The Bone Museum, by Wayne Grady

The Bone Museum: Travels in the Lost World of Dinosaurs and Birds, by Wayne Grady
Four Walls Eight Windows/Penguin Group, 2000
284 pages plus index, no photos
Library: 569.9 GRA

Description
The theory that dinosaurs have evolved into birds has sent science writer Wayne Grady on a globe-trotting fossil hunt with brush and pick in hand. In The Bone Museum, Grady follows vertebrate paleontologist Phil Currie, one of the world's leading proponents of the bird-dinosaur connection, on a journey in search of answers to the question: is there life after extinction?

In 1996 a group farmers happened upon several unusual fossils in an ancient lake bed in northeastern China. The fossilsappeared to be those of dnosaurs, but bore an extraordinary feature: a thin aura of fibers, very much resembling feathers, outlining the skeleton. It is for this skeleton and in the name of what it suggests that Currie heads to China in hopes of tracing the evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs. Their trek takes GRady from China to Paragonia, and back to North America; exploring numerous sites on three continents, Grady and Currie dig and sift, literally piecing together clues that might answer the question: Did dinosaurs evolve into birds?

Paleontology provided strong evidence to support Darwin's theory that human beings are descended from apes-might it also support Currie's theory of transition and adaptation in a species thought to be long gone? Success in Currie's hunt would be to discover the most compelling evidence to suggest that there is life after extinction.

Living in tents and experiencing the drudgery of fieldwork as well as the thrill of doscovery, Grady recounts his journeys with great detail, clarity, and a storyteller's sense of narrative. Through frustrations, blisters, blinding wind storms, rain and mud, to the ultimate glimpse of bone, his tales offer a compelling blend of adventurous travel and intellectual quest.

[Darwin did not say man was descended from apes, surely, but rather than apes and man had descended from the same source.]

Table of contents
Part 1: Flight Paths
Phil Currie's Christmas Turkey
Lost Worlds

Part 2: Patagonia
To the Rio Negro
Theropod Heaven
Desert RainOverburden
Beyond the Dusty Universe
The Living Screen

Part 3: The Badlands
The Call of the WAkon Bird
A Day at the Bone Museum
Dry Island
The Fossil Song
Ghost Birds



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This blog is updated every Monday and Thursday with books, and at other times if news occurs

The Bone Hunters, by Url Lanham

The Bone Hunters: The Heroic Age of Paleontology in the American West, by Url Lanham
Dover Publications, 1991 )unabridged, slightly corrected edition of book published in 1973 by Columbia University Press.
271 pages, Bibliography, index, b&w photos scattered throughout book
Library: 560.978 LAN 1991

Description
A century after the founding of the Republic, the United States was a leader in the science of vertebrate paleontology-the study of the fossils of backboned animals. In this lucid, nontechnical study, a noted popularizer of science and former curator at the Museum of the University of Colorado first reviews the geology of the western United States and provides an overview of American paleontology since the days of Thomas Jefferson.

Dr. Lanham focuses on the paleontologists themselves and the outstanding fossil discoveries that revolutionaized our understanding of vertebrate evolution. You'll learn how 19th century paleontologists struggled against hostile Indians, scorching summers and frigid winters, loneliness, isolation, lack of funds and other hardships as they excavated tons of fossil bones from beds and quarries in South Dakota, Kansas, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and other areas. While many eminent scientists are profiled, including SAmuel Williston, John Bell Hatchers, Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden and Joseph Leidy, much of the book is devoted to the explorations and achievements of Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward drinker Cope. These two brilliant paleontoligists, whose discoveries revolutionized the discipline, eventual became bitter rivals and the central figures in one of the most notorious scientific feuds of the century.

These and many other aspects of 19th century paleontology are covered in this fascinating and readable book. Easily accessible for the layman, The Bone Hunters will appeal to any reader interested in the behind-the-scenes drama and inspired scientific fieldwork that resulted in an explosion of knowledge about the nature and evolution of the prehistoric animals that once roamed the American West.

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Scientist in the White House
2. Rocks and Fossils
3. Joseph Leidy
4. The Big Badlands
5. The Bone Hunters Come to the Sioux Country
6. Othniel Charles Marsh
7. Edward Drinker Cope
8. The Smoky Hill
9. Big Bone Chief
10. In Quest of the Great Sea Serpents
11. Bridger Basin
12. West of the Jemez
13. Marsh as Partisan
14. The Beautiful Judith
15. Super-Dinosaurs
16. "Dawn Horses" and Birds with Teeth
17. Prince of Collectors: John Bell Hatcher
18. The Triumverate: Hayden, Powell and King
19. Cope as Financier
20. Revenge
21. After the Battle
Bibliography
Index



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This blog is updated every Monday and Thursday with books, and at other times if news occurs