HALL OF THE ACE OF MAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, 22 July 1921, Page 6

HALL OF THE ACE OF MAN

from primates to nko lithe RACE

‘‘An important event in the American Museum of Natural History is the approaching completion of the Hall d th , Age of Man,” writes l-’roiessor 11. i • Osborn in ‘Nature. • “This hall has been planned as a Mini ax to the series of collect tons m invertebrate and vertebrate pakeontolugy, arranged so that the student or visitor will begin with the Hall of Invertebrates, dating hack to Hie Cambrian, and pass in p-coloccic nml p;ilii. , f | ulnlo£U‘ p-fKivuiUv through a series of live halls .surrounding the south-east mint. to he devoted in the Age of fishes; the Age of Amphibians, of Hermian and Trlasie Replies; the age of Jurassic Reptiles, including the giant Sauropoda, to the t i et.u eons Reptiles; into the age of mammals; and finally into tho Hall of the Age of Mam “'lids will afford effective exhibition of the collodions in .vertebrate pahmiitology which began in Ih'Jl ami extend from* the- first appearance ot vertebrate life to the verv dose ot the 1 leislucene of North America. These collections specimens, chiefly from North and South America; hut there are also specimens from Eurasia, Africa, and Australia, oh tained either by museum expeditions or hv exchange. “The Hall of the Age of Man is of especial interest, because it affords tho first opportunity of working out in paht'ontoingy the general theory of exhibition which prevails throughout the American Museum -namely, to present animals, extinct as well as living, in their environment. In this hall what is actually known of the history of man is precepted in a series of ten central cases, arranged m ascending order, from an introductory genealogical tree of the Primates to the races which overran Europe in Neolithic times. On tho floor space surrounding these central cases are shown some of the chief types of mammals of the four continents— Africa, Eurasia, North and South America-• which was also the greed theatre ot human evolution during late Pliocene and Pleistocene times. “Around tho walls, above the eases, is a series of four large mural paintings, which present the mamalian life of these continents during the final period of maximum glaciation and the ( lose of the immediately preceding Third (Racialion period.”