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Carl Akeley Brings Jungleland to America

dr. Clyde FiSher

Very few boys and girls, or even men and women, can go to Africa to see and study the wild life there. Carl Akeley had a dream of bringing Jungleland to America so that you and I could see and learn about the life on that great and beautiful continent.
Dr. Clyde Fisher, who wrote this story of Carl Akeley, is a famous student of Nature. He tells us how Akeley's dream came true, and why he was the kind of man that we all like.

AKELEY CHOOSES TO BE A TAXIDERMIST

Into the deepest jungles of the continent that he lovingly called “Brightest Africa,” Carl Akeley went five different times, to study its wild animal life and to collect specimens for American museums. Known to the world as a big-game hunter and explorer, Akeley was born on a farm in Orleans County, New York. He says of himself: “By all the rules of the game I should have been a farmer, but for some reason or other I was always more interested in birds and chipmunks than in crops and cattle.”

At the age of thirteen, Akeley saw in The Youth's Companion an advertisement of a book on taxidermy, that is, a book which explains how to stuff and mount the skins of birds and animals.Though this book cost but a dollar, he could not buy it. Later he was able to borrow a copy from one of the older boys of the neighborhood. That book probably helped Akeley to decide what his work in life was to be. At any rate he became the world's greatest taxidermist; he developed a method of mounting birds and animals which is without doubt one of his greatest services to man.

In order to enlarge his knowledge of taxidermy gained from books, Akeley took a few painting lessons from a lady in a village near his father's farm; for he wanted to paint lifelike backgrounds for his mounted birds and animals. So far as known, Akeley's early attempts of this sort were the first experiments with painted backgrounds for mounted groups.

Upon the advice of a newly-made English friend who was greatly interested in taxidermy, Akeley, at the age of nineteen, decided to go to Rochester, New York, and apply for work at Ward's Natural Science Establishment . At that time Ward's was famous for preparing museum specimens; moreover , it was the headquarters of taxidermy in America.

Akeley hardly slept a wink the night after he had decided to take his friend's advice and go to Ward's. Rising early the next morning he walked three miles to the railway station to catch the train for Rochester. He walked through most of the streets of Rochester, his courage sinking lower and lower, before he finally found the great arch, made of the jaws of a whale, whic hmarked the entrance to the establishment. Here he suddenly became so timid that he had to walk a mile or so back and forth to screw up courage to ring the professor's bell.

As a result of this visit Akeley was offered a position at the small salary of three dollars and fifty cents a week. He found a boarding house where he could get a room and meals for four dollars a week. Thus he began to learn taxidermy.

At that time little was known about the work which Akeley had chosen for himself. To mount a deer skin, for example, was simple. It was first soaked in a “pickl-bath” containing salt and alum to preserve it, and then washed with a poison soap to keep insects from eating it. After the skin was dried the bones were replaced in the legs, and the body stuffed with straw. Then, to make the body thinner at any point, it was sewed through with a long needle and drawn in.

These results did not satisfy Akeley's dreams, even those of his boyhood. While at Ward's, he made some attempts to improve these rough and clumsy methods of taxidermy, but his methods for the most part were not used, because no one would then pay for better work. Akeley tells us that museums at that time preferred bird skins to bird groups and wired skeletons to animal groups; they cared little for exhibits that would be really interesting to people.

AKELEY DEVELOPS NEW METHODS OF TAXIDERMY

Akeley's great dream was to mount animals in “habitat” groups, that is, in their natural poses and in the proper setting of plant life and landscape, aided by painted backgrounds. Not being able to do this, he began to look elsewhere for work.

William Morton Wheeler, one of his fellow workers at Ward's, had left and was teaching in the high school in Milwaukee. To help Akeley continue his education, Wheeler offered to tuto him if he would come to Milwaukee. Akeley accepted, and got a job at the Milwaukee Museum to pay for food and lodging. Here he stayed for eight years, working at taxidermy in the museum and in a shop of his own.

One of the directors of the Milwaukee Museum had visited Lapland and had brought back the skin of a reindeer, together with a Lapp sledge and harness, all of which he was anxious to have shown in the museum. Akeley arranged these articles into a group which showed a Lapp driving his reindeer over the snow, the first habitat group he ever built. Later he mounted a group of orangutans in lifelike poses, using some bare branches to give the proper setting.

The reindeer and the orangutan work encouraged Akeley to suggest similar habitat groups of the fur-bearing animals of Wisconsin. The first of these to be built was the muskrat group, which still stands as good as new.

From Milwaukee, Akeley went to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. In 1896, under the direction of this museum, he made his first expedition to Africa. While studying the wild life in this part of the world, Akeley made up his mind to try the giant task of bringing Africa to America—not the animals alone, but the animals in their natural surroundings.

After returning from Africa, Akeley worked steadily for nine years as chief of the department of taxidermy of the Field Museum, mounting the animals which he had collected and at the same time improving his new method of taxidermy.

To do taxidermy by the Akeley method, one must know the animals in their native surroundings; he must be able to collect his own specimens; he must know animal structure ; and he must be a sculptor , for the animal must be modeled in clay. Then he must have enough artistic sense to make his group pleasing as well as accurate .

The first step in the Akeley method of taxidermy is to make a life-size model of the animal to be mounted. In order to be sure that the model is accurate, it is checked by measurements made in the field before the animal was skinned, by photographs of the animal, and by “trying on” the skin itself. The second step is to take a plaster mold of the clay model. This mold is often cast in sections and is used in constructing the manikin, or framework, upon which the skin is mounted. Each section of the mold is lined with glue, over which is laid a sheet of muslin. On top of the muslin are placed several layers of wire cloth and papier-mache , each layer being worked carefully into the crevice of the mold and made moisture-proof by a coat of shellac .

This manikin is one of the important features of the Akeley method. The papier-mache together with the wire cloth makes the framework strong, light, and lasting. When the last coat of shellac is thoroughly dry, the whole thing is put under water to melt the glue so that the sections of the manikin will come out of the mold. The sections are then put together in a clean and perfect likeness of the original clay model. Finally, the skin is drawn over the manikin, to which it is carefully cemented. After various finishing details, the mounted animal is ready to take its place in the habitat group for which it was prepared.

Besides the group of African animals which Akeley prepared for the Field Museum, there is a series of splendid groups of American animals which has attracted the attention and won the admiration of thousands of visitors. These are the seasonal deer groups, made in Akeley's own shop and later placed in the Field Museum. There are four groups in which the Virginia deer is shown in each season of the year. Here are shown the story of the shedding of antlers and the growing of new ones; the changing of the short-haired reddish coat of summer to the longer-haired gray coat of winter; the story of the young and their growth, as well as the entire round of the seasons in the plant life appearing in the backgrounds. It took Akeley four years to complete these groups, for as he went along he had to work out his method of constructing manikins and of making such background materials as artificia snow, moss, and leaves. These years were the period of greatest development in Akeley's method of taxidermy.

ROOSEVELT AFRICAN HALL

Akeley's second expedition to Africa was made in 1905, when he collected the elephants for “The Fighting Bulls,” now perhaps the outstanding group in the Stanley Field Hall of the Field Museum in Chicago.

In 1909 Akeley made his third expedition to Africa, this time for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Among other things, he collected the animals for the statuesque group of African elephants to be placed in the African Hall of the American Museum. They now stand where they were mounted, awaiting the completion of Akeley's dream, which was the construction of African Hall, proposed by Akeley as a monument to his great friend, our naturalist president, Theodore Roosevelt. In fact, the cow elephant of the group was collected by Roosevelt and the calf by his son Kermit, when they were hunting with Akeley.

It was on this expedition that Akeley planned more fully his dream of African Hall. On the main floor, the outstanding feature is to be the great elephant group which Akeley called “The Alarm.” Since the elephant is the largest land animal now living and is a fine example of wild animal life in Africa, it is fitting that the elephant should be the outstanding animal in this hall. There will also be a family group of the black rhino and a similar group of the square-lipped or white rhino. At the sides of these will be three large bronze figures of native liospearmen. These groups will last forever without the protection of glass cases. All have been finished and are ready to be installed in African Hall as soon as it shall have been built.

Around this central hall there will be forty wonderful habitat groups of animals, twenty of which will be viewed from the main floor and twenty from the balcony. In all these groups the animals will be shown in their natural surroundings of forest, plain, river, or mountain, with backgrounds painted by trained artists from sketches made in the field. An indoor field-trip through this hall when completed will be almost as good as touring the African wilds. Since the great game animals are now decreasing, it will soon be impossible to see in Africa as much of African wild life as is shown in this great hall.

As a part of his third expedition to Africa, Akeley had planned to go into the forests of gorilla country. He was compelled, however, to postpone his study of the gorillas because of a skirmish he had with an old elephant. In this sudden encounter Akeley was left crushed and unconscious, and several months were required for his recovery. It was not until his fourth expedition, in 1921-22, that he entered the country where the gorillas live, a country of marvelous beauty with large open forests and sunny hillsides. At this time he made the first motion pictures ever taken of wild gorillas in their natural surroundings. By his studies he showed that these man-like apes are hardly wild—that they are not at all the ferocious beasts they were formerly considered to be. The gorillas already prepared for the African Hall are the only ones ever mounted by a man who has seen them free in their native surroundings.

On his fifth and last expedition to Africa, on which he embarked January 30, 1926, Akeley planned to collect the material for five of the large groups of African Hall. He was probably making collections for the gorilla group as the last bit of work he did in Africa, for he passed away on the slopes of Mount Mikeno in the heart of the gorilla country. His fearless wife, Mary Jobe Akeley, remained in Africa to direct the completion of his work.

Although Akeley could not live to see his dream of African Hall come true, fortunately he had trained, and trained well, other men who will be able to do the work as he had planned it, and these men will be inspired to a great work as a memorial to their master. African Hall will be a complete record for all time of the animal life, the native customs , and the beautiful scenery of a large continent, a thing of great beauty, as well as accuracy—just as Carl Akeley dreamed it should be.

CARL AKELEY, CONSERVATIONIST

It has been more than thirty years since Carl Akeley first went to Africa. At the time and on later trips he realized that the magnificent game animals of that continent were certain to decrease and even to disappear if something were not done to save them. Akeley always was a conservationist; he collected specimens of wild life only to preserve them in American museums. In that way he accomplished his great task of bringing Africa to America. But Akeley wished, above all, to preserve in Africa the native wild life of that continent. Therefore he secured the establishment of a great National Park in Central Africa, called the Albert National Park, in the Belgian Congo. This preserve was set apart in 1925 by a royal decree of King Albert of Belgium. It provides complete protection for all the wild life within its borders, especially the gorilla, in which Akeley was greatly interested.

Now Akeley's body lies in this beautiful wild-life preserve, surrounded by the great charm and natural beauty of the continent that he loved. No more suitable final resting place could be imagined. Moreover, it is of his own choosing. At the time he captured his biggest gorilla specimen, Akeley said to his friends, the Bradleys, who were with him, “I wish I could be buried here when I die.”

In a final review of Carl Akeley's work, one is impressed with the unusual ability of the man. In less than three-score years he accomplished more than most men do in four-score years. He stands out as an explorer, a sculptor, a taxidermist, an inventor, a conservationist; but more than all of these he stands out as a man with the qualities that we all like—namely, straightforwardness , honesty, simplicity , and genuineness .

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

1. In what two important ways did Carl Akeley improve taxidermy?

2. Below are the steps used in mounting animals by Akeley's method, but they are not in correct order. Put them in the right order.

(a) Making a manikin of wire cloth and papier-mache

(b) Modeling the animal in clay

(c) Soaking the mold and the manikin in water

(d) Making a mold of the clay model

(e) Measuring the animal before it is skinned

(f) Cementing the skin on to the manikin

3. (a) In what way did Akeley show that he was an inventor?

(b) Which part of his method called for ability as an artist?

(c) Why was it necessary for him to be a sculptor?

4. Name three places where you can find some of Akeley's work.

5. Akeley brought Jungleland to America. What did he do to save Jungleland in Africa?

6. Be ready to read lines that tell the kind of man Akeley was.

Carl Akeley was a great friend of the Bradleys' about whom you read in the tiger story. Mary Hastings Bradley says, “I grew up in love with Africa, for we had a family friendship with Carl Akeley, and his returns from Africa were wonderful times for us.” 3103Qrame1+GHzfOJmzRYHmE+mDspmeqN6JcUpI1wtsKfLIw6DxsyBjF5mVY8FeS