>> ROY WALDO MINER: We pass through the archway leading to the Hall of Ocean Life and find
ourselves surrounding an enormous hall
What first strikes our attention and holds our eye is the enormous, brilliantly lighted
group immediately facing us at the farthest end.
We find ourselves looking through the coral forest.
We are standing on the floor of the sea!
>> STEPHEN QUINN: Coming here to the American Museum and seeing these exhibits, you can
see that these were artists who were driven to attempt to get as close as they could to
the beauty and spectacular forms, color, moods, in nature.
The Andros coral reef diorama, it’s one of the unique exhibits in the museum in that
it is a two-storied diorama.
The upper portion views the coral reef above water.
And there’s a beautiful string of flamingos flying.
Below the water level, it’s estimated that there are 40 tons of coral inside that exhibit.
>>MINER: Forty tons of coral rising from the floor of the Hall of Ocean Life, their serrated
branches interlaced as of old and once more invested with the delicate hues that gave
them their pristine beauty.
>>QUINN: Immediately seeing these, you can understand that those involved were in the
field.
Roy Miner, who was the curator in charge of invertebrates, was visiting the reef below
the water level to record all of the abundance and diversity of the coral reef.
>>MINER: If it is desired to build a group which will faithfully depict the life of the
sea bottom, one must descend to the bottom of the sea!
>>QUINN: And when he was doing this, which was the 1920s, this predated scuba.
So it required that the artists and scientists descend to the ocean floor with steel diving
helmets and pumped air to allow them to move about, collect specimens, and record the behavior
of the animals.
>>MINER: Caverns and arches of coral, fantastic in form, showed clearly through the unbelievably
transparent water
If one is careful about crevices, and watches not to step on a sting-ray, there is not much
to fear.
Not nearly so much as there is in crossing Broadway during the rush hour!
>>QUINN: Chris Olson actually descended to the sea floor and did oil painting sketches
on canvas stretched on glass to record the effect of sunlight at that depth, approximately
25 feet, and also accurately record what colors do at that depth as well.
So they came back from a number of expeditions with the actual specimens and reconfigured
them here in New York City.
>>MINER: Olsen busied himself in constructing miniature models of each essential coral mass,
and these were built up into a miniature composition.
This gave us a working model.
A skilled iron-worker began erecting a sloping steel framework in the form of a grid, to
hold our heavy but fragile corals.
The specimens will be cast in wax, from the plaster models made from actual fishes in
the field, and colored to the verisimilitude of life.
>>QUINN: As you look at the exhibit, it features all of the fish, sponges, gorgonians, lobster,
coral that occurred and were observed by Miner and his team.
>>MINER: A world of life in New York City that would otherwise require long voyages,
special equipment, and the willingness to don diving helmet and leaden weights in order
to lower himself into Davy Jones’s Locker!
>>QUINN: The work we do today stands on the shoulders of these great artists that came
before.
Just by the veracity and the great efforts to match nature, there is this humility before
nature that reminds us through these wonderful exhibits that there is a bigger world out
there.