Recently, the library received several copies of a new collection of Loren Eiseley’s essays, “The Loren Eiseley Reader”. The object of the collection is to introduce Eiseley, a Nebraska bred naturalist, writer and philosopher to a new generation of readers. Loren Eiseley was an amazingly lyrical writer for a scientist. His essays read more like poems than boring scholarly tomes. (Have you ever tried to read “Scientific American” and stay awake?) I read several of the essays from “The Loren Eiseley Reader” and would like to give you a sampling of one, “The Slit”.
“The Slit” first appeared in Eiseley’s book “The Immense Journey”. It relates Eiseley’s musings on the discovery of fossilized skull in a sandstone slit somewhere in the Wildcat Hills. He wrote, “…I came upon the Slit. A narrow crack worn by some descending torrent had begun secretly, far back in the prairie grass, and worked itself deeper and deeper into the fine sandstone that led by devious channels into the broken waste beyond.” He followed the Slit for a while on his horse until he came upon an area wide enough for him to descend into it. He describes the Slit as “…a little sinister…like an open grave.” He descended further and further until he saw a skull imbedded in the sandstone, “…the white bone gleaming there in a kind of ashen splendor.”
Naturally, Eiseley, a naturalist, chiseled into the stone and exposed the skull. As he looked at the skull, looking back at him, he imagined himself also being “…caught a few feet above him in the strata.” Eiseley writes, “The creature had never lived to see a man, and I, what was it I was never going to see?”
While he chiseled, Eiseley realized that never again would he excavate a fossil under such vivid conditions. He goes on to philosophize, “The truth is that we are all potential fossils still carrying within our bodies the crudities of former existences, the marks of a world in which living creatures flow with little more consistency than clouds from age to age.”
Eiseley then ruminated about how humanity acquires wisdom. His own journey in science was an immense journey, but only that of one man wandering through his own wilderness. Each man, he says, must possess his own wilderness and report the marvels he observes. Eiseley concludes, “On the world island we are all castaways, so that what is seen by one may often be dark or obscure to another.”
Each public and school library in Nebraska will receive a copy of “The Loren Eiseley Reader”. In celebration of the publication of this work, a number of events are planned in Scottsbluff. On September 19th teachers of English literature and science will take an “Eiseley Caravan Expedition”, exploring some of the sites visited and described by Eiseley.
At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 19th the Loren Eiseley Society will hold their annual meeting at the Harms Advanced Technology Center. This is open to the public, and a program is planned.Finally, on Sunday, September 20th the Midwest Theatre will host a special showing of “Loren Eiseley: Reflections of a Bone Hunter” from 1:30-3:00 p.m.
Since each library in the state will have a copy of “The Loren Eiseley Reader”, there is no excuse for not sampling the writings of this extraordinary Nebraskan.
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