The Granger Report-1stQ.
-'00
1st Quarter - 15 January 2000 (corrected 9 February)
QUOTE OF INTEREST
"... It certainly is not too much to say that the
success of our work in the Gobi was fully as
much due to Walter [Granger] as to me or any
other individual."
Roy Chapman Andrews to Vilhjalmur Steffanson in a
letter dated April 14, 1937.
WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT?
Two misimpressions conveyed in more recent
writings on the history of paleontology have
intrigued me for some time.
The first is Edwin H. Colbert's strange
pronouncement in 1968 that "Granger's
association with dinosaurs came to an end in
1902." (Colbert, Men and Dinosaurs at p. 208).
One of the better known events in Granger's
prolific collecting career is his dinosaur
collecting in the Gobi Desert from 1922 to 1930.
You know, the years where as chief
paleontologist and second-in-command he
supervised and participated in locating,
collecting, identifying, and cataloging all the
Gobi dinosaur material that made the Central
Asiatic Expeditions so successful and famous --
Protoceratops, Oviraptor, Velociraptor,
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Masthead photos: Walter and Anna Granger, ca. 1900.
READER COMMENT
Got an e-mail from one Mark A. Norell, a
paleontologist at the AMNH, suggesting that the
reference to the Oviraptor matter in "Whither
Indiana Jones?" last quarter was off the mark (so
to speak). (Reprint: "Whither Indiana Jones?")
Nay, nay old boy -- the work was already out
there and for quite some time. See the following:
- Sadov, IA. 1959. "Structural similarity
between the shell of birds eggs and shell
structure of fossil reptiles." Abstracts 2nd
All-Union Ornithol. Conf. Pt. 1, pp 22-
23, Izd-vo, Moskov Univ.
- Sochava, AV. 1969. "Dinosaur eggs
from the Upper Cretaceous of the Gobi
Desert." Paleont. Zhur. (4), pp 76-88.
- Sochava, AV. 1971. "Dva tipa skorlupy
yalts senonskikh dinozavrov." Paleont.
Zhur. (3), pp 80-88 (NB - 2 Feb '00:
prev. ref. to p. 360 was viz translated
version).
- Osmolska, H. 1976. "New light on the
skull anatomy and systematic position of
Oviraptor." Nature. Vol 262, Aug 19, pp
683-684.
- Barsbold, R. 1971. "O novom
The Granger Report-1stQ.-'00
Mononykus, whole eggs and nests, etc. Colbert
somehow missed all that, apparently.
The second seems not to originate with Colbert,
but occasionally appears elsewhere. It is the
inference that, during the Central Asiatic
Expeditions' 1923 season in the Gobi, two of
Barnum Brown's dinosaur men, Peter Kaisen and
Albert Johnson, were sent to aid Granger: the
suggestion being that Kaisen and Johnson had to
bring Brown's expertise to the Gobi to collect at
all these new dinosaur localities Granger had
identified in 1922.
These two misimpressions actually link, the
second following the first to cast a diminished
role in dinosaur hunting by Granger after 1902.
Another effect is to infer enhancement to Barnum
Brown's role in dinosaur hunting after 1902.
Well, it just doesn't wash:
1) Walter Granger never stopped collecting
anything. He was, in fact, a prolific collector.
Throughout his fifty-year career he collected
dinosaurs from the American West and the Gobi
and Mongolia; mammals from the American
West, the Faiyum of Egypt, the Gobi and
Mongolia, and the Sichuan and Yunnan
provinces of China; primates from the American
West, the Faiyum of Egypt and China; and many
other items archaelogical, paleoanthropological,
ornithological and zoological. During his
expedition to the Faiyum in 1907, Granger even
took time to collect insects for Professor William
Morton Wheeler. In August 1921, Granger took
time to help Johann G. Andersson and Otto
Zdansky locate and begin the dig for Homo
erectus (Sinanthropus pekinensis) at
Zhoukoudian.
2) Peter Kaisen was not, in fact, Brown's man.
Kaisen began with Walter Granger and Jacob L.
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pozdnemelovom semeystve melkikh
teropod (Oviraptoridae fam. n.)
Mongolii." Doklady Akademii Nauk
SSSR (Earth Sciences section). Vol. 226
(3), pp 685-688 (note last paragraph).
- Paul, G. 1989. Predatory Dinosaurs of
the World. Touchstone Books.
One rather strange thing. The reference in
"Whither Indiana Jones?" to the Mononykus
matter was not challenged. Funny: how that fossil
could have been originally found by Granger
nearly 70 years ago, a second found by the
Russians/Mongolians more than 10 years ago,
then Granger's original find acknowledged during
the 1990s to have been "rediscovered" by the
AMNH in their basement, which is also when
they announced they'd found a third one in the
Gobi. After which the genus name "Mononychus"
was found to have already been applied to a
coleopteran (beetle) thus forcing abortion of its
use for the dinosaur. Hence the erratum insert
change to Mononykus upon publication. Phew!
By the way, the correct spelling of Granger's well-
known associate and longterm AMNH employee
George Olsen is "Olsen" not "Olson" as Norell, et
al.'s 1994 Science article on this matter has it.
(See Science, vol 266: 782.)
Old Gobi proverb: "Before you walk in
someone's footsteps, make sure you know who
they are and where they've been."
--by the editors.
All Mixed Up Over Birds and Dinosaurs
ITEM OF INTEREST - OUR SISTER
PROJECT "THE CHINA YEARS"
The Granger Report-1stQ.-'00
Wortman at Como Bluff in 1897, when Brown
himself was just a novice. Kaisen worked entirely
for Walter Granger at Bone Cabin Quarry for the
next six seasons. Only in 1903, when Granger
indeed turn more to Eocene and Paleocene
mammal and primate work, did Kaisen start
collecting dinosaurs with Brown;
3) as to Albert Johnson, he was an independent
Canadian farmer/contractor who had worked
summers with Brown. By 1923, that work had
ceased and he was hired for the Gobi. Since
Granger was pessimistic about Johnson's ability
to collect small and delicate fossils, he kept him
busy collecting the larger mammal and dinosaur
fossils;
4) In 1923, both Peter Kaisen and Albert Johnson
spent equally as much time, if not more, on the
mammal fossils of the Gobi as they did the
dinosaurs;
5) Peter Kaisen and Albert Johnson never
returned to the Gobi after the 1923 season; and
6)For the 1923 season in the Gobi, it was Walter
Granger, George Olsen, and their various Chinese
assistants who did most of the dinosaur work, as
they would again in 1925 and thereafter! George
Olsen, of course, was one of Granger's longtime
fieldhands and was the first to find whole
dinosaur eggs in the Gobi. Yes, that was in 1923.
Barnum Brown himself never went to the Gobi.
He was not involved with the Central Asiatic
Expeditions at any time in any way, strange as
that may seem since he's being touted so as the
dinosaur hunter of his era.
--by Vin Morgan
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Our website designer Kathleen Fetner has her
own wonderful collection of 1920s China letters
and photographs from her grandparents Donald
and Erma Smythe. Don was a geology professor
at Tienstin University and Erma was a journalist.
Their letters and photographs are splendid.
It just so happens that the Smythes also mingled
professionally and socially with some of the
members of the Central Asiatic Expeditions, a
fascinating connection between our projects that
came to light because of the Internet!
CREATION OF WALTER GRANGER
MEMORIAL AWARD
The Walter Granger Memorial Award honors any
person who, like Walter Granger (1872-1941),
makes significant, steady and selfless
contributions to paleontology throughout the
course of their work while setting aside any need
for overstatement or self-promotion.
design by John R. Lavas
Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska was announced as the
first recipient on November 7, 1998, the 126th
anniversary of Walter Granger's birth. Future
awards will be made when merited.
The Granger Report-1stQ.-'00

Leave Your Body to Science;

Die in a Bog.

Amelia Earhart (l.) with an Explorers Club certificate

presented by Club president Walter Granger (r.).
Publisher George P. Putnam is at the right rear.
Questions: 1) Who is the other person? 2) What is the
date of the photograph?
-- your answer --

The Granger Report is published quarterly (on or about the 15th of the first month) and is a gradual, if
random, assemblage of items acquired through cumulative selection. To inquire about prior issues of
The Granger Report, simply e-mail us. You may fax us at 603-868-5321 (USA). © by Vincent L. Morgan
for The Granger Papers Project. All rights reserved.

The Granger Papers Project is an independent research, editing and writing project featuring the personal expedition
diaries and letters of American paleontologist and explorer Walter Granger (1872-1941) and his wife Anna (1874-1952).
In several significant respects, this is the first treatment of Walter Granger's era based on a more complete documentary
record. In addition to paleontology, the study of evolution, and Granger's pioneering fieldwork in the Faiyum of Egypt
in 1907, in China and Mongolia from 1921 to 1930 (Central Asiatic Expeditions), and in the American West throughout
his life, research topics include: American foreign policy; western civilian, missionary, and military interests in Asia;
the First and Second Asiatic Expeditions; The Explorers Club; the American Museum of Natural History; and
previously published accounts of, by, or about the aforesaid. Address interest or inquiry to us at
granger@nh.ultranet.com

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The Granger Report-1stQ.-'00

Please note the following limits on use of any of The Granger Papers Project written matter and/or images contained
throughout this website:

1) We believe information is freedom. Any person may use, store, manipulate, project, reproduce, and display the
recorded images for any purpose associated with their own educational purposes. Images may be incorporated into
educational exercises for students enrolled in the user's own classes at any institution of learning any where located. We
would appreciate notice of your use; and

2) No image may be displayed, reproduced, stored, transmitted or manipulated for sale or profit by the user, including
training sessions and continuing education programs, without the written consent of The Granger Papers Project.
Permission of The Granger Papers Project is required for inclusion of images in papers for publication, company
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The Granger Papers Project website was launched on 1 February 1997. We thank Kathleen Fetner for this website
design.

To the memory of Dr. Norman Charles Morgan (1919-1969) and Jonathan Patrick Morgan (1945-1966).

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