The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-18
ANCIENT MONGOLIA GIVES
 UP CENTURY-OLD SECRETS.
Roy Chapman Andrews Tells Of Discovery Of Worlds Greatest Fossil Fields

man Andrews, leader of the third AsiStic expedition of the American Museum of Natural History, declares the expedition had proved Central Asia to have been the paleontologi life in the world. MT. Andrews also predicted that the skeletons of the ancestors of man would some day be discovered in the Gobi Desert.
 MT. Andrews has returned to Amer lea to raise funds for the continu- ance of the expedition another five years. The money for the first three years was raised entirely In New York MT. Andrews appealed to the rest of the United States to provide the additional support needed. He pointed out that 1t was an all-Amer- ican expedition made Up entirely of Americans and carrying the Amer ican flag, American ideals and Amer ican inventions into part of the world of the utmost importance to scientific progress.
 Telling the first complete story of the expedition, Mir. Andrews said that it had brought back nine tons of fossils, packed in 200 boxes; 20 dinos6ur eggs, the first ever discov- cred, which prove for the first time that dinosaurs laid eggs; 70 skulls of the Protoceratops, ancestors or the great frilled, horned dinosaurs of America; skeletons Of the great semi-aquatic dinosaurs related to the duck bill Tracodon and 1guanodon of America; a skull of the largest flesh eating mammal ever known; skull of the Balr ohitheium, giant broWs- ing rhinoceros. largest land mammal known to science; l2 skulls of Titan otheres, an extinct family of huge beasts first discovered in North Da- kota; a skeleton of rhinoceroses sim liar to those of Eastern NenrasKa' vast Permian deposits of marine in vertebrates; vast beds containing Cretaceous and Tertiary fossils In region where fossils had been un- known: thousands of specimens ot living mammals, birds, fishes, rep tiles and batrachians.
 The Greatest Fossil Field.
 The significance of the discoveries, MT. Andrews went on. was that they had opened the greatest known fossil field; that they had proven through finding in Asia the bones of ancest- ors of American mammals, that broad land connection had existed between Asia and America by way or AIaska. until recent geological times that they had proved Mongolia to have been dry upland and the cen ter of "civilizat ton" in the early part of the Age of Reptiles, when Amer ica and Europe virtually were at sea level. and that they had strengthened greatly the theory that the orlgln ol man was in Central Asia.
 Mir. Andrews also told vivid story of the experiences of the expedition including adventures and hardsnips which he made light of, but whlch added the thrill of an adventure story to his recital of sclentlilc d uisc9Ne or ies. The expedition consisted or thirteen Americans, representatiNe of the Mongolian government nine Chinese assistants, nine Mongol as = sistants. three American low-priceo motor cars, two American one-Io motor trucks and 75 camels. Beslues MT. Andrews, as leader and zooloslst' +ba Americans were: Walter Gran ger. chief paleontologist; Charles Rarkey. chief geologist; Frederick h' Morris geologist and topographer Clifford Pope, assistant Tn zooiosy , George Olsen, Peter kalson ana Al herr Johnson, assistants in paleon- PoiooV. |. B. Shackleford, photog- rapher; Bayard Colgate, d. , Nchen- zie Young and C. Vance Jonnson' motor transport experts, and +. A. Larsen. interpreter o,,. h,y
 "The expedition was sent out py the American Mt scum or Natui .I. aA History and by Asia Ma gazihe, ~, Andrews began, ito get the theory advanced in 1900 by Prof. Henry Fairfield osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural hls +orv who made the brilliant propn, ac1 that in Central Asla we Wou,u find the starting point of the Woi |" and that man was among the aIii '+raIs starting there. He came to thls nnnclnsion by study of the fossil animals of Europe and Amerlca' ylhich led him to believe that rep, +iiian and mammalian life origlhaIeu in Central Asia and migrated 'o h" rope and America. ao,1, in
 Eve started from New ork eaiss ,a 1o21 with open minds. and we nave broueht back conclusive proo1 that Professor Osborn's theory was true we have found the paleonotoioglcai Garden of Eden in Central Asia.
 In The Age of Reptiles.
 "rhe expedition disclosed eNldence that during the early age or reptiles; i oO0 900 years ago, Mongolia ana ,,ossihlv Chinese Turk estan and Tibet, were a fine upland, well forested' with an invigorating climate whlie America and Europe were practically at the level of the sea, like two ral eS fled up to an island. These facts, supporting the theory that thls mag nificent development or ire spreau out of Central Asia IS Europe anu America emerged from the sea is probably the most important gen eralization resulting from the ex- pedition, as far as the prehistoric lire of the world Is concerned.
 "Although it had been generally accepted that Central Asia would be shown as the ancestral home of man. more than twenty years passed after Professor~ Osborn's theory was ad- vanced before a scientific expedition attempted to prove it. This delay was partly due to the remoteness of Mongolia. and partly to the coldness of the climate, which is usually 70 degrees below zero in winter, and sometimes 50 degrees below with tre- mendous storms and winds sweeping down from the Siberian plateau. There are only five months of sum mer at best
 transportation has always been another great difficulty, as camels were the only means of transport, but we solved this problem with auto mobiles We took popular type of American automobile which has a reputation for standing up under hard wear and took it through places that would have given even it's man. ufacturers heart failure had they seen them. In one short summer with automobiles we were able to do work that would have taken five years with camels.
 Although it does not show on the map, Mongolia is two-thirds as large as the United States. There are practically no towns in this vast area. The Gobi desert extends right through the center of Mongolia It is not a desert in the popular conception of the term-that is, it is not sand desert, like the Sahara. It is a rock desert which made it easy to run automobiles across it.
 We had to prepare our gasoline and food supplies carefully, for we ] Wnnld Pn fhrnnph nlaces in the de snrt