Museum News 



C»IM»H«ts/l 



{Continued from page 6) 

 in St. Paul, alternately poring over that 

 gentleman's extensive botanical library 

 and exploring the still wild country of 

 Minnesota with his school friends. As 

 a member of the class of 1897 at Yale's 

 Sheffield Scientific School, Langford 

 studied engineering and participated in 

 crew racing, including the 1896 race 

 against Oxford. 



Upon graduation from Yale, Lang- 

 ford was employed as millhand and 

 draftsman by the McKenna Process 

 Company in Milwaukee, and shortly 

 was in charge of building new plants 

 for the expanding firm. With his bride, 

 the former Sydne Holmes, he settled in 

 Joliet, Illinois, in 1900, near one of these 

 plants. The loss of his left arm in a mill 

 accident did not hinder him from con- 

 tinuing his avocation of research in nat- 

 ural history. As his collections grew, 

 his house became crowded with Indian 

 skeletons and artifacts, fossil plants, and 

 even fossil elephants. 



Upon his retirement from business, 

 these collections were sent to universi- 

 ties and museums, and the Langfords 

 moved to Chicago. Here Langford con- 

 tinued his collecting, but now for the 

 Museum. During the years of his Mu- 

 seum appointment he continued to visit 

 his favorite localities in the northern 

 Illinois strip mines, and made nine 

 strenuous collecting trips to Tennessee 

 for Mesozoic and Tertiary plant fossils. 

 His advice on classification of Coal-Age 

 plants from the strip mines was contin- 

 ually sought by the large community of 

 Chicago area collectors. He remained 

 actively interested in his collections un- 

 til his death on June 16, 1964. 



Among Langford's publications are 

 two volumes of notes on Coal-Age 

 plants, four novels for children on pre- 

 historic subjects, several articles on met- 

 allurgy and steel technology, some verse, 

 and articles on his Indian mound exca- 

 vations. (E. S. Richardson, Jr.) 



Chicago Natural History Museum 



Founded by Marshall Field, 1893 



Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive 



Chicago, Illinois 60605 



Telephone: 922-9410 



THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



Lester Armour 

 Wm. McCormick Blair 

 Bowen Blair 

 Walter J. Cummings 

 Joseph N. Field 

 Marshall Field, Jr. 

 Stanley Field 

 Clifford C. Gregg 

 Samuel Insult, Jr. 

 Henry P. Isham 

 William V. Kahler 



Hughston M. McBain 

 J. Roscoe Miller 

 William H. Mitchell 

 James L. Palmer 

 John T. Pirie, Jr. 

 John Shedd Reed 

 John G. Searle 

 John M. Simpson 

 Edward Byron Smith 

 Louis Ware 

 J. Howard Wood 



OFFICERS 



Stanley Field, Chairman of the Board 



James L. Palmer, President 



Clifford C. Gregg, First Vice-President 



Joseph N. Field, Second Vice-President 



Bowen Blair, Third Vice-President 



Edward Byron Smith, Treasurer 



and Assistant Secretary 



E. Leland Webber, Secretary 



THE BULLETIN 



EDITOR 

 E. Leland Webber, Director of the Museum 



CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 



Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator of Anthropology 



Louis O. Williams, Chief Curator of Botany 



Rainer Zangerl, Chief Curator of Geology 



Austin L. Rand, Chief Curator of Zoology 



MANAGING EDITOR 

 Paula R. Nelson, Public Relations Counsel 



Members are requested to inform the Museum 

 promptly of changes of address. 



INNER 

 SPACE 



(Continued from page 3) 



ent reading room. The major portion of 

 the geology collection would be housed 

 on the second floor level and a mezza- 

 nine. 



The magnitude of the floor loads was 

 the next thing to determine, to see 

 whether the building's original pilings 

 and piers could bear the added weight. 

 Structural engineers investigated and 

 determined that the substructure was 

 able to sustain the estimated loads with 

 a comfortable margin of safety. Thus 

 all elements seemed to be present for a 

 logical solution to the problem of hous- 



Paae 8 AUGUST 



ing the Walker Collection and provid- 

 ing space for the normal growth of all 

 geology collections. 



In addition to fulfilling these require- 

 ments, we will be able to create office 

 and work rooms for each geology cura- 

 tor within the new area, and allocate 

 space for future staff appointments. 



The Library will receive a 56 per cent 

 expansion in stack space, plus new of- 

 fices. Also, by shifting the present of- 

 fices of Museum artists and editors to 

 areas vacated by the geology depart- 

 ment, space will become available to 

 expand the overcrowded Division of In- 

 sects. An increase of 2,400 insect stor- 

 age drawers will lie provided to serve 

 the Division's most pressing needs. 



J. he firm of Olsen and Urbain, Archi- 

 tectural Engineers, was commissioned 

 to develop our sketches, determine a 

 logical construction system, and prepare 



preliminary budget figures. 



The Museum then applied to the 

 National Science Foundation for a grant 

 to cover costs of building, remodeling, 

 and equipping the areas involved. After 

 the Foundation's advisors completed an 

 investigation and evaluation of the en- 

 tire Museum program, a grant of $875,- 

 000 was approved. 



Detailed working drawings and speci- 

 fications were drawn up and sent out 

 for bids on March 27, 1964. The suc- 

 cessful low bidder was the B. W. Han- 

 dler Company. Contracts were signed, 

 steel work is being fabricated, and on 

 June 1 actual work was begun. 



It is estimated that 200 calendar days 

 will be required to complete the struc- 

 tural portion of our project. About next 

 January, if all goes well, we should be 

 transferring geological specimens to new 

 quarters in the "filled in" light well. 



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