Dinosaurs in the Attic Read Online Free PDF

still firmly controlled by Boss Tweed. Indeed, with Tweed anything was possible, but without him they hadn't a chance. There was little reason to believe he would be any more sympathetic to the new museum than he had been to previous plans. It was suggested that Bickmore visit the corrupt state senator in Albany with an arsenal of letters of introduction; it was particularly suggested that he obtain a letter from Samuel J. Tilden.

    At last, the day came when Bickmore arrived at Tweed's hotel. Bickmore wrote of Tweed:

I found him to be a man of portly dimensions and comfortably seated in a large arm chair. I introduced myself and my business by saying: "Senator, I am honored by your friend Samuel]. Tilden, with this letter, and I also have these other letters from leading citizens in New York City."

"Well, well, what can I do for Mr. Tilden?"

"These gentlemen, Senator, whose names are on this paper, have asked me to state to you that they desire to found a Museum of Natural History in New York, and if possible on Central Park, similar to Professor Agassiz' great museum in Cambridge—you know of that institution, Senator?"

"Certainly! Certainly!" was his reply (and now I must confess that for an instant a cruel doubt flashed over my mind, as to whether he had ever really heard its name mentioned before in all his life).... "All right, my young friend, I will see your bill safely through," was his reply as he thrust our carefully prepared document into his capacious outside pocket.

    Whatever Tilden's letter said, or promised—or threatened—it worked admirably. The bill breezed through the committee and was passed unanimously in the State Senate. Ironically—considering the treatment Hawkins had been subjected to—Tweed saw to it that not a single word was changed.

    From an office at the prestigious Wall Street firm of Brown Brothers, Bickmore embarked upon a fund-raising venture to expand the collections (some of which were being temporarily stored in a vault at the same firm). Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., charged Bickmore with the raising of enough money to expand the Museum's collections, and he gave him a list of prospective philanthropists. A week or so later, Bickmore was back in Roosevelt's office with the list of pledges. "As [Roosevelt] unrolled the document," Bickmore wrote, "there came over his face first an expression of surprise and then of radiant delight." Bickmore's indefatigable solicitations had already raised over $40,000 for the new institution. Roosevelt declared, "Professor, New York wants a natural history museum and it shall have one."

    Bickmore next persuaded the Central Park commissioners to let the new Museum occupy part of the Arsenal Building within Central Park. He immediately began supervising the acquisition of various collections. The first annual report listed the earliest collections, which included the bones of the extinct dodo, a book on the fossils of North Carolina, 4,000 shells, and Bickmore's own collections including "alcoholic mollusca [and] four skeletons of the sea otter." Bickmore also purchased 3,000 bird skins from Daniel Giraud Elliot, the entire "cabinet" of Prince Maximilian of Neuwied. Baron R. Osten-Sacken, the Russian consul-general in New York City and an avid insect collector, donated 4,000 beetles he had collected in America. Later donations streamed in. Among them were a mastodon's tooth, presented by a Mr. Root; sixteen specimens of algae and one mummified crocodile from a Mr. Young; and a mounted badger from Syria, donated by a Reverend Dodge. Other strange and exotic donations began filling up the storerooms of the Arsenal Building, until it was fairly bursting with bones, stuffed animals, and various exotica. It was all too evident that a new and larger building would have to be found—and soon.

    THE ONCE AND FUTURE MUSEUM

    In 1871 the Museum and its sister institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, jointly petitioned the state legislature for land and