10,000,000-YEAR-OLD EGGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 1, 3 January 1927, Page 9

10,000,000-YEAR-OLD EGGS.

AN EXPLORER'S RELICS.

OF PREHISTORIC GIANT. BOMBED BY CHINESE. Secrets of the successful hunt for dinosaur eggs, and the quest for the Garden of Eden in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, were told by Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews, leader of the Central Asiatic Expedition for the American Natural History Museum. Dr. Andrews, six feet of virile American manhood, has been working for five seasons ill the almost unknown Gobi desert, a rocky and waterless region, and the scientific world was thrilled by the report that he had found dozens of dinosaur eggs 10.000,000 years old at a site known as "The Place of Muddy Waters." "During the five seasons we have been working," he said, "we have sent home 10,000 animal specimens, 12,000 reptile specimens and 11,000 fish, all living kinds. To this must be added many thousands of fossil types, but only a small proportion has yet been classified and properly examined. "The last few months of our work has been held up by the Chinese wars. I have been bombed and harassed, and if the Chinese had not been such bad shots the Royal Geographical Society might have had to wait in vain. Mapping by Motor-car. "First we made a careful survey of the Gobi desert, to the extent of about 10,000 miles. The only existing map was Russian, quite useless, and showing mountains where there were none. New methods, unique, I think, in topography, have been used. We did the whole survey by high-powered specially constructed motor-cars. We had seven of them, and sold them at the end for more than w r e gave for them. "So far we have explored the region from Kalgan across Mongolia to the north-west, on the north of the Altai mountains. Now we are going to work south to Chinese Turkestan. The main theory we are working on is that Central Asia is the place of origin of the world's reptilian and mammalian life. "We have tried to reconstruct the physiography, geography and climatic conditions of this area by focussing experts of all branches of science on it. Cradle of Human Race. "There is evidence of a tremendous centre of animal life 10 millions of years ago, and we believe this life spread out to America on the one hand and North-West Europe on the other. Moreover, we believe that Central Asia was the cradle of the human race, where, to use a popular expression, the Dawn Man first appeared.

"Our quest for this Paleontological Garden of Eden will be to the fore in our next expedition in the spring. So far we have emphasised the fossil side of our research.

"Already we have found evidence of primitive man —the first ever discovered in this region. 'He was a lake-shore dweller, not a cave man. No bones have been found, but tools and stone implements going back to Neanderthal times have been found.

"One naturally asks: How could early human culture begin in so arid a region? It was not always arid. Ten million years ago it had a heavy rainfall. Our paelo-botanists could approximate the climate by the fossil vegetation found. But for some unknown reason the whole country has been rapidly drying up. "We have found marvellous fossils, _ not only the dinosaurs and eggs, but fishes in stone almost perfect, and fossil mosquitos scores of thousands of years old, with the most delicate markings. We have found beautiful butterflies turned to stone embedded in a kind of shale.

"Perhaps the most important of all, we have found a previously* unknown race of primitive men who the late Stone Age, 20,000 rears ago, in the Gobi Desert. Their camps and fireplaces remain, and certain types of instruments they made out of stone.

"We have hopes that we shall get evidence of man in an even earlier age inhabiting this mysterious region, which contains little minerals or existing vegetation."