Testimony of Healing June 2, 2014 Issue

Of stones and bones

Biff Bigbie

While in grade school I became fascinated with dinosaurs. I had read every book on the subject in our public library by the time I finished fifth grade. As life went on, however, I found other interests in the sciences, and it wasn’t until later adulthood, when I moved to a major city, that my early interest was rekindled. By this time I had also become a Christian Scientist.

During a visit to a museum, I discovered there was a paleontology club in that city and I joined. Later, I discovered that the museum accepted volunteers as fossil preparators, so I applied and was accepted. A preparator takes the rock specimens that have been gathered by field workers and liberates the fossils from the rock in which they’re embedded. Specimens may be anywhere from fist-sized to lounge-chair-sized, and the amount of work required is related to the size.

It sounds like the old “sculpting an elephant joke,” but we actually use a miniature high-speed jackhammer to chip away everything that doesn’t look like bone. When we’re done, the fossil remains as a stony reflection of the original bone. I enjoyed the precision work, as well as seeing all the bones eventually come together into an assembled dinosaur skeleton and knowing that I had helped make it possible.

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