January, 19SS 



FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



Pages 



CHINA EXPEDITION SENDS 

 4,000 ANIMAL SPECIMENS 



The final shipment from the Marshall 

 PMeld Zoological Expedition to China, con- 

 sisting of more than 4,000 specimens of 

 Asiatic animals, was received at Field 

 Museum in December. About 1,500 speci- 

 mens had been received earlier in the year. 



The work of the expedition, which was 

 begun in the latter part of 1930, has now 

 been concluded, and Floyd T. Smith, New 

 York zoologist who was its leader, has 

 returned. The only white man on the 

 expedition, he had many adventures and 

 narrow escapes from bandits and from 

 natural perils in war-torn and flood-ravaged 

 regions. 



The last shipment includes about 1,500 

 mammals, 1,000 birds, 500 fishes, and more 

 than 1,000 frogs, lizards, snakes and turtles. 

 With this vast addition to its collections, 

 and the material received from expeditions 

 which have worked in other parts of Asia 

 during recent years, Field Museum takes 

 a place among the leading scientific institu- 

 tions for the study of Asiatic fauna, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Wilfred H. Osgood, Curator of 

 Zoology. 



Seven specimens of the rare takin, a 

 curious goat-antelope which inhabits the 

 Himalayas, stand out among the collections 

 obtained by the expedition. These are to 

 be used in a habitat group in William V. 

 Kelley Hall (Hall 17). Both sexes, and 

 various ages from young to full-grown, are 

 represented among the seven. 



The expedition also obtained two speci- 

 mens of the rare giant panda. Among the 

 birds is a striking new species of bamboo 

 partridge. Curator Osgood expects that 

 when a thorough checkup of the thousands 

 of specimens has been made there will be 

 revealed numerous other birds and animals 

 hitherto unknown to scientists. The Metro- 

 politan Museum of Natural History at 

 Nanking cooperated with the expedition, 

 and a share of the specimens has been 

 designated for it. 



LARGE GEODE PRESENTED 

 BY TRUSTEE CHALMERS 



By Oliver C. Fabbington 

 Curator, Department of Geology 



A geode unusual in size and remarkable 

 for the brilliancy of the crystals it encloses 

 was added last month to the crystal collec- 

 tion in Hall 34. It was presented by 

 William J. Chalmers of the Board of 

 Trustees, who for a long time has been a 

 generous donor to this collection. The geode 

 is from Hamilton, Illinois, an area within 

 which strata of Lower Carboniferous or 

 Mississippian age are characterized by the 

 occurrence of these bodies. The geodes 

 range in size from about that of a pea to, 

 in rare instances, nearly two feet in diameter. 

 The one just presented by Mr. Chalmers is 

 22 inches in diameter and weighs 125 pounds. 



Geode is a name applied to more or less 

 hollow balls of rock which in their most 

 interesting form have the interior lined with 

 brilliant crystals. They are characteristic 

 of certain formations. One of the most 

 important areas producing them is in two 

 counties bordering the Mississippi River — 

 Lee County in Iowa and Hancock County 

 in Illinois. The beds of limestone and shale 

 in this locality are characterized by having 

 intercalated in their layers large numbers 

 of these hollow balls. They are composed 

 mostly of quartz. These balls weather out 

 as the rock is dissolved or otherwise dis- 

 integrated, and are left behind in streams 



and on banks from which they can be 

 detached. 



While the appearance of these balls is 

 rough and unattractive on the exterior, 

 a skillful blow of a hammer often cracks 

 open the object to reveal an interior lined 

 with brilliant and beautiful crystals. These 

 crystals include quartz, calcite, sphalerite, 

 hematite, magnetite, gypsum, pyrite and 

 other minerals, sometimes two or more 

 occurring in the same geode. Often they 

 are also filled with water, and frequently 

 bitumen is enclosed. 



The question of what causes the cavity 

 of the geode and how the crj^stals get into 

 it is one that has been much discussed, 

 but for which no generally accepted answer 

 has yet been given. Many of the geodes 

 are supposed to occupy spaces made by 

 the removal of fossils, but there are other 

 occurrences for which this explanation is 

 not satisfactory. If the fossil is a bivalve 

 shell, it is easy to understand how the 

 substance of the shell could be replaced by 

 silica, and the interior then lined with 

 crystals of quartz and other minerals by 

 infiltrating waters. 



It is further known that infiltration of 

 water may dissolve the interior substance 

 of fossils and the cavity later be filled by 



Remarkable Geode 



This specimen, presented by William J. Chalmers, 

 is 22 inches in diameter, and weighs 125 pounds. Its 

 interior is lined with unusually brilliant crystals. 



other deposits. In the vicinity of Tampa, 

 Florida, large fossil corals are found, the 

 interiors of which have been entirely 

 removed by percolating waters. Usually 

 cavities thus formed are lined by layers 

 of chalcedony, the lime of the fossil prob- 

 ably having precipitated the silica from the 

 percolating waters. There are large areas, 

 however, where geodes occur in abundance, 

 where there are no evidences of the existence 

 of fossils which could have been the source 

 of the geodes. 



Death of Dr. W. J. Holland 



In the death of Dr. William J. Holland, 

 which occurred at Pittsburgh on December 

 13, the museum fraternity has lost one of 

 its most colorful associates. Dr. Holland, 

 who was 84 years old, had been the first 

 director of the Carnegie Museum, and for 

 the last ten years was its director emeritus. 

 Dr. Holland was best known for his scientific 

 contributions to entomology and paleon- 

 tology, and had been honored by the fore- 

 most scientific bodies throughout the world. 

 Field Museum joins other institutions in 

 expressing to the Carnegie Museum its 

 sorrow in the passing of a great man. 



LIFE OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 

 ILLUSTRATED IN EXHIBITS 



The sources of much of our knowledge of 

 the life and history of the ancient Egyptians 

 are exemplified by a large collection of 

 Egyptian tomb sculptures and paintings, as 

 well as by casts of sculptures whose originals 

 are still in place in Egypt, which occupy 

 several large new exhibition cases in the 

 hall of Egyptian archaeology (Hall J). 



The original sculptures and paintings 

 which are exhibited at the Museum represent 

 periods ranging from 3000 B.C. to 1100 B.C., 

 including the Old and Middle Kingdoms 

 and the Empire, and embracing dynasties 

 from the third to the twentieth. They were 

 brought from the cemeteries of Memphis, 

 Gizeh and Sakkara. 



The prayers for the dead, inscribed on 

 many of the stones, are often curious, and 

 interesting for the insight they give into 

 Egyptian ideas of bliss and Egyptian 

 vanities. That for an official of high rank 

 pleads for "bread and beer on every feast 

 day and every day," as deciphered by Dr. 

 T. George Allen, Assistant Curator of 

 Egyptian Archaeology, while on the tomb 

 of a lady named Ipi appears a modest 

 petition for "1,000 loaves of bread, 1,000 

 jars of beer, 1,000 alabaster vases of oint- 

 ment, and 1,000 garments." From the tomb 

 of another official comes a slab identifying 

 him as "seal bearer of the king and sole 

 companion of the king" — upon which Dr. 

 Allen comments that the frequently claimed 

 distinction of "sole companion" was one 

 in which, contradictorily, many persons 

 shared. Thus some light is thrown upon 

 the state of Egyptian politics. 



These specimens come from the toinbs 

 of a varied assortment of citizenry, including 

 an overseer of craftsmen, royal courtiers, 

 governors of provinces, artists, the "overseer 

 of the palace's double storehouse of gold," 

 scribes, granary officials, a clerk of the 

 pharaoh's archives, and persons of humbler 

 estate. Artistically the collection includes 

 some of the finest work of the Egyptians, 

 and some amateurish and ordinary hack 

 work too, in order to present a complete 

 archaeological concept of the subject. 



In the casts exhibited of sculptures the 

 originals of which are still in Egypt are 

 seen pictures in low relief illustrating historic 

 events, and the daily activities of Egyptian 

 life. One group records the capture of a few 

 towns in Palestine, when King Sheshonk I 

 of Egypt defeated Solomon's son Rehoboam 

 about 930 B.C. The names of the captured 

 cities— Taanakh,Shunem,Rehob,Mahanaim, 

 Gibeon, Ajalon, and Megiddo — are inscribed 

 in walls composed of representations of the 

 lined up bodies of bearded Semites. The 

 scenes of everyday life include hunters 

 returning with their spoils, boatmen fighting, 

 boys engaged in gymnastics, musicians at a 

 festival, the slaughter of oxen, bringing 

 offerings of animals and foods to a tomb, 

 plowing with oxen, donkeys threshing grain, 

 cattle crossing a stream, building of boats 

 both of wood and of papyrus, cabinet 

 makers at work, girl dancers, vintage scenes, 

 and hunting with hounds. One particularly 

 interesting picture is that of "bringing 

 village officials for a reckoning" — that is, 

 punishment for delinquent taxes. 



The foraminifera, tiny marine animals of 

 100,000,000 years ago, whose fossilized 

 bodies form great chalk deposits, are repre- 

 sented by thirty enlarged models of as 

 many distinct forms in Ernest R. Graham 

 Hall. Some of the fossils reveal great 

 beauty of form. 



