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PERUVIAN ART

A HELP FOR STUDENTS OF DESIGN

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By CHARLES W. MEAD

GUIDE LEAFLET SERIES, No 46

DECEMBER, 1929

FIFTH EDITION

PERUVIAN ART

AS SHOWN ON

hey GiLES AND POTTERY

WRK

BY
CHARLES W. MEAD

FIFTH EDITION

WR

The American Museum of Natural History

GUIDE LEAFLET No. 46
NEW YORK, DECEMBER, 1929

POTTERY VESSELS FROM NAZCA, PERU

PERUVIAN ART

A HELP FOR STUDENTS OF DesiGNn

By CHARLES W. MEAD

Late Honorary Curator, Department of Anthropology

INTRODUCTION

The Museum’s collections of textiles and pottery vessels from pre-
historic graves in Peru provide an opportunity for the study of primitive
art that is not excelled, if, indeed, it is equaled in any other field. The
great beauty of the color schemes and the wonderful number of curious
conventionalized animal figures, especially in the textiles, make these
exhibits particularly valuable to the student of design. That this
opportunity exists and that the Museum authorities as a part of their
educational system are providing all the assistance and comfort possible
to visiting artists and students are fast becoming known, as shown by
the fact that for quite a number of years an average of one hundred and
fifty a month have availed themselves of this privilege, while during the
last few years that number has been doubled.

As a large part of the students of design who make use of these
textiles expect later to obtain positions in textile houses, carpet, rug, or
wall paper manufactories, or to enter into some other business where
designers are employed, it will interest and encourage them to know that
many textile houses have lately put upon the market silks and other
materials decorated with designs inspired by the figures and color
schemes of the prehistoric Peruvians. Our large textile manufacturers
have, year after year, sent their best artists to Paris for designs, having
no idea that such a wealth of material, eminently suitable for decora-
tion, was waiting for them in the Museum so near at hand.

In the past five years many of these textile manufacturers have
visited the Museum and have become aware of the existence of these col-
lections. Having once seen them they were by no means slow in recog-
nizing their value and in sending their artists to copy the color schemes
and create designs from the decorative figures of the ancient Peruvians.
Having satisfied themselves of the commercial value of the Peruvian
collections to them, they naturally began to look about for the decora-
tive work of other primitive peoples and today their designers may be
seen at work in many of the Museum halls.

3

4 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

In a Guide Leaflet it will not be possible to go far in the peculiar art
of the Peruvians, and but comparatively few of the innumerable designs
ean be shown. Their color schemes, which excite the wonder and
admiration of artists, must be seen on the original webs, but enough
designs can be reproduced to show the general character of this side
of their art.

It always gives an added zest to the work when we know something
about the material from which we are drawing and for this reason it will
not be out of place to say a few words about the history of these cloths.
They all come from prehistoric graves; many of them were found still on
the mummies when the burial places were excavated. A greater part of
them came from the coast region which is a desert tract except for the
valleys of the small rivers rising in the Cordillera and flowing into the
Pacific Ocean. These valleys were very fertile and there the people
lived and buried their dead in the dry nitrous sand outside. Rain is
all but unknown in this region, which accounts for the wonderful state
of preservation in which these webs have come down to us.

The first question that naturally suggests itself to the visitor is—
How old are these things? This question cannot be definitely answered.
All that can be said is that they antedate the Conquest (1532); that they
belong to different epochs; and that the oldest in all probability date
back several thousand years. In two papers published by the Museum,
my associate, Mr. M. D. C. Crawford, has given the results of his studies
in the technique of Peruvian textiles. To these anyone interested in
that subject is referred.!

It is a very common mistake to speak of such a collection of Peruvian
textiles as the work of the Incas, for by far the greater part of them were
made by the so-called Megalithic people who ruled the country many
centuries before the rise of the Inca empire.

Four motives continually oecur in Peruvian decorations: the human
figure, the bird, the fish, and the puma. These were everywhere em-
ployed throughout the country in designs which varied somewhat in the
different localities, showing that their arts had developed along slightly
different lines.

In studying the designs more space will be given to the figures de-
rived from the fish than to those from the other motives. The reason

‘Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 12,
Parts 3-4.

PERUVIAN ART 5

for this is that the designs from the other three motives very rarely show
degeneration to the extent that their identity is not apparent, while
many of the fish figures have progressed so far that to recognize the
motive one must be familiar with some of the stages through which it had
passed in reaching its present form.

The writer does not wish to convey the idea that degeneration of any
animal form constantly progressed, step by step, at every repetition
losing a little more of its realistic appearance until its character could
not be recognized. A series of figures could be selected from the vast
number at our command that would apparently show such progres-
sion and this has often been done for the primitive art of other localities,
but this method is very misleading, as the higher conventionalized forms
were undoubtedly reached by mutations instead of steady progressions.

Many of the sketches on the Plates of this Leaflet were made at
various times during the past fifteen years for various papers, illustrated
catalogue cards, and other purposes. Every design shown will be found
in the exhibition cases in the South American Hall.

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MISCELLANEOUS PERUVIAN DESIGNS

PLATE I

(ORS)

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THE FISH

PERUVIAN ART 7

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THE FISH
PLATE I

The Peruvians of the coast region worshipped the sea as one of their
gods, and the fish being the natural emblem of the sea, undoubtedly
accounts for the frequency with which it appears in all their arts. We
find it woven, embroidered, and painted on cloth; molded, incised, and
painted on pottery; and represented in various ways on their works in
metal, wood, stone, and bone. I shall show some of the conventionalized
figures that plainly represent fish; others that I have found, during my
long experience with art students, where the fish motive is very rarely
suspected, and some intermediate figures that I believe will enable the
student to recognize this motive in the higher forms of Peruvian art.
The first three figures on this Plate plainly represent fish, although
degeneration has made considerable progress. They are shown as if
seen from above, a common way of representing fish with many primitive
peoples.

Fig. 1 is painted on a large piece of cloth which formed the outer
wrapping of a mummy bundle from Sureco. It is painted in black except
the curved line representing the gill openings and the fins. The six
small squares show the dorsal fin.

Fig. 2 is a very common form, in fact the typical Peruvian fish.
If we study carefully all the forms on Plates I and II we shall find that
the greater part of them are but modifications of this figure. We shall
find the number of points projecting from the sides more or less, or two
fish derived from this form interlocked, as shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 3 is from the wrappings of a mummy bundle found in the
vicinity of Lima. The lines representing gill openings are straight in
this case. The characteristic projecting points from the sides are present.

Fig. 4 is a design not uncommon in tapestry from the coast region in
the vicinity of Lima. It consists of four fish heads, in colors, sur-
rounding a fret. During the many years that design students have
worked from these Peruvian collections, I do not remember a single case
in which the fish motive was suspected in this figure until I had made it
clear by drawing the forms shown in Figs. 5 and 6. The character
of such a design when it is woven in the cloth, in a variety of colors, is
by no means as easily recognized as when drawn on paper in black and
white.

PLATE II

THE FISH

PERUVIAN ART 9

Figs. 5-6. Fig. 5 is a tracing of the upper fish head in Fig. 4. Fig.
6 was made from the same tracing, but in inking it, straight lines down
from the mouth were substituted for the step-form ones of Fig. 5, and
this gives us exactly the same head as seen in the fish form at Fig. 2.
These stép-form lines, caused by the technique of weaving, often dis-
guise a form that would be obvious if the lines were straight.

Fig. 7 shows the interlocked fish design, a form of decoration very
common over most of the coast region, where it is found on borders of
ponchos, belts, etc. In the poncho border from which this figure was
taken the decoration is in diagonal bands, each band having two colors.
The black fish shown is interlocked with one in red. The bands on either
side are in different colors. A repetition of the same figure, but in
different colors, arranged either in rows or, as in this illustration, in
diagonal bands, is a prominent characteristic of Peruvian art. If we
examine any one of these fish we find thaé such parts of it as can be
seen when another is interlocked with it are like the typical one shown
in Fig. 2.

THE FISH
Puate II

Fig. 1 gives us another form of the interlocked fish design. We see
here attached to the tail of each fish a form bounded on one side by a
straight line and on the other by a zigzag forming four chevrons or points.
This added figure plays quite a part in Peruvian art, as we shall see
when we come to discuss their bird forms.

Fig. 2 was traced from the black fish above. If two forms like this
are cut from paper, and one of them colored black, they will, on being
put together, give the design shown. This form is often found and
sometimes a bird head takes the place of the half of a fish head shown
here. On turning back to Plate I and looking at the typical fish in Fig.
2 we find that one is but a skeleton or part of the other.

Fig. 3 is also a part of the design above, and is frequently used in
decoration just as it is shown here.

Fig. 4 is an example of their work in pyrography. This design was
burned into the side of a gourd bowl. The figure spoken of before: one
bounded on one side by a straight line and on the other by a zigzag,
forms all but the head of this highly conventionalized fish. It varies

10 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

but little from those shown in Figs. 3 and 6, and has the triangular head
of Fig. 10. Triangular heads are very common in cloth and on pottery
fish forms.

Fig. 5 is another variation in the interlocked fish pattern. As the
heads, tails, and crude outlines of the bodies of fish, as the Peruvians
represented them, are shown, there has never been any trouble about
identifying the true motive.

Figs. 6 and 7 are in relief on pottery vessels. They show again the
fondness of the Peruvians for the interlocked design. In Fig. 6 each
fish is the same as Fig. 3, which has an extra projecting point. The
number of points in the body of a fish or bird was governed entirely by
the space to be filled up by the decoration. In Fig. 7 degeneration has
not progressed as far as in most of the other figures and the motive is
apparent.

Fig. 8-10 are forms common on pottery vessels, sometimes painted,
but oftener incised or in relief.

Fig. 11 shows the designs on a tapestry belt. It is very common on
the small bags that may have been used as charms. This fish head varies
but slightly from that shown in Plate I, Fig. 4, and the means shown
there of identification apply equally to this form and its many variants.

Fig. 12 has been identified as the horse mackerel and is a fairly
realistic representation of that fish. It is painted in several colors on a
pottery vessel from Nazca.

Fig. 13 is cut from a thin sheet of silver. Twenty of these fish are
fastened on a cord in the form of a necklace. It comes from Ica, but
such fish strung together or with beads were common in many places in
the coast region.

The forms shown in Figs. 14-16 represent the shark and are found
both on cloth and on pottery vessels.

Fig. 17 is in relief on a pottery vessel from Sureo. It is a very
common fish form over all the coast region. The original of this sketch
is 9 em. long, and it is often seen very much larger both on cloth and
pottery.

Figs. 18-19 are from Nazca pottery. Each shows a horizontal line
of white which in the first case completely separates the body into two
unequal parts. Whether this represents the median line or was only a
fancy of the artist must be left to guesswork.

PERUVIAN ART 11

In Fig. 18 there is an idea for the design student. In the original
the two parts are in different colors, with the line of white between them.
This will suggest to the design student the breaking up of any of the
other figures and using the parts so obtained in his work.

THE BIRD
Puate III

Figs. 1-8 and 11 are from the coast region in the vicinity of Lima.
Figs. 1-2 show the typical bird of Peruvian cloth. The heads and necks
are fairly realistic. The body consists of the form mentioned in the
remarks on the interlocked fish design, Plate II, Fig. 1. As was said,
this consists of a figure bounded on one side by a straight line, and on the
other by a zigzag which forms chevrons or points. The number of points,
or length of the body, depends entirely on the space to be decorated.

Fig. 3. The head is more realistic than in the two preceding figures,
but the body is represented in the same way. In the original the space
between the head and the body is nearly filled by the head of a second
bird, turned in the opposite direction, the two forming an interlocked
bird design.

Fig. 4 is from the border of a tapestry poncho, where the decoration
consists of a long line of these birds. Each figure is woven in several
colors, and they are so placed that two with the same color scheme do
not come together. Note the exaggerated topknot projecting over the
bird’s head. This device makes the whole figure nearly rectangular,
and in a row of such designs little space will be left undecorated.

Fig. 5 is painted on white cloth. The heavy outline is black, the
body brown, and the eye and space between the mandibles were left
white.

Fig. 6. Here again the artist resorted to the same device as is
shown in Fig. 4. He has used an exaggerated topknot to balance his
designs and cover space.

Fig. 7. In this case the wings have been carried over the head and
made to serve as quite a part of the design.

Fig. 8 shows a common bird form in textiles. It will be seen that
this is very closely related to the form in Fig. 2. If we substitute the
legs in this for one of the points in the body of that one, we shall have
practically the same design.

PLATE III

THE BIRD

PERUVIAN ART 13

Fig. 9 represents a humming bird. A row of these birds is painted
around a pottery vessel from Nazca. They are all sucking honey from
a six-pointed flower on the upper surface of the vessel. Only a part of
this flower is shown in the sketch.

Fig. 10 shows another bird on Nazca pottery. This, like the last
described, is beautifully painted in colors.

Fig. 11 is a pelican that has just caught a fish. This design is a part
of the woven fabric. Similar figures are also found in relief on cloth.
This is done by sewing on narrow pieces of braid. The fish in the bird’s
mandibles is a conventionalized form, often seen both on cloth and
pottery, especially where space only admits of a small figure.

Fig. 12 shows birds from three Nazca pottery vessels. They are
painted white on variously colored darker backgrounds.

Fig. 13 shows the decorations on a piece of vicufna cloth, as it is
commonly called, from Pachacamac. The warp threads are cotton,
crossed by a weft of vicufia wool, which completely covers them. The
ground color is a deep reddish-brown with the decoration in yellow.
The effect produced is extremely pleasant and artistic and has made
this textile one of the favorites of art students who have many times
copied it in colors. It also affords a good example of the influence of
basket work on the arts of these people. The lines bounded by zigzags
are plainly copied from the work of the basket maker. The birds’ necks
rise and depend from these basket designs.

Fig. 14 is from a large shawl-like garment from Lachay, near Chan-
cay. The color of this textile is indigo blue with the designs woven in
white, in broad stripes. It is the interlocked bird design: the upper
bird faces to the right, and the lower one to the left. If we study one
of these birds we find in its neck and body the same form as is shown
in Fig. 3.

THE PUMA

PLATE IV

Fig. 1 shows the head of the puma in terra cotta. This form is only
found in the art of Tiahuanaco. It seems to be the parent of the hun-
dreds of conventionalized cat heads wherever the influence of Tia-
huanaco art is found and especially at Pachacamac. The puma was
one of the gods worshipped by the Peruvians, and the ‘“‘ puma god,” part
man and part puma, is often represented in the arts of the Tiahuanaco
or Megalithic people.

PLATE IV

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THE PUMA

PERUVIAN ART 15

Fig. 2. The central figure on the monolithic gateway at Tiahuanaco
is represented as wearing a belt with this form of puma head on either
end of it. A great number of variants of this head are common to Tia-
huanaco art and wherever its influence extended.

Figs. 3-4 are plainly derived from the preceding figure. Fig. 3, from
Pachacamac, has the ring nose. Fig. 4, from Nazea, has a step-form
nose in place of the ring. There is a close similarity in the outlines of
these figures. We shall find other variations on this head in Figs. 7,
9, and 15.

Figs. 5-6. These two figures will show, to a person who has no
knowledge of primitive art, one way in which animal figures degenerate.
It would be very excusable if such a person did not recognize Fig. 6 as
a great cat. In fact, a positive identification could not be made by
anyone who had not seen the same form of the animal before the degen-
eration had proceeded to the extent shown here. Now, looking at Fig. 5,
we recognize that it shows the same animal in a more realistic form. It
is still highly conventionalized, but the presence of the humped-up back
a characteristic of the cat family, and the tail, both omitted in Fig. 6,
clearly identify it. To identify many highly conventionalized repre-
sentations of animals in any primitive art, one must be long associated
with large collections, which are seldom to be found except in museums.
Only in this way can he become familiar with the peculiar art of a primi-
tive people. He sees the animal forms represented with considerable
truth to nature, and also a long succession of figures where, as it were,
the original form is gradually fading away, until the degeneration has
run its full course and left little more than a geometrical figure.

Figs. 7-8. The Peruvians had a fondness for combining a number
of animal heads in a design. Sometimes heads of the same animal, but
often of two or more different kinds, were thus combined. Fig. 7 shows
two puma heads joined by a curved head. The design is painted on a
pottery vessel from Pachacamac. On account of the form of the band
that connects the heads, this figure has sometimes been mistaken for a
representation of a serpent, but a comparison of one of the heads with
the four puma heads on the line above will show its true character.
Fig. 8, on a web from Ancon, has the typical cat heads connected by an
angular band.

Fig. 9 shows part of a human face engraved on a piece of a stone
vessel from Tiahuanaco. One eye is represented with the facial decora-

16 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

tion about it. The other eye is similarly decorated. The puma head
below the eye plainly belongs to the same animal, as do those in Figs.
2 and 3.

Figs. 10 to 20 are from the coast region, within fifty miles of Lima.

Figs. 10-11 are very common in tapestry. Both have the raised
back, a characteristic of the cat family.

Fig. 12 is another example of their fondness for joining animal forms
together in a design. The two cats have the humped-up back in common.

Fig. 13 is common on cloth, pottery, gourds, and on metal objects.
A comparison of this figure with that in Fig. 6 shows a great similarity
in the management of the legs. Doubtless some ancestor of this design
has the raised back and tail that we have seen to have been the case
with the other figure.

Fig. 14 is from a piece of tapestry from Ancon. The most noticeable
thing about this figure is the manner of representing the nose, eyes, and
mouth. The technique of weaving seems to have been responsible for
this form, as Hasluck shows the same device in a lion woven in a goat-
hair carpet of the fifteenth century from Persia.! Certainly no one will
claim contact between the prehistoric Peruvians and Persians.

Fig. 15. This design is taken from a coca bag from Pachacamac.
It is in the style of Tiahuanaco.

Fig. 16 is from a long belt or sash. It is the most highly conven-
tionalized design on this Plate, but the characteristics of the cat family,
the raised back and tail, are still present.

Fig. 17 is painted on either end of a barrel-shaped vessel from Ica.

Fig. 18 was taken from a textile from Ancon. The design is made
up of cat and bird heads. Their fondness for joining different animals
together in a design has been spoken of before. It is not uncommon
to find birds, cats, and fish in the same design.

Fig. 19 is from a gourd bowl from Marquez, near Lima. The design
is burned into the side of the vessel. Pyrography was commonly used
in decorating these gourds. This design shows three motives, cat, bird,
and fish. There has never been any difficulty in recognizing the cat
and bird, but in my experience few students see the fish motive in this

‘Decorative Designs of all Ages for all Purposes. London, Paris, New York,
Toronto, and Melbourne, 1908, p. 128.

PERUVIAN ART 17

figure until their attention is called to other designs where practically
the same form of fish is shown, but under conditions that make its true
nature more apparent. See Figs. 1-3 on Plate IT.

Fig. 20 is found both on cloth and pottery, in the coast region.

MAN AND MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS
PLATE V

Fig. 1 is from tapestry from Surco.
Fig. 2 was taken from a long cotton belt from Chancay.

Fig. 3 shows a woven tapestry design from Pachacamac. It is in
the Tiahuanaco style and probably represents the puma god. Their
fondness for combining different animal figures has been spoken of.
Note near the bottom, to the right, the bird head and neck, and to the
left of it a puma head with its ring nose. Compare this head with those
on Plate IV, Figs. 2, 3, 4, and 9.

Fig. 4. This conventionalized human figure is common in many
parts of Peru. The head occupies the center of the design, and the
arms and legs have degenerated into scrolls.

Figs. 5-6 are painted on Nazca pottery.

Fig. 7. In this design the man’s headdress, arms, and legs have
turned into frets.

Figs. 8-9 are from painted decorations on Nazca pottery. Fig. 8
shows a face very common on vessels from that locality, especially on
the tall, cylindrical ones.

Fig. 10 shows a human head with feather headdress. This form of
representing feathers is common all over the coast region. It is painted
on a pottery vessel from Pachacamac.

Fig. 11, also from Pachacamac pottery, needs no comment.

Fig. 12 is woven in a web from Ancon. It shows a headdress of two
feathers and has the ear represented in a curious way that seems to be
peculiar to Peruvian art. We find this same ear in animal figures. See
the puma head at the lower part of Fig. 3 on this Plate. Dr. Arthur
Baessler has commented at some length on this subject, and styles this
figure “‘a misdrawn ear.’

1Ancient Peruvian Art, Ed. A. H. Keane. Description of Plates 136-139. New
York, 1902-1903.

PLATE V

me ene is

MAN AND MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS

19 PERUVIAN ART

Figs. 13-14 show faces painted on Nazca pottery.

Figs. 15-17. We have here three mythological characters of the
pre-Incan people. They occur in many localities, with such local varia-
tions as we should naturally expect them to show. The first is part bird
and part man; the second, part fish and part man; and the third, part
cat and part man. They are known respectively as the condor god, the
fish god, and the puma god. They are taken from painted representa-
tions on pottery. Fig. 15 is from Pachacamac. Fig. 16 is common in
the coast region, and is often represented as chasing two men in a balsa.
Fig. 17 is from Nazea.

Figs. 18-24 show various designs from the human head and form
which I have copied from painted decorations on Nazca pottery.

MISCELLANEOUS PERUVIAN DESIGNS

PLATE VI

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

The works named below are profusely illustrated and will be found
useful to the student of design. They may be consulted on application
to the librarian of the Museum.

PERU
Barsster, ArTHUR. Ancient Peruvian Art. Berlin, 1902-1903.
Crawrorp, M. D. C. Peruvian Textiles. (Anthropological Papers, American
Museum of Natural History, Vol. 12, Part 3, 1915.)

Peruvian Fabrics. (Anthropological Papers, American Museum of Natural
History, Vol. 12, Part 4 , 1916.)

Meap, Cuartes W. The Six Unit Design in Ancient Peruvian Cloth. (Boas
Anniversary Volume, New York, 1906.)

The Puma Motive in Ancient Peruvian Art. (Proceedings, International Con-
gress of Americanists, 19th Session, Washington, 1917.)

Conventionalized Figures in Ancient Peruvian Art. (Anthropological Papers
American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 12, Part 5, 1916.)

Reiss, W., and Sttpet, A. The Necropolis of Ancon. Berlin, 1880-1887.

Scumipt, Max. Altperuanische Gewebe. Leipzig and Berlin, 1911.

Striper, A., Reiss, W., and Koprer, B. Kultur und Industrie Siidamerikanischer
Volker. Berlin, 1890.

Untr, Max. The Nazca Pottery of Ancient Peru. (Proceedings, Davenport Acad-
emy of Sciences, Davenport, 1916.)

Pachacamac. Report of the William Pepper, M.D., LL.D., Peruvian Expedi-
tion of 1896. (University of Pennsylvania, Department of Archology,
1903.)

WIENER, CHarRueEs. Peru et Bolivie. Paris, 1880.

SOME OTHER LOCALITIES

The books in the following list cover a wide range in the arts of
primitive peoples. It contains, however, but a small part of the vol-
umes in the Museum’s library, that will prove of great help to the student.

AMBROSETTI, JUAN B. Antiqiiedades Calchaquies. Buenos Aires, 1902.
Explorations Arquelégicas en la Cuidad Prehistorica de ‘‘La Paya.’ Buenos

Aires, 1908.

Batrour, Henry. Evolution of Decorative Art. London, 1893.

Boas, Franz. Decorative Art of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast. (Bulle-
tin, American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 9, 1897.)

—, . Primitive Art (Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning,
Serie B: Skrifter VIII, Oslo, 1927.)

Drxon, Rouanp B. Basketry Designs of the Indians of Northern California. (Bulle-
tin, American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 17, 1902.)

Frwkes, Jesse Watter. Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895. (Seven-
teenth Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, 1898.)

Gorpon, GrorGe B. The Serpent Motive in the Ancient Art of Central America
and Mexico. (Transactions, Department of Archeology, University of
Pennsylvania, Vol. 1, 1904.)

24 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

Happon, A. C. Evolution in Art. London and New York, 1902.
Decorative Art of British New Guinea. Dublin, 1896.

Hamitton, Augustus. Art and Workmanship of the Maori Race in New Zealand.
Dunedin, N. Z., 1896.

Hotmes, Wiuit1aAm H. Textile Art in its Relation to the Development of Form and
Ornament. (Sixth Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Wash-
ington, 1888.)

Pottery of the Ancient Pueblos. (Fourth Annual Report, Bureau of American
Ethnology, Washington, 1886.)

Ancient Art of the Province of Chiriqui. (Sixth Annual Report, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Washington, 1888.)

Houeu, Watter. Culture of the Ancient Pueblos of the Upper Gila River Region,
New Mexico and Arizona. (Bulletin 87, United States National Museum,
1914.)

Kocu-GrinsperG THeopor. Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern—Reisen in Nord-
west-Brasilien, 1903-1905. Band 1-2. Berlin, 1908.

Kroeser, A. L. Basket Designs of the Indians of Northwestern California. (Uni-
versity of California, Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology,
Vol. II, No. 4, Berkeley, 1905.)

The Arapaho. (Bulletin, American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 18, 1902.)
Basket Designs of the Mission Indians of California (Anthropological Papers,
American Museum of Natural History, vol. 20, pt. 2, 1922.)

Laurer, BertHotp. The Decorative Art of the Amur Tribes. (Memoirs, Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History, Vol. 7, 1902.)

Lorurop, SAMUEL K. Pottery of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. (Contributions from
the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, Vol. VIII, New York,
1926, 2 Vols.)

Lumuo.tz, Cart. Decorative Art of the Huichol Indians. (Memoirs, American
Museum of Natural History, Vol. 3, 1903.)

Mason, Oris Turron. Indian Basketry. 2 vols. London, 1905.

Nrewenuuts, A. A. Quer Durch Borneo. Leiden, 1907.

NoRDENSKIOLD, G. The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde. Chicago, 1892.

SprnpeNn, Hersert J. A Study of Maya Art: Its Subject Matter and Historical
Development. (Memoirs, Peabody Museum of American Archeology and
Ethnology, Vol. 6, Cambridge, 1913.)

Sremen, Kart von DEN. Unter den Naturvélkern Central-Brasiliens. Berlin,
1894.

— , -. Die Marquesaner und ihre Kunst (Berlin, 1925-1928, 3 vols.).

Sever, Epuarp. Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Amerikanischen Sprach- und
Alterthumskunde. 3 vols. Berlin, 1902-1908.

Wisster, Cuark. Decorative Art of the Sioux Indian. (Bulletin, American Mu
seum of Natural History, Vol. 18, 1902.)

Some Protective Designs of the Dakota. (Anthropological Papers, American
Museum of Natural History, Vol. 1, Part III, 1907.)

FOR THE PEOPLE
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| INSECTS AND DISEASE

C.-E. A. WINSLOW
AND

FRANK E. LUTZ

GUIDE LEAFLET No. 48

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MODEL OF MALARIAL MOSQUITO

INSECTS AND DISEASE

A Statement of the More Important
Facts with Special Reference to

Everyday Experience

BY
C.-E. A. WINSLOW AND FRANK E. Lutz

American Museum of Natural History
GUIDE LEAFLET No. 48
NEW YORK, JUNE, 1918

PRINTED AT THE MUSEUM

“*T deal with certain little Invertebrata; animals
which work in darkness and in stealth, little animals
which in times of Peace we politely ignore, yet
little animals which in times of War may make or
unmake an army corps. As that wise old Greek,
Aristotle, wrote—and he knew quite a lot about
them—‘One should not be childishly contemp-
tuous of the study of the most insignificant animal.

For there is something marvellous in all natural

bd

A. E. Shipley, “Minor Horrors of War.”

objects.’ ’

INSECTS AND DISEASE
By C.-E. A. Winslow
and F. E. Lutz

THE IMPORTANCE OF INSECTS

The life of man is affected, for good or ill, at a thousand points
by the activities of the humbler members of the living world of which
he forms a part. The lower animals and plants supply us with our
food and clothing and with materials for providing shelter against
the elements. On the other hand, certain species are our relentless
foes, waging constant war against our property and even our lives.

In the case of the insects, for example, as we review the multitudes
of these creatures within our limited horizon, we not only admire the
wondrous beauty of this species or the amazing instincts of that; we
are awestruck at the financial havoc wrought by one and appre-
ciate with gratitude the way in which another helps to restore the
balance of Nature and protect us from starvation. Even among the
microbic forms of life, in the world of the “‘infinitely little,’ we find,
on the one hand, the bacteria of the soil fixing the nitrogen of the air
and making it available for our growing crops — on the other, the
bacilli of tuberculosis and of a score of other deadly diseases, threaten-
ing the health and life of hundreds of thousands.

One of the most interesting and important chapters in the story
of the interrelationships between mankind and the lower forms of
life is that which deals with the triple relation between the microbe,
the insect and the human being in the spread of certain communi-
cable diseases. The types of insects and their relatives concerned
are, on the whole, more disgusting than beautiful; their habits are not
attractive, nor are their instincts extraordinary; but they have pro-
foundly influenced the history of the human race. You and I may
lose our lives by reason of their activities; we certainly can aid in
combating them. It, therefore, behooves us to become well acquainted
with our foes.

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

CHARACTERISTICS OF INSECTS

First of all, a word should be said as to the characteristics of these
creatures and their place in Nature. Those animals which have no
internal skeleton but do have, at some period of their lives, jointed
legs are called Arthropods. Familiar examples are lobsters, spiders,
centipedes, and insects. We are now chiefly concerned with certain
insects but we must also consider mites and ticks, creatures which are
more closely related to the spiders. An insect has its body divided
into three regions: head, thorax, and abdomen. Its jointed legs are
borne by the thorax, the segments of the body which are just back of,
but separated from, the head; there are never more than three pairs
of such legs in an adult insect. Spiders, mites, and ticks have, typi-
cally, four pairs of jointed legs, and the head is merged with that part
of the body which bears the legs.

The great majority of insects are winged, when adult, and most
winged insects have two pairs of wings, but the members of the large
Order Diptera, to which mosquitoes and flies belong, have never
more than one pair. Nearly all of the strictly parasitic insects are
wingless, even when adult. We will take up first those disease-bearing
insects which have, when adult, one pair of wings, next certain
wingless insects, and finally the mites and ticks.

Two sorts of Diptera or two-winged insects are of interest in the
present connection: (1) ordinary “‘flies’’ with three-jointed antenna;
and (2) mosquitoes, gnats, etc., which have eight or more freely
moving joints in each antenna. The Muscidz and the Tabanidz
(p. 13) are of the first sort.

The Muscidz, a group which includes our commonest disease-
bearing insect, the filth fly, are characterized as follows:

The squame (see Fig. 1) of Diptera are scale-like structures placed
back of the roots of the wings and above the knobbed “‘balancers’’;
and the Muscidz agree with the related Diptera in having these
squamez large. The auxiliary vein in the wing (see Fig. 1) is distinct
in its whole course, and the first longitudinal vein is never very
short. The thorax has a complete transverse suture. The eyes of
the male are usually much nearer together than those of the female;
sometimes, in fact, so close that they touch each other.

4

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Fig. 1. THE FILTH FLY (A/usca domestica)

a. Auxiliary vein 7} Antenne

6. First longitudinal vein g- Transverse suture
e. Fourth longitudinal vein h. Squama

d. Discal cell i. Abdomen

e. Anal cell j- Tibia

THE FILTH FLY

Musca domestica

More volumes have been written about this insect in the last
twenty years than have been devoted to any other one insect (unless
it be the honey-bee) since man became civilized enough to write
about insects at all.

This fly is commonly called the “house fly,”’ but that name has
been justly criticized because it seems to imply a necessary domestic
telation. We do not believe that this insect should be a house fly in
the future; and Dr. L. O. Howard of Washington, in view of its re-
lation to disease, has suggested that is should be called the Typhoid
Fly. This seems, on the other hand, to relate rather too closely
a disease and an insect which are sometimes, but not universally,
connected. Filth Fly is perhaps the best term and one that is un-
doubtedly applicable. The fly breeds in filth, it resorts to filth, and
it carries filth with it everywhere it goes.

5

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

The excellent figures given here, combined with common experi-
ence, are sufficient for the identification of the ‘“‘ordinary house fly,”’
or “‘typhoid fly,” or “‘filth fly.”” Note (Figs. 1 and 4) especiaily the
rounded angle in the fourth longitudinal vein, the plumose antennal
bristle, the absence of stout bristles on the abdomen, the absence of
a vertical row of bristles between the base of the hind legs and the
“balancers,”’ and the absence of a prominent bristle near the middle
of either middle tibia. As is the case with many other Diptera, the
males of this species have the eyes closer together than do the females.
The sides of the abdomen in the male are brownish near the base
and grayish elsewhere. The females are grayish over the whole
abdomen with a variable pattern of darker gray or black.

The filth fly, like all other Diptera, passes through four definite
stages in its life cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The eggs of the
fly (one or two hundred in number) are laid by preference in horse
manure but may also be deposited in almost any moist decaying
organic matter, such as ““human excrement, pig manure, decaying
grain, moist bran, moist mixtures of hay and grain from feed troughs
of animals, excreta-soiled straw, contents from slaughtered animals,
decaying kitchen refuse, rotting fruits and vegetables, excreta-soiled
paper and rags, and ensilage.’’ Dr. Howard estimates that probably
90% of our filth flies are hatched from horse manure. Only certain
portions of a manure pile are, however, favorable for fly breeding,
“‘a layer some inches deep and lying a few inches below the surface
where there may be found a moderate amount of heat and moisture,
an excess of either being fatal or compelling migration.”

It takes the eggs of the fly about twelve hours, on the average,
to hatch. The larva are whitish creatures, blunt at the posterior
end and pointed in front. They have no bristles or hairs. On the
blunt end are spiracles or breathing holes. In young larva these
spiracles are in a heart-shaped aperture; later they appear in two slits;
and still later in three winding slits. The changes occur when the
larve cast their skins at intervals during their growth while feeding
on the manure or other material in which they live.

About five days after hatching, the maggot, now about half an
inch long, burrows downward into the ground or outward into the
drier portions of the manure and there changes to a brownish pupa
about 4 inch long. The pupal stage may last from three or four
days to several weeks, and recent observations suggest that autumn
broods usually pass the winter in this form, although the fly may

6

UN SE GIS SAWN DMD LSE ASL

Fig. 2. EGGS, LARVA AND PUPA OF THE FILTH FLY

(Photograph of models in The American Museum of Natural History

‘

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

hibernate in any stage. At the termination of the pupal stage the fly
comes out of the pupal case and crawls up to the surface of the ma-
terial in which it pupated. Here its wings quickly harden and it is
ready to fly away.

The rate at which generations of flies follow each other is deter-
mined by the temperature. Studies made in the Laboratory of
Public Health of the American Museum gave a total period from
ess laying to the emergence of the adult of 9.3 days at 35° C., 10.3
days at 30° C., and 22.3 days at 20° C.

The adult fly lives upon liquid food, since its mouth parts are in
the form of a sucking proboscis, but by discharging a free flow of
saliva it is able to turn foods like sugar into the fluid form it can
absorb.

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Fig. 4. THE FILTH FLY (Musca domestica)

(Photograph. of model in The American Museum of Natural History)

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

RELATIVES OF THE FILTH FLY

There are a number of other flies sometimes found in houses
which may be mistaken for the Filth Fly, and the characteristics of
a few of them may be briefly described.

Homalomyia canicularis is often supposed to be a ‘‘young house
fly.” It does look like a small edition of the more common and
dangerous insect; but it is a wholly different species. No insect grows
after it has attained to the dignity of wings. The wing-veins of
Homalomyia run without a sharp bend to the margin of the wing.
This creature is really not even a muscid; it belongs to the Anthomy-
idx. It breeds in waste organic matter such as manure.

Muscina is a muscid ge-
nus. Our species may be
recognized by the fact
that they are black flies
and not shining; the me-
dian stripe on the thorax
is light, the fourth longi-
tudinal vein is only slightly
bent and the first posterior
4 Cueea, cell is scarcely contracted

at the margin; the hind

end of the thorax may be

reddish. W. stabulans has
the legs and palpi more or less yellowish, while those of WZ. assimilis
are wholly black. The larve feed on excrement and a variety of
decaying substances including fungi and vegetables.

Pollenia rudis is known as the “‘cluster fly’’ from the habit which
the adults have of congregating in masses, especially about the ceilings
of rooms, when they are looking for a place in which to hibernate.
When mashed, these flies are very greasy and have an odor which
has been described by some as like honey and by others as ‘“‘very
disagreeable.”’ They breed, as parasites, in earthworms. The thorax
has no distinct stripes and is usually covered with a yellowish “‘dust’’;
the space between the eyes is white, the fourth longitudinal vein is
sharply bent.

The genus Lucilia includes the “‘green- and blue-bottle flies.”
Both the thorax and abdomen are bright and metallic. This descrip-
tion would apply also to certain other Muscidz, but it has not been

Fig. 5. THE LITTLE HOUSE FLY
(Homalomyia canicularis)

10

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Fig. 6. THE STABLE FLY (J/uscina Stabulans)

Fig. 7. THE BLUE-BOTTLE FLY (Lucilia cesar)

11

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS |

shown that the “‘bottles’”’ are instrumental in transmitting diseases and
a further diagnosis would require going into details which would be
out of place here. The larve feed chiefly on carrion but those of
L. cesar occur also in garbage and excrement.

These notes on various Muscide (in a broad sense) and an
Anthomyid have been given for the purpose of introducing the table
given below.’ It will be seen from this table that the only fly
which is very abundant on human excrement and also in dining
rooms is Musca domestica. This is the principal reason why this fly
is so dangerous.

Flies found in Dining Rooms

Very Moderately
| Abundant Rare
Abundant Bane Abundant
= |
e Very Musca | Borborus
®| Abundant domestica | equinus
12)
9 a2
ui ; nd
= Abundant Muscina Sare ophaga
£ stabulans SAVVACENLe
5 Ophyra
i leucostoma
=
° Pseudopvrelia
ez cornicina
a
© Myospila
¥ meditabunda
i | Se
Moderately Homalomyia Lucilia
Abundant canicularis cesar
= |
Drosophila Pollenia
ampelophila rudis
Rare :
Stomox vs Calliphora |
caleitrans erythrocephala

{Reprint from the /7e/d Look of Insects (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), by Frank E.
Lutz. It may not be out of place to say that this book gives further details, which can-
not be included here, concerning the identification and habits of other insects which are
troublesome but not actually dangerous.

12

INSECTS AND DISEASE

BITING FLIES

Stomoxys calcitrans. If ordinary house flies seem to be adding
to their other vices by biting, it is a case of mistaken identification;
the culprits are almost certainly the Stomoxys calcitrans, the “biting
stable fly.”’ Its proboscis is long, slender, and pointed, not fleshy and
blunt as is that of Musca domestica (page 5). The name, stable fly, is
not very appropriate, as this fly is neither the most abundant fly
about stables, as a rule, nor does it breed chiefly about stables unless
a quantity of wet, fermenting hay or straw be present. Piles of
lawn-cuttings or of weeds furnish more Stomoxys than do ordinary
stables. Adults are more frequently found about buildings in damp
weather and just before a storm than at other times, for which reason
the saying has arisen that the biting of flies isasign ofastorm. The
best method of control is self-evident—do away with the breeding
places either by destroying the material, covering it so that flies
do not have access to it, or drying it so that the larve cannot live.

Fig. 8. THE BITING STABLE FLY (.S/omo.ays calcitrans)

The most conspicuous biting flies in the Northeastern United States
belong to the Tabanide and are variously called “‘horse flies,”’ ““gad
flies,” and “‘green-headed flies.’” The head is large; each antenna
has three joints, the last being somewhat subdivided into from four

13

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

to eight parts; the eyes are large and usually brightly colored when
the insect is alive; the proboscis is sometimes as long as, or longer
than, the body; the thorax and abdomen bear hairs but not bristles;
each wing has two submarginal and five posterior cells; the anal cell
is usually closed but not far before the border of the wing; the mar-
ginal vein runs entirely around the wing. The larve are aquatic,
or semi-aquatic, and predacious. They taper at both ends and each
of the eleven segments into which the body is divided bears a circlet
of small spines. The adults fly by day, usually being found in warm
sunny places, though some prefer shady woods. Only the females
bite; both sexes feed on the juices of plants and on similar substances.
There are several hundred species recorded from North America.

The only other biting Calypterate which we have in the North-
east is Hematobia serrata, the ““Horn fly.” It is less than half the
size of Stomoxys calcitrans and the palpi are nearly as long as the
proboscis, while in Stomoxys they are much shorter than the proboscis.

The genus G/ossina includes the tsetse flies; it is found only in
Africa at the present time, although it formerly occurred in America,
as is proved by fossils unearthed in Colorado. The tsetse flies are
as large as, or larger than, Wusca domestica, the ordinary house fly;
the waist is constricted; the wings are crossed when at rest; the fourth
longitudinal vein bends before it meets the very oblique anterior
transverse vein. Both sexes bite, usually by day, but also at night if
the moon be bright. The larve almost complete their development
within the body of their mother and are then laid at the roots of
plants. The pupal stage lasts from six to eight weeks. Several
species have been described and their habits carefully studied but,
owing to the facts that the larve are carried by the female until nearly
or quite full-grown and that the adults feed on the blood of other
animals than man, control methods are difficult.

Certain insects are not real transmitters of disease but are them-
selves its inciting agents. There are, for instance, dipterous larva,
‘maggots,’ which occur by accident or as a part of their normal life-
history in the human body. Such an occurrence is called myiasis.
The most important species in this connection is the “‘screw-worm,”
Chrysomyia macellaria. It is a blow fly which has been classed with
the Muscidae and also with the Sarcophagide. The adult fly is
nearly, or quite, half an inch long; metallic green; with three longi-

14

INSECTS AND DISEASE

tudinal dark stripes on the thorax; its head is reddish to yellowish
brown; its wing venation is similar to that of J/usca domestica.
Several hundred eggs (sometimes the eggs hatch before they are laid
and then living larve are deposited) are placed on carrion or in
wounds or sores in living animals. In the case of man, the eggs are
usually laid in the nostrils of those suffering from nasal catarrh.
The yellowish-white larva has rings of bristle-like structures on the
segments, which give it the appearance of a screw. If it is not re-
moved from the nostril, it may work in, causing an abscess and even
death. Blow flies of the genus Calliphora (Muscide with metallic
colored abdomen but dull colored thorax; fourth longitudinal vein
sharply bent; distal third of antennal bristle bearing some hairs;
cheeks unicolorous) sometimes lay their eggs on cold meat, espec-
ially pork, and the larve are then taken into the stomachs of careless
eaters. Usually not much harm is done. The same is true of
Lucilia (see page 10). The CEstride are closely related] to the
Muscidz but the adults have rudimentary mouth-parts. They are
the bot flies, and certain species do great damage to stock. In trop-
ical America human beings are parasitized by the Céstrid Dermatobia
hominis, and possibly other species. The larve live underneath the
skin of various parts of the body. William B. Herms, in his useful
Medical and Veterinary Entomology (Macmillan Medical Co., New
York), gives a key to the larve ordinarily involved in myiasis.

THE FILTH FLY AND DISEASE

Musca domestica is not only a pest but a serious menace to health
on account of the likelihood that it may carry filth from the unsavory
places which it frequents to food. The foot of the fly is tipped with
claws and soft pads on which there is ample room for great numbers
of microbes to be transplanted; and, as a matter of fact, if a fly be
allowed to walk over the surface of a properly prepared bacterial
culture plate, the path over which it travels is marked by numerous

colonies of bacteria, each developed from a single germ planted
there by the foot of the insect. Even more serious, perhaps, is the
danger that disease germs ingested by a fly from privy contents, or
other infected material, may be voided in its excrement (fly specks)
or in small droplets which are regurgitated by the insect. Experi-
ments have shown that many kinds of disease germs may pass
through the intestines of the fly and be discharged in its excrement in
an active and virulent state.

16

INSECTS AND DISEASE

The spoiling of foods may obviously be hastened by ordinary
putrefactive germs introduced in such ways and, if the fly has been
feeding upon human discharges (tuberculous sputum for example, or
the contents of an outside closet used by an incipient typhoid case)
specific human diseases may easily result.

Fig. 10. BACTERIAL COLONIES DEVELOPED ON AN AGAR
PLATE FROM GERMS PLANTED BY THE FEET
OF A FLY WHICH WALKED OVER IT

The number of microbes actually carried by flies varies greatly
with the general amount of filth in their surroundings. Studies made
by the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the
Poor gave an average of 13,986 bacteria per fly (on the outer surfaces
of its body) in clean localities, against 1,106,017 in dirty surroundings.
The germs of typhoid fever and Asiatic cholera have been isolated
from the bodies of flies caught during epidemics of these diseases,
and we have, in our museum of living bacteria at the American
Museum, one strain of typhoid bacilli isolated in this way in the
course of an outbreak in New Jersey.

17

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

It was the experience of the American troops in the Spanish
War which first forcibly called attention in this country to the danger
of the transmission of disease by flies. About one out of five of our
volunteer soldiers contracted typhoid during the campaign, and the
investigators who studied the cause of this disastrous affair concluded
that ‘‘the number of cases of typhoid fever in the different camps
varied with the methods of disposing of the excretions.’”’ The
typhoid germs, in most cases, were probably spread from person to
person by more or less direct contact, but the fly undoubtedly played its
part. Doctors Reed, Vaughan and Shakespeare pointed out in their
official report that ‘‘flies swarm over infected fecal matter in the pits
and then deposit it and feed upon the food prepared for the soldiers
at the mess tents. In some instances, where lime had recently been
sprinkled over the contents of the pits, flies with their feet whitened
by lime were seen walking over the food.’’

The investigators also point out that, ““Officers whose mess tents
were protected by means of screens suffered proportionately less
from typhoid fever than did those whose tents were not so pro-
tected,” and again that ‘““Typhoid fever gradually disappeared in the
fall of 1898 with the approach of cold weather and the consequent
disabling of the flies.”

In the World War flies have constituted a grave menace to the
health of troops operating in tropical and semitropical regions. On
the western front they have been remarkably well controlled by
burning manure and garbage and by protecting latrines. At
Gallipoli and in Egypt, however, they have been responsible for the
spread of dysentery and many other parasitic diseases among the
French and English troops.

The most striking evidence in regard to the importance of the fly
as a carrier of disease is, perhaps, that furnished by the experience
of Jacksonville, Fla. Ever since the encampment of troops at
Jacksonville in 1898 the city has been heavily infected with typhoid
fever. No reliable data are available before 1908, but the typhoid
death rates per 100,000 population for the years 1908, 1909, and 1910
were 82, 75 and 106 respectively. In the late summer of 1910 a law
was passed requiring that all dry closets within the city should be
rendered fly-proof. By March, 1911, about 75 per cent. of the closets
had been brought into conformity with the law and the typhoid rate
forthe year dropped to 63. By January, 1912, practically all the closets
had been rendered fly-proof and the typhoid rate dropped to 26.

18

INSECTS AND DISEASE

The danger of transmission of disease by flies increases with the
extent to which human excreta are exposed to the access of flies and
with the duration of the warm season, which favors fly breeding.
Danger is not confined, however, to unsewered rural districts or to
the South. The Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor
in New York City made a careful study of the relation between flies
and infant diarrhea in the summer of 1914. Nearly 1000 infants
were carefully observed, half of them being in ordinary homes and
half in homes where special efforts were made to protect the infant
and his food from flies. The homes studied were classified accord-
ing to their general cleanliness and according to their freedom from
flies. In the homes where flies were abundant, 1.9 times as many
infants suffered from summer diarrhea as in the homes protected from
flies, and 1.8 times as many were attacked under dirty conditions as in
the clean homes. Where both factors were combined, in dirty and
fly-ridden homes, there were 2.4 times as many infants who suffered
from diarrhea as in the clean and fly-protected tenements.

PREVENTION OF FLY-BORNE DISEASE
The practical methods of controlling the spread of disease by flies
fall under four main headings: the prevention of fly breeding, the
destruction of adult flies, the protection of human discharges from
access of flies, and the protection of food by screening houses and
covering the food itself.

PREVENTION OF FLY BREEDING

The usual methods employed in fighting the dangerous Muscidz
are really of little avail. Sticky fly-paper, wire flytraps, and poisons
will undoubtedly kill a large number but infinitely more are breeding
where they came from. Screening our windows and doors will un-
doubtedly keep many out but it is not pleasant to live in a cage.
Furthermore, the people from whom we buy our milk and other
food-stuffs may not be so careful. The only thoroughgoing method
is to stop the trouble at its souree—prevent fly breeding. The
adults we kill cannot thereafter breed, but they have probably done
so before and many of their companions are sure to escape altogether.
If we could do away with the breeding places, or make them unfit
for fly larve, or keep adult flies away from them, the thing would be
done. Nearly all the books and lecturers say that this is easy. It is
well to be optimistic but better to recognize the whole truth. It
cannot be done easily.

19

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

If anti-fly campaigns are to be successful your neighbor must
keep his place clean too, for his flies are just as apt to come into your
house as his, so the problem becomes one for the whole community.
This is the heart of the matter. A few earnest individuals or well-
meaning Improvement Societies, by themselves, can do little more
than cause a great deal of trouble and very little good. Laws must
be made and enforced so that the ignorant or careless may not make
of little or no avail the work of the intelligent and careful.

Since 90 flies out of every 100 are probably born in a manure
pile, the elimination of the natural breeding places of the fly means,
first and foremost, the proper care of stable manure. Stables should
not have dirt floors, since it has been shown that the ground moistened
by animal discharges contains many larve and pupxz. Floors should
be water-tight, preferably of cement, and constructed so as to drain
freely into a sewer or covered cement pit. In wooden floored stables
flies should be excluded from the ground beneath the floor boards.
Openings left for ventilation should be screened with wire and no
holes should be bored in the floor for drainage of urine.

Fig. 11. MODEL SHOWING A GOOD TYPE OF MANURE BIN
(American Museum of Natural History)
The surface of the manure is being sprinkled with a chemical to prevent fly breeding.

20

INSECTS AND DISEASE

It has generally been recommended that the manure itself should
be kept in a dark vault or pit from which flies are shut out by screens,
or in a tight covered box. The health officer of Asheville, N. C.,
where an unusually successful anti-fly campaign has been carried out,
believes that screening of manure has been over-emphasized and
that tightly floored boxes and thorough and complete cleaning up of
these floors at frequent intervals are the main desiderata. He points
out that most manure already contains fly maggots when placed in
the bin and that an elaborately screened bin is hard to clean so
thoroughly that development may not take place in the manure left
behind.

A method of storing manure which is specially applicable to
military camps depends on the fact that flies cannot breed readily
in this material when it is closely packed. A rectangular area of
sround is staked off and the manure is built up into compact heaps,
the sides being kept straight and beaten hard with shovels. The ad-
jacent ground is also beaten hard and loose straw is placed in small
windrows about a foot from the edge. The absence of air in
the interior of the heap, with the high temperature and chemical
products due to bacterial fermentation, makes the manure highly un-
favorable for fly development, and any larva which succeed in de-
veloping in the surface layer will pass out and pupate in the ring of
straw, which should be swept up every two or three days and burned.

The United States Bureau of Entomology has devoted special
attention to the problem of chemical treatment of manure for the
purpose of poisoning the maggots which might otherwise be bred
therein. Any one who is interested in the control of this insect pest
should write to the Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D. C., and
to the Department of Agriculture of his own State, for the latest
recommendations in regard to this method of treatment, which is
constantly being improved and made more economical and efficient.
The following suggestions are taken from Farmers’ Bulletin 851 of
the United States Department of Agriculture and represent the best
procedures available in 1917.

For manure or other refuse not to be used as a fertilizer,
powdered borax is the best chemical preventive of fly breeding;
.62 pound per 8 bushels of manure, or about 1 pound per 16 cubic
feet, will destroy 90 per cent. of the larve present. The borax
should be applied in solution, or water should be sprinkled on after
scattering dry borax evenly over the pile.

21

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

Borax-treated manure in large amounts may injure crops; and,
for manure which is to be used on the land, powdered hellebore may
be recommended. A water extract is prepared by adding '% pound
of powder to every 10 gallons of water, stirring and allowing to stand
for 24 hours. The stock mixture thus prepared is sprinkled over the
manure at the rate of 10 gallons to every 8 bushels (10 cubic feet)
of manure. Hellebore, while more expensive than borax, in no
way injures the manure.

A third alternative has been suggested by the Department of
Agriculture, which, while showing a still higher first cost, involves
the use of substances which serve directly to increase the fertilization
value. A mixture of % pound of calcium cyanamid plus % pound
of acid phosphate to each bushel of manure killed 98 per cent. of the
larve when scattered evenly over the surface and wetted with water, at
the same time adding to the manure the valuable elements nitrogen
and phosphorus.

“It is well to bear in mind that the house flies breed in many sub-
stances other than horse manure, for example, in pig manure, chicken
manure, ensilage, moist bran, rotting potatoes, and in decaying
matter on the public dumps of towns and cities, and it is necessary to
give attention to all such accumulations where active fermentation is
taking place.”

A highly ingenious method of preventing breeding of flies in
manure is the maggot trap devised by Dr. E. C. Levy, Health Officer
of Richmond, Va. Its use is described by Mr. Hutchinson of the
United States Bureau of Entomology as follows:

“The maggots of the house fly, when they have finished breed-
ing, show a distinct tendency to migrate and will crawl away from
the manure, especially if it is moist, in search of a comparatively dry
and safe place to pass the pupal or resting stage. Now, if the manure
is placed on a slatted platform, and if the platform stands on the
floor of a concrete basin containing ™% inch or more of water, the
larve in migrating will drop into the water and be drowned. Each
day the stable cleanings should be placed on the platform and com-
pactly heaped and well moistened. For the purpose of keeping the
manure wet, it is best to have a small cistern close to the platform and
a pump so placed that the watering of the manure heap is easily ac-
complished. If the liquid manure from the stables is conducted by
drains to the cistern, the valuable plant food which it contains will
thus be added to the manure on the maggot trap. Experiments have

22

[<r Ghee, ae

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Fig. 12. TRAP FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF FLY LARV4Z
(Maggot Trap)

to
we

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

shown that the maggot trap will destroy 99 per cent. of the maggots
developing in manure. After the manure has been standing on
the maggot trap for 10 days it will be practically free from maggots
and may be used on fields or gardens or stored in heaps without
likelihood of any further breeding taking place in it. The advantages
of the maggot trap are that it is cheap, requires little extra labor to
operate and to dispose of the drowned maggots, and it does not lessen
the value of the manure but rather tends to preserve it. As is the
case with all other methods, the use of the maggot trap must be sup-
plemented by careful attention to possible breeding places other than
horse manure.”

2. Destruction of Adult Flies

Simple and effective flytraps may be used to some advantage in
decreasing the number of flies. Their use has been advocated not
only because of their immediate results, but because of the chance
that the flies may be caught before they lay their first batch of eggs,
and that thus the possible number of future generations will be
materially reduced.

Many types of flytraps are on the market, and as a rule the larger
ones are the more effective. Anyone with a few tools, however, can
construct flytraps for a small part of the price of the ready-made ones.
A trap which is very effective in catching flies, and is easily made,
durable, and cheap, may be constructed as follows:

“The trap consists essentially of a screen cylinder with a frame
made of barrel hoops, in the bottom of which is inserted a screen
cone. The height of the cylinder is 24 inches, the diameter 18 inches,
and the cone is 22inches high and 18 inches in diameter at the base.
Material necessary for this trap consists of four new or second-
hand barrel hoops; one barrel head; four laths; 10 feet of strips 1 to
1% inches wide by % inch thick (portions of old boxes will suffice);
61 linear inches of 12- or 14-mesh galvanized screening 24 inches
wide for the sides of the trap, and 41 inches of screening 26 inches
wide for the cone and door; an ounce of carpet tacks, and two turn
buttons, which may be made of wood.”’ The cost of the material for
this trap is not great, and in many cases the barrel hoops, barrel head,
laths and strips can be obtained without expense.

“In constructing the trap, two of the hoops are bent in a circle
(18 inches in diameter on the inside) and nailed together, the ends
being trimmed to give a close fit. These form the bottom of the frame

24

INSECTS AND DISEASE

(A), and the other two, prepared in a similar way, the top (B).
The top (C) of the trap is made of an ordinary barrel head with the
bevel edge sawed off sufficiently to cause the head to fit closely in
the hoops and allow secure nailing. A square, 10 inches on the side,

Fig. 13. A SIMPLE FLYTRAP (see text)

is cut out of the center of the top to form a door. The portions of
the top (barrel head) are held together by inch strips (D) placed
around the opening one-half inch from the edge to form a jamb
for the door. The door consists of a narrow frame (E) covered
with screen (F) well fitted to the trap and held in place (not hinged)
by buttons (G). The top is then nailed in the upper hoops and the
sides (H) formed by closely tacking screen wire on the outside of the
hoops. Four laths (I) (or light strips) are nailed to the hoops on
the outside of the trap to act as supports between the hoops, and
the ends are allowed to project 1 inch at the bottom to form legs (J).

25

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

The cone (K) is cut from the screen and either sewed with fine wire
or soldered where the edges meet at (L). The apex of the cone is
then cut off to give an aperture (M) 1 inch in diameter. It is then
inserted in the trap and closely tacked to the hoop around the base.”’

The effectiveness of the traps will depend on the selection of
a good bait. For attracting house flies beer is probably the best.
It loses much of its attractiveness after the first stages of fermentation
are over, and for this reason it should be renewed every day or two.
Milk is also a good bait. Over-ripe or fermenting bananas, crushed
and placed in the bait pans, give good results. A combination of
bananas and milk is more attractive than either used separately. A
mixture of 3 parts water and 1 part cheap molasses is very attrac-
tive after it has been allowed to ferment for a day ortwo. A mixture
of equal parts of brown sugar and cheese (or curd of sour milk),
thoroughly moistened, give good results after it has been allowed to
stand for three or four days. For catching blow flies and other meat-
infesting flies, the best bait is the mucous membrane from the lining
of the intestines of hogs. Ordinary fish or meat scraps may be used.

Fly paper is sometimes helpful, particularly the long slender
roll of sticky paper hung from a ceiling. Fora fly poison, Professor
Phelps of the United States Public Health Service recommends either
formaldehyde or sodium salicylate, three teaspoonfuls of the 40 per
cent. commercial solution of formaldehyde, or the same amount of
powdered sodium salicylate to a pint of water. Nearly fill a glass
tumbler with the solution, place over this a piece of blotting paper
cut to circular form and somewhat larger in diameter than the tum-
bler, and over this invert a saucer. Invert the whole device. The
blotting paper will remain in the proper moist condition until the
entire contents of the tumbler have been used and the strength of the
formaldehyde solution will be maintained. A little sugar sprinkled
upon the paper will increase the attractiveness of the poison for the
flies. Either of these preparations may be safely used where there
are young children, although the addition of the sugar is not recom-
mended in such cases.

The killing of flies in the house by “‘swatters’’ is also of some
value, although where the insects are abundant the majority of them
should be eliminated by the more efficient methods of trapping.

Among natural enemies which help to destroy flies in either the
larval or the adult state are hens, swallows, phoebes and other birds,
and toads.

26

oe @& «

a, 1.

INSECTS AND DISEASE

3. Protection of Human Discharges from Access of Flies

The measures suggested above will greatly reduce the numbers
of flies but, as a rule, will not do away with them entirely. It is,
therefore, always essential to take precautions against the spread of
specific human diseases by guarding intestinal discharges from the
access of flies. Outside closets, where they cannot be replaced by a
cesspool or sewer system, should always be carefully constructed so
as to exclude insects, all openings for ventilation screened, and cracks
in walls or openings below the floor level tightly closed. In the
army, the construction of fly-proof latrines is a first essential of camp
sanitation.

4. Exclusion of Flies from Houses and from Access to Food.

Finally, flies should be excluded from dwellings by careful
screening of doors and windows. Screens must be always in place
and must fit tightly. In particular, the kitchen and the dining room
should be protected in this way.

The covering of foods in stores and restaurants is one of the
most important aspects of the campaign for clean and pure foods, and
it is wise to avoid all such places where flies are abundant and food
unprotected.

tv
~J

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

THE MOSQUITOES AND THEIR ALLIES

The blood-sucking habit, and the modifications of mouth-parts
necessary to such a habit, are to be found in several, not closely re-
lated, groups of the two-winged insects, Diptera. All blood-suckers
are to be looked on with suspicion, because of the possibility that
they may be the intermediate hosts of disease-parasites. Several such
insects have already been mentioned; but another group of quite
different creatures remains to be discussed.

If a moquito, crane fly, or some similar insect, be carefully ex-
amined, it will be seen that the antenne (“‘feelers’) consist of not
less than eight joints, rather similar one to another; the antenne are
usually longer than the thorax (the middle part of the body, the part
which bears the wings and legs); the anal cell (see Fig. 14) is rarely
narrowed in the border of the wing and the discal cell is usually
absent. These are distinguishing characteristics of the nematocerous
Diptera or Orthorrhapha, that group of Diptera to which mosquitoes,
punkies, black flies, and blood-sucking gnats in general belong.

Fig. 14. STRUCTURAL CHARACTERS OF THE MOSQUITO

«a. Antenna 6. Thorax
ec. Costal vein of wing d. Analcell
¢. Tibia
Of the Nematocera, there are four families (Culicida, Psycho-
didz, Simuliida, and Ceratopogonida) which contain blood-sucking
species. The adults of the first two of these, Culicida and Psychodide,
unite in typically having the following characteristics: at least nine

28

INSECTS AND DISEASE

veins extend to the margin of each wing; the top of the thorax does
not have a distinct V-shaped suture near the middle; the costa (Fig.
14) continues around the hind margin of the wing; and the wing
veins bear conspicuous, scale-like hairs. The Culicida (Mosquitoes)
are slender; they have long, slender, usually moderately hairy or
scaly legs; their tibia (the second large joint of the legs) have apical
spurs; the wings are elongate and narrow. The Psychodide (Moth-
flies) are small and robust; their legs are short and densely hairy; the
tibia have no apical spurs; the wings are short, broad, and some-
times pointed apically. The Simuliide and Ceratopogonidex
have more than four distinct longitudinal veins but less than nine
veins extend to the margin of each wing, and the wings do not have
a network of fine creases; the costal vein does not continue beyond
the apex of the wing; and there are no ocelli (small, simple eyes
which, when present, are situated between, often above, the con-
spicuous compound eyes). The Simuliide (Black-flies, etc.) are
usually very small and thick-set; the antenne are shorter than the
thorax; each antenna is composed of ten or eleven closely united
sesments, not plumose; the hind pair of legs are more or less dilated;
the anterior veins of the wings are stout, the posterior ones weak.
The Ceratopogonidz (Punkies), like the Chironomid with which
they were formerly united but from which they have been separated
because of their piercing mouth-parts, are slender delicate gnats; the
antenne are slender, the joints more or less constricted and some-
times plumose; the femora of the slender legs are sometimes thickened.

General notions are not always safe guides in the classification of
insects. However, our general notions as to what a mosquito is,
combined with the discussion in the preceding paragraph, will prob-
ably suffice to enable us to recognize a culicid. No male of any
species of Culicide ever “‘bites.’’ The females of most of the species
with which we come in contact have the ability and desire to pierce
the human skin with their needle-like mouths, if they get a chance,
and to suck a small drop of blood. If this were all they did, it
would be bad enough, but, when they pierce the skin, they inject an
irritating substance, saliva, which sometimes “‘carries with it the
microscopic, unicellular animals which cause malaria, and down this
minute, microscopic [salivary] duct has flowed the fluid which has
altered the fate of continents and played a conspicuous part in the
destruction of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome”

(Shipley).

29

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS _

Fig. 15. RESTING POSTURE OF CULEX (above)
AND ANOPHELES (below)

The disease-bearing and _ rest-disturbing habits of mosquitoes
have led to a detailed and almost feverish study of their taxonomy.
Species have been named and genera erected on the basis of char-
acters which are very difficult for the non-professional to use.
Formerly, the common species of true mosquitoes inhabiting the
northern part of the United States were divided into two genera:
Anopheles and Culex. As Anopheles contains the malarial mosquito

30

INSECTS. AND DISEASE

(or mosquitoes) it is the more important in the present connection,
although not so numerous in species as the old, inclusive, Culex.
Not all species of Anopheles have spotted wings, and not all spotted
winged mosquitoes are Anopheles, but, for practical purposes and
especially in the northeastern United States, we may say that
mosquitoes with spots on their wings are Anopheles and that those
with plain wings are something else. Furthermore, the adults of
Anopheles are given to holding their beaks in a line with their bodies
while Culex points the beak downward at an angle to the body-line.
One of the technical points used in identifying adults of Anopheles
concerns the relative lengths of the palpi and beak. The palpi are
delicate, thread-like organs, one on each side of the beak. In the
male the palpi are more feathered than in the female; this is even
more true of the antenne, or “‘feelers.’’ Both sexes of Anopheles
have the palpi nearly, or quite, as long as the beak; the females, at
least, of our other mosquitoes have the palpi relatively short, rarely
exceeding half the length of the beak. If one extends the three first
fingers, the middle finger may be taken to represent the mosquito’s
beak and the other two fingers the pair of palpi of Anopheles. If,
now, the first and ring fingers be bent at the end of the first joint,
the three fingers, as viewed from above, may serve as a model of
the relative lengths of the palpi and beak of the female Culex. In
applying this test, be careful not to confuse the antennz with the

ANOPHELES (left); CULEX (right)

Mosquito larve live only in water but the females of certain
species display what might almost be called foresight; they lay their
eggs on ground which will later become covered with water, as on
the mud of low places along a salt-marsh. The most familiar mos-

31

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

quito eggs are those of the rain-barrel species—eggs which are laid
on end, side by side, in a boat-shaped mass on the surface of the
water in barrels, tubs, and similar places. The eggs of Anopheles are
laid singly but frequently they float close to each other, the floating
being favored by special structures along their sides. The larva, or
“wriggler’’ which hatches from an egg of Anopheles has a very short
breathing siphon on its back at the tail end. The larva is lighter
than water; when feeding or at rest, it floats just below the surface
and parallel to it; when disturbed it wriggles vigorously from side to
side, the motion sometimes carrying it downward but more frequently
sideways. When at the surface, the end of the breathing siphon
pierces the “‘surface film,’ opens up, and exposes the ends of the
trachezx, the tubes which convey air to all parts of the creature’s body.
In order to feed on the microscopic plants and other organic material
floating at the surface, the larva twists its neck until its mouth is on a
line with its back. While there are other, more technical characters,
it is sufficient to say that a mosquito larva which has a short, stubby
breathing siphon, floats parallel with the surface of the water, and
twists its head to feed is an Anopheles. The Culex larva floats at an
angle with the surface as shown in Fig. 16, and has a relatively long
breathing siphon.

As a young insect feeds, its flesh increases but its skin does not
stretch sufficiently to accommodate the enlarging body. Therefore,
the old skin is cast from time to time and a new, larger skin is
formed. Finally there comes a time, as in the case of such insects
as moths and beetles, which like the Diptera have a “‘complete
metamorphosis,’ when there emerges from a larval skin something
which is neither larva nor adult, and which is called the pupa. The
pupa of moths is, forthe most part, immobile and frequently enclosed
in a protective case, the “cocoon,” which is spun for it by the larva.
The pupa of mosquitoes is active, but not so active as a larva, and it
does not feed. It also differs from the larva in being hunched up
instead of slender and in having a pair of breathing siphons on its
thorax (the part of the body just back of the head) instead of a single
siphon on the tail. The pupa of Anopheles closely resembles that of
Culex, but the abdomen is more sharply curved and the breathing
siphons are more dilated at the top and relatively shorter than in
Culex. The adult mosquito finally emerges from a split in the back
of the cast pupal skin, which forms a miniature boat upon which the

32

INSECTS AND DISEASE

adult may stand while stretching itself before it flies away to
perpetuate its species, perhaps at the expense of ours. Studies on a
common fresh-water mosquito (Culex pipiens) made at the American
Museum showed that at 20° C. the cycle was completed in 19.6
days, at 25° in 11.7 days, and at 30° in 7.8 days.

In the vicinity of New York City there are three fairly common
species of Anopheles: punctipennis, crucians, and what was formerly
called maculipennis, more recently qguadrimaculatus, but which prob-
ably should be called guttulatus. Remembering Pope’s advice
concerning the choice between the old and the new, we will use the
name quadrimaculatus.

Anopheles punctipennis is “‘a medium sized dark brown mosquito
with the upper surface of the thorax dark brown at the sides and
with several narrow lines of yellowish gray hairs appearing as one
broad §gray stripe in the center. The beak and legs are unbanded;
the wings densely clothed with black and yellow scales, two large
black patches and two smaller ones on the front margin especially
conspicuous. The abdomen is dark brown, profusely scattered with
yellowish brown hairs” (Smith). The other two species to be
mentioned here have no whitish spot on the front margin of the
wings.

Anopheles crucians “is brown, not quite as dark as punctipennis,
with the thorax striped with grayish scales, the wing veins clothed
with whitish and black scales, the black ones especially collected
along the wing margin’? (Smith). The hindmost wing vein has
three black spots separated by two yellowish-white ones. This
mosquito flies earlier in the evening and later in the morning than
either punctipennis or quadrimaculatus, and has, for this reason, been
called the Daylight Anopheles.

Anopheles quadrimaculatus may be recognized by the four small
dark spots on each of its yellowish wings. It is the species usually
thought of in connection with malaria in this country and it has been
observed to breed in brackish water as well as fresh.

Little need be said concerning the other mosquitoes of northern
regions, in connection with disease. They are troublesome on
account of their biting habit, and for the same reason they are to be
looked on with suspicion since they may be the unknown carriers
of some disease. The females have relatively short palpi and the
larve relatively long breathing siphons. In the South, however,

22
Pere}

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

there are certain very important species. Culex quinquefasciatus,
also known as fatigans, extends as far north as Washington and St.
Louis, its larvae replacing the northern pipiens in the rain-barrels.
In both species the eggs are laid in boat-shaped masses floating on
the surface of the water. The wings of both species are clear and
both species have white cross-bands on the abdomen; these abdominal
bands are joined to lateral spots in pipiens but separated from the
lateral spots in guinquefasciatus.

Aédes calopus, formerly called Stegomyia fasciata, the Yellow-
fever Mosquito, is frequently carried by vessels into temperate regions
but it has not succeeded in establishing itself there. The adult flies
by day instead of by night. Aédes is a genus which is separated from
Culex by characters rather difficult for the layman to make out.
Some of our common salt-marsh mosquitoes are now put in this
genus. The following list of characters will probably differentiate
calopus from anything with which it is likely to be confused; the
claws on the front and middle feet of the female are toothed; the
joints of the black feet are white-ringed, but at the bases only; the
beak of the female is not white-ringed; the thorax is not markedly
paler than the abdomen and bears silvery-white lines in the pattern
of a lyre, but no median white line; the abdomen has _ distinct,
segmental white bands which are continuous across the abdomen; the
wing-scales are narrow and mostly brown.

Howard and others, in their report on mosquitoes published by
the Carnegie Institution, say concerning ca/opus: “‘Under natural
conditions the eggs are laid singly in small irregular groups some
distance above the margin of the water..... The larve live in
accumulations of water in artificial receptacles. From being origi-
nally a tree-hole-inhabiting species, it is now wholly domesticated,
and its larva inhabits artificial accumulations of water either within
houses or in the vicinity of human habitations. Occasionally the
larvae occur in holes in trees, but always in proximity to habitations.
Goeldi has found the larvae in water held by bromeliads, presumably
near houses, and by the still folded leaves of banana plants. In the
tropics the earthen jars in which drinking water is kept within
dwellings are favorite breeding-places; the larva have the habit of
keeping to the bottom, and, as these jars are never emptied, their
presence is not even suspected. Water may be poured from the
small earthen bottles used in hotels in the tropics, and, unless the
bottle is quickly and completely emptied, the larva will remain

34

INSECTS AND DISEASE

behind. Holy-water founts in churches are a favorite breeding-place.
Out of doors the larvae occur in tanks, barrels, rain-barrels, rain-
troughs and discarded bottles and tins. The larva, when suspended
from the surface film, hang nearly perpendicular. .... Unlike many
other mosquitoes they (the adult females) emit no sound when about
to bite. The male likewise persecutes man and this has led to a
widely quoted statement of Ficalbi that it sucks blood; however, it
does not pierce the skin but laps sweat from the surface and in this
way causes some irritation.”

Several other families of nematocerous Diptera should be briefly
mentioned on account of their blood-sucking habits.

Psychodidae. Some of the characteristics of this family were
given on page 29. The most common—possibly the only—genus
found in the vicinity of New York City is Psychoda. Its larve live
in decaying vegetable matter, exuding sap, cow dung, and other
moist excrementitious matter. The small, moth-like adults run well
but fly weakly. They feed largely on nectar and rarely, if ever,
“bite’’ animals, although they may sip fluids from wounds. In the
tropics there is a genus, Phlebotomus, in which the species have the
proboscis rather elongated and these do pierce the skin of man and
other animals for the purpose of sucking blood. Some of these
species are believed to be instrumental in the transmission of disease.

Simuliidae. See page 29 for some of the characteristics of the
family. The species have received various common names including
“buffalo gnats,” “*black-flies,’’ “‘sand-flies’’ and “‘turkey gnats.”
The principal genus is Simulium and, although there are not many
species, individuals sometimes occur in countless hordes. The larvae
live in running water, usually where the current is swiftest. There
the larve sit on their tails catching for food the organic matter which
the stream floats to them. They are often so numerous that the
object on which they are gathered seems to be covered with moss.
Unfortunately, the bite of the adult is not in proportion to its small
size and when hundreds of bites are received in one day it is easy to
believe the reports of deaths of both cattle and human beings from
the bites alone. In addition to this, they have been suggested as
possible carriers of anthrax to cattle and of pellagra to man.

The Ceratopogonide were mentioned on page 29 because of
their biting habits; they have not, as yet, been connected with any
disease. The species of Culicoides are the blood-sucking “‘punkies”’
or “‘no-see-ums.” The larva are aquatic.

Rye)

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

MOSQUITOES AND MALARIA

Few diseases have, until recent times, seemed more mysterious
than malaria. This malady was defined in Quain’s Standard
Dictionary of Medicine as late as 1894 as ‘“‘an earth-born poison,
generated in soils, the energies of which are not expended in the
srowth and sustenance of healthy cultivated vegetation. | By almost
universal consent this poison is the cause of all the types of inter-
mittent and remittent fevers, commonly called malarial, and of the
degeneration of the blood and tissues resulting from long residence
in places where this poison is generated.”

‘Malaria,’ the Encyclopedia continues, “has generally been
said to be the product of heat, moisture and vegetable decomposition.
The terms marsh miasm, and paludal fevers, long employed to
distinguish the poison and the fevers to which it gives rise, mark the
almost universal belief that the air of marshes alone is endowed with
the power of generating them. That low, moist, and warm localities
are generally noted as malarious, is indisputable. Marshes are not,
as a rule, dangerous when abundantly covered with water; it is when
the water level is lowered, and the saturated soil is exposed to the
drying influence of a high temperature and the direct rays of the
sun, that this poison is evolved in abundance. The production of
malaria on a great scale in this way was seen in the district of
Burdwan, in Bengal. ‘he soil is alluvial, but dry; and until within
the last few years, Burdwan was more salubrius than the central or
eastern districts of the lower Gangetic delta. The drainage of the
district became obstructed by the silting up of its natural and artificial
outlets, the result being a water-logged condition of the soil, the
development of malaria, and an alarming increase in the death-rate.

‘‘Malaria is, however, generated under conditions apparently
widely different from the above. When the British Army under
Wellington was operating in Estremadura, the country was so arid
and dry for want of rain, that the rivers and small streams were
reduced to mere lines of widely detached pools; yet it was assailed
by a remittent fever of such a destructive malignity that, says
Ferguson, who records the fact, ‘the enemy and all Europe believed
that the British host was extirpated.’ ”’

Again ‘“‘The disturbance of soil that has long been fallow is often
followed, both in hot and temperate climates, by the evolution of
malaria. A familiar example was the prevalence of intermittent
fever in Paris during the fortifications of the same city, in the reign
of Louis Philippe, and on a larger scale in different parts of France
when the railways were in process of construction.”

30

INSECTS AND DISEASE

It had been noted that “‘malaria is freely generated at the bases
of mountain ranges in tropical climates,’ that “temperature exercises
Sreat influence over its development and activity,” ““many places can
be visited with impunity in winter which are dangerous in summer
and autumn’; that “‘malaria drifts along plains to a considerable
distance from its source, when aided by winds sufficiently strong to
propel, but not to dispel it’’; that ‘“‘under the influence of currents
of heated air it can ascend, in dangerous concentration, far above its
source’; that “‘a belt of forest interposed between any malarial place
and human habitations affords considerable protection.”

Could anything be more mysterious than this picture? Yet
only three years after this article appeared in Quain’s Encyclopedia
the mystery was solved.

The germ of malaria, a Protozoan parasite which destroys the
red cells of the blood, had been first seen by a French surgeon,
Laveran, in 1880, and an individual observer here and there had
suggested a possible connection between malaria and mosquitoes.
In 1883 an American, A. F. A. King, had urged with special force
the hypothesis that “‘the mosquito is the real source of the disease
rather than the inhalation or cutaneous absorption of a marsh
vapor.”

It was only in the early nineties, however, that the proof of this
assumption was at last furnished. Patrick Manson and Ronald Ross,
two English physicians, at that time began serious work on the
mosquito theory and in 1897 Ross discovered the germ of bird
malaria in the stomach of the mosquito. The Italians, Grassi and
Bignami, first demonstrated the germ of human malaria in the body
of the mosquito in 1898 and in 1900 Sambon and Low showed that
it was possible to remain immune from disease in the most malarious
region of the Roman Campagna if protected against mosquitoes
while Dr. Manson’s son and another voiunteer were inoculated
with malaria in England by the bites of infected mosquitoes shipped
alive from Italy.

The malaria germ is an example of a parasite which requires
two different hosts in which to complete its life history. Asexual
cycles are completed in the blood of man at regular intervals of 48
or 72 hours, the recurrent period of chill and fever corresponding to
the time at which new generations are set free in the blood stream.
The complete development of the parasite, however, must be accom-
plished in the stomach of a mosquito belonging to the genus A nop/ieles.

=
(

oO

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

When one of these mosquitoes sucks the blood of a malaria patient
it draws in the germ which passes through its sexual stage in the
body of the mosquito; and after a period of ten or twelve days a new
generation of germs find their way into the salivary glands of the
mosquito, where they lie ready to infect any new victim who may
be bitten by the insect.

The control of mosquito breeding, then, at last offered definite
hope of checking this disease which had laid so heavy a burden
upon many populous countries and some of the most fertile regions
of the earth.

Celli estimated that malaria caused two million cases of disease
and 15,000 deaths a year in Italy. We have no adequate statistics of
its ravages in the southern United States, although the importance
of the problem has recently been forcibly set forth in an admirable
monograph by Mr. F. L. Hoffman.

A careful study made in Alabama in 1911 revealed 70,000 cases
and 770 deaths in that one state and that one year. Certain counties
in southern Missouri have experienced death rates from malaria of
over 100, and in one instance nearly 300 per 100,000 population.
Howard estimates the money loss due to this disease in the United

States at $100,000,000 a year.

During the past summer (1917) malaria was the second largest
cause of sickness among our American troops in mobilization
camps.

INSECTS AND DISEASE

CONTROL OF MOSQUITO-BORNE DISEASE

The control of mosquito-borne disease involves five principal
measures: (1) the elimination of mosquito-breeding places, (2) the
destruction of mosquito larva in accumulations of water which can-

| Fig. 17. MOSQUITO-BREEDING NEW JERSEY MARSHLAND
| BEFORE DRAINAGE

Fig. 18. SAME AREA SHOWN IN Fig. 17 AFTER DRAINAGE

not be removed, (3) the destruction of adults, (4) the protection of
human beings from access of mosquitoes, and (5) immunization and
treatment by the use of quinine.

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

Those who would control injurious insects should use a combina-
tion of common sense and knowledge of the insects’ habits. It
should not be necessary to mention the second factor, for common
sense would point out the necessity of such knowledge, except that
so many otherwise sensible people pick up a smattering of entomol-
ogy and straightway feel competent to handle the complicated
problems presented in nature. No important piece of work should
be undertaken without expert help. On the other hand, mere
knowledge of the insect’s habits is not sufficient, as has been shown
by some utterly impractical methods of control which have been
suggested. The notes which have been given here on the habits of
mosquitoes are the merest outlines and, furthermore, refer chiefly to
those species which seriously trouble man.

The most fundamental of all measures of protection is the
removal of the original source of all mosquito breeding, accumula-
tions of stagnant or sluggishly moving water. The particular measures
adopted must vary widely with the type of mosquito to be dealt
with. Along the shores of the eastern United States, for example,
the salt-marsh mosquito, Cu/ex sollicitans, furnishes one of the most
important problems from the standpoint of nuisance, although this
species is not a carrier of disease. The salt-marsh areas and the
neighboring country may be kept reasonably free from mosquitoes
by the construction of comprehensive systems of drainage ditches
which keep down the water level of the land adjacent and are them-
selves flushed out by the tide. Fresh water swamps and pools where
species of Anopheles breed may be treated in a similar way or in
some cases may more economically be filled in.

In dealing with the common malarial mosquito of the central
United States, Anopheles quadrimaculatus, special attention must be
devoted to sluggish streams clogged with vegetable growth. If such
streams are straightened and cleared of weeds their rapid flow will
no longer be suitable for mosquito breeding. On the other hand
the Culex pipiens and Aédes calopus are house mosquitoes, and the
most important measure in checking these insects is the removal of
small accumulations of stagnant water in the immediate neighbor-
hood of habitations. Such inconspicuous breeding places may
produce in the aggregate great numbers of mosquitoes; and every
anti-mosquito campaign must include provision for systematic house-
to-house inspection if it is to be successful.

40

tthe hoe hee Oe —eeeeVnV—Y

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Watch, then, for unused barrels, tubs, and buckets; roadside
puddles; hoof prints, ruts, and depressions of all sorts; barn-yard
pools; and the like. In cities, special attention must be paid to the
catch basins of street sewers which are often prolific breeding places.
In attempting to locate wrigglers in such places water should be
skimmed (not scooped) from the margins of the water in a white-
lined cup or dipper. Fountain-basins should contain goldfish since
these fish are voracious feeders on mosquito eggs and larva, or the
basins should be emptied and thoroughly dried at least once a week

Fig. 19. OILING A MOSQUITO-BREEDING SWAMP

during the mosquito season. If for any reason a pool or pond cannot
be drained there are two principal methods of preventing it from
furnishing the neighborhood with mosquitoes: the surface may be
covered once a week with a film of oil; or surface-vegetation may
be removed, the sides of the pool made sharp and steep, and the
pool well stocked with goldfish. The first method is not entirely
satisfactory since the oil must be renewed so often, and also because
an oiled pool has an unpleasant look and odor. Kerosene spreads
well but evaporates quickly: crude oil lasts longer but does not

41

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

spread so well and larve survive between the patches of oil. A
mixture of about equal parts of kerosene and crude oil is rather
satisfactory. It should be applied with a spray-pump. Very few, if
any, of the numerous patented oils are worth the money. “‘Larvicide”’
is made from crude carbolic acid; it was used in the Panama Canal
work, but water treated with it is poisonous to stock.

Of all the natural enemies of mosquitoes, fish are the most
important, and of these goldfish are the most dependable and easily
secured, but small ones are much better than large ones. Top
minnows, such as species of Gambusia and Heterandria (Fundulus)
are the most important natural enemies of mosquitoes. It is true
that numerous aquatic insects feed, to some extent, on mosquito
larve and pupe, but they are rarely numerous enough to be of much
value, and their numbers cannot easily be increased in any given
pool. The usefulness of dragon-fly larve and adults has been
greatly exaggerated. Tadpoles are vegetarians and do not make a
practice of eating larve.

Since Anopheles larve frequently live in water which flows
rapidly enough to wash away oil, and since they keep close to the
surface of the water, getting above leaves of aquatic plants where fish
do not see them, they are rather difficult to control. To make
matters worse, they are the mosquitoes which we are particularly
anxious to get rid of since they are the only ones known to carry
disease in the North. Cleaning the edges of streams or ponds,
clearing away aquatic vegetation, and keeping a good stock of fish
seem to be the only feasible methods of control, although in small
brooks a constant supply of oil may be furnished from a specially
designed automatic drip can.

In regions where malaria or yellow fever or any other mosquito-
borne disease prevails, such measures should be supplemented by
careful exclusion of mosquitoes by the use of window screens and bed
canopies, and special precautions should be taken to prevent the
biting of those suffering from disease by mosquitoes which may carry
the infection to others.

The application of these various methods of mosquito control,
with thoroughness and over sufficient areas, has yielded results of the
most definite and tangible kind. In the Italian Campagna the pro-
portion of the population infected with malaria was reduced from
65% to 12% by measures directed toward the eradication of the
Anopheles mosquito and was then brought down to 4% by the free
distribution and vigorous advertisement of the value of prophylactic
doses of quinine. Between 1902 and 1908 the deaths from malaria
in the whole kingdom of Italy fell from 16,000 to 4,000.

42

AND DISEASE

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AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

THE CONQUEST OF YELLOW FEVER

The discovery of the mosquito transmission of yellow fever is
one of the most striking and dramatic chapters of sanitary science
and one of the brightest episodes in the history of our country.

Between the years 1702 and 1800 this terrible disease had
appeared in the United States thirty-five times and between 1800
and 1879 it visited the country every year with two exceptions. In
1793 a tenth of the population of Philadelphia are said to have
perished from its ravages.

Mathew Carey writes of this epidemic, “the consternation of
the people of Philadelphia at this period was carried beyond all
bounds; .):’. People hastily shifted their course at the sight of a
hearse coming towards them. Many never walked on the foot-path
but went into the middle of the street, to avoid being infected in
passing by houses wherein people had died. | Acquaintances and
friends avoided each other in the streets and only signified their
regard by a cold nod. The old custom of shaking hands fell into
such disuse that many shrunk back with affright at even the offer of
the hand. A person with a crépe, or any appearance of mourning,
was shunned like a viper. And many valued themselves highly on
the skill and address with which they got to the windward of every
person they met. Indeed, it is not probable that London, at the
last stage of the plague, exhibited stronger marks of terror than were
to be seen in Philadelphia from the 24th or 25th of August till pretty
late in September.”

The Philadelphia epidemic was the occasion of a vigorous
discussion as to the contagiousness or non-contagiousness of the
disease in which the eminent Dr. Benjamin Rush was finally con-
verted from the latter to the former view. For over a century
arguments were advanced pro and con, without conclusive result,
and as late as 1898 the United States Marine Hospital Service
summed up the matter as follows: ‘“‘While yellow fever is a com-
municable disease, it is not contagious in the ordinary acceptation
of the term, but is spread by the infection of places and articles of
bedding, clothing and furniture. .... One has not to contend with
an organism or germ which may be taken into the body with food
or drink, but with an almost inexplicable poison so insidious in its
approach and entrance that no trace is left behind.”

44

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Fig. 21. WALTER REED

Fig. 23. JAMES CARROLL Fig. 24. ARISTIDES AGRAMONTE

Two years later, early in the year 1900, a commission of army
officers was appointed to study the disease in Havana as a result of a
number of cases which had occurred among the American troops
stationed there. The Chairman of the Commission was Dr. Walter
Reed, and his associates were Dr. James Carroll, Dr. Jesse W. Lazear,
and Dr. Aristides Agramonte. At the very beginning, the investiga-
tors turned their attention to the mosquito as a possible agent in the
transmission of the disease. Dr. Carlos J. Finlay of Havana had
suggested the mosquito theory of yellow fever very convincingly
in 1881, though without experimental proof, and the discoveries
of Manson and Ross and Grassi and Bignami had recently
demonstrated a similar origin for malaria. Reed and his colleagues
were fortunate in thus beginning almost at once with a correct
hypothesis.

The lower animals do not suffer from yellow fever, so that
experiments upon human subjects were essential. In the words of
Dr. Kelly’s life of Major Reed, ‘‘after careful consideration, the
Commission reached the conclusion that the results, if positive,
would be of sufficient service to humanity to justify the procedure,
provided, of course, that each individual subjected to experiment
was fully informed of the risks he ran, and gave his free consent.
The members of the Commision, however, agreed that it was their
duty to run the risk involved themselves, before submitting anyone
else to it.”

The first successful experiment was made with Dr. Carroll, who
allowed himself to be bitten on August 27 by a mosquito which had
previously bitten four yellow fever patients. Four days later he was
taken sick and for three days his life hung in the balance. Both he
and Private W. H. Dean, the second case produced experimentally
in the same way, recovered. Dr. Lazear, however, who came down
with the disease, not as a result of the experimental inoculations to
which he also had submitted, but from an accidental bite, was less
fortunate than his colleagues, for a week later he died, after several
days of delirium with black vomit.

An experimental station, named “Camp Lazear”’ after this first
martyred member of the party, was established in the open country;
and to the lasting honor of the United States Army, volunteer sub-
jects for the experiments from among the troops were always in
excess of the demand. Private John R. Kissinger and John J.

46

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Moran, a civilian employee, were the first to volunteer “‘solely in
the interest of humanity and the cause of science,’ their only
stipulation being that they should receive no pecuniary reward.

The result of the experiments carried out at Camp Lazear
proved beyond peradventure that yellow fever was transmitted by
the bite of a certain mosquito, Aedes calopus, and in no other way,
for non-immunes who lived for twenty days in a small, ill-ventilated
room, in which were piled clothing and bedding, loathsome with
the discharges of yellow fever patients, all escaped infection, so long
as they were protected from the bites of mosquitoes.

On the memorial tablet to Lazear in the Johns Hopkins Hos-
pital is the inscription: ““With more than the courage of the soldier,
he risked and lost his life to show how a fearful pestilence is
communicated, and how its ravages may be prevented.”’” The same
risk was freely taken by each member of the party from major to
private. The result of their devotion is indicated in two of Reed’s
letters to his wife, “‘six months ago, when we landed on this island,
absolutely nothing was known concerning the propagation and

4
i
nd

Fig. 25. CAMP LAZEAR WHERE THE SECRETS OF
YELLOW FEVER WERE REVEALED

47

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

spread of yellow fever—it was all an unfathomable mystery—but
today the curtain has been drawn’’; and later on New Year’s Eve—
“only ten minutes more of the old century remain. Here have I
been sitting reading that most wonderful book, ‘La Roche on
Yellow Fever,’ written in 1853. Forty-seven years later it has been
permitted to me and my assistants to lift the impenetrable veil that
has surrounded the causation of this most wonderful, dreadful pest
of humanity and to put it on a rational and scientific basis. 1 thank
God that this has been accomplished during the latter days of the
old century. May its cure be brought out in the early days of the
new.”

The practical result of this discovery was immediate and striking.
In the half century or so for which we have records, yellow fever
had killed an average of 750 persons a year in the City of Havana.
The sanitary reforms introduced by the American army of occupa-
tion which produced good results in reducing typhoid and smallpox
had been powerless against yellow fever because its cause was as yet
a mystery. Following immediately on the experiments at Camp
Lazear, on February 15, 1901, a campaign was begun on the new
lines indicated, by screening the rooms occupied by yellow fever
patients and destroying all mosquitoes in the neighborhood. Asa
result there were six deaths in the City of Havana during the year 1901
as against 305 in the preceding year, and although sporadic cases have
been introduced from other localities, yellow fever has never again
established itself in Havana. The scourge of centuries was wiped
out in a single year.

48

INSECTS AND DISEASE

THE SUCTORIA OR FLEAS

The Suctoria or fleas are small, wingless, jumping insects which
are strongly compressed sideways. They are all parasitic, when
adult, on warm-blooded animals; but the footless, worm-like larve
are not. Adults of both sexes have piercing mouth-parts and suck
blood. The larve, however, have chewing mouth-parts and feed
on more solid organic material. The larve live in dust and refuse
on the floor or ground and pupate there, usually in thin silken
cocoons.

The Dermatophilidx, one of the principal families of Suctoria,
have the segments of the thorax much shortened and constricted,
but the side-plates of the metathorax extend over two or three
abdominal segments; the third antennal joint has no completely
separated false joints; and the fully developed female, living beneath
the skin of her host during her final development, has a greatly
dilated abdomen. The most familiar example is Dermatophilus
penetrans, the “chigoe,” “‘chique,” “chigger,”’ “‘jigger,’’ or “‘sand-
flea.’ The fertilized female burrows under the skin, especially
about the toes, and causes a nasty ulcer. The eggs which she lays in
the ulcer, or the larve which hatch from them, drop to the ground
for further development. The female may be picked or squeezed
out of the ulcer and the wound should then be carefully treated to
clear away the pus. As a method of control—even if not for other
reasons!—the habitations of men and domesticated animals should
be cleaned to destroy the larva. This species is found in the warmer
parts of America and in Africa. Members of the family Pulicide,
on the other hand, do not have the thoracic seSments much con-
stricted and shortened but the side plates of the metathorax extend
over only one abdominal segment; the third antennal joint has nine
more or less distinctly separated false joints; the spines on the hind
tibia are in pairs, are few in number, and are not in a very close-set
row; and none of the species burrow under the host’s skin. In the
senus Ctenocephalus both the head and the pronotum (front section
of the thorax) have stout, spine-like bristles (ctenidia); the last tarsal
joint has four pairs of lateral spines and, in distinction from Veopsy/la,
the eyes are distinct. In Ceratophyllus the head has no ctenidia but
the pronotum does; the last tarsal joint has five pairs of lateral spines.
In Pulex and Xenopsylla neither the head nor the pronotum has
ctenidia. The distinction between these two genera is chiefly based

49

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

on internal anatomy. Ceratophy/lus fasciatus is the rat and plague
flea of temperate regions. It feeds on rats, mice, skunks, and man.
In America, it seems to be confined to California; but it also occurs
abundantly in Europe. Xenopsylla cheopis is the tropical rat and
plague flea. Although it largely confines its attentions to rats, it
also, unfortunately, attacks man. The cosmopolitan human flea
(Pulex irritans) is most abundant in warm regions, and attacks rats,
skunks, and domestic animals as well as its normal prey, man. The
cat and dog fleas, Ctenocephalus canis (female’s head less than twice
as long as high) respectively, are common parasites.

Fig. 26. MODEL OF THE FLEA (Pudea irritans)

American Museum of Natural History

50

INSECTS AND DISEASE

THE BLACK DEATH AND ITS CONTROL

Of all the insect-borne diseases, the one that has proved in the
past most deadly to mankind is bubonic plague, a malady closely
bound up with the activities of the insect pests which have just been
discussed. We have records of the ravages of this disease from very
early times. The countries of the Levant have been centers of plague
infection for 3,000 years as a result of their unique position as gate-
ways between the East and the West. Plague among the Philistines
is described in the First Book of Samuel, the golden images of
tumors and of mice, prepared as sacrificial offerings, referring clearly
to one of the characteristic symptoms of the disease and to its preva-
lence among rodents.

Fig. 27. THE PLAGUE AT EPIRUS. P.MIGNARD (1610-1695)

The first fully recorded pandemic of plague broke out at
Pelusium in Egypt in 542 A. D. and spread by way of the principal
trade routes of the time into Palestine and then to the rest of the
known world. Procopius says of this outbreak, of which he was a wit-
ness “It spared neither island nor cave nor mountain top where man
dwelt. ... Many houses were left empty and it came to pass that many
from want of relatives and servants lay unburied for several days.”

51

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

The second pandemic of plague, the Black Death of the Middle
Ages, originated in Mesopotamia about the middle of the eleventh
century. In the track of travel and commerce, particularly on the
route of the returning crusaders, it quickly spread to the West and
North. It is said that 25,000,000 people, one fourth of the population
of Europe, perished of plague during the fourteenth century.

A third pandemic of plague which is still going on at the present
time (1918) broke out at Yunnan Fu in China in 1871 and attracted
general notice when it reached Hongkong in 1894. From this point

Fig. 28. MODEL OF CORNER OF RAT-INFESTED DWELLING

American Museum of Natural History

the disease made its way to India where it raged unchecked for ten
years and carried off 6,000,000 people. This time, however, the
world invasion of the Black Death was to be met by a new defensive
mechanism, the organized force of scientific research. A Japanese
bacteriologist, Yersin, discovered the bacillus of plague in 1894 and
it was soon proved that the disease from which rats were simultane-
ously suffering (as they had done in the days of Samuel) was the
same as the human plague. The infection may be more or less
chronic among the rodents, persisting among them for years as

52

INSECTS AND DISEASE

tuberculosis infection does in man. At certain times and under
certain conditions, the disease becomes more virulent, the rats die
in great numbers, and infection spreads to human beings. The
agent of transmission of the germ from rat to man and from man to
man remained to be solved; and in 1897 and succeeding years
evidence accumulated by a number of French, English, and Russian
investigators began to point more and more strongly toward the flea

; \
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DN

fe r vie eae ti. ae

Fig. 29. HABITAT GROUP OF CALIFORNIA GROUND SQUIRRELS

( Citellus variegatus beechey?)

American Museum of Natural History

as the intermediate carrier of the germ. Finally the experiments of
the Indian Plague Commission rendered this practically certain, for
they showed that infection did not spread from a sick to a well rat
even when in intimate contact if fleas were absent, while if they
were present, the exposed animals quickly came down with the
disease. In man it is now known that plague may at times (as in
Manchuria) develop a peculiar ‘“‘pneumonic”’ type in which the

53

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

germs are discharged from the mouth and nose as in the case of a
common cold. Pneumonic plague, therefore, spreads directly from
man to man by contact, but in the ordinary or “‘bubonic’’ plague the
germs are not discharged in any of the excretions of the body and
can only be transmitted by the flea. In northern Asia the rodent
host of the plague bacillus is the Siberian marmot or tarbagan,
Arctomys bobac, and the first human victims in Manchuria were
trappers and dealers in marmot skins. In California, the ground
squirrel, Citellus variegatus beecheyi, is infected, and the United
States Public Health Service up to September, 1913, had isolated
plague bacilli from 1891 different individuals. A number of human

Fig. 30. SHIP EQUIPPED WITH GUARDS ON THE
HAWSERS TO PREVENT LANDING
OF INFECTED RATS

cases in California were traced to infection from these animals. The
most important carriers of plague germs, however, are the various
rats, the black rat (/us rattus), the common rat of the middle ages
in Europe, the brown rat (17. norvegicus), which has now generally
supplanted the smaller and less ferocious black rat, and the roof rat
(M. alexandrinus) which has established itself at many seaports.

The modern campaign against plague depends mainly upon the
control of the rodent host. Human cases must of course be isolated
but the great essential is that possibly infected rats on incoming ships
should be excluded from the wharves by rat-guards on the hawsers,
and rats on board destroyed by fumigation. In seaports, or other

54

INSECLS AND DISEASE

cities where plague infection is likely to enter, comprehensive cam-
paigns must be organized for the removal of breeding and harborage
places of rats by cleaning up rubbish, for the starving out of rats by
covering garbage and eliminating other accumulations of food, for
trapping and shooting and poisoning rats, and for excluding rats
from buildings by various forms of ratproof construction. The
natural enemies of the rat,—cats, dogs, and ferrets, skunks, foxes,
coyotes, weasels, minks, hawks, owls, snakes, and alligators—are
often of great assistance in this campaign.

Fig. 31. THE SECOND PANDEMIC OF PLAGUE.
EXTENSION OF THE DISEASE BETWEEN 1200 AND 1450 A. D.

These methods of rat suppression have been widely successful
in their application to the control of bubonic plague. The early
history of the present pandemic of plague is precisely like that of
the one which began in the eleventh century. It started in China,
spread to Manchuria in one direction, and killed its six millions
in India. Thence, following the trade routes as of old, plague
infection has been carried to seaports all over the world. It has

on

5

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

passed east to Melbourne, Brisbane, and other Australian cities,
north to Portugal and Scotland, and around the world to Brazil,
Porto Rico, California, and New Orleans. We are actually to-day
in the midst of a potential world pandemic of plague like that of the
Middle Ages; but our knowledge of the relation of the rat to this
disease has made it easy to prevent general spread in any of the
countries into which infection has been introduced outside of Asia.

Fig. 32. THE THIRD PANDEMIC OF PLAGUE.
EXTENSION OF THE DISEASE BETWEEN 1897-1917.

56

Sy Sees GEIR men —

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Fig. 33. MODEL OF THE BODY LOUSE (Pediculus vestimenti)

American Museum of Natural History

LICE AND BED-BUGS

Another group of insects, of great importance in connection
with disease, is the family of Siphinculata known as sucking lice or
Pediculidez. They are small, more or less flattened, wingless para-
sites which have an unjointed, fleshy beak barely reaching the
thorax. The five-jointed antenne are short; the tarsi are single-
jointed, forming a claw at the end of the tibia; the eyes are well
developed, convex, and distinctly pigmented. The eggs, “‘nits,”’ are
fastened on the hair or clothing of their host. The metamorphosis
is slight so that the newly hatched young closely resemble the adults,
and there is no resting, pupal stage. Three or four weeks is usually
sufficient time for these creatures to reach maturity from the time
the egg is laid. The head-louse, Pediculus capitis, is more common

cn
od

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS ©

on the children of cleanly families than is generally admitted and it
is almost the rule among the less cleanly, The former get it from
the latter by contact, by using the same comb or brush, by hanging
the hat on the same rack in school and in other ways. The body-
louse or gray-back, Pediculus vestimenti (or corporis) is common
where men gather in numbers without having, or using, adequate
facilities for cleanliness. Cleanliness, in this case, refers very largely
to the clothing, as this species lays its eggs on the clothes next to the
skin and the lice themselves spend much of the time there. The
crab-louse, Phthirius inguinalis, is an easily recognized species, the
common name being appropriate. It infests the pubic regions and
the armpits of man. Transmission sometimes occurs by way of
public toilets.

The use of a fine-toothed comb dipped in kerosene is an effec-
tive remedy for the head-louse. The treatment should be repeated
twice at intervals of a week. For body-lice, the clothing should be
boiled, steamed, fumigated, or soaked in gasolene or benzine. The
irritation caused by the lice may be relieved by a lotion of one half
ounce of borax to a pint of water. In dealing with these lice when
there is danger of typhus fever, the greatest care must be exercised
to prevent their spread. The face and the head should be shaved
and the hair burned. A liberal use of kerosene on floors and about
beds is recommended. The crab-louse may be treated in the same
way as the head-louse but mercurial or “‘blue’’ ointment is often used.
The salve should not be strongly rubbed in or used directly after a
warm bath. Vinegar makes the eggs of the lice more susceptible to
treatment.

The Bed-bug, Cimex Jlectularius, an insect belonging to the
Hemiptera, has received many more or less descriptive names in
addition to that of ‘“‘bed-bug.’’ Some of them are “wall-louse,”’
‘“‘red-coat,”” “‘mahogany flat,’ ‘‘chinch,’’ and just “bug.” Most
people are familiar with this insect, whether they admit it or not;
others usually recognize it, by instinct or by its reputation, the first
time they meet it. There is a mistaken idea that the flat, dark-
colored insects to be found under the bark of decaying logs, and the
ones that occur in the nests of swallows, belong to the species under
discussion. Another mistaken notion is that these creatures may
become “grandfathers in a night.’ The eggs, which are white and
oval in outline with a rim around the free end and sculpturing over

58

hh “_ >} .eeee~a ees <

INSECTS AND DISEASE

the shell, are laid in cracks and crevices in beds and in bedrooms.
These eggs hatch in about a week. The young resemble the adults,
except in size, and there is no pupal stage. After molting five times,
the adult stage is reached; this growth takes a month or more,
depending on temperature conditions and the amount of available
food—the blood of man, and, if necessary, of other warm-blooded
animals such as mice and poultry. Bed-bugs have been kept alive
and active for a year in a tight box without any food at all. Kero-
sene, gasolene and benzine are effective remedies, if forced into the
crevices where the bugs hide by day. The treatment should be
repeated at intervals of about a week, since the eggs often withstand
this treatment. For killing them on a large scale, there is nothing
better than fumigation with hydrocyanic acid gas, but this is a deadly
poison for man as well and should be used with caution. Those
desirous of trying it should write to their State Entomologist or to
the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture,
for detailed instructions.

The bed-bug has a few natural enemies; these enemies are,
however, not greatly to be preferred to the bed-bug itself. “‘Kissing
bug,” of much newspaper fame a few years ago, is a name applied to
several insects which prey upon the better known pest. The “masked
bed-bug hunter,” Reduvius personatus, is one of these. The “big
bed-bug’’ of the South, Triantoma (—Conorhinus) sanguisuga, is much
more given to sucking human blood. ‘“‘It is about an inch long;
black, marked with red on the sides of the prothorax, at the base
and apex of the front wings, and at the sides of the abdomen; the
head is long, narrow, cylindrical, and thickest behind the eyes. It is
said that the effects of its bite may last for nearly a year, and it is
probable that attacks which are attributed to spiders are really the
work of this insect. Out-of-doors, it feeds on insects, including
grasshoppers and potato beetles’ (Lutz, ‘““Field Book of Insects’).

59

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

TYPHUS FEVER AND OTHER DISEASES
CARRIED BY THE LOUSE

Typhus fever, known also as ship fever, camp fever, and jail
fever, was one of the deadliest of the diseases of the Middle Ages.
Wherever men were crowded together under the filthy conditions
which surrounded our ancestors, this pestilence raged. In sinister
alliance with famine, it scourged unhappy Ireland so persistently that
it was known as “‘Irish ague.”’ In England its contagion was spread
even through the law-courts, and several notable outbreaks among
judges, lawyers, and spectators were dubbed the “Black Assizes”’
during the sixteenth century. In Tuscany, between 1550 and 1554,
more than a million people are said to have died of typhus.

Professor Curschmann says of this malady, “between 1846 and
1848 more than a million cases of typhus occurred in England and
more than 300,000 in Ireland, the outbreak starting after the great
famine of the earlier year. In every century typhus fever has followed
in the wake of armies. During the Thirty Years’ War it claimed
more victims than did the weapons of the contestants. It was the
terror of the Napoleonic campaigns and decimated the French Army,
already demoralized physically and morally by the terrible retreat
from Moscow. During the Crimean War it decimated both the
French and English armies, especially the former.”

Dr. R. Bruce Low describes the experience of France with
“camp fever’ as follows: ‘‘When the French in 1812 began their
historical retreat from Moscow, they had at least a thousand fever
cases among them, and by the time they reached Vilna many other
attacks had occurred with numerous deaths. At the beginning of
December, 1812, the Russians had taken 30,000 French prisoners,
many of whom were ill of fever. The hospitals at Vilna were over-
flowing with the sick, who suffered greatly from cold and lack of
food. Many had no bed or bedding, and had to lie on rotten straw,
sometimes side by side with the dead. Of 25,000 cases sent to hos-
pitals at Vilna, less than 3,000 were alive at the end of January,
1813. From the troops the disease in many instances spread to the
civil population. For example, in the fortified town of Metz no
fewer than 7,752 soldiers of the garrison died of typhus during 1814,
as well as 1,294 other persons in the civil hospitals. From Metz the
infection spread to the neighboring districts, and by the end of the
year no fewer than 10,329 deaths from typhus had occurred in the

60

UINSEGLS AND DISEASE

Department of the Moselle. In the years following the Napoleonic
wars the disease broke out from time to time in different parts of the
country, and showed special incidence among the inmates of convict
prisons and local jails. In 1848 an outbreak of typhus was started
by a prisoner at Amiens, who infected the judge, the clerk of the
court, as well as several gendarmes and prisoners. Similar outbreaks
occurred at Rheims, Toulon and elsewhere in connection with civilian
prisoners.

“The next importation of typhus fever to France on a large
scale by troops occurred on the return of the French military forces
from the Crimea, where they had suffered severely from the disease.
It is reported that out of an effective force of 120,000 men at least
12,000 were attacked by typhus during the campaign, and that half
that number died.

“Following upon the return of the troops, outbreaks of typhus
occurred at Marseilles, Toulon, Avignon, Paris and elsewhere.”

Gradually and without any intelligently directed effort to control
its spread, but apparently as a by-product of the generally improved
sanitary conditions of living, typhus fever almost disappeared from
civilized countries. ‘““Typhoid”’ fever, named from its resemblance
to the more deadly typhus, with which it was once confused, .
remains a serious menace, but typhus was almost forgotten in west-
ern Europe until war broke out in 1914. The table below from
Doctor Bruce Low shows how the deaths from this disease have
decreased in England and Wales and in Ireland.

DEATHS FROM TYPHUS FEVER IN

England and Wales Ireland
1869-1883 23,702 11,544
1884-1898 2,249 4,703
1899-1913 390 1,043

In certain parts of the world, however, where sanitary conditions
remain primitive, typhus has held its own. It has occasionally found
its way into central Europe from Poland and Galicia. In many dis-
tricts of Mexico it has long been a serious scourge; and an infection,
known as Brill’s disease, which occurs in New York City, has been
shown to be a mild form of typhus.

Many of the characteristics of typhus fever pointed to the prob-
ability of an insect carrier, and suspicion was finally fastened upon
the louse as the most probable culprit. The coincidence between

61

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

the seasonal and geographical distribution of the disease and the
insect, in particular, seemed significant, high temperature apparently
being inimical to each. At last in 1909 Nicolle, Comte and Conseil
succeeded in transmitting typhus fever to monkeys by the bite of the
body-louse. This result was confirmed in the next year in this
country by Ricketts and Wilder; and Goldberger and Anderson
showed that not only the body louse (Pediculus vestimenti) but also
the head louse ( Pediculus capitis) may transmit the specific infection.
As an illustration of the danger to which those who work on the
insect-borne diseases are exposed, it may be noted that one of this
group of devoted experimenters, Howard T. Ricketts, contracted the
disease in the course of his investigations and died, almost at the
outset of a brilliantly promising career.

With the outbreak of the European War in 1914, typhus again
came into public notice as it broke out in malignant form on the
eastern battle-front. Its effects upon the course of campaigns in the
Balkans is said to have been very material; but the French, German
and Russian armies have been protected against its ravages by
elaborate provisions for the destruction of lice by the disinfection of
clothing and the cleansing and disinfection of the person, particularly
of the hair.

The body louse usually conceals itself in the folds of the clothing,
depositing its eggs along the seams and wrinkles. A female may de-
posit nearly 300 eggs which hatch in 3-4 days and reach maturity in
15-18 days. According to recent studies reported in English medical
journals,* lice are able to live without food for 2-6 days. They become
rigid with cold at 10° F. and are killed in 2-6 hours at 104° F.

Among the various substances which have been employed for the
destruction of lice, the most efficient appear to be a killing powder
composed of 96 per cent. naphthalene, 2 per cent. creosote, and 2
per cent. iodoform, and an ointment known as vermijelli. The
soldier’s clothing and equipment may be freed from lice by treatment
in either dry or moist heat sterilizers or in special sterilizers which
make use of the simultaneous effect of heat and formaldehyde
in vacuo. Ironing the seams of garments with a hot iron is a simple
and generally effective method. Military encampments are usually
provided with special stations for ‘“delousing”’ or ‘‘depediculization,”’

*An excellent review of recent contributions to the biology of the louse is to be
found in ‘‘Household and Camp Insects’’ by E. P. Felt, Bull. No. 194, New York State
Museum.

il ee te a

tac _ INSECTS AND DISEASE

so arranged that while the men are being bathed their clothes are
simultaneously freed from lice by one of the methods described
above.

In addition to typhus, a form of relapsing fever is not uncom-
monly spread in Russia and in other countries of southeastern Europe
by the bite of the louse, and this disease has offered one of the serious
problems of army sanitation on the eastern front.

63

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

OTHER DISEASES TRANSMITTED BY ARTHROPODS

In addition to the insect-borne diseases mentioned above, there
are many other diseases of tropical countries, which are transmitted in
a similar way by insects or by their relatives, the ticks. Among the
most important of these are sleeping sickness and other diseases
caused by the Protozoan parasites of the genus 7rypanosoma, and
transmitted by the biting flies of the genus G/ossina, and certain
forms of relapsing fevers and similar maladies, caused by spirocheetal
parasites transmitted by ticks.

Fig wa

} .
1
i NS A S/}m)ssoun
' ‘ lc
'
ry
Ay s

ROCKY MOUNTAIN TICK FEVER

The ticks are not insects at all but belong to the Acarina or mites
(see page 4). The first of all the arthropod-borne diseases to be
definitely worked out was the serious cattle plague, known in our
Southwestern States as Texas fever and in Australia as redwater
fever. In 1889 Smith and Kilbourne showed that the causative agent
in this disease was a Protozoan parasite ( Badesia) and that it was carried
by the bite of a tick, Boophilus annulatus. Rocky Mountain spotted
fever, which attacks visitors to the Bitterroot Valley and other areas
in the Mountain States, is spread by Dermacentor andersoni and other
ticks. The most terrible of tick-borne diseases, however, are the
African tick fevers or relapsing fevers caused by different species of
spirochetes.

64

INSECTS AND DISEASE

Fig. 35. THE TSETSE FLY (Glossina morsitans)

Fig. 36. TYPICAL BREEDING PLACE OF GLOSSINA
ON THE BELGIAN CONGO

65

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

The head- and body-lice, as has been indicated, are the agents
in the transmission of typhus fever and are probably active in the
spread of European relapsing fever as well, while the body-louse
is believed to play a part in the transmission of the special form of
relapsing fever which occurs in northern Africa. Bed-bugs (Cimex)
and _ assassin-bugs (Conorhinus) are probably the agents in dissemi-
nating Opilacao or Chagas fever in Brazil and Kala-azar or dum-
dum fever in India and China.

Of the trypanosome diseases, the most important are the cattle
disease of South Africa, Nagana, carried by Glossina morsitans, and
the sleeping sickness of man. It is estimated that between 1900 and
1910 there were 200,000 deaths from sleeping sickness in the Uganda
Protectorate alone. The particular trypanosome which causes this
malady is carried by another biting fly, Glossina palpalis, which lives
in rather sharply limited areas of dense forest and undergrowth
along the shores of lakes or rivers. Clearing the jungle for a hundred
yards along the water courses and for three hundred yards about all
villages, screening of houses, protection of the body against bites, and
the isolation of the sick are among the most important preventive
measures in use against this disease. Surra, a cattle disease of Asia,
Malaysia, and the Philippines, somewhat similar to Nagana, is a try-
panosome disease spread by various blood-sucking flies, while sand
flies (Phlebotomus) carry the unknown germs of the Pappatici fever
of the Mediterranean and Verruga in Peru. The suspicion that
epidemic anterior poliomyelitis (infant paralysis) and pellagra are
causally connected with biting flies (Stomoxys, Simulium) has, on the
other hand, not been substantiated.

Among the mosquitoes, besides the various species of Anopheles,
which carry the germs of malaria, and the Aedes, which transmits
yellow fever, Culex fatigans spreads the virus of Dengue fever, and
with other mosquitoes is the agent in transmitting the microscopic
worms ( Fi/aria) which cause elephantiasis and other forms of filariasis.

66

INSECTS AND DISEASE

TRYPANOSOME

Protozoan which causes Sleeping
Sickness of Central Africa.

Bacillus of Bubonic Plague

,

; . 3
| LEISHMANIA

Sporozoite stage of the germ of Malaria Protozoan parasite which causes

Indian kala-azar or dum-dum fever.
\

SPIROCHAETA

Parasite which causes European
Relapsing Fever.

MICROFILARIA

Round-worm which causes tropical
elephantiasis, 100 times actual length.

Fig. 37. MODELS OF BLOOD PARASITES

American Museum of Natural History

67

_ AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

TABULAR REVIEW OF PRINCIPAL INSECT-BORNE DISEASES

DISEASE

West African Tick Fever
Rocky Mountain Spotted

Fever

Opilacao (or Chagas Fever)

Texas Fever of cattle
Spirochetosis of fowls

Typhus Fever

Opilacao (or Chagas Fever)
of Brazil

European Relapsing Fever

North African Relapsing
Fever

Kala- Azar or Dum-Dum
Fever

Bubonic Plague

Infantile splenic
leishmaniasis

Sleeping Sickness
Nagana disease of cattle

Surra of cattle
Verruga peruviana

Typhoid, diarrheal disease
of children, ete.

PARASITE

Spirocheta duttoni
Trypanosoma cruzt

Babesia bigeminum
Spirocheta gallinarum

CARRIER

ACARINA (mites)
Ornithodorus moubata

Dermacentor andersont
and other ticks

O. moubata, also certain
Hemiptera

Boophilus annulatus
Argas persicus

Trypanosoma cruzi

Spirocheta recurrentis

Spirocheta berberi

Leishmania donovani

Bacillus pestis

Leishmania infantum

HEMIPTERA (bugs)

Pediculus capitis, :
vestimentt

Conorrhinus megistus,
Cimex lectularius, C.
hemipterus, also certain
ticks

P. capitis, P. vestimenti,
also, perhaps, bedbugs

Pediculus vestimenti

Conorrhinus rubrofascia-
tus or Cimex hemipterus (?)

SIPHONAPTERA (fleas)

NXenopsyvlla cheopis and
other fleas

Pulex irritans and other
fleas ,

Trypanosoma gambiense
Trypanosoma brucei

A filterable virus

eee ew wee ees eee ere eserese

Various bacteria

Malaria—tertian
quartan
zstivo-autumnal
Yellow Fever
Filariasis

Dengue

DIPTERA (flies)
Glossina palpalis

Glossina morsitans and
other flies

Fhlebotomus papatasii

Phlebotomus verrucarum (?)

Musca domestica (occa-
sional accidental carrier)

Plasmodium vivax |
P. malarie
P. falciparum \

A filterable virus
Filaria bancrofti

A filterable virus

68

DIPTERA (mosquitoes)

Anopheles maculipennis
and other Anopheles sp.

Aédes calopus

Culea fatigans, Anopheles
nigerrimus and others

Culex fatigans

INSECTS AND DISEASE

THE BUILDING OF THE PANAMA CANAL
A TRIUMPH OVER INSECT-BORNE DISEASE

By far the most serious problem which confronted the United
States Government in the attempt to cut a canal across the Isthmus
of Panama was that of insect-borne disease.

The Isthmus was first visited by Columbus on his third voyage
in 1498. Permanent settlements were established shortly thereafter
by Balboa, and the conquest of Peru, about 1530, by Pizarro made
the Isthmus a center of unique commercial importance. The size
and magnificence of the city of Old Panama, the point from which
Pizarro sailed forth, which Drake half a century later reconnoitred
from both its land and water sides, and the stronghold, which the
buceaneer Morgan captured, sacked, and practically destroyed in
1671, has been greatly exaggerated by the earlier chroniclers and by
later but no less credulous historians. Yet it is certain that an enor-
mous volume of travel and a vast quantity of gold and silver bullion
passed across the Isthmus between Spain and her imperial colonies.
The result of this constant influx of non-immunes in a region admi-
rably adapted for the breeding of disease-carrying insects might have
been anticipated. The Isthmus became “‘the foremost pest-hole’’ of
the earth, “infamous for its fevers, and interesting only because of
the variety of its malarial disorders and pestilences.”’

The failure of the attempt made by the French under de Lesseps
to build an Isthmian Canal ‘ 1880-1888) was due to various causes but
most of all, perhaps, to the ravages of insect-borne disease. Nothing
was then known of the relation of mosquitoes to the transmission of
malaria and yellow fever. The hospitals on the Isthmus were
unscreened, and potted plants stood all about with water in their
saucers, furnishing an ideal breeding-place for Aédes mosquitoes.
Even the legs of the beds were stood in cups of water to prevent ants
from climbing them. It is no wonder that, as General Gorgas esti-
mates, the French lost about one-third of their white working force
each year from yellow fever alone.

When the United States undertook the work, the epoch-making
discoveries of Reed and his associates had been established, and
General Gorgas, fresh from his successful handling of the sanitation
of Havana. was detailed as sanitary adviser to the Isthmian Canal
Commission in 1904. It is difficult to believe to-day that the members

69

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

of the Commission were at first quite unconvinced by the Havana
investigations and the practical application of their conclusions. As
the non-immune population on the Isthmus increased, yellow fever
became epidemic. In April, 1905, several of the higher officials were
stricken, and panic and demoralization threatened. In June, 1905,
the Governor and Chief Engineer of the Commission reeommended
that General Gorgas and other adherents of the ‘““mosquito theory”
should be recalled and “‘men with more practical views’? appointed
in their places. President Roosevelt, however, supported the sani-
tary officers with his accustomed vigor, and Mr. John F. Stevens,
who was appointed in place of the former Chief Engineer, was in
cordial sympathy with General Gorgas’ plans. The work now
moved forward rapidly. Mosquito breeding was reduced to a mini-
mum by clearing away brush and undergrowth, by draining low lands,
and by the use of larvicides. Houses were screened, and in partic-
ular malaria and yellow fever patients were rigorously isolated from
the access of mosquitoes. Quinine was provided, and its systematic
use as a prophylactic was persistently urged upon the working force.

The results of this sanitary work were as strikingly dramatic as
those obtained at Havana. In 1904 and 1905 there were 35 deaths
of employees from yellow fever on the Isthmus, but by the end of
the latter year the situation was under control. In May, 1906, there
was one case at Colon and there has not been a single case on the
Isthmus since that date.

The deaths from malaria have been reduced from 233 in 1906 to
3 in 1916 with a larger working force, and the table of case rates
below quoted from Hoffman’s monograph is eloquent of the results
achieved.

70

+

Pes oe eC ewe e+ aK

CONQUEST OF MOSQUITO BORNE DISEASE IN PANAMA

DEATH RATE FROM YELLOW FEVER

PER 10000 EMPLOYEES

1905 1906 1907 1908 1303 1910 (SII 19le2 ISIS ISiq

DEATH RATE FROM MALARIA

PER 10000 EMPLOYEES

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

HOSPITAL CASES OF MALARIA AMONG CANAL ZONE
EMPLOYEES per 100 employed

Year Case-rate Year Case-rate
1906 81.9 1912 11.0
1907 42.6 1913 7.6
1908 28.2 1914 6.5
1909 21.6 1915 4.5
1910 18.7 1916 LS
1911 18.4

General Gorgas estimates that, if our force of 39,000 men had
suffered as the French suffered from disease, there would have been
78,000 deaths during the ten years’ work on the construction of the
Canal. There were actually 6,630 deaths, indicating a saving due to
efficient modern sanitation of over 70,000 lives.

The late Charles Francis Adams said of this episode, in an
Address before the Massachusetts Historical Society (Proceedings of
the Massachusetts Historical Society for May, 1911), “‘the great and
most startling impression left on me by what | saw on my visit to the
Zone was not the magnificent ditch itself, nor the engineering feats
accomplished; nor yet the construction work in progress. These are
remarkable; but solely, so far as | am competent to judge, because of
their magnitude and concentratedness. | have frequently seen steam
shovels at work; though never so many, nor quite so busily, as now in
the Culebra Cut. So I have watched pneumatic drills as they bored
into the rock, and heard the detonation of the dynamite; though at
Panama more drills would be working at once and in closer prox-
imity than I ever saw before, and the blasts when the day’s work was
done sounded like a discharge of artillery in battle. For centuries
all civilized nations have been building canals and dams, though the
Gatun Dam breaks the record for bigness; the locks, too, at Panama
are larger and longer, and more elaborate and imposing than any
yet designed. All this is true; and yet it failed deeply to impress me.
After all, it was a mere question of bigness—the something more or
something less; and, as a result of organized energy and systematic
cooperation of forces for rapid daily accomplishment, | still think
the construction of the Pacific railroads fifty years ago at the rate of
half a dozen miles a day, every material, even water, having to be
hauled to the moving camp which constituted the advancing front,—

79

la

EN SIP CIES PAIN ID) I OYEST A RSW D

this was by far a more dramatic display than anything now to be
seen on the Isthmus. Again, the Gatun Dam is a great conception;
but as such the recent tunneling of the Hudson and the subterranean
honeycombing of Manhattan Island, combined with the bridging of
the East River, impress me more. Finally, the locks at the entrance
and outlet of the proposed Chagres Lake are imposing structures;
but to my mind the terminal stations built, or now in process of
building, in the heart of New York City, are more imposing. As |
have said, all this is a mere question of degree, and time out of
mind the world has been building roads and water-ways; moreover,
behind this particular water-way is the Treasury of the United States.
But when it comes to the sanitation which made all that is now going
on at Panama humanly and humanely possible,— vanquishing pesti-
lence and, while harnessing the Chagres, also making it innocuous to
those working and dwelling on its banks,—this is new; and the like
of it the world had not before seen.”’

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FOR EDUCATION

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“THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

THE COLLECTION OF
MINERALS

By HERBERT P. WHITLOCK

Curator of Mineralogy
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PET cial: i GUIDE LEAFLET No. 49 _
| By Fourth Edition, 1930
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THE COLLECTION OF
MINERALS

IN THE

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

By LOE RBERT P; WHITLOCK

Curator of Mineralogy

GUIDE LEAFLET No. 49
FourtH, RevisED EpITIoN

New York, JUNE, 1930

THE MORGAN MEMORIAL HALL OF MINERALS AND GEMS
How To Make USE oF THE COLLECTIONS

The collections displayed in this Hall represent the minerals that
have been found throughout the world. They come from the earth’s
crust, which is entirely made of them. Some of them have been found
on the actual surface where the rocks are exposed to view; others were
taken from mines, quarries and other excavations.

In order to understand what minerals are and what they are made
of, consult Case 22 on the right under the heading, “‘ What is a Mineral.”

To become familiar with the characteristics of minerals, by which
they may be distinguished from one another, consult the Introductory
Series explaining the outward form, color, luster, ete., of minerals in the
four cases to the right of the entrance.

A brief summary of the collection may be obtained from the Wall
Cases beginning on the left of the entrance and continuing around the
walls.

The Main Collection of Minerals is displayed in the cases to the left
and right of the entrance, beginning on the extreme left and proceeding
from left to right, as the page of a book is read.

The Collection of Gem Stones, showing the adaptation of minerals to
gems and ornaments occupies the series of cases extending down the
middle of the Hall. Begin with the case on the right, proceed from left
to right along the north row, returning along the south row.

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS

INTRODUCTION

Below the very thin layer of vegetable matter, the function of
which is to support life, the mass of our globe, as far as our knowledge
of it extends, is composed of a number of inorganic substances which
are known as minerals. These singly or in aggregates of two or more
make up the rocks which in many places are a conspicuous part of the
scenery, and important building material. They furnish us with the
raw material from which we derive the metals so useful to us in the
arts, and even in their decay they provide many of the soil components
necessary to vegetation. But essential as these economic minerals
just alluded to are, they form a comparatively small part of the great
array of natural compounds which come under the classification of
minerals. Every substance to be found upon this earth, which has
not been directly formed from animal or plant life, and many which come
to us in the form of meteorites from outside the earth’s atmosphere,
are included in the mineral kingdom. There are over 1100 different
kinds of minerals known, and the list is constantly being added to as
new mineral substances are being found in mines and quarries in every
part of the globe. Many of those are very rare, and have only been
discovered in one or two places, but some of them, such as quartz,
calcite and the feldspars, are widely distributed and common enough
to be familiar to almost every one. Most of the known mineral species
are to be found in the collection to which this Guide Leaflet serves as
an introduction, and inasmuch as many of them to the casual eye
appear very much the same, a word or two is necessary to enable the
visitor to single out some of the characteristics which serve to distinguish
them. Although in many instances a mineral, such as for example
sulphur, has a characteristic color, it is not difficult to find among the
many other species and varieties of minerals one which has almost if
not quite the same tint. Color, then, is far from an infallible means of
identifying a mineral. Many of the metallic minerals have what is
known as a metallic luster, such as the yellow brass-like sheen of pyrite
or the black steel gray glint of stibnite. But even this is not an unvary-
ing mark of distinction, for galena, the lead sulphide, has a color and
luster almost identical to stibnite, the antimony sulphide; and many
of the ores of the metals, such as smithsonite, the carbonate of zine, and
malachite, the carbonate of copper, show a luster which is not at all
metallic. Minerals do, however, possess a property which is very useful
in identifying them. With very few exceptions every mineral species

2
o

4 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

has a more or less pronounced tendency to form in solids with regular
outlines, smooth bright faces and sharp angles. These solids which are
called crystals are distinctive, each mineral having its characteristic
series of forms, some occurring in cubes, others in slender needle-like
prisms, and others in flat angular plates. Although the very great
diversity and intricacy of these crystal forms of minerals are somewhat
bewildering to anyone unfamiliar with this highly fascinating branch of
science, one soon finds that they are capable of being divided into a
small number of very simple groups. A series of models showing some
of the more important forms of crystals and their relation and meaning
will be found to the right of the entrance to the Mineral Hall.

THE HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION

Like most of the large mineral collections of the world, the collection
displayed in the Morgan Hall of Minerals has been the result of slow
growth over a considerable period. The nucleus of the present collec-
tion was the Bailey Collection, a relatively small series of the commoner
minerals, but one which was thoroughly comprehensive and served well
in the early days of the Museum to represent this branch of Science.
The first large addition came in 1891, when the Spang Collection was
purchased and not only more than doubled the number of specimens in
the Museum but added many new species to those already displayed.
It was in 1900, however, that the Collection took rank as the most com-
plete as well as the richest in notable specimens in America and one of
the five best exhibition collections in the world. Through the gift of
the late J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., the Museum acquired the remark-
able collection of minerals brought together by Mr. Clarence 8S. Bement
of Philadelphia. This last addition, which comprises a large percentage
of the specimens now displayed in the Morgan Hall of Minerals, is
famous for the exceptional perfection of the material comprising it.
The quality of this material, both from the point of view of its scientific
interest and the size and beauty of its examples, may be best understood
when one considers the fact that Mr. Bement, a collector of rare judg-
ment and appreciation, not infrequently purchased an entire small
collection in order to acquire a single specimen of unique value. Since
the gift of the Bement Collection many additions of exceptional beauty
and interest have been acquired by purchase from the Fund estab-
lished in 1904 by Matilda W. Bruce. The Mineral Collection which
thus attained a high standard of merit has been augmented year by
year through careful selection of the best available specimens of the
more recently discovered species, varieties and occurrences. The more
newly acquired of these will be found in the small cases of Recent

lena Nee et a

:
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THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS 5

Accessions displayed near the center of the Hall. In 1922 the Mineral
Hall was completely remodeled architecturally through the generosity
of Mr. George F. Baker who chose this means of honoring the memory of
his friend and associate the late John Pierpont Morgan. Thus the Hall
is now designated as the Morgan Memorial Hall of Minerals and Gems
Marble tablets set in the middle of the south wall and between the
middle windows of the north wall commemorate respectively this pres-
entation, and the names of the donors of important Mineral and
Gem specimens.

CLASSIFICATION OF MINERALS

A mineral is a natural chemical compound, that is, it has in most
instances a definite chemical composition, and it is this chemical composi-
tion, constituting as it does the essential and unvarying characteristic
of a mineral, which forms the basis of its classification. There are many
thousands of compounds known to chemists which include the 1100 or
more natural compounds, or minerals. But all of these when reduced
to their simplest constituents are proved to be made up from combina-
tions of a relatively small group of ultimate substances called elements.
Of the 90 or more elements at present known, there are 20 which are
so common that they make up 99}; percent of the surface layer of
the earth’s crust to a depth of 10 miles which marks the limit of our
knowledge, and of these 20 only 8 are needed to constitute 97 percent of
this surface layer. The 20 commonest elements in the order of their
abundance are:

1. Oxygen O 5. Calcium Ca

2. Silicon Si 6. Potassium K

3. Aluminum Al 7. Sodium Na

4. Iron Fe 8. Magnesium Mg
These constitute 97 per cent

9. Titanium A br 15. Manganese Mn
10. Hydrogen H 16. Chlorine Cl
11. Carbon C 17. Strontium Sr
12. Phosphorus Ie 18. Fluorine F]
13. Sulphur S) 19. Zirconium Zr
14. Barium Ba 20. Nickel Ni

In order to understand better the chemical system used as a basis
for classifying minerals, it is more convenient to group these 20 common
elements into two classes, metals and non-metals.

6 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

Metals. Aluminum, Iron, Calcium, Potassium, Sodium, Mag-
nesium, Titanium, Barium, Manganese, Strontium, Zirconium, and
Nickel.

Non-metals. Oxygen, Silicon, Hydrogen, Carbon, Phosphorus,
Sulphur, Chlorine and Fluorine.

It is this last series of the non-metals which is especially important
to remember, because in the combinations of one or more non-metals
with one or more metals which, in general, go to form minerals it is the
non-metals which determine in what class the mineral is to be placed.
So we have for some of the principal divisions of the classification of
minerals.

Sulphides, composed of sulphur and some one or more of the
metals, as sulphide of copper, the mineral Chalcocite.

Chlorides, composed of chlorine and a metal, as chloride of sodium,
the mineral Halite.

Oxides, composed of oxygen combined with some of the metals, as
oxide of iron, Hematite.

The oxides of the metals, which have different properties from the
uncombined metals, sometimes combine with the oxides of the non-
metals and form more complex compounds which are called oxygen
salts and constitute important divisions of the mineral classification.
Some of these are the Carbonates, the Silicates, the Phosphates, the
Sulphates, ete.

NAMES OF MINERALS

It is a general rule in the natural sciences, such as Botany and
Zodlogy, to preserve in the name of a plant or animal either some word
of Latin or Greek origin (because these are at present the universal
languages of science) which describes a characteristic of the species or
to perpetuate in naming it the surname of some distinguished man con-
nected with its discovery. This very general rule has been applied to
the naming of minerals and the termination 7te or lite! is almost always
added. For example, Hematite is named from the Greek word for blood
because its common varieties are red in color; Haiiynite is named after
the French erystallographer Haiiy, and Andalusite is named from the
ancient province Andalusia, in the South of Spain, where it was first
found. This last name is an example of the practice of naming some
minerals after the place where they were discovered. Some mineral
names which do not end in te are survivals of a time when the science
was in its infancy and recognized few species. Many of these as

‘Orignally from a Ad@os, a stone.

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS 7

Quartz, Garnet, Gypsum, Corundum and Spinel, are so old and well
established that they have come down to us unchanged.

GUIDE TO THE COLLECTION

The collection of minerals displayed in the Morgan Hall of Minerals
is without question one of the finest to be found in the world. Although
remarkably complete in its representation of most of the mineral species
known to science this collection is especially noteworthy for its as-
semblage of splendid examples of the commoner and more widely distrib-
uted minerals.

The visitor should begin with the first of the upright pier and table
cases to the left of the entrance and proceed from left to right along each
side of every case throughout the series, advancing from east to west
along the south side, crossing to the north side at the west end of the
hall and following the numbering of the cases back to the east entrance.
Each case is furnished with a descriptive label referring to its contents
and indicating the wall case of the series, arranged along the east, south
and north walls, which contains large and handsome specimens of the
same species. These latter are placed in close proximity to the
corresponding table cases of the principal series and can be readily
located.

ELEMENTS
Cases 1, A and B

This small but important division of the mineral classification
includes those elements which occur in nature uncombined, or in a
“native” state, as native gold and native bismuth. Chemically they
are the simplest of all minerals and consequently the best with which
to begin the inspection of a series which increases in chemical complexity
as it develops.

Two kinds of native carbon, diamond and graphite, will be found in
Case 1. These are widely different in appearance and properties and
illustrate the way in which, under different conditions of formation, the
same chemical substance may yield dissimilar modifications. The
beautiful groups of yellow sulphur crystals furnish the first glimpse of
the wonderful intricacy and symmetry of the crystal forms of minerals
(compare with model in Case 25). Sulphur is formed near active or
extinct voleanoes and in the beds of gypsum, where it constitutes a
decomposition product. The native metals are represented by gold in

SULPHUR FROM GIRGENTI, SICILY

Clear, well developed erystals

STIBNITE FROM ICHINOKAWA MINE, IYO, JAPAN

A group of slender prismatic crystals

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS 9

nuggets, veins and crystal aggregates, silver in wire-like and branching
forms, and copper in beautifully developed crystals and crystal masses,
presenting a great variety of shapes. All these are readily recognizable
in luster and color from our association of them with coins, jewelry and
other familiar things.

GALENA FROM GALENA, ILL.
Clearly defined cubic crystals which were deposited on the walls of an
open vein, the galena being the last mineral to form in the vein.

SULPHIDES

Cases 2,3, B, C, D and F

The Sulphides which are here made to include the Sulpho-Salts
are compounds of sulphur with the metallic elements. They are the
characteristic minerals of the metallic veins from which the greater
part of the more valuable metals are derived. In these veins, which
were originally fissures or clefts in the rocks, vapors and fluid solutions
highly charged with sulphur and with dissolved metals deposited their
contents in the form of sulphides. The openings in this way ultimately
became filled or partly filled with these minerals, which are called ores,

10 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

together with associated unproductive minerals, such as quartz, calcite,
and fluorite, which are known as gangue minerals. The finest and most
characteristic specimens come from the parts of the veins which have
not been completely filled in the process of formation and in which the
crystallized minerals have had a chance to separate individually. This
is illustrated by the handsome groups of stibnite crystals in long slender

MARCASITE FROM FELOSBANYA, RUMANIA

A radiated aggregate of flat crystals

prisms (Case C), the varied series of galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite
specimens (Cases 2 and 3), the wide range of pyrite specimens, showing
many complex and highly modified crystals (Case 3), and the excep-
tionally fine series of proustite pyrargyrite, tetrahedrite and enargite
(Cases 3 and 4). This division also includes many rarer minerals in
notable specimens, such as ullmannite, sylvanite, emplectite, binnite,
cosalite, bournonite, jordanite and stephanite.

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS 11

HALOIDS
Cases 4 and G

This division of minerals includes the compounds of the metals
with elements of the chlorine groups, the latter being known as halogen
elements and comprising chlorine, bromine, iodine and fluorine. These
give the chemical compounds called chlorides, bromides, iodides and
fluorides.

Some of the haloids, as exemplified by the mineral halite or rock
salt, the chloride of sodium, occur in nature in extensive beds and have

FLUORITE FROM CUMBERLAND, ENGLAND

Encrusted with quartz on the edges and corners of the cubie crystals

been deposited by evaporation from bodies of water which have in
times past been cut off from ithe main body of the ocean. The series
of halite specimens in Case 4 includes many striking examples of large
and well-developed crystals.

The most widely distributed mineral in this division is fluorite, the
fluoride of calcium. This is essentially a vein mineral and is frequently
found associated with the sulphide ores of lead and zine. The large
cubic and octahedral crystals of fluorite from all parts of the world
shown in Cases 4 and G, illustrate the very great variation in color

QUARTZ FROM CALIFORNIA

A “phantom” showing one quartz crystal deposited around one previously formed

QUARTZ FROM URUGUAY, S. AMERICA

Agate formed of layers of differently colored quartz

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS li

which is a characteristic of this mineral and which is due to the presence
of a slight amount of such impurities as iron and manganese. Many of
the fluorite specimens show bandings of color produced by slight changes
in the composition of the mineral-forming solution. Among the oxy-

HEMATITE FROM ST. GOTTHARD, SWITZERLAND

A rosette of flat crystals or “iron rose”

chlorides in Case 5 will be found some beautiful examples of the rare
copper minerals boleite and percylite.
OXIDES
Cases 5-8 and H-N
Oxygen, one of the most energetic of the elements, also constitutes
a large part of the atmosphere of the earth, and of water which is almost
universally present on it. Consequently, as we would expect, the oxides

14 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

or compounds of oxygen with the metals, form a large and important
division of minerals. But the element silicon ranks next to oxygen in
abundance and combines readily with it. It is therefore quite obvious
that the mineral quartz, which is the oxide of silicon, should be the com-
monest and most widely distributed of all minerals.

The suite of quartz specimens beginning in Case 5 is exceptionally
fine. At the head of the series will be found the sharply defined, brilliant,
transparent crystals which are familiar to most of us. These are char-
acteristically six-sided with prisms of varying length and occur as single
crystals or in groups. In addition to the specimens showing the wide
range of erystal habit, attention is particularly directed to the examples
of phantom quartz and capped quartz, which illustrate the effect of a
change in, or the temporary arresting of the action of the silica-depositing
solution, the result in both cases being the production of a quartz erystal
around a similar and previously formed one. Small amounts of such
impurities as titanium, manganese and organic matter produce respec-
tively the colored varieties, amethyst, rose quartz and smoky quartz
(Cases I and Kk).

There are also many examples of quartz enclosing other minerals,
such as sagenite, enclosing slender needles of rutile, and cat’s-eye
quartz, in which the silica solution has surrounded and imprisoned
hair-like fibres of asbestos. The massive forms of quartz (Case 6)
are distinguished by their entire lack of outward evidences of erystalliza-
tion. Here the mineral assumes rounded outlines, similar to and
produced in much the same way as the icicles of frozen water or the
stalactitie deposits which are formed by the dripping of mineral solu-
tions in a cavern. Beginning with chalcedony, which well illustrates
the deposit of quartz from a silica solution of uniform composition, the
series shows a great variety of agates, in which the layers of differently
colored quartz have been produced by a change in the amount and char-
acter of the coloring impurity in the silica-depositing fluid. Considerable
amounts of iron and clay give rise to the opaque, massive varieties,
jasper and basanite.

Opal is a hydrated oxide of silicon, that is, it has the same chemical
composition as quartz except that it contains a varying percentage of
water. Among the many varieties of opal in Case 6 the one which
appeals most strongly on account of its beauty is precious opal. The
brilliant and varied play of color which is a well-known characteristic
of this mineral is supposed to be caused by incipient cracks in the mass
of the stone. These reflect back the light in the same way as the film
of a soap bubble or of oil spread on water. Both massive quartz and
opal under favorable conditions replace the woody tissue of trees, produe-

i |“ aied ee eee ce

RUTILE FROM PARKESBURG, PA.

Rosettes of knee-jointed, twinned crystals

MANGANITE FROM ILEFELD, HARZ, GERMANY

Bundles of closely grouped erystals

15

LIMONITE FROM ROSSBACK, NASSAU, GERMANY
Stalactites of water-deposited minerals may always be recog-
nized by their rounded outlines.

PSILOMELANE FROM SCHNEEBERG, SAXONY, GERMANY
Sometimes there is a tendency to form crystals on the surface of the rounded
water-formed masses which gives them a drusy appearance like velvet.

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS 17

ing Jjasperized wood and opalized wood. These varieties, when polished,
exhibit very strikingly the outlines of the cellular structure of the
wood which has thus become petrified.

The metallic oxides are represented by a number of widely distrib-
uted and important minerals. The copper oxide, cuprite (Case 6),
furnishes some handsome groups of isometric crystals of cubic habit and
deep red color.

Corundum, the sesquioxide of aluminum, with its richly colored
varieties sapphire and ruby, also constitutes a very attractive series.
In this instance the crystal forms consist mostly of hexagonal pyramids
which are often highly modified.

Hematite (Case 6), the sesquioxide of iron, is the principal source
of that metal. The series includes a number of varieties, grading from
the brilliant crystal groups from Elba and Switzerland to the massive
red, loosely compacted material from the ore beds of Michigan. Mag-
netite is another iron oxide which merits attention because of its im-
portance as a source of iron. Specimens from many of the American
and foreign deposits are shown in this series. Cassiterite and rutile
are closely related oxides of this group and furnish the visitor with magnif-
icent examples of tetragonal crystals. Many of these are so free from
distortion as to be almost diagrammatic in their four-fold symmetry.
(Compare with models in Case 25). Among the hydrous oxides in
Case 8 are two minerals to which attention is particularly directed
because of their economic importance as ores and because they illustrate
in a striking way the characteristic manner in which this class of minerals
has been deposited. Limonite, the hydrated oxide of iron, and psilom-
elane, the hydrated oxide of manganese, give evidence of their secondary
origin by a variety of forms both interesting and curious. Here we find
iron oxide which has replaced and taken the crystal forms of other iron
minerals, rounded masses deposited layer upon layer, and delicate
thread-like stalactites of great beauty.

CARBONATES
Cases 8-10 and O-T

Among the simplest of the groups of compounds derived from the
oxides of the non-metals are the carbonates, which are combinations of
carbon dioxide with one or more of the metallic oxides. At the head of
this division stands the mineral calcite, important because of its very
wide distribution and its common association with minerals of ore veins,
and extremely interesting because of the almost infinite variety of form
and habit shown by its crystals. There is no finer example to be found

CALCITE FROM CUMBERLAND, ENGLAND

Clear brilliant Crystals with smooth glistening faces

CALCITE FROM SCHNEEBERG, SAXONY, GFRMANY

Plate-like Crystals which are massed in rounded piles resembling sheets of paper

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS 19

among mineral species of the manifold expression of the law of symmetry
in erystallization, which in this instance among thousands of complex
manifestations preserves a three-fold symmetry. The series of erystal-
lized calcite in Cases 8 and 9 well illustrates the wide range of forms
characteristic of this mineral, from the simple rhombohedra from Poretta
and the six-sided prisms from Saxony to the highly complex modifica-
tions from Cumberland and Michigan.

ARAGONITE FROM EISENERZ, STYRIA

Stalactites of calcium carbonate sometimes form branching forms resembling coral

Dolomite, the carbonate of calcium and magnesium; siderite, the
carbonate of iron, and rhodochrosite, the carbonate of manganese, all
belong in the same group with calcite and have many of the char-
acteristics of form which were seen in that mineral. They are best
distinguished from calcite by the fact that they unite in curved group-
ings and by their differences of color. The series of siderite (Cases 9) and
rhodochrosite (Case 10) are especially fine. Aragonite is a second form of
calcium carbonate and one which crystallizes in an entirely different
way from calcite. Among the suite in Case 10, attention is particularly
directed to the branching coral-like forms which distinguish the cave

20 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

deposits of aragonite and which, with their delicate lacework of fine
stalactitie stems, constitute objects of great attractiveness of form.
Cerussite, the carbonate of lead,is related to aragonite in much the
same way that the minerals of the group containing dolomite, siderite,
and rhodochrosite are related to calcite; cerussite is mainly formed by

MALACHITE FROM BISBEE, ARIZONA

The hollows between the rounded masses of this copper carbonate, where water

has trickled through, have become crusted with branching riverlets of mineral
deposits.

the alteration of galena through the action of water charged with carbon
dioxide.

The two copper carbonates Malachite and Azurite (Case 10) are
attractive by reason of their rich colors and the unique shapes taken by
the radiating, silky fibers of the one and the brilliant crystal masses of
the other. Like cerussite they are alteration minerals which have
resulted from the action of water charged with carbon dioxide on other
copper ores.

GARNET FROM RUSSELL, MASS.

This mineral is very easily recognized by its isometric crystals

NATROLITE FROM LEIPA, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

A miniature cavern partly filled with groups of slender crystals

21

22 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

SILICATES

Cases 11-17 and U-Z

The largest and from some points of view the most important divi-
sion of the natural chemical compounds which constitute the minerals
is that one which has for its basis the combinations of the two com-
monest elements, silicon and oxygen. The oxygen salts composed of
these two elements combined with the oxides of the metals give us the
very numerous and varied groups of rock-forming minerals known as the
Silicates.

Broadly speaking the silicates are the minerals of the igneous or
fire-formed rocks; they are essential constituents of granites, pegmatites,
gabbros, diorites and gneisses, and some of them are to be found in
crystalline limestones and as secondary minerals lining the cavities of
lava, basalt and diabase.

The Feldspars, shown in Case 11, are silicates of aluminum with
some other metal. They are the commonest and most widely distrib-
uted group of minerals in this division and constitute nearly 60 per cent
of the mineral composition of igneous rocks. In the series exhibited,
orthoclase, microcline and albite are especially beautiful and interesting,
as is also labradorite with its brilliant and varied play of colors.

The Pyroxenes (Case 12) form another important group of silicates
embracing a number of closely related minerals, all conforming to a
characteristic crystal habit. Here may be seen marked differences of
color due to variations in chemical composition as well as differences in
transparency from the clear gem-like diopside to the opaque black
augite.

Rhodonite (Case 12) is a triclinic pyroxene containing manganese
which gives to it a handsome rose color. The specimens of this suite are
especially attractive.

The group of Amphiboles (Case 12) constitutes a large and im-
portant portion of the silicate division, and like that of the pyroxenes is
made up of a number of mineral varieties closely related chemically and
based on variations from a standard chemical type.

Beryl is a silicate of the rare metal beryllium which furnishes the
two well-known precious stones emerald and aquamarine. The many
varieties of this mineral are shown in the splendid series to be found in
Cases 12 and 13, which furnishes one of the most attractive portions of
the collection.

Garnet (Case 13) is a common and widely distributed silicate to be
found as an accessory mineral in rocks of almost every kind. Occurring
in erystals of a simple and very characteristic isometric habit, garnet

76 @ . car ex

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS

bo

displays an amazing range of color in its many varieties. The series
exhibited is notably large and complete. Among the important silicates
in Case 13 will be found willemite, the silicate of zine, which occurs in
several differently colored varieties at Franklin, N. J.; some magnificent
specimens of dioptase, the silicate of copper, in well-formed hexagonal
crystals; very attractive suites of wernerite, vesuvianite and zircon

CYANITE FROM ST. GOTTHARD, SWITZERLAND

Blade-like crystals in mica schist

(Case 14) in single individuals and groups of tetragonal crystals, and
crystallized topax in a diversity of crystal forms and a variety of color
as pleasing to the eye as they are interesting.

Cases 14 and 15 contain the silicates epidote, prehnite, axinite and
the species of the humite group, all of which are represented by char-
acteristic series well worth close observation and including among the
epidotes and axinites some remarkably fine examples.

24 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

The suite of tourmaline which nearly fills one side of Case 15 is
notable for the richness of its display of this very striking mineral.
Both in the foreign occurrences and in those from the United States
this portion of the collection abounds in beautiful and unusual mounts.
Especially interesting are the specimens showing unequal distribution
of color from Haddam, Conn., from Pala, Calif., and from Elba, Italy.

The Zeolite Division of the Hydrous Silicates (Cases 15 and 16)
includes some large and finely developed tetragonal crystals of apophyl-
lite in single individuals and in large and imposing groups. Here are

EPIDOTE FROM TYROL, AUSTRIA

A radiated group of brilliant, well formed crystals

also to be found the oddly shaped aggregates of heulandite and stilbite,
some of which resemble sheaves of wheat, the scattered groupings of
chabazite and analcite crystals which often give the appearance of
being strewn over a background of dark rock matrix, and the slender,
bunched needles of natrolite, springing from a central nucleus like the
rays of a sun. The zeolites are essentially minerals of the basaltic or
trap rocks and are mostly to be found in cavities, having been deposited
in these cup-like hollows by the evaporation of water solutions.

The Mica Division of the Hydrous Silicates, shown in Cases 16 and
17, include minerals which have the distinguishing property of splitting
up into thin elastic plates or sheets, as in the familiar example of white

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS 2:

Or

mica or isinglass. Many species and subspecies are to be found in the
series displayed, the differentiating characters of which are well shown.

The remaining species of the hydrous silicates are contained in
Case 17; a few of the first of these, including clinochlore, strongly re-
semble the micas in general appearance but split into sheets which are
not elastic.

Serpentine is a hydrous silicate of this division which has not as
yet been found crystallized, although it often takes the crystal forms of
other minerals which it has replaced chemically. Many of these re-
placements or pseudomorphs are to be found in the exhibited series. A
fibrous form of serpentine, called chrysotile, is interesting as furnishing
much of the asbestos which is woven into fireproof fabric. Tale and
sepiolite are also commercially important minerals, the latter furnishing
us with the meerschaum from which smoking utensils are made. Two
of the hydrous silicates, garnierite, the silicate of nickel, and chrys-
colla, the silicate of copper, are ores of their respective metals.

The last portion of the large class of the silicates includes a number
of mineral species containing both silicon and titanium or in some in-
stances titanium acting alone as an acid, the latter compounds being
designated as titanates. Chief among these titano-silicates will be
found titanite (Case 17) represented by many varieties, some of which
are transparent and gem-like and all of which are interesting to the
student and the collector. Although not of economic importance,
except as a rather rare gem species, titanite has some interest as an
accessory rock-forming mineral. In Case 18 will be found the com-
pounds of the rare elements niobium and tantalum known as colum-
bates and tantalates. These include columbite and samarskite as well
as a considerable number of rarer minerals, all of which are very useful
as the sources of the group of rare elements such as yttrium, cerium,
lanthanium, didyium, ete., which are daily becoming more important
commercially.

PHOSPHATES
Cases 18-20 and AA

The Phosphates, which also include the somewhat rarer arsenates,
vanadates and antimonates, comprise a considerable and very varied
group of minerals. Xenotine and monazite are somewhat related com-
mercially to the columbates and tantalates of the preceding group
because they are phosphates of the rare elements previously mentioned.
Case 18 contains a very complete series of these. The common mineral
apatite (Case 18) is essentially a phosphate of lime and is the most

26 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

widely distributed of all the phosphates. As is the case with most of
the common mineral species, apatite is found in a great many varieties;
these differ in color and transparency, but all when erystallized exhibit
the characteristic six-sided prism capped by a low pyramid or by a flat
base. The large series exhibited shows well the varied difference in form
and color of this mineral as well as its almost universal distribution.
Pyromorphite and mimetite (Case 18) are respectively the phosphate and
arsenate of lead with lead chloride. Both are alteration products occur-
ring in the oxidized portions of lead sulphide deposits, and the commoner
of the two, pyromorphite, is ranked as an ore of lead. The brilliant color
and unique crystal aggregates to be found in the series of specimens
exhibited render these minerals objects of considerable attractiveness.

Vanadinite (Case 19), is the vanadate of lead and bears the same
relation to the more commercially important deposits of lead sulphide
as do pyromorphite and mimetite. In the series displayed attention is
drawn to the beautifully developed hexagonal crystals and the rich and
striking colors shown in this handsome suite of specimens. Among
the rare phosphates in Case 19 will be found many minerals which by
reason of their beauty and interest will well repay a short inspection.
Among these may be mentioned descloizite, the lead-zine vanadate;
libethenite and pseudomalachite, the rare copper phosphates; roselite
and erythrite, arsenates of cobalt, and variscite, a phosphate of
aluminum.

Wavellite (Case 20), another phosphate of aluminum, presents many
striking examples of radiating and stalactitie structure combined with
colors of choice delicacy and attractiveness. Turquoise, the familiar
gem mineral, here takes its place among the phosphates and is repre-
sented by a fine series of matrix specimens which illustrates its distribu-
tion as well as its slight color variations. The radioactive minerals
torbanite, copper uranium phosphate, and autunite, the calcium uranium
phosphate, are represented by many specimens, which in the instance
of autunite give evidence to the unaided eye, by the singular quality
of their yellow green color, of the unusual character of their emanations.

Among the borates in Case 20 will be found a remarkably hand-
some and complete suite of colemanite, a calcium borate from California.
Case 20 also contains the radium minerals uraninite, gummite, and
carnotite. Of these, uraninite contains the higher percentage of radium,
but carnotite, owing to its wider distribution in the Western United
States, is becoming the more important radium ore.

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS

Nw
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SULPHATES
Cases 20-21 and BB-CC

Like the phosphates, the minerals of the Sulphate Division are
mostly secondary products which have been derived from other minerals
or rocks by alteration. The action of water upon most of the sul-
phides of the metals produces from these sulphuric acid and metallic
oxides, which combine to form sulphates. Many of these sulphates
are soluble in water and are consequently carried away in solution to
be deposited elsewhere, but the larger number of them are to be found

BARITE FROM FRIZINGTON, ENGLAND
Flat prismatic crystals which show layers of growth

in more or less close proximity to the primary minerals from which they
were derived.

Barite, the sulphate of barium, is a common and widely distributed
mineral species, frequently found in association with metallic ores as a
vein mineral. In the series exhibited in Case 20 many examples of the
occurrence of barite with sulphides of lead, copper, iron and silver will be
found. Like calcite, barite is remarkable for the great diversity and
complexity of the erystals in which it forms; splendid specimens of these
orthorhombic crystals are shown throughout the suite which is both very
complete and of notably high quality. Closely related to barite is the

28 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

sulphate of strontium, celestite. Although sometimes occurring like
barite with metallic ores, celestite is more often found in close association
with sulphur and gypsum: an example of the latter association is found
in the specimens from Girgenti, Sicily, a magnificent series of which will
be found in Case 21. Celestite furnishes the strontium salts which are
much used in the manufacture of fireworks, in medicines and in
refining sugar.

Anglesite (Case 21) is another sulphate which has an economic
importance. This lead mineral is frequently found associated with
galena as a decomposition product of the latter and is often mined with
it and other ores.

A very striking and beautiful series in Case 21 is that which rep-
resents the mineral crocoite, the lead chromate. The bright hyacinth
red and orange color, which constitutes one of the chief characteristics
of this mineral, is affected by long exposure to the light and consequently
the suite of specimens is covered with hinged lids which should be
lifted in order to view this exhibit. One of the most common and
important of the sulphates is gypsum (Case 21), the hydrous sulphate of
calcium. The exhibited suite of specimens is remarkable for the size
and quality of its crystallized examples both as single individuals and in
large groups. Among the rarer species which are included among the
hydrous sulphates are many specimens which combine great beauty of
color with interesting structure, features which tend to make this one
of the most attractive sections of the collection.

TUNGSTATES, MOLYBDATES

Although represented by very few minerals, this division of the
classification contains three important species, wolframite the tungstate
of iron and manganese, scheelite the tungstate of calcium, and wulfenite
the molybdate of lead. These are all important minerals from a com-
mercial point of view, because they furnish us with the rare metals
tungsten and molybdenum which are used to make special steels of a
high grade of strength and durability. The series which includes these
three, as well as many rarer tungstates and molybdates, will be found in
Case 22.

THE MINERALS OF MANHATTAN ISLAND

Manhattan Island offers the somewhat unique case of a limited
area of mineral-producing rocks where excavations have been carried
forward to such an extent that practically all of the crystalline rocks
which underlie the drift deposits have been exposed at some time, and
most of this area has been laid bare within a fairly recent stage in the

t——we i a | ee

THE COLLECTION OF MINERALS 29

development of the City. As a consequence of this unusual activity in
excavation, much is known concerning the minerals which occur in the
local rock formations, and the local collections made from these rock
have been both exhaustive and varied. Much of the eredit for this
intelligent activity in collecting and preserving the local minerals be-
longs to the members of the New York Mineralogical Club, the results
of whose labors in this field may be seen in the Collection of Manhattan
Island Minerals, loaned through the courtesy of the New York Minera-
logical Club and displayed in Cases 27 and 28. Practically every species
of the long list recorded from Manhattan Island is included in this series,
which is not only large and representative, but contains many specimens
of a quality which renders them noteworthy apart from their unusual
local interest. Among these latter are especially fine examples of smoky
quartz, chrysoberyl, calcite, orthoclase, oligoclase, albite, beryl, garnet,
dumortierite cyanite, tourmaline, stilbite, chabazite, harmotone, mus-
covite, titanite, xenotime, monazite, ete.

BOOKS

Very few books of a popular nature have been published on the
subject of Mineralogy. In addition to the Handbook “The Story of the
Minerals” by Herbert P. Whitlock, recently published by the Museum
the following books may be read with profit by a beginner in the study
of mineralogy.

“Minerals and How to Study Them,” by Edward Salisbury Dana.
John Wiley and Sons, 1895.

“Popular Guide to Minerals,” by L. P. Gratacap. D. Van Nos-
trand Company, 1912.

“The World’s Minerals,” by Leonard J. Spencer. Frederick A.
Stokes. Company, 1916.

“Field Book of Common Rocks and Minerals,” by F. B. Loomis.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1923.

A shelf containing useful books for the student of mineralogy will be
found on the study table in the central space opposite the Morgan
Memorial Tablet, and will be made accessible to any one desiring to
consult them.

Although there is much to be gained by the student of mineralogy
from books, and although they furnish a very necessary key to the
meaning of what is to be seen in the mineral world, the best and most
satisfactory knowledge of the subject is to be gained from studying
collections of minerals. The knowledge which enables one to recog-
nize a mineral at sight is similar to the knowledge which enables one
to recognize a friend. It is a composite realization of a number of
characteristics, no one of which is sufficiently definite and unique to
be relied on without the aid of some of the others. We may read a
statement of the form, the color, the luster and the various other at-
tributes of a certain mineral, but until we have these combined properties
set before our eyes in a specimen of that mineral we can form only an
imperfect idea of it.

30

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INDIAN BEADWORK

By CLARK WISSLER
Curator of Anthropology

GUIDE LEAFLET No. 50
Second EpirioN—SEcOND PRINTING

New York, Jung, 1931

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A Bag of Woven Be

INDIAN BEADWORK

INTRODUCTION

The most famous beadwork is that of the American Indian; in
fact, no other people produce anything like it. But not all Indians
produce it. The great beadwork area is the country around the Great
Lakes and the Western Plains—all the States that border the Lakes,
that lie between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi, and ad-
joining parts of Canada.

Beadwork is modern, that is, it originated with the introduction of
glass beads after the discovery of America in 1492. Yet there was some-
thing like it before, known as porcupine quill embroidery. The latter
was prehistoric and wrought in designs similar to those now seen in
beads. What happened then was the substitution of Kuropean-made
glass beads for quills. Thus, the truth of the matter is, that it is the
glass beads that are modern and not the art of embroidery nor the de-
signs employed. In fact some quillwork is made to this day. So we
are now to study an art that was fully grown when Columbus sailed
from Spain in 1492 and one which is the outgrowth of years and years of
toil on the part of prehistoric Indian women.

It will be necessary, therefore, for us to study both bead and quill-
work. Of beadwork there are two kinds: (a) true embroidery and (b)
weaving. The former was almost universal until twenty years ago.
All of the examples on exhibition in the Plains Indian and the South-
west halls of the Museum are of this type. In the Woodland Hall, on
the other hand, both embroidery and weaving appear, particularly
among the Menomini tribe.

GUIDE TO THE COLLECTIONS

Bead and quillwork are shown in three halls on the ground floor.
Turn to your left from the main entrance to the Museum, into the hall
for the Indians of Eastern United States (Kastern Woodland Hall).
The best bead workers represented in this hall are the Ojibway, Meno-
mini, Sauk and Fox, and Winnebago, all living near the Mississippi.
But the center of the art is west of the Mississippi among the Plains
Indians, collections for which are in the next hall, west. Almost every
case in that hall is a storehouse of beaded designs. Then to your right,

3

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

in the hall for the Indians of the Southwest, are some additional
examples.

Quillwork may be found among the beaded objects in the Plains
Indian Hall, where both quills and beads sometimes occur on the same
object, especially in the Dakota, Cheyenne, Assiniboin, and Blackfoot
collections. In the Woodland Hall ordinary quillwork occurs among the
Menomini collections, while woven quillwork, one of the most interest-
ing techniques, is shown in the wall cases marked Mackenzie Area.
Finally, a small amount of bead and quillwork is shown in the Jesup
North Pacific Hall, north from the main entrance.

BEAD EMBROIDERY

Originally all bead embroidery was upon skin, but later cloth was
substituted. In general there is but one process: the beads are strung
upon a thread and this is sewed down to the skin (Fig. 1). The arrange-
ment of these threads is determined by the style of design: when the
design is geometric, the threads are laid on parallel, not unlike the
weft elements in a loom; but when flowered and other curved designs
are attempted the figures are built up by following the contour desired,
or each unit of the design is formed independently. This can be seen in
the illustrations. Sometimes floral designs are first embroidered in their
proper position; then the background is filled out by laying the beads
down in horizontal rows (Fig. 17).

Some of the tribes using the straight parallel method, sew down the
strings of beads at regular intervals, giving their work a banded, or
ridged appearance (Fig. 2) in contrast to the uniform surface of that
sewed at irregular intervals.

In this ease the design is built up by laying down one of these bands
at a time, the uniform width kept by taking the same number of beads
for each string. Ten and twelve are the usual numbers, resulting in a
band about 4 inch wide. These bands and their bead units are also the
main measuring units in laying out the design, as a little study of the
specimens will show.

INDIAN BEADWORK

The explanation for this banded beadwork is found in the original
quillwork. The technique of that process is described in another part
of this booklet. Quills were not strung like beads but were dyed in
assorted colors, then flattened out and laid on in bands of uniform width
and color. Thus a given band of color followed the contour of the design,
whether curved or straight (Fig. 3). In any case, the uniform bands
gave a lined, or ribbed surface. This is just what we find in some
beadwork, though the beads are strung and handled in a different way
from quills. The Indian woman merely substituted beads into the old
quill pattern.

On the other hand, the bead embroidery of the Ojibway seems to
have had a different history. The earliest known form was the outlining
of designs in beads (Fig. 4). Many beautiful patterns produced in this
way are to be seen in the Woodland Hall (Fig. 18). According to tradi-
tion this was followed by filled-in patterns as in Fig. 17 and finally by
full beaded backgrounds where the whole surface is covered. It is
probable that this form also originated in a quill technique, for the older
forms of quillwork among the Woodland Indians seem to have been
outline designs on birchbark, some examples of which are on exhibition.

“DNL
‘amen aH

Fig. 1. A Moccasin Upper in Process of Beading

The uppers of moccasins are beaded before they are sewed to the soles. This
piece was secured from an Assiniboin woman to show how the beads are laid on in
constructing a design. The outer border is built up by two bands, seven beads wide;
between these, over the toe, the strings of beads are laid on parallel. The colors are:
ground in border, pale green; ground in toe, bluish green; figures in blue, yellow,
ruby, orange. Specimen may be seen in the Assiniboin case, Plains Indian Hall.
(50-4331)

6

INDIAN BEADWORK

Fig. 2. Bead Embroidery in Bands

Fig. 3. An Example of Quill
resembling Quillwork

Embroidery

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Fig. 4. Leggings embroidered with Outlines in Beads. See Ojibway Collection

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

Fig. 5. Weaving Frames

(a) A weaving bow. This is no doubt an old and original method of bead weav-
ing that still survives in the form shown here. Quill bands (Fig. 10), the forerunners
of beaded bands, are woven on similar bows.

(b) A bead weaving frame. The warp threads are wrapped around the frame to
the desired breadth of girdle or band. Weaving then proceeds as in Fig. 8a or 8),
until a band of the desired length is obtained, when the warp threads are cut and
trimmed into end fringes.

INDIAN BEADWORK

Fig. 6. An Unfinished Beaded Band with Wooden Heddle

This is shown as mounted in the Museum case, but in use there are no supporting
parts, only the heddle and the threads. One end of the warp is made fast to any con-
venient object and the other to the belt of the weaver, who can thus hold the warp tight
as the heddle is manipulated. There is reason to believe that this heddle is of French
Colonial origin and so not an invention of the Indian. See Sauk and Fox collection.

Fig. 7. Part of a Beaded Garter woven with a Heddle similar to Fig. 6

9

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

Fig. 8. Types of Bead Weaving

(a) Single weft bead weaving. After the warp
threads are stretched, a single thread, with needle, is
passed through as shown.

(b) Double weft bead weaving. In this case the
thread is passed through the beads simultaneously
and then laid upon the warp after which the needle
is passed back through each bead on the other side of
the warp. |

(ec) Double warp. Here the warp is often manipu-
lated by a heddle as in Fig. 6. The weft thread is
strung with the correct number of beads and then
passed between the warp and the beads properly
spaced; the whole procedure is as in loom weaving.

(d) Weaving with diagonal threads, a form
frequently used in long narrow bands.

INDIAN BEADWORK

BEAD WEAVING

This type of beadwork is now popular and spreading rapidly among
the Indians and our own people. Its center of development seems to
have been the Menomini Indians of Wisconsin. A weaving frame of
some kind is necessary. Scarfs, garters, and belts are almost invariably
the objects made by this process. Strong thread is wound around the
frame like the warp in a loom. (Fig. 5.) Cross threads (weft) are
woven into these and it is upon these that the beads are strung. Meno-
mini specimens show three types of weaving: (a) single weft, (b) double
weft, and (c) heddle woven; a and b are woven on a frame without
other help than a needle, but ¢ requires some additional apparatus.
The Sauk and Fox Indians use the heddle shown in Fig. 6.

The Shoshoni frequently use a bow for the frame (Fig. 5a), the
elasticity of the bow keeping the threads stretched; but here the warps
are not continuous. This bow-loom is interesting because it seems to be
the original loom upon which quill weaving was done, for again we find
that a quill technique was the parent of bead weaving.

An interesting form of bead weaving is found among the Seminole,
Yuchi, and other southern Indian tribes. Handsome belts, girdles, and
garters are woven of commercial yarn. The warp and weft are diagonal
and beads are strung on them at intervals. In some cases the warp and
weft are white threads and the beads laid in in design patches, around
which are bands of different colored yarns, all woven together. These
make a unique and striking product. But of much greater interest is the
use of horsehair in this diagonal weaving, with an entire beaded surface.
The fine stiff hairs hold the beads apart and permit the light to pass
through, greatly enhancing the value of the composition. The manner of
weaving is shown in Fig. 8d. The same technique, but upon thread, is
used by all the Woodland tribes for long narrow bands of beadwork and
even occurs in some modern beadwork from Central America. The
latter have still another variety in which the weft is carried across the
warp, V-like, resulting in a band with a central rib.

ul

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

Fig. 9. Technique of Quillwork

(a) In this technique, the quills are laid on in rows or bands. Designs are worked
out by changing the color of the quills. The ends of the quills on the lower edge of a
hand are held in place by a string of sinew, or thread, a, running across the surface
of the leather to be decorated, with another thread, b, going in the same direction but
passing under the first thread through the surface of the leather, back over the first
thread and under itself, thus forming a loop between each quill. The thread holding
the upper end of the quills in place, is passed through the surface of the leather in
oblique direction, from left to right (assuming that the work is started from the right
hand side) crossing under itself on to the next space between the quills. This is
practically the same stitch as that employed for the lower edge, omitting thread a.

(b) In this process the surface is similar to that for a but the stitch is simple.
The thread is passed through the leather and back again between each quill.

(c) Warp threads are strung on a weaving bow; the quills are flattened and
passed through the weft, like a ribbon. When the wefts are driven down close, all
threads are concealed.

12

INDIAN BEADWORK

QUILLWORK

Quillwork seems to have been more widely spread than beadwork;
in fact, it was almost universal throughout Canada and eastern and
central United States. From remarks of early explorers we infer that
quillwork was found among the Indians of Manhattan Island.

The quill of the porcupine is the universal material, though occa-
sionally bird quills were substituted. First the quills were dyed, then
flattened, folded to the right length and sewed down by a concealed
stitch. These stitches vary a great deal, even in the same tribe. A
few of the most common are shown in the figures.

But quills are also used in weaving, as stated. In this case the warp
threads of sinew are stretched on a bow, somewhat as in the figure for
bead weaving, the flattened quills are passed around the weft and driven
up close, resulting in a charming texture. Designs are formed by intro-
ducing different colored quills.

If a close study of all the forms of quill and beadwork is made, it
will appear that woven quillwork is the parent of all, for the manner of
sewing quills down to the skin is such that the relation of quill and
thread loops is similar to their relation in the woven quill band. It is
difficult to conceive how the curious method of laying these quills in
rows and bands could have developed except in imitation of woven
quillwork.

While glass beads are modern, there was some bead weaving before
1492. The famous wampum belts were woven. But there were other
tribes who cut sections of quills that were treated precisely as the long
wampum shell bead by the Iroquois. It is, therefore, a fair assumption
that the wampum bead is a development from quills and the wampum
belt an outgrowth of quill weaving. There is still a great deal to learn
from the study of Indian quill and beadwork to which this little book is
but an introduction.

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Fig. 10. Quill Woven Bands and a Bag decorated with the Same. See wall case,
south side of Woodland Hall.

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Fig. 11. Section of Quill Weaving from Border of the Bag in Fig. 10

14

INDIAN BEADWORK

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Fig. 12. Examples of Bead Weaving

(a) A bead necklace. These long tube-like glass beads are said to replace similar
sections of quills. Shoshoni case, Plains Indian Hall.

(b) Wampum belt. The famous wampum belts of the Iroquois are examples of
bead weaving. The form of bead and the general appearance of the belt suggest
quill weaving on the one hand and the bead necklace on the other. Woodland Hall.

15

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

DESIGNS *

The designs among the Plains Indians are justly celebrated for their
geometric character. To be fully appreciated they must be seen in
color instead of in mere outline as in this booklet. They were intended
for costume decoration and used out-of-doors in the open and the sun-
light. Under such conditions the colors tended to blend into their
surroundings and to lose much of their harshness. The true place such
decorations held in Plains Indian life is suggested by the accompanying
photograph of two Blackfoot women.

A general similarity is found among the beaded designs for all the
Plains tribes, but the choice of colors for background differs. Some of
the finest work comes from the Dakota (Sioux) who use white as the back-
ground; however, some forty years ago they used a light blue.

The Indians around the Great Lakes seldom use geometric patterns,
but incline to floral motives. Naturally, in their woven work they some-
what conventionalize these floral patterns, but in all cases the plant forms
are obvious. On the other hand in their embroidery, where there are
no limitations, they attain highly realistic effects. (See the Menomini
and Ojibway cases.)

The contrast between these two types of beadwork will appear if
you closely examine the collections in the Eastern Woodland Hall and
then those in the Plains Indian Hall.

NAMES FOR DESIGNS

The Indian bead workers often have names for their designs to
facilitate discussion among themselves. Many of these names have
highly figurative meanings that suggest true symbolism. The best
series of such design names as used in beadwork was collected for this
Museum from the Arapaho Indians, a list of which is given on pages
24-30. All of these designs are from specimens in the Museum and
the names were supplied by the maker of each piece. A typical series
of these are on exhibition in the Arapaho cases, Plains Indian Hall.
Additional examples of design interpretation are shown in the Dakota
cases. Naturally, tribes differ in the use of these names and not in-
frequently groups of workers in the same tribes have different names
for the same design.

16

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INDIAN BEADWORK

It should not be inferred that when we find names for beaded
designs, the makers produce them solely for mystic reasons. That
would be far from the truth, for beadwork is, above all, decorative. The
Indian woman toils because it is a pleasure to produce something beauti-
ful and chooses her colors and designs to that end. Yet she may choose a
design which because of its name and symbolic associations, appeals to
her as especially appropriate to the occasion. For example, the Arapaho
moccasin in Fig. 14 is beaded around the edges, but has its front surface
traversed by a number of quilled lines. The white beadwork represents
the ground. Green zigzag lines upon it are snakes. The quilled lines
represent sweathouse poles. These lines are red, blue, and yellow, and
the colors represent stones of different colors, used for producing steam
in the sweathouse. At the heel of the moccasins, which is not shown in
the figure, are two small green squares. These represent the blankets
with which the sweathouse is covered.

Fig. 14. A Child’s Moccasin: Arapaho. The deco-
ration has a symbolic meaning.

The design of a snake was embroidered on this moccasin in order
that the child wearing it might not be bitten by snakes. The symbols
referring to the sweathouse were embroidered on the moccasin in order
that the child might grow to the age at which the sweathouse is princi-
pally used; namely, old age.

19

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

Thus we see how colors and established designs may be chosen for
ornamental reasons and yet adapted to a wish or idea in the mind of the
worker. But not all examples of beadwork have this significance for the
same artistic excellence may be sought and attained with no thought of
designs names and the ideas they may call up.

Fig. 15. Design from a Dakota Pipe Bag

The bag is in the ease for Dakota art, Plains Indian
Hall. This is a good example of how a pictorial meaning
may be read into a design. Thus the maker of this bag
made the following statement: The whole represents a
battle scene. The white is snow. The two long green
lines are to indicate the flight of arrows. The projecting
lines at the end represent the wounds made by the
arrows. The arrow point is represented by the
triangular figures opposite the projecting lines, these
being shown again as attached to the point of the arrow.
(a). The large central figure is the body of a man: the
diamond-shaped portion representing the trunk, and
the appendages, the head, arms, and legs. The dark
blue color of the trunk-figure implies that the man is
dead. The small white rectangles enclosing a red spot
represent the hits or wounds that brought the man
down. On the upper part of the bag the border figure (c)
represents a victory in which the owner’s horse, repre-
sented by the green diamond-shaped figure, was
wounded, as shown by the red area within the horse
symbol; b, represents a feather, and implies that the
owner of the bag was entitled to wear an eagle feather
in his hair as a sign that he had killed an enemy. The
figures of the pipe indicate the owner’s right to carry
the official peace pipe.

The parts of this design are not new and so not
original with the maker of the bag, but were selected by
her to express these ideas and events, relating to the
life of the man for whom she made it. Even the choice
of designs was not wholly original, for it was the custom
of her people to look upon certain designs as having a
fixed meaning. Thus by looking at his pipe bag an-
other Indian might read the deeds of the owner.

20

. [ee et cs ae

INDIAN BEADWORK

n 0 Pp q

Fig. 16. Design Elements used by Dakota Women in constructing Beadwork

Each design unit has a name, used in giving instruction to beginners. The names
in use twenty-five years ago are as follows:—

a, Twisted g, Feathers m, Whirlwind
b, Full-of-points h, Leaf n, Bag

c, Forked tree z, Tent o, Pointed
d, Dragon-fly j, Arrow p, Trails

e, Filled up k, Three-row q, Cut-out
f, Tripe l, Vertebree

21

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

Fig. 17. Ojibway or Chippewa Beadwork

These two types of bandolier are fine examples of bead weaving (a) and em-
broidery (b). For other examples see Ojibway and Winnebago cases, Eastern Wood-
land Hall.

(50.1-942 and 7409)

to
to

i

AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS

ELEMENTS OF BEADED DESIGNS FROM EXAMPLES IN
THE MUSEUM

The design elements in the following plates were selected from bead

and quillwork collected among the Arapaho Indians by Professor A. L. .

Kroeber in 1900. Most of the objects from which they were taken are
on exhibition. As a whole they represent the design material available
to an Arapaho bead worker. They are also fairly representative of the
Plains Indians as a whole. By custom these designs had come to have
definite names and meanings, a list of which is added.

Figure Figure
1 Person 40 Butterfly
2 Person 41 Butterfly
3 Person ' 42 Butterfly
4 Person sitting 43 Butterfly
5 Person standing 44 Beetle
6 Persons in tent or sweathouse 45 Dragon-fly
7 Mythie dwarf 46 Dragon-fly
8 Navel — 47 Dragon-fly
9 Navel string 48 Cricket
10 Heart and lungs 49 Spider
11 Head 50 Crayfish
12 Eye 51 Centipede
13 Eye 52 Centipede
14 Eye 53 Centipede
15 Track 54 Leech
16 Buffalo 55 Caterpillar
17. Wolves 56 Caterpillar
18 Rats 57 Caterpillar
19 Eagle 58 Caterpillar
20 Eagle 59 Caterpillar
21 Eagle 60 Worms or maggots
22 Hagle 61. Worm
23 Thunderbird 62 Worm
24 Magpie 63 Worm
,25 Swallow 64 Worms
26 Snake 65 Game, variety of animals
27 Snake 66 Bear foot
28 Lizard 67 Bear foot
29 Lizard 68 Bear foot
30 Lizard 69 Buffalo intestine
31 Turtle 70 Buffalo hoof
32 Turtle 71 Buffalo hoof
33 Turtle 72 Buffalo track
34 Turtle 73 Buffalo path
35 Frog 74 Buffalo path
36 Fish 75 Buffalo wallow
37 Bee 76 Buffalo horns
38 Bees 77 Mythic cave of the buTa!lo
39 Butterfly

_—

— Se ee

37

ELEMENTS OF BEADED DESIGNS FROM EXAMPLES
THE MUSEUM—ARAPAHO

Cattle track

Cattle track

Horse ears

Horse track

Elk leg

Elk hoof

Deer hoof

Rabbit tracks

Beaver rib

Scales on beaver tail
Beaver dam and huts
Turtle claw

Turtle egg

Snake skin markings
Horned toad skin markings
Joints and stomach of frog
Markings of lizard
Bee hole

Ant hill

Ant hills

Ant hill

Ant path

Dragon-fly wing
Spider web
Centipede-tracks
Worm hole

Tree

Trees on mountain
Trees on mountain
Trees on mountain
Leaf of “yellow herb”
Willow leaf
Mushrooms

Cactus

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

26

Figure
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154

Mountain
Mountain
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Mountain
Snow-covered mountain
Snow-covered mountain
Valley or canyon
The earth

The earth

The earth

Dirt, clay

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Path

Path

Path

Crossing paths
Holes in a path
Holes in a path
Path going over a hill
River

River

River

River with islands
River

Spring

Lake

Lake

IN

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a5 86 87 88 89 90 91
Ay
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92 93 04 95 96 97
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99 100 101 102 103 104 105
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106 107 108 109 110 lll 112
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13 114 5 116 117 118 9
120 LI 122 123 124 125 126
a m OnERUGG
130 131 132 133
137 138 139 140
144 145 146 147

we
152 153

Elements of Beaded Designs
27

ELEMENTS

Figure

155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193

OF BEADED DESIGNS FROM EXAMPLES IN

THE MUSEUM—ARAPAHO

Lake

Scum

Sun

Sunrise

Sun rays
Star

Star

Star

Star

Star

Star

Star

Star
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar
Morningstar at the horizon
Morningstar with rays
Constellation
Milky way
Cloud
Cloud
Cloud
Lightning
Lightning
Rainbow
Rain

Tent

Tent

Tent

Tent

28

Figure

194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211

Tent

Tent

Tent

Tent

Tent

Tent

Camp circle
Camp circle
Camp circle
Boundary of habitation
Brush hut

Brush hut

Pole of sweathouse
Covering of sweathouse
House

Fence

Rock monuments
Rock monuments
Soft bag

Box

Knife case

Sinew

Rack for saddlery
Rack for saddlery
Rack for meat
Rope

Saddle blanket
Man’s stirrup
Woman’s stirrup
Lance

Bow

Arrow

Arrow point
Arrow point
Arrow point
Arrow point
Arrow point
Arrow point

2

De

np
—
n

——————————
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ns
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227 228

ed
nN
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Elements of Beaded Designs

29

209

216

223

224

ELEMENTS OF BEADED DESIGNS FROM EXAMPLES IN

THE MUSEUM—ARAPAHO

Arrow point
Pipe

Pipe

Gambling counters
Female dress
Life, prosperity
Life, prosperity
Life, prosperity
Life, prosperity
Thought
Person

Person

Person

Person

Person

Persons in tent or sweathouse
Persons in tent or sweathouse

First human beings
Woman

Imaginary human figure
Imaginary human figure
Body

Body

Navel

Heart

Matted hair

Eye

Eye

Eye

Buffalo

Buffalo

Buffalo

Coyotes

Lizard

Frog

Water beetle

Bear foot

Bear foot

Bear foot

Figure
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284

30

Bear foot

Bear foot

Bear ear

Bear ear

Bear den

Coyote tracks
Buffalo eye

Buffalo skull

Buffalo scrotum
Buffalo dew-claw
Buffalo track

Buffalo track

Buffalo path

Buffalo wallow-
Buffalo dung

Mythic cave of the buffalo
Mythic cave of the buffalo
Mythic cave of the buffalo
Abundance of buffalo
Horse tracks

Wild cherry

Fibrous water plant
Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountain

Mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Mountain peak

302

YA
Y
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268

see
wee ee wee

re.
Sz

303

iJ
a
1
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290 291 292

304 305 306

Elements of Beaded Designs

31

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_ AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

‘A FIRST CHAPTER

IN

NATURAL HISTORY

ae By FREDERIC A. LUCAS

a GUIDE LEAFLET No. 51
a EDITION OF 1925"

i or pe Sarg enbemy yng hem owl ans + ae te

A FIRST CHAPTER IN
NATURAL HISTORY

BEING THE INTRODUCTION TO CHAMPLIN’S YOUNG
FOLKS’ CYCLOPDIA OF NATURAL HISTORY

By
FREDERIC A. LUCAS

Copyright 1905
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Published by permission
GUIDE LEAFLET No. 51
Third Printing
February, 1925

Where you may find illustrations or examples
of some of the subjects noted in this leaflet

THE DARWIN HALL OF INVERTEBRATES

The exhibits in this hall, on the first floor, give a complete synopsis
of the Animal Kingdom, all groups from Protozoa to Vertebrates being
represented. Here too are groups illustrating relation to environment,
the Struggle for Existence, Survival of the Fittest, Geographical Dis-
tribution and Variation in Nature and under Domestication.

THE SYNOPTIC SERIES OF MAMMALS

The attention of teachers of biology in our schools is called to the
Synoptic Series of Mammals in The American Museum of Natural
History, on the third floor, which has been developed with a special
view of making it instructive to the student while at the same time of
interest to the general visitor.

It not only comprises examples of every family of existing mam-
mals, illustrating in many cases their structure, and origin in point
of time, but includes exhibits showing various points in the evolution of
mammals, sundry principles of classification, and interesting or peculiar
habits. The specimens are, or are to be, accompanied by detailed
descriptive labels giving the characters and more important information
in regard to the various orders and families of mammals, the series
being an example of Doctor Goode’s definition of a (university) museum,
“a collection of labels illustrated by specimens.”

Among the subjects illustrated are albinos and melanos, modifica-
tions of the limbs for locomotion, structure and modifications of teeth,
variations in the character of the brain, influence of environment and
adaptation of mammals to their surroundings. What may be called an
introductory chapter gives the distinctive characters of mammals, and
a family tree, showing the probable lines of evolution of the animal
kingdom and the relation of Mammals to the other great groups or phyla,
see Guide to the Hall of Mammals.

THE HALL OF INSECT LIFE

In the next hall is the collection of Insects so arranged as to illus-
trate their relationships to each other and to other animals (Classifica-
tion), their importance, and such topics as Protective Coloration,
Mimicry, and Evolution.

eee

A First Chapter in Natural History

Naturau History is the story of all natural objects, plants and
minerals, as well as animals, though in popular usage it is often confined
to the last. And while the term animal is very commonly thought to
refer to mammals only, it being a mistake of frequent occurrence to
speak of birds and animals when birds and mammals is meant, the
name animal properly applies to every living or animate creature, from
the tiny being that can be seen only with the aid of a microscope up to a
whale, the mightiest creature that has ever lived.

Broadly speaking, animals are distinguished from plants by their
ability to feel, move, and digest organic substances such as plants and
other animals. Plants on the other hand do not feel, have no power of
voluntary movement, and are nourished by inorganic substances ab-
sorbed through their roots. The boundary line between animals and
plants is, however, not sharply defined, especially between the lower, or
simpler, forms. Some plants move and some animals are rooted to one
place, and a few plants even have the power to digest animal substances,
but with all these exceptions the power of voluntary movement remains
the most evident distinction between animals and plants.

EVOLUTION

The smallest and simplest animals consist of an extremely minute
quantity of a jelly-like substance, termed protoplasm, surrounding :
central speck of firmer material known as the nucleus. This constitutes
a cell, and the smallest, simplest animals are formed of a single cell and
are called unicellular or single-celled animals. The largest of creatures
is merely a vast assemblage of very similar cells, grouped into structures
of different kinds and serving different purposes; and a few naturalists
have argued that even the very highest animals are really compound
beings made up of combinations of simple animals. We may, however,
dismiss this theory as fanciful, while noting that plants, as well as
animals, are composed of combinations of cells, the cell being the unit
of life.

All life is believed to have begun with simple, one-celled beings, be-
cause the animals we find entombed in the rocks become simpler and
simpler in structure as we go down, the higher groups of mammals,
birds, reptiles, ete., disappearing one after the other as we go backwards

3

4 A FIRST CHAPTER

in time. For the reason that the simpler forms of life appeared first, it
is thought that plants preceded animals, and as the lowest forms of each
are almost indistinguishable from one another, both may have been
derived from the same simple organism. While this belief is entirely
probable, it may never be actually proved: because the small, soft,
simple animals and plants could leave no trace of their former presence
in the shape of fossils; and the only animals found are those high
enough in the scale of life to possess hard parts that could be preserved
as fossils.

As living things increased in the world, they were influenced by
their surroundings, and affected by the amount of light and heat, of
rest or movement, to which they were subjected. In places favorable
to their growth and increase, they multiplied to such an extent that they
began to crowd one another, and localities suitable for the support of a
limited number were even overpopulated, and it became a question
as to which should survive. Thus, almost at the outset arose the
Struggle for Existence, but it must be borne in mind that this was
not an active struggle, but usually a mere passive effort to endure—
such animals as by their strength, powers of endurance, and ability to
withstand changes of climate and to resist heat or cold, being those that
survived, while the weaker or less fit were swept out of existence. This
is the very simplest form of the Survival of the Fittest; among higher
animals the process is vastly more complicated, and the means by
which it is accomplished so varied as to be almost infinite. It is neverthe-
less purely passive on the part of the animals, not being brought about
by any thought or conscious effort on their part. Animals think to a
certain extent, but the reader is cautioned to beware of ascribing to
other animals the thoughts and feelings of man; this is the more im-
portant, as so many books have been written in which animals are made
to feel, and think, and act like human beings, the height of absurdity
being reached when these thoughts and feelings are ascribed to plants.
The care of birds for their young is often cited as a beautiful example of
parental tenderness; but while birds, it is true, care a great deal for their
young, it is not much in the manner in which human parents care for
their children. The bird that will do all in her power one season to pre-
serve her offspring, will transfer her affections the very next year to a
new brood, and treat last year’s family as strangers, or even enemies.

Bats furnish a good example of what may be called passive resist-
ance. These active little animals are for the most part insectivorous—
insect eaters, and dependent entirely on the presence of insects for their

IN NATURAL HISTORY 5

livelihood. Insects in turn are directly or indirectly dependent on flow-
ers, and when in northern regions the approach of winter puts an end to
the flowers, insects begin to disappear. With the withdrawal of their
food supply, bats must either migrate, die, or in some manner survive
without food. To a limited extent bats do migrate; but the majority
exist without eating by hibernating during the winter—the same cold
which puts an end to flowers and insects checking the circulation of
blood, and permitting the bats to exist for a long time with very little
bodily waste. This very curious condition has not been brought about
by any direct effort on the part of the bats, but, it is believed, simply
by the weeding out of those that were unable to lie torpid, and the sur-
vival of those in which the bodily functions and waste of flesh were
checked without destroying life.

It must always be borne in mind that the survival of the fittest is by
no means the survival of the strongest: for while size and strength
count for much in the struggle between animals of the same kind, they
count for little in combating nature, a fact which we see over and over
again in studying the history of the past. Those great reptiles, the Dino-
saurs, mightiest of all land animals, were swept out of existence while
the smaller and weaker mammals survived. And, after these had at-
tained to supremacy, the lumbering Titanotheres succumbed in their
turn, and other types, smaller and weaker but better adapted to the
changes that were taking place, succeeded them. Small animals, as a
rule, have certain advantages over their larger relatives in the struggle for
existence; they breed more rapidly, reach maturity sooner, are more
readily concealed, and require less food: so that they are able to subsist
through periods of drouth and cold which cut off the supply of food of the
large animals and cause them to perish of starvation. As a result of the
weeding out process, the influence of their surroundings, and what seems
an inborn tendency to vary,! animals changed more or less in form and
habits, becoming adapted to the changing conditions under which they
lived, resulting in the Evolution of new kinds of animals. In this man-
ner very wonderful modifications have been brought about: for we see
some animals dwelling in the heat of the tropics, and others equally at
home amid the snow and ice of arctic regions; some passing their lives
high on the mountain tops, some dwelling a mile or more in the depths

1There are two very different views in regard to this point, one that change in the
surroundings causes the changes in the animals, the other that it simply allows the
tendency to vary to assert itself. Both are probably true, as is the case with both
sides in many quarrels—perhaps in most.

6 A FIRST CHAPTER

of the ocean where the temperature is but little above freezing, and some
quite at home in springs whose waters almost reach the boiling point.

Among the many changes that have been brought about in the proc-
ess of evolution, is the matter of Protective Coloration—the resem-
blance of animals to their surroundings, or, in some instances, to one
another, by which they are enabled to escape their enemies. Birds, like
snipe, meadow larks, and quail, and mammals, such as the common gray
rabbit, so harmonize with the dried grass, leaves, and brush amid which
they live that it is a difficult matter to see them when at rest. Desert-
haunting animals, many mice, or on a large scale, some of the African
antelopes, also blend with their surroundings, and so do the spotted
young of many shore birds that are brought up on pebbly beaches. On
the other hand parrots and fruit pigeons are largely green, and thus
elude observation among the trees in which they live. Then there are
some very interesting cases of animals that are doubly protected,
changing their raiment with the season, harmonizing with leaves and
grass in summer and with the snows of winter. Such are the weasels,
hares, and ptarmigans, and it is a curious fact that those which have
an extensive north and south range, reaching regions where there is little
or no snowfall, do not turn white in their southern homes. The white
color of northern animals may not be entirely for their protection, but
for their warmth as well, since white does not give out heat so rapidly
as dark colors.

A most remarkable mode of protection exists in some marine animals
which are almost as transparent as glass, the very blood being trans-
formed to a colorless fluid, so that they can scarcely be distinguished
from the water in which they dwell.

Still another method of protective coloration is shown by many
edible species of animals that bear a strong resemblance in form and color
to those that are presumably disagreeable on account of peculiarities in
taste or odor. The term presumably disagreeable is used: for it by no
means follows that because a given flavor is offensive to us, it is equally
unpleasant to birds and other animals. We know from the few careful
experiments which have been made, that insects repugnant to us are
saten by various animals. Also it is very evident that although the

rast majority of animals are good to eat they nevertheless are not eaten
out of existence.

In some eases colors that at first sight seem conspicuous are really
protective, as are the stripes of the tiger and the spots of the leopard
and jaguar, which so suggest patches of light and shade that the animals

IN NATURAL HISTORY fi

crouch unseen in the jungle. In these particular instances color is
not necessary for protection, but is of service while the animals are stalk-
ing their prey.

For protective coloration is by no means a one-sided matter or else
many animals would go hungry, but while it helps some to elude their
enemies it is also of service to predatory beasts in stealing upon their
quarry. The dun color of many African antelopes is undoubtedly a pro-
tection, but the dun color of the lion blends with that of the desert sand
and enables him to steal unseen upon the protected antelope. There is, to
add a word of warning, much reason to think that entirely too much im-
portance has been ascribed to protective coloration and that it is by no
means so effective as its more ardent advocates would have us believe,
since it is to a great extent offset by keenness of sight, acuteness of
smell and sharpness of hearing on the part of both the hunter and the
hunted.

Given a tendency among animals to vary, it is easy to see how pro-
tective coloration might have been brought about by Natural Selection.
Any animals that chanced to resemble their surroundings in color so as
not to be readily seen on the sand, or among the leaves or grass as the
case might be, would have a little better chance of being overlooked by
hungry enemies than those that were conspicuous, the result being the
killing off of the conspicuous animals and the gradual establishment of a
race of animals protectively colored.

In regard to these various questions of natural selection, survival of
the fittest, and evolution of animals, it may be said that while we do not,
and never can, actually know that these things have taken place as de-
scribed, careful study of the facts renders it probable that such has been
the case. One of the oft remarked characteristics of mankind is a de-
sire to know the causes of things, and if man can not ascertain all the
facts he will frame some theory to explain those that are available.

If animals are affected by their surroundings, we would expect to
find that those which dwell where the conditions vary least, have changed
the least; we would also expect that the simplest animals, those that
have the fewest parts to change, bear the strongest resemblances to those
that lived in the earlier days of the world. And this is exactly what is
shown by the study of the past, the differences between living and extinct
animals bearing a direct relation to these two things. Among the highly
organized mammals, not a living species is directly related to those of
that early period of the earth’s history we call Eocene, while very few go
back beyond the (geologically) recent period known as Pliocene. By the

8 A FIRST CHAPTER

aid of fossils we are able to trace some, notably the horse, back through
the various changes they have undergone; but when this is done the
early species are found to be so different from their living descendants
that without the aid of the intermediate forms the relationship between
the two would not be suspected. The direct relatives of many reptiles
are found much further back than are those of mammals, while some
living fishes belong to the same family and even the same genus as those
that existed so long ago as the Cretaceous Period. As for invertebrates,
and especially some shellfish, a few go back unchanged for periods of
time representing millions of years; down in the depths of the sea, in
uniform quiet, cold and darkness, they have lived an unvarying exist-
ence for wons of time, while what we term the eternal hills have been
washed away, and others upheaved to take their places.

Thus evolution, or change among animals, has gone on more and
more rapidly as higher forms came into existence.

Knowing the great changes that have taken place among animals
since they first appeared in the world, we are able to account for existing
differences we find between them. Some groups have steadily progressed,
a few have degenerated; some have diminished in numbers and many
have disappeared.

If we open a fan, and imagine that the sticks represent various divi-
sions of animals, we shall have a rough illustration of what might have
taken place had their development been uniform; all have a common
point of origin, but the farther we go from this point, the more widely
are they separated, although the relationship of one to another may
easily be seen. If now we break some of the sticks at different places
and whittle down some of the ends, we shall have gaps of varying widths
at various places, and the ends will be of unequal size and at irregular
distances from one another, as are the groups of living animals.

For example, while there are but two living species of elephants, one
in Asia, and another in Africa, fossil remains indicate that there were
formerly a large number of species inhabiting all the continents save
Australia. And, as the history of the elephants is followed backwards, we
find, even with the small amount of material now at our disposal, that
their characters gradually change, and that they may be traced to much
smaller animals not unlike tapirs. In this instance, not only are the
sticks of the fan broken, but the one representing the elephants is
whittled down to two species. The horse is probably the best example
we have of an unbroken line of descent, and most educated people are
aware that its pedigree may be traced to a race of animals no larger than

|
|
|

IN NATURAL HISTORY 9

a collie dog which also gave rise to other and very different groups of
animals. The stick representing the horse family is entire, but not so
large as it was.

Owing to the various facts just mentioned it is impossible to arrange
animals in a straight line from lowest to highest; each animal is not
only related to those before and behind, but to those on either side of it,
and if one group of animals is compared with another it will be found
that the lower members of one will be decidedly lower or simpler in
structure than the highest members of the preceding group. The rela-
tions of animals to each other are often expressed in the form of a tree.
The trunk represents the common origin of animals, the branches the
great groups (see Classification), and the tips of the twigs individuals.
Only it must be remembered that in the tree of life as we now see it
many of the branches are lacking.

The questions of evolution and of the animals that formerly existed
are directly connected with the problem of distribution.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

Animals are not spread indiscriminately over the earth, but certain
kinds or species are found in particular regions, some being confined to
comparatively small areas, while others are widely distributed. Llamas
are found only in South America; one kind of elephant occurs in Africa,
another in parts of Asia; the moose, represented by three closely re-
lated species, circles the entire northern hemisphere, while the orang-
utan is restricted to a small part of Borneo, a second species being
limited to a still smaller portion of Sumatra. This distribution is termed
Geographical Distribution, and the branch of geography devoted to
it—zoological, or more briefly zodgeography, the corresponding study of
plant distribution being phytogeography. The problems of zoégeog-
raphy are very complicated; for many causes have brought about the
dispersal of animals, or caused their restriction to certain regions.

The means by which animals that walk, swim, or fly have been
distributed are apparent, while those less able to get about in the world
are subject to winds, rivers, currents, floods, and accidental transporta-
tion by other animals. The distribution of some takes place while they
are still in the egg, or very small: for many animals, like the oyster,
which are rooted to one spot when old, are free to wander while young.
This may bring about results that at first sight seem contradictory
creatures whose powers of locomotion are small having a wider range than
some well able to travel about. Such cases may sometimes be explained

10 A FIRST CHAPTER

by the fact that the more active animals are less subject than the others
to accidental dispersion, and are not swept away from places where food
is abundant and enemies few. There are, however, many instances
where the reasons for the restriction of animals to certain places are by no
means evident. Great bodies of water are most effectual barriers to
the spread of many animals, some are hemmed in by mountain ranges,
others by deserts, but back of such obvious causes lies the all-important
question of food, and this, so far as land animals are concerned, depends
on temperature, which determines the distribution of plants and of the
animals directly or indirectly dependent on them for subsistence.

New Zealand and Australia are the most striking examples of the
effect of wide stretches of water on the distribution of animals: for, save
two species of bats, not a single mammal is found in New Zealand, while
the mammalian fauna! of Australia consists almost entirely of marsupials,
the only other land animals being the dingo, or wild dog, supposed to
have been introduced by man, and a few little rodents. In the first case
it is inferred that if New Zealand has ever been connected. with any
other land, it was before the appearance of mammals on earth; in the
latter instance, the deduction is that Australia has been isolated since the
Cretaceous Period, when the lower types of mammals had appeared, and
that its peculiar assemblage of animals is the result of evolution within
its own boundaries.

A very important point that must be taken into account in dealing
with the distribution of existing animals is the distribution of extinct
animals; for this often accounts for the presence of related species in
widely separated parts of the world. Tapirs are examples of this dis-
continuous distribution, one species being found in Malaysia, while the
others dwell in the warmer parts of America. These places are widely
separated, and by no possibility could these animals now pass from one
locality to the other; but remains of fossil tapirs or tapir-like animals are
found in various parts of the world: so we know that existing tapirs are
the survivors of a once numerous race of animals.

Such cases as this are taken as evidence of the former union, direct or
indirect, of countries now widely separated, some animals being much
more important witnesses than others. Birds, which pass over long
distances with ease, are of comparatively small importance as evidence,
although they have some value, while fresh-water shells, and, above all,

'The fauna of a country is the sum total of its animal life, the flora, of its plant
life, while the term biota embraces both, meaning the entire plant and animal life of
any region or period.

IN NATURAL HISTORY 11

fresh-water fishes, furnish testimony of the most value. The lung-fishes,
Dipnoi, one of which is found in Australia, one in South America, and
one in Africa, are usually brought forward as a case in point. It is ex-
tremely improbable that such peculiar fishes could have originated in-
dependently in three widely separated parts of the world, and as they
inhabit fresh water they could not have crossed the sea; it is also known
that they belong to an old group of former wide distribution, their fossil
remains being found in Europe and North America. So it is considered
that at some very distant period of the world’s history there was a land
connection between Australia, Africa, and South America, and that
during this period the distribution of the Dipnoi took place, a conclu-
sion that derives some support from other evidence.

Another view is that these continents have not been directly con-
nected but that they have been populated from the north the few related
animals now found there being simply “hold overs’’ from early geologi-
cal times.

The story of the past life of the earth is usually considered by itself
and that branch of science is termed Paleontology.!. This is mainly a
matter of convenience, because the subject is so great in itself, for the
life of the past has its direct bearing on that of the present and to under-
stand one it is necessary to have a knowledge of the other.

NOMENCLATURE

Some things about the study of natural history, or rather about the
published results of this study, often seem peculiar and unnecessary,
prominent among them being scientific names and the classification of
animals, two matters that are intimately related. When men began
really to study animals, and to publish the results of their observations,
the descriptions were printed in Latin, this being the language used by
students and familiar to men of liberal education in all countries. In
order that the animals might be readily recognized, it was customary to
preface the account of each with a brief description of its more evident
characteristics, something much like what is now called a diagnosis.
The lion, for example, might be styled the tawny colored cat with a mane;
the tiger, the striped cat; the leopard, the large, many spotted cat, and
soon. And to this day many naturalists preface their descriptions with
a brief Latin diagnosis. As the tide of commerce of the eighteenth cen-

1From the Greek palaios, ancient, on, a being, and logia, to speak; in other words,
a treatise on ancient beings or life.

12 A FIRST CHAPTER

tury brought to Europe scores of animals before unknown, the number of
recognized species increased so rapidly that it became difficult to keep
track of them. To overcome this difficulty, the great Swedish natural-
ist, Linnzus, devised the plan of giving to each animal two names, the
first a general, or generic, name, which should indicate the group to
which the animal belonged, the second a special or specific name, to ap-
ply to that animal alone, this method of naming animals and plants
being known as the binomial (two-name) system of nomenclature. So
the lion became Felvs leo, the lion cat (the adjective comes last in Latin) ;
the tiger Felis tigris, the tiger cat; and the leopard Felis pardalis, the
spotted cat, the common name felzs indicating that they were of the same
genus or kind.

While zoological names thus began in descriptions, they have ended
by becoming merely convenient handles by which to lay hold of any
particular animal; so at present names do not necessarily have any
meaning, or contain any reference to the characteristics of the animal
to which they are applied, although customarily they do so. It is very
much the same with our own names. Time was, long ago to be sure,
when the names of people were descriptive, just as they are even now
among Indians and savage races. But Black, White, Strong, Smith,
and Carpenter have ceased to mean anything save that their bearer is a
member of some particular family who has his own special name also.
But, it is frequently asked, why can’t animals have common as well as
scientific names? One reason why many animals have no common names
is that they are not commonly known, but a better reason is that there
are not enough names to go around. While our largest dictionaries
claim to define only some 300,000 words, more than 350,000 species of
animals, great and small, have already been described, and at the present
rate of discovery the number will probably reach 500,000 within twenty
years. Therefore, as they are not commonly known, it is obviously
impossible to have a common name for each one, and so they are recorded
only by scientific names.

It must also be remembered that a large proportion of these scientific
names seem strange and formidable only because they are unfamiliar;
and those that have worked their way into our acquaintance, such as
elephant, rhinoceros and boa constrictor, do not seem at all strange.

Some may also complain that scientific names are being constantly
changed, but this is true only to a limited extent, and is due partly to a
few individuals who decline to be guided by any rules, and partly to the
working of what is called the law of priority—the rule that the specific

IN NATURAL HISTORY 13

name first applied to any animal is the one that shall be used. As some
of these names first appear in rare or little known books, it often hap-
pens that a name long current is found to be antedated by another,
and must, therefore, be changed.

It will be found that some of the animals described in books have
not only two, but three names, and this means that they belong to a par-
ticular race, or subspecies, of some well recognized species. It was once
thought that species were unchangeable, and that animals were sharply
distinguished from one another, but as they were more carefully studied,
and more specimens were available, it became evident that individuals
from a given part of the range or habitat of a species, might be slightly
different from the standard—those dwelling in desert regions being a
little paler than the majority, and those residing in damp, wooded
localities being somewhat darker. To such local groups or geograph-
ical races, the name of subspecies (under-kind) is applied, and the study
of this is a part of the study of geographical distribution.

CLASSIFICATION

Classification is merely the orderly arrangement of animals, or other
objects, placing those most closely related to one another in a class by
themselves and arranging the groups thus formed with reference to their
degree of relationship. In the case of animals, this results in the forma-
tion of groups of varying size and importance, the principal being Species,
Genus, Family, Order, Class, and Phylum, while for purposes of great-
er exactness intermediate assemblages may be made, such as super-
order, subclass, subfamily, and so on, the prefix super, above, meaning
greater than, and sub, under, less than.

The entire Animal Kingdom is divided into large branches or phyla,
a Phylum! being a large assemblage of animals that have had a common
line of descent and agree in some very important character. Thus the
classes Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Batrachia, and Fishes form parts of the
Branch or Phylum Vertebrata, or backboned animals, which are distin-
guished by having a more or less complete internal skeleton of cartilage
or bone.

The first division of animals was into vertebrates and invertebrates,
according as they did or did not have a backbone, but it was soon recog-
nized that the invertebrates differed among themselves quite as much as
they did from the vertebrates. So Cuvier divided them into Radiates,

1From the Greek phylon, a tribe.

14 A FIRST CHAPTER

Mollusks, and Articulates, and as our knowledge of animals has increased
so also has the number of groups into which they are divided: for a
system of classification is merely an expression of the present state of our
knowledge of animals.

Phyla are divided into Classes! whose many (often thousands) mem-
bers are constructed on the same general plan. The mammals, for ex-
ample, have hot blood, a four-chambered heart, and suckle their young;
all birds have feathers; reptiles have cold blood and are never clad in
either hair or feathers. But while these are very apparent differences
they are associated with others, equally important if not so obvious,
which can be expressed only in technical language.

Classes in turn are divided into Orders? which embrace one or sev-
eral Families. Thus the cats so closely resemble one another in struc-
ture that all living and many extinct species are included in the family
Felidx, whose most evident character is the great development of the ca-
nine teeth, the reduction in number of the jaw teeth and the adaptation
of a few of them for cutting flesh; whence these teeth are called secto-
rial teeth.

Another familiar order is that containing the gnawing animals, or ro-
dents, known as Glires. This contains more species and individuals
than any other order of mammals, a large proportion being included in
the well known family Muridz that embraces the rats and mice.

Related families are the Hystricide or porcupines, Dipodidzx, jer-
boas, and Sciwridx or squirrels.

The order Bruta contains those stupid, brutish creatures the sloths,
anteaters and armadillos. It has also been termed Edentata, or tooth-
less, some of the members lacking teeth altogether, while all agree in
being destitute of front or incisor teeth. To the Ungulata, or hoofed
quadrupeds, in whose ranks are found the deer, Cervidx, belong also the
sheep, goats and cattle of the family Bovidx and the horses of Equide.

The dogs form the family Canidz, the bears the Ursidx, these, with
several others, being embraced in the order Ferx, known also as Carnivora
or flesh eaters—the beasts of prey—which contains those animals not
merely adapted for a predatory life, but agreeing in some important char-
acters of teeth and skeleton. The mere fact that any animal is a flesh
eater does not make it a member of the order Ferx, any more than living
in the water makes a creature a fish, for habits are not characters, al-
though they may be characteristic. Some of the Marsupials, or pouched

1Latin, classis, a class.
2Latin ordo, a row or series, hence an order is a series of animals.

IN NATURAL HISTORY 15

mammals, are flesh eaters and prey upon other animals, but they are
very different from the true carnivores. While whales live in the water
they breathe air by means of lungs, and not by gills, their blood is
warm, their young are born alive and are nourished on milk, their back
and tail fins have no fin rays, and the bones of the side fins are like those
of the fore leg of a quadruped. In all these points they differ from fishes
and agree with other mammals.

The Genus! is next below the family and includes animals that have
some character or characters in common, though differing from one an-
other in smaller, or specific characters. Like the groups already dealt
with a genus may contain one, or many species; for one species may dif-
fer so much from any other as to require a place, or genus, by itself, while
a number of distinct species may possess some common character. Thus
a large proportion of all squirrels belong in the genus Sczwrus, and the
true cats, great and small, the lion and the common cat (for size has
nothing to do with relationship) are included in the genus Felzs; the
short-tailed cats are placed in the genus Lynx, and the hunting leopard
or cheetah, whose claws are only partly retractile, and cannot be drawn
within their sheaths as in other cats, in the genus Cynzlurus.

Lastly comes the Species’, whose members constantly resemble one
another in all essential particulars of form, size and color, the exceptions
being the geographical races or subspecies mentioned elsewhere. The
species may be called the unit of classification, and subspecies may be
looked upon as fractions.

Still using the lion as an illustration, the various groups to which
this animal belongs are: Phylum, Vertebrata; Class, Mammalia; Order,
Fere, Suborder, Fissipedia (split-footed or clawed); Family, Felidz;
Genus, Felis; Species, Leo. This is clearly shown in the accompanying
table illustrating the position of the Lion in the Animal Kingdom.

Anyone who examines a few systems of classification may find that
they do not agree with one another in all points; this, however, is no
more surprising than that people differ in matters of religion, politics, or
schools of medicine. Any system is to some extent an expression of in-
dividual opinion, and two persons will rarely agree on all questions,
even in natural history.

It may appear strange that one order should contain only one or
two species, while another comprises hundreds, even thousands. But the
importance of a group does not depend on the number of species it in-

1Latin genus, a race or kind.
’Latin species, a particular sort; be sure never to say specie.

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IN NATURAL HISTORY 17

cludes, but on the extent to which these resemble or differ from those of
other groups, orders, or families, as the case may be; fifty cents make a
larger pile than does a single dollar, but they do not form a more im-
portant assemblage. So the order Proboscidea contains only two living
species of elephants, but zoologically it is even more important than the
Glires, or rodents, which includes the majority of all mammals.

This classifying of animals may be compared to the organization of
an army composed of thousands of individuals (species) distinguished as
officers and privates (genera) formed into companies (families), regiments
(orders) and brigades (classes) which in turn constitute divisions (phyla),
the whole vast total forming an army like the animal kingdom.

So the classification of animals is merely an expression of their
degrees of relationship to one another and enables the naturalist to place
his species as a general does his soldiers.

LIFE AND TIME

The existing plant and animal life of the world is the result of
evolution through long geologic ages, during which race after race of
animals came into being, flourished for a time, and wholly or largely
died out. The table on a following page shows the estimated age of the
world, the length of different periods in the past during which this
evolution took place, the predominant life of these periods, and the
point of origin, so far as known from fossils, when this life began.

As we are dependent on fossils for our knowledge of the life of the
past it may be well to devote a few lines to the subject of

HOW FOSSILS ARE FORMED

based on Dr. Matthew’s account in the General Guide. A fuller de-
scription may be found in Animals of the Past.

In a general way, fossils are the petrified remains of plants or
animals that lived at some past period of the earth’s history, but they
include such things as trails left by worms and other creeping things
and footprints of animals on the sands of time. In many instances we
have not the objects themselves but only their casts or impressions in
the rocks. This is particularly the case with shells. Sometimes, as
with the bones of the great Irish elk, the objects have been buried in
swamps or bogs, and in a few rare instances, as with the mammoth and
woolly rhinoceros, entire animals have been preserved for thousands of
years in ice or frozen mud. Fossils are found in localities where the

18 A FIRST CHAPTER

dead animals or plants have gradually been buried under layers of sedi-
ment to such a depth that they come in contact with the mineral waters
of the earth and finally become petrified, the essential point being that
they are covered by water, or at least buried in wet ground. Later
through subsequent upheaval and erosion they are again brought to
or near the surface of the earth. Petrifaction is the slow replacement
of animal or vegetable material by such minerals as carbonate of lime or
silica. The process is very slow and for this reason flesh is never petrified.

As it takes thousands of years for the various layers of earth to
accumulate over the bones, and for the latter to become petrified, the
study of fossils and the strata in which they are found is an important
aid in determining the age of the earth and the succession of life thereon.

The Divisions of Geologic Time are based on the character of
their life as indicated by fossils.

The estimated Duration of Geologic Time is based largely on
the thickness of the rocks.

Exhibits relating to the geologic history of the earth, and its
past life, will be found on the fourth floor of the Museum. Those in
the Hall of Geology illustrate the structure of the earth, include examples
of the various rocks of which it is composed, and are accompanied
by fossils showing the general character of the life of the different geologic
periods and the steps or stages that have led to the animal life of the present.

Proceeding to the Southeast Pavilion and going westward, one
passes from the hall devoted to fossil fishes, through those containing
reptiles and mammals, coming finally to the Hall of the Age of Man,
and in a few minutes witnesses changes that required millions of years for
their accomplishment. The strange armor-clad fishes, unlike any now
living, were succeeded by amphibians and reptiles, among them curious
creatures like Naosaurus and the great dinosaurs which in their day
were the rulers of the earth. Here are huge herbivorous reptiles like
Brontosaurus and Triceratops and the flesh-eating creatures that preyed
upon them, including Tyrannosaurus, the most formidable beast of
prey that ever lived. They passed out of existence and gave place
to the mammals, and these underwent many changes before the forms
of to-day appeared. Lastly came man, a weakling compared with the
animals by which he was surrounded, which include such forms as the
mammoth, mastodon and great ground sloths, and yet, by reason of his
superior brain and its servant, the hand, coming to dominate them all.

Many of the animals shown in these halls are described in Hand-
book Animals of the Past, another is devoted to Dinosaurs, and leaflets
discuss Mammoths and Mastodons and the Evolution of the Horse.

MILLIONS

os
o

7
a

cd
o

a
oO

Fu

ROCKS GENERALLY METAMORPHOSED: IGNEOUS PREDOMINANT:

1

EDOMINANT;

IGNEOUS SECONDARY.
ENTOMBED FOSSILS DIRECT EVIDENCE OF FORMER LIFE

ROCKS CHIEFLY UNMETAMORPHOSED: SEDIMENTARY PRI

SEDIMENTARY SECONDARY. LIMESTONE, IRON ORE, AND.
GRAPHITE INDIRECT EVIDENCE OF FORMER LIFE. FOSSILS SCARCE.

IN NATURAL HISTORY l

QUATERNARY

LIFE AND TIME

AGE OF MAN

TERTIARY
3,000,000 YEARS

CENOZOIC

UPPER
CRETACEOUS
2,500,000 YEARS

LOWER
CRETACEOUS
2,000,000 YEARS

JURASSIC
2,000,000 YEARS

MESOZOIC

TRIASSIC
2,500,000 YEARS

3,000,000
6,000,000 TO 9,000,000 YEARS: YEARS

PERMIAN
1,500,000 YEARS
PENNSYLVANIAN
(UPPER
CARBONIFEROUS)
2,000,000 YEARS

MISSISSIPPIAN
(LOWER
CARBONIFEROUS)

3,000,000 YEARS

AGE
OF
MAMMALS

AGE
OF
REPTILES

AGE
OF
AMPHIBIANS.

DEVONIAN
2,500,000 YEARS

SILURIAN
2,000,000 YEARS

PALAEOZOIC

ORDOVICIAN
4,500,000 YEARS

FROM 12,000,000 TO 18,000,000 YEARS

CAMBRIAN
3,000,000 YEARS

KEWEENAWAN

ANIMIKIAN

HURONIAN

ALGOMIAN
SUDBURIAN

LAURENTIAN

GRENVILLE
(KEEWATIN)
{COUCHICHING)

PROTEROZOIC

FROM 20,000,000 TO 30,000,000 YEARS

ARCHAEOZOIC (ARCHEAN)

AGE
OF
INVERTEBRATES

EVOLUTION
OF
INVERTEBRATES

EVOLUTION
OF

UNICELLULAR
LIFE

MODERN
BIROS OF MODERN TYPE: TYPES OF

MAMMALS
‘COOTHED BIRD:

Hesperornis
P

SMALL
MARS UPIAL
MAMMALS
REPTILIAN BIRDS
Archaeopteryx

FIRST
MAMMALS

VANCED MAMMAL~
—LIKE REPTILES

MAMMAL-LIKE REPTILES

PRIMITIVE REPTILES
FIRST AMPHIBIANS

FIRST GANOIDS

FIRST FISHES

FIRST KNOWN BACKBONED ANIMALS

FIRST KNOWN INVERTEBRATES
FIRST KNOWN PLANTS

Prepared by Dr. Chester A. Reeds.

Based upon time estimates of Walcott and Schuchert.

SOME MUSEUM PUBLICATIONS
OF USE IN CONNECTION WITH THIS LEAFLET

ANIMALS OF THE PAST. By Freperic A. Lucas

A popular account of some of the creatures of the Ancient
World; tells of Mammoth and Mastodon, the great Sea Reptiles,
the Dinosaurs and giant Birds. 200 pages with illustrations by
Charles R. Knight and Joseph Gleeson. Cloth, 75 cents.

No. 5. DINOSAURS. By W. D. Matruew, Ph.D., Curator of Verte-

brate Paleontology. New edition, in preparation.

An account of these huge monsters, describing also the condi-
tions under which they lived and flourished and telling of their
distribution in the days when the earth was young and how their
bones are discovered, collected and mounted.

. 36. THE EVOLUTION OF THE HORSE IN NATURE AND

UNDER DOMESTICATION. By W. D. Marruew, Ph.D.,
Curator, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, and 8. H. Cuuss.
September, 1913, 64 pages, 39 illustrations. Price, 20 cents.

The past geologic history of the Horse affords the most complete
and convincing illustration of evolution among mammals. This
leaflet, based upon material in this Museum, describes the successive
stages in its evolution from the four-toed “‘ Hohippus no bigger than
a fox”’ to the single-toed horse of to-day.

No. 57. GUIDE TO THE HALL OF MAMMALS. By Freperic A.

Lucas, Director of The American Museum of Natural History.
New edition, October, 1923, 16 pages, 11 illustrations, 1 chart.
Price 10 cents.

Intended especially for the use of Teachers and pupils in con-
nection with the exhibits. Tells what Mammals are, gives a brief
synopsis of the various orders of Mammals, touches on the princi-
pals of classification and calls attention to the bearing of the modi-
fications of the skeleton on an animal’s mode of life.

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FOR THE PEOPLE

FOR EDUCATION

FOR SCIENCE

By HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN

Revised by
WILLIAM K. GREGORY
and
GEORGE PINKLEY

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AAAERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL TI STORY.

GEOLOGIC |vetes| STRUCTURAL | DOMINANT
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Primitive man MAN

Pliocene | o'
No ae ikl apes
Miocene] )
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oi i MAMMALS
_| First primates
(Lemuroids & Tarsioids)
Cretaceous Early placental in-
( sectivorous mammals
(Comanchean AGE OF
ower Urelaceous
Jurassic. |!55,000,000 REPTILES
: : First mammals
Triassic *

¥: 180,000,000] Mammal-like
Permian reptiles

pe pneylvanian Primitive reptiles | AMPHIBIANS

Up. Carboniferous)

Mississippian First hibi

(Lo. Carboniferous) irst ampnibians

Devonian |First true fishes) GE OF

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Earliest

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450,000,000) (Ostracoderms)

550,000,000

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CHART I

The cover design shows a profile of Neanderthal Man

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THE HALL OF THE
AGE OF MAN

By

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN

Late Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology and President of the
Board of Trustees, The American Museum of Natural History

Seventh Edition
Revised to 1938
By
WILLIAM K. GREGORY and GEORGE PINKLEY

Issued under the direction of the
Committee on Popular Publications

Roy W. Miner, Chairman

GUIDE LEAFLET SERIES
of the
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
No. 52

Central Park West at 79th Street
NEW YORK, N. Y.
1938

TABLE OF GLACIAL STAGES, CULTURAL STAGES,
AND HUMAN REMAINS OF THE AGE OF MAN
INTERGLACIAL STAGES STAGES

MODERN MAN
, Homo sapiens, Whole world.

C IY s CRO-MAGNQN GROUP
LAC]; omo sapiens fossilts, urope.
aes MOUNT CARMEL P

oro , Palestine.
NEANDERTHAL GROUP
Homo neanderthalensis, Europe.
SOLO MAN
Homo soloensis, Java.

INTERGLACIAL

3
Ill
GLACIAL
Riss

MOUSTERIAN

©

gaat a

2
INTERGLACIAL| ACHEULIAN ' HEIDELBERG MAN
Ytomo heidelbergensis, Europe.
LOWER ; PILTDOWN MAN
| PAL AOL [pI ‘Foanthropus dawson, England
ll OLD STONE || PEKING MAN

Oe eG GE) \Sinanthropus pekinensis, China

Mindel

: JAVA APE-MAN
ithecanthropus erectus, Java.
CHELLEAN

PRE-CHELLEAN

gs el Fi Re tO a

ie

Vaan ao

GLACIAL
unz

PLIOCENE

(Average estimate, 1.000.000 years ago)

CHART II

II

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE PALAEONTOLOGY OF MAN

Man’s Puace In NATURE

THE OLDER Races OF MANKIND (Early and Middle Ice Age) .

The Pithecanthropus of Java
The Modjokerto Child of Java
Peking Man (China).
Heidelberg Man (Germany)
Piltdown Man (England).

Tue LATER Races oF MANKIND (Later Ice Age and Recent) .

Neanderthal Man (Europe and Asia)
Rhodesian Man (Africa) .

Ngandong Man (Java)

Mount Carmel Man (Palestine) .
Cro-Magnon Man (Europe) :
Men of the Transitional Period (Europe)
Men of the New Stone Age (Europe)
Talgai Man (Australia)

The Coming of Man in America.

lll

INTRODUCTION TO THE PALAEONTOLOGY
OF MAN

The Age of Man dates from the time when primitive man first
learned to utilize fire and began to make weapons and tools of stone,
perhaps near the beginning of the Great Ice Age (the Pleistocene or
Glacial period). So far as they are known, the bones of early man indi-
cate that from a remote time he stood erect or nearly so, that he was
neither quadrupedal nor arboreal in habit. Alert to escape the disasters
of floods and sandstorms that have entombed great numbers of animals,
especially of the open country and plains, our ancestors and precursors
left few remains to become preserved as fossils.

Knowledge of prehistoric man is of necessity acquired by inter-
pretations of his physical remains, from evidences of his culture, and
from whatever may be learned of his environment. Fossil human
remains consist only of bones and teeth, always rare and usually
fragmentary. But careful and competent restorations by the methods
of comparative anatomy and palacontology may offer a very fair idea
of the appearance ‘‘in the flesh” of various early human types. The
size, shape, and somewhat of the configuration of the brain are revealed
by a east of the cranial cavity; a rough judgment of mental abilities
may be made from the relative development of various functional
areas. Weapons and tools of stone, later of bone and horn, and finally,
just before the beginnings of history, of metals, indicate a slow evolu-
tion of types of implements and a gradual attainment of skill in work-
manship. During the later part of the Old Stone Age (Chart II)
dawning artistic impulses were expressed by articles of adornment;
engravings and carvings on stone, bone, ivory, horn and probably
wood; outlines made with fingertips and sticks, and modelings in clay;
and mural drawings and paintings in caves, with ochers and earths for
pigments. The subjects are predominantly animals, hunting scenes,
and human figures. The older human fossil remains are usually found
preserved in ancient river sediments but the later ones are most often
found in cave deposits, sometimes as burials.

All living peoples have usually been classified as belonging to a
single species, Homo sapiens, the various races representing subspecies
or geographic varieties. But certain fossil human types differed so
much from ourselves that they have been regarded as distinct species of
the Hominid, or human family. However, as new discoveries are
made the gaps between the supposedly distinet species tend to be
bridged.

2 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

In what part of the world the Age of Man had its beginnings,
just where the cradle of humanity was located, is a matter of diverse
opinion. To most authorities the evidence, based on a study of fossil
remains and the distribution of existing races, suggests some unknown
region of central or southern Asia. But to others, some part of Europe,
or of Africa, or of the Near East, seems to have been a more likely
locality. Man apparently did not arrive in America until a relatively
late date (possibly some 12,000 years ago, according to recent evidence).

The Age of Man (Chart II) includes the Pleistocene (Great Ice
Age) and the Recent epochs of geologic time. Even at the present time
glaciers, or rivers of compressed snow and ice, may be seen in the Alps,
Rocky Mountains, and other high mountains. Greenland and Ant-
arctica are deeply buried under continental glaciers which are several
thousands of feet in thickness. During the Pleistocene epoch vast areas
in northern Europe and northern North America were covered with
continental glaciers, not once but several different times. These
glaciers slowly accumulated during long periods of falling tempera-
tures. The causes of this great refrigeration were very complex and
are not well known. There were four glacial and three interglacial
stages, followed by a postglacial stage, or Recent epoch, in which we
now are living. A few of the occurrences of fossil man may be dated
by reference to glacial and interglacial deposits, but more often they
cannot, since most of the remains have been found in non-glaciated
regions.

During the long glacial and interglacial stages the mammalian
life, together with the forests and meadows, retreated or advanced like
a straggling battle front. As time went on, new forms of mammalian
life appeared in the fossil record, and there was indeed a succession of
fossil mammalian faunas in which older forms gradually dropped out
of the record and existing species became more numerous. Since human
fossil remains are often found in association with those of fossil mam-
mals, a means may exist for dating the human remains. It is often
indefinite or uncertain, however.

The Age of Man has also been divided into periods of archaeologic
time by the sequence of types of handicrafts (Chart II). The Palaeo-
lithic, or Old Stone Age, comprises nearly all of Pleistocene time and
begins with extremely crude implements without distinctive charac-
teristics. But in the late Palaeolithic well designed and _ skillfully
chipped flint implements were produced. The Mesolithic, or transi-
tional period, and Neolithic, or New Stone period of polished stone
implements, continue into Recent time; and the Bronze and Iron Ages
are associated with the beginnings of civilization. Thus the association

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 3

of particular types of weapons or tools may supply evidence of the
relative antiquity of human remains.

Although there are accurate means available for measuring in
years much greater expanses of geologic time, there has as yet been
no method devised for measuring the length of the Glacial or Pleisto-
cene period. Current estimates average about 1,000,000 years, how-
ever, and this seems to harmonize well with other suggestive evidence.
An ingenious method of counting and correlating the varves, or layers
of annual deposition in ancient glacial lake beds left in the track of
melting glaciers,! indicates that about 35,000 years have elapsed since
the continental ice sheets began to melt away in their last recession.
The climate and temperature reached their approximate present con-
dition about 10,000 years ago, and this may be taken as the beginning
of Recent time (Antevs).

The beginning of the Age of Man marks the closing phases of the
Age of Mammals. The extinction of the most superb mammals
that the earth has produced began during the early stages of the Ice
Age, due directly or indirectly to severe climatic changes involving
the formation of the great glaciers. With the development of improved
weapons of flint and of metal, and finally of firearms, destruction of
mammalian life has proceeded with increasing rapidity. Unless con-
servation measures intervene man may soon remain alone amid the
ruins of the mammalian world he has destroyed.

The Hall of the Age of Man is intended to show what actually is
known of man and his environment through the long period of geologic
time during which he rose from a humble animal heritage and condition
of limited intelligence to his present estate of dominance of the animal
world and control of many of the forces of nature. The exhibit is
arranged to present the story of man’s existence from remote times,
which discoveries of stone implements and skeletal remains have
furnished.

The small size of the exhibit is an indication of the scarcity of
human fossil remains; most of the important specimens that have been
discovered in various parts of the world are reproduced by casts made
from the original specimens, which are in the possession of many
museums and laboratories abroad. The remains, facsimiles, restora-
tions, and mural paintings of prehistoric man and of the great extinct
mammals among which he lived and struggled, represent the knowledge
gained during more than a century of exploration and research in
comparative anatomy and in mammalian and human palaeontology.

1A method devised by Baron Gerard de Geer of Sweden, and used in America
chiefly by Ernst Antevs.

4 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

They offer vivid and accurate representation of early man and his
larger animal contemporaries in various regions of the world.

The beginning of the collection of casts of skulls and teeth was a
gift from Dr. Leon J. Williams in 1915; various additions from time
to time have been made by Prof. Eugéne Dubois, Prof. J. H. McGregor,
Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, Dr. Robert Broom, Dr. 8. A. Smith,
Mr. J. Reid Moir, Prof. Davidson Black, Prof. Franz Weidenreich,
Sir Colin MacKenzie, and many others; also by gifts from foreign
museums and institutions. Flint implements and other characteristic
works of early man are introduced only as accessories to the present
exhibit, the visitor being referred for further information along these
lines to the Hall of Prehistoric Cultures on the second floor, southwest
pavilion.

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 5

MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE

In 1758 Linnaeus classified man as a mammal belonging to the
order of Primates. Subsequent research in many branches of natural
history has brought more and more cumulative evidence in support of
this startling conclusion. But mankind as a whole feels so immeasur-
ably superior to the animals that he is unwilling to acknowledge his
kinship with them.

The exhibit entitled “Family Tree of Man’ was prepared by Dr.
William K. Gregory in 1922-1924 upon the basis of scientific data then
available. The passage of time has brought much confirmatory evi-
dence in favor of this arrangement. For example, the extinct South
African ape Australopithecus (Figs. 2, 3) would appear to stand on a
small branch between the main human line and the gorilla-chimpanzee
branch; several extinct fossil forms which have been given separate
generic and specific names either tend to lessen the structural gap
between apes and men (e. g., Ramapithecus, Bramapithecus, of India)
or to connect the stem of Homo sapiens (modern man) with that of the
Pithecanthropus-Neanderthal series (e. g., Sinanthropus, Homo soloensis,
the Tabun race of Palestine, etc.).

The earliest known fossil primates come from the basal Eocene
formations of Western North America. A skull model of one of the
Middle Eocene primates (Fig. 1, 7) shows an unreduced muzzle and
relatively small brain-case. The first apes, with reduced muzzle and
enlarged brain-case, date from the Oligocene (Fig. 1, 2). In the long
ages of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs (the second half of the Age
of Mammals) there was a great branching out into different lines on the
part of the primitive anthropoid stock; some of these foreshadowed
the modern gorillas and chimpanzees, while others (e. g., Ramapithecus)
showed certain prehuman characters in the jaw and molar teeth.
The genus Dryopithecus (Fig. 1, 3) was a primitive anthropoid ape
from the Mio-Pliocene of India and Europe. So far as known it forms
an approximate ‘‘structural ancestor” for both apes and men.

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8 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

Fig. 2. Australopiihecus, right side view of the skull. After Dart.

The fossil skull of an ape found towards the end of 1924 at Taungs,
Bechuanaland, South Africa, was named by its deseriber, Prof.
taymond A. Dart, Australopithecus africanus. It is the most man-like
of all known apes, recent or fossil. The original skull (Fig. 2) belonged
to a young animal with the milk teeth in place.

In 1936, Dr. Robert Broom secured an additional incomplete fossil
skull of an adult ape belonging to the same genus, Awstralopithecus.
This specimen, found in a eave deposit at Sterckfontein, South Africa,

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 9

fortunately included a nearly complete endocranial cast and the perma-
nent or adult upper premolars and molars (Fig. 3). These reveal
many features found in chimpanzees and gorillas but are on the whole
remarkably man-like. The evidence of Australopithecus tends to
bridge structural differences between ape and man.

Fig. 3. Upper premolars and first and second upper molars of fossil man-ape
Australopithecus. After Broom.

By the latter part of the Age of Mammals the prehuman stock had
probably become broken up into several distinct species, some of
which were more backward, others more progressive toward higher
types.

barennpd mw of
ihe ae Ab pre Cate ine
mel Fhe, any /

The mwlar teeth found near the skull-top
In comparison with teeth of Orang-utans

RACES OF MEN

Il. RACE OF JAN

PITHECANTHROPUS; THE APE-MAN OF JAVA

Fig. 4. Casts of skull top, endocranial cavity, femur and teeth. The labels are in the hand-
writing of Dr. Dubois, the discoverer of this remarkable specimen, by whom these casts were

presented. The teeth are now regarded as having belonged to an orang-utan.

10

THE OLDER RACES OF MANKIND
(Early and Middle Ice Age)

THE PITHECANTHROPUS OF JAVA

The lowliest of known early human or prehuman stocks is the
Pithecanthropus, from an older Pleistocene formation near Trinil,
Java. The remains of Trinil man were found in 1891 and 1892 by Dr.
Eugéne Dubois, who had gone to the Netherlands East Indies with the
avowed purpose of discovering an early form of fossil man. The re-
mains consist of the upper part of a cranium (brain-case), a femur
(thigh bone), and three teeth, found seattered over a small area; and
also a fragment of a mandible (lower Jaw-bone) from another locality.
Forty years later four additional femurs were recovered from a large
collection of fossils that had been sent to Europe. Dubois ascribed all
of the remains to a single species but there have been many dissenting
opinions, especially that the skull-eap and femur represent different
forms, and that the teeth are those of a fossil orang-utan.

The name Pithecanthropus erectus (ape-man of erect posture) was
given by Dubois because the skull (Figs. 4, 16) is strongly reminiscent
of that of an ape—indeed it was long debated whether Pithecanthropus
was a progressive ape or a primitive man—and the character of the
femur indicates an upright attitude. The skull-cap is low-vaulted,
and with a heavy supra-orbital torus (brow-ridge) it is at once far
more human than that of any ape and far more ape-like than that of
any other known man. The reconstruction by MeGregor expresses the
half-human, half-anthropoid aspects.

The removal of the stony matrix from the interior of the skull-eap
and study of the endocranial cast by Dubois, Elliot Smith, MeGregor,
Tilney, and others, have resulted in considerable knowledge of
the brain structure and inferred function, the most important discovery
being that Trinil Man possessed to a limited extent the faculty of
speech. The estimated brain capacity, about 900 cubic centimeters, is
intermediate between that of the giant apes and the lowlier living
human races. But all in all, the brain was nearer to that of man, the
imprint of the frontal lobes on the cranial wall indicating an extremely
primitive human status.

No stone implements or other artifacts were found with the
remains.

The geologic age of the formation in which the Pithecanthropus
remains were discovered has not been definitely determined, due to the
difficulty of correlating the age of the associated fossil mammals with

11

12 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

those found in other parts of the world. At first, these mammals were
believed to have lived during Late Pliocene time; but more extensive
studies and wider knowledge of fossil faunas have led many palaeon-
tologists to interpret the age as Early to Middle Pleistocene. In any
event, the antiquity of Pithecanthropus is very great, probably not
less than 500,000 years.

Recently, in September, 1937, a second cranium of Pithecanthropus
and part of a mandible containing four teeth were found not far from
Trinil by Dr. G. H. R. von Koenigswald. This cranium is more nearly
complete than the one found forty-six years earlier; it seems to be that
of a female, the other probably represents a male. The brain capacity is
only about 750 cubic centimeters—half that of the average modern
European skull—and serves to emphasize further the ape-like features
of Trinil man.

THE MODJOKERTO CHILD OF JAVA
In 1936 the fossil skull of an infant was found in sediments, per-
haps of Lower or Middle Pleistocene age, near Modjokerto, Java,
and described by Dr. von Koenigswald. The skull shows many primi-
tive features. The height and the brain capacity are much less than
are those of modern human infant skulls of the same length or approxi-
mate age. Although this child appears to have been between one and
four years of age, the forehead is more receding and the supra-orbital
(brow) ridges are better developed than are those of the La Quina
Neanderthal child’s skull of about eight years of age. Since in child-
hood the forehead is more nearly upright than later and the brow-
ridges are undeveloped, the Modjokerto child evidently is of a more
primitive human type than the Neanderthal child. It may well be an
infant Pithecanthropus, as von Koenigswald has suggested, although

he has described it as a new species, Homo modjokertensis.

PEKING MAN

From a collection of “‘dragon’s teeth’’! purchased in pharmacies in
Peking (Peiping), China, Prof. Max Schlosser described, in 1903, a
fossil tooth which seemed to be human. This suggested the possibility
of finding fossil man in China. Twenty years later, while excavating a
cave deposit containing fossil Pleistocene mammals at Choukoutien?
near Peking, two fossil human teeth were obtained by Dr. Otto
Zdansky. In 1927 an additional tooth was described by Prof. Davidson
Black as representing a new type of fossil man, Sinanthropus pekinensis

1The teeth of fossil mammals collected and used by the Chinese for pharma-
ceutical purposes.
2Pronounced “Jo-go-tee-en’.”’

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 13

(Chinese-man of Peking). Many teeth, several broken mandibles and
six crania, representing twenty-seven or more individuals of Sinan-
thropus, have since been recovered by the National Geological Survey
of China. Although thousands of bones of fossil mammals have been
excavated, the paucity of human skeletal parts other than of skulls is
remarkable.

The skulls of Stnanthropus (Figs. 5, 6) are of a primitive and lowly
type, with well developed brow-ridges and small low-vaulted crania.
But they are structurally somewhat more progressive than the skulls
of Pithecanthropus, with greater brain capacities, averaging about
1035 (915-1220) ecubie centimeters. The area of the brain concerned
with motor control of the organs of speech (Broca’s convolution)
appears to be well developed. However, the association (‘‘thinking’’)
areas, some of which are concerned with the use of language, are
deficient in development in comparison with those of modern man.
This suggests that although the physical ability to produce speech
sounds may have been present, the mental capacity for symbolic
thinking necessary for the invention and use of words could hardly
have been in more than a rudimentary condition. !

Peking man evidently understood the making and use of tools
and of fire. There are numerous crude stone implements and seemingly
some of deer antler and of bone. The burned condition of bones,
antlers, pieces of wood, and the blackened and baked cave sediments
clearly indicate the usage of fire.

The geologic age of the remains has not been definitely determined,
for reasons similar to those pertaining to Pithecanthropus. Difficulty is
also due to lack of clear definition of the limits of Pleistocene forma-
tions. However, Peking man lived sometime during Early or Middle
Pleistocene times, probably a half million or more years ago.

Near the top of the same limestone hill from which the cave de-
posits containing the remains of Peking man have been excavated, the
filling of an ‘Upper Cave”’ yielded three human skeletons of a far
more advanced type than is represented by Sinanthropus. They are,
in fact, primitive representatives of the living species of man, and re-
semble the remains of the more primitive types of Upper Palaeolithic
Homo sapiens (vide infra) found in Europe. They are distinctly not
of the modern Chinese type. Associated mammalian fossils suggest a
late Pleistocene age, and the artifacts (implements, et cetera) appear
to represent an Upper Palaeolithic culture.

1A like statement may be made with pertinence for other primitive forms of
fossil man.

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

14

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Fig. 7. The Heidelberg jaw. About one-third natural size. After Schoetensack.

Fig. 8. Sanpprr ar Mauer, near Heidelberg. X marks the spot

where the Heidelberg jaw was found, beneath 79 feet of deposits of Pleistocene
and Recent (top) age. After Schoetensack.

16

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 17

HEIDELBERG MAN

A single mandible (lig. 7), with the teeth, found in a commercial
sand pit at Mauer, near Heidelberg, Germany, in 1907, is the only
source of information concerning one ancient and vanished type of
man, Homo heidelbergensis. For twenty years Dr. Otto Schoetensack,
of the University of Heidelberg, watched the excavations for human
remains, because fossils of extinct Pleistocene mammals were fre-
quently found. The Mauer jaw had become embedded (Fig. 8) in
ancient river sediments and buried to a depth of 24 meters (79 feet)
by deposits of gravel, sand, clay, silt, and loess (wind-blown dust).

In strength and massiveness, the mandible greatly surpasses that
of any living peoples, and is approximated in size only by two or three
other fossil specimens. Its various characteristics are more or less
intermediate between the simian and the modern human conditions.
The chin is without prominence, but is less receding than that of an
anthropoid ape. The exceedingly broad ramus (ascending portion),
affording attachment for powerful jaw muscles, is a conspicuously
simian feature. The teeth and the U-shaped dental arch are definitely
but primitively human. Though small relative to the size of the man-
dible, the teeth are actually of robust size; the molar pulp cavities are
incipiently deepened, prefiguring the specialized condition of Neander-
thal teeth. Most of the features, in fact, suggest ancestry to Nean-
derthal man.

‘No artifacts were found with this remnant of Heidelberg man;
however, only rudely fashioned stone implements are known from the
remote time of his existence.

Evaluation of the associated fossil fauna suggests that Heidelberg
man lived during the second warm interglacial stage of mid-Pleistocene
time. But a few authorities contend that the evidence warrants refer-
ence to the first interglacial stage of early Pleistocene time.

Fig. 9. Skull fragments found by Dawson and Smith Woodward in 1911, 1912; jaw
fragment found by Dawson in 1912; canine tooth found by Pére Teilhard de Chardin in 1913;
single worked flint found near original skull fragments by Smith Woodward. Jaw one-third

natural size; other fragments a bit larger than one-third (distorted somewhat by camera).
After Smith Woodward.

Fig. 10. A, side and top views of jaw of first Piltdown Dawn Man, with first and second
lower molar teeth in place. B, side and top views of first lower molar tooth of second Piltdown
Dawn Man. About three-fourths natural size. After Smith Woodward.

18

Fig. 11. Lower Mo.uars or THE Pittpown JAw, Mucu Worn BUT SHOWING THE
Pore “Dryopithecus ParrerNn.’’—A, The first specimen. B, The second specimen.
The photographs, by Professor J. H. MeGregor, are reversed to facilitate comparison
with Fig 12.

?

Fig. 12. Lerr Lower Cueek Treeru or Fosstr ANTHROPOID Dryopithecus.
Collected by Barnum Brown, leader of the American Museum Expedition to the
Siwaliks, India. A, Dryopithecus fricke, Miocene, India. X 3%. B, Dryopithecus
cautleyi, Miocene, India. X %. After Gregory and Hellman.

19

Fig. 13 Che Piltdown lower jaw (B) from a cast in the Williams Collection, compared
with the jaws of «a female orang-utan (4) and of a modern man (negro) (C) External views,
three-fourths of the natural size Abbreviations: aly, m3, socket for third lower molar; a. r.,
ascending ramus; ¢, canine; c. i,, central incisor; con., condvle:; /. i., lateral incisor; mi, me, ma,
first, second, third lower molars; pi, pz, first and second premolars (equivalent to the third and
fourth premolars of lower mammals), After Gregory.

20

Fig. 14. Lower jaw bones of
negro, viewed from the inner side.
incisor; ch., bony chin; g. ¢., genial tubercle; m. /., mental ledge; t. r
muscle; s, section through symphysis. After Gregory.

the Piltdown man, of a female orang-utan and of a modern
Abbreviations as in Fig. 3; also alv. ec. t., alveolus for central
., Tidge in area of temporal

21

22 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

PILTDOWN MAN

Another ancient human type is represented by the Piltdown man,
Eoanthropus dawsont (Dawson’s dawn-man). A fragmentary cranium
and the posterior part of the right half of a mandible containing two
teeth were recovered from a gravel bed near Piltdown Common, Sussex,
in southern England, by Charles Dawson, during 1908, 1911, and 1912.
Further search at the same site produced a canine tooth, found by
Pére P. Teilhard de Chardin, 8. J., in 1913; and a few other fragments
and some implements were unearthed by Dr. A. (later Sir Arthur)
Smith Woodward during the following several years. At a second lo-
eality, two miles away in a plowed field, an additional lower molar
tooth and two cranial fragments were found by Mr. Dawson in 1915.
There is a persistent but apparently unverifiable tradition that the
brain-case was whole when excavated by laborers, who, mistaking it
for a coconut, broke it open and threw away the pieces. The fact
remains that the recovered fragments have been insufficient for a
satisfactory and entirely acceptable restoration of the skull. In the
several reconstructions by eminent scientists the cranial capacity
(which serves as an index of brain size) varied between 1070 and 1500
cubic centimeters, although this range was later reduced to about
1200 to 1400 eubie centimeters by the scientists concerned.

The skull (Figs. 9, 16), apparently of a female, presents a unique
composite of primitive and progressive features. The teeth (Fig. 11)
are extraordinarily simian (ape-like) although they might serve as a
primitive human type. The mandible (Figs. 13, 14) is also essentially
ape-like in character; it has long been an actual “bone of contention,”
since a number of competent comparative anatomists maintain that
it was not human but the jaw of a fossil ape merely occurring in asso-
ciation with the human cranium. However, Mr. Dawson’s second
find of cranial fragments with a lower tooth seems to afford assurance
that the jaw and skull genuinely belong together, because of the
extremely remote possibility of a second fortuitous and identical
association of simian and human remains, especially in a region where
fossil apes of comparable geologic age are unknown.

But the totality of characteristics gives the cranium a surprisingly
modern aspect. The upright forehead and slightly developed brow-
ridges, and the well rounded vault and occipital region lacking the
flattened nuchal plane (at the nape, for attachment of neck muscles),
are traits less primitive than those found in the most lowly living
human race, the native Australian, as well as in many of the European
specimens of fossil Homo sapiens. The cranial bones are of unusual
thickness, about twice that of present-day Europeans; but this may be

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 20

an anomalous condition that also sometimes occurs in other fossil
skulls (some of the Sinanthropus specimens) and in modern man. The
brain appears to have been simple and primitive, due to defective
development of the association areas. The volume, however, (using
1300 cubie centimeters as a mean of estimates) is considerably greater
than the average brain size of female Australians (about 1150 cubic
centimeters), though in like degree less than that of female Europeans
(about 1440 cubie centimeters). Altogether, the Hoanthropus remains
anticipate some of the most advanced and distinetive of human fea-
tures in combination with others so retarded that, if found alone, the
mandible assuredly would not have been assigned to a member of the
human family.

In the gravel bed with the Piltdown remains were found a number
of crudely chipped flint implements and also an unusually large bone
tool. This was a 16-inch slab, one end pointed, the other rounded;
just beneath the point a perforation, broken away, seems to have been
worn smooth by the rubbing of a thong. It had been made from the
femur of a large elephant, now extinct.

Determination of the geologic age was again difficult and uncer-
tain, part of the associated fragmentary mammalian fossils having been
derived from an older formation. The age is usually considered to be
early Pleistocene.

24 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

NEANDERTHAL MAN

Fig. 15. Modeled by Dr. J. H. MeGregor on east of skull found at La Chapelle-
aux-Saints, France, in 1908.

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HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

Fosstz. Human Lower Jaws or THE NEANDERTHAL Race.—A, Le
B, Ehringsdorf child. Photographs by Professor J. H. McGregor.

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 27

Fig. 18. AnrHRopoip HerirTaGe IN EARLY HuMAN Dentiriov.—Palate of Le
Moustier (A). Comparison of second right upper molar of Le Moustier (B) with
second left upper molar of fossil anthropoid Dryopithecus rhenanus (C). Com-
parison of first left lower molar of Dryopithecus rhenanus (D) with first left lower
molar of Ehringsdorf child (E). Photographs by J. H. MeGregor.

THE LATER RACES OF MANKIND
(Later Ice Age and Recent)

NEANDERTHAL MAN

Although remains of Neanderthal man seem to have been found
as early as 1700, the first important specimen was obtained from a
quarry at Gibraltar in 1848, but its significance was not understood
for many years. In 1864, William King created the name Homo
neanderthalensis' for a fragmentary fossil skeleton found in 1856 in a
cave deposit in the Neander valley (Ger. thal or tal) near Diisseldorf,
Germany. But not until after the excavation of two skeletons, in
1886, near Spy, Belgium, together with numerous flint implements
and fossil remains of mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and other extinct
mammals, was it generally recognized that a distinctive and archaic
species of mankind had been discovered. To date, fossil specimens
representing nearly a hundred individuals of Neanderthal man have
been recovered, scattered from Palestine and Crimea to Germany
and Spain. Most of them have been excavated, in a more or less frag-
mentary condition, from consolidated débris or as burials in the floors
of caves and rock shelters.

The skull of Neanderthal man (Fig. 16, 3) presents a strange
appearance, evident even to a casual observer. This is chiefly due to
primitive and ape-like features which, however, are blended with others
more specialized (i. e., developed from a generalized and primitive
condition) than in modern man. The face is large and prominent,
compared with the brain-case. The huge palate (Fig. 18) and jaws

cause the lower part of the face to protrude (prognathism) and the

chin is sloping, but the effect is far less muzzle-like than in an ape.
The large lower molar teeth (Fig. 17), with primitive cusp-patterns,
often have a peculiar ‘‘taurodont”’ (superficially bovine-like) special-
ization—in apes and in modern man the pulp-cavities are relatively
small and there are two or three separate roots; in Neanderthal
molars the pulp-cavities are much deeper, often causing the elongated

bodies of the teeth to supplant the roots entirely. The nasal opening is

1Various other scientific names, Homo primigenius, H. moustleriensis, H. antiquus,
H. europaeus, H. krapinensis, H. calficus, Palaeoanthropus neanderthalensis, et
cetera, have been used; they all refer to Neanderthal man either collectively or as
individual specimens. According to international rules of priority, neanderthalensis
is the proper specific name. Probably the differences from modern man are not great
enough to justify separation from the genus Homo, although specific distinction is
clearly warranted.

28

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HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 29

Fig. 19. A, left side view of endocranial cast of Pithecanthropus; B, Eoanthropus (Pilt-
down); C, Neanderthal (La Chapelle-aux-Saints); and D, Homo sapiens (white man), photo-
graphed together to show relative size and form. Pithecanthropus and Hoanthropus as
restored by Professor J. H. MeGregor.

large and broad, as in living black-skinned races, but in some respects
it is more specialized from the simian condition than in modern man.
Large rounded orbits (eye-sockets) overhung by heavy arching brow-
ridges differ significantly from the quadrate orbits characteristic of
primitive forms of Homo sapiens. The forehead recedes to a low,
flattened and depressed, but elongate cranium, and the rear of the
skull bulges in a manner peculiar to Neanderthal man. Despite the
depressed form of the brain-case, the vault is well rounded, indicating
an expanded brain. But enlargement has been chiefly by lateral
expansion—a marked contrast to the process in Homo sapiens, where
enlargement of the brain has been primarily by increase in height and
length within a narrow skull with vertical sides and a roof-shaped
vault, and only in some later stocks by rounding of the vault and
marked increase in width.

30 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

Fig. 20. A, top view of endocranial cast of Pithecanthropus; B, Eoan-
thropus (Piltdown) restored; C, Neanderthal (La Chapelle-aux-Saints); and
D, Homo sapiens (white man), photographed together to show relative size
and form.

The capacity of the brain-case varies from about 1300 to 1600
cubic centimeters (average of four, 1420 c.c.) which is nearly as large as
the average for modern Europeans (1500 e.c.). But the convolutions
(Figs. 19, 20), indicated by impressions on the inner surface of the
cranium, appear to be more gross and simple, and the grey matter thus
less developed, than in the brain of modern man.

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 31

The position of the foramen magnum (opening for the spinal
cord), farther back on the cranial base than in Homo sapiens. the
attachments for heavy neck muscles, and the curvature of the vertebral
(spinal) column indicate a forward inclination of the head and neck
and a slightly stooping posture. The short and stoutly built skeletal
bones suggest a body that was stocky and robust; the stature (in known
specimens) varied from four feet nine inches to five feet three or four
inches (average 155 em., Boule). The femurs (thigh bones) are curved,
somewhat like those of chimpanzee and gorilla, and the articular
facets at the knees indicate that the short and sturdy legs could not
have been completely straightened. All in all, Neanderthal man must
have differed profoundly from all living peoples, although he is un-
doubtedly human (i. e., a member of the Hominid).

Stone tools and weapons fabricated by Neanderthal man were
recognized as human artifacts many years before the remains of the
makers were known—they had previously been called thunderbolts
or thunder-stones. This phase of stone culture was named ‘‘Mous-
terian”’ in 1869, from finds in the rock shelter of Le Moustier, Dordogne,
France. But not until 1886, when such implements were found as-
sociated with the skeletal remains at Spy, was it realized that the
Mousterian was the culture of Neanderthal man. There have since
been several additional discoveries confirming this association, in-
cluding a skeleton at Le Moustier in 1908. Rudely made implements
include hand-axes or fist-hatchets, scrapers, points, and a variety of
other stone tools. A few crude bone tools, apparently for skinning
and flint-flaking, have been found. There are no known ornamental
objects that might offer evidence of artistic or wxsthetic sensibility.
The charred remnants of Neanderthal man’s ancient hearth fires have
also been found.

Determinations, by means of associated mammalian fossils, of
the relative antiquity of various Neanderthal remains indicate that
he lived during a remarkable extent of time. He persisted through the
warm third (Riss-Wiirm) interglacial stage and much of the fourth
(Wiirm) glacial stage, and only became extinct at approximately the
time Homo sapiens appeared in Europe. This may cover 100,000 years
or more. But he may have appeared earlier than the Riss-Wiirm
interglacial stage. If Homo neanderthalensis evolved from the more
archaic Homo heidelbergensis, as seems highly probable, then this
general type may have ranged through as much as half of Pleistocene
time (Chart II). Different Neanderthal specimens appear to repre-
sent either several racial variants or a considerable evolutionary de-
velopment from primitive to specialized forms.

32 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

RHODESIAN MAN

During the course of mining operations at Broken Hill, Rhodesia,
South Africa, a débris-filled cave was exposed which led deeply into
the interior of a kopje. Numerous bones of various animals, more or
less mineralized and encrusted with ores of zine and lead, were ex-
cavated with the cave filling. In 1921, in the lowest and most remote
part of the cave, a miner came upon a strangely fashioned human
skull. A number of other human bones representing several individuals
were also recovered but excepting one tibia (shin bone) occurring near
the skull they seem to have come from other locations within the cave
deposit. They are said to be of modern size and form and probably
they should not be associated with the skull.

The skull of Homo rhodesiensis (Fig. 21) resembles those of Nean-
derthal man, but in some of its features it is more primitive, in others
more progressive, and in some respects it more nearly approaches the
type of modern man. The face has an unusually brutish appearance,
with huge orbits overhung by the most massive brow-ridges ever seen
on a human skull. The upper jaw and palate are gigantic; the mandible
is missing, but it must have been of greater size than any yet found,
fossil or recent. The teeth are distinctly of the human type, and lack
the “taurodont” specialization of those of Neanderthal man. The
forehead appears to be as retreating as in some of the apes, but this is
partly an effect of the enormous brow-ridges. In form the brain-case
is laterally compressed, ! rather than vertically depressed. The foramen
magnum is as far forward as in modern man, so that the head was well
balanced upon the spinal column, rather than thrust forward as in
Neanderthal man. The occipital region (lower back part of the skull)
also is shaped much more like that of Homo soloensis (vide infra), and
such primitive types of Homo sapiens as the black Australian. The
cranial capacity is about 1280 cubie centimeters. Thus the brain
of Rhodesian man was considerably smaller than that of Neanderthal
man, and development of the various functional areas was definitely
more primitive, as well.

A few erude nondescript stone implements were found in the ex-
cavated material, and large quantities of broken bones of animals
apparently used for food. Spheroidal stones are reminiscent of similar
Mousterian artifacts from Europe. But it is uncertain whether these
things represent the work of Rhodesian man or of some other people.

All the non-human bones are of kinds of animals still living in
the region, excepting only two extinet species. Due perhaps to a

'The primitive form in Homo sapiens.

| HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

| RHODESIAN BOSKOP TYPE BUSH BANTU
|

Fig. 21. Four African types of man. After Dart.

continuity of climatic and other conditions, many mammals have
persisted in Africa—the elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, lion,
hyena, et cetera—which were represented in Europe by closely re-
lated but now extinet forms living before and during the time of

A B Cc

A’ B’

Gi

Fig. 22. A and A’, endocranial casts of male gorilla; B and B’, Pithecanthropus, as
restored by Professor J. H. McGregor; and C and C’, Rhodesian man, top and side views,
The three casts were photographed together to show the relative sizes. From J.H. McGregor

34 HALL OF THE AGE. OF MAN

Neanderthal man. Rhodesian man may thus also have persisted as a
primitive type long after Neanderthal man became extinet—or he
may be of even greater antiquity. The evidence fails to indicate more
closely the time of his existence.

A number of other human remains, believed to be fossil or ancient,
have been found in Africa. Claims of great antiquity have been made
for some of them, notably the Oldoway skeleton, the Kanjera skulls,
and the Kanam mandible from East Africa. The latter was declared
to “represent the oldest yet discovered true ancestor of modern man”
(Leakey). But more critical studies indicate that the remains differ
little, if at all, from those of modern negroes, and that claims for any
considerable age cannot be substantiated. In South Africa, numbers
of skulls have been found which appear to represent primitive negroid
types. The unusually large Boskop skull was assigned to a new species,
Homo capensis, by Dr. Robert Broom; but other authorities regard
this as a variant of Homo sapiens.

NGANDONG MAN

The Geological Survey of Java, excavating an ancient gravel
deposit of the Solo River near the village of Ngandong during 1931-
1933, discovered eleven crania, apparently of a strange and uncouth
human type, together with various other bones of fossil animals.
Since this gravel was deposited, it has become lime-cemented to a
hard rock, and the river bed has been lowered some 20 meters (66 feet)
by slow erosion of the materials of its valley. The locality is about
40 kilometers (25 miles) down-river, though only 10 kilometers cross-
country, from Trinil, where forty years earlier the remains of Pithe-
canthropus were found.

All the skulls of Ngandong man, named Homo soloensis! by
W. F. F. Oppenoorth, have much of the facial and basal parts broken
away. This may be due to the fragility of these bones; but possibly
(it has been suggested) it was done by cannibals to obtain the brains.
Nor were there recovered any jaws or teeth or skeletal parts, excepting
two tibiae (shin bones). The crania are similar to those of Neanderthal
man, especially in certain primitive features such as the low but
rounded brain-cases with massive brow-ridges, and the posterior
position of the foramen magnum with a consequent forward thrust to

1 Also sometimes referred to as Javanthropus. However, this name was intended
by Oppenoorth to include also Rhodesian man and Wadjak man, but he later states
that the ‘name was not well chosen and it is better to drop it.”

+
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HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

the head. But they differ in other primitive characteristics from the
more specialized Neanderthal conditions. The large orbits (eye-
sockets) are quadrate rather than rounded in form, with the brow-
ridges a straight torus, not paired arches, above them; the forehead is
more receding; the occipital region lacks the characteristic Neanderthal
bulge and has a more strongly developed nuchal plane (attachment
for neck muscles). These features more nearly resemble those of Homo
rhodesiensis and, in exaggeration, those of primitive specimens of
Homo sapiens. The brain capacity of the largest of the recovered
Ngandong skulls is about 1300 cubie centimeters; others are consider-
ably smaller. !

Pieces of antler and of bone fashioned into rude implements,
occurring with the remains of Homo soloensis, offer evidence of a lowly
culture. Many bones had been split and broken, seemingly to obtain
the marrow. The only stone implements found are spheroidal in form;
their use can be only surmised. They also occur in Mousterian cul-
tures of Europe and in the Broken Hill cave, Rhodesia.

The associated fossil fauna indicates that Ngandong man lived
during the Late Pleistocene, probably in the third interglacial stage,
while a quarter way round the world Neanderthal man was flourishing
in Europe.

MOUNT CARMEL MAN

Several recent discoveries of fossil man in Palestine represent two
distinct types of ancient humanity. Remains similar to those of Euro-
pean Neanderthals have been discovered in three localities. In 1925,
F. Turville-Petre, excavating for the British School of Archeology at
Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh (Cave of the Robbers) near the Sea of Galilee,
found a skull fragment comprising the upper part of the face and the
frontal region of the brain-case. Dorothy A. E. Garrod, of the same
institution, in 1928 recovered fragments of a skull from Shukbah
cave in the Judean hills near Jerusalem. She also discovered, in 1932.
in Mugharet et-Tabun (Cave of the Oven) on the western flank of
Mount Carmel, a nearly complete skeleton, a massive mandible, and a
variety of bone fragments and teeth. All these remains are of the
Neanderthal kind, but they appear to represent a more primitive and
generalized variant or race than the better known European Neander-
thals. They were all excavated from older levels of cave deposits
containing numerous stone implements of Mousterian type.

At Mugharet es-Skhtl (Cave of the Kids), also on the flank of

1 Only preliminary descriptions have been published but as a rough estimate
capacities of the smaller skulls may be about 1100 e. e. or less.

36 HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

Mount Carmel and near et-Tabtn, the remains of ten or more indi-
viduals of a previously unknown human type were found, in 1931-1932,
by Theodore D. McCown of the American School of Prehistoric
Research. Skeletons of two adults, one infant, and others more or
less nearly complete were excavated from a hard lime breccia terrace
in front of the rock shelter where they had been buried. Before the
hard matrix was removed from the bones they were believed to be
additional Neanderthal specimens, but they represent a type of taller
stature, more nearly resembling the Upper Palaeolithic inhabitants of
Europe, and also living primitive peoples. The face is decidedly prog-
nathous (muzzle-like protrusion of the jaws) but the chin is well
developed. Quadrate orbits are overhung by a pronounced supra-
orbital torus. The cranium is well arched and the brain capacity is
near that of modern Europeans; the occipital regicn resembles that of
primitive types of Homo sapiens. Final descriptions of Mount Carmel
man by Sir Arthur Keith and Mr. McCown have not yet been pub-
lished, but “the Skhutl type appears to be the most likely ancestor of
the Cro-Magnon form of the prehistoric peoples of Europe”’ (vide infra),
and he may have a place “among the ancestors of modern races.”
They further consider that ‘‘his physical characteristics are too well
defined and he is too late in the Pleistocene to provide us with an an-
cestor for Homo sapiens in the widest sense.’’!

The stone industry of the Skhwl deposit is of the same Mousterian
type as that of the Palestine Neanderthaloids. It was previously
believed that only Neanderthal man was associated with Mousterian
cultures.

The numerous remains of associated fossil mammals also indicate
that the Skhil and Tabtn peoples were practically contemporaneous.
They appear to have lived during the latter part of the Riss-Wirm
interglacial stage.

In the upper levels of some of the cave deposits occur numerous
remains of a later type of people referred to as Natufians. They seem
to resemble the predynastic people of Egypt. Their implements and
carvings of stone and bone are of Mesolithic age (Chart II). Bone-
hafted flint sickle blades suggest an early form of agriculture, but they
apparently had not yet learned to make pottery.

1 No official scientific name is as yet available for Mount Carmel man, that is, it
is not settled whether he is to be classified as a distinct species or as an early variety
of Homo sapiens.

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HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

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Fig. 24. NEANDERTHAL AND CRO-MAGNON: A COMPARISON
Profile views of the head modeled on the Chapelle-aux-Saints (Neanderthal) skull,
and on a male skull of the Cro-Magnon race. Models by J. H. McGregor.

CRO-MAGNON MAN

The members of the highly evolved Cro-Magnon race (Figs. 23,
24, 25), which is believed to have entered Europe from the east and
driven out the Neanderthals, were essentially like ourselves in ana-
tomical structure, and the characters of their crania reflect their ad-
vanced stage of development. This was a race of hunters, of painters
and sculptors, far superior to any of its predecessors. As shown in
Professor MeGregor’s reconstruction (Fig. 16, 4), the Cro-Magnon
head differed widely from that of the Neanderthal, the high, intellectual
forehead of the one offering a great contrast to the low brow and apelike
orbital ridges of the other. The volume of the brain of the “Old Man
of Cro-Magnon”’ was estimated by Verneau as 1590 cubie centimeters,
which is higher than the average for modern Europeans (1400-1500 ¢.e.).

Although these Upper Palaeolithic people lived during the very
close of the long glacial epoch, estimated at 40,000 B.C., they are far
older than the Egyptian and Assyrian civilizations, which we ordi-

narily think of as being of the utmost antiquity.

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Detail of a complete outline sketched by the artist-hunter on the limestone wall of the
Cavern of Les Combarelles, France. After ]’Abbé Breuil.

44

nO |

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 1

MEN OF THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD

The men of the Old Stone Age (Palaeolithic) lived in Europe
during the immensely long periods when the great glacial ice-sheets
were gradually either advancing with the falling temperatures of colder
winters or retreating northward before the increasing heat of the sum-
mer seasons. Near the close of the Wiirm glacial stage (Chart I)
there was a comparatively rapid succession of cultural stages con-
stituting the upper Palaeolithic and including the Aurignacian,
Solutrean, and Magdalenian cultures. During those times the woolly
mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the wild horse, and the reindeer
were abundant, and were hunted by the skilled makers of chipped
flint implements. The bow and arrow first appeared in upper Palaeo-
lithic times, as recorded in drawings on the walls of Spanish rock shel-
ters (Hugo Obermaier), while the Cro-Magnons and their contem-
poraries made their wonderful cave drawings.

Between the Old Stone Age and the New Stone Age is a transi-
tional period which is called the Mesolithic. The older flint cultures
of the Neanderthals and of the Cro-Magnons disappeared and were
succeeded by the very small flints known as Tardenoisian. New
broad-headed races of people (Furfoos and Grenelle, Case VIII)
entered Europe from the east and narrow-headed races from the south.
The Cro-Magnon art also disappeared and was replaced by conven-
tional silhouettes of human and animal figures.

The people of this period, like the men of the Reindeer Age
(Magdalenian, or close of the Old Stone Age), made small chipped
flint implements for planers and knives, and awls and polishers from
bone, but their flint implements, known as Tardenoisian, were very
small and angulate. These were sometimes fitted into the sides of a
shaft. Because of the increasing scarcity or absence of the reindeer,
which had been abundant in the dry, cold climate of Magdalenian
times, the Azilians (Fig. 36) were forced to fashion their harpoons out of
stag antlers. Unlike their predecessors, they did not make beautiful en-
gravings and sculptures of animals on bone or draw realistic animal
pictures on the walls of caves, while they differed from their successors
of the New Stone Age in that they had no pottery nor domesticated
animals.

The final stage of the Transitional Period is that known as the
Campignian, from the discovery of remains of huts and flint imple-
ments near Campigny in France. These implements include axes and
adzes fitted for felling trees and building boats. Milling stones indi-
cate an early stage of agriculture. Crude pottery also indicates the
coming of the New Stone Age.

FIG,

31. THE PROGRESS OF PRIMITIVE MAN AS SHOWN BY
HIS TOOLS AND WEAPONS: PALAEOLITHIC (Case IX)

(See also Hall of Prehistoric Cultures)
Selected and arranged by Nels C. Nelson

1
2:
3

SIO wN—

Hanp IMPLEMENTS (cowp-de-poing) TYPICAL OF THE EARLY
PALAEOLITHIC AGE
Hand-ax or chopping tool of flint (Chellean).
Dagger or perforating tool of flint (Acheulean).
Implement of flint for various purposes, such as cutting and seraping
(Mousterian).

IMPLEMENTS AND ORNAMENTS TYPICAL OF THE LATE PALABOLITHIC AGE

Knife blade or spear point of flint \
Knife or etching tool of flint
End seraper or planing tool of flint }
Harpoon point of bone
Lance point of bone
Beads or pendants of elk teeth
Beads of univalve shells (Magdalenian).
Fragment of bone with partial outline of a horse

etched upon it
Fragment of bone with traces of geometric orna-

mentation

- (Aurignacian).

46

FIG. 32. THE PROGRESS OF PRIMITIVE MAN AS SHOWN BY, HIS
TOOLS AND WEAPONS: NEOLITHIC (Case IX)

(See also Hall of Prehistoric Cultures)

2 3

iin’ NX

IMPLEMENTS TYPICAL OF THE NEOLITHIC AGE

1. Ax-hammer of stone, perforated for hafting.
2. Ax of flint, partly polished.

3. Saw of flint, one edge notched.

4. Dagger of flint, probably in imitation of metallic form.

5. Jnife or sickle blade of flint.

6. Arrow point of flint, also made in larger sizes and used as spear points.

47

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|

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 49

MEN OF THE NEW STONE AGE

The men of the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, came into Europe
after the greatest severity of the glacial climate had passed. Their
skulls and skeletons indicate that they belonged to still existing races.
These. are the narrow-headed, slightly built, brunet Mediterraneans of
southern Europe; the broad-headed, stocky, swarthy Alpines of central
and eastern Europe; and the narrow-headed, tall, blond Nordies of
northern Europe. These three races may have become differentiated
through isolation in different regions, but with the last melting of the
Pleistocene glaciers they invaded each other’s territories and have,
during the course of several thousand years, produced the complex
mixture of racial stocks which forms most of the modern. European
population.

Remains of the hardy northern type are abundantly known in
Seandinavia. The mural painting at the west end of the hall (Fig. 34)
represents some of the early Neolithic people living along the southern
shores of the Baltic Sea. They were stalwart, warlike, and inured to a
rigorous northern climate. Apparently the rudiments of family and
of tribal life were being cultivated.

While not possessing the wonderful artistic ability of their Cro-
Magnon predecessors, the men of the New Stone Age made pottery
and wove textiles. They continued to use chipped stone implements
but originated the practice of polishing them as well. They became
food producers rather than food gatherers, raising cereals and keeping
flocks and herds instead of depending upon hunting. They lived in
more or less settled communities and built villages of huts, often on
piles near the shores of lakes. They erected great sepulchres and
temples of huge stones (dolmens and megaliths) for their dead. They
were the true forerunners of civilization.

The New Stone Age in Europe was followed by the Ages of Copper
and Bronze and finally of Iron, during which the great civilizations of
Egypt, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Persia, India, China, and Europe were
developed.

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HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN 51

STONE CULTURES | HUMAN RACES

HISTORICAL PERIOD EXISTING MAMMALS
NEOLITHIC/]PERIOD MASTODON(?)MAMMOT H

AZILIAN GRENELLE
MAGDALENIAN CRO-MAGNON
SOLUTREAN

AURIGNACIAN GRIMALDI

REINDEER
MAMMOTH
WOOLLY RHINOCEROS

COLD
MOUSTERIAN

NEANDERTHAL

WARM
MOUSTERIAN

ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS
HIPPOPOTAMUS

COLD
ACHEULEAN

WARM

ACHEULEAN
KRAPINA

LATE

CHELLEAN EHRINGSDORF

ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS

CHELLEAN HIPPOPOTAMUS

PAEA Obi ArS

EARLY
CHELLEAN

ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS
RHINOCEROS ETRUSCUS
HIPPOPOTAMUS
SABRE-TOOTH

HEIDELBERG

CROMERIAN

ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS
MUSKOX
REINDEER

Fig. 35. Main divisions of the Old Stone Age as summarized by Osborn
(Compare Chart II, page IT.)

SUCCESSION OF PREHISTORIC AGES
IN EGYPT AND IN EUROPE

FROM THE CLOSE OF THE OLD STONE AGE UPWARD
N. C. NELSON, 1921

EGYPT & S W. ASIA SOUTHEAST EUROPE | NORTHWEST EUROPE

1000 A.D.
0
1000 B.C.
2000 B.C.
3000 B.C.

4000 B.C.

5000 B.C.

6000 B.C.
7000 B.C.
8000 B.C.
9000 B.C.
10000 B.C.
11000 B.C.
12000 B.C.
MAGDALENIAN
13000 B.C.
14000 B.C.
SOLUTREAN
15000 B.C.
16000 B.C.
17000 B.C,

AURIGNACIAN
18000 B.C.

=

Fig. 36. Provisional diagram showing chronology of
prehistoric ages. After Nelson. 1921,

62

on
vo

HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN

TALGAI MAN

With the Talgai skull, found at Talgai, Darling Downs, Australia,
in 1884, we come down to modern races, for while this skull is thor-
oughly mineralized it is that of a primitive member of the Australian
race. The Cohuna skull found near Melbourne is a related form.

The Wadjak skulls found in Java in 1889 and 1890 by Professor
Dubois, were regarded as proto-Australian, but the teeth and skull
structure exhibit characters seen in the more advanced races.

THE COMING OF MAN IN AMERICA

Many claims have been made for the presence of man in earlier
parts of the great Ice Age (Pleistocene epoch) in America, but at least
up to the end of 1937 no single fossilized human bone has been found in
any American locality embedded in deposits that can be proved to be
earlier than the latest glacial deposits. At Folsom, New Mexico, and
near Clovis, New Mexico, beautifully worked flint implements of the
so-called Folsom type have been found in association with the bones of
extinct species of elephant, bison, and horse. The probable age of this
deposit has been tentatively estimated by archaeologists as about
ten thousand years, whereas in Europe the earlier fossil human remains
are found in deposits of the earlier part of the Ice Age and may range
in age up to several hundred thousand years.

In South America human remains of considerable antiquity have
been found in several localities, including some in which they were
associated with ground sloths and other extinct species of mammals;
these also in the opinion of many archaeologists and geologists would
not date back to the earlier Iee Age deposits, but are much more
recent—possibly only a few thousand years. Indeed it seems probable
that man entered North America only when the last of the great
glaciers retreated far to the North, opening the way across the Aleutian
Islands to the long north and south avenue of the Rocky Mountains
in North America and from them southward to the Andes of South
America.

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| THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

THE STORY OF
MUSEUM GROUPS

|

Ba x By FREDERIC A. LUCAS

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} GUIDE LEAFLET SERIES. No. 53

| i FOURTH EDITION ~ JANUARY, 1926

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AMERICAN ROBIN GROUP
THE FIRST BIRD GROUP IN THE MUSEUM

The American robin group was mounted by Jenness Richardson, and placed on
exhibition May 10, 1887. The wax leaves and flowers were made by Mrs. Mogridge,
who introduced the work into the United States. This was the first of the very large
series of bird groups now represented in the American Museum

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS
By Frederic A. Lucas

{Fourth printing, 1925, with some changes and additions, from THr AMERICAN
Museum Journau for 1914; pp. 1-15, January, pp. 50-65, February]

* * * *: queeque ipse [felicissima] vidi

Et quorum pars [minor| fui

HE many groups of animals in the American Museum of Natural
History represent many phases of what may be termed “‘the group
question” and illustrate the various steps that have led from the

dreary exhibits of forty years ago to the present realistic pictures of
animal life. Twenty-five years ago, even, there was scarcely a group of
animals, or a descriptive label, in any museum in the United States. It
is to be noted that the qualifying adjective scarcely is used, for even
twenty-five years ago there were a number of animal groups in our mu-
seums, though it was still a moot question whether their display was a
legitimate feature of museum work, and the educational possibilities
of such exhibits were realized by few.

And yet the zdea of showing animals amid their natural surroundings
really goes back to an early period in the history of museums, and in 1815
we find it stated in an account of a group of the larger African Mammals
in Bullock’s Museum that

“Various animals, as the lofty Giraffe, the Lion, the Elephant, the
Rhinoceros, ete., are exhibited as ranging in their native wilds and
forests; whilst exact Models, both in figure and colour, of the rarest
and most luxuriant plants from every clime, give all the appearance of
reality; the whole being assisted with a panoramic effect of distance and
appropriate scenery, affording a beautiful illustration of the luxuriance
of a torrid clime.”’

Even before this Charles Willson Peale wrote, ‘It is not customary
in Europe to paint skies and landscapes in their cases of birds and other
animals and it may have a clean and neat appearance to line them only
with white paper, but, on the other hand, it is not only pleasing to see a
sketch of a landscape, but by showing the nest, hollow cave, or a particular
view of the country from which they came, some instances of the habits
may be given.”

Museum authorities are somewhat conservative and as museums at
first were mainly for the preservation of material for students, their
educational value to the public was not considered. The principal

3

GROUP OF WHITE-TAILEDJEAGLES

Mounted in 1877

Booth Museum, Brighton, England.

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 5

object in‘ mounting animals, especially mammals, was to preserve them
and put’ them in a condition to be studied and compared one with
another.% Groups were not even thought of and, as Dr. Coues wrote as
late as 1874: “‘Spread eagle’ styles of mounting, artificial rocks and
flowers, etc., are entirely out of place in a collection of any scientific pre-
tentions, or designed for popular instruction. Besides, they take up too
much room. Artistic grouping of an extensive collection is usually out
of the question; and when this is unattainable, halfway efforts in that
direction should be abandoned in favor of severe simplicity. Birds look
best, on the whole, in uniform rows, assorted according to size, as far as a
natural classification allows.’ The only use of groups was for a few

R. BOWDLER SHARPE

Under whose auspices the first of the bird groups was installed in the British Museum

SIR WILLIAM HENRY FLOWER
DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM FROM 1884 TO 1898

Sir Willian Flower probably did more than any other man to change the char-
acter of museum exhibits and make them attractive as well as instructive. He not
only planned the exhibits and gave his personal attention to their installation, but
in some instances he prepared the specimens -himself.. In this country like credit
should be given to Dr. G. Brown Goode, who was an ardent admirer of Flower and
his work in the British Museum

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

“J

ROBIN REDBREAST GROUP IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

private individuals and they were mainly heterogeneous assemblages of
bright-plumaged birds brought together from the four quarters of the
globe and shown simply because they were pretty.

So far as we are aware, the introduction of groups into public mu-
seums was due to the influence of an enthusiastic private collector, Mr.
E. T. Booth, of Brighton, England, who devoted a large part of his life
to making a collection of British birds, mounted in varied attitudes,
with accessories that copied more or less accurately the appearance of the
spot where they were taken. As Mr. Booth wrote, ‘the chief object
has been to endeavor to represent the birds in situations somewhat
similar to those in which they were obtained, many of the cases, indeed,
being copied from sketches taken on the actual spots where the birds

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SNOIT Ad GAMOVLILV AAINNOD AVAV

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 9

JULES VERREAUX

Naturalist, Explorer, Taxidermist, Founder of the Maison Verreaux that led to
the creating of Wards Natural Science Establishment

themselves were shot.’’ These groups were intended to be viewed from
the front only and were arranged in cases of standard sizes, assembled
along the side of a large hall. The collection, which was begun not far
from 1858, was bequeathed to the town of Brighton in 1890, and is
known as the Booth Museum, and we earnestly hope that it may endure
for many years to come.

Montagu Brown of Leicester adopted the methods of Mr. Booth
and a little later, in 1877 or 1878, through the instrumentality of R.
Bowdler Sharpe, the first small “habitat group” of the coot was installed

10 THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

in the British Museum, then at Bloomsbury Square. Now it is rather
interesting to note that some naturalists who are best known by their
scientific work, and are usually regarded by the public as being of the
dry-as-dust type, were among the earliest advocates of naturalistic
methods in museum exhibits. Thus, to Dr. Sharpe, whose enduring
monument is the British Museum Catalogue of Birds, and to Dr. Gunther,
best known for his systematic work on fishes, we are indebted for the

BLACK-THROATED LOON
One of the nesting groups of British Birds in the British Museum

introduction of groups into a great public museum and for obtaining for
them the recognition of a scientific institution of long standing.

The installation of bird groups in the British Museum made good
progress under the administration of Sir William Flower, who took
especial interest in the educational side of museums and in the introduc-
tion of exhibits that were attractive, as well as instructive, to the general
visitor.

The first group in the American Museum, an Arab courier attacked
by lions, was purchased in 1869 and shown in the old Arsenal building in
Central Park, then the home of this institution. This group may have

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 11

been theatrical and “bloody,” but, as a piece of taxidermy, it was the
most ambitious attempt of its day. Moreover it was an attempt to
show life and action and an effort to arrest the attention and arouse the
interest of the spectator, a most important point in museum exhibits.
If you cannot interest the visitor you cannot instruct him; if he does not
eare to know what an animal is, or what an object is used for, he will not
read the label, be it ever so carefully written. The Arab courier group
was prepared under the supervision of Jules Verreaux, the French
ornithologist and African traveler, for the Paris Exposition of 1867,
where it was awarded a gold medal. This group may have suggested
the combat between a lion and tiger, displayed in the Crystal Palace,
or that, as well as a similar group formerly in the Calcutta Museum, may
have originated independently. The last mentioned group illustrates the
importance and effect of something that attracts attention: when the
Dalai Lama visited the Calcutta Museum, it soon became apparent
that he was looking for some particular object, and it later developed
that this was the fighting lion and tiger whose fame had traveled into far
distant Tibet.

It is worth noting here that the Matson Verreaux suggested to Profes-
sor Henry A. Ward the possibility of establishing a similar institution in
the United States; hence the well-known Ward’s Natural Science
Establishment at Rochester, New York. And we cannot help feeling
that Ward’s Establishment had much to do with the history of animal
groups. Hither came and hence departed many a man who directly or
indirectly did much to advance the art of taxidermy and make possible
the existing order of things. Named according to the time of their
coming, Hornaday, Webster, Wood, Critchley, Turner, Denslow, and
Akeley were all graduates of the old Establishment. Perhaps some of
them do not like to be considered as taxidermists, but we can hardly call
my friend Wood, whose birds lack nothing save voice and movement to
make them seem alive, an animal sculptor, and we hope no one will take
offense at being called a taxidermist. If he who delves among books in
various dead and living languages to decide which of the numerous
many-syllabled names some small creature is rightly entitled to bear
does not object to being called a taxonomist, he who works upon the
skins of creatures great and small should not object to the rightful name
of taxidermist. So taxidermist let it be for the present, or until a better
name is coined.

As there are so-called sculptors, who are mere makers of figures, and
will be that, and that only, to the end of their days, so there are taxider-
mists, men like Akeley, Clark and Blaschke, who are sculptors in every

12 THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

sense of the word. And in some ways their task is more difficult than
that of the sculptor who deals only with plastic clay, for the taxidermist
has not merely to prepare his model, but’ to fit over it a more or less un-
yielding hide, a hide that does not conceal the defects of the model but
has defects of its own to be hidden. Probably no one who has had actual
experience in mounting large mammals would question this, though
probably few visitors realize the great progress that has been made in the
mounting of animals, particularly large mammals. Not very many years
ago animals were most literally stuffed—suspended head downward and
rammed full of straw, often
until they could hold no
more. Then came the mak-
ing of a manikin of tow and
excelsior; next the manikin
of wire-netting and papier-
maché, and finally the mod-
eling of the animal in clay,
copying all the folds and
wrinkles of life, the molding
of this in plaster, and in this
mold making a light and dur-
able form, or manikin, upon
which the skin is deftly placed.

Here again Mr. Akeley
has improved upon himself
and perfected an entirely new

MaANikIn oF Wire CLotH AND PAPIER- plan for mounting large mam-
Macur. By Remi and Joseph Santens. mals whereby they are at
Photograph to illustrate strength of modern once more readily modeled,
manikin infinitely lighter and vastly

more permanent.

Thus methods changed and improved, by far the greatest advance
being due to Akeley, who devised the light, strong manikin just alluded
to, now in general use. There were various tentatives by others, and it
should not be forgotten that many years ago C. J. Maynard employed a
plaster cast made from a clay model and that years before this Peale
made a manikin of wood, the limbs being carefully carved to give the
muscles the swell proportionate to their action: this method he used
especially for animals that had not an abundance of hair.

Unfortunately, it seems never to have occurred to the users of plaster
that museum specimens are moved about and plaster casts can be made

Group OF ORANG-UTANS IN THE AMERICAN Museum. Collected and mounted in 1880 by
W. T. Hornaday. This was the first large mammal group in the American Museum [Manikin of
excelsior and tow]

This cut reproduced from a wood engraving in Harper’s Weekly, is a reminder of the time
when half-tones were unknown

AFRICAN ELEPHANT MuNGo IN THE UNITED States Nationat Museum.
Mounted by W. T. Hornaday in 1882

14 THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

light and strong.
Hence they made
their manikins solid,
or almost solid, with
the result that it re-
quired an effort to lift
so small an object as
a fox and took four
strong men to handle
a deer, while the spec-
imens were racked
by their own weight
and wreaked damage
to everything with
which they came in
contact.

I know not who
mounted some of the
pieces, fair to look
upon, that it has

Paprpr-M ACHE MANIKIN FOR AN ORANG-UTAN. By been my misfortune

Remi Santens

past few years even,
but I do know that
I have many times,
and oft, vigorously,
cursed their perpe-
trator and wished
that he who de-
vised the process
had died in early
infancy.

The group of
Arab and Lions was
followed about a
decade later, 1880,
by the group of
orangs collected by
Hornaday, mount-
ed by him shortly
after his return
from a two years’

to handle during the

THE FRAMEWORK OF Munco

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 15

A detail of the Group of American Bison mounted in 1889 by Jenness Richardson,
Head of the Department of Taxidermy, American Museum of Natural History, from
1886 until his death in 1891

collecting trip around the world, and presented to the Museum by
Robert Colgate.

This again leads us to note that the energy of Dr. Hornaday had
much to do with the formal introduction of animal groups into the
American Museum of Natural History and recognition of their place in
museum work, because Jenness Richardson was a pupil of Hornaday,
and Rowley in turn a pupil of Richardson, and by them and under their
supervision was begun the series of groups now justly famous.

These early groups did not find their way into museums without
protest, as may be imagined from the remarks of Dr. Coues quoted on a
previous page, but in 1887 the first group of mammals was installed in the
United States National Museum, and this was followed a year later by a
large group of bison.

An important factor in the evolution of groups and their introduc-
tion into museums was the development of the art, for art it is, of making
accessories, for without the ability to reproduce flowers and foliage in
materials that would at once have the semblance of reality, and endur-

16 THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

ance under the vicissitudes of temperature in the intemperate zone in
which most museums are located, half the charm and value of groups
would be lacking. For progress in this direction we are indebted prima-
rily to the Messrs. Mintorn of London and their sister, Mrs. Mogridge,
who reproduced the foliage in the groups of birds in the British Museum,
and later came to New York to carry on the same work for the small
bird groups,' though their methods have been replaced by one devised by
Akeley.

Prior to this wax leaves and flowers were made of pure sheet wax
and were necessarily fragile, though in many cases really very beautiful.
The art of making them was one of the accomplishments of artistically
inclined ladies half a century or more ago, and directions for making
them may be found in Godey’s Lady’s Book and Peterson’s Magazine,
interspersed with directions and patterns for slippers and other worsted
work. Foliage of such fragile character was naturally not fitted for use in
Museum groups, and the only leaves to be had by the aspiring taxidermist
of 1880 were the heavy opaque cloth leaves made by manufacturers of
millinery supplies, which at least had the merit of durability. The
Orang group in the American Museum of Natural History was provided
with such leaves, and they were, at the end of thirty-five years’ service,
replaced by more accurate and artistic copies of the foliage of the Durian.

Still more important has been the introduction and development of
electric lighting, without which the proper display of such groups as are
now found in our museums would not be possible.

The earliest bird groups in the American Museum of Natural His-
tory, the first of which was very appropriately the American Robin,
were made largely after those in the British Museum and installed each
in a small case so as to be viewed on four sides. They thus differed from
their prototypes in the Booth Museum which, as noted, were intended
to be seen from one side only.?

They were all groups of small or moderate size and confined to
species found within fifty miles of New York City. The time was not
yet come, though it was near at hand, for the execution of the large
naturalistic groups with which we are now familiar, and Museum officers
and trustees would have hesitated to incur the time and cost involved in
their preparation.

1A description of these methods, improved upon by apt pupils, is to be found
in Plants of Wax, Guide Leaflet No. 54, published by the American Museum.

°These early American Museum bird groups, thirty-four in number, have been
brought together with the other “Local Birds’ in the west corridor of the second
floor.

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS wi

A name that might well have had a place in the Story of Museum
Groups is that of William H. Werner, an enthusiastic and skilled collector
of birds in many parts of the United States, and a taxidermist who pre-
pared many groups illustrating the life histories of our native birds.
Some small groups of his were shown at the Centennial Exposition of
1876 and a large series formed a special feature of the ‘ Boardwalk” at
Atlantic City in 1908, and others were exhibited at various places and
attracted much attention. And yet by some mischance Mr. Werner
failed to get in touch with his fellow workers and especially with mu-
seums, and it remained for his friend, Mr. H. S. Regar, to establish a
museum at Norristown, Pennsylvania, whose special feature is Werner’s
groups, and to publish in the “ Ologist”’ an account of his life and work.

AFRICAN LION

Mounted at the Watson Verreaux about 1865, and of interest not only as an
example of the highest class of taxidermy of that period, but as being No. 1 in the
Catalogue of Mammals, American Museum of Natural History

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THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 19

NCE admitted into museums, a precedent established, and in-
trenched behind the bulwarks of high scientific authority, groups
slowly found their way into all museums and their scope extended

to all branches of natural history as fast as opportunity offered and the
skill of the preparator would permit. And to-day, from the Atlantic to

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THE WHARF-PILE GROUP
Marine group in the American Museum by Ignaz Matausch and other prepara-
tors under the supervision of Roy W. Miner, 1914. It shows the sponges, hydroids,
sea anemones and other invertebrate animals with which wharf piles in favored
localities are crowded below low-water mark; the animals are reproduced in wax and
glass, according to their size and structure

the Pacific, there is a friendly rivalry among museums as to which shall
have the finest groups. Birds lend themselves more readily to groups
than does any other class of animals; they combine beauty of form, pose,

PORTION OF THE PADDLEFISH GROUP
In the American Museum of Natural History

OCTOPUS GROUP
This group was prepared by Dr. F. A. Lucas for the Chicago Exposition of 1893 and is at

present in the United States National Museum. The animals were modeled in clay and cast in

“catheartine,”’ a mixture of glue and gelatin

20

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 21

and color, with moderate size that permits ease of handling. Hence
birds naturally were chosen for the first museum groups, and bird groups
in various styles still predominate.

What may be termed habitat groups in miniature are those used
with much success by Mr. Figgins, in which the back of the case is a

VIRGINIA DEER IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

Virginia deer, American Museum of Natural History, mounted by Mr. Carl E.
Akeley in 1902. This is an example of work that has made modern taxidermy an
art. The work of the taxidermist is in a way more difficult than that of the sculptor,
that is, he must not only make a model of the animal in life-like pose, but must
then with great art fit over this model the unyielding skin of the animal

colored, photographic transparency of the locality where the birds were
taken.

As a variant of this, Mr. Frank C. Baker when at the Chicago
Academy of Science used greatly enlarged photographie curved back-
grounds for the insects of the vicinity of Chicago.

PTARMIGANS IN WINTER

With transparent, photographie background.

Colorado Museum of Natural History.

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PART OF THE GROUND SLOTH GROUP
In the American Museum of Natural History

Prepared in the laboratories of the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology

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THE ORIZABA GROUP

“habitat groups.”
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American Museum and typical of the

One of the more recent of the large bird groups in the
William Peters and other preparators of the Museum, background by Bruce Horsfall, birds by Walter Escherick

Constructed by

26 THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

SNS

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PART OP THE LAYSAN ISLAND GROUP
Made for the State University of lowa by Homer R. Dill. This group shows a
portion of the albatross rookery on the little island of Laysan where millions of
birds find a home in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. -Background by Charles Corwin

Just as naturally mammals followed birds, and from mice to ele-
phants have furnished many notable groups and many triumphs—and
failures—for the taxidermist. After mammals came anything that the
taxidermist or modeler could master—reptiles, fishes, insects and other
invertebrates, and last of all plants, which copied by modern methods
are ever green and may be made to show their adaptations to envi-
ronment and interrelations to varying conditions of soil, climate and
surroundings.

Yea, the group idea has even been carried into the dim and distant
past, and in the hall of fossils one may behold a ghostly group of great
ground sloths, or farther on, Allosaurus feeding upon Brontosaurus. And

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 2

~“J

the ground sloths
passed out of ex-
istence thousands
of years ago and
Allosaurus has not
felt the pangs of
hunger for over
six million years!

Fishes — offer
some of the most
difficult problems;
not only does their
expression depend
almost entirely
upon their atti-
tudes, but in
many cases there
is little of interest
in their habits, or
small beauty in
their surround-
ings, when they
have any. And
added to all these
things is the ever
present difficulty
of making a fish suspended in air look as though he were swimming in
water. Furthermore in the character of their integument, fishes and
amphibians furnish a practically insurmountable problem in the way of
mounting, which has led to much friendly discussion as to whether it is
better to show a stuffed specimen that does not at all resemble the
living animal or a cast that cannot be distinguished from it.

In this instance the writer is entirely on the side of those who offer
“something just as good,” believing firmly that the object of exhibits
is to hold the mirror up to nature and let it reflect an image of nature as
she looks when alive, not as she appears when dead and shriveled. And
if a cloth leaf and a glass eye are allowable, why not a wax frog and a
celluloid fish?

One of the first efforts in the line of fish groups, that by Mr. Alfred
J. Klein in the Brooklyn Museum, showing the fishes of a coral reef, is
one of the best, partly from the nature of the subject, which affords more

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THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 29

scope for attractive surroundings than is usually presented. And while
the credit for this group, prepared in 1907, is entirely due to Mr. Klein,
yet it really dates from a memorandum written in 1893 after an inter-
view with Dr. Goode, ‘“‘make a group of red snappers with natural sur-
roundings.”’ It embodies principles, carried to great perfection in the
habitat groups, that were independently worked out in the construction
of a group of octopus, forming part of the exhibit of the United States
National Museum at the Chicago Exposition of 1893. Painted back-
ground connected with the foreground, rounded corners and overhead
lighting were all used in this small group, and while in comparison with
what has been done since, it now seems a very crude little affair, vet it
contained the germs of the beautiful Orizaba group.

The curved, panoramic background and overhead lighting—bor-
rowed consciously or unconsciously from our cycloramas—permit the
last touches in the way of illusion and control of light, regardless of the
time of day. The octopus group embodied also another idea, brought to
great perfection here by Miss Mary C. Dickerson, that of making :
single mold serve for making many individuals. In the octopus group
the animals were cast in gelatin compound and bent into diverse attitudes;
to-day casts are
made in wax,
warmed and
worked into many
poses, a case of
the parallel devel-
opment that oc-
curs In methods as
well as in nature.

The first bird
groups, those in
the British Mu-
seum and_ those

Hap or Des
Mountarn here, were, if we
Surrp, in May borrow a
THE Brook- phrase once famil-
LYN MUSEUM. jar now almost
Mounted by

obsolete, pre-

Remi _ Santens,

for many years at Raphaelistie in
Ward's. Establish- their character—
ment, now at Carnegie exact copies of the

Tet > + “oy
Museum, Pittsburgh spot or surround-

30 THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

ings where the animals were taken. The plants were counted and plotted
on a diagram; sod, roots and shrubs were dug up and transported, often
in the face of great difficulties, to the museum where the group was to be
established, and there assembled in the exact and proper order of occur-
rence. The next step was the habitat group, and here is where Dr. Frank
M. Chapman comes into the story, for it is to him that we owe the series
of nature pictures known by that name.

The habitat group does not copy nature slavishly, even though an
actual scene forms the background; it aims to give a broad and graphic
presentation of the conditions under which certain assemblages of bird
life are found, to bring home to the observer the atmosphere and vege-
tation of some typical part of the country. But save in exceptional
cases, the foreground does not exactly reproduce any given bit of
country, although it does copy the plants and shrubs found there. How
these groups were prepared, what journeyings by flood and field they
involved are told by Dr. Chapman himself in Camps and Cruises of an
Ornithologist and very briefly in the leaflet describing these groups.

The habitat groups thus involved a slight departure from nature,
in that while the background depicted an actual scene, the foreground
was often generalized, and this involves the whole question of how far it is
allowable to depart from actualities. May we combine animals from
different localities or show together those taken at different seasons?
Shall we fabricate our soil and ‘“‘fake” our trees? Personally the writer
believes that all these things are permissible, with certain restrictions,
nay, in some instances, must be done, not merely to make a group at
all, but to enhance its educational value. For example, a bison in his
winter coat may be introduced into a group with the mother and young
and a baby moose placed with an antlered bull—in no other way can you
complete the life cycle and tell the whole story.

Dr. Chapman found it physically impossible to bring away the water-
soaked nests of the flamingoes; Mr. Cherrie found equal difficulty with
the sodden nests of the guacharo birds, while to carry off the cave in
which they were found would have defied even Hercules in his prime.
Here certainly, fabrication is a necessity; and if so much, why not more?
If we cannot import a tree from the forests of Venezuela, let us “adapt”’
an ironwood from Vermont, whereon a colony of howling monkeys may
disport themselves. In this case it is the animals and not their sur-
roundings that are to be emphasized, and the accessories are a matter of
secondary importance, merely a setting.

The first large group, the Bird Rock group, placed on exhibition in
1898, was not definitely planned as a habitat group, but merely as a

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32 THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

picture of part of a famous and impressive bird colony and to make “a
permanent record of this characteristic phase of island life.” The Cobb’s
Island group was the next and the first real habitat group to be con-

structed, this subject being chosen partly because it provided a large -

and interesting group at small expense.

Year after year this series of groups has been extended, covering the
country from east to west and north to south, until room is left for but
one more, and that, it is hoped, will include the bird life of the Arctic
regions.

The Bullfrog, Giant Salamander and Florida groups, particularly the
latter, belong in still another category and may be termed synthetic,
or life study groups, bringing together in one composite picture a number
of animals that probably would not be found in so small an area at any
one moment of the season depicted, but might all be found there at some
moment of the season. Such a group may, or may not, represent a
particular spot; it does depict the natural conditions under which the
animals are to be found and shows them engaged in the most character-
istic and interesting of their varied occupations. In this, the day of
moving pictures, we may say that as the moving picture condenses into
five minutes’ time the events of days or weeks, so these groups depict in
a few square feet of space the life and happenings of a much larger area.

The group in another form is to be found in the Museum of the
University of Kansas, where it includes a great part of the Museum, a
special section having been constructed to contain a large amphitheatre
where the various North American animals from plain to mountain and
from temperate to arctic America may be viewed approximately as they
would be seen in nature.!’ Somewhat similar is the Laysan Island group,
in the form of a eyclorama, executed for the State University, Iowa, by
Mr. Homer R. Dill, where the visitor gazes about him at the imposing
assemblage of albatrosses and other sea fowl, while beyond the blue
Pacific stretches to the horizon. Aside from these the bison and moose
groups in this Museum, made by Richardson and Rowley, are the largest
that have been made, and although they have been on exhibition for
twenty-four and twenty years respectively, they compare favorably with
those of to-day.

The African mammals, by Mr. Carl E. Akeley, in the Field Museum,
are among the finest of their kind for pose and character, but the ‘“ Four
Seasons,” in the same museum and also by Mr. Akeley, depicting the

1'This prepared by and under the direction of L. L. Dyche, is an amplification
of his ideas as shown in 1893 in the Kansas Building at the World’s Fair.

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HOWLING MONKEYS
In the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, mounted by Mr. J.
William Critchley. It is a group whose main purpose is to show the varied attitudes of the
animals. Such groups preceded the large naturalistic groups which combine artistic effect
with instruction and so greatly enhance the educational value of museums

36

THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 37

Virginia deer in spring, summer, autumn and winter, represent high-
water mark in this direction, combining as they do pictorial beauty with
scientific accuracy of detail. It was while engaged on these groups that
Mr. Akeley perfected the method of making the manikin, or artificial
body on which the skin is placed, so as to combine strength, lightness and
durability, and also devised methods for the rapid reproduction of leaves
and a compound stronger and more durable than wax. The need for
making leaves in large quantities is shown by the fact that in the ‘ Four
Seasons” the summer group alone called for seventeen thousand leaves.

Such, briefly, is the story of museum groups; they have grown from
the little box containing a pair of birds and a square foot or two of their
immediate surroundings, to entire colonies of flamingoes and albatrosses
and the broad sweep of land or sea shown in the Orizaba and Laysan
groups. No one man can justly claim credit for the beauty and accuracy
of such groups as may to-day be seen in our larger museums; many have
contributed to this perfection and some stand preéminent among the
rest. To each and all his just meed of praise. Some, whose work might
now provoke a smile, labored hard and earnestly in the face of many
discouragements to lay the foundations on which we build to-day. Some
of whom the present generation has never heard, held out a helping hand
to the youthful would-be taxidermist, and by aid and encouragement
started many of our best men on their career, and some, keen observers
of nature, endowed with artistic spirit and possessed of technical skill,
have perfected what others began.

Great progress has been made, especially in our newer museums, in
the installation of habitat groups of various kinds, but notably those of
mammals, during the ten years that have elapsed since the Story of
Museum Groups was written. The most noteworthy among them are
those prepared by Mr. John Rowley in the California Academy of
Sciences, showing the characteristic large mammals of California. Not
only are these groups not restricted in size but they have the great ad-
vantage of being installed in a hall planned and built for their display,
points wherein Mr. Rowley has worked under conditions more favorable
than those enjoyed by his predecessors.

Fishes, for reasons stated, still remain among the most difficult
subjects for groups, but have been treated with good success both at
the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum—and
have been used in marine groups at the Brooklyn Museum. Marine
groups of invertebrates, brought to a high degree of beauty and perfec-
tion under Dr. Miner, really need to be considered by themselves as,
of necessity, the animals are reproductions in wax and glass.

38 THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS

It is, too, a question if man, as a subject of groups, should not be
treated apart since he calls for quite different handling from his four-
footed relatives and must necessarily always appear in effigy. Single
figures have been in use for many years for the display of costumes or
illustrations of racial characters, but the United States National Museum
was the first, to the best of my knowledge, to make “ethnic groups”
a feature of its exhibits, but these are ‘‘four-sided”’ groups without back-
grounds.

The Public Museum, Milwaukee, has placed on exhibition a number
of groups illustrating the habits and habitats of the races of men found
in North America, and in the State Museum at Albany has been in-
stalled a remarkably fine series of six groups devoted to special cere-
monies of the Iroquois. Our own artistic and elaborate groups de-
pict the daily life of the Hopi and Arapaho Indians, while the Navajo
Group includes a special ceremony, all carried out amid their natural
surroundings.

A problem in connection with insects is to prevent the subjects from
being overshadowed by their surroundings, but they have been “grouped”’
in various ways, from the small, square glass case, which may be likened
to the original bird groups, to the fairly large and very successful life-
history groups recently (1925) installed in the American Museum of
Natural History.

The importance now accorded groups is shown by the consideration
given them in planning new museums, and if due provision has not been
made for them in some recent buildings it is due to unfortunate limita-
tions in structural conditions or to the conservatism of architects. That
“habitat groups” will form an essential feature of every important mu-
seum seems undoubted, but the question arises, though it is propounded
very timidly, if there is not some danger lest the matter of groups be
overdone? Not every animal is worthy of inclusion in a habitat group,
and while it is the duty of a museum to present to the public Nature in
her fairest forms, yet this should not be done to the exclusion of other
important matters. Finally, it must not be thought that “habitat
groups” are confined to the United States, though that is the place of
their origin and they are more numerous in our museums than else-
where—there are fine groups abroad, notably in the museum at Upsala,
and there will be many more in the years to come.

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THE SWALLOW-TAIL BUTTERFLY

One of a number of insect groups recently installed (1925) in the American Museum
of Natural History. Prepared under the direction of Dr. F. E. Lutz in the laboratories
of the Department of Preparation.

39

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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

PLANTS OF WAX

By LAURENCE VAIL COLEMAN, M.A.

| GUIDE LEAFLET SERIES, No. 54 | FEBRUARY, 1928
- SECOND EDITION

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A PORTION OF THE BULLFROG GROUP
Showing Pickerel Weed

Plants of Wax

How They are Made in The American Museum
of Natural History

By LAURENCE VAIL CoLEemMAN, M.A.

Plants of wax have become familiar to museum goers chiefly in
connection with habitat groups of mammals, birds and reptiles. In
fact, the impressiveness of a group often depends as much upon the
accessories which enter into its composition as upon the specimens which
it features, and therefore the making of artificial foliage has become an
important branch of work in a museum’s studios.

The following account explains how plants are made in the American
Museum. The method employed for leaves was devised and patented
by Carl E. Akeley, and this brief exposition is published with his con-
sent.

4 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

The principal materials required are bleached beeswax, cotton
batting of good quality, annealed and stiff iron wire of various sizes,
and a few tools, such as are shown in the cut. Fingers must do the rest;
tools will not give mechanical ability any more than brushes and colors
will make an artist. For delicate leaves, or the petals of flowers, mous-
seline de soie, the mysterious “‘fabric”’ of the Mintorns, is needed. This
was formerly used in making leaves, but has given way to the more
practical and economical method of Akeley.

TOOLS USED IN MAKING LEAVES AND FLOWERS OF WAX

Do not be discouraged if your first efforts are not successful, or
not as successful as you expected. Printed directions can give you
only general principles; something depends on natural aptitude,
much on care and patience. Try something easy first.

WAX LEAVES
In making artificial foliage the individual leaf is the preparator’s
first concern. A fresh leaf makes the best model, though one preserved
in a bath of five per cent formalin may be used. By word and picture
let us follow the reproduction of a leaf.

PLANTS OF WAX 5

MAKING A SQUEEZE MOLD
The original leaf is placed upon a bed of clay around which a
clay wall is set up and the enclosure so formed is poured full of plaster

1

THE LEAF, RESTING ON A CLAY BED
Ready for Making the First Half of the Mold

which covers one side of the leaf and soon sets. The clay is then removed,
leaving the leaf and the plaster together. Two notches are cut in
opposite edges of the plaster to receive the keys of the second part of

6 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

the mold and to prevent the two parts slipping on one another. The
margin around the leaf is brushed with clay water or soap solution to
prevent the next layer of plaster from adhering to it, and for best results
the soap is then swabbed off and a film of stearin applied; another wall
is set up around the leaf and its plaster bed and into the little basin thus

THE LEAF, RESTING ON THE FIRST HALF OF THE MOLD
Ready for Making the Second Half

formed is poured plaster which covers the second side of the leaf. When
it sets, the two blocks of plaster may be separated and the leaf between
them will have left its impression on the inner face of each. It will be

CGIOW ATId WIS V AO SHATVH OML HHL

8 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

seen that each key on the first block has now its mate on the second, for
tongues of plaster from the last-poured mass have filled the notches cut
in the first one. Thus the two parts interlock and fit together in one
position only.

THE WAX LEAF READY FOR TRIMMING

In case a mold is going to be used a great many times, it is best to
soak it in linseed oil for five minutes and let it dry for a week or two.

CASTING A WAX LEAF
When leaves are to be cast from a squeeze mold, the mold must be
soaked in hot water and used while warm and moist. Heat keeps the
wax from chilling till it fills the mold and moisture prevents it from ad-
hering to the plaster. A film of cotton is laid upon the mold— of the
under side of the leaf. A piece of cotton-covered tapered hard iron wire
is laid along the line of the midrib, with its end projecting to form a stem,

PLANTS OF WAX 9

and if the leaf be a thick one more cotton is laid on top. Melted wax,
tinted green with oil colors, is then poured upon the cotton and the
upper part of the mold squeezed down upon it. The whole is plunged into
cold water, opened and the cast removed.

THREE STAGES IN TRIMMING A VERY SIMPLE LEAF

The wax should be bleached beeswax and should be melted in a
double boiler, such as is used for cooking oatmeal in order to avoid burn-
ing the wax and to lessen the danger from fire.

The usual way of tapering wires for the midribs is to make a number
of them into a little bundle, and have a small jar of nitric acid into which
the ends are plunged, and then gradually withdrawn. Care must be
taken not to inhale the fumes and after the wires are withdrawn the bundle
is thoroughly washed, perferably in water in which a little washing soda
has been added, to remove all traces of the acid, which needs careful
handling. If you do not wish to meddle with acid, wires can be pointed
by the slower but safer process of filing.

It was customary to add a little Canada balsam to the wax with a
view to making it tough, but experience has shown that in time the hard-
ening of the balsam actually made the wax more brittle than it would
have been without the balsam.

10 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

The oil color is thoroughly stirred into the melted wax; this gives
the body color of the leaf to be imitated.

A HEAVY COMPLEX LEAF
Showing the Wire Supports on the Under Side

It will be found that pressure aided by capillarity has forced the
wax into a thin sheet which has engulfed the cotton and the wire so
that neither can be seen, and that the excess of wax has run out around
the leaf. The manipulations of casting may be performed in a few seconds.

PLANTS OF WAX L1

Much time is saved by using three molds in rotation so that while
one is in use a second may be warming in hot water and a third with its
east may be cooling in the cold bath.

A COMPLETE LEAF OF THE PITCHER PLANT
And the Molds Used in Making One-Half of It

A Pair of Molds is Needed for Each Half of the Leaf, the Keel, Shown in the Picture
3eing Made on One of the Halves

In the case of large, heavy, and, especially, deeply scalloped leaves
such as occur cn many tropical plants, it is necessary to make a some-
what elaborate complicated framework, such as is indicated in the figure.

The best way to attach the branch wires to the main stem is by solder-
ing, but if this is not convenient wires may be twisted together, bending

12 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

some of them so that one underlies each rib of the leaf; the wires are first
attached with thread and then wound with cotton batting so as to taper
from the midrib to the tip.

In making these large leaves, it is often advantageous for two per-
sons to busy themselves with a single mold, one person pouring the wax

METAL SQUEEZE MOLDS

and the other manipulating the mold and removing the casts. For large
parti-colored leaves two colors of wax, perhaps green and red, may be
poured into the same mold.

A mold is sometimes attached to a large hinge cr frame by means of
which it may be opened or closed after the fashion of a lemon-squeezer.
Molds of type metal may be employed if a large number of leaves is
required, and such a mold must always be attached to a hinged frame.

PLANTS OF WAX 13

FINISHING A WAX LEAF

The east as it is taken from the mold must first be trimmed. Scissors
are usually employed but the operation is not a simple one if the edge of
the leaf be serrate. In this event, the scissors, which have been warmed,
are jerked along, alternately cutting ahead and edging to the side. Then
imperfections are removed, and finally the leaf is shaped between the
fingers.

The wire which projects from the base of the leaf is wrapped with
cotton dipped in wax. Once more the tool is applied to the stem to
obliterate all traces of suecessive windings and the leaf is finished save
for a final coloring.

The manner of assembling leaves upon their stems is determined by
the habit of the plant, the manner in which the leaves are arranged
around the main stem. The leaves of herbs are lashed with thread to a
wire of proper size to represent the main shaft of the plant, and the
joints are wrapped with cotton, the windings being continued along the
shaft. Stiff iron wire should be used for this purpose, and to insure a
neat piece of work the end filed to a long taper. Leaves of trees are
usually treated in the same way, only the tender twigs being reproduced,
for the larger woody twigs need not be fabricated, but in their natural
state serve as a base to which the wax tips are attached.

In fastening leaves to the woody twigs, a hole is bored diagonally
through the twig with a fine drill, if you are fortunate enough to
have one, or with a triangular glover’s needle held in a pin vise or set
in a little wooden handle. The leaf wire is passed through the hole,
turned down along the twig, the end bent at a right angle and forced into
the twig. Sometimes this wire is fastened to the twig by wrapping with
gauze, cotton batting or even thin brown paper and painted the color of
the branch, but this is rather a makeshift.

When the work of assembling has been done, the final touches of
color are applied. A large air-brush which delivers a spray of oil color
thinned in turpentine is really a necessity where leaves are to be made in
considerable numbers; where only a few are wanted color may be
stippled on with a brush or wad of cotton batting and good results may
often be obtained by rubbing in dry color.

Frequently ten thousand leaves are needed for a single group, but
it is rarely necessary to make more than half a dozen sizes of one kind, so
hundreds of leaves may be cast from a single mold.

Blades of grass are cut from heavily waxed gauze and are modeled

14 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

by folding them lengthwise over the edge of a knifelike strip of tin fixed
in a wooden base. Very little manipulation is required. No rib is used,
but each blade from a short distance above the base is rolled about a wire
and several blades are then attached to a heavier wire stem.

In making cactus, the spines are removed and a piece mold made of
the plant or of the various branches. In the case of such a form as the
barrel cactus, the body is made hollow to save wax and while still in
the mold, backed with a lining of plaster and burlap.

WAX FLOWERS

Success in making artificial flowers depends largely upon ingenuity

A SPRAY OF DOGWOOD
A Very Simple Flower

in the application of a few general principles, though to make small
flowers on an extensive scale necessitates the use of dies, such as are
shown in the cut and unfortunately, the making of dies calls for the
services of an expert machinist. Large or medium-sized flowers, poppies,
for example, can be made without any special appliances.

SHHMOTA ONIMVIN NI GHSN SHIC

16 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

The first step is always to dismember the natural flower in order to
determine its construction, and ordinarily it will be found to consist of a
central bulb-like pistil surrounded by slender stamens, a set of petals
collectively termed the corolla framing this heart and a calyx covering
the junction of the flower with the stem. Petals are now largely made of
celluloid,—more recently of Cellulose Acetate which comes in liquid or in
sheets, and stamens and other details of glass so that such flowers are
truly composite. These and other improvements, were introduced by Dr.
Dahlgren of the Field Museum, but it requires a little special training to
use the above mentioned substances successfully though it is frequently
possible to see such work done, or to get a little instruction from some one
connected with a large museum.

When the pistil is large enough to be of any consequence it is cast
upon the end of a wire which is later wound with waxed gauze to the
size of the stem. The stamens are usually long filaments, each bearing
a nodule or anther at its tip, and they are usually imitated with waxed
threads or wires of which the tips are dipped in wax. To imitate stamens
which are short, stout and numerous, it may be practicable to fray or
lacerate one edge of a strip of waxed gauze and so to make a sort of limp
comb which may be wound around the stem with the points upstanding.

The conspicuous and often highly colored corolla is either a group
of separate petals or a cup formed by their fusion. The daisy and the
morning-glory illustrate respectively these two conditions. Separated
petals, if small, are usually cut or stamped with a metal die from waxed
gauze, and for convenience they may sometimes be made in one piece,
joined together at the bases. Large petals are usually cast just as if they
were leaves on a basis of cotton batting, and are then welded to the stem
one at atime. A “one-piece”’ corolla is split down one side and laid out
flat as a pattern for cutting, stamping or casting similar pieces. Each
artificial corolla is then curled around the stem like a cone and the two
adjoining edges are welded together with a hot tool.

The basal calyx frequently has the form of a star, which may be
punched out and the stem slipped through a hole in its center, but some-
times it is composed a large petal-like parts which must be made separately
and attached to the stem.

The ground color of all parts is mixed into the wax of which they
are made, and the finishing tints are applied by hand or with an air-
brush which delivers liquid color as a spray.

The directions given in this leaflet are still the simplest, and for
general purposes the best, for reproducing foliage.

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Poowe TRY DESIGNS

of the Mission Indians

By
Ae. KROEBER

University of California

THIRD EDITION

GUIDE EEAEBLET No/55

The American Museum of Natural History

New York, 1932

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MISSION INDIAN BASKETRY DESIGNS

By A. L. KrorBer

University of California

Visitors to a museum are often impressed by the degree to which
basketry looms up among the exhibits illustrating the life of the Indians
of California and many other primitive peoples. Not only are baskets
relatively more important owing to the want of many implements of
furniture and utensils to which we are accustomed, but they are abso-
lutely more numerous, varied, and showy than among ourselves. In
many cases it is the very lack of development of other arts that has led
to the special development of basket making. Among the California
tribes the best of mechanical energy and ingenuity was exercised in this
one branch of manual dexterity. It is not that the Indian possessed some
mysterious faculty, some inborn gift, through which he could surpass us;
but that he manufactures so few other things that he is able or com-
pelled to devote a disproportionate amount of his interests in this special
direction. There is little doubt that civilized people, if they took up the
matter seriously, would outdistance the savage at his own game, in
basket making as in other undertakings. Yet, when it comes to the
actual fact, baskets are a comparative side-issue to us, notably in com-
parison with other textile products, especially cloth. The result is that
basket making remains a sort of starved stepchild of civilization, where-
as it is the favorite son of many savage cultures.

This growth of basketry at the expense of other arts is particularly
exemplified in aboriginal America by the tribes of California and the
nearby regions. These peoples have always been reckoned among the
most backward of American Indians in the general level of their attain-
ments; but there is also a unanimity of agreement that their baskets
excel those of most other tribes, in fact are probably preéminent on the
continent, if not in the world. Living entirely in the Stone Age stage,
the California Indians knew nothing of vessels of metal. The majority
of them were ignorant of pottery making; and their wood working was so
little developed that had they suddenly decided to replace some of their
baskets by utensils of wood, they would have been very hard put to it to
produce even partially adequate implements. People who build their
houses of thatch, slabs of bark, or dirt thrown over a framework of sticks,
and who navigate on rafts of rushes instead of in timbered boats, have
obviously left their carpentering instinct undeveloped. It is a curious
commentary on the mechanical limitations of these tribes that in spite of

3

4 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

the perfection of their hand woven textiles, they: have been content
to refrain from making the next step in the natural evolution of the
industry, namely, to weave on a loom and thus produce simple fabries.

It is perhaps significant in this connection that their basketry art
is wholly in the hands of women, who spend a great part of their lives,
probably an average of several hours a day, in this occupation. They
seem better able than men to provide the steady patience which is called
for. The work never becomes quite automatic—in the making of a really
good basket the attention can not wholly wander from the work in hand,
even if the weaver has many years of experience. At the same time there
is no heavy strain on the attention, and no concentration of energy is
called for. These requisites seem to be better satisfied by the feminine
temperament. We have then this curious situation: the general in-
dustrial backwardness of the California Indians is exemplified by their
leaving the most important of their industries to their women; but the
women have so far advanced this industry, that the men have no hand
in the peak of attainment of the native culture on its material side.

With the art of basketry in such flourishing condition in this region,
it was inevitable that the imagination of the more gifted individuals
should be stimulated and new inventions made. As the native popula-
tion is cut up into a great number of local groups—more than a hundred
tribes or linguistic units have been recognized in California—it might
further be expected that newly devised methods would often spring up
independently in separated localities, and that the final outcome would be
a number of distinct arts in various parts of the area. This is exactly
what has happened. Neighboring tribes, it is true, have often borrowed
a new method of manufacture or a new style of decoration from the
group that originated it; but on the whole, intertribal communication in
aboriginal California had a limited range and such spread of new ideas
remained restricted. The consequence is that we encounter about half
a dozen quite diverse basketry arts in California; in addition, anyone
whose interests lead him to closer study is usually able to learn to distin-
guish the particular style of many single tribes.

Among these independent styles one of the most distinctive is that
evolved by the Mission Indians, as they are generally called, the groups
that inhabit the coast and mountain regions of Southern California from
Los Angeles to San Diego.! They derived their name from having been

'Gabrielino and Fernandefio; Mountain, Pass, and Desert Cahuilla; Juanefo;
Luisefio; Cupefio; Northern and Southern Diegueio; and some of the Serrano.
The Dieguefio are of Yuman stock, all the others Shoshonean or Uto-Aztecan. The
ware of the Chumash is closely affiliated but not identical.

MISSION INDIAN BASKETRY DESIGNS 5

brought more or less thoroughly under the influence of the Franciscan
missionaries during the last third of the eighteenth and the first third of
the nineteenth century. Their basketry is not as fine in texture as that
made by some other California Indians; but they did, and do, good, even
work when they wish to, and evince a peculiar originality and boldness
in decoration that makes their ware of interest. This basketry may
accordingly be described as reduced to the minimum on the technical
side, but quite specially elaborated along certain ornamental lines; a
quality that has often commended it to artists and collectors.

That a people should skimp technical aspects while evidently eager
to develop the aesthetic ones, may seem unusual. Yet it must be noted
that while the Mission Indian women do some poor work, their efforts
on the whole are not directed so much to avoiding labor by fudgin» the
manipulation, as to simplification of process. In other words, they seek a
maximum of effect with a minimum of means; and this in itself argues a
considerable accomplishment. Even if one aims at nothing more than a
tolerable product, it takes some skill to achieve this with the mechanics
of the work cut to the bone; and the best Mission ware is much more
than tolerable.

This limitation of means in Mission basketry comes out in the matter
of weaves. This is a complicated subject when followed out in detail;
but it may be summarized by stating that the world over there are three
principal types of basket weaving. ‘The first, which includes checker
work, wicker work, and twilling, is essentially a cloth weave made free
band in coarse materials. The basis of it is the simple in-and-out weave.
That is to say, a single cross strand at a time is worked over and under
the longitudinal ones. The second type is twining, which occurs in
many varieties, all of which have in common the fact that two or more
cross strands are introduced at the same time. This involves the fact
that besides being worked in and out among the longitudinal elements,
they must also be twined among each other; whence the name. The
third process is that known as coiling, and, as has often been pointed out,
is in strict accuracy a process of sewing rather than of weaving. The
foundation elements are wrapped or lashed together, and this can be
done only with the aid of an awl or needle. There is no set of parallel
warps to serve as a basis, but the foundation strands or rods coil in a
continuous spiral.

Now of these three processes, the first and simplest or in and out
weave, was not used at all in Mission Indian basketry. This is the more
remarkable because this weave is particularly rapid and satisfactory

6 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

where materials of the type of cane or bamboo are available, and South-
ern California is a country in which cane is native. The second, or twined
process, was known to the Mission Indians but remained very much
stunted. Their twined baskets served only the most ordinary domestic
uses, and were coarse, irregularly spaced in open work, and undecorated.
While we acknowledge their existence in passing, we may eliminate them
from further consideration here. The coiling process was thus the only
one of much consequence in this art, and it is significant that whereas
coiling can be executed in a variety of ways, as on a foundation of one
rod, two rods, three rods, rods and splints, etc., the Mission tribes re-
stricted themselves, deliberately as it were, to only one variety; namely,
a multiple foundation consisting of a bundle of grass stems. In this
sole technique they worked a variety of forms and achieved varied
pattern effects.

The limitation of materials is no Jess remarkable. There are several
dozen plants growing in Southern California abundantly enough to have
been valuable as basket materials, and some of these, such as yucca and
willow, were actually used in baskets by tribes of other regions. Yet
practically all Mission basketry is made in three materials only: a
particular species of grass serving as foundation, and either sumac or a
rush as wrapping.

Even in the matter of forms there is a greater restriction than is
customary among the neighboring aborigines. Certain types of baskets
were made everywhere in the California area except by the Mission
tribes. We can account for their absence here by definite causes. Some
centuries ago, the art of pottery making crept into southern California
from Arizona and New Mexico, where it had flourished among the Cliff-
Dwellers and Pueblos for thousands of years. Being rather settled in
their habits of life, the southern Californians were able to utilize clay
vessels to an extent which would have been impossible—on account of
breakage—among a nomadic people. Their cooking utensils were there-
fore made of pottery, rendering it unnecessary for them to manufacture
the watertight baskets in which the other California Indians did their
cooking by means of hot stones. Then, a special burden basket, a deep,
conical affair, shaped to sling on the back, such as the other tribes used
for carrying loads, was dispensed with because the southern Californians
had evolved the carrying net. This was a sort of small hammock, the
ends connected by a rope or band passing over the forehead, while the

'Epicampes rigens; Rhus trilobata; Juncus sp.

MISSION INDIAN BASKETRY DESIGNS

“J

bag of the net passed around the shoulders and hung over the back. Into
this net a comparatively shallow basket, or at least a flat-bottomed one,
could be set without spilling. In this way the peaked burden basket
of the other tribes was eliminated.

When now we consider the effect of the technical limitations on the
ornamentation, we find its results apparent in three directions.

First, the invariable coiling on a bundle of grass stems produces a
certain thickness of texture. Through the fact that it must be a bundle,
the group of stems cannot well reduce below a certain diameter, say a
sixth of aninch. This means that the wrapping stitches which are sewn
around and through the bundle must also be of considerable length, and
tend naturally to be of some breadth. Small, delicate designs could con-
sequently be worked only with difficulty: they would quickly reveal
themselves as inadequate in effect. The Mission tribes therefore took
the other tack, frankly made most of their designs large and heavy, and
developed a good deal of feeling for the impression which can be obtained
by patterns of blocks or gross masses, instead of depending on intricacy
of arrangement of small elements.

Secondly, the coarse stitches could scarcely be made to look as even
as fine ones. This circumstance cultivated in the mind of the weaver a
disregard for sharp edges and nicety of pattern. She must often have
had difficulty in bringing out the two sides of a design element exactly
even, especially when she was carrying it around the curvature of the
vessel. The outcome was, in some cases, an indifference to exact balance;
whereas more daring workers met the situation by plunging deliberately
into designs which avoid symmetry. This is a rather rare condition in
basketry, and must be looked upon as one of the salient traits of the
pattern decoration of Mission ware.

In the third place, the color scheme was affected by the nature of
one of the basket materials to which the southern California Indian
women had become addicted. The Juncus rush which is one of the two
materials showing on basket surfaces, comes in a great variety of colors,
from a cream white to a dark brown, with intermediate shades of vellow.
reddish, olive, and gray. In fact, the stems vary so much that consider-
able care is required if it is desired to give a basket a background of
uniform color. Here again there are two avenues open, and both were
followed. One was to be discriminating, and to match as closely as
possible the stems that were worked into one basket. The other was to
renounce the attempt at uniformity and openly strive for a patchy color
effect. A great many Mission baskets are mottled almost like a mackerel

8 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

skin and the effect is distinctly pleasing. In some cases the pattern is
emphasized by shading the background in contrast with it. If the pat-
tern is dark, the stitches and the background immediately in contact
with it are carried out in specially light shades of the rush, as if to relieve
the design.

Then, this variable rush which made dyes practically unnecessary—
the only color artificially produced in Mission ware is black—stimulated
the color imagination as such. The result is that, although Mission
designs are basically built up of simple and often crude elements, they
are in many cases worked out in two colors. There is an illuminating
contrast on this point with tribes that employ other materials and tech-
niques. The ware of the Pomo region, for instance is far more delicately
made, and the designs lighter and more intricate; but the pattern is
always of one color only, either red alone or black. In short, the Pomo
weavers suppressed whatever impulse they may have had in the direction
of color elaboration and specialized in the development of forms; where-
as the Mission Indians were generally content to compose their patterns
without much complexity of design, but to add to their liveliness by
variety of color.

Like many primitive peoples these Indians were very little inclined
to turn their basket patterns into pictures. The decoration remains
geometric and can nearly always be analyzed into fundamental elements
of triangles, quadrilaterals, or bars. It is true that basketry, like cloth,
does not lend itself readily to free-flowing lines and curves; but that
such effects are not.impossible is shown by the ware produced in some
parts of the world and occasionally by the Mission Indians themselves.
On the whole, however, we can commend the aesthetic feeling which led
the weavers to avoid such attempts; which from the very nature of the
technique can never be preéminently successful as pictures, and which
usually lose in decorative effect ten times as much as they gain in realistic
representativeness. Most of the few Mission designs that can be recog-
nized as being pictures of something—rattlesnakes, birds, human beings,
or the like—occur in comparatively modern pieces made after the weav-
ers discovered that many white people take more interest in even a poor
picture than in a beautiful geometric design that carries no meaning to
them.

We are so accustomed to think of the Indian as backward and child-
like that it is a great temptation to feel pleased, as it were, over his
failures. The more crudely he does a thing, the more typical it is likely
to seem to us, and the more eager we are to seize upon it. Of course this

MISSION INDIAN BASKETRY DESIGNS 9

crudity of his is especially emphasized when he attempts to imitate our-
selves. In this matter of designs the Indian quite generally knew his
limitations, and, left to himself, at least in many tribes, did not attempt
to decorate by pictures, reserving these for his religious communications.
He had however, like all human beings a sense for the beautiful; and
dumb though he might be in expressing this in words, he instinctively
knew the difference between an object having aesthetic value and one
lacking it.

We must remember too that, owing to the very poverty of his life as
compared with ours, the Indian was conservative, so that when a given
style had once grown up it tended to flourish for centuries. This perma-
nence would sooner or later make it probable that even in small com-
munities artistically gifted individuals would be born who would add
their contribution of quality or talent to the prevailing style. They
would thus set up a standard of attainment which would serve as a
model and could be pretty successfully imitated by the mass of weavers
who set to work with less creative imagination but with much willing-
ness to do their best. To every Indian group, however small, art con-
sequently represents a truly national tradition. The best that many
preceding generations have had to offer has gone into it. This is why
such arts, whether they manifest themselves in basketry or pottery or
beadwork or carving, almost invariably possess a genuine aesthetic
merit no matter how limited they may be. Those among ourselves who
possess artistic impressionability find little difficulty in entering into
the spirit of such primitive arts. Possibly sometimes we are even more
keenly alive to their values than the natives themselves. On the other
hand the civilized person who prefers the childish and halting efforts at
picture making in Indian textiles or beadwork, is characterizing himself
as lacking in feeling for the best that native art really has to offer. He
is gratifying a superficial or sensational taste which is not artistic at all.

On the whole the Mission tribes, like many other Indians, are suffi-
ciently imbued with feeling for their own aesthetic products to adhere
rather firmly to the tribal styles. The disturbing effect of trade influences
is perceptible in this ware, but has not yet cut very deeply. In some
respects it has even proved stimulating. The baskets with mottled
surface or subtle color effects find a readier sale than those of a severer
color scheme. The result is that proportionally more of them are being
made, and bolder effects being carried out on them than formerly. It is
true that there are fewer Mission Indans than there used to be. Many
of the younger generation have gone to school, and the mode of life is

10 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

each year coming to conform a little more to our own. There can thus
be little doubt that ultimately this art will die out. It is far from dead,
however; and on many of the little reservations that stud Southern
California it is not only the old but also the middle aged women that still
produce fine baskets. Even a returned school girl, innocent though she
may be of such matters when first coming home, is likely to take up the
industry as a means of providing herself with pin money, as soon as she
discovers that if she can turn out competent ware in her idle moments, it
will bring a satisfactory price at the trader’s or from the tourist. In
this way, while civilization is on the one hand tending to destroy the
integrity of this basketry art, it is on the other helping to keep it alive
and is even stimulating it to new developments.

ANALYSIS OF DESIGNS
Figures 1-42

The cross (figs. 1-8) is a native design, as shown by its fundamental form: four
blocks surrounding a rectangular space, as in figs. 1, 3, 4.

An elongated checkerboard arrangement occurs in bands (fig. 9), masses (figs.
10-12), and related rectangular forms (figs. 13-16).

Upright rectangles flanked by rows of right-angled triangles are characteristic
(figs. 17-19).

An erect diamond with little light window-like spaces in it is shown simple in
fig. 20, elaborated in 21-22, distorted in 23-24,

Simple diamonds are frequent, both in patterns and standing free (figs. 25-33).
Note the characteristic asymmetries and irregularities in figs. 27-29.

One of the most typical Mission basket designs is a V or pair of spreading horns
which are used free, in pattern repetition, and to elaborate other designs. Figs. 31 to
50 all contain this motive recurring through a series of designs of the greatest variety.

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37 38 39 40 41 42

Figures 1-42

ANALYSIS OF DESIGNS
Figures 43-84

Figs. 45-47 are notable as three variants on the identical basket, 45 being stand-
ard and 47 the extreme of asymmetrical simplification.

Designs deliberately thrown out of balance appear in figs. 57-78. The asym-
metry may be barely discernible, as in 66, 67, 68; prominent but yet superimposed
on an underlying symmetry, as in 65, 73; or fundamental, as in 60, 62, 76.

Fig. 64, representing a church, is a modern variant of the old native pattern
seen In 52 and 53. See Plate I, fig. 1

Triangles are the basis of designs 79-84. Figs. 81 and 82 evince a pleasing imagi-
nation.

ANALYSIS OF DESIGNS
Figures 48, 49, 75, 77, 78, 84
These six figures illustrate some of the more complex basket pattern elements.
Figs. 48 and 49 are built on the V or “‘spreading horns” concept, highly elaborated
but nevertheless substantially regular. Fig. 75 is astep pattern, simple in motive, but
tantalizingly irregular even within the two and a half repetitions shown. Figs. 77
and 78 are masterpieces of decorative invention repaying the most careful analysis.
It should be remembered that designs like these are not outlined in advance but
slowly evolved as the basket is built upward. Onasmallscale, the aesthetic process is
similar to that operative in a richly decorated mediaeval Cathedral growing through
several generations without an architect’s plan.

78

77.78 84
“ 75, 77.78. §
Figures 48, 49, 75, 7

Figure 85

Figure 86

Fig. 85. The entire design on a flat basket, unusual in its semi-realism, yet
handled with definite decorative feeling.

Fig. 86. Designs 18 and 83 are here shown as they actually appear on the inner
surface of a shallow basket. The elements occur at uneven distances; they are in-
troduced 5 and 3 times respectively, instead of 4 and 4; and one of them is worked
both with and without contained color.

Plate I.

Pattern arrangements on flat and shallow Mission baskets—banded, radiating,
spirally diagonal and crossing or zigzag. In fig. 3 the elements are unevenly spaced;
in 4 they are irregular; 3 and 5 show varying shades in different parts

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THE GEOLOGY

OF NEW YORK CITY
VICINITY

By CHESTER A. REEDS
GUIDE LEAFLET SERIES No. 56

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BmeEQLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY
AND VICINITY

By CHESTER A. REEDS

Curator of Geology and Invertebrate Paleontology

The American Museum of Natural History
Guide Leaflet No. 56
New York, April, 1930
Third Edition

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DIH6WESOISAKS

Geology of New York City and Vicinity

By CHESTER A. REEDS

Curator of Geology and Invertebrate Palwontology

RELIEF FEATURES

The relief features of the New York City district consist of several
distinctly different types, which have been developed by natural forces
on rocks of unequal hardness. Some of the rocks are unconsolidated
sands and muds and are of comparatively recent date; others are strati-
fied with alternating hard and soft beds, which have been tilted or slightly
folded and are older; still others of the same origin but far older have
been so much altered and deformed during certain geologic periods that
they have become crystalline and entirely changed in appearance, that is,
metamorphosed. Volcanic rocks thick and homogeneous in character
have also been injected into the area at different times, some very early,
others later, but none very recently. These and some of the crystalline
ones form the most resistant ridges. The distribution of the rocks is
in the form of belts with a prevailing northeast-southwest direction.

The essential relief features and physiographic provinces of the
area are shown in a graphic manner on the relief map, frontispiece.
They may be summarized as follows:

1. The continental shelf, which represents the submerged margin
of the continent, extends eastward from the New Jersey shore for about
100 miles to the 100 fathom line. Beyond that point the sea floor drops
rapidly to the great and extensive oceanic depths of 2000-4600 fathoms.

2. The Coastal Plain is that portion of the former submerged
continental shelf which has been raised above the sea without apparent
deformation. Three well defined elements of this plain appear:

(a) Its inner lowland, partly drowned in Long Island Sound, Lower
New York and Sandy Hook bays, extends southwestward along the main
railway lines through New Brunswick, Trenton, Philadelphia, Balti-
more, and Washington;

(b) Its fall line features appear on the Delaware at Trenton, on the
Schuylkill at Philadelphia, on the Potomac at the Great Falls above
Washington, D. C., and on the James River at Richmond;

(c) Its cuesta forms the foundation of Long Island, the Atlantic
Highlands, and the ragged front making up the hilly belt of southern
New Jersey.

3. The Newark Lowland is a plain developed on inclined weak
strata consisting of red sandstones and shales of Triassic age. The in-

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PLAINFIELD *

Sketch map of New York City and vicinity, showing position of the terminal moraine
and directions of the ice movement (indicated by the arrows) during the last or Wisconsin
glaciation. After United States Geological Survey.

trusive sheets of resistant voleanie rock form the prominent residual
ridges known as the Palisades, Watchung, Hook, Cushetunk and Sour-
land mountains, and Long and Rocky hills.

4. The New England Upland is represented in the district by the
Manhattan and Reading prongs. This upland consists of dissected and
disordered crystalline rocks. The Manhattan prong extends down the
east bank of the Hudson estuary from the Highlands to and including
Manhattan Island. The north central portion of Staten Island is an
outlier. The Reading prong extends as highlands from the gorge of the
Hudson southwestward across New York and New Jersey to Reading,
Pennsylvania.

5. The broad valley to the west occupied by the Wallkill and
Paulins Kill is a part of the great Appalachian Valley, which extends from

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 5

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The ‘‘rocking stone,” New York Zodlogical Park, an ice-transported bowlder resting on
a glaciated surface.

Birmingham, Alabama, to Lake Champlain. It is one of the prominent
subdivisions of the Newer Appalachian physiographic province.

6. The narrow Kittatinny Mountain ridge dipping westward,
represents the northeastern extension of the belt of newer and folded
Appalachians of central Pennsylvania.

7. The Alleghany Plateau appears west of the Delaware River.
Farther north in New York State the Catskill Mountains represent a
subdivision of this plateau.

RELIEF MODIFIED BY GLACIATION
The northern portion of the New York City district has been
traversed at least four times by great sheets of ice which moved down
from the Labrador center. These continental glaciers modified the
drainage and the surface of the land over which they passed. The terminal
moraine which represents the southernmost extent of the last ice field

NO on mae hip aine Fr
Ea patel

Exposure of glacial till, containing sand, gravel, and bowlders, in contact with Serpentine
rock, at Castle Point, Hoboken. After United States Geological Survey, Passaic Folio, No. 157

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 7

appears as a conspicuous ridge consisting of knobs and kettle holes on
Long Island, Staten Island, and New Jersey. It continues westward
across the United States to the Pacific Ocean near Seattle, Washington.

The drift bowlders and unsorted rock débris in the terminal moraine
and northward give a clue as to the direction of ice movement. Large
bowlders of crystalline rock from Jamaica and Hollis, Long Island,
indicate that they were plucked out of the bed rock in the vicinity of
Yonkers, Mt. Vernon, and other places in Westchester County, New
York. Glacial-borne pebbles containing fossils and oolites have been
found at Broadway and 191st Street. The fossils represent minute
fragments of bryozoa and corals, of Devonian age, which are similar to
those found at present in the Catskill Mountain region. The oolites,
which are small, concentric spheres cemented together, resemble fish
roe. They, too, came from up-state New York. On Staten Island, Long
Island, and Short Hills, New Jersey, many large drift bowlders of sedi-
mentary origin and containing numerous marine fossils were derived from
the exposures in east central New York State.

Each of the four continental glaciers of the Pleistocene epoch:
consisted of ice thousands of feet thick. They not only plucked out huge
bowlders the size of a house and transported them long distances,
but they also scoured off the soil-cover in many places and left bare rock
surfaces, roches moutonnées, little deserts in fact, on which no plants
other than lichens can grow. A good example of a glaciated surface
with an ice-transported bowlder resting upon it is the ‘‘rocking stone”
in the New York Zoological Park, Bronx, figured above.

Rocks held firmly in the base of the ice served not only as abrasives
but also as etching tools. Deep parallel grooves in crystalline rock appear
at various places on Riverside Drive, particularly on the south side of
the Drive where it leaves the Hudson River at about 200th Street.
These glacial striz running northwest-southeast give the direction of ice
movement. Many diabase bowlders from the Palisades found in Yonkers
and New York City indicate that the ice moved southeasterly, diagonally
across the Palisades and the Hudson River, as shown on the diagram,
page 4.

A stream leaving the front of the glacier oftentimes contained a large
volume of water and had considerable transporting power. Hence
pebbles, sand, and fine rock débris were carried in considerable quantity.
In most instances the streams deployed fanwise almost immediately on
their emergence from the glacial sheet and the material carried from the
ice was dropped close to the margin of the glacier. The fans formed by
single streams were usually small, being from half a mile to two miles in
radius; confluent fans were larger, varying from one to six miles in

8 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

ae

ee ee ec

Cross-section drawing of the sediments in the Hudson River at Storm King Mountain,
where is located the great siphon of the New York City aqueduct. From Bulletin 146 of the
New York State Museum

radius. The materials are somewhat sorted and stratified and are
called outwash deposits. These deposits occur at short intervals along
the southern margin of the terminal moraine. Towns built on some of
the larger outwash plains are Plainfield, New Jersey, Flatbush and
Hempstead, Long Island.

While glacial streams were depositing fan-shaped outwash deposits
in many places along the ice front, a glacial lake, Lake Passaic, appeared
to the south of the terminal moraine between the crescentic outline of the
Watchung Mountains on the east and south and the New Jersey high-
lands on the west. The waters of the lake drained through the Muggy
Hollow outlet at the southwest corner into the Raritan River valley.
When the ice front retreated northward, the lake waters followed it and
occupied the entire basin behind the Watchung Mountains to the west
and southwest of Paterson, New Jersey. The numerous fresh-water
marshes of today, along the upper course of the Passaic River, cover
portions of the bed of this former glacial lake. See map, pages 14-15.

Great accumulations of glacial till, a mechanical mixture consisting
of unsorted clay, sand, pebbles, and small bowlders, are found generally
in the wake of the glacier. In the New York City district it varies from a
fraction of a foot to 500 feet in thickness. A good exposure of it resting

Airplane view of Upper Manhattan Island, with the Harlem River in the foreground,

the Hudson river and Palisades in the background. The three aqueducts, High Bridge, Croton
and Catskill, which supply water to New York City, enter Manhattan at this point.

tae
ane
Papemee

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ie i my
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as i 4 pe Hani IN ees Ae Sy
“heal Wiss FELT HLH HSS cE 4 : oa

Cross-section of the Harlem River near High Bridge showing the sub-surface crossing

of the Catskill aqueduct, the distorted rocks, and the fill of glacial drift and alluvium in the
river bed. From Bulletin 146, New York State Museum.

10 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

ZZ

After United

States Geological Survey.

on serpentine rock may be seen at Castle Point, Hoboken, New Jersey,
page 6. It oftentimes fills the pre-glacial stream valleys and frequently
covers the leeward side of hills and the lower areas. Test holes in the
Harlem River at High Bridge show that the channel has been filled up
from 80 to 111 feet by glacial drift and river mud, page 9.

The glacial drifts and sediments in the Hudson River gorge at
Storm King Mountain have been found by drilling operations to be
between 768 and 995 feet thick, with an average of 800 feet. In the
vicinity of the Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels at 32d Street, New York
City, the sediments are 300 feet thick, with a possible greater depth in
an untested section in midstream. In the Lower Bay deposits accumu-
lated to such an extent that the mouth of the river was almost closed to
large ships. Some $4,000,000 have been spent by army engineers in
dredging the Ambrose Channel 2000 feet wide by 40 feet deep, so that
the large ocean liners and other vessels may enter the harbor. From a
point ten miles out from Sandy Hook to the edge of the continental
shelf about one hundred miles distant, a well-defined river channel
exists which increases in depth seaward. Near the brink of the continen-
tal platform it is 4800 feet deep. Glacial deposits appear over a portion |
of the course, page 10.

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 11

RECENT SHORE DEPOSITS

Sandy Hook, Coney Island, and Rockaway Beach are pronounced
coastal irregularities. South Beach and Midland Beach, Staten Island,
are less so. These features are temporary for they represent initial
stages in the process of coastal simplification. After the initial reefs and
barriers have become land, the lagoons behind them are likely to be
filled with sediment and organic matter, forming land. See map, pages
14-15.

The development of curved spits and beaches along the New Jersey
and Long Island shores is worthy of consideration. In the vicinity of
Long Branch, New Jersey, the sea cliff indicates wave erosion. The
eroded débris is shifted northward by the waves and currents and piled
up along the beach which terminates in Sandy Hook. The tendency of
the hook to turn westward is due largely to the strong westward sweep
of the winds and tides of the Atlantic Ocean. This has been going on for
some time, for Sandy Hook is a compound, recurved spit. Rockaway
Beach is also compound in appearance, while Coney Island is simple.
The same forces which shift the sediments north along the New Jersey
shore are moving them westward along the Long Island coast in the
vicinity of Rockaway and Coney Island. As Staten Island lies across
the path of these waves, South Beach and Midland Beach represent a
barrier or bar which has been built up by the waves near the line of
breakers. That the prevailing direction of currents along the Midland
Beach is to the southwest is indicated by the development of a spit in
the vicinity of Great Kills. Beach deposition and straightening of the
coast line is also in progress on the south shore of the Lower Bay in the
vicinity of Port Monmouth, New Jersey.

The estuaries and lagoons east of Port Monmouth are being filled
with sediments derived from the land and the growth of vegetation, for,
being in the lee of Sandy Hook and the barrier beaches, they are pro-
tected from strong sea waves. This is also true of Jamaica Bay, the
Flushing Creek basin, Hackensack Meadows, Newark Bay, and the
upper reaches of Arthur Kill. These bays and estuaries are the result of
recent subsidence of the area. Thus the drowned lands, which now
represent shallow sea floors, have been a factor in the placing and devel-
opment of certain pronounced hooks and barrier beaches. The wind has
also notably modified the deposits made by the waves and currents, for
it has developed long ridges and sand dunes on the surface of the beaches.

In addition to the shore deposits which are of recent development
there are rocks exposed in the New York district which have greater
age and a more profound history. There are at least five series of them.
See geologic map page 15. While they are in close juxtaposition and

12 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

~~ Mel
ee

Ancient contorted Manhattan schist (Archeozoic) with rather recent glaciated surface
(Pleistocene). See geologic map, pp. 14-15. South Meadow, Central Park, Manhattan.
E. O. Hovey, photo.

have a well-established relation to each other, they are widely separated
in origin by great intervals of time. Each series has had its normal
period of development; the oldest, however, has suffered greater physi-
cal and chemical changes imposed upon it by mountain-making move-
ments and other deformations which have affected it during the growth
of the North American continent.

In passing from a consideration of the present shore develop-
ments to the oldest series of rocks exposed in the area, we go rapidly
backward from the Age of Man through the Age of Mammals, the
Age of Reptiles, the Age of Amphibians, the Age of Fishes, the Age
of Invertebrates, to the little-known but inferred Age of Unicellular
Organisms. We shall not consider the ever-changing shore line, the
configuration of the lands and seas, and the great accumulation of sedi-
ments which have taken place slowly and repeatedly during these ages.

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 13

We shall have to omit a discussion of the birth, rise, decay, and dis-
appearance of mountain ranges which have succeeded one another in
this and other parts of the continent. Standing on the threshold of
the better-known eras of geologic time, beginning with the Archozoic,
and turning our back on the hypothetical sons through which the earth
must have already passed, let us approach the Present from the chrono-
logical point of view.

THE ARCHEOZOIC ERA

In the dawn of life a series of limestones and associated sedimentary
rocks were laid down in Canada near Ottawa, which have been called the
Grenville series. According to Professor C. P. Berkey, of Columbia
University, certain metamorphosed rocks in the Manhattan and Read-
ing prongs of the New England upland are contemporaneous in age.
The Fordham gneiss exposed in Bronx and Westchester counties and
northward has all the physical characters of the Grenville series. It
consists primarily of granitic and quartzose black and white banded
gneisses and schists of very complex composition and structure. Inter-
bedded quartzite and limestones and old igneous intrusions are also
included. Note the position on the accompanying geologic map, pages
14-15.

Resting upon the gneiss series in a conformable manner at Hastings-
on-Hudson and other places is the Lowerre quartzite named after the
locality in South Yonkers from which it was first described. It is a thin,
schistose quartzite which varies in thickness from a fraction of a foot to
100 feet and rarely out-crops.

This formation is followed by a coarsely crystalline limestone locally
tremolitic, micaceous, and pegmatitic, which varies in thickness from
200 to 800 feet. It is called the Inwood dolomite after the Inwood section
of the city at the north end of Manhattan Island. Good exposures of
the Inwood dolomite occur in the valley north of Dyckman Street, for
instance at Marble Hill station on the New York Central Railroad.

Conformably overlying the Inwood formation is a very thick,
coarsely crystalline, pegmatitic mica schist, which is called the Man-
hattan, after the extensive exposures on Manhattan Island, page 14.
The Lowerre-Inwood-Manhattan series is regarded as late Grenville in
age. This and the Fordham series constitute the original sedimentary
beds of the Archzozoic Era exposed in the New York City district.

THE PROTEROZOIC ERA, IGNEOUS ROCKS

All igneous rocks of the crystalline area under consideration are
younger than the sedimentary members into which they have been

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Slab showing p: dinosaurs after a shower. The rain-drop im-

pressions are represented by small pits. After R. S. Lull.

Impressions of the feet and tail of a Triassic dinosaur on a ripple-marked surface.
Specimen from Pleasantdale, N. J.

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 17

STEGOMUS

ANOMOEPUS _

PODOKESAURUS
RHYTIDODON

Certain types of dinosaurs of Triassic age which inhabited the New York, Virginia and
Connecticut valley basins.

intruded. But they are not all of the same age or kind. There are
granitic stringers and sills which may date back to the close of the earliest
of these sedimentary periods, since they partake of all the metamorphic
changes that characterize these ancient strata including recrystalliza-
tion and flowage. The most striking examples are the Yonkers granite-
gneiss, a sill, and the Ravenswood granodiorite, a boss. Some of the
pegmatitic streaks and basic intrusions belong to a period of more exten-
sive metamorphic activity and penetrate the Inwood dolomite and Man-
hattan schist. Examples are the Harrison diorite, basic dikes, granitic
dikes, bosses, and intrusions as shown on the accompanying geologic
map, pages 14-15. The serpentine which is found at Hoboken and over a
large part of Staten Island is a metamorphic alteration product derived
from similar basic intrusions.

The entire basal series of rocks have been folded, crumpled, faulted,
crushed, injected, intruded, and intensely modified by recrystallization;
nevertheless, they retain the fundamental association and essential
character of an originally sedimentary series. Many of the gneisses, a
few of the schists, all of the granites and diorites are of igneous origin
and occur as sills, dikes, or bosses, cutting the metamorphosed sedimen-
tary members. They, too, have been greatly metamorphosed and are
very ancient, perhaps late Archzozoic or Proterozoic.

Fort Lee phytosaur, Rutiodon manhattanensis. Photograph of the skeleton as preserved
in the original matrix. About \o natural size. A description of it was published by the
American Museum of Natural History, Bulletin XXXII, pp. 275-282, 1913

AN

Reh é is\ SEQ SR Van

INAeN

Restoration of the skeleton and dermal plates of Rutiodon manhattanensis. The shaded
portion represents the parts preserved in the Fort Lee specimen. After W. D. Matthew.

Men excavating the skeleton of the Fort Lee phytosaur on the west bank of the Hudson
River opposite 155th Street, New York City. The specimen was found in a red sandy marl
about twenty feet below the thick sheet of diabase of the Palisades.

19

20 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

THE PALZOZOIC ERA

The Palzozoie rocks and fossils, which represent a tremendously
long period of time and follow the Proterozoic Era, are not found in the
immediate vicinity of New York City except as glacial drift bowlders
from up-state New York. They appear in situ, however, in great force
in western New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and the Mississippi
valley states.

THE MESOZOIC ERA, TRIASSIC PEROID

From the Hudson River westward to the crystalline rocks of the
New Jersey highlands occurs a thick series of reddish brown sandstones,
shales, and congolmerates, called the Newark group, which dip 10 to 15
degrees to the northwest. Near Philadelphia, Trenton, and New Bruns-
wick, the Stockton, Locatong, and Brunswick formations have been
differentiated, but not beneath the glacial drift cover to the northeast-
ward. These sedimentary rocks were deposited in a trough or graben
with faulted margins which extended southwestward from the Hudson
River across central New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland into
southern Virginia. In all probability a major stream with lateral
tributaries occupied the depression. The region was presumably high
and arid. Ripple marks, mud cracks, rain drop impressions, and foot-
prints of reptiles are common, especially in the Brunswick shale, and
indicate flood plain and shallow water deposition. Restorations ofthe
dinosaurs, Stegomus, Anomepus, Podokesaurus, Anchisaurus, and
Rutiodon (Rhytidodon), which inhabited this zone and the Connecticut.
Valley, are shown in accompanying illustrations pages 16-17-18.
Only one skeleton, the Fort Lee Rutiodon, pages 18-19, has been found
near New York City. Fossil fishes and a small crustacean, Estheria
ovata, have also been found. The fossil remains indicate Triassic age,
the initial period of the Mesozoic Era, sometimes called the Age of
Reptiles.

Three successive lava flows which were extruded during the deposi-
tion of the Newark beds have been subsequently faulted, flexed, and
tilted into their present position. Since that event erosion has removed a
great thickness of sedimentary rocks and the upturned edges of the lava
sheets are now exposed. The First and Second Watchung Mountains
and Hook Mountain represent these three basaltic flows. The lowest,
First Mountain, is about 600 feet thick; Second Mountain 800 feet, and
Hook Mountain 300 feet. About 600 feet of red sandstone and shale
separate the first and second, and 1500 feet the second and third. Red
Triassic sandstone and shale are also found above and below these
voleanic rocks.

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 21

~*
¥

a P

'

Palisades of the Hudson opposite Spuyten Duyvil, N. Y.

The Palisade diabase is a great sheet of igneous rock, from 350 to
1000 feet thick, which was intruded among the lower strata of the New-
ark group. It extends from Staten Island northward along the west.
bank of the Hudson River to Haverstraw. At its southern exposed
extremity it is practically at sea level, while at the north it is 700 feet
higher. Throughout most of its extent it presents an escarpment of
high cliffs with vertical columns of rock which were developed during
the cooling stage and which suggest the name Palisades, page 19.

CRETACEOUS PEROID

Stratified rocks which represent the closing stage of the Age of
Reptiles rest unconformably upon the Newark group in New Jersey
and upon the erystalline basal complex in Staten Island and Long Is-
land. Except for a few exposures along the north coast and the interior
of Long Island, the Cretaceous sediments are hidden by glacial deposits of
Pleistocene age. Their presence, however, is ascertained from numerous
deep-well records. In the unglaciated area south of Raritan Bay, they
are exposed over extensive areas. Here three well-defined members ap-

22 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

pear, the basal Raritan formation of plastic clays, the Mattawan forma-
tion of clay marls, and the Monmouth, including the Rancocas and
Mansquan formations of green sand and marls. Fossil marine inverte-
brates and plant remains indicating Upper Cretaceous age are found in
some of these beds. The Cretaceous deposits of Long Island, which
average 1550 feet in thickness, vary greatly in composition within short
distances and are, on the whole, more sandy than those of New Jersey.
An exposure may be seen at Elm Point on Great Neck, Long Island.

The inclination to the southeast of the bed rock surface on which
these sediments were deposited is about 40 feet to the mile in New Jersey,
80 feet near Oyster Bay and Huntington, and 40 feet at Port Jefferson,
Long Island. The dip of the beds, which is the same as the slope of the
unexposed floor, probably decreases toward the east and south. This
old Cretaceous floor is still preserved inland in the crests of the Palisade
and Watchung ridges, Schooley Mountain and Kittatinny Mountain of
New Jersey and in the truncated folds of the Appalachian Mountains
west of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Locally in Long Island the weak
upper beds of the Cretaceous series have been greatly folded and con-
torted by the passage of the Pleistocene glaciers over them.

THE CENOZOIC ERA, PLEISTOCENE EVENTS

Four glacial and three interglacial stages are represented on Long
Island. The periods of glaciation correspond to the Nebraskan, Kansan,
Illinoian, and Wisconsin of the Central United States, and to the Giinz,
Mindel, Riss, and Wiirm of the Alps Mountains. Locally they have been
named by Mr. M. L. Fuller, of the United States Geological Survey, the
Mannetto, Jameco, Manhasset, and Wisconsin stages and are represented
primarily by gravel and morainal deposits. The only ones represented
within the limits of the accompanying geological map are the Manhas-
set and Wisconsin. The outwash, terminal moraine, till, and retreatal
outwash deposits of the Wisconsin stage are far more extensive and
more readily examined than the similar accumulations of the older stages
since they were the last and cover in large part those made during the
preceding glaciations.

The First Interglacial stage, the post-Mannetto, was long, for a
great erosional unconformity exists. Following the deposition of the Man-
netto gravel of the First Glaciation, there was a period of uplift and
erosion in which the Mannetto was cut to a depth of 300 feet below sea
level, as shown by the depth of the buried Jameco channel in Long
Island. The great length of this period of erosion, indicated by the
almost complete removal of the thick Mannetto gravel from the Long
Island region, is in harmony with the time required for the cutting of the

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 23

Hudson River rock gorge to a depth of 750 feet below present sea level.
The gorge proper appears to be filled solely with Pleistocene materials
as indicated by the Storm King and other borings; hence, its cutting
is to be referred to a date later than the deposition of the latest Tertiary
beds in New Jersey.

The narrow, steep-sided and deep outer canon of the submarine
channel, page 10, if due to stream erosion, must be referred to an elevation
of great magnitude, 4800 feet, occurring at the close of the post-Mannetto
erosion stage. The great drops or falls in its beds are characteristic of a
juvenile stream or an old one which has been rejuvenated. As only the
edge of the continental shelf was notched, the epoch of maximum eleva-
tion must have been brief.

During the Second Interglacial stage, the Yarmouth of the Mis-
sissippi Valley, the Gardiner’s clay was deposited in Long Island. It was
followed by a transitional epoch represented by the Jacob sand.
Throughout the time of the Second Glaciation, the Second Interglacial
stage and the Third Glaciation, the channel of the Hudson remained con-
stantly below sea level. The deposits, which, have a combined thickness
of about 500 feet, doubtless obliterated the 1 upper reaches of the subma-
rine Hudson channel.

The Third Interglacial interval, the Vineyard, is represented by (a)
a great erosional unconformity, and (b) the Vineyard formation, consist-
ing of marine deposits and peat. The valleys in the Manhasset deposits,
although somewhat modified and partly filled with the later Wisconsin
accumulations, are known to extend some distance below sea level at
many points along the north shore, indicating a former higher position
oftheland. The present upper submarine channel] of the Hudson, which
has a depth at its outer end of 350 feet, suggests that the land must have
been elevated to that extent during the Vineyard interval.

There are no erosion channels referable to Wisconsin or post-i q,,

Wisconsin elevation on Long Island. The upper end of the Hudson...

channel, however, between Sandy Hook and Rockaway Beach, has beens
Ponteted: in part by Wisconsin outwash and in part by the shifting of
the sands by the littoral currents that now sweep along the coast.

ADVANCE AND RETREAT OF THE ICE OF THE LAST GLACIATION

. An examination of the maps pages 4, 25, will show that the southern-
ane point reached by the ice of the last glaciation was Prince’s Bay,
Staten Island, and Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The terminal moraine,
which acecuiteg the southern limit of glaciation, is not only well-developed
at Perth Amboy, but it extends northeastward across Staten Island and
Long Island, and northwestward through Summit and Morristown,

4

VARVED CLAY FROM THREE GLACIAL LAKE BEDS NEAR 1W YORK CITY
The thick dark bands denote the winter accumulation; the intervening lighter colored layers represent the
summer deposition. A pin at the upper edge of each of the dark winter bands marks the limits of each varve.
The distance between pins thus represents a varve, or annual deposit.
on No. 34 contains eighteen varves deposited in glacial Lake aic one half mile north of Mountain
View, New Jersey. An offset in the layers near the right margin represents a fault; the joining of two dark winter
bands in the upper right of the section is due to a lateral slide
Section No. 4 1 bottom sample taken from clay deposited in Lake Hackensack, one mile north of Little
Ferry, New Jerse 1e bottom -1086), which rests upon the gl: I drift or till, has been disturbed by a
slide. The numbers with negative sign represent the author's count of the varves below a datum plane for the Little
Ferry district, described in American Mi Novitates No. 209, 1926. This section v cut by a special clay
sampling tool, at a depth of ten feet, below the lowest workin vel of the Gardiner clay pit.
Section No. 172 from the Archer pit, Haverstraw, New York, shows nine varve sited in Lake Hudson.
The ves in this sample are thicker than those in the other two samples. Sections No. id No. 172 are gray
while No. 422 is of a pronounced red color. The color of the clays is ascribed to the difference in the color

in tone,
of the underlying rocks, which were scored and scoured by the advancing glacier.

24

: Bion \ i I HY | ¢ We
SES oN
bs plc
CMa es Toa
mT Kent ral
ie

es

ye h
eA hi
ie are
a > i

hes

IS

P|

VES,

5S
|
a

Sketch map of maximum extent of glacial lakes

of the last glaciation in the vicinity of New York City; ice-front in the vicinity of New York City after Passaic, Hackensack, Flushing, and Hudson in the
noted.

Sketch map of the probable position of the
25

Flushing

Sketch map showing maximum extent of the ice
waves of advance and retreat of the ice, measured in the terminal moraine; Lake Passaic well developed; of the ice of the last glaciation. The terminal moraine,

mile stages from the terminal moraine; outline of ex- early stage of Lakes Hackensack, Hudson, and present drainage, and smaller glacial lakes are also

direction of ice advance (dotted radial lines); probable having retreated ten miles from the outer margin of vicinity of New York City, shortly after the retreat

tra-morainal Lake Passaic

26 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

New Jersey. The front of the glacier thus assumed a sinuous lobate
outline due no doubt to the rather broad open features of the Hack-
ensack valley, throughout the fifty miles of its north-south extent, as
compared with the narrow and deep defile of the Hudson River, the
major stream, to the east. The Palisades ridge along the east flank of the
Hackensack valley, and the Watchung Mountains and New Jersey
Highlands along the northwest margin, tended to retard the glacier as it
moved southward in those areas. The directions of ice movement,
derived from the glacial scratches or striw, are indicated on the maps,
pages 4, 25, by the dotted radial lines. The Hackensack valley thus be-
came the main line of advance of the glacier, and being lower in elevation
than the adjacent areas, it contained the greatest thickness of ice.

At the present time no one knows how long the ice-front stood at the
terminal moraine; we can merely guess and say several thousand years.

WEST SUMMIT MORRISTOWN Se PARSIPPANY BOONTON
‘SOUTH MADISON ‘ MORRIS PLAINS |<
‘ . —s A
: :

o7a0
GALUA i
H ‘al Lake Passaic

MILLINGTON
' shoreline of

H
er ee an
Ms

Ser lill
[i] shore deposits 8 q
: q MT ling COOKS BRIOCE
Fee ]strotities arity - A ee casanrvicue
> Hy —<>
Loam ona :
OD cic, deposits DEAD RIVER

MILES 10

Present u pwor ped

2
z
2
z
F

PINE BROOK

NORTH MADISON

NEW PROVIDENCE
15

Profile drawing showing upwarped shore-line and vertical distribution of the stratified
deposits in glacial Lake Passaic. Data from glacial geology sheets of the Passaic and Raritan
Folios, U. S. Geological Survey.

Neither does anyone know definitely where the ice-front stood during
the successive ‘stages of the annual retreat northward. We can as-
sume, however, as a working hypothesis, that it retreated equally along
the entire sinuous front. On the map page 25 the assumed stages, at
intervals of one mile, have been indicated, following in reverse direction
the same radial lines (dotted) along which the ice is known to have
advanced. According to this theory the ice-front at any one position,
for example, the ten mile stage page 25, was very irregular, with the ice-
tongue in the Hackensack valley persisting after the adjacent highlands
had been cleared of ice.

GLACIAL LAKE PASSAIC
When the ice-front reached its maximum extent, a glacial lake
known as Lake Passaic partially filled the natural basin to the south of
the terminal moraine, in the vicinity of Summit and Morristown, New
Jersey. Its southern shore followed the recurved basaltic rock of the

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 27

second Watchung Mountain at an elevation of 345 feet, map, page 25.
The lake waters did not rise above this height, for the Moggy Hollow
outlet at the southwest corner permitted the water to flow out into a
tributary of the Raritan River and eventually into the sea.

As the glacier retreated northward down the valley of the upper
Passaic River, the waters of Lake Passaic followed the ice-front as far as
Pompton Plains, pages 25, 26, and filled the entire basin lying between
the Watchung Mountains and the New Jersey Highlands up to an eleva-
tion of 360 feet above sea level. The present lowest point in the lake
basin is 160 feet above mean tide, so that the lake during its maximum
extent must have had a depth of 200 feet. In some places the shore-line
of this glacial lake is faintly preserved; in others it is well-developed, and
must have existed for a considerable period. For a detailed mapping of
the shore-line and deposits of this well-known glacial lake, one should

oOpAa LEGEND
CRANFORD SOUTH ORANGE EizIstravifiea aritr

RAHWAY H SPRINGFIELD | GLEN RIDGE
H ' ' : : Clay deposits rR
+ WILLOW GROVE H ‘ MM c'oy VANWINKLE
‘ : PATERSON :

Ivewars MOHESTEAD NInTLE FERRY ORADELL
is U 25 RR

BERGEN POINT

soa
GRANITEVILLE
10

Profile drawing showing upwarped shore-line and vertical distribution of the stratified
deposits in glacial Lake Hackensack. Data from the glacial geology sheet of the Passaic Folio,
U.S. Geological Survey, and the author’s field notes.

examine the Passaic and Raritan Folios of the United States Geological
Survey, and Volume V of the New Jersey Geological Survey.

VARVED CLAYS

As the glacier retreated from year to year, varved clays, page 24
were deposited in certain areas on the floor of the lake, particularly in
low places near where the subglacial streams debouched. The basin has
not been fully prospected for glacial clays, but the writer in 1922 ob-
served a few varves close to the terminal moraine in Morristown, and
in a clay pit at Whippany. Some 222 varves, many of which were
contorted, were also examined in clay pits one-half mile north of
Mountain View, and one and one-half miles northwest of Little Falls,
New Jersey. In 1927, a partial section of the clay deposits in Lake
Passaic, to the south of the Terminal Moraine, revealed numerous
varves, many of which were contorted.

These lake clays are unique in that they are bilaminar for each year.
(See illustration on page 24.) One layer represents the amount of

28 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

“summer” deposition, the other the “winter”? accumulation. Taken
together, the paired bands constitute a varve or annual deposit.

The clays are of glacial age, since each layer had its origin in an
annual retreat stage of the ice of the last glaciation. They were devel-
oped as follows: As the ice melted and retreated slowly northward during
the warm summer months of each year, the swollen rivers which flowed
out from under the ice mass picked up the fine sand and clay particles
and transported them to fresh-water lakes which occupied the lower
portions of the enclosed basins in front of the glacier. As the stream
currents on entering the still waters of the lake gradually lost their power
to transport their load of sediment, the fine sand and coarse clay particles
settled down over the lake bottom to form the sandy summer layer.
During the cold winter months of each year the ice-front became sta-
tionary, the englacial and subglacial stream courses either ran dry or
congealed, and little, if any, sediments were transported by the rivers
into the lakes. The surface of the lake also became encrusted with ice
and snow, and the fine clay particles, which had been held in suspension
in the milky water following the summer incursions, slowly settled to
the bottom to form the bluish, reddish, or dark winter layers composed
of pure clay. Before the end of the winter season, the lake waters
cleared, and a sharp line of demarcation was established between the
top of the ‘“‘winter’ layer and the base of the succeeding “summer”
layer. This well-defined line is of value to the collector or student in
separating the seasonal layers into varves or annual deposits.

UPWARPED SHORE-LINES OF LAKE PASSAIC

Since the glacier disappeared from eastern North America, the
shore-lines of former glacial Lake Passaic have been warped upward 67
feet (412 feet less 345 feet) more at their northern end than along their
southern margin. The lake had an extent of 30 miles along its north-
east-southwest axis, or 26 miles on the meridian. This represents a dif-
ferential upwarping of the region in the vicinity of New York City, ina
north-south direction, of approximately 2% feet per mile, or twenty feet in
nine miles. This marked change in elevations of the land is known to
have affected all the territory occupied by the continental glacier in
central and eastern North America, extending from a zero or hinge line
in central New Jersey up to approximately 1000 feet to the north of
Quebec, Canada. Such differential changes in elevation are not confined
to eastern North America, for it has been noted that the glaciated terri-
tory of northwestern Europe has been upwarped in a similar manner.
Where the relief of the land was affected most, it is believed that the ice
was thickest. It was the removal of the load of ice and certain subcrustal

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 29

or isostatic movements that took place within the earth, that in all
probability brought about the changes in elevation.

GLACIAL LAKE HACKENSACK

Prior to 1922, when the writer began his investigation on the clays of
the Hackensack basin, glacial Lake Hackensack had not been outlined
or recognized. The commercial value of the clays, however, had been
noted by various state and federal geologists. Twenty to thirty years
ago brick yards were established at various points in the northern half
of the Hackensack valley but at present all these enterprises have been
discontinued except in the vicinity of Little Ferry, where large open pits
have been excavated below sea level. To the south of this point the
basin is for the most part covered by salt water or salt-water marshes.

The varved clays, however, were deposited in a fresh-water glacial
lake and not in an arm of the sea.!. While the shore-lines of this glacial
lake have not been traced in detail in the field, we know the amount of
post-glacial upwarping for the Lake Passaic basin, and can apply that
data with profit to the Hackensack valley.

Glacial Lake Hackensack, as shown on the sketch map, page 125,
was outlined by the writer in 1924, and presented in abstract the same
year at the Ithaca meeting of the Geological Society of America.? The
approximate shore-line starts with the Maurer delta deposit which rises
from sea level to 30 feet, inside the terminal moraine less than two miles
north of Perth Amboy. With this delta as a bench mark, the 20, 40, 60,
80, 100, and 120 feet contour lines on the topographic maps were fol-
lowed for nine miles each, the last one of which encompasses the northern
end of the Hackensack valley. The reason for changing contours every
nine miles is that the amount of postglacial uplift of the ground averages
two and one quarter feet per mile, or twenty feet in nine miles. Lake
Hackensack as thus outlined contains not only a number of ridges as
islands, but also the glacial clays and the stratified sands, gravels, and
delta deposits which rise to successively higher and higher elevations in
passing from south to north.

The glacial clays which occupy only the lowest levels are reported in
deep wells in south Newark; at Homestead the top of the clay is 10 feet
below sea level; at Little Ferry approximately at sea level; at Oradell
about 15 feet above; at Norwood 30 feet above; and at West Nyack
50 feet above tide.

1Antevs, Ernst, 1925, ‘‘Condition of Formation of the Varved Glacial Clay,”
Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., Vol. 36, pp. 171-172.

"Reeds, Chester A., 1925, “‘Glacial Lake Hackensack and Adjacent Lakes,”’
Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., Vol. 36, p. 155.

30 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

The delta deposits and stratified .sands and gravels, which occur at
such discordant elevations that heretofore they have baffled explanation,
also rise to higher and higher levels in going northward. For example,
the delta deposits in North Hackensack occur at an elevation of 40 to 50
feet above sea level, while farther to the north the sandy delta plains in
the vicinity of Tappan rise from 60 to 80 feet above sea level. To note
the vertical relations of the various stratified deposits, as mapped on
the glacial sheet of the Passaic
Folio, to the newly outlined
shore-line of Lake Hackensack,
and the relation of similar de-
posits in Lake Passaic, see the
cross-section diagrams on pages
26,27. Itissurprising how well
these varied deposits fall in
below the shore-lines in both
lakes. The exceptions in the
Hackensack valley are the de-
posits at Willow Grove, Cran-
ford to Springfield and South
Orange to Glen Ridge, which
occur at higher elevations, and
which were in all probability
deposited not in Lake Hacken-
sack, but in small lakes which
lay at higher elevations
hemmed in by early retreat
stages of the icefront and the

Varved clay of Lake Hudson smoothed P
for sectioning. Washburn and Fowler clay back slopes of the terminal

pit, West Haverstraw, New York. moraine and of the Watchung
Mountains.

In 1926 a composite section from five clay pits at Little Ferry, New
Jersey, yielded a continuous series of 2550 varves, representing as many
years for the deposition of the clay. One varve was laid down each year
as the ice-front of the last continental glacier retreated northward up
the Hackensack valley.'

‘Reeds, Chester A., 1926, ‘The Varved Clays at Little Ferry, New Jersey.”
American Museum Novitates, No. 209, pp. 1-16.

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 31

GLACIAL LAKES HUDSON AND FLUSHING

The same bench mark and methods of induction and deduction that
were used in establishing the outline of Lake Hackensack were applied to
the territory immediately to the eastward of the Hackensack basin and
northward of the terminal moraine. The results of this endeavor, as
noted on page 25, give us the suggestive outlines of variously connected
bodies of fresh water which we have designated as Lake Hudson and
Lake Flushing. Varved glacial clays are not known to be exposed above
sea-level in Lake Hudson south of Haverstraw, New York. There and
to the northward they are well-developed, at, below and above sea level
pages 24,30. In Lake Flushing, they have been noted by Dr. E. Antevs! in
the valley of the Quinnipiac River at New Haven, Connecticut (Antevs,?
1928, 343 varves), and reported at Fishers Island farther eastward in
Long Island Sound. Logs of various wells in Brooklyn and to the east-
ward yield records of clay lying below the overlying sand and gravel beds.

Wn2l P33 Ws 30 P2i p20 E.

200°
MANHATTAN SCHIST 300°

(WITH INTRUSIONS) 400°
<ticat £8 R__500°
SAND EZZZ7) SANDY SILT Sen

Cross-section of the deposits in the Hudson River, developed from exploratory boring for
the Pennsylvania railroad tunnels, Thirty-second Street, New York City. (After G. S. Rogers.)

In New York City blue clay was encountered in 1925, by the
engineers of the New York Central Railroad in test borings on the right
of way at the foot of West 14th Street, 44 to 72 feet below sea level.
Blue clay has also been found in borings along the east bank of the Hud-
son River off West 10th Street at 98 to 162 feet, and off West Houston
Street at 92 to 128 feet below sea level. The exploratory borings for the
Hudson River tunnels of the Pennsylvania Railroad also revealed the
presence of extensive beds of clay immediately overlying the basal till in
the filled channel of the river at depths of 175-200 feet on the west side,
125-175 feet on the east side, and 200-275 feet in the east central portion
page 31. Clay is also reported overlying morainal material in the bottom
of the filled East River channel. Since the relation of these submerged
clay deposits to the underlying till is similar to that found by the writer

‘Antevs, Ernst, 1922, ‘Conditions in New England During the Deposition of
the Varve Clay,” Amer. Geog. Soc. Research Series No. 11.

*Antevs, Ernst, 1928, “The Last Glaciation,’ Amer. Geog. Soc. Research
Series, No. 17.

32 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

at Little Ferry in the Hackensack basin, he assumes that they are
banded and of glacial origin.

The correlation of the varves in the clay pits at Haverstraw, New
York, has yielded 736 consecutive varves. The correlation of these
varves was done by Reeds, 1927', 1930°, and by Antevs, 1928*, working
independently. A total of 736 varves does not represent the entire
Haverstraw section, for varves containing quicksand in the summer
layers appear below the lowest varves secured. Antevs, 1928, has
correlated the varves at Haverstraw, New York, with those at New
Haven, Connecticut, and established their contemporaneity.

POST-GLACIAL STRATIFIED SANDS

The varved clay deposits at Mountain View in Lake Passaic are
overlain by some five to ten feet of stratified sands. This is also true at
Little Ferry in Lake Hackensack, where beds of sand 5 to 20 feet in
thickness overlie the varved clays, page 33. At New Bridge, near the
west bank of the Hackensack River, and at Oradell, gravel 5 to 20 feet
in thickness appears above the clay deposits. At Haverstraw in Lake
Hudson, and at points northward, beds of sand and gravel, varying in
thickness from 2 to 25 feet, rest upon the varved clays, page 33. The
stratified sands at Croton Point, Harmon, and Peekskill are very thick
and rise to elevations a little over 100 feet, the approximate position of
the shore-line of Lake Hudson at these places. They represent delta
deposits made in the lake. Sandy varves about one foot in thickness,
observed on Croton Point in borings made near sea level, indicate late
glacial age.

Contractors, who have erected buildings on Manhattan Island, know
that the southern one-third of the island and the Harlem and Dyckman
sections are for the most part covered by stratified sandy deposits, which
vary in thickness from a few feet to 100 feet. In the Subway excavation
at 134th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, stratified sands were exposed
in January, 1926, the uppermost stratified layer being 26 feet above mean
sea level. Special interest is attached to this locality because the skeleton
of a horse Equus caballus was found by the writer, embedded in the
bank, page 34. The skeleton lay on top of the highest stratified bed
and in some six feet of unstratified yellowish gray clay which may have

1Reeds, Chester A., 1928, ‘‘Varved Glacial Clays at Haverstraw, New York,
Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 217-218.

2Reeds, Chester A., 1930, ‘‘ Weather and Glaciation, Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., Vol.
40, pp. 597-630

3Antevs, Ernst, 1928, “The Last Glaciation,” Amer. Geog. Soc. Research
Series No. 17.

Post-glacial stratified sands, eight feet thick, overlying the varved glacial clay of Lake
Hackensack. Mehrhof Brothers’ clay pit, one mile south of Little Ferry, New Jersey.

Post-glacial sand and gravel (a tributary delta deposit) overlying varved glacial clay of
Lake Hudson, Hornbecker’s sand-pit, West Haverstraw, New York.

33

34 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

been washed down in post-Co-
lumbian time from the hillside
below the site of the College of
the City of New York.

In the excavation for the New
York Telephone building at Bar-
clay, Vesey, and Washington
streets, New York, bed-rock
(Manhattan schist) was encount-
ered seventy-five feet below high
tide on the Hudson River side
and sixty-five feet on the eastern
side. Between the bed-rock and
the surface, stratified gray and

Skull of horse, Equus caballus, found at red sands were noticed with
top of the post-glacial sand. Subway ex- occasional pockets of pebbles
cavation 134th Street and St. Nicholas and a few ice-transported bowl-
Beilin paul oo ders. At a depth of 45 feet be-

Stratified post-glacial sands west bank of Subway excavation 134th Street and St.
Nicholas Avenue, New York City. Skeleton of horse, Equus caballus, probably 300 years
old, found at elevation marked X.

GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY 35

low high tide, a bed of peat eighteen inches in thickness was observed
by the writer, interbedded in the coarse sand, and associated with it
the prostrate trunks of several juniper trees, Juniperus communis,
some ten feet in length. The bark and a number of the branches still
adhered, indicating that the trees and peat had grown in situ. Dr.
Arthur Hollick'! of the New York Botanical Garden examined a cross-
section of the trunk of one of the trees and counted some two hundred
rings representing as many years for its growth. These objects indicate
that during their period of development the sands containing them were
at sea level. The present position indicates later subsidence of the region.

The stratified beds of sand and gravel which rest upon the varved
clay deposits are, without doubt, of postglacial age. Since this is true
where the clay is exposed, it is also evidently true where the clay beds
are concealed from view by sands and silts, as in the Hudson River
opposite 10th, 14th and 33d streets, New York, and in the Kast River
channel. The stratified sandy deposits which occur at higher levels in
Manhattan and Brooklyn are also considered to be of post-glacial age.

CONCLUSION

In this rapid survey we have considered very briefly the Relief Feat-
ures, the Relief Modified by Glaciation, the Recent Shore Deposits, and
the Archaeozoic, Proterozoic, Palaeozoic, Mesozoic (Triassic, Cretace-
ous), and Cenozoic (Pleistocene) series of rocks as represented in New
York City and its vicinity. They are replete with interest but they
represent only a few isolated and incomplete chapters of the geologic
history of North America. The long Palaeozoic era, including the Age
of Invertebrates, Age of Fishes, and Age of Amphibians, is not repre-
sented by sediments in the area of the geologic map, pages 14-15. The
Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous periods, occupying the middle portion of
the Mesozoic era, the Age of Reptiles, are also not represented in this
district. Likewise the Tertiary series, corresponding to the Age of Mam-
mals, appears outside the area. The Pleistocene glacial deposits, which
are contemporaneous with the Age of Man, are rather fully represented
but, as yet, no human remains have been found in them.

Following the retreat of the ice of the last glaciation, glacial lakes
occupied the basins between the terminal moraine and the various annual
positions of the ice-front. The more notable of these lakes in the vicinity
of New York City were glacial lakes Passaic, Hackensack, Hudson, and

1Hollick, Arthur, 1926, “‘Report on a Tree Trunk and Associated Lignitic
Débris Excavated in Manhattan Island,’ American Museum Novitates, No. 213, pp.
1-6.

36 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

Flushing. As the ice retreated from year to year, varved glacial clays
were laid down on the bottoms of these lakes. The presence of more
than 2500 varves in the Hackensack valley indicates that the rate of
retreat was slow, probably 60 to 100 feet per year. As the load of ice
was gradually removed, the region was differentially uplifted approxi-
mately two and a quarter feet per mile from central New Jersey north-
ward into east central Canada. This post-glacial uplift rejuvenated the
streams and caused them to transport and deposit gravel, sand, and silt
over the seasonally stratified beds of clay. Following the differential
uplift of the land, the presence of a peat bed and tree trunks in the post-
glacial sands forty-five feet below high tide in lower New York City,
indicates that the region about the mouth of the Hudson River has
gradually subsided. These various geologic events immediately precede
the present day; how far back they go in time we can but estimate, yet
the exploration and the counting of the clay varves which are in progress
are affording a precise record of the annual retreat stages of the ice and
the duration of the glacial lakes.

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GUIDE

TO THE

HALL OF MAMMALS

BY
FREDERIC A. LUCAS

The American Museum of Natural History
Guide Leaflet No. 57
Second Edition New York, 1926.

The Guide™ Leaflets describe some exhibit, or
series of exhibits, of special interest or importance,
treat of some branch of museum work, or, as in the
present case, may deal with the contents of an entire
Hall. A list of the “popular publications” of the
museum may be obtained from the librarian.

9

_ GUIDE TO THE HALL OF MAMMALS
By Frederic A. Lucas

This leaflet was written in the hope that it might prove
useful to classes and visitors in connection with the exhibits
in the Hall of Mammals. Its object is to point out the pur-
pose of the exhibits, to tell why the specimens are shown and
what they are intended to illustrate. And for the very rea-
son that it is not intended as a text book, but for use with
the collections it has been left largely an outline to be filled
by those using it.

It deals with Mammals, a term frequently confused with
Animals. Strictly speaking, all living creatures are animals,
but to many people, possibly the majority, animal means a
mammal in distinction to birds and other creatures.

The collection was begun with the view that it might be
helpful to students and scholars by providing them with a
handbook in which the reading matter should be furnished by
the labels and the illustrations by the objects themselves. It
was also hoped that it might prove of interest to visitors and
that without special effort they might get an idea of what a
mammal is.

Like a book it is to be read from left to right, beginning
with the Characters of Mammals and the Family Tree of
Mammals at the left of the entrance, and ending with Man,
who is a species of Mammal and considered by himself to be
the head of his class.

The story of man is told elsewhere, his evolution and early
history in the Hall of Age of Man and Hall of Archeology, the
characters and customs of living races in various halls of the
Department of Anthropology.

3

The object of the exhibits is to show the distinguishing
features, or characters of mammals, the points wherein they
agree with one another and differ from other animals; their
main groups or Orders, and the subdivisions of their orders or
Families; as well as the variations in the skeleton, Modifica-
tions of structure, whereby they are adapted to different modes
of life, the whales for dwelling entirely in the sea, the seals
for living in the sea or on land, the horse for land only and
the sloth for the trees.

As the exhibits give a brief, but comprehensive illustration
or synopsis ofthe points noted above, they form collectively
the Synoptic Series of Mammals.!

The exhibits are divided into, or may be considered in two
sections, the Systematic Series, that deals with the larger
divisions of Mammals, Orders and Families, and a Special
Series that deals with special features of the Class and
includes examples of some of its rarer or more interesting
members.

MAMMALS
Their Characters, Divisions and Modifications

Mammals are warm-blooded, backboned animals that
with a few rare exceptions are born alive and nourished for a
time on milk.

They may be large or small, naked, covered with hair or
scales, have teeth or be toothless; live on land or in the water,
swim, walk, fly or burrow in the ground, but they agree in the
above particulars and are all placed in the Class Mammalia.
They belong, with Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians and Fishes in
one of the large groups or Phyla, of the Animal Kingdom
termed Vertebrata or back-boned animals, because they all
have a vertebral column or back bone. (See Family Tree of
Mammals).

‘Note: The writer and curator is well aware that this is not an at-

tractive title, but he has been unable to think of any other that com-
bines brevity with accuracy and will be glad to receive suggestions in

regard to it.

CHARACTERS OF MAMMALS
(First Wall Case on Left)

A technical exhibit for advanced students: it deals at
length with the distinctive characters of mammals and
compares, or contrasts them with the corresponding char-

7 acters of reptiles, from which mammals are considered to have

been derived. It is an answer to the question, What is a
mammal?
FAMILY TREE OF MAMMALS
(First Pier Case on Left)

Showing the relation of mammals to other groups of
animals.

Note how life began with animals of simple structure from
which as time went on more complex or higher forms were
evolved. The mammals appeared late in the history of the
earth and stand at the top of the “Tree.”

GENERAL OR SYSTEMATIC SERIES

Mammals arranged according to a given plan or system—
in this case their structure. An illustration of the methods
employed in classification will be found in a pier case on the
North Side showing the divisions of the seals—Pinnipedia,
based on resemblances or differences in their skulls and espe-
cially in their teeth. The mounted specimens and skeletons
show the outward form and internal structure of the groups,
and the maps of distribution show where they occur. The
accompanying labels give information as to their general
character, appearance in time and peculiarities of structure.

THE ORDERS OF MAMMALS

Following is a list of the Orders of Mammals with brief
explanatory notes in regard to them. The names may appear
formidable because they are unfamiliar but they are the
names in general use in text-books, in many cases there are no
“common” names and it is hoped that a little observation of
the collections and the notes in this leaflet may cause the
names used to appear a little less fearsome.

BY

MONOTREMATA, Egg-layingMammals, Monotremes. In-
clude the Platypus and Echidna; termed primitive because
they resemble in structure the reptiles from which mam-
mals are believed to have been derived. They differ from
all other mammals in that the young are hatched from
eggs, though nourished on milk. They are placed in a
group or sub class, termed Prototheria, the first mammals.

ECHIDNA

Echidna aculeaia

A mammal that lays eggs

Information in regard to Classification, Scientific Names,
and related points may be found in A First Chapter in
Natural History.

MARSUPIALIA, Pouched Mammals, Opossums, Kangaroos
and related animals.

The young are born at an early stage and during the
first part of their life carried in a pouch. The greater number
are found only in Australia. They vary greatly in form and
habits and we have marsupials that are flesh eaters, grass
eaters and rodents; they jump, climb, run, and a few sail
like our flying squirrel. The Marsupials are given a sub class,
Metatheria, intermediate mammals, as ranking between the
egg-laying mammals and those in which the young are well-
developed when born.

The vast majority of mammals, included in the Orders In-
sectivora to Primates form a large assemblage known as
Eutheria, the right or perfect mammals; these sub-classes are
represented on the cover as follows, the Prototheria by the
Echidna, the Metatheria by the Kangaroo, the Hutheria by
the Baboon, Seals and Man.

HEDGEHOG

Erinaceus europeus

An insectivore that suggests a little Porcupine

INSECTIVORA, Insect Eaters; animals of small: size most
of them nocturnal in habits and many, like our common
mole, adapted for an underground life; none are found in
South America or Australia.

Like the marsupials some of them resemble other,
unrelated animals in form or habits: thus the tree shrews
of Asia, live and look like squirrels, the jumping shrews
of Africa suggest kangaroo rats the hedgehogs, like the
porcupines, have spines, colugo, or flying lemur, has a
membrane between its legs and its tail, and sails like a fly-
ing squirrel.

See Animals that Look Alike, and Modifications for
Locomotion

~~

CHIROPTERA, Bats; the only mammals that really fly, their

immensely long fingers, supporting like the ribs of an um-
brella, a membrane that forms a wing. Their distribu-
tion depends mainly on temperature; when the cold puts
an end to the insects on which they feed, the bats hiber-
nate, go into winter quarters and sleep until spring. The
fruit-eating bats, the largest members of the order, are
found only in warm countries where they can obtain food
throughout the year.

CARNIVORA or FER, The flesh eaters or Beasts of Prey.

Familiar examples are the dog and cat. The cat is “a
carnivorous, fissiped, digitigrade mammal of the family
Felidx;’”’ that is, it is a flesh-eating animal, whose toes are
separate, that walks on the tips of its toes, nurses its
young, and is a member of the Cat family.

The Carnivores are divided into two great groups, the
Fissipedia, whose fingers are free and the Pinnipedia whose
fingers are united to form a paddle. The first group
includes the majority of the flesh eaters—the Lions,
Wolves, Bears and Weasels, the second the Seals and
Walruses.

AN OUTLINE OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE
BEASTS OF PREY—ORDER FERZ

Fissipedia Pinnipedia
Feet for Walking Feet for Swimming
Cats Walruses
Weasels Eared Seals
Dogs Earless Seals

Bears, ete.

Also the cat is digitigrade—walks on its toes—and the

bear is plantigrade—walks flat-footed—and the seal is pinni-
grade—swims with its feet.

“Classification’’ is merely the orderly arrangement of
animals or other objects, placing those most closely related
to one another in a group by themselves and arranging
the groups thus formed with reference to their degree of
relationship.

TYPES OF CARNIVORES

Panther Fur Seal
Polar Bear Harbor Seal

RODENTIA or GLIRES, Gnawing Animals, including rats,
mice and rabbits; mostly small animals, the giant of the
order being the South American Capybara. This group
contains more species and individuals than any other order
and owing to their small size, adaptability and rapidity
with which they breed, its members are found over the
greater part of the earth. The most evident character of
the order is the structure of the front teeth, incisors, which
are made on the principle of some chisels, a thin cutting
edge of hard enamel in front, backed with soft dentine;
this wears away faster than enamel, automatically keeping
the teeth sharp. The cutting teeth grow continuously
and rodents must gnaw to keep them worn down.

BRUTA or EDENTATA, Sloths, Armadillos and their rela-

tions. A mixed assemblage of mammals varying greatly in
outward appearance. They are “low” in their brain
characters and intelligence, “‘low”’ in the simple structure
of their teeth and in some features of the skeleton.

The term Edentata—toothless—is literally true in
regard to the Ant Eaters, and all members of the group
agree in lacking front teeth.

ANTEATER

Tamandua tetradactyla

PHOLIDOTA, Scaly Anteaters, Pangolins, Manids—one of
the cases where the so-called common name conveys no
idea to the average person. The members of this order
are distinguished by being clad in overlapping horny
scales which offer a pretty good protection when the
animal coils up with the tail outside. They are confined to
Tropical Africa south of the Sahara, and southern Asia.
One species is noteworthy as having the longest tail of any
Mammal, fifty-two vertebra, one for every week in the
year.

——

EFFODIENTIA, the Aard varks, so called in allusion to their
burrowing habits, though the order has also been termed
Tubulidentata in reference to the structure of the teeth
which are composed of little tubes placed on end.

This order includes only two species of animals found
in the warmer parts of Africa and formerly placed with
the Edentates.

AARD VARK

Orycteropus ater

UNGULATA, the Hoofed Mammals, including such well
known forms as sheep, deer, antelope, camels, cattle and
horses. The vast majority of large quadrupeds belong in
this order whose members are widely distributed over the
earth, save Australasia, and were abundant until killed
off by man. They are most numerous in Africa, least nu-
merous in South America and there are none in Australia.

HYRACOIDEA, Hyraxes or Dassies, neither of which ‘‘com-
mon’ names conveys any meaning, being a good illustra-
tion of the fact that a so-called “‘common”’ name may be
just as meaningless to the majority of people as a scientific
name. An order including a few species of small mammals
looking something like rabbits, but not at all like them in
any part of their structure and really related to the
Rhinoceroses. The species found in Syria is the coney

11

mentioned in the Bible, ‘‘The conies are but a feeble
folk, yet make they their homes in the rocks.”

HYRAX OR DASSIE

Hyrax capensis

PROBOSCIDEA, Elephants, present and past.
“Beast that hath between its eyes a serpent for an arm.”
The largest of land mammals distinguished from other
mammals by many well defined characters, size not being
a character.

FLORIDA MANATEE

Trichecus latirostris

A member of the Order Sirenia noted on the opposite page

12

SIRENIA, the ‘Sea Cows, Manatees and Dugongs. An
ancient order including but few species and these widely
separated. Mostly confined to tropical, or warm waters,
though one species, the Rytina or Arctic Sea Cow, the
largest member of the group, was found in the north where
it was exterminated by man.

CETACEA, Whales and Porpoises. Mammals adapted for
living wholly in the water, often mistakenly thought to be
fishes, though they breathe by lungs and not by gills and
must come to the surface for air. Their fore limbs are
modified into flippers, the hind limbs present as mere ves-
tiges concealed within the body and the tail present in
the shape of flukes.

COMMON DOLPHIN
Delphinus delphis

A rough and ready means of distinguishing between
cetaceans and fishes is that the former have the tail, or
flukes, crosswise to the body while in fishes it is always
vertical, up and down.

The order contains the largest animals that have ever
lived, the great Blue Whale reaching a length of 103 feet.

PRIMATES, the “highest”? mammals, Man, Apes, Monkeys
and Lemurs, these last widely separated from the others
in characters and intelligence. Man is sometimes placed
apart in a Suborder Bimana, two-handed, while his rela-
tives are termed Quadrumana because in most of the
species the big toe is opposable to the others so that the
foot, like the hand, is fitted for grasping.

13

SPECIAL SERIES
Illustrations of the relation of internal structure to form
and habits; modifications of the teeth; change of color with
the season.

RELATION OF ANIMALS TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT

On the left (North) Relation of Animals to their surround-
~ ings or Environment. Mammals, and other animals, that
dwell in deserts are pale and harmonize in color with the sand,
thus illustrating protective coloration. The birds, insects
and plants offer further instances of adaptation; in the case
of plants the leaves are reduced in size and number to lessen
evaporation.

MODIFICATIONS OF THE SKELETON

The skeleton is the best, and most enduring evidence we
have, of any animal’s place in nature and its relationships
with other animals: it is also the solution of a problem in
mechanics, that of carrying a given weight and of adaptation
to some particular mode of life. So the skeleton not only
indicates the group of animals to which its owner belongs, but
also tells of his mode of life, for it varies, or is modified,
according as a creature dwells on land, lives underground, or
in the water, walks, swims or flies; feeds on grass, catches
insects, or preys upon its fellows.

TEETH
Their structure, location, method of implantation, growth,
mode of replacement and modifications, with special refer-
ence to the teeth of mammals: Case on south or right side of
hall. "

ALBINOS AND MELANOS

Albinos are animals in which the coloring matter or pig-
ment of the hair or other parts of the body is lacking. They
may occur in any group of mammals.

14

Melanos are animals in which there is an excess of coloring
matter. They occur more often than albinos and are particu-
larly numerous in some species or in some localities. In the
Grey and Fox Squirrels melanos occur so often as to form a
distinct color phase, and black Leopards are common in some
localities in southern India and the Malay Peninsula. Bag-
hera of the ‘Jungle Stories” was a Black Leopard.

ANIMALS THAT LOOK ALIKE BUT ARE DIFFERENT

These specimens illustrate the point that because two
animals look alike they are not necessarily related, differences
in the skeleton (Structural Differences) being much more
important than mere resemblance, and furnishing the char-
acters on which classification, or the grouping of animals
according to their relationships is based.

The Flying Squirrel and little Acrobates both sail from
tree to tree, but one is a rodent and one is a marsupial; the
Squirrel and Squirrel Shrew look alike and have the same
habits, but one is a rodent and one an insectivore.

FLYING SQUIRREL. FLYING PHALANGER

The Echidna, the Hedgehog and the Porcupine all have
spines but belong to widely separated orders of Mammals.

The Tasmanian Wolf and the Coyote are much like one
another in form and habits, both being flesh eaters, but one is
a marsupial and the other a true carnivore.

RELATION BETWEEN FORM AND HABITS

According to their mode of life, the limbs of mammals are
modified to form fingers, feet, paddles or wings. The under-
lying changes are shown in the Modifications for Locomotion

where we learn that the corresponding
bones in different groups of animals
are greatly changed in shape
according to their
function.

TWO-TOED SLOTH

Cholepus didactylus whose feet are hooks. The sloth hangs below
the branches.

‘COLOR CHANGE IN THE VARYING HARE
In northern regions many mammals and some birds
change their coats with the season, becoming white in winter,
a familiar example being the Ermine and Weasel. It is a
change of hair and not in the hair, the gray coat being shed
and the white one put on early in winter and the process re-

versed in spring.
16

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MODIFICATIONS FOR LOCOMOTION

Shows the variations in the skeleton, and especially in the
limbs, by which animals are adapted for walking, jumping,
flying or swimming. The snake is introduced to show that it
is possible for an animal to run, climb or swim with no limbs
at all.

The series of limbs in a nearby case shows details of struc-
ture, the bones being colored so that the same bone in the
various feet may be readily distinguished.

See also Relation between Form and Habits.

HIP BONE }

PELV , ’ YS
’
(4 VA,

~
COLLAR BONE {
OR CLAVICLE

by
(seers fy THUMB J

THE CAT
Felis domestica

An example of a skeleton slightly modified for free and
rapid movements and for jumping—this last point is indicated
by the length of the foot bones and the size of the heel and
elbow. The skeleton of the cat may serve as a convenient
term of comparison with the skeletons of other animals.

COLLAR BONE
b OR CLAVICLE

ie
r( rtd
if HIP BONE
/ i y PELVIS
Sie’ His .
0? S

FRUIT BAT
Pteropus species

As in other bats the fore legs are modified, or changed,
for flight, all the bones, but especially the fingers, being
greatly lengthened to form supports for the membrane that
serves as a wing. The fruit bats fly with rather slow wing
beats and the outer part of the wing is proportionately larger
and more rounded than in their smaller, more active relatives.
The hind feet are little used, serving mainly as hooks by which
the bat hangs itself up—head downwards—to sleep.

Hip BONE | FY
PELVIS

eit
COLLA Ay aoe tn) oe

Oi
senmper i

MOLE

Scalops aquaticus

Modifications of the skeleton for an underground life are
most evident in the fore limbs which perform the work of
digging, being for this purpose short and stout, the hands
large, and turned on edge. (In the figure the hand is turned
down to show the bones).

The foot is also strengthened by the addition of a bone
running along the edge of the foot, shown in the picture. This
bone is not found in other mammals.

The skeleton of the mole illustrates the fact that a bone
of little importance in one group of animals may be of great
value in another.

In the cat and the seal, in which there is no particular
strain on the fore feet and great freedom of movement is
needed, the clavicle or collar bone is very small, or absent:
it is also absent in the porpoise in which the fore limb is
scarcely used.

In the bat and the mole in which flying or digging bring
great strain on the fore limb, the collar bone is very strong to
brace the shoulder. This is particularly evident in the mole.

HARBOR SEAL

Phoca vitulina

Like other seals this species passes some time on land,
coming out to bask in the sun, but the legs are of little use for
locomotion on land. All four limbs are changed into paddles
for swimming, though the hair seals swim mainly with their
hind feet and the eared seals with their front feet.

we

ae Hit heaton

HABOR PORPOISE
Phocaena communis

The porpoise is an example of a mammal fitted for living
only in the water, and represents the extreme of modification
among mammals. The hind limbs have been lost, their only
vestiges being two little bones that represent the pelvis, or
hip bone: the front limbs have been changed into rigid
paddles, fit only for balancing or steering; locomotion is
effected by what is really the tip of the tail, which has been
developed into flukes for swimming. Note that unlike the
tail of fishes the flukes of whales and porpoises contain no
bones.

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FOR THE PEOPLE

FOR EDUCATION

FOR SCIENCE

THE PREPARATION OF
_ BIRDS FOR STUDY

By JAMES P. CHAPIN

GUIDE LEAFLET No. 58
SECOND EDITION, REVISED

pened

of various kinds for Museum purposes. .
The following have been issued and may be pur-
chased at the sales booth or from the Librarian; .

are in the course of preparation;

The Capture and Preservation of =
Small Mammals for Study
By H. E. Anthony. Price 15 cents ale

The Preparation of Birds for Study —
By James P. Chapin. Price 15 cents

How to Collect and Preserve Insects _
By Frank E. Lutz. Price 10 cents - .

The Preparation of Rough Skeletons _ % oi
_ By Frederic A, Lucas. Price 10 cents —

Suggestions to Collectors of |
Reptiles and Amphibians
May be had on application to the Curator,
partment of Herpetology H) Sa
Brief Directions for Preparing Skins vi
of Large Mammals | a :

THE PREPARATION OF BIRDS
Ol ones DD

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PROPER PREPARATION
OF BIRD SKINS AND SKELETONS FOR
STUDY AND FUTURE MOUNTING

By
TAMES:, Pe. CHAPIN

Associate Curator of Birds

The American Museum of Natural History
New York
1929

THE PRESERVATION OF BIRDS FOR STUDY

Travelers in foreign parts often fail to realize what valuable service
they could render to the museums of America. They are apt to consider
the birds of the world so well known as scarcely to need further collect-
ing; whereas, in addition to the numerous species that remain to be
discovered, many which have long been known are still unrepresented
by a single specimen in any museum of the United States.

To aid in the improvement of our collections, the following instruc-
tions are offered for the use of our friends. The scientific value of a skin
is greatly enhanced by correct preparation and labeling. To illustrate
the successive steps a large number of figures are included, which have
been drawn by Mrs. M. Frazee Belcher.

Collections of birds are composed chiefly of “skins,’’ which
resemble in general appearance a dead bird. They exhibit
most of the external features of the living bird, the structure
and colors of its plumage, as well as the general form of beak,
wings, and feet. Bird skins may subsequently be mounted,
if desired; but most of them are intended for study rather
than for exhibition. Many a skin not fit for mounting is yet
of distinet scientific value, provided its history is preserved
on the label.

For study of the internal anatomy, skeletons and birds
in the flesh preserved in aleohol or weak formalin are also
necessary. It is customary to preserve but few examples of a
species in this manner, whereas a series of skins is desirable,
the external characters being more variable, and more com-
monly studied by systematic workers. Opportunities for
preserving large birds in fluid seldom offer themselves, but
their skeletons may be roughly prepared and dried, the final
cleaning to be done at home. The skeletons of small birds are
so fragile that it is usually better to bring the specimens back
whole, preserved in fluid, which permits study of the muscles
and viscera as well. The bones can also be cleaned—even
though the birds have been kept in formalin—but alcohol
is very much better for the purpose.

3

4 TOOLS NEEDED FOR SKINNING

The preservation of birds as dried mummies, with the aid
of carbolic acid or injections of formalin, is to be discouraged.
They become very brittle, are difficult to examine, and are
subject to the attacks of insects.

The Making of a Birdskin

Instruments

Do not accustom yourself to an unnecessary variety of
tools. The fewer they are the more quickly you are sure to
work. If nothing else were available, a penknife would
suffice to prepare the skin of an ordinary bird. For small and
medium-sized birds the following instruments are amply
sufficient:

1 scalpel, with blade about 14 inches long;

1 pair of sharp-pointed scissors, blade 2 to 25 inches long—the
stronger they are, the longer you can do without a second pair;!

1 pair of forceps, about 5 inches in length, with long, slender tips;

1 thin metal knitting needle;

1 pair of cutting pliers, for the wire used in necks;

Ordinary sewing needles (sizes 2 to 8) and cotton thread (Nos. 8,

36, 80) pins, of nickeled brass, not of steel;

1 medium-sized carborundum stone, for sharpening knives and
scalpel;

1 rather stiff artist’s brush, for washing small spots of blood from
plumage, and for moistening skin;

1 nail-brush, for drying and fluffing the plumage;

Annealed, galvanized iron wire, of sizes 11, 16, 22;

1 folding metric rule;

1 pair of dividers, for taking measurements.

For larger and tougher birds, one may add to the kit:
1 thin-bladed kitchen knife;
1 pair of bone-cutters or short, heavy shears;
1 longer pair of forceps, about 10 inches over all, with tips not very
slender; they will be used for stuffing skins.

‘Some workers find they cut fewer holes in skins by using scissors
of which one blade has a rounded end.

Fig. 1. Principal instruments used for skinning birds: A, sealpel;
B, scissors; C, bone shears; D, small forceps; E, kitchen knife; F,
cutting pliers; G, long forceps. Their dimensions may be figured from
the accompanying scale.

on

6 EQUIPMENT FOR SKINNING

Other Materials!

Small birdskins are best stuffed with good, long-fibred
cotton, not necessarily absorbent; larger ones with tow and
“excelsior’’ wood-shavings, when available. In case of need,
green moss may be used after thorough drying, or fine dry
grass, or the dry husks of maize—in short, almost any soft,
dry vegetable material.

The inside of the skins is to be dusted with powdered white
arsenic (= arsenic trioxid), or powdered arsenic and borax (in
equal parts by volume). The latter mixture is generally suit-
able for all bird skins, even in the tropics, although a similar
mixture of arsenic and alum may be used for very large
birds in hot, moist climates. Alum has the disadvantage of
hardening the skin somewhat. The arsenic is used for its
permanent effect in preventing insects from eating the skin,
rather than for any immediate action as a preservative. It
should never be omitted; and used with ordinary care, it offers
no danger to the health of the collector. Arsenical soap is
more tedious to manipulate, and not necessary.?. Put no salt
on a bird’s skin save for temporary preservation, as de-
scribed on page 33.

For preventing the feathers from adhering to the flesh as
it is exposed in skinning, for absorbing blood, and for drying
parts of the plumage that may have to be washed, fine corn-
meal is often used. Where this cannot be had, any other starchy
meal which does not become sticky when wet will serve, and
dry hardwood sawdust may also be used. Natives of the

'It is not feasible to list all the equipment which a bird collector may
find useful. For supplies used in drying and packing birdskins, see pp.
39-43; for preservation of birds in fluid, pp. 48, 44; and for simple
soldering outfit, p. 44. Preparing rough skeletons requires no special
tools, but arsenical soap solution is useful in safeguarding them, as
explained on p. 47.

“Arsenical soap is sometimes very useful to paint on beak and feet
externally, to prevent attacks by insects. See page 41.

~J

HANDLING THE FRESH BIRD

tropics frequently prepare coarse flours from rice, millet, or
manioc, which are suited to the purpose. Failing these, dry
powdered clay or wood ashes may often be employed.
Plaster of Paris has been much used by taxidermists, its only
fault being that it is almost sure to leave a light powdery
bloom on the feathers, particularly if they are of dark color.
The very best material I have ever found for cleaning feathers
is a mixture of plaster of Paris and potato starch or potato
flour (equal volumes). It may safely be used in place of corn-
meal throughout, and acts far more rapidly.

When birds are very fat, benzine or carbon tetrachlorid
may be used to wash the grease from skin or plumage. Sheets
of paper, thin cheesecloth, or mosquito netting are used to
wrap large birdskins while drying, instead of the thin layer
of cotton which is recommended for small specimens. Col-
lector’s tags of convenient size are shown on page 37. Never
neglect to take a generous supply of naphthaline, it is the
cheapest form of insurance against destruction of skins by
insects, and in the tropics is absolutely essential to success.

Care of the Bird before Skinning

By proper handling of the freshly killed bird, a great deal
of trouble can be avoided. Pick it up by the bill or feet, and
serape off with a knife-blade any drops of blood which may
adhere to the feathers. A small wad of dampened cotton will
be useful to wipe off blood-stains, before they have time to
dry. Any large shot-hole may be stopped with a bit of cotton,
after which corn-meal should be sprinkled among the bases of
the neighboring feathers. Open the mouth, and insert a large
plug of cotton, pushing it down the throat to prevent the
oozing out of blood or other fluids.

In very warm climates, where small insectivorous birds
have a way of putrifying and losing feathers on throat and
abdomen within a few hours, it is often worth while to carry a
hypodermic syringe, with which to inject a preservative into

8 TREATMENT BEFORE SKINNING

the abdomen. Insert the needle through the vent, pushing it
into the body-cavity about the intestines. Very weak
formalin (1 part to 25 of water) may be used, if there is no
objection to the hardening of the belly skin; but a
saturated solution of alum (7.e., so strong it can dissolve no
more alum) does not have this fault, though it retards decay
appreciably. Carbolic acid may likewise be employed. Such
preservatives aid greatly in the subsequent determination of
the bird’s sex, by keeping its organs in far better condition,
especially when they are undeveloped. For the throat, a
little of the preserving solution (preferably alum) is squirted
into the gullet before it is plugged. Alcohol is not to be recom-
mended, for it runs out again too easily on to the plumage.

Next make a cornucopia of stiff paper, drop the bird into
it head foremost, seeing that the bill is not turned forward
on to the throat; and if the bird is not too large, fold in the
edges of the cornucopia and place it in a basket or other recep-
tacle where it will not be pressed upon, have its tail damaged,
or be shaken about. In a warm climate, avoid the use of a
metal box for carrying birds, as they will become overheated.
Decomposition of the skin results in a blistering or sloughing
of the epidermis, loosening the feathers so that they fall out
when the bird is handled.

Measuring Fresh Birds

The dimensions of bill, wing, and tail are usually measured
from the dried skin, and there is no advantage in taking them
from the fresh bird. In certain cases, particularly with
large species, it is of interest to record the spread of wings,
from tip to tip, and the total length, from tip of beak to end
of tail. The “length of body”? would be a useful measure-
ment to take from every species; this would be the distance
in a straight line from the anterior surface of the shoulder
to the vent, or, if the birds is already skinned, to the tip of the
small bone (pubis) which extends down in the belly wall close

——~

REMOVAL OF SKIN g

to the vent. In birds of ordinary size it may be measured
with a pair of dividers. Always use the metric system in
preference to inches.
Skinning the Bird

(1) See that the throat is tightly plugged with dry, non-
absorbent cotton. Do not plug the nostrils, for the pressure
may change their form, which it is desirable to preserve. If
blood oozes from the nostrils, place a strip of cotton over them
and across the forehead, stuffing the ends down on each side
into the throat, and then add another wad in the throat to
hold them fast. This will keep most of the blood away from
the plumage of the head during the operation of skinning. If
the eyball has been ruptured by the shot, pull it out with
the forceps, and fill the eavity with meal.

Fig. 2. The first knee has been exposed. Cut through joint and
flesh, down to the skin.

(2) Lay the bird on its back. Separate the feathers down
the mid-line of the breast, where the skin will be found more
or less bare. With scalpel or scissors make a longitudinal
incision through the skin, from about midway down the
breast bone, backward to the vent, into which the cut may be
continued. Try not to cut into the wall of the abdomen,
although a small hole will not matter.

10 REMOVAL OF SKIN

(3) Taking the very edges of the skin by the finger nails,
and pushing with the handle of the scalpel between the skin
and flesh, separate the skin from the body, farther and farther
back on both sides, until you lay bare the bird’s knees.
Sprinkle corn-meal or other drying powder (p.7) upon the flesh
as it is exposed, to dry it, and to prevent the feathers from
adhering.

(4) Take hold of cne of the feet from the outside, push the
knee farther up into view inside the skin, as in Fig. 2. With
the scissors, clip the leg entirely in two at the knee-joint,
inside the skin. Do the same with the other leg.

Z Cut
{ across

Fig. 3. While holding the base of the tail, press it upward with the
second finger, and cut through with scissors to the skin of the back, on
the line indicated.

(5) On both sides of the abdomen separate the skin as far
as possible, and sprinkle meal. With the scissors, first cut

REMOVAL OF SKIN 11

through the lower end of the intestine, close to the vent, and
then through the base of the tail, far enough forward to avoid
the bases of the tail-quills. (See Fig. 3.) Continue until you
_ see the skin all across, and the tail is completely severed from
| the body, inside the skin. A small hole may perhaps be cut

LA

Fig. 4. Supporting the body by one of the thighs, skin forward
over flanks and rump.

accidentally, but remember that a small hole entirely under

the plumage matters little, and a larger one can usually be

sewed together without detracting from the value of the
_ specimen.

(6) With the left hand grasp firmly one of the thighs, to
support the body of the bird. With the thumb of the right
hand, aided occasionally by the scalpel, separate the skin
of the rump from the body, as in Fig. 4. Continue forward,
turning the skin of the specimen partly inside out, and remov-

ee : mM

Cut wing off — a
fe: tha -

4

Fig. 5. The body has been almost entirely skinned, so that the
bases of the wings are exposed, ready to be cut through at shoulder joint.

REMOVAL OF SKIN 13

ing the body gradually from the skin.'| Use an abundance of
meal to keep the feathers fron being soiled, and try to keep
the fingers interposed between the feathers and the flesh, as
the work proceeds.

Fig. 6. Pushing the skin forward over the head. The ear has been
reached, and its skin may be pulled out with the finger nails, or in a
larger bird cut through close to the skull.

(7) The bases of the wings will soon appear. (Fig. 5.)
Cut them off at or near the shoulder joint. Continue turning
the skin forward. The neck is soon reached; and the skin will
turn back easily over it, till the base of the head is reached.

(8) Work the skin earefully over the head, pushing with
the finger nails close to the skull, rather than pulling on the
skin of the neck.?. As the back of the head emerges, the ears

‘Tn the case of large birds, a cord may be tied about the body just
in front of the thighs, as soon as the skin has been peeled off to that
point, and the bird may then be hung at a convenient height. This
saves the effort of supporting its whole weight with the left hand.

“In many woodpeckers and ducks the head is too large to come through
the skin of the neck. If after patient trial it cannot be persuaded, cut off
the neck close to the base of the skull, and proceed as indicated on page 26.

14 SKINNING THE HEAD

appear (Fig. 6), and by seizing them firmly with the forceps
or between the nails of thumb and index finger, they can be
pulled from their hollows. Only in large birds is it necessary
to cut the skin of the ears, as close to the skull as possible.

/
Skin pulled’
out of ear

Fig. 7. The head is skinned to the base of the bill.

(9) Next the dark-colored eyeballs appear, and the thin
transparent membrane is cut which attaches the eyelids to
the eyeball. Continue cutting forward until the lids are com-
pletely free from the eyes, and above all avoid cutting the
edges of the lids, which so often bear a circlet of small feathers.

Fig. 8. The first cut for the removal of the brain is through the
thin wall between the orbits, without injuring roof of skull.

CLEANING OUT THE HEAD 15

(10) Continue skinning forward to the very base of the bill,
above and below, as in Fig. 7. This is especially important
in large birds, for it enables this part of the skin to dry and
retain its feathers. The skin must remain attached at the
base of the bill.

(11) Pry the eyeballs from their sockets with the handle of
the scalpel, but avoid breaking them. Cut away the tongue
and floor of the throat.

(12) With the scissors make a cut directly across the roof
of the mouth, below the orbits, but without cutting the
lateral supports of either the upper or the lower jaws (Fig. 8).

Beneath Behind

Fig. 9. Four cuts with the scissors suffice for the removal of the
base of skull, and of the brain. These are numbered in the order in
which they are made.

Again with the scissors, make incisions from each end of the
preceding cut backward along the base of the skull, within the
branches of the mandibles, as far as the rear of the skull, at
the sides of the attachment of the neck. Connect the pos-
terior ends of these cuts by a fourth, across the back of the

16 TREATMENT OF THE HEAD

skull, just above the juncture of the neck.! These cuts are
shown in Fig. 9.

(13) Pulling the neck from the head will now remove the
base of the skull and part of the brain, the remainder of which
is to be scooped out with scissors or scalpel. Large openings
should connect the brain-cavity with the orbits.

(14) Cut away any loose flesh from the skull, and powder
it generously, as well as the skin of head and neck, with

Fig. 10. Turning the skin of the head back over the empty skull,
which has been cleaned and poisoned.

'Tn large birds the same cuts are made in the skull, but with stronger
bone shears, instead of the scissors.

SKINNING WINGS AND LEGS 17

arsenic and borax, which is shaken from a piece of cotton held
in the foreeps.!

(15) If the skin has dried so as not to turn back easily,
moisten it slightly. The head is now turned right side out,
by gradual coaxing with the fingers, rather than by pulling.
(Fig. 10.) No stuffing is as yet placed in the head. Straighten
out the feathers with small forceps and a needle, especially
about the cheeks and eyes.

(16) Pull the wing-bones inward, and clean the wings, one
after the other. Push the skin away as far as the elbow.
Then push forward the skin along the upper or anterior side
of the forearm, leaving the quills (secondaries) attached to
the lower of its two bones. The muscles of the forearm, in all
small birds, can be removed from the upper side, almost as
far out as the wrist. There is no objection to the removal
of the upper of the two forearm bones (radius) when snipping
out the flesh. The upper-arm bone (humerus) should, how-
ever, be cleaned of flesh and left attached to the bone (ulna)
remaining in the skin of the forearm. These bones are illus-
trated in Fig. 11.

(17) Another method of skinning the wing, which makes
for more speed in preparing birds of medium size, such as
pigeons, consists in separating the quills from the lower bone
of the forearm with the scalpel. This allows greater freedom
in removing the muscles of the forearm, but the bone of the
upper arm should not be removed, and later the skin should
always be pulled so that the wing-quills extend back again to
the elbow. Otherwise the form of the wing becomes un-
naturally distorted. In really large birds, the wing is opened
from the outside, on its lower surface; and the quills must
always be left attached to the bone.

(18) Before turning the wings right side out again, proceed
to skin the legs, pushing the skin down as far as there are
1A dried rabbit foot or a large artist’s brush is even better for the
purpose.

18 TREATMENT OF LIMBS AND TAIL

any feathers, and then removing all flesh from the bones. In
large birds see carefully to the farthest (outermost) parts
that are feathered, as they are very apt to decay, and give
them an extra share of arsenic and borax. Do not attempt
to turn over the scaly skin of the feet, as it will injure the
scutes.

ete,
Humerus-———

Fig. 11. The flesh has been cleaned from wing and leg; this treat-
ment suffices for all small birds.

‘The head of the tibia may be broken off, and the muscles stripped
down in one movement.

CLEANING AND POISONING THE SKIN 19

(19) Remove as much flesh and fat as possible from the
base of the tail. The oil-gland of small birds need not be re-
moved. Avoid injury to the bases of the quills, or they will
fall out. Most of the bone may be removed, except the very
tip, between the middle feathers.

N
N
Scapular
feather tract

Fig. 12. Where to take the stitches to hold the scapular feather-
tracts together.

(20) Remove all fat and any bits of flesh from the inside of
the whole body-skin. (See page 26 for the treatment of fat.)

(21) Through the forward end of each scapular feather-tract
a stitch is to be taken. (Fig. 12.) Draw them together with the
thread, and tie firmly (with a ‘‘square”’ knot) at a distance
approximating that which would separate them on the back
of the live bird. This will make the arrangement of the wings
and adjoining feathers vastly easier. Tying the wing-bones
together is another means to the same end, but less effective.

(22) Powder the whole inner surface of the skin, especially
that of wings, feet, and base of tail with arsenic and borax.

20 AFTER REMOVAL OF SKIN

Wind a little cotton about the leg-bones, and turn the whole
skin right side out.
Cleaning the Plumage

(23) Look for any blood spots on the plumage, and wash
them clean, using a small brush, rather stiff, dipped in clean
water. Peroxide of hydrogen will remove obstinate blood-
stains, and does not affect the color of the feathers if dried
at once. When the blood has been entirely removed, the
feathers are dried by rubbing them with absorbent powder or
meal, raising the feathers and brushing them lightly forward
and back with the nail-brush. Add more powder, rub into the
bases of the feathers, and repeat until the feathers are entirely
dry. Then remove all powder by shaking and a vigorous use
of the nail-brush. When the meal becomes damp it should be
dried in the sun or over a fire.

Filling out the Skin

(24) Birdskins are not left flat, but are filled out to the size
of the body removed, so as to show the relation of the plum-
age to the different parts of the body. First rolla fluff of cot-
ton on the end of the fine-pointed forceps into a small hard ball
exactly the size of the eye. Taking the ball firmly in the forceps,
pass it up through the skin of the neck, through the back of the
skull, and lodge it in the orbit. Another ball fills the other orbit,
and a little cotton in the brain-space holds them firm. The
eyelids are arranged from the outside with a needle, as though
the eyes were wide open, so that a smooth cotton surface shows.

(25) The stuffing for body and neck is put in together. On
a soft iron wire,! somewhat longer than the stuffing is to be,
roll cotton first in the form of the neck, tapering to a point

'A slender, pointed stick may be used instead, though less con-
venient. In making up the skins of very small birds it is scarcely neces-
sary to use either stick or wire. The cotton may be wound on a thin
knitting needle, or a long quill of an Old World poreupine, which is loos-
ened by a reverse twist and withdrawn, after the stuffing has been
arranged inside the skin.

FILLING OUT THE SKIN 21

anteriorly.!. Farther back more cotton is tightly rolled, until it
approximates the size of the body you have removed. (Fig. 13.)
It must never be larger. The cotton neck protruding from the

h
Fig. 13. Rolling the artificial body of cotton or tow on a wire.
cotton “body” should not exceed the length of the bird’s neck
as it lies before you, for though it will run up into the throat,
it cannot bend into the natural curve of the neck of the bird.

'Dip the wire in water first, if necessary, to make the cotton adhere
tightly.

22 FILLING OUT THE SKIN

(26) Open the skin and insert the pointed anterior end of
the stuffing (at tip of wire or stick), running it up the neck
and into the throat, until its tip appears in the mouth. Pull
back the skin of the bird until it encloses the cotton body.
(Fig. 14.)

\

Fig. 14. Inserting the stuffing in the skin; the pointed artificial
neck runs up between the bases of the lower mandible.

(27) You are now ready to arrange the skin properly with
the forceps, folding the wings close to the body and on the
back rather than down on the breast, and pushing the skin of
chest and hind-neck forward or backward, as the smoothing of
the plumage may require. The skin of the ear-region or crown
may be raised with the point of a fine needle and moved about
slightly until the feathers all lie naturally.

FINAL MAKE-UP OF SKIN 23

(28) Once you are satisfied with the general appearance,
which should resemble that of a dead bird lying on its back,
cut or break off the posterior, projecting part of the wire or
stick, and sew up the incision of the belly with a few stitches.'
Do not draw the sides too closely together, as the edges of
the skin will always have shrunk somewhat. The feathers
will readily hide the slit. If the borders of the skin have
dried too much, moisten them inside before sewing; the
feathers may then be more easily arranged.

To permit of a flattening of the back, so the skin will lie
more solidly, the wire in the neck may be bent slightly, or the
stick may be broken in the middle of the body.

(29) Tie the mandibles together, so that the bill remains
closed as it would in life. The tip of the upper one should
often project very slightly beyond the lower. A well-closed
bill is essential to a good skin. The thread may be passed
through the nostrils with a fine needle, provided it does not
injure them, and tied around the lower mandible. In very
thick-billed birds the thread may not hold; in such cases a
very fine pin inserted between the rami of the lower mandible
will serve to shut the bill. Here, too, beware of injury to the
nostrils. When the nostrils are soft, as in goatsuckers and
cuckoos, it is better to pass the needle and thread through
some other part of the soft base of the bill, the hole will be im-
perceptible. The thread that ties the bill may also be attached
to the anterior end of the neck-stuffing in cases where the
head is apt to fall loose (e.g., goatsuckers and swifts). Ducks’
bills may be shut without undue pressure if the thread passes
over a small wad of cotton placed beneath the lower mandible.

(80) Cross the legs and extend the toes moderately.
Attach a label (see page 37), tying the string preferably
with square knots, so firmly as to leave no chance of its fall-
ing off subsequently. The string of the label should be long

In very small birds one stitch is enough.

24 FINAL MAKE-UP OF SKIN

Fig. 15. The finished birdskin is molded in the palm of the hand,

the wings being pressed in against the back, so they do not hide the
sides of the breast.

Vig. 16. Wrapping the finished skin in a thin sheet of cotton, before
it is laid away to dry.

SPECIAL TREATMENT OF HEADS 25

enough to permit of its being rotated freely for reading on both
sides. The label must bear at least the sex of the specimen,
the locality, and the date.

(31) Let the skin shp through the palm of the your half-
opened hand (Fig. 15), pressing the wings into place, and
arranging the tail and legs. Lay the skin, back down, upon a
thin sheet of cotton broad enough to enclose it. Draw the
lateral edges of the cotton up around the sides, as in Fig. 16,
so that they hold in the wings and enfold the whole skin,
overlapping on the throat and breast, preserving the desired
form and the smoothness of the plumage.!

(32) Put the skin way in a cool airy place to dry, where it
will be safe from insects or any other small animals that might
destroy it. (See page 40 for drying racks).

Large-headed Birds

When the skinning of the head cannot be done through the
neck, as in the case described on page 13, the neck alone is
removed, the skin turned right side out, and a slit is cut
between the feathers from the middle or rear of the crown as
far back on the nape as may be necessary to allow turning
out the skull and the removal of eyes, brain, and all flesh
about the head. (Fig. 17, A.) The same cuts are made in
the base of the skull as in the usual procedure. Through
the slit in the skin of the nape the necessary stuffing is after-
ward introduced into the orbits and brain-case. Then the slit
is sewed together again, and will usually be hidden by the
feathers. When a considerable amount of flesh has to be
removed from the skull of a large bird, it is well to replace it
by inserting pads of cotton with the forceps just before the
skin is closed.

In a few cases the slit is better made on the lower side

‘Instead of wrapping with cotton, some collectors prefer to push the
finished skin, bill foremost, into a cornucopia or a cylinder of paper.
But the results cannot be so well controlled.

26 FINAL MAKE-UP OF SKIN

along the mid-line of the throat. Birds like the horned
guinea-fowl are best treated this way (Fig. 17, B), for the
excrescence on the crown must not be separated from the skull.
The head cannot be completely skinned; but the soft parts of

~
~e. eh Fa .
Slit in throat of

guinea fowl

Fig. 17. Opening the heads of thin-necked birds: (A) a duck, (B)
a guinea fowl. ;
the throat, the eyes, and the brain can be removed from below.
The fact that the slit remains visible is of no moment. With
sufficient pains the head of a guinea-fowl can be cleaned
through the neck without cutting a slit. A liberal quantity of
preservative must be inserted. Hawks and other diurnal

LARGE AND GREASY BIRDS 27

birds of prey have a bony shield over the eye, projecting from
the region of the forehead. It is best kept attached to the
skull.

Fatty Birds

Small patches of fat may be removed from the inside of
the skin by scraping with the sealpel, enough corn-meal being
used to prevent the oil from reaching the plumage. Water-
fowl are often so greasy that the removal of the fat is almost
certain to soil the feathers. It must never be left on the skin.
Serape away from the tail and in the direction of the head;
far fewer holes in the skin will result. A metal comb, a spoon
with serrated edge, or a wire brush (such as used for cleaning
automobile tires) may be employed for removing fat. The
corn-meal ‘or other absorbent powder (See page 6) may be
heated in a pan over a fire (though never hot enough to
scorch the feathers) and it will absorb oil much more effec-
tively. Where gasoline, benzine, or naphtha is available, the
skin after careful scraping may be dipped and washed in any
of these fluids, and then dried by shaking meal or powder, or
sawdust, into the feathers and beating and brushing. For
small birds, carbon tetrachlorid (often sold under trade
names such as “‘Carbona’”’) may be used to the same pur-
pose and without danger from fire. These degreasing fluids
must not be expected to remove dried blood at the same
time; that should previously have been sponged off with
water. Many taxidermists, in preparing fatty water birds
likeeducks, prefer to make the initial slit in the body-skin
down one side, beneath the wing, instead of on the middle of
the belly. The short dense feathering of the underside is more
easily arranged afterward; and the plumage along the mid-
ventral line is preserved from soiling by grease. Such a pro-
cedure is by no means objectionable.

Some workers find it easier to make the first incision from
the base of the neck to the posterior border of the sternum

28 WINGS AND FEET OF LARGE BIRDS

only. Cutting first the bases of the neck and wings, they re-
move the body by its anterior end.

Wings and Feet of Large Birds
Special attention is required by the wings and feet of
large birds, for with only the treatment described above, they
would be certain to decay and lose feathers or scales before
Carpal joint

Fig. 18. The opening made along the under side of a large bird’s
wing, for the removal of flesh. Be sure to skin around over the upper
side of the wrist Joint, and poison well with arsenic.

they could be dried. In warm climates especially, every bird
as large as a partridge must have a slit made along the under-
side of the wing, cut to the tip, in the line where fewest
feathers grow. (See Fig. 18.) Then all fleshy parts and large
tendons are removed. The bases of the large quills (second-
aries) are not to be separated from the bone (ulna), for this
would make their subsequent arrangement difficult—particu-
larly in a large bird which is to be mounted. It is especially
important to separate the skin of the wrist joint, around to
the upper surface of the wing, from the bones at that spot,

FEET OF LARGE BIRDS 29

and to insert a generous dose of arsenic and borax. Failing
this, in large birds, the feathers of the “bend of the wing’”’
are more than apt to become loosened through ‘“‘sweating’’
of the skin.

The slit of the lower surface of the wing may be closed
with a few stitches, but drying will be more rapid if it is not
too carefully sewn up. Try to keep the feathers near it clean.

Slit on inner
fe of dot

Fig. 19. Pulling the tendons from the leg of a large wading bird.
Note also the incision on the inner side of the shank, near its upper
joint. It need not be made till after the tendons have been drawn;
through it the skin is loosened and poisoned all around the joint.

In large birds that require such treatment, it will be neces-
sary also to wrap the bone of the upper arm with cotton or
tow, to keep it from contact with the skin, for drying will be
slower than in small birds.

The feet in large birds dry so slowly that the skin often
decomposes, and the scutes become loosened. To obviate this
the tendons of the tarsus are removed, together with any
small muscles present. After all the other skinning opera-
tions have been completed, cut a longitudinal slit in the
median pad of the sole. The tendons of the toes all converge
here, and by pushing the tip of the heavy forceps beneath

30 BIRDS OF LARGE SIZE OR SPECIAL FORM

_ Fig. 20. Method of arranging skins of some large birds. A, owl,
B, hornbill; C, large heron; D, goose.

SKINS OF SPECIAL KINDS 31

them, from the side, they may be pulled entirely out of the
tarsus. (Fig. 19.) The ends attached to the toes may then
be cut, or if the toes are very fleshy, they also may be split
open longitudinally from below, and more of their tendons
excised.

With large herons and other similar wading birds, another
slit should be made on the znner side of the heel joint: (near
the upper end of the shank), parallel to the long axis of the
limb, and the skin separated as far around the joint as prac-
ticable, to be treated with arsenic and borax. With a wire or
the long forceps, get as much of this preservative as possible
up into the space whence the tendons have been withdrawn.

The feet of pelicans and large vultures are so difficult to
preserve in a warm moist climate that the safest way is to
slit the skin down the whole length of the tarsus, on its inner
side. Remove all flesh and tendons, dust with arsenic and
borax or alum, and do not sew up very tightly. Split the
underside of the toes, out to the last joint, removing the
tendons.

Making up Skins of Large Birds

It is obvious that specimens of large birds, with long necks
and limbs, if made up in the same way as small birds, would
be very difficult to transport or store in boxes. When a bird
exceeds a length of 2% feet, either the neck or the feet, per-
haps both, will have to be doubled over. A wire, not a stick,
is therefore to be put in the neck; and after the skin has
been filled out and sewed up, it is bent into the desired form,
care being taken that no part of the bird’s plumage shall
become entirely hidden. Bend the neck down one side of the
body, outside the wing, rather than upon the middle of the
breast or back. Methods of treating birds of different sorts
will be suggested by the sketches in Fig. 20. For large birds
the artificial body, preferably of ‘“excelsior’’ bound with
heavy thread, is made smaller than the real body. The neck
is wound of cotton or tow, and these softer materials are

ae THE HEAD OF OWLS

used to fill the space remaining beneath the skin. Make such
skins only large enough to display all parts of the plumage.
Neither can large skins be wrapped wholly in cotton; strips
of paper pinned round them, or some open-mesh cloth, will
keep them in shape until dry.

Fig. 21. Owl’s head after skinning and cleaning; to show the
way the empty eyeball is retained.

Treatment of the Head in Owls
The eyes of owls have a peculiar shape, the front protrud-
ing in such a way that if the whole orbits are filled with
round balls of cotton, the facial expression will be largely lost.
Treat the eyes of owls as follows: Do not remove them
from the orbit, in which they are fixed rigidly. Cut away the
transparent skin (the cornea) in front of pupil and iris; then
with the small foreeps and a small wad of cotton force out all
the liquid from within the eye, drying the interior with corn-
meal. Take care that the liquid does not fall on the feathers.
The brain is removed through the base of the skull as
usual; but there will be no opening from the brain-space to

SALTING FOR LARGE SKINS 33

the orbit, for the latter is still filled by the shell of the eyeball,
as in Fig. 21.

So instead of stuffing out the eyes from behind, round
lumps of cotton are wedged into the front of the emptied
eyeballs, through the lids, after the skin of the head has been
turned back, and when the skin is finally being filled out.

The false neck, with its stick or wire, is not inserted into
the throat of an owl, but is wedged tightly into the brain-
space at the back of the skull. This will bring the head and
face into a far more owl-like position. (Fig, 20, A.) <A pro-
jecting wire point may be left at the anterior end of the faise
neck, to be pushed through the top of the skull and bent
over outside the skin. It will hold the head on more securely.

Temporary Preparation of Some Large Birds

The large flightless birds such as the ostrich, cassowaries,
and their allies are not to be prepared according to the fore-
going method, but must be treated more as a large mammal ;
would be, though the bones of wings and feet, and the skull
are retained. The feet especially are to be more fully skinned
so that the skin nowhere lies closely against the bone. Only
just enough hay or other dry stuffing is used to keep the two
sides of the skin apart, and no cuts are sewn up. Instead of
arsenic and borax or alum use salt, in a dry climate, or one
part salt to three of alum in a humid one. Dry the skin as
thoroughly as possible, and fold into a bundle. Never pack
in the same box with other skins not treated with salt.

Large, greasy seabirds, and fatty ducks or geese, often
impose serious delays upon the collector. To save valuable
time they may be skinned out completely, and thoroughly
salted, without too close attention to the grease, provided
blood stains are carefully removed. Their preparation can be
completed by a taxidermist even several months later. In
general this procedure is not recommended, for the longer
the skins are kept, the more work is involved in their sub-

34 DETERMINATION OF SEX

sequent preparation. In the humid tropies it is not to be
thought of.
Determination of Sex

Inspection of the plumage can in no case be relied upon
for the bird’s sex. Dissection is the only method; and where
wounds or incipient decomposition have impaired the
evidence, do not write the sex upon the label without a
question mark.

Male, 3 Female, 2

i= Kidney ——
ar
a

Fig. 22. Dissections of male and female birds, to show the reproduc-
tive organs, by which the sex is recognized, and adjacent structures.

* Sperm duct amomecees, LNTCSTING aon

When the body is completely removed from its skin, cut
open the left side from the vent to the anterior ribs. Force
the edges apart, and pressing the intestines aside, look for the
sexual organs. These will be found in the small of the back
close to the backbone, and near the forward ends of the kid-
neys, which fill the roof of the abdominal cavity. They are
shown in Fig. 22.

The male organs (testes), two in number, are usually white
or yellow but occasionally much darker, and lie side by side.
They are of smooth rounded or ovoid form, large and conspie-
uous in the breeding season; but they may become extremely
small in winter. Do not confuse them with the ‘adrenal

IMMATURITY SEEN IN SKULL 35

bodies,” smaller and flatter bodies (yellow or orange), lying
a little farther forward, 7m the anterior border of the kidneys.

The female organs consist usually of a single ovary, lying
a little to the left side. A vestige of the right ovary may be
present. In the non-breeding season the ovary is a mass of
small ova or rudiments of eggs, much less regular in shape than
the testis of the male, and likely to be flattened, with evident
granular structure. The female has adrenal bodies the same
as the male. As the time for laying approaches, some of the
ova become greatly enlarged, to form the yolks of the eggs.

|
| is \ Thin area
ea

B | \

ye indicating
oA immaturity

ae
Pe.

een
—_— ‘

Adult —-— sn
condition Lia tee
: : emer

Fig. 23. Skull roof of (A) immature and (B) adult perc hing birds,
to show the clear, thin area which indicates a young bird.

At this time too, the oviduct, a tube leading from the neigh-
borhood of the ovary down the left side to the vent, becomes
conspicuous—being usually whitish.
Determination of Age

From the condition of the sexual organs, and that of the
bird’s whole body, the bones in particular, the collector ought to
be able to detect signs of immaturity far more accurately than
is possible from a dried skin. He might note his opinion on the
label, using ‘“‘ad.’’ for adult, and “‘im.”’ for immature, the latter
designating any bird which has not assumed its full plumage.

36 NOTES FOR THE LABEL

Fortunately there is a simple method of determining, in
the case of practically all perching birds (=ordinary song-
birds and their near allies) whether the specimen is a bird of
the year or not. In the nestling the bony roof of the brain-
case is very thin and transparent, formed of a single thin
sheet of bone; that of the adult is more opaque, being formed
of two layers of bone, separated by air spaces traversed by fine
bony rods. Holding an adult skull up to the light, after removal
of the brain, one will note that the roof of the skull, back of the
eyes, shows fine dark specks all over. (Fig.23,B). By reflected
light these specks may look lighter than the neighboring bone.

As the young bird develops, the transparent area of the
skull top becomes restricted, the dotted structure appearing
around its edges, especially behind, until after three months
there is only a relatively small area where a single layer of
bone persists. (Fig. 23, A.) This is usually near the mid-line,
just behind the orbits; but in some families such as the swal-
lows the last traces of these areas are found farther back, and
more laterally placed. After some six months this sign of
immaturity is completely lost.!

Perching birds which are thus found to be immature
should be noted on the label or in the field catalog as “‘s.n.o.”
(=skull not ossified); others which have skulls of adult
structure, “‘s.o.’’ (=skull ossified).

Do not attempt to use this method for other groups of
birds until by careful study it is found reliable. Woodpeckers
and other families of small birds may have skulls of such
different structure that it cannot be applied.

Notes on Stomach Contents

Information which one may wish to preserve as to the
habits of a bird should certainly include the results of ex-

'A very few exceptional species among Passeres retain a thin area
in the skull roof throughout life. Information as to such a character
is always desirable.

NOTES FOR THE LABEL 37

amination of stomach and crop. The ornithologist will sel-
dom be competent to name accurately all the insects, other
animals, or fruits which have been eaten. It will nevertheless
be worth while to have a list of the insects arranged accord-
ing to orders or common names and numbers of individuals
consumed, or brief mention of the nature of fruits or other

B

American Museum / / 7 9 9 SP of Natural History
3 Ayer andcloniacee/
73 Tenn eas o QLé. 1200 ft.

a Vet. 24, 19/2.

B’
Fig. 24. Sample labels: A, front, and A’, back of collector's tag;
B and B’, front and back of permanent museum label.

objects swallowed. In the case of any species whose diet
offers particular interest, the stomachs may be removed
entire, labeled to correspond with the individual specimen
and preserved in alcohol or formalin, for future examination
by experts at home.

The Labs>l

The label is tied securely to the crossed feet of the birdskin,
as described on page 23. It should never exceed 3 inches in
length and *; inch in width. If possible, use the permanent
label of the museum or other institution for which the collec-
tion is being made. In case a small tag is used in the field,
it is to be regarded as sacred, and must remain attached to
the skin even when another museum label is added later.
When writing on either side of the label, always keep the
string to the left; this facilitates its reading. Examples
are given in Fig. 24.

38 LABEL AND NOTES

(1) Sex.—The spear and shield of Mars (co) are used as
the sign of the male sex, the mirror of Venus (9 ) as that of
the female.'

The condition of the reproductive organs is of interest as
indicating sexual maturity or the reverse, of the individual,
as well as the season of reproduction. It may be noted on the
field label by means of the following abbreviations:

“‘t.e.”’ =testes enlarged, when the increased size would indicate that
breeding was under way.

“‘t.n.e.”’ =testes not enlarged, when there is no possibility of. the
bird being in condition to breed.

Intermediate conditions may be indicated by ‘‘t.so.e.’’ (=testes
somewhat enlarged) and “‘t.sl.e.”’ (=testes slightly enlarged. Cor-
responding conditions of the ovary would be written ‘‘o.e.” “‘o.n.e.”
and so on.

Any inequality in size of the male organs, the presence of a right
ovary, or abnormality in the reproductive organs is worthy of special note.

(2) Loeality where the bird was taken, not abbreviated so
as to be unintelligible save to the collector himself. Always
give the state or country, as well. In mountainous regions
the altitude is an essential adjunct to the locality.

(3) Date when the bird was taken. Do not use an Arabic
numeral to indicate the month, for different usage in America
and in Europe often makes it impossible to decipher. Even a
Roman numeral is not preferable to a three-letter abbreviation
of the name of the month. But every letter on the label must be
written legibly, or if necessary printed.

These three items must never be omitted from a label, for
a simple catalog number on the field label is of no interest if
the notebook with the data is lost. But since it is advisable
to have a field label of reasonably small size, the more lengthy
remarks as to age, ripeness of the reproductive organs, and
color of unfeathered parts (eye, beak, feet, and any naked

‘Museum experience shows the necessity of writing the sex mark

with the greatest care. The worst offence, perhaps, is the use of an
inverted 2 to mean male.

CARE IN DRYING SKINS 39

skin), may be confided to the field catalog. In general, how-
ever, the more information on the label the better. 79
inches is a good size for the notebook. In it one may add
anything that seems of interest with regard to the bird’s
habitat, its food, nesting, molt, migrations, and ecological
status. There is no advantage in the collector’s writing the
scientific name of an adult bird on its label in the field, and
often he cannot know it. But in a field catalog, after the
serial number of the specimen, it is advisable to enter some
common name for the species or its family.

If a native name ean be secured this will often serve the
purpose, and will record linguistic material of value to anthro-
pologists, who themselves are often unable to secure such
accurate identification of native names for birds.

A great deal might here be added concerning life-histories,
were space available. Nests and eggs are of interest only when
the owners are identified beyond question, and then solely as
part of the life-history of the species. More can be learned by
watching a nest than by merely blowing its eggs. Other data
of interest include accurate weights of birds and their unblown
eggs, the length of the period of incubation, intervals between
laying of successive eggs, and temperatures of birds (taken
through gullet or rectum, immediately after death, with a
clinical thermometer reading to115° F.) Inthe field notebook
write on only one side of the sheet, so that pages or parts of
them may be cut out and reassembled, if desirable, accord-
ing to species, at some future time. This will save the trouble
of recopying half of the writing.

The Drying of Birdskins
Use every means to dry the specimens promptly, without
exposing them to excessive heat. In a dry or cold climate
there is no difficulty, but in a tropical rainy reason it may be-
come necessary to place them in the sunshine as often as the
clouds part, or to hang them in the neighborhood of a fire,

Fig. 25. A drying box very convenient for travel in the tropics.
The top and sides have wire screening for ventilation, the bottom being
solid. Inside dimensions of the box (A) are 71.538 X38 centimeters,
or approximately 28'4%15X15 inches. The width is the same as the
depth, so that in very wet weather the box may be turned on its side,
the trays (B) slid in as drawers, and a lantern or oil-stove placed beneath
it to create a draft of dry air. An apron of canvas fastened around its
lower edge will direct the air from the lantern.

There are seven trays of wood, well shellacked, with wire-gauze
bottoms, each with removable slats to hold the skins in place. The trays
are of three different depths, and in two of the deeper ones the slats run
lengthwise. Holes drilled in the sides or ends of the trays facilitate
aSration,

The canvas cover (C) is used to keep out damp night air, and serves
as a protection from rain while traveling. It should be made very loose,
to allow for shrinking.

40

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CARE IN DYING SKINS 41

though not in the smoke. Never place them in air-tight
boxes till thoroughly dry. Some sort of a erate enclosed with
wire-gauze will protect the specimens from mice and insects
meanwhile, or they may be placed on flat rectangles of sub-
stantial wire netting, swinging shelf-like, one above the
other, by strings attached to their corners. Such shelves
should fit in one of the trunks or boxes, so as to be stowed
away in the bottom when not in use. Insects may be dis-
couraged from climbing along the cord which sustains such a
drying rack by wetting it with kerosene or coal-oil.

For traveling there is nothing so effective as a specially
constructed drying box, with open spaces on several sides,
covered with wire gauze, and fitted inside with several light
trays, of varying depth. The bottom of the trays is of wire
netting, and they are crossed by upright slats to keep the
birdskins in place. A waterproof canvas cover will keep off
rain, on the march; and it may be put over the box at night
to lessen humidity. Beware of small ants which invade the
drying box and eat small holes everywhere in the specimens.
Naphthaline flakes sprinkled over the skins will protect them
temporarily.

Beetles (Dermestes and allies) will often gnaw at the horny
sheath of the bill or the scutes of the feet, while the skins are
drying. A simple way to discourage them is to paint all
such parts, as soon as the specimen is made up, with a thin
solution of arsenical soap, which will dry and leave almost no
trace. Insects seem to be aware of the presence of the poison
without tasting it.

Arsenical soap for this purpose may be made by boiling
white arsenic powder a few hours in a thick solution of
laundry soap—in an old pot, and out-of-doors—until all the
arsenic is dissolved or at least held in suspension. The
proportions may be about one tablespoon full of arsenic to a
small cake of soap.

42 HOW TO PACK BIRDSKINS

When important feathers have been accidentally pulled
out or broken by shot, they may be replaced or repaired with
thick shellac. Glue is often softened again by atmospheric
moisture.

Packing of Birdskins

A soldered tin box eneased in a wooden one is the ideal
packing, but is seldom available and rarely necessary.
Wooden packing boxes may be made sufficiently tight; and
if plenty of naphthaline flakes or moth-balls of the same
chemical be scattered within, they will need no further inspec-
tion before arrival at their destination. Besides preventing
the ravages of insects, naphthaline has a beneficent action in
discouraging mold, if used generously.'

Never pack birdskins permanently till they are thoroughly
dry. A single moist skin of a large bird may do great harm to
the rest of the contents of a box. Never pack in the same box
any other skin which has been treated with salt, for
should it pass through a rainy district the salt will inevitably
absorb moisture. Salted skins of large mammals must be
kept by themselves.

Burlap dipped in tar is often used to envelop bales of goods
shipped to the tropics, and this material tacked over the
outside of the box will give a decided protection from rain
and from the attacks of termites or white ants. The box
may be lined with it, provided that plenty of paper is added
to prevent the tar from touching the specimens.

The individual birdskins, with or without their cotton
wrapping, are rolled in cylinders of paper and packed tightly
enough to prevent any displacement during transportation.
If rather thin paper is used, and the smaller specimens are

'Paradichlorobenzene (of which “globol” and ‘‘paracide”’ are trade-
names) is a more energetic insecticide than naphthaline, but it evapo-
rates far more rapidly than naphthaline, and is therefore less suitable
for field work. A mixture of the two sulstances is excellent.

TRANSPORTATION OF SPECIMENS 43

placed carefully in the hollows left between the larger ones,
it is astonishing how many will go into the box. This is often
of prime importance in overland transportation.

Skeletons or skulls must not be packed with birdskins
unless the bones have been poisoned with arsenic, provided
also that there is plenty of naphthaline to deal with the insects
which are almost certain to be introduced with such bones.
No heavy object is to be included in a box of birdskins, for it
will shake about and break many of them.

Customs Regulations on Entering the United States

With few exceptions the importation of wild birds’ skins
or plumage is forbidden, save when they are intended for
scientific purposes, and addressed either to a museum or to a
person holding a Federal permit to collect birds in the United
States. Do not try, therefore, to bring them through as
baggage, without special declaration. Specimens for the
American Muscum of Natura! History should be clearly
addressed to the museum, and may be safely turned over to
the Custom Office at the port of entry, if so demanded.
Notify the Director of the Museum, at the same time, of
the arrival of the collection. Similar proceedure is advised
for other museums and other countries.

Preservation in Fluid

The colors of the plumage may change when the bird is
thus preserved, so that the specimens are then of use only for
anatomical study. The preserving fluids used are alcohol
(about 85%), or formaldehyde (=formalin) at about 3%.
Alcohol is preferable when available; some kinds of dena-
tured spirit will serve satisfactorily, provided they do not
become cloudy on mixing with water. Strong commercial
formalin is usually a 407 solution. Mix one part of such
formalin with 15 parts of water. Adding common salt (two
tablespoons per quart of formalin solution) prevents the
extreme hardening so common with formolized specimens.

44 PRESERVATION IN FLUID

The preserving fluids must penetrate the interior of the
bird’s body. The abdomen and all the larger fleshy masses
may be injected with a large hypodermic syringe, if it is to be
had. Usually a simple slit through the wall of the abdomen,
without disturbing the viscera (intestines, ete.), will allow
sufficient penetration by the preservative. Tongues, syrinxes,
and other visceral parts of birds which have been skinned are
frequently worth saving in fluid.!

Each specimen should have a label, bearing at least the
locality and date. The sex will not be determined until the
bird is dissected at home. The label may be of stout paper
which is not affected by fluid, or it may be a tag of pure sheet
tin or of lead, with a number stamped on it. Data may
be written on paper either with a soft lead pencil, or with
waterproof India ink, the latter being thoroughly dried
before immersion.

Aleohol in which fresh birds have been dropped will
absorb water from them, and become weaker. It is necessary
to change it for fresh aleohol before packing for shipment. A
few spoonfuls of strong formaldehyde may be added to
strengthen a formalin solution, but this is seldom necessary.

For small birds in fluid, glass jars such as are used for
preserving fruit will generally suffice, if they are surrounded
when shipped with straw or other fiber. It may cften be
necessary to place the specimens in tins,’ which need not be
entirely filled with fluid when they are soldered up, provided
the birds have been thoroughly preserved for some time.
Soldering is not a difficult task if a few rules are borne in
mind. The metal to be joined must be clean and bright. The
point of the soldering-iron must be clean and have a film of

1These directions do not cover preparation for histolozieal study,

5 a
where alcohol is of very little value, but formalin preferable, and other
fixing agents commonly recommended.

2“ Priction-top”’ tins are the most convenient, but others will serve
as well, especially with formalin.

OSTEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS 45

molten solder adhering to it. To assure the adhesion of the
molten solder both to the soldering-iron and to the metal to
be joined, use a strong, reliable flux such as hydrochloric
(=muriatic) acid into which a bit of zine has been placed.
“Soldering pastes’? may work, but often fail when one is least
able to replace them with acid. To keep the tip of the solder-
ing-iron clean, during the course of the work, it may be rubbed
occasionally on a block or lump of sal ammoniac. If the film
of solder is lost by overheating, clean the point of the iron with
a file, then heat the iron, wipe the point with acid, and rub in
molten solder on a piece of bright sheet iron (=‘‘tin’’).

The specimens must not shake around in the jars or tins.
Pack them tightly, and wrap if necessary in pieces of cheese-
cloth.

Preparing Rough Skeletons of Birds

Large birds will generally have their bones preserved in
this manner. Thorough cleaning is not the aim; as much
flesh is left adhering to them as will soon dry, and the liga-
ments are wanted to keep the bones attached to one another.
If cleaning were too thorough in the field, many of the bones
might drop off before the skeleton were safely home.

First remove the skin roughly, without including in it any
of the bones or claws. In most cases, this skin should be
labeled to correspond with the bones from the same individual,
and kept; it will be of great value in assuring the specific
identification. Disembowel the bird, taking care not to cut
the breast bone, ribs, or the small bones near the vent. De-
tach the legs from the body at the hip-joint and remove the
flesh, taking care not to remove the knee-cap.

The flesh may be removed from the wings without sep-
arating them from the shoulder; but great care must be
taken in removing the large wing-quills not to lose the small
bones of the wing tip, especially the one in the alula or bastard
wing. From this indeed the feathers need not be removed,
and the outermost wing-quills may likewise be left untouched.

46 SKELETONS OF BIRDS

Other parts requiring special attention are the plough-
share-bone at the base of the tail-quills, the slender points on
the under side of the neck vertebrx, and those projecting back
from the ribs. It frequently happens that many of the
tendons become ossified, as they do in the leg of a turkey.
Look out for such on the under side of the neck, in the legs and
wings, and along the sides of the back, and do not tear off the
muscles as you would if preparing a skin.

Considerable flesh may be left on the neck and back, for
it will dry easily, but the large breast-muscles are to be cut
away. The hyoid arch, or bones supporting the tongue and
attached to the windpipe, should be saved, as should also the
wind pipe itself, especially if as in many ducks, it has bony
structures developed in part of its length.

The whole neck is kept attached to the body skeleton, and
it is carefully separated from the base of the skull, without
cutting any bones. The brain of small birds need not be re-
moved, in larger ones it is taken out cautiously, with a loop
of wire inserted through the hole by which the spinal cord
comes out of the skull.

In many birds, and especially in birds of prey, there is a
ring of bones surrounding the pupil of the eve.. They are not
very visible, being enclosed in the front wall of the eyeball.
It is therefore best not to remove the eyeball, but simply to
puncture it to allow the escape of its fluid contents.

Cormorants have a small bone attached to the back of the
skull; other birds have projections of bone at the hind
angle of the lower jaw; and some diving birds have elongate
processes at the elbow or knee. So it is a good rule not to
trim up a bird’s skull, or even its limbs, too closely.

Fold up the legs, and place them, with the skull, inside the
chest cavity. Do the same with the wings or fold them along-
side the body, thus making a bundle which is held together
by a few strings till dry. It may be hung up in the meantime
by a string attached to the neck; and a thin piece of wood,

SKELETONS OF BIRDS 47

tied securely to one of the larger bones (the coracoid, for
instance, as in Fig. 26), should bear a catalog number, written
with a very black lead pencil.

The data to be entered in the catalog are much the same
as those for a skin: Sex (determined by dissection when dis-
emboweling the specimen), locality, and date.

Fig. 26. Rough skeleton of a francolin, dried and bundled together
for packing. The tag is of thin wood, bearing a number written with
soft lead pencil.

To avoid all difficulties with beetles (Dermestes, etc.)
which swarm upon dried bones in all tropical countries, dip
the whole skeleton, as soon as it is thoroughly dried, into a
weak solution (of merely milky tint) of arsenical soap, and
hang it up again to dry. If the beetles are allowed to eat
away the flesh, many of the smaller bones may be separated,
and are almost certain to be lost. For added protection the
dried skeleton may be sewn in a piece of cotton cloth.

48 SKELETONS OF BIRDS

Unless there are special reasons to be considered to the
contrary, the first specimens of any species will always be
preserved as skins. Afterwards, if the skeleton is believed to
offer points of interest, a few adult specimens, which have not
many of their bones injured, may be prepared as skeletons.
It has already been explained, however, that small birds,
even though desired for their skeletons, are best sent home
preserved in alcohol. Such specimens are also of great value
for the study of the soft anatomy, and of the arrangement
of feather tracts.

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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

THE PREPARATION OF
ROUGH SKELETONS

ae

By FREDERIC A. LUCAS

GUIDE LEAFLET SERIES, No. 59

NOTE

These leaflets are intended to furnish accurate i
formation in regard to the preparation of specimens of
various kinds for Museum purposes. x

The following have been issued and may be pur "
chased at the sales booth or from the Librarian; oth : ‘

are in the course of preparation;

The Capture and Preservation of
Small Mammals for Study
By H.E. Anthony. Price 15 cents

The Preparation of Birds for Study | i
By James P. Chapin. Price 15 cents =

How to Collect and Preserve Insects oo
By Frank E. Lutz. Price 1@cents a

The Preparation of Rough Skeletons — Ai
By Frederic A. Lucas. Price 10 cents

Suggestions to Collectors of
Reptiles and Amphibians
May be had on application to the Curator,
Department of Herpetology

Brief Directions for Preparing Skins
of Large Mammals
May be had on application to the Curator of Manoel

THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS

By Freperic A. Lucas

INTRODUCTORY

Why Skeletons are Needed

The skeleton is the best, and most enduring evidence we
have, of any animal’s place in nature and its relationships
with other animals: it is also the solution of a problem in
mechanics, that of carrying a given weight and of adaptation
to some particular mode of life. So the skeleton not only
indicates the group of animals to which its owner belongs, but
also tells of his mode of life, for it varies, or is modified,
according as a creature dwells on land, lives underground, or
in the water, walks, swims or flies; feeds on grass, catches
insects, or preys upon its fellows. Skeletons, therefore, are
not only necessary for the student of the life of to-day, but to
the palontologist, {gr the life of the past can only be inter-
preted by comparisdn with that of the present; also the
modern taxidermist needs the skeleton to aid him in the
proper mounting of animals, especially mammals.

It is not always convenient or even practicable to collect
skeletons, especially of large animals, and in such cases skulls
are always welcome; this is particularly true of such large
reptiles as crocodiles and turtles.

These directions for preparing rough skeletons, based on
twenty years experience, were drawn up some thirty years ago
and printed as one of a series of instructions for collectors
issued by the U. S. National Museum. They are now, by
permission, reprinted here with a few trifling changes. They
have been divided into sections, in order that the collector
might turn at once to the portion bearing directly on the

1

2 THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS

subject in hand. The general directions for mammals, how-
ever, apply with more or less force to all skeletons.

The extent to which these instructions can be followed will
of necessity depend largely on circumstances. It is not to be
expected that a collector working in the field would use the
same time and care as one residing on the spot or located for
some time at one place, but as one well prepared, perfect
skeleton is worth more than half a dozen mutilated specimens,
a little time spent in the work of roughing out and packing
will be well repaid.

Identification of Specimens

It is, of course, extremely important to know the correct
name of every skeleton, and whenever possible this should be
attached to the specimen, but it is a mere waste of valuable
time to endeavor to identify specimens in the field.

When the animal is unknown, its skin, roughly taken off,
should be kept, or the skin of another specimen should be
prepared in the usual manner, in order that it may serve as a
means of identifying the skeleton.

Labeling

The best method is to have a series of numbers, stamped
on pure sheet tin, and provided with a string for tying them
to specimens, the numbers being recorded in a notebook.

Unfortunately these tin numbers are not always to be
had, and a very good substitute may be made by cutting
Roman numbers on a block of wood, or even notches on a
stick.

If labels are used let them be of good stout manila, as thin
paper is apt to be torn or defaced.

Do not use wire of any kind to fasten tin or lead numbers
to specimens that are to go in alcohol or brine, for this sets
up a galvanic action which results disastrously.

THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS 3

Selection of Specimens—Fractures

Where time allows, select a series of skeletons of different
ages; but where only one skeleton can be prepared, choose a
fully grown, adult animal, as free as possible from fractures.
If an animal is shot or trapped it is impossible to avoid
breaking some bones, and such must be allowed to pass, but
where it has been beaten to death, fracturing the skull and
limb bones generally, the animal had better be thrown away
at once.

If the skull alone is broken, select if possible another of the
same size and send both with the body. When convenient
send with a broken leg or wing another of the same size, but
on no account throw away the fractured limb.

Do not neglect any animal simply because it is common,
for a common species may be anatomically important.

Tools

A knife and a pair of scissors are all that are absolutely
necessary, but if these can be supplemented by one or two
steel scrapers, the work will be greatly facilitated.

“Roughing Out’’—Mammals

If an animal is rare, the skin should be very carefully
taken off and preserved; otherwise, remove the skin roughly
and disembowel the specimen, taking care not to cut into the
breastbone, especially the disk-shaped piece of cartilage in
which it ends. Animals destined for skeletons should on no
account be split up the breast as though they were being
dressed for market.

Detach the legs from the body and remove the flesh,
taking care in so doing not to remove the collar bone or
kneepan with the meat. In the cat family the collar bone is
very small, and lies loose in flesh between the shoulder blade
and front end of the breastbone. The collar bone of weasels is

4 THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS

very minute and difficult to find, while, on the other hand,
climbing and burrowing animals usually have this bone well
developed, uniting the shoulder blade with the breastbone.

Fig. 1.—a, Skeleton of Fox ready for packing.
b, Skeleton of a bird ready for packing.

Deer, antelopes, bears, and seals have no collar bone.
In small quadrupeds it will be unnecessary to detach the
legs, but, whenever convenience in roughing out or packing

:
|

THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS oO

renders this needful, cut the collar bone loose from the breast-
bone and leave it fastened to the shoulder blade.

The legs being finished, disjoint and clean the skull. Be
careful in removing the eyes not to thrust the point of the
knife through the thin portion of the skull back of them and in
deer, antelopes, or other ruminants, take care not to break
through the thin bone back of the upper teeth. Also be care-
ful not to cut off any projections of bone.

Remove as much of the brain as possible with a scraper,
bent wire, or small stick.

In cleaning the ribs take care not to cut the cartilages
joining them to the breastbone, and, when the tail is reached,
look for a few little bones projecting downwards from the
first few vertebre.

Fold the legs snugly along the body, or, if they have been
detached, tie them together with the skull on the under side,
as much as possible within the chest cavity; also turn down
the tail and tie it upon itself. See cut on page 4.

Roll up in a bit of rag and fasten securely to one of the
long bones any bones which may have been detached or any
splinters from a broken bone.

Hang the skeleton to dry in the shade, where it will escape
dogs, cats, and rats. In this as in many other particulars the
collector will necessarily be governed by circumstances, for
in moist climates, or on shipboard, it may be needful to dry
specimens in the sun, or even by the aid of a fire.

Lastly, in case a small skeleton is likely to be some time
on the road, give it a very thin coat of arsenical soap to
preserve it from the attacks of Dermestes and other insects.

On short collecting trips the poisoning may be omitted
and the specimens treated when they reach their destination,
but where small skeletons are to lie for some time uncared
for, they should be poisoned, otherwise they may arrive in a
very much mixed and dilapidated condition.

6 THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS

The breastbones of large animals should also be well
poisoned.

The best method of poisoning small specimens is to dissolve
arsenic in hot water, and when the solution is cold soak the
skeletons in it for an hour or so. All the small rough skeletons
stored in museum collections, as well as those in the stock of
dealers in natural history material, are or should be thus

Fig. 2. —Tongue bones or hyoid of a Dog.
Fig. 3. —Right shoulder blade of a Rabbit.
Showing the backwardly projecting process.

treated. The addition of a little washing soda will cause
water to take up much more arsenic than it otherwise would.

Should any of these small specimens be needed for dis-
articulated skeletons the arsenic can be extracted by soaking
in a hot solution of washing soda.

Special Points

Embracing the upper part of the windpipe and connect-
ing it with the base of the skull is a series of bones known as
the hyoid apparatus. This should be carefully saved. See cut.

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‘estodiog ® JO u0Je[oyS— ‘fF “Sy

8 THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS

There are usually small bones, termed sesamoids, em-
bedded in the tendons, where they play over the under sides
of the toes, and on this account the tendons should never be
cut off close to the bone.

There are often one or two small bones on the back lower
portion of the thigh bone; these should be left in place.

In preparing the skeletons of rabbits particular attention
should be given to the shoulder blade, as this has a slender
projection at the lower end, which extends some distance
backward. See cut on page 6.

The male organ of a great many quadrupeds, as the rac-
coon, is provided with a bone. As it is difficult to say when
this may or may not be present, it should always be looked for.
and when found left attached to the hip bones.

Cetaceans: Porpoises Blackfish, Etc.

Porpoise skeletons are very easily prepared, but one or
two points, such as the slender cheek bones and the pelvic
bones or rudimentary hind limbs, require special care.

The pelvic bones are so small and so deeply imbedded in
the flesh that they are only too often thrown away. The
accompanying cuts show their location and their average size
in a specimen 7 or 8 feet long. See cut on page 7.

It often happens that the last rib lies loose in the flesh,
with its upper end several inches from the backbone. This
should always be looked for.

There are no bones in the sides of the tail or flukes nor
in the back fin, and they can be cut off close to the body and
thrown away.

The hyoid is largely developed in most cetaceans, and
will be found firmly attached to the base of the skull.

Birds

In preparing a bird for a skeleton a little more care must
be used than is necessary with a quadruped, the bones being
lighter and more easily cut or broken,

THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS 9

The wings terminate in very small, pointed bones, and
there is a similar bone—corresponding to the thumb of mam-
mals—hidden in a tuft of feathers on the bend of the wing.

It is a good plan to leave this tuft untouched, as well
as the outermost two or three wing feathers, so as to lessen
the risk of removing any of these little bones with the skin.

Other parts requiring special attention are the slender
points on the under side of the neck vertebra, those project-
ing backward from the ribs, and the last bone of the tail.

Fig. 6. —Portion of right wing of Great Horned Owl.
Seen from below. R. Radius; U, Ulna; J, IJ, III, First, second,
and third fingers; s, Radiale; c, UlInare; osp. Os prominens.

It frequently occurs in birds that many of the tendons
become ossified, as they do in the leg of a turkey. Look out
for such on the under side of the neck, in the legs and wings,
and along the sides of the back, and do not tear off the muscles
as you would if preparing a skin.

In many, possibly most birds, the neck and back can be
left untouched, as the muscles will dry up and a thin coat of
arsenical soap will serve to keep out the Dermestes which
would otherwise attack these places.

The hyoid bones, which support the tongue and are
attached to the windpipe, should be saved, as should also the
windpipe itself whenever, as in many duck’s it has bony
structures developed in part of its length. See page 10.

In many birds, and especially in birds of prey, there is a
ring of bones surrounding the pupil of the eye. It is there-

10 THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS

fore best—unless you are an expert—not to remove the eye-
ball, but to simply puncture it to allow the escape of its
fluid contents.

Remove the brain carefully.

In making the skeleton into a bundle for packing, bend
the neck backward, detaching the skull if necessary, and fold
the legs and wings closely alongside of the body. See page 4.

Special Points

Cormorants have a small bone attached to the back of the
skull, and in Auks and many similar birds there is a small
bone at the elbow.

rt

Fig. 7. —Tongue bones or hyoid of a Great Blue Heron.
Fig. 8. —Eye-bones, sclerotals, of a Great Blue Heron.

Sometimes there is a little bone at the hinder angle of the
lower jaw, so that it is a good rule not to trim up a bird’s skull
too closely.

The easiest, and in many ways best, way to collect small
birds is to place them entire in alcohol first making an incision
in the lower part of the abdomen to allow the alcohol to
reach the viscera.

Aleohol should not be used of full strength (95°), the
proper proportion being one-quarter water and _ three-
quarters alcohol. Not only birds, but small mammals and
reptiles, may be preserved entire in alcohol, but now-a-days
this cannot always be procured. Aside from the cost it is
becoming increasingly difficult to obtain alcohol, even
methylated spirit, and the demand for rum has rendered its
use almost prohibitive.

THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS 11

Formalin was not in use when these instructions were
written; it is a convenient medium for the preservation of
small animals, especially where the soft parts are desired, but
if animals are left in a solution of formalin for any length of
time the bones are decalcified, lose their mineral matter, and
become more or less useless. Unfortunately it often happens
that nothing else is available, but if you must use formalin
use it weak, in the proportion of one part of formalin to
twelve of water.

Turtles

In order to rough out a turtle it
is usually necessary to remove the
under shell or plastron, although
some species, such as certain of
the large land tortoises, can be
roughed out without doing this.

In sea turtles, and a few others
the plastron can be cut loose by
taking a little time to the operation,
but in the more solidly built tor-
toises and most fresh-water turtles
it is necessary to saw through the pho eS Shellick a
bone, following the line indicated turtle (Chrysemys mar-
in the accompanying diagram. ginata).

The interior of the body being A, A, where cuts should
exposed, it is a comparatively easy be made to remove the lower

% : shell or plastron.
matter to cut away the flesh.

Usually this can be done without disjointing any of the
legs, and it is better, especially in small specimens, to leave
them attached to the body. Beware, however, of cutting into
any bones, as they are frequently soft in texture and easily
damaged.

12 THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS

Snakes

Snakes require very little care in their preparation after
the skin has been removed, but in the larger serpents, such
as boas and pythons, vestiges of hind legs are present and
should be carefully preserved.

Externally the legs appear as two little claws situated on
either side of the vent; internally they are slender bones,
about an inch and a half in length, loosely attached to the ribs.

It is a comparatively easy mat-

ter to preserve both the skin and

Y cmmenna skeleton of any good-sized snake

ae by exercising a little patience.
igs 10) ten Bian Do not try to skin through the
Python (Python molurus) M™outh, but make a long cut on
full size. the under side and skin either
way from it.

Coil up the skeleton and it will make a very compact

bundle.

Crocodiles

The breastbone of crocodiles extends the entire length of
the body, and although the hinder portion of it is not attached
to the backbone, yet great care is necessary in disemboweling
not to cut away any of the slender bones of which it is formed.

There are also cartilaginous projections on the ribs which
should not be sliced off in roughing them out.

Fishes

Fishes vary so much in their structure that it is a difficult
matter to give any directions for preparing their skeletons
that would be of much service. As a rule species of small or
moderate size are preserved entire in alcohol or formalin
and only the larger species ‘‘roughed out.’’ Almost invari-
ably there are two rows of ribs present, and these extend back-
ward for some distance.

THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS 13

Proceed slowly and carefully, as the edge of the scalpel
will often give notice of some unsuspected bone.

Be especially careful about the head. There is a chain of
bones encircling the eye, and the eyeball itself is often a bony
cup.

Occasionally there are two or three bones attached to the
back part of the hinder portion of the head, and the patch of
flesh on the cheek is about all that can safely be removed.

When the skeleton is hung up to dry place bits of wood or
other material between the gills so that the air may circulate
freely and dry them rapidly.

Fishes, small reptiles, and toads and frogs can be best
collected by placing them in alcohol.

Packing

First be sure that a skeleton, and especially a small one, is
thoroughly dry. Otherwise it is apt to “sweat” and rot the
ligaments.

In the case of a large skeleton this would do no harm, but
as the bones of small animals are left attached to one another
by their ligaments and are not wired together, any such
separation causes serious injury.

If the specimen is the size of a deer, it will be necessary to
disjoint the backbone just behind the ribs in order to make a
compact bundle.

A moose or buffalo can be cut up still more by separating
the leg-bones at each joint and making several sections of the
backbone.

Occasionally it is necessary to reduce a skeleton to its
smallest possible dimensions, and then, in addition to the
above measures, the breast-bone must be separated from the
ribs by cutting through the cartilage just below the end of each
rib. The ribs can then be detached from the backbone, and
thus dismantled a good-sized skeleton can be packed in a flour
barrel. Barrels, it may be remarked, are very useful for pack-

14 THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS

ing purposes. It is a good plan to wrap a rag, a little tow or
something around the front teeth of deer and similar animals
to prevent the incisors from chipping while in transit and if

Fig. 11. —Skeleton of Mountain Sheep.
AA, places where backbone may be disjointed; E, place where cut
should be made to separate rib from breast-bone; $8, sesamoids.

you are very careful you will put something between the
grinding teeth for the same purpose.

Boxes should be tight, so as to shut out hungry dogs and
prevent entirely the attacks of rats and mice. I have fre-
quently seen valuable skeletons that were ruined in a single
night by ravages of one or two rats.

sa

THE PREPARATION OF ROUGH SKELETONS 15

Care should also be taken not to leave boxes open over
night while being packed, lest mice should make a nest in the
packing material and be shut up with the specimens.

Straw or hay is the best packing material, but Spanish
moss, shavings, ‘‘excelsior,”’ or cocoa fiber will serve the pur-
pose. Usually but little is needed, the main point being to
prevent the skeletons or loose bones from rattling about.

Beware of sea weed for packing. No matter how dry it
appears to be, it contains so much salt as to become wet when
exposed to a moist atmosphere.

Never put alum on a skeleton, nor soak any bones in a
solution containing alum.

In hot, moist climates it is occasionally allowable to
sprinkle a little salt on the bones of a large animal in order to
keep the flesh from putrefying instead of drying. Some
aquatic animals, such as seals and porpoises, can be packed
in salt without detriment to their bones, a fact that is often
of great advantage when such animals are collected on ship-
board, where it is often difficult or even impossible to dry
large skeletons.

Small skeletons should on no account be salted, nor
should large ones be boiled to remove the flesh.

MODIFICATIONS FOR LOCOMOTION

Shows the variations in the skeleton, and especially in the
limbs, by which animals are adapted for walking, jumping,
flying or swimming. The snake is introduced to show that it
is possible for an animal to run, climb or swim with no limbs
at all.

The series of limbs in a nearby case shows details of struc-
ture, the bones being colored so that the same bone in the
various feet may be readily distinguished.

See also Relation between Form and Habits.

HIP BONE }

PELVIS
“A

COLLAR BONE © ne |

OR CLAVICLE

THE CAT

Felis domestica
An example of a skeleton slightly modified for free and
rapid movements and for jumping—this last point is indicated
by the length of the foot bones and the size of the heel and
elbow. The skeleton of the cat may serve as a convenient
term of comparison with the skeletons of other animals.

O
HIP BONE aL
Peis 4

Sper

HARBOR SEAL

Phoca vitulina
Like other seals this species passes some time on land,
coming out to bask in the sun, but the legs are of little use for
locomotion on land. All four limbs are changed into paddles
for swimming, though the hair seals swim mainly with their
hind feet and the eared seals with their front feet.

HARBOR PORPOISE

Phocaena communis

The porpoise is an example of a mammal fitted for living
only in the water, and represents the extreme of modification
among mammals. The hind limbs have been lost, their only
vestiges being two little bones that represent the pelvis, or
hip bone: the front limbs have been changed into rigid
paddles, fit only for balancing or steering; locomotion is
effected by what is really the tip of the tail, which has been
developed into flukes for swimming. Note that unlike the
tail of fishes the flukes of: whales and porpoises contain no
bones.

ce
COLLAR BONE Yay So
‘OF CLAVICLE (67
‘4

MOLE

Scalops aquaticus

Modifications of the skeleton for an underground life are
most evident in the fore limbs which perform the work of
digging, being for this purpose short and stout, the hands
large, and turned on edge. (In the figure the hand is turned
down to show the bones).

The foot is also strengthened by the addition of a bone
running along the edge of the foot, shown in the picture. This
bone is not found in other mammals.

The skeleton of the mole illustrates the fact that a bone
of little importance in one group of animals may be of great
value in another.

In the cat and the seal, in which there is no particular
strain on the fore feet and great freedom of movement is
needed, the clavicle or collar bone is very small, or absent:
it is also absent in the porpoise in which the fore limb is
scarcely used.

In the bat and the mole in which flying or digging bring
great strain on the fore limb, the collar bone is very strong to
brace the shoulder. This is particularly evident in the mole.

“&) COLLAR BONE
OR CLAVICLE

HIP BONE
PELVIS

FRUIT BAT

Pteropus species

As in other bats the fore legs are modified, or changed,
for flight, all the bones, but especially the fingers, being
greatly lengthened to form supports for the membrane that
serves as a wing. The fruit bats fly with rather slow wing
beats and the outer part of the wing is proportionately larger
and more rounded than in their smaller, more active relatives.
The hind feet are little used, serving mainly as hooks by which
the bat hangs itself up—head downwards—to sleep.

i]
’

ie
ot)

FOR THE PEOPLE
FOR EDUCATION
FOR SCIENCE

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Se SYORY OF THE
— YOSEMITE VALLEY

GUIDE LEAFLET No. 60

et ett hil a OL EOL LOPE LO OE BELO DOE EAD MOS

J. K. Hillers Pho'
Eu CapriraN, THE NOBLEST CLIFF IN YOSEMITE V ALLEY
The view shows the bold profile of the 3,000-foot cliff as it appears from the eg
at a distance of one and a half miles. Beyond El Capitan are the lesser cliffs that fla
the recess of the Ribbon Falls,

meee LORY OF THE
POSENMITE VALLEY

By FRANCOIS E. MATTHES, Ph.D.

American Museum of Natural History
Guide Leaflet No. 60
New York, July, 1924

The model of the Yosemite Valley and vicinity is one
of a series of fifteen relief models of geologically im-
portant areas of the United States, representing the
existing topography surface of the areas chosen. The
hard-rock or underlying geology is represented by colors
and patterns taken from the rocks themselves, except
in the Watkins Glen-Seneca Lake and the Niagara Falls
models, where the superficial Glacial deposits are shown,
and in the Porto Rico model, where the scale of the map
is too small to permit such treatment. The painted
background of each model represents the present day
scenery of the surrounding country, and the sky de-
picts different meteorological conditions as far as prae-
ticable.

With the exception of the Yosemite Valley and the
Mount Washington models the subjects of these models
and their location in the hall were suggested by Associate
Curator C. A. Reeds. The construction of all the
models has been done under the direction of Curator
E. O. Hovey, except that the core of the Grand Canyon
model was begun by Doctor Reeds. The cores of the
models have been built at the Museum and have been
based on the topographic sheets issued by the United
States Geological Survey, and the United States Coast
and Geodetic Survey, except for Porto Rico, based upon
a compilation by C. A. Reeds, and Mount Washington,
based upon the maps by the State of New Hampshire
and the Appalachian Mountain Club. The modeling
and painting have been done by Lester Morgan of
Morgan Brothers, following published geological maps
of the regions and photographs from several sources. In
the Yosemite Valley model the geology has been repre-
sented according to unpublished maps and other data
furnished by the U. 8. Geological Survey.

THE STORY OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY!
By Francois E. Marruss, Px.D.

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

If you should start from San Francisco in an airplane
and fly due east you would pass first over the wooded
crests of the Coast Ranges; next over the broad, level
expanse of the Great Valley of California, checkered
with irrigated fields, vineyards, and orchards; and then,
after a flight of about a hundred miles, you would come
to a huge mountain barrier, stretching north and south
at right angles to your course and rising in a long,
gradual slope to aresplendent row of snow-flecked peaks.
This is the Sierra Nevada, the longest, the highest, and
the grandest single mountain range in the United States.

Deeply carved in its western flank, about midway
between the torrid foothills and the wintry summits, in
the genial middle zone of majestic forests, you would
discover the Yosemite Valley, the chasm that has be-
come renowned the world over for its towering cliffs,
its stately, trees, and its delightful climate, but, above all,
for its sublime waterfalls. If ‘‘Yellowstone”’ spells
“geysers,” ‘‘ Yosemite”’ spells ‘‘ waterfalls.”

As you fly over the valley you may at first be sur-
prised to find that it is no larger. It measures only 7
miles in length and 1 mile in width and is really but a
widened part of a narrow canyon that furrows the range
from crest to base,—the canyon of Merced River. Indeed,
the valley is only one of a great many features—though
by far the most wonderful—of the Yosemite National
Park, which embraces a part of the western flank of the

‘Guide Leaflet No. 59 of the American Museum series.—Text
kindlv furnished through the courtesy of the United States Geological
Survey.

Fia. 1.

RF
EC
EP
pany
R
WwW
M
Jie

Birp’s BYE VIEW OF YOSEMITE VALLEY AND THE

Ribbon Falls.

El Capitan.

Eagle Peak.
Yosemite Falls.
Royal Arches.
Washington Column.
Mirror Lake.

Tenaya Canyon.

ND North Dome.
BD Basket Dome.

M W Mount Watkins.

C Clouds Rest.
H D Half Dome.
L Mount Lyell.

LY Little Yosemite.

LC Liberty Cap.

B

G

sD
SR
CR
BV
ey,

HiauH SIERRA BBYON

Mount Broderick
Glacier Point.
Sentinel Dome.
Sentinel Rock.
Cathedral Rocks.)
Bridal Veil Falls.
Yosemite Village.

MR Merced River.

MATTHES, THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 5

Sierra Nevada almost as large as the State of Rhode
Island, that is studded with peaks, domes, and spires
and sculptured by valleys, gorges, and canyons. Among
the canyons is the Grand Canyon of Tuolumne River,
which lies 12 miles north of the Merced Canyon and
parallel to it and which also has a Yosemite-like
widened part—the beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley.

But when finally you descend into the Yosemite you
at once perceive the reason for its world-wide fame. No
other valley is so remarkably fashioned; no other
valley holds within so small a compass so astounding a
wealth of striking and distinctive scenic features. As a
whole, it is a broad rock-hewn trough with parallel
sides, boldly sculptured and ornamented with silvery
cataracts. The level floor, whose groves and meadows
afford ideal places for camping and other forms of
recreation, lies 4,000 feet above the sea, and the
forested uplands on either side rise 3,000 to 4,000 feet
higher.

As you look eastward up the valley from its lower end
your eye is at once attracted by the sheer profile of El
Capitan, the most majestic cliff in the Yosemite and
perhaps in the world. It projects from the north wall,
its top fully 3,000 feet above the valley floor. Directly
opposite stand the three Cathedral Rocks, of nearly
equal height, which form the only promontory that juts
far out into the valley. From the west end of this
promontory leaps the Bridal Veil Falls, 620 feet in height,
its spray suffused with the glory of the rainbow.

Eastward. beyond El Capitan and the Cathedral
Rocks the valley abruptly regains its full width, and you
behold in an embayment on the right the two Cathedral
Spires, the frailest rock shafts in the valley. On the left
are the Three Brothers, whose gabled summits rise one
above another, all built on the same angle, as if designed

6 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

by an architect. The highest, known as Eagle Peak,
rises 3,800 feet above the valley. Opposite them stands
Sentinel Rock, a finely modeled obelisk with a pointed top.

Bripau Vein Faus
620 feet high

A mile beyond the base of Sentinel Rock nestles
Yosemite Village, the main tourist center of the park,
and-just across the valley, booming amid clouds of pearly

: toes
F. E. Matthes, Photo
YOSEMITE FALLS, FROM THE BANKS OF Mercep River
The upper fall, 1,430 feet in height, is probably the highest fall of its kind in
the world. The lower fall is 320 feet high, and the total descent of the water from
the brink of the upland to the floor of the valley is 2,565 feet. The lower fall as
seen above is three-fourths of a mile from the camera; the upper fall is nearly
one and a half miles distant.

8 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

mist, are the Yosemite Falls, most glorious of all the
cataracts in the valley. The upper fall, 1,430 feet high,
would alone make any valley famous—it is the highest
unbroken leap of water on the continent, perhaps the
highest in the world. The lower fall, which descends
320 feet, seems insignificant in comparison, yet it is
twice as high as Niagara. The entire chain of falls and
cascades has a height of 2,565 feet.

Farther up, on the north side, are the Royal Arches,
sculptured one within another in an inclined rock wall
that rises to a height of 1,500 feet. An enormous natural
pillar, the Washington Column, flanks them on the right,
and above them rises a smoothly curving, helmet-
shaped boss of granite called North Dome.

Facing the Royal Arches, on the south side, is Glacier
Point, a high promontory that has become a veritable
Mecea for tourists by reason of its matchless view and
its unique overhanging rock, below which the cliffs fall
off sheer 3,200 feet.

The head of the valley is squared off by another rock
wall, and above that wall, planted as on a pedestal,
stands Half Dome, the most colossal and most strangely
modeled rock monument in the Sierra Nevada,
smoothly rounded on three sides and cut down sheer on
the fourth, like an apple sliced in two. Though it has
been inaccessible heretofore, owing to the smoothness
of its sides, it may now be easily scaled with the aid of
steel cables so hung as to serve as hand rails.

From the summit of Half Dome, 4,850 feet above the
valley, you look down, on the south side, into the Little
Yosemite, a broad-floored, cliff-girt valley shaped like
the Yosemite, though much smaller. It lies at a level
2,000 feet above the main valley, and from its portal,
guarded by Liberty Cap, the Merced descends by a
cyclopean stairway, making two magnificent cataracts,

MATTHES, THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 9

the Nevada Falls, 594 feet high, and the Vernal Falls,
317 feet high.

On the north side of Half Dome you look down into
Tenaya Canyon, a chasm as profound as the Yosemite
itself, yet the pathway of only a small tributary brook.
Almost directly under Half Dome, at the canyon’s
mouth, lies romantic Mirror Lake. To the northeast
Clouds Rest, the loftiest summit in the vicinity of the
valley, rises 9,929 feet above the sea, and beyond spreads
the vast panorama of the High Sierra, its jagged peaks
culminating in ice-covered Mount Lyell, at a height of
13,090 feet.

And now, filled with wonder at the marvels of this
stupendous scene, you may feel impelled to ask: How
was all this created? By what strange forces has the
Yosemite been fashioned, and through what happy cir-
cumstances has it become endowed with so much charm
and grandeur?

This, then, is the story of the Yosemite: Millions of
years ago—about at the end of what geologists call the
Cretaceous period—all the country reaching from the
Pacific coast to the Rocky Mountains began to bulge
up as a result of disturbances in the interior of the earth.
The movement was slow and intermittent, yet it caused
the crust of the earth to be rent by long fractures, or
“faults,” as they are called by geologists, and broke it
into huge blocks that crowded against and slipped on
one another. Some of these blocks were gradually
forced up and more or less tilted, so that they began to
stand out as mountain ranges; other blocks remained
low or were depressed and formed valleys and basins.
Thus originated the multitude of roughly parallel north-
ward and northwestward trending ranges and _ inter-
mediate desert basins of western Utah, Nevada, and
eastern California.

10 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

The westernmost and largest block, 400 miles long and
80 miles broad, was destined to become the Sierra
Nevada. It early acquired a feeble slant to the west,
its eastern edge being pushed up and its western edge

Fic. 2 GENERALIZED DIAGRAM OF A PART OF THE TILTED SIERRA BLOCK

The break, or ‘“‘fault,’’ that separated it from the next block to the
east is shown by a heavy line, and the directions in which the blocks
have slipped past each other are shown by arrows. The height and
slant of the Sierra block are much exaggerated. In front of the range is
a strip of the Great Valley of California, which is underlain by many
layers of sand and silt washed down by streams. At the back of the
range is a strip of Owens Valley, likewise covered with sediment. The
main rivers on the Sierra block have arranged themselves roughly
parallel to one another, in the direction of the western slopes, but their
lesser tributaries continue to be guided by the irregularities on the
surface and flow in diverse directions. The main rivers, having been
accelerated by the tilting, have carved deep canyons, but many of
their tributaries, and especially those that flow at right angles to the
direction of the tilting, have not yet intrenched themselves and still
drop into the canyons from “hanging valleys.’’ The conditions shown
correspond in a general way to those that prevailed for some time after
the first great uplift mentioned in the text.

pulled down. After a great lapse of time—in the latter
half of the Tertiary period—the slant of the block was
steepened and the eastern edge was raised to a moun-
tain crest several thousand feet high. Still later, about
the dawn of the Quaternary period—the last great

EE

MATTHES, THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 11

division of geologic time, which embraced the Ice Age
and witnessed the rise of man—a series of thrusts more
vigorous than any that had preceded it tilted the Sierra
block still more strongly and lifted it to its present
great height—to altitudes ranging from 7,000 feet at the
north to more than 14,000 feet at the south.

One effect of the tilting was, naturally, to bring about
a rearrangement of the waters on the surface of the

V2 1 MILE
= —_ ss

Fia. 3. SEcTION OF THE “TWO-STORY VALLEY’? WHICH THE MERCED
HAD CUT BY THE END OF THE TERTIARY PERIOD.

A-A is the profile of a side stream which was unable to trench as
rapidly as the Merced and whose valley has therefore remained “hang-
ing.” B-B is the profile of a side stream that succeeded in “catching
up” with the trenching of the river. This diagram and the two follow-
ing are drawn to scale and represent the successive stages in the develop-
ment of the Yosemite Valley in their true proportions.

Sierra block. The main streams originally flowed in
diverse directions, but when, early in the Tertiary
period, the Sierra block acquired a considerable slant,
they changed their courses and began to flow in the
direction of the slant. <A series of parallel rivers thus
came into existence, all heading at the eastern edge and
draining westward, into the Pacific Ocean. The Merced
was one of these new rivers.

8000

7000

6000

5000

4000

3000

12 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

In the long period of quiet that followed the earlier
tiltings the Merced fashioned for itself a broad, level
valley, through which it wound sluggishly in serpentine
meanders. The valley was flanked as far up as the site
of the present Yosemite chasm by rolling hills and occa-
sional ridges a few hundred to a thousand feet in height,
all covered with luxuriant semitropical vegetation. The
rounded summit of El Capitan was one of the rolling

Vs

Fic. 4. Srcrion or THE “THREE-STORY CANYON’? WHICH THE
MERCED OCCUPIED EARLY IN THE QUARTERNARY PERIOD, JUST BEFORE
THE ONCOMING OF THE Ick AGE.

fe} % I MILE

The river has cut its inner gorges so rapidly that now the valley of the
stream B-B also is left ‘hanging.’’ But a third stream C—C, more
favored than the others because the rock in its path is unresistant, has
succeeded in keeping pace with the trenching of the river.

hills; it rose about 900 feet above the Merced. Toward
the headwaters of the river the land was more mountain-
ous, but the region as a whole still lay near sea level.
The great uplift of late Tertiary time, which raised the
Sierra block to a height of several thousand feet, affected
the behavior of the Merced profoundly. The course of
the stream now being much steeper than before, its
flow became swift and powerful, and, with the sand,

MATTHES, THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 13

gravel, and boulders that it swept along, it began vigor-
ously to scour and deepen its bed. As time went on it
cut in the broad floor of its old valley a narrow, steep-
walled gorge—a ‘‘gorge within a valley.”’ Although it
cut ever more and more slowly as its gradient became
flatter and flatter, toward the end of the Tertiary period

fe) %2. 1 MILE

Fic. 5. SECTION OF THE BROAD, STEEP-SIDED YOSEMITE TROUGH
AS IT IS TO-DAY.

The transformation from the original ‘three-story canyon’? was
accomplished mainly by the quarrying action of the glaciers of the Ice
Age. The floor of the glacial trough is at D. The present valley floor
is at E, and D-E is the depth of the basin of ancient Lake Yosemite,
which now is filled with river-borne sediment. As a result of further
deepening of the chasm and of its widening by the ice the valley of the
stream C-C now also “hangs,’’ so that there are three sets of ‘hanging
valleys” at different levels, one above another, all having waterfalls
pouring from their mouths.

the river had intrenched itself nearly a thousand feet.
The gorge, however, had been transformed by that time,
through the crumbling of its walls, into a valley with
sloping sides, and so the river lay at the bottom of a

“‘valley within a valley”—or a ‘“‘two-story valley ”’—

such as is outlined in Figure 3.

8000
+7000
6000
5000

+acoo

L000

Lees TS > ad
REA AE. 5 3.5. SEP we

MATTHES, THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 15

The side streams were at first unable to trench as
rapidly as the Merced. They had smaller volume and
therefore less cutting power, and a number of them were
handicapped by following courses that lay at right angles
to the general course of the river and therefore at right
angles to the slope of the Sierra block. These streams
were not steepened by the tilting and continued to flow
as leisurely as before. As the river cut its gorge deeper
and deeper, therefore, the side valleys remained ‘‘hang-
ing” at greater and greater heights. They were trans-
formed into what are properly termed “hanging
valleys.” But later, as the master stream’s gradient
became flatter and its cutting power waned, most of the
side streams by degrees “‘caught up”’ with its trenching
and the hanging valleys were destroyed—all but a few
in the Yosemite region that were underlain by exceed-
ingly resistant, massive granite. These few remained
almost untouched and so, at the end of the Tertiary
period, the Yosemite was left with several hanging side
valleys from whose lips foaming cascades poured.
Yosemite Creek, which now produces the great Yose-
mite Falls, then made a broken cascade 600 feet high.
Bridal Veil Creek and Sentinel Creek each cascaded
down a vertical distance of 900 feet; Meadow Brook
1,200 feet; Ribbon Creek 1,400 feet.

The last and greatest uplift of the Sierra Nevada,
which occurred about the beginning of the Quaternary
period, again accelerated the Merced to the swiftness
of a mountain torrent—indeed, it gave that stream
greater velocity and cutting power than it had ever
possessed. What is more, the greatly increased height
of the range brought with it a marked change in climate.
Deep snows fell on the crest in winter, and the rapid
melting of these snows in spring produced freshets of
tremendous volume and correspondingly great destruc

16 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

tive power. Thus the river again intrenched itself and
with greater rapidity than before carved a new inner
gorge, thus producing a ‘‘ three-story canyon” such as is
outlined in Figure 4. In this new inner gorge the river
still flows from the lower end of the Yosemite to the
foothills. At El Portal, the main gate to the Yosemite
National Park, the gorge attains its greatest depth—
about 2,000 feet—and the three-story canyon as a W hole
has a depth of about 3,500 feet.

As happened after the preceding uplift, so after the
last, the side streams, and especially those running at
right angles to the direction of the tilting, were unable to
trench as rapidly as the master stream. And so the
new gorge came to have a number of hanging side val-
leys, and the Yosemite, which already possessed one
set of hanging valleys, acquired a second, lower set.
To this lower set belong the valleys of Indian Creek and
Illilouette Creek. Both of them, as well as some of the
hanging side valleys of the lower Merced Canyon, are
to-day still well preserved, although they are underlain
by less resistant rocks than the older and higher hang-
ing valleys of the Yosemite region. Indeed, so short a
period of time, in a geologic sense, has elapsed since the
last uplift that only a few of the larger and more favor-
ably situated side streams have succeeded thus far in
“catching up” with the trenching of the master stream.

Among these more successful streams are two tribu-
taries of the Yosemite Valley—Tenaya Creek and Bridal
Veil Creek. Tenaya Creek had the double advantage of
a southwesterly course, following the direction of the
tilting, and of being underlain by closely fractured rock
and was thus able to trench deeply. Bridal Veil Creek,
less advantageously situated, carved only a short,
steeply descending guleh—the gulch that now ends
abruptly at the precipice of the Bridal Veil Fall. That

MA TTHES, THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 17

cataract, however, was not yet in existence, for the
gulch led directly to the bottom of the main chasm.
The present lip of the gulch at the top of the waterfall,
it is believed, still indicates roughly the level at which the
Merced lay in early Quaternary time—that is, Just
prior to the first great extension of the glaciers of the
Iee Age. Evidently the Yosemite then already had a
depth of 2,400 feet, measured from the brow of El Capi-
tan. It was, however, a much narrower and less im-
pressive chasm than the Yosemite of to-day; it was a
“three-story canyon” no wider at bottom than the
channel of the river itself and winding sharply among
craggy spurs that projected alternately from either side. |
But it was adorned by cascades of remarkable height:
Illilouette Creek cascaded down 600 feet; Indian Creek
1,500 feet; Yosemite Creek 1,900 feet; Meadow Brook
2,300 feet; Sentinel Creek and Ribbon Creek each 2,400
feet.

And now came that epoch of cold climate which
brought on the great Ice Age. Snow gathered to depths
of hundreds and finally thousands of feet in the upper
valleys of the range and, becoming compacted to granu-
lar ice, formed glaciers that slowly crept down the
canyons, moving a few inches to a few feet each day.
Small remnants of these ice streams remain to-day on
the shaded sides of the highest Sierra peaks, notably on
Mount Lyell and its neighbors. Two great glaciers
advanced, each more than 2,000 feet thick, one through
the Little Yosemite, the other through Tenaya Canyon,
and, joining at the head of the Yosemite, formed a
mighty trunk glacier that filled the chasm to the brim
and extended ten miles down the Merced Canyon.

For hundreds of centuries this glacier held sway,
quarrying and scouring the rocky sides and floor of the
chasm with tremendous force, due to its weight and its

18 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

irresistible forward movement. It excavated the chasm
600 feet more at the lower end and 1,200 feet more at
the upper end. It cut off the projecting spurs and wiped
the inner gorge out of existence. Then the climate
grew milder, the glacier by degrees melted back to its
sources on the crest of the range, and for an interval
that doubtless also lasted hundreds of centuries the
river resumed its work. At the end of this interval the
glacial climate returned and the Yosemite again fell
under the dominion of the ice. But this time the glacier
was much shorter and thinner; it reached no farther
than the Bridal Veil Meadow and filled the valley only
one-third of its depth. Moreover, the glacier was rela-
tively short lived, and it therefore accomplished much
less excavating than its mighty predecessor, whose work,
however, it accentuated.

And so, when at length the Ice Age came to a close
the narrow three-story canyon had been transformed
into a broad U-shaped trough; the craggy slopes had
been quarried back to vertical cliffs, and the broken
cascades replaced by leaping falls. (See Fig. 4.) More-
over, three new falls of this kind had been created, for in
deepening the chasm the glacier had left the gulch of
Bridal Veil Creek hanging, thereby causing that stream
to leap over a vertical precipice 620 feet high; and in its
descent from the Little Yosemite the glacier had hewn
a giant stairway down whose steps the Merced now
makes two successive leaps, in Nevada and Vernal falls.
Finally, a basin had been scooped out in the rock floor
of the valley, and in this basin was formed a lake
five and a half miles long—ancient Lake Yosemite. Simi-
lar but smaller and shallower lake basins were scooped
out in the Little Yosemite and in Tenaya Canyon.

The ice was greatly aided in making these prodigious
changes in the configuration of the Yosemite Valley by

F. E. Matthes, Photo
THe Hair Dome
From the trail beneath Glacier Point

19

20 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLET

the numerous cracks, or “‘joints,’”’ as they are properly
termed, that divide the granite into natural blocks and
made it easy to quarry away. In Tenaya Canyon also
the glacial quarrying was facilitated by joints, but in
the Little Yosemite, which is underlain by extremely
massive, undivided granite, the ice could only rasp and
polish, and therefore the Little Yosemite, which is the
path of the master stream, now lies, anomalously, 2,000
feet higher than Tenaya Canyon, which is the path
of a feeble tributary. Below the Yosemite Valley
also the granite was too solid to be quarried effectively
by the ice and the inner gorge there has thus been
preserved.

The great cliffs and domes of the Yosemite region are
all made of essentially massive granite. El Capitan
and the Cathedral Rocks project from the walls of the
valley because they consist of enormous monoliths that
have yielded but little to the onslaughts of the ice.
Half Dome and the other domes rise high in the land-
scape because their unfractured masses have survived
the destruction that has been wrought by ice and
weather in the surrounding fractured rock. They owe
their smoothly rounded forms not to the grinding of
overriding glaciers—some have never been overridden—
but to the bursting off of suecessive concentric layers, or
“shells,” from their surfaces as a result of exposure to
the heat of the sun and the weather.

Since the Ice Age ended, about 20,000 years ago, only a
few noteworthy changes have come over the aspect of the
Yosemite region. The shallow lake basins in the Little
Yosemite and Tenaya canyon were filled, little by little,
by the forward-growing deltas which the streams built
with their loads of sand and gravel. And then, Merced
River and Tenaya Creek still being heavily loaded, the
larger and deeper basin of Lake Yosemite was filled

MATTHES, THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 21

by them in the same manner, and the level, park-like val-
ley floor was created.

The cliffs have suffered from the destructive action of
the elements, which has piled up at their feet great
masses of rock waste. Huge rock avalanches, thrown
down probably by earthquakes, have dammed Tenaya
Canyon at its mouth, thereby impounding a new body
of water—Mirror Lake—and other great rock slides in
the lower half of the valley have formed long slopes that
have permitted man to build wagon roads leading out
to the uplands.

To-day the Merced is further deepening its canyon,
the cliffs are being sculptured by frost and heat and rain,
and almost imperceptible changes are everywhere going
on, even on the face of El Capitan, which seemingly
stands eternal, like the proverbial ‘‘Rock of Ages.”
The natural processes of destruction and creation are
still day after day continuing their marvelous work, and
thus we get glimpses of the way the Yosemite was made
and is still in the making.

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