time in the Age of Mammals,
namely, the Oligocene, and we do not know how
long its reign endured. It is probable, from com-
parison with other gigantic reptiles and mammals
which have appeared from time to time on the earth,
that its very size, while affording temporary ad-
vantage, became in the end the cause of its extinc-
tion.

In general, it is the highly specialized animals,
like the Baluchitherium, which disappear, while the
more simple and generalized animals survive and
become in turn the specialized forms of a succeed-
ing geologic epoch. There are, however, so many
and such varied causes of extinction that we must
await evidence from the forthcoming work of the
Expedition before we can answer the interesting
question when and why this gigantic animal be-
came extinct.

As for the Baluchitherium in its bearing on our
search for man, the discovery of the skull and our
consequent knowledge of the character of the coun-
try— the roof of the world — during this period, is
favorable to the supposition that the ancestors of man
may also be found in the same country, because we are
now convinced that our human ancestors branched

206

BEASTS OF THREE MILLION YEARS AGO

off from the other anthropoid-ape stock in Oligocene
time, the very period when the Baluchitherium was
flourishing. We are also convinced that these ances-
tors were not living in a densely forested country,
but in partly open country where progression on
the hind limbs is more favorable than progression
on all fours, of the quadrupedal type, or progression
in trees, of the aboreal type.

In other words, the Baluchitherium was probably
contemporary with our remote ancestors about the
time that they were beginning to lead an indepen-
dent existence and to move about in an erect or
semi-erect position. The writer two years ago ex-
pressed his conviction that one of the most surpris-
ing discoveries yet to be made in the history of
science would be the discovery in the midst of the
Age of Mammals of a relatively large-brained, erect-
walking ancestral type of man. This discovery will
most probably be made in Asia; it would be rash to
predict that it will be made in that part of Asia
where our parties are now working, but in our opin-
ion it is more probable that we are relatively near
the centre of human origin, because the Baluchi-
therium reveals the kind of country in which we
should expect to find our ancestors in this earliest
stage of development.

These two discoveries — the Baluchitherium and
the Protoceratops — as briefly and popularly set forth,
represent the opening of a new volume in the
history of the roof of the world.

207

CHAPTER XI

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

THHE winter of 1922- 1923 I spent in Peking prepar-
* ing for the next summer's expedition. Granger
again visited the fossil fields in Szechuan on the
Yangtze River while others of the party returned to
New York to begin scientific work upon the collections.

Since the first expedition to Mongolia had been
largely one of reconnaissance, it was necessary to
investigate more fully the fossil beds already located
if we were to reap the results of our initial work.
With this end in view, three new expert palaeon-
tological collectors were added to the staff. They
were Messrs. George Olsen, Peter Kaison and Albert
Johnson. Since Mr. Colgate could not return, the
motor transportation was put in charge of Messrs.
Mackenzie Young and C. Vance Johnson. Both of
these men had lived with cars all of their lives and
were competent to repair any breakage which might
result from the terrible punishment which we knew
the motors would have to undergo.

The expedition left Peking on April 17, the date

208

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

of our first departure the year before, and started
from Kalgan on April 20. For a month there had
been an unprecedented number of robberies along
the caravan trail within the area of Chinese cultiva-
tion which extends for one hundred miles beyond
Kalgan. The week before we left two Russian cars
had been stripped of a valuable cargo of sables and
one man killed. Several caravans had been held up
within a few miles of Kalgan and the Chinese author-
ities manifested considerable anxiety about the safety
of our expedition.

As usual we spent the first night at the little
Chinese inn of Miao Tan only thirty-four miles from
Kalgan, for I had no wish to camp in the brigand
infested hills.

Just before we left in the morning the commander
of a company of soldiers who were quartered in the
village called upon me and said that he had been
directed to send a guard in advance to insure our
safety.

He naively remarked, "Please be careful not to
shoot my soldiers."

I was much amused at his fear that we might not
be able to distinguish brigands from soldiers. As
a matter of fact they are virtually synonomous in
many parts of China.

About five miles down the road we overtook
the soldiers who, when they saw us approaching,
promptly displayed a Chinese flag and announced
our arrival by bugle calls.

209

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

We had confidently expected to find our caravan
awaiting us at Iren Dabasu, where we were to do
our first work, but it was not there. I knew that
Merin had taken a trail east of the main road be-
cause it was safer and offered better grazing for the
camels ; yet Mongols who had travelled by the same
way reported no sign of our caravan. It was easily
identifiable, for the boxes were peculiar in shape
and the big camel in the lead always bore the
American flag. We began to be greatly worried,
especially a week later, when Granger and Morris
drove seventy miles down the trail without discover-
ing our camels.

We feared that they had been captured and driven
off into the desert; for brigands were numerous in
that region. Though the food that the boxes con-
tained would be of little interest to the bandits,
the camels themselves could be disposed of easily
enough, and the three thousand gallons of gasoline
sold in small lots to the motor- stations along the
main road. It would be a crushing blow to the
expedition, if we lost our caravan at the beginning
of the season. I made up my mind that if it was
not heard from soon I would take three or four of
our men who were simply spoiling for a fight, follow
the caravan on horseback from the point where
Merin had last been seen, and recapture it.

But canny old Merin had not been caught after
all, and one evening a car roared into camp with
the word that our camels were twenty miles away

210

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

at the Lung- Ku- Shan, "Dragon-bone Hill," and
would get in next day. The Mongols arrived as
gleeful as children to be safe in camp with us.
Merin said that, on hearing that there were bandits
ahead of him, watching the trail, he slipped off
into the desert. Thereafter he travelled at night
from well to well and camped during the day in
sheltered hollows, where he could not easily be seen.
His weather-tanned face simply beamed as he told
how he had played hide-and-seek with the brigands
and yet had filled the stomachs of his camels with
some of the best grazing they had had all winter.

It was at Iren Dabasu that we had made our first
great discovery of dinosaurs and strata of the Age
of Reptiles in 1922. We had spent only ten days
there at that time and now we wished to make a
more careful study of this rich locality.

The morning after our arrival the three new men,
Kaison, Olsen and Johnson, set out eagerly with
picks and collecting-sacks to have their initial ex-
perience in the fossil-fields of Mongolia. Morris,
Granger, Young and I drove westward on a trip
of exploration for additional exposures that would
be likely to harbor fossils.

Eight miles from camp we saw the familiar grey-
white strata and stopped to prospect. Almost im-
mediately we found teeth and fragments of bone
scattered over the surface in a half-dozen places.
Granger discovered a huge femur half exposed by
the action of wind and rain and frost, which were

211

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

wearing away the rock particle by particle. As I
walked slowly over the ridge that day, I had such
feelings as I suppose inspire every prospector for
gold. It was a likely -looking place, and at any
moment a discoloration in the rock or a tiny frag-
ment of bone might give the clue to a mine of
palasontological wealth. Without a doubt there were
hundreds of bones lying just beneath the surface.
But where? If only my eyes could pierce that
baffling surface and get a glimpse of what lay con-
cealed !

It is well-nigh hopeless to dig for fossils unless
there are definite indications of their presence.
There must be some clue, a piece of bone "running
in" or something upon which to fasten hope. Other-
wise one might dig and dig and miss the greatest
treasures by a few feet or even inches. Of course,
one finds many bones broken by weathering into
a hundred fragments and not connected with other
parts of the skeleton beneath the surface. Disap-
pointments come most frequently in fossils deposited
in an old stream-bed, where swift water has rolled
and broken them before they could be buried in
sediment and preserved. I know one such deposit
where remains of Baluchitherium are abundant in
gravel. Time after time I have felt my blood thrill
with excitement at sight of a projecting bone. But
after the rock or earth had been carefully worked
away, only a useless fragment would be uncovered!

My feelings about all such stream deposits are a

212

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

standing joke with the Expedition. I am hardly
philosophical enough for a palaeontological collector.
Disappointments and successes send me too easily
into the blackest depths or to the pinnacle of hap-
piness, and particularly I cannot curb my impatience
sufficiently when a specimen has been found. Walter
Granger or any of the other trained men are content
to work away the matrix around a fossil with a
camel's-hair brush, grain by grain, waiting for the
specimen to develop as they go down. Theirs is
admittedly the proper way to proceed, but pick-
and-shovel methods, which at least give quick re-
sults, are suited naturally to my restless spirit.
Perhaps a complete skeleton or a priceless skull
lies below that bit of projecting bone, and I simply
cannot wait for days to know. Therefore, whenever
one of the men is engaged upon the delicate operation
of removing a specimen, the chief palaeontologist is-
sues an ultimatum to the leader of the Expedition:
"Thou shalt not approach this sacred spot unless
thy pick is left behind.' '

In our brief survey of the Cretaceous ridge west
of Iren Dabasu, we saw enough to warrant sending
over three men for a careful inspection. Each one
of them immediately discovered important fossils de-
posited in what proved to be " quarries.' ' Albert
Johnson's was the richest. His keen eyes were at-
tracted by a fragment of bone not more than three
inches long. By following out this clue, he gradually
exposed so great a deposit that for a month he and

213

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Kaison worked continually in a single spot. The
fossils lay only a foot or two below the surface, but
were so completely covered that, except for the three
inch bit which gave away the secret, their presence
would have been unsuspected.

In this deposit bones of both flesh-eating and her-
bivorous dinosaurs, of many individuals and of sev-
eral species, were piled one upon the other in a
heterogeneous mass. Their look of having been
subjected to a swirling action when they were de-
posited, led us to believe that this spot had been a
backwater or eddy at the edge of a lake. When the
dinosaurs died, their bodies drifted into this bayou
and came to rest. Then the flesh decomposed and
the skeletons sank into the soft mud and eventually
were fossilized. On the shores of the lake five million
years ago there must have grown a lush vegetation ;
for many of the bones were those of dinosaurs of
the duckbill or iguanodont type, which wallowed in
the mud along the edges of lakes or streams where
the water-plants were soft and succulent. These
great dinosaurs, thirty-five or forty feet in length,
walked on their hind legs and, like the kangaroos
of today, were short and weak in their fore limbs.
They had an enormous number of teeth — -four hun-
dred in each jaw. New layers came into use as the
upper rows wore down, and thus a broad grinding-
surface was produced. Since dinosaurs of this type
were herbivorous feeders and without means of de-
fense, they must have proved an easy prey to the

214

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

great carnivorous dinosaurs, which were contem-
poraneous. We found some bones of the carnivores
mixed with those of the herb eaters. In the midst
of battle, very probably, the fierce, flesh-eating rep-
tiles had been drawn into the deep waters of the lake
and drowned, so that their skeletons were fossilized
with those of their victims.

The number of creatures that swarmed in this
region during the Age of Reptiles, baffles the imagi-
nation. It must have been a nightmare country,
filled with goblin-like animals, stranger even than
those born of delirium. Today, this nightmare
world of the past is gone. In its place lie the silent,
wind-swept dunes of the Gobi Desert, parched and
blistering under the summer's sun and in the winter,
an area of arctic desolation. The alkali shores of a
dry, sun-burned marsh mark a corner of the great
lake, the waters of which once lapped the edges of
the ridge upon which we stood. As far as my eye
could reach were hummocks of wind-blown sand,
crowned by thorny desert plants.

In the "quarry" that Johnson opened, he found
bones in a cross section excavation; perhaps he would
uncover the end of a limb, only to find that it ran
beneath another bone, which must be removed be-
fore the first could be prepared. It was like a game
of jackstraws, and only men with years of experience
and infinite patience could have done the work at
all. Some specimens were so closely cemented to-
gether that they could not be separated in the field,

215

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

and large blocks of bones and matrix were removed
entire. Even the most fragile of Tut-ankh-Amen's
burial furniture was not handled or packed with
greater care than were these specimens from the
Gobi Desert, so many millions of years older than
those from the Valley of the Kings* Tombs.

Instead of remaining a few days at Iren Dabasu,
we stayed a month, and, while operations were pro-
ceeding, Vance Johnson and I drove to Kalgan with
two cars to bring up additional supplies. On the
way I had an amusing experience with brigands.

I was more than a mile in advance of Johnson as
we approached the place where the two Russian
cars had been robbed a few weeks earlier. As I
recognized the spot the thought came to me, "I
wonder if brigands would attempt to hold me up
on the same ground." Almost at the same moment,
I saw the flash of a gun-barrel on the summit of a
hill three hundred yards away. The head and
shoulders of a single mounted horseman were just
visible against the sky. In Mongolia and China
only two kinds of natives have modern rifles —
brigands and soldiers. As a matter of fact, these
terms are virtually synonymous. The horseman on
the hilltop was doubtless a sentinel to give warning
to others in the valley below. I had no mind to
have him in such a position, whoever he might be,
and, drawing my revolver, I fired twice. The bullets
must have come too close for comfort, although I did
not attempt to hit him, for he instantly disappeared.

216

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

A moment later, as the car topped the rim of the
valley, I saw three mounted bandits at the bottom
of the slope. It would have been impossible to
turn the car and retreat without exposing myself
to close range shots and knowing that a Mongol
pony never would stand against the charge of a
motor I decided to attack. The cut-out was open
and with a smooth stretch in front of me, I roared
down the slope at forty miles an hour. The expected
happened! While the brigands were endeavoring to
unship their rifles, which were on their backs, their
horses began a series of leaps and bounds, madly
bucking and rearing, so that the men could hardly
stay in their saddles. I opened up with one of my
six-shooters, firing close to their heads, and in a
second the situation had changed! The only thing
that the brigands wanted to do was to get away.
When last I saw them, they were breaking all speed-
records on the other side of the valley. It would
have been easy to kill them all, but I did not wish
to shoot them in cold blood, and contented myself
with giving them the worst fright of their lives.

When we returned to camp I brought with me
Colonel H. Dunlap, Commander of the U. S. Marine
Corps Detachment of the American Legation, Peking,
and Lieut. Col. Seth Williams who spent a week
with the expedition. None of us will forget the days
with these two delightful officers who shot antelope
and sand-grouse and watched the excavation of fos-
sils with the keenest interest. When they returned

217

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

to Peking our last contact was severed with the
outside world for many months. A few days after
their departure we started westward for Camp Titan
at Ulu Usu, the "Well of the Mountain Waters."

"Camp Titan: situated at the junction of Hell
with the Sair Usu trail. A cemetery of titanotheres,
rhinoceroses and new beasts. Overlaid with loose
sand." Such is the entry in my journal on June 14,
1923, the date of our arrival.

The next afternoon, while I was making the round
of the diggings, the strong wind that had been blow-
ing all the morning increased to a full gale. The
basin seemed to be smoking like the crater of a
volcano. Yellow "wind-devil" clouds eddied up
from the floor and swirled across the plain. To the
north an ominous tawny bank advanced upon us at
race-horse speed.

I started into the valley to recall the men, but
almost instantly a thousand shrieking storm-demons
were pelting my face with sand and gravel. Breath-
ing was difficult ; seeing impossible. I stumbled over
the rim of the basin, back to the plain, and tried to
strike diagonally toward camp. It was like pushing
into a fantastic yellow wall, which gave and closed
behind me as I advanced. Even the ground beneath
my feet was invisible. In a few moments I realized
that I was being carried far to the east of the tents.
The only recourse was a turn into the wind until
I could find the rim of the valley again and crawl
along it to the cut behind camp. With head com-

218

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

pletely enveloped in my coat, I fought the salvos
of sand and gravel. In perhaps ten minutes, per-
haps a half-hour, I stumbled into a depression and,
huddled against the wind, lay there trying to think.

Suddenly forms took shape in the smother right
beside me. I reached out and caught one of them
by the leg. It proved to be our Mongol, Tserin, and
with him was Peter Kaison. Pressing our mouths
close against one another's ears we held a consulta-
tion. Tserin thought the tents were directly south
of us; Peter and I had no idea where they were. I
decided to trust the native's instinct.

So clinging together we groped our way through
the blinding murk. At last we stumbled over a
black object. It was the cook-tent, still standing
but at every blast in danger of being torn in shreds.
The mess-tent was just beside it. We found our
way inside and lay on the ground with our faces
buried in wet cloths; it was the only way in which we
could breathe.

One by one the men blew into camp, with the
exception of Walter Granger. It was impossible to
search for him, and I was not greatly worried, since
Granger had demonstrated many times his ability
to take care of himself. But our Chinese boy,
"Buckshot," who worships Granger, was so frantic
with anxiety that, if I had not forbidden him to
leave camp, he would have dashed wildly into the
blasts of sand to look for his master. We were help-
less and as Albert Johnson remarked, ' ' The directions

219

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

say, 'Take it!'" And we took it in whatever posi-
tion we found most comfortable.

The gale continued for an hour and then dropped
suddenly into a flat calm. Not a breath stirred the
flag, which hung limply above my tent, whipped al-
most to ribbons. The silence was uncanny after the
roar and rush of the storm.

Just as we were crawling out of the mess-tent,
we heard a joyous shout from "Buckshot" and saw
a brown figure coming into camp. Behind the broad
grin on the desert-colored face was Walter Granger.
When the storm broke, he had fought his way to a
partly excavated titanothere skull, to mark the spot
for fear it would be lost in the shifting sand. He
reached it but could go no farther and huddled into
the pit with his face in a coat. He had been com-
pletely buried, except for his head, and well-nigh
smothered.

We began to dig out the tents and empty the sand
from our clothes and beds. Half the Gobi Desert
seemed to be in our belongings and it had sifted into
the tightest boxes. The cameras, rifles, pistols and
field-glasses had suffered most, for even their double
cases could not keep them clean. We worked stead-
ily for two hours at "shovelling out." I sent a car
to the well of the "Mountain Waters," a mile away,
and everyone had a bath and dressed in clean
clothes. We felt human once more.

But while dinner was being served, one of the men
looked toward the north and gave a shout. There

220

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

it was again — -the same tawny cloud! This time it
was preceded by an enormous "wind-devil," which
danced wildly across the plain. It was heading to-
ward us, and we knew what to expect if it struck
our camp. I called for all hands to weight the
bottoms of the tents and pound in the pegs. Ex-
plosions of wrath were heard from every side because
there we were so clean then and knew full well how
dirty we should be in a moment.

The attack came with a crash and a blast of gravel
like exploding shrapnel. For five minutes the sand-
spout whirled round the camp as if trying to suck
the tents and all our belongings into the vortex
above our heads. Then, repulsed at every point,
it danced away across the plain and vanished pres-
ently in the distance.

Granger and I had held our tent down together,
and in the calm after the first attack we looked at
each other and burst out laughing. "Great gods!
Am I as dirty as you are?" he asked. But when
he had looked at himself in a mirror he grunted dis-
gustedly : ' ' This finishes it. The Mongols have the
right idea; no more baths for me. What's the use?
I'm going to bed."

Right he was; for the wind began again and de-
veloped into a full gale before the hour had passed.
For ten days it blew continuously, and never was
there enough calm to make it worth while to clean
up.

Ulu Usu proved to be one of the most important

221

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

localities for fossil collecting that we discovered in
all Mongolia. The remains of titanotheres were
there in great abundance. These great beasts super-
ficially resembled rhinoceroses but were more closely
related to the tapirs. They reached their greatest
development and became extinct three or four mil-
lion years ago in the middle period of the Age of
Mammals. Their discovery in Mongolia was the
fulfillment of a brilliant prediction made by Prof.
Osborn many years ago. For two decades he had
been studying these extraordinary animals and pre-
paring a monumental monograph on their evolution.
Although titanotheres had been found only in Amer-
ica, with the possible exception of a doubtful frag-
ment from Austria, Prof. Osborn believed that
originally they had been migrants from Central
Asia. When we went into the field in 1922 he in-
structed us to watch particularly for the remains of
titanotheres. Almost immediately his prophecy was
fulfilled, for in the Valley of the Jewels near Iren
Dabasu we found the first titanotheres known in
Asia.

We considered ourselves particularly fortunate in
discovering two or three beautiful skulls there, but
Ulu Usu proved to be a veritable titanothere mine.
In the sandy basin which had been eroded out of
the great sedimentary plain, fossil bones were strewn
over the surface almost as thickly as stones. Every
man of the expedition discovered titanothere remains
within a few days and Granger suggested publishing

222

Granger examining a Titanothere skull exposed in the cliff at Ulu Usu, 1923.

NEW WORK AND DISCOVERIES

an expedition newspaper with the title of "The
Daily Skull."

Two weeks of work yielded fourteen titanothere
skulls of several species, besides a complete skeleton
of a long-legged rhinoceros and many other smaller
animals. It was at first supposed that this formation
was a continuation of the Irdin Manha in the Valley
of the Jewels, but the titanotheres demonstrated
conclusively that it is quite distinct and represents
a later phase of the upper Eocene.

We might have spent several profitable weeks at
the Well of the Mountain Waters, but in our plan
for the season's work only a fortnight had been al-
lotted to this locality. However, before we left for
the Flaming Cliffs more than a ton of valuable
specimens were deposited in a nearby temple to be
taken by the camels on their return journey to
Kalgan.

223

CHAPTER XII

WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

"\¥7E went to the Flaming Cliffs through the desola-
v* tion of a sun-parched desert from the "Moun-
tain Waters Camp," four hundred miles to the east.
For a year there had been no rain. We followed the
tracks of our own motor-cars made ten months be-
fore. The scanty vegetation lay brown and shrivelled
by the pitiless sun; white rims of alkali marked the
beds of former ponds; the desert swam in a mad-
dening, dancing mirage that mirrored reedy lakes
and cool, forested islets where we knew there was
only sand.

We had travelled mile after mile without seeing a
living thing save scurrying spotted lizards and the
long-tailed gazelles that do not need to drink. The
way was marked by the skeletons of camels and the
bones of sheep. The few Mongols with whom we
had talked before entering the desert told us that
their friends had moved away from this area of
desolation; discouraged by the death of scores of
horses, sheep and camels, they had gone to the north
in search of better feed.

224

WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

Our caravan had been left near the " Mountain
Waters Camp" with instructions to follow us with
food and gasoline. Like all the camels of eastern
Mongolia, ours had suffered from the lack of food
and were woefully thin, with soft, flapping humps.
But old Merin, the caravan leader, thought that
they could hold out till they overtook us in the
Altai Mountains, where, according to report, con-
ditions were better. If they did not reach us, the
situation would be serious. Without gasoline we
should be well-nigh as helpless as Robinson Crusoe
on his desert island; yet we must reach the red
fossil-beds of the Flaming Cliffs at the eastern ex-
tremity of the Altai Mountains, where the ancestral
dinosaur had been found the year before.

Ten million years ago, a goblin-like creature stood
on the edge of a shallow basin in what now is called
Mongolia. Its great round eyes stared unblinkingly
from a thin, hatchet face, ending in a hooked beak.
Its head sloped up and back into a circular bony
frill, which formed a solid armature over the neck
and fore-shoulders. Low in front and high behind,
with its nine-foot body ending in a thick tail, it
seemed like a horrid, nightmare fantasy. Slowly it
waddled down the slope and settled itself into the
red sand. And there in the hollow it left twenty
elliptical white eggs, fated, though warmed by the
sun's rays, never to be hatched.

But it and its kind laid other eggs, which did

225

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

hatch, and the dinosuars lived their allotted span
and died. They never could know that their prog-
eny, after hundreds of thousands of generations,
would wander into Siberia, cross the land-bridge to
America and spread inland from its western coast.
They did not know that their offspring would become
the most grotesque of creatures, that they would
grow to enormous size and develop horns; that the
bony frill protecting the neck would expand into a
formidable shield so broad that a man scarcely could
span it with his arms!

Yet these things came to pass, and, when the fossil
bones of Triceratops, the most formidable of the
three-horned dinosaurs, were found in America, no
man knew whence they came. They suddenly ap-
peared completely developed in the rocks of the
upper part of the Age of Reptiles and gave no clue
to their family tree.

It was on a brilliant day of midsummer, ten mil-
lion years after the reptile had made its nest in the
sandy hollow, that we pitched our tents on the rim
of a great depression just above the spot where the
eggs were laid. Since that far, dim day when they
were left to be hatched by the Cretaceous sun, hun-
dreds of feet of sediment had drifted over them and,
through the action of wind, frost and rain, had been
worn away again, leaving them half exposed. Some
showed only as bits of broken shell, but four remained
intact. They were no longer white, during their long
entombment they had changed to a delicate brown.

WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

The dinosaur that laid the eggs never would have
recognized the surroundings of the nest could it
have seen them in 1923. A great depression a dozen
miles in width and more than that in length had been
scooped out of a plain as hard and smooth as a
tennis-court, which swept in gentle undulations to
the base of the Altai Mountains, thirty miles away.
The plain dropped abruptly into the basin, its edge
a vast complex of ravines and gullies, red battle-
ments and rounded turrets. Sheer walls and gigan-
tic chimneys stood isolated on the sandy floor like
the ruins of a war-swept city. Among these wan-
dered two humped camels, and sheep drifted in snow-
white patches over the green reaches of a dying
lake-bed.

It was a great day for the Central Asiatic Expedi-
tion when we arrived at the Flaming Cliffs. Camp
was pitched about three o'clock in the afternoon.
The cooks were instructed to make a dried-apple
pie for dinner, and a vacation was declared for the
remainder of the day. But it was impossible to
keep the enthusiastic fossil-hunters from immediately
exploring the fascinating basin that lay below them.

One by one they wandered down the steep bluff,
and soon they all were scattered among the ravines
and along the sides of the sculptured buttes. In
less than an hour Albert Johnson returned, seeth-
ing with excitement, to get his tool-bag and paste-
pot. He reported the discovery of a large white

227

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

skull. In a few moments Kaison hurried up the
slope for his collecting materials, and, when we
gathered about the dinner-table in the mess-tent
that evening, every man had begun to excavate a
dinosaur skull. Even I had had a share in the finds ;
for, while walking in the bottom of the ravine, I
saw a pipe lying beside a rock. It was one that
Granger had lost the year before and, strangely
enough, it had dropped within a few inches of the
skull and jaws of a Protoceratops. Granger said that
he had left the pipe to mark the spot and that I
had only rediscovered the skull, but I insisted upon
having my name painted in red ink on the specimen
after it had been removed.

Our real thrill came on the second day, when
George Olsen reported at tiffin that he was sure he
had found fossil eggs. We joked him a good deal,
but nevertheless all of us were curious enough to
walk down with him after luncheon. Then our in-
difference suddenly evaporated; for we realized that
we were looking at the first dinosaur eggs ever seen
by a human being. We could hardly believe our
eyes, but, even though we tried to account for them
in every possible way as geological phenomena, there
was no shadow of doubt that they really were eggs.
That they must be those of a dinosaur we felt cer-
tain. True enough, it never was known before that
dinosaurs did lay eggs, but, since most modern rep-
tiles are oviparous, it was considered probable that
their ancient ancestors followed this method of re-

228

WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

production. Nevertheless, although hundreds of
skulls and skeletons of dinosaurs had been dis-
covered in various parts of the world, never had an
egg been brought to light.

These eggs could not be those of a bird. No birds
are known from the Lower Cretaceous, the geolog-
ical horizon in which the eggs were found, and all
the Jurassic and Upper Cretaceous birds were much
too small to have laid eggs of this size. The elongate
shape of the eggs is distinctly reptilian. A bird's
egg usually is much larger at one end than at the
other, because it is deposited in a nest, from which
it might roll out unless it revolved on its point.
Reptile eggs, which are deposited in shallow de-
pressions scooped out of the sand, usually are elon-
gate and similar in shape to the specimens that we
found. These eggs were in a great deposit full of
dinosaur skeletons and containing, so far as we could
discover, no remains of other animals or of birds.

Three of the eggs were exposed and evidently had
broken out of the sandstone ledge beside which
they were lying. Other shell fragments were par-
tially embedded in the rock. Just under the low
sandstone shelf we could see the projecting ends of
two more eggs. While all the members of the Ex-
pedition were on their hands and knees about those
ten-million-year-old eggs, George Olsen began to
scrape away the loose rock on the summit of the
shelf, and to our amazement he uncovered the
skeleton of a small dinosaur, lying four inches above

229

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the eggs. It was a toothless species and we believe
that it may have been overtaken by a sand-storm
in the very act of robbing the dinosaur nest. Prof.
Osborn has named it Oviraptor (the egg seizer)
philoceratops signifying " fondness for ceratopsian
eggs."

We believe that the eggs originally were buried in
fine sand, which would be peculiarly suitable for
the preservation of delicate objects. The first speci-
mens found by George Olsen are about eight inches
in length and seven inches in circumference. They
are rather more elongate and flattened than is usual
in the case of modern reptile eggs and differ greatly
in shape from the eggs of any known bird.

The preservation is beautiful. Some of the eggs
have been crushed, but the pebbled surface of the
shells is as perfect as if the eggs had been laid yes-
terday instead of ten million years ago. The shells
are about one-sixteenth of an inch thick and doubt-
less were hard and not membranous. Fine sand has
filtered through breaks, and the interior of all the
eggs is solid sandstone. In the photographs, the
bits of broken shell partially embedded in the rock
are plainly to be seen, and it needs no stretch of
imagination to realize that the objects pictured are
really eggs. In fact, we tried our best to think of
any geological phenomena that could have produced
a similar result, but try as we would, we could never
get away from the fact that "Eggs is eggs" and that
these were laid by a dinosaur.

230

WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

A few days after the first discovery, five eggs were
found in a cluster. Albert Johnson also obtained
a group of nine. Altogether twenty-five eggs were
taken out. Some of them, as in the case of the
original group, were lying upon the surface of the
ground, exposed by the erosion that had worn away
the sandstone in which they were embedded; others
were enclosed in the rock, with only the ends in
sight. The eggs in Johnson's " clutch" were con-
siderably smaller than the original lot and were un-
broken. They may have been laid by a " pullet"
dinosaur, and the large ones by a full-grown "hen."
But more probably they are the eggs of an entirely
different species.

Most interesting of all was the fact that in two eggs
that had been broken in half we could plainly detect
the delicate bone of the embryonic dinosaurs. Never
before in the history of science has it been possible
to study palaeoembryology ! Not only did we dis-
cover the eggs, but we obtained during our five weeks
in this locality a complete developmental series of
Protoceratops. Baby dinosaurs, which probably had
been hatched only a few weeks, and others in all
stages of growth up to the adults nine feet long, with
completely developed frills were added to our col-
lection. These have been placed in series, from the
eggs to the adults and is an amazing exhibition of
age development in a single species of dinosaur. No
other spot on earth has yielded such a quantity of
specimens and such unique material as this sandy

231

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

basin in the centre of the Gobi Desert. When we
looked upon the seventy -five skulls that we had
taken within an area of three miles, we all decided
that the Red Beds did not owe us anything.

While we were reaping this palaeontological har-
vest, our minds were not entirely at rest. We had
been able to carry in the cars just gasoline enough
to take us to the Flaming Cliffs and food sufficient
for a month. Merin had said that he certainly could
reach us in that time with the caravan but we had
seen the dismaying evidences of the terrible drought
that had scourged the desert during the winter and
spring.

The influx of specimens required an unusual
amount of flour for use in paste, and at the end of
three weeks our food was reduced virtually to tea
and meat. Half a sack of flour remained, but if
it were used for food, work would have to cease; for
fossils are so exceedingly delicate that they cannot
be removed when the rock has been chipped away,
unless they are strengthened with strips of burlap
or cloth soaked in flour paste. When I asked the
men what they wished to do, unanimously they
said, "Let's keep the flour for work." It was an
excellent example of the enthusiasm and loyalty of
the whole staff.

Not only was the flour nearly gone, but the burlap
was used up, so that we had to substitute something
else. First, we cut off all the tent-flaps; then we fell
back on towels, wash-cloths and at last our clothes.

232

WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

Everyone contributed something — socks, trousers,
shirts or underclothes. There is in the collection a
beautiful dinosaur skull fortified with strips from my
pajamas, and Frederick Morris, after considerable
thought, presented one of his two pairs of trousers.
That night Kaison came in very much depressed,
and, when I asked him why he looked so solemn, he
said: "Mr. Andrews, I can use almost anything,
but I simply cannot paste with Morris' pants."

We knew that, even if the caravan never reached
us, we should not starve; for there was plenty of
meat. Thousands of antelopes were on the plains
and sheep could be obtained from the natives. The
Mongols live upon animal products; milk, cheese
and mutton are their only food. We were afraid
of milk even after it had been boiled; for the vessels
in which it was collected were so filthy that dysentery
and similar diseases would certainly have developed
in our party had we used it very extensively. I
tried to have the goats milked into some of our own
pails, but they were so unlike those used by the
Mongols that the animals were afraid and would give
no milk at all. The cheese was even worse than the
milk, and to watch the process of making it totally
destroyed our appetite. The natives have developed
immunity from germs; but our experience of the
year before demonstrated that the use of either milk
or cheese was certain to bring us disastrous results.
The diet of meat was somewhat monotonous but
did not cause us any real inconvenience. We ate

233

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

fried antelope for breakfast, stewed antelope for
tiffin and roast antelope for dinner. Our only dis-
comfort was the lack of sugar. I myself use very
little sugar ordinarily, but when I was deprived of
it altogether, I could think of nothing else and even
used to dream of it at night.

One day we discovered a caravan of Chinese
traders who were on their return journey from
Turkestan and Kashgar. From them we obtained
a double handful of a substance that they said was
sugar, but which looked more like coal. Neverthe-
less, since it tasted sweet, I brought it back to camp
in triumph. With the black lumps in the middle
of the table we debated how the treasure should be
distributed. Finally it was decided to divide it
into eight equal portions. After everyone had
passed judgment upon the divisions and agreed that
they were as nearly equal as it was possible to make
them, we put corresponding numbers in a hat and
drew for lots. Each man then took his share, to do
with it as he pleased. When we gathered for the
next meal, every one brought his packet of sugar
with him as during wartime. Granger ate his all
at once, but the rest of us spread our portions out
for several days. Johnson decided that he would
make his into sirup, but when the substance had been
boiled and he saw the variety of insects, twigs and
other debris that floated to the surface, he admitted
that "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
I preferred to take the insects in a solid state and

234

WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

made my sugar into a round ball about the size of
a walnut, which I could nibble at sparingly whenever
I had a cup of tea.

When our food began to get low, I sent riders out
for a hundred miles to north and south, hoping to
get news of our camels. They returned without in-
formation, except that the Mongols whom they en-
countered assured them that no large caravan had
passed that way. The situation finally became so
serious that I decided to send two of my picked
Mongols back along the trail that the caravan prob-
ably would follow, until they either encountered it
or reached the spot from which it had started. I
gave them orders not to return without news of some
kind. They took different routes, but at the point
where the trails joined, one of the men returned,
because his ponies were exhausted, and left the other
to go on alone. This man, Tserin, a young fellow
in whom I had the greatest confidence, rode horse-
back for more than a hundred miles, until he reached
a point where the feed was so scanty that ponies
could no longer be used. Then he obtained a camel
and went on across the desert for six or seven days
without seeing a human being. Finally two lama
priests appeared on ponies and, coming up at full
speed, attacked him with their riding-whips. He
was knocked insensible and, when he recovered con-
sciousness, found that his money and a pair of valu-
able field-glasses belonging to Granger had been stolen
from him. Tserin was so badly injured that he lay

235

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

ill in a temple for some time before he was able to
start back to us. Several weeks later he reached our
camp in very bad condition, after having ridden and
walked for nearly three hundred miles. The poor
fellow was heart-broken, because, since he had no
money with which to hire camels and, besides, was
so ill that he could barely ride, he had to return
without fulfilling his mission.

One day a wizened old lama priest rode into camp.
Our Mongols greeted him with the greatest reverence
and told us that he was a famous astrologer, who had
heard of our predicament and had come more than
thirty miles to help us. They said that he would
be able to tell us exactly where the caravan was.
The old fellow made elaborate preparations and,
after a long incantation, announced that the caravan
was many days' travel away from us, but that we
would hear definite news of it in three days. He
said that our camels were dying and that Merin was
having a very difficult time. Our Mongols believed
him implicitly. As a matter of fact, we did hear news
of Merin in four days, because one of my men dis-
covered him sixty-five miles to the west of us, at
Artsa Bogdo, which was the destination that I had
given him. He had found it impossible to cross the
sun-parched desert and had circled far to the north,
where there was better feed, leaving his camels at
wells along the trail, wherever they died or became
so weak that they could no longer travel. Out of
the seventy-five camels, sixteen came through, carry -

236

WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

ing food and gasoline and, above all, sugar! Even-
tually twenty-three more reached Artsa Bogdo. They
had been left at a well in charge of a single Mongol
and had been able to find sufficient food to give
them strength to go on slowly. To celebrate the
arrival of the caravan, we had a big dinner with
cacti for table decorations.

Almost immediately Olsen and 1 Buckshot' ' be-
gan to pack the great pile of fossils that had accumu-
lated in the tents. The proper care of delicate
specimens for their long journey across the desert
was one of the greatest problems of the Expedition;
for there is no wood of any kind in the Gobi and no
other packing-material than stiff grass. The food
and gasoline cases provided boxes. Whenever the
cars met the caravan, we took food and gasoline
from the wooden boxes and substituted fossils and
other collections. The packing-material was ob-
tained from the animals themselves. The Mon-
golian camel grows very long wool to protect him
during the bitter months of winter, and, as the
weather becomes warmer, his coat falls away in
strips and patches. Whenever we wanted to pack
a box, we simply pulled the necessary quantity of
wool off our camels. No finer packing-material
could be devised, and a new crop continually ap-
peared as the weather grew warmer and the camels
shed more readily. But a certain amount of care
had to be exercised in plucking the poor beasts; for
a camel, in spite of his size, is a very delicate animal.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

If we removed his underclothes too suddenly, he
was very likely to catch cold and to whimper in the
most disconsolate way, while great tears ran out
of his eyes.

The more I see of a camel, the more extraordinary
he appears to me. Certainly he is not a beast of
our day; he is a remnant of the Pleistocene. He will
pass with a disdainful sniff the most succulent green
grass and walk straight out on the desert, to lunch
contently on thorny cacti and other vegetation that
apparently does not contain nourishment enough to
keep a wooden animal alive. He cries piteously
whenever he is loaded or unloaded and whenever
he is asked to kneel or to rise. To see him hurry-
ing across the plains, his legs flying in every direction
always makes me think of Professor Charles P.
Berkey's remark that 11 A camel is made up of spare
parts." Nevertheless, with all his peculiarities, he
is wonderfully adapted for life on the desert, and no
other animal can take his place in the wilds of
Mongolia.

Just before we left the camp at the red beds,
Granger, Morris and I drove to the Gurbun Saikhan,
"The Three Good Ones," an isolated range of the
eastern Altai Mountains. It was August 10 and a
day that I shall always remember because of the
strange haze that hung over the desert. The year
before, Berkey and Morris had explored the western
end of the Gurbun Saikhan on camels but had not
gone to the north or the east.

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WHERE THE DINOSAUR HID ITS EGGS

Well over toward the mountains we had an amaz-
ing spectacle of wild life — the largest herd of an-
telopes I ever have seen. The entire horizon ap-
peared to be a moving line of yellow bodies and
curving necks. As we ran toward them in the car,
the great herd divided into groups of bucks, does and
young. Thousands upon thousands passed in front
of us, sometimes stopping to gaze curiously at the
car cr running just fast enough to keep at what they
thought was a safe distance. Nowhere else except
in Africa would it be possible to see such a herd of
wild animals. We estimated that at least six thou-
sand were immediately in front of us, but there may
have been twice that number, for the yellow groups
stretched far beyond our sight. They were feeding
upon the rich grass along the lower slopes of the
Gurbun Saikhan, where the mountains insured a
greater rainfall.

They belonged to a short-tailed species of antelope,
Gazella gutturosa, which lives only on the grass lands.
They gather into great herds in both the spring and
the autumn and I had often seen two or three thou-
sand does together just before the time of giving
birth to their young in early June. The long- tailed
gazelles, which belong to a typically desert species,
never assemble, I believe, in large groups. Probably
this fact is due to desert conditions; for in the arid
regions there never would be food for a great num-
ber of individuals in any one place.

We were ready to leave the Flaming Cliffs on

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

August 12. Even though we had been there for
five weeks, specimens were still being discovered and
each one seemed finer than the last. Kaison found
a beautiful skeleton, nearly complete, just before
we left. It was lying on its belly, head out, with
all four legs drawn up as if ready for a spring. Ap-
parently the animal had not moved since it dropped
there in death ten million years ago. It was too
fine a thing to leave, even though I was anxious to
get away, and I told Kaison we would wait while
he took it out. But three others, which Olsen and
"Buckshot" discovered, were left untouched. We
had to stop somewhere; for apparently there was an
inexhaustible supply of specimens in the wonderful
basin. From that one locality our collection num-
bered sixty cases of fossils, weighing five tons. It
included seventy skulls, fourteen skeletons and
twenty-five of the first dinosaur eggs ever seen by
human eyes. As Granger and I looked for the last
time upon the glorious spires and battlements of
the Flaming Cliffs, we felt that the desert had paid
its debt.

240

CHAPTER XIII

PROFESSOR OSBORN VISITS THE EXPEDITION

A FTER leaving the Flaming Cliffs, the last two
weeks of the expedition before we turned home-
ward were devoted to an exploration of the Oshih
Basin which Granger had discovered in 1922.

At the time, while I was hunting ibex and big-
horn sheep at Artsa Bogdo, Granger had spent a
most profitable fortnight removing specimens. He
had found a small and very primitive dinosaur which
Prof. Osborn named Psittacosaurus mongoliensis . This
animal represented a distinct and entirely new family
of Iguanadons which are probably related to the great
Iguanadon of England and Belgium.

Granger also discovered teeth and parts of the
skeletons of enormous dinosaurs belonging to the
group known as the Sauropoda. The bones were
so badly preserved that only a few were taken for
identification, but their great size indicated dinosaurs
seventy or eighty feet long, larger even than the
Brontosaurus and Diplodocus. Brontosaurus, which
means — the thunder reptile — was named by Prof.
Marsh who remarked that, probably the earth

241

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

thundered when the creature walked, but that any-
way it was a 11 thundering big animal!"

The Oshih Basin was the first place where we had
found the remains of these huge dinosaurs and their
discovery was one of the most interesting results
of the expedition. It definitely identified the strata
as belonging to a very ancient geological period,
either the lower Cretaceous or upper Jurassic. The
Oshih Basin is one of the most interesting places that
we have found in all Mongolia. It is a long, narrow
valley enclosed by rugged hills. We came to it
through a rocky gateway which Granger had dis-
covered in 1922. In the centre of the basin rises
a beautiful mesa, more than one hundred feet high.
It had precipitous walls of red sandstone, capped
with dull black lava, like a gigantic cake covered
with chocolate frosting.

At the southern end we found the remains of what
had once been a great wall built of lava blocks.
This must have been constructed by some pre-
Mongol people, and probably had a religious sig-
nificance as it was not in a position for defense. We
drove eastward to the end of the valley, which breaks
off abruptly in a wild chaos of rocky chasms. The
basin floor had been cut into such strange, fantastic
shapes that it gave to our camp an atmosphere of
unreality. We seemed to be living in the world of
yesterday where, at any moment, dinosaurs might
wander to the doorways of our tents from out of
the vast red canyons.

242

OSBORN VISITS THE EXPEDITION

While sitting in camp one day I saw a splendid
mountain sheep silhouetted on a pinnacle of rock
projecting from the mesa; and every night we heard
the mournful howls of wolves and the sharp bark of
foxes deep down among the tortuous ravines.

But, in spite of its beauty and the promise of
rich deposits which the first rapid exploration had
given, the Oshih Basin proved to be a disappoint-
ment. By some extraordinary chance Granger had
found the finest specimens in his first two weeks of
work and nothing of great importance was discovered
after careful prospecting.

One of the men did locate a most interesting and
tantalizing skeleton of a dinosaur which had been
completely turned to iron. It was in a great block
of hematite and after the hardest steel tools had
been blunted we had to abandon it. Even if we
had been able to remove the entire block containing
the skeleton, its preparation in the Museum would
have been well-nigh impossible.

Just before we started homeward on the 25th of
August, the whole expedition went to Artsa Bogdo
for three days' hunting. Every man shot at least
one sheep or ibex and we turned eastward as happy
as children on a picnic.

Prof, and Mrs. Henry Fairfield Osborn were due
to arrive in Peking early in September, and, while
the expedition carried on work at the Well of the
Mountain Waters, McKenzie Young and I drove
three hundred miles to Peking to meet the president

243

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

of the Museum. I had given instructions for the
expedition to encamp in the Valley of the Jewels
near Iren Dabasu and there await our return with
Prof. Osborn.

Never will I forget the shock I received as I
stepped from the train in Peking. My wife met
me with Col. Dunlap and Lt. Col. Williams and gave
me the first news of the destruction of Yokohama
by earthquake. The steamship President Madison
on which Prof, and Mrs. Osborn were travelling was
due to leave Yokohama on the day that the earth-
quake occurred. I had suggested that they go by
train to Kobe and it was highly probable that they
had been in the midst of the disaster.

For three days, without success, we used every
means to learn what had become of the Madison
and the other vessels supposed to be in the harbor
of Yokohama. In the meantime the Osborns were
sailing toward Shanghai, blissfully unconscious of the
terrible death which they had so narrowly missed.

On the 9th of September my wife and I met them
in Peking. I was so full of the discovery of the
dinosaur eggs and our other great finds that, in
spite of my resolutions, I could not even wait until
we had reached home, but told the story to Mrs.
Osborn before we had left the platform.

Prof. Osborn and I went almost immediately to
Kalgan to join the expedition in the Valley of the
Jewels. At four o'clock in the golden sunshine of
a Mongolian afternoon, we saw the blue tents swim-

244

OSBORN VISITS THE EXPEDITION

ming in the desert mirage. They hovered and
danced on the heat waves in the air, finally settling
to earth like great blue birds as we neared the camp.

It was one of the greatest days of my life and of
the expedition when the man, whose brilliant pre-
diction had sent us into the field, stepped from the
car at our camp in the desert. The next days were
like the fulfillment of a dream both to us and to the
professor. Granger had discovered a splendid Titan-
othere skull and left it in the ground partially ex-
cavated so that Prof. Osborn might actually see
in position one of the animals that he had prophesied
would be found in Central Asia.

He inspected all of the important fossil localities
in the Valley of the Jewels and at Iren Dabasu.
A specimen in which he was greatly interested was
a single tooth representing an archaic group of
hoofed mammals known as the Amblypoda.

None of these great ungulates had hitherto been
found in Eurasia, excepting Coryphodon of the lower
Eocene of France and England. This single, upper
pre-molar tooth was the only specimen of the group
we had discovered in two years' search. Prof. Os-
born considered it so important that he asked to
be taken to the bench about two miles from camp,
and to have me photographed on the spot where I
had picked up the tooth.

Later we drove ten miles down the valley and
stopped for tiffin. As we were returning, Prof. Os-
born pointed to a low, sandy exposure a half-mile

245

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

away, and said: "Have you prospected that
knoll?"

"No," I said, "it is the only one in the basin that
we have not examined. It seemed too small to
bother about."

"I don't know why," said the Professor, "but I
would like to have a look at it. Do you mind run-
ning over?"

When we stopped at the base of the hillock, I did
not leave the car, but Prof. Osborn and Granger
walked out to examine the exposure. As he left,
the Professor turned to me with a smile and said,
"I am going to find another Coryphodon tooth."

Two minutes later he waved his arms and shouted,
"I have it — another tooth!"

I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. Jump-
ing out of the car, I ran to the spot. The tooth that
I had found was the third or fourth upper pre- molar
of the right side. The one that he had discovered
was the third or fourth upper pre-molar of the left
side and almost exactly the same size. Naturally
they could not have been from the same specimen
as the two had been found eight miles apart. The
explanation of this remarkable telepathic coincidence
is left to the psychologist.

The last night before the expedition returned to
Kalgan we camped in a beautiful amphitheatre
among grass-covered hills. Prof. Osborn and I sat
for two hours discussing the future of the Mongolian
explorations. We had opened a new country which

246

OSBORN VISITS THE EXPEDITION

had given undreamed of revelations in the pre-
history of the earth.

It was obvious that the work could not be con-
cluded satisfactorily in the five years originally
allotted for the expedition. Eight years, we es-
timated to be the minimum, and our decision was
made before the Mongolian twilight had faded into
darkness.

All of the staff were to return to New York to
study and assemble the collections. I was to be-
gin a campaign to obtain additional funds to carry
on the work and to reorganize the expedition on its
new basis. All of the plans were carried out suc-
cessfully and the year's interruption of our explor-
ation not only provided additional financial support
through contributions from almost every state of
the Union, but it served to give fresh inspiration to
the members of the staff for their future years in
the desert.

247

CHAPTER XIV

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

/^\LD Merin, the leader of our camel caravan bade
farewell to me at the gate of the compound in
Kalgan on February 20, 1925.

"When the geese fly north across the Gobi," I said,
"we shall meet at the 'Place of the Muddy Waters.'
Good travelling, and may the blessings of Buddha be
on thee and all thy children."

"We will be there, 0 Honorable Master, never
fear. Good travelling to thee, good travelling."

Like sunlight flooding the brown reaches of the
desert a smile rippled across his wrinkled face; then
swinging to the back of his huge white camel he dis-
appeared into the yellow dust-cloud behind the
caravan.

It was forty degrees below zero on the great plateau
and eight hundred miles to Shabarakh Usu, the
"Place of the Muddy Waters." Eight hundred
miles of daily battle against cold and snow and
February gales through a region swarming with
bandits. Ten men with one hundred and twenty -five

248

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

camels carrying six months' supplies of gasoline and
food-
All things are uncertain in Mongolia, yet I be-
lieved that when the spring had come I would sit
beside the argul fire in Merin's tent at the Flaming
Cliffs.

Cold and snow meant nothing to him — they had
been a part of his life since childhood. Brigands too,
he had always known. Time after time he had
piloted our caravans safely to some desert rendevous,
circling robber bands, sleeping by day in secluded
hollows and travelling by night. Time after time
he had appeared smiling with his camels when we
had well-nigh despaired. Yes, I felt sure that he
would win through again.

Three months later our seven motor cars piled
high with men and gear roared across the Mongolian
grass lands. Two hundred miles from Kalgan we
glimpsed a splash of red on the summit of a hill. It
was a lama waving his sash. He galloped toward us
on a rangy camel, our Mongols advancing to meet
him. For five minutes there were explosions of
staccato questions and answers; then I got the report.

"Merin has been stopped at the yamen (official
post) on the frontier. The soldiers will not let the
caravan go or any of the men leave. He told this
lama to find us on the way."

We could not understand why Merin had been
held, for the Mongolian Government at Urga had
issued a special permit for the camels to cross the

249

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

border without duty or examination. But I knew
the insolent breed of petty officials and suspected
that it was for the purpose of extracting " squeeze."
Every Chinese caravan has pitiful tales of their
activities in this respect!

Whatever the reason a serious blow had been
dealt the plans of the expedition at the very outset.
Instead of having our base of supplies eight hun-
dred miles out in the centre of the Gobi, the caravan
was only half that far. It meant four hundred
miles of forced marching across a desert of terrible
aridity and we must begin the summer's explorations
with thin, worn-out camels.

From nomad Mongols in the next hundred miles
we gleaned additional scraps of information. The
caravan was held, rumor said, because it contained
ammunition. Soldiers were waiting on the trail and I
was to be taken to Urga and shot; our boxes had
been ripped open and the camels so closely guarded
that they could not get good feed. They had been
held a month. Altogether it was a most discourag-
ing report.

We had the satisfaction of knowing that right was
on our side. True enough one of the boxes did con-
tain shot-gun shells but we had a "blanket permit* '
which allowed our caravan to cross the border regard-
less of what it carried.

We camped at the "Well of the Mountain Waters "
eighty miles from the yamen where the fossil hunters
could begin work at our old titanothere locality. The

250

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

next day six of us heavily armed set out in three cars.

Since the yamen officials had ignored the credentials
issued by the highest authorities of their own govern-
ment at Urga we could either enforce our rights or
abandon the expedition. I was certain that a show of
force would quickly intimidate the ignorant wretches
who are accustomed to bullying the helpless Chinese
but we were fully determined "to go the limit" if
necessary. Therefore, when we finally encountered
six Mongol soldiers who had been sent to arrest us we
treated them with scant courtesy. One of them was
bundled unceremoniously into the car and told to
direct us to the yamen. The place was a collection
of felt covered yurts with a large one in the centre.
A hundred yards away we saw the American flag over
Merin's tent beside the long line of boxes and camels.

Our Mongols welcomed us like joyous children.
Merin's story was substantially as we had heard it
except that the damage to our supplies was not so
great as I had feared.

Five minutes after our arrival an insolent young
Buriat swaggered in with a message from the yamen.
I was under arrest and must prepare to start for
Urga at once. The head man would send word when
he was ready to receive us and the cars must not move
from the spot where they were standing.

"Tell your chief that we are ready to see him
now,11 was the reply I sent back. Following closely
on the messenger's heels all six of us approached the
yurt. The young Buriat reappeared immediately

251

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

saying that the official would not see us then. Leav-
ing Dr. Loucks and Shackelford outside with instruc-
tions to act summarily if there was an attempt to
"start anything," I pulled up the felt door-flap and
stepped inside followed by Granger, Young, Lovell
and two of our Mongols. A circle of twenty Mongols
and Buriats sat staring at us in fascinated silence. I
said nothing for a few moments, then suddenly
demanded "Who is the head man?" A lama at the
far end of the yurt, wearing a gorgeous yellow satin
coat and a sable-bordered hat raised his hand.
"How dare you ignore the passport of your govern-
ment and hold our caravan?" I asked. "You are a
bandit . Explain instantly . ' 1

From the moment of our entrance the lama had
been running his beads faster and faster through his
hands. At my unexpected attitude he lost all self
control, snapped the string and crumpled his rosary
into a yellow ball. Finally he managed to stammer
that he wanted to pass the caravan but that his
soldier colleague would not do so because it con-
tained ammunition; also dangerous seditious liter-
ature in the form of Asia, World's Work, Outlook,
Saturday Evening Post and other American maga-
zines. Moreover, he had discovered a large box of
"Eveready" flashlight batteries which he thought
were bombs and two old Chinese bayonets used by
us for digging fossils.

We listened to him in silence. Then a tremendous
bang of my fist on the stove made every man in the

252

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

yurt jump as though he had felt a knife in his ribs.
I said that they had ignored the Government permit
to allow the caravan to proceed no matter what it
contained, that he had ruined many of our supplies,
and that we intended to take him to Urga to answer
for what he had done.

In five minutes the insolence was gone and we had
before us a group of frightened natives who asked
only that we take our caravan and leave. We could
cheerfully have beaten every man there within an
inch of his life but that would only have created
trouble for the future. The chief thing was to get
the camels started for the long march across the
desert to the "Place of the Muddy Waters" and they
left that night. We returned to camp next day.

The expedition had had a bad start. The after-
noon before we left Kalgan, Dr. Berkey developed
a temperature of 1040 and we had to leave him behind
with Dr. Loucks in attendance. I planned to send
for them when we had reached a place where work
could begin. Then there was the usual bandit scare.
Two cars had been robbed just north of Kalgan dur-
ing the previous week and Field Marshal Feng Yu-
hsiang, the so-called " Christian General" insisted
that it was unsafe to travel. He wanted us to wait
two weeks until he had driven off the bandits. Of
course, that was impossible and I knew that we could
take better care of ourselves than could Marshal
Feng's soldiers. Our men were simply spoiling for a
fight. Therefore, I signed a paper formally relieving

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the Chinese Government of all responsibility for our
safety.

The second night's camp, April 20th, was ninety-
five miles from Kalgan. The tents were pitched in
the curve of a little stream on a clean yellow carpet
of dried grass. There we remained until Berkey and
Loucks joined us a week later.

Meanwhile we learned just why Marshal Feng was
so anxious for our "safety." Ninety motor cars
loaded with ammunition for his army passed over the
road. They came from Russia by way of Urga.
The Marshal was not at all desirous of having
foreigners see what was happening on the road.

The road at the top of the pass was a mass of mud
in which the cars sank to the hubs. We don't worry
much about sand or rocks or ruts but mud is serious.
The wheels cannot get traction and it becomes a
matter of digging, packing up, and building a path
of stones. Added to the mud for good measure was
a terrific sand-storm which well-nigh smothered us.
Nevertheless, we made our distance as planned and
the next day met Roberts, Chief Topographer,
with his assistants Butler and Robinson. They had
begun their map at the Kalgan railroad station from a
known level and carried it up over the Pass. This
level was maintained across Mongolia throughout
the entire expedition. It is the first accurate survey
ever made in the country, and the photographers
deserve the greatest credit for their splendid work.

The holding of our caravan by the yamen officials

254

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

necessitated a complete revision of our plans and
caused us unending difficulties throughout the entire
summer because of the weakened camels. With
such a large expedition it is quite enough to combat
the physical difficulties of the desert; when to these
are added incidents such as I have described in the
first part of this chapter scientific exploration be-
comes well-nigh impossible.

I reported the matter in Urga and the Government
officials were duly regretful. In order not to have a
repetition, we were given a whole sheaf of documents
which presumably would smooth our path. Also
we were forced to take two Mongols from the Secret
Service Bureau to travel with us, one of whom was to
inspect and seal our boxes. Despite these prep-
arations we never passed a yamen without dis-
agreeable incidents. The petty officials now
stationed everywhere in Outer Mongolia are sur-
passingly insolent. They consistently ignored the
papers given us by the highest authorities in Urga,
which were obtained only with the greatest difficulty
and expense, and, had we not maintained a very
determined attitude, would have made us cease our
work. Nevertheless the expedition progressed suc-
cessfully in spite of these annoyances. With such a
splendid staff it could not do otherwise.

Our revised plans necessitated a considerable wait
at Shabarakh Usu, while the caravan trekked across
the intervening four hundred miles of gravel desert.
For motors it was splendid; for camels, awful. The

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

vegetation would hardly feed a sand rat; the wells
were a hundred miles apart. Our camels would have
to draw nourishment from fat stored in their
" humps' ' but they had little enough of that for the
yamen soldiers would not let them go to the good
feed. I told Merin to travel quickly and leave the
weakest animals behind or let them die. He promised
to arrive in twenty-one days. He was two weeks late
but one night we heard a wild Mongol song in the
moonlight. It was answered from camp and every-
one ran out in pajamas to see Merin silhouetted
against the sky on the rim of the basin. Ninety-six
camels were close behind him and the caravan was
safe.

We, ourselves, reached Shabarakh Usu without
difficulty. The late afternoon sun threw wonderful
purple shadows into the chaos of red ravines when we
halted on the edge of the great eastern canyon.
It was there at the Flaming Cliffs that we had found
the famous dinosaur eggs in 1923. With what it has
given us since, I suppose Shabarakh Usu is the most
important single locality in the world from the stand-
point of palaeontology.

My car was in the lead and I had worked up to the
opposite slope before the others picked their way into
the chasm. They looked like tiny black ants on the
surface of a vast red wall. One could not conceive of
them as being automobiles!

Shabarakh Usu is a famous place and it is one of
these spots that lives up to expectations. You look

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BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

into a vast pink basin studded with giant buttes like
strange living beasts, carved from sandstone. One
of them we named the "dinosaur" for it resembles a
huge Brontosaurus sitting on its haunches. There
are mediaeval castles with spires and turrets, brick red
in the evening light, colossal gateways, walls and
ramparts. Caverns run deep into the living rock
and a labyrinth of ravines and gullies make a paradise
for the palaeontologist. Like a fairy city it is ever
changing. In the flat light of mid-day the strange
forms shrink and lose their shape; but when the sun
is low the Flaming Cliffs take on a deeper red and a
wild mysterious beauty lies with the purple shadows
in every canyon.

There had been little change since we left in 1923.
The tracks of our motor cars were filled with sand
but still distinct; the old camp site on the basin rim
was marked by a heap of discarded stone blocks each
containing an incomplete skull of a dinosaur which
had lived there ten million years ago. In 1925 our
tents were pitched on the basin floor near the well.
I loved the spot for I had only to raise my eyes to see
the sculptured ramparts of the Flaming Cliffs
shimmering in the Gobi mirage. A few hundred
yards to the north was an area of shifting sand now
dotted with a 11 forest" of tamarisks, the stunted
desert trees. There we discovered traces of the
"Dune Dwellers," a race that lived in the Old Stone
Age twenty thousand years ago. The tamarisks are
all under fifteen feet in height, yet Dr. Chaney, our

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

botanist, found by sections that many of them were
more than two hundred years old. They gave us
gorgeous camp fires and every night we sat for an
hour listening to our Sonora phonograph and dis-
cussing the new discoveries. I never shall forget
those evenings ! There were fourteen of us and every
man brought to the fire a tale of his day's work which
would read like a novel. Chaney had new plants
or a few bits of paper-shale with stems or leaves
millions of years old which threw a flood of light on
the climate and vegetation of Mongolia when only
strange, cold blooded crawling things inhabited the
world. The geologists told a fascinating story of
what was happening to the plains and mountains in
those far, dim days. Roberts was showing on his
beautiful maps, topography that we could not see
and never dreamed existed until his contour lines
brought them out. From the palaeontologists we
always could expect a new thrill for they were finding
treasures greater than the wealth they had uncovered
in the first year.

We never said so publicly, but all of us had a
secret feeling that more dinosaur eggs could be dis-
covered if we returned to the Flaming Cliffs. There
was little doubt that we had found all that were
exposed in 1923 for our palaeontologists had combed
the Red Beds inch by inch. Granger, Olsen and the
others do not miss things when they really get to
work. They are not that kind of men. But two
winters of wind and frost and blasting gales had

258

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

stormed the cliffs and one summer of fierce day heat
and cold nights had split the rocks. In some spots
a year or two makes little change; in others it may
work miracles. We hoped that the Red Beds was
such a place and our hopes came true. There were
more dinosaur eggs — nests of them, singles, whole
ones, broken eggs, big ones and little ones; eggs with
smooth, paper thin shells, eggs with thick striated
shells. In short, more eggs, different kinds and
bigger and better eggs than any we had found the
first year. The knives of wind and frost and rain
had worked wonders in that soft, red sandstone. It
had swept the obscuring sediment from the surface of
hundreds of feet of rock and cliff laying bare enough
to give a clue to what was underneath. In some
spots it was only half an inch or less but that was
enough to expose a tiny bit of shell or the tip of a
white bone.

Chance, luck, coincidence, or whatever you wish
to call it, often leads to the most important discover-
ies. Several have happened during the three years of
this expedition which I don't dare tell about because
the stories are never believed. The skull of the giant
Baliichitheriiim was found that way. After relating
the incident in two lectures and watching the expres-
sions of tolerant amusement on the faces of my
audience I gave it up. People never will realize that
truth often is stranger than fiction.

I rather expect that the public will think we
" planted" a nest of dinosaur eggs which Lovell found

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

on the very rim of the basin with a sheer drop of two
hundred feet below them. But I am going to tell
the story anyway, since there are thirteen other men
to vouch for it and we have photographic evidence of
the nest's position, at least.

Norman Lovell is a motor transport expert but his
tastes run to anything that has an element of risk in
it. He was always poking about the Flaming Cliffs
looking for eagles' nests which usually were so high
that he would have to cut steps in the sandstone wall
to reach them. It was in this way that he found the
dinosaur eggs.

A kite's nest lay just under the edge of the great
peneplane which sweeps down from the Gurbun Saik-
han and breaks off at the basin. After several
unsuccessful attempts to climb the face of the cliff he
gave it up and approached the nest from above "to
see what he could see." Crawling on his hands and
knees to the very edge, he lay flat on his stomach
trying to peer into the nest when his hand struck
something sharp. It was the knife-like edge of a
broken dinosaur egg shell! The upper parts were
gone but the remains of fourteen eggs were in their
original positions firmly embedded in the rock. Per-
haps in another few months of weathering this section
of the basin rim would have broken away and the
eggs have been smashed to bits on the rocks below.
There was nothing but pure luck in this discovery
because the only eggs in Lovell 's mind were those of
the kite which he expected to find in the nest below.

260

Andrews uncovering dinosaur eggs.

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

We reconstructed the scene exactly as it happened
for Shackelford's motion picture camera, but one
incident occurred which was not in the original.
While Lovell was making his first unsuccessful
attempt to scale the face of the cliff he had dislodged
several huge pieces of rock. Shackelford insisted
that this must be done again; it was "good action."

Climbing up Lovell disappeared behind a projecting
ledge while " Shack" ground off the film, meanwhile
shouting, "A little more speed; give us something
real." A second later there was a crash and down
came a great mass of rock with Lovell following,
tumbling and rolling almost to the camera. He was
covered with red sand, his face was bleeding and there
was a terrible bruise on his hip, but thank Heaven, no
bones were broken. Shackelford believed that Lovell
was performing for his especial benefit and kept on
taking pictures shouting encouragement the while.

It was a delicate and extremely dangerous oper-
ation to remove the eggs. A high wind blew the
entire time and Walter Granger had to lie at full
length to avoid being swept over the brink. He
took out the entire block of stone containing the nest
and the eggs will be freed from rock at the Museum.
Although the tops of the eggs are broken the lower
halves of all of them are almost certain to be intact
and will make a splendid exhibit.

As soon as we arrived at the Flaming Cliffs, I
promised a bottle of real " pre-war" to the man who
found the first eggs. (We had only three or four

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

bottles for " medicinal purposes.") This started
great competition. George Olsen qualified on the
second day. His discovery included five almost
perfect eggs. It was another bit of luck which may
be hard to believe. George was prospecting in the
gully where he discovered the first eggs in 1923. Not
thirty feet from the site of the original nest he saw a
bit of shell fragment in the loose sand; a few yards
further up the slope was a larger piece — then no
more. Crawling on hands and knees he went over
every inch of ground but there was not a trace which
could lead him to expect the presence of more eggs.
Impatiently, he drove his collector's pick into a
cracked rock overturning a chunk weighing fifty
pounds. Adhering to the under side were four dino-
saur eggs, three of them unbroken. The fourth
was cracked in half and the end of the fifth fitted the
fragments which had led him to the nest. The
discovery was fifty per cent pure accident because
Olsen does not often waste time and energy in turning
over rocks when he cannot see fossils. These eggs
are now in the Field Museum of Natural History,
Chicago.

Olsen is the champion dinosaur egg hunter of the
world! " Bigger and better eggs" was our slogan
and he outdid himself and all the rest of us by a find
which he made just before we left Shabarakh Usu
for the last time. It was an even dozen eggs, larger
and finer than any that have yet been discovered.
They had broken out of a low shelf of rock and were

262

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

lying buried in soft sand. All he had to do was to
brush them out; after fitting the fragments together
they can be put on exhibition in the Museum.

These eggs are almost perfectly elliptical and
about nine inches long. In fact, they are nearly the
shape of a loaf of French bread. Their beautifully
striated shell shows a variety of patterns on different
parts of the same egg. Although the shell of this
type is one-eighth of an inch thick and very solid, a
group found by Dr. Loucks had shells of almost paper
thinness. They are only four inches long and
remarkably slender with pointed ends. Then there
is a smooth shelled type a trifle larger in size and one
or two still bigger varieties with pebbled or pitted
surfaces.

Without a doubt these represent different species
and probably genera of dinosaurs. It seems probable
that the larger striated-shell types which are most
abundant were the product of Protoceratops andrewsi.
This dinosaur which was the ancestor of the huge
Triceratops found in America, was only about nine feet
long. The thin, smooth-shell eggs may have been
laid by several varieties of the smaller carnivorous
dinosaurs, bones of which we found in 1923.

It is certain that this summer we discovered
at least two types which were not represented in our
1923 collection. The abundance of eggs in this single
locality is most surprising. In 1923 we obtained
twenty -five specimens, in a more or less fragmentary
condition. This year at least forty were discovered

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

of which fifteen or twenty are well preserved. The
Flaming Cliffs must have been a great dinosaur
incubator. Half a dozen spots were found on the
higher levels where there were thousands of fragments
but no complete eggs. Dr. Chaney picked up seven
hundred and fifty pieces in one afternoon. Probably
most of these represent eggs which were broken
as the cliffs weathered away but undoubtedly some
were nests where the baby dinosaurs had hatched.
One Mongol woman, whose yurt was in the sand
dunes not far from our camp, learned that she could
reap a harvest of tin cans in payment for dinosaur
egg shells and appeared daily with a handful.

In 1923 we found most of the eggs near the floor of
the basin but this summer they were discovered at
levels all the way up to the very rim. There is a
difference of two hundred feet between the lowest
and highest nests. It would require a very long
time to deposit two hundred feet of sediment.
Therefore, this spot must have been used as a dino-
saur nesting place for thousands, probably hundreds
of thousands, of years.

What was it that brought the reptiles to Shabarakh
Usu generation after generation? The abundance of
egg shells shows unquestionably that it was a point
of great concentration, at least during the nesting
season. Feed or water would hardly explain it.
It seems to me that part of the answer at least lies in
the peculiar quality of the sand. Like living reptiles
dinosaurs scooped out shallow holes and laid their

264

BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

eggs in circles, with the ends pointing inward; some-
times there were three tiers of eggs, one on top of the
other. We found one nest arranged that way.
There the hen-dinosaur covered her eggs with a thin
layer of sand and left them to be hatched by the sun's
rays. The covering sediment must, of necessity, be
loose and porous in order to admit warmth and air to
the eggs. It is quite conceivable that the sand at this
spot was particularly well adapted in its qualities to
act as an incubator.

The geologists have confirmed their original opin-
ion that this deposit was formed by wind-blown sedi-
ments. The red sand is extremely fine and could be
transported by the wind for a long distance. The
evidence favors the existence of lakes to the south
where the Gurbun Saikhan (one of the spurs of the
eastern Altai Mountains) now stands. Streams
doubtless ran into them and at least one passed
through the Red Beds. Therefore food and water
probably combined with the excellent sand to make
ideal nesting conditions for the dinosaurs. Our
palaeontologists found bits of fossilized wood in these
beds. Dr. Chaney has identified them roughly as
that of a desert type of tree. Combined with the
geological evidence this indicates arid, or semi-arid,
conditions ten million years ago when these dinosaurs
existed.

Moreover, Prof. Victor Van Straelen of Brussels,
who has studied the kicrostructure of the dinosaur
egg-shells says,

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

"From the rugosities of the outer surface, together
with the rare and extremely small pores, it is right to
infer that the eggs had no outer cuticle. This is a
character shown today by birds and turtles which lay
their eggs in very dry regions. We may find herein
a confirmation of the desert conditions prevailing in
Mongolia during the formation of the Djadokhta
beds."

The dry country and the loose sand probably
explain how such delicate objects as eggs were so
beautifully preserved. After they had been deposited
the dinosaur covered them with only a thin layer
of sediment; just enough to conceal them from egg-
thieves. Even today as we have good reason to know,
gales which drive and pile up sand are frequent.
In a wind storm five or six feet of sediment might
easily have drifted over a nest. The warmth of the
sun could no longer penetrate to the eggs and incu-
bation abruptly ceased.

The weight of heaped-up sand eventually cracked
the shells, and the liquid contents of the eggs ran out.
Simultaneously the extremely fine sand sifted into
the interior making the solid cores which are present
in all our specimens.

The loose sediment of the entire region eventually
became consolidated into red sandstone, the matrix
in which all the eggs are enclosed. Thus, it can
readily be understood why some of the nests have
remained for ten million years exactly as the mother
dinosaur left them for the last time.

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BIGGER AND BETTER EGGS

The Gobi Desert is the only place in the world where
dinosaur eggs have been discovered up to the present
with the possible exception of some fragments from
Rognac, France . Although conditions had to be
exactly right for the preservation of these delicate
objects, it seems strange that similar beds have not
been found elsewhere. We know of one other locality
in Mongolia. Just what it will produce we are not
prepared to state for it has not been carefully investi-
gated. Still a few bits of shell were found there.
It is a long way from Shabarakh Usu and is a million
years or so younger. Since the dinosaurs of that
formation were generally larger we hope to find an egg
or two that will satisfy the public as to size.

I hope we can, for I have had a lot of explaining to
do. Few people realize that there were big dinosaurs
and little dinosaurs just as today there are pythons
and grass-snakes. When the public see an eight
or nine inch egg it is horribly disgusted. It demands
something about the size of an office safe. It visual-
izes only the great Sauropod dinosaurs, Diplodocus or
Brontosaurus, reptiles which could have looked into
a second story window if there had been houses at
that time. Those dinosaurs must have laid eggs, it
is true, and perhaps we will find one sometime. But
until then the ones we have must do. After all a nine
foot dinosaur, which was mostly tail at that, could not
be expected to do much better than a nine inch egg !
That is a ratio of an inch of egg to a foot of dinosaur.
Personally, I think it was a pretty good effort.

267

CHAPTER XV

THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

/^OLUMBUS received a certain amount of credit
when he discovered America and the world
gives him even more today. Yet a good many
sceptics maintain that Columbus was only an "also
ran." They say that the discovery of America had
been made a few hundred years earlier by Lief
Erickson or some other Norseman. But they can't
prove it! We of the Central Asiatic Expedition
honestly thought that we were the original and only
discoverers of the famous dinosaur eggs in 1923.
For two years our lives have been considerably
brightened by the thought that we were the first
to expose the product of the "hen-dinosaur" to the
gaze of human eyes. It has been a lot of fun to
overhear someone say in awe-struck tones, "Oh, he
was one of the men who discovered the dinosaur
eggs." But last summer we found that we were all
wrong. Albeit innocently, we have deceived the
public. If we dared, we should keep very quiet
about it. But as surely as the sceptics have plucked

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THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

leaves from the laurels of Columbus, someone would
rob us of honor sooner or later, probably sooner.
The fact is, and I confess it with deep regret, we were
not the first discoverers of the dinosaur eggs. Quite
a number of other people had beaten us by the com-
fortable margin of fifteen or twenty thousand years.
Moreover, I should not be a bit surprised if dinosaur
egg shells had a sound market value even as early as

B.C. 18,000.

This is the story. Last summer while we were
hunting for more dinosaur eggs at Shabarakh Usu
we found evidences of a new race of people who had
lived there away back in the late Palaeolithic, or
Old Stone Age. Among other things that they had
used as ornaments were bits of dinosaur egg shells.
They must have picked them up at the Flaming Cliffs
where we got ours. We found in their flint work
shops, many bits about one-half inch square together
with egg shells of a giant ostrich. These had been
used as a necklace for some primitive debutante.

There you have our confession. We cannot
honestly say any longer that we are the discoverers of
the dinosaur eggs, and we hereby withdraw all such
claims. But we can say that we discovered the
discoverers of the dinosaur eggs. Perhaps that is
even better.

"The Dune Dwellers of Shabarakh UsuM is the
name we gave to the people who stole our glory. It
is appropriate because they lived in the sand dunes
which are heaped about the roots of the tamarisk

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

trees on the floor of the basin. Of course, fifteen
or twenty thousand years has made a good many
changes in the face of the country. To solve the
problem of those changes and learn what manner of
people the Dune Dwellers were from the scraps of
evidence they left behind, was perfectly thrilling.
It isn't given to every one to discover the existence
of an entirely new race of people. We had much
more fun out of it than in finding the dinosaur eggs
because after all, "the proper study of mankind is
man." Moreover its importance in prehistoric
archaeology is enormous. It has been strongly
affirmed by many scientists that most of the primitive
races whose remains have been discovered in Europe
came from Asia. That wave after wave arrived from
the east each one driving out or annihilating the
people they found in possession of the region. Many
of these races left stone tools or weapons which were
highly characteristic of their particular culture.
The questions of greatest interest when we began to
work out the life story of the Dune Dwellers was
where they fitted into the mosaic of primitive Euro-
pean cultures. Did their weapons and tools represent
a type known from Europe? If so was it earlier or
later than the European equivalent? If it was earlier
it would indicate a migration from Asia to Europe
for it hardly seems probable that two types of similar
culture would develop independently in two widely
separated regions.

We were not entirely unprepared for the discovery

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THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

of the Dune Dwellers. In 1923 Walter Granger
prospected the red sand layer in the tamarisks for
several hours and brought out a few chipped flints
which he believed to show human workmanship.
Although he was so occupied by the influx of dinosaur
skulls and skeletons that he never returned there, we
had it in mind when we decided to begin archaeologi-
cal work in Mongolia. Mr. M. C. Nelson was
dubious about the prospects for his investigations
when he arrived in Peking. He had been subjected
to the usual discouragement of being informed that
there was nothing in Mongolia by scientists who had
never been there. All of us have had the same
experience. We were told that it was impossible to
use motor cars for exploration in the Gobi Desert;
the geology was all obscured by grass or sand;
as for fossils it was ridiculous to expect to find them
where they never had been found before! I was
called all sorts of a fool for even attempting scientific
exploration in such a barren region. It required a
certain degree of courage to go forward under such
conditions the first year but now we only have to say
"Wait and see. We can afford to take a chance."

Nelson began to be encouraged shortly after leav-
ing the grass lands for he discovered artifacts at
almost every camp site and very often along the
trail. These were stones which had been fashioned
into tools by chipping the edges with other stones.

Before the tents were pitched on the day of our
arrival at Shabarakh Usu, Shackelford wandered

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

off into the tamarisks. He had an instinct for find-
ing interesting things and at dinner produced a
pocketful of chipped flints. Nelson pronounced
them to be of undoubted human origin. "Shack"
said that they were there in hundreds.

The next morning Nelson and I went out immedi-
ately after breakfast followed by Berkey Morris and
Loucks. We found an area of shifting sand blown
into dunes against the stems of twisted tamarisk
trees. Sculptured red bluffs marked the entrance to
shallow valleys floored with sandstone where the wind
had swept the loose sediment away.

On the clean hard surface of the rock, flakes of red
jasper, of slate, chalcedony, churt and other stones
were scattered like new fallen snow. Pointed cores,
neatly shaped where thin strips had been flaked off,
tiny rounded scrapers, delicately worked drills and a
few arrow heads gave Nelson the first indications
of the type of culture with which he had to deal.

We held a consultation. " Where did the arti-
facts come from? Could they have been washed
down from the surface?" Those were the first
questions to be answered. We must find flints
actually in the rocks and bones to date the deposit
geologically.

Shortly after our consultation I discovered a bit of
egg shell of the giant ostrich Struthiolithus . The
other men came on the run when I shouted. It was
like "pay dirt" to a prospector for gold. This great
bird existed in the Ice Age and if the makers of our

272

THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

flints were its contemporaries their culture must
belong to that period which dates from about fifty
thousand to about five hundred thousand years ago.
A few yards to the left Morris found another fragment
of egg shell drilled with a neat round hole. This was
human work. Nelson said it was one of the beads in
a necklace.

We were in a fever of excitement for the trail was
getting hot. Nelson, the most conservative of con-
servatives, was skipping about from place to place
like a boy of sixteen. At last Berkey found a spot
where half a dozen chipped flints were securely
fastened in the sandstone of the valley floor. We
made much of him for his discovery, only to find it
had already been marked by Shackelford the day
before! Before noon we had discovered a dozen such
spots and were satisfied that some of the artifacts had
weathered out of the lowest level and had not washed
down from the surface of the dunes. Still, until we
found shell of the ostrich eggs or fossil bones actually
in position, we could not be certain that the deposit
was of Pleistocene age.

An unlooked-for complication entered when we
began to discover fragments of pottery. It was
primitive enough, to be sure, but a people who used
such crude stone implements had no business to be
making pottery. The problem became more
interesting and more complicated every hour. It
could be solved only by the method that a detective
uses in unravelling a mystery — inductive reasoning

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

from the bits of evidence left behind by this long dead
race.

The Central Asiatic Expedition is organized on
the basis of correlated work and I have never seen its
advantages more clearly displayed than in the solu-
tion of the Dune Dwellers problem. The geologists,
palaeontologists, topographers, and botanist all
assisted the archaeologist. Without such a com-
bination of expert knowledge available on the spot it
would have been impossible to settle many of the
puzzling questions presented by this great deposit.

The subject became so interesting that it was
difficult to keep to our respective jobs. Everyone
wanted to hunt artifacts and bring in contributary
evidence for the final solution of the problem. Dr.
Loucks, surgeon, was one of our most enthusiastic
workers. In company with Dr. Berkey he discovered
a vast workshop where flint chips were scattered
over the surface in tens of thousands. They took
four of our Mongols to the spot one morning and
returned with fifteen thousand flakes. Nelson
worked for days sorting the pile and selecting such as
were valuable for specimens.

The second day's work revealed dark spots in
the lowest layers of the soft red sandstone. Evidently
these were ancient fire-places. When they were cut
through in cross section layers of ash containing char-
coal, flints and burned stones were revealed. Very
soon we discovered square bits of dinosaur and ostrich
egg shells embedded in the sandstone. This gave us

274

THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

pause. It was then that we realized that the Dune
Dwellers were the original discoverers of the dinosaur
eggs. About that time Dr. Loucks found quantities
of the ostrich egg shell on the surface of the pene-
plane. Thus another element of uncertainty was
added to our first hypothesis. If the Dune Dwellers
picked up bits of fossilized dinosaur egg shell at the
Flaming Cliffs, two or three miles away, and brought
them to their workshops they might have done the
same with the ostrich eggs! Therefore, even if we
did find shells embedded with the flints, it proved
nothing about the age of the deposit. It might be
of the Ice Age, forty thousand or fifty thousand years
ago, or post Ice Age.

A few bones were discovered in position but they
were so badly preserved that we were not able to
identify them. Probably they can be determined
at the Museum.

After ten days of intensive work the evidence was
well in hand and certain pretty definite facts stood
out. Nelson could state confidently that the site at
Shabarakh Usu had been occupied by human beings
for thousands of years. There were at least two
successive cultures represented. The men of the
lowest and oldest level were much more primitive
than those of the upper strata. Their culture was
late Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age; they did not make
stone spear or arrow points or pottery. Above this
layer there was a transition stage which gradually
developed into the Neolithic, or New Stone Age.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Stone arrow and spear points and crude pottery
characterize these later people.

By geological methods it was determined that the
lowest strata in which artifacts were found is early
post-glacial. Dr. Berkey estimates it to be about
twenty thousand years old. When I say "post
glacial" I speak in terms of European chronology for
there is evidence that there never was an ice sheet in
this region. In Ikhe Bogdo, in the Altai Mountains,
Berkey and Morris found glacial cirques but they are
certain the ice rivers were confined to the mountains
and never reached the plains.

Mr. Nelson believes that the artifacts indicate a
culture most similar to the Azilian of France and
Spain so named from the Mas d'Azil in France. Yet
there are some differences which can not easily be
explained. Besides stone tools the Azilians used
implements and harpoons of stag horn but not a sign
of worked bone did we find in any of the Mongolian
deposits.

The Azilians also had singular burial customs,
characterized by separate interment of the heads of
corpses. Groups of Azilian skulls have been found
imbedded in ochre and all facing west.

The Azilian culture is placed at the end of the Old
Stone Age, about fifteen thousand years ago. Thus
our Dune Dwellers appear to be considerably older
than the Azilian men. An interesting question
arises: Did the Dune Dwellers migrate to Europe
and establish the culture which is known there as

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THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

Azilian? They could have brought with them the
technique of their flint industry and adopted the use
of bone after arriving in Europe where stags were
abundant in the heavy forests.

That the Dune Dwellers were widespread in
Mongolia is certain. During all our explorations
wherever the proper conditions were found, their
artifacts were present. For camp sites they always
selected the low basin and valleys which then, as now,
were occupied by sand dunes. Probably this was
because such basins gave them water as well as fuel
from the stunted tamarisk trees.

Shabarakh Usu was by far the largest deposit that
we discovered. The geologists determined that there
had been a series of transient lakes in the great basin
which extends northwest to Ulan Nor, the Red Lake.
I can imagine the tamarisk grove as swarming with
these strange people. Dressed in skins, probably
living under rude shelters of hides or bushes, they
hunted, fought and loved much as do the primitive
savages of Australia or Tasmania. Some members
of the tribe developed unusual skill in fashioning
implements of stone. These artisans did their work
at certain spots where the flakes of jasper and chal-
cedony now lie in thousands. "Work shops " we call
them.

From stone cores they pushed off long slender
flakes to make knives and drills. The edges of some
are as sharp as those of our hunting knives. A. tiny
scraper not much longer than my thumb-nail with a

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

rounded edge was the most characteristic tool.
These were used to dress skins or to smooth sticks.

In the work shops most of the specimens were stone
flakes ; they were like the shavings which the carpen-
ter leaves when he planes or chisels a piece of wood.
We found many broken or partly finished implements
which had been discarded for some reason when the
stone proved undesirable. Naturally, the completed
tools were less numerous. They had been carried
away from the work shops for daily use.

The source of supply for the peculiar kinds of stone
needed by the Dune Dwellers puzzled us for a long
time. We found it when returning near the end of
the summer. It was on a flat plain thirty-six miles
from Shabarakh Usu. There were quantities of red
jasper, churt, chalcedony and agate, and hundreds of
these stones were roughly chipped. Nelson was not
with us at the time and we were all greatly excited
for it seemed certain that these represented a very
early Old Stone Age culture, pre-Chellean or Chel-
lean perhaps one hundred fifty thousand or two
hundred thousand years old. Nelson dampened
our spirits considerably when he arrived. After
spending several days studying the deposit and
collecting specimens he stated positively that these
coarse, rudely chipped pieces were only test stones
which had been thrown away by the Dune Dwellers
when they came to get materials. The primitive
artisans selected the best chunks, after testing many
and took them to their work shops to finish. It was

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THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

like a modern lumber yard where the carpenter goes
to select his wood.

Nelson started a hot controversy in camp. We
were not at all willing to abandon our idea of a new
early Palaeolithic culture without a fight. Berkey
returned with him to reexamine the site and the rest
of us marshalled every argument we could think of to
defend our theory. But Nelson went about demolish-
ing us one by one in the most cold-blooded way.
The worst of it was that he knew a lot more about
the subject than we did. After he had arranged
a series of specimens in comparative rows we finally
had to admit that he was right.

Such discussions are most valuable. The expedi-
tion's work is so correlated that every discovery
affects the other branches of science directly or
indirectly. Therefore, when a man advanced a new
theory he had to be prepared to defend it from a half
dozen angles. If it survives the barrage laid down
by the whole staff he can feel pretty safe in adopting
it.

It is because of these constant discussions in camp
that I have no hesitation in making very definite
statements when the results of our summer's work
are announced to the press the day after we reach
Peking.

We hoped, up to the very last, to find burials at
some of the artifact localities where bones of the
Dune Dwellers might be obtained. Skeletons would
tell us what manner of men they were. We looked

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

for them particularly in the vicinity of their hearths
and permanent camping places, such as Shabarakh
Usu. But not a trace of human bone could be found.
Either their dead were not buried near the camps
or the conditions were unfavorable for the preser-
vation of bones. The latter is probably the correct
reason for the fragmentary animal bones in the flint
bearing layers being badly preserved.

Had we been able to discover caves, probably much
more definite information could have been obtained.
But caves are as scarce as hens' teeth in the region
we explored. Although limestone is present in
places, the erosion has not been of the type to produce
caverns or even rock shelters. The Dune Dwellers
must have lived in the open the entire year. Since at
that time the winters were probably as cold as they
are today, I don't wonder they migrated.

While we were trying to solve the riddle of the
Dune Dwellers and piecing the evidence together bit
by bit, one of the members of the Expedition played an
amusing trick. He found a small bit of rusted iron
saw and planted it neatly in the flint bearing layer.
Dr. Berkey was the one who discovered it first.
There was consternation in camp. It completely
upset all our theories and gave us a bad hour. For
men of the Old Stone Age do not make saws. But
fortunately Nelson had found another section of the
same saw near the tents and exposed the joker.

We determined to get even with him and that
quickly. He was an enthusiastic collector of birds'

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THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

eggs and spent every leisure moment blowing and
labelling them. Shackelford and I got two well
matched hens' eggs and had the cook boil them hard.
Then they were beautifully stained in potassium
permanganate. I found a bush near the sand dunes
where the ground was splashed with bird droppings,
scooped out a shallow depression, and set the eggs.

A pair of demoiselle cranes lived near the spot and
I told our victim that probably there was a nest in the
vicinity. He never had seen a crane's egg, so the
rest was easy.

When I returned to camp and announced the dis-
covery he was all excitement. Four of us piled
into a car and ran down to the spot. He was so
delighted that I almost relented and confessed the
joke. Then I remembered the saw and hardened my
heart.

After our victim had photographed the "nest"
from three angles and made a close up with the por-
trait attachment for his camera we went back to
camp. Word had been passed around and eight
or ten men gathered to see the denouement. First
attempts at blowing were not successful and after
a serious discussion as to the best method of preser-
vation he decided to remove the embryo through a
hole in One side. I will never forget the expression
on his face when he discovered that they were hard
boiled! With a roar he hurled one at Mac Young
and the other at me, but we already had a good start
across the desert.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Practical jokes on an expedition may lead to bad
feeling but our victim was a good sportsman. He
knew that he deserved all he got after the episode
of the saw. Still, he assured me that I headed
his list of preferred funerals and that sooner or later
I would "get mine.,, I did, too. It was when we
were eating the last of the twelve hundred eggs that
we brought into the field. An innocent looking but
especially prepared boiled egg was served me at
breakfast and when I broke the shell a flood of pink
water soaked everything on my plate. Then all bets
were settled.

During the five months that the expedition is in
the desert as a rule we are completely isolated from
the outside world. The few caravans which we meet
always have left China before us so they have no
recent news. We might use wireless but that was
prohibited by the Mongol Government. With no
letters, newspapers or telegrams we must create our
own little world of pleasures and interests. Good
fellowship is just as necessary as good science. In
our expedition where every branch is so closely
interrelated team work is essential. The prevailing
opinion, I am sure, is that we are a group of "dried up
scientists" that we all wear big spectacles and long
beards and use words of five syllables when we ask
someone to pass the salt ; that our conversation is only
of science and that such mundane things as the latest
musical comedy on Broadway doesn't enter into our
scheme of life.

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THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

Most of us do wear spectacles, it is true, as a
protection against the sun. My eyes were ruined
forever in 1922 by the terrible glare of the desert.
As for beards we find it more comfortable to shave
every two or three days.

It would be amusing if those who hold this opinion
of us could be present at our dinner table almost any
night. There is science at times, to be sure, but a lot
of other conversation besides; and laughter enough
to keep us sitting there for hours.

I am afraid that another fallacy might be dis-
pelled by a glance into our mess tent. We have table
cloths and clean ones at that ! The table cloth is one
of my hobbies. After a hard day's work when one
is tired and cold and perhaps a bit discouraged it is
very restful to sit down to a table covered with a clean
white cloth. Eat well, sleep well and dress well, then
one can work well! In the main camp we were
always pretty comfortable. When we were off on
side trips or advance explorations we were primitive
enough to suit anybody, but that never bothered us.

All this was splendid as long as no cogs slipped in
the wheel of organization. But let something go
wrong and we realized quickly enough that we were a
long, long way out in the middle of a desert that is a
real desert in spots. To keep forty men well fed and
comfortable and above all busy was my particular
job. It was made easy, for no one ever complained
no matter what the circumstances; it would be
difficult to assemble a staff who pulled together more

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

splendidly. I have only praise and great admiration
for them all.

The Mongolian weather was a surprise to the new
men. Last summer there was virtually no great
heat and twice as much rain as usual. I spent every
night in my fur sleeping bag. The changes from
winter to summer and back again were bewildering.

On the twenty-fourth of May while Mac Young
and I were en route to Urga to obtain certain permits
we fought our way through snowdrifts for three days
although it was perfect mid-summer weather when we
left Shabarakh Usu. The Flaming Cliffs whirled
and danced in the heat waves reflected from the basin
floor. A huge black raven drowsed upon a rock with
beak half open and even the spotted lizards were too
sleepily content to snap at the sand-flies which
crawled incautiously beneath their pointed snouts.
To think of snow was absurd. Yet a few hours
later we were shaking with cold and battling an icy
gale which whipped sand and gravel against our faces
like bursting shrapnel.

At seven o'clock in the evening when we saw a lone
yurt beside the trail both of us had had more than
enough. The only inmates of the dwelling were a
young lama and a wrinkled hag, aged seventy, with a
baby of four or five. They made us welcome and
piled dry argul (cow dung) upon the fire until our
numbed bodies had begun to warm. In half an hour
the mother of the baby arrived — a strapping young
Mongol with a frame like a foot-ball tackle. She

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THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

had been out all day looking for a flock of sheep that
had been lost in the gale while the man toasted him-
self at the fire. When more argul was required he
never dreamed of moving but told the old grand-
mother to bring it in.

The circular, felt-covered yurt was like all others.
Opposite the door and a red chest stood a Buddhist
picture and a few sacred family offerings. At one
side was a bed platform four inches high; the man
slept upon it, of course, while the women had two
strips of felt on the ground. At the other side of
the yurt was a wooden rack holding bowls of curdled
milk ; close beside it two calves and half a dozen baby
lambs and goats were tied to a rope. The yurt
reeked with mingled odors of mutton fat, rancid
butter and living goat but it was warm. We slept in
our tent. The gale tore at the fastenings but we were
comfortable in our fur bags. In the morning the
interior of the tent was one great snow bank. Our
clothes were somewhere in the drift and you can
imagine how pleasant it was to dress in wet, frozen
garments! The front of the car had been covered
with a canvas hood. When Mac started the engine
a peculiar muffled sound came from the interior.
He found that it was as solidly banked as though we
had shovelled snow inside.

That day and the next was a constant battle.
Often when ploughing through the white blanket
on a smooth plain, the car would suddenly drop into
a ravine packed six feet deep with snow. It was

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

a terrible sickening feeling when everything seemed
to go out from under us. Then there was nothing
for it then but to dig around the motor, jack up the
wheels and pave a road with stones until we could
get out. Poor Mack had to bear the brunt of all
the work for my right shoulder was still virtually
helpless from a crash in the New Year's steeplechase
at Tientsin and I was only of use to pick up stones or
drive.

The third day really was the most tiring for the sun
was glorious and had begun to melt the snow. A
mountain range separated us from Urga by thirty
miles but the pass was so drifted that we had to climb
up steep slopes to avoid the snow. The tires slipped
on the wet grass and the car would move forward only
when we built a path of stones to give traction.
After five hours of the most strenuous work we
were three miles from our night's camp. But our
troubles were at an end when we gained the summit
of the pass and ran down the steep slope into a beauti-
ful valley. In the snow filled ravines lay the bodies
of horses and cattle that had dropped into the white
death traps. Some of the animals were still alive
but too weak to move. I longed to end their suffer-
ings with a bullet yet it would only have meant
trouble with the Mongols. That blizzard took a
terrible toll of life all across the northern grass lands
for it came so suddenly that then atives were un-
prepared.

From the crest of a hill to the south, Urga lay like a

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THE DUNE DWELLERS OF MONGOLIA

beautiful jewel set in the green valley of the Tola
River. We could see the vivid roofs and golden
cupolas of the Living Buddha's palace nestling in the
poplars at the base of the Bogdo Ola, God's mountain.
Towering above the city was the great temple sur-
rounded by the cubicle of ten thousand lamas.
Peaceful enough it looked in the spring sunshine
but I knew that it was a city of suspicion and one not
to be entered without due thought of how one was to
get out ! John T. McCutcheon, the famous cartoon-
ist, and Barney Goodspeed of Chicago were to visit
Urga sometime in May and we hoped to get news
from them. But they had left the day before we
arrived and caught the tail end of the blizzard to the
eastward on the Kalgan-Urga trail. The snow was
not so deep in that region and they got through with
only a day or two delay.

I met General P. K. Kozlov again in Urga. With
the exception of Prjevalsky, whom he accompanied
on his early expeditions, Kozlov is the greatest of
Russian explorers. Although more than sixty years
old, he has all the enthusiasm of a young man.

The privilege of knowing this splendid explorer
and his delightful wife will ever be one of my most
treasured memories. At that time he was preparing
for an expedition to reexcavate Kara Khoto, an
ancient city which he had discovered some years
earlier buried in the sands of the south central Gobi.
In the summer of 1924 he had found some remarkable
tombs of the Tang Dynasty in the forests sixty-five

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

miles north of Urga, and I had visited the excavations
with him; it was an experience which I never will
forget.

Kozlov and I made plans for our two expeditions to
meet at the Altai Mountains near Shabarakh Usu,
but they did not materialize. Doubtless, he was
delayed by the work on the tombs which had not been
completed when I left Urga.

A fortnight had passed before Young and I re-
turned to Shabarakh Usu. It was like reading an
absorbing novel to hear the story of what had hap-
pened in our absence. The work had been completed
most gloriously and all was ready to move westward
to Tsagan Nor, the beautiful White Lake at the base
of the Altai Mountains.

We brought the men news of the outside world, a
few letters and some new records for our Sonora
phonograph. That evening we sat about the camp
fire until long after midnight listening to the divine
voice of Caruso float over the tamarisk grove where
the Dune Dwellers had lived twenty thousand years
ago.

288

CHAPTER XVI

A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

T^HREE million years ago, when the world was
* old but its life was young, strange tragedies were
enacted even as there are tragedies today. The rec-
ords of some of them were writ in stone and still re-
main for those to read who know the language. One
story I shall translate, as we read it from the rocks
in the storm-swept wastes of the Gobi Desert.

It was a summer's morning in Mongolia. Full-fed
upon succulent leaves, the greatest mammal that
ever lived upon the earth stood at the edge of an open
forest. Its legs were like the pillars of a temple;
its body a heaving mountain of living flesh. The
sun was high. After a long drink, the creature
would compose its vast bulk in the cool shade to sleep
away the sultry midday hours.

Lazily it moved across the meadow toward a half-
dry stream-bed, where shallow pools glittered in the
sunlight. A nightmare beast it was, huge beyond
belief, lumbering down the bank into the sun-baked
wash. Reaching the nearest pool, it stooped to drink.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Suddenly its fore feet sank in yielding sediment.
With a great heave it wrenched them free, but took
one more, fatal stride; then the quicksand gripped its
legs. Bellowing with terror, heaving, straining, the
creature tried to drag itself from the bottomless
well of death. Deeper it sank. The treacherous,
golden sands reached its breast, its shoulders, then
closed above its back. Only the massive head with
its staring blood-shot eyes protruded from the sand.
A moment later that, too, had disappeared, and the
death-trap with its bait of shimmering water waited
for another victim.

That is the story we read on a June day in 1925,
three million years after the colossus of Mongolia had
been swallowed by the treacherous sands. We had
come in motor-cars and had pitched our tents close
beside the unsuspected tomb. Twenty miles away
rose the silver peak of a snow-crowned mountain;
a blue lake lay at its feet. In front, a chaos of red-
and-grey ravines had been slashed in the gravel plain
that swept like a yellow floor to a black waste of
lava- capped mountains on the north.

These had not been there when the giant lumbered
across the meadow for its last drink at the fatal pool.
Since that day hills had been built upon its tomb and
worn away; and the green meadows and parklike
forests had given place to the arid reaches of the Gobi
Desert.

The credit of discovery belongs to Liu, one of
our Chinese collectors. His sharp eyes caught the

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A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

glint of a white bone in the red sand on a steep
hillside. He dug a little and then reported to
Granger that he had found something. Granger
completed the excavation and was amazed to find the
foot and lower leg of a Baluchitherium, standing
upright, just as if the animal had carelessly left it
behind when he took another stride. Fossils are
almost never found in this position, and therefore
Granger sat down to think out the why and where-
fore. There was only one solution. Quicksand!
It was the right hind foot that Liu had found ; there-
fore the right front leg must be about three yards
down the slope. He took the direction, measured
the distance and began to dig. Sure enough, there it
was, a huge bone like the trunk of a fossil tree, also
standing upright. It was child's play to find the feet
of the left side; for what had happened was obvious.

When all four limbs were excavated, each one erect
in its separate pit, the effect was extraordinary.
I sat down upon a hilltop to drift in fancy back to
those other days when the tragedy had been enacted.
It was plainly told by the great stumps, even though
they could not speak. Evidently the huge beast had
settled back upon its haunches, struggling desper-
ately to free its front legs from the gripping sands.
It must have sunk rapidly, fighting to the end, dying
only when the choking sediment filled its throat and
nose. If it had been partially buried and died of
starvation, the body would have fallen on its side.

The geologists told us what the spot was like before

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the Altai Mountains had been pushed up through the
earth. From the fossil wood, Dr. Ralph W. Chaney
described the climate and vegetation. Thus we had
the background of the tragedy.

Why could we not have found the gigantic skeleton
complete, standing erect, ready for exhibition! It
would have been a specimen for all the world to mar-
vel at. "Walter, what do you mean by getting only
the legs?" I said to Granger. "Why don't you pro-
duce the rest?"

" It is your fault / ' he answered. 1 ' Why didn't you
bring us here thirty-five thousand years earlier
before that hill weathered away?"

True enough, we had missed our opportunity by
just about that margin. As the entombing rock was
eroded the skeleton was cut off bit by bit and now lay
scattered in ten thousand fragments on the valley
floor. Some of them we salvaged, but they are a pit-
ful wreck of the colossus of Mongolia. Still, there is
always hope, and in another year we may open a
tomb with a skeleton intact.

The region of the White Lake must have swarmed
with baluchitheres. We found at least a dozen spots
where skeletons had crumbled with the hillsides and
were strewn over acres of the plain. There were
remains of other animals, of course, but rodents
outnumbered all the rest, some of them ancestors of
species in southern France. Literally thousands
of teeth and jaws had weathered out of the sediment
and were sown over the red slopes.

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A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

Although the trees and meadows of three million
years ago have given place, around the White Lake,
to arid reaches of the Gobi Desert, we had our most
beautiful camp at the lake. We came to it along the
northern base of the Altai Mountains, the great chain
of peaks which thrusts its mighty arm southeastward
into the desert. The trail was very bad for the cars.
We had to fight our way through sand and mud, rocks
and "niggerheads," pushing, digging, smashing in an
endless battle. No cars should be required to endure
the punishment we had to give our fleet, but not a
single part gave way. Every night, no matter how
hard the day's work had been, McKenzie Young and
Norman Lovell made a thorough inspection, tighten-
ing bolts and screws. It was this devoted care that
made it possible to take the cars where we did.

Dozens of tiny, threadlike streamlets, which
twisted and divided as they came down from the
mountain slopes, were most annoying because they
seemed so harmless. Two or three feet deep, with
perpendicular banks, they were just too wide to jump.
At every one we had to build a bridge of sod and
renew it after a car had crossed. It was time-
consuming and exhausting work, but on June 10 we
came in sight of the White Lake.

What a disappointment! The beautiful lake was
only one-fourth as large as when we saw it last in
1923. Long stretches of evil-smelling mud encircled
the water; the brilliant green vegetation had given
place to a margin of dull yellow grass, and the water's

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

edge was four hundred yards from our old camp-site
on the beach. When N. C. Nelson, the archaeologist,
drove in, he remarked with disgust: "Tsagan Nor!
It is little, and it stinks.' '

But after our first disappointment, we began to
enjoy the camp. It certainly is the most beautiful
spot we have found upon the great plateau. In the
changing colors of sunset, Baga Bogdo, the mountain
beyond the lake, with its vast alluvial fans sweeping
out from mysterious canyons, has an unreal, ethereal
beauty. I never tired of gazing into those lonely
gorges in which the only inmates are ibex and bighorn
sheep.

Between the mountain and the lake lie miles upon
miles of sand-dunes, stretching in a yellow line to the
east and west. The sand is as fine as that on a perfect
beach. The dunes are of the usual barckan, or
crescent, shape ; many are well-nigh two hundred feet
in height, with sheer drops on the leeward faces from
the knifelike summits. In the bottoms of the valleys
are patches of long coarse grass and sometimes a tall
bush -pea with beautiful purple blossoms. Much
to our surprise, there were damp spots in a half-
dozen valleys, and Shackelford, our photographer,
dug a well with his hands. Clear, cold, fresh water
was only four feet beneath the surface.

In the late afternoon, when the low sun threw
grotesque, curving shadows and brought into strange
relief the modelling of the sand and the ripple-marks
on it, the dunes were beautiful beyond description.

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A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

But withal it was a sinister beauty; for to be caught
in that maze of shifting sand in a desert gale means
death to man or beast. Many times, in safety across
the lake, we watched the crests whirl and stream like
spray from monster waves. Blinding, choking sand
would suffocate everything that breathed and bury
it in a yellow grave within an hour.

An old Mongol who had lived all of his seventy-
three years near the lake told us that when we were
there in 1923 the water was near its highest level.
Forty years ago the lake had been entirely dry;
doubtless it would fail this year, since there was no
water in the little river that gave it life.

Dr. Charles P. Berkey and Frederick K. Morris, the
geologists, decided to use Tsagan Nor as a type
study for desert lakes. We had our own observations
of 1923; the former beach-lines were well marked;
and we could get the history of the lake from the
Mongols. The basis of the study must be a map, and
L. B. Roberts with his assistants, F. B. Butler and
H. O. Robinson, produced a chart of which we all are
proud. Day after day in the scorching sun they
tramped the shores with plane, table and alidade.
More than three thousand " shots" were taken.
Nothing like this standard of accuracy in map-mak-
ing ever has been attempted on the Central Asian
plateau.

They found that the lake has an altitude of 3,828
feet. Seven beach levels were apparent, the highest
being thirty-three feet above the present shore-line.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Although there were a few inches of water spread over
the panlike floor of the lake on our arrival in June,
when we returned on July 16, after a reconnaissance
to the west, our beautiful lake was gone. In the
centre of the white mud-flat sat a lonely sheldrake,
sole survivor of the clamoring flocks of wildfowl that
formerly had rested here.

The study of the White Lake gave an illuminat-
ing view of recent climatic changes in Mongolia.
Climate certainly has been the most important factor
in determining the origin and migrations of human,
as well as animal, life. To learn what the climate
of the Central Asian plateau has been in the past
was one of the chief problems confronting our ge-
ologists. It was to help solve this that I added Dr.
Ralph W. Chaney, the palasobotanist, to our staff.
The fossil vegetation would give us a sure indication
of what the climate had been in successive geological
periods.

Berkey and Morris have concluded that there was a
definite climatic cycle in Central Asia; in other words,
that for millions of years there have been successive
stages of moisture and dehydration — "pulses," Ells-
worth Huntington has called them — with an ever-
increasing aridity. Since the end of the Ice Age, the
drying up of the plateau has been rapid. More-
over, our geologists are convinced that ice-sheets
never covered Mongolia as they did parts of Europe
and America. They formed cirques, ice-beds, in
some of the higher peaks of the mountains, but

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A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

apparently the glaciers never reached the plains.
This determination affects most vitally the hypothe-
sis of the development of human life on the Asiatic
plateau.

So far as we are aware, Baga Bogdo, the snow-
covered peak opposite the White Lake, never had
been climbed by a foreigner. Dr. Harold H. Loucks
and Butler ascended it on June 24, camping the
first night two thousand feet up, at the summit
of the alluvial fan on the first gorge to the west of
Tiger Canyon. The following morning was rainy,
and a thick fog enshrouded the mountain, but they
started the ascent at six in the morning and reached
the summit at one in the afternoon. They remained
only fifteen minutes; for it was bitterly cold, and the
clouds enveloped them so closely that it was im-
possible to see more than a few yards. After
planting the American flag and that of the New York
Explorers Club on the highest point, they built a cairn
of rocks and left a letter-head of the Central Asiatic
Expedition in a bottle.

The Mongols have a superstitious fear of this peak.
They believe it to be inhabited by fierce beasts, and
we were told that no one who attempted its ascent
could return alive. Bleeding at the nose would
begin and continue until the man had died. For
this reason it seems improbable that any of the
natives have made the ascent, although, as mountain-
climbing goes, it is not particularly difficult.

At the base of Baga Bogdo there were a number of

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circular mounds enclosed by stones, which Nelson,
our archaeologist, believed to represent graves. The
Mongols could give little information about them,
and Nelson opened a half-dozen without finding
bones. At last he obtained a fairly well preserved
human skeleton, but no implements. Without doubt
the graves are more than a thousand years old and
represent some pre-Mongol people, possibly the
Turki Uigurs.

Some distance from the lowest slopes of the
mountain the palaeontologists investigated a deposit
of grey Pliocene clays in which I had found a beauti-
fully preserved stag-horn in 1923. The Pliocene,
just before the beginning of the Ice Age, is con-
servatively estimated to be a million years old. At
that time the White Lake region must have been well
forested but with open savanna-like plains. Fossils
of true horse, Equus, stag, mastodon and a giant
ostrich were found. The pelvis of a mastodon was a
huge bone measuring sixty-four inches across, but
Granger did not consider it worth removing.
Another interesting discovery was what evidently had
been the nest of an enormous ostrich, Struthiolithus .
Hundreds of shell fragments in a single spot indicated
that here the young had hatched out of their eggs.
The skeleton of this avian giant is unknown, but the
eggs, which are often found in the loess deposits of
North China, show that it must have been twice as
large as the living ostriches.

After the various branches of work had been well

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A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

started at the White Lake, Shackelford and I went
out for motion-pictures, with the camera strapped in
the rear of a car. The gravel plain north of the lake
swarms with wild asses and antelopes. Seven miles
from camp we stopped on the edge of a great depres-
sion. Even with the naked eye we could see
hundreds of yellowish forms swimming in the desert
mirage. Wild asses, without a doubt, but never
before had I seen a herd so vast. They were massed
in three dense groups on the valley floor, and for
miles the horizon was dotted with stragglers. We
counted a block of two hundred and could estimate
fairly accurately that there were at least one thousand
animals in the herd. Subsequently, we learned that
there were many more than that ; for several hundred
were below our sight in the bottom of a shallow ravine.

It was obvious that we must circle far to the
east and drive the herd westward on to the gravel
plain, where for fifteen miles we had splendid running
for the car. When we finally headed toward the
asses, a group of forty surprised us before we reached
the main herd. The animals began running rather
slowly, stopping often to gaze curiously at the car.
We did not press them, but maintained a steady pace
of twenty miles an hour. The asses kept their dis-
tance ahead of us easily enough, and others began to
come in from every side. There seems to be a
fascination about a car that draws all the desert
animals, wild or domestic, like a magnet. The asses
came from miles on an oblique course that brought

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them in front of us in a thundering mass. Hundreds
were pounding along on both sides, and we were
enveloped in such a cloud of yellow dust that I could
barely see.

I dropped back and swung to the outside of the
largest group. Shackelford, braced on the rear of
the car, ground off film, swinging his camera from side
to side as the mass divided. But soon the small
herds began to converge again, and so the perform-
ance repeated itself. By the time we reached the
western end of the plain, which drops off steeply into
the broad valley of the Tat sin Gol, asses were pour-
ing over the rim like a cataract of yellow water.

When we turned back, we encountered single
stragglers running about with their noses held high in
the air, trying to find their companions. Yet they
could not resist the fascination of the car; before we
had gone a mile, more than a hundred were pounding
along in front. Fifteen or twenty antelopes joined
the parade, running with stiff black tails erect, some-
times springing into the air as if they were on pneu-
matic tires. I let the herd cross our bows and swing
away to the south. With the glasses we could see
nine grazing quietly two miles away. We decided to
try a new plan. Running a few yards, we stopped
the car. The asses looked up, trotted toward us
and stood with ears erect. Again they came on, and
again. Before long they were within less than
two hundred yards, and Shackelford could work with
his telephoto lens.

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A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

This seems to be the only way in which to get
pictures of the animals not in rapid motion. It is
impossible to stalk them on the plain; for there is no
cover. They do not come to water-holes; for they
seldom, if ever, drink. One cannot successfully lie in
wait for them anywhere ; for they have the whole vast
plain upon which to wander, and feed is as good in one
spot as in another.

There is an interesting association of the wild ass
and the antelope. They are almost invariably
found together, and, when we were running a herd of
asses, the gazelles would come from all directions to
join the race. At our camp, within a few hundred
yards of the tents, we saw a single stallion that slept
and grazed, always accompanied by an antelope.
The strange pair reminded me of a gentleman
with his valet.

Of course the two species of animals eat the same
kind of food and inhabit the same kind of country.
The sage-brush and stiff desert grass give them such
excellent nourishment that they are always fat and
in splendid condition. The ass and the gazelle are
such perfectly adapted desert types that water is
unessential. The starch in the vegetation that they
eat is converted into water in their stomachs and is
sufficient for their bodily needs. Even at the
end of a long chase in the hot sun, the asses perspired
very little. The sweat was clear, with none of the
soapy lather that proclaims a horse to be out of
condition.

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During the first two years of our work in the Gobi,
we never saw wild asses in herds of more than fifteen
or twenty, but we did not arrive in their country
until after the breeding-season. In 1925 the herds
numbered thousands. Evidently they collect at
favorable localities just before the young are born,
as do the grass land antelopes, Gazella gutturosa.
The young are dropped about the beginning of July,
and the asses seek a flat plain, undoubtedly for
protection from wolves. Without cover for a close
approach, a wolf would have little hope of catching
either an antelope or an ass in a flat race.

On June 24th, McKenzie Young and I caught a
baby wild ass. Although it had been born only the
night before, it ran for more than a mile at a speed
of twenty miles an hour. In spite of its being a mare
and more gentle than the young thing we captured in
1922, it kicked lustily whenever we approached it.
The little one was with us only two days. The
second evening was cold, and Robinson donated his
fur-lined leather waistcoat as a blanket. Mac put its
fore legs through the armholes and buttoned the vest
under its belly, and it had an excellent blanket. I
presented the collar from my police dog, Wolf. But
during the night the little ass escaped. We never
saw it again. When later I told the story to a news-
paper correspondent, he said that in writing it he
could not resist putting a gold watch in the waistcoat
pocket !

While the work was going on at the White Lake,

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A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

four of us went westward to explore for new fields.
That is my particular job. Being in new country
where you do not know what is beyond the next hill,
with the touch of danger in trusting yourself to a single
car hundreds of miles out in the desert alone, makes
it fascinating.

From Tsagan Nor we could see the mountain Ikhe
Bogdo, bulking hugely against the western sky.
We knew that there was a large lake, Orok Nor,
at its base, but none of us had seen it. The run
there, over a hard gravel peneplain, a plain worn
down by denudation, was delightful, but the lake
itself proved to be unapproachable with the car,
because of the surrounding sand-dunes. After a
hard struggle, we did reach a series of reedy lagoons
at its eastern end, swarming with bird life. Grebes,
coots, ducks of a half-dozen species, geese, herons,
storks, shore-birds, gulls and terns were breeding
there in thousands. But we could find no fossil
exposures within twenty miles of Orok Nor and
reluctantly abandoned our plan of camping on the
shore. We were conpensated, however, by discover-
ing another lake, Kholobolchi Nor, or the Little
White Lake in the midst of fossil-fields — a lake only
slightly brackish, with fresh-water springs along its
edge.

The Expedition reached this place on June 28th.
Tents were pitched on a strip of turf as green as
emerald. Mine was not more than two feet from the
water's edge, at a point where it cut under a low

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bank. With the flaps of the big tent thrown back, I
watched nineteen white swans floating quietly two
hundred yards away, a great black-and-white stork
poking along the shore-line and dozens of sheldrakes
trailing their broods of tiny ducklings behind them
like waving streamers. In the evening we had a
sunset celebration, such as comes only in the desert,
and all of us voted that the explorer's life is not so bad.

That night a strange thing happened. We were
awakened by fish in the Gobi Desert! Could any-
thing be more paradoxical? A strong wind blew
from the west until about two o'clock in the morn-
ing, pushing the water over to our side of the lake.
Suddenly the wind dropped, and the water receded
so quickly that thousands upon thousands of fish,
which had been feeding along the edge of the green
bank, were left stranded in a narrow strip of mud and
sand. Flapping wildly as they tried to work back
into the water, they made a noise like scores of people
clapping their hands.

When I first stepped out into the moonlight to
learn what was going on, I saw thousands of glitter-
ing forms about nine inches long at the edge of the
lake. Granger and I wakened " Buckshot" and
Wang, two of our Chinese. They went wild with
excitement and ran for the twenty-foot seine. Soon
half the camp was watching them draw the net,
bringing in hundreds of fish at every haul. We had
some fried for breakfast, but they were too soft and
1 1 muddy" to be very palatable. The Chinese liked

304

A TRAGEDY OF THE GOBI DESERT

them, however, and spent hours in salting and drying
them in the sun for future use.

Shackelford and Loucks secured several fish from
Orok Nor, of a species also found in the Little White
Lake, and the head of one fish that indicated a speci-
men more than two feet long. But the fish in the
Tsagan Nor are quite unlike those of Orok Nor.
This is strange; for the two bodies of water must
have been connected not many hundreds of years
ago.

Just how these desert lakes were stocked with
fish is not entirely clear. Presumably the fish came
through streams that flowed into the lakes from
mountain ranges. In some cases, fish may have
been dropped by birds that had caught them in a
near-by lake or stream. At any rate, there the fish
are in the Gobi, and, by studying their relationships,
we have most illuminating clues in the solution of
some of the drainage problems of the great Central
Asian plateau.

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CHAPTER XVII

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

\V7E had been at the Little White Lake for two
days. When the fossil hunters with the
archaeologist arrived at camp in the evening I walked
out to the car for their report. They said very
little, but I know the signs of an unusual discovery.
Granger couldn't keep a suspiciously satisfied
expression from his tanned face.

"Out with it, Walter, what have you up your
sleeve ?" said I.

"Don't pick on me. I haven't done anything.
Nelson is to blame," he chuckled, as I poked him in
the ribs.

I whirled on Nels. ' ' What on earth have you been
doing, you wretched archaeologist?" I shouted.
"Hurry up, I can't wait any longer."

"Well," said Nels, "it isn't much, but I guess
we've got a skeleton of Pleistocene man."

Pleistocene man ! Good Heavens ! What we had
all been dreaming of for years !

I fired questions like bullets from a machine gun.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

The facts were as follows. During an earlier explor-
ation I had located a deposit of grey clay which
appeared to be of the Ice Age. Granger and Berkey
confirmed it by bringing in fossil bones of horse and
mastodon. Nelson had gone out in the morning to
examine it for stone artifacts, or traces of primitive
human life. He found nothing until just before sun-
down, when the great discovery had been made.
There was not time to excavate the skeleton and the
men returned to camp to report to me.

I could hardly control my excitement and wanted
to celebrate, but Nelson, the most conservative
scientist out of captivity, said " Better wait. There
is always a chance that it is a grave, you know.
It might be some pre-Mongol people who buried their
dead in this bank." That was a possibility, and I
postponed the celebration. However, I did not sleep
much that night. In my dreams, primitive men
were fighting a battle to the death with gigantic fish
just outside the tent.

Morning saw us early at the Pleistocene deposit
and we waited almost breathlessly while Nelson
set to work to excavate the skeleton. It was in loose
clay and the matrix was easily warped away.
Horrors, a bit of decayed wood! My heart went
down and down, when a leg bone was exposed
wrapped in birch bark. Our dream of Pleistocene
man was shattered hopelessly. This was a burial, as
Nelson had suggested that it might be. True
enough, it was old, but only a paltry thousand years

307

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

or so and that meant nothing in our young lives.
It must have been pre- Mongol, for now there are no
birch trees within hundreds of miles of this region
and there have been none for many centuries.

We had hoped that the man had lived a hundred
thousand years ago, when mastodon roamed the
forest in the Ice Age. We had hoped that he might
have been Neanderthal or earlier — perhaps even as
far back as the famed Pithecanthropus of Java. I
have had disappointments in my life, but that was
one of the bitterest I have ever known. There was
nothing for it, however, but to laugh and say:
"Well, we are on his trail. Wait till next time."

It was interesting, of course, to get the skeleton,
for it will tell us much about the early inhabitants of
Mongolia and what manner of men they were. The
body must have been placed in a grave dug in
the bank of Pleistocene clay which overlooks the
beautiful valley. Probably branches had roofed the
hole, for many bits of wood were mixed with the earth
about the bones. Strangely enough, the skull ex-
hibits a very sloping forehead — a primitive character
— but this probably is due to crushing and may not be
natural. No implements or weapons were present;
nothing to give a clew to his tribe or race. Later we
found other skeletons, but they were from known
graves and did not extend false hopes.

Yet we do know that primitive men who made
stone tools like those of the Neanderthals lived near
this very spot a hundred thousand years ago. On

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the gravel plain just above and behind the lake,
Nelson discovered Old Stone Age implements. They
were hammer stones and scrapers, crudely shaped but
definite in design and of the type known in Europe
as Mousterian, contemporary with Neanderthal
man. These stooping, heavy-browed hunters were
cave dwellers in Europe, where their remains were
first discovered. With spears and weapons of the
rudest make they fought the mammoth, bear, and
rhinoceros, dressing skins for clothes. They had
fire and buried their dead. Sometimes several
skeletons have been found in a single grave.

Even though he lived a hundred thousand years
ago, Neanderthal man was a wanderer. Europe,
Africa and recently Palestine have produced his
bones; now we know that he lived in Asia, for our
stone implements are distinctly of his make.

In 1923, two Jesuit explorers, Pere Licent and
Abbe Teilhard de Chardin, found a great deposit of
Mousterian implements in the Ordos Desert, just
south of the region in which we have been working.
Among the bones of rhinoceros and other mammals
were heaps of egg shells of the giant ostrich Struthioli-
ihus which raced across the plains of Mongolia and
north China. Evidently these primitive humans
had gathered the eggs for food. Since a single egg
was nearly twice the size of that laid by a modern
ostrich and would have equalled a dozen and a half
hens' eggs it was a delicacy not to be despised.

The deposit found by the Jesuits in the Ordos was

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

on the shore of an ancient lake, long since "drowned"
by drifting sand. Thus it is probable that in Asia
Neanderthal man, or his counterpart, was a lake shore
dweller. He could not have lived in caves, for there
were few if any in this region. It is probable that he
sought the protection of a bank not far from the
water's edge, and he may have built himself a
shelter of branches roofed with skins.

The fact that in Asia primitive humans lived in the
open makes it infinitely more difficult to discover
their remains. Although in the Ordos Desert the
Jesuits found evidences of long occupation of a single
site and at Shabarakh Usu we discovered a spot on
which primitive men must have dwelt almost con-
tinuously for twenty thousand years or more, not a
trace of human bones did either of us find. In the
case of the Ordos locality it probably means that the
tribesmen buried their dead at some spot away from
their camp site, because the bones of other mammals
were preserved. In the case of our Mongolian Dune
Dwellers the interments may or may not have been
near their dwelling on the old lake shore. For some
reason conditions were not favorable there for the
preservation of bones, human or otherwise. We
found charred bits near the fireplaces, but complete
bones of any kind were almost non-existent. Al-
though many thousands of animals must have been
eaten at their camp during hundreds of generations,
the bones were not preserved. What became of their
dead we have yet to discover. It is possible, of

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

course, that the early men of Asia did not bury their
dead, but from what we know of primitive human
life in Europe, it is fair to believe that they did make
definite interments.

That some of us will find primitive .human bones
in the near future is probable. The problem would
be greatly simplified were we dealing with cave
dwellers, but I believe that success will come if we
persist.

It is only by finding skeletons or skulls that we can
definitely correlate our Asiatic primitive men with
those of Europe. Their " culture," the types of
implements which they made, and the methods of
shaping the stone tools tell us that there was a
relationship. It is improbable that two correspond-
ing types of culture would have been developed
independently in widely separated parts of the
world. It is much easier to believe that there was a
common origin for the European and Asiatic cultures
which show such close similarity. The question is,
Where did the ancestral stock develop?

Now that Neanderthal man with his accompany-
ing culture has been found in Palestine and Africa
his possible migration route from Asia is easily
mapped. As yet it can be considered only as an
hypothesis, but there is excellent ground for believing
that it will be proved to be a fact.

If it is true that this branch of the primitive human
race had its origin in Asia the view that the Central
Asian plateau was the homeland of much earlier types

311

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

of man will be greatly strengthened. Professor
Henry Fairfield Osborn's brilliant prophecy that it
was the centre of distribution for much of the mam-
malian life of the world is being more fully demon-
strated with every year that we work in Mongolia.
Day by day we are gaining a fuller knowledge of the
climate, temperature, flora, and general conditions
during the Pleistocene and the early Ice Age, when we
conceive man's development to have begun.

Since our geologists are convinced that an ice
sheet never covered central Asia during the Pleisto-
cene at the time Europe and America were being
successively invaded by glaciers, we have a very
important factor in the hypothesis of human evolu-
tion on the great plateau. It is evident that a
million years ago and less, the Gobi was a very
different place from the desert of today. The
temperature was not so low; the climate was much
less arid ; trees and meadows existed where now there
are desolate wastes of sand and gravel. Our geol-
ogists believe that during the last hundred thousand
years Mongolia has suffered a rapid dehydration.
This alone is sufficient reason for the migration of
primitive men to Africa, Europe, and other regions
where life was easier and game more abundant.

The fact that the Jesuit fathers made their dis-
covery of Mousterian flints in the Ordos and we found
the same type several hundred miles to the north,
indicates that a hundred thousand years ago Neander-
thal man was widely distributed in Mongolia.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

We found the same to be true of our Dune Dwellers,
who lived about twenty thousand years ago, at the
end of the Old Stone Age. Wherever the red sand-
stone stratum in which their flints occur was exposed,
there we found artifacts. In the basin below the
bluff where Nelson discovered the supposedly
"Pleistocene skeleton" he obtained a good repre-
sentation of their culture. Near Orok Nor the red
sandstone appeared again, but he found no flints.
This was explained by the fact that the stratum lay
below the old beach levels of the lake. Evidently the
water had covered the region after the Dune Dwellers
had lived there and their implements had been
washed away.

Chaney, Shackelford, and Loucks spent several
days in the lagoons of Orok Nor photographing and
botanizing. They found hundreds of water-fowl.
Coots, horned and small grebes, red-heads, mallard,
ruddy and shoveller ducks, bar-head geese, swans,
storks, and many species of gulls, terns, and shore
birds swarmed on the islands of tuli grass. A great
flock of white spoon bills was a surprise, as we
never have seen them elsewhere in Mongolia. The
men were about two weeks late for nests and
therefore the pictures were not particularly success-
ful, but Chaney obtained a splendid collection of
plants.

The flora is much like that of our American lakes,
including water buttercups, bladderwort, pond and
duck weed, green algae, cat-tails and tuli. Oddly

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

enough, the arrow leaf, pickerel weed, bulrushes, and
several others of the American flora are absent.

The geologists had an interesting week in the
mountains investigating cirques, or glacier beds, and
found the only birch trees which we have seen south
of the Arctic Divide, which is several hundred miles
to the north. Doubtless they are the remnants
of once extensive forests.

The palaeontologists made a most valuable contri-
bution by finding two skulls representing a great
group of mammals known as the Amblypods. Ex-
cept for the two teeth, obtained in 1923, by Professor
Osborn and myself, this American group was un-
known in Asia, but was one which he had expected
would be found there.

The two teeth were unmistakable, and definitely
placed the great group of Amblypods as former
inhabitants of Asia, but the skulls which Granger
obtained at the Little White Lake will tell a more
complete story of their relationship to the American
forms. This is of the highest importance.

Although there was every reason to believe that
the fossil-fields continued westward for a long dis-
tance, I was anxious to see what lay beyond the Altai
Mountains. Day after day I had gazed at the
massive ramparts barring us from the south. The
natives related tales of wild camels and of the famed
Przewalski horse; they told us of barren gravel
deserts, of sand and mountains, of death from thirst.
But each tale only strengthened that restless urge

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

which every explorer knows — the desire to go and
see. The mountains lay there like a silent challenge.
We knew that we could cross them on ponies, but
could it be done with a motor car? We would never
know until we tried. Kozlov, the famous Russian
explorer, told me that he had crossed the Altais
somewhere near this spot, but he had a caravan of
camels. We thought that we had located the pass he
used, for we could see a sharp break in the peaks
just west of Ikhe Bogdo.

On July 9th, Roberts, Young, Lovell, and I left
camp in an automobile with my faithful Mongol,
Tserin. We carried an assortment of spare parts,
food for a week, and gas to run five hundred miles.
Granger knew the general direction we intended
to take and that our objective was to get through
the mountains some way — if we did not return he
could trail us in another car.

After running a few miles westward we headed
directly south toward the mountains. Roberts by
taking compass directions was roughly mapping our
route. From the summit of a low rise we saw a
small lake about two miles to the west. Gulls and
terns were flying over the mirror-like surface and islets
of tuli grass stretched a long green finger toward the
centre. From our elevation Roberts sketched the
shore-line while I studied it through my powerful
binoculars. Slowly it began to dawn upon me that
something was wrong about that lake. The beach
grew indistinct and the tuli island danced about in a

3i5

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

most peculiar way. Roberts and Tserin both noticed
it, too.

"Bob, I think we had better run over there before
you go any further with that sketch," said I, and
started the engine. In five minutes we were on the
" shore" of the "lake" — only there wasn't any shore
and there wasn't any lake. It was the most perfect
mirage we had ever seen. Not even a suggestion of
water or of the tuli islands and our "gulls" were
sand grouse. Yet from first sight, all of us would
have staked our lives that it was real.

It is an axiom of Arctic exploration that you never
can be certain that land is land until you have put
your foot upon it. Cloud banks lying over the ice
make perfect mountains and coast- lines. It is an
axiom of desert exploration that a lake never is a lake
until you have waded in its waters.

But the mirage served a useful purpose, for during
our investigations we had crossed a well-marked
tiail which led toward the foothills between us and
the mountain's base. It took us up a dry stream
bed, across a grassy ridge and into another wash.
In some places the gorge was wide with bare rocky
slopes ; in others the stream had cut a narrow canyon
and sheer walls towered above us five hundred feet or
more; sometimes great rock slides threatened to bar
our way, but always there was a gate through which
the car could slip.

We emerged into a beautiful valley facing the
majestic ramparts of Ikhe Bogdo, the Great Moun-

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

tain, its snow-covered peak rising into the clouds.
Our trail led up a vast alluvial fan ten miles long,
toward a deep cleft in the mountain wall. I realized
that it must be a river gorge and probably would be
choked with boulders. The fan gave promise of
what was to come. A chaotic mass of rocks paved
the surface and it seemed madness to drive a car into
the debris.

Still Young and Lovell did pilot it safely for ten
miles actually into the canyon's mouth. There we
stopped and continued on foot. From the summit of
a thousand foot cone we could see how the gorge
wound in and out among the peaks, passable for
horses or camels without a doubt but hopeless for
cars. We named it "Kozlov Pass," as it is almost
certainly the one the great Russian explorer
discovered.

At the western end of this valley the horizon
dropped to a level ridge where the mountain chain
seemed to break. It looked to be not more than ten
or fifteen miles at most, but we ploughed forty miles
through the sand before the crest was reached. Then
we discovered that the range bent sharply to the
south and that higher and rougher peaks lay beyond.
There was not a sign of human life, but a dry lake bed
ran the entire length of the valley, which swarmed
with antelope and wild ass. They were feeding on
alfalfa and we found this plant growing wild at
half a dozen spots in other parts of the Gobi. I never
have seen such a concentration of game in a small

3i7

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

area. Antelope were running beside the car and
crossing our course every moment; tiny fawns
hardly larger than rabbits jumped out from almost
under the wheels, where they had been lying flat on
the ground with necks outstretched.

Herd after herd of wild ass pounded along beside
us, unable to tear themselves away from the fascin-
ation of the car. Most of the ass were mares and
many of them were chaperoning fuzzy long-legged
colts. It was amusing to see the little fellows bend
to the work of keeping up with their mothers. With
ears laid back and slim legs flying they put every
ounce of strength and determination into what
probably was the first time in their short lives that
they had run from danger. Once we saw four wild
ass fighting. Kicking and biting viciously they kept
at it until the car approached and they joined the
zoological garden which we were driving up the dry
lake bed.

In spite of the thousands of animals there was
something utterly desolate about the valley. Per-
haps it was the black mountain walls which shut us in
and the fact that for more than a hundred miles we
had not seen even the remains of an old camp fire
or the circular mark left by a Mongol tent. All of us
were exhausted when we camped at dark in a sandy
stream bed. The speedometer of the car registered
one hundred and fifty miles, and in that entire
distance not a well or stream had we seen. There
was a gallon left in one of the bags which would do for

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

drinking and coffee, but we did not worry, for in the
old lake bed half a dozen patches of vivid green grass
indicated that water could not be far below the
surface.

Although the Gobi is a real desert the water
problem is not so serious as it would appear to be.
If one has a shovel and knows the signs an excavation
eight or ten feet deep usually will reach water. The
Mongols themselves have dug wells almost every-
where. They lead such a nomadic life that their
wanderings have taken them into all parts of the
desert. Along the main caravan trails there are
wells every fifty or sixty miles. Some of them are
hundreds of years old, for these camel routes across
Mongolia are among the most ancient in the world.
As a rule the water is good. Unless there was a dead
camel or bad drainage we seldom boiled the water,
and we have had no sickness from that source.

During our night in " Deserted Valley " it rained
heavily. We had no tents, but, pulling the flaps
of the canvas sleeping-bag covers over our heads, we
remained perfectly dry; moreover, there was the
comforting assurance of sufficient water in the
morning.

The day began with hard work. When crossing a
dry stream bed the car suddenly sunk to the hubs
in moist sand and there it remained for four hours.
Experience has taught us to take such things philo-
sophically. With hardly a word every one began
to unload and to collect stones. To build a rock

3i9

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

foundation under the wheels is the only possible
way to get out of such a predicament. The quick-
sand appeared to be bottomless and the stone base
was six feet deep before it would hold the jack and the
weight of the car.

Across the valley there was, in the ragged line of
peaks, a dip which suggested a pass. None of us had
much hope that it would be possible to get through,
but it was the only chance. Crossing the low foothills
successfully, we started up the slope only to emerge
from behind a rocky corner on the very brink of a
stupendous chasm. Red granite ridges capped with
dull black lava cut into a thousand fantastic shapes
showed against a lowering sky. In the utter stillness
it lay like a red inferno. While Roberts took the
compass points for his map the rest of us explored
the nearest canyon, which divided into a labyrinth
of passages and roofless corridors. I suppose that
some day when a railroad parallels the Deserted
Valley tourists will picnic in the gorge. Of course,
they will name it "Dante's Hole."

A long detour took us around the chasm and the
break in the saw tooth horizon proved to be a pass
indeed. A hard floor of gravel led gradually toward
the summit between slanting peaks. It was only
seven thousand feet high but it seemed as though we
were mounting toward the roof of the world. As
the car swept upward we sang and laughed, our spirits
soaring with every foot.

From the crest, a vast panorama of low ridges

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

spread out before us like the waves of a great sea in a
heavy gale. We could look far into the mysterious
region south of the mountains which for us was the
"Land of Heart's Desire." But we soon found that
its interest lay chiefly in anticipation. It was
beautiful but commonplace. Great plains sloped
gently downward and the car flew like a bird over the
gravel surface.

Not a sign did we see of the reported fossil "bad
lands" or the terrible desert of thirst and death; only
line after line of pink-white ridges of quartz and
marble.

Much to our surprise we crossed a well-marked
trail running east and west. On none of the so-called
maps was there an indication of a caravan route and
it was important for our topographer to learn its
destination. We swung east on the trail and found
splendid going. The great flat pads of a camel's feet
are natural road-makers, tramping the sand until it
is as hard as rock.

In spite of the Mongol reports of the lack of water
the trail led us to a magnificent spring and just
beyond it we saw the blue tent of a great caravan.
They were Chinese from Shan si Province. As I
know that dialect and we were all wanderers in the
desert, they greeted us like old friends. In the big
tent we drank tea and ate boiled millet. Twenty
men with two hundred camels, they were on the way
to Kobdo near the northwestern frontier of Mongolia.
It was early May when they left China and as I am

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writing this, on Christmas eve, they have not yet
reached Kobdo. Nine months of the same life day in
and day out, making and breaking camp, eating and
sleeping. Nothing to interrupt the dreary monotony
except the winter's fight against snow and cold and
perhaps a bandit raid.

Tea, cloth, and tobacco were their goods to barter
for camel's and sheep's wool, hides, furs, and ponies.
The same trade in the same way over the same trails
has gone on for untold centuries and will continue
until that not far distant day when a railroad con-
nects China with Central Asia. Then at one blow
the romance and glamour of the desert will be
destroyed. Tourists will sit in heated cars, eating
the food of Europe, reading week-old newspapers,
and comprehending not at all the glorious history of
the Gobi trails.

The Chinese could give us no late news, but we
learned much about the country, for they had made
this journey four years earlier. The wild camels
and horses were two hundred miles to the southwest,
they said, just above the border of Chinese Turkes-
tan; the trail we were on broke through the Altai
Mountains and swung north to Uliassutai and Kob-
do; for several hundred miles both east and west
the country was a gravel plain with no bad lands or
exposures where fossils might be found.

It was all negative information from our standpoint
and bitterly disappointing. Three more days of
exploration proved it to be true. We were forced to

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return for lack of gasoline after exploring six hun-
dred miles, but we had mapped a vast area and
eliminated it from our future plans. Moreover, at
last we knew what lay beyond the mountains.

323

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

TT was the "zero hour" just before daylight when
* consciousness is drowned in heaviest sleep. Sud-
denly I sat up, wide awake, with a strange feeling
of unrest vibrating every nerve. Slipping out of my
fur bag I stepped through the wide angle of the tent
door. There was a heavy stillness in the air, vaguely
depressing. A cold nose touched my hand and Wolf,
our police dog whined unhappily. He pressed hard
against my legs, then stretched his head toward the
Flaming Cliffs and gave a long howl like the wail of a
damned soul. It made me shiver and I buckled a
cartridge belt and revolver over my pajamas before
circling the tents with Wolf close beside me. All
was quiet. Even the camels, kneeling in two long
double lines, nose to nose, were sleeping. It was
the tomblike stillness that was so disturbing and
back in the tent I made sure that Granger's revolver
was in its usual place beside his head. Then I slid
into my fur bag while Wolf squatted in the door
with his nose high, sniffing restlessly. I didn't like it
and couldn't sleep.

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THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

Fifteen minutes passed when I slowly became con-
scious that the air was vibrating to a continuous even
roar which was getting louder every second. Sud-
denly I understood it all. One of the terrible desert
storms was on the way! As the first blast bellied in
the tent filling it with a whirl of sand, I ducked into
the sleeping bag and pulled the flap tightly over my
head. A minute later the "wind devil" had passed
and I heard muffled curses from Lovell. His tent was
down and under the mass of blue cloth I could see a
writhing hump. Eventually Lovell emerged laugh-
ing as usual. "I'm all right," he shouted, "but this
tent looks like the wreck of the Hesperus. I'm going
back to bed," and dragging his sleeping bag clear of
the debris he crawled in happy as a marmot in a new
hole. The "wind-devil" whirled and danced away
across the desert and left the air heavy as a pall. In
the grey light of dawn we could see an ominous
bronze cloud hanging over the rim of the basin to the
south. Evidently there was more to come but it
might miss us and we decided not to wake the camp.
Ten minutes later the air shook with a roar louder
than the first and the gale struck us like the burst of
a high explosive shell. Even with my head covered
I heard the crash and rip of falling tents. It was
impossible to see but I felt for Granger with one foot.
He was lying across a green suit-case, his face pro-
tected by a shirt. As our tent swept away he had
leaped to save the box which contained six tiny fossil
mammal skulls, the most precious treasures of all our

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

collections. For fifteen minutes we could only lie
and take it. While I was feeling for Granger the
sleeping bag had been torn from under me and my
pa jama coat stripped off bodily. The sand and
gravel lashed my back until it bled and poor Walter
on the mammal skulls did not fare much better.

Suddenly the gale ceased, leaving a flat calm. The
camp was completely wrecked. All of the fifteen
tents were down and men were slowly emerging from
the debris, swearing good-naturedly in English,
Chinese and Mongol. Our tent was split from end
to end and its contents piled in the most chaotic mass
I have ever seen. A trail of litter showed the path
of the wind toward the tamarisks where the Dune
Dwellers lived ten thousand years ago. A third of a
mile away we found duffel sacks, wash basins and
canvas chairs. The tamarisks looked like Christmas
trees — each one bearing fluttering streamers of shirts
and trousers and dabs of snowy cotton. Half a dozen
chairs and folding tables had been smashed and every
tent was ripped. Basins, clothes and plates were
sucked into the whirling vortex of the up -draught,
carried hundreds of feet in the air and scattered
over the desert for half a mile. Never have I known
such a violent gale. The velocity must have reached
one hundred miles an hour and had our cars not been
facing it they certainly would have been overturned.

Fortunately it had passed in fifteen minutes and
there was an interval of calm before we had to face
the wind again. Every man considered it a joke.

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THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

While we hunted for our belongings in the growing
light, without a suggestion from me the cooks made
coffee and fried antelope steak. In half an hour
breakfast was ready. Can you wonder that with
such a spirit the expeditions have been a success?

All this happened when we returned to the Flaming
Cliffs of dinosaur egg fame in mid- July. The expedi-
tion had penetrated west as far as the latitude of
Uliassutai. New fossil fields had been discovered
but they were of small extent. Exploration south
of the Altai mountains was disappointing. Nothing
was left but to back track, cut through the mountains
again and try our luck. If that failed there were half
a dozen places in Inner Mongolia where we knew rich
fields awaited us. Meantime work remained to be
done at Shabarakh Usu. Just before we left in the
spring I had returned from Urga bringing Granger a
letter from D. W. D. Matthew, curator of
Palaeontology in the American Museum of Natural
History. Dr. Matthew is one of the least excitable
men I know, but he was stirred to the depths when
he wrote that letter. He said that a tiny skull in the
1923 collection which Granger had labelled "an
unidentified reptile" in reality was one of the oldest
known mammals. It had been found in the same
strata with the dinosaur eggs at Shabarakh Usu.
That statement will not sound extraordinary to the
majority of my readers but to a palaeontologist it is
thrilling. Bryan, and all his cohorts to the contrary,
we know that out of cold-blooded, egg laying reptiles,

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millions of years ago, evolved the warm blooded
mammals which gave birth to their young alive and
nursed them with milk. In a hundred years of science
only one skull of a mammal from the Age of Reptiles
ever had been discovered, although scraps of teeth and
jaws were known. That single skull, named Tryti-
lodon, from the Tyriassic of South Africa is in the
British Museum and is one of the world's greatest
palaeontological treasures. But it belongs to a group
known as the multituberculata, which died out in
the Eocene, or Dawn period of Mammalian life and
has no very direct relationship to living mammals.

Dr. Matthew wrote, "Do your utmost to get
some other skulls." Granger and I discussed it for
half an hour, then he said, "Well, I guess that's an
order. I'd better get busy." He walked out to the
base of the Flaming Cliffs and an hour later was back
with another mammal skull. It was the third of its
kind that had been discovered in a hundred years
and Granger found it just like that! It paralleled
the remarkable experience of Professor Osborn when
he told me he was going to find the tooth of a Cory-
phodon and two minutes later picked up the second
one ever known in Asia! Such things don't sound
possible, I will admit. But they do happen, and
frequently at that. I never would dare to write
them if they were not true for the presence of thirteen
other men upon the Expedition, all of whom will read
this book, is somewhat discouraging to exaggeration.

Granger's new skull was in a sandstone concretion,

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THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

but appeared to be virtually perfect, as indeed it has
so proved. We had to leave for the west the next
day but planned to return to the dinosaur egg beds
to hunt for more. Granger and Olsen, Buckshot and
Liu our two Chinese collectors, did some very inten-
sive searching in the next week. It was close and
trying work for the skulls were in little balls of rock
that had broken out as the cliffs weathered away.
There were millions of such concretions on the basin
floor and it was simply a matter of examining as many
as possible during the day. When one has looked
over a thousand or more with no result in the scorch-
ing sun the job loses its interest and becomes a bit
discouraging. But Granger and Olsen never were
quitters and they stuck at it day after day. By the
end of a week they had a total of six skulls ; probably
it was one of the most valuable seven days of work in
the whole history of palaeontology.

None of the skulls are longer than an inch and a
half. Granger had packed them carefully and they
never were out of my sight on the long journey from
Peking to New York. With a good deal of formality
and relief I presented them to Dr. Matthew at the
American Museum on November 9th, 1925. I told
him that this was the direct result of his letter. He
had asked for "The goods" and Granger and Olsen
had 1 1 delivered ' ' them .

Within a few hours of my arrival at the Museum,
Albert Thompson began the preparation of the skulls.
It had to be done under a microscope and the hard

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

rock particles picked off one by one with tiny needle-
pointed instruments. After an hour of such tense
nervous work, a man wants to scream and throw
things. By the beginning of the New Year, Thomp-
son had finished the preparation.

Regarding these archaic mammals, Professor Os-
born has said, 1 'There is little doubt that the extinc-
tion of the large terrestrial and aquatic reptiles which
survived to the very close of the Cretaceous prepared
the way for the evolution of the mammals. Nature
began afresh with the small unspecialized members of
the warm blooded quadrupedal class to slowly build
up out of the mammal stock the great animals which
were again to dominate land and sea. One of the
most dramatic moments in the life history of the
world is the destruction of the reptilian dynasties
which occurred with apparent suddenness at the
close of the Cretaceous, the very last chapter in the
Age of Reptiles.

"We have no conception as to what world wide
cause occurred, whether there was a sudden or a
gradual change of conditions at the close of the
Cretaceous; we can only observe that the world wide
effect was the same: the giant reptiles both of sea and
land disappeared.' ' The mammals we have found
were tiny creatures not larger than a rat and crawled
about in the middle of the Cretaceous period, ten
million years ago; they are to be regarded as the
first attempts of nature to establish the insectivorous,
carnivorous and herbivorous group of mammals.

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THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

They may be said to represent the earliest ancestors
of man, since they are among the most ancient
members of the class Mammalia to which man
belongs.

The skulls are especially important since they are
among the earliest placental mammals which are
related to existing groups.

At the time I am writing this chapter the study of
the specimens has just begun. They are so exceed-
ingly primitive that their relationship probably will
be obscure. Superficially, they appear to represent
at least two groups, one of which will almost surely
prove to be the Insectivores. The living shrew and
moles are true Insectivores, and it has long been
known that they possessed a very ancient lineage.
The other is the Creodonts, the very earliest carni-
vores or flesh eaters.

The discovery of these Mesozoic mammals means
that we are digging at the very deepest roots of the
mammalian family tree. It is too early even to
predict what new information they will give us as
to the facts of evolution but it is certain to be of
profound importance. Although they appear to be
so insignificant it is probable that after the dinosaur
eggs have been forgotten these little skulls will be
remembered by scientists as the crowning single dis-
covery of our research in Asia.

On the way to the Flaming Cliffs, we had dropped
Young, Butler, Robinson, Loucks, Chaney and
Roberts at Artsa Bogdo, one of the mountains of the

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Eastern Altai. Chaney was to botanize and the
others to hunt ibex and sheep. Nelson and Morris
in another car were to make their way back to the
main camp slowly studying several Old Stone Age
human culture sites which had been discovered in our
western trip.

While Olsen and Shackelford remained at the
Flaming Cliffs hunting fossils, Granger and Berkey,
Lovell and I left for a week's exploration of the little
known country beyond the Altai Mts. The Russian
map showed a great basin directly south of us across
the frontier of Inner Mongolia. The map is so
inaccurate that quite possibly no such basin exists
but it was worth exploring. If it was a low lying
area of sediments it was highly probable that it would
contain fossils. No trails were shown and the
Mongols said there were none so we prepared for a
gruelling trip. Thirty miles from the camp the
Gurbun Saikhan mountain (the "Three Good Ones")
rises to a ragged horizon of low peaks. We could
see a deep cut which looked like a pass and ran up to
it on a beautiful slope covered with short grass and
wild onions all in flower. The rocky gateway proved
to be the entrance to a dry river bed which led us in
and out among rounded hills and over lovely upland
meadows to a spring of cold sweet water just over the
summit of the pass. Right beside it were fine
exposures of red sediments but not a fossil bone could
we find in an hour's search. Sometime earlier the
geologists had discovered a fragment of dinosaur bone

332

THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

in similar sediments to the east so that they felt sure
that it was strata of the Age of Reptiles. They had
determined that the Altai Mountains were a late
uplift which had been pushed through the old sedi-
ments in late Tertiary times. From the southern
exit of the pass we looked into a vast basin with
exposures of red sediments on all three sides. But a
day and a half prospecting and more than a hundred
miles of travelling showed us that it was barren of
fossils. Still it was interesting and we had a most
illuminating example of how the country is cut and
eroded by sudden storms. For an hour the Gurbun
Saikhan ten miles away had been obscured by sheets
of falling rain. Suddenly we heard a muffled roar
and saw a flood of brown water advancing upon us
down the slope. It came so fast that I had to run to
keep abreast of it. The chocolate colored flood
stripped off a thin layer from the surface of the plain,
leaving in its wake new ridges and furrows. Thus
goes erosion where there is no vegetation to hold the
rain.

The Mongols were correct in saying that no cara-
van trails led southward, but we made three attempts
to cross the desert where the distant mountain ridges
lowered to the plain. Twice sand turned us back.
The third trial was successful and for more than a
hundred miles we ploughed southward over heavy-
terrain. Difficult passes let us through low moun-
tain ranges and in one we had a narrow escape.
Running rapidly up the smooth slope of a low hill

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

and over the crest, a gorge thirty feet deep suddenly
opened in front of us. Lovell threw on both brakes
stopping the car six inches from the edge. I nearly
had heart failure as I looked down into the ravine
through the wind-shield. We were out of that car in
about a second and a half. Then the question was
how to get it back from the edge. If the machine
slipped over we could walk to camp some two hundred
miles away or stay there and die of thirst. The
brakes were holding but a good strong puff of wind
was all it needed to end our little joy ride. Eventu-
ally we worked it back inch by inch after blocking
the rear wheels with stones so that it could not move
forward. That was one of the narrowest escapes
of our whole summer in Mongolia. Had the car
crashed into the ravine the Expedition would have
been shy five of its members.

The country we were crossing was hopeless from
our standpoint. Narrow, ragged mountain chains,
paralleled each other east and west; between them
were sedimentary plains uncut by ravines or gullies
so that there were no exposures in which to look
for fossils. We pushed steadily southward to the
edge of a vast area of ragged lava hills swept with
yellow sand. From the summit of the highest peak
we could look forty miles across this sea of desolation
to the blue ramparts of a mountain chain which
rimmed the basin we had hoped to reach. Nothing
on wheels could cross that sand drenched chaos; a
camel might get through but a horse would have been

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THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

ruined in an hour ; to circle it was out of the question
without more gasoline than we had to spare. It was
so obviously impossible that it tempered our defeat.
Had there been a chance of getting through we
would have turned back more sadly.

When ploughing up to another pass ten miles to the
west we discovered a solitary yurt tucked behind a
mass of rocks. Half a dozen Mongols ran out frantic-
ally signalling us to stop. It was a yamen (official
post) on the frontier of Outer Mongolia. A more
useless place for a yamen could hardly be imagined,
for we had not seen a sign of habitation in many
miles.

When we were returning through a mountain pass
just before dark two great brown animals leaped
into view on the saw tooth rim of the highest peak.
Lovell saw them first. "Sheep as I'm alive,' ' he
shouted. There they stood, two magnificent rams,
silhouetted against the sunset sky. Granger's rifle
was in the car beside me. As Lovell switched off the
power, I shot from the front seat sending a savage
bullet into the quarters of the largest ram.

I wonder if any other man in the world has even
seen a mountain sheep from a motor car, to say
nothing of shooting one. It gave me quite a "kick"
I must admit. I have killed a good many big horn
sheep but never one that did not exact strenuous
work. Hard climbing, skilful stalking, straight
shooting is what sheep hunting means. To sit
comfortably in a Dodge touring car and pot a Mon-

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

golian argalai, the trophy par excellence of a sports-
man's life, was a bit too much. Incidentally it
relates the story of where we had taken that car
about as plainly as it could be told. I am not sur-
prised that the sheep were too curious to run away
when the roaring black thing appeared among their
mountain peaks. It seemed so strange even to us
that at times we could hardly believe that we were
really there.

The discovery next day of a caravan trail, parallel-
ing the Altai Mountains sent us eastward for more
than a hundred miles into the most awful desert I
have ever seen. It was a bare gravel floor without
even the stunted "camel sage " and wild onions which
are able to exist where there is almost no rain. Car-
casses of animals marked the track, telling an eloquent
story of what a toll of life the desert had exacted
from the last caravan that passed this way. A short
distance from the trail lay the body of a man. What
had been his story? We wondered if he had lost
in the battle with thirst and hunger or if disease had
taken his life alone in the silent spaces of the desert?

The eastern exploration was as unproductive as
that to the south had been. Low ridges of Mesozoic
igneous rocks and inter-mountain basins of undis-
sected sediments formed an uninteresting assemblage
to a fossil hunter. Since there was no indication that
it would change for a long distance we returned to
camp at the Flaming Cliffs. The exploration had
taken us six hundred miles and although we were

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THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

bitterly disappointed in not discovering new fossil
beds, the negative information was valuable. A vast
area had been eliminated from our future calculations
and it determined definitely that we had already
investigated the most interesting regions of Outer
Mongolia. Although the fossil fields are so enor-
mously rich and would not be exhausted by many
years of work still that type of intensive study is not
within the province of the expedition. Discovery
and reconnaissance is our job and we feel satisfied
that Outer Mongolia has very little more to offer us.
We are all particularly glad that it is so for under
existing political conditions none but Russians can
work successfully in the country.

Interesting things had occurred in camp during our
absence. When Young and I visited Urga in late
May we had met a charming young Dane by the
name of Birck, who was in the employment of a great
English firm, the International Export Company.
Birck had suddenly arrived in camp with a caravan of
camels. His company had sent him to turn back a
herd of ten thousand sheep which were on their way
to Kivei-hiva-cheng in North China. The sheep
were to be diverted to Manchuria, just why Birck
was not sure. He believed that war in China was
the only possible reason and indeed it had seemed
certain that Chang Tso-lin and Feng-Yu-hsiang
would fight when we left in the spring. If it was
war, the sheep would have been a heaven sent food
supply for either one of the contending armies.

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ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

George Olsen, the champion dinosaur egg hunter
of the world, is also a Dane. It developed that he
and Birck had come from the same little town in
Denmark ; he knew Birck's father and they had lived
only a short distance from each other. Of course we
all remarked how very small the world is, after all!

The war news was very disturbing. If Chang and
Feng were really at it in earnest, the conflict would
probably be near Kalgan or along the Mongolian
border. In that event when we returned either
army would welcome our motor cars with open arms.
I did not intend to have that happen and as it was
only July 25th, there was ample time for the war
to be over before we reached China on September
1 5th. In the meantime it was possible that we might
get more information.

Birck remained at camp only one day for he had to
rejoin his caravan which was plodding eastward
toward a yamen sixty-five miles away. There he
was to await the arrival of his sheep.

Shortly after our return, Nelson and Morris who
had been examining sites for primitive human
cultures came in. Morris was ill with a strange
malady that had affected almost all of us at some time
during the last month. It was more like "flu" than
anything else. Starting with violent chills the
usual fever developed and then severe aching all over
the body. Dr. Loucks dosed his patients with
aspirin, kept them in bed and gave only soft food.
Mac Young had the most severe attack and it was

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THE WORLD'S OLDEST MAMMALS

two weeks before he was fit. It is the first time
that there has been any sickness of importance on our
various expeditions. The Mongolian climate is so
healthy and we lead such a normal outdoor life that a
surgeon is likely to be merely an insurance policy.
Gunshot wounds and broken bones are always immi-
nent but thus far we have escaped scot free. Two
days after Nelson and Morris arrived the shooting
party whom we had left behind at Artsa Bogdo
came in with eight fine ibex and two big-horn sheep.
They had had a glorious week and obtained mate-
rial for a group in the Field Museum of Natural His-
tory at Chicago which I had promised to President
Field.

It was delightful to have the entire staff together
again and to hear of the experiences 'and discoveries
of each party for except when we are travelling it is
seldom that everyone is in camp at the same time.

Since our exploration south of the Altai Mountains
had not produced positive results in the way of new
fossil fields the only alternative was to return to the
"Well of the Mountain Water" in Inner Mongolia
where we knew there were extensive unexplored beds.
I had left this region as a reserve in case the country
of the far western Gobi did not prove as interesting
as we expected. On August 2nd we departed from
the dinosaur egg beds, the "Place of the Muddy
Waters" with regret. This single spot had given
us more than we had dared to hope from the entire
Gobi Desert. When the expedition took the field in

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1922 Mongolia was almost an unknown country from
the standpoint of natural science. We had been
told that Mongolia was barren palseontologically and
geologically as well as physically. Yet the first
dinosaur eggs known to man, a hundred skulls and
skeletons of unknown dinosaurs, seven Mesozoic
mammal skulls and the primitive human culture of
the Dune Dwellers, all had come from a few square
miles in this lovely basin! Is it surprising that I
was filled with regret as I looked for the last time at
the Flaming Cliffs gorgeous in the morning sunshine
of a brilliant August day? I knew that I would
never see them again. "Never" is a long time but
the active years of an explorer's life are short and new
fields are calling for those that remain to me. Per-
haps some day I might view the Cliffs from the
window of a trans-Gobi train but my caravan never
again will fight its way across the long miles of desert
to this treasure house of Mongolian history. Doubt-
less it will be the hunting ground of other expeditions
for years to come. We have but scratched the
surface and every season of blasting gales will expose
more riches hidden in its rocks. Who can tell what
will come from a place that has given so much
already?

340

CHAPTER XTX

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

T^HE Flaming Cliffs, the tomb of dinosaurs and
*- eggs, had been left behind us for the Central
Asiatic Expedition was homeward bound. We had
been playing with scattered herds of antelope along
the trail waiting to pick up two or three yearling
bucks for meat and my car was a mile in advance of
the fleet.

An exciting run had just ended and two fat gazelles
were slung on the fenders of the car, when Dr.
Loucks shouted to stop. Half a mile to the north
lay a low, ragged mass of rocks, the root of an ancient
mountain peak. On the very summit, silhouetted
against the sky stood two magnificent big-horn sheep
quietly gazing at us. The glasses showed that they
carried superb horns; great circlets at least sixty
inches in length.

It was Mac Young's turn to get a sheep so we
waited for his car to arrive. Meantime the animals
remained motionless as though carved from granite.
Not until we were less than a quarter of a mile away

34i

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

did they slip over the crest and disappear. We
could not find those particular sheep again, but they
gave us an idea. Jichi Ola, an elongate, rugged mass
of granite rose abruptly out of the plain fifteen
miles away. It ought to have sheep also and
perhaps we could get them from the car. I had shot
a fine ram while crossing the Altai mountains and it
was a decided novelty to hunt one of the wildest
and most difficult of big game animals from the
cushioned seat of an automobile!

The tents were pitched close up against the base of
Jichi Ola near a well of fine cold water. On all
sides rolled the arid reaches of the desert like the
swelling surface of a vast brown sea. A hundred
yards behind the cook tent Shackelford flushed a
woodcock. A bird of paradise would have been no
more out of place than this shy inhabitant of
wooded swamps out there in the centre of the Gobi !
But we realized that the woodcock was migrating
southward and had lost its way. Wisely it had
chosen to lie concealed among the rocks until night
came and it could resume its journey safely.

Four or five of us hunted the next day and nearly
all the men got sheep, but they were all in the highest
peaks. Dr. Loucks returned late in the afternoon to
report that he had killed a wolf and two sheep far
down toward the end of the mountain ; he thought we
could get fairly close with an auto.

Robinson, Loucks and I in the touring car skirted
the base of the ridge and almost immediately saw

342

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

two sheep standing on one of the higher peaks.
They ran toward us as we advanced, apparently fas-
cinated. Keeping the engine running we stopped.
''Robbie" slipped behind a rock, and at four hun-
dred yards knocked over a young ram.

Evidently the time had come to hunt from the car,
for as the shadows lengthened the sheep worked out
from the peaks to the lower slopes to feed. By care-
ful manipulation we worked the car through rocky
gateways far up into valleys which cut deep into
the mountain. The roar of the engine echoed like a
machine gun among the cliffs, but it seemed to
attract, rather than frighten, the animals. We saw
fifteen, I believe, and shot three — not such a bad
record for big-horn sheep, especially when we sat
comfortably in a motor car all the while!

I think none of us will ever forget the drive back
to camp through a narrow defile. Exactly in the
centre of the gateway hung a crescent moon partially
eclipsed which threw a wan, unreal light among the
rocks. In the path of our head lamps, kangaroo
rats leaped and danced like elfin sprites, and once the
dim shadow of a wolf crossed into the darkness of the
plain.

The next day while Granger was visiting a red out-
crop which stood isolated on the desert four miles
from the mountain, he came upon a band of female
sheep led by a young ram. Following them in his
car for a mile or so, he found that the highest speed
they could reach was twenty-five miles an hour.

343

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

They tired quickly, however, and finally gathered
into a compact group. Running up to within a
hundred yards of them he stopped. The sheep
looked at him as much as to say, 1 'It is your next
move."

While he was trying to get his camera they decided
to leave and the group suddenly separated, each one
dashing wildly for the nearest point of rocks.

The yamen (official post) where our caravan had
been detained in the spring was the point where we
would again cross the frontier into Inner Mongolia
from the Soviet-controlled region in which the
expedition had been working all summer. We were
curious to know what would happen. I carried
enough documents from the Urga government to
paper a good size room but in the spring they had
been ignored by the petty officials. All summer we
had had with us an officer of the Secret Service
whose duty it was to see that there was no more
difficulty at the yamens and to vouch for the expedi-
tion. Of course he was there principally to report
upon our activities but as we had nothing to conceal
and he was a very decent fellow, he did not annoy
us.

The night before we arrived at the yamen, Berkey
discovered a great deposit of iron ore not far from
the well where we were camped. It was rather low
grade containing a good deal of chromium but if a
railroad ever is put through the desert it should be of
considerable value. According to my agreement

344

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

with the Mongol authorities we made a careful
report so that they will be able to investigate it in
the future.

All the officials at the yamen had been changed
since our last visit. They were pleasant enough
and allowed us to go without difficulty. But later,
after the Secret Service officer had left and Lovell
and Roberts returned to the caravan with two cars
to obtain additional supplies of gasoline, they found
the usual unbearable insolence. Guns were drawn
on both sides, but when the yamen officials saw that
our men were not to be browbeaten they gave in and
no blood was spilled.

Although the yamen told the Secret Service officer
that they would allow our caravan to proceed when it
arrived a few weeks later, we took no chances but
drove a hundred miles with six heavily armed men to
see that their promises were kept. We were rather a
grim-looking party when our car roared up to the
yamen and the officials could see easily enough that
we did not intend to argue with them concerning the
right for our camels to pass. It was a great relief
when all the expedition was safely across the border
in territory which is under the jurisdiction of the
Chinese.

At the yamen we were told that there was no war in
China but that there had been trouble in Peking and
surrounding areas. The information was so indefin-
ite that I was considerably worried. I had no wish
to bring our specially equipped cars into a situation

345

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

where they might be confiscated by some general
who had need of transport.

We were in camp at the "Well of the Mountain
Water" barely three hundred miles from Kalgan.
Granger and Berkey had made a short reconnaissance
trip to the northeast and reported new and very
rich fossil deposits. The work of the topographers
and botanist was virtually finished and Shackelford
could use the time to great advantage in Peking
developing films. Therefore I decided to run in with
two cars, take Butler, Robinson, Chaney and
Shackelford back to Kalgan and after a look at the
political situation return with Mac Young to the
expedition for another month in the field.

A few days before we started Shackelford had an
opportunity to photograph the greatest herd of
antelope that I have ever seen. We discovered them
one morning six miles from camp streaming up out of
a great basin. Thousands upon thousands of bucks,
does and fawns poured in a yellow flood over the rim
and spread out like a vast fan upon the plain.
Shackelford had his motion picture camera strapped
in the back of the car and we worked with the herd
for hours. But it was rather unsatisfactory because
as long as they remained on the flat plain we got
them in the picture only as a long line of moving
animals.

It was certain that they would not travel far for
the feed was excellent where they were. Therefore,
in the morning we went out again as soon as the

346

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

light was strong. This time they had arranged
themselves as though directed by a stage manager.
Perhaps fifty thousand were in the bottom of an
enormous valley where from the edge we could
" shoot* ' down at them with the telephoto lense.
There was a light wind and for the first time in my
life I could smell the antelope. A mile away the
squalling of the babies reached us. With the glasses
we could see them nursing and playing; all the inti-
mate details of domestic antelope life were carried on
before our eyes. Sometimes a thousand or so would
dash at full speed through the centre of the herd, only
to stop abruptly and begin to feed. The mass was in
constant motion; hardly for a moment was any part
of it stationary although the animals were entirely
at peace.

I was surprised not to see a single wolf. Such a
vast gathering should have attracted all the wolves
for miles around, but as a matter of fact, wolves
are remarkably scarce in Mongolia. One finds
them most frequently near the caravan trails where
dying camels give them food but then they are only
singly or in pairs.

After we had watched our antelope for nearly an
hour and exposed a thousand feet of film, we dashed
down the long slope directly into the herd. We were
almost on them before they decided that it was time
to really run. Then it was most amusing to see them
leap over each other to avoid the car. With ears
laid back the babies put every ounce of strength into

347

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the race and for a mile or two they could do fully as
well as their parents.

The herd divided into a hundred units and we
chased one after another until the plain was alive
with antelope running wildly about in search of their
husbands, wives or children. But within a few hours
they had again collected into a compact mass and in
the afternoon we saw them from afar like a splash of
yellow paint on a vast green canvas.

It is only the grass land antelope (Gazella gutturosa)
that gathers into such vast herds. In the spring
just before the young are born the females collect
on a flat plain and separate as they drop their
babies. In the fall the bucks, does and fawns again
assemble.

The long-tail desert species {Gazella sub -gutturosa)
never herd. I imagine the reason is because there is
no spot on the desert that could give sufficient feed
for more than a hundred.

We started for Kalgan just after a heavy rain and
in the afternoon had an experience which might
easily have cost us a car. A dry river bed barred
our way. Butler and Chaney prospected it and
waved me to come on. Fortunately, there was a
steep bank on the opposite side and I started across
at forty miles an hour. Suddenly, 11 plop !" I had a
sickening sense of everything going out from under
me as the car dropped into a quicksand well. It was
the same type of death trap into which the
Baluchitherium, whose legs we found had sunk three

348

Snowed in on the road to Urga, May, 1925.

Car sinking in the quicksand while fording one of the so-called dry rivers.

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

million years ago. It had been fossilized standing
erect. Had we not had another motor with us, a
million years from now someone might have
excavated a fossilized Dodge touring car in just the
same way!

The quicksand was narrow and speed of the car
had carried its front weels across the well. The rear
end was sunk at a dangerous angle but with the
"pull out" cables on the other motor we drew it to
firm ground.

There had been an unusual amount of rain during
the summer and the grass lands were blazing with
flowers. Chaney reaped a harvest of new species for
we had arrived at just the right moment ; a week later
half the flowers had withered.

As we neared Kalgan we began to get bits of
information regarding the political situations in
China. There was no war but a great strike of stu-
dents and a boycott on British firms had been going on
all summer. That was the reason why a herd of ten
thousand sheep en route to Kivei-hiva-cheng had been
diverted to Manchuria ; it was from their men that we
had had our first intimation of trouble in North
China. The news was very comforting for evidently
it was quite safe to proceed to Kalgan.

Peking was seething with excitement; therefore
it was enjoying itself hugely. It seemed very
strange to come into the flower filled courtyards of
my house and don formal evening dress for a dinner
within a few hours after leaving the desert. But I

349

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

had given myself only three days in which to enjoy
the luxuries of civilization.

As soon as a few necessities had been gathered
together we started back to Kalgan.

The Danish Minister, Mr. H. Kaufmann, and Mr.
and Mrs. Mason Sears of the American Legation
were contemplating a trip to Urga so I invited them
to visit our camp en route. Mr. Robert Williams
took them in his car and we had rather a messy time
of it on the return journey. Floods of rain had
converted the grass lands into bogs, but on the fourth
day we saw the blue tents dancing in mirage on the
rim of the great basin twenty miles from the "Well
of the Mountain Water.' '

It was a beautiful camp and very productive. As
soon as we had eaten tiffin, Walter Granger took us to
inspect the "diggings." George Olsen had several
skulls exposed and Granger and Berkey had come to
the conclusion that they were dealing with a new
geological horizon. It probably represented the
Upper Eocene, or Dawn Period of mammalian life.
The most interesting specimen was the skull of an
extraordinary beast that Dr. Loucks had discovered.
It had lived in this region three or four million years
ago and must have been a veritable nightmare
creature. Two thick bony horn-cores about eigh-
teen inches long by six inches in circumference
projected up and forward from just above the eyes.
The horns swelled at the ends like clubs and probably
were covered with skin as are those of the giraffe.

350

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

None of us have the remotest idea what the beast
was or to what group it belongs, except that it
probably was a hoofed animal. It is very seldom
now that one can find a mammal which cannot be
readily classified; but Loucks' discovery is utterly
unlike any previously known creature as far as our
knowledge goes. The specimen was in very bad
condition and no one with less experience and pati-
ence than Walter Granger would have been able to
remove it at all. The bone literally was in powder
and could be blown away. Granger soaked it first
with gum arabic which cemented the minute particle
together; then he stippled on Japanese rice paper,
and when this had dried he was able to expose a little
more of the bone and repeat the operation. Eventu-
ally it was bandaged with strips of burlap soaked in
flour paste which formed a hard shell.

The morning after our return to camp, Granger
came in to report that Chih, one of the Chinese
collectors, had discovered an enormous skull. We
all went down to watch the excavation, for that is the
most exciting part of fossil collecting. Just the tip
of a great bone was exposed and as Granger worked
away the surrounding matrix it proved to be the
occipital part of the skull. It was so large that at
first we supposed it to be another Baluchitherium,
but as the excavation proceeded it became evident
that what we had was a Titanothere. These huge
beasts which superficially resembled a rhinoceros,
were only known from America until we discovered

35i

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

them in Mongolia. Our first and second years of
work had produced very early, primitive types but
this was a much later and larger form, representing
the very summit of their evolution. In America the
corresponding species had an enormous forked horn
on the nose. In this specimen the nasal region was
gone, but the teeth and other parts of the skull told
the story almost as completely as though every bone
was present.

Meanwhile Nelson, our archaeologist, had found a
rich field in the same exposures which produced the
fossils. On a gravel slope facing west were twenty
or thirty piles of rock which indicated human work.
They were in orderly arrangement and he was
convined that they must represent burials.

It required considerable effort to remove the rocks
for some of them were huge slabs sunk several feet
into the earth. Two graves were empty, but one
produced interesting results. First, he encountered
heavy timbers beautifully preserved; under these
lay the perfect skeleton of a man. He must have
been five feet ten or eleven inches tall and beside him
lay a birch bark quiver filled with arrows. Some of
the shafts were of wood; others were partly of reed
tipped with wood. The points were iron but
strangely enough the metal was badly corroded and in
poor condition. The bow had separated into half a
dozen pieces but they can be fitted together at the
Museum.

To me the most interesting thing in the grave was a

352

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

saddle upon which the man's head was resting. He
must have worn a turban for bits of the cloth still
adhered to the skull. The saddle was well preserved
and when Nelson brought it to camp it proved to be a
perfect McClellan type such as our army uses today.
We had several with us and the similarity was amaz-
ing. General McClellan without doubt thought that
he had developed a new saddle just as we supposed
that we were the original discoverers of the dinosaur
eggs. But in both cases primitive dwellers of Mon-
golia had made the discoveries centuries before we
were born.

The saddle is quite unlike that used by Mongols or
Chinese today or in the past, so far as I am aware.

Nelson thought that the grave must be at least a
thousand years old and probably much more than
that. The fact that it was placed in a well drained
slope and the extreme dryness of the desert
undoubtedly accounts for the splendid preservation
of the wood and bones. It was impossible to identify
the skeleton in the field, but its racial characters can
be determined by study at the Museum.

Berkey and Morris found evidences of other pre-
historic people in rather an interesting way. They
were sitting in a Mongol's yurt twenty miles from
the "Well of the Mountain Water" when Berkey's
attention was caught by a small nugget of copper ore
lying on the family altar. The Mongol was definite
in his information that it came from a spot quite near
a temple fifteen or twenty miles to the south. The

353

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

geologists visited the place and found evidences of
surface mining operations on a large scale. A vast
pit had been excavated in the hillside; so large,
indeed, that at first they did not believe it could be
artificial. The copper was not in veins and the
deposit had been so thoroughly worked that but
comparatively little remained. They studied the
place carefully and came to the conclusion that the
mining operations must have ceased at least a
thousand years ago.

While we were at the camp where Nelson had found
his grave, the antelope herd which Shackelford had
discovered paid us a visit. We heard them pouring
down into the basin during the night and two days
later the whole mass came up again not more than
four hundred yards from camp. While we were at
breakfast the bleating of the fawns and the 11 tap tap"
of thousands of tiny hoofs brought us all out of the
tent. A vast yellow blanket of moving forms was
flowing over the rim of the bluff on to the plain.
Wolf, my police dog, went wild with excitement.
He chased first one group and then another until he
was exhausted, but the antelope could leave him
behind so easily that they only bothered to run when
he was almost upon them.

When we were ready to move to another fossil
locality ten miles to the north we asked the priests
of a nearby temple for permission to deposit our
specimens in their care until the caravan arrived.
We had done this half a dozen times during the

354

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

preceding two years. They said that we could leave
gasoline or rocks, but no fossils, because last summer
many horses and sheep had died in the vicinity and
that doubtless it was due to the bad influence of the
" dragon bones.' '

Our next camp was very similar to the one we had
left. The tents were pitched on a great promontory
which projected far out into the basin. Near them
was an oho, or religious monument, and shortly after
our arrival two lama priests came to call. They were
delegates from a temple four miles away, they said,
and asked us to be particularly careful not to shoot
or kill any birds or animals on the bluff. It was a
very sacred spot and the spirits would be angry if we
took life in the vicinity. Of course I agreed to
respect their wishes and gave orders at once. But
we had promised more than we could fulfill, as events
proved.

Within the first two hours of prospecting three
pit-vipers were discovered close to the tents. It is
almost the only snake in the desert but is an
extremely poisonous species. A few days later the
temperature suddenly dropped in the late afternoon
and the camp had a lively night. The tents were
invaded by an army of vipers which sought warmth
and shelter.

Lovell was lying in bed when he saw a wriggling
form cross the triangular patch of moonlight in his
tent door. He was about to get up to kill the snake
when he decided to have a look about before he put

355

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

his bare feet upon the ground. Reaching for his elec-
tric flash lamp he leaned out of bed and discovered
a viper coiled about each of the legs of his camp cot.
A collector's pickax was within reach and with it
Lovell disposed of the two snakes which had hoped
to share his bed. Then he began a still-hunt for the
viper that had first crossed the patch of moonlight
in the door and which he knew was somewhere in the
tent. He was hardly out of bed when an enormous
serpent crawled out from under a gasoline box near
the head of his cot.

Lovell was having rather a lively evening of it but
he was not alone. Morris killed five vipers in his
tent and Wang, one of the Chinese chauffeurs, found
a huge snake coiled up in his shoe. Having killed
it, he picked up his soft cap which was lying on
the ground and a viper fell out of that. Dr. Loucks
actually put his hand on one which was lying on a pile
of shotgun cases. We named the place "Viper
Camp" because forty-seven snakes were killed in the
tents. Fortunately, the cold had made them sluggish
and they did not strike quickly. Wolf, the police dog
was the only one of our party to be bitten. He was
struck in the leg by a very small snake and as George
Olsen treated the wound at once he did not die. The
poor animal was very ill, and suffered great pain, but
recovered in thirty-six hours.

The snake business got on our nerves a bit and
everyone became pretty jumpy. The Chinese and
Mongols deserted their tents, sleeping in the cars and

356

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

on camel boxes. The rest of us never moved after
dark without a flashlight in one hand and a pickax
in the other. When I walked out of the tent one
evening I stepped upon something soft and round.
My yell brought the whole camp out only to find
that the snake was a coil of rope. A few moments
later Walter Granger ventured outside lighting his
way with a flash lamp. In the tent door he made a
vicious lunge with his pick shouting, "I got you that
time! " But Walter had merely sliced a pipe cleaner
which I had just thrown out!

We had to break our promise to the lamas and kill
the vipers but our Mongols remained firm. It was
amusing to see one of them shooing a snake out of his
tent with a piece of cloth to a place where the Chinese
could kill it. The vipers were about the size of our
" copperheads," or perhaps a little larger. While
their fangs probably do not have enough poison to kill
a healthy man, it would make him very ill.

The snakes inhabit bluffs like the one on which we
were camped, throughout the desert, but their great
numbers at this particular spot was due to the fact
that it was a sacred place and the Mongols would not
kill them there.

This viper appears to be the only poisonous snake
in the Gobi and, as a matter of fact, we collected but
one non-poisonous species. The climate is too dry
and cold to favor reptilian life.

The new camp proved to be just as rich in fossils as
it was in snakes. One place which evidently had been

357

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

the bed of a stream that had flowed there four million
years ago was a veritable quarry of fossil bones.
Twenty-seven jaws were exposed at one time in the
same layer and it was only necessary to scrape off a few
inches of sediment in almost any spot to uncover valu-
able specimens. We got skulls of a peculiar beast
known as the Chalicothere, a veritable paradox. It is
a " clawed hoofed animal/' The head and neck are
like those of a horse, the teeth like a rhinoceros, and
the feet like nothing else on earth. Instead of hoofs
the creature was armed with claws. Why such an
anomaly was developed no one can tell. There
must have been some good reason for nature does not
produce such extraordinary appendages haphazard,
but thus far explanation is obscure.

The region swarmed with a little hoofed beast
known as Lophirdon and the palaeontologists obtained
a great collection of jaws and skulls which represent
many unknown species and genera. Thus far we
have found no trace of horses in the very old for-
mations. This is a great surprise for the unknown
five-toed ancestor of the horses is one of the types
which we confidently expected to discover. Four-
toed horses are present in the Eocene of both America
and Europe and we are certain that the ancestral
stock developed in Asia, but as yet it has eluded us.
Nevertheless it must be there and we hope to dis-
cover it eventually.

While work was proceeding at Viper Camp, six of
us made a five hundred mile exploration south and

358

SNAKES AND FOSSILS

west into a region which we hope to investigate dur-
ing the summer of 1926.

The trail of primitive man appears to indicate the
south and in the coming year we will follow wherever
it may lead. What the results will be no one can
predict for it is a new and unknown country.

Rain and light snow warned us to be on our way to
Kalgan when we returned from the southern explora-
tion. The sand grouse were nocking and golden
plover had arrived from the Siberian tundras in
thousands. They are signs which the experienced
Mongolian explorer does not ignore.

On September 1 2th we roared down the slope to the
basin floor leaving Viper Camp to the snakes and
vultures. Another season had ended and we were
well content.

359

THE CENTRAL ASIATIC EXPEDITION FUND

CONTRIBUTORS

Achelis, Fritz

American Museum of Nat-
ural History

Appleby, Mrs. John S.

Armstrong, E. J.

Asia Publishing Company

Baker, Carrie Ethel

Baker, George F.

Bamberger, Louis

Barbour, J. E.

Barr, James H.

Barron, George D.

Barton, Mrs. F. O.

Battle, George Gordon

Beckwith, Mrs. Daniel

Beller, William F.

Bernheim, Henry J.

Bernheimer, Mr. and Mrs.
Charles L.

Bevin, Mrs. A. Avery

Bigelow, W. S.

Bill, Edward Lyman

Blackmer, James L.

Bliss, Elizabeth B.

Bolton, Charles C.
Brodman, Henry
Brokaw, George T.
Cannon, Gabriel
Carden, George A.
Carpenter, C. L.
Casey, Edward P.
Chamberlain, George A.
Chandler, W. F.
Chapin, Cornelia Van A.
Cheney, Mary
Cheney, Paul H.
Chubb, Percy
Church, E. D.
Clark, Ella Mabel
Colburn, Louise H.
Cole, Harry N.
Colgate, Austin
Colgate, Henry A.
Colgate, Russell
Colgate, Sidney M.
Collins, P. D.
Congdon, Walter B.
Covell, Henry H.

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Crabbe, Louise G.
Crane, Henry M.
Crocker, W. T.
Crosby, Albert H.
Cullman, J. S.
Curtiss, Franklin
Darlington, Mary O'Hara
Davenport, Elizabeth B.
Davis, Waters S.
Davison, Henry P. (Estate
of)

Day, Richard H.
Dederer, Pauline H.
Deppe, William P.
Dewey, Charles A.
Dodge, Cleveland H.
DuBois, Ethel
Dunbar, F. L.
Easton, Kimball G.
Edwards, Elizabeth S.
Elsberg, H. A.
Emerson, Mrs. Edward W.
Emerson, Julia T.
Erbsloh, R.
Farrell, Thomas G.
Farrington, R. I.
Ferguson, Eleanor
Field Museum of Natural

History
FitzGerald, Desmond
Fordyce, George L.
Foulk, Theo.
Fox, Noel Bleecker
Francklyn, Mrs. Cyril
Fraser, George C.

Frick, Childs
Frissell, A. S.
Fuguet, Howard
Fulton, William E.
Gage, Simon H.
Gale, Mrs. Charles W.
Garrett, John W.
Gates, Thomas S.
Gilbert, Mrs. Frederick M.
Goodenough, Robert J.
Goss, George A.
Grew, Joseph C.
Grossmann, Mrs. Edward A.
Haldt, Harry Peale
Halsey, Harold V. W.
Hardee, N. A.
Harriman, E. Roland
Harriman, William Averell
Hencken, Hancke
Hidden, Walter
Hoe, Mrs. Annie L.
Holden, Guerdon S.
Hollingshead, George G.
Holmes, Charles L.
Holmes, Walter W.
Holt, George C.
Houghton, Clement S.
Hunter, Roland Jackson
Irish, F. C.
Jacoby, Henry S.
James, Arthur Curtiss
Kachurin, Philip
Keen, W. W.
Kellogg, J. H.
Kemeys, Walter S.

CENTRAL ASIATIC

Kern, William M.
Kirkham, William B.
Kridel, Alexander H.
Lacombe, E. Henry
Lamont, T. W.
Landon, Francis G.
Logan Museum, Beloit Col-
lege

Ludlum, Clarence A.
Mack, Arthur J.
Mackey, Clarence H.
MacMurray, C. F.
Manierre, Charles E.
Marsh, George E.
Masson, John G.
McClintock, Gilbert S.
MoCrea, W. S.
McGraw, Arthur B.
McGregor, Tracy W.
Meyers, Wallace E.
Milliken, Arthur N.
Monae-Lesser, Adolph
Moore, Mrs. Benjamin
Moore, Miss K. T.
Morgan, J. P.
Morris, Ira N.
Morris, Lewis R.
Morse, Mrs. Jay C.
Mosman, P. A.
Mott, Mrs. John B.
Nettleton, Charles H.
Newbold, Arthur
Notman, George
Olmstead, Mrs. J. C.
Openhym, George J.

EXPEDITION FUND

Osborn, Mrs. Henry Fairfield
Osborne, Arthur A.
Osterhout, George B.
Peabody, Endicott
Pedersen, James
Peskind, Arnold
Peter, Armistead, 3rd
Peter, Mrs. Armistead
Peters, Alice R.
Peters, Isabel M.
Philipp, P. B.
Pierrepont, Julia J.
Pomeroy, Katherine
Post, Abram S.
Pratt, Mr. and Mrs. John T.
Prizer, Edward
Pulitzer, Ralph
Putnam, Helen C.
Raisler, Samuel
Ramsey,W. E.
Ramsperger, H. G.
Raymond, R. 0.
Riegger, Arnold F.
Robbins, Chandler
Robinson, Mrs. C. L. F.
Rockefeller, John D., Jr.
Rogers, Saul E.
Rosenberg, Max L.
Ryerson, Mrs. Arthur
Sargent, Homer E.
Sarmiento, Mrs. F. J.
Satterlee, Mrs. Herbert L.
Schniewind, Ewald H.
Scholle, Howard A.
Schwarz, Emilie E.

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

Scofield, Archibald T.
Scrymser, Mrs. James A.
Scudder, Hewlett
Sheffield, George St. John
Simpson, Jean W.
Skeel, Mary A.
Skeel, Mrs. Roswell, Jr.
Smith, Albert Ernest
Smith, F. Drexel
Smith, Harriet Otis
Smith, W. Henckle
Snell, Francis A.
Sollmann, Ekko
Starr, Howard W.
Stewart, Colin C.
Straus, Mrs. Hugh Grant
Sulzberger, Arthur Hays
Swan, Mrs. J. Andrews
Sweet, Henry N.
Swenson, Carl G.
Taber, Mary
Taylor, Fred M. P.
Thompson, A. W.
Thompson, Mrs. J. Tod-
hunter
Thorne, S. B.
Titus, George F.

Ulmann, Carl J.
Veltin School, The
Vogel, Fred, Jr.
Voigtlander, George
Weigert, Hugo
Welcher, Alice L.
Welcher, Amy Ogden
Westervelt, W. D.
Wherry, William B.
White, Rev. and Mrs. Eliot
White, Ralston
Whitnall, Harold O.
Whitney, Mr. and Mrs.

Casper
Whitney, Mrs. Eli
Wickham, Mrs. D. O.
Wilbur, James B.
Willard, F. C.
Williams, Ellis D.
Williams, William
Winne, Charles K., Jr.
Woodward, L. F.
Wright, Mrs. Eva Edgar
Ziegler, Jessie
Zinsmeister, Mrs. Elsie

Ahrens
A friend

364

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF THE EXPEDITION

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Vol. XXXI,
pages 15 to 20, May 16, 1918.
"New Chinese Fishes," by John Treadwell Nichols.
American Museum Novitates, No. 6, March 24, 1921.

"Description of a New Species of Serow from Yun-Nan
Province, China," by Roy Chapman Andrews.
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol.
XLIV, Art. XX, pages 575 to 612, December 30, 1921.
"The Birds of the American Museum of Natural History's
Asiatic Zoological Expedition of 1 916-19 17," by Outram
Bangs.

American Museum Novitates, No. 38, May 25, 1922.

" Description of a New Loach from Northeastern China,"
by Henry W. Fowler.
American Museum Novitates, No. 42, August 7, 1922.

"Discovery of Cretaceous and Older Tertiary Strata in
Mongolia," by Walter Granger and Charles P. Berkey.
American Museum Novitates, No. 72, May 4, 1923.

" Protoceratops andrewsi, a Pre-Ceratopsian Dinosaur from
Mongolia," by Walter Granger and William K. Gregory.
With an Appendix on the Structural Relations of the Pro-
toceratops Beds by Charles P. Berkey.
American Museum Novitates, No. 77, May 25, 1923.

"Later Sediments of the Desert Basins of Central Mon-
golia," by Charles P. Berkey and Walter Granger.
American Museum Novitates, No. 78, May 25, 1923.

" Baluchi therium grangeri, a Giant Hornless Rhinoceros
from Mongolia," by Henry Fairfield Osborn.

365

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

American Museum Novitates, No. 83, July 25, 1923.

"Description of a New Cyprinoid Fish from China," by
Henry W. Fowler.
American Museum Novitates, No. 85, August 25, 1923.

"New Chinese Bats," by Glover M. Allen.
American Museum Novitates, No. 91, October 17, 1923.

" Titanotheres and Lophiodonts in Mongolia," by Henry
Fairfield Osborn.
American Museum Novitates, No. 92, October 19, 1923.

" Cadurcotherium from Mongolia," by Henry Fairfield
Osborn.

American Museum Novitates, No. 95, October 19, 1923.

"Two Lower Cretaceous Dinosaurs of Mongolia," by Henry

Fairfield Osborn.
Article XVI. — "Skull Characters of Alligator Sinense

Fauvel," by Charles C. Mook.
Article XVII. — "New Fossil Mammals from the Pliocene of

Sze-Chuan, China," by W. D. Matthew and Walter

Granger.

American Museum Novitates, No. 97, December 18, 1923.
"The Fauna of the Houldjin Gravels," by W. D. Matthew
and Walter Granger.
American Museum Novitates, No. 98, December 18, 1923.
"The Fauna of the Ardyn Obo Formation," by W. D.
Matthew and Walter Granger.
American Museum Novitates, No. 100, December 28, 1923.
"New Chinese Insectivores," by Glover M. Allen.

American Museum Novitates, No. 101, December 28, 1923.
"New Bathyergidae from the Oligocene of Mongolia," by
W. D. Matthew and Walter Granger.

American Museum Novitates, No. 102, December 31, 1923.
"Nine New Rodents from the Oligocene of Mongolia,"
by W. D. Matthew and Walter Granger.

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

American Museum Novitates, No. 104, January 15, 1924.
"New Carnivora from the Tertiary of Mongolia," by W. D.
Matthew and Walter Granger.
American Museum Novitates, No. 105, January 18, 1924.
"New Insectivores and Ruminants from the Tertiary of
Mongolia, with Remarks on the Correlation," by W. D.
Matthew and Walter Granger.
American Museum Novitates, No. 117, June 7, 1924.

"A New Crocodilian from Mongolia," by Charles C. Mook.
American Museum Novitates, No. 119, June 20, 1924.

"The Great Bathylith of Central Mongolia," by Charles P.
Berkey and Frederick K. Morris.
American Museum Novitates, No. 127, September 4, 1924.
' ' Psittacosaurus and Protiguanodon : Two Lower Cretaceous
Iguanodonts from Mongolia," by Henry Fairfield Osborn.
American Museum Novitates, No. 128, September 22, 1924.
"Sauropoda and Theropoda of the Lower Cretaceous of
Mongolia," by Henry Fairfield Osborn.
American Museum Novitates, No. 132, September 29, 1924.
"A New Spadefoot Toad from the Oligocene of Mongolia
with a Summary of the Evolution of the Pelobatidse, " by
G. K. Noble.

American Museum Novitates, No. 133, September 30, 1924.
"Microtines Collected by the Asiatic Expeditions," by
Glover M. Allen.
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. LI,
Art. V, pages 103-127, October 7, 1924.
"Basin Structures in Mongolia," by Charles P. Berkey and
Frederick K. Morris.
American Museum Novitates, No. 135, October 14, 1924.
"Structural Elements of the Oldrock Floor of the Gobi
Region," by Charles P. Berkey and Frederick K. Morris.
American Museum Novitates, No. 136, October 16, 1924.
"The Peneplanes of Mongolia," by Charles P. Berkey and
Frederick K. Morris.

367

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

American Museum Novitates, No. 144, November 7, 1924.
"Three New Theropoda, Protoceratops Zone, Central
Mongolia," by Henry Fairfield Osborn.
American Museum Novitates, No. 145, November 10, 1924.
" Eudinoceras, Upper Eocene Amblypod of Mongolia," by
Henry Fairfield Osborn.
American Museum Novitates, No. 146, November II, 1924.
" Andre wsarchus, Giant Mesonychid of Mongolia," by
Henry Fairfield Osborn.
American Museum Novitates, No. 147, November II, 1924.
' 1 Cadurcotherium Ardynense, Oligocene, Mongolia," by
Henry Fairfield Osborn.
American Museum Novitates, No. 148, November 11, 1924.
" Serridentinus and Baluchitherium, Loh Formation, Mon-
golia," by Henry Fairfield Osborn.
Bulletin of The American Museum of Natural History, Vol. LI,
Art. VI, pages 129-144, December 30, 1924.
"Fossils in the Ondai Sair Formation, Mongolia," by
T. D. A. Cockerell.
Bulletin of The American Museum of Natural History, Vol. L,
Art. VII, pages 373-405, December 31, 1924.
"Some Fishes Collected by the Third Asiatic Expedition in
China," by Henry W. Fowler.
Bulletin of The American Museum of Natural History, Vol. LI,
Art. VIII, pages 313-317, February 11, 1925.
"The Affinities of the Fish Lycoptera Midden dorffi," by
T. D. A. Cockerell.
American Museum Novitates, No. 156, February II, 1925.
"On Protoceratops, A Primitive Ceratopsian Dinosaur from
the Lower Cretaceous of Mongolia," by William K. Greg-
ory and Charles C. Mook.
American Museum Novitates, No. 157, February 13, 1925.
"New Reptiles and a New Salamander from China," by
Karl Patterson Schmidt.

368

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

American Museum Novitates, No. 161, March 31, 1925.

"Jerboas from Mongolia," by Glover M. Allen.
American Museum Novitates, No. 163, April 2, 1925.

"Squirrels Collected by the American Museum Asiatic
Expeditions," by Glover M. Allen.
American Museum Novitates, No. 167, April 22, 1925.

"A New Homalopterin Loach from Fukien," by J. T.
Nichols.

American Museum Novitates, No. 169, May 23, 1925.

"An Analysis of Chinese Loaches of the Genus Misgurnus,"
by J. T. Nichols.
American Museum Novitates, No. 170, May 25, 1925.

"The Two Chinese Loaches of the Genus Cobitis," by J. T.
Nichols.

American Museum Novitates, No. 171, May 26, 1925.

"Nemacheilus and Related Loaches in China," by J. T.
Nichols.

American Museum Novitates, No. 172, May 26, 1925.

"Homaloptera Caldwelli, A New Chinese Loach," by J. T.
Nichols.

American Museum Novitates, No. 175, May 28, 1925.

"New Chinese Amphibians and Reptiles," by Karl Patter-
son Schmidt.

American Museum Novitates, No. 177, June 20, 1925.

"Some Chinese Fresh-water Fishes," by J. T. Nichols.
American Museum Novitates, No. 179, June 23, 1925.

"Hamsters Collected by the American Museum Asiatic
Expeditions," by Glover M. Allen.
American Museum Novitates, No. 181, July 16, 1925.

"Some Chinese Fresh-water Fishes," by J. T. Nichols.
American Museum Novitates, No. 182, July 17, 1925.

"Some Chinese Fresh- water Fishes," by J. T. Nichols.
American Museum Novitates, No. 208, February 16, 1926.

"Two New Perissodactyls from the Arshanto Eocene of
Mongolia," by W. D. Matthew and Walter Granger.

369

ON THE TRAIL OF ANCIENT MAN

American Museum Novitates, No. 173.

"The Microstructure of the Dinosaurian Egg-Shells from
the Cretaceous Beds of Mongolia," by Victor Van
Straelen.

370

Inner and Outer Mongolia; the routes of the Central
Asiatic Expeditions, 1922, 1923, 1925

Note: A few places have been marked by index
letters as follows: south of Urga, BG is
Bolkuk Gol; south of Sain Noin, HS is Hot
Springs; TN is Tsagan Nor; WA is Wild
Ass Camp; north of Ikhe Bogdo, KN is
Kholobolchi Nor; ON is Orok Nor; north
of Artsa Bogdo, OB is the Oshih Basin.

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