of the living animal He then coated the clay model with plaster. When dry, the plaster mold was removed from the clay in sections and resulted in a perfect mold of the sculpted model Papier mache pulp and supportive mesh wire was applied to the inside of the plaster mold and when dried produced a full-scale hollow mannequin in the exact form of the original sculpture The mannequin was clothed with the original pelt and sewn up so that not a seam is discernible African expeditions Akeley first traveled to Africa in 1896 when he was invited by Daniel Elliot, Curator of the Zoology Department in the new Columbian Field Museum, on an eight month expedition to Somaliland. It was on this trip that Akeley came face to face with a deadly 80-pound leopard which he strangled with his bare hands. Akeley collected hundreds of animal specimens including: hartebeest, gazelles, hyenas, kudus, oryx, and lions. The process of collecting specimens included: killing, measuring, photographing, skinning, de-boning, preserving, and packing them for shipment back to Chicago. In 1905, Marshall Field funded Akeley’s next trip to Africa which lasted twelve months and brought back two bull elephants which he would later mount for display. Akeley took nearly 1,000 glass plate photos and collected 17 tons of material including: 400 mammal skins, 1200 small mammal skins, 800 bird skins, and a fair number of bird and mammal skeletons. In addition to zoologic material he also collected more than 900 anthropological specimens and crates of leaves that he would use as models for his dioramas. In 1909, Akeley accompanied Theodore Roosevelt on a year-long expedition in Africa funded by the Smithsonian Institution and began working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where his efforts can still be seen in the Akeley Hall of African Mammals. Akeley joined the Explorers Club in 1912, having been sponsored by three of the Club's seven Charter Members: Frank Chapman, Henry Collins Walsh, and Marshall Saville. For qualifying, Akeley wrote only, "Explorations in Somaliland and British East Africa." He became the Club's sixth president serving from 1917–1918.In 1921, eager to learn about gorillas to determine if killing them for museum dioramas was justified, Akeley led an expedition to Mt. Mikeno in the Virunga Mountains at the edge of the then Belgian Congo. At that time, gorillas were quite exotic, with very few even in