Dragons in Amber

Dragons in Amber, Further Adventures of a Romantic Naturalist, Willy Ley, copyright 1949 and 1951. I was a big fan of Willy Ley's monthly articles in Galaxy Magazine. I had wondered though how he had earned a living in his early days in the USA, after he fled here from Nazi Germany in the mid 1930's? He had a considerable number of articles published in the early Science Fiction magazines but I concluded that he could certainly not have supported himself from these. Then I bought several lots of Mechanix Illustrated magazines from the 1940's and 1950's and found many articles by Willy, some profusely illustrated by the great artist, Chesley Bonestell. This was certainly a much better paying market than the pulp magazines. I snapped up this old book of his when it became available cheaply from Alibris.com because I wanted to read some of his early writings.

The first chapter is about amber. Not every hardened tree sap is amber. Copal resin for example, does not pass the test.  It must consist of 3 to 5% succinic acid and it must radiate with a beautiful blue luminescence when illuminated with ultraviolet light--a test for genuineness. Amber was well known to the ancient Greeks. It was Thales of Miletus who, around 600BC discovered that amber, after having been rubbed with a pice of cloth, would attract light objects. He named amber Elektron. This is of course where we get the word electricity.

Ley concluded that most of the amber originated in a layer of blue earth under the Samland in East Prussia. As the Samland receded from erosion by the Baltic Sea, amber was carried to the bottom of the sea, only to be cast up on shore during storms. A unique museum housing some 70,000 specimens of amber was burned down during the annihilation of East Prussia during WWII. Ley concluded that amber was produced by an extinct relative of the Redwoods.  Redwoods were once spread wide over the planet

In the next chapter, Ley writes about the extraordinary findings of ichthyosaurs in the black slate Lias formation in Germany. Extraordinary numbers of these predators are found in close proximity to each other, along with their prey. The Lias Sea was a shallow extension of the Tethys Sea.  Lias slate contains a high percentage of sulfur compounds. The conclusion is that 10 feet or more below the surface, the waters of the Lias Sea contained a high concentration of sulfur dioxide. Ichtyosaurs would enter the Lias Sea, pursuing their prey at high speed.  They and their prey would then succumb to the dissolved sulfur dioxide and die and drop to the bottom of the sea, producing so many lovely fossils. He also concludes that Ichtyosaurs gave birth to live young.

There are chapters on Mastodons, Pandas and their relatives, other extinct of near extinct animals and plants. To all these he brings considerable scholarship, quoting from many German scholarly sources which would probably be hard to duplicate outside of Germany. Robert Heinlein drove him to Redwood country. In page after page he speaks with awe of the experience. "There was not any thought; there was only the Big Tree. It needed no looking at all to see that the tree did not "resist" the weather. Rather the weather resisted the tree."

Chapters on Cycads, eels and the cameloids. "There was a semitic word meaning "carrying a burden" The word was gamal. It became a noun as far as grammar was concerned, and a name for everyday purposes."  This would be the origin of the word camel. "Twisting and stretching religious argument they (Jews) discovered that it was "unclean"; it could not be eaten.  That effectively eliminated a danger which threatens any animal of large size; I have been assured by people with experience that the religious verdict also saved the reputation of the Jewish cuisine from a serious danger."

Ley quotes from Zoology of the Talmud, 1858, a book written by a Dr. L. Lewysohn, "Preacher of the Israelitic Congregation of Worms." Ley found this book invaluable whenever he came across a combination of animals and Judaism.

There is so much more to this wonderful book.  Only a first rate scientist and scholar with Ley's storytelling abilities could have produced such a book