Biographical Sketch from Fantastic Adventures 1929

From Fantastic Adventures magazine May 1929, digital capture October 2007 by Doug Frizzle

ANNOUNCEMENT

Beginning with the April issue of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES' sister magazine AMAZING STORIES, we instituted a new prize award for the best story in each issue, to continue indefinitely. So popular has this new award become, and so keen the voting on the leading stories, we have decided to inaugurate the same feature in FANTASTIC ADVENTURES. So, beginning with our next issue, we will pay to the author of the leading story in each issue, as determined by reader reaction, a prize of $75.00, and to the author of the second ranking story, a prize of $25.00. In other words, $100.00 additional, each month, to our authors, at the command of the reader! Here's your chance to reward your favorite author, and at the same time, urge him on to even finer work in the future.—The Editors.

A. HYATT VERRILL

Author of

THE MUMMY OF RET-SEH

FOR nearly fifty years A. Hyatt Verrill, author, illustrator, explorer and scientist, has led expeditions into the tropical regions of South and Central America and the West Indies in search of varied knowledge in a dozen fields of study.

He was scarcely seventeen when he made his first trip to the island of Dominica (B.W.I.), to secure collection of Natural History, and since then he has visited practically all of the remote regions of Latin America.

He has tramped the unknown jungles of Darien and the so-called "forbidden" district of the Kuna Indians. For five years he followed the jungle creeks and jungle trails of British Guiana, visiting every tribe within this area, studying (heir customs, dialects and habits and collecting sped-

mens of their artifacts, weapons and utensils. Tn Panama he discovered the remains of an unknown prehistoric culture and carried on extensive excavations, securing more than 20,000 specimens. In the jungles of Santo Domingo (Hispaniola) he searched for and secured specimens of a supposedly extinct "missing link'' among the mammal, Solenodon paradoxus.

For more than six years he explored the deserts and Andes of Peru, Bolivia and Chile conducting archaeological investigations and making collections of ancient pre-Incan and Incan races.

He was made a blood-brother of the chief of the Carib Indians in Guiana, he was adopted into the Guaymi tribe of Panama and was made a "medicine-chief." He was also made a member of the Sioux tribe and given the name of Tchanka Tanka or "Big(long) Road" because of his extensive expeditions.

As a result of bis scientific expeditions, many valuable specimens of Natural History, ethnology and archaeology have been added to various museums in the United States and Europe.

In addition to his scientific researches he devoted several years to making a complete series of oil paintings of South and Central American Indians from life, most of which are in the Museum of the American Indian in New York City. Mr. Verrill is the author of more than 100 books on a great variety of subjects and has contributed many articles and stories to magazines in England and the United States. For many years his stories were a regular feature of AMAZING STORIES.

Mr. Verrill is a recognized authority on the South American Indian, the prehistoric civilizations of Peru and Bolivia and on lost and buried treasures. He has conducted several treasure-seeking expeditions and in one of these located and partly salvaged a sunken Spanish galleon in the Caribbean Sea.