Stupendous Monster

If Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews, Dack at Peking last week after four months in the Gobi Desert, was quoted correctly in despatches, he has found the skull of antique monster more stupendous than any ever before learned of by man.

The head is broad, shaped like a saddle, and weighs 400 Ibs. That itself indicates colossal body. But Dr. Andrews' first comparison--and there is little evidence that the cable garbled his words--was unbelievable. As quoted, he said that the beast was "about the size of the Woolworth Building if the building were in a horizontal position." The Woolworth Building is 792 ft. high.

At the American Museum of Natural History, for which Dr. Andrews explores, Dr. George G. Simpson, of the Museum's department of vertebrate paleontology, last week pooh-poohed his colleague's cable-quoted magnification. Said he: "At most it couldn't be more than 150 ft. The largest animal in existence is the whale and it never exceeds 100 ft."

Later last week Dr. Andrews showed that he had been at first jesting with newspapermen. Serious now, he compared the old beast to a story and a half house, 25 ft. tall by 25 ft. deep. With its heavy head it belonged to the rhinoceros family, ate the leaves of low trees.

Dr. Andrews' own official despatch, directly to the Museum last week, merely mentioned the find among others. Splendidly succinct it read:

"Expedition travels 5,000 miles. Explores; maps much new country. Discovers new geological formations, fossil deposits. Finds residence sites dune dwellers, culture everywhere, yielding thousands stone implements, decorated bones, shells, tooth necklace, indicating that 20,000 years ago Mongolia more densely populated than today.

"Have ninety cases fossils. Two skulls, many bones, skeleton of gigantic new mammal, possibly larger than Baluchitherium. Humerus big as man's body. Huge titanothere, extraordinary saddle-like skull. New mastodon, spatulate jaw, lower incisors eighteen inches wide.

"We consider extremely successful expedition. Unprecedented leakage gasoline forced early return." Gobi Desert heat blew up several cases of gasoline.

Dr. Andrews came to two important conclusions: 1) That titanotheres, large horned quadrupeds which became extinct in America in the early Oligocene period (geologically fairly recent), lasted for a much longer period in Mongolia; 2) That mastodons were, in the same period, en their way from Africa to Western Europe, Siberia and North America.