^i^A4Wf' '•" U Vol.22, NoJ-Januaiy.1951 Chicago Natural Hi'storu Mils e lun i % ...^Zt%\:.;/.v:rt£'"' 4 jpm^ ^ Paget CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN January, 1951 Chicago Natural History Museum Geology, Dr. Austin L. Rand, Curator of been invited by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Founded bt Marshall Field, 1893 Birds, Robert K. Wyant, Curator of Eco- Service to participate in deep-water investi- Rooaerelt Road and Lake Shore DiiTc, Chicago 5 nomic Geology, Dr. Fritz Haas, Curator of gations to be conducted in the Gulf of Mexico Telephone: WAbash 2-9410 Lower Invertebrates, and a member of the during a cruise of the government ship botanical staff—are slated to go to San Oregon. Curator Woods and Robert F. THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Salvador for collecting and research in their Inger, Assistant Curator of Fishes, will Stanlet Field Lbstbk Armour fields. This work under continue their successful cave-fish studies Sbwell U Avery Samuel Insull, Jr. respective got way in Wm. McCobmick Blair Henry P. Ishah in 1950 when the Museum dispatched Dr. underground caverns of Missouri and Leopold E. Block Hughston M. McBain Walter J. Cumminos William H. Mitchell Norman C. Fassett, Professor of Botany Arkansas. In 1950 they worked in similar Clarence B. Randall Albert B. Dick, Jr. and Curator of the Herbarium of the Uni- caves in and Howard W. Fenton George A. Richardson Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois. Joseph N. Field Solomon A. Smith versity of Wisconsin, to this field in Sep- Marshall Field Albert H. Wetten John P. Wilson tember for the of Marshall Field, Jr. collecting aquatic plants. ALBERT B. WOLCOTT, 1879-1950 OFFICERS He will remain until about June. Emil Curator of Exhibits in the Albert Stanley Field ••?"»»''•"' Sella, B. Wolcott, a Museum employee Ptrtl Vxet-Pnmdnt Marshall Field of and Samuel H. for died on December Albert B. Dick, Jr. Stamd Vtct-Prmimt Department Botany, thirty-four years, 8, Third Viee-PrtsideiU Samuel Insull, Jr Grove, Jr., Assistant in Plant Reproduction, in the DuPage County Convalescent Home, Solomon A. Smith Trtasurer CUFPORD C. Gregg Director and Setrelary will leave for various parts of Florida in at the age of 81. Mr. R. Molar AnittanI Seentart John January to collect exhibition material. Wolcott was born in Bryan Patterson, Curator of Fossil Mam- Bloomington, Illinois, THE BULLETIN mals, and Orville L. Gilpin, Chief Preparator on January 9, 1879. EDITOR of Fossils, will continue collecting from early While still a youth he Clifford C. Gregg Director of Ou Muttum Cretaceous mammal bearing deposits in became interested in a in which have been CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Texas, project they insects, especially for several seasons. on one Pauls. Martin Chief Curator of Anihropolon engaged beetles, family Thbodor Just Chief Curator of Botany of which he soon Sharat K. Roy Chief Curator of Galon FOSSIL-FISH COLLECTING Karl P. Schmidt Chief Curator of Zooion specialized. He be- MANAGING EDITOR Dr. Robert H. Denison, Curator of Fossil came a noted authority H. B. Harts Public Relatione Couneel Fishes, will collect material in his field and the author of from middle Devonian limestone deposits nearly forty papers on in central and northern Ohio. A. B. WOLCOTT the small Members are requested to inform the Museum During July bright-color- of address. promptly o( changes or August Curator Denison will collect ed checkered beetles, from Devonian limestone and shales in the Cleridae, some of which are commonly western New York and Silurian fish fossil seen on flowers. SIXTEEN EXPEDITIONS localities in New York and Pennsylvania. In July, 1908, Mr. Wolcott was appointed PLANNED FOR 1951 George Langford, Curator of Fossil as an assistant in the Division of Insects in Plants, will make a series of field trips to the Museum, and in January, 1914, he was Sixteen expeditions are scheduled to go obtain material of the Coal Age in the area transferred to the then newly formed N. W. into the field for the Museum in 1951, it is near Wilmington, Illinois, and will collect Harris Public School Extension of the Mu- announced by Colonel Clifford C. Gregg, upper Cretaceous and Eocene fossil plants seum. In this department his artistic skill Director. in Tennessee and Mississippi. and knowledge of insects were very useful The operation will be the largest-scale Philip Hershkovitz, Assistant Curator of in preparing exhibits of insects and other 17th Southwest Archaeological Expedition, Mammals, will continue the Colombian material in the small portable cases that are which will continue the work of past expedi- Zoological Expedition upon which he has circulated in the Chicago schools. tions in the New Mexico prehistoric culture been engaged since 1948. In 1942, his failing health and diminishing field. Dr. Paul S. Martin, Chief Curator Eugene S. Richardson, Jr., Curator of eyesight compelled him to end his Museum of Anthropology, again will be the leader, Fossil Invertebrates, will collect inverte- duties, as well as the research work he did and his chief assistant will be Dr. John B. brates of the lower Paleozoic period in for many years on his chosen family of Rinaldo, Assistant in Archaeology. It is various parts of the West. beetles, to which he devoted all of his spare in the new season to continue the planned time. His extensive and valuable collection research so successfully begun in 1950 in SEEKS AFRICAN BIRDS of beetles of the family Cleridae and his dry caves where an abundance of material Harry A. Beatty, of New York City, books and papers pertaining to them he of a perishable type was obtained. New ornithologist who collected for the Museum generously donated to the Museum when caves will be opened in 1951 with the ob- in Liberia during 1946-47, will collect birds he retired. The Museum published his jective of finding artifacts of additional and other animals in selected areas in French Catalogue of North American Beetles of the kinds to fill in sequences incomplete because Equatorial Africa. Family Cleridae in 1947. of in the Tularosa Cave stratigraphy gaps Karl P. Schmidt, Chief Curator of William J. Gerhard of the 1950 operation. Zoology, Clifford H. Pope, Curator of Curator Emeritus of Insects will attach The Department of Botany Amphibians and Reptiles, and Colin C. an expedition of its own to the Southwest Sanborn, Curator of Mammals, will continue Last Call for Entries Archaeological Expedition. Dr. Hugh C. various branches of field work within the of Nature Photos Cutler, Curator of Economic Botany, will United States. Chief Curator Schmidt will which has for its conduct this expedition, resume field trips for reptiles and amphibians January 15 is the deadline for entries in of the of purpose comparison types vegetable in Texas in the spring. Each year he covers the Sixth Chicago International Exhibition food products found in Tularosa Cave with a selected area. Curator Pope will continue of Nature Photography to be held at the in this area the crops that grow today. his investigation of salamanders in Arkansas. Museum February 1 to 28, inclusive, under Curator Sanborn will continue his survey of the auspices of the Nature Camera Club of SAN SALVADOR PROJECT mammals of Arkansas in co-operation with Chicago and the Museum. Several members of the Museum staff— colleagues at the University of Arkansas. Silver medals and ribbons will be awarded Dr. Sharat K. Roy, Chief Curator of Loren P. Woods, Curator of Fishes, has in the various print and slide classifications. January, 1951 CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BULLETIN Pages MARIANAS EXPEDITION EXCAVATES ANCIENT 'GHOST HOMES' By ALEXANDER SPOEHR Marianas was to forward back of a beach by CURATOR OF OCEANIC ETHNOLOGY expedition push lay directly designated the understanding of man's early history in invading American marines during the war Its field work completed, the Museum's that section of the Pacific called Micronesia, as Blue Beach. A second objective of the 1949-50 Anthropological Expedition to the in which the Marianas lie. Most of Micro- expedition on Tinian was to investigate the Marianas Islands has returned to Chicago, nesia is administered today by the United largest latte house in the Marianas, known where the bone and stone tools, pottery. States, as a United Nations trust territory, as the House of Taga. Taga is an old the islands having been captured from Chamorro culture hero, a man believed to Japan in World War II. have been of great size, who built his house of shore at Tinian's A previous BULLETIN article described giant stone pillars on the some of the earlier excavations conducted harbor. in 1950 the Museum on where by Saipan, THE blue SITE the headquarters of the expedition were Blue of a dozen maintained. Although the final results of The Site consisted large, the work will not be known until the field stone-pillared houses strung end-to-end back beach. At one time collections have been studied thoroughly, of, and paralleling, the in this article the remaining excavations of there may well have been additional houses, whose have since At the Museum expedition will be briefly pillars disintegrated. described. the center of this string of houses was the largest structure, with pillars over 9 feet GHOSTS AND STONE COLUMNS high and with an over-all length of 60 feet. this center house to the The characteristic feature of most of the Probably belonged local or served a communal purpose. surviving prehistoric sites in the Marianas chief, Back of the houses, the earth was found to are groups of stone columns or pillars. contain areas filled with charcoal Locally, these are called latle. Many of densely the Chamorros—the native people of the and broken utilitarian pottery, indicating 'THE HOUSE OF TAGA' Marianas—believe that these latte mark that this was the area where the cooking Massive stone columns on the island of Tinian, ancient graveyards that still remain the was done.