INVENTIONS AND WARFARE
Soon after my return from my 1905 trip to Africa I got my attention
turned away from taxidermy for a little while in a curious fashion.
The Field Museum was still in the old Columbian Exposition Building in
which it had started. The outside of this stucco building kept peeling
so that it had a very disreputable appearance. The Park Department
protested to the museum authorities. I happened to be in the museum one
day when one of the officers had this on his mind and he said:
"Akeley, how are we going to get the outside of this building
respectable at a reasonable cost?"
I got to thinking about it. In the many experiments of one kind and
another that I had tried in working out methods for manikin making I
had among other things used a compressed air spray. It occurred to me
that it would be possible to make an apparatus on this principle that
would spray a very liquid concrete on to the side of a building. I set
to work and rigged up a somewhat crude apparatus and set it up outside
the museum building. It was not a finished piece of mechanism and it
had the further disadvantage of having its compressed air come quite a
long way in a hose. Nevertheless it worked, and the old building was
repaired with this apparatus. The Field Museum never used the cement
gun any more but some friends came along and offered to put money
enough behind the idea to perfect, manufacture, and sell it. As with
all such things the first money went and then a second like amount, but
in the end the cement gun succeeded, and during the war it, among other
things, was used to make the concrete ships. This occupied most of my
time between 1907 and 1909. In fact, I drove the first motorized cement
gun down to the house of its chief financial backer on Long Island in
1909, and went back to New York to go again to Africa.
As I am no longer financially interested in the cement gun, I may say
with pride that there are now approximately 1,250 machines in use, not
only in the United States, but also in the principal foreign countries.
In addition to the use for which it was originally designed, that
of restoring masonry and concrete structures, many other important
purposes are now served by this mechanism. In coal mines it is being
used to keep slate roofs from falling and to fireproof the timbers.
Irrigation ditches and reservoirs are being lined and dams are being
faced and protected against the destructive action of water and frost
by this method. In tunnel construction, a lining put in with the cement
gun prevents falls and insures an absolute sealing. It protects steel,
protects piles against teredo and fire, protects structures against
acid, restores boiler settings and preserves them from further action
of the heat, rebuilds baffle walls, makes economical floor and roof
slabs, and is being used extensively in putting up walls of buildings
that are permanent and fireproof.
My next trip to Africa in 1909 also served to develop another activity
besides taxidermy. One of the principal objects of this trip was to
get moving pictures of the Nandi spearing lions. However, I found that
you can't stage a native lion hunt with any certainty, for neither the
lion nor the native, once the action begins, pays any attention to the
movie director. In order to have even a fair chance of following the
action with a camera you need one that you can aim up, down, or in any
direction with about the same ease that you can point a pistol. There
were no movie cameras like this, and after failing to get pictures of
several lions I determined not to go to Africa again until I had one.
When I got home I set to work on the problem and after much
experimentation completed a working model that bore no likeness to
the conventional motion-picture apparatus. To one familiar with the
old types of camera the Akeley resembled a machine gun quite as much
as it resembled a camera. During the war I used to say that the boys
who operated it would be well protected and _Photoplay_ in January,
1919, related a story of the American advance in France which bore
out my opinion. While setting up the machine to make some shots in
a still-burning and newly occupied village, a young lieutenant was
confronted suddenly by seven Germans. Mistaking his formidable film
apparatus for a new type of Yankee machine gun, they threw up their
hands and surrendered. The story is probably all the better because its
truth is doubtful.
Since its perfection the Akeley camera has been carried into many of
the far-away corners of the globe by museum expeditions and explorers.
The Katmai Expedition of the National Geographic Society, the Mulford
Biological Expedition to the Amazon Basin, the Third Asiatic Expedition
of the American Museum of Natural History, the MacMillan Arctic
Association, and the British Guiana Tropical Research Station at
Kartabo under the direction of William Beebe, are some of those which
have been equipped with Akeleys. In taking "Nanook of the North," the
picture made for popular distribution by the Revillon Frères Arctic
Expedition, Mr. Flaherty used two of my cameras. Martin Johnson,
whose motion pictures of the South Sea Islands and of Africa have won
him renown as a "camera hunter," is planning to include three in the
equipment for his next African expedition. To a degree at least, the
camera is accomplishing the purpose for which it was designed.
While I had little idea at first that this camera would fill any
other needs than my own, as it has been perfected it has proved its
practicability for general use. The fundamental difference between the
Akeley motion-picture camera and the others is a panoramic device which
enables one to swing it all about, much as one would swing a swivel
gun, following the natural line of vision. Thus instead of having to
manipulate two cranks with the left hand, one to tilt the camera and
the other to move it horizontally, the operator by means of a single
control secures a steady movement which may be vertical, horizontal, or
diagonal, and which enables him to keep a moving object always in the
centre of the field. This flexibility especially adapts the camera not
only for wild animal photography, but also for studio work, where an
erratic follow-up is to be accomplished, and for news reel photography.
It was this advantage, combined with another special qualification,
the freer use of the telephoto lens--which brings a distant object
into the foreground on the screen--which made possible a successful
picture of the Man-o'-War race and the Dempsey-Carpentier prize fight.
Anthropologists have found the telephoto lens useful in making motion
pictures of natives of uncivilized countries without their knowledge.
Because of the difficulty of securing the proper lighting in the woods,
I had paid particular attention to the shutter so that as perfected
the shutter admits thirty per cent. more light than the usual camera
shutter. This characteristic also has commended the camera to general
use. In out-of-door photography on a dark day as well as in the studio,
where the lighting is one of the greatest items of expense, its
advantage is obvious. Tom Mix and Douglas Fairbanks are both making
extensive use of the camera now and a recent feature directed by
Lawrence Trimble was made with it.
I was working on the camera, modelling a little and mounting the
elephant group, when the war came on us. That meant a call for every
man's energy and brains. I was keen to do something, but there popped
into my head an old unfortunate phrase that had long held lodgment
there. "Nothing but a taxidermist." That was the sentiment of an
editorial published in the _Youth's Companion_, a magazine which was
almost my Bible, some fifty years ago. As a youngster I always had to
combat the feeling that taxidermy was of no importance, both on my
own part, when I was not completely lost in the joy of my work, and
also on the part of those about me. But, inasmuch as it had been the
advertisements of books on taxidermy in the _Companion_ that had given
me my first encouragement, I felt a particular resentment toward a
magazine which would so betray its advertisers and its readers.
My conviction that museum exhibition is playing an important part in
modern education has long since satisfied me that the work which I
have chosen as mine is worth while, but all through my experiences at
Ward's and in Milwaukee the doubt persisted. Was I not wasting my life
on something that did not count? And, needless to say, my own doubt was
deepened by the indifference of others.
With the war came the cessation of all normal life. An occupation
popularly considered as unessential as mine ought to stop among the
first. Anyway, I had to get into it. The only way to be happy was to
get into it, but there was something rather ridiculous about the idea
that an African naturalist and a "good-for-nothing taxidermist" could
be of much service in wartime. At first it did not strike me--or any
one else, for that matter--that the principles I had worked out for
taxidermy, for the cement gun, and for the camera might be applied to
the mechanical devices of warfare.
But work began with an order from the Government for a lot of Akeley
cameras. A call from the Signal Corps of the War Department asking
me to bring them down took me to Washington shortly after war was
declared, with the result that I accepted a contract whereby the
entire output of the camera shop was turned over to the United States
Government.
Soon after I became a Specialist on Mechanical Devices and Optical
Equipment in the Division of Investigation, Research, and Development
of the Engineer Corps. My chief was Major O. B. Zimmerman, who thirty
years before had been my student in Milwaukee. He had wanted to become
a taxidermist, but in those days taxidermy seemed a mighty poor game
and I did my best to dissuade him from any such mad career. His
wisdom in following my advice is proved by the fact that when the war
broke out he was in Belgium as one of the leading engineers for the
International Harvester Company. I had a desk in Major Zimmerman's
office, but my actual work was done in the camera shop in New York, in
the American Museum of Natural History, and in various laboratories.
At least once each week I rode back and forth from Washington to New
York. My duties were those of a consulting engineer, but they were much
varied, for we had several things under way all the time. Wherever a
problem, mechanical or otherwise, arose, I went to look things over,
and if I had any suggestions to make, I was assigned to that job. I
spent several weeks at Brunswick, Georgia, where concrete ships were
under construction and where my experiments with the cement gun served
me in good stead. The fact that the concrete ships were not successful
was not the fault of the concrete gun. It did its part.
After devoting a good deal of thought to searchlights and searchlight
mirrors, I helped in lightening the apparatus materially and developed
a device for searchlight control. This control, which involves the same
rotary principle as my motion-picture camera, enables the operator
standing at the end of an arm to direct the rays of the light toward
any object in the sky and to keep it in view by following up its
movements with the light. It is one of several devices developed at
that time which have since been patented by the Government in my name.
Roosevelt once asked me why I declined to wear the major's uniform
offered to me. "Well, Colonel Roosevelt," I replied unhesitatingly,
for I had my good reason for so doing, "if I were wearing a uniform, I
could not go to my colonel and tell him he was a damn fool."
Roosevelt laughed heartily.
"You are quite right," he replied. "Stick to it!"
As a civilian I went about wherever work was going on, talked freely
with the workmen, heard them discuss their mechanical difficulties, and
got from them their ideas for improvements. As a civilian I was also
free to carry those ideas wherever they could do the most good. If I
had had to comply with the red tape of army officialdom, not only would
my own work have been handicapped, but also the ideas and troubles of
the private actually handling the machine might never have gone past
his sergeant. When the armistice was signed, I was planning to go
overseas to observe the difficulties that the men were having at the
front, so that I narrowly escaped the khaki.
Whatever my services may or may not have contributed to the defeat of
the Germans, at least I have escaped the accusation directed toward
many a dollar-a-year man of being overpaid. The usual dollar-a-year
man, though the dollar was never paid him, received his expenses,
while my contract called for a salary of ten dollars per day without
expense money. My original agreement was to include expenses, but
some slip was made which always seemed too difficult to correct. This
arrangement made my loss even greater than that of those men who
received the fabulous amount prescribed by law, for needless to say my
weekly stipend was inadequate to cover the one item of railway fare.
Still one had to serve to be happy in those days, no matter what the
cost. Inasmuch as the Akeley camera also lost heavily on war contracts,
I have had the additional satisfaction of escaping governmental
investigation on the score of excess profits. After it was all over, I
ungrudgingly paid the normal tax on the money I had lost, and I would
not swap those months with the Government for anything else in my
experience.
Since the war, with the intermission of my trip to Africa for gorillas
in 1921, I have stuck to my sculpture and taxidermy except for various
lecture trips.
A man who is fortunate enough to have witnessed the beauties of the
African forests and who has come to know the forest's inhabitants
and their ways, is almost sure to be called upon to share his good
fortune with others, and I have done a good deal of lecturing. My first
lectures were to be given at Fullerton Hall in Chicago for the Field
Museum shortly after my return from Africa in 1906. Fortunately, I had
occasion to deliver a lecture in South Chicago a few days before my
first museum lecture was scheduled. Otherwise, I probably would have
dropped dead when I faced the Fullerton Hall audience. I think the
thing that saved me from running then was the fact that I had a small
audience behind a screen at the rear of the platform and knew that it
blocked my escape.
I had tried to prepare a lecture, had realized that that was
impossible, and had finally decided to show my audience the pictures
and make whatever comments they brought to mind. Then, when I got
on the platform without the vaguest idea of what I was going to say
first, it suddenly occurred to me that I was no worse frightened
than I had been one day on the banks of the Tana when I suddenly
found myself, with nothing but a camera in my hand, charged by a
rhinoceros. Apparently I had no escape except a thirty-foot drop into
the crocodile-infested waters of the Tana below. But the rhino stopped
ten or fifteen feet from me, gazed at me stupidly, and settled down
with the apparent intention of going to sleep. I took hope when the
thought crossed my mind that this new terror might settle down with the
same intention as the old rhino, leaving me to my own resources quite
unharmed. So I told my audience the story of the rhino, the ice was
broken, and I fear I nearly talked them to death before the lecture
ended.
Since that time I have talked far and wide. I hope I have given some
pleasure and entertainment to the good people who have listened. I hope
also that I have created in the minds of my hearers a background that
will help the art of taxidermy and its practitioners in the future.
More especially I hope that I have contributed something to the study
of natural history and that I have stimulated a decent attitude toward
wild life.