New Britain Herald Newspaper, December 27, 1928, Page 12

2 I III/I/I LA e e st 800 | eet | How the American Museum Expedition Fought Sand Storms, Brigands and Desert Dangers to Discover the Fossilized Remains of a Beast as Big as the Woolworth Building! AN you imagine a beast 800 feet long, so long in fact that its nervous system had to be split up into two parts and a brain located “amidships” as it were, to control the after half, and so ponderously large that it literally ate itself out of the world? If vou cannot, you probably will soon have an opportunity to view a recon- struction of such a beast at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. For the skeleton of this colossus has been found! Even the most agile Amer- ican imagination has been called upon, in recent years, to undertake mental feats of ground and lofty tumbling which inevitably have left it cold. “I don’t believe it!” has become the stock reply when a new monster or a revolu- tionary invention has been introduced. And this situation is @ perfectly natural reaction to the great torrent of semi- scientific salve which has been served up by pseudo-savants for the delectation of a gullible public. There is nothing “semi” nor “gseudo” about the new monster mentioned above, por is there any room to doubt the integrity of its finders. For this colossus, which has not yet been named, was recently uncovered by the Fourth Central Asiatic Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History. The expedition, headed by a world-famous scientist, Dr. Roy Chapman An- drews, with such assistants as Professor Walter Granger, fought its w: through almost unbe- lievable perils and h; to bring back eighty cases of preciou s of vanished ages. Some of these cases were filled with the bones of the colossus which, when reconstructed, will dwarf any animal which man previously has imagined. The Great Gobi Desert, that wild, wind-swept expanse of sandy wasteland of Inner Mongolia, was the goal which the expedition sought when it set out. Here, 20,000 years ago, populations crowded each other for elbow room and life was flourishing and free. But the whirling years do not count man's comfort. and once verdant valleys today are dunes of desolation. Earlie# still, 150,000 years ago, men swarmed The Artist's Diagram of the Two Brains, Inserted in the Photograph at Left, Shows How the New Beast Was Able to Co-ordinate Its Fore and Hind Legs, Although They Were So Far Apart. At Left: An Tmyroeciomistie Drawing of How It Towers Ovey Other New York Buildings. It Is Comp: Reconstruci - Beast Anove, Which Is Largest Prchistorie ntists Before the New Buried Deep i the Desert. The New Beast, onger Than the Bailding Is Tall. Service, 1428, over the area, and fought pre- historic monsters for existence, And then, pushing still further back into the dim half-light of the dawn of the world, we reach the age of the colossus. His story is a strange one, as weird as the imaginings of any ro- manticist. . To reach this abandoned sea of sand the American Museum expedition had to face many hardships. The going was slow, and their motors, with tractor wheels, barely were able to crawl over the baking sands.. Up and down dunes they trundled, with never a break in the monotony of the scene nor surcease from the broiling sun. The expedition, according to Dr. Andrews, was nearing its objective when the first real interruption presented. Far off The Enormous Footprint of Made in Utah, a Dinosaur. This Photograph Was on a yellow-gray horizon the Where the Footprint explorers J_»errei\'ed a file of Measuring soldiers. The soldiers turned Twenty-four Inches and swept down upon the ex- Across, Is Petrified pedition, which had camped. in the Roof of Some distance away the soldiers a Mine. halted and they also pitched tents. o Apparently there was nothing to fear. The troops seemed friendly, and a few hours after they had camped a detachment arrived in the expedition’s camp with a message for Dr. An- drews. It was an invitation to tea! That sounded all very well, but Dr. Andrews knows too much about the Gobi Desert and its nomadic tribes to be fooled by such an old wheeze. The “soldiers,” he perceived, were noth- ing but brigands in uniform, and the invitation to “tea” was simply a request to walk up peace- fully and get shot! The American Mvseum Expedition attended that tea party, but in strange fashion. They clambered aboard their trucks and cars, loaded every essential in its proper place, and started. Every available man grasped a repeating rifle, and as they neared the camp of their would-be hosts the chauffeurs stepped on the gas! Aban- doning their tents, the expeditiin sailed right through the camp of the brigands, and although the latter gave chase they soon were beaten off and outdistanced. That was surprise number one, and surprise number two followed quickly. In one sense it was not a surprise, for a sandstorm in the Gobi Desert is not a particularly unusual thing. But «this one was, because of the time it lasted. Fine particles of sand were lifted into the air and sent drifting against the tents. Then the wind freshened, and the sand particles bepan to cut and sting. Finally the wind rose to gale force. Little idea of the discomfort caused by this condition can be conveyed to the reader who has not faced it. Sand penetrated the most tightly wrapped cases. It spoiled focd and medical sup- plies, and made it impossible for members of the expedition to leave their tents. With the sand flying and whirling about them the explorers found it aimost impossible to keep their weapons from being hopelessly ruined. They cleaned them at frequent intervals, and it was while cleaning a rifle that Dr. Andrews met with an accident which threatened to end the exploration. The rifle was accidertally discharged and Dr. Andrews suffered a wound in the leg. Dr. J. A. Perez_tried to dress the wound, but this took hours, for it was only with great difficulty that sand wAs kept out of the wound itself, and surgical instruments were almost useless. Finally, after days of blind fighting against everlasting clouds of sand, several of the Mon- gols accompanying the expedition threatened to commit suicide. Dr. Andrews used all of his tact to dissuade them, and fortunately the sand- storm blew itself out shortly afterward. Once more the expedition crawled forward and reached Kalgan, from which it drove N " ‘(lh 5 Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews, Veteran Scientist and Explorer, Who Headed the Expedition inmr‘m Great Gobi Desert and Returned with Eighfy Cases of Bones of the Giant New Colossus. straight toward the heart of the desert. Then it turned northeastward toward the region of Erhlein, where the most interesting discoveries were made. And it was here that Dr. Andrews and his assistants found the skeleton of this newest monster, which is the largest yet dis- covered. Some idea of the size of the colossus may be had by comparing it with the Woolworth Bui'd- ing, which is 792 feet tall, and is the world’s highest building. The colossus, which roamed the earth before puny man set his fi!lmr of ownership upon it, would not have been able to get in the Woolworth Building if the latter were in a horizontal podition. The colossus was so large that its extremities were connected with nerve “telephone” lines like those aboard a great ship. Even then it was im- passible for the great creature to navigate properly with a single brain, and nature found it necessary to give it two brains, one in the head and the other at the base of the spine. This latter brain, scientists believe, controlled the after parts of the colossus and synchronized the movements of the hind legs with those of the forelegs. Why did the great creature, which must have reigned supreme over the area in which it lived, pass away? That's one of the first questions which Dr. Andrews was asked when he announced his find. And the answer is startling. “The beast lived on the fat of the land of its birth,” explained one of the scientists. “It grew larger with each succeeding generation, until after a million years it became so roly-poly that it could no longer navigate. It finally gave up the ghost, having grown so enormous that it was of no earthly use!” 2 The colossus, incidentally, was a vegetarian and at first lived on tender shrubs and roots. \ -4 TRAR, sz e Restoration Sketch Showing Gorgosariane; Chasing Cory Thosauri in the Days Before Man Set Foot Upon the Earth