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July, 1933 



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FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



Page S 



ELEPHANT SEALS COLLECTED 

 FOR MUSEUM GROUP 



Five excellent specimens of elephant seals 

 for a proposed habitat group to be installed 

 in the Hall of Marine Mammals (Hall N), 

 were collected last month by an expedition 

 conducted for Field Museum to Guadelupe, 

 an island belonging to Mexico and lying oflf 

 the coast of Lower California. 



The expedition, which completed its work 

 from start to finish in the unusually short 

 space of less than two weeks, was made 

 aboard the yacht Velero III, owned and 

 commanded by Captain G. Allan Hancock 

 of San Diego, California, whence the party 

 sailed. All arrangements for carrying out 

 the project were made by Captain Hancock 

 and Dr. Harry M. Wegeforth, President of 

 the Zoological Society of San Diego. A part 

 of the expense of the Museum's participation 

 in the expedition was met with funds sup- 

 plied by Mrs. Emily Crane Chadbourne. 

 Two members of Field Museum's taxidermy 

 staff, Julius Friesser and Frank C. Wonder, 

 accompanied the party. 



The Velero III, a 1,000-ton ship about 

 200 feet long, sailed May 28, and the hunt- 



ing of the animals began immediately upon 

 arrival in Guadelupe. The elephant seal 

 is the largest of all seals. The species is 

 becoming extremely rare and is under the 

 protection of the government of Mexico to 

 prevent its extermination. These giant seals 

 are found in only two places in the world — 

 the Guadelupe vicinity, and a certain region 

 in the Antarctic. The Mexican government 

 kindly issued permits for the collection of 

 specimens for the Museum. 



The five seals obtained range in weight 

 from a small one of about 250 pounds to 

 one about 5,000 pounds, which is close to 

 the maximum size the animals attain. A 

 curious feature of the animals is their in- 

 flatable proboscis or trunk from which they 

 get their name, elephant seal. They have 

 an air sack with which they can blow this 

 proboscis up like a balloon. 



It is very difficult to preserve and prepare 

 the skins of these large marine mammals, 

 and the Museum men sent on the expedition 

 are experts especially qualified for the work. 



While the expedition was at Guadelupe 

 the island was shaken by an earthquake 

 but no harm was done to members of the 

 party, the ship, or the collection. 



In recognition of their valuable services 

 to this institution in making the expedition 

 possible. Captain Hancock and Dr. Wege- 

 forth have been elected Patrons of Field 

 Museum. 



Prof. A. C. No6 on Staff 



Professor A. C. No6, paleobotanist of the 

 University of Chicago, has been appointed 

 Research Associate in Paleobotany on the 

 staflf of the Department of Botany of Field 

 Museum. Professor Noe, a preeminent 

 authority in his field, gave valuable advice 

 and cooperation to the Museum during the 

 course of construction of the Carboniferous 

 Forest exhibit in Ernest R. Graham Hall. 



Collecting Colorado Fossils 



Bryan Patterson, Assistant in Paleon- 

 tology in the Museum's Department of 

 Geology, has been granted leave of absence 

 to spend most of the summer in Colorado in 

 continuance of the work he did in 1932 in 

 the collection of fossil mammals and other 

 geological specimens. He left for the field 

 on June 15. 



PAINTING SHOWS BRONTOSAURUS, THE GREAT FOUR-FOOTED DINOSAUR OF NORTH AMERICA 



By Elmer S. Riggs 

 Associate Curator of Paleontology 



A large mural painting by Charles R. 

 Knight of the great four-footed dinosaur, 

 Brontosaurus, shows this animal at home 

 beside a lagoon. A shore fringed with palm 

 trees and crocodiles basking on a sunlit sand- 

 bar, fill out a tropic scene. Among such 

 surroundings these great saurians lived in 

 North America one hundred million years 

 ago. Buried and preserved in those same 

 sandbars, which are now turned to sand- 

 stone ledges, their fossil remains are found 

 today. 



This painting is one of twenty-eight ex- 

 hibited on the walls of Ernest R. Graham 

 Hall (Hall 38) of Field Museum. As surety 

 of its accuracy, a mounted skeleton fifteen 

 feet in height stands at the center of the 

 hall. Skulls and gigantic bones of other 

 dinosaurs surround it. Photographs show 

 where the fossil remains of these giant 

 reptiles were unearthed, and labels furnish 



details of their habits and relationships. 



Not only was Brontosaurus a native of 

 North America, but his fossil remains have 

 been found on this continent exclusively. 

 Ledges of sandstone or layers of hardened 

 joint clays of Jurassic age, which crop out 

 of the hills on both sides of the Rocky 

 Mountains, have yielded the fossil remains 

 of these great dinosaurs. Varying from 

 brown to black in color, always petrified, 

 sometimes of the hardness and the lasting 

 qualities of limestone but often filled with 

 silica of a flint-like hardness, these bones 

 are washed out of the hills and broken up. 

 Their fragments remain on the surface long 

 after the rocks about them are worn away. 

 These enduring qualities have made it pos- 

 sible for the fossil bones of these animals to 

 be preserved in the earth by nature through 

 the ages, and thus for some of them to be 

 reconstructed in museums. 



Fossil remains of Brontosaurus were first 

 discovered at Morrison, Colorado, in the 



year 1877; other specimens were found at 

 Canyon City, Colorado, and at Como, 

 Wyoming, in the same year. Famous quar- 

 ries where these and other related dinosaurs 

 were later unearthed are known as the Bone 

 Cabin Quarry near Medicine Bow, Wyoming, 

 and the Dinosaur Monument at Jensen, 

 Utah. Other specimens have been found at 

 various localities. 



The specimen mounted in this Museum 

 was found near Grand Junction, Colorado, 

 in 1901 by an expedition under the direction 

 of the writer. Lacking the head and part of 

 the tail, the Museum specimen is thirty- 

 two feet long, indicating a probable total 

 length for the animal in life of sixty-five to 

 seventy feet. The largest individual bron- 

 tosaurs were about eighty feet in length, 

 and weighed probably about forty tons. 

 Despite their terrifying appearance, they 

 were undoubtedly unaggressive animals liv- 

 ing rather placid lives, feeding upon leaves 

 and water plants. 



Copyri^t Field HuBCum of Natural History 



Restoration of Brontosaurus 



Mural painting in Ernest R. Graham Hall depicting one of the largest of all dinosaurs, as fossil specimens indicate it must have appeared when living. Only in North 

 America have remains of brontosaurs been found. 



