BACK FROM ASIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 26 March 1926, Page 13

BACK FROM ASIA.

results of ;hoN CENT EXP]!jDl ’

Roy Chapman Andrews of the. American Museum ol Nahi. 1 has just returned to.-tho l-mtul after his third, success! M < X ! )ul -'V,?, , into Asia, where lie traversed 0,000 miles of desert. ' r rhe expedition, composed of sixteen 'scientists, left Poking,’ China, on Apnl 15 last bv motor. r l lie.y had been pie--1 ceded by a caravan of 125 camels,, winch left on February .15 Horn Kiilgan, ; China, with instructions to meet tho motor partv 71X) miles from Kalgan, ill the centre of the Gobi Desert. The outstanding accomplishments 01. the expedition were, of course, the hndin" of the skulls of six new mammal tvpes and the traces found of three prohistorir- hunum cultumu But the party comes back with. many other important iimiini's. „ , , r Tim loot and.part of tho legs of tho Biiluehitherii.ini, the large H lain mammal that ever lived, were found in an ujiright position buried m the sand <lunes along the southern base ol the Altai -Mountains, whore the major work of the expedition centred. 'I lie animal, ir is believed, was buried ill quicksand three million years ago. and fossilised in an upright- jiosition. Following discovery of one ol the foot, partially exposed, Andrews and Waller Granger, one oi his associates, estimated the length ol thn animal s stride in walking, and excavated for the other three feet. Other parts ol this sprees had been found by seionlists working elsewhere, and the dis-

covery of those parte adds one more chapter to tin.' Fiery. Another find points to the lormer existence of a rliinnceros-like aiiiniu , with teeth like a rhinoceros and a skull like a cat. The skull is circular m shape, and has the scientists puzzling over its classification. - DINOSAUR ECUS. Dinosaur eggs, the discovery of which hv the Andrews Expedition live years aho caused a scientific sensation, were again found in large quantities, with new and verv perfect skulls and skeletons of Dinosaurs. Forty of the eggs were brought hack, each 10,000,01)0 years old, and each with a market price of 5,000001. (Softie, of these eggs were purchased from Mongolians for pieces of soap, says an American paper.) . \ Six tiny fossils, hardly larger than birds’ eggs, and looking like as many hits of hard yellow clay, are the, most .significant items in the entire, group, •says Andrews—worth the expense of the expedition, even it nothing else had been found. They are, the, six skulls of cetaceous mammals, Ihe “missing links’’ whose discovery was heralded from Asia. skulls whose owners, living in a reptilian era, showed mammal characteristics. “With one exception” the leader of the expedition said of them: .“they are the oldest mammal skulls m the world.”