About Nate the Nautilus

Nate the Nautilus was written in 1963 by Roger Y. Anderson, an Assistant Professor of Geology at the University of New Mexico, with the illustrations created by Lee Anderson. Nate was published by Coronado Press, which was originally located in Casa Vieja, the present location of a popular restaurant in Corrales, New Mexico. Coronado Press subsequently moved to Lawrence Kansas (Box 32).
This version was redrafted in Adobe Illustrator, with an attempt to preserve most of the original format and character of the book and illustrations. The original version carried the following technical note.

This story is the first of a series that will explore little known but interesting facets of natural history. The trials of Nate the Nautilus parallel the historical development of a large group of geologically important animals, the nautiloids. Nautiloids such as Nate eventually became extinct and they are survived only by a simple coiled form-the pearly chambered nautilus which inspired the classic poem of Oliver Wendell Holmes and the naming of several submarines. Uncoiled nautiloids were truly the first real submarines, using their chambered shells for buoyancy. Fossils of the straight uncoiled shells can generally be found in most natural history museums. Children sometimes ask about the air that Nate used to fill the chambers. The air is really a gas that comes from the animal's metabolic activity. Originally, it was dissolved in sea water.

Although more stories were not published, several other children's stories about evolution were created, such as Mamie the Mama Mammal and Clarissa the Clever Clam. Maybe these creatures will wander loose among the electrons some day.

Roger Y. Anderson, 1996

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