Oregon Humanities Center April 28, 1998 Contact Holly Campbell (541) 346-1001 or John R. Crosiar 346-3135 EUGENE--The Oregon Humanities Center will host a May 12 free public talk by naturalist and author David Rains Wallace, the 1998 Robert D. Clark Lecturer in the Humanities. Wallace will speak on "Land Bridges and Land Ethics" at 7 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Erb Memorial Union, 1222 E. 13th Ave. on the University of Oregon campus. A reception, book sale and signing will follow the Tuesday talk. Wallace spent more than 20 years examining the history of southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama to write his recent work, "The Monkey's Bridge: Mysteries of Evolution in Central America" (Sierra Club Books, 1997). Called "splendid and densely informative" by the New York Times, "The Monkey's Bridge" uncovers the dramatic biological and geological past of the land bridge that rose from the sea to join North and South America three million years ago. Wallace is the author of several other books, including "The Klamath Knot: Explorations in Myth and Evolution" and "The Quetzal and the Macaw." He has received the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fulbright Foundation. The Bowerman Family established the Robert D. Clark Lecture in the Humanities to honor historian and Eugene author Robert D. Clark, president emeritus of the University of Oregon. The Clark Lecture seeks to promote intelligent, critical public discourse on the natural sciences, natural history and the interface between science and social and cultural affairs. For more information or for disability accommodations, contact the Oregon Humanities Center, (541) 346-3934. -30- #P-2216/A&E