dinosaurs

Hunting Monsters

You might be wondering why the Smithsonian Libraries would choose a book based on beasts from fantasy, but behind every myth is some truth. The family of “cryptids” includes such familiar creatures as Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster, plus several other questionable beasts of land and sea. This book, illustrated with black-and-white photos and drawings, attempts to apply the scientific method to reports of these mythological creatures. The goal is to separate fact from fiction, i.e., what is pure imagination from what is actually possible.

Die Versteinerungen des Steinkohlengebirges von Wettin und Lobejun im Sallkreise

This book by Germar (1786-1853), a professor of mineralogy at the University of Halle and the director of its mineralogical cabinet/museum, focuses on fossils discovered in Saxony, constituting some of the earliest fossil material described in Europe. It is of considerable importance to paleobiology, as the plant and animal taxa described in it are the basis of species, genus, and family names in modern paleoentomology and paleobotany.

Alberti Ritter Gymnasii Ilfeldensis Regii Con-Rectoris Commentatio II. De Zoolithodendroidis in Genere et in Specie de Schvvartzburgico-Sondershusanis Curiosissimis ac Formosissimis...

Albrecht Ritter (1684-1748) was in instructor at the royal Stiftscollegium at Ilefeld, Germany. Although relatively little is know about him, he was an early proponent of taking students into the field and learning from direct observation of and experience with the natural world. A member of the Leopoldinian Academy, he wrote several short works on fossils and "formed stones," as fossils were conceived of in the period.