Charles Sternberg

“Ungern Sternberg died in September 1921, executed by a Bolshevik firing squad after Trotsky's soldiers captured him." Choudhury taps his folio again, looking severe: "He was a very bad man, you know! He had a habit of burning paperwork.””

“I set before myself as a boy, and have done my humble part toward building up the great science of paleontology. I shall perish, but my fossils will last as long as the museums that have secured them. My own body will crumble to dust, my soul return to the God who gave it, but the works of His hands, those animals of other days, will give joy and pleasure to generations yet unborn.””

“Even in those early days I used to cut out shells 3from the limestone strata of the region with whatever tools were at hand, but they were admired chiefly as examples of the wonderful power of running water to carve rocks into the semblance of shells.””