Personalities ~ Edmund Heller 1875 - 1939

Edmund Heller.  From a lecture brochure Ca. 1912

In 1916-1917, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City sent an expedition under Roy Chapman Andrews to study the zoology of southern China, in particular Yunnan Province.  Andrews' wife, Yvette Borup Andrews, was the official photographer for the expedition.  The Andrews left in March 1916 and were joined by Edmund Heller at Lung-tao, China on July 20, 1916.

After spending some time near Foochow hunting tigers, the expedition left for Yunnan via Hong Kong, Hainan, Haiphong and Hanoi. The route of the expedition in Yunnan took them through Yunnan-Fu, Tali-Fu, Chien-Chuan-Chou, Li-Chiang and the Snow Mountain, Meng-Ting, Wa-Tien and Teng-Yueh Ting. They then crossed the border into Burma making their way to Rangoon via Bhamo and Mandalay. The expedition broke up at Bhamo with the Andrews heading for New York, via Rangoon, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore and Japan.  Edmund Heller went on to Calcutta, Darjeeling, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canton and Shanghai.

In camp.  Fuchow, China, 1916.  Photograph taken by Yvette Borup Andrews.  As Yvette developed her glass negatives in the field under somewhat trying conditions, it is likely that the fingerprints on the right margin are hers.  This 'safe edge' of the glass negative would not normally be seen when used as a lantern slide or used to print photographs.  This image has never been published.

Detail of Camp Fuchow.  Left to Right: Yvette Borup Andrews, Edmund Heller, Roy Chapman Andrews, Harry Caldwell of 'Blue Tiger' fame. Note that all three men appear to have been in the midst of rolling cigarettes.  Photo by Y.B. Andrews  

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This brief biography from Smithsonian Institution Archives :  Edmund Heller Papers

Edmund Heller was born in Freeport, Illinois on 21 May 1875. When he was thirteen, he moved with his parents to Riverside, California, which he thereafter considered his home. As a boy, he spent much time collecting birds and their eggs in the area near Riverside. He was joined in this collecting by Harvey M. Hall, later a noted botanist.

Heller entered Stanford University in 1896 and received his A.B. in 1901. An opportunity arose for Heller to collect on the Galapagos Islands during the Hopkins-Stanford Expedition in 1898, and together with Robert E. Snodgrass, Heller spent 7 months on the islands. In 1900, the United States Biological Survey employed Heller as assistant to Wilfred Hudson Osgood in his Alaskan investigations.

Following his graduation, Heller joined the Field Columbian Museum as western field collector and worked in California, Oregon, Lower California, Mexico and Guatemala. In 1907, Heller accompanied Carl Ethan Akeley on the Field Museum's African expedition.

Upon his return, Heller was appointed curator of mammals at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California. While with the MVZ, Heller participated in the 1908 Alexander Alaskan expedition and made the report on the mammals collected.

Heller spent the years 1909-1912 with the Smithsonian-Roosevelt and the Rainey African Expeditions. 

In 1914, the United States Biological Survey conducted field investigations in Canada to secure information concerning the habits and distribution of large game mammals. Heller accompanied the Lincoln Ellsworth expedition to the Dease River-Telegraph Creek area of British Columbia and later to Alberta.

The National Geographic Society and Yale University jointly sponsored an expedition to Peru in 1915 to explore newly discovered ruins of an Incan civilization at Machu Picchu, northwest of Cuzco. Specialists in various fields were chosen to accompany the party. Heller, as expedition naturalist, supervised the collecting of 891 mammal specimens, 695 birds, about 200 fishes and several tanks of reptiles and amphibians.

In 1916, Heller joined Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews on the American Museum of Natural History Expedition to China. 

When Paul J. Rainey, with whom Heller had traveled to Africa, was appointed official photographer for the Czech army in Siberia, he invited Heller to accompany him to Russia. From the summer of 1918 until the end of World War I, they traveled by rail across Siberia to the Ural Mountains and back to their starting point.

In 1919, Heller took charge of the Smithsonian Cape-to-Cairo Expedition. Upon his return, he worked briefly for the Roosevelt Wild Life Experiment Station making a field study of large game animals in Yellowstone National Park. He was then appointed assistant curator of mammals at the Field Museum under Wilfred Hudson Osgood. During his six years in that position, Heller made trips to Peru in 1922-1923 and to Africa from 1923-1926.

Heller's trip to Africa was his last collecting effort. After his return, he resigned his position at the Field Museum and became director of the Milwaukee Zoological Garden, a position that he held from 1928 to 1935. From 1935 until his death in 1939, Heller was director of the Fleishhacker Zoo in San Francisco.

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Cover of Lecture Brochure, Ca. 1929.  Collection of Clive Coy

Over the past 30+ years, I have read nearly everything written by Roy Chapman Andrews about his expedition to China with Edmund Heller.  There are several magazine articles, the popular account of the expedition itself was published in a book: Camps and Trails In China, [D. Appleton & Co., 1918] and Andrews' two autobiographies.  I have found it peculiar that Andrews had very little to say about Heller, and always referred to him as Mr. Heller, unlike other persons mentioned who were usually introduced once formally within the narrative, and then referred to by their first name, example Rev. Harry Caldwell, and after simply called Harry.


I would not normally make much of this, except within Under A Lucky Star is this rather suggestive mention of Heller during the Yunnan trip:

I wanted to explore Yunnan, the mountainous province of southeastern China, which margined the Tibetan plateau. The expedition would cost fifteen thousand dollars and I agreed to raise half of it among my friends if the Museum would provide the remainder.

I don't remember where all the money came from. I think Sidney M. Colgate, James B. Ford, Charles L. Bernheimer, George S. Bowdoin, and Henry C. Frick gave most of it. Anyway I got it, and by March 1916 we sailed on the Japanese ship Tenyo Maru. Edmond Heller was the other scientist of the expedition. Heller had accompanied Colonel Theodore Roosevelt on his African trip after he left the White House and was an excellent small mammal collector, although hardly as successful a field companion. 


[Excerpted from Under A Lucky Star.  The Viking Press, 1943.  Page 129]

Does anyone know what Andrews was making oblique reference to?

Click image to view near full size

click image to view near full size

The Sulphur Bottom Whale Model 1907

Despite his many years working for the American Museum of Natural History, Roy Chapman Andrews had only very limited hands-on involvement with the museum's exhibits.  One of his first projects was to assist in the construction of a life-like model of a Sulphur Bottom Whale, more commonly called a Blue Whale [Balaeoptera musculus].  This project was led by James L. Clark, himself a young member of the department who had not yet become famous as an artist and sculptor.  

Andrews told this story in several different versions in his books and popular magazine articles.  Andrews' first autobiography, Ends Of The Earth was sparingly illustrated, his second autobiography, Under A Lucky Star had none at all. 

Here then is a little known article published by Scientific American in 1907 with images of the model under construction.  Images of this model were published in National Geographic, May 1911 in Andrews article:  Shore Whaling, A World Industry, also in his two biographies Ends Of The Earth, and Under A Lucky Star; in each case they are attributed to the author.   In : American Museum Whale Collection, a December 1914 article by Andrews for The American Museum Journal, the exact same images are marked as copyright National Geographic Magazine.  

I have determined that the photographs were originally taken by a museum photographer named J. Otis Wheelock.  

I have provided the original text of the accompanying article immediately after this image of the cover.

The Whale In The American Museum of Natural History.

A Life-like Model of the Largest Living Mammal.

[By Anonymous.  Scientific American Supplement.  September 14, 1907]

The American Museum of Natural History in New York has recently added an exact model of a large whale to its mammalian collection, and the achieve­ment is one deserving of more than passing notice or credit. Relics of whales are common, from the huge jaws to be seen in many a seaside village to the more or less complete skeletons in museums. But there have been obvious difficulties in the way of preserving complete specimens. Not only is there the practical problem of-large size, but the.oily skin is almost impos­sible of natural-appearing preservation.

This model is the outcome of a notable forward movement in the policy of the museum. The old formula for "stuffing," say, a bear, was arsenical paste, wire, and a bale of hay. The skin was literally "stuffed" to a barrel-like' distortion, and the whole labor cost but a few dollars. To-day the skin is mounted over a model, the work of a sculptor who knows anatomy, and the final result may represent weeks of skilled labor. But it is a correct representa­tion of the animal as it lived.

When it was decided to add a whale model to the collection, the idea was to obtain a satisfactory facsimile of the real creature. The species chosen was the sulphur bottom, a whale which is common off the coast of Newfoundland, where regular shore sta­tions are maintained for its chase. This whale is the largest species known, and is indeed larger than any of the reptilian monsters of geology, of which actual traces have been found. The work was placed in the hands of Mr. Roy C. Andrews, of the museum staff, who visited Newfoundland, and was fortunate in secur­ing his data from a large whale measuring 76 feet.

From these data an exact model was made, scale one inch to one foot, and from this model the large one was plotted. The model was divided into sections, and its various dimensions accurately copied on paper ruled in squares. From these plans others of life size were enlarged for the use of the blacksmith, the carpenter, and other workers. The work was done in the large gallery where the whale now hangs. A working platform was constructed, and on this light T-irons were laid out to mark the backbone and the ventral lines  This framework was bolted together with plates to allow it to be divided into sec­tions of eight feet each, for transportation if required. This provision, however, proved unnecessary, as the finished whale now swings over the spot where its lines were laid down. Rigidity was given to the frame by cross bracing; and iron ribs were next added.  

These ribs, like the back and ven­tral lines, are accurately bent to the size and contour of the finished model, but are a little smaller; the final covering of laths being carried on a wooden framework fitted over the iron and projecting about a couple of inches beyond it. Up to the stage when the iron ribs were attached to one side, the model was lying on its side. 

Ropes were now rove through the rings in the ceiling, placed to bear the finished whale, and the framework was raised until it stood upright, resting on the platform. The second set of ribs was now added, giving the complete skeleton shape. The iron frames for the fins and the flukes were next bolted on, and a wooden framework fastened over the skeleton. 

On this framework laths were nailed . These laths were of basswood, two inches broad, and 3/16 inch thick; they were laid diagonally across the skeleton, and this wood was chosen as being soft and bending well to the frame­work. The framework being now completed, there remained the most important part of the work, from the public's point of view—the outer modeling and col­oring. The final outer skin is of papier mache. The whale was covered with wire screen of a mesh rather coarser than that used for windows in summer, and the papier mache was worked into this.

At this stage Mr. Andrews had the collaboration of Mr. J. L. Clark, the sculptor-anatomist of the museum. To Mr. Clark is due the external modeling, each detail of which is a close copy from life. The wonderful grooves along the lower jaw of the whale—grooves the use of which is not definitely known—are exact in number and position. The blowhole (just behind the hump on the head), the line of the meeting jaws, the tiny external orifice of the ear, and the curves around the eye, were a few of the details needing exact care.  The modeling completed, there remained the coloring, and here the thoroughness which has characterized each stage of the construction has been maintained. 

The body color of the whale is a light slate flecked with peculiar markings. Why the whale received its name "sulphur bottom" is not apparently known, but there is no trace of sulphur color in these fleckings; they circle the hinder parts of the body in patches of a lighter gray slate, and under the belly beneath the film they emerge into an almost solid band of white—as though the whale had been whitewashed. The blotches have been applied with an airbrush, and are successful in suggesting a local lack of coloring matter in the skin, rather than a wash of paint. Figs. 6 and 7 give a good idea of the completed specimen, and of the successful modeling and coloring.

The size of the gallery where the whale hangs allows visitors to obtain a good idea of the proportions of the monster, but handicaps the photographer. The two pictures reproduced show this limitation, and so a few dimensions may be added. The total length of the whale is 76 feet, and its greatest body breadth, across the shoulders just behind the blowhole, is 12 feet. At this point its girth is 36 feet. From tip to tip across the flukes measures 16 feet.

The weight of the original whale was estimated at 63 tons—8 tons of blubber, 8 tons of bones, 40, tons of flesh, and the blood, whalebone, and viscera ac­counting for the remaining 7 tons.

The sulphur bottom whale attains the largest size of any species, and the longest authentic record of length is 86 feet; this model therefore fairly repre­sents the size of the largest living creature. Off the coast of Newfoundland several hundreds are captured annually. Watch is kept on shore, and when a whale is sighted, a small steamer starts in chase. The cap­tured whale is towed ashore, where in several places machinery has been installed for cutting up the car­cass. Little goes to waste; the blubber yields oil, and parts of the viscera are turned into leather. The flesh and the bones are used in making fertilizer, and the whalebone has many uses, although that supplied by the sulphur bottom is not of the best quality.

Whale Model in Mammal Gallery, as seen from floor level of visitor

Here is one account by Andrews from his best selling Autobiography Under A Lucky Star.  1943 I had been in the Museum only a few months when my big chance came. In the Director's office I was introduced to a fussy little" gray-haired gentleman named Richardson. He was, Dr. Bumpus said, going to build a life-size model of a whale to hang in the third floor gallery-well. I was to be his assistant. I was considerably frightened but tried not to show it. What I knew about whales was less than nothing. I had never met a whale in Wisconsin's Rock River! By that time, however, I had learned to keep my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open. No one could know how ignorant I was if I didn't talk. But the job wasn't as terrifying as it sounded for we were only to enlarge a scale model which Jim Clark had made under the direction of Dr. F. A. Lucas, then Director of the Brooklyn Museum. 

Construction details, however, were a hidden mystery to me, for Fve never had the slightest interest in mechanics. My mind doesn't run that way any more than to mathematics. But I got along all right because Richardson knew what he was about until we came to the paper covering. The framework of angle 
iron and bass wood strips was impressive, for the whale boasted a length of seventy-six feet. But the paper wouldn't work. It buckled and cracked and sank in between the ribs. Our whale looked awful. It seemed to be in the last stages of starvation. I used to dream about it at night, and the Director was in despair. 

Finally, he called Jimmy Clark and me to his office. "This whale is getting on my nerves," he said. "It is beyond all endurance. What shall we do?" Jimmy and I knew exactly what to do for we had spent 
many hours discussing that emaciated whale. "Fire the paper, gentlemen," we chorused, "and let us finish it with wire netting and papier-mache." The Director beamed. "Done. If you turn that wreck of a Cetacean into a fat, respectable whale, Fll give you both a knighthood." 

Jimmy and I hopped to it with a crew of twelve men. It was amazing what a well-regulated diet of papier-mache did for the beast. He lost that pitiful, starved, lost-on-dry-land appearance, his sides filled out and became as smooth as a rubber boot; we could almost feel him roll and blow as we built him up with 
our new tonic. After eight months, the job was done. During thirty-five years our whale has hung in the gallery and is still as good as new. He has been stared at by millions of eyes, and is still one of the most popular exhibits in the Museum. 

Roy C Andrews  November 16, 1907

An interesting account of  the Newfoundland Blue whale and this model can be found at:  Acadiensis, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 Autumn/Automne 1997   The Construction and Display of the First Full-Scale Model of a Blue Whale: The Newfoundland Connection.  By Chesley W. Sanger, and Anthony B. Dickinson Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Article From Edmonton Journal: New Dinosaur Museum

Dr. Philip J. Currie, Dr Eva Koppelhus, and Brian Brake.  

Photo by Laura Beauchamp

EDMONTON — Philip Currie is well-accustomed to his life’s work finding its way into museums. Now, Alberta’s best-known paleontologist will have to get used to his name adorning the front of one.

A new $26.4-million facility near Grande Prairie will be called the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum.

“It’s a funny feeling, it’s strange. In my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have expected it,” Currie, 62, said after the announcement was made this week. “Once I got over the shock of finding out they wanted to do this, I said I would because it’s an amazing honour.”

West of Grande Prairie, the Pipestone Creek fossil bed has already yielded more than 3,500 complete bones and samples from more than 40 animals.

Currie was one of the first scientists to do work in the area, back in the 1970s, shortly after he came to Alberta. He believes a new museum in the area will educate Albertans and tourists to the fact that the entire province is a fine source of fossils, not just the well-known Drumheller area and its Royal Tyrrell Museum.

“The nice thing about two museums is to expand thinking beyond Drumheller, to the larger package. The whole province is incredibly rich in these matters.”

The museum will also provide paleontologists with two bases to work and store fossils in the province.

Brian Brake, executive director of the project, said Currie’s long association with the area and his international prominence made him an easy choice. “We wanted someone who gave us instant recognition.”

The museum’s previous working title was River of Death Discovery Dinosaur Museum, a reference to the mass drowning of a herd of animals in the late Cretaceous period that provided the area with many of its fossils. However, Brake said the name turned many people off. One corporate sponsor refused to support the project unless the name was changed, Brake said.

“What they wanted was a name more associated with the living, and hopefully that’s me,” Currie said with a laugh

The museum will be in the town of Wembley, on Highway 43, near Grande Prairie. If all the funding falls into place, Brake said it is possible to break ground on the project in August or September.

rcormier@edmontonjournal.com

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Breaking News ~ The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum

New Dinosaur Museum Gets A Name

Philip Currie uncovers the complete skull of an Ornithomimid dinosaur.

Dinosaur Provincial Park

Announced today:  A new palaeontology museum to be constructed near Wembley, Alberta, Canada will officially be known as the Phillip J Currie Dinosaur Museum, in honour of Dr. Phil Currie.

Dr. Philip J. Currie is a world renowned paleontologist who helped found the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology near Drumheller, Alberta.

He has also been instrumental in the development of several Grand Prairie Region dinosaur sites, including the Pipestone Creek bonebed, over the past 25 years.  Among his many publications, Dr. Currie co-authored a monograph on the bonebed's unique dinosaur; Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai.

Philip Currie uncovering a specimen in Dinosaur Provincial Park, 2010

Dr. Philip J. Currie is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Dinosaur Palaeobiology at the University of Alberta.

Special Commondations

Research Associate at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology
Received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws at the University of Calgary (June 2008)

Received the Alberta Award of Excellence [2010]

Research Interests

Works on dinosaurs, focusing on problems with growth and variation, the anatomy and relationships of carnivorous dinosaurs, and the origin of birds. Has a long term goal of understanding the rich Cretaceous ecosystem of Dinosaur Park , and contemporaneous faunas and habitats of other sites in western North America. Is also interested in what can be learned about dinosaurian behaviour, including annual and intercontinental migrations.

Interested in dinosaurs since childhood, he finds that the excitement of discovery (fossils in the field, and ideas in the "lab") constantly renews his interest.

Fieldwork connected with his research has been concentrated in Alberta, British Columbia, the Arctic, Argentina and China. Work on the Centrosaurus bonebed, the origin of birds, "feathered" dinosaurs, hadrosaur nesting sites and the Canada-China Dinosaur Project have attracted the greatest international attention.




"Happy is the boy who discovers the bent of his life-work during childhood".

                        - Sven Hedin
                        

Congratulations Phil.

Arrived In The Mail ~ Protoceratops andrewsi mounts 1925

A little damp stained and frumpled, all the same, I have never seen this postcard before.  Undated, but judging from when the exhibit was opened to the public in 1925, I am guessing it is from about that same time period.

Two mounts of Protoceratops andrewsi with casts of eggs in a re-created nest.  I find it very nice that the two technicians who worked on these skeletal mounts are given credit; Peter C. Kaisen, and Charles J. Lang.  Peter Kaisen was a member of the Central Asiatic Expeditions, and a long time employee of the American Museum of Natural History.

Charles Lang - Technician at AMNH working on a model of Triceratops

Peter Kaisen - Technician, and Barnum Brown's right-hand man on almost every dinosaur hunting expedition during the 'Dinosaur Bone Rush' era at the AMNH

Divided back, printed postcard.  Undated Ca. 1930's

Hunting Dinosaurs ~ Part 2

 Spring Snow Storm.  Field Season 2010.  Photo by P. J. Currie 

Dinosaur research in North America during the 1930’s - 40’s, was severely hampered, but a few like Edwin Colbert managed to keep on digging.  Colbert’s two autobiographies, A Fossil Hunter’s Notebook, and Digging Into The Past, are a captivating record of his life and the profession between the time of the Wright Brother’s first flight and the modern Laptop computer. His  professional career began

  as the personal assistant of Henry Fairfield Osborn, who knew Charles Darwin, and spans an important period of  paleontological research history, that includes his own startling discoveries in Antarctica. Colbert wrote many books on dinosaurs, but it is the unassuming story of his own life that is the most fascinating.

            Despite these many earlier efforts, the method of reproduction in dinosaurs was poorly understood.  Although dinosaur eggs had been found at least as early as 1923,  evidence of babies was exceedingly rare.  In Digging Dinosaurs, John Horner and James Gorman,  provide an enjoyable personal account of the first major discovery of baby dinosaurs.  

Beginning with a chance discovery of fragments in a rock-shop, Horner and his team searched the  Montana badlands for several years before discovering the source.   The story is one of perseverance, human tragedy, frustration, and in the end, success.  Digging Dinosaurs provides a window into the life of the modern dinosaur hunter, who despite computers, GPS units, and four-wheel drive vehicles, must still endure long months  searching on foot, and more often, on hand and knee. 

            Horner used these remarkable discoveries to advance his own radical notions about dinosaur ecology, and these new ideas caused paleontologists to seriously review old theories.  While many scientists were supportive of Horner’s ideas,  some decidedly not, the discoveries caught the public’s attention around the world.  Ultimately, Digging Dinosaurs shows that dinosaur paleontology is still very much alive, and in a state of constant change as new evidence is found to support or defeat previously held ideas.          

            Dinosaur hunters  like Philip Currie, Dale Russell, and Peter Dodson are still traveling the globe, excavating new specimens, and publishing important  research that  expands our knowledge of the dinosaurs.  At present they are too involved with the task at hand to reflect on their own accomplishments.  We can only encourage their work, and trust that they too will take time to record their lives spent in the shadow of  dinosaurs.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS 

A SELECTED CHECKLIST

Autobiographical accounts have also been written by dinosaur paleontologists from Europe and Asia, unfortunately many of these works are not yet available in English. Additionally, there are accounts by paleontologists not involved with dinosaur research that are equally worthy of  reading and collecting.

Brown, Lilian.  I Married A Dinosaur.  NY: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1950.

Bring ‘Em Back Petrified.  London: The Adventurer’s Club, 1958

Colbert, Edwin H.  A Fossil Hunter’s Notebook: My Life with Dinosaurs and other          Friends.  NY: E. P. Dutton, 1980.

Digging Into The Past: An Autobiography.  NY: Dembner Books, 1989.

Grady, Wayne.  The Dinosaur Project: The Story of the Greatest Dinosaur Expedition      Ever Mounted.  Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1993.

Horner, John R.  Digging Dinosaurs: The Search that Unraveled the Mystery of Baby     Dinosaurs.  With James Gorman.  NY: Workman Publishing, 1988.

Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia.  Hunting For Dinosaurs.  Mass.: MIT Press,            1969.  [Originally published in Poland as: Polowanie na Dinozaury.]

Novacek, Michael J.  Dinosaurs Of The Flaming Cliffs: The Thrilling Account of one of   the Largest Dinosaur Expeditions of the 20th Century by the Expedition Leader.      NY: Doubleday, 1996.

Parkinson, John.  The Dinosaur In East Africa: An Account of the Giant Reptile Beds of   Tendaguru, Tanganyika Territory.  London: H. F. & G. Witherby, 1930.

Sternberg, Charles H.  The Life Of A Fossil Hunter.  NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1909.

            [500 copies privately printed.]

Hunting Dinosaurs  In the Badlands Of  The Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada. 

            Kansas: World  Company Press, 1917.

            [500 copies privately printed.] 

Letters Home from the Bone Camps.  Annals of a Field Museum Paleontologist.  Argentina and Bolivia, 1926 - 27.  Original Letters and Photos by Robert C. Thorne.  Privately Published.  1995 

Dinosaurios en la Patagonia.  By Rodolfo A. Coria.  Rumbo Sur, Editorial Sudamericana.  

Undated Circa 2003.

Hunting Extinct Animals in the Patagonian Pampas.  By Frederic Brewster Loomis.  

Dodd, Mead and Company.  1913 

Dinosaur Impressions.  Postcards from a Paleontologist.  By Philippe Taquet.  Translated by Kevin Padian.  Cambridge University Press.  1998.

Hunting Dinosaurs ~ Part 1

Excavating an Isolated Hadrosaur Humerus, Dinosaur Provincial Park.  2010 

Photograph courtesy of Dr. Philip Currie, University of Alberta.

“This treasure must be at once deposited where it can

be thoroughly investigated and properly understood.”

            The Pickwick Papers

           

            Dinosaurs fascinate people of all ages in all countries, and museums displaying  dinosaur skeletons continue to attract large numbers of visitors.  However,  it is not apparent to the casual visitor just how much work is behind these mounted wonders;  the work of finding them, digging them out of the ground, patiently chipping their brittle remains out of solid rock, studying them, publishing research, and finally mounting them in museum galleries where they may be viewed by the studious and curious.  Who does this work? What is their story? 

            The story of  the dinosaurs is closely associated with the story of the men and women who hunt and study dinosaurs, paleontologists, that small segment of society who never lost their childhood  fascination.  Their youthful interest in sharp teeth and blood-letting  gave  way to a matured interest in the dinosaurs as living animals, a part of our biological past.  By studying the rise, world domination, fall, and eventual demise of the dinosaurs, paleontologists not only learn about this single group, but also about their complex interactions with the world they inhabited.  Information gained from these inquiries is  helping us to understand the planet we occupy today, and just maybe how to avoid their same fate.

            The term Dinosauria [terrible lizards] was first published in 1842. Since then dozens of major expeditions, and hundreds of smaller ventures have discovered and excavated dinosaurs from every continent including Antarctica.  Much of what is written by paleontologists is  admittedly dry reading, published in professional journals with precise descriptions of new specimens.  These research papers are essential tools in recording and sharing discoveries, but the necessary jargon involved  limits  casual  reading.  Fortunately, some paleontologists have also applied themselves to writing books that are not just about dinosaurs, but about the people involved, their likes, dislikes, triumphs, failures, travels to exotic locales, and historical events.  These personal stories offer readers not only a valuable perspective on science, but contain fascinating  reading in natural and human history.

Charles H. Sternberg

            Early this century, the pioneer work of two men, Charles H. Sternberg [1850 - 1943, and Barnum Brown [1873 - 1963], began a period of North American dinosaur collecting known as the “Great Dinosaur Rush.”  Now almost impossible to obtain, Sternberg’s privately printed The Life Of A Fossil Hunter, and Hunting Dinosaurs In The Badlands Of The Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada, are the classic early accounts of dinosaur hunting that chronicle not only the development of dinosaur hunting in  North America, but also the opening of the West to settlers. 

            Sternberg began collecting fossils as a youth during the 1860’s, and by 1876 was employed by America’s great vertebrate paleontologist, Edward Drinker Cope.  This was a formative time when dinosaurs were poorly known, methods of excavation were crude, and the U.S. Cavalry was still  fighting  protracted skirmishes with Native Americans.  During his first summer in Montana, Sternberg and his team narrowly avoided an encounter with Sioux warriors who had just defeated Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Barnum Brown in Alberta, Canada.

            Working in friendly competition with Sternberg, who in 1912 was working for the Geological Survey of Canada,  Barnum Brown explored the Red Deer River Canyons for the American Museum of Natural History.  Notable among few accounts in Brown’s own words is,  Hunting Big Game Of Other Days, a National Geographic article about his  expeditions into the Badlands of Alberta, Canada.  During a sixty-six year career at the American Museum of Natural History, Barnum Brown excavated more dinosaurs than anyone, worked in almost every area of the globe, traveled on every form of transport except by submarine, but never found time to write his own autobiography. 

            Fortunately, Brown’s industrious life was recorded by his second wife, Lilian Brown.  I Married A Dinosaur,  and Bring ‘Em Back Petrified,  are two witty accounts of her life, including a  honeymoon spent collecting fossils in the Siwalik Hills of Pakistan, with “Dr. Bones”.

American Museum Crew Excavates a Centrosaurus Skeleton in Alberta, Canada. 1915

            North America and Europe were not the only areas being explored for dinosaurs early this century.  Tendaguru is a remarkable deposit located near Lindi, Tanzania, once  part of German East Africa.  First discovered and excavated by German scientists from 1909 - 1913,  it revealed unusual new animals such as the apartment building-sized plant-eater Brachiosaurus.  Mandated to Great Britain after the first world war, expeditions by British scientists, including a convalescing future anthropologist Louis Leakey, continued the discoveries at Tendaguru. 

            The Dinosaur In East Africa,  by John Parkinson also offers interesting reading for those not ordinarily interested in dinosaurs.  Extreme geographic isolation, poisonous snakes, disease bearing insects, predatory leopards, malaria, and primitive living conditions are but a few of many distractions encountered by the British.  

            Even though the Central Asiatic Expeditions opened exciting new fossil fields in Asia, the Depression, and World War II dried up funding for dinosaur hunting,  and it was not until the late 1940’s that excavations began again in earnest, this time led by the Soviet Union.

            Hunting For Dinosaurs, written by the female leader of three Polish expeditions, Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska,  remains the only English language first hand account of Soviet work in Mongolia.  Kielan-Jaworowska describes in  detail the previous work of Russian expeditions, and the success with which her own expeditions discovered important new dinosaurs.

            The expeditions entered areas that no other team had risked before, and were handsomely rewarded with numerous discoveries that contributed substantially to paleontology.  Little had changed in forty years since the Gobi had first yielded dinosaurs, conditions were as  primitive, food  and water were still scarce, and maps were no more accurate.  Hunting For Dinosaurs is also an unintentional record of a Mongolia that no longer exists, a Mongolia before Pepsi, German hunting lodges, and Japanese golf courses.

Rolling Verdant Grasslands of Outer Mongolia.  Photograph by Clive Coy.

How Dodge Put The "Go" In Gobi Part 2

            Despite the ease with which the work in Mongolia began, the expedition had yet to rendezvous with the camel caravan, and establish if resupply by camel was feasible over great distances.

            While Granger continued searching for fossils, Andrews and the rest of the expedition set off on a 400 kilometer journey to the meet the caravan.  Andrews feared that it might be attacked by bandits, or lost in the desert.  To their great relief, the caravan was waiting.  All seventy-five camels with intact supplies had arrived a full hour before the cars.

            Using this leap-frog technique enabled the expedition to cover more than ten-thousand miles during 1922 and 1923, far more than Andrews had originally thought possible.   Overburdened with equipment, specimens, and staff, the Dodge cars had performed heroically, exceeding all previous expectations.

Crossing The Ongin River.            

Once, while returning to China,  Andrews and his passengers discovered that their oil had leaked out of its cans.  It would be impossible to go much further, but as they were debating what to do, they came upon a Mongol encampment.  Knowing that the herdsman would have sheep, and mutton fat, Andrews queried “why not use that for oil!”

            An obliging herdsman soon had a great pot of  mutton fat warming over a fire.  When it was liquefied, “We poured it into the motor and proceeded merrily on our way.”  The Dodge did not notice the change in diet, but there was one serious obstacle to the enjoyment of its passengers.  “We had had very little food for some time and were very hungry...”  As their engine warmed up, “a most tantalizing odor of roast lamb arose from the car!”,  and Andrews imagined he could smell mint sauce.

Showroom Brochure. Dodge Brothers. 1925

            Similarly, the expedition once found itself without cup grease for the cars.  Cold cream and Vaseline that had been prepared for the summer was sacrificed, Mongol cheese was also substituted, apparently with good results.

            By the end of the second field season, the Dodges had given a Herculean performance without any major mechanical problems.  However, it was felt that it would be safer to retire them and purchase new ones for the next field season. 

            The well-traveled Dodges were sold as they stood, to Chinese importers of wool and furs from Mongolia.  Remarkably, they sold for more than they were worth new.  “After all,”  Andrews records the buyers saying, “we know these cars can do the job because they’ve already been there.  Perhaps new ones won’t be as good.”

            Returning to New York to raise additional funds, Andrews barely arrived at the museum before a representative of Dodge Brothers called on him.  Dodge was delighted with the news coverage their cars were receiving, and realized it was priceless advertising.  Dodge Brothers wanted to be a sponsor.

Centerfold of Showroom Brochure.  Dodge Brothers 1925

            “I’ll play ball,”  said Andrews, “if you’ll give us a new fleet of cars, made to our specifications.”  Two years of work had shown where the cars needed changes - all in the body, and none in the motor.  “I need eight new cars,”  Andrews went on, and “[Dodge]  jumped at the suggestion like a trout taking a fly.” 

             Colgate and Andrews went to Detroit to see Fred Haynes, then president of Dodge Brothers.  Haynes’ greeting was “Now gentleman, Dodge Brothers employs twenty thousand men.  You tell us what you want and we’ll build it.”

            Colgate knew exactly what was required.  Seven of the new cars were to be an open express body with eight-inch sides of heavy screen wire.  Springs, both front and rear, were made heavier than commercial cars.  In addition, on each rear spring, inside, were iron bumpers lined with pieces of heavy tire, to give a heavily loaded car additional support, and leather snubbers were installed to prevent wild rebounds. 

            Gasoline tanks were increased to twenty-one gallons, four strong hooks were bolted onto the chassis member to aid pulling out of mud and sand, and each car was given two complete spare wheels, mounted either side of the driver’s seat. 

            The eighth vehicle was an ordinary five-passenger touring body.  This lightest member of the fleet would be used during advance reconnaissance.

            The Gobi savaged ordinary tires, but Dodge provided the relatively new 33 X 4.5 Royal Cord.  Balloon-type tires had not proven practical.  Although they held a car up better in sand, they increased fuel consumption, and were easily cut by stones.

            Dodge’s support saved the expedition about fifty thousand dollars.  In return, Dodge Brothers used images of the expedition vehicles, with quotes from Andrews, in advertising brochures, calendars, and magazine ads.  Andrews later speculated that the expedition’s endorsement sold thousands of cars for Dodge.      

Sales Brochure April 1937

            Equipped with the new fleet of Dodge Brothers cars, the expedition worked in the Gobi during 1925, 1928, and 1930, and continued to make major scientific findings that established Asia as an important dispersal centre of animal life. 

            They uncovered 20,000 - year old stone tools, evidence that the Gobi had been inhabited by people who may have migrated to North America.  Their geological findings confirmed that Outer Mongolia had never been glaciated and was the oldest area on earth of continuously dry land.  

Expedition Vehicles at Headquarters, Peking [Beijing] 1928

            The most spectacular discovery, for which Andrews and the expeditions became world-famous, was of three nests containing two dozen dinosaur eggs, the first recorded by science.  The nine-inch-long eggs were nearly perfectly preserved. 

            During the late twenties, Asia grew restless, and field work in the Gobi became dangerous.  Civil war, banditry, and the actions of  Imperial Japan in China made exploration after 1930 impossible. 

            Roy Chapman Andrews never returned to the Gobi Desert, but did continue his relationship with Dodge after it was sold to Walter Chrysler.  He remained a popular and widely recognized spokesman into the late 1930’s.

National Geographic.  March 1936

            Dodge’s positive experience with the Central Asiatic Expeditions began an era of similar sponsorships.  In the 1930's Chrysler Corporation sponsored expeditions by other explorers such as Armand Denis and Lisa Roosevelt.  Their "Wheels Across Africa" , and "East of  Bombay” documentaries showcase Dodge Power Wagons and Sedans prevailing over impossible terrain, and demonstrated that Dodge’s were “Reliable, Dependable, Sound” as ever.