Re: paleontologists

[Stephen Faust <smfaust@edisto.cofc.edu>]

Great idea.

Steve

Stephen Faust                   smfaust@edisto.cofc.edu

On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Matthew Troutman wrote:

> 
> >Roy Chapman Andrews  (explorer...aka: Indiana Jones)
> 
> 
>      OK,  lets set this straight : Roy Chapman Andrews was not a 
> paleontologist.  He contributed little to any paleontology papers,  he 
> was primarily a naturalist.  Andrews took some of the first photos of 
> whales and discovered an " extinct " whale,  the Californian gray whale.  
> Andrews also witnessed a pod of killer whales kill a live gray whale.  
> Andrews was primarily an explorer that built up the collections of all 
> parts of the AMNH.  He had many adventures ( so many of which I cannot 
> fit them all into a single post ),  including one time when he was going 
> up the Yaku River in Korea,  was late at a checkpoint,  and was declared 
> dead!  Andrews looked back on this in bemusement and stated that the 
> only thing that was strange about it was when he read about his own 
> death in a newspaper.  Andrews contributed mainly to the whale 
> collection at the AMNH,  and he built the giant blue whale model.  
> 
> Most of his early adventures ( including an instance when he was going 
> to view a harpooning of a whale,  the whale swung his tail on the boat 
> where Andrews was,  and Andrews was flung into shark infested water,  
> having to fight off hungry sharks ) were on the seas,  but his later 
> adventures were on land.  He caught malaria,  served in Mongolia during 
> WWI and shot a group of bandits ( narrowly escaping death when a bullet 
> passed through his sleeve ) ,  went through Siberia in the winter,  
> chased down killer bandits in a Dodge car,  etc. 
> 
> The Central Asiatic Expeditions were not based totally on paleontology,  
> but equally on geology,  entemology,  botany,  archaeology,  keeping a 
> record of the Mongolian races,  etc.  As a "paleontologist" Andrews was 
> impatient.  While Walter Granger ( a great paleontologist ) whisked a 
> fossils with brushes,  Andrews chopped away with a pick-ax.  One 
> specimen ( presumed Psittacosaurus nest ) was deemed RCAed after ROY 
> CHAPMAN ANDREWS and the damge he did to it.  Andrews did no paleontology 
> work and his work was purely neontological and based on how much fun it 
> was ( his phrase for every experience,  even the bad ones, was, " I had 
> a grand time " ).  
> 
> Roy Chapman Andrews.  Real-life Indiana Jones.  Intereseting person. 
> Adventurer.  But not a paleontologist.  
> 
> By the way,  I could post a complete biography on Andrews,  with 
> detailed accounts of his experiences,  anybody think I should?
> 
> Matt Troutman
> 
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