CHICAGO 

 NATURAL 

 HISTORY 

 MUSEUM 



MUSEUM NEWS 



Mary Virginia Roberts was 

 not frightened away by the 

 spider, but stayed on to finish 

 her delightful paintings of 

 weeds. A display of her work 

 is on exhibit in Hall 9 through 

 September. 



This Month's Cover 



rvECENT visitors to the Museum were 

 startled to see a steely skeleton, 160 feet 

 high, looming over the Museum build- 

 ing. For a moment, a prehistoric mon- 

 ster seemed to be storming the walls. 



But on second glance the monster was 

 revealed as a huge crane, being used to 

 erect the framework for the new addi- 

 tion to the Museum. As Members 

 know, a light well between two wings 

 of the building is being filled in to pro- 

 vide expansion for the Department of 

 Geology and the Library. 



The crane is the largest type made : it 

 boasts 160 feet of boom and an additional 

 50 feet of jib, and has a lifting capacity 

 equal to its weight of 60 tons. It is ap- 

 proximately twice the size and weight of 

 a real prehistoric monster, Brontosaurus, 

 who lived 150 to 175 million years ago 

 and is the largest land animal ever 

 known. The Brontosaurus displayed in 

 the Museum is 72 feet from head to tail 

 — a distance so great that the species 

 actually needed two nerve control cen- 

 ters, or brains, to coordinate its move- 

 ments. One brain was in the usual place 

 inside the giant reptile's skull; the sec- 

 ond was farther down the spine toward 



Page 2 SEPTEMBER 



the rear. The construction crane, also, 

 has two control centers : one in the crane 

 operator's cab, the other an electronic 

 "walkie talkie," 175 feet away, over the 

 Museum walls. Working together but 

 out of sight of each other, the opera- 

 tors of the two control centers "direct" 

 the crane to pick up 3300-pound steel 

 joists, lift them high over the Museum 

 roof, and set them down with delicate 

 precision within the light well. 



Watching the crane in operation, we 

 got to wondering. If it were a monster, 

 what would happen if one of the Muse- 

 um's dinosaurs (say a belligerent Gorgo- 

 saurus) got wind of the intruder, stepped 

 down from its display pedestal, and went 

 outside to investigate? This month's 

 cover, by the Museum's Division of Pho- 

 tography, pictures our fantasy. The 

 montage is by Ferdinand Huysmans. 



He 



New Fall 

 Journey 



.ow towering plants, on which 

 brontosaurs and other dinosaurs fed, de- 

 veloped from simple algae is seen in 



Chicago Natural History Museum's new 

 fall Journey, "A Billion Years of Plant 

 Life." The Journey begins September 1 

 and continues through November. 



The trek through time starts with the 

 examination of a fossil which scientists 

 believe may be over a billion years old. 

 Its imprint shows one of the earliest 

 plant forms known — simple aquatic al- 

 gae. Other fossils and displays illustrate 

 the gradual yet dramatic changes in 

 plant life that have taken place since 

 these primitive organisms: the appear- 

 ance of land plants, the development of 

 forests, and the emergence of flowering 

 plants. 



Highlight of the Journey is a full- 

 scale reproduction of a Coal-Age swamp 

 forest, crowded with giant ferns, scale 

 trees, and the 20-foot scouring rushes 

 that have evolved into our present-day, 

 12-inch horsetail plants. 



Children wishing to take the fall Jour- 

 ney may obtain directions and a ques- 

 tionnaire on entering the Museum. 

 Using the exhibits to find answers, 

 youngsters complete and turn in the 

 questionnaires to receive credit in the 

 Museum's Journey Award Program. 



Moon Shots 

 Displayed 



photographs taken by Ranger 7 on 

 its successful flight to the moon are now 

 on display in Stanley Field Hall. 



Of the 4,316 pictures transmitted by 

 the spacecraft, 17 are shown from the 

 final series taken before impact. Five 

 pictures have been especially enlarged 

 for the exhibit. 



These remarkable photographs show 

 the lunar surface as it appears at altitudes 

 from 480 miles to 1 ,000 feet. Transmis- 

 sion of the final picture was interrupted 

 when the spacecraft hit the moon. The 

 resolution seen in this picture is a thou- 

 sand times better than can be obtained 

 from Earth-based observations. 



A diagrammatic outline of Ranger 7's 

 {Continued on page 8) 



