FieldM 



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News 



Published Monthly by Field Mumuni of Natural History, Chicago 



Vol.4 



FEBRUARY, 1933 



No. 2 



THE CHICAGO CORAL REEF 



400,000,000 YEARS AGO 



By Henby W. Nichols 

 Associate Curator of Geology 



Four hundred million years ago the site 

 of Chicago was submerged under the waters 

 of a great interior sea which covered the 

 northern part of what is now the Mississippi 

 Valley. The limestone which underlies the 

 city was the bed of this shallow sea, and it 

 contains many fossilized remains of the 

 stony skeletons of marine animals. Study 

 of these fossils enables geologists to present 

 a fairly complete description of the local 

 life and conditions of 

 that time. 



This sea was an off- 

 shoot of the Arctic 

 Ocean, but at that 

 time the Arctic waters 

 were warm and the 

 climate subtropical. 

 Conditions at Chicago 

 especially favored 

 coral growth, and 

 masses and reefs of 

 coral were the domi- 

 nating features of this 

 primeval scene. The 

 coral is a small primi- 

 tive animal, little 

 more than a tube of 

 flesh with a mouth 

 and crown of tentacles 

 on its upper end. It 

 rests upon a pedestal 

 of limestone which it 

 builds from lime ex- 

 tracted from the sea 

 water. There were 

 many single corals, 

 each growing on its 

 own pedestal, but the 

 impressive features of 

 the seascape were 

 the colonies of com- 

 pound corals where 

 many animals grew 

 together, their stony 



pedestals coalesced into one large mass. 

 The individual corals were small, seldom 

 exceeding a quarter of an inch in diameter, 

 but the colonies were large. Some took the 

 form of domes; other cylindrical branching 

 forms resembled grotesque trees. At this 

 time corals had just acquired the reef build- 

 ing habit, and a great coral reef which has 

 been exposed in what is now a quarry at 

 Stony Island Avenue and Ninety-first Street 

 was among the first such reefs formed. 

 Resemblance to modern reefs was increased 

 by the presence of the more delicate bryozoa. 

 These resembled corals but were slender 

 and grew in intricate network patterns. 

 Many assumed fan or leaf forms. Others 

 were branching or netted threads which 

 incriisted the coral. 



There were also the crinoids, which, 

 with their small round bodies and feathery 

 tentacles growing on long, flexible stems, 

 look so much like flowers that they are 

 called stone lilies. Sponges and shellfish 

 also grew attached to the bottom but in 



lesser numbers. Not all the animals were 

 attached to the sea bottom — there were 

 crawling and swimming forms as well. The 

 scavenger trilobites with the habits and 

 much of the appearance of crabs, were 

 common. The cephalopods, the most 

 highly developed animals of these seas, 

 were numerous. They were related to 

 the octopus and squid, but unlike these 

 were provided with shells. There were 

 a number of varieties. Some had coiled 

 shells, and others, including the largest 

 and most common, had long, straight, 

 pointed shells. 

 Other animals were present in smaller 



The Site of Chicago, 400,000,000 Years Ago 



Mural by Charles R. Knight restoring the Chicago coral reef, as science indicates it 

 land where the city now stands was then submerged beneath the Arctic Ocean, which in 

 sea. This painting is on exhibition in Ernest R. Graham Hall. 



numbers and there must have been vegeta- 

 tion to support the abundant animal life, 

 but this vegetation, confined to the lower 

 orders of plant life, had no hard parts to 

 become fossils, so that we know little of it. 

 Although this scene, if we could view 

 it, would be strange in detail, its general 

 aspect must have been very like that of 

 a modern coral reef and, in fact, less strange 

 to us than most landscapes of that remote 

 time or even of times much more recent. 

 A restoration of the Chicago reef forms the 

 subject of one of the twenty-eight mural 

 paintings by Charles R. Knight, exhibited 

 in Ernest R. Graham Hall (Hall 38). The 

 painting is reproduced in the illustration 

 accompanying this article. 



Supposedly magic ornamental daggers, 

 hatchets, war clubs, tridents and other 

 weapons used by Lama priests of Tibet 

 in exterminating demons and enemies of 

 Buddhism, are on exhibition in Hall 32. 



SCULPTOR COMPLETES BRONZES 

 OF ORIENTAL PEOPLES 



Miss Malvina Hoffman of New York and 

 Paris, distinguished sculptor commissioned 

 by Field Museum to prepare 110 life-size 

 bronze statues, busts and heads representing 

 the principal living races of mankind for 

 exhibition in Chauncey Keep Memorial 

 Hall, recently returned to America. About 

 two-thirds of her task is now completed. 

 On her last journey she was engaged in 

 extensive studies of the peoples of Asia and 

 the South Pacific, and, during a subsequent 

 sojourn at her Paris studios she made the 

 finished bronzes of 

 figures modeled in 

 clay during her 

 travels. Last month 

 Miss Hoffman spent 

 a week at the Museum 

 at work upon various 

 details in connection 

 with the Keep Hall 

 project. 



Before undertaking 

 her work in the Orient, 

 Miss Hoffman had 

 made the figures illus- 

 trating types of the 

 peoples of Europe, 

 Africa, and America. 

 Early in the autumn 

 of 1931 she sailed from 

 San Francisco for the 

 Far East. She was 

 accompanied by 

 Samuel B. Grimson, 

 her husband, who 

 acted as photographer 

 of the expedition; 

 Miss Gretchen Greene, 

 secretary and manager; 

 and Jean de Marco, 

 who made the plaster 

 casts. The party 

 visited Honolulu, 

 Japan, China, the 

 Philippines, Bali, 

 Java, Singapore, 

 Penang, the Malay Peninsula, Calcutta, 

 Delhi, Jaipur and Colombo. 



Everywhere Miss Hoffman was received 

 with the greatest cordiality and enthusiasm, 

 and local anthropologists rendered valuable 

 assistance. Museums and hospitals were 

 placed at the artist's disposal, and in them 

 she made her headquarters for studying, 

 measuring, photographing, and modeling 

 the best available living representatives of 

 the racial types desired. 



The Bishop Museum of Honolulu accorded 

 Miss Hoffman full cooperation, and there 

 she modeled a life-size portrait-head of a 

 Hawaiian youth, and another of a Samoan. 

 She also made a life-size drawing of a 

 Samoan chief. At Tokyo Miss Hoffman 

 modeled life-size heads of a Japanese man 

 and woman. She then made a trip to the 

 island of Yezo, home of the Ainu, where 

 she obtained as subjects for study a typical 

 old Ainu man and middle-aged woman. 

 The data, measurements, and photographs 



(Continued on page S) 



probably appeared. The 

 those days was a tropical 



