September-Oetoher, 19 US 



CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN 



Pager 



REPORT ON WAR DAMAGE 

 TO IMPORTANT MUSEUMS 



Both before and since V-E Day, trickles 

 of information have reached the Chicago 

 Natural History Museum from various 

 sources relating to damages suffered by 

 important natural history collections in 

 museums of Europe and the Orient. 



From reports thus far received, the most 

 complete destruction was that suffered in 

 air raids by the Botanical Museum in 

 Dahlem, a suburb of Berlin. This famous 

 building and its collections, together with its 

 large library, were reported completely 

 destroyed either by direct hit or by ensuing 

 fire and water. Only material stored in 

 basement shelters is said to have been 

 saved, including specimens on loan from 

 other botanical institutions, -some of them 

 belonging to this Museum. 



Responsibility for the Germans' own loss 

 has been laid directly at the door of the 

 Nazis' second-in-command, Hermann Goer- 

 ing, who is said to have assured the German 

 botanists that they need evacuate nothing 

 from there, and that no precautions were 

 necessary, because, he said, "Berlin never 

 will be bombed." 



CHICAGO MUSEUM RECORDS 'TYPES' 



Fortunately for botanical science the 

 Chicago Natural History Museum, by 

 means of its ten-year botanical project in 

 Europe prior to the war, obtained photo- 

 graphs of most of the type specimens not 

 only in the herbarium of Berlin, but also 

 in Copenhagen, Munich, Vienna, Paris, 

 Geneva, Madrid, and elsewhere — more than 

 40,000 photographs. 



From Dr. Frans Verdoorn, a number of 

 notes on other institutions have been 

 received by this Museum. Dr. Verdoorn 

 is managing editor of the scientific journal. 

 Chronica Bolaniea, published at Waltham, 

 Massachusetts, and the notes received 

 from him are the basis of a more extensive 

 article published in that periodical (Vol. 8, 

 No. 5/6). 



The collections of all departments of the 

 Paris Natural History Museum are re- 

 ported to have survived intact. At Caen, 

 France, the Botanical Garden and Museum 

 — a very famous one — are reported to have 

 been completely destroyed. 



In Belgium, according to word received 

 from Dr. George Sarton, much of the grounds, 

 but not the collections of the museum, of 

 the Jardin Botanique has been completely 

 destroyed. 



BRITISH MUSEUM HARD HIT 



Extensive and detailed accounts of losses 

 incurred by the zoology department of the 

 South Kensington Museum in London 

 (Natural History Division of the British 

 Museum) have been received. 



The Gardeners' Chronicle (British) re- 

 ported that incendiary and high explosive 

 bombs fell on the premises, causing serious 



fires in both the Shell Gallery and the 

 general herbarium. 



Science said: "Information received from 

 London indicates the most serious damage 

 was caused by an incendiary bomb which 

 fell on the roof of the east wing and pene- 

 trated to the foreign herbarium of the 

 botanical department. A large number of 

 plant specimens were destroyed, and many 

 thousands of herbarium sheets were badly 

 damaged by fire and water. It is understood 

 that the Department of Entomology was 

 also damaged." 



From Leningrad in the U.S.S.R. comes 

 word that the large and important her- 

 barium and library at the Kamarov Institute 

 of Botany (Principal Botanical Garden) 

 suffered no damage during the siege of 

 Leningrad although bombs fell on the site. 



The Karkov Herbarium, the Ukrainian 

 Academy of Science at Kiev, and the 

 Nikita Botanical Garden near Yalta in the 

 Crimea were confiscated by the Nazi 

 invaders and moved to Germany.  No doubt 

 the Russians now have recovered them. 



From Science the following information 

 on German museums, reported by Dr. 

 John W. Wells, of the department of geology 

 of Ohio State University, has been obtained: 



Jena: Mineralogisches Institut totally 

 demolished and apparently not wholly 

 evacuated before the main bombing three 

 weeks before the capture of the city. Geo- 

 graphisches Anstalt somewhat damaged. 



Heidelberg: Undamaged, but most of col- 

 lections of the Geologisches-Palaontolo- 

 gisches Institut evacuated. 



Wurzburg: Geographisches Institut com- 

 pletely demolished, but most of equipment 

 apparently moved to the country. 



Darmstadt: Geologisches Institut and 

 Hessisches Geologisches Landesanstalt 

 totally demolished. 



Frankfurt a/M.: Geologisches Institut 

 of Goethe Universitat wholly demolished. 

 Senckenberg Museum in very bad shape, 

 reduced almost to a hollow shell, but 

 research collections and library are safe. 



Bonn: Geographisches Institut a total 

 loss, but material mostly evacuated across 

 the Rhine. 



Cologne: Geographisches Institut in bad 

 shape, not evacuated. 



Munich: Geographisches Institut rela- 

 tively undamaged. 



Bayerische Akademie building is a 

 total wreck, and of the vast geological, 

 paleontological and mineralogical collec- 

 tions, only about 250 cases, a very small 

 part, were saved. All the fossil vertebrate 

 collections were destroyed. The building 

 of the Geographisches Gesellschaft was 

 wholly destroyed and the entire library lost. 

 Preussische Geologische Landesanstalt and 

 Museum fiir Naturkunde are destroyed. 



From correspondents in Europe, Mr. 

 Kari P. Schmidt, Chief Curator of the 

 Department of Zoology at this museum, 

 has learned that the buildings and contents 



LAYMAN LECTURES ON SUNDAYS 

 TO OPEN IN OCTOBER 



The 1945-46 season of Sunday afternoon 

 lectures by Mr. Paul G. Dallwig, Layman 

 Lecturer of the Museum, will be extended 

 to seven months instead of the usual six, 

 and will include a new subject not hitherto 

 presented, as well as a resumption of titles 

 which have proved 

 popular in the past 

 and are presented 

 again to fulfill 

 many requests. In 

 the lectures on the 

 repeated subjects, 

 V... ^ ^H Mr. Dallwig has 

 — ■* ^^^ interpolated much 

 new material, and 

 the revised lectures 

 will therefore be in 

 effect new ones. 



Mr. Dallwig will 

 lecture every Sun- 

 PAIJL G. DALLWIG day afternoon from 

 the beginning of 

 October until the end of January; in 

 February his appearances will be suspended 

 while he makes a lecture tour of eastern 

 cities; he will then again lecture at the 

 Museum in March, April and May. 



The starting time of the lectures this season 

 has been changed to 2:30 P.M. instead of 

 3 P.M., the starting time in effect last season. 

 The season's first lecture, to be given 

 on October 7, 14, 21 and 28, is "The 

 Amazing Story of Our American 

 Forests." In this lecture Mr. Dallwig 

 will cover the history of forestry. 



Mr. Dallwig's schedule for the rest of the 

 autumn is as follows: Sundays in November, 

 "The Romance of Wood"; December, 

 "Parade of the Races in Bronze." 



The heavy demand by the public for 

 Mr. Dallwig's lectures, and the neces- 

 sity of limiting the size of each audi- 

 ence make it necessary to require 

 advance reservations. Lectures are 

 necessarily restricted to adults. Reser- 

 vations will be accepted by mail or 

 telephone (WABash 9410). 



of the natural history museum in Leyden, 

 The Netherlands, and the entomological 

 museum in Naples, Italy, survived intact. 



Reports reaching Dr. E. D. Merrill from 

 the Orient indicate that the Bureau of 

 Science in Manila, with its immense collec- 

 tions in botany and zoology as well as its 

 outstanding library, the results of almost 

 half a century of strenuous work by Ameri- 

 can scientists, were completely destroyed. 



All collections of the Fan Memorial 

 Institute of Peiping (Peking) were stolen 

 by the Japs and removed to Tokyo. Like- 

 wise, the collections of the Sun Yat Sen 

 University Herbarium were looted by the 

 Nipponese and shipped to Taihoku in 

 Formosa, according to Dr. Merrill. 



