Bones for Barnum by R.T. Bird
My sixth book for ljbookbingo is Bones for Barnum by R.T. Bird for the Historical Square, table found here:
Roland Thaxter Bird, universally and affectionately known to friends and associates as R. T., achieved a kind of Horatio Alger success in the scientific world of dinosaur studies. Forced to drop out of school at a young age by ill health, he was a cowboy who traveled from job to job by motorcycle until he met Barnum Brown, Curator of Vertebrae Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a leader in the study of dinosaurs. Beginning in 1934, Bird spent many years as an employee of the museum and as Brown's right-hand man in the field. His chart of the Howe Quarry in Wyoming, a massive sauropod boneyard, is one of the most complex paleontological charts ever produced and a work of art in its own right. His crowning achievement was the discovery, collection, and interpretation of gigantic Cretaceous dinosaur trackways along the Paluxy River near Glen Rose and at Bandera, Texas. A trackway from Glen Rose is on exhibit at the American Museum and at the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin. His interpretation of these trackways demonstrated that a large carnosaur had pursued and attacked a sauropod, that sauropods migrated in herds, and that, contrary to then-current belief, sauropods were able to support their own weight out of deep water. These behavioral interpretations anticipated later dinosaur studies by at least two decades. ~Amazon Book Description
I first heard about R.T. Bird and Dr. Barnum Brown from a traveling science exhibit. I loved the display they had especially Bird's map of the Howe Quarry site. I had never seen so many fossils together and was amazed by Bird's accomplishment at documenting the whole site. This tiny pic really does not do it justice at the exhibit they had a giant mural on one wall and it was truly magnificently detailed.
When I was a kid I wanted to be both an paleontologist and an archeologist and so I am always into learning more about anyone studying in those fields. I went in search of more information and was very excited to see that he had written of his experiences. Bird had been interested in dinosaurs since he was a child. The book starts off in 1932 during the Great Depression with R.T. traveling with his motorcycle and side car across the Arizona desert, where he did manage to find some fossils of note. Then he was eventually introduced to Dr. Brown after a fossil Bird had found caught the other man's attention, and from there was invited to go to the Howe Quarry dig and help out. I greatly enjoyed reading about Bird's time as Brown's assistant out in the field, his love and admiration for all things dinosaur really came across as well as his almost reverence for Dr. Brown and all that he accomplished. I love first person accounts to interesting times in history and this book really shows you a window in time of when Paleontology was young in America.
This entry was originally posted at https://under-the-silk-tree.dreamwidth.org/50735.html
Roland Thaxter Bird, universally and affectionately known to friends and associates as R. T., achieved a kind of Horatio Alger success in the scientific world of dinosaur studies. Forced to drop out of school at a young age by ill health, he was a cowboy who traveled from job to job by motorcycle until he met Barnum Brown, Curator of Vertebrae Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a leader in the study of dinosaurs. Beginning in 1934, Bird spent many years as an employee of the museum and as Brown's right-hand man in the field. His chart of the Howe Quarry in Wyoming, a massive sauropod boneyard, is one of the most complex paleontological charts ever produced and a work of art in its own right. His crowning achievement was the discovery, collection, and interpretation of gigantic Cretaceous dinosaur trackways along the Paluxy River near Glen Rose and at Bandera, Texas. A trackway from Glen Rose is on exhibit at the American Museum and at the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin. His interpretation of these trackways demonstrated that a large carnosaur had pursued and attacked a sauropod, that sauropods migrated in herds, and that, contrary to then-current belief, sauropods were able to support their own weight out of deep water. These behavioral interpretations anticipated later dinosaur studies by at least two decades. ~Amazon Book Description
I first heard about R.T. Bird and Dr. Barnum Brown from a traveling science exhibit. I loved the display they had especially Bird's map of the Howe Quarry site. I had never seen so many fossils together and was amazed by Bird's accomplishment at documenting the whole site. This tiny pic really does not do it justice at the exhibit they had a giant mural on one wall and it was truly magnificently detailed.
When I was a kid I wanted to be both an paleontologist and an archeologist and so I am always into learning more about anyone studying in those fields. I went in search of more information and was very excited to see that he had written of his experiences. Bird had been interested in dinosaurs since he was a child. The book starts off in 1932 during the Great Depression with R.T. traveling with his motorcycle and side car across the Arizona desert, where he did manage to find some fossils of note. Then he was eventually introduced to Dr. Brown after a fossil Bird had found caught the other man's attention, and from there was invited to go to the Howe Quarry dig and help out. I greatly enjoyed reading about Bird's time as Brown's assistant out in the field, his love and admiration for all things dinosaur really came across as well as his almost reverence for Dr. Brown and all that he accomplished. I love first person accounts to interesting times in history and this book really shows you a window in time of when Paleontology was young in America.
This entry was originally posted at https://under-the-silk-tree.dreamwidth.org/50735.html