William E. Scheele

[Danvarner@aol.com]

  I have recently learned of the passing of Bill Scheele last fall. Bill was 
a long-time Director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He is fondly 
remembered by  members of the Baby-Boomer spike in dinosaur interest for his 
book,_Prehistoric Animals_with his lovely and stylish drawings including the 
Tyrannosaurus attacking a Plesiosaur that jazzed-up the dust jacket and blew 
me away on Christmas morning back in '57. He was author/illustrator of a 
series of lavish books including,_The First Mammals_,_Ancient Elephants_, 
_Prehistoric Man and the Primates_,and others. His restorations were 
absolutely original and almost Chinese in their grace and mood. His dinosaur 
drawings were even displayed in the movie, _Rodan the Flying Monster_!
  Perhaps more pertinent to the interests of us all on the list is the fact 
that Scheele was the pioneer of the illustrative technique of combining a 
skeletal reconstruction with a silhouette of the restoration of the 
fleshed-out body outline. This has become an almost universally used method 
and has proven very effective. You can hardly open a dinosaur text without 
bumping into one.
  I just wanted to note this. Dan Varner.