This is Mazon Monday post #98. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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George Langford's second book, "The Wilmington Coal Fauna and Additions to the Wilmington Coal Flora from a Pennsylvanian Deposit in Will County, Illinois", was published by Esconi Associates in 1963. As part of the publication of the book, Stella Barrick, a member and first secretary of Esconi Associates, wrote an article about the book. This article appeared in the December 1963 edition of Earth Science Magazine, which was published by a few ESCONI members from the 1950's until the early 1970's.
Mrs. Barrick served as member and first secretary of Esconi Associates, the small group which assumed large publication risks in order that the fruits of George Langford's life work in discovering and identifying the fossils of the Mazon Creek (Illinois) area might be shared with others.
George Langford & Esconi Associates, Orval Fether, Geo.Malcott, Howard Knight (standing); Harry Witmer, Langford, Stella Barrick - June 13,1958
This article is historically important as it details how George Langford's books came to be published. The bit about "pasting-up" the pages for the publisher is a window into a by-gone era. Sure, there are errors in the explanation of the science... 250 million years, land bridges, and some of the notions of the Coal Age is wrong. The science of tectonics really shed light on how there was no need for land bridges because the Wilmington area was just south of the equator during the Pennsylvanian, which was about 307 million years ago as revealed by radiometric dating. It's interesting that the manuscript was brought to the ESCONI Paleontology Study Group. Many of those members were Mazon collectors and knew there weren't many useful references for amateur collectors available at the time. From the Ad at the bottom of the page, the standard books sold for $7 with the option to purchase a $9 gold-bound autographed edition.
Natural History of Coal Age Fossils
By Stella Barrick
The Natural History of Mazon Creek fossils goes back in time 250 million years, a period that has little meaning to us except as an incredibly long time. During this period land relief, temperature, and atmospheric conditions encouraged the dispersion of plants and animals of the same general types more widely than have since been recorded as fossils. Since most of the plants reproduced by air-borne spores, their migration across the great land bridge of Eria between North America and Europe in the Middle Devonian was more rapid than that of animal life.
Structure of the fossil plants indicates that they grew in a moist moderate climate with no extremes of temperature or periods of drought. The air had to be richer in carbonic acid than at present to account for the thickness of the many beds of coal which resulted from the compressed vegetation. Roofing shales over the coal seams indicate burial of plant materials by fine mud from somewhat higher lands near at hand. Marine limestones record repeated invasions of the seas in many coal fields. Limestones are more abundant from Kansas and Nebraska south through Texas. The Maritime Provinces of Canada. were not invaded by the sea as their coals are buried in land sediments. Because of the great variety of plant fossils found by early geologists in Pennsylvania, the name of that state was given to the Coal Age in this country. In England it bears the name of Upper Carboniferous. The three main coal fields in the United States were connected with one another at some time during the Pennsylvanian Age. The Illinois and Appalachian basins were continuous in the southern part, but are now separated by a renewed uplift of the Cincinnati arch. There are extensive deposits of coal from this age in Europe, Siberia and China. Fossils of the Northern Hemisphere coal flora have been found in Peru, Brazil and Sumatra.
Thus in many parts of the new and old world, in both northern and southern hemispheres, there were giant swamp trees and lesser plants trapping the carbon dioxide from the air. These weakly-rooted monsters fell into oxygen-poor swamp waters, where they formed huge beds of peaty material. Later burial by erosional sediments and subsidence under the seas added tons of weight which compressed the peat into coal. Leaves, stems, spores and spore cases, primitive seeds, huge cockroaches and dragon flies, spiders, millipedes, clams, fish, and some amphibia were buried quickly by sediments that are now the shales overlying the coal seams. Undiscovered for over 200 million years, the buried flora and fauna became fossils.
Quite late (geologically speaking) in earth's history inquisitive man appeared on the scene. This was in the age of the great ice advances over the land. Even as man groped upward from sub-human cultures, he collected fossils perhaps as amulets that bore magical powers. While philosophers were trying to understand the earth and its phenomena by merely thinking about it, the Greek historian, Herodotus, about 450 B.C. made correct inferences about the sea shells found in the Libyan desert. The great Italian artist, Leonardo da Vinci, observed sea shells in the banks of canals and realized that once the sea had lain where now was dry land.
In England in the late 1700's an engineer, William Smith, studied the fossils and different layers of rock that his canal-digging crew were exposing. His powers of observation led him to become the founder of stratigraphic geology. In Scotland, a quarry worker broke open a calcareous nodule and exposed a Devonian fish fossil. This stimulated Hugh Miller to be come a great geologist. About the same time an English school girl, Mary Anning, was helping her carpenter father hunt for fossils, which they sold to museums and for the curio cabinets of collectors. Miss Anning became the first person to recover the complete remains of an ichthyosaur and of plesiosaurs and pterodactyls.
Gifted amateurs continue to add knowledge to the science of paleontology. In 1937, Mr. George Langford started systematic collecting of the "ironstone" nodules which were abundant at the strip mines near Wilmington in Will County, Illinois. This is an eastward extension of the world-famous Mazon Creek fossil area. Instead of leaving his specimens from several hundred days collecting packed away in boxes in the basement, as so many of us do, Mr. Langford studied their details with a linen tester, made sketches of obscure features, and devised methods of securing very clear photographs. In 1938-39, he worked with Dr. A. E. Noe and Dr. Raymond Janssen at the University of Chicago, where he had access to a good library for help in identifying his specimens. Later, after retiring from the manufacturing field, Mr. Langford was made Curator of Fossil Plants at the Chicago Natural History Museum where he continued his studies of the coal flora and fauna and prepared a manuscript for amateur "fern" fossil collectors, copiously illustrated with his excellent photographs and drawings.
In 1956 a member of the museum staff showed this manuscript to Harry Witmer, another gifted amateur who seeks diligently to identify all his finds. Mr. Witmer brought the manuscript to the attention of the Paleontology Study Group of the Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois (ESCONI). It was agreed that the manuscript should be printed as an aid to fossil collectors and as an addition to the great nature books of our country. The ESCONI Board authorized an Esconi Associates Committee, drawn from the Paleontology Study Group, to try to have the manuscript published. Interested friends and members of ESCONI loaned money to pay the initial copy preparation costs and presale of the books brought in enough money to make a down payment on the printing bill. At the June 1957 meeting of ESCONI, Mr. Langford and his family were honored guests at the premiere of his first book "The Wilmington Coal Flora from a Pennsylvanian Deposit in Will County, Illinois."
This first book covered Mr. Langford's identification of flora exclusively. By 1962 another manuscript. was ready with drawings and photographs of the fossil animal life, and additional plant material that had not been published in the first volume. Again it was brought to the Paleontology Study Group and again the ESCONI Board authorized a committee to pursue the project of getting this second volume into print. Mr. and Mrs. James Konecny and Mrs. Anthony Sobolik of the new committee devoted many hours of work to copy preparation. Then, the entire committee assembled at the Harry Witmers' to "paste-up" the pages for the printer. The June 1963 meeting of ESCONI was the occasion for launching this second volume which is entitled "The Wilmington Coal Fauna and Additions to the Wilmington Coal Flora from a Pennsylvanian Deposit in Will County, Illinois".
This is the history of two great nature books-books for amateur and professional collectors of Pennsylvanian fossils all over the world. These books were written by a gifted amateur and published for all the world to read by a courageous and diligent group of amateur paleontologists and collectors.
Original pictures from georgesbasement.com
Euphoberia
Pecopteris pteroides
