The Washington times., 1923-05-12
BONE RELICS Is.
TOGO MILLION
YEARS OLD
Worlds Largest Rhinoceros,
Found in Asia, Recon-
structed in Museum.
BY ELSIE MCCORMICK, >
Cosmopolitan News Service.

NEW YORK, May 13.-Present.
ing the Baluchitherium!
One of the most interesting de-
butts ever made in America. from
the standpoint of biologists and
psychologists, will take place
shortly at the American Museum
of Natural History. when the Balu
chitherium, the worlds largest
rhinoceros, makes his formal bow
to scientific society.
To be sure, the Baluchitherium
is slightly beyond the usual age of
debutantes, his years being esti-
mated somewhere between fifteen
and twenty million. Now is 1t like
ly when his birthday rolls around
that anybody will give him a party
with the proper number of candles
on the cake? The fact, however,
that he is the only one of his kind
in the world, will establish his so
cial position and prove his exclu-
siveness without question.
Arrives i'm 1000 Pieces.
Not all of the Baluchitherium
will be present at his debut. how
ever. By far the larger proportion
Of him has been unavoidably de-
tanned in the rocks of Mongolia. on
the wind-swept slopes of the Altai
mountains. In fact, the only au-
thentic portion to appear is his
four foot skull and jaw, which ar
rived at the museum last December
in more than 1000 pieces.
The finding of the only skull ever
discovered of this huge prehistoric
rhinoceros. was regarded by the
Third Asiatic Expedition sent out
by the Museum. as it's greatest
scientific triumph. According to the
estimates of DIR. w. d. Matthews
and other noted paleontologists, the
beast was at least fourteen feet
high, far huger than any rhinocerOS
known to man.
Plaster Fills i'm Chinks.
Putting together the two thou
and crushed and broken fragments
has required the constant labor or
four men for nearly five months.
The painstaking fitting. piecing and
refitting required more ingenuity
than the most complex of Chinese
puzzles. When the head at last
took shape it was necessary to fill
in the chinks with plaster and to
estimate the size of the missing
teeth. The long labor was nearly
completed today and the BaluchI-
therium is going on exhibition along
with a pictorial reconstruction show
ing how he probably appeared when
he roamed the plains of Asia, fiji.
teen millions years ago.
Bits Of the monsters bone fraG
ments were discovered in the Altai
mountains last August by Roy
Chapman Andrews, and DIR. Walter
Granger of the Third Asiatic Elk
nfI1
cavation lasting several weeks some
two thousand pieces of bone We're
assembled. packed in plaster, and
sent by caravan across the Cobb
desert to Picking, when they were
shipped TO New York. On their ar
rival at the museum, the bits We're
bathed in shellaC. dried for two
DAYS and then spread out on a
great table for the four ingenious
nuZZle artists to arrange in proper
time,
Found i'm MiOcene Rocks.
For the first few weeks, they
merely handled the fragments. be.
coming familiar with their edges
and shape without attempting toI
that seemed to fit were tentatively
placed, only to be shifted and re-
shifted, during the months of con
slant work until the skull was
practically completed.
1.-THE Baluchitherium was found
in Miocene rocks, which are usually
estimated to be from fifteen toI
twenty million years old said DR..
Matthews, curator of the depart
ment of vertebrate paleonto1ogy.
cit therefore antedated man by
many millions of years. Apparently
central Asia was a great marsh at
that time because animals Of the
rhinoceros type are not likely to
thrive on dry plateaus, such as
Mongolia is today.
"grhis discovery was of much I'm.
portance to us because hitherto
the past life Of Asia has been prac.
tically blank page. There is in.