Dinosaurs in East Africa

Abstract

IN 1907 the late Prof. E. Fraas, of Stuttgart, discovered at Tendaguru in Tanganyika Territory (then German East Africa) an extensive deposit of bones of gigantic Dinosaurs comparable with the bone-beds in which startling discoveries had already been made in Wyoming; U.S.A. From 1909 until the end of 1912, Dr. W. Janensch and Dr. E. Hennig explored this deposit with remarkable success, and made a great collection of the Dino-saurian remains which are now in the Museum fur Naturkunde in Berlin. They also studied the geology of the country, and published a valuable report on the subject, showing that the African and North American formations were of about the same age and had accumulated under similar conditions. Dr. Janensch is also still publishing a series of important monographs on the skeletons as they are prepared. After the war the British Museum undertook to continue the exploration, and among those who were engaged both to collect specimens and to re-examine the geological structure of the district was Dr. John Parkinson, who had already had much experience of field-work in Africa. Dr. Parkinson not only collected materials for a scientific report, but has also prepared a popular general account of his expedition in an attractive little book which is now before us.

The Dinosaur in East Africa: an Account of the Giant Reptile Beds of Tendaguru, Tanganyika Territory.

Dr. John Parkinson. Pp. 192 + 12 plates. (London: H. F. and G. Witherby, 1930.) 12s. 6d. net.