Steve Fiffer

What an interesting book!!! Sue is the largest complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Named Sue after the paleontologist who found her in the South Dakota bad lands.
She is quoted as saying that the dinosaur called to her. She walked seven miles and found the bones embedded in the soil.

This is a story of not only finding the mega fossil, but the major happenings that occurred as a result of fighting mainly with the federal government over ownership, as well as Native Americans, and a man who owned the land.
A friend and fellow lover of discovery, was jailed for two years because he fought over the right of ownership.

In the end, Sue was placed on auction by Sotheby's in New York City. With the financial support of McDonalds and Disney, when the gavel was finally hit, the total for this incredible discovery was 8.3 million dollars.

Sue is displayed at the Field Museum in Chicago. The journey of 65 million years from when Sue rested in the cretaceous earth, discovered, battled over viciously, she now is housed in a museum where millions can discover her history, this was a fascinating story.… (mehr)

In 1990, Sue Hendrickson and the Black Hills Institute made an amazing discovery. A Tyrannosaurs Rex fossil. Not just any T. Rex fossil, but the largest, most well-preserved and the most complete example of one ever found, which is still true today in 26 years later. It's a holy grail for paleontologists, so much could be learned from such an amazing specimen.

And then the United States government ruined it. Just as the Black Hills Institute was performing the delicate process of preserving her, and FBI sting confiscated her, ripped her from the controlled environment of a science lab and dumped her in a machine shop, where she went from scientific marvel to a pile of "police evidence."

What follows is a sad example of capitalism gone wrong, where Sue could have been lost forever as a result of petty human greed. Several people claimed ownership of Sue, hoping to make a huge profit off her sale, and had things gone differently so much of what we know about Tyrannosaurus Rexes would have been wiped away indefinitely.

Reading this was somewhat stressful and infuriating, not because of the writing but what I can only describe as outright injustice. Admittedly, the author seems a little bit biased in favor of the scientists, but regardless of who you believe should have gotten the fossil, the ones who really suffered are all the people who didn't get to see Sue while she was locked away. I won't say what happened for those who don't know already, but it was nearly a decade after he discovery that she finally saw the light of day.

Recommended if you don't mind reading recounts of lengthy court proceedings.… (mehr)

I really loved this book! It's hard to classify - definitely not a novel, nor is it non-fiction. You can tell it's part memoir, and part fiction, a collection of stories, each of which stays with the reader a long, longtime, grouped around the theme of the different rooms of a home...specific rooms, eloquently, wittily, lovingly described. I think it is a display of excellent writing by excellent contemporary writers -- and it's a real treasure. Icing on the cake: some of the proceeds of the book go to help the homeless.… (mehr)

Discovered by Sue Hendrickson and Peter Larson (president of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research) in the wastelands of South Dakota, the largest T-Rex had survived millions of years, Sue’s last meal was some kind of platypus. She was also the subject of multiple lawsuits and a Sotherby’s auction. (She sold for millions and Larson could only participate from his house where remained under house arrest.) Larson wound up in prison, Sioux Indians claimed ownership, the government claimed ownership. Larson had paid the land owner on which Sue was found about $5,000. It was a mess.

Henrickson is a field paleontologist (she’s also the world’s leading procurer of amber) who was searching near Faith, South Dakota. She’s somewhat of an Indianette Jones and has a real knack for finding things. Of the six butterflies in amber in the world, she found 3 of them.

Larson’s problems began soon after the world learned of the discovery and monetary valuations were proposed, many ranging as high as $1 million. The Sioux claimed the skeleton had been stolen from their land, Williams, the land owner, insisted the $5,000 was only for the right to dig, not for anything found, Hill City, South Dakota was building its hopes for economic revival on the presence of a museum in their little town, famous mostly for a large drug store. Because the owner, Maurice Williams, had put his land into a federal trust, the feds got involved. Soon after Williams claimed ownership, the FBI showed up with a warrant to seize all the bones. (I can just imagine the care with which a couple of black shirts treated the bones.) That really pissed off Hill City, an area in which most of the federal government is treated with more than a little suspicion.

Soon there was a battle royale among the academicians, the feds, and commercial fossil hunters. The academics argued that the commercial hunters were interested only in money, not science, should never be allowed on federal land, and didn’t know what they were doing. The commercial types pointed out that most of the great finds were found by those wanting to profit from their finds and that if it were left to the professoriate, most of the great finds of the past two hundred years would never have been retrieved. Not to mention that many well-known paleontologists lauded the fossil hunters for the care and expertise they showed in handling rare fossils. Cynics took the position that each side just wanted to retain all the rights for themselves. Throw in a D.A. who was thinking of running for office and needed the publicity and you have all the ingredients for a nasty fight.

Larson was eventually convicted of custom’s violations (on the intake form the charge is formally listed as -- “failing to fill out forms” -- and served two years in federal prison in what has to be one of the great travesties and wastage of money. The trial itself was the longest in South Dakota history. Williams was awarded ownership (screwing the Indians again) and he sold Sue to the Field Museum in Chicago for $8.5 million. One interesting, if perhaps depressing element, of the trial was that according to a Supreme Court decision, judges could use evidence presented at trial in sentencing even if the defendant had been acquitted on charges related to that evidence That’s spooky. So Larson was convicted only on failing to report travelers’ checks in excess of $10,000 when he returned from Peru into the United States, a misdemeanor. But because the judge was able to use all the evidence presented, he decided that Larson was part of a largely criminal conspiracy to steal fossils and therefore could be subject to much harsher sentencing. **

Feiffer relates a substantial number of stories and events related to the history of palaeontology. Including some famous hoaxes. I particularly enjoyed reading about the Cardiff Giant. Feiffer identifies the culprit as an agnostic farmer (the Wikipaedia says it was George Hull, a NY atheist tobacconist) who was infuriated by local Methodist revivals claiming giants once walked the earth as noted in Genesis. He build a giant man, let it age for a year, then had it buried on his cousin’s farm and later arranged to have it “discovered” while digging a well. He set up an exhibit and started charging admission. Christian preachers declared its validity and a validation of the Bible. Most scholars declared it a fake but that did not detract from its curiosity and Hull sold his interest in the statue for $23,000. P.T. Barnum wanted in on it and offered the new owners $50,000, a huge sum at the time. They turned him down so he created a replica and declared it the “real” Cardiff Giant. Soon Barnum and the Cardiff syndicate accused each other of having fakes. Hull revealed his hoax and a judge ruled that each could not be sued for calling a fake a fake. The two fakes are now in small town museums, each accusing the other of having the wrong (fake?) fake. Priceless.

**I believe the case referred to but not cited is United States v Watts: “the Court held that a jury's verdict of acquittal does not prevent a sentencing court from considering a defendant's conduct underlying the acquitted charge, so long as that conduct has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence. Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer concurred. Dissenting, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the additional offense should have been required to have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt for sentencing purposes, where a defendant's sentence was lengthened. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, also dissenting, expressed the view that the cases should have been set for full briefing and consideration.” (see http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1...)

This, of course, gives a great deal of power to the judge, but I suspect we wold all have applauded such power if used to reverse jury acquittal verdicts in lynching cases decades ago.… (mehr)