At the American Museum 
Nelson’s Glass Eye 
and Other Tricks of the Trade 
There is an old story told in the 
American Museum of Natural History 
about a former curator of prehistoric 
archeology, Nels C. Nelson, who had 
a glass eye. Nelson was a scientist 
on the Central Asiatic expedition, led 
by Roy Chapman Andrews, that ex- 
plored the Gobi Desert in the 1920s. 
Mongolia, which had recently under- 
gone a revolution, was a wild and law- 
less area at the time, ruled by warrior 
princes and crisscrossed by nomadic 
bands. At one point in 1925, the ex- 
pedition ran into a hostile and well- 
armed group of Mongols on horse- 
back, with the usual cartridge belts 
slung across their chests. The warriors 
had dismounted and were parlaying 
with the nervous expedition leaders 
when Nelson had an idea. Pretending 
to be a magician, he removed his glass 
eye, held it up for all to see, then 
slipped it back into its socket. The 
Mongols fled. 
Whether the story is true or not, 
it illustrates an important point: Mu- 
seum scientists and expeditions have 
had some close calls in the field, es- 
pecially in countries at war. 
The Jesup North Pacific Expedition 
(1897-1903) gave the Museum its 
first real taste of trouble. Organized 
by Morris K. Jesup, the Museum’s 
third president, the expedition set out 
to explore the cultures of the entire 
North Pacific rim, from Washington 
State to Manchuria in northern China. 
One expedition leader, Russian an- 
thropologist Waldemar Jochelson, was 
dogged and harassed by the czar’s se- 
cret police while working among the 
aborigines of Siberia. Another anthro- 
Roy Chapman Andrews, at camp in 
Dah Ser Hai in the Gobi Desert, is 
visited by a Mongolian delegation. 
Andrews, who was recuperating 
from a gunshot wound at the 
time, was leader of the Museum ’s 
Central Asiatic Expeditions. 
pologist, Berthold Laufer, found him- 
self in the midst of the Boxer Re- 
bellion, the unsuccessful uprising 
against foreigners in China. In another 
incident, he was prevented from study- 
ing the Ainu of southern Sakhalin Is- 
land, Siberia, by a “band of desper- 
adoes.” Later, while in Manchuria, 
he survived the Russo-Japanese war. 
The artifacts these explorers 
brought back, many of which are on 
display in the Museum’s new Hall of 
Asian Peoples, are priceless from an 
anthropological point of view. The var- 
ious household, religious, and ceremo- 
nial items, sleds, clothes, art, and other 
objects were collected just before 
many of the fragile circumpacific cul- 
tures were destroyed or westernized. 
In many cases these items provide the 
only record of now vanished peoples. 
The greatest difficulties in the field 
were encountered by the ambitious se- 
ries of expeditions conceived, organ- 
ized, and directed by Roy Chapman 
Andrews between 1915 and 1930. Al- 
though Andrews’s primary goal of 
finding the birthplace of the human 
race in Central Asia was never re- 
alized, his Central Asiatic Expeditions 
made spectacular and important dis- 
coveries of fossils (including the first 
dinosaur eggs) and brought back ex- 
tensive collections of archeological ar- 
tifacts, ethnographic material, mam- 
mals, birds, plants, and minerals — in 
short, just about anything worth col- 
lecting. But there were difficulties. 
During this period China was em- 
broiled in a series of civil wars, and 
Mongolia was in a state of near an- 
archy. Nonetheless, Andrews led his 
caravan of camels and motorcars 
across thousands of miles of Central 
Asia, across borders, through moun- 
tain passes, and over the vast waste- 
land of the Gobi Desert. He armed 
his expedition with hunting rifles and 
a machine gun and packed a revolver 
and cartridge belt himself. He was 
extremely impatient with minor of- 
ficials, red tape, and roadblocks. In 
his reports to the Museum’s president, 
Andrews wrote that he prevented “un- 
warranted delays” at border crossings 
by telling the obstructive official that 
he was quite prepared to shoot his 
way through. This “good trick,” he 
reported, “usually worked.” 
Andrews’s chauvinism was typical 
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