Peale bi rer = # Teer e Ter remit Dae ra ee enae Pe ee ee eee on Oa ee one een ne mat ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION SHOWING THE OPERATIONS, EXPENDITURES, AND CONDITION OR THE INSTIDUTION FOR | THE. YEAR. ENDED. TONE» 30 bO+3 SeE-INC Re (Publication 3741) UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1944 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. Price $2.00 (cloth cover) De Ons SEE AC IN ee eA Te SMITHSONIAN InstITuTION, Washington, December 28, 1943. To the Congress of the United States: In accordance with section 5593 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, I have the honor, in behalf of the Board of Regents, to submit to Congress the annual report of the operations, expendi- tures, and conditions of the Smithsonian Institution for the year ended June 30, 1948. I have the honor to be, Very respectfully, your obedient servant, C. G. Angor, Secretary. II CONTENTS LAS OLE Om BACHE IS ta inn aan Ae os pd RN oh Ee re RA she omIuhsOnian IMewariiMes ssn 2 ee ee Ee gems Fas ea Summary of the year’s activities of the branches of the Institution_____-__ “GPa 2s SPEYO] oy WASW a a Sy 0 Rc gat ph i on Ne Rt fo SEN, SRNGREGAT Cami puemem tet. = 2 lee Dea ees oS Vi ee a REAR PRS DS SS eg Ba 2 a Fa eh a 1 eee Sp ee SY eee ey SESUT ED UCU TOES ee eee tee pa ee ed ee ae A es i GLa aiey pep ene ne eH se eye Se aCe ANS ape RA eS re Sa ea ee Appendix 1. Report on the United States National Museum____-__--_---- 2. Report on the National Gallery of Art_......___-.-----.-- 3. Report on the National Collection of Fine Arts__---_------ 4 Report on the; Preer ‘Gallery of Art-2 2225 2202 2 ob sl. ek 5. Report on the Bureau of American Ethnology_--_---------- 6. Report on the International Exchange Service.____--_----- 7. meport,onithe National.Zoologieal Park 29-2023 2b20 2 Lue 8. Report on the Astrophysical Observatory, including the Divi- sion of Astrophysical Research and the Division of Radia- LIGA ONC ANISTVIN = Ss Doe ye OU oe ee a aa Ae es SeReportvonnchedibranyat ce a) sei Bate ee le ea 1Oe enor onspuplcations. J 2.522225" oleh ee oes Report of the executive committee of the Board of Regents___---------- GENERAL APPENDIX Solar radiation as a power source, by C. G. Abbot___-__---------------- Some biological effects of solar radiation, by Brian O’Brien___---_------ The sea as a storehouse, by E. F. Armstrong, D. Sc., F. R. S_----------- Progress in new synthetic textile fibers, by Herbert R. Mauersberger- -_-- Petroleum) geology, by William, BD. beroy 9622 so eS De The 1942 eruption of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, by Gordon A. Macdonald _-_--_- New metals and new methods, by C. H. Desch, F. R. S__-------------- Ocesnourapbys by, leary (©: Svetson. «|. -s0 0k vo a The ocean current called ‘‘The Child,” by Eliot G. Mears__--_-_-------- Maps, strategy, and world politics, by Richard Edes Harrison and Robert LE VLEET 2 AN 5S) MR SB rs oa en ME g my > OE ALAS Ras By Reg lal CaN EE SP The natural-history background of camouflage, by Herbert Friedmann _-- Dangerous weptiles, by Doris Mi. Cochran 502. ieee oe el ies The plants of China and their usefulness to man, by Egbert H. Walker--- PIMGUTAl SEU ODED, ON Oni WOOK Sos 2. ee ee een SS FS ee Lessons from the Old World to the Americas in land use, by Walter Clay RAW RVC EN Ia UE aresenepe eset pease ne Sh ete aly Rene LT eh oN EA ke las 99 109 135 151 161 199 213 219 245 253 259 275 325 363 413 IV CONTENTS Page Areal and temporal aspects of aboriginal South American culture, by John M Cooper: oa 2226 Se eS poe 2h ee Se eee a re 429 Origin of the Far Eastern civilizations: A brief handbook, by Carl Whiting Bishop. 2 o2-Leisutut 2oeee Pee ee epee ee ee ee oe 463 Contours of culture in Indonesia, by Raymond Kennedy .__________-__- 513 The Arab village community of the Middle East, by Afif I. Tannous_-_-__- 523 Chemotherapeutic agents from microbes, by Robert L. Weintraub-_--_-_- 545 Sulfonamides in the treatment of war wounds and burns, by Charles L. iy, uel tea WR JMR A SrA ANAT CR PRN YS FR pe 569 The yellow fever situation in the Americas, by Wilbur A. Sawyer_-_-_--_--- 575 Some food problems in wartime, by George R. Cowgill_....--_--_-----_- 591 LIST OF PLATES Secretary’s Report: JETER ei ay POL OR ea EY SPU Msn te re yeaa el Se le Speed a cae Solar radiation as a power source (Abbot): J 2) KEW SYS) OE Mk i a Ne gS 2 ng DRE ALE PR pe ee The sea as a storehouse (Armstrong): TAGES pilin ee ete ere a sete cigs Lye Me ee ne eee ep hare eet BU ak Rh Do Eruption of Mauna Loa (Macdonald): PERSE DERE Saas cae oA oll hy aaah ESI Oy 2 A Rapes a a ee eager 2 Ocean current called ‘“The Child’”’ (Mears): EERE GE ict eae ers ae Se oe ee ee ee LEE ie ee Maps (Harrison and Strausz-Hupé): DAVEY A xSSicd fa BO a RE Al aye Bg ee SN pe Ray ral EE a ek = pt TA i Camouflage (Friedmann): EH Ey yess y a aa Ghee a Te Ne a a ak AL aI Are pa aN 2 oe OR Dangerous reptiles (Cochran): Plants of China (Walker): PTGS il m2 errr ee me aye IS Mey ape dee er yt Ne Sips Sel Natural rubber (Cook): PIS UES Blo eee etre Vn At AYN annals ore ORE aN PERE de ais Land use (Lowdermilk) : TERT Wers} Ga TE A ae Ee Me ge lf AU cI | a i ee en a a Aboriginal South American culture (Cooper): ENE a erep ie Mee ta AN aa A ON Ee Le ai Ce een en Far Eastern civilizations (Bishop): TRA cere H nd Gat OS SS Eg NT UR SG MA gD San Cg ee Indonesia (Kennedy): YEOH ey )ap CU fata a cE 1 a eae A PN Arab village community (Tannous): PTS Ges i — Aare rete a ae ANS Lee Dap LM WL AAU ete pe MRO Na) BE ae te Uh ea Chemotherapeutic agents (Weintraub) : PU ea ees oy 8 es I Pe en SD RY Ck I a i 4 Phd. nme ie be heat " u <* : aaah a ane Dive aryaiun ae tag at fee 1o: Le. eee ; a q \5 f anya te ios) i Brat P Pela lh “ecg oa Lan REO I Fae eae pe Yate: Sakae dla eae i 2s THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION June 30, 1943 Presiding Officer ex officio.—FRANKLIN D. Roosrvet, President of the United States. Chancellor—Hartan F. STone, Chief Justice of the United States. Members of the Institution: FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States. Henry A. WALLACE, Vice President of the United States. Haran F. Stone, Chief Justice of the United States. CorRDELL HUuLL, Secretary of State. HENRY MORGENTHAD, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury. Henry L. Strmson, Secretary of War. FRANCIS Bippre, Attorney General. FRANK C. WALKER, Postmaster General. FRANK Knox, Secretary of the Navy. Harotp L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior. CLAUDE R. WicKARD, Secretary of Agriculture. JESSE H. Jonsrs, Secretary of Commerce. FRANCES PERKINS, Secretary of Labor. Regents of the Institution: HARLAN F.. Srone, Chief Justice of the United States, Chancellor. Henry A. WALLACE, Vice President of the United States. Cuartes L. McNary, Member of the Senate. ALBEN W. BARKLEY, Member of the Senate. BENNETT CHAMP CLARK, Member of the Senate. CLARENCE CANNON, Member of the House of Representatives. Foster STEARNS, Member of the House of Representatives. EpwaArp E. Cox, Member of the House of Representatives. FrEDERIC A. DELANO, citizen of Washington, D. C. Roranp S. Morris, citizen of Pennsylvania. Harvey N. Davis, citizen of New Jersey. ARTHUR H. Compton, citizen of Illinois. VANNEVAR BusH, citizen of Washington, D. C. FREDERIC C. WALCOTT, citizen of Connecticut. Ezecutive Committee.—FREDERIC A. DELANO, VANNEVAR BUSH, CLARENCE CANNON. Secretary.—CHARLES G. ABBOT. Assistant Secretary.—ALEXANDER WETMORE. Administrative assistant to the Secretary. HArRry W. Dorsey. Treasurer.—NIcHOLAS W. DORSEY. Chief, editorial diwision.—WEBSTER P. TRUE. Librarian.—Leiwa F. CLARK. Personnel officer.—HEten A. OLMSTED. Property clerk.—JAMES H. HILL. UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Keeper ex officio.—CHARLES G. ABBOT. Director.—ALEXANDER WETMORE. Associate Director.—JOHN HE. GRAF. vil vill ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 SCIENTIFIO STAFF DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY: : Frank M. Setzler, head curator; A. J. Andrews, chief preparator. Division of Ethnology: H. W. Krieger, curator; Arthur P. Rice, collaborator Division of Archeology: Neil M. Judd, curator; Waldo R. Wedel, associate curator; R. G. Paine, senior scientific aid; J. Townsend Russell, honorary assistant curator of Old World archeology. Division of Physical Anthropology: T. Dale Stewart, curator; M. T. Newman, associate curator.* Collaborator in anthropology: George Grant MacCurdy. Associate in . anthropology: AleS Hrdliéka. DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY: Waldo L. Schmitt, head curator; W. L. Brown, chief taxidermist ; Aime M. Awl, illustrator. Division of Mammals: Remington Kellogg, curator; D. H. Johnson, associate curator; H. Harold Shamel, senior scientific aid; A. Brazier Howell, col- laborator; Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., associate. Division of Birds: Herbert Friedmann, curator; H. G. Deignan, associate curator; W. A. Weber, assistant curator; Alexander Wetmore, custodian of alcoholic and skeleton collections; Arthur C. Bent, collaborator. Division of Reptiles and Batrachians: Doris M. Cochran, associate curator. Division of Fishes: Leonard P. Schultz, curator; E. D. Reid, senior scientific aid. Division of Insects: L. O. Howard, honorary curator; Edward A. Chapin, curator; R. E. Blackwelder, associate curator. Section of Hymenoptera: S. A. Rohwer, custodian; W. M. Mann, assist- ant custodian; Robert A. Cushman, assistant custodian. Section of Myriapoda: O. F. Cook, custodian. Section of Diptera: Charles T. Greene, assistant custodian. Section of Coleoptera: L. L. Buchanan, specialist for Casey collection. Section of Lepidoptera: J. T. Barnes, collaborator. Section of Forest Tree Beetles: A. D. Hopkins, custodian. Division of Marine Invertebrates: Waldo L. Schmitt, curator; C. R. Shoe- maker, associate curator; James O. Maloney, aid; Mrs. Harriet Rich- ardson Searle, collaborator; Max M. Ellis, collaborator; J. Percy Moore, collaborator; Joseph A. Cushman, collaborator in Foraminifera. Division of Mollusks: Paul Bartsch, curator; Harald A. Rehder, associate curator; Joseph P. HE. Morrison, assistant curator. Section of Helminthological Collections: Benjamin Schwartz, collaborator. Division of Echinoderms: Austin H. Clark, curator. Division of Plants (National Herbarium) : W. R. Maxon, curator; Ellsworth P. Killip, associate curator; Emery C. Leonard, assistant curator; Conrad V. Morton, assistant curator; Egbert H. Walker, assistant curator; John A. Stevenson, custodian of C. G. Lloyd mycological collection. Section of Grasses: Agnes Chase, custodian. Section of Cryptogamic Collections: O. F. Cook, assistant curator. Section of Higher Algae: W. T. Swingle, custodian. Section of Lower Fungi: D. G. Fairchild, custodian. Section of Diatoms: Paul S. Conger, custodian. *Now on war duty. REPORT OF THH SECRETARY Ix DEPARTMENT OF BroLtocy.—Continued. Associates in Zoology: Theodore S. Palmer, William B. Marshall, A. G. Bév- ing, W. K. Fisher. Associate in Botany: Henri Pittier. Collaborator in Zoology : Robert Sterling Clark. Collaborators in Biology: A. K. Fisher, David C. Graham. DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY: R. S. Bassler, head curator; Jessie G. Beach, aid. Division of Mineralogy and Petrology: W. F. Foshag, curator; BE. P. Hender- son, associate curator; B. O. Reberholt, senior scientific aid; Frank I. Hess, custodian of rare metals and rare earths. Division of Invertebrate Paleontology and Paleobotany: Charles E. Resser, curator; Gustav A. Cooper, associate curator; Marion F. Willoughby, senior scientific aid. Section of Invertebrate Paleontology: T. W. Stanton, custodian of Mesozoic collection; Paul Bartsch, curator of Cenozoie collection. Division of Vertebrate Paleontology: Charles W. Gilmore, curator; C. Lewis Gazin, associate curator* ; Norman H. Boss, chief preparator. Associates in Mineralogy: W. T. Schaller, S. H. Perry. Associate in Paleontology: BE. O. Ulrich, T. W. Vaughan. Associate in Petrology: Whitman Cross. DEPARTMENT OF IEENGINEERING AND INDUSTRIES: Carl W. Mitman, head curator. Division of Engineering: C. W. Mitman, head curator in charge; Frank A. Taylor, curator.* Section of Transportation and Civil Engineering; Frank A. Taylor, in charge.* Section of Aeronautics: Paul E. Garber, associate curator,* F. C. Reed, acting associate curator. Section of Mechanical Engineering: Frank A. Taylor, in charge.* Section of Electrical Engineering and Communications: Frank A. Taylor, in charge.* Section of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering: Carl W. Mitman, in charge. Section of Physical Sciences and Measurement: Frank A. Taylor, in charge.* Section of Tools: Frank A. Taylor, in charge.* Division of Crafts and Industries: Frederick L. Lewton, curator; Elizabeth W. Rosson, senior scientific aid. Section of Textiles: Frederick L. Lewton, in charge. Section of Woods and Wood Technology: William N. Watkins, associate curator. Section of Chemical Industries: Frederick L. Lewton, in charge. Section of Agricultural Industries: Frederick L. Lewton, in charge. Division of Medicine and Public Health: Charles Whitebread, associate curator. Division of Graphic Arts: R. P. Tolman, curator. Section of Photography: A. J. Olmsted, associate curator. DIvIsIon oF History: T. T. Belote, curator; Charles Carey, assistant curator; Catherine L. Manning, philatelist. *Now on war duty. DS ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF Chief of correspondence and documents.—H. S. BRYANT. Assistant chief of correspondence and documents.—L. BH. COMMBERFORD. Superintendent of buildings and labor.—R. H. TREMBLY. Assistant superintendent of buildings and labor.—CHARLEsS C. SINCLAIR. EHditor.—PavuL H. OEFHSER. Accountant and auditor.—N. W. DorsEY. Photographer.—A. J. OLMSTED. Property clerk.—LAWRENCE L. OLIVER. Assistant librarian.—ELiIsaBeTH H. GAZIN. NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART Trustees: THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES, Chairman. THE SECRETARY OF STATE. THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. THE SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. DAvip K. E. BRUCE. FERDINAND LAMMOT BELIN. DUNCAN PHILLIPS. SAMUEL H. KREss. JOSEPH HE. WIDENER. President.—Davw K. E. Bruce. Vice President.—FERDINAND LAMMOT BELIN. Associate Vice President.—CHESTER DALE. Director.—Davip E. FINLEY. Administrator.—H. A. McBrIDE. Secretary-Treasurer and General Counsel. HUNTINGTON CAIRNS. Chief Curator.—JoHN WALKER. Assistant Director.—MACGILL JAMES. NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS Acting Director.—RurEt P. ToLMAN. FREER GALLERY OF ART Director.—A. G. WENLEY. Assistant Director.—GRACE DUNHAM GUEST. Associate in research.—J. A. Pope. Superintendent.—W. N. RAWLEY. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY Chief.—MATTHEW W. STIRLING. Senior ethnologists.—H. B. Cotiins, Jr., JOHN P. HARRINGTON, JOHN R. SWANTON. Senior archeologist.—FRaNK H. H. Roserts, Jr. Senior anthropologist —JULIAN H. STEWARD. Associate anthropologist—W. N. FENTON. Editor.—M. HeLtren PALMER. Librarian.—MiriAmM B. KETCHUM. Illustrator.—EpWIn G. CASSEDY. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY XI INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE SERVICE Secretary (in charge).—CHARLES G. ABBOT. Acting Chief Clerk.—¥F. E. Gass. NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK Director.—WiLLiAM M. MANN. Assistant Director.—ERNEST P. WALKER. ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY Director.—CHARLES G. ABBOT. DIvIsIoN OF ASTROPHYSICAL RESEARCH: Loyal B. Aldrich, assistant director; William H. Hoover, senior astrophysicist. DIvISION oF RADIATION AND ORGANISMS: Earl §. Johnston, assistant director; Edward D. McAlister, senior physicist; Leland B. Clark, engineer (precision instruments) ; Robert L. Weintraub, associate biochemist. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION C. G. ABBOT FOR THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1948 To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. GENTLEMEN: I have the honor to submit herewith my report show- ing the activities and condition of the Smithsonian Institution and the Government bureaus under its administrative charge during the fiscal year ended. June 30, 1948. The first 12 pages contain a sum- mary account of the affairs of the Institution; it will be noted that many activities usually included in this section are missing, wartime conditions having forced their suspension. Appendixes 1 to 10 give more detailed reports of the operations of the National Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the National Collection of Fine Arts, the Freer Gallery of Art, the Bureau of American Ethnology, the In- ternational Exchanges, the National Zoological Park, the Astro- physical Observatory, which now includes the divisions of astro- physical research and radiation and organisms, the Smithsonian library, and of the publications issued under the direction of the Institution. On page 89 is the financial report of the executive com- mittee of the Board of Regents. THE SMITHSONIAN IN WARTIME At the close of the fiscal year, 83 employees of the Institution had joined the armed forces and 5 had left to serve in special capacities in the various war agencies. Those leaving included 10 members of the scientific staff. Many of those remaining at the Institution devoted 100 percent of their time to war projects assigned by the Army, Navy, or war agencies, and all other staff members were oc- cupied in varying degree with such projects, depending on the extent to which their special knowledge was in demand. In short, all per- sonnel and facilities of the Institution and its branches were made available and were extensively used in the prosecution of the war. The Institution’s normal activities were kept alive to the extent of continuing observations the cessation of which would leave perma- nent gaps in records essential to future investigations, and of main- taining and caring for the National collections. All other research 1 2 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 and exploration projects not necessary for the orderly resumption of cultural activities after the war have been suspended for the dura- tion with one exception, namely, those activities related to a closer cultural cooperation with the other American republics. Such co- operation is of vital importance not only for better relations between neighboring countries in the present time of emergency, but also as a permanent program after the war. The Institution is particularly well fitted to take part in such a program because of its many years of friendly contact with the scientists and scientific institutions of the other American republics. Thus the wartime policy of the Institution has been to use all its resources to aid in winning the war, while continuing insofar as possible the recording and publishing of essential scientific observa- tions and such curatorial work as is necessary for the proper care of the National collections. The Smithsonian War Committee, appointed by me early in 1942, has continued to meet regularly with the aim of originating or con- sidering plans to increase the Smithsonian’s contributions to the war effort. The Committee has made many recommendations during the year, most of which I have approved and put into effect. Several war projects have also come to the Institution through my own con- tacts with Army and Navy officials or through contacts made by other Smithsonian staff members. It seems desirable to present here, as a record of the Institution’s part in the war, a brief statement of such of its wartime activities as can be made public. As regards the year’s publications, most of which related to the war or to the other American republics, a state- ment will be found farther on in this report under the heading “Publications.” It will be seen that much of the Institution’s con- tribution is of an indirect nature, for the obvious reason that an organization can only undertake work for which its staff has the requisite training and experience. In total war, however, accurate knowledge of obscure peoples and places and other subjects chiefly of academic interest in normal times suddenly becomes of vital im- portance to the Army and Navy. In furnishing some of this infor- mation, urgently needed and often hard to get, lies the Institution’s major contribution. Strategic information to war agencies.—As stated, the Institution’s greatest usefulness, as in the case of other similar organizations, derived from the specialized knowledge of its scientific staff, which provided the answers to innumerable urgent questions continually facing the Army, Navy, and war agencies. More than a thousand recorded inquiries had been answered up to the close of the fiscal year, and probably as many more for one reason or another were REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 3 not included in the record. The great majority of these were not simple questions that could be answered on the spot, but were of such a nature that considerable time was required to provide a com- plete answer. Many inquiries involved a series of conferences or the writing of extended illustrated reports. A list of selected ex- amples tabulated by the War Committee shows not only the very wide range of these questions, but also the extent to which modern total war depends on scientific knowledge. The Institution was in a peculiarly favorable position to render this type of service because of its location in Washington, the headquarters also of the War and Navy Departments and most of the war agencies. It had the further advantage of being closely associated with the Ethnogeographic Board, discussed in the next paragraph. Ethnogeographic Board.—Early in the fiscal year the Institution joined with the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Research Council in sponsoring the Ethnogeographic Board, a nongovernmental agency whose function is to act as a clearinghouse between the above insti- tutions and other scientific and educational organizations throughout the country, and the Army,.Navy, and war agencies within the Government. The Director of the Board is Dr. Wiliam Duncan Strong, formerly of the Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology and at present on leave from Columbia University. The offices of the Board are in the Smithsonian building, a portion of its operating costs have been defrayed by the Institution, and three members of the scientific staff of the Bureau of American Ethnology have been detailed to assist the Director of the Board. The War and Navy Departments assigned liaison officers, and under the energetic leader- ship of Dr. Strong the Board has become the focal point for the finding of the best sources of strategic information in the fields of science within its scope. War research projects—A number of research and consultation projects have come to the Institution through the Ethnogeographic Board, the Smithsonian War Committee, and contacts of various officials of the Institution. As these were all of a strictly confiden- tial character, nothing can be said about them except that they were concerned with many different branches of science, including an- thropology, biology, geology, physics, and meteorology. These proj- ects occupied practically the entire time of the instrument and mechanical shops of the Astrophysical Observatory, the division of radiation and organisms, and the division of engineering, as well as the time of numerous members of the scientific staff. Inter-American cooperation.—For many years the Institution has been in close contact with scientists and cultural organizations in the 4 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 other American republics through its anthropological, zoological, and botanical explorations and field work in that area and through the wide exchange of its publications for those of scientific institutions of Mexico and South and Central America. Thus the Institution has been in an excellent position to undertake several major projects de- signed to improve cultural relations with our neighboring countries to the south. Under the direction of Dr. Julian H. Steward, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, a Handbook of the Indians of South America has been brought practically to completion and is expected to be published during the coming year as a Bulletin of the Bureau. This comprehensive publication, which will form four volumes of text and two of bibliography, is a truly cooperative undertaking, for 50 percent of the contributors are scientists in the other American republics. Also on the initiative of Dr. Steward, and with Dr. Ralph L. Beals as temporary director, an Inter-American Society of Geog- raphy and Anthropology has been organized, with membership open to scientists anywhere in the hemisphere. More than 700 members have already been enrolled from nearly all countries on both con- tinents. A journal with articles in English, Spanish, and Portuguese will record the activities of the Society. The first part of a “Checklist of the Coleopterous Insects of Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, and South America,” prepared under the direction of Dr. R. E. Blackwelder, is now in press as a Bulletin of the National Museum. A long-needed tool for entomologists, this check list will be used for years to come by scientists of the entire hemisphere. A number of Smithsonian scientists have visited other American republics during the year in the interest of closer professional collaboration. Other wartime activities —The new series of publications, Smith- sonian War Background Studies, will be described in detail in an- other place. I will say here only that the series is filling a real need for authentic information on the less well-known peoples and regions involved in the war, and the demand for the books was so great that editions had to be increased progressively from 3,500 to 8,000 copies. In addition both the Army and Navy ordered editions of from 1,000 to 10,000 copies of several of the papers for the use of service personnel. One of the first recommendations of the Smithsonian War Com- mittee was for a roster of the technical and geographical knowledge of the Institution’s staff. The roster has been at the service of the Ethnogeographic Board and has been of material aid in enabling the Army, Navy, and war agencies to locate quickly the specialist or the knowledge they needed. Under the direction of the Smithsonian library, a file of illustra- tions of strategic areas appearing in Smithsonian publications and in the more obscure technical journals has been completed and made avail- able to war agencies. A brief description of the resources of the Smith- REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 5 sonian library of nearly a million volumes has been distributed to key personnel. For the benefit of members of the armed forces, the Museum build- ings have been kept open all day Sunday. A set of six colored post cards showing striking Museum exhibits was given to servicemen entering the Arts and Industries building, where facilities for writing and mailing the cards were made available. More than 300,000 cards were given during the year. A small leaflet welcoming service men and women to the Institution was also made available; in it is de- scribed the part played by Army and Navy personnel in the past in building up the National collections. At the close of the year a col- lector’s manual for members of the armed forces was in preparation, and a plan was being worked out to provide docents for Museum tours for service personnel. SUMMARY OF THE YEAR’S ACTIVITIES OF THE BRANCHES OF THE INSTITUTION National Museum.—Throughout the year members of the scientific staff have been occupied with furnishing technical information and carrying on research connected with the conduct of the war. The Museum buildings have been kept open all day Sundays for the benefit of service men and women. The Museum collections were in- creased by 230,231 specimens, bringing the total number of catalog entries to 17,808,471. Outstanding among the new accessions were the following: In anthropology, 1,443 specimens of pottery and figurine fragments from various localities in the United States and Mexico, a ceremonial mace of serpentine from Maré, Loyalty Islands, and weapons, armor, and musical instruments from the Philippines; in biology, a complete skeleton of the African bush elephant, birds from New Guinea and Eritrea, the latter a hitherto unrepresented locality, two large collections of fishes—one comprising more than 50,000 specimens transferred from the Fish and Wildlife Service, the other nearly 35,000 specimens collected in Venezuela by the curator of fishes, and the Frank C. Baker collection of mollusks, comprising 10,000 spec- imens, one of the important mollusk collections of North America; in geology, the John W. Langsdale collection of minerals, a 316-carat star sapphire and a 54-carat blue Brazilian topaz, five volumes containing 1,500 photomicrographs of the structure in meteoric irons, presented by Dr. Stuart H. Perry, associate in mineralogy, and a collection of 2,000 Triassic fossils from Nevada; in engineering and industries, an original truss of an iron railroad bridge built in America in 1845, two sets of aircraft identification models used by our armed forces, and a collection of specimens to be used as an exhibit of alternates and substitutes developed recently to cope with shortages of war materials; in history, the finest accession of firearms, swords, and daggers received 566766—44—2 6 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 by the Museum in recent years, the gift of Ralph G. Packard. The few expeditions that were in the field during the year were concerned with matters connected with the conduct of the war or were the result of pre-war commitments. Because of travel difficulties, the number of visitors dropped to 1,355,269 as compared with slightly over 2,000,000 in the previous year. A definite count showed that servicemen aver- aged 25 to 35 percent of the total number of visitors. The Museum published its Annual Report, 3 Bulletins, 1 Contribution from the National Herbarium, and 25 Proceedings papers. Staff changes in- cluded the death of Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, head curator of the department of biology, and the appointment of Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, curator of the division of marine invertebrates, to succeed him. Nu- merous members of the staff were furloughed for military and naval duty. National Gallery of Art.—The total attendance at the Gallery for the year was 1,508,081, a daily average of 4,182 of whom more than one-fourth were service men and women. Special activities for mem- bers of the armed forces have included Sunday evening musical con- certs, Sunday night suppers for servicemen, and the Servicemen’s Room, which has furnished a place of relaxation for many men in the service. Among the outstanding acquisitions of the year were a col- lection of 23 paintings from Chester Dale; the Widener collection of paintings, sculpture, and other objects of art, one of the greatest donations ever made to any Museum; and the famous Rosenwald col- lection of prints, numbering over 6,500 items. A number of special exhibitions were held during the year, including an exhibition of Chilean contemporary art, the Thomas Jefferson Bicentennial exhibi- tion, and an exhibition sponsored by Life magazine of 125 paintings by leading American artists, in cooperation with the War Department, in United States battle zones. There were printed during the year a check list of the Widener collection, a new general information pamphlet, a catalog, a portfolio of colored reproductions, and nine pamphlets dealing with the Gallery and its collections. The daily Gallery tours of the collection have been supplemented by tours for service men and women on Saturdays. A motion picture on the National Gallery of Art was completed in cooperation with the Office of Strategic Services; this will be widely circulated among educa- tional institutions and the general public. National Collection of Fine Arts.——Because of crowded conditions in Washington the annual meeting of the Smithsonian Art Com- mission was not held, and proffered gifts of works of art are being held by the National Collection of Fine Arts to be passed upon at the next meeting of the Commission. Two members of the Commission died during the year: John E. Lodge, chairman of the subcommittee on Oriental art, and Charles L. Borie, chairman of the Commission REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 7 since 1935. Fourteen miniatures were acquired through the Catherine Walden Myer fund. Five paintings were purchased under the Henry Ward Ranger bequest; by the terms of the bequest these are as- signed to various art institutions and under certain conditions are prospective additions to the National Collection of Fine Arts. Seven special exhibitions were held, as follows: Oil paintings, water colors, and pastels by Seforita Carmen Madrigal Nieto, of Costa Rica; oil paintings by Senorita Pachita Crespi, of Costa Rica; oil paintings by Frank C. Kirk, of New York; miniatures by members of the Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters; oil paintings and designs by Simon Lissim, of New York; water colors by Leonora Quarterman, of Savannah, Ga.; oil paintings by Walter King Stone, of Ithaca, N. Y. Freer Gallery of Art-—Additions to the collections included Chinese bronze, Persian gold, Persian and Indian paintings, Chinese porce- lain, and Chinese and Persian pottery. Besides the regular curatorial work, the staff devoted much of its time to supplying information to war agencies and to translating matter from Chinese and Japanese sources, amounting to hundreds of typewritten pages. In addition, Chinese and Japanese names on maps of war areas were identified and transliterated to the number of more than 5,000. The Director gave a series of lectures to Washington school teachers on Chinese culture as reflected in the fine arts in furtherance of a plan to disseminate knowledge of China in the public schools. Visitors to the gallery numbered 53,769 for the year, and 12 groups were given docent service or instruction in the study room. John Ellerton Lodge, Director of the Freer Gallery from its beginning in 1920, died on December 29, 1942. Under Mr. Lodge’s wise administration was developed the work of the Gallery in the study and the acquisition of Oriental fine arts. He was succeeded as Director by Archibald G. Wenley, asso- ciate in research at the Gallery. Bureau of American Ethnology.—Activities concerned with the other American republics have been emphasized during the year, and a large part of the time of the staff has been devoted to war projects. Several members have worked nearly full time in cooperation with the Ethnogeographic Board in preparing strategic information for the Army, Navy, and war agencies. M. W. Stirling, Chief, directed the fifth National Geographic-Smithsonian archeological expedition to southern Mexico. Excavations at the site of La Venta in southern Tabasco resulted in the discovery of construction details of the stone- fenced enclosure, one of the central features of the site. Three rich burials contained jade offerings of high quality. Dr. J. R. Swanton completed the proofreading of his 850-page bulletin entitled “The Indians of the Southeastern United States,” and did further work on the now extinct language of the Timucua Indians of Florida. 8 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Dr. J. P. Harrington investigated the Chilcotin languages of north- ern California, and later in the year devoted his time to the prepa- ration of material for the linguistic section of the Handbook of South American Indians. Dr. F. H. H. Roberts, Jr., investigated a site in eastern Wyoming from which more than 70 projectile points of the Yuma type were recovered. Dr. Roberts devoted the last two- thirds of the year to the preparation of a series of “survival” arti- cles from data furnished by members of the Smithsonian staff. These articles were made available to the armed forces through the Ethno- geographic Board. Dr. J. H. Steward continued his work as editor of the Handbook of South American Indians, assisted by Dr. Alfred Métraux of the Bureau staff. The Handbook, which will consist of four volumes of text and two of bibliography, was three-fourths com- pleted at the close of the year. Dr. H. B. Collins, Jr., was engaged in furnishing regional and other information to the armed services, mostly in connection with the Ethnogeographic Board. Dr. W. N. Fenton devoted most of his time to projects received by the Ethno- geographic Board from the armed services, and continued to serve as a member of the Smithsonian War Committee. Miss Frances Densmore completed two large manuscripts on Indian music. The Bureau published its Annual Report and three Bulletins. The Bureau library has been much in use as a source of material for the Ethnogeographic Board and the war agencies. International Exchanges——The International Exchange Service is the official United States agency for the interchange of governmental and scientific publications between this country and all other coun- tries of the world. During the year the Service handled a total of 513,460 packages of publications with a total weight of 248,648 pounds. Although the war prevents shipments to many foreign coun- tries, nevertheless consignments went forward during the year to all countries in the Western Hemisphere and to a number in the Eastern Hemisphere, namely, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Portugal, the U.S.S.R., Union of South Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Packages which cannot be for- warded during the war are held for later delivery. Because of the limited space at the Institution, arrangements were made to store the large accumulation of such material at the Library of Congress. In April 1942 the Office of Censorship placed a ban on the sending abroad of the Congressional Record and the Federal Register; in February 19438 this ban was lifted, and the Record and Register were again forwarded to those countries that could be reached. National Zoological Park.—By reducing maintenance work to the absolute minimum, it has been possible to carry on the primary func- tion of the Zoo, the exhibition of a wide variety of animal life in the REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 9 best possible condition, in spite of the increasing shortages of man- power, food, and materials. The functioning of the Zoo is thought to be particularly important in wartime because it provides free recreation and enjoyment for thousands of war workers and members of the armed forces. Although automobile traffic to the Zoo prac- tically ceased, nevertheless a greatly increased number of visitors walked or came by bus or streetcar. The total number of visitors for the year was 1,974,500. Officials of the Zoo have furnished much information regarding animals to the War and Navy Departments, other Government agencies, and medical groups. Conditions have precluded expeditions by the Zoo for the collection of animals, and few animals are offered for sale by dealers. New specimens, there- fore, have come mainly through gift and exchange. In addition, 101 mammals were born and 83 birds hatched at the Zoo during the year. Despite adverse conditions, six species never before in the collection were obtained; these included a specimen of the rarely exhibited spectacled bear of the northern Andes and a white starling from Java, also rare in captivity. At the close of the year the collection contained 2,485 animals representing 684 species and subspecies. Astrophysical Observatory.—A prediction of the march of solar variation from 1939 through 1945, based on periodicities revealed by the solar-constant values published in volume 6 of the Annals of the Observatory, shows that the years 1940 to 1947 will be the most im- portant years to study the sun’s variation since the early twenties. For this reason, every effort has been made to keep the three field observatories in Chile, California, and New Mexico in operation. Up to the close of the year, these efforts had been successful. Further studies of the short-interval changes of solar radiation in their rela- tion to weather have been even more convincing than previous re- sults. The weather effects of individual solar changes are found to last at least 2 weeks. Most of the time of the staff at Washington has been devoted to war-research problems assigned by the war serv- ices. In the division of radiation and organisms, the regular research program was discontinued in August 1942, and since then practically the entire time of the staff has been directed toward solving war problems. THE ESTABLISHMENT The Smithsonian Institution was created by act of Congress in 1846, according to the terms of the will of James Smithson, of Eng- land, who in 1826 bequeathed his property to the United States of America “to found at Washington, under the name of the Smith- sonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” In receiving the property and accepting the trust, Congress determined that the Federal Government was 10 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 without authority to administer the trust directly, and, therefore, constituted an “establishment” whose statutory members are “the President, the Vice President, the Chief Justice, and the heads of the executive departments.” THE BOARD OF REGENTS Changes in the Board of Regents during the fiscal year were as follows: Senator Charles L. McNary, of Oregon, having been reelected to the Senate for the term beginning January 3, 1943, was reappointed by the Vice President on February 4, 1948, as a regent to succeed himself. On October 26, 1942, the Honorable William P. Cole, Jr., of Mary- land, resigned from the House of Representatives, which automati- cally terminated his term as a regent; on January 12, 1943, the Speaker appointed Representative Edward E. Cox, of Georgia, to succeed him. The term of Dr. Roland S. Morris, of Pennsylvania, as a citizen regent, expired February 20, 1942. By Joint Resolution of Congress approved July 28, 1942, he was reappointed to succeed himself for the statutory term of 6 years. The roll of regents at the close of the fiscal year was as follows: Harlan F. Stone, Chief Justice of the United States, Chancellor; Henry A. Wallace, Vice President of the United States; members from the Senate—Charles L. McNary, Alben W. Barkley, Bennett Champ Clark; members from the House of Representatives—Clar- ence Cannon, Foster Stearns, Edward E. Cox; citizen members— Frederic A. Delano, Washington, D. C.; Roland §. Morris, Pennsyl- vania; Harvey N. Davis, New Jersey; Arthur H. Compton, Llinois; Vannevar Bush, Washington, D. C.; and Frederic C. Walcott, Con- necticut. Proceedings.—The annual meeting of the Board of Regents was held on January 15, 1943. The regents present were Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, Chancellor; Vice President Henry A. Wallace; Representatives Clarence Cannon, Foster Stearns, and Edward E. Cox; citizen regents Frederic A. Delano, Roland S. Morris, Harvey N. Davis, Arthur H. Compton, and Vannevar Bush; and the Secre- tary, Dr. Charles G. Abbot. The Secretary presented his annual report covering the year’s activities of the parent Institution and of the several Government branches, which was accepted by the Board, as was also the report by Mr. Delano, of the executive committee, covering financial statis- tics of the Institution. The Secretary stated that owing to the exigencies of wartime travel, there had been no meeting of the Smith- sonian Art Commission during the year. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 11 In his special report the Secretary outlined some of the more im- portant recent activities carried on by the Institution and the branches, with special emphasis on phases of the work directly con- nected with the war. FINANCES A statement on finances will be found in the report of the execu- tive committee of the Board of Regents, page 89. PUBLICATIONS In normal times the Institution publishes the results of researches by members of its scientific staff in several series, namely, the Smith- sonian Miscellaneous Collections, the Bulletins and Proceedings of the National Museum, Contributions from the National Herbarium, the Bulletins of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory. It also publishes the Annual Reports of the Board of Regents, which contain a selection of articles summarizing developments in all branches of science, and other oc- casional publications. In wartime, however, publication has been restricted largely to material that relates to the war or is of value in strengthening cultural relations with the American nations to the south of us. Otherwise only such papers were sent to the printer during the year as seemed for one reason or another to be of sufficient importance to the advancement of science to warrant publication even in wartime. This wartime policy will not be apparent from the titles listed in this year’s report on publications, however, be- cause a large proportion of the papers issued went to the printer in the previous fiscal year before the policy went into effect. The new series, Smithsonian War Background Studies, begun in the summer of 1942, was pianned for the purpose of making avail- able authentic information on the less well-known areas and peoples involved in the war. Twelve numbers had been issued at the close of the fiscal year, and four others were in press. As the Far East and the Pacific islands are probably the least well-known of the war areas, the majority of the papers deal with those regions. A com- plete list of the papers issued and in press will be found in the report on publications, appendix 10. The demand for papers in the series was immediate and much larger than had been anticipated. The editions of the first few papers had been set at 3,500 copies, nearly twice as large as the usual editions of Smithsonian papers, but these were soon exhausted. Reprints of these were issued, and editions of later papers were successively increased until at the end of the year 8,000 copies were being printed. The demand, as might be expected, was greatest from Army and Navy organizations and personnel and from universities and schools. In addition to the 12 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Smithsonian editions, the Army and Navy ordered from 1,000 to 10,000 copies of nearly all the papers in the series. Aside from the War Background Studies, there was a constant demand from Army, Navy, and war agencies for other Smithsonian publications, notably the Smithsonian Meteorological Tables, Smith- sonian Physical Tables, and World Weather Records. Of the Meteorological Tables, 5,557 copies were asked for by various Army units, most of them going to the Signal Corps. Among the outstanding publications of the year not related to the war may be mentioned “Compendium and Description of the West Indies,” by Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa, translated by Charles Upson Clark, a detailed itinerary of Spanish America written by a Car- melite missionary in 1628 or 1629; “Fishes of the Phoenix and Samoan Islands Collected in 1939, during the Expedition of the U. S. S. Bushnell,” by Leonard P. Schultz, curator of the division of fishes in the National Museum, who accompanied the expedition; and “The Native Tribes of Eastern Bolivia and Western Matto Grosso,” by Alfred Métraux. A total of 88 publications were issued during the year, and 194,057 copies of these and other Smithsonian publications were distributed. LIBRARY The use of the Smithsonian library during the year by the scientific staff of the Institution was almost entirely in connection with the war, and more than 85 war agencies have made inquiries, borrowed books, and sent research workers to use the collections. The branch libraries of the National Museum and the Bureau of American Eth- nology especially have been constantly used by war workers because of their extensive resources of geographical and ethnological material. Receipt of foreign publications again dropped somewhat but not so sharply as during the preceding year. The quantity and quality of scientific publications is still maintained at a high level among our allies abroad. The publication and receipt of domestic scientific serials continues to be practically normal. Among the outstanding gifts of the year were a microfilmed set of the records of Linnean collections and manuscripts of the Linnean Society of London, and a collection of 350 books from Ralph G. Packard to accompany the collection of arms and armor given by him to the Museum. The record of the year’s activities includes 6,955 accessions, bringing the total holdings of the library to 907,645; 159 new exchanges arranged; 3,631 “wants” received; 5,012 volumes and pamphlets cataloged; 11,236 books and periodicals loaned; and 2,185 volumes sent to the bindery. Respectfully submitted. C. G. Assot, Secretary. APPENDIX 1 REPORT ON THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Sm: I have the honor to submit the following report on the condi- tion and operation of the United States National Museum for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1943: Appropriations for the maintenance and operation of the National Museum for the year totaled $892,630, which was $61,652 more than for the previous year. THE MUSEUM IN WARTIME Although there has been a decrease in the total number of visitors to the Museum below that normal for times of peace, the number recorded, 1,355,269, indicates the great interest that exists in the exhibits. The change in hours to allow the public halls to be open all day Sunday has permitted many people to visit the buildings whose time schedules would not have otherwise made such visits possible. This is particularly true of service men and women, about 2,000 of whom have been included among the visitors each week end. Last year’s report indicated steps taken for adequate safeguard of collections. These precautions have gone forward, and a pro- gram of training has been initiated among groups of employees for the protection of visitors, employees, and the various buildings. Air- raid alarm systems have been installed, fire-fighting, air-raid, and first-aid equipment procured, air-raid shelters designated, and com- plete black-out facilities where necessary established. Practice air- raid drills were held, both in cooperation with the District of Columbia and independently of the city-wide drills. Throughout the year members of the staff have been occupied with considerable work connected with the conduct of the war, either through direct contact with various war agencies or through the Ethnogeographic Board. This has included “spot” information in various fields, research, and experiment. The variety of these subjects is indicated by the following enumeration of some of the items on which data were requested : Camouflage plants; natural vegetation of specific regions; illustrations of poisonous plants and of emergency food plants and data regarding them; destruction of mosquito-har- boring epiphytes; distribution of certain plants of known economic 13 14 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19438 importance; botanical exploration ; the palatability of the flesh of land, fresh-water, and marine animals, their use for food, and methods of capture; the serviceability of hides and skins for various purposes; disease transmission ; noxious, poisonous, or otherwise dangerous ani- mals; intermediate hosts of animal and human parasites; aid in the preparation of survival manuals and other military and naval hand- books; distributional lists of insects and other animals of medical im- portance; outlines for insect surveys in foreign areas; instruction in mosquito identification; collection and preservation of specimens, especially those of medical importance; supplying duplicate sets of insect material not otherwise readily obtainable for the use of Army and Navy medical schools; biological and oceanographic problems; marine fouling organisms; bibliographic surveys; recommendations regarding personnel. Assistance has been given in the identification of tribal culture patterns chiefly of the island peoples of the West Pacific area and of continental southeastern Asia. Other information provided, in this instance obtained from Museum photographic files, related to the need of our aviators and soldiers to recognize religious caste markings, and, to assist in the orientation of aviators, the types of house construction in various parts of southern Asia. A mass of information directly based on the collections was given to such agencies as the Board of Economic Warfare and the War Production Board, bearing directly on the development of the use of substitute materials for civilian use. Various articles describing the more remote peoples and their cultures were prepared and published. COLLECTIONS The Museum collections were increased by 230,231 specimens, which were included in 1,177 separate accessions. Because of wartime con- ditions a decrease of 211 accessions, 54,351 specimens, in comparison with the number received during the previous year was not unex- pected. The five departments registered specimens received as fol- lows: Anthropology, 2,514; biology, 213,823; geology, 9,725; engi- neering and industries, 2,266; and history, 1,902. Most of the ac- cessions were acquired as gifts from individuals or as a transfer of specimens by Government departments. The complete report on the Museum, published as a separate document, includes a detailed list of accessions, but the more important are summarized below. Cata- log entries in all departments now total 17,808,471. Anthropology.—Transferred to the division of archeology by Gov- ernment departments were 1,443 specimens of earthenware vessels, potsherds, and figurine fragments from several localities in Mexico REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 15 and the United States. Important gifts from individuals included 24 earthenware vessels, clay heads, and projectile points from Mex- ico; 2 wooden figurines excavated in Florida; and 1 obsidian mirror from a stream bed in Ecuador. Outstanding among the specimens donated to the division of ethnology was a ceremonial mace of serpen- tine from the Island of Maré. This specimen is an excellent example of the ceremonial weapons described in French scientific literature on New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands. Other ethnological ob- jects of special interest are weapons, pieces of armor, inscriptions on bamboo, and musical instruments from the Philippine Islands, and fishing paraphernalia, tools, utensils, dance masks, a feathered dance headdress, and hand-woven costumes from various South and Central American localities. The collection of ceramics was augmented by porcelain articles from Capo di Monte molds, dating to about 1821, and examples of painted terra cotta made presumably by Greek colo- nists at Apulia, Italy, during the fourth century B. C., and excavated at Pompeii. Interesting examples of American glass included “Bur- mese” and “Peachblow” articles manufactured in Massachusetts and “Case” glass from West Virginia. Among the various collections assigned to the section of period art and textiles were antique jewelry from Scotland, Hungary, Portugal, France, Egypt, China, Ceylon, and the Philippine Islands; Spanish, French, and Chinese antique ornamental fans; and a handsomely ornamented snuffbox bearing the registry mark of Bergen, Norway, presented by Mrs. Stejneger at the expressed wish of the late Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, for many years head curator of the department of biology. Notable gifts to the division of physical anthropology included Indian skeletal re- mains from two ossuaries on a farm in Prince Georges County, Md., completing a collection from this locality begun in former years, and a midget’s skull of 485 cc. capacity, the smallest human adult skull thus far reported. Biology.—The first complete skeleton of the African bush elephant (Loxodonta cylotis) to come to the national collections and four small rodents collected in the endemic plague area in Boliva were the most noteworthy accessions in the division of mammals. Particularly welcome among the birds accessioned during the year were several forms new to the collection: Representatives of the pheasant genus Anwrophasis and the shrike genus E'ulacestoma from New Guinea; 2 specimens of the black-lored grass warbler (Cisticola nigrilora) ; 65 species of Ecuadorian birds; the type of the warbler Prinia flaviventris delacouri; and 8 avian specimens from Eritrea, a hitherto unrepresented locality. Another interesting accession in- cluded birds from the widely scattered collections of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-42. 16 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Two rare forms of West Indian snakes were added to the collec- tion of reptiles and amphibians—Darlingtonia haetiana, from Haiti, and 7'yphlops richardii, from St. Thomas. Two large collections of fishes were received, one by transfer from the Fish and Wildlife Service, comprising more than 50,000 speci- mens, and one of nearly 35,000 specimens brought from Venezuela by the curator of fishes. Rare forms accessioned include Ochmacan- thus reinhardti and Urinophilus erythrurus from South America. To the type series were added cotypes of Cynopotamus biserialis and paratypes of Motolepidomyzon intermedius. A large accession, comprising 4,300 miscellaneous insects, the bal- ance of the private collection of the late George P. Engelhardt, was received by the division of insects, accompanied by Mr. Engelhardt’s extensive and valuable entomological library. As in former years, the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine and its Division of Foreign Plant Quarantines, of the United States Department of Agriculture, transferred to the Museum collection a large number of insects, this year the total being approximately 46,000 specimens. Six specimens of Cycloscosmia truncata, the third known occurrence of this trap-door spider since it was discovered a century ago, came as a gift. To the type collection of marine invertebrates were added the cotype of Derocheilocaris typicus, upon which a new genus, new family, and new order of crustaceans were based, and numerous allotypes, holotypes, and paratypes of crayfishes, worms, ostracods, and amphibians. A collection of approximately 700 specimens of miscellaneous invertebrates from the Gulf of Mexico was received by transfer. One of the important mollusk collections of North America, com- prising approximately 10,000 specimens, was bequeathed to the Museum by Dr. Frank C. Baker, together with 17 bound volumes of his own published writings. Of special interest was a donation of 1,500 shells, 50 corals, and a collection of echinoderms from New Caledonia, the first material of consequence received in many years from this now important part of the world. Twelve of the seventeen accessions to the collection of helminths contained type material: Types of Opecoelina pharynmagna, Proto- strongylus agerteri, P. frosti, Protogynella blarinae, and Diorchis reynoldsi; cotypes of Parallintoshius tadaridae and Euparyphium ochoterenai; paratypes, holotypes, and allotypes of Halocercus kirby, Corynosoma obtuscens, and species of Acanthocephala; slides bearing cotype specimens of Hymenolepis parvisaccata; and additional slides representing four new species. Several large collections of plants, mostly from Mexico, Central America, and South America, were received as gifts or in exchange. REPORT OF THD SECRETARY 17 Eight of these collections comprised more than 1,000 specimens each. Geology.—Ten accessions pertaining to minerals—a 1,842-gram in- dividual of the Harrisonville, Mo., meteorite, and nine ae of meteor- ites—were added by purchase cavanel the income from the Roebling fund. The largest single accession of minerals was the gift of the John W. Langsdale collection, including many good examples from old American and European localities. The outstanding addition to the gem collection was the 316-carat star sapphire known as Star of Artaban. This beautiful stone ranks with the finest of the Museum’s individual gems. Another notable gem stone was a 54-carat blue Brazilian topaz obtained through the Frances Lea Chamberlain fund. Dr. Stuart H. Perry, associate in mineralogy, presented an album of five volumes containing approximately 1,500 photomicrographs of the structure in meteoric irons, which, with the negatives received from Dr. Perry last year, has resulted in the most complete file of the metal- lurgy of meteoric irons in existence. Dr. Perry also donated a 4,640- gram specimen of the Modoc, Kans., meteorite. The most important additions to the collections of invertebrate pale- ontology and paleobotany were the Devonian invertebrates collected in the Mississippi Valley States by Prof. A. S. Warthin, Jr., and Dr. G. A. Cooper. In return for assistance by Dr. C. E. Resser, Dr. Franco Rasetti, of Laval University, presented a splendid set of fossils and casts of types from the classic locality at Levis, opposite Quebec City, Canada. The income from the Springer fund provided 12 Devonian crinoids from Ontario, one of the most important ac- cessions of the year to the collection of fossil echinoderms. A col- lection of about 2,000 Triassic fossils from Nevada will undoubtedly include many types when the study of these fossils has been completed. Among the accessions recorded in the section of Cenozoic inverte- brates were topotypes of the foraminifer Pseudophragmina (Porporo- cyclina) peruviana and holotype and paratypes of the foraminifer Paranonion venezuelanum. In the division of vertebrate paleontology a large series of speci- mens from the Oligocene beds of Niobrara County, Wyo., was acces- sioned. Specimens worthy of special mention are nearly complete articulate skeletons of various mammals known as Merycoidodon, Leptomeryx, Pseudocynodictis, Deinictis, and Hoplophoneus. Good series of skulls and partial skeletons of the fossil horse Mesohippus, the small camel Poébrotherium, the early rhinoceros Hyracodon, the squirrel Jschromys, and the rabbit Palaeolagus were included. Also added to the collection by exchange were the nearly complete skele- ton of the primitive deer Hypertragulus calcaratus Cope, to be mounted for the exhibition series; a skull and lower jaws of the Miocene horse Parahippus leonensis and a right ramus of P. blackbergi, the type of 18 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 a fossil bird Geochen rhuax Wetmore; and 297 teeth of the pavement- toothed shark Ptychodus mortoni. Engineering and industries—From the viewpoint of engineering history, the most interesting and valuable accession was an original truss of an iron railroad bridge designed, constructed, and erected by the Reading Railroad Co. in 1845. The specimen, approximately 34 feet long, is the only remaining part of the first iron-truss, double- track railroad bridge built in America, also believed to be the first iron-truss bridge erected in the United States. Early in the present war there was instituted as part of the train- ing program of our armed forces the use of accurately made scale models of the types of airplanes used by the United Nations and the Axis, to teach recognition at sight of both friend and enemy. Lt. Paul E. Garber, U. S. Navy, on military furlough from the Museum, was actively engaged in the development of this program, and through him the Museum received two groups of these models. Bequeathed to the extensive propeller collection by the inventor, Dr. S. Albert Reed, was a full-sized model, known as the D-1, of an aluminum- alloy propeller that is now recognized as one of the early successful types. Another accession of historical interest, likewise presented by the inventor, H. H. Franklin, was comprised of four die castings, which are excellent examples of early attempts to produce finished castings in metal dies. Of current interest is the accession of a scale model of a plant used for producing high-grade motor fuel for aviation gasoline blending stock. An exhibit of timely educational value in the section of mineral technology is one of abrasives and grinding- machine operations. This exhibit, which has been studied frequently by the personnel of Government war agencies, has been modernized during the year, and 178 specimens were added. In the division of crafts and industries there were received several specimens of special interest because of their bearing on the war: A new surgical stitching instrument operated as a sewing-machine at- tachment, together with a felt sampler showing numerous types of surgical suturing; a sample of cap ribbon of a new type adopted by the United States Navy, in which letters in gold leaf are fused into a cut ribbon of acetate rayon, instead of the silk ribbon embroidered with gold thread formerly used; specimens of nylon and cotton woven webbing used for the harness connecting the aviator to his parachute; and new specimens to be used as an exhibit of alternates and sub- stitutes developed recently to cope with shortages of war materials. Of special interest in the public-health collections was the addition of a collection of food models arranged to show the daily food require- ment. Important additions to the wood collection were 13 samples of tropical American woods that had been received by the Bureau of REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 19 Ships, Navy Department, for testing in some phase of their wartime shipbuilding program. In the division of graphic arts a large collection of war posters constitutes a valuable addition to the pictorial and historical record of our participation in the war. Many were designed by outstanding American artists, a fact that enhances their purely historical value. The most important accession received by the section of photog- raphy was a Woodward Solar Camera. No other example is known to exist, and it came to light largely as a result of the Nation-wide drive for scrap metal. This type of camera was manufactured under patents dated between 1857 and 1877, and it was the first means available to commercial photographers during the latter half of the nineteenth century for making photographic enlargements on the then slow bromide paper, using the sun as a source of illumination. History.—The three most important accessions of the year in the division of history were in the fields of art, arms, and numismatics. The first of these, received by bequest, consisted of five paintings of unusual interest not only because of their artistic and historical value but also because they complete the collection of paintings on historical subjects by J. L. G. Ferris, 71 of which were presented by Mrs. Ferris in 1932, after the death of her husband. The finest accession of fire- arms, swords, and daggers received by the National Museum in recent years came as a gift from Ralph G. Packard. The collection illus- trates the evolution of firearms from the matchlock to the automatic of the present day and includes all the methods of ignition used during the past 350 years. The accession of most importance to the numismatic section was the large collection of coins, medals, medalets, and tokens presented by the Hon. Frederic A. Delano, a regent of the Smithsonian Institution. Additions to the stamp collection of unusual interest were stamps of Great Britain overprinted “M. E. F.” (Middle East Force) for use in the former Italian territory of Eritrea, and stamps issued by the Norwegian Government in London (used on letters carried by Norwegian warships and merchant vessels), and by the exiled Yugo- slavian Government in England. EXPLORATIONS AND FIELD WORK Field explorations for the year were concerned in the main with matters connected with the conduct of the war or with commitments dating back to the pre-war period. With the usual program cur- tailed, the scope of the investigations has been changed, though valuable results in a variety of directions have been achieved. Anthropology.—Dr. Waldo R. Wedel, associate curator, division of archeology, was detailed to the Bureau of American Ethnology 20 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 from January 16, 1943, to June 1, 1943, in order to assist M. W. Stir- ling, Chief of the Bureau, in archeological excavations near La Venta, in the State of Tabasco, Mexico. These excavations, constituting an important program of research among the Pan American republics, were sponsored jointly by the Smithsonian Institution and the Na- tional Geographic Society. Biology.—In pursuance of the program for the furtherance of cultural relations with scientists in the other American republics in cooperation with the Department of State, three members of the department of biology—Dr. Remington Kellogg, curator of mammals, Ellsworth P. Killip, associate curator of plants, and Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, curator of marine invertebrates—visited South America for periods of approximately 3 months each. Dr. Kellogg left Washington on March 2 for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and returned May 15, 1948. He spent most of his time working in collaboration with members of the staff at the Museu Nacional at Rio de Janeiro, with additional contacts at the Departamento de Zoologia at Sio Paulo and the Museu Goeldi at Belém. The work of field stations and laboratories engaged in the study and control of tropical diseases was observed, particular attention being given to research work involving Brazilian mammals suspected of being, or known to be, the hosts of vectors of transmissible diseases. Through the friendly cooperation of the Fundacio Rockefeller, Dr. Kellogg was enabled to spend a week at its yellow-fever field station near Therezopolis in the Serra das Orgios. Mr. Killip was occupied during March, April, and most of May in Venezuela. Part of the time was given to field work and part to work with Dr. Henri Pittier, director of the Servicio Botdnico, and his associates, in the identification of large collections recently made in little-known parts of the Republic. Short collecting trips were made to Santa Lucia in the State of Miranda, Rancho Grande in the Parque Nacional, Barquisimeto in the State of Lara, and El Junquito in the mountains near Caracas. At the invitation of O. E. Nelson, in charge of the Venezuelan office of the Rubber Reserve Corporation, Mr. Kil- lip accompanied a rubber-investigation party to the Rio Paragua, a river rising in the Pacaraima Mountains. Most of the plant collecting was done between the town of La Paragua and the Cerro Guaiquinima, a region that had never before been explored botanically. Dr. Schmitt left Miami, Fla., on April 18 for Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, and returned to Washington on June 30, 1943. He con- sulted with members of the staffs of various scientific institutions and spent some time examining collections, particularly of fresh-water crustaceans, some of which have considerable economic importance. In Brazil he visited the Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, the Univer- REPORT OF THD SECRETARY oN sity of Sio Paulo and the Departamento de Zoologia at Sio Paulo, and the Museu Paranaense in Curityba. In Uruguay he studied at the Museo Nacional, the Museo Instituto Geoldgico del Uruguay, the Museo de Pedagégico and the Museo de Ensefiaza Secundaria de Univer- sidad, all in Montevideo, and the museum of the Liceo in Paysanda. In Argentina he examined collections and visited the staff of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales and the University at Buenos Aires, the La Plata Museum at La Plata, the Museo Cornelio Moyano and the Universidad de Cuyo, both at Mendoza, the Universidad de Cérdoba at Cérdoba, and the Universidad de Tucuman at Tucumin. The director and staff members of the laboratories of the Direccién Regional de Paludismo assisted him on numerous occasions through- out northern Argentina, particularly in Tucuman, Salta, and Jujuy. His field work, accomplished when time and other obligations per- mitted, included studies in Brazil at Alto da Serra, Sao Paulo, and at several localities in the vicinity of Curityba, Parana, in Uruguay at Paso de los Toros, Salto, and Paysandu, and in Argentina at Mendoza, Tucuman, Salta, San Lorenzo, and Quijano. Philip Hershkovitz, who before the outbreak of the war had started his investigations on the mammalian fauna of the northeastern part of Colombia under the Walter Rathbone Bacon Traveling Scholar- ship, between June 30, 1942, and April 16, 1943, worked mainly in the Department of Magdalena, Colombia. More recently Mr. Hershko- vitz has moved camp to the Department of Bolivar. M. A. Carriker, Jr., under the W. L. Abbott fund of the Smith- sonian Institution, continued work on the Colombian avifauna in northeastern Colombia, and Walter A. Weber, also traveling under the Abbott fund, accompanied the archeological expedition sponsored Jointly by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society to Tabasco, Mexico, during which expedition he obtained about 600 specimens of birds for the Museum collections. Mr. Weber also visited the Instituto de Biologia at Mexico City. Geology.—While field work for upbuilding the exhibits has been curtailed, researches in general geology were increased. Late in July Prof. A. S. Warthin, Jr., and Dr. G. A. Cooper left for a survey of Devonian rocks in Illinois and adjacent States. The purpose of the trip was to correlate isolated areas of Devonian exposures in Illincis with the better-known sequences in Missouri and Iowa, and for the first time such correlations were established in that promising area for new oil fields. After the return of Dr. Warthin, Dr. Cooper went to southeastern Missouri to report on a deposit from which several bones of a dinosaur had been taken. Later in the year, under the cooperative work between the Depart- ment of State and the Smithsonian Institution, and as the result of a 566766—44—3 22 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 special request by Ing. Luis Flores C., of the Instituto Geoldégico de México in Mexico City, Dr. Cooper was detailed to make an economic survey in Mexico. This field work, which was in connection with search for war minerals, resulted in the discovery of a long sequence of Cambrian rocks associated with ore deposits. Dr. W. F. Foshag, on detail from the Museum, spent the entire year in continuation of his work in Mexico supervising surveys for stra- tegic minerals for the United States Geological Survey. Only brief mention was made in last year’s report of the field ex- pedition of the Smithsonian Institution to Wyoming under the direc- tion of C. W. Gilmore, since it extended well into the present fiscal year. Accompanied by George F. Sternberg, George B. Pearce, and Alfonso Segura, of the Museo Nacional in San José, Costa Rica, the party spent 24% months in a systematic search of the Hat Creek Basin area, Niobrara County, Wyo., for Oligocene vertebrate fossils. This work resulted in assembling a collection which, when combined with the specimens obtained in 1932, gives the Museum for the first time an adequate representation of this important fauna. MISCELLANEOUS Visitors—Curtailment of train and bus travel and the rationing of gasoline resulted in a further reduction in the number of visitors at the various Museum buildings. The total recorded during the year was 1,355,269, as against 2,042,817 for the previous year. The largest attendance for a single month was in August 1942, with 163,413 visitors, and the second largest was in July 1942, with 136,111. The attendance in the four Smithsonian and Museum buildings was as follows: Smithsonian building, 264,117; Arts and Industries build- ing, 516,910; Natural History building, 424,055; Aircraft building, 150,187. From November 1, 1942, to June 30, 1943, a separate count was made of members of the armed forces who visited the buildings dur- ing the first 7 days of each month. This count served to show that attendance by servicemen averaged 25 to 35 percent of the total number of visitors. Publications and printing.—The sum of $27,750 was available dur- ing the fiscal year for the publication of the Annual Report, Bulletins, and Proceedings of the National Museum. Publications issued num- bered 30—the Annual Report, 8 Bulletins, 1 Contribution from the National Herbarium, and 25 Proceedings papers. 2 Sees 1 DVCNALGLAGUSHLNIUSE US ae ee Treenkanganoon. 2240 wee 1 Dolichotis magellanica________________ Patasonianicavy oe eee 2, CUI SMONCG ae eats tA de eg ol fPeaD tn net oe Agee Ye Seo LE Bee Nn gt al MCU S SUG TUS tein SA Ne ee Pa Bengalstiger isto ete a Hemitragus jemiahicus______-__-_-_-.__.__ if BEET] ay Ph os Sa ea a as pl NE 2 Hippopotamus amphibius__.___________ Eni poOpotamMUs= = aaa. ae ee al ECU ANG VON Ee Ai ag ATG) urn ere eh aes ee ee alt BTL TIVOLI) CLG OB odin owe he aa ee SAS) 7G sae se eR le ae 1 PUT OAS ATUL TOL Sao ce sae ee es MOOorAMACAgUCE == wens See ee a MCD IVUGUSEAIUGN Cee ee ee eee ee Ra SU eet ee 2S ee eee eee BE ee 5 Mi OCOSTOTA COUP Uae eee ee ee NOV ae te RE Re LT ee 6 NID S AL CIUE REGS Serena hes peewee il BAL Leyes Coatimundt. eee Sees 2 INEOLOMON TORIC COs ee Hloridawoogsrates 22a ea unl 2 (ER A a eee iWioollessishee ps2 ee 5 Poephagus grunniens____________-_____ BC A SA Na en a os sa a a 3 PSCUWCOUS NA CAL Te ee eee ee ae ee ert Bluetsheenessescan see ser DS il SUCUMSUCC ee Dacre Se Pee Uae eet Sikaiidec nesses ee eae ek 1 SU NCCTOSKCO [Cla ae ee es Bes ak Drei Atricany butte Qs 2 ses sae oe 1 TO DUTAUS RLCTNESETIS ea ees oe eS Be South American tapir_____-_--_- 1 Urocyon cinereoargenteus_____________ (Goran yart onc ati Si oer Ue 1 72 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 BIRDS Scientific name Common name Number Anas piaiynhynchoss a Mailllardiquek: eee ee 23 ARES AML OTED CSS iis ieleh he ERs ee eet AG Gu CK so ee ae 4 MONT CONGAENSIGn ee ee ee ee Ganadaigo0se. 22 8 as ea 8 Branta canadensis minima___________ Cackling goose __________ pi aS 4 Branta canadensis occidentalis________ White-cheeked goose____________ 12 Caimnamoschitda=22— 2 ae eee MISCO v ya GKa eee ee nee 5) LUCETOMETICONG 22 oe IS EEA Coots) OIE Sikes Vil Li ae 7 Galularg Callie Se aE A TE Redhunele tow) ps eee 6 Larus novaehollandiae_____-__________ Siliver:oull= >. #2 nett ee 1 Nycticorav nycticoraz naevius________ Black-crowned night heron______ 12 Serius’ canariugi0 S20 Fe he Canary. os Sue a Sieh eee ak DEPOSITS The more outstandingly interesting and desirable animals that were deposited during the year were a spectacled bear, the first ever exhib- ited in this Zoo, deposited by Louis Ruhe, Inc.; a beautiful West African guenon monkey, which we have so far been unable to identify, deposited by H. Allender; a great gray kangaroo deposited by H. B. Harris; a wallaby and a West African palm civet deposited by H. L. Shaw; a group of four yellow-handed tamarins and seven mar- mosets deposited by Miss Martha G. Hunter; a West African crowned hawk-eagle deposited by Louis Ruhe, Inc., and another specimen of the same species deposited by C. P. Haskins; an electric eel, Indian python, and several regal pythons, including one unusually large specimen that weighs 320 pounds, all deposited by Clif Wilson. EXCHANGES Among the more desirable animals received by exchange were two cape hyraces obtained from the Philadelphia Zoo, five Dybowsky deer, and one tahr goat. PURCHASES The more outstanding animals obtained by purchase included a pair of woolless domestic or Barbados sheep which are natives of West Africa; a laughing falcon; and a pair of klipspringers, a remarkable little antelope from southern and eastern Africa. The Hershey Estates Zoo at Hershey, Pa., which depended for its attendance on people coming by automobile, suffered such a sharp curtailment in number of visitors that the management decided to dispose of most of its stock, which permitted us to obtain from that organization a number of interesting and desirable additions. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY To REMOVALS Reductions in the collection are due to deaths, return of animals on deposit, and exchanges. During the year the more noteworthy losses by death were: MAMMALS Avian naluidinosusa. soo) seo Se West African water civet. GOMeElUsnUachiGnuse == eee as ee Arabian camel. Cephalophus nigrifrons—. 2 ot a Black-fronted duiker. Ohoeropsis Wberiensisi Hee eee Pygmy hippopotamus. EMytnrocevus pataselle so. A es Patas monkey. CLURHETO iS See eh sya is aN ees A ea Bengal tiger (male). Hippopotamus amphibius_____--_--_----. Baby hippopotamus. ORES LCC ee African porcupine that had been in the collection since October 1926. VCH COSI CTLS Str mete ek Wanderoo monkey. Mandrillus leucophaeus_______________ Drill baboon, in the collection since 1916. Muntiacus sinensis__._._____-__--___-. Chinese barking deer, in the collec- tion since 1934. INUCTICEDUS COUCONG = 2s Ee Slow loris, received in 1937 from Smithsonian Institution-National Geo- graphie Society Expedition. IRONGOUGU CLs eo see an eee oes See es Sumatran orangutan (“Susie”). IPSCUCOIS NAY CULT eee ee eee Blue sheep. Traguius favanicus—- eae oe ee Javan mouse deer, in the collection since 1937. WSS ERLOCLONUS = ee ee eae ee ae Bae Himalayan bear. BIRDS EQUATE EUG OLR CEN LE ae Slender-billed cockatoo. Sagittarius serpentarius____________--- Secretary bird. Stephanoaetus coronatus_______------~- Crowned hawk-eagle. SEMUTR LO COIN See a aa ee Ostrich, received October 16, 1921, from U. S. Poultry Experiment Station, Bureau of Animal Industry, Glendale, VAlrnonypnuss eee a ani naene condor. REPTILES TESTU OWEN Ges ae ee eee Galapagos tortoise. FISHES Electrophorus electricus_________--_--. Electric eel. SPECIES NEW TO THE HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION Despite the few animals purchased and the factors militating against obtaining outstanding additions, the Zoo was fortunate enough to obtain six species never before in the collection. These were a spec- 74 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 tacled bear (Zremarctos ornatus), which inhabits an indefinitely outlined range in the northern Andes and is very rare in captivity; a pair of klipspringers (Oreotragus saltator), a beautiful little cliff- inhabiting antelope that originally ranged from southern Africa to Abyssinia; five Dybowsky deer (Sika hortulorum), which inhabit Manchuria; one laughing falcon (Herpetotheres cachinnans), a beau- tifully marked falcon of medium size that inhabits the forested parts of tropical America from Mexico to northern Argentina; two quetzals (Pharomachrus mocinno), the state bird of Guatemala, which inhabits the higher mountains from Guatemala to Panama; and a white starling (Graculipica melanoptera), which inhabits Java and is rare in captivity. Statement of accessions How acquired ate Birds | Reptiles Appi, Fishes PN oa Total Presentiod 38665 Ble wey ye 64 91 228 20 18 5 426 Bornorinatched ss) ssaneeee e 101 $5 1 Ue saben) SOR Le 8 al (A PO a PS RE EE 184 Received in exchange_________- 13 7 DACA (ee a EN ea COU Ne eee esses 37 IPUTCRASe de eee ae Ee Bh 11 116 On| eee See DAS Se aoe 161 Onideposites 2. fia. et Lia 31 9 TOM ae eeienien w Yel beeiee., M 53 SAW a A (petal rte Me has 220 306 265 20 45 5 861 Summary Animals?on thand) duly id942 522 eb oe 3 teh a td BS g es ASL ACCESSIONS GUTING «the: year stele tT ee Se ee ee 861 Total animals in’ collection during, year2== = 2 ee 3, 272 Removals from collection by death, exchange, and return of animals CTRL OOS 1h a a a eae a ee he 837 Tn collection UTM ey lel 4 =e ae ee ee 2, 485 Status of collection Species Sar Species ss Class and sub- Tidivid: Class and sub- grees species - species IMAM aISE ae Jee eae 204 66451 nsectsson 2s. eee ee 1 100 Birdseie. nei) eld He Ss a 329 STOTT PIVTOUUSKS fee hen eee 1 1 Reptilesa ca mane ye 96 280)! Crustaceans.) ethan sae 1 2 Amphibians s 22s ie’ foe ee 15 69 el SHS GS yee weer a wrk rer a a eeu 36 306 ‘Potale sa eee 684 2, 435 AT ACH TICS! eek eee deere ly 1 i Respectfully submitted. W. M. Mann, Director. Dr. C. G. Asgor, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. APPENDIX 8 REPORT ON THE ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the activ- ities of the Astrophysical Observatory, including the Division of Astrophysical Research and the Division of Radiation and Organisms, for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1948: DIVISION OF ASTROPHYSICAL RESEARCH The study of the solar-constant values published in March 1942 as table 24, volume 6 of the Annals of the Observatory, confirmed the discovery that the variation of the sun’s output, seemingly irregular, is really made up of numerous regular periodicities, all being closely aliquot parts of 273 months. By combining their influences a pre- diction was made of the march of solar variation from 1939 through the year 1945. This appears in figure 14 of volume 6 of the Annals. In this way it was shown that the years 1940 to 1947 would probably be the most interesting and important years to study the sun’s varia- tion since the early twenties. As the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is the only agency in the world which follows the varia- tion of the sun’s output of radiation, it therefore seemed of extreme importance to keep the record unbroken through these critical years. Hence, despite demands of the war manpower situation, every avail- able means has been used to keep the three field observatories at Mon- tezuma, Chile, Table Mountain, Calif., and Tyrone, N. Mex., in opera- tion. Thus far these efforts have been successful, notwithstanding , the loss of three experienced observers from a total field staff of six. Considerable progress has been made at Washington in the study of short-interval changes of the solar radiation in their relation to ‘weather. As first shown in Smithsonian publications Nos. 3392 and 3397 in the year 1936, the sun’s short-interval variations, though aver- aging only 0.7 percent, are important elements, even governing ele- ments, in weather. The weather effects of individual solar changes are found to last at least 2 weeks. These studies of the year 1936 have been repeated this year employing the improved and enlarged “solar constant” data published as table 24, volume 6 of our Annals. The new results are even more convincing than the provisional ones just referred to. They have been extended to deal with the weather of several cities in different parts of the world, for both temperature and barometric pressure. It is expected to publish soon on this subject. At Washington two computers have continued reductions of solar- constant observations, but have not, of course, been able to keep up to date with the results, inasmuch as these computers were also called 75 76 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 on frequently for work relating to war problems assigned by the Army and the Navy, or requested by outside agencies engaged in war work. It is hoped that with the return to Washington of Mr. Hoover, who has been carrying on measures at Tyrone Observatory for 2 years, the solar-constant computations can be pushed along more rapidly so as to disclose the remarkable changes of solar radiation expected for the years 1940 onward, as referred to above. Most of the time of Messrs. Abbot, Aldrich, and Kramer has been devoted to problems assigned by the war services on which no report can be made at this time. Personnel.—Mr. and Mrs. A. F. Moore completed their term of service at Montezuma. Mr. F. A. Greeley succeeded Mr. Moore in June 1948 as field director there with Mrs. F. A. Greeley as his as- sistant. Mr. Stanley C. Warner continued as field director at Table Mountain with Mr. Kenneth G. Bower as assistant. Mr. W. H. Hoo- ver acted as field director at Tyrone Observatory. Mr. Alfred G. Froiland, bolometric assistant there, was inducted into the army in June 1948, after which Mr. Hoover carried on alone. Mr. Moore will take over at Tyrone, and Mr. Hoover will return to Washington. No changes in personnel occurred at Washington. DIVISION OF RADIATION AND ORGANISMS (Report prepared by Dr. Earl S. Johnston, Assistant Director) The regular research program of the Division was discontinued early in August. Since that date practically the entire time of the members of the Division has been directed toward solving problems relative to the Nation’s war activities. By far the largest percentage of this work has dealt with problems submitted by the Naval Re- search Laboratory. Because of the nature of some of this work, it is obvious that a detailed report cannot be submitted at this time... The personnel and laboratory equipment of the Division was such that adaptation to this new work in physics, chemistry, and biology was very readily made. However, the efficiency of the Division as a unit has been decreased somewhat through loss of personnel. At the request of the Annual Review of Biochemistry, a review ar- ticle on photosynthesis was prepared last summer by Dr. Johnston of the Division and Dr. Jack E. Myers of the University of Texas. This paper has now been published in volume 12 of the Review. Personnel—On August 1, Mrs. Phyllis W. Prescott, the junior clerk-stenographer for the Division, was transferred to the admin- istrative office as assistant clerk-stenographer. Respectfully submitted. C. G. Aszor, Director. THe SECRETARY, Smithsonian Institution. APPENDIX 9 REPORT ON THE LIBRARY Sm: I have the honor to submit the following report on the activi- ties of the Smithsonian library for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1943: Intensification of the war effort, so evident throughout the whole Institution, has been both reflected in, and shared by, the library dur- ing the difficult year just past. The library has been confronted by two major responsibilities that have motivated its work: How best to adjust policies and adapt pro- cedures to wartime changes and demands, and how to maintain, as far as possible, the basic continuity of the collections. Urgent as is the first of these, experience during and following the First World War has shown that the second cannot be neglected with- out serious weakening of the library’s service to the Institution. In) wartime, normal growth is inevitably diminished, and a certain amount of change of emphasis in acquiring material is necessary and even de- sirable, but the responsibility that the library has for implementing the deep-rooted and continuing work of a scientific institution cannot be overlooked even in an emergency of the present heroic proportions. WAR WORK Never before in the history of the library have its collections and its staff been called upon to give aid in so many different kinds of re- search, virtually all of which were concerned in some way with the war effort. Regular use of the library by the scientific staff of the Institution has been almost entirely in connection with the war, and more than 35 of the war agencies have made many direct inquiries, have borrowed more than 500 books, and have sent research workers, some of them for extended periods of time, to use the collections. Indirectly too, through the use of the library by the staff of the Ethno- geographic Board, still other of the war agencies have been repre- sented. Rich in certain kinds of geographical and related material, and in ethnological works, the branch libraries of the National Museum and the Bureau of American Ethnology especially, have been con- stantly visited and called upon by war workers. It has been most gratifying to find that the Institution has not in- frequently been able to supply data of urgent importance that could not be found elsewhere. 77 78 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The index of foreign geographical illustrations begun last year as a special war service and originally planned to cover only the publi- cations of the Institution itself was later enlarged, at the request of the Smithsonian War Committee, to include files of selected journals on special subjects containing incidental geographical illustrations likely to be overlooked in any routine search for pictures. The selec- tion of these journals was made by the scientific staff of the Institution and the indexing was done in their offices, the library serving as the coordinator and keeper of the file, which now contains more than 12,000 entries. As another aid to the war agencies in making use of the library, the librarian prepared a brief account of its resources, mimeographed copies of which were distributed to key personnel in Washington and elsewhere by the Ethnogeographic Board. The cordial response of the whole Institution to the library’s plea for books in the Nation-wide Victory book drive for men and women in the armed services, is worthy of record. More than 500 fine clean copies of highly readable contemporary books were contributed. It may be of interest to note here the transfer to the Library of Congress of an uncataloged collection of miscellaneous war pamphlets accumulated by the library during the First World War. This col- lection, numbering some 3,000 pieces, largely the so-called ephemera of the period, though valuable as historical source material, had no direct bearing on the scientific work of the Institution. ACCESSIONS Receipt of foreign publications dropped somewhat, but not nearly so sharply as during the preceding year, after shipments from enemy and occupied countries ceased. Through the International Exchange Service, 855 packages, or only 70 fewer than last year, were delivered. Even this decline was more apparent than real, for a good: many foreign serials came directly by mail. Fortunately there have been comparatively few actual losses, and not many prolonged delays in the arrival of the most important of those scientific serials that are still being published in the allied and neutral countries, though some of the foreign institutions and societies are postponing shipment of their publications until after the war. The maintenance of both the quan- tity and quality of scientific publication at a high level among our war-torn allies abroad is worthy of remark. The publication and receipt of domestic scientific serials continued to be practically normal. In the Museum library an accession of special importance was a selection of 250 books and 2,300 separates and pamphlets, mostly on the subject of reptiles, from the library of the late Dr. Leonhard Stejneger. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 79 Received in the sectional library of the division of fishes, by trans- fer from the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior, was the large collection of manuscript records of the dredg- ing and hydrographic stations of the U. S. F. 8. S. Albatross and other fisheries vessels. By regular and special exchange, and by purchase, considerable progress has been made in filling gaps in the serial sets, some of them of long standing, and in strengthening certain collections on special subjects, for example, the published results of scientific sur- veys and travels. The importance of such material, always apparent, especially in connection with the work of the curators in the Museum, has been doubly emphasized by the increased wartime demand for it both within and from outside the Institution. One of the larger special exchanges of duplicates, with the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, yielded a good many parts of periodicals needed in the Museum library, while from Cooper Union came 35 publications on art for the National Collection of Fine Arts library. Among purchases, wartime deviations from the normal have been the unusually large number of requests for atlases, descriptive geog- raphies, and foreign-language dictionaries. GIFTS There have been a number of especially notable gifts during the year. One that is invaluable in itself, and noteworthy as well for being the library’s first considerable accession of microfilmed material, was the very generous gift of the Linnean Society of London of the records of its Linnean collections and manuscripts, the copying of which was made possible by a grant to the society from the Car- negie Corporation. This is one of two sets deposited in American libraries, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University having re- ceived the other. We are much indebted to Dr. Elmer D. Merrill, the administrator of botanical collections there, for his good offices in arranging the whole matter. All the actual specimens in the Linnean herbarium are said to be covered in the 60,000 exposures of the set, as well as records of the mollusks, fishes, and insects, of vari- ous manuscripts, and those of Linneaus’ own publications to which he had added corrections and emendations. To accompany the very fine collection of arms and armor given by him to the Museum, Ralph G. Packard presented also his collection of 350 books on the subject, many of them rare and beautiful volumes. The sectional library of the division of marine invertebrates received another special collection of great usefulness in connection with speci- mens previously received from the donor, by the bequest of the late 80 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Dr. Frank Smith of his working library of oligochaete literature, 1,103 pieces in all. A unique gift to the sectional library of the division of minerals was a five-volume set of phetomiergrapls of meteoric irons presented by Dr. Stuart H. Perry. As always, the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary, and many other members of the Smithsonian staff made generous contributions of books and papers. From the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science came 578 publications. Among other donors were the American Association of Museums, the American Committee for International Wild Life Protection, the American Wildlife Institute, Barton A. Bean, Mrs. Arthur 8. Blum, Hon. Usher L. Burdick, the Detroit News, Haydn T. Giles, Daniel C. Haskell, J. Cramer Hudson, the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen, Mrs, Vera F. Lewis, Fritz Lugt, Dr. John P. Marble, Dr. Salvador Massip, Dr. Riley D. Moore, Olaf Nylander, W. J. Orchard, Hon. Chase S. Osborn and Miss Stella Brunt Osborn, the Pan American Union, the Pennsyl- vania Academy of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, Dr. A. E. Porsild, Dr. L. A. White. CATALOGING Cataloging of the regular inflow of current accessions was excep- tionally well kept up under the handicap of the understaffing of the catalog division, but there was no time that could be devoted either to the older material so badly in need of attention, or even to some of the larger recent gifts of special collections. There are at least 15,000 uncataloged volumes in special collections scattered throughout the Institution, while in the Museum library many more thousands of volumes have never been cataloged by subject and are represented in the catalog only by antiquated author cards. The difficulty, or actual loss of use of much important material by this lack of adequate cataloging is a serious matter, and one that should receive first con- sideration in post-war planning of the library’s work. PERSONNEL Changes in personnel were the retirement for disability of Miss Marian W. Seville, senior library assistant, on August 31, 1942, after many years of faithful service; the appointment of Miss Minna Gill as assistant librarian in charge of the catalog, on September 2, 1942; the appointment of Mrs. Daisy F. Bishop as under library assistant on February 17, 1943, and the resignation of Miss Marion Blair, junior clerk-typist, on April 21, 1943. Since January 21, 1948, W. B. Green- wood has been absent ree the library of the Buseve of American Xthnology on military duty. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 81 There were a number of promotions and reassignments to duties among the staff. Miss Anna Moore Link was given charge of the National Collection of Fine Arts library and Miss Elizabeth G. Mose- ley was promoted to Miss Link’s former position in charge of the serial collections in the Museum library ; Mrs. Hope H. Simmons was promoted to be assistant librarian in charge of accessions and Miss Marjorie R. Kunze was promoted to be chief assistant in the accessions division. The loss of one position and the time lag in filling other vacancies have been serious obstacles in the way of keeping work up to date. The fine spirit of the whole staff in meeting emergencies, in taking on extra work, and in accepting temporary assignments to new or unaccustomed duties is much to be commended. STATISTICS Accessions Approxi- Approxi- Volumes mate Volumes| mate and pam-| holdings and pam-| holdings phlets June 30, phlets | June 30, 1943 9 Astrophysical Observatory --- 276 10, 675 || National Museum__-_--------- 3, 680 226, 967 eee of American Ethnol- National Zoological Park- --__- 102 4, 043 1 ta Me eR ER 321 33,811 || Radiation and Organisms---- 1 619 rere Gallery of Art.......--- 165 16, 531 || Smithsonian Deposit--------- 1,051 571, 028 Taney Aeronautical Li- i sys Smithsonian Office____------- 227 31, 282 32 Rea EUR Bos » 592 | National Collection of Fine TO tal tee oe haces ver 6,955 | 1907, 645 a) NaF bp a Eo a es aa ee 1, 103 9, 097 1 Neither incomplete volumes of periodicals nor separates and reprints from periodicals are included in these figures. Hzchanges Newiexchanves arranged a0. 02 2 ss ee ee ee ee eS 159 88 of these were assigned to the Smithsonian Deposit. SEN VEIT SRT OCC ELV (eee oe ec UN een eR eNO So ee 3, 631 549 of these were obtained to fill gaps in the Smithsonian Deposit sets. Cataloging Volumes andinamphiets cataloged2- 2 bo. 5, 012 @ardsiiledcin catalogs;and shel telistse =) ae ee en 80, 635 Periodicals PeMomienl parts CHtered. 26 men yes Ae Ree ee oes 11, 756 Circulation Roane oft oolkssanG period Cal sae = ee ba ee ee ee ee 11, 236 This figure does not include the very considerable intramural circu- lation of books and periodicals assigned to sectional libraries for filing, of which no count is kept. Binding Volumes, Sentutor thes bindery. 2 a eee ee ee 2,135 Respectfully submitted. Lema F. Crarn, Librarian. Dr. C. G. Axssor, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. APPENDIX 10 REPORT ON PUBLICATIONS Sm: I have the honor to submit the following report on the publica- tions of the Smithsonian Institution and the Government branches under its administrative charge during the year ended June 30, 1948: The Institution published during the year 13 papers in the Smith- sonian Miscellaneous Collections, and title page and table of contents of volumes 101 and 103; 10 papers in the War Background Studies series; 1 Annual Report of the Board of Regents and pamphlet copies of 23 articles in the Report appendix, and 1 Annual Report of the Secretary; 2 special publications, and reprints of 2 volumes of the Smithsonian’s series of tables. The United States National Museum issued 1 Annual Report; 25 Proceedings papers; 3 Bulletins; 1 separate paper in the Bulletin series of Contributions from the United States National Herbarium. The Bureau of American Ethnology issued 1 Annual Report and 8 Bulletins. Of the publications there were distributed 194,057 copies, which included 21 volumes and separates of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 37,732 volumes and separates of the Smithsonian Mis- cellaneous Collections, 24,986 volumes and separates of the Smith- sonian Annual Reports, 60,464 War Background Studies papers, 2,529 Smithsonian special publications, 55,631 volumes and separates of National Museum publications, 10,793 publications of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 28 reports on the Harriman Alaska Expedi- tion, 36 Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory, and 1,810 reports of the American Historical Association. SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS There were issued 2 papers and title page and table of contents of volume 101, 1 paper comprising volume 102, 10 papers and title page and table of contents of volume 103, as follows: VOLUME 101 No. 16. The snow and ice algae of Alaska, by Erzsébet Kol. 36 pp., 6 pls., 5 figs. (Publ. 3683.) September 19, 1942. No. 18. A new species of sand bug, Blepharipoda doelloi, from Argentina, by Waldo L. Schmitt. 10 pp.,1 pl. (Publ. 3687.) August 10, 1942. - Title page and table of contents, (Publ. 3695.) October 27, 1942. 82 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 83 VOLUME 102 Compendium and description of the West Indies, by Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa, translated by Charles Upson Clark. 862 pp. (Publ. 3646.) September 1, 1942. r VOLUME 1038 No. 1. Distribution and variation of the Hawaiian tree snail Achatinella apexfulva Dixon in the Koolau Range, Oahu, by d’Alté A. Welch. 236 pp., 12 pls., 8 figs. (Publ. 3684.) December 16, 1942. ‘ No. 2. The skeleto-muscular mechanisms of the honey bee, by R. H. Snodgrass. 120 pp., 32 figs. (Publ. 3688.) September 30, 1942. No. 3. A revision of the Indo-Chinese forms of the avian genus Prinia, by H. G. Deignan. 12 pp. (Publ. 3689.) September 1, 1942. No. 4. Archeological and geological investigations in the San Jon District, eastern New Mexico, by Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr. 30 pp., 9 pls., 3 figs. (Publ. 38692.) October 12, 1942. No. 5. New Upper Cambrian trilobites, by Charles E. Resser. 186 pp., 21 pls. (Publ. 3693.) October 21, 1942. No. 6. On the preparation and preservation of insects, with particular refer- ence to Coleoptera, by J. Manson Valentine. 16 pp., 5 figs. (Publ. 3696.) November 21, 1942, No. 7. The musculature of the labrum, labium, and pharyngeal region of adult and immature Coleoptera, by Carl Kester Dorsey. 42 pp., 24 pls. (Publ. 3697.) January 20, 1943. No. 8. The 1914 tests of the Langley “aerodrome,” by C. G. Abbot. 8 pp., 1 fig. (Publ. 3699.) October 24, 1942. No. 9. Mystacocarida, a new order of Crustacea from intertidal beaches in Massachusetts and Connecticut, by Robert W. Pennak and Donald J. Zinn. 11 pp., 2pls. (Publ. 3704.) February 238, 1948. No. 10. A remarkable reversal in the distribution of storm frequency in the United States in double Hale solar cycles, of interest in long-range forecasting, by C. J. Kullmer. 20 pp., 19 figs., 10 storm-frequency year maps. (Publ. 3729.) April 5, 1943. Title page and table of contents. (Publ. 3731.) June 9, 1943. Additional copies of the following volume were printed: VOLUME 86 Smithsonian Meteorological Tables. Fifth Revised Edition. First Reprint. Ixxxvi+282 pp. (Publ. 3116.) WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES In the new series of Smithsonian publications, War Background Studies, Nos. 3-12, inclusive, were issued during the year. In order to list all the papers in this series, Nos. 1 and 2 are included, although they were issued toward the end of the previous fiscal year. Nos. 13-16 are also listed, although they had not actually been issued at the close of the year. No. 1. Origin of the Far Hastern civilizations : A brief handbook, by Carl Whiting Bishop. 53 pp., 12 pls., 21 figs. (Publ. 3681.) June 10, 1942. 84 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 No. 2. The evolution of nations, by John R. Swanton. 23 pp. (Publ. 3686.) June 24, 1942. No. 8. The peoples of the Soviet Union, by AleS Hrdlitka. 29 pp. (Publ. 3690.) July 15, 1942. No. 4. Peoples of the Philippines, by Herbert W. Krieger. 86 pp., 24 pls., 4 figs. (Publ. 3694.) November 18, 1942. No. 5. The natural-history background of camouflage, by Herbert Friedmann. 17 pp., 16 pls. (Publ. 3700.) December 11, 1942. No. 6. Polynesians—explorers of the Pacific, by J. E. Weckler, Jr. 7 pp., 20 pls., 2 figs. (Publ. 3701.) January 13, 1948. No. 7. The Japanese, by John F. Embree. 42 pp., 16 pls., 3 figs. (Publ. 3702.) January 23, 1943. No. 8, Siam—land of free men, by H. G. Deignan. 18 pp., 8 pls., 1 fig. (Publ. 3703.) February 5, 1943. No. 9. The native peoples of New Guinea, by M. W. Stirling. 25 pp., 28 pls., 1 fig. (Publ. 3726.) February 16, 1943. No. 10. Poisonous reptiles of the world: A wartime handbook, by Doris M. Cochran. 37 pp., 17 pls., 2 figs. (Publ. 3727.) March 19, 1943. No. 11. Egypt and the Suez Canal, by Frank H. H, Roberts, Jr. 68 pp., 25 pls., 1 fig. (Publ. 3728.) March 381, 1948. No. 12. Are wars inevitable? by John R. Swanton. 36 pp. (Publ. 3730.) May 11, 1943. (Issued after the close of the fiscal year) No. 138, Alaska: America’s continental frontier outpost, by Ernest P. Walker. 57 pp., 21 pls., 2 figs. (Publ. 3783.) July 8, 1943. No. 14. Islands and peoples of the Indies, by Raymond Kennedy. 66 pp., 21 pls., 7 figs. (Publ. 3734.) August 5, 1943. No. 15. Iceland and Greenland, by Austin H. Clark. 103 pp., 21 pls., 2 figs. (Publ. 3735.) August 19, 1948. No. 16. Island peoples of the western Pacific: Micronesia and Melanesia, by Herbert W. Krieger. 104 pp., 21 pls., 2 figs. (Publ. 3737.) September 15, 1943. SMITHSONIAN ANNUAL REPORTS Report for 1941.—The complete volume of the Annual Report of the Board of Regents for 1941 was received from the Public Printer in September 1942. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution show- ing the operations, expenditures, and condition of the Institution for the year ended June 80, 1941. xiii++596 pp., 121 pls., 17 figs. (Publ. 3651.) The general appendix contained the following papers: What lies between the stars? by Walter S. Adams. Artificial converters of solar energy, by H. C. Hottel. The new frontiers in the atom, by Ernest O. Lawrence. Science shaping American culture, by Arthur H. Compton. Mathematics and the sciences, by J. W. Lasley, Jr. The role of science in the electrical industry, by M. W. Smith. The new synthetic textile fibers, by Herbert R. Mauersberger. Plastics, by Gordon M. Kline. Vitamins and their occurrence in foods, by Hazel E. Munsell. Science and human prospects, by Eliot Blackwelder. Iceland, land of frost and fire, by Vigfus Hinarsson. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 85 The genes and the hope of mankind, by Bruce Bliven. Care of captive animals, by Ernest P. Walker. The influence of insects on the development of forest protection and forest management, by F. C. Craighead. Growth hormones in plants, by Kenneth V. Thimann. Useful algae, by Florence Meier Chase. The excavations of Solomon’s seaport: Ezion-geber, by Nelson Glueck. Decipherment of the linguistic portion of the Maya hieroglyphs, by Ben- jamin Lee Whorf. Contacts between Iroquois herbalism and colonial medicine, by William N. Fenton. The study of Indian music, by Frances Densmore. Snake bites and the Hopi Snake Dance, by M. W. Stirling. The Eskimo child, by AleS Hrdli¢ka. Wings for transportation (Recent developments in air transportation equipment), by Theodore P. Wright. Report for 1942.—The Report of the Secretary, which included the financial report of the executive committee of the Board of Regents, and which will form part of the Annual Report of the Board of Re- gents to Congress, was issued in January 1943. Report of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and financial report of the executive committee of the Board of Regents for the year ended June 30, 1942. iii+112 pp. 2pls. (Publ. 3698.) The Report volume, containing the general appendix, was in press at the close of the year. SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS Songs from the Iroquois Longhouse: Program notes for an album of American Indian music from the eastern woodlands (issued by the Library of Congress), by William N. Fenton. 34 pp., 9 pls. (Publ. 3691.) September 11, 1942. The Smithsonian Institution and the United States Natiowal Museum welcome the members of our armed forces. 4 pp. April 1943. The following special publication was reprinted: Smithsonian Mathematical Tables—hyperbolic functions, prepared by George F. Becker and C. EH. Van Orstrand. Fifth reprint. lii+321 pp. (Publ. 1871.) August 21, 1942. PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM The editorial work of the National Museum has continued during the year under the immediate direction of the editor, Paul H. Oehser. There were issued 1 Annual Report, 25 Proceedings papers, 3 Bulle- tins, and 1 separate paper in the Bulletin series of Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, as follows: MUSEUM REPORT Report on the progress and condition of the United States National Museum for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1942. iii+118 pp. January 1943. PROCEEDINGS: VOLUME 88 Title page, table of contents, and index. Pp. i—viii, 587-615. August 18, 1942. 566(66—44——7 86 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 VOLUME 89 Title page, table of contents, and index. Pp. i-ix, 583-620. November 28, 1942. VOLUME 90 Title page, table of contents, and index. Pp. i-vii, 553-581. December 18, 1942. VOLUME 91 No. 3131. Catalog of human crania in the United States National Museum collections : Eskimo in general, by AleS Hrdlitka. Pp. 169-429, fig. 39. August 1, 1942. No. 3132. The species of Aegla, endemic South American fresh-water crusta- ceans, by Waldo L. Schmitt. Pp. 481-520, figs. 40-64, pls. 25-28. August 18, 1942. VOLUME 92 No. 8147. New species of bark beetles (Pityophthorini) from Mexico and tropi- cal America (Coleoptera, Scolytidae), by M. W. Blackman. Pp. 177-228, pls. 20-23. November 25, 1942. No. 3148. Osteology of Polyglyphanodon, an Upper Cretaceous lizard from Utah, by Charles W. Gilmore. Pp. 229-265, figs. 16-36, pls. 24-26. October 138, 1942. No. 3149. Notes and new species of Microlepidoptera from Washington State, by J. F. Gates Clarke. Pp. 267-276, pls. 27-82. October 138, 1942. No. 3150. The genotypes of some of Ashmead’s genera of ichneumon-flies, by R. A. Cushman. Pp. 277-289. October 8, 1942. No. 3151. New Neotropical insects of the apterygotan family Japygidae, by H. BE. Ewing and Irving Fox. Pp. 291-299, pls. 33, 34. October 1, 1942. No. 3152. The fresh-water fishes of Liberia, by Leonard P. Schultz. Pp. 301- 348, fig. 37, pls. 35, 36. November 13, 1942. No. 3153. Mexican herpetological miscellany, by Hobart M. Smith. Pp. 349- 895, fig. 38, pl. 37. November 5, 1942. No. 8154. Revision of the genus Phloeosinus Chapuis in North America (Coleop- tera, Scolytidae), by M. W. Blackman. Pp. 397-474, pls. 88-41. December 21, 1942. No. 3155. The Late Cenozoic vertebrate faunas from the San Pedro Valley, Ariz., by C. Lewis Gazin. Pp. 475-518, figs. 39-47, pls. 42, 43. December 10, 1942. No. 8156. The type species of the genera and subgenera of bees, by Grace A. Sandhouse. Pp. 519-619. March 5, 1943. VOLUME 93 No. 3157. The Nearctic species of parasitic flies belonging to Zenillia and allied genera, by Wendell F. Sellers. Pp.1-108. January 19, 1943. No. 3158. A new fossil reptile from the Upper Cretaceous of Utah, by Charles W. Gilmore. Pp. 109-114, figs. 1-5. December 12, 1942. No. 3159. Some American geometrid moths of the subfamily Ennominae here- tofore associated with or closely related to Hllopia Treitschke, by Hahn W. Capps. Pp. 115-151, pls. 1-10. February 24, 1943. No. 3160. Skeletal remains with cultural associations from the Chicama, Moche, and Vir Valleys, Peru, by T. D. Stewart. Pp. 153-185, pls. 11-18. January 23, 1943. No. 3161. New marine mollusks from the Antillean region, by Harald A. Rehder. Pp. 187-208, pls. 19, 20. January 20, 1943. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 87 No. 3162. A new pest of Albizzia in the District of Columbia (Lepidoptera: Glyphipterygidae), by J. F. Gates Clarke. Pp. 205-208, pls. 21-25. March 9, 1943. No. 3163. Osteology of Upper Cretaceous lizards from Utah, with a descrip- tion of a new species, by Charles W. Gilmore. Pp. 209-214, figs. 6-10. January 19, 1943. No. 8164. The birds of southern Veracruz, Mexico, by Alexander Wetmore. Pp. 215-340, fig. 11, pls. 26-28. May 25, 1943. No. 3165. New genera and species of bark beetles of the subfamily Micracinae (Scolytidae, Coleoptera), by M. W. Blackman. Pp. 341-865, pls. 29-30. March 22, 1943. No. 3166. Notes on some barnacles from the Gulf of California, by Dora Priaulx Henry. Pp. 367-3873, pl. 31. May 3, 1943. BULLETINS No. 180. Fishes of the Phoenix and Samoan Islands collected in 1939 during the expedition of the U. S. S. Bushnell, by Leonard P. Schultz. x+3816 pp., 27 figs., 9 pls. January 20, 1943. No. 181. The cyclophorid operculate land mollusks of America, by Carlos de la Torre, Paul Bartsch, and Joseph P. E. Morrison. iv+306 pp., 42 pls. August 21, 1942. No. 182. Monograph of the West Indian beetles of the family Staphylinidae, by Richard HE. Blackwelder. viii+658 pp., 3 figs. 19 maps. January 27, 1943. CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL HERBARIUM VOLUME 28 Title page, table of contents, and index. Pp. i-xii, 677-694. December 16, 1942. PUBLICATIONS OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY The editorial work of the Bureau has continued under the imme- diate direction of the editor, M. Helen Palmer. During the year there were issued 1 Annual Report and 3 Bulletins, as follows: REPORT Fifty-ninth annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1941-42. 12 pp. January 30, 1948. BULLETINS 132. Source material on the history and ethnology of the Caddo Indians, by John R. Swanton. 332 pp., 19 pls., 5 figs. January 16, 1943. 134. The native tribes of eastern Bolivia and western Matto Grosso, by Alfred Métraux. 182 pp., 5 pls., 1 fig. November 23, 1942. 135. Origin.myth of Acoma and other records, by Matthew W. Stirling. 128 pp., 17 pls., 8 figs. December 3, 1942. REPORT OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION The annual reports of the American Historical Association are transmitted by the Association to the Secretary of the Smithsonian 88 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Institution and are communicated by him to Congress, as provided by the act of incorporation of the Association. The following reports were issued this year: . Annual report of the American Historical Association for the year 1936. Volume 3. Instructions to the British Ministers to the United States, 1791-1812. Annual report of the American Historical Association for the year 1937. Volume 2. Writings in American History, 1937, 19388. Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the year 1940. Proceedings. Annual report of the American Historical Association for the year 1941. Vol- ume 1. Proceedings; private letters from the British Embassy in Washington to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville, 1880-85 ; manuscript accessions. Volume 2. Talleyrand in America as a financial promoter, 1794-96. Volume 3. List of doc- toral dissertations in history now in progress at universities in the United States and the Dominion of Canada. The following were in press at the close of the fiscal year: Annual Report for 1942, volume 1 (Proceedings and list of members) ; volume 2 (Letters from the Berlin Embassy) ; volume 3 (The quest for politi- cal unity in world history). REPORT OF THD NATIONAL SOCIETY, DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION The manuscript of the Forty-fifth Annual Report of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, was transmitted to Congress, in accordance with law, December 1, 1942. ALLOTMENTS FOR PRINTING The congressional allotments for the printing of the Smithsonian Annual Reports to Congress and the various publications of the Gov- ernment bureaus under the administration of the Institution were virtually used up at the close of the year. The appropriation for the coming year ending June 30, 1944, totals $88,500, allotted as follows: fSheaunelokc(opens Wall Goksjohmb ier koy oles Sy ue eee es eS eel a $16, 000 IN atiomale Mise wri 2 sels RS a Lend ET RS 43, 000 Bureau, of American Ethnology... 000740 eee eee 17, 480 Nationals @ollectiom sof Rime Ais tea emcee eee ena neon 500 International Dxchanees = 2 wee Ree 200 NationalsZo0logical PRarkezie. Sete ve Merk ie seh sale eee 200 Astrophysical MObservalto tyes. mies lee a epee Aen 500 American HistoricaleAssociations 225 sure si sae eee 10, 620 To Gay rts serch 9 ao OE rel wi Diy aye ds. Tye ay oats da Ba eee at . 88, 500 Respectfully submitted. W. P. Trur, Chief, Editorial Division. Dr. C. G. Axszor, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE SMITH- SONIAN INSTITUTION FOR THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1943 To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution: Your executive committee respectfully submits the following report in relation to the funds of the Smithsonian Institution, together with a statement of the appropriations by Congress for the Government bureaus in the administrative charge of the Institution. SMITHSONIAN ENDOWMENT FUND The original bequest of James Smithson was £104,960 8s. 6d.—$508,318.46. Re- funds of money expended in prosecution of the claim, freights, insurance, ete., together with payment into the fund of the sum of £5,015, which had been withheld during the lifetime of Madame de la Batut, brought the fund to the amount of $550,000. Since the original bequest the Institution has received gifts from various sources chiefly in the years prior to 1893, the income from which may be used for the general work of the Institution. These are invested and stand on the books of the Institution as follows: Avery, Robert S. and Lydia T., bequest fund____________.____ $50, 498, 44 Endowment fund, from gifts, income, ete___________________ 272, 549, 65 abel sry Si beg mes tit urm ct eae ea ee ae ea ee 500. 00 Hachenberg, George P. and Caroline, bequest fund__________ 3, 942. 03 LMG OTM: PATE, CULES eh erg ra Cl ee ee EB 2, 895. 70 Henry. Carolnes bequest tung sn ea 1, 185. 46 18 (aya kes Fetrayst. 4 Wh ayoy Ta ESV E on iy ag ee ake oat a ee 145, 623. 83 JOSEY evan ys ib WO Lamalisteane ENR Tat ae he ULL eel a nee Me) Cape rl Nae A ea iat 728, 836. 59 Rhees, William Jones; bequest fund_--____~ 4 -_-_ 1, 053. 72 Santord..George He meniorial fundss 22s eee 1, 972. 56 Witherspoon, Thomas A., memorial fund___--__--_____-____ 126, 491. 58 STOEL ER Lt Pet Ta Chat eV seam a RIE I CET eae aE 1, 400. 00 Total endowment for general work of the Institution______ 1, 336, 949. 55 The Institution holds also a number of endowment gifts, the income of each being restricted to specific use. These are invested and stand on the books of the Institution as follows: Abbott, William L., fund, bequest to the Institution____-__________ $104, 010. 11 Arthur, James, fund, income for investigations and study of the sun AN GSLECE UTE OTL WHC SUE eee ee ese re a OS 39, 200. 44 89 90 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Bacon, Virginia Purdy, fund, for a traveling scholarship to investi- gate fauna of countries other than the United States____________ $49, 107. 53 Baird, Lucy H., fund, for creating a memorial to Secretary Baird__ 17, 942. 00 Barstow, Frederic D., fund, for purchase of animals for the Zoolog- TCaHEP a rey Scat See RE a os Sie a A eed oon dd Bed ae Ue BI 745. 61 Canfield Collection fund, for increase and care of the Canfield col- lection ,of sminetals2.- 22S w ee ds be Ee Rs ee 37, 488. 80 Casey, Thomas L., fund, for maintenance of the Casey collection and promotion of researches relating to Coleoptera_____________ 8, 990. 30 Chamberlain, Francis Lea, fund, for increase and promotion of Isaac Lea collection of gems and mollusks______________________ 27, 602. 19 Hillyer, Virgil, fund, for increase and care of Virgil Hillyer collec- tion: OL MiehtingvobJeGis sas ae: eas ee ar ee IG ais eae ee 6, 441. 94 Hitchcock, Dr. Albert S., Library fund, for care of Hitchcock Agrostologicall Mul brary owe ve ase eaten bee Nes eM beet nee See ee 1, 448. 66 Hodgkins fund, specific, for increase and diffusion of more exact knowledge in regard to nature and properties of atmospheric UTS a mes ee es Bel Ae eri Be ee at Dee sae 100, 000. 00 Hughes, Bruce, fund, to found Hughes alcove____________________ 18, 761. 82 Myer, Catherine Walden, fund, for purchase of first-class works of art for the use of, and benefit of, the National Collection of Fine VATS Ses ie pe SA AERA Eke, SiR a SARS EY wt Mee Eel ad Lay 18, 580. 22 National Collection of Fine Arts, Strong Bequest-_-_____________ 9, 799. 76 Pell, Cornelia Livingston, fund, for maintenance of Alfred Duane Pellig Collection h sick seta asia aire Isa sie eas OB NH ae ea te 7, 265, 59 Poore, Lucy T. and George W., fund, for general use of the Institu- tion when principal amounts to the sum of $250,000___________ 88, 009. 95 Reid, Addison T., fund, for founding chair in biology in memory of PNthaveyo UA hyo hots [Ee Sees SRE SS ase ap a Se ee eee the a A ee 29, 764. 02 Roebling fund, for care, improvement, and increase of Roebling collection WoL minerals. eae ae ee ee ee ee eee 118, 295. 54 Rollins, Miriam and William, fund, for investigations in physics SUCH TNTS ET yee a ea ewe eee EO 91, 565. 20 Smithsonian employees retirement fund_-_______.______________ 32, 704. 36 Springer, Frank, fund, for care, ete., of Springer collection and Dy nea Ty a NE oe Se eT a at 17, 577. 31 Walcott, Charles D. and Mary Vaux, research fund, for develop- ment of geological and paleontological studies and publishing TESUTT Ss tere oe Tes eee CO EAR oes eS tres Se met a 408, 867. 73 Younger, Helen Walcott, fund: held in truste se 50, 112. 50 Zerbee, Frances Brincklé, fund, for endowment of aquaria_________ 745. 99 Special research fund, gift, in the form of real estate____________ 20, 946. 00 Total endowment for specific purposes other than Freer CNGOWMen ti. Sue eae new bere pes ee mea Lhe cosas bot ht sa Se Gy res sri The above funds amount to a total of $2,642,923.12, and are carried in the following investment accounts of the Institution: U. 8S. Treasury deposit account, drawing 6 percent interest______ $1, 000, 000. 00 Consolidated investment fund (income in table below)_-____-____ 1, 316, 533. 49 Realestate: smortea ges ete a. 2 oie ae Cee ee eee ee 274, 877.13 Special funds, miscellaneous investments____.._.________________ 51, 512. 50 2, 642, 923. 12 REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 91 CONSOLIDATED FUND Statement of principal and income for the last 10 years Fiscal year Capital Income pee Fiscal year Capital Income a as hog Meeeee hs Zea $754, 570.84 | $26, 650. 32 3. 66 1039s $902, 801. 27 | $30, 710. 53 3. 40 18 ee ea 706, 765. 68 26, 808. 86 3.79 1940. ah ee 1, 081, 249. 25 38, 673. 29 3.47 Hi Bi) Sees eee 728, 795. 46 26, 836. 61 3.71 1Q4T Sas at 1, 093, 301. 51 41, 167.38 3. 76 1c. ee ee 738, 858. 54 33, 819. 43 4. 57 1940) see 1, 270, 968. 45 46, 701. 98 3. 67 Nise au cee 867, 528. 50 34, 679. 64 4:00) |]" 1943.2 oe 1, 316, 533. 49 50, 524. 22 3. 83 FREER GALLERY OF ART FUND Early in 1906, by deed of gift, Charles L. Freer, of Detroit, gave to the Institution his collection of Chinese and other Oriental objects of art, as well as paintings, etchings, and other works of art by Whistler, Thayer, Dewing, and other artists. Later he also gave funds for the construction of a building to house the collection, and finally in his will, probated November 6, 1919, he provided stock and securities to _ the estimated value of $1,958,591.42 as an endowment fund for the operation of the Gallery. From the above date to the present time these funds have been increased by stock dividends, savings of in- come, etc., to a total of $5,836,772.01. In view of the importance and special nature of the gift and the requirements of the testator in re- spect to it, all Freer funds are kept separate from the other funds of the Institution, and the accounting in respect to them is stated sepa- rately. The invested funds of the Freer bequest are classified as follows: Courtland. ero und sy frm ee Ts a eu a aaa 3 ees UE $653, 866. 10 Court and grounds maintenance fund__________________________ 164, 230. 01 Curator y funds sso se SS SNE peer ea eee eee PAE 665, 412. 78 RRCSIGUATYMICZ ACY: 25 2-4 URE TEs ee ke 4, 353, 268. 12 SU ey De a a a A ee ay AS SAMA Ut ST 5, 836, 772. 01 SUMMARY Invested endowment for general purposes______________________ $1, 3836, 949. 55 Invested endowment for specific purposes other than Freer CRMICRW ROR Gee East S6e) BS 1) frie Ohh apo wha OF cl MEY oo So Faery akg laa 1, 305, 978. 57 Total invested endowment other than Freer endowment____ 2, 642, 923. 12 Freer invested endowment for specific purposes_________________ 5, 836, 772. 01 Total invested endowment for all purposes_______________ 8, 479, 695. 13 92 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 CLASSIFICATION OF INVESTMENTS Deposited in the U. S. Treasury at 6 percent per annum, as au- thorized in the United States Revised Statutes, sec. 5591_______ $1, 000, 000. 00 Investments other than Freer endowment (cost or market value at date acquired) : Bonds A(dGrGiirerent serous) see ee $515, 3438. 75 Stocks (40\ different (gronps) 2 sees) Pee ee 795, 761. 87 Real-estate and first-mortgage notes____________ 824, 989. 63 Uninvested” capitals =< stot oe eee eee eee 6, 827. 87 —_—————————_ 1, 642, 923. 12 Total investments other than Freer endowment___________ 2, 642, 923. 12 Investments of Freer endowment (cost or market value at date acquired) : Bonds) (28) different soroups) eee ee $2, 222, 113. 26 Stocks) (62 ditterent crowns) 22-2 3, 600, 969. 47 Real estate first-mortgage notes_____. ________ 7, 500. 00 Uninyested “capital Zee eee ie 8 ei ies 6, 189. 28 5, 836, 772. 01 Total. ‘investmentss 22.54 222 eh 8, 479, 695. 13 CASH BALANCES, RECEIPTS, AND DISBURSEMENTS DURING THE FISCAL YEAR* @ashi balancevon! hand June (30: 1942 -ew eee eee a Pee $740, 823. 73 Receipts: Cash income from various sources for general WOM a Ob eee SUE UGE OTe a eee eee ee cn $82, 792. 06 Cash gifts and contributions expendable for spe- cial scientific objects (not to be invested) ____ 25, 233. 00 Cash gifts for special scientific work (to be UTES TO) fee eee ae ee eee Ey et 500. 00 Cash income from endowments for specifie use other than Freer endowment and from miscel- laneous sources (including refund of tem- ORATA CVA CES) re nes ss we eet eee 181, 518. 33 Cash received as royalties from Smithsonian Scientitie Serieso 2s se Pare 2 17, 766. 32 Cash capital from sale, call of securities, ete. (tLo”*berrein vested!) (waa ae. eee Be 373, 564. 26 Total receipts other than Freer endowment____-__________ 631, 373. 97 Cash income from Freer endowment___________ $216, 125. 07 Cash capital from sale, call of securities, ete. (to beiireimvested)) SUS cr 8 2 a" eee ena Oe 1, 440, 606. 70 Total receipts from Freer endowment_________-__-___=____ 1). Ga6s 734077 Fy Geen ees 2 Aa eh A Se aac 3, 028, 929. 47 ‘This statement does not include Government appropriations under the administrative charge of the Institution. REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 93 CASH BALANCES, RECEIPTS, AND DISBURSEMENTS DURING THE FIS- CAL YEAR—Continued Disbursements: From funds for general work of the Institution: Buildings—care, repairs, and alterations__ $2, 980. 12 Kurniture and) fixtures2 2222." .s0 ae 173. 48 Generalwadminlstrationy c= 22 oso 83, 108. 71 MA TST AT Y oe ls ee ea 2, D1%. 92 Publications (comprising preparation, printings and. distribution) {——2 2s 36, 634. 70 Researches and explorations__-_____-_---- 1a eienee we $90, 787. 10 From funds for specific use, other than Freer endowment : Investments made from gifts and from sav- ingsvoOn income laure wae een ie eee 50, 752. 65 Other expenditures, consisting largely of research work, travel, increase and care of special collections, ete., from income of endowment funds, and from cash gifts for specific use (including temporary AGVATIGES)) LLU y Tee EE Sey era ene 122, 872. 78 Reinvestment of cash capital from sale, call OLISCCUTITICS .elCns ee Se ee 285, 264. 19 Cost of handling securities, fee of invest- ment counsel, and accrued interest on bonds purchased *ss— 2:2 ses a eee 3, 779. 05 ———_—____—__—_ 462, 668. 67 From Freer endowment: Operating expenses of the gallery, salaries, field “expenses, Weltesso oe 2S 2 eee 37, 224. 00 Purchase of artiobjects eee 131, 971. 87 Reinvestment of cash capital from Sale, call-of Securities, etes ear esr —. 1,611, 775. 28 Cost of handling securities, fee of invest- ment counsel, and accrued interest on bends) purchased as eet eaten 22, 804. 12 1, 808, 775. 27 Cash balance Juners0 21943 Ses eee Se eee ee 671, 698. 43 D0 a eat Soe DS CSIR ae A A Be EO Te 3, 028, 929. 47 2 This includes salary of the Secretary and certain others. Included in the foregoing are expenditures for researches in pure science, publications, explorations, care, increase, and study of collec- tions, etc., as follows: Expenditures from general funds of the Institution: Publications! =a a ee ees Coe Ee ee $36, 684. 70 Researches and explorabionss. 22.2222 eee 15, 372. 22 $52, 006. 92 94 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Expenditures from funds devoted to specific purposes : Researchesiand explorations] s-< =o see se oe ae $37, 032. 59 Care, increase, and study of special collections_______ 7, 062. 42 PUD Cations Be ee a se ee 6, 054. 74 $50, 149. 75 vi Doo W gS eA eT oe ee pe 102, 156. 67 The practice of depositing on time in local trust companies and banks such revenues as may be spared temporarily has been continued during the past year, and interest on these deposits has amounted to $1,348.28. The Institution gratefully acknowledges gifts or bequests from the following: Funds from sale of certain publications, property of the late E. J. Brown to be used, at his request, for the study of birds. Florence Brevoort Hickemeyer, bequest, income of which to be used for exhibition, preservation and care of photographie works and collection of Rudolph Hickemeyer, Jr. Friends of Dr. Albert S. Hitchcock for Hitchcock Agrostological Library. John A. Roebling, further contributions for research in radiation. All payments are made by check, signed by the Secretary of the In- stitution on the Treasurer of the United States, and all revenues are deposited to the credit of the same account. In many instances deposits are placed in bank for convenience of collection and later are with- drawn in round amounts and deposited in the Treasury. The foregoing report relates only to the private funds of the Insti- tution. The following annual appropriations were made by Congress for the Government bureaus under the administrative charge of the Smith- sonian Institution for the fiscal year 1943: Generaliexpenses.: =. 220 a2 2 ea ai ee ee Se $394, 334 (This combines under one heading the appropriations heretofore made for Salaries and Expenses, International Exchanges, Amer- ican Ethnology, Astrophysical Observatory, and National Collec- tion of Fine Arts of the Smithsonian Institution, and for Maintenance and Operation of the United States National Museum.) Preservation of collections (including supplemental appropriation for overtime'salaries) 220) 85a iii t lil st ee re ar) ee 699, 246 Printing (and) bindings— 22-2229 es ee i Dee ee ae 88, 500 National Zoological Park (including supplemental appropriation for overtime salaries) 22a te ee ee ee ee eee 269, 200 Cooperation with the American Republics (transfer to the Smithsonian Tstit tation’) ee es cree ele re oer em teen Ld 57, 500 WV ON ry Era eet ah a a 20, 000 REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 95 The report of the audit of the Smithsonian private funds is given below: SEPTEMBER 23, 1943. WXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, BOARD OF REGENTS, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. 0. Sirs: Pursuant to agreement we have audited the accounts of the Smithsonian Institution for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1948, and certify the balance of cash on hand, including Petty Cash Fund, June 30, 1948, to be $673,598.48. We have verified the record of receipts and disbursements maintained by the Institution and the agreement of the book balances with the bank balances. We have examined all the securities in the custody of the Institution and in the custody of the banks and found them to agree with the book records. We have compared the stated income of such securities with the receipts of record and found them in agreement therewith. We have examined all vouchers covering disbursements for account of the Institution during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1943, together with the authority therefor, and have compared them with the Institution’s record of expenditures and found them to agree. We have examined and verified the accounts of the Institution with each trust fund. We found the books of account and records well and accurately kept and the securities conveniently filed and securely cared for. All information requested by your auditors was promptly and courteously furnished. We certify the Balance Sheet, in our opinion, correctly presents the financial condition of the Institution as at June 30, 1943. Respectfully submitted. WILLIAM L. YAEGER, Certified Public Accountant. Respectfully submitted. Freprertc A. DELANO, VANNEVAR BusH, CLARENCE CANNON, Executive Committee. 4 :) ‘Re vin am “aie “aaa — ae ni) he ' ‘ge f pists ny ‘an } lp ate a | Ui quia A ‘agtaowdal que Me ba pet ag penn wee ponte i wet Psy arky eh Cvan! Hele fete Oe Onl » tite THAN ait TM tee Ricca anneal aORROT OBimra: AlitiNe dary weet "honoree speach halt’ ipa a screen hy Facog tore in Sen rite hahah pocscrin dun wit aye paneling, ak rit git, wn Minnie ine Gut a gl Pig) F kage re enh Baht, Ao ‘rhe bere PY ted, bent Lys ss) em ety eM As H abhi) rand Hescocl al) iit: vgs y a4) fit if fyaus xh bag ‘Wotetdact ach es, . ab anos on 4, w ie bil! vat ‘alia. 4 Mahe" at i ad iste 1) etatlatir’ Bi Tne Aine tN a “etal Ae! 1) Hee Ri NATE win Ly ¢uenorl fate rl | ot Yo) Per cer: set, ptgceaspssedl Mela Pas nah aie Gh nw Het ) ip i i Hh : Pics hte veh nf ne Miosoysioh ity seks rene its i iH ae ; ri ” " sys) ih ty ivy iM | a i) mn ney " 4 ) ; : a emt a ten 9k gael. hich att ‘i cal bea Worarestt y i An ve ay t ; yi SI i in H Pain F ' Ri Hire tee , hae , pies POT Gi . pre bi, 14 i ; nna oA eat RaAyen a i ne ly 4h i me Wy ae Tai si rat ‘goes 2 | | iW at { rh Bic’ i ane ih ie a peieron ; a nee sobeges tel, ae | | Mas oe W yi wn i i i ete ih ” vet % Nah « , no ty ) he A k uti xara vi ‘ i Pada th rs wy Lae aS ry iy vhs rit : bh soaker fusnieinss Birt \ Le cash P Us $4) it ni Hea i iin tg: Mit i Wg re mit ! eet it a Aa i aa saa ny Me ashy wl Mais whit hi se i Mt bane Pen ah ‘it Hy ae ae ¥ ‘ait } tT heyy Ma He ‘iE i" ead ” ir ioc mith Basle Prue Bibi, Vl ey, PL 4 ; io Taint ft hay . Wil ANG etn uae nat Aan), Hi; GENERAL APPENDIX TO THE SMITHSONIAN REPORT FOR 1943 97 ADVERTISEMENT The object of the Genzrat Appenpix to the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution is to furnish brief accounts of scientific dis- covery in particular directions; reports of investigations made by collaborators of the Institution; and memoirs of a general character or on special topics that are of interest or value to the numerous correspondents of the Institution. It has been a prominent object of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution from a very early date to enrich the annual report required of them by law with memoirs illustrating the more remarkable and important developments in physical and biological discovery, as well as showing the general character of the operations of the Institution; and, during the greater part of its history, this purpose has been carried out largely by the publication of such papers as would possess an interest to all attracted by scientific progress. In 1880, induced in part by the discontinuance of an annual sum- mary of progress which for 30 years previously had been issued by well-known private publishing firms, the Secretary had a series of abstracts prepared by competent collaborators, showing concisely the prominent features of recent scientific progress in astronomy, geology, meteorology, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, zoology, and anthropology. This latter plan was continued, though not altogether satisfactorily, down to and including the year 1888. In the report for 1889 a return was made to the earlier method of presenting a miscellaneous selection of papers (some of them original) embracing a considerable range of scientific investigation and discus- sion. This method has been continued in the present report for 1948. 98 SOLAR RADIATION AS A POWER SOURCE? By C. G. ABBOT Secretary, Smithsonian Institution [With 3 plates] This major power source of the world is as yet almost unused by engineers. The intensity of solar radiation at mean solar distance outside the earth’s atmosphere is about 1.94 calories per square centi- meter per minute. Expressed in English measures, this is 7.15 B. t. u. per square foot per minute. Actual supplies of sun heat, however, vary with the season. Owing to the ellipticity of the earth’s orbit, we are about 3 million miles nearer the sun in January than in July, and the actual intensity of the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere is about 6 percent greater in January than in July. As there is less hu- midity and clearer air in winter, it follows that the sun’s heat at the earth’s surface in the Northern Hemisphere is a good deal more intense in winter than in summer for equal solar altitudes above the horizon. The reason winter is cold is because the sun lies so far south that its rays shine very obliquely, so that the average intensity on a horizontal surface is thereby greatly reduced. Thick clouds reflect away about 75 percent of the sun rays which strike them. Much of the area east of the Mississippi is 50 percent cloudy, so it follows that in these sections a third of the sun’s radia- tion is reflected out to space. Besides this cloud loss there is an actual absorption by the water vapor and other ingredients of the atmosphere. This amounts in humid localities to from 15 to 25 percent. Accordingly, solar power propositions would operate at great disadvantage in most of the States east of the Mississippi, ex- cepting Florida, as compared to the arid and generally high-altitude regions of the Southwest. Measurements of solar radiation made at the earth’s surface upon a receiver at right angles to the beam, and with the sun at 15° or more above the horizon, range from 1.5 calories per square centimeter per minute down to 1.0 calorie, or even less, depending on the clearness of the atmosphere. In favorable localities a value of about 1.35 1 Reprinted by permission from The Military Engineer, vol. 35, No. 208, February 1943. 99 100 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 calories may be assumed as the average for the day of solar energy on a surface normal to the beam, except while clouds obscure the sun. This corresponds in ordinary power units to 1.15 horsepower per square yard. Whether or not it is worth while to employ the solar energy for power depends on the efficiency which can be achieved in converting solar radiation into mechanical energy. On that factor depend the size and cost of the equipment. An efficiency of only 1 to 5 percent would be apt to involve prohibitively cumbersome and costly equip- ment. Buta solar engine with an efficiency of 10 to 15 percent might be commercially competitive with other sources of power, even at present. As times goes on, it is to be supposed that the cost of the major power sources, coal and oil, will rise, though the limited supply of water power may remain relatively unchanged in cost. Hence, in the future, unless some as yet unused source of power becomes important, it is probable that solar power will be extensively employed. If such a change in the major sources of power should occur, it would tend to alter very much the distribution of population. Such a State as New Mexico would become a great manufacturing center. With machines of the type already devised, that State could furnish from solar radiation more power than is now used for heat, light, trans- portation, and manufacturing in the United States, and at a cost not perhaps exceeding the present cost of power from coal. There are two major difficulties in the way of utilizing solar radia- tion. First, except on overcast days, the sun’s rays come from a moon- sized spot, which moves daily through the sky from the eastern to the western horizon, and yearly from 23° north to 23° south of the celes- tial equator. Second, from sunset to sunrise the sun’s rays are wholly cut off. EARLY EXPERIMENTS In one interesting series of experiments, reported by Willsie and Boyle in Engineering News, May 13, 1909, the first difficulty was avoided by employing a stationary horizontal receiver. This, how- ever, is at great cost in thermodynamic efficiency, owing to the low temperatures of operation, and to losses of radiation by reflection, due to the very oblique incidence of the rays during many hours of the day and year. It would seem fatal to sacrifice so much efficiency. The work of Shuman at Tacony, Philadelphia, also reported in that same issue of Engineering News, led on at length to the very different experiments of Eastern Sun Power, Ltd., described by Ackermann in the Smithsonian Report for 1915. These experiments came nearer being a commercial success, I believe, than any others on solar power up to that time. A large plant was erected near Cairo, Egypt, and used for a time for irrigation from the Nile. It appears to have been SOLAR RADIATION AS A POWER SOURCE—ABBOT 101 abandoned during and since the World War of 1914-18. In these ex- periments the sun’s rays were roughly focused upon boilers, and thus from the thermodynamic viewpoint more eligible temperatures were attained than those of Willsie and Boyle’s experiments. Some inventors have attempted to employ thermoelectricity or photoelectricity as means of escaping from the necessity of working through gaseous heat cycles to achieve mechanical motion. It is diffi- cult to conceive that thermoelectric couples could ever be a valuable expedient for this purpose. The electromotive forces available are so > Wi AN DSS 5 a SS Ficure 1.—Eneas’s solar generator, patented March 26, 1901. small that the multiplication of couples is necessarily great, and the apparatus required would contain enormous numbers of parts. The wires used would all be metallic conductors of heat, so that a very large fraction of the solar input would be dissipated in useless heat losses. As for photoelectricity, it seems to be limited to comparatively narrow regions of the spectrum, so that large fractions of the solar rays would be wholly useless to these devices. Of the remaining useful rays, no inconsiderable part would be converted into heat, and would also be useless. I cannot think that at present these direct electrical conver- sions of solar radiation seem promising solutions of the solar-power problem. 566766—44—_8 102 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 INSTRUMENTS Within the past quarter century, so much progress has been made in the commercial use of aluminum products, and also of high-vacuum technique, that it is possible for one who is familiar with the astrono- mers’ solution of their problem of following the heavenly bodies with telescopes to design types of apparatus for utilizing solar radiation for power, combining minimum expense with maximum efficiency. Formerly the choice for solar mirrors lay between mirror glass and metals of rather low reflecting power and short reflecting life. Such materials for mirrors were heavy, costly, inefficient, and quickly deteriorating. We can now purchase commercially the bright reflect- ing product called Alcoa in thin sheets of large size. It is a special preparation of aluminum, long retaining its reflectivity, and with a coefficient of reflection for solar rays slightly exceeding 80 percent. Frames of suitable curvature being made from duralumin shapes, these may be covered with the thin Alcoa sheets to make up cheap, light, and fairly permanent solar mirrors. In consideration of best design, we come to the question of waste of heat. It is well known that heat is lost by three processes: conduc- tion, convection, and radiation. Of these, metallic conduction would be very important, as stated before, if one should be using a great number of thermoelectric elements, but it is possible almost entirely to eliminate losses by conduction with boilers of certain forms. With moderate temperature differences, and for objects in the open air, convection is a far greater dissipater of heat than radiation. But direct convection may be eliminated almost altogether if the body to be cooled is enclosed by highly evacuated space as commonly practiced in the thermos bottle. In that case cooling proceeds almost wholly by radiation from the inner to the outer wall of the enclosing evacuated sheath, and thence by convection and radiation to the surroundings. This consideration leads us to see at once that the advantage of employing an evacuated sheath becomes less and less as the temperature of the solar boiler rises higher and higher. For radiation increases as the fourth power of the temperature for the so-called black body or perfect radiator. Since we must use a trans- parent sheath to admit rays to the boiler, it is not practicable to cut down radiation by fully plating the inner wall of the evacuated sheath, as in the thermos bottle. We must, therefore, regard the inner wall of the sheath as approximately a “black body.” Hence the inner wall of the evacuated sheath, when at high temperatures, will radiate strongly to the outer wall, which conducts the heat to its outer surface and there loses it by convection. On this account it follows that although the sun’s temperature is so high that boiler temperatures up to the melting point of materials SOLAR RADIATION AS A POWER SOURCE—ABBOT 103 could readily be attained, this is not advantageous. For though the thermodynamic efficiency factor 7,—7:/7, would gain, this would be more than offset by the increased heat losses of the boiler. Fur- thermore, though quartz glasses like Pyrex enable us to use transpar- ent evacuated sheaths at fairly high temperatures, high vacua lose their excellence with very high temperatures, so that convection becomes serious. On these accounts it is not desirable in solar-power machines to employ boiler temperatures much above 200° C. (392° F.). If oper- ating to a condenser at 30° C., such a temperature of the boiler gives a thermodynamic factor of 473—303/473=36 percent, which, for reasons just explained, may be regarded as the maximum to be ex- pected if due regard is paid to loss of heat from the boiler. Another fundamental consideration in designing solar-power de- vices is that the loss of heat from a body through convection or radia- tion is directly proportional to the external area of the surface of the body. Hence it is of importance for diminishing the waste of heat that the boiler surface should be as small as possible, by using fairly accurate optical mirror forms. Astronomers have long ago agreed that the simplest mechanical motions that could be devised for following celestial objects are those of the equatorial telescope. This scheme involves mounting the in- strument which is to follow the celestial object upon an axis parallel to the earth’s axis, and imparting to this “polar axis” a uniform motion of 15° per hour. If the instrument is to be adapted to follow objects at different distances north or south of the celestial equator— that is, of different declinations—there must be a second axis at right angles carried by the polar axis. This second axis, called the decli- nation axis, carries the telescope or other following device and is to be set by hand to the position of any desired celestial object, and clamped there. If the sun remained stationary with regard to the celestial equator, no second axis would be needed in solar-power ma- chines. But the sun travels through 47° north and south during the year. It is highly desirable to operate with a stationary boiler. The withdrawal of steam from a moving boiler involves costly and un- satisfactory connection. It is clear that a spherical boiler placed in the intersection of the two axes of an equatorial mirror mounting could be stationary. But it would be impossible to enclose thoroughly with an evacuated sheath. The mirror in this case would be circu- lar and preferably of parabolic curvature, which is an awkward shape for fabrication. It has seemed to me preferable to neglect the north-to-south mo- tion of the sun, using a mirror rotating uniformly at 15° per hour 104 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 about a single polar axis. The boiler then becomes a tube of small diameter lying in the axis. The vacuum sheath is an elongated Pyrex thermos bottle, of which about one-third the circumference of the outer surface of the inner wall is gold-plated. The mirror is a rectangular concave cylindric mirror, of parabolic curvature, whose equation, as I prefer it, is y? = 36x. The mirror is long and narrow and rotates about its focus, the polar axis. Being long compared to its width, the deliberate end-loss of light at the solstices, June 20 and December 20, from neglecting the sun’s motion in declination, is not serious, and this loss becomes zero at the equinoxes. The metallic ZZ WOOP wie HO \ N N s S N N Ny Hy N & 5 N N S Ny N i NF N 4 N i N i H) Hy} Ky Ny Ky S N ij m N i N 4 N N 4 me rT a LE is LSSsy LN Ficurre 2.—Diagram of flash boiler (4), in vacuum sheath (1), served by water supply (2), governed by air pressure in steam chest (7), operating extensible chamber (14), governing injector (15). First arrangement. boiler tube is blackened by painting with a suspension of lampblack in alcohol with a slight addition of shellac. At the low temperatures, not exceeding 200° C., this paint does not burn. It absorbs about 95 percent of the solar radiation. The mirror in my small model comprises several castings of alu- minum, machined to accurate parabolic curves and joined by L-string- ers of duralumin to forma cradle. To this cradle are attached Alcoa sheets not previously bent, and held down by narrow metal straps screwed through the sheets to the parabolic frames. At the ends the mirror frame supports steel hanger bars which carry hollow trun- nions, and supports above a counterbalance bar of metal, set edgewise to the beam and extending from end to end of the mirror as a stif- SOLAR RADIATION AS A POWER SOURCE—ABBOT 105 fener. Simple stout wooden posts, set in the ground, are adapted to carry rollers on which the trunnions rest with their axis parallel to that of the earth. The elongated Pyrex thermos bottle enclosing the boiler tube rests axial to the hollow trunnions and is closed at the lower end. To drive the mirror most conveniently, a worm-and-wheel mecha- nism is attached to one end of the mirror and its support. The worm is driven at the correct speed by a tiny 60-cycle electric motor. Where alternating electric current is difficultly available, a weight drive may be substituted, regulated by an escapement controlled by an ordinary G Ny V. N N N N N N N N N N N NS 1 SSeNT! SNS WISH Figure 3.—Diagram of variable-delivery injector, with delivery governed by pressure of steam as first used with Dr. Abbot’s flash boiler. alarm clock. I have used such a contrivance successfully for a large mirror on Mount Wilson. For solar power, I prefer the “flash boiler” principle because of its economy of fair skies.? Even in the desert regions, cumulus clouds occasionally hide the sun. If the boiler had a considerable ca- pacity for heat, a series of such clouds might prevent getting full steam pressure at all on a day when the sun shone clearly one-half the time. But when the flash boiler is properly designed, full steam pressure comes on within 5 minutes after the sun emerges from such acJoud. This design involves the automatic regulation of the water supply, to be completely turned to steam as fast as supplied while 2 I have changed my view recently, as indicated in the concluding paragraph of this paper. 106 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 the sun shines and to be completely cut off when the sun is obscured. This requires a pump able to force water in against full steam pres- sure, and so regulated by the temperature of the boiler that the water flow ceases when the boiler cools, and reaches a maximum when the boiler temperature reaches the point for the desired pressure of steam. I accomplish these objects by employing a diaphragm pump, whose stroke is governed from zero to maximum displacement by a rotating cam of regularly increasing throw, operating through a pitman upon the pump. The cam is driven from the 60-cycle motor, above-men- tioned, and is mounted on a longitudinally displaceable carriage. The position of the carriage, and hence the throw of the cam, is governed by the differential heat expansion between the boiler tube and a tape of the nonexpansible alloy, invar, attached thereto. The water is forced through a small tube centrally to the lower end of the boiler tube, where it is guided by a spreader tube into a thin sheet bathing the inner wall of the boiler tube. The water bursts immediately into steam, which flows out to the engine through con- nections from the upper end of the boiler tube. A maze of heat-con- ducting copper vanes extends throughout the upper part of the boiler tube, so that only dry steam can escape therefrom. In large solar- power installations, no doubt it would be desirable to use auxiliary superheaters. The efficiency of such a device is a matter of critical interest for the future of solar power. It may be estimated as follows: Percent Mrrorsrenectl oni ok 2: Siee leeks tN oe Rees) TS eae 82 Sheathivtransmissonsts 222s ee a eee ee ee 85 iBollerabsorptionse ss saree cetera eerie a ee ee ey eee 95 Heat not. wasted oan) ent cil CE edge ee ened 90 Boiler efficiency 0.82 X 0.85 X 0.95 X0.90==__________________ 60 Thermodynamic factor, (as above) 222. 2-2 a ee ee 36 Assumed mechanical efficiency of engine________-________-_____- 75 Over-all efficiency of conversion: 0.60 X0.36X0.75=______-- 16. 2 Recalling, as stated above, that the average receipt of solar energy throughout cloudless days in a favorable region corresponds to 1.15 horsepower per square yard of surface normal to the beam, we con- clude that it will require a mirror of not less than 5.4 square yards, or 48.6 square feet, surface per horsepower under the most favorable of circumstances. Such a mirror might well be 10 by 5 feet in projection. When we consider wind resistance and other limitations, including especially the glass tubing of the evacuated sheath, it seems difficult SOLAR RADIATION AS A POWER SOURCE—ABBOT 107 to suppose that units of more than 5 horsepower (area of mirror projection 121% by 20 feet) would be found desirable. Such units could be assembled in groups of 30, occupying a ground area 150 feet, east-west, by 250 feet, north-south, without undue mutual shading, so as to give a maximum of 150 horsepower per group. Such a group of machines could be mechanically operated in common as regards rotation of mirrors and pumping of feed water. They could also deliver steam to a common superheater for use. It is estimated that the United States uses the equivalent of ap- proximately 10 trillion horsepower hours of power annually for light, heat, transportation, and manufacturing. Assuming, as above, 37,500 square feet of space required for 150 horsepower from the solar source, there would be required 30,000 square miles of territory to supply this entire requirement, assuming only 8 hours’ sunshine per day of the average solar intensity stated above, namely, 1.35 calories per square centimeter per minute. The State of New Mexico alone has approximately four times this area. COST AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS The cost of solar power is difficult to estimate. It depends on the quantity used. With large installations, care and upkeep would become nearly negligible, so that, with a 10-percent return on invest- ment, the cost of power at the plant mighi be estimated as less than one-third cent per horsepower-hour. There remains to consider the serious drawback that direct solar power is unavailable at night. For certain purposes, as irrigation, this is not a serious objection. However, since writing the above I have thought that the means shown in United States Patent No. 2,247,830, of July 1, 1940, could be expanded to include a strong insulated reservoir of water. Solar heating would be conveyed to the water, by gravity circulation through a coil immersed therein, from a black high-boiling liquid filling a vacuum-sheathed glass focus tube. In this way all the ex- pense of the flash boiler would be eliminated, all moments of solar heating would be utilized, the water in the reservoir would be main- tained in a superheated state night and day, and superheated steam would issue to the engine on opening a cock. im ar sh teat if dinghy, yet omens A “nae " a sg oth a Talat ) ; thee bi l hh Mire of ween wh ubiaabeat tbe My del GA ce % ‘i ef Sint rund Uy No Ba fu oo an ya i ie gin’ aul sake fine inal TS net) poy | nib Am ‘ahbo: outa ch Surat ion m ahora ib $4 rar ve 7 bie om Nb Xb \ HN, sei an wi er it Math t 4 ie ie ara dae hay ehh, ib Mahe om dabastole la §. Tite N « tig Bi ida nis " ina sein 1h iW il Ae Mi ts ps i sant i My HA res yi Hie i iN se bane in sia a oy ‘tira | Dy, ate teal ie " aa ded, Di ny vi ih Peele fay: hlee ih be ath sects | "CL6L (IGVAW ‘YseeHossay SAOG-NYWNHS AO HLNOS S3HL WOU MAIA IWYANAD ae as eee RR tl ange oan ait = | 3aLV1d qqyY—"Er6l *‘qaodayy URIUOsyzIWIG Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Abbot PLATE 2 DIAPHRAGM PUMP INJECTOR OF VARIABLE THROW GOVERNED BY DIFFERENTIAL HEAT EXPANSION BETWEEN BOILER AND INVAR TAPE. Rollers which support the mirror seen behind the aluminum plate. Ir) [BUOTIVN Aseqino9 * 10Ud) ‘Joe 9G) 1B Ue D I TEN [ 9 ]/euls 8 suluund J “SuUIpIIng UBIUOSyIIMS 9y} Puyo ULIO. Il Tpying : {4! { 1yeq “YSaT1I0g HSV14 YV10S S,Lossy oo ee ee La NG os 19gqqyV— ¢ro6l *yuodayy ueluosyy € 3LW1d me cat) uh if : ft Pur ae } Coa ohh SOME BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION 4 By Brian O’Brien Institute of Optics The University of Rochester [With 1 plate] Man and the higher animals depend for their very existence upon sunlight. The temperature of the earth’s surface and of the earth’s atmosphere is maintained within limits which can support life only by the flood of radiation which comes to us from the sun. The power supply for all air movement, all winds, everything that goes to make up weather, is this same solar radiation. Most of the higher animals and land plants can survive only with a supply of fresh water, a supply which exists simply because of sunlight. Without the constant working of the distillation plant which evaporates water from the sea and condenses it as rain and snow there would be nothing but salt water on the face of the earth. This distillation plant runs purely by solar heat. But our dependence upon the sun goes far beyond this. Animals cannot by themselves synthesize food and fuel. Even man with all his ingenuity has not yet learned to do this. He can convert food from one kind to another, as he can convert fuel into altered and more convenient forms, but he cannot yet create either. This job is reserved for the green plants. The green coloring matter, chlo- rophyll, permits a plant to utilize sunlight in converting carbon dioxide and water vapor into sugars, starches, and cellulose. This process, which literally unburns our coal as rapidly as an active human race can burn it, supplies, directly or indirectly, all the food and fuel available on the earth. Here again, through the medium of plant life, man and the higher animals are dependent upon radia- tion from the sun. These relations of sunlight to man have been discussed in previous Arthur lectures. Tonight I would like to discuss some less evident effects of sunlight, which, though subtler, are important too. These 1The tenth Arthur lecture, given under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, February 25, 1941. 109 110 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 have to do with biological effects, direct or indirect, of sunlight upon the animal organism. They are specific and depend upon the wave length and character of the ight. For this reason we must start by considering something of the nature of the radiant energy which we receive from the sun. The light from most sources is made up of many different frequencies or wave lengths, and sunlight is no exception to this rule. Such light may be analyzed into a spectrum with a prism and the wave lengths separated from each other, much as a chemist might make a qualitative analysis to determine the elements of which some material or com- _— OUTSIDE EARTHS ATMOSPHERE one i _— AT EARTHS SURFACE o> \ SEA LEVEL ZENITH ATMOSPHERE INTENSITY 10 2 4 6 14 16 8 1.0 WAVELENGTH IN MICRONS Figure 1.—Distribution of energy in the solar spectrum (Abbot) with new exten- sion at ultraviolet end. pound is composed. If light from a narrow source or slit 1s allowed to pass through a prism, a series of images will be produced corre- sponding to the several wave lengths present, and so a spectrum is formed, This spectrum shows the familiar sequence of colors of the rainbow from violet at the short-wave-length end through blue, green, yellow, orange, to red at the longest wave length which can be seen. There are, of course, wave lengths beyond the range to which the eye is sensitive. At longer wave length than the red is the infrared extending for many octaves, and at shorter wave length than the violet is the ultraviolet, a region which will be of particular interest to us here. It is of interest to know what wave lengths are present, but it is even more important to know how much of each. This can be deter- EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 111 mined in a variety of ways. The most fundamental method consists in converting the radiation into heat by absorption in a blackened surface, and measuring the amount of heat produced in each narrow region of the spectrum by the rise of temperature of a delicate elec- trical thermometer. This is analogous to quantitative analysis by the chemist. The energy in each wave length having been determined, it may be plotted as a graph of energy against wave length, such a plot representing the spectral-energy distribution of the light from the particular source measured. Fortunately, this has been carried out for solar radiation very completely and with high accuracy by Dr. Abbot and his associates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, so that the spectral- energy distribution of sunlight is now well known. Although the measurements are made at the earth’s surface and are thus measure- ments of sunlight after loss by transmission through the earth’s atmos- phere, there is a perfectly definite procedure by which the amount of this loss is determined, and so the spectral energy outside the earth’s atmosphere as well as that at the earth’s surface is known. These are plotted in figure 1. It will be seen that in sunlight the greatest energy occurs in the visible region of the spectrum, the intensity falling off rapidly as one passes beyond the violet into the ultraviolet region, and falling off more slowly as one goes beyond the red into the infra- red. In order to act upon living matter, solar radiation must be absorbed by some part of the living organism. In the case of micro-organisms, this absorption occurs throughout the volume of the whole animal or plant, much of the radiation passing entirely through the organism. In the higher animals and man, practically all the radiation is ab- sorbed in the skin, no significant amount penetrating to an appreciable depth. In animals, even the skin is protected by the hair, which thus becomes the principal absorber of light. Oddly enough, this absorp- tion by hair is utilized by animals in at least one important vitamin reaction. When radiation of wave length in or near the visible spec- trum is absorbed by living matter, the energy is either converted into heat or enters directly into a photochemical reaction. Either or both of these effects constitute the first step in the direct action of sunlight upon a living organism. Since this energy transformation must oc- cur when and where the light is absorbed, we may expect a primary action anywhere within a small organism. In larger organisms, and in particular in higher animals and man, the primary action must oc- cur at the surface; that is, in the skin. Human skin is somewhat different from that of any animal, al- though the gross structures are roughly comparable. Even unpig- mented human skin absorbs ultraviolet light strongly, while at the 112 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 red end of the spectrum, unpigmented skin is a relatively poor ab- sorber, reflecting back much of the light energy received. This is shown by two photographs of unpigmented human skin which are reproduced in plate 1. The first photograph was made with ultra- violet radiation, while the second was made with infrared radiation at a wave length just beyond the visible spectrum. Jor comparison a block of white magnesium carbonate was held in the hand in both photographs. This was a good diffuse reflector (i. e., “white”) in the ultraviolet and infrared as well as in the visible spectrum. Although unpigmented skin reflects much of the visible light near the red end of the spectrum as well as the infrared just beyond, that which is absorbed appears to produce a rather specific thermal reac- tion. If one examines a cross section of human skin, it will be seen that the overlying layers contain no pigment materials that absorb red or near-infrared radiation strongly. Reflection does take place in these regions, owing to the many discontinuities in refractive index produced by the cell boundaries in the epidermis, but no measurable absorption occurs until the level of the capillaries is reached at 1 milli- meter or so beneath the surface. Here the blood pigments absorb strongly, with the result that the temperature of this layer is elevated above the surface temperature of the skin, and even above the depth temperature of the body when the skin is exposed in not-too-cool air to intense radiation. This effect was first observed by Carl Sonne, who measured the temperature at successive depths beneath the skin’s sur- face with a delicate needle thermocouple and found a marked rise in temperature under intense illumination. The conversion of radiation to heat at this level in the skin raises the temperature of the capillaries above adjacent layers, heat being conducted both to the cooler skin surface and the cooler tissues at a depth. Since the more sensitive innervation is above the capillary layer, it should be possible to pro- duce without discomfort a higher temperature in the capillary blood by the direct absorption of radiation in it than by conduction of heat from the skin surface inward, as would occur with a hot object held against the skin. In the latter case, with the temperature gradient in- ward, the nerve endings would be at a higher temperature than the capillaries. Sonne reports capillary temperatures produced by light absorption comparable to high fever temperatures, yet without dis- comfort to the patient, and without a corresponding increase of either surface or depth temperature. The significance of this effect is not yet determined. It must occur in only moderate degree when human skin is exposed to sunlight, since several times the intensity of sunlight may be borne without discomfort. With the exception of this thermal effect in the red and the near- infrared, and excepting also the action of visible light upon the eye, EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 113 there appear to be no other specific effects of sunlight upon any por- tion of the animal organism until the ultraviolet limit of the sun’s spectrum is reached. Effects of visible light upon the eye are, of course, most important and profound, but except under destructively intense illumination, the response of the eye appears to be limited {o providing us with a sensory contact with the external world. The subject of vision belongs properly in the field of sensory physiology and psychology and is not included in the types of biological reaction I am discussing tonight; so, for lack of time, and with some reluc- tance, I shall omit it entirely. Most of you, I am sure, have experienced sunburn, or erythema, produced by light, but have you considered how it comes about? In ERYTHEMA REACTION RELATIVE UNITS 2500 2600 3000 3100 3200 700 2800 2900 WAVELENGTH IN| ANGSTROMS Ficure 2.—Erythema sensitivity of human skin. spite of its name, sunburn is not a heat reaction, but a photochemical reaction, produced without heat by ultraviolet light. Moreover, it is not produced by all the ultraviolet spectrum, but only by a very nar- row region at the extreme ultraviolet limit of the sun’s spectrum confined to wave lengths less than about 3150 angstrom units. This reaction appears to be a type of photo-oxidation, produced with the aid of certain enzymes present in normal skin. Hausser and Vahle, and later Hausser, determined the spectral sensitivity of this re- action, obtaining a reaction curve showing two maxima and ap- proaching zero for wave lengths longer than about 3150 angstroms. This is shown in figure 2. These results have been confirmed by Luckiesh, Holliday, and Taylor. The significance of erythema and 114. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 the subsequent pigmentation or tanning of the skin has been a dis- puted point. The pigment of tanned skin is melanin, which appears physiologically inert, produced by an oxidation reaction following ex- posure to light. It seems most reasonable to suppose that the pri- mary function of pigment is the protection it affords the underlying portions of the skin and blood stream from further excessive exposure. It is worth while to examine in more detail the ultraviolet end of the sun’s spectrum responsible for this reaction. The area under a spectral-energy distribution curve represents the energy in that spectral region. It will be evident from figure 1 that the area under the solar-energy distribution curve for all wave lengths shorter than 2.0 =p !Omm. PATH IN OZONE AT S.T.R DENSITY BS OPTICAL 3100 WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS Figure 3.—Ultraviolet absorption of ozone. 3150 angstroms represents less than one-thousandth of the area under the total curve. The small energy involved renders the effects pro- duced by this region of the spectrum the more remarkable. It is noteworthy that at the earth’s surface the sun’s spectrum ter- minates very abruptly at about 2900 angstrom units. The spectrum of the stars and all known heavenly bodies terminates at about this same wave length, and long ago the conclusion was inevitable that something in the earth’s atmosphere must be absorbing abruptly at this point. It is easy to produce much shorter wave lengths from artificial light sources, and there is no reason to attribute this abrupt termination to anything characteristic of the emission spectrum of the sun and stars. More than 50 years ago Hartley correctly attri- buted this abrupt termination to absorption by the gas ozone, tria- EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 115 tomic oxygen, located somewhere in the earth’s atmosphere. Since only traces of ozone could be detected in the atmosphere at the earth’s surface, Hartley concluded that the ozone must be at a considerable elevation. In 1920 Fabry and Buisson, at the University of Mar- seilles, measured the ultraviolet end of the sun’s spectrum very care- fully, and from these measurements and previous laboratory measure- ments which they had made upon known amounts of ozone, concluded that the total amount in the earth’s atmosphere was equal to a layer of the pure gas about 3 millimeters thick at standard temperature and pressure. Subsequent measurements have confirmed this, and we now know that ozone is distributed in the earth’s atmosphere in amounts dependent upon the latitude and the season of the year. This is im- portant to us, since fluctuation in this amount of ozone causes a very large fluctuation in the amount of ultraviolet light reaching the earth’s surface at the limit of the sun’s spectrum. The profound effect of ozone is evident from an examination of its absorption spectrum. This is shown in figure 3 in the form of a plot of optical density (logarithm to the base 10 of the reciprocal of the transmission) as a function of wave length. The very rapid increase in absorption at wave lengths below 3200 angstroms is evident from an inspection of this curve. Recently automatic instruments have been devised for measuring by spectroscopic means the amount of ozone over any given station and recording this amount from hour to hour. As might be expected, fluc- tuations do occur, although the average amounts for any given week or month appear to follow the general seasonal and latitude distri- bution. In figure 4 is shown the day-to-day variation of ozone in a zenith atmosphere over Rochester, N. Y. (latitude 43° 7’ N.), for 4 weeks in the summer. The two curves labeled “3050 A.” and “3110 A.” are simply independent determinations of the same quantity and will be seen to be very consistent. Not only the amount of ozone in a zenith atmosphere but the angle at which the sun’s rays pass through the atmosphere is of importance in determining the ozone absorption. This will be evident from con- sidering the path of solar rays through the atmosphere when the sun is, say, 80° above the horizon. For this condition (a zenith angle of 60°) the light path will be increased by the secant of 60°, or by a factor of 2. This is referred to as air mass 2, air mass 1 being the mass of air through which light must travel in passing through a zenith atmosphere. A striking example of the influence of sunlight upon man is found in the disease of rickets. Affecting infants and young children, it was long known to be associated with dietary deficiencies and par- ticularly with a deficiency of fats. Cod-liver oil was known to be an 116 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 important remedy and to be much superior to other fats for this purpose. In 1890 Palm, observing that rickets was more prevalent in the Temperate Zones than in the Tropics, and that there appeared to be seasonal variations, attributed this to the influence of sunlight. However, for many years thereafter little attention was paid to Palm’s work, and the relation of light to rickets was considered inci- dental. In 1919, however, Huldchinsky, working with undernour- ished children in Vienna following the war, found that rickets could be cured by exposure of the affected child to ultraviolet light from a mercury arc. This surprising result was soon confirmed by work- ers in various parts of the world, notably by Hess and his asso- ciates. This discovery that exposure of a child to light could com- 3050 A JUNE, 1940 Figure 4.—Daily variations in quantity of atmospheric ozone. pensate for a deficiency in diet was of great significance. Closer attention was directed to the fats, and in 1924 Steenbock and, inde- pendently, Hess reported that fats and oils which were not curative in rickets could be rendered potent by exposure to ultraviolet light. It became evident that the active principle, or vitamin D as it was called, was being formed from some provitamin by the action of light. Numerous investigations by Hess and his associates, by Rosen- heim and Webster, by Windaus, and by others too numerous to men- tion here, demonstrated that ergosterol, first isolated by Tanret in 1889, is a parent substance from which vitamin D is produced by ultraviolet radiation. At first it appeared that only from ergosterol could vitamin D be formed. However, discrepancies were soon noted in the vitamin-D potency of irradiated preparations when tested on birds (usually the EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 117 chicken) as compared to tests on mammals (usually the rat). This led to the discovery that at least one other substance, 7-dehydro- cholesterol, could be converted into vitamin D by exposure to light. Ergosterol is a characteristic plant sterol, while 7-dehydro-cholesterol is a sterol found in animal substances. It seems probable therefore that it is 7-dehydro-cholesterol and not ergosterol which is acted upon when human skin is exposed to sunlight, and so converted into vitamin D, which, entering the peripheral blood stream, prevents or cures rickets in the child so exposed. It was first shown by Kon, Daniels, and Steenbock that the quantum efficiency of the photochemical reac- eee ERGOSTEROL ve EFFICIENCY ——— 7-DE HYDRO- CHOLESTEROL oO RELATIVE UNITS oO > ABSORPTION COEFFICIENTS COMPARISON OF ERGOSTEROL ABSORPTION WITH SPECTRAL ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENY 2500 2600 2700 2800 2900 3000 3100 3200 WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS FIcuRE 5.—Ultraviolet absorption of provitamin sterols and relative antirachitic reaction. tion converting the sterol into vitamin D is substantially independent of wave length, and there is reason to expect such a result. This would mean that the energy efficiency of the reaction could be arrived at from the characteristic absorption of the sterols as a function of wave length. ‘These absorption curves are shown in figure 5, and it should be necessary only to divide the ordinates by the energy value of the quantum at each wave length (i. e., multiply the ordinates by the wave lengths) to obtain the spectral-response curve. However, such a spectral-response curve would be correct only when the sterol was irradiated in dilute solution and in the absence of other con- taminating substances exhibiting masking absorptions in the same spectral regions. In animal skin the condition of dilution is no doubt 566766—44—_9 118 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 fulfilled, but many other light-absorbing substances are present. It is not surprising, therefore, that the spectral response for the anti- rachitic effect of ultraviolet radiation directly upon the animal’s skin should be modified somewhat from the response of the pure sterol. Knudson and Benford have measured this response in albino rats, their results being shown also in figure 5. The response in human skin may not be identical with that occurring in the albino rat, but may well be very similar, so the results of Knudson and Benford pre- sent the best approximation to date. In order that we may calculate the antirachitic effect of sunlight * under a variety of conditions when acting directly upon animal skin, it is necessary that we know more than the spectral response per unit energy shown in figure 5. In addition, it is necessary to have the spectral-energy distribution at the short-wave-length end of the sun’s spectrum for the several conditions under which we wish to calculate the effect. Because of the strong selective absorption by ozone in this region of the spectrum, the energy is dropping rapidly as one proceeds to shorter wave lengths. For this reason the usual thermal method for measuring spectral-energy distribution is not as satis- factory as are certain photographic procedures. In these, suitable precautions must be taken as have been described elsewhere, and a double dispersion spectrographic instrument must be used to eliminate the effects of scattered light. The details of these measurements will be published elsewhere. The results are shown in figure 6 for the spectral intensity of solar radiation as received at the earth’s surface at sea level through a clear zenith atmosphere (air mass 1) for two ozone quantities. The upper curve is for total ozone in a zenith atmosphere equal to 2.0 millimeters of the pure gas at standard tempera- ture and pressure, while the lower curve is for 2.8 millimeters of ozone under the same condition. These curves have been smoothed to eliminate the Fraunhofer structure while still preserving the correct average ordinates over any small wave-length interval. This is to simplify the graphical integration to be carried out as described below. In general, sunlight must reach the earth’s surface after passing obliquely through the earth’s atmosphere at some angle Z with the zenith. This results in an increase in path through each stratum of the atmosphere in the ratio of the secant of the zenith angle. The resultant increase in absorption by the ozone and increase in scattering by the air molecules can be calculated. The result is shown in the curves of figures 7 and 8 for a series of air masses (i. e., secants of the zenith angle), and for two quantities of ozone, 2.0 and 2.8 millimeters S. T. P. in a zenith atmosphere. 2The writer wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Mrs. F. Dana Miller in making calculations or antirachitic effects under a research grant from the Wisconsin Alumni Re search Foundation. EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’'BRIEN 119 The antirachitic effect of sunlight for the several conditions of ozone and air mass can now be calculated at each wave length by multiplying the antirachitic response per unit energy (fig. 5) by the solar energy at that wave length (figs. 7 and 8). This has been done and the product at each wave length plotted to form the family of curves in figures 9 and 10. For each condition of ozone and air mass the solar antirachitic effect is represented by the integral of the 14 Ta GEE a ae 12 SEA LEVEL ZENITH ATMOSPHERE INTENSITY 2900 3000 100 WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS FiIcurse 6.—Distribution of energy at the ultraviolet end of the solar spectrum at sea level through zenith atmosphere (air mass=1.0). relative efficiency as a function of wave length. This is represented by the area under the appropriate curve of figure 9 or figure 10. The functions are not analytic, so the integration must be carried out by graphical or mechanical means, but this is easily done with the aid of a planimeter. The results of this integration are plotted in figure 11 in which the antirachitic efficiency of solar radiation is shown as a function of air mass for 2.0 and 2.8 millimeters of ozone S. T. P. in the atmosphere. 120 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The significant feature of the curves of figure 11 is the rapid falling off of the antirachitic effectiveness of sunlight, with increase in atmos- pheric ozone and with increase in the air mass resulting from obliquity of the sun’s rays. For air mass 2 corresponding to the sun 30° above the horizon it will be noted that the antirachitic effect is less than one-tenth that of the sun in the zenith under otherwise identical con- 2.0 mm. OZONE INTENSITY WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS Ficurs 7.—Solar spectral-energy for various air masses. (2.0 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere.) ditions. For air mass 3 corresponding to the sun about 20° above the horizon the effect has fallen to about one-eightieth that of the zenith sun. It now becomes possible to predict the antirachitic effectiveness of sunlight for a clear day at any point on the earth’s surface at any season and at any time of day, providing only that the zenith ozone over the station be known. This has been carried out for latitudes 33°, 38°, and 43°, and for the conditions of 2.0 and 2.8 millimeters of ozone, representing average low and average high ozone quantities EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN AWA | for the Temperate Zones. The results are shown in figures 12 and 13 for clear days at noon as a function of time of year. The scale of months is for north latitudes, but exactly similar curves will apply to south latitudes except that the scale for time of year must be shifted by 6 months from the indicated values. In order to show the effects of hour of the day at the three selected latitudes and for the 2.8mm. OZONE INTENSITY ——— 2900 3000 Tete) WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS FieuRe 8.—Solar spectral energy for various air masses. (2.8 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere. ) two selected quantities of ozone, it is necessary to plot six families of curves. These are shown in figures 14 to 19, inclusive. It will be noted that near midsummer the spread in latitude between 33° and 43° results in only a slight drop in the effectiveness of sunlight near noon, providing that the ozone is constant. In midwinter the effective change of latitude is far more important, the 10° difference between 33° and 43° resulting in a change in effectiveness of sunlight of more than fourfold. 122 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The seasonal and geographic differences in antirachitic effect are more impressive when one considers the actual exposure to sunlight necessary to protect a child against rickets. This figure is not easy to arrive at, since it is difficult to control the factors in any single direct experiment with sufficient accuracy. However, there is indirect evidence from which we may arrive at 15 minutes’ exposure per day of a nude child to zenith clear-day sunlight under tropical (2.0 milli- meters ozone) conditions as entirely adequate to protect against rickets, even in the absence of other vitamin-D intake. A Negro PRODUCT CURVES OF SOLAR ENERGY TIMES ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY 2.0 mm OZONE IN ATMOSPHERE RELATIVE EFFIENCY ae ——— 29900 2950 5000 35050 3100 3150 WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS F'icurE 9.—Product curves of solar spectral energy by antirachitic efficiency. (2.0 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere.) child may require somewhat greater exposure because of loss of radia- tion in the skin pigment, although this is by no means demonstrated. If we use the above figure of 15 minutes per day, the scale is immedi- ately set for figures 11 through 19. Thus for sun in the zenith and 2.8 millimeters ozone in the atmosphere, 27 minutes per day (clear sky) would be required. For midwinter conditions at the higher latitudes the exposures become so long as to be entirely out of the question. For example, in midwinter at 48° latitude with 2.8 millimeters ozone in the zenith atmosphere the exposure required even at noon on a clear day would be 66 times 15 minutes, or more than 16 hours, and even with only 2.0 millimeters of ozone in the atmosphere the expo- EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 123 sure required would be more than 7 hours! Evidently even in ideal weather one cannot rely upon direct exposure to winter sunlight in the higher latitudes, and it is upon the winter food supply that the population must depend except in tropical or semitropical latitudes. Actually much of the vtiamin D in the food may have been sunlight- produced, but this topic lies outside of our present discussion. The calculations thus far have been limited to the three latitudes 33°, 38°, and 43°. In figure 20 is shown a reproduction of a United States Geological Survey map upon which these three latitudes have "PRODUCT CURVES OF SOLAR ENERGY TIMES ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY 2.8mm OF OZONE IN ATMOSPHERE 07 (o) : oO B oO N RELATIVE EFFICIENCY 02 Ol 5000 5050 WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS FicurE 10.—Product curves of solar spectral energy by antirachitic efficiency. (2.8 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere.) been drawn. It will be seen that these latitudes are fairly represent- ative of the United States, although significant areas of the country lies above 43° and below 33°. Similarly in figure 21 latitudes 33° and 43° north and south of the Equator have been drawn on a Mercator projection of the earth’s surface. It will be seen that a substantial portion of the populated areas is included within these latitude belts. If one desires the antirachitic effect of sunlight outside these belts it is only necessary to determine the zenith angle of the sun for the place, time of year, and time of day with the aid of a nautical almanac. The secant of this zenith angle determines the air mass from which the relative antirachitic effect may be determined by reference to figure 11. 124 |§ ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 RELATIVE EFFICIENCY OF SOLAR RADIATION AS A FUNCTION OF AIR MASS (M) 20mm OZONE EFFICIENCY ZS AIR MASS Figure 11.—Variation of solar antirachitic effect with air mass. 100 20mm OZONE IN ATMOSPHERE 12 NOON fo) oO EFFICIENCY - RELATIVE UNITS > broke 8 SEASONAL VARIATION IN 10 ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY =o JAN. FEB MAR APR MAY JUNE JULY AUG SEPT. CCT NOv. DEC IIcurE 12.—Seasonal variation in solar antirachitie effect for three latitudes. (2.0 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere.) EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 125 SEASONAL VARIATION IN ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY 28mm OZONE IN ATMOSPHERE 12 NOON Se°NLAT JAN. FEB MAR APR MAY JUNE JULY AUG. SEPT oct NOV. DEC. Fieurr 13.—Seasonal variation in solar antirachitie effect for three latitudes. (2.8 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere.) VARIATION OF ANTIRACHITIC 90 EFFICIENCY WITH TIME OF DAY 20mmOZONE ’ 33°N. LAT 60 70 rd =z > 60 2 + < a 50 & JUNE 22 x JUNE | AND JULY IO = ——MAY 1 AND AUG!IZ uw 40 APR IS AND AUGZ9 9 APR t AND SEPTI2 rs Wow MAR |S AND SEPT 27 30 TA aR AND OCT 12 (Fee 15 AND OCT 28 vA FEB 1 AND Novul 20 AK JAN 15 AND NOV28 Xx seen JAN 1 AND DECI2 10 5 6 6 7 TIME OF DAY FicvrE 14.—Hourly variation of solar antirachitic effect. (2.0 mm. zenith ozone, 33° N. latitude.) 126 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The phenomenon of sunburn is probably of less physiological im- portance than the antirachitic effect of sunlight, but it has seemed worth while to calculate the relative erythema production by sunlight for one latitude, 43°, and for one ozone quantity, 3.0 millimeters S. T. P. Using the data for erythema reaction per unit energy as a func- tion of wave length shown in figure 2, the series of product curves shown in figure 22 have been calculated by the same procedure fol- lowed in obtaining the curves of figures 9 and 10. The integrals of these curves as represented by the area under each are shown in figure 23 and are analogous to the results plotted in figure 11. Finally, in figure 24 are shown the results for erythema reaction under sun- VARIATION OF ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY WITH TIME OF DAY 2.0mm OZONE 58’ N.LAT. JUNE 22 3 “JUNE | AND JULY iO MAY | AND AUG IZ \ arr is AND AUG.29 Y \ \ APR. | AND SEPT 12 MAR. 15 AND SEPT 27 \\ Se 1 AND OCT. 12 FEB 15 AND OCT 28 FEB | AND NOVII EFFICIENCY - RELATIVE UNITS 7 TIME oF DAY Figure 15.—Hourly variation of solar antirachitic effect. (2.0 mm. zenith ozone, 38° N. latitude.). light at noon on clear days as a function of time of year for latitude 43° and 3.0 millimeters of ozone in the zenith atmosphere. The ex- posure to sunlight necessary to produce an erythema varies greatly among individuals and is dependent upon the condition of the skin. The skin of a sensitive individual not previously exposed to ultra- violet radiation will show an erythema reaction if exposed for about 15 minutes to zenith sunlight through 3.0 millimeters of ozone. In contrast with the effects just discussed, the destruction of bac- teria by ultraviolet light is a typical example of the influence of radiation upon micro-organisms. Also it is probable that its impor- tance to the human race is as great as any of the reactions mentioned above, for by this means sunlight keeps bacterial growth in check. Because of the small size of the individual bacterium most of the ultra- violet radiation incident upon the bacterial cell passes on through, EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN loo VARIATION OF ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY 90 WITH TIME OF DAY 2.0mm OZONE y 43° N.LAT. BO 70 9) et z > 60 wu 2 % 3 50) x JUNE 22 = UYUNE | AND iy 40 \ MAY | AND 3 WEN APR IS AND i Wi APR | AND uw 30 MGiN ARIS AND we \ AR | AND CAYCE IS AND 20 ‘ \ AN. IS AND OEE ESS re FEB. | AND © TIME OF DAY Ficure 16.—Hourly variation of solar antirachitie effect. (2.0 mm. zenith ozone, 43° N. latitude.) JULY 10 AUG. 12 AUG 29 SEPT12 SEPT 27 OCT 12 OCT 28 NOV.11 NOV 28 DEC i2 127 even in those regions of the spectrum where the specific absorption per unit thickness of bacterial protoplasm is high. Thus the primary photochemical reaction which results in the destruction of the organ- ism may occur anywhere within the bacterial cell, and very possibly within some components of the cell nucleus. 100 VARIATION OF ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY WITH TIME OF DAY 90 2.6mm. OZONE 53" N.LAT. JUNE 22 EFFICIENCY -RELATIVE UNITS JUNE | AND JULY 10 FEB.IS AND OCT. 28 FES. 1 AND NOV. Il . JAN.) AND DEC.12 Mt 12 t TIME OF DAY Ficure 17.—Hourly variation of solar antirachitic effect. (2.8 mm. zenith ozone, 33° N. latitude.) 128 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 100 VARIATION OF ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY WITH TIME OF DAY 28mm OZONE S8°N. LAT. —_—_—————JUNE 22 \ ————— JUNE | AND JULY 10 \—————-— MAY | AND AUG.12 \ ————APR. 15 AND AUG 29 \ APR | AND SEPTIZ2 \\ _-—— MAR. |5 AND SEPT 27 MAR. | AND OCT 12 FEB.IS AND OCT 28 . FEB. | AND NOV.11 JAN. | AND DECI2 EFFICIENCY - RELATIVE UNITS 1 2 3 Se oG 7 i 12 TIME OF DAY Figure 18.—Hourly variation of solar antirachitic effect. (2.8 mm. zenith ozone, 38° N. latitude.) i(efe) VARIATION OF ANTIRACHITIC EFFICIENCY WITH TIME OF DAY 2.8mm OZONE 43° N.LAT 8 JUNE 22 JUNE } AND JULY 1O > Oo EFFICIENCY - RELATIVE UNITS s Gls Sines MAR 15 AND SE MAR | AND OCT 12 FEB. IS AND OCT 23 FEB. 1 AND NOVI JAN. 1 AND DEC I2 TIME OF DAY Figure 19.—Hourly variation of solar antirachitic effect. (2.8 mm. zenith ozone, 43° N. latitude.) EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 129 Ficurs 20.—Latitude belts across the United States for which solar antirachitic effects have been calculated. ) CK LLB | : ¢ Fieaure 21.—Latitude belts on the earth’s surface for which solar antirachitic effects have been calculated. 130 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 ERYTHEMA (Rez) o 43° N. LATITUDE 3.0mm. OZONE ——=4 24900 5000 5/00 5200 WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS Fieure 22.—Product curves of solar spectral energy by erythema efficiency. (3.0 RELATIVE EFFICIENCY mm, ozone in zenith atmosphere. ) 100 $$ 90 ERYTHEMA 80 70 60}- 50 \ 40 ss 30 20 10 Ue knee aA hy Se NAO DLA A AS 1.0 12 14 16 18 2.0 2.2 24 AIR MASS FIGURE 23.—Variation of solar erythema effect with air mass. (3.0 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere. ) EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 131 As early as 1877 Downes and Blunt investigated the destruction of putrefactive bacteria by sunlight and made rough measurements of the relative action of different colors. There followed many investi- gations of the effect of ultraviolet light on bacteria, but the spectral- response curve for this reaction was not determined for more than 50 years. It was measured by H. W. Lyall and myself in 1926 and inde- pendently by Sonne in 1927. We had expected the spectral-response curve to be quite different for different bacteria, but to our surprise eight pathogenic and two saprophytic organisms showed surprising similarity in spectral response, although those selected included cocci, Gram-negative baccili, and two acid-fast strains. Our most complete Ico 90 80 70 60 SO 40 RELATIVE EFFICIENCY 30 JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP oct NOV DEG Figure 24.—Seasonal variation in solar erythema effect. (3.0 mm. zenith ozone, 43° N. latitude.) work was done with a strain of Staphylococcus aureus. 'The spectral response of this organism is shown in figure 25. It is interesting to note that Sonne’s measurements on the colon bacillus agree almost perfectly with this curve, although the characteristics of the colon bacillus are different in every respect from those of Staphylococcus aureus. More recently similar measurements have been made by Gates, with good agreement over part but not all of the spectral range. We may calculate the seasonal variation in the bactericidal effect of sunlight by following the same procedure already applied to the antirachitic and erythema reactions. This has been carried out to form the product curves of figure 26, for the condition of 3.0 milli- meters of ozone in the zenith atmosphere. The integrals of these 132 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 BACTERICIDAL REACTION UNITS RELATIVE 2500 2600 2700 3100 3200 WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS FIcurE 25.—Variation of bactericidal effect with wave length. 43° N. LAT. TUDE 3.0mm. OZONE BACTERICIDAL REACTION (Ret) ——] 2900 000 any 5100 5200 WAVELENGTH IN ANGSTROMS Ficure 26.—Product curves of solar spectral energy by bactericidal efficiency. (3.0 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere.) EFFECTS OF SOLAR RADIATION—O’BRIEN 133 curves (i. e., the areas under each curve) are plotted in figure 27, showing the bactericidal effect of sunlight as a function of air mass for 3.0 millimeters of ozone in a zenith atmosphere. In figure 28 is plotted the bactericidal effect as a function of time of year for clear days at noon, 48° N. latitude. Although the general trend of this curve with time of year is similar to the curve for antirachitic and erythema effects, it will be noted that the summer-to-winter differ- ence is even greater. Because of this the effective bactericidal action of sunlight is even more dependent upon short air path (sun near i 90— BACTERICIDAL EFFECT 80 70 60 50 40 RELATIVE EFFICIENCY 30 20 1.0 1. 14 16 2.0 2.2 2.4 18 AIR MASS Figure 27.—Variation of solar bactericidal effect with air mass. (3.0 mm. ozone in zenith atmosphere. ) zenith) than are the antirachitic and erythemal reactions. Thus the effects of latitude, time of year, and time of day are all more pronounced. In spite of the similarity in the spectral sensitivity of different bac- teria to ultraviolet light, there is a considerable difference in the ab- solute exposure necessary to destroy different strains. Acid-fast or- ganisms, such as the tubercle bacillus, are relatively resistant to ultra- violet ight and require for their destruction an exposure of about 14 minutes to zenith sunlight through 3.0 millimeters of ozone. Certain Gram-negative organisms, such as the colon bacillus and particularly Baccillus paratyphosus B, require an exposure of only about 2 min- utes to sunlight for complete destruction. Most pathogenic bacteria appear to lie between these two extremes as regard sensitivity to ultraviolet light. From this the scale can be set for figures 27 and 28. 566766—44—10 134. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 It will be seen that even very resistant bacteria are quickly destroyed by summer sunlight, but that even the more sensitive organisms will not be destroyed by all-day exposure to midwinter sunlight in the higher latitudes. BACTERIGIDAL EFFECT RELATIVE EFFICIENCY a ° AP MAY JU — JUL AUG Gc Ficure 28.—Seasonal variation in solar bactericidal effect. (3.0 mm. zenith ozone, 43° N. latitude.) It is difficult to evaluate the full significance to the human race of this solar bactericidal action. Ultraviolet radiation from the sun and desiccation are the two great natural agencies for destroying bac- terial growth, and of these the former is probably the more im- portant. Here again man’s very existence must depend upon ultra- violet radiation, without which bacteria and other micro-organisms would crowd him from his place in the sun. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—O’Brien PigAcirl 1. Using only ultraviolet radiation of wave length 3300-3900 A. 2. Using only infrared radiation of wave length 7600-8000 A PHOTOGRAPHS ON PANCHROMATIC FILM OF UNPIGMENTED SKIN AND MAGNESIUM CARBONATE COMPARISON BLOCK. Viet) ee Bh tea CS mee! r ah ts 4 eh ! a THE SEA AS A STOREHOUSE* By H. F. Armsrrone, D. Sc., F. R. S. [With 4 plates] In an island country the quest for relaxation normally brings the great majority of us to the coast for holidays, where we make ac- quaintance with the sea and perhaps also with some of its wonders and the things which live and grow in it. Many people cross the narrow seas to the continent, in others the urge of discovery takes them across the oceans: all are conscious of the immensity of the sea and the fact that it is salt. Saltness is an indication that substances in some quantity are dis- solved in the water, largely common salt, which in many lands is won from the sea by solar evaporation. Sea water contains appreciable quantities of other salts besides sodium chloride, in particular of mag- nesium and potassium sulfates and chlorides. More complete analy- sis has disclosed the presence of quite minute quantities of other ele- ments present to the extent of 1 part in 1,000 or less, and still others present in even more minute quantity; and a little reflection shows that this must be so, for the oceans are the ultimate receptacle of everything that is washed from the land by the rain and carried by the rivers into the sea. This includes both dissolved and suspended matter. The wind and the rain and frost—the agencies of destruction and denudation—break down the hills and scour the valleys. Acid waters on the moors, neutral or alkaline waters on the plains, salt water in the sea, all act to bring into solution traces of the most sparingly solu- ble substances. The quantity of any one of the rarer constituents of the earth’s crust in a million parts of sea water is minute and, indeed, many are only detectable by the most refined methods of the analytical chemist. Some, indeed, can only be found in the ashes of plants. About three-fourths of the earth’s surface is water. In bulk this is estimated to amount to 300 million cubic miles. A cubic mile seems to be a handy unit for statistics regarding the content of minerals. It is, however, a gigantic unit, for in round fig- ures it will contain 6 million tons of magnesia, 4 million tons of potash, 1 Reprinted by permission from Discovery, March 1943. 135 136 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 117 million tons of common salt, and some 300,000 tons of bromine, which is present to the extent of less than 70 parts per 1 million of sea water. Such quantities, if extracted, would satisfy the world for a con- siderable time, while a cubic mile of sea is not out of range of a single plant located on an ocean seaboard. The sea clearly forms an inexhaustible storehouse of minerals, provided that man can find out how to recover them individually at prices comparable with the cost of winning the same substances from the earth. THE COMPOSITION OF OCEANS Before describing what has been done in this direction, it is well to devote a few words to the composition of the oceans. One theory is that they have been salt from the beginning rather than the alter- native theory that they have become so by washing out of salts from the land and gradual concentration by evaporation of the oceans. This hypothesis is based on the great similarity between the salts of the ocean and the gaseous products of volcanic eruptions rich in chlo- rides and sulfates of all kinds. The theory explains the main con- stituents, though it does not necessarily apply to the trace elements where any postulate of constancy of composition is untenable. Apparently the first quantitative analyses of sea water were made by Lavoisier in 1872. It transpires that the variations in the proportions of individual salts to the total salts are very small; sea water may be regarded as of constant composition, the individual ingredients being considerably dissociated in the dilute solution. This interdiffusion accounts easily for the uniformity of composition of sea water throughout the whole ocean, so that the only appreciable difference from point to point is the total salinity of the mixed solutions. In each of the three oceans the salinity is lower in the equatorial regions where the rainfall is high; there are two maxima—one in the north, the other in the south tropical belts where evaporation pre- dominates; at the Poles there are regions of lower salinity. The North Atlantic maximum is the highest at 37.9 parts per 1,000 salinity; as a whole, the Atlantic has the highest salinity of 35.37. The average of the whole surface of the oceans may be taken as 34.5. ‘There is a gen- eral increase of salinity with depth. Common salt is essential to both man and beast; we need more salt as the proportion of meat we eat diminishes. In Britain and else- where there are large deposits of pure salt resulting from the drying up of inland seas in past geological ages. This is recovered by mining or more generally by dissolving the salt underground, pumping up the brine, and evaporating it. The export of salt from England has THE SEA AS A STOREHOUSE—ARMSTRONG 137 long been a significant part of our overseas trade: it is the founda- tion stone of the heavy chemical industry, and salt and the “heavy chemicals” made from it have helped to make Liverpool one of the world’s greatest ports. Less favored countries where, however, evaporation exceeds precipi- tation of water are driven to making an impure salt from thé sea by allowing it to evaporate in basins in the heat of the sun until it crystallizes. This is termed solar salt. In England the deposits of salt are not capped with beds of mag- nesium and potash salts, but at Stassfurt in Germany there is a great thickness of these; and it would seem that in geological times a lake approximating closely in composition to sea water had dried up completely here leaving everything behind. Stassfurt in consequence enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the production of potash salts and of bromine. The Dead Sea, and certain lakes in America, represent inland seas evaporated almost to the point of crystallization in which, however, the salts have a different composition than in sea water. Sulfates, for example, are absent from the Dead Sea, a fact which makes the isolation of the other salts more simple. In such lakes it is possible to assume that the salt is derived from rivers or underground springs, which themselves pass through and leach out earlier deposits. At Seales Lake in California, where evaporation is nearly complete, the salt crust has the appearance of a frozen waste and is so hard that a motorcar may be safely driven over it. At first potash and borax were made from the deposits; a byproduct is burkeite, a remark- able double salt of sodium carbonate and sodium sulfate. This lake also serves as a source of more than half the world’s very tiny pro- duction of lithium salts. Lithium is an odd element; it is allied to sodium and is beginning to find commercial applications which will no doubt multiply when it is available in quantity at an attractive price. Sea water contains about 1 part in 10 million lithium. BROMINE Apart from the quite minor amount of solar salt produced, the mineral reserves of the ocean had not been tapped until a start was made with the recovery of bromine in 1924. There is the same element of romance in tapping the resources of the ocean as in turning to practical use the rare gases of the atmosphere: in both the elements sought are present in minute proportions, beth are all around us in unlimited quantities. Bromine in the past was largely a Stassfurt monopoly and ex- pensive; it was used in photography, drugs, and dyestuffs in quan- tities measured in pounds rather than tons. The need for it in 138 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 quantity arose out of the search for substances which could be added to petrol to prevent the engines of automobiles knocking. Midgley solved this problem with a chemical known as tetraethyl] lead dissolved in ethylene bromide—the substance marketed as “Ethyl.” At once very large quantities of bromine were needed, and a new cheap source out of the control of the monopoly had to be found. Work was begun in 1924 by a process which involved the addition of aniline to chlorinated sea water to form tribromoaniline. After laboratory trials the process was operated on board a boat, the S. S. Ethyl, fitted out as a chemical factory. This sailed off the coast of North Carolina and the voyage was successful though it was not repeated. The experience gained was applied to an alternative method which consists in (a) oxidizing the bromide in brine with clorine, (0) blowing the free bromine out of solution with air, (c)absorbing the bromine with an alkali car- bonate solution from which it can be recovered in a commercially desirable form. Every stage in this process had to be carefully worked out in the lab- oratory. Sea water is alkaline, the equivalent of 1 ounce of caustic soda in 1,000 tons of water. Even this small quantity gives con- ditions unsuitable to the oxidation. Acid must be added, the right quantity being 0.27 pound of 96 percent sulfuric acid per ton of sea water. These figures are quoted to show the layman how sensitive chemical reactions are to small things, in particular to the acid-alkali reaction of the medium. The biochemist has of late years discovered that the reactions in the living body are even more sensitive to these acid-alkali variations. The conditions of the operations having been settled by the chemist, the next step is for the engineer to design a plant (a) to carry out the chemical changes, (0) to bring the water from the sea in the required large quantity. It requires 4,000 gallons of sea water to yield 1 pound of bromine, so that a factory making 15,000 pounds a day must be able to pump 60 million gallons. The engineering problem of the intake of such quan- tities, the freeing of the water from extraneous matter and sedi- ment and its delivery continuously to the plant, all at low cost, has been one of the first magnitude; it required great ingenuity and fore- sight. It is clear that it would not do to put the extracted water back in the sea. It has to be discharged some way off, for example, on the other side of an isthmus where the set of the currents prevents its mixing with the untreated incoming water. Obviously the choice of location of a sea-water plant is both all-important and limited. When the operations are all finished the bromine is obtained in liquid form. Its transport requires special bottles and is costly. It is therefore at once converted on the same site into ethylene bromide. THE SEA AS A STOREHOUSE—ARMSTRONG 139 The first bromine recovery plant, started in 1934, worked efficiently from the outset, producing 15,000 pounds of bromine per day; the yields over all were high. Many thousands of tons are now produced per annum, and bromine today belongs to the class of substances of which the cost is reasonable and the supply assured for all time. The chemical engineer and the Dow Chemical Co. have had their first vic- tory over the sea. Calculations indicate that there are nearly 1 billion tons of bromine in the Dead Sea. As this sea is evaporated to the point of crystal- lization of the sodium chloride the concentration of bromine is nearly 90 times that in the seven seas, and the ease and cost of its recovery should be less. However, the possibilities of obtaining low costs are superior in industrial America to what they are in Palestine; more- over, any bromine produced here is a long way from the user. It is probable therefore that bromine from the sea will always remain com- petitive with that produced in Palestine, while users will have the ad- vantage of reasonable prices brought about by such rivalry. Dr. Ernst Bergmann in his paper before the recent British Asso- ciation Conference on Mineral Resources, reminds us that the Mid- dle East shows a certain affinity to bromine. He recalls that the an- tique purple, used in the Imperial toga, manufactured in Sidon and Tyre, is a coloring matter containing bromine. ‘Tyrian purple is one of the few known organic bromine compounds found in a living cell. The purple snail from which it was obtained is one of the several known strange instances, of which more anon, of selective affinity of cells to a special element. Dr. Bergmann makes the interesting suggestion that in past ages vast numbers of maritime organisms containing bromine have decayed in the soil in Palestine, and that today the hot springs of the Sea of Galilee derive their bromine from this source. It is probable that all the bromine in the Dead Sea is derived from these springs. MAGNESIUM This success with bromine partly prepared the way for the next problem, the recovery of magnesium. On January 21, 1941, the first commercial ingot made in America from sea water was produced in the plant of the Dow Company at Freeport, Tex. The urge was again economic; the demand for magnesium for aircraft parts suddenly reached vast proportions, for as much as 1,000 pounds may enter into the manufacture of a single plane. 1 yet NE the lightest of metals, cost a sovereign a pound in 1915 and barely a sain last year. The metal was first made around 1869, mainly as a source of high-intensity light for photographic purposes. Later sundry other uses, including fireworks, came along. It awaited war to start its use in airplanes, 140 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 incendiary bombs, and military pyrotechnics. Today tens of thou- sands of tons are required. Magnesium in combination is one of the most abundant elements on the earth’s crust. The most favored source is magnesite, which in particular is used for refractories. Other sources are dolomite, which consists of calcium and magnesium carbonates, and carnallite from Stassfurt, which is a double chloride of magnesium and potassium. If the metal is to be made by electrolysis—hitherto the favored process—magnesite has to be converted into chloride by briquetting the calcined material with carbon and binding substance and exposing to the action of chlorine in an electric furnace. Since in the course of electrolysis chlorine is evolved, the process becomes in theory cyclic, although in practice there is waste through formation of hydrogen chloride. Faced with the large new requirements, the sea seemed an obvious source of magnesium chloride. The knowledge about the intake of sea water and the location of a plant was available. In addition, cheap power and plentiful supplies of lime, the other necessary raw material, were requisites. The latter also came from the sea in the form of oyster shells dredged from the bottom of Galveston Bay, which, when washed, go straight to the lime kiln. Some 300,000,000 gallons of sea water per day are drawn into the plant. Though in practice the recovery of magnesium metal from sea water involved comparatively simple operations chemically, it is far from being an easy task economically to utilize a raw material which contains only about 1 part of magnesium in 800 of water. Quite unusual chemical engineering methods, equipment, and control, had to be invented. Such work involves research on the grand scale by large teams of chemists and engineers. It is Discovery with a capital D, and costs very large sums of money. The magnesium is precipitated as hydroxide by means of lime. This is collected on special filters and converted into chloride using for this operation a 10 percent aqueous solution of hydrochloric acid which is largely derived from a later stage of the operation. The magnesium chloride is evaporated and dried until anhydrous, when it is electrolyzed in suitable cells to produce metallic magnesium. Natural gas is used as the source of power and heat. The effluent water is discharged 7 miles from the intake, which is almost 30 feet below the surface so as to obtain the highest concentration of salts. The current of sea water is always in the same direction, which prevents mixing. There is a bromine factory on the same site and the two effluents, the one acid and the other alkaline, mingle. We have been able to describe the work done in the United States on these materials since it has been widely published in the technical THE SEA AS A STOREHOUSE—ARMSTRONG 141 press. Their manufacture has not been neglected in this country and great credit is due to the British Periclase Co. and to Dr. H. H. Chesny, and no doubt to others of whom we shall hear more after the war, for their achievements. There are no oyster shells on the British beach; it was evidently not the one chosen by the Walrus and the Carpenter for their walk. But there was a convenient source of dolomite which is quarried and calcined in shaft kilns and the resulting mixed lime slaked with suf- ficient water to give a thin slurry. This slurry is allowed to react with sea water previously treated and filtered to remove bicarbonate hardness and suspended matter in a special reaction vessel. The calcium hydroxide precipitates the magnesium salts in the sea as magnesium hydroxide while the mag- nesium oxide from the dolomite remains unchanged and in suspension. The resultant mixture is pumped into large circular tanks, where the magnesia settles out and the spent sea water passes to waste. The settled magnesia slurry is filtered off by means of rotary vacuum filters, and the paste obtained burned in pulverized-coal-fired rotary kilns. The temperature of firing is varied according to whether it is desired to produce reactive caustic magnesia for the magnesium industry, or dead-burnt magnesium oxide for the manufacture of refractories. By this ingenious modification magnesium is obtained from dolomite and from the sea by one and the same operation. POTASSIUM SALTS It would be possible to recover a potassium salt from the sea, but here the economics are not yet favorable. The main use for potash salts is as fertilizers, which command a low price. Moreover, there is a source of potash in the Dead Sea, now under rapid development, which will insure sufficient supply of these to meet world demand at competitive prices and will destroy the Stassfurt monopoly. There are also similar sources of supply in the United States. The quantity of potassium chloride in the Dead Sea is estimated at 2 billion tons. As the concentration of salts is greater at the bottom of the Dead Sea than at the surface, the solution is pumped from depth and evaporated fractionally in shallow natural pans which have an im- pervious clay bottom. First, common salt crystallizes, then a some- what impure double salt of potassium and magnesium chloride termed carnallite, and finally magnesium chloride; the mother liquors go to the bromine plant. The chemists of the Palestine Potash Co. have made a very thorough study of the sequence of events involved in the evaporation and crystallization, and by an ingenious application of the knowledge of the solid equilibria of the salts concerned coupled 142 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 with first-class chemical engineering technique are able to produce highly purified potassium chloride. Over 40 years ago the distinguished Dutch chemist, Van’t Hoff, and his pupils, made a profound study of the sequence of events on con- centrating sea water at 25° C. The order in which the various salts are deposited was found to be in very fair agreement with the geologi- cal succession as observed at Stassfurt, though there are indications that these dried up at a slightly higher temperature. These celebrated deposits consist of an immense thickness of rock salt, interspersed at fairly regular intervals with narrow bands of anhydrous calcium sulfate capped with beds rich in magnesium and potassium salts. The beds are obviously of marine origin, but a constant flowing-in of water con- taining salts during the period of evaporation must be assumed to account for the magnitude of the deposit. The inland sea ultimately dried up completely. The extensive salt beds in Cheshire have no potassium or magnesium salts, and it must be assumed that in this locality the remaining waters went elsewhere before final evaporation. In the Dead Sea the process of salt accumulation and evaporation go on at the same time. The level is roughly constant, though it varies a little from season to season and decade to decade. Evapora- tion thus keeps pace with the inflow of fresh water. The Jordan and other rivers bring in 40,000 tons of potassium chloride per annum. The ratio of the various salts remains constant. The relative quanti- ties differ from those in the sea and in salt deposits; in particular there is no sulfate. The magnesium content of the Dead Sea is some eight or nine times that of the oceans, but here again it is the relative costs at the two sites and the cost of transport to and from them that settle the competitive effort. It is quite clear that given a demand for large quantities of magnesium its manufacture from the ocean will continue. Dr. Bergmann and the Palestine Potash Co. draw an attractive picture of the potentialities of establishing a large chemical industry there from which the markets in the Middle and Far East can be supplied. The factors are there—and who knows what the future may produce? PHOSPHATES It may well be that the minerals in the sea can be considered in two classes, namely, (a) those present in constant proportion to each other and in relatively large amount, i. e., the salts formed from the elements sodium, potassium, magnesium, chlorine, bromine, sulfur in the form of sulfates, and (0) those present in traces and though universal are possibly in variable amount locally. Fresh supplies of these are being THE SEA AS A STOREHOUSE—ARMSTRONG 143 received all the time from the land and returned, as we shall see, to the bottom of the ocean. Analyses of sea water showing the amount of the rarer minerals are so far scanty, and it cannot, for example, be said that a particular compound is present everywhere to the same extent. Evidence is also lacking whether some of them are accumulating or whether they are being deposited either as such or after absorption into the struc- ture of some marine organism. The occurrence of minerals in veins or lodes in sedimentary rocks gives support to the idea of deposition. Moreover, the vast deposits of limestone and chalk so characteristic of southern England are all derived from organisms which have taken up the traces of calcium salts from the sea. Elsewhere calcium has been deposited as sulfate. At this stage therefore one can state purely as a working hypothesis that while the ocean is constant in composition in regard to its main constituents it is variable and even local in regard to the trace elements. Quite another problem is the fate of those minerals the world over which are constantly reaching the sea either from sewage or by the leaching out of cultivated lands. While these in the aggregate total far less than what is produced by denudation, they are of im- portance because they represent the constituents which are of primary value to man. One of the most interesting of these is phosphate, of which the mineral deposits are limited in amount and may well become ex- hausted. Many of the agricultural soils of the world are definitely short of phosphates and their crop-bearing qualities impaired in consequence. A new widely distributed source of phosphate would therefore be of great value and importance. It has been calculated that the sewage from 5 million people is equivalent to 17,000 tons of rock phosphate in a year, and this happens to be the quantity present in the annual export of meat from New Zealand, which Dominion is the loser of the same amount. The popu- lation of Great Britain discards as sewage the equivalent of 150,000 tons of rock phosphate, most of which reaches the sea. An estimate of the annual losses of phosphate from all sources to the sea in the United States amounts to the equivalent of 60 million tons of rock. The world’s consumption of phosphate rock is said to be 18 million tons; there are of course other sources of phosphatic fertilizers. The question may well be asked, what is happening to the phos- phate; is it being concentrated and removed or deposited? Here is an interesting problem for study. The concentrations of nitrates, phosphates, and silicates in sea water are subject to considerable fluctuation depending on the activity of the marine organisms, and 144. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 although the absolute figures may appear insignificant these fluctua- tions may have a strong effect on the population of the sea. Indeed, this is subject to regular cyclic changes very pronounced in planktonic forms. The annual crop of plankton depends on the amount of phosphates and nitrates, and there is an apparent relation beween the quantity of phosphate available at the beginning of each year and the number of young fish which have had enough food and survived during the ensuing summer months. In temperate seas almost all these salts have been used up during the summer and continued growth depends on new supplies brought up from below by vertical mixing caused by convection currents during the winter, when a rather thorough re- newal takes place. The annual crop of plankton depends on the amount of phosphates and nitrates, and there is an apparent relation between the quantity of phosphate available at the beginning of each year and the number of young fish which have had enough food and survived during the ensu- ing summer months. In temperate seas almost all these salts have been used up during the summer and continued growth depends on new supplies brought up from below by vertical mixing caused. by convec- tion currents during the winter, when a rather thorough renewal takes place. SOFTENING SEA WATER The chemist is already searching for materials capable of selectively absorbing and retaining substances present in small quantities in large volumes of water. Such base-exchanging materials are widely used in the softening of hard waters, a process which involves the replacement of soap-destroying and scale-forming calcium and mag- nesium by relatively innnocuous sodium. Natural zeolites were first used for this purpose and later supplemented by artificial zeolites and by sulfonated carbonaceous materials. These last offer the addi- tional advantage of replacing the calcium or magnesium with hydro- gen instead of sodium if desired. In this way the dissolved salts can be removed altogether instead of merely replaced. Such a process is particularly valuable in water for boilers. They are made by treat- ing coal or lignite with strong reagents such as fuming sulfuric acid, sulfur trioxide, chromic acid, etc. The active group in these zeolites is believed to be a sulfonic acid group. Much the same principle explains the action of polyhydric phenol formaldehyde resins. These contain hydrogen (in an hydroxyl group) which readily goes into solution to replace calcium or sodium ions and forms acids. Such resins are reported as physically more stable and faster in action than the other softeners mentioned. There is another group of resins described as amine-formaldehyde, which THE SEA AS A STOREHOUSE—ARMSTRONG 145 achieves actual removal of the acids just mentioned. The mechanism is obscure, but it may include both surface absorption and reaction of the acids with the amine group. Resin treatment may convert an ordinary hard water into something approaching distilled water. Naturally experiments have been made along these lines with sea water with the hope of being able to convert it into drinking water for shipwrecked mariners in apparatus small enough to be carried in lifeboats. The amount of salt in the sea makes this problem a very difficult one and the solution is not yet in sight. It seems clear that in these base exchangers the chemist has useful tools to effect the concentration of small quantities of dissolved sub- stances. Some technical applications are already known, but we would illustrate what it is hoped to achieve by citing some results obtained with copper by Professor Furnas and R. H. Beaton working at Yale. COPPER The ideal conditions using carbonaceous zeolites have been deter- mined. The absorption for copper is a function of the ratio of cop- per ions to hydrogen ion concentrations, or in more simple language there are ideal conditions of acidity favoring the transfer of copper from solution to zeolite. The collection of copper is complete and takes place at a rapid rate of flow of the very dilute solution over the columns of the exchanger. The recovery of the copper when the zeolite is saturated is effected by fairly strong solutions of sulfuric acid. At the same time the zeolite is regenerated for another cycle. There remains as final product a strong solution of copper sulfate. Putting the results in plain figures rather than in the form favored by the chemist, it appears that a solution which contained 1 pound of copper in 6,300 pounds of water is turned into one of copper sulfate containing 1 pound of copper in 6.87 pounds of water. To do this 1.54 pounds of sulfuric acid (100 percent strength) are necessary, and simple arithmetic indicates that 1 pound of acid performs the same duty as the evaporation of 4,200 pounds of water. This illustrates the tremendous difference in energy requirements between the base exchange process and evaporation for the concentration of very dilute solutions and is evidence of the unique possibilities of the use of zeolites. The Yale achievement of increasing the concentration of copper in dilute solutions is rivaled by that of the oyster which we must be prepared to treat with greater respect after learning that it gargles a barrel of water per day. Around the British Isles and in certain sections of the Atlantic coast oysters become green due to the forma- tion of a pigment containing copper. The amount of copper which an oyster can accumulate is variable; it varies in the Cape Cod variety 146 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 from 0.16 to 0.24 mg. per oyster, and from 1.24 to 5.12 mg. per oyster in Long Island Sound, where the average is 2.5 mg. This last figure has enabled someone to calculate that in Long Island Sound the oysters accumulate about 7.5 tons of copper every year from the sea. The average content of copper in the sea appears to be of the order of 0.01 part per 1 million. There is more copper in the fresh water coming into Long Island Sound than in the sea; indeed, the amount there fluctuates between 1 part per 1 million at high water and 0.5 part per 1 million at low tide. Copper salts apparently have a peculiar effect on oyster larvae, inducing their attachment to the substratum and initiating their metamorphosis. The result is that the best settling areas are found on bottoms affected by fresh water, while natural oyster beds occur mainly in the mouths of rivers. It has been estimated in the United States that 200 tons of copper are lost in sewage each year per 1 mil- lion people, together with 50 tons each of such metals as magnesium, lead, aluminium, and titanium. The 10 million people of New York City provide on this recovery ample copper for their oysters. Copper is well known as the metal in the respiratory pigment, haemocyanin, which is present in lobsters, shrimps, crawfish, and other shellfish and plays the same part as iron does in haemoglobin, the respiratory pigment of human red blood corpuscles. It is found in sardines, herrings, salmon, and other sea animals, and is obviously quite an essential element in marine life notwithstanding its lowly proportion in the sea. A considerable proportion of the trace elements seem to be con- cerned in the life history of marine organisms. Where there is plenty of an element the organisms flourish, where it is scanty they are ab- sent. When the organisms flourish they live their allotted span and die, their skeletons falling to the depths of the ocean and decom- posing into their constituents. Where there are vertical currents the trace elements are brought to the surface once more and there is renewed growth of organism; when there is no upward current a deposit is formed rich in the trace element. New reactions resulting in the formation of sedimentary rocks take place. We pass from the science of biology to geology. Some of these elements enter direct into the structure of the organism, others—in particular the heavy metals—are believed to be largely taken out of solution by absorption on the surface of the protoplasm, a purely physical phenomenon. This applies to gold and silver. GOLD A matter in which the more credulous portion of the public is inter- ested is the possibility of obtaining gold from the sea. Gold is said to THE SEA AS A STOREHOUSE—ARMSTRONG 147 be present to the extent of 1 part in 1 billion (1 mg. per cubic meter), but the Haber expedition found very much smaller amounts—often none. Gold has actually been extracted from the sea during a month’s working at one of the American bromine plants, but the cost of doing so was several times more than the value of the gold and it would appear that it will always be cheaper to mine gold in South Africa and else- where even when the present mines are exhausted and the reefs have to be followed deeper into the earth at an increased cost of production. Gold is probably one of the elements which does not stay in the sea, but is being removed by absorption onto the surface of organisms and taken down to the bottom. In agreement with this the bottom sludges obtained by dredging in certain localities contain very much larger quantities of gold than there is in the sea. Indeed, the amount is most variable; estimates in the literature vary from 28 to 1,200 tons of gold in 1 cubic mile of sea. One may perhaps answer this interesting question by saying that gold will continue to be mined rather than won from the sea, particu- larly since it has few uses other than as a financial token. IODINE An element of universal distribution in air, sea, and land is iodine which is of fundamental importance alike to man, animals, and plants. It is a constituent of the thyroid gland and if we lack it in sufficient quantity we are afflicted by goitre. Many marine plants have the power of concentrating it, thus the dry matter of deep-water sea- weed, such as Laminaria, contains as much as 0.5 percent. Iodine was in fact first discovered by Courtois in 1811 in the ash of sea kelp. Kelp, or Varech as it is called in France, has been used for many years for the commercial extraction of iodine even though this practice cannot compete economically with the production of iodate from the caliche in Chile. Certain coral species are said to contain up to 8 percent of iodine and it is of interest that it is present both here and in the bath sponge in the organic state as di-iodo-tyrosine. The question of the form of iodine in the sea is still indefinite: it may well be organic. The sea contains 0.001 percent and is much richer in this rarest of the halogens than the land. It is obviously in a continual state of change, being oxidized and reduced, and pass- ing into marine plants and animals. When the seaweed moves lazily to and fro at our feet large quantities of iodine are being withdrawn from circulation. Some of it is constantly being lost through vapori- zation into the atmosphere, and this is why people living sufficiently near the coast, as the great majority of the population of this island do, do not suffer from goitre in the same way as the population of the great central plains of the United States. 148 |§ ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 ARSENIC AND CALCIUM The arsenic in the sea exists apparently in organic form and, like iodine, is concentrated in animals and plants. The lobster has 40-50 parts per 1 million and Laminaria twice as much. There are many points of interest connected with the calcium in the sea; in fresh water it is the most abundant of the three cations—cal- cium, magnesium, and sodium; in sea water it is the least abundant as all the time animals and plants are removing it, a fact to which the white cliffs of Dover bear abundant testimony. It is related to the carbon dioxide content of the oceans which is some 15 to 30 times the amount present in the atmosphere, and it may be well that the carbon dioxide content of the air is regulated by the oceans acting as a reser- voir. There is a continual exchange between the air and the surface of the sea which, among other things, controls the acidity of the sea water to which much of the life of the ocean is acutely sensitive. Further, in the sea, as on land, plants use carbon dioxide as the basic source of carbon for the building up of organic compounds. When the carbon dioxide in solution in sea water is reduced, the conditions are favorable for the deposition of calcium carbonate. The building of shells by animals which live on the sea bottom and of the smallest Protozoa is an interesting subject. It accounts for an an- nual deposition of 1,400 million tons of calcium. Shells are of two classes, those containing calcium carbonate alone or with magnesium carbonate, and those containing calcium phosphate. As yet we have no clue to the reactions involved in building shells. One minor point is that in tropical waters the percentage of magnesium carbonate is higher. The relative abundance of the alkaline earths in the sea in the order calcium, strontium, barium, is about 4000:100:1. The temperature of the water may also have an effect on the presence of strontium in- stead of, or together with, calcium in shells. In very cold waters strontium may replace calcium and there is a report of a radiolarian from the Antarctic whose shell is composed almost entirely of stron- tium carbonate. In other shells both are present in much the same proportion as that in which they occur in sea water. The sea is the greatest potential source of raw materials. It con- tains traces of every element ready to hand so that marine plants or animals can adapt them to their purpose. There is true symbiosis be- tween animal, vegetable, and mineral. Our approach to this subject has been from the mineral aspect, to ascertain what minerals can be economically won from the sea in competition with land sources of the same materials deposited in bygone geologic ages. The sea gives us a great quantity of food in fish of all kinds. The study of these is THE SEA AS A STOREHOUSE—ARMSTRONG 149 an important branch of science, for it is certain that in times to come we shall not only require more fish but make better use of the catch. The great medicinal value of the liver oils as a source of vitamins is an example. Less use is so far made of seaweeds, but here also re- search is beginning to show that novel and perhaps useful and valuable substances are present, and before long there will have been worked out methods of harvesting the weed and fabricating diverse products from it. 566766—44——_11 ane anaes Madan int iy / \ h it fi ue Te > ue ia a Nauta hain a m Wh P me 4 Ay ey AWA AT NY ; ¥ Naren fie CAML (40K MON “OD Ainjue)-uojoddy °C _ AI|STUIIY,:) OIUBSIOUT UT SsUIpBOY [B1o}BT[O,),, ULOIJ posonpoidey ) "VYOINSWYW AO ANVAWOD TIWOIWAHD MOQG-TAHLA SHL AO LNW 1d ANINOYS SH L | 3LV1d Su01]SULIy —"¢p6| ‘qaodayy uRtuOsy UI Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Armstrong PLATE 2 1. SETTLING TANK, WHICH HAS A CAPACITY OF 2,000,000 GALLONS OF WATER AND APPROXIMATELY 1,000 TONS OF MAGNESIUM HYDROXIDE. (Courtesy of British Periclase Co.) i 2. THE ROTARY KILNS, WHICH ARE 160 FEET LONG AND 10 FEET IN DIAMETER, EACH BURNS APPROXIMATELY 300 TONS CF MAGNESIA PER WEEK. (Courtesy of British Periclase Co.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Armstrong PEATE S ; . ee ae A REFINERY IN SOUTH PALESTINE. (Courtesy of Palestine Potash, Ltd.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Armstrong PLATE 4 EVAPORATION PANS IN THE PALESTINE POTASH PLANT. (Courtesy of Palestine Potash, Ltd.) PROGRESS IN NEW SYNTHETIC TEXTILE FIBERS’ By HERBERT R. MAUERSBERGER Technical Editor, Rayon Textile Monthly It is again my privilege to report on the subject of Progress in New Synthetic Textile Fibers. My previous report made on October 17, 1940, has been reproduced in the General Appendix of the 1941 An- nual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, showing that our Gov- ernment takes cognizance of our activities in identification, nomen- clature, and technology of our new textile fibers and materials. It also appeared in the American Society for Testing Materials Stand- ards on Textile Materials.” The information in the present paper is an addition to that given in the previous one. Much of the previous information is today quite inadequate, so fast has this industry grown and these developments taken place. My information has been obtained from sources be- lieved to be authentic and reliable. Some of these developments are already well known and are only included for the record; others have taken place quietly and may have escaped notice or attention. Some of them are gigantic and could be dealt with at great length, which is not permitted here, whereas others are still in the formative stage and data must be withheld owing to the war. No matter what your own experience is with these individual fibers, or what your opin- ion of them may be, remember at all times that practically all these fibers, yarns, and materials are custom-made to meet any domestic technological demand that may arise. Their versatility of use and flexible properties have been of tremendous value in the war effort and will be after the war. IMPORTANCE IN WAR EFFORT Even in your fondest dreams could you imagine that insect and mosquito screens could be woven actually better with a synthetic monofilament yarn than with copper wire? Again, just imagine for a second where we would be in this war if it had not been for nylon 1 Presented at the March 1943 meeting of Committee D-13 on Textile Materials. Re- printed by permission from Amer. Soc. for Testing Materials Bull. No. 122, May 1943. ? Abstracted in Amer, Soc. for Testing Materials Standards on Textile Materials, p. 351, October 1941, 151 152 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 parachutes and shroud lines, high-tenacity rayon bomb chutes, “Bubblfil” life preservers, Vinyon screen printing cloths, nylon tooth brushes, rayon paint brushes, and Velon or plastic-coated window screens ? These certainly are not laboratory or experimental ghosts or guinea pigs; they are absolute realities and accomplished facts! A fine tribute to American ingenuity and the product of arduous and per- sistent research by American chemists, chemical engineers, and tech- nologists. Time and space limitations preclude the inclusion in this paper of many technical details, and only the most important and outstanding advances in new synthetic fibers can be given. Only those fibers that have gone beyond the experimental stage and are in actual pro- duction now or will be immediately after the war are dealt with. Nothing new or of interest can be reported on nylon, fibroin, fibers from corn, chitin, ossein, lichenin, Iceland moss, alginates, or agar- agar. There are, however, developments of great significance in the protein-base fibers such as casein and soybean, which have been de- veloped to a considerable extent in the past 3 years. There has also been a rapid advance in the vinyl resin group and in the thermoplastic resin groups. THERMOPLASTIC RESINS When Dow Chemical Co. produced saran in 1939 (mentioned only briefly in my 1940 paper), no one believed that it would have any significant possibilities in the textile industry. It has seen many new textile applications since then. The raw materials for these monofilament yarns are a group of resins from unsymmetrical dichlorethylene, known as vinylidene chloride resins, made from petroleum and brine. Ethylene is made by cracking petroleum, while chlorine comes from the electrolysis of brine. They are combined to form trichlorethane, which is converted with lime into the vinylidene chloride monomer. This product can be readily polymerized to form the long-linear-straight chain poly- mers. By careful selection of copolymers and control of the poly- merization conditions, many different polymers can be formed. These resins range from a flexible, moderately soluble material, having a melting point of about 158° F. to a hard, tough thermoplastic, having a softening point of 350° F. or more. The basic resin is odorless, tasteless, and a nontoxic powder. One of the several methods of extrusion is the one of crystal orien- tation, which produces long continuous monofilaments, tapes, bands, and ether shapes. The oriented form is produced by extrusion, sub- sequent plastic deformation as by stretching, and by heat treatment. SYNTHETIC TEXTILE FIBERS—-MAUERSBERGER 153 The material may be heat treated after or during stretching to affect the desired degree of crystallization. It produces monofilament yarns of considerable toughness and tensile strength, abrasion resistance, and chemical resistance to water, acids, alkalies, and many organic solvents. Little of textile interest was done with these yarns until Mr. Sted- man, of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio, took up the development and gave the name “Velon” to these products and estab- lished the Velon Department. A unit for production was set up at the Worldbestos Plant in Paterson, N..J., where monofilament yarns are being made as fine as 0.007 inch in diameter running from 10,000 to 12,000 yards to the pound. Experiments for the extrusion of multifilament yarns are under way and it is expected that yarns as fine as 100 denier can be produced eventually. At first, flat continuous bands were made to imitate rattan in the seat covers of buses and subway cars, and next, shoetop fabrics were woven for evening and sport shoes, using the Velon threads as warp and cotton yarns for filling. As soon as round, monofilament yarns of sufficient fineness were produced, Mr. Stedman interested August Hafner, president of Haf- ner Associates, who is a well-known specialty and experimental weav- ing expert in this country, to work out the textile possibilities. Mr Hafner could see the potentialities of these yarns at once, and sug- gested their use for handbag, trimming, and millinery fabrics of un- usual color, design, and weave variations. Then came the war with its restrictions on copper, steel, aluminum, and metals in general. This brought about replacements of metals in making mosquito and fly screens. These fly screens are now made successfully with vinylidene chloride resin yarns in 16 by 16, 12 by 12, and even 20 by 21 mesh. Window screens made from this yarn are supposed to provide better vision due to their greater transparency. At present, it is restricted for civilian use and its application in dress goods and wearing apparel will have to await the end of the war. NEW ELASTIC VINYON E Late last year, the Vinyon Department of American Viscose Corpo- ration in addition to Vinyon filament yarn, explained in my earlier paper, offered a new vinyl resin yarn with considerable elastic prop- erties known as Vinyon E. It possesses many characteristics of rub- ber and opens an entirely new field of applications. For some pur- poses it has been found superior to rubber, because it has exhibited better resistance to sunlight, tropical heat, and humidity and is not affected by body acids. At present it is restricted to military uses, where it replaces rubber. However, after the war we will see many 154 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 textile applications such as elastic webbing, tapes, cords, girdles, brassieres, surgical stockings, suspenders, and supporters, and many articles now made of sponge rubber. CASHIN FIBER The next remarkable development has been in casein fiber. The National Dairy Products Corporation has further developed and made remarkable progress with its trade-named product “Aralac.” The company has now formed Aralac, Inc., an entirely new division of the National Dairy Products Corporation, which has increased its pro- duction almost eightfold since 1940. The original 4,000-pound-a-day plant at Bristol, R. I., was moved in July 1941 to Taftville, Conn., with an output of 15,000 pounds per day. The product, originally used by the felt-hat trade, was then investigated by textile manufacturers. The advent of the war with its WPB restrictions on civilian wool use boomed interest in Aralac, so that in 1942 the plant capacity was doubled to 30,000 pounds per day. The felt usage being relatively stable, a much larger percentage of this fiber now goes to the textile trade. Aralac is offered in finenesses corresponding approximately to 50’s 60’s, and 70’s wool grades and in staple lengths from 1% to 6 inches. Specialty uses include stuffing for pillows, comforters, and quilted goods, interlining for cool-weather garments, and protection for milady’s hair, when it is given a permanent wave. The last-mentioned is in the form of a highly crimped combed top, and is known under the trade name “Wavecrepe.” Casein, the basic raw material from which Aralac is made, is a by- product of the milk industry. National milk production is upward of 117 billion pounds of milk annually. About 50 percent of this is skimmed for its cream. The skim milk thus formed yields over 1 billion pounds of casein a year or over 3 million pounds of casein a day, a pound of casein making roughly 1 pound of Aralac fiber. Casein fiber, unlike nylon, Vinyon, and acetate rayon, is made by a wet spinning process, somewhat similar to viscose rayon. Even these two processes are similar only at one point, namely, the extrusion through a spinnerette into a coagulating bath. Before this point, the Aralac process is much simpler than viscose; afterward, it is many times more complicated. The casein is dispersed in water by means of an alkali; the dispersion is clarified, spun, coagulated, and the tow treated to give the filaments flexibility and hot-water resist- ance. The fiber is then washed, dried, cut to staple length, and baled for shipment to textile mills. The properties of Aralac are in some instances similiar to those of wool and it is being used entirely in mixtures with wool, rayon, and SYNTHETIC TEXTILE FIBERS—-MAUERSBERGER 155 cotton fibers. It is not affected by organic solvents. It is not thermo- plastic below charring temperatures. It withstands sulfuric-acid car- bonization as well as wool. Its alkali resistance at higher temperatures is somewhat lower, so low temperatures and mild alkaline or neutral detergents are recommended for scouring and washing. Considerable research has been done on dyeing this fiber and the dyeing problem is now well in hand. Uniformity has made rapid strides and is now well under control. Being an animal base, it burns with the same odor and bead formation as wool and silk. Its strength, both dry and wet, is the same as last reported, about 60 and 20 percent, respectively, that of wool. Regain at 70° F. and 65 percent relative humidity is 12.6 percent. Commer- cial regain is established at 13 percent. The largest textile use of Aralac at present is in dress goods, but it is expanding into other uses, where a resilient, lofty hand is desired. The hat trade absorbs large quantities and practically every man’s felt hat in this country and Canada, which has been made within the past 3 years contains some Aralac fiber. It looks as if this fiber will go far, especially under present war conditions and with pressing needs for fiber conservation in the textile industry. SOYBEAN FIBER Ford Motor Co. of Dearborn, Mich., has considerably enlarged the production of this staple fiber which was explained quite fully in my 1940 paper. The company has now given this staple fiber the trade name “Soylon,” and I understand is offering it to the cotton and worsted spinning, weaving, and knitting trade in volume. Robert A. Boyer has been in charge of this development at Dearborn and reports that the new plant has now reached 5,000 pounds a day or 1,825,000 pounds annually. All machinery and equipment were designed by Ford engineers and are supposed to incorporate the latest mass-production principles and devices. The fiber has been improved in strength and other physical, chemical, and microscopical properties. PEANUT PROTEIN FIBER It appears that casein of animal origin and soybean of vegetable base points to the future use of other vegetable proteins for textile fiber manufacture. An instance is a textile staple fiber from peanut protein. Reports indicate that Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., of Glas- gow, Scotland, has done considerable research work, and D. K. Baird *Since delivery of this paper Ford Motor Co. has sold this entire equipment to The Drackett Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio, and has discontinued the manufacture of this fiber. 156 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 of the above company brought a sample of peanut protein fiber and cloth (made of 50 parts peanut fiber and 50 parts wool) to this country in 1939. I am informed by the New York office of Imperial Chemical In- dustries, Litd., that this work is at present still in the experimental stage. There has been no commercial development of the fiber in England or in any other country, neither could they state when such commercial development is likely to be achieved. The only public knowledge of this work is in United States patent No. 2,230,624, applied for on February 4, 1939, and granted on Febru- ary 4, 1941, to Andrew McLean, Saltscoats, Scotland, and assigned to Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., England. There are seven claims. From what I have seen in very small samples the fibers have an excellent appearance, are softer than wool and fine, and take dyes even better than wool. It might be stated also that the above company has produced satisfactory fiber from castor seed and edestin, a crystalline globulin found in many edible seeds such as wheat, rye, maize, etc. This indicates that we may see more of these protein fibers after the war. PLASTIC-COATED TEXTILE YARNS Another unusual development, which has gone forward quietly and is now assuming considerable proportions and importance in the war effort, is the coating of cotton, rayon, and fiber-glass yarns with in- finitely fine coatings of plastic solutions to give them added and almost unlimited strength, brightness or dullness, color, to make them com- pletely waterproof and moisture-resistant, flame-retarding or self-ex- tinguishing, or to make them resistant to mild acids, perspiration, oil, and grease, as desired. This may seem difficult of accomplishment but is now a reality and has found many interesting and technical applica- tions in the textile industry. It is the invention of two Frenchmen, Roumazeilles and Girard, and was patented in France in 1925 and in the United States in 1930. The American patent rights to the now-called Plexon Process were pur- chased by Freydberg Bros.-Strauss in 1938. The first Plexon yarns were introduced here in 1939 after making many improvements in the methods and machinery required. At first quite expensive, the speeding up of the process and finding suitable and practical plastic formula- tions resulted in price reductions, which now brings these yarns within reach of many new applications. In 1942 the entire procedure was revamped again, both as to ma- chine construction and speed of production, so that today these yarns SYNTHETIC TEXTILE FIBERS—-MAUERSBERGER L57 are made five times as fast as on the original French machine, a tribute to American engineering practice and genius. It is possible by this process to apply as few coatings as 6 or as many as 24, depending on the ultimate use of the thread. It is possible, for instance, to make a plastic-coated yarn as fine as 0.008 inch in diameter and up to approximately 0.09 inch in diameter. The dimension of the uncoated yarn could be almost anything within this range. It is possible to get an absolutely round thread by using graduated round disks. It is also possible to obtain different shapes such as elliptical, triangular, or square threads by using dies shaped to these forms. The process also envisions the application of plastic coatings and impreg- nations to flat tapes, bands, cords, and even wires. In addition to shaping the coating, the yarns can be made in various finishes. They can be made stiff or soft, or any graduation in between. They can be made transparent, translucent, or opaque, smooth or rough, by changing the plastic coating. Color ranges take in the entire scope of pigments available, the current color line consisting of more than 120 different shades. Such plastic-coated yarns can be made com- pletely waterproof, moisture-resistant, verminproof, weatherproof, rotproof, flameproof, as well as resistant to mild acids, perspiration, oil, grease, gasoline, and even to withstand extremes of temperatures as in tropical or Arctic climates. Such plastic-coated yarns can be and have been woven, knitted, braided, twisted, plaited, or crocheted into many types of sheer and dress materials, drapery, auto upholstery, slip covers, curtains, hand- bags, and shoe fabrics. A notable contribution to the war effort was made by developing a special type of coated yarn as a complete sub- stitute for steel and copper wire in the weaving of insect and fly screens. Through intensive research a Plexon wire yarn was perfected, which used noncritical materials both in the support (a cotton yarn) and in the chemical formulation of the coating. A stiff, wirelike coated cotton yarn was introduced to the insect-screen industry, woven on ordinary wire looms without many change-overs or adjustments. The resultant insect screen was tested by the National Bureau of Standards and found completely satisfactory. These screens will not rust, can withstand high tropical temperatures, and require no painting, lac- quering, or brushing, and are in actual use now. While there are several other developments, most of these are in the formative or experimental stages, and they may not bear fruit until sometime after the war. However, they bear watching. It may be pointed out here that America at this rate need never again experience a shortage of textile fibers will have a greater diversification of fibers for every purpose, demand, or use after this war. 158 |§ ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 NEW CLASSIFICATION OF MAN-MADE FIBERS Concurrent with these facts given in this and my previous paper and as a summary thereto, I wish to present a new classification for all man-made fibers, which, I believe, will aid in clarifying this picture and serve to place the fibers in a logical grouping. In the past few years, it has become more and more apparent that the word “synthetic” is not the best or an all-inclusive word for the fibers I have discussed but has been used for lack of another or more suitable word or words. It has become very clear to me that we have now two distinct types or groups of man-made fibers. One large group distinctly derives from natural sources such as wood pulp, cotton linters, cow’s milk, soybeans, peanuts, and silicate glass. I should like to term these “regenerated natural fibers.” (See fig. 1.) They are not really synthetic at all. The dictionary defines synthetic as “of or pertaining to synthesis” and again synthesis “is the art or process of making a compound by combining elementary ingredients.” Furthermore, I suggest that these regenerated natural fibers be broken down into three distinct subdivisions according to the bases from which they originate, namely, (a) cellulosic bases, (6) protein bases, (¢) mineral or inorganic bases. Under the cellulosic bases we have, first, the viscose and cuprate; second, the cellulose esters; and third, the cellulose ethers, all in fila- mentous and fibrous conditions. Under the protein bases, we have, first, the animal protein fibers, namely, casein and Aralac; and second, the vegetable protein fibers, where we have soybean and peanut fibers and others. Under the mineral or inorganic bases, we have fiber glass (filament and staple) and the mineral wools, such as rock wool, glass wool, and slag wool. None of these products or fibers are made by true synthesis, there- fore should not be termed synthetic fibers at all. I should like to recommend that we drop the word “synthetic” entirely for this group at least. I merely suggested the words “regenerated natural fibers” because to regenerate means “to produce anew, to give new life, strength, or vigor to, to reproduce.” Is that not exactly what we do with these fibers?) If someone can think of a more appropriate word, I should be delighted to substitute it for the above. In the second main group of man-made fibers belong all filaments and fibers produced by a combination of elementary or complex chemi- cals through synthesis, polymerization, copolymerization, heat treat- ments, stretch and setting operations, all of which are complicated, strictly chemical processes. Such materials as nylon, Vinyon, saran, 159 SYNTHETIC TEXTILE FIBERS—-MAUERSBERGER SNaIdvLiNe uageny SNOSYVD ~OUdAH ‘S19QY IPBUI-ULIM JO UOI}BOISSv[D MON—'T AOD] STOOM TWHININ NIS3Y JILSWId = = 3asva ~OWUSHL SY3LS3-A10d SGINV-A10d WUaNIW Suagl4 GAZISAHLNAS Sd3agl4 SJOVA-NVW NYSILYOI IVN3L-IH | NOAVY NOAWY UIOH a TaVL3939A WWINY asva N!ZLOUd NOAVY asva 3S071N1139 SH3dI4 TWUNLYN G3aLVYAN3934uN 160 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Velon, and synthetic rubber yarns belong to this group. I should like to suggest the words “synthesized fibers” for this group, instead of synthetic fibers, although the latter could be used here justifiably. This second main group I should like to subdivide, for the present at least, first, into the polyamids, which cover Du Pont’s nylon filaments, staple fiber and bristles; second into the polyesters, which cover Vinyon filament and Vinyon E, the new elastic yarn; third, into the thermoplastic resins, under which would come saran, Velon, Permalon, and others; fourth and last, the hydrocarbons, which are to include all new synthetic rubber filaments, threads, and cords in full develop- ment now. This classification separates the main products, and subordinates none. I recommend it to you for consideration. PETROLEUM GEOLOGY ? By Wirtit1AmM B. Hrroy Director of Foreign Production, Petroleum Administration for War INTRODUCTION Among the various substances which are found in the earth’s crust, petroleum and natural gas occupy a unique position in that they are combustible fluids. The highly distinctive and interesting properties of petroleum would alone have led to close investigation of its origin and occurrence, but its widespread distribution and great usefulness to mankind have made it the objective of many lines of scientific research and have gained for petroleum geology a leading position in geologic science. The geology of petroleum may be considered from either of two standpoints. In the field of economic geology it has become one of the most important branches and has attracted to it the largest group of specialists concerned with any mineral resource. Apart from its economic importance and in its proper relation to other divisions of geologic science, petroleum geology may be regarded as a branch of sedimentary petrology, coordinate with hydrology or the geology of coal deposits. A distinction may be made between the science of petroleum geology and the art of oil finding and development. The latter lies in the field of applied science or engineering. ‘The line between the two is not sharply drawn, and the association between the science and the art is so intimate that the advance of both has been hand in hand. The need for advancing the art has stimulated the progress of the science. New scientific concepts have soon been tried out in practice. As a part of a survey of the advances made in geologic science during the last half century it is fitting that this account of the progress in petroleum geology should emphasize the scientific rather than the engineering aspects, and the writer has approached the subject from that direction. Geographic distribution of petroleum deposits and other matters which are primarily economic in character will not be considered in this paper. 1Reprinted by permission from Fiftieth Anniversary Volume, Geological Society of America, June 1941. 161 162 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Petroleum geology is, in point of age, one of the younger divisions of geologic science. It has not attained the senatorial dignity of paleontology nor even the maturity of the geology of ore deposits. It spans but little more than the half century of American geology that this symposium commemorates. Some eminent living petroleum geologists were born before the first oil well was drilled in Pennsyl- vania in 1859. Petroleum geology is still making the rapid strides of youth. The writer is faced with difficulties in making proper acknowledg- ment of his deep indebtedness to his professional fellows. The ideas of others have been incorporated in this paper without hesitation in an endeavor to present as completely as space permits the progress and status of petroleum geology. Where the writer is conscious of having drawn on specific sources he has endeavored, through appro- priate reference, to give due credit. If, unconsciously, he has failed to do so, indulgence is asked. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Dr. L. C. Snider for constructive criticism. PETROLEUM GEOLOGY IN 1890 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS In the geologic world of 50 years ago two men, Edward Orton and Israel C. White, were the foremost authorities on the geology of petroleum. Both were original Fellows of the Geological Society of America, Orton having served on the committee which drafted the constitution and White on the first committee on publications. The first paper on petroleum geology published by the society was by Orton (1890), and, in the discussion of that paper, Dr. W J McGee (1890), of the United States Geological Survey, paid the following tribute to the work of these two men: But within the past 3 years the laws governing the origin, distribution, and pressure of rock gas have become as well known as are the laws governing artesian water supply; so that today the geologist prognosticates rock gas nearly if not quite as definitely and certainly as he prognosticates artesian water; and it is not only just to our associates and to American science to say that this great advance in geologic science was due almost wholly to two of our fellows— to Professor Orton, the author of the communication before us, and to Professor White, who has already spoken upon it. To these men we are indebted for this unparalleled stride in American geology. Others, indeed, contributed facts, but they philosophy ; and science was immeasurably enriched by their contribution. To the papers of White and Orton one must therefore turn for the ablest presentation of the geology of petroleum and natural gas of that day. Peckham (1884) had compiled for the Tenth Census a summary of the previous literature on the origin and accumulation of petroleum, PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 163 but it remained for Orton (1888) to publish the first treatise which critically studied and compared the evidence and reached consistent conclusions on this subject. As this report best presents the state of knowledge of petroleum geology as of 50 years ago, its conclusions will be extensively quoted. ORIGIN After reviewing the various theories that had been advanced by geol- ogists and chemists to account for the origin of petroleum and natural gas, Orton presented the following summary (1888, pp. 82, 83) : 1. Petroleum is derived from organic matter. 2. It is much more largely derived from vegetable than from animal substances. 3. Petroleum of the Pennsylvania type is derived from the organic matter of bituminous shales and is of vegetable origin. 4, Petroleum of the Canada type is derived from limestones, and is probably of animal origin. 5. Petroleum has been produced at normal rock temperatures (in Ohio fields) and is not a product of destructive distillation of bituminous shales. 6. The stock of petroleum in the rocks is already practically complete. After showing that petroleum is almost universally present in small quantities throughout the limestones and shales of Pennsylvania and Ohio, he concluded: It is obvious that the total amount of petroleum in the rocks underlying the surface of Ohio is large beyond computation, but in its diffused and distributed state, it is entirely without value. It must be accumulated in rocks that serve as reservoirs before it becomes of economic interest. RESERVOIRS He then summarized the existing knowledge concerning petroleum reservoirs. As to sandstone reservoirs, he contrasted those of Pennsy]l- vania, as described by Carll, with those of Ohio. The Venango sands of Pennsylvania were standstones of medium or coarse grain, or even in some cases conglomerates, ranging from a shell to 100 feet in thick- ness. The productive fields were found to extend in length for a score or more miles in some cases, while their width was confined to 1 or 2 miles. The reservoirs were lenticular in transverse section. The coarser the sand and the more open, the greater the amount of oil; and, in like manner, the thicker the stratum, the larger was its production likely to be, other things being equal. The sandstone reservoir of east- ern Ohio was “a stratum of sandstone that rests on and is covered by shales, but the stratum, so far from being lenticular in character, is wonderfully persistent, though varying in thickness and grain from point to point and occasionally nearly disappearing for short spaces.” He concluded his remarks on sandstones as reservoirs with the following: 164 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 In all of these fields [Pennsylvania, New York, and eastern Ohio], without im- portant exception standstones buried in shales have proved to be the reservoirs of oil and gas when the latter are found in large quantity. The overlying shale is the cover or roof of the reservoir; the underlying shale appears to be the source from which the bituminous products are derived. As to limestone reservoirs, Orton was more fully informed than any geologist of his time, in view of his studies of the Trenton. The fol- lowing is quoted from the same report (p. 86) : The limestone has been penetrated for about 550 feet without being exhausted. Through most, if not all of its extent, it is petroliferous, as is shown by the drillings, but the accumulated stocks of both oil and gas are always found in the uppermost beds of the stratum, and generally not more than 15 feet below its upper surface. * * * ‘The oil rock carries, at a lower level than that in which the oil is found, but sometimes dangerously near, a brine of unusual character. It has, in fact, the composition of a bittern, or a water left over from the con- centration of ordinary brine. * * * ‘The facts as to the occurrence of oil and gas in this stratum seem reconcilable with the theory that they have risen through the limestone rock until they find themselves arrested in their ascent by the overlying shales, and their accumulation therefore takes place at this point. PERMEABILITY Orton had noted the difference in permeability of these main classes of oil reservoirs and also the variations which occurred ineach. It had been early established in Pennsylvania that different portions of the oil sands communicated with some degree of freedom, for adjacent wells were found to affect each other’s yields. As an example, he cites the Bradford sand and its division into gas, oil, and salt-water zones, the gas holding the highest and the salt water the lowest levels, and found “the conclusion well-nigh irresistible that the entire rock is permeable and that, in the course of ages, the various contents have been differenti- ated as we now find them, under the influence of gravitation.” In con- trast, he found that in other areas “there was no necessary and absolute connection between different portions of an oil sand”; the stratum might be divided into lenticular masses which might be nearly or en- tirely disconnected. “The rapid changes in thickness of the oil-sand in adjacent wells furnishes conclusive proof upon this point. We can follow the stratum down to a feather edge by these records.” In the Berea sand of eastern Ohio he observed that such interruptions occurred frequently. “Communication through a few square miles of the rock can be occasionally inferred, but beyond this we have, thus far, found no warrant for going.” It was Orton’s observation that in the lime- stone reservoirs the same freedom of communication did not exist as in the sandstones. He noted, however, that the gas wells at Findlay affected each other noticeably. He recognized that there could not be as free communication through massive limestones as through sand- stones. In the case of sandstones, however, he did not apparently PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 165 realize that lack of porosity was one of the reasons for lack of com- munication but rather attributed it to changes in thickness and lensing. The presence of an approximately impervious roof over the oil reser- voir was, to Orton, the primary requisite of oil accumulation. Source beds were plentiful and widely distributed, and various kinds of rocks were suitable as reservoirs, but “more interest centers in the roof shales or cover than in any other part of the system.” The Utica and Hud- son River shales overlying the Trenton, the Niagara shale overlying the Clinton, and the Cuyahoga shale overlying the Berea were con- vincing examples. “It is apparent that the composition and order of arrangement of a series of strata have a vitally important relation to the accumulation of oil and gas that may take place within it.” Orton accepted the conclusion of Carll (1880) that the yield of oil wells was fully accounted for by the presence of the oil in the pores of the reservoir and that there was no necessity for resorting to other ex- planations, such as “crevices” in the rocks, to account for their productivity. STRUCTURE The principles of petroleum geology which have just been outlined appear to have been quite generally accepted by the geologists who were contemporaries of Orton. But in the field of the relation of structure to the accumulation of petroleum there was dissension of the first order. I. C. White was connected with the Second Pennsylvania Geological Survey from 1875 to 1883, when he resigned and entered commercial work. Two years later (1885a) he published his epochal statement advocating the anticlinal theory of oil accumulation. The observation that accumulations of 011 were associated with anticlinal axes had been made 25 years before by several geologists, including Hunt (1861), Rogers (1860), and Logan, but their opinions had been forcefully opposed by the Director of the Pennsylvania Survey, J. P. Lesley, and probably had little influence on oil discovery or development. So im- portant was White’s revival of this theory that Orton (1888, p. 93) pro- claimed that his applications of the theory “mark a new period in our study of the geology of oil and gas.” The following quotation gives White’s (1885a, pp. 521-522) views in his own words. After visiting all the great gas wells that had been struck in western Pennsyl- vania and West Virginia, and carefully examining the geological surroundings of each, I found that every one of them was situated either directly on, or near, the crown of an anticlinal axis, while wells that had been bored in the synclines on either side furnished little or no gas, but in many cases large quantities of salt water. Further observation showed that the gas wells were confined to a narrow belt, only one-fourth to 1 mile wide, along the crests of the anticlinal folds. These facts seem to connect gas territory unmistakably with the disturbance in the rocks caused by their upheaval into arches, but the crucial test was yet to be 566766—44—12 166 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 made in the actual location of good gas territory on this theory. During the last 2 years, I have submitted it to all manner of tests, both in locating and condemning gas territory, and the general result has been to confirm the anti- clinal theory beyond a reasonable doubt. But while we can state with confidence that all great gas wells are found on the anticlinal axis, the converse of this is not true, viz, that great gas wells may be found on all anticlinals. In a theory of this kind, the limitations be- come quite as important as, or even more so than, the theory itself; and hence I have given considerable thought to this side of the question, having formulated them into three or four general rules (which include practically all of the limita- tions known to me, up to the present time, that should be placed on the state- ment that large gas wells may be obtained on anticlinal folds) as follows: (a) The arch in the rocks must be one of considerable magnitude; (6) A coarse or porous sandstone of considerable thickness, or, if a fine-grained rock, one that would have extensive fissures, and thus, in either case, rendered capable of acting as a reservoir for the gas, must underlie the surface at a depth of several hundred feet (500 to 2,500 feet) ; (c) Probably very few or none of the grand arches along mountain ranges will be found holding gas in large quantity, since in such cases the disturbance of the stratification has been so profound that all the natural gas generated in the past would long ago have escaped into the air through fissures that traverse all the beds. Another limitation might possibly be added, which would confine the area where great gas flows may be obtained to those underlaid by a considerable thickness of bituminous shale. Very fair gas wells may also be obtained for a considerable distance down the slope from the crest of the anticlinals, provided the dip be sufficiently rapid, and especially if it be irregular, or interrupted with slight crumples. And even in regions where there are no well-marked anticlinals, if the dip be somewhat rapid and irregular, rather large gas wells may occasionally be found, if all other conditions are favorable. Ashburner (1885), of the Second Pennsylvania Geological Survey, replied promptly to White’s announcement. While conceding that a relation existed between the position of anticlinal axes and the loca- tion of gas fields, he regarded the problem as more complex and cited other factors which he considered to be controlling, as follows: Although it is a fact that many of our largest Pennsylvania gas wells are located near anticlinal axes, yet the position in which gas may be found, and the amount to be obtained, depend upon (@) the porosity and homogeneousness of the sandstone which serves as a reservoir to hold the gas; (b) the extent to which the strata above or below the gas-sand are cracked; (c) the dip of the gas-sand and the position of the anticlines and synclines; (d) the relative pro- portions of water, oil, and gas contained in the sand; and (e) the pressure under which the gas exists before being tapped by wells. Lesley, in a paper published the following year (1886, pp. 654-655), strongly opposed White’s theory; the following quotation states his views: Quite recently the location of the anticlinal lines in the Pittsburgh region has become a sort of popular mania, produced by a theory. The whole community interested in the subject of natural gas has been carried away by a theory * %* * the anticlinal theory of gas. PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 167 Stated in a few words, it is a theory that oil, being lighter than water, must rise to higher levels. If the application of this theory was confined to bottles no one would dispute it; the water in a bottle must collect at the bottom, the oil in the middle and the gas on top. But the earth is not a bottle. It has no great caverns in it. More than that, the arrangement takes place naturally under the pressure of only one atmosphere; while any arrangement of water, gas, and oil, made at depths of a thousand or 2,000 feet, must be made under pressures of from 100 to 400 pounds to the square inch. * * * It therefore seems to me irrational to assign any importance whatever to the extremely gentle anticlines of the gas-oil region. To this I add the important consideration that the movements of oil and water have been shown by actual practice to be governed entirely by the char- acter of the rock in which they take place, and that they are effectually stopped at fixed geographical lines where porous rock changes into sandstones and sandstones into shales. And these changes of character in the rock itself have no fixed relation whatever to the anticlinal waves, which, on the contrary, cross them transversely or diagonally. White, in replies to these criticisms (1885b; 1886), again emphasized his position that not all anticlines would be gas-bearing, especially such subordinate anticlinal folds as occurred within the synclines. He pointed to the success which had attended development along eight anticlines in the vicinity of Pittsburgh and the failures which had resulted from drilling in the intervening synclines. Thus the im- portance of structure as a factor in the accumulation of oil and gas came to be recognized by the geological profession and by practical operators. With the extension of oil and gas production to areas other than western Pennsylvania, it was soon found by the geologists working in them that modifications of White’s theory were required to explain all the structural problems that arose. Minshall, by careful surveys along the White Oak anticline in West Virginia, had shown that the axis itself was undulating, with pronounced domes or summits at some points and sags or depressions at others, and that the commercial gas accumulations were confined to the domes. In Ohio, Orton (1888, pp. 93-95) found that anticlinals were of infrequent occurrence but that oil and gas accumulation was controlled by another type of structural deformation, which he termed “arrested anticlinals,” or terraces. PRESSURE OF GAS One other major problem in connection with the occurrence of oil and gas greatly concerned the petroleum geologists of a half century ago—to find a satisfactory explanation for the pressure exerted by the gas upon the reservoir within which it was contained. Closed-in pressures ranging up to 1,000 pounds per square inch had been ob- served, and the enormous expulsive force of the gas, frequently caus- ing the drilling tools to be violently thrown from wells, was well 168 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 known to operators. One explanation was that the gas formed in the earth much as steam is formed in a boiler and that the pressure resulted from the confinement of the gas. The theory most commonly held was that the weight of the overlying rocks caused the compres- sion of the gas, and the resulting pressure was accordingly called “rock pressure.” Lesley (1885) exhaustively studied this theory and dem- onstrated that the pressure of gas did not accord with the weight of the overburden. Orton seems to have been the first geologist clearly to understand the function of artesian pressure in relation to the pressure of oil and gas in the same stratum. He says (1888, p. 99): In the porous rock that contains them there is always, outside of the pro- ductive fields, a body of water, and in almost every instance, salt water. This water occupies the rock as it rises to day in its nearest outcrops. Communi- eating there with surface water or with rainfall, a head of pressure is given to the gas and oil that are held in the traps formed by the anticlinals or terraces into which the stratum has been thrown. The amount of pressure would thus depend on the height to which the water column is raised, in case con- tinuous porosity of the stratum can be assumed. Later Orton (1890) published a paper on the origin of the rock pressure of the Trenton limestone which laid the foundation for all later studies in dynamic geology as related to oil and gas. SUMMARY The preceding review of the status of petroleum geology in 1890, though brief, may, nevertheless, demonstrate that this division of the science had been placed on a sound foundation by the pioneer work of the men whose writings have been cited. The difficulties which they encountered and the differences of opinion which developed among them were in large measure the result of an endeavor to oversimplify their science. The tracing in detail of the evolution of these various ideas and theories and of their development into those which make up the present content of petroleum geology would unduly extend this paper. The writer accordingly passes to a review of its present status without attempting to follow closely all the changes in thought during the intervening period. GENESIS OF PETROLEUM GENERAL PROBLEM Starting with an accumulation of factual information concerning the nature and occurrence of petroleum, and following the scientific method of thought, petroleum geologists have sought to discover the sources from which it has come and the manner in which it has origi- nated. Most of them have held the opinion that oil and gas have been PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 169 derived from organic matter deposited in sedimentary rocks. Some chemists and, more rarely, geologists have sought to explain the origin of these hydrocarbons as due to inorganic processes. Through the years this smaller group has diminished in numbers, and at the present time the organic origin of petroleum is “generally accepted” (Snider, 1934, p.51). But agreement on the general principle has proven much simpler than the collection of pertinent and adequate supporting evi- dence. Like the broader biologic principle of evolution, precise knowl- edge of its mechanism is attained only by many years of intensive investigation. The general problem of the conversion of the organic material de- posited in sedimentary rocks into oil and gas may be divided into more specialized fields of investigation, such as: 1. The character of the organic material which ultimately becomes petroleum. 2. The characteristics which give to a sedimentary deposit the capacity to pro- duce petroleum. 3, The steps of chemical change whereby the organic matter of animals and plants has been converted into the various hydrocarbons of which petroleum is composed. a 4. The nature of the forces which have been instrumental in, or have con- tributed to, the transformation of organic matter into petroleum. 5. The manner in which widely disseminated and minute quantities of such derivatives have been aggregated into appreciable quantities of fluid. In attacking these problems most geologists and chemists have con- sidered that the doctrine of uniformity of Lyell (1842, pp. 323-327), which assumes that the geologic processes and conditions of the present are essentially the same as those of the past, was applicable to the formation of petroleum. This is questioned by Woolnough (1937, p. 1106) who considers that petroleum may have been formed under “con- ditions of accumulation not now exhibited, on a major scale, in any part of the world.” Any progress in the solution of problems of origin must, however, rest upon detailed examination of present processes on the assumption that, at least in kind if not in degree, they were opera- tive in past ages. NATURE OF ORGANIO MATERIAL As to the kind of organic matter that is requisite to the production of petroleum, there is much divergence of view. Trask (1938, p. 384) considers that petroleum is a very special substance and that only certain types of organic material can be changed into petroleum, while Snider (1934, p. 62) holds the opinion that almost any kind of organic matter buried in sediments may, under proper conditions, be changed to petroleum and natural gas. These are wide extremes of thought which have been developed through quite different lines of approach. Trask (1932), in an intensive study of the organic constituents of recent sediments, found that oils and fats form a very small part of the 170 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 organic matter present; that cellulose compounds derived from higher plants are also present in small quantities; and that nitrogenous com- pounds and complex compounds of lignin and humus form the bulk of the organic matter. He therefore reasons that petroleum must come from these complex organic compounds rather than from the very small quantities of oils, fats, and cellulose. However, no evidence is pre- sented by him which suggests that, to the extent that they were pres- ent, these other substances may not also have become constituents of petroleum. Whereas Trask’s work has been primarily concerned with quantita- tive determinations of the presence in sediments of particular types of organic matter, other investigators have been attempting, through the analysis of individual oils and through the isolation of particular or- ganic constituents, to develop suggestive relations with living organic matter. The presence in crude oils of a wide variety of microscopic objects, such as diatoms, Foraminifera, insect scales, and petrified wood, may be significant (Sanders, 1937). The identification in crpde petroleum of chlorophyll porphyrins suggests a direct relation with higher forms of vegetable life (Triebs, 1935). Hlauschek (1936) con- siders that plants, producing lignin, form the principal source of cyclic hydrocarbons and that the life of the sea has been the source of the straight-chain type of hydrocarbons. Brooks (1936) regards fatty oils as the principal source materials, with other types of organic sub- stances such as cellulose, starches, sugars, proteins, lignins, and waxes as additional sources. He points to the presence of heptane in pine trees and to the close relation between the terpenes and certain petro- leum hydrocarbons. Berl (1938) also regards carbohydrates and derivatives thereof as the chief parent material of crude petroleum. In the evolution of life from the earliest times to the present the dominant types of plants and animals have been different at various periods. It is probable, therefore, that the chemical characteristics of the remains of such life have also varied. Modern plants, for example, doubtless contain more lignin than Paleozoic plants. Most geologists will probably accept the thesis that petroleum has been formed at all times in the earth’s past by the transformation of the then existing organic matter and that the distinguishing character- istics of the petroleum found in deposits of different ages are related to the nature of the particular organic matter present in the area where the petroleum was formed at the time of its origin. SOURCE BEDS The concept that certain sedimentary deposits had greater capacity than others to originate petroleum is as old as petroleum geology itself. Dana (1871) taught that shales and argillaceous sandstones were the PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—-HEROY 171 most common original source and that the oil found in arenaceous sand- stones was supposed to have been derived from the shales above or below. Black shales were thought to be rich in oil, probably because “coal oil” had been distilled from them. A relationship was thus early assumed to exist between the amount of organic matter present in sedi- ments and their capacity to originate petroleum. The term “source beds” gradually came into use to distinguish those rocks from whose organic matter petroleum has originated. As the science advanced, however, it became apparent that such generalizations were not com- pletely true, and about 20 years ago the need for experimental investi- gation of source beds began to be recognized. This took definite form in 1926 when the American Petroleum Institute sponsored a research program which is still continuing. Investigation of so complex a subject was initially faced with in- herent difficulties. The assumption that the source beds were strati- graphically closely associated with the reservoir beds depends for its validity on the premise that oil has accumulated near the zone and area of origin and has not migrated horizontally or vertically for long distances, a premise on which petroleum geologists are by no means in agreement. If organic matter in the form of petroleum has origi- nated in particular strata, then the movement of the petroleum out of these strata will leave them poorer in organic matter than they were originally; hence present organic content may not be conclusive as to whether or not a particular bed has acted as a source of petroleum. On the other hand, if certain strata were originally sufficiently rich in organic matter to originate petroleum they may still, even after giving up some of their organic content, be richer in organic matter than other sedimentary deposits. If the geologic forces to which an area has been subjected subsequent to the deposition of the source beds are an important factor in the genesis of petroleum, then the amount and character of the organic matter originally present in the sediments may not be the major factor; the dynamic history may be controlling. These and other questions complicate the problem of recognizing source beds. Work on details of the problem has led to some specific con- clusions, and in the following paragraph the writer has attempted to summarize present prevailing opinion on this subject. Recent marine sediments contain as high as 7 percent organic matter with the average around 2.5 percent. Some older rocks, such as Mon- terey shale, may have had a higher organic content than recent sedi- ments at the time of deposition. All ancient sediments have probably lost some of their original organic content, and the loss through aging may be as much as 40 percent. The proportion of the original organic content that may have been converted into petroleum is unknown but has been estimated at from 5 to 10 percent. In recent sediments the 172. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 organic matter consists of about 60 percent carbon, 7 percent nitrogen, and the remainder chiefly hydrogen. In ancient sediments the pro- portion of nitrogen increases, indicating that there has been loss of hydrogen and carbon through geologic change (Trask, 1932, p. 222). Dark sediments generally have a higher organic content than lighter ones, and the blackness of many marine shales is chiefly due to con- tained organic matter (Twenhofel, 1939, p.1181). Hence, dark marine shales are generally regarded as good source beds and, when near oil reservoirs, are considered as the most probable source of the petroleum (Snider, 1934, p. 62). The organic matter in recent sediments consists of a highly complex group of substances (Trask, 1932, p. 198). Oils and fats constitute only 1 percent; waxes, resins, alkaloids, and alcohols comprise about 5 percent; carbohydrates form less than 1 percent; sugars, starches, and other water-soluble substances, chiefly organic acids, form 3 percent. Nitrogenous compounds form the largest group, comprising about 40 percent, about half being proteins and the remainder more resistant nitrogenous compounds. Finally, about 30 percent of the organic matter consists of lignins and humic complexes. It is from such source materials that hydrocarbons must have been derived. The organic matter of recent sediments is nearly all present in solid form. The proportion soluble in hot water comprises only about 3 percent, and all the material extracted from such sediments by solu- tion in carbon tetrachloride appears to be solid in nature (Trask, 1932, p. 173). CONVERSION OF ORGANIC MATTER TO PETROLEUM The problem of when, where, and how the organic content of sedi- ments was converted into petroleum is a refinement to which the geolo- gist of half a century ago had not advanced and which received very little attention until 20 years ago. From the time that the problem assumed definite form, geologists have been primarily concerned with the time and place of conversion, while the manner in which the change occurred has been left largely to the chemists and biologists. The uppermost layers of newly deposited sediments have a dense bacterial population, and such microorganisms are probably an im- portant factor in the generation of hydrocarbons. Bacteria func- tion to remove nitrogen and oxygen from the organic matter con- tained in the sediments, which is thus changed in composition so as more nearly to resemble petroleum (Hammar, 1934). This trans- formation probably occurs very early in the history of the sediments, and there is little if any evidence to support the view that bacterial action continues after sediments have been deeply buried and subjected to dynamic action (David White, 1985). PRTROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY Ws Up to quite recently such evidence as was available to geologists tended to show that petroleum was formed at the time of deposition and buried with the sediments (McCoy, 1926, p. 1022). However, extensive chemical examination of recent marine sediments indi- cates that petroleum is not present in them and consequently is not formed at the time of deposition or shortly thereafter (Trask and Wu, 1930). Recent sediments, therefore, appear to have reached a stage in their history at which the bacterial action has largely run its course but at which petroleum has not yet been formed. The organic matter, the “mother substance” of petroleum, as it is some- times called, presumably is present in such sediments in solid form, analogous to the solid bituminous material, called “kerogen,” found in oil shales (McCoy and Keyte, 1934, p. 271). Berl (1938, p. 2) considers that, after bacterial action has ceased, carbohydrates, humic acids, and lignin are converted into intermediate substances which he calls “protoproducts” and which he considers the parent ma- terials for petroleum. Other chemists, notably Hackford (1932), have also sought to trace the transformation of vegetable matter into petroleum. Most chemists consider that only moderate temperatures, such as are within the bounds of geologic probability, are required to effect such changes. Time, of which the geologist sees an abundant supply, is also thought to be an important factor in the conversion. Much work remains to be done before the various steps in the conversion of organic matter into petroleum can be accurately traced. At some stage in the process the solid organic matter laid down with the sediments is converted into fluids, and it is only then that move- ment from source bed to reservoir becomes possible. As a result of studies of crude oils in the Gulf Coast, Barton (1934) concluded that petroleum, when first formed, is heavy and viscous and has, as the result of the operation of heat, pressure, and perhaps other forces, evolved into progressively lighter oils. He has, however, also observed that deeper oils have lower specific gravity than those nearer the surface. To what extent this relationship may be explained by loss of volatile constituents through escape to the surface is unknown, but the inference of recent intensive geochemical studies is that there is a definite upward movement of hydrocarbons from the reservoirs to the surface, even though the cover rocks may appear highly im- pervious to such migration. GEOLOGIC FORCES OPERATING TO PRODUCE PETROLEUM The chemical reactions required to produce petroleum from the “mother substance” have presumably not occurred spontaneously but have been brought about by competent physical forces, such as heat, pressure, and movement. All these forces are operative in deeply 174 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 buried sediments, and geologists, contrasting conditions in such sedi- ments with those occurring at the surface, have naturally sought in some way to relate the origin of petroleum to them. As a section of sedimentary rocks is deposited, the weight of the overburden progressively increases, and the deeper beds become heavily loaded.. The pressure thus created causes compaction of the sediments, which become more dense with increase in depth (Athy, 1930a). Compaction is accompanied by closer spacing of the grains and by the gradual displacement from the sediment of most of the interstitial water. The friction resulting from movement of the grains may produce some heat (Pratt, 1934, p. 242), and chemical reactions, such as the oxidation of pyrite, may be another source, but it is probable that the internal heat of the earth is the chief cause of increase in temperature with depth. Whatever the cause, recent drilling in sedimentary basins to depths approaching 3 miles has revealed the existence of temperatures of nearly 300° F. Such temperatures are greater than those which chemists have usually considered would be available for geochemical reactions leading to the formation of petroleum. The opinion (McCoy and Keyte, 1934, p. 269) that most of the known oil fields were formed at temperatures lower than 140° F. may, therefore, require revision. Even tempera- tures of around 300° F. are, however, lower than those usually considered to be within the “cracking range,” and the reactions by which petroleum has been formed may still, from the chemist’s standpoint, be considered low-temperature changes. The reactions by which organic matter is converted to petroleum are essentially endothermic, and the energy present in the form of heat in the sedi- ments where petroleum is being formed accordingly facilitates them. Pressure may have had an important effect in the formation of petroleum by favoring polymerization (Brooks, 1938, p. 51). Hy- drogenation and other types of chemical transformation of hydro- carbons are also facilitated by pressure (Pratt, 1934, p. 241). In addition to the weight of the overburden, pressure in sediments may be due to hydrostatic head, the presence of petroleum gases in porous reservoirs, and possibly other factors such as cementation and chemical metamorphism. As water-free sedimentary rocks have an average specific gravity above 2.5, the weight of the overburden might be expected to result in pressures at depths greatly in excess of the weight of a column of water of equivalent height. Measure- ments indicate, however, that the hydrostatic pressures existing in underground reservoirs normally correspond to the weight of such a column of water (Versluys, 19382) rather than to the weight of the overlying sediments. This has been found true in wells drilled to depths of over 13,000 feet in which the reservoir pressures exceed PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY iio 6,000 pounds per square inch. When pressures of that magnitude occur in combination with temperatures of 300° F., their potency to effect chemical changes must be great. Recent unconsolidated sediments contain large amounts of water. As compaction progresses, fluids in the strata which are being com- pressed are forced from them. While this movement may be of great importance in connection with the migration of petroleum (Athy, 1930b), it may also be a significant factor in the chemi- cal reactions which produce petroleum by facilitating molecular rearrangement. AGGREGATION The work of Trask and others has indicated that there is great varia- tion in richness of organic content between types of sediments and be- tween beds in the same geologic section. Vertical variation in organic content is generally greater than horizontal variation. But, after full allowance has been made for such differences, the fact remains that organic matter is quite universally distributed throughout sediments of marine origin. The sediments which are usually richest in organic matter are fine-textured shales, and the organic matter is minutely disseminated through them. The pore spaces of such sediments are of capillary dimensions, and older sediments of this character are highly impervious to the movement of fluids. When first deposited, such sedi- ments were clays and silts with large volumes of interstitial water (Trask, 1932, p. 77; Twenhofel, 1932, p. 258). It is in such an environment that the solid organic matter laid down with the sediments has been transformed into other compounds which are capable of being transported by water. If the organic matter were water-soluble its movement through capillary spaces would occur more readily than if it were in the form of minute globules of hydrocarbons insoluble in water. It is conceivable that the solid organic matter which is later to become petroleum has at first been converted into water-soluble or water-miscible intermediate compounds and that it was in some such state when it first left the place of original deposition. In that case the further chemical change of such intermediate com- pounds to petroleum might occur after the organic matter had been removed from the point of original deposition and had, in the course of its movement, come into contact with solutions or forces which had caused further reactions to produce the hydrocarbons which collec- tively form petroleum and natural gas. No experimental work with which the writer is conversant clarifies this problem. Whatever the precise process of chemical change may have been, it seems necessary to postulate that somewhere in the very early history of petroleum there must have been an aggregation of finely divided 176 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 material into appreciable quantities of hydrocarbons which would be present in the water-saturated sediments either as a solute or in the form of globules physically distinct from the water. While the mecha- nism of this process is unknown, it appears to be an essential link in the chain of the origin of petroleum. The available evidence indicates that this aggregation occurs within the source rock. Older sediments of marine origin, both dense and porous, are impregnated with small quantities of petroleum, in con- trast with recent sediments in which it is rare or absent. This was well known to Orton (1888, p. 83) who estimated the quantity of petroleum present in this diffused condition in some of the rocks of Ohio. Surprisingly little detailed investigation of the quantity and distribution of petroleum in older rocks has been carried on. Trask has determined the organic content of many samples of older rocks from wells, but the analyses do not disclose the amount of organic matter present in the form of petroleum. Stout (1936, p. 799) studied various Ohio limestones and shales and found that the content of hydro- carbons was about 0.5 percent. Most geologists will probably be in accord with the statement of Illing (1938b, p. 209) that There can be no doubt that a still larger amount of oil and gas occurs as a more widespread but less concentrated impregnation of the denser rocks, the clays, marls and limestones surrounding the reservoir rocks. In concluding this discussion of the genesis of petroleum, the state- ment seems justified that the conversion of the complex organic sub- stances deposited with the sediments into the petroleum found in older rocks takes place within the source bed and results from the various chemical and physical forces to which the organic matter has therein been subjected. MIGRATION OF PETROLEUM GENERAL STATEMENT The accumulation of petroleum in immense concentrations in oil pools is in contrast with its wide diffusion through the source beds in which it had its origin. The movement of petroleum from source to reservoir has resulted from the operation of physical forces, and geologists are vitally concerned with the character of these forces and the extent of their effectiveness. This movement is collectively called migration, but the use of such an inclusive term is deceptive, for the process is doubtless highly complex. In its simplest form it may be resolved into a consideration of (1) movement of oil from source bed into carrier bed; and (2) movement through the carrier bed to the reservoir. PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—-HEROY 177 MIGRATION FROM SOURCE BED TO CARRIER BED The compaction of sediments by the increasing load of younger beds deposited in succession is accompanied by the loss of a large part of the interstitial water they originally contained (Athy, 1930). The con- nate water remaining in the sediments adheres closely to the individual grains and fills the intervening voids. Because of the presence of this film of closely adhering water, which is present even in well-saturated oil reservoirs, it is probable that petroleum normally does not wet the grains but remains in the interstitial passages in the form of minute globules (Schilthuis, 1937, p. 200). The movement of the interstitial water is regarded as the principal cause of the migration of oil from the source beds. The outward movement of water from such sedi- ments will be in the direction of least resistance, from the clays and marls into the more permeable strata. If at the time this outward movement is in progress petroleum has already formed in the sedi- ments, it may be expected to move with the expressed water into the more porous beds which are competent to act as carriers (Illing, 1933). With the passage of time and the completion of the cycle of deposi- tion the sediments gradually become lithified and a condition will ulti- mately be reached in which the compaction of the deeper beds will cease. The more competent members of the series will acquire strength to sus- tain the load of the overlying sediments, and the fluids which they contain will reach a state of equilibrium. Capillarity has also been thought competent to cause the movement of petroleum from the source bed to the carrier bed. McCoy (1926, p. 1027) concluded, on the basis of experimental evidence, that there is an interchange of fluids between the source bed and the carrier bed, the oil in the source bed being expelled into the more porous bed and replaced by an equal amount of water. This interchange was thought to occur in the capillary spaces of the source rock and to be caused by the superior surface tension of the water ; the water, having a greater adhesive tension for the wall of the capillary than does the oil, and its adhesive tension for the wall of the capillary being greater than the surface tension of the oil, the oil column in the capillary would be broken, and minute globules of oil would be split off and moved through the capillary in the direction of the more permeable bed. Other forces which have been considered as contributing to the move- ment of oil from denser to more porous rocks are artesian circulation and diastrophic movements in the sedimentary basin. The effective- ness of the first-mentioned is questionable, for artesian flow is likely to take place through the most porous beds and is unlikely to be effec- tive in the denser sediments. Diastrophism may have been effective in creating compressive forces which may, in turn, have acted on the 178 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 denser strata and caused fluid movements in the capillary spaces, but there is little in the way of direct evidence to support this thesis. Dias- trophic movements, by producing fractures and faults, have opened new channels for the vertical movement of fluids from one porous bed to another or have brought into contact reservoir beds not previously communicating. MIGRATION THROUGH THE CARRIER BED The term “carrier bed” was introduced by Rich (1931) to designate porous beds, such as coarse sands or cavernous limestones, which were favorable in texture to the movement of oil. While the term was in- tended especially to describe beds that would facilitate long-distance migration, it is a convenient designation for any porous stratum through which petroleum may have moved, and it is used here in that broader sense. It has been postulated that, during the compaction of a series of sedimentary rocks, water carrying globules of petroleum has moved from the source bed into the more porous adjoining carrier beds. Firstly, if a bed were sufficiently extensive to have a surface outcrop along the margin of the basin, the excess water would have an oppor- tunity to follow it toward the outcrop and, perhaps, there to make its escape. But the same outcrop would also permit the entry into the carrier bed of meteoric waters and, depending upon the altitude of the outcrop and other conditions, the meteoric waters might be able to resist the outward movement of the connate waters to such an extent that their escape through the carrier bed might be prevented. In that case, the line of least resistance to the movement of the excess water might be across the bedding, through the less pervious rocks forming its cover. Secondly, if the carrier bed does not have a surface out- crop, the excess waters deposited with the sediments will ordinarily have only one avenue of ultimate escape—across the bedding planes. It seems probable that most of the excess interstitial water must have passed upward through the section, for, at the time when the basin was in formation and compaction was in process, the basin would usually not have been sufficiently deformed and eroded to provide the carrier beds with surface outcrops. Once having entered the carrier bed, the particles of petroleum which had passed through the capillary pores of the source rock would tend to coalesce into larger globules in the wider interstitial spaces of the carrier bed. These larger globules would be capable of lateral movement through the carrier bed but would not be able to enter the smaller capillary spaces of an overlying clay or shale. If the water in the carrier bed were forced upward as a result of compaction, the globules of oil would be left behind and would be held at the interface. PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 179 This concept has been developed by Illing (1933) who called the process “filtration.” It was also well described by Versluys (1982) who remarked that “fine grained strata act as screens when water, charged with small globules of oil or minute bubbles of gas, is forced through them.” By some such mechanism petroleum has moved from the source beds into the more porous beds throughout the entire extent of their con- tact. Information gained over many years by drilling into porous beds has shown that it is exceptional that more than a small part of the entire area of a porous bed is saturated with oil and gas; by far the larger part contains water. It seems evident that in some manner the petroleum must have been collected from the wide areas through- out which it entered the porous beds and concentrated in the relatively much smaller areas which it is now found to occupy.” The movement by which this has been accomplished is essentially a lateral movement, one which continues until the petroleum reaches a stratigraphic or structural trap. An explanation of this movement which is satisfactory to the geologist and which will withstand successfully the criticism of the physicist has been difficult to attain. The earlier geologists had a simple and, to them, complete explanation. Oil and gas, being lighter than water, floated above it and filled the highest portion of the porous rock. Abundant evidence accumulated which was considered to sup- port the principle of flotation, and it became quite generally accepted, along with the corollary that, if the dip of the porous beds were sufli- cient to overcome friction, the particles of oil and gas would gradually move up the slope to the pool, the gas with its lower specific gravity occupying the higher places (Griswold and Munn, 1907, p. 24). Munn (1909) was, perhaps, the first to question the adequacy of flotation or buoyancy to account for the accumulation of oil pools, considering that the enormous pressures developed in oil and gas wells were not satisfactorily explained by it. Following him, other in- vestigators down to the present have thought that flotation alone could not produce migration. Lling (19388b) says: It is therefore not at all certain from first principles that gas, oil, and water will separate out by flotation in the pores of the rock, and it is clear that the separation will depend upon certain limiting conditions, the relative importance of surface tension and buoyancy. 7 Some geologists, on the contrary, consider that the accumulation of oil takes place essen- tially in situ (McCoy and Keyte, 1934) and is due to the juxtaposition of rich source bed and reservoir. Clark (1934) also favors this view, explaining the absence of oil in some apparently favorable traps by the absence of rich source bedg in their immediate vicinity. It would appear to the writer coincidental that zones of unusually rich source material should have been formed in the source rocks in the same localities that later become the loci where traps were formed by structural deformation. The writer thinks that the organic matter has been more uniformly distributed and that wider areas have been drawn upon to fill the traps. 8 180 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 In contrast with the principle of flotation, which requires no lateral movement of the fluids in the reservoir but only displacement of indi- vidual particles, other theories which are based on the fundamental principle that the fluids in the porous bed are in motion have been developed to account for oil migration. Munn (1909) announced the “hydraulic theory” that moving water under either hydraulic or capil- lary pressure has been the direct agent of accumulation of oil and gas pools.” It was his view that hydraulic pressure was the result both of compaction and of invasion by water from surface sources. The causes of hydraulic movement were more definitely stated by Rich (1931) to. be compaction, generation of gas by regional metamorphism, and artesian pressure. Cheney (1940, p. 116) has recently suggested a modification of earlier views concerning hydraulic movement. He visualizes * * * the main controlling movement of fluids (except in reservoirs having intake greatly elevated above sea level) as occurring updip instead of downdip; the time of movement being largely restricted to the early periods when porosity was being reduced actively by sedinfentary loading or compressive diastrophic forces instead of later when erosion and unloading progressively reduce pres- sures; and the source of the migrating water being not meteoric but from the compacting sediments of the basin or geosynclinal areas. ° A combination of the principles of flotation and hydraulic movement seems best to explain the movement of oil and gas to areas of accumula- tion. If globules of oil are put in motion in currents of water which are passing through porous rocks, they will at every opportunity seek a higher position. Because of the difference in specific gravity a definite upward pressure is exerted on each oil globule and, if it is in a condition of flotation and can move freely, it will tend to move upward with ref- erence to the water by which it issurrounded. It will come to rest when it reaches a capillary opening too small to permit its passage, taking into account the pressure exerted against it by the moving water. Ultimately the decrease in the size of the capillary spaces due to compaction will retard and perhaps completely stop hydraulic move- ment in a sedimentary basin, bringing about at the same time a cessation of oil migration in the carrier bed. The fundamental cause of the movement of fluids through porous beds is differential pressure, and the amount and direction of pressure are determined by the geologic conditions in the area at the time the movement takes place. EFFECTIVENESS OF CARRIER BEDS The extent to which movement of oil from source rock to reservoir may occur is largely determined by the effectiveness of the carrier bed as a conductor. The capacity of a porous substance to transmit fluids is termed permeability. Some of the factors which influence the perme- PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 181 ability of rocks are congenital; others are the result of subsequent geological processes. Congenital factors are lithology and areal extent. Sands are ini- tially more permeable than marls and clays; coarse sands more per- meable than finer ones. Certain fragmental or oolitic limestones, however, originally had permeability comparable to that of sands. Porous rocks that were deposited over limited areas in the form of lenses or that gradually became less porous laterally as a result of change in composition are obviously less effective as carriers than those which were laid down over wide areas. Even “blanket” sand- stones such as the St. Peter, Berea, Dakota, and Woodbine, which are regionally continuous, are, however, by no means uniform in per- meability and frequently contain “tight” areas. Limestones show an even greater variation, such as that which accompanies a change from reef to offshore facies. Factors which have reduced the permeability of rocks subsequent to deposition include compaction, lithification, cementation, and re- crystallization. The effect of compaction in reducing the size of pore spaces has already been mentioned. Changes in density, such as from sands to sandstones and from clays to shales, however they may have been accomplished, usually reduce the effectiveness of rocks to conduct fluids by forcing the individual grains into closer contact. The factors just mentioned are usually most effective soon after the sediments are deposited. Cementation, which may occur either during the early or the later history of the sediments, may change a rock which was originally a competent carrier to one which may be highly impervious, as illustrated by the change from sandstone to quartzite (Twenhofel, 1932, p. 229). Recrystallization may in some cases increase porosity but it is quite as likely to decrease permeability by closing capillary passages. Dynamic metamorphism has an influence of the second order by bringing into play some of the factors which have been specified. Permeability has, on the other hand, been increased by other factors such as solution and fracturing. Solution has functioned chiefly in calcareous and dolomitic rocks. It has resulted from subaerial ex- posure and weathering and in many limestone fields has unquestion- ably increased the porosity of the reservoir (Adams, 1934). Such paleogeographic conditions would presumably be local rather than regional and may therefore have influenced migration of oil over limited areas. Solution has in many cases acted to increase the ini- tial porosity, and it then becomes difficult to determine how much of the permeability is primary and how much secondary. The impor- tance of fracturing in increasing permeability also varies greatly among different areas. Such highly permeable limestones as the 566766—4418 182 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Permian of the Yates and Hobbs pools have apparently not been affected by fracturing. In contrast, the movement of oil in the Panuco field in Mexico is largely due to fracturing and faulting (Muir, 1934), and Lees (1933) considers that the permeability of the Asmari limestone in the Tranian fields is primarily due to fault cracks. Limestones such as the Asmari and the El Abra have enormous per- meability over wide areas. DISTANCE OF LATERAL MIGRATION One of the most debated topics in petroleum geology is the extent to which petroleum has migrated from one area to another; some consider that such movement has been restricted to comparatively short distances (Clark, 1934; McCoy and Keyte, 1934), while others contend that it may have traveled for “tens or even hundreds of miles” (Rich, 1981). The basic factors which determine the distance of lateral migration of oil and gas are the extent, permeability, and continuity of the carrier beds. In the hypothetical case of a carrier bed of high and uniform permeability and of regional extent it is evident that, under conditions of differential pressure, fluids should be able to move through it for long distances. But conditions of sedimentation which even approach such uniformity are exceptional; lateral variation is the normal condition. The simplest case is that of a lenticular sand enclosed within shales and having an areal extent of a few square miles. In such a carrier bed the movement of fluids is not caused by artesian pressure but by forces of more limited scope; it occurs most readily while the sediments are in process of compaction and while the shales are sufficiently per- vious to permit substantial movement across bedding planes. During this interval the sand would have received from the source beds adja- cent to or near it its quota of oil and gas. It is difficult to see how, later, after compaction and lithification are essentially completed, much migration beyond the limits of the sand would normally occur. Any further movement of fluids in a carrier bed of such limited extent would result from the deformation of the sedimentary basin, produc- ing tilting, faulting, and folding. Cementation in sands and lime- stones would limit lateral migration by creating restrictions on movement comparable to lensing. On the other extreme are carriers such as the Woodbine and the Da- kota in which artesian conditions are known to occur over many thou- sands of square miles. Drilling, both for water and for oil, have dem- onstrated that through basins such as East Texas, the artesian pressure system is essentially continuous even though there may be local varia- tions in permeability. It is again difficult to explain how such an PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 183 immense accumulation of petroleum as is present in the East Texas field has been derived from a highly restricted and local source; it is more reasonable to consider that the Woodbine has been an effective carrier bed across large areas. Between such extremes the geologist meets an almost complete grada- tion. The writer considers that each field presents a special problem in migration and that a simple generalization which will explain all cases is not to be expected or even sought. ACCUMULATION OF PETROLEUM METHOD OF ACCUMULATION The fundamental force which determines in what part of a carrier bed accumulation of oil and gas will take place is gravity. Having ordinarily a lower specific gravity than water, they have, when present in the same reservoir, greater buoyancy, and gravitational separation results. The mechanism of accumulation has been well stated by Rich (1923) : Accumulation results from the selective segregation of oil and gas, which, on account of their buoyancy, always tend to work their way upward toward the roof of the reservoir as they are carried along by the water, and so are caught in anticlinal or similar structural [and stratigraphic] traps, or in places where differences of porosity cause a “screening” section which permits the passage of water, but holds back oil and gas. PLACE OF ACCUMULATION General statement.—A trap is a geologic feature causing the ac- cumulation of fluids in porous rocks; in petroleum geology the use of the term is restricted to an accumulation of oil and gas—the “structure” of the practical oil man. Various classifications which make it possible to visualize more readily the wide range of circum- stances under which such accumulation has occurred have been proposed by geologists (Clapp, 1929; Wilson, 1934). The porous zone in which the oil and associated fluids have accumulated within the trap is called the reservoir. Accumulation occurs, in principle, because the upward and lateral movement of the oil and gas is arrested by the presence of a barrier—in other words, a trap or closure. Traps are formed by conditions which were established at the time the sediments were deposited, by the diagenesis and lithification to which the sediments have later been subjected, and by deformation. Most of those in the first two groups (depositional and diagenetic), described in the following paragraphs, may also be classified as stratigraphic traps, while those in the third (deformational) are structural traps (Levorsen, 1936, p. 524). While some traps are of 184 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 simple types, most of them are formed by a combination of factors. Oil fields may be due to only a single trap, but more frequently several traps are present and these may be of more than one type. In the following summary the more important types of each group, and some of the oil fields which are illustrative of each, are mentioned. Depositional traps.—Traps which are the result of conditions estab- lished when the sediments were deposited are of two principal types: those in which the reservoir bed wedges out laterally between less permeable strata or in which the character of the reservoir bed changes lithologically; and those in which the porous bed has been truncated and the beveled edge has been overlapped by a less permeable bed. In order for the wedge to be an effective trap it must point up-dip, and this inclination may be either initial dip or the result of sub- sequent tilting. Important oil fields of this type are Burbank (Sands, 1927) and Glenn (Wilson, 1927), Oklahoma, and the East Coalinga field, California (Atwill, 1940). These fields occur on the margin of sands which have large regional extent. A similar type of accumula- tion occurs in lenticular and “shoestring” sands where the areal extent of the trap may be quite small, as in the fields of eastern Kansas and western Pennsylvania (Rich, 1938). The truncation of a porous bed and the unconformable deposition across its edge of a cover rock forms an excellent trap. An out- standing example is the East Texas field (Minor and Hanna, 1933), in which the oil has accumulated in the truncated edge of the Wood- bine sand. The sands of the Simpson group in the Oklahoma City field are overlapped by Pennsylvania strata to form traps of this character (McGee and Clawson, 1932). Diagenetie traps.—In this group are included those traps which have resulted from changes in the petrology of the reservoir rocks subsequent to their deposition—that is, from diagenesis. Accumu- lation in sandstones may be controlled by cementation, as in some of the Venango sand fields of Pennsylvania (Torrey, 1934, p. 472) and the Clinton sand fields of Ohio (Billingsley, 1934, p. 505). More frequently, however, traps of this group are formed by the solution and recrystallization of limestones (Howard, 1928; Adams, 1934). Long after they were deposited diastrophic movements have frequently exposed limestones to weathering. Subaerial exposure and solution by ground water have then produced secondary porosity in the limestone, and, when the weathered surface was covered by later sediments, a trap suitable for oil accumulation has resulted. The formation of dolomite by the recrystallization of calcite and aragonite is probably responsible for increasing the porosity of lime- stones, and this alteration seems frequently to be a part of the paleo- PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 185 weathering just mentioned. Certainly some of the most prolific lime- stone reservoirs are in-dolomites which seem to be of secondary origin. In the Lima-Indiana field oil has accumulated in the upper zone of the Trenton limestone, the porosity of which has probably resulted from dolomitization (Carman and Stout, 1934). In the fields of Michigan, where the Dundee formation is the most important reser- voir rock, dolomitization is the principal cause of porosity (Hake, 1938). Inthe Oklahoma City field the Arbuckle limestone, the lowest producing horizon, of lower Ordovician age, has been partly eroded, and the porosity of the reservoir has evidently resulted from weather- ing (McGee and Clawson, 1932). Deformational traps—Tilting, folding, faulting, and intrusion have for the most part, resulted from movement which has occurred in sedimentary deposits since their deposition, and each has been responsible for the formation of oil and gas traps. The tilt which may be imparted to sediments largely controls the direction in which oil and gas move. In some fields the accumulation is due primarily to tilting of the porous bed into a monoclinal position. If, at the same time, erosion has exposed its margin at the surface the oil which moves upward through it will escape. Lighter oils are thus drained from the reservoir, but more viscous oils may, through loss of lighter fractions, form a brea which gradually seals the reservoir near the surface and becomes a barrier to further movement. Examples of this type of trap are found in the Sunset-Midway field, California, in which some of the sands are filled by tar near the surface (Pack, 1920, p. 87), and in the Lagunillas field, Venezuela, where the oil gradually decreases in Baumé gravity eastward as the sands rise toward the out- crop. More commonly, however, tilting has produced traps through combination with other factors, such as stratigraphic variation. Folding, causing anticlines and synclines, domes and basins, is in all probability the most important factor in producing traps for oil and gas. The first structural form recognized as controlling accumulation was the anticline, and for many years the petroleum geologist was chiefly concerned with the finding of domes in which the trapping of oil was primarily dependent on structural closure. Fields in which folding of this type is the primary cause of accumulation are numer- ous, and only a few of the most prominent need be mentioned. Long Beach, Calif., is the most productive dome in the United States, with a total yield of over 630,000,000 barrels. Santa Fe Springs, Elk Hills, and Kettleman Hills are other California fields of this type. Salt Creek, Wyo., the most productive field of the Rocky Mountain area, is a domal structure. Accumulation in the Seminole fields of Oklahoma is primarily on domal folds (Levorsen, 1929). Domal folding has been the controlling factor in forming traps in the Hobbs field, New Mexico, and in the Yates and Big Lake fields in west Texas. 186 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 In Iran, the Haft Kel field is situated on a structural high on a long anticline, while the Masjid-i-Sulaiman field is on a more complicated anticlinal structure (Lees, 1938). In the Baku district of the U.S.S. R. such structures as Bibi-Eibat and Surakhany are typical domes, while most of the other fields are apparently anticlinal folds (Hobson, 1938). Faulting, resulting from both tensional and compressional forces, has been the controlling factor in the formation of another group of traps. The importance of faulting in oil accumulation did not receive recognition until about 20 years ago when the discovery of the Mexia field in East Texas, followed by that of a number of others in the same structural province, directed attention to this form of trap. In the Mexia district the regional dip of the sediments is eastward ; the faults nearly parallel the strike and are upthrown to the east, and the accumu- lation occurs in the upthrown block against the fault plane (Lahee, 1929). Some 20 fields of this type have been found in the district, but elsewhere in the United States such fields are unusual. Whittier and Round Mountain are California examples. Overthrust faulting, while not the major factor in accumulation, is an important feature of such fields as Turner Valley, Alberta (Link and Moore, 1934), and McKittrick, California. Tlling (1938a) states that the Tabaquite field, Trinidad, appears to have accumulated in a thrust block. At Boryslaw, Poland, oil is believed to be trapped by the over- turn of a thrust block (Cizancourt, 1931). The penetration or deformation of sediments by intrusions, either saline or igneous, forms a varied group of traps for oiland gas. Under the weight of the overburden deeply covered salt masses become plastic and, at points of weakness, burst through the strata above them to form intrusive plugs. Depending upon the pressure, the volume of salt available, and the character of the overlying sediments, salt plugs show great variation in size, form, and extent of movement. Those of the piercement type have, in many cases, penetrated many thousands of feet of overlying deposits, often reaching the surface; on the other extreme are deep-seated domes which may have penetrated the beds above them for only a comparatively short distance. Piercement domes tend to drag upward the edges of the beds pene- trated, and the porous beds, sealed against the salt mass, form annular reservoirs. Ifthe salt plug does not reach the surface, overlying strata may be arched upward, forming circular reservoirs above the plug. If the section above the ascending salt mass contains beds of some degree of competency, faulting may result. The stretching of the beds over the plug may be compensated by the formation of a central graben. Tangential faults along the margins of plugs are frequent. In some regions, such as Germany and Rumania, the salt masses have been highly distorted by diastrophic movements, and the accompanying reservoirs have been intricately folded. PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 187 The most important area in which petroleum has accumulated in relation to salt plugs is in Louisiana and Texas, near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The discovery of the Spindletop field, Texas, in 1901 originated a campaign of exploration which has resulted in the devel- opment of over 200 oil-bearing structures, of which over 100 are defi- nitely known to be salt domes, while most of the others, from struc- tural and other evidence, are believed to overlie deep-seated salt plugs (Barton and Sawtelle, 1936). Salt domes are important types of accumulation in Mexico, Germany, Rumania, Arabia, Transcaspia, and Iran. Igneous intrusions have caused the deformation of sediments and thus produced traps. Well-established examples of this type of ac- cumulation are the Thrall (Udden and Bybee, 1916), Chapman (Sell- ards, 1982), and Lytton Springs (Collingwood and Rettger, 1926) fields in Texas, the Furbero field in Mexico (DeGolyer, 1932), and, probably, the Motembo field of Cuba (Lewis, 1932). Combination traps.—Many oil fields are more complex in character than those which have been cited. Among larger fields Bradford, Pennsylvania, is an example of a trap formed by a combination of de- positional and deformational factors. Structurally the field is anti- clinal and has a gas cap and a marginal oil-water contact, but the lensing out of the principal reservoir sand within part of the area of closure has limited commercial production to only part of the structure (Fettke, 1938). In Cushing, Oklahoma, and other mid-continent fields, folding, faulting, and overlap all occur and to some degree have influenced the accumulation of oil and gas. Nienhagen, in Germany, Boryslaw, in Poland, and Bustenari, in Rumania, are European ex- amples of complex structures. Many other fields throughout the world could be mentioned as examples of involved conditions of accumula- tion but, to the extent that the facts have been ascertained, it has been found that the fundamental principal of buoyancy may be universally applied. TIME OF ACCUMULATION The sedimentary rocks in which petroleum has originated were de- posited in submerged areas in the earlier phase of an orogenic cycle. The volume of sediment which may be deposited in a single cycle in an area undergoing depression may reach enormous proportions. In the Rocky Mountain region over 10,000 feet of Upper Cretaceous sediments were deposited (Spieker, 1931), and in the Gulf Coast geosyncline the maximum thickness may be greater than 30,000 feet (Barton, Ritz, and Hickey, 1933). This earlier phase is one of quiet sinking (Bucher, 1933, p. 126), accompanied by compaction, and the sediments may be undisturbed by major diastrophic movements for many millions of year after deposition (Levorsen, 1935). The later 188 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 phase of the orogenic cycle is one of crustal folding, during which ranges are formed that divide the original submergent area into sepa- rate basins. Additional materials are removed from the uprising ranges to add to the volume of sediment in these basins. Local folding and progressive overlap will, during this phase, form traps along the margins of the basins and the flanks of the uplifts (Herold, 1988, p. 837). The generalized history just outlined is typical of some areas which have undergone a single orogenic cycle. Most basins have had more complex histories; breaks in deposition are marked by unconformi- ties, and folding may have occurred at more than one period. The petroleum generated and retained in the sediments, equally with them, has been affected by all the forces exerted during the orogenic cycle. In contrast, petroleum is capable of movement, and its loca- tion has shifted es a result of changes in the attitude of the containing sediments. Each successive orogenic cycle, therefore, may influence the accumulation of petroleum and the location of petroleum deposits. Movement of petroleum during the earlier phase of an orogenic cycle is controlled primarily by the regional dip due to subsidence, and such movement, conceivably, can occur quite early in the history of the sediments. At the close of the first phase, the quiet sinking period, petroleum should have been concentrated toward the more elevated portion of the area of deposition insofar as the continuity of carrier beds would permit. During the second phase, the period of crustal folding, local traps are formed into which the petroleum migrates and accumulates. Levorsen (1935) has pointed out that those local traps which form in the area of primary regional accumu- lation tend to be more productive than similar traps outside such areas. In areas which have been affected by more than one period of orogenic movement some traps formed during earlier cycles have survived through later cycles while others have been destroyed. The traps that lie in the deeper parts of the basins have the better chance of survival. In some cases oil has migrated from rocks which were formed during the earlier cycle into those which were formed during a succeeding one; traps in basal sands above an unconformity have been filled with oil which has moved upward from older deposits below the unconformity. Traps which are formed during earlier cycles of orogeny or during earlier periods of folding have an advantage over those which are formed later in the history of a basin. The Kelsey anticline, Texas, is an illustration of a well-closed but barren trap which is thought to have been formed too late to accumulate oil in the Woodbine sand, which is so productive in other neighboring fields in the East Texas PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—-HEROY 189 basin (Denison, Oldham, and Kisling, 1933). The East Texas field, in the same basin, is a trap formed in the Cretaceous cycle, the outline of which has shifted northward as a result of recent diastrophic movement (Levorsen, 1935). In conclusion, we may accept the generalization of David White (1935, p. 608) that the great migrations of oil and gas were accom- plished mainly in periods of orogeny. DISPERSION OF PETROLEUM It is probable that the oil and gas of every reservoir, however deeply buried and covered by “impervious” rocks, is escaping, either upward through the overburden or laterally along the bedding. Generally the process must be exceedingly slow and almost imperceptible, else most oil fields would, in the course of geologic time, have been de- stroyed by such leakage. The presence in Oklahoma of large oil fields of Ordovician age at depths of less than a mile illustrates how effective overlying rocks may be in preventing, through many mil- lions of years, the dispersion of petroleum. In contrast, the loss of petroleum from underground reservoirs may be relatively rapid and visible, as is evidenced by the large quantities of petroleum that have reached the surface in many areas. Such asphalt deposits as those at Pitch Lake in Trinidad are proof of how great such wastage may be under suitable conditions. In most petroliferous regions this reservoir loss is manifested by various surface indications, such as oil and gas seepage, deposits of brea and asphalt, bituminous dikes, tar sands, and mud volcanoes. These may be regarded as incidents of the erosion cycle in such areas. Where uplift and erosion have exposed the margin of an oil reservoir, so that a direct avenue of escape to the surface has been formed, its contents will soon be lost. Light oils and gas may be completely drained, while heavier oils, on reaching the surface, may solidify, seal the exposed reservoir beds, and thus retard the process of dispersion. Faults which in some cases form traps for petroleum may in other cases produce at the same time a channel along which some of the trapped oil may escape to the surface. The deformation which pro- duces folded structures may also develop faults in the flexed strata along which the oil and gas may pass upward to shallower reservoirs or to the surface. An example is the Salt Creek anticline, Wyoming, to which attention was first directed because of the presence of oil seeps near the axis of the structure and the development of which has revealed the presence of numerous faults, some of which extend to the surface (Beck, 1929). Another possible means for the dissipation of petroleum deposits is the movement of underground water. Students of Rocky Moun- 190 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 tain geology (Krampert, 1934; Coffin and DeFord, 1934) have sought to explain the absence of commercial deposits of oil in certain struc- tures otherwise favorable as due to the flushing action of circulating water. Even though visible evidences of the escape of petroleum from under- ground reservoirs may not be detected, evidence is accumulating that petroleum and petroleum gases penetrate the overlying strata and eventually reach the surface in minute quantities. Such microseep- ages may be revealed by precise chemical analysis of soils and subsoils, and the results of such analyses support the belief that in some degree all oil deposits are subject to continuing dispersion (McDermott, 1940.) DYNAMICS OF PETROLEUM Petroleum and natural gas, as they occur in the earth, are confined under pressure. Their geologic history is one of motion, and in their movement they obey laws of physics related to the flow of liquids and gases (Muskat, 1937). From the beginning of the oil industry it was observed that, when oil and gas sands were penetrated, the fluids which they contain were under pressure, the amount of which increased normally with depth. This was at first attributed to the weight of the overlying rocks and was called “rock pressure.” Lesley (1885) showed, however, that the pressure of the oil and gas in the reservoir was ap- proximately equivalent to the artesian head for the corresponding depth, and much less than the pressure which would correspond to the weight of the overburden. Nevertheless, the industry continued to use the term “rock pressure,” and it was not until many years later that pressure under which fluids are confined in underground reservoirs was termed “reservoir pressure” (Heroy, 1928). Reservoirs which occur in artesian basins and are controlled by hydrostatic head form one group, while those in which the porous bed does not reach the surface and consequently is not directly influenced by artesian con- ditions form another group. The outstanding example of a large oil field under artesian control is East Texas, in which the reservoir bed is the Woodbine sand. This formation outcrops in east-central Texas and, after passing under the East Texas syncline, is truncated along the west side of the Sabine uplift to form a stratigraphic trap. The original reservoir pressure in this field was 1,620 pounds at 3,300 feet below sea level, which closely approximates the calculated hydrostatic pressure. It is probable that the sand is continuously porous from the outcrop to the field and that the fluids in it are governed by a common pressure system (Millikan, 1982, p. 902). Meinzer (1936) has pointed out that, in coastal plain areas, porous horizons may have a submarine outcrop and that there may be artesian PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 191 balance between the portion submerged under salt water in the conti- nental shelf and the portion lying under the land. His reasoning may be extended to coastal plain beds which have no surface outcrops be- cause of overlap or up-dip pinching, but which may have a submarine outcrop at the edge of the shelf. An explanation is thus afforded of the normal reservoir pressures noted in coastal plain oil fields (Cannon and Craze, 1938). Fluid relations in a large coastal plain field, Conroe, Tex., have been well described by Michaux and Buck (1936). Reservoirs which are essentially sealed by surrounding rocks of low permeability may contain oil and gas under pressures which have no direct relation to the hydrostatic pressures corresponding to their depth. The oil and gas in such reservoirs may have pressures sub- stantially in excess of the equivalent hydrostatic pressure and tending to approach the pressure corresponding to the weight of the over- burden (Cannon and Craze, 1938). It has been noted that in some cases shallower reservoirs may have higher reservoir pressures than those in the same area at greater depths (Millikan, 1932). Reservoirs which are essentially lenticular in form and isolated from artesian conditions may be expected to contain oil and gas under a pressure determined primarily by the amount of gas which has migrated into the reservoir and, if the surrounding section were highly impervious, pressures approaching the weight of the overburden may be built up. Excess pressures in shallower strata may, however, in some cases be caused by supercharging from deeper horizons as a result of upward migration of oil and gas along zones of fracture or faulting. Unfortu- nately geologists, on the whole, have given scant attention to this phase of petroleum geology, leaving this interesting field mostly to petroleum engineers. CONCLUSION The natural history of petroleum, from genesis to dispersion, is cyclical. In some regions where petroleum deposits occur, only a single cycle is represented, while in others several cycles, either partial or complete, may have occurred. In the preceding pages the writer has described in sequence the phases which form a complete cycle and the character of each. While each phase has been the objective of much scientific investigation, there is great variation in the quality and com- pleteness of the results attained. This is partly inherent in the nature of the problems themselves. Science, however advanced, is as yet not adequately implemented to investigate some of them, and the progress in the solution of others may be ascribed to the immediate importance of the results; economic considerations frequently determine the amount and thoroughness of research. Although petroleum geologists are conscious of the inadequacy of their present information as to many details of the petroleum cycle, 192 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 they have a feeling of pride that so much has beer definitely estab- lished. The basic principles announced a half century ago have been tested, evaluated, and amplified; the work of the fathers was so well done that little has been discarded. New and more precise laboratory and field methods have made possible many studies which could not have been carried to success even two decades ago. Such a compilation as the present paper would not be possible without the existence of a wealth of data which have resulted from an immense amount of investigation. This work still flourishes. Each unsolved problem challenges the attention of a new generation of investigators with fresh minds and new techniques. Large industrial and educational units are facilitat- ing research on a scale far beyond the capacity of the individual worker. It may be expected, therefore, that the rate at which our knowledge of petroleum geology has advanced will be accelerated during the com- ing years. The writer who, 50 years hence, may be called upon to review the progress of a century of petroleum geology will find that many of the baffling uncertainties of our time will have been cleared away ; many of the generalities and qualifications that characterize this paper will be replaced by more specific knowledge. Thrice armed though they may be, he and his contemporaries will still find in petroleum geology problems worthy of their steel. WORKS TO WHICH REFERENCE IS MADE In the following list are included the publications referred to in this paper. While it comprises only a small part of the literature on petroleum geology, refer- ence has been made to the more important publications in which the principles of petroleum geology are discussed. It will therefore to some extent serve as a guide to those who may be interested in more detailed consideration of this subject. ADAMS, JOHN EMERY. 1934. Origin, migration and accumulation of petroleum in linfestone reser- voirs in the western United States and Canada, in Problems of petroleum geology. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Sidney Powers Mem. vol., pp. 347-363. ASHBUEBNER, CHARLES A. 1885. The geology of natural gas. Science, vol. 6, pp. 42-43. ATHy, L. F. 1930a. Density, porosity, and compaction of sedimentary rocks. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 1-24. 1930b. Compaction and oil migration. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 25-35. ATWIHLL, E. R. 1940. Significant developments in California, 1989. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 24, No. 6, pp. 1112-1125, fig. 3. BARTON, DONALD C. 1934. Natural history of the Gulf Coast crude oil, in Problems of petroleunt geology. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Sidney Powers Mem. vol., pp. 109-155. PETROLEUM GEOLOGY—HEROY 193 Barron, Dona C., Ritz, C. H., and Hickey, MAUDE. 1933. Gulf Coast geosyncline. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull, vol. 17, No. 12, pp. 1446-1458. Barton, Donan C., and SAWTELLE, GrorGE (editors). 1936. Gulf Coast oil fields. Amer. Assoc. Petrol Geol. BEOK, EXLFRED. 1929. Salt Creek oil field, Natrona County, Wyo., in Structure of typical American oil fields, vol. 2, pp. 589-603. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol. BERL, E. 1988. The origin of petroleum. Petrol. Techn., vol. 1, No. 2, Techn. Publ. No. 920, pp. 1-18. BILLINGSLEY, J. E. 1934. Occurrence of oil and gas in West Virginia, eastern Ohio, and eastern Kentucky, in Problems of petroleum geology. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Sidney Powers Mem, vol., pp. 485-514. Brooks, BENJAMIN T. 1936. Origins of petrcleums: chemical and geochemical aspects. Amer. Assoc, Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 280-301. 1988. The chemical and geochemical aspects of the origin of petroleum, in The science of petroleum, pp. 47-53. Oxford Univ. Press. BUCHER, WALTER H. 1983. The deformation of the earth’s crust. 518 pp. Princeton Univ. Press. CANNON, G. E., and Craze, R. C. 1938. Hxcessive pressures and pressure variations with depth of petroleum reservoirs in the Gulf Coast region of Texas and Louisiana. Amer. Inst. Min. Metall. Eng., Trans., vol. 127, pp. 31-38. CaARLL, JOHN F. 1880. The geology of the oil regions of Warren, Venango, Clarion, and Butler Counties. Second Pennsylvania Geol. Surv., vol. 13, p. 482. CARMAN, J. ERNEST, and SToutT, WILBER. 1934. Relationship of accumulation of oil to structure and porosity in the Lima-Indiana field, in Problems of petroleum geology. Amer. Assoe. Petrol. Geol., Sidney Powers Mem. vol., pp. 521-529. CHANCE, H. M. 1887. The anticlinal theory of natural gas. Amer. Inst. Min. Metall. Eng., Trans., vol. 15, pp. 3-13. CHENEY, M. G. 1940. Geology of north-central Texas. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 65-118. CIZANCOURT, HENRY DE. 1931. Geology of oil fields of Polish Carpathian Mountains. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 1-42. CLAPP, FREDERICK G. 1929. Role of geologic structure in the accumulation of petroleum, in Structure of typical American oil fields, vol. 2, pp. 667-716. Amer. Assoe. Petrol. Geol. CLARK, FRANK R. 1984. Origin and accumulation of oil, in Problems of petroleum geology. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Sidney Powers Mem. vol., pp. 309-335. Corrin, R. Ciare, and DEForp, Ronatp K. 1934. Waters of the oil- and gas-bearing formations of the Rocky Moun- tains, in Problems of petroleum geology. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Sidney Powers Mem. vol., pp. 927-952. 194. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 CoLLinewoon, D. M., and RettcrEr, R. EH. 1926. Lytton Springs oil field, Caldwell County, Tex. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 10, No. 10, pp. 953-975. Coompner, S. E. 1938. Distribution of petroleum: Poland, in The science of petroleum, pp. 177-183. Oxford Univ. Press. DANA, JAMEs D. 1871. Manual of geology, rev. ed., appendix L, pp. 756-757. DEGOLYER, E. 1932. Oil associated with igneous rocks in Mexico. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 16, No. 8, pp. 799-808. Denison, A. R., OLDHAM, A. E., and KIstine, J. W., JR. 1933. Structure and stratigraphy of Kelsey anticline, Upshur County, Tex. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 17, No. 6, pp. 656-679. FETTKE, CHARLES R. 1938. The Bradford oil field, Pennsylvania and New York. Pennsylvania Geol. Surv., ser. 4, Bull. M 21, p. 454. GRISWOLD, W. T., and Munn, M. J. 1907. Geology of the oil and gas fields in Steubenville, Burgettstown, and Claysville quadrangles, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. U. S. Geol. Surv. Bull. 318, pp. 1-196. HACKForD, J. E. 1932. The chemistry of the conversion of algae into bitumen and petroleum and of the fucosite-petroleum cycle. Journ. Inst. Petrol. Techn., vol. 18, pp. 74-123. HAKE, B. F. 1938. Geologie occurrence of oil and gas in Michigan. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 393-415. HAMMAR, Harorp E. 1984. Relation of microorganisms to generation of petroleum, in Problems of petroleum geology. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Sidney Powers Mem. vol., pp. 35-49. HEATH, DAISY WINIFRED. 1937. Comprehensive index to the publications of The American Associa- tion of Petroleum Geologists. 382 pp. Tulsa. HeERoLD, STANLEY C. 1938. Criteria for determining the time of accumulation under special cir- cumstances. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 22, No. 7, pp. 834-851. Herroy, WILLIAM B. 1928. Rock pressure. Amer. Assoc. Petrol. Geol., Bull., vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 355-384. HLAUSCHEK, H. 1936. Naphthen- und Methandle, ihre geologische Verbreitung und Mnt- stehung. Schrift. Gebiet der Brennstoff-Geologie, vol. 2. Stuttgart. Hosson, G. D. 1988. Distribution of petroleum: U. S. S. R., in The science of petroleum, pp. 155-166. Oxford Univ. Press. Howarp, W. V. 1928. Cool waters of the Humboldt— — — — - — — > — — > 1891 or 1925 appears on the calendar. Then the northward-flowing Humboldt Current is abruptly either pushed aside or covered up tem- porarily by the southward-rushing El Nifio. In 1925 disturbances were reported as far south as Valparaiso; in 1941, as far as Pisco (12° S., 76° W.), or thereabouts. Wherever El] Nifio goes, both air and sea water become tepid. The cool-water life in the Humboldt Current, consisting of birds as well as fishes, migrates or dies. In 1925 the entire coast line was strewn 948 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 with the dead from the sea. On Jand, swarms of mosquitoes, flies, and other insects infested the country. All living creatures suffered from the intense heat. Furthermore, tropical diseases afflicted the population. Worse still, the normally storm-free region was visited by violent thunderstorms, cloudbursts, and other torrential rains throughout the entire length of El Nifo’s extension. The Chanchan River is said to ay [Ae es | [ SRNR gee. 3 ci oA ( Ficure 2.—Invasion of El Nifio into the Humboldt Current area in 1941 (south- ern summer). Warm waters of El Nifio ———-> ——_> ——> ———> Cool waters of the Humboldt — — —- — — ~ — —-~ — — > have risen 18 feet in 1 day. The famous inscriptions at Chan Chan, which had remained little changed for more than four centuries, were almost obliterated. Railway lines were washed away. In 1939 even a part of the foundation of the international highway bridge in northern Peru was swept off with the flood. A creek that usually could be waded had to be crossed in a basket attached to a cable. The adobes crumbled. Streams drowned entire valleys or overflowed their banks. Crops in the lowlands, where most of the OCEAN CURRENT CALLED “THE CHILD’—MEARS 249 agricultural production takes place, were ruined. The rich soil was carried out of its place, and rocks, boulders, and debris left in its stead. This meant that when the weather conditions became stable, the farm- ers had to clear away the wreckage, replace the soil, and provide seed beds for next year’s crops. Strangers, unfamiliar with these unique conditions, ventured the belief that the inhabitants would have bumper crops on the usual desert lands, for the unusual abundance of moisture had produced a record rank growth in an astonishingly short time. This prophecy was borne out, for in recent deluges the inhabitants have taken advantage of the excessive precipitation by erecting temporary fences to protect their excellent harvests. However, it is apparent that these farms on the open desert are of sporadic value only. Lands that yield once in many years naturally do not have the same importance as those that produce unfailingly year after year during the season, or, in some localities, all the year around. Permanent benefits of the visitations from the Child Current are decidedly minor in any attempt to balance the enormous disasters that accompany it. One favor it leaves in its wake is drinking water in the ancient reservoirs of southern Ecuador and part of northern Peru, although, it should be added, in Peru much safer water is obtained from the melting snows of the eastern mountains. Furthermore, the rich sea pastures of the Humboldt Current benefit by the action of the rains in washing down these occasional huge additions of fertilizing material. Also, although El Nifio drives away swarms of cool-water fish, it transports numerous warm-water species to take their places, at least in part. In 1989 and again in 1941 the tuna, which rarely are seen beyond the border of the cold current, were observed near Callao (12°S., 77°W.). Indeed, in 1941 they were caught among the rocks of the port and were plentiful. Every year, in the southern summer, El Nifio approaches Capo Blanco (4°S., 11° W.) or Punta Aguja (5°S., 11°W.) with storms and their accompanying features. Between 1925 and 1941 only twice did the hot current go beyond these two bulging, westernmost points of the South American continent. Farther southward, invasions oc- curred in 1932 and 1939. It seemed that the old tradition of a 7-year cycle was being substantiated. The local inhabitants were well pleased to be able to anticipate the disasters at certain definite periods. Then came the invasion of 1941 in northern Peru, only 2 years after the heavy downpours during 1939. The floods of 1941 were much more generally extended than those of 1939; likewise the heated waters of El Nifio from shore seaward were more widely spread out. In 1939 its waters were kept away from the shore line south of about 250 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Punta Aguja by a narrow band of cooler water. In 1941 such a band did not exist. Not only did the rains of 1941 prove disastrous to crops, buildings, birds, fish, and local industries, but, even more im- portant, they upset the sense of security associated with the reputed 7-year cycle. For the Child Current in 1941 was not observing the rules; it was cheating with an unexpected, off-schedule call which spelled uncertainty regarding the forecasting of future invasions. Many attempts have been made to explain the vagaries of El Niiio. Both the sun and the moon have been named as Nature’s accomplices. Sun-spottedness or lunar tides in the Antarctic have been blamed for the behavior of this turgid, hot current. Other explanations offered center nearer home, notably the southward shift of the low-pressure area along the Equator and its subsequent retreat southward of the South Pacific High off the coast of Chile. During unusual extensions of the Child Current, declining strength of winds from the south and southeast have been noticed, and northerly winds across Panama may have some effect at this season. It is noteworthy that northerly winds often precede or accompany El Nifio’s abnormal movements. The current has been identified definitely as a branch of the Equa- torial Counter Current, which normally either turns northward or recurves westward before reaching Panama. It joins up with the broad streams of the North or the South Equatorial currents. The Equa- torial Counter Current, it is well known, enjoys an abnormally high marine temperature because it flows directly under the heat equator across the entire width of the Pacific Ocean, approximately at its most widely separated points. Why the branch El Nino is sometimes hotter and stronger at some places than at others has not been satisfactorily explained. In 1939, for instance, the heated current, appearing in the form of bands or strips, was marked by a considerable range of temperature over a relatively small area. Some of these bands were hotter away from land than close inshore; and vice versa. At the same time it was observed that upwelling along shore in the Humboldt Current became weak or tended to cease altogether. Since the Humboldt and Califor- nia Currents are “mirror images” of each other during the season of upwelling within the California Current (as already stated, nor- mally there is upwelling within the Humboldt Current throughout the year), the most plausible explanations may be gleaned from fur- ther research applied to the northern stream. It is known, for instance, that there is a relatively warm subsurface coastal current flowing in the opposite direction from the Humboldt, and a similar counter subsurface current continually runs under the California Current. When upwelling ceases off the California coast, this subsurface current rises and flows inshore at the surface as OCEAN CURRENT CALLED “THE CHILD”—MEARS 951 well as underneath. The writer continues to surmise that when winds, atmospheric pressure belts, and other phenomena cause a ceas- ing or a tendency to cease in the Humboldt Current upwelling, perhaps the subsurface counter current underneath tends to rise to the surface in a similar manner. When its rise occurs near or at the boundary line of the Humboldt, the subsurface current carries with it the hot surface water of the equatorial region. In other words, it appears likely that El Nino is the counterpart of the Davidson Current along the California shore, except that the Davidson is never a hot current. The Davidson Current originates within the cooler Temperate Zone. We know that “The Child” comes every year to Pacific South America shortly after Christmas. We know where it comes from and the general direction of its travel. How vigorous and active it may be cannot be foretold with any certainty. The traditional and still popularly accepted 7-year cycle no longer constitutes a sure basis of reckoning. The southernmost extension of its migration is another uncertainty. Someday we shall be better informed about the ranges and vicissitudes of this oceanic mystery. Until then, we can at least recognize the overshadowing importance of one of Nature’s most powerful forces in dominating a relatively unknown part of the Western Hemisphere. } We ie ppasird ’ ‘phe Fins pai tod! aban: dinoet . : wre saad ii qe xy Seiilet a 7 ‘ae poeta ai ry See 4 MOVES ldo heh ah ee PN ava fi of ‘ Une a ce ! ee Made mea panne ie KG wiv ieiatha TSAR Mea Gor 293 UGE LOLs oa Sit Se ag Ee Me Den ae ps Rea Me Mas 8 PST iets EAA ae Mca 293 ROTO Me ee NOEL HETH Acigies oct! 2 20 SES AME TEI Ae 294 THecommMon viper and its allies: 2. 202555 oo nee ie 294 Orsmrsand henard sivipers 2s S<2 soe FS RO aR 295 The asp, Lataste’s, and the long-nosed vipers____________- 295 The blunt-nosed viper and its allies____._...._._________- 296 1 Reprinted, with extensive revision and additional plates, from Smithsonian War Background Studies, No. 10, entitled ‘‘Poisonous Reptiles of the world: A wartime handbook.” 275 276 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Poisonous reptiles—Continued. Page The Old World—Continued. JGaCoht CGlovbay eed (yor ya PebaVol WEN e Ce ee 296 Whe Vipers ices he See a Ne a ee de pee 296 The daboia, tic-polonga, or Russell’s viper._.._._------ 296 The carpet or saw-scaled viper. _2.2....-...-.-.--=.- 297 The ‘pit wiperatoc 2 So she hee Ae Be ee ere Ws na eae 297 The mamushi and its relatives... 2.00 -..22.2222-8 297 Bamboo snakes’and theirialliesi. 2 2-22 297 Cobras:'and vkraites og So) se ee RO 298 Indian or'spectaciedi cobra: 23.02 22-4. eee 298 The king cobra or namadryad 2. 35 ae. eee 299 gh Woe fe N RA Pe fh A RU URE OL LUN ian Pe EL 2 at 299 The'sea SHAKES. STUD Se CNS Bl ee eo alias 300 JX HC: Neng ee ea mts ios INN mine pe Ie Da NB NUS Wl BD ieee ep aM ye 3! 300 RHEE S Be Soe eee SNe Ee Sc te For eh ee en SL ee 301 The night adder or Cape’vipers | 2-2 oo eu a eas 301 The pulivadder oF. ee ie ae ee DS ee he) al 301 ‘Phe THINOCELOS VIPCT 2252 Ae os be ee ee a eee 301 he Gaboon: vipers ccs < eee se ie Sa a a eee 302 ‘heyhorned adders. 20 = see ts eels os cae ie a) ea 302 The sand vipers 2. Lee ee Ee ae Ag a 303 ‘The ‘cobras and: their allies lee ae eee ee ee ee 8 Ce 303 he ringhalsior/ spitting Ssmake eae sea ee ee ee 303 The spitting or black-necked cobra______--_-_-_--------- 304 Whe blAck cobras 2 52 se are ae ah ee 304 ine: Eeyptian cobra or asp so 0 keyed lh el Oe 304 he! Cape: CO ray eee 2 a Bs BN ls Spek DL pe ere 305 he water cObrans. S25) 2a is oe Beat aa NL ee 305 WENO) PARI D SS fo)8 2 a Pa ee MP bo ae es 305 ‘Phe:rear-fanged iene kes. 4.0905 oar of oir apis a WE ay 7, Ni 306 Thevboomplang 22 ae ee eh am ae SN re 306 Australia, New Guinea, and the South Pacific islands_____-.-_----- 306 he; lack snakes shea se AGS ANS SONG So RAUL Ve sD Altace yeas 307 The copperhead snake22 2 .eo8 Go 355s Dae ee See eee 307 The brownsmake ee a2 ees ap ca a osc a ea A lee eee 308 hey tiger snakes 2 2e 2204 ssi Wo Dy eb ciS e e e 308 The deat hradderis a2 Orr k o> sa tSaen ie Sed sae a ey ees eee 308 FPG BGs ST ikea ee AALS is eed ey rd ane 309 Dangerous: nonpolsonous reptiles: 2224 a SU Oe A ge mS 309 Worth vAaiericgy: iis Wisk hea oA eal lel lh a a 309 the: Americanerocodile - 2 ob 22 es Si ake ee ae eee 310 The ‘American alligators: 2c s22 2208 ber hee. 2 Sakae eens 310 he alligator-snapper 225 - a eeee e e 310 The common snapping turtle oes 0 ek a 311 ToeGinn {A raver i age oe ss ep hes 1 gL EA re 311 ‘he Qnacond ae. hp hee, eke Saw eek) seal anaes ere 311 The: Dog ss2 S22 oe COUR NS ol dipeg He se T e _ tote N RC 7 avi 312 ‘The Belize crocodile: 6°43 Cee ees eee ae eee eee 312 The ‘Orinoeavieroece ies sy 2 cee 2 ee 2 Th cea ai a ea ee 312 Whe @aynvdns 2 sis oe Sa a Ee ok ce ee ee 312 Iguanas and other large lizards_____-_..--.------------------ 313 Murope and northern Asia ® 3002 3 ee a ee 313 DANGEROUS REPTILES—-COCHRAN Dangerous nonpoisonous reptiles—Continued. Appendix Selected bibliography —_ 10. India, China, Japan, and Malaya Theyreticulatedipythonw-- sae 2 2a ee ee ee ‘The Indiannpy thon cose 2a ape oe IRE a SS eS ce The Komodo dragon lizard Oihercmonitors lizards eee ee oe Robe a eye ES yk ae ‘Dhersoft=shellediturtles sey: sae aen ee oan eee ey eee eta Pes The salt-water or estuarine crocodile_........-.-.-.-.--..-.-.. AHEASIAMNESS CLOCOGIIO Ra es eee ot ea RRO at ne NB Meee Ss A Dialers caQbeyeXey paren ee sah AM ese as ect at eae arse evel Jacag lated 8 tLe ae RG) Garvie ek ae 8 cy rteeepal li ieee pin es ed lp Niel oe hn oe UE 8 The rock pythonp: fy. GO50 6 pene Bee. ced 8 ees re Ve Lap aier | oe eigl The waral and other monitors UBER NGTETCrOCOGI Gatiy sel rece sec pe en OL ae al The long-snouted crocodile The African soft-shelled turtle AVIStT Alina piel pilin!) G2.) pyri «oni! pyio Las eee aim Pe plereeyy iy Ao e+ Aheyciamon dtpy tO sb are ecg I ee ee 2 Ea Gime laiee Ama esa Oe ANE tS ee ne Ne ee pe IRN GYEN ROA aN Nae A = ea wap waa tie pet aby ei oi me. hy ot aha et (GOUNEIS tA OMI GO ee eae EN CARTORDER NINE I Are yA ee ON ee COI RN Thetsalt-water ¢rocodiler iis: 2112) 70). ol vipein eet Mas PNESCAMCULTEACMeMGe eee ee ee ok Antivenin and its preparation Directions for making scientific collections____.______.-.______-_-_- ILLUSTRATIONS {All except pl. 1, frontispiece, . Copperhead and coral snake. . 1, Coral snake. 2, Timber rattler. . 1, Pigmy rattler. 2, Copperhead. . 1, Tropical rattlesnake. 2, Bushmaster. . 1, Fer-de-lance. 2, Palm viper. . 1, Hog-nosed viper. 2, Mussurana. . Mexican beaded lizard. , Common viper. Orsini’s viper. Daboia, or Russell’s viper. King cobra. , Banded krait. 566766—44—_19 PLATES Ie 2, Indian, or spectacled cobra. follow p. 324] Night adder, or Cape viper. Puff adder. Rhinoceros viper. Gaboon viper. African sand viper. , Ringhals, or spitting snake. , Egyptian cobra. , Water cobra. , Mamba. , Black snake. Australian copperhead. Brown snake. Tiger snake. Death adder. Je Horner bh ~ ho - . 1, American crocodile. 2, American alligator. . 1, Alligator-snapper. 2, Common snapping turtle. 278 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 20. 1, Anaconda. 22. 1, Salt-water crocodile. 2, Boa. 2, Indian python. 21. 1, Galapagos land iguana. 23. 1, Rock python. 2, Komodo dragon lizard. 2, Gould’s monitor. TEXT FIGURES Page 1 -Venom: apparatus of rattles aes seen Riek beara ies poe ENN Le ee 283 2. Yellow-bellied sea snake___-_-__________-_____ ER ENranSde HER LTTEACN Pa 293 INTRODUCTION Among a world population of some 2,400 different kinds of living snakes, less than 200 are poisonous toman. These poisonous snakes be- long to the following families: The Elapidae, represented by coral snakes and cobras; the Viperidae or true vipers; the Crotalidae or pit vipers; the Hydrophidae or sea snakes; and the Colubridae. To this last-named family most of the harmless snakes also belong, the only dangerous ones being those having poison fangs in the back part of the upper jaw. Some poisonous snakes are extremely useful in de- stroying rats and mice, but this desirable trait is offset near in- habited districts by their occasional biting of human beings or domestic animals. The chances of being bitten by poisonous snakes are exceedingly small. Only about one-sixth of our native snakes are poisonous. One person out of every fifteen bitten receives the bite while handling or “playing” with a poisonous snake. “In the United States alone automobiles kill more than 30,000 people annually, snakes probably 160; for every person killed by a snake, 200 die in automobile acci- dents.” ? This does not mean that vigilance should be relaxed in traveling through snake country. On the contrary, it is well to recognize the presence of a very real danger as the best means of avoiding it. The distribution of poisonous snakes throughout the world is now fairly well known. They do not live in the extremely cold regions of any country; thus in North America they are known only as far north as the southern borders of Canada. Since the continents to the south of the Equator lie much farther from the Poles than do those to the north, we find poisonous snakes over the whole of Africa and in most of South America, except on the high mountains and in southern Patagonia. An extremely hardy viper occurs in Scan- dinavia to within the Arctic Circle; this is the record for cold en- durance among the venomous snakes. The Polynesian islands are free of land-dwelling poisonous snakes. So are Madagascar and New Zealand, although both of them are relatively close to areas 2 Pope, Clifford, Snakes alive and how they live, p. 171, 1937. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 279 where many very dangerous kinds prevail. The Azores, and the Canary and Cape Verde Islands near Africa, have none. The large and small islands of the West Indies lack poisonous snakes, except Trinidad, Tobago, Martinique, and St. Lucia. In the Temperate Zone their absence from Ireland has often been noted. They are also missing from Iceland, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys. The true vipers (family Viperidae) are found only in the Old World, and the one dangerous rear-fanged colubrid (the boomslang) is confined to Africa. The crotalids are found in the New World and in Asia, while the elapids occur in all the continents except Europe. Snakes and lizards are both members of the same order—Squa- mata—in the class of reptiles. Only 2 kinds of lizards out of nearly 3,000 now known to science have proved to be poisonous, with 1 other very rare species suspected to be so. The 2 poisonous lizards live in the southwestern United States and Mexico. The 1 suspected of being poisonous occurs in Borneo. The other living members of this class—turtles, tuatara, and crocodilians—are not equipped with venom glands. Some of the larger nonvenomous reptiles are potentially dangerous to man because of their lacerating bite or their muscular strength. The crocodile in particular has a bad reputation, while the crushing power of anacondas and pythons is traditional. Less spectacular because less widely known is the alligator snapping turtle found in the Mississippi River and other water systems of some of the southern States. The soft-shelled turtles, one genus of which is found in North America, and others in Asia, while usually very shy, have exceedingly strong, sharp jaws, which can administer a severe bite to anyone rash enough to get near the darting head. Not all giants among the reptiles are savage, however. The Gala- pagos turtles, some of which easily tip the scales at 300 pounds, are noted for their docile temperament. Many reptiles are of great economic value to man, either because their hides, flesh, or eggs are useful, or because their food consists of rats, mice, and other pests which annually destroy vast quantities of agricultural and other products. A great many of the smaller kinds of snakes are roden eaters. Through lack of space, only a few of the larger snakes are mentioned in this paper. POISONOUS REPTILES OF THE NEW WORLD THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Every one of our 48 States has at least one kind of poisonous snake living within its boundaries. All except the most northerly have several kinds. The Gila monster, our only poisonous lizard, brings to 280 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 nearly 40 the total number of kinds of poisonous reptiles in our country. The poisonous snakes of the United States belong to two major groups: the Elapidae, represented by coral snakes, which are related to the cobras of Asia and Africa, and the Crotalidae or pit vipers, represented by the true rattlesnakes, the pigmy rattlers, the massa- sauga, the copperhead, and the cottonmouth. The venoms of the different species of poisonous snakes differ to a greater or less degree. All venoms are complex mixtures containing several toxic elements. In gen- eral these may be divided into two main groups—the neurotoxins and the haemotoxins. Apparently all snake venoms include the neurotoxic factors, and it is these which usually bring about the death of the snakes’ victims. They have several different actions against nerve tissues, most important of which is their effect against the nerve centers controlling respiration. Death following snake bite most often results directly from respiratory failure. The venoms of the cobras, coral snakes, and their allies are almost purely neurotoxic, but viper and pit viper venoms usually attack the circulatory system as well. The common effects of the haemotoxins in such venoms are destruction of red blood cells and weakening of the walls of the smaller blood vessels, particularly the capillaries. (Nigel Wolff.) THE CorAL SNAKES The first group, family Elapidae, is very similar in build to most harmless snakes. The poison apparatus consists of short, vertical fangs requiring a full bite for the injection of the poison. There is no very conspicuous enlargement at the base of the jaws to give a triangular shape to the head supposedly characteristic of poisonous species. It has been repeatedly asserted that the mouth [of the coral snake] is so small that it cannot bite as well as the other poisonous snakes. This, however, is some- what of amistake. Externally and superficially the head * * * appears very short and narrow, and the opening of the gape but of slight capacity. An ex- amination of the skeleton, however, shows the skull to be comparatively large and rather elongate, especially the cranial part, which occupies fully two-thirds of the total length of the head. The articulation of the lower jaw, which is cor- respondingly lengthened, is consequently far enough back to permit, by means of the elasticity of the ligaments, the opening of the mouth quite out of pro- portion to the external aspect of the snake.* Since the coral snake is often sluggish and “gentle” when handled, some persons have said that it can hardly be induced to bite. It some- times will bite very suddenly and unexpectedly, however, but as the wound appears small and unimportant, the necessary treatment is often neglected, with serious results to the victim because of the highly toxic character of its poison. 3 Stejneger, L., Poisonous snakes of North America. Ann. Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus. for 1893, p. 355, 1895. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 281 The coral snake is attractively colored with bright red, yellow, and black transverse rings on its body (pl. 1, frontispiece, and pl. 2, fig. 1). The snout from the eyes forward is black. If in killing the snake the pattern of the head is lost, the coral snake may be identified by its black rings being bordered on each side by a yellow ring, while in the harmless species it is the yellowish ring which is bordered on each side by a black ring. There are three subspecies of Micrurus fulvius in the United States, the typical form occurring from south- eastern North Carolina south throughout Florida and the Gulf States to the Rio Grande, north in the Mississippi Valley to Arkansas; the subspecies barbouri in extreme southern Florida, and the sub- species tenere from Mississippi to northern Tamaulipas, Mexico. An- other kind of coral snake, now called Micruroides euryxanthus but for many years considered a full species of the genus Micrurus, is said to occur in New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico. Our North American kinds seldom exceed 3 feet in length, but numerous larger relatives are found in South and Central America, where they are a recognized menace. Our species feed upon other snakes and small lizards. They burrow in soft ground or under logs and are hence seen more infrequently than their actual numbers warrant. They come out of their burrows at night or after a rain to search for food. Their eggs are deposited in decaying bark or damp soil, about seven in a clutch. The time of incubation, in this as in all other egg-laying snake species, depends upon the heat and moisture ; it is usually about 3 months. THE PIT VIPERS The pit vipers, so called because of the small pit between the nostril and the eye, representing the Crotalidae, are much more numerous than the Elapidae since about 35 different species and subspecies are recognized within the United States. The rattlesnakes need no intro- duction, for they are known by reputation, if not by actual contact, to everyone in this country. The presence of a whirring rattle on the tail tip is their spectacular and distinguishing characteristic. The rattlesnakes are divided between two genera, Crotalus and Sistrurus, the first having many small scales on top of the head, the second with several large regular shields in that region. To the genus Sistrurus belong the massasauga and the pigmy rattlesnakes, whose venoms are less to be feared because of the small size of these snakes. Venom and bite-—While we usually speak of the “bite” of a pit viper, it is much more accurate to refer to it as a strike. The snake strikes usually from an S-shaped position, the posterior third of the body remaining on the ground to give necessary leverage for the blow. Hence two-thirds of the body length is the maximum 282 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 striking distance. None of our North American pit vipers actually jumps off the ground in making an attack. As the head is thrown forward for the blow, the mouth is opened, and the fangs, which are attached solidly to the movable maxilla, are brought into striking position as shown in figure 1. The venom is contained in a large specialized salivary gland near the angle of the jaw (its presence is the cause of the conspicuous triangular widening of the snake’s head pos- teriorly), and this venom runs forward through a tube connecting with the hollow fang in the upper jaw. The comparison to a hypo- dermic needle is very appropriate. When the snake’s fangs strike the victim’s flesh, the weight of its body drives them deep, and they leave their load of venom or are sometimes broken off and stay in the wound. The loss of its functional fangs does not long incon- venience the pit viper, however. There is a series of developing teeth at the base of each fang, and whenever a fang is shed or breaks off, a new one comes forward to take its place in a few days. To render a pit viper “harmless” by removing all these fangs thoroughly would necessitate cutting into the upper jaw so deeply that the snake would probably die. Every pit viper has also some solid teeth with which to hold the prey and prevent it from wriggling away while the snake is attempting to swallow it. The amount of venom delivered at one strike varies greatly even in the same individual. If the snake is in poor condition, if it has already struck recently, or if the fangs have to penetrate layers of hide, fur, and fat—or in the case of human beings, clothing or shoes—the amount of poison that may be injected is correspondingly less than normal. The diamondback rattler of the southeastern United States is our largest species and hence has probably the longest fangs—about three-quarters of an inch in a 6-foot snake. The fangs at rest are covered by whitish folds of skin, very apparent when the snake opens its mouth. Additional facts about pit vipers.—It is a popular but erroneous belief that a rattler’s age is told by counting the “rings” in its rattle. The fact is that a segment is formed every time the growing snake sheds its skin; hence a young snake acquires three or four during its first year of life, and about as many more each year during its later years. By the time it has reached nearly maximum growth, it often accidentally breaks off most of its rattle—which is composed merely of segments of a dried, horny substance—so that a very large snake pre- sumably several years old may have only one or two segments. Circus men overcome that difficulty by fitting several rattles onto a big snake’s tail to make it more imposing to the trusting audience. The colors of most pit vipers are much duller than those of the brilliant coral snake previously discussed. Rattlers especially are in- clined to dull, dark tones as they reach adulthood, and this effect is increased by the keels of the lusterless scales which further roughen DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 283 their skins. A diamond or chevron in brown or gray on a light tan ground is often the basis of the color pattern. The diamondback has an unusually distinct diamond design ; hence its name. VENOM OUCT VENOM oOvuCcT NICAT cony Cc. § " Pia as 2 PHANTOM SKETCH OF TONGUE ee ee (HOT EXTRUDED WHEN BITING) MAXILLA POISON FANG DENTARY PALATINE PTERYGOID SQUAMOSAL QUADRATE ECTOPTERYGOID apse Oi: TEETH PALATINE TEETH MANDIBLE MANDIBULAR TEETH FIcurEe 1.—Upper, diagram cf venom apparatus of rattlesnake. Lower, diagram of bones involved in biting mechanism of rattlesnake. A, jaws closed, fang folded back against roof of mouth; B, jaws open and fang erected for biting. (From The reptiles of Ontario, by E. B. S. Logier, 1939.) The pit vipers are so named from the presence of a small pit in the side of the head between the eye and nostril. This pit is filled with sensory cells the function of which is still somewhat in doubt. It is 284 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 believed from experiment that the cells in the pit enable the snake to distinguish between cold and warm air currents and hence to know when some warm-blooded animal approaches it in the dark—a useful function since most pit vipers are nocturnal and do their hunting at night. Their food consists of anything small enough to be swal- lowed—birds, mammals, sometimes fish, frogs, snakes, lizards, or small turtles—each species showing a “preference” for some of the food items that it normally can obtain in its own particular environment. Most pit vipers are viviparous—that is, their young are born (hav- ing developed in the eggs retained within the mother’s body) instead of being hatched from eggs as is the case with the coral snakes. Young snakes begin to look for food very soon after birth. Their skin is usually shed within a few days for the first time. The timber rattler. First of the more common species on the list for easterners is the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus, pl. 2, fig. 2), also called the banded or black rattler. Distribution of this rattlesnake in the Northeastern States is associated with hills and mountains of moderate height, on which there are broken ledges with large, loose fragments on the slopes and top. These flat fragments may be a foot or more in thickness and from a yard to 6 or 8 feet in length, sloping back into a fissure, the bottom of which may be covered with soil or leaves, and which pro- vides a position of security during storms. It is the common habit of rattle- snakes to coil under the edge of these rock masses, protected from the too hot summer sun, and ready to quickly retreat if disturbed. If the intruder goes on his way, the snake may lie in its motionless coil, without sounding the rattle, thus seeking to escape notice. Near these natural homes are specific crevices or “dens,” where rattlers that have roamed over a considerable area during the summer congregate each fall preparatory to deep penetration and hibernation, beyond the frost line. During the late summer the females return to such places and here the young are born, with a natural instinct to return to this specific area each year for winter shelter * * *.4 The diamondback rattler. The diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus), already men- tioned, lives in wooded areas of the Southeast, especially among the scrub palmetto of the sea beaches in Florida. “It is not a swamp spe- cies, although it may frequent woods close to water and does not hesi- tate to swim across small bodies of water. In the coastal strips it crosses fair-sized tide pools and has been noted several miles from shore, where it has been accidentally carried by the currents. It is also found among the keys. When adult, its food consists largely of rabbits,” ° and sometimes of quails. There is a western diamondback which is said to cause twice as many deaths as the eastern species. The 4 Ditmars, R. L., Snakes of the world, pp. 114-115, 1934. 5 Idem, p. 113. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 285 prairie rattlesnake and the water moccasin constitute the other species which together with the diamondbacks are responsible for about 95 percent of deaths by snake bite in this country. The pigmy rattlesnakes. “The bites of pigmy rattlers and massasaugas (genus Sistrurus) are practically never fatal to adults, except possibly through septic com- binations. These rattlers are our least poisonous snakes, for of 20 cases on record, none ended fatally.”® They frequently feed upon frogs. The massasauga is about 314 feet long. It frequents swampy places, although it shuns the actually wet places. It,is brownish or grayish, with chestnut-brown blotches on the back and a similar row on each side. The ground rattler (pl. 3, fig. 1) is seldom more than 20 inches long, with a very minute rattle. It prefers dry areas with low vegetation. Its venom is particularly powerful, but the small amount of it injected at a bite is not known to have been lethal to man. The water moccasin. While the rattling of the rattlesnake is said to be a warning device, there are many pit vipers which have no rattle and hence cannot give the warning, unless the vibrating tail should strike against dry leaves or rushes, in which case a rattling sound is produced. By far the most dangerous of these in the confines of the United States is the water moccasin (Agkistrodon piscivorus), or cottonmouth. Adults are dull olive or brownish above and paler on the sides, on which are indistinct blackish bands. Young specimens are brilliantly colored, usually of a pale reddish brown with bands of dark brown narrowly edged with white. The snake is one of the largest of the poisonous ones in this country, attaining a length of 6 feet, and it is also one of the most pugnacious in its wild state. Over most of its distribution it lives along streams and lakes or in swamps and is particularly abundant along abandoned rice ditches of the south- easterly and Gulf States. In captivity it feeds upon small rabbits, rats, birds, fishes, and frogs. The copperhead. Another rattleless pit viper is the copperhead (Agkistrodon moke- son, pl. 1, frontispiece, and pl. 3, fig. 2).. It can be recognized by its reddish-brown hour-glass-shaped marks crossing the back, set off by the light buff or reddish-tan ground color. It feeds upon small ro- dents, birds, and frogs. In the northern States it frequents rocky places, usually in the vicinity of moderately thick timber, marshy glades or hollows. In the South it is found on higher and drier ground ® [Kellogg, R.], Poisonous snakes of the United States. Mimeographed circular Bi-571, U.S. Dep. Agr., Bur. Biol. Surv., February 1925. 286 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 than are the timber rattler and water moccasin, which seem to prefer the swamps. A very large copperhead may be as much as 4 feet long. Baby copperheads, as well as the young of all other poisonous snakes, are venomous from the moment of birth. Although an adult copper- head secretes a relatively small amount of venom, a great many persons are bitten owing to the snake’s concealing coloration, which blends per- fectly with the ground covered with fallen leaves. A number of harmless snakes are similar in appearance to the copperhead and are often confused with it. Several species of watersnakes (Natriz) are characterized by brown markings on the back somewhat like the pattern of the copperhead. They are savage in disposition and the lacerating bite from the many short, solid teeth may lead to an infec- tion if not thoroughly disinfected. DISTRIBUTION OF OuR PoIsoNous SNAKES The matter of distribution cannot be explained in a few words. Sometimes no poisonous snakes occur in what seem to be the most favorable localities. Again they will be found in some special habitat perhaps near a town or city where repeated attempts to exterminate them have been made. The more northerly the locality, the fewer the species asarule. New England, for instance, has but two species, the copperhead and the timber rattler, and the former does not go north of central Massachusetts. The massasauga is added in the upper Mississippi Valley. The canebrake rattler, the diamondback, and the pigmy (two subspecies) complete the number of rattlesnakes in the Southeast. Crossing the Mississippi, we find a much more numerous assem- blage. The western diamond, the red diamond, the Pacific, and the prairie are among the most formidable. The western massasauga and the western pigmy rattler, the Texas rock rattler, the tiger and the black-tailed rattler, the speckled and faded and Great Basin rattlers, and the Willard’s, Price’s, and green rock rattler, each with its own particular distribution, occur through the west between Canada and and the Mexican border. One of the most peculiar, though not partic- ularly dangerous, is the little sidewinder, so called from its method of progressing through the sand. It has “horns” on its head, as the scale above its eye is enlarged and bluntly pointed, although it is not stiff enough to cause any damage, nor is it known to be used in self-defense. To this list must be added two forms of the copperhead, and the water moccasin. Each of these snakes thus briefly mentioned deserves a much fuller discussion than can be accorded in a paper of this size. . The best advice in dealing with supposedly poisonous reptiles is to leave them alone if possible. It is not at all a wise policy to exter- minate every snake in sight, since many harmless snakes are of actual DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 287 economic value. The depredations of rats, mice, moles, and gophers are certainly controlled by the rodent-eating snakes, and such snakes even if poisonous should definitely be protected in any agricultural area. THE Gita MONSTER The final poisonous reptile under consideration is the Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum) or beaded lizard, occurring from the southern part of Utah and Nevada through Arizona into Sonora, Mexico. This and a related species in Mexico are the only known poisonous lizards. The Gila monster is heavily built and may grow to 2 feet in length, of which over one-third consists of the rounded tail. The entire animal is covered with coarse beadlike scales, salmon-red and black in color and forming a very beautiful blotched pattern. The head is blunt and massive, and the rather small legs seem inadequate to sup- port it. In the warm sun the lizard can become very active, however, and can move about with surprising agility. The clublike tail is a storage place for fat. When the lizard has been getting an abundance of food, the tail becomes swollen and heavy. In time of starvation, the tail shrinks decidedly, as the body of the lizard is nourished by the stored-up fat. The food consists of eggs of birds and reptiles and also probably any small animal that it can pick up. For a long while its ability to poison was doubted. The first confirmation of its poisonous nature seemed to be established by the discovery of grooved teeth, about 3-4 mm. long, four on either branch of both maxilla and mandibular. * * * The mandibular appears somewhat swollen, owing to the projection of its disproportionately large, elongated submaxillary glands, whose four separate ducts lead to the base of the above-described grooved teeth. * * * The arrangement of the teeth and of the glands makes us under- stand why opinions as to the poisonous nature of heloderma have differed so widely. When an animal seizes its victim only with the front teeth, or does not lie on its back while biting, none or very little of the buccal secretion may enter the wound. * * ** The Gila monster is known to turn over on its back when it is biting, and after it has once taken hold it chews on the wound. LATIN AMERICA While most tropical countries are abundantly supplied with poison- ous snakes, it is a surprising fact that they are totally absent on nearly all the large and small islands that make up the West Indies. On Trinidad and Tobago, allied faunistically as well as geographically to the mainland of South America, we find the bushmaster, a typically South American species, and the coral snake. On Martinique and St. Lucia as well as in Trinidad the fer-de-lance, a close relative of the 7 Ditmars, R. L., The reptile book, p. 170, 1907. 288 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 bushmaster, occurs. The mongoose was brought from India and intro- duced upon Martinique and Trinidad to kill snakes but has proved to be a pest in many instances where it turned to the destruction of fowl and other useful birds instead. Since many of the tropical poisonous snakes of this hemisphere range over both Central and South America, these species will be considered first, with the more important of the localized forms which are confined to a smaller area considered at the end of this section. THE CorAL SNAKES Like their relatives of the United States, the tropical coral snakes (genus Micrurus) are burrowing and secretive in their habits. Their brilliant coloring of red and black bands makes them easy to detect among the vegetation. Some nonvenomous snakes mimic their color- ing closely. Their bright pattern, much alike in all the species, has given them the common name of coralilla in Mexico, and of gar- gantilla (necklace) in Central America. While they are not ag- gressive if undisturbed, they will bite when stepped on or handled roughly. The larger kinds can inject a lethal dose of poison; the wearing of canvas leggings and leather shoes provides adequate pro- tection against coral snake bite when traveling in “snake country,” their fangs are not long. Two of the commonest South American coral snakes are Micrurus frontalis, found in southern Brazil to the Argentine, and Micrurus lemniscatus, occurring in the Guianas and Brazil. While these may appear “gentle,” they will treacherously turn and bite if they are carelessly handled. A length of 4 feet is fairly common. THE Pit VIPERS The rattlesnakes. The rattlesnakes (genus Crotalus) with which we have become so familiar in the United States have many close relatives in the lands to the south. The habits of these tropical rattlers are much like those of the rattlesnakes of our own country. Some of the species are very rare, only three or four ever having been found by naturalists even after the most assiduous collecting. Some are very small, and unable because of their short fangs to inject a lethal amount of poison. One of the larger kinds, Crotalus durissus terrificus (pl. 4, fig. 1), is the only member of the genus in South America, ranging from northern Venezuela to southern Brazil except for the wet valley of the Amazon. Its length is up to 7 feet. The venom has a largely neurotoxic action, in this respect being different from that of the northern rattlesnakes. It is more aggressive than most reptiles, DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 289 since it deliberately glides forward toward the intruder. It carries its neck in an S-shaped lateral loop, in readiness to strike. It does not always use its rattle to give warning. While it sometimes coils, with its rattle buzzing steadily, more often it gives no more warning than a few quick side flings of the rattle, producing single harsh clicks. This is a sound well worthy of recognition in the higher ground of the Tropics, as it may be immediately followed by the serpent’s stroke with no further warning. This serpent has many common names, the most frequently used being cascabel, although in differ- ent parts of Brazil it is called boicininga, maracaboia, and boiquira. It is not found south of southern Brazil and the Chaco region of the Argentine. The cantil. The cantil (Agkistrodon bilineatus) takes the place of our water moccasin from central Mexico to Central America. The adult is black, with white or yellow markings. The head is dark, with a vivid yellow stripe along the snout and another on the upper lip. It is semiaquatic in habit and attains about the same size as the related copperhead—less than 4 feet. Its poison is highly toxic; fortunately it does not seem to be abundant. The bushmaster. . The most feared of tropical American snakes is the bushmaster (Lachesis mutus, pl. 4, fig. 2), the giant among the pit vipers, which attains a length of about 11 feet, although such large individuals are very rare. It is also exceptional among the pit vipers because it lays eggs, all the others bearing the young alive. It is aggressive in charac- ter, and while the vibrating of its tail on the ground when the snake is uneasy makes a loud buzzing sound somewhat like that produced by the warning rattle of the rattlesnake, the bushmaster holds its ground and usually comes near to the intruder. Its teeth inject a large quantity of venom, and by their length (1% inches in a snake 11 feet 4 inches long) they can penetrate very deeply through coverings that would render the striking of an ordinary-sized snake practically harmless. The body is yellowish or reddish brown with a series of dark blotches, wide on the back and narrow on the sides—a pattern that blends in very well with the surrounding vegetation. Its skin is very rough. It is long and slender, hence well able to travel through underbrush, and its lance-shaped head gives it an extremely sinister appearance. It is found from Nicaragua through southern Central America and South America, also in Trinidad. It is called sirocucu and mapepire in some places where it occurs. It lives in damp forests in holes made by other animals. 290 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The fer-de-lance or barba amarilla. The fer-de-lance (Bothrops atrox, pl. 5, fig. 1) is another tropical snake which it is well to avoid, as the effects of the poison are said to be dramatically sinister and rapid, the action being largely haemolytic, destroying the red blood cells, breaking down the walls of the carrying vessels, and producing great extravasation. * * * The tissue about the wound is practically dis- solved by rapid necrosis. These effects are, however, effectively neutralized by serum produced by the several research laboratories in the tropics.* Its length may be over 8 feet. The ground color is variable, from gray to brown or reddish, with a row of dark, light-edged triangles down each side, the tips of the triangles reaching the center of the back. Its body is relatively slender, setting off the lance-shaped head. Since it is not uncommon for a female fer-de-lance to produce 60 to 70 young ones in a litter, the abundance of this species is readily understood. The range extends from southern Mexico through Central America and northern South America, including the islands of Martinique and St. Lucia in the West Indies. Some of its other native names are jararaca, terciopelo (=velvet snake, Costa Rica), and tomigoff (Pana- ma). It is especially dangerous to laborers on sugar plantations, as it: is attracted there in numbers by the rats which make their homes in such places. The palm vipers. These small snakes (genus Bothrops ®) are arboreal in habit, being found in the low trees or bushes (pl. 5, fig. 2), sometimes coiled up where the base of a palm stem joins the trunk. Their prehensile tail helps them to cross from tree to tree when the branches nearly touch. Men pushing their way through thick underbrush should be careful to avoid being bitten in the face by these vipers. The green palm viper (B. bicolor) is leaf green above and below, and hence is nearly invisible among green foliage. Other species have green, brown, and yellow in the coloring, suited to concealment among branches and leaves. A few of the species have “eyelashes”—hornlike projections of the scales above the eye, of no known use to the snake. They are found in Mexico and Central and South America. Because of their often greenish or yellowish coloration and their habit of living in banana trees, these snakes, especially Schlegel’s palm viper (B. schlegelit) , are extremely dangerous to laborers on banana plantations. Although these snakes are only 2 feet in length, their proportionately large head and long fangs enable them to do more harm than their size would indicate, and fatalities have resulted from their bites. § Ditmars, R. L., Snakes of the world, p. 184, 1934. ® Some scientists now use the generic name 7'rimeresurus instead of Bothrops for the bulk of the Latin American pit vipers. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 291 The jumping viper. Most poisonous snakes in striking keep the tail and posterior part of the body on the ground for leverage, but the jumping viper (Bothrops nummifer) is able to slide and strike in a way that carries its body 2 feet forward. From a slight elevation it is able to jump for a yard. Since its length is somewhat less than a yard, it has several times the striking range of most pit vipers. Its body is stout, its head propor- tionately large, and its skin so rough that one is reminded of that of the bushmaster. The fangs are short, and the venom is of lower toxicity than in other species of Bothrops, so that this snake is not so greatly to be feared as are most of its relatives. It ranges through most of Cen- tral America into Mexico. Its native names are timba and mano de piedra, the latter coming from its supposed resemblance to the native implement used for grinding corn. The hog-nosed vipers. These three small terrestrial vipers (Bothrops nasuta, B. lansbergit, B. ophryomegas) may be recognized by their upturned snouts (pl. 6, fig. 1). They live in Central America and southern Mexico, with two species extending into northern South America. Their native names are chatilla or tamagé. Some of these savage little vipers strike with such force that they slide a few inches on smooth level ground and sometimes jump forward several inches, although this habit is not so characteristic of them as it is of the true jumping viper (Bothrops nummifer) mentioned above. They grow to about 2 feet in length. Other pit vipers. Maximilian’s viper (Bothrops neuwiediz) of Brazil is of the fer-de- lance type and might be mistaken for that species. But it is usually smaller, and details of the triangular brown markings are different. Its native names are jararaca and urutu. It ranges into northern Argentina and Paraguay. The name jararaca is also applied to other closely related kinds of poisonous snakes. One of the most poisonous of all the pit vipers is the island viper (B. insularis), which is confined to a small rocky island barely three- quarters of a mile in extent lying 40 miles southwest of the Bay of Santos, Brazil. Since there is little else on the rock for snakes to eat except the small birds that nest there, this snake’s highly toxic bite evi- dently insures the death of the bird before it has been able to flutter far enough to fall into the sea and so be lost. While most people do not associate beauty with a poisonous serpent, B. alternatus, commonly called urutu, has one of the handsomest pat- terns of all the pit vipers—a series of dark brown crescentic marks on 292 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 each side, on a pale cream ground color. It grows to 5 feet in length, with a thick, heavy body. It occurs in southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the Argentine. The value of using scientific rather than common names for species is well illustrated by my attempt to give the Indian names for some of the foregoing snakes. The word jararaca is used for several different kinds of pit vipers. The same is true of urutu. Likewise it will be seen that the name copperhead is used for an Australian snake of a different family from that of the copperhead found in the United States. THE REAR-FANGED SNAKES Some of the opisthoglyph (=back-fanged) snakes ( Oxybelis, Pseudo- boa) have taken to an arboreal existence. These are less dan- gerous to man because of the small amount of poison, its relative mildness, and the fact that the teeth placed in the rear of the mouth do not always make good contact with a victim’s flesh. Most of these snakes are slender and whiplike in body, with elongate heads and large eyes. Some are green, others grayish or brown in color. The green whip snake, Oxybelis fulgidus, is light green with a lemon- yellow stripe on the sides. When frightened, it stiffens its neck and slowly waves its head from side to side to imitate a stem blown by a breeze. Its food consists of lizards, which are very susceptible to its poison. The mussurana (Clela clelia, pl. 6, fig. 2) is a large, heavy-bodied, terrestrial serpent which uses its constricting powers as well as its poison to subdue its prey. Its chief food consists of other snakes, among them being the deadly fer-de-lance—not deadly at all to the mussurana, which is unaffected by the poison or the injuries of the fangs. Unfortunately, the mussurana is rather rare through- out its rather wide range—Guatemala through Brazil. Most of the natives know of its snake-eating habits, and so it is seldom killed. Brazilian specimens are blue-black all over, while Central American ones are white beneath. Young ones are said to be coral red. THR YELLOW-BELLIED SEA SNAKE Only one species of sea snake (Pelamydrus platurus, fig. 2) has crossed the Pacific Ocean from its native home off the coast of Asia. This snake is compressed, with very small scales and no enlarged plates across the ventral region. Its back and upper sides are rich brown to black, sharply set off from the bright yellow ventral colora- tion. Its tail is compressed and rounded at the tip like a paddle and acts as a rudder. While this species seldom exceeds 3 feet in length, some of the other species (to be discussed in the section on Asia) are more than twice as long. Fatalities from its bite have been re- DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 293 ported, but as a rule sea snakes are disinclined to bite, although some are equipped with very deadly poison, and are said never to attack bathers. Their food consists of fish and other small marine or- ganisms. They are now established along the west coast of Central America, especially in the Gulf of Panama. THE Mexican BEADED LIZARD The Mexican beaded lizard (Heloderma horridum, pl. 7) is the only other known species of poisonous lizard in the world, besides its relative, the Gila monster. It occurs from the central part of Mexico to the northern part of Central America. Its habits are very similar, ——-wee* * FIGurE 2.—The yellow-bellied sea snake (Pelamydrus platurus), entirely aquatic, and having a compressed, rudderlike tail. to those of its northern relative, but it is a little larger, being known to reach 30 inches in length, and its tail is proportionately longer. Its head is usually black, and its beadlike scales are colored with ir- regular patches of black and yellow. The very young lizard has vivid yellow stripes with bands of yellow on the tail. With age this regular pattern disappears, and some specimens turn nearly black or dark brown. The bite results in the same poisoning symptoms as that of the Gila monster. POISONOUS REPTILES OF THE OLD WORLD The family Viperidae (true vipers) is as characteristic of the Old World fauna as are the rattlesnakes of the New World. Some repre- sentatives of the Crotalidae, the family to which the rattlesnake be- 566766—44——20 294. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 longs, are found in southeastern Asia and the East Indies, however.” These are pit vipers, and differ from the true vipers which are likewise found in those regions by the possession of a complex pit on the side of the head between eye and nostril. Both these families differ from the following ones in having a head distinctly set off from the body by the swelling at the base of the jaws due to the poison glands, which are much smaller in the Elapidae and Hydrophidae. The family Elapidae, represented in the New World by the coral snakes, contains some of the most widespread and dangerous of Old World snakes—the cobras. Australia has about 80 kinds, while Africa and southern Asia boast of numerous species also. Elapidae have the head and body nearly continuous in outline, with no distinctly marked “neck” in most cases, in this respect resembling the harmless colubrine snakes, The Hydrophidae (sea snakes) are found near the coasts of southern Asia and northern Australia. Most of them hug the shore and dislike to swim far away from land. One kind has successfully crossed the Pacific and established itself on the west coast of Central America, as stated above, and this same species has likewise crossed the Indian Ocean to the eastern shores of Africa. Some rear-fanged snakes of the family Colubridae occur in Asia, but as their bites are not deadly to human beings, they will not be dis- cussed here. Some of the African species are potentially very dan- gerous to man, however. While no poisonous lizards are positively known from the Old World, an exceedingly rare lizard from Borneo possibly related to the Gila monster has been assumed to be poisonous. As yet no proof of this has been put forward. EUROPE AND NORTHERN ASIA The true vipers (family Viperidae) are the only poisonous snakes to be found in Europe and northern Asia. Some of their character- istics are a vertical pupil, relatively small size, and a zigzag dark stripe down the middle of the back more or less pronounced in Euro- pean species. These vipers fall naturally in groups of closely allied species which have much in common. The common viper and its allies. This snake (Vipera berus, pl. 8, fig. 1) , called northern viper or adder in part of its range, is the only poisonous species inhabiting the British Isles, where it is found in Scotland, Wales, and England, but not in Ireland. It likewise ranges over northern Europe at least to the 67th 20Qne species, Agkistrodon halys, just reaches into eastern Europe near the Caspian Sea. u Except the pit viper Agkistrodon halys, a predominantly Asiatic species which extends westward to the Saltan Murat Desert and the Induski hills near the Caspian Sea. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 295 degree in Scandinavia and across northern Asia to the Amur River and Sakhalin Island. Southward it extends to the Pyrenees, Apennines, andthe Balkans. Two distinct forms occur in different parts of Yugo- slavia, while another lives in northwestern Spain and Portugal. It prefers a cool climate, but in the north selects hills well exposed to the sun on which to bask, although it is partially nocturnal also. It eats any small living creatures of suitable size—mice, birds, lizards, frogs, salamanders, and slugs, while the very young ones feed on insects and worms. The young are born alive in August or September, and num- ber from 5 to 20 in a litter. Many fatalities from bites have been recorded, especially in France and Germany. Exceptional specimens are nearly 3 feet long, although 2 feet is the more usual length. Orsini’s and Renard’s vipers. Orsini’s viper (V. wrsinii, pl. 8, fig. 2), rather similar to the com- mon viper in appearance, is found in southern France, northern Italy, Hungary, and parts of Yugoslavia. It is not found with the common viper in any part of its habitat. It grows to a maximum size of 2 feet. Its disposition is much less aggressive than that of the common viper, and in some places it is said not to make use of its poison appa- ratus since it feeds entirely on grasshoppers. Renard’s viper (V. renardt) is closely related, except that its snout is much more pointed. Its length does not exceed 2 feet. It is found in the Crimea and parts of eastern Russia, extending far into Central Asia. Its food consists of small mammals and lizards. The asp, Lataste’s, and the long-nosed vipers. These three European vipers can be recognized by their “turned-up noses,” that is, the tip of the snout is distinctly above the level of the top of the head. The asp viper (V. aspzs) is found in southern France, the Pyrenees and Apennines, and Yugoslavia. It likes hot, dry locali- ties, and lives in holes in rocks or in the earth. It is both nocturnal and diurnal, with food habits similar to those of the common asp. Its disposition is savage, and many accidents, some of them fatal, are caused yearly in southern France where it is very abundant. A sub- species occurs in Sicily and Calabria (southern Italy). lLataste’s viper (V. datasti) prefers stony, arid, and forested regions in Spain and Portugal, also in Morocco and Algeria. It is not known to ex- ceed a length of 2 feet. It climbs low trees in search of young birds. Its bite is supposed to be less dangerous than that of the asp viper and rarely causes the death of human beings or domestic animals. Its nose is likewise somewhat “turned up.” In the sand viper or long- nosed viper (V. ammodytes) the snout appendage is particularly evi- dent, giving it one of its common names. It occasionally grows to a length of 3 feet. It has numerous geographical varieties. The typi- 296 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 cal form is found in Austria and the Balkan states. It likes dry, stony hills with low bushes, which it frequently climbs. Its poison is stated to be more active than that of other European vipers, so that fatal accidents to man are frequent. It is extremely abundant in some parts of Austria and is said to be the commonest of all snakes in Bos- nia and Herzegovina. A closely related form (Vipera ammodytes meridionalis) takes the place of the typical form in Greece and European Turkey. The blunt-nosed viper and its allies. The blunt-nosed viper (V. lebetina lebetina), also called kufi, is found on the island of Cyprus and in Europe on Melos (one of the Cyclades Islands), and has an extensive range in Asia and Africa. Some poorly defined varieties occur, among them a form called wan- thina from Asia Minor and others named mauritanica and deserti from Morocco, Algeria, and Libya. Large examples are 414 or 5 feet long. They live in rocky regions and are nocturnal in habit. INDIA, CHINA, JAPAN, AND MALAYA This region is very well provided with poisonous snakes. Represent- atives of the Viperidae (true vipers), Crotalidae (pit vipers), Elapi- dae (cobras and kraits), Hydrophidae (sea snakes) and Colubridae (colubrine snakes) are found here, comprising examples of all existing families containing dangerous poisonous snakes. The most spectac- ular are the cobras, although the daboia (or Russell’s viper) is one of the commonest and deadliest snakes of India. THE VIPERS Although the total number of species known from Asia is not large, this family (Viperidae) represents some of the most dangerous of all poisonous snakes. The daboia, tic-polonga, or Russell’s viper. This beautiful serpent (V. russellii, pl. 9, fig. 1), more than 5 feet in length at its maximum, is pale brown with 3 longitudinal series of yellow-bordered black rings enclosing spots of chocolate brown. A very loud warning hiss is given when the snake is disturbed. It will not strike until considerably irritated. The venom is secreted in large quantities. The snake is found nearly everywhere except in dense jungle, preferring open, sunny regions. It is nocturnal in habit and feeds by choice upon rats and other small mammals. It is found in India, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, the Malay Peninsula, and southern Yun- nan in China. The period of gestation is more than 6 months, the lit- ter of about 30 young being born usually in June and July; they are less than a foot long. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 297 The carpet or saw-scaled viper. This little snake (#’chis carinatus) burrows in the sand to hide, hence prefers sandy places throughout its range through Syria and Persia into India. Its common name, “saw-scaled,” is given by reason of the fine, sawlike “teeth” down the center of the lateral scales. It reaches a length of 2 feet, but in spite of its small size it is very fierce and aggressive. A related species, /’. coloratus, is known from Arabia and Palestine. Another small viper of a different genus (Azemops feae) grows to a length of 2 feet. It is extremely rare, only about four specimens ever having been collected in Upper Burma and in southern China (Szech- wan and Kiangsi). It resembles a harmless colubrine snake in ap- pearance, being blackish above with 15 narrow transverse white bands. Nothing is known about its venom. THE PIT VIPERS Asiatic members of this family (Crotalidae) used to be considered as part of the family Viperidae. A more correct estimate of their dis- tinctness is obtained by putting them into the family of which the New World rattlesnake is the representative. The Old World cro- talids, however, do not have any rattle. The following belongs to the same genus as do the copperhead and moccasin described under North American poisonous snakes. The mamushi and its relatives. This snake (Agkistrodon blomhoffiz) is restricted to the Japanese islands, although close allies are found on the Asiatic mainland. Aver- age specimens are about 20 inches long. The pattern consists of a series of dark brown rhomboid blotches on each side near the center of * the back, separated by a pale grayish band which lightens nearly to white next to the dark blotches. Some specimens are much darker. One of the most poisonous species of the genus is A. rhodostoma, found in Malaya. Its pattern is very striking—angular, dark brown, black-edged markings on a reddish-brown background. The snout is pointed, and as the posterior part of the head is widened, the ser- pent has a very sinister “lance head.” Some of the other species are very abundant. Agkistrodon halys and its relatives are the commonest poisonous snakes in China and the Himalayan region west almost to southeastern Europe. Bamboo snakes and their allies. - Some of the Asiatic members of the genus 7rimereswrus closely correspond to the palm vipers of tropical America. They are the arboreal species with prehensile tails and green coloration, such as Trimeresurus gramineus, the bamboo viper, and its relatives. Some 298 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 species of 7'’rimeresurus are terrestrial, and these are also like Bothrops of the American Tropics. The head is always broad and distinct from the neck, while the body is not very stout in this genus. The arboreal species are particularly slender. The fangs are proportionately very long, and the bites are dangerous, although the venom is not quite so toxic as that of some of the true vipers. The habu (7’rimeresurus flavoviridis) grows to a length of 5 feet in the Riu Kiu Islands, and its bite is considered to be very serious. CoBRAS AND KRaITS These snakes (family Elapidae) are slender in build, with the head scarcely enlarged. Some species of cobras have more or less expansible “hoods” behind the head, produced by moving the ribs forward inside the loose skin. Indian or spectacled cobra. This snake (Vaja naja, pl. 9, fig. 2) is probably the best known of any of the poisonous snakes of Asia, as it takes more lives and is more feared than the others. It grows to be about 6 feet long, and is yellow- ish or dark brown in color, with a more or less spectacle-shaped black and white marking on the raised hood. Occasionally the hood has no pattern, sometimes there is a single spot. The cobra is nervous and excitable, spreading the hood and arching the neck when disturbed. It strikes with a forward sweep of its raised body, accompanied by a sharp hiss. This striking is not nearly so quick as the darting of a viper’s head, which strikes laterally from the bent neck. The cobra becomes irritable, sometimes gliding forward to attack its enemy, but there is no deliberate rush, and the snake can be held off with a light stick. When it bites, it retains its hold just as the coral snake does, since the fangs are relatively short, and a larger amount of poison can enter the wound with the longer contact. The cobra feeds on rats, mice, and frogs by choice, and often takes up its residence in the dark corners of a native hut in order to prey upon the rodents attracted to human habitations. This snake is accountable for more deaths from snake bite than any other species. It is impossible to state accurately just how many people in India die each year from its bite. Owing to the natives’ habit of going bare-legged, especially at night, fatal accidents from cobra bite are unnecessarily numerous. On plantations where the natives are made to take precautions, and where serum is available, fatalities have greatly decreased. The Indian cobra and its very closely allied subspecies occur from the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea through Asia into China and Formosa, the Malay Archipelago, and the Philippines. Some cobras of this species have the habit of spitting venom at an intruder. One from Java was observed to eject poison in a spray DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 299 from the partly opened mouth for a distance of 2 feet. Cobras that spit have likewise been reported from the Philippines, the Malay Peninsula, Burma, and Ceylon. There seems to be no report from China or mainland India west of Bengal of a cobra. spitting. The king cobra or hamadryad. The king cobra (Naja hannah, pl. 10, fig. 1), largest of all poisonous snakes, has been authentically reported as reaching a length of 18 feet 4 inches. While its anterior ribs are elongated, it cannot spread a hood nearly so wide proportionately as that of its smaller relative. It feeds almost exclusively upon other snakes and probably ranks first as a wholesale destroyer of snakes, taking kraits and smaller cobras along with the harmless species. It occurs in eastern India, China, and the Philippines, as well as the Malay Archipelago. It is diurnal and lives in dense jungles near streams, sometimes climbing trees. It is said to be fearless and may attack human beings when disturbed. It lays from 21 to 33 eggs on a pile of leaves, and these eggs are guarded by the female. In captivity it displays an intelligence very unusual in snakes by learning, after a very few days, not tostrike its head against the glass of its cage. The color is olive or yellowish brown, often with black rings on the body. The kraits. The common krait (Bungarus candidus) grows to a maximum length of 4 feet. It is lustrous black or brown above, with narrow white bands across the back; below it is pearly white. It is one of the most numerous snakes where it occurs and likes to live near human dwellings, also in fields or low scrubby jungle near water. Its food consists almost entirely of other snakes, occasionally frogs, lizards, and small mammals. It is one of the most inoffensive of snakes, hiding its head beneath the ‘coils of its body and refusing to move when teased. Like the cobra, it lays eggs, 6 to 10 in a clutch, usually in soft earth. Experiments show that its poison is four to five times as virulent as that of the cobra. It has a wide distribution |! throughout India and the Malay Archipelago to Formosa and south- eastern China. Members of this genus can be recognized by their ridged backbone, on which there is a row of widened, enlarged scales. They are nocturnal in habit. The banded krait (Bungarus fasciatus, pl. 10, fig. 2) prefers jungle districts. It is ringed with yellow and black bands. It is even more sluggish than the common krait. In India the banded krait is re- stricted to the northeast, occurring no farther south than the state of Hyderabad. The common krait is found throughout peninsular India and is the only one south of the Ganges Basin. Their ranges overlap in Siam, Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Java and Sumatra. 300 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 THE SEA SNAKES The sea snakes (family Hydrophidae) live in the tropical parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They occur along the coast of Asia from the Gulf of Persia to southern Japan, among the islands of Oceania, and to the coast of tropical Australia. AlJl the species but one stay close to the shallow waters near the coast, especially near river mouths. They feed entirely upon fish. Those sea snakes with the smallest heads and slenderest bodies limit their diet to eels. Some- ' times on a calm day they are to be seen, often in hundreds, basking upon the surface of the water. Their structure is well adapted to an aquatic existence, since the tail has become compressed and rudder- like, while the ventral plates are much reduced in most of the species, appearing like the rest of the small scales covering the body. The poison of at least one of the species is known to be more deadly than that of the Indian cobra, while some are said to be only slightly poison- ous. They are not inclined to bite except when forcibly restrained and are said never to attack bathers in the water. Fishermen are sometimes bitten when they haul in a sea snake along with their net of fish, and sometimes fatalities result, because these fishermen do not think of seeking trained medical assistance. All sea snakes bear their young alive, 2 to 18 at a time, in tide pools and shallow flats of deserted shores. Few sea snakes exceed 4 feet in length, although examples of two species have been found measuring nearly 9 feet. AFRICA The Dark Continent has nearly as great an array of poisonous serpents as is found in Asia. While the king cobra of southern Asia claims the record of being the world’s largest poisonous snake, Africa has the distinction of having produced 2 kinds of spitting snakes— both cobras—which blow their venom into the face of the attacker from a distance up to 12 feet. Africa is the home of about 30 kinds of true vipers also, some of them very peculiar. Since sea snakes do not occur in Atlantic waters, it is only on the east coast of Africa that we find an occasional example of the same far-traveling species that occurs on the western coast of Central America. No pit vipers occur in Africa. The remaining family containing dangerous poisonous snakes is the Colubridae, of which one section, the rear-fanged snakes, is represented in Africa by the boomslang and a number of other snakes having poisons of varying degrees of toxicity. No poisonous snakes are found on the island of Madagascar. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 301 THE VIPERS The night adder or Cape viper. As its name indicates, this snake (Causus rhombeatus, pl. 11, fig. 1) emerges at night to hunt for rats, mice, and toads. It is rather in- offensive, and unless hurt or frightened, it does not attempt to bite. It grows to be about 3 feet long. It is yellowish or gray in color, with a chain of dark, light-edged spots along the back, and smaller ones on each side. There is a dark chevron at the back of the head. The snake hides in rubbish heaps, rock piles, or shallow holes when not hunting. It frequently enters farm houses in its search for rodents. It is very common around Nairobi and extends from the Nile over the greater part of South Africa. The poison is not so highly toxic as in many of the other vipers. A peculiar anatomical feature is the extension of the poison glands into the neck to several inches behind the head. Another interesting peculiarity is that this snake and others of this genus lay eggs, while most of the other vipers are viviparous. The puff adder. This snake (Bitis artetans, pl. 11, fig. 2) is one of the most widely distributed in Africa, being found all the way from southern Morocco and the southern Sahara to the Cape of Good Hope, as well as in Arabia. It likes grassland, rocky regions, or light forests, especially near streams, but is not found in heavy forests or at very high alti- tudes. It grows to a length of 5 feet and is massive and bloated in appearance. The head is flat, and the nostrils are on top of the snout. The skin is deep golden yellow to orange brown, with regular chevron- shaped brown or black bars pointing backward, with a large dark blotch edged with light yellow on the crown of the head. It often lives around houses in order to feed on the rats and mice. When dis- turbed, it suddenly hisses by exhaling its breath. It is not aggressive, but when danger threatens it can strike with lightning speed. It is extremely prolific, a female laying up to 72 eggs at a time. Some- times the young are born before the egg is laid; more usually hatching occurs immediately after the fully developed egg is deposited. The bite is extremely dangerous, as the great length of the fangs causes the venom to be injected deeply into the tissue. This venom is highly active neurotoxically as well as haemotoxically, and because of the snake’s size a very large quantity can be injected at a bite. Cattle when grazing often get struck, and in the absence of an injection of the proper serum rapidly succumb. Another closely related snake, the Cape puff added (B. inornata), is restricted to South Africa. The rhinoceros viper. With a pair of horns jutting from its nose, its swollen, wicked- looking head, and its stout, ponderous body covered with rosy, purple, 302 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 blue, yellow, or brown colors—brightest after the skin is shed—the rhinoceros viper (B2tis nasicornis, pl. 12, fig. 1) is a most astonishing creature. One would expect that these bright hues would make the snake very conspicuous, but on the contrary they render the serpent almost invisible in the swampy regions near streams, especially when its rough scales are caked with mud. Another common name, the river jack, is derived from its partially aquatic habits. It does not seem to grow longer than 4 feet. It is peculiarly placid and inof- fensive in disposition and is said to be most reluctant to bite, although the venom may be even more toxic than that of the following species. Its food habits are not known, although presumably from its aquatic habits it may add frogs, toads, and even fishes to the usual viperine diet of rodents. It is practically confined to the rain forest, including Liberia, the Gold Coast, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Portuguese Guinea, Belgian Congo, Uganda, and part of Kenya Colony. The Gaboon viper. This malevolent-looking serpent (Bitis gabonica, pl. 12, fig. 2) is very highly poisonous, and its prey is killed almost instantly by injections driven deeply with the long fangs. Its venom is partic- ularly deadly as far as mankind is concerned, for it contains both the normal viperine haemotoxic elements and powerful neurotoxic properties. It lives in heavy forests in West Africa. It is known to reach a length of 5 feet 8 inches, the fangs of such a monster meas- uring nearly 2 inches, and the body nearly 15 inches around. It is not usually aggressive and has the habit of deflating its body in a loud hiss. It feeds upon small mammals and birds, toads and frogs. There is a series of oblong buff markings on the back, surrounded by rich brown and purplish spots; the sides have irregular brown or purple spots, the points directed upward. The ground color of the skin is pinkish brown. The eyes are silvery. Sometimes there is a blunt or forked horn on the nose. The horned adders. Two of these small snakes (Bitis cornuta and B. caudalis) have one or more hornlike scales over the eye, hence their common name. They are no more than 114 feet in length but are extremely danger- ous in spite of their small size, owing to their habit of burying them- selves in the sand with only the head above, where they lie for hours watching for lizards and other small creatures on which they feed. They bite instantly at the bare feet of any native who may come near them, for they are practically invisible as they lie hidden. They occur only in the sandy areas of the southern part of Africa. The berg adder (B. atropos) as its name indicates, lives upon the mountain ranges throughout the whole of South Africa. It devours DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 303 lizards and the young of ground-nesting birds, as well as insect larvae, and mice and rats. It is highly venomous. The sand vipers. The Sahara Desert harbors two species of sand vipers (Aspis cornuta, A. vipera, pl. 18, fig. 1) admirably adapted for life in dry desert sand. The ribs are capable of flattening the body, and there is a muscular arrangement that permits the snake to use the sharp edges of its flattened body to shovel sand over its back by a sort of wavy motion that permits the body of the snake to sink quickly below the surface, where it lies with the top of its head protruding. The eyes are above the general level of the top of the head, and are the same color as the sand, so the snake cannot readily be seen. Aspis cornuta has a small, sharp spine over each eye, which is lacking in A. vipera. While these two species resemble the horned adders of South Africa in habits, their ranges are widely separated, and there are several structural features to distinguish them. The carpet viper (Hchis carinatus), living in sandy regions of Africa north of the Equator likewise occurs in Arabia, Persia, and India, as mentioned above (see p, 297), unlike most other poisonous snakes of Africa, which are confined to their own continent. It some- times burrows to hide but is not confined to arid plains, since it is found on grassy, sandy plains or even in sandy forest land. It is less than a yard in length, marked with square brown spots on a cream or reddish ground color. It is nocturnal by habit and largely insectivorous. THE CoBRAS AND THEIR ALLIES Except for Australia, there are more different members of this family (Elapidae) in Africa than in any other part of the world. They are terrestrial, aquatic, or arboreal, and some kind is found in almost every region of Africa except the snow-clad mountain tops and sterile des- erts. The traveler has to fear not only the biting at close range but the “spitting” of venom from a short distance by some species. These will be considered first. The ringhals or spitting snake. This snake (Haemachates haemachatus, pl. 13, fig. 2) differs from other cobras in having keeled scales, so that the skin is not so shiny and sleek as that of its relatives. It is the smallest of the cobras, averaging about 4 feet in length. It is black with irregular cross bars of brown above, and the throat often has one or two white or yellow- ish bands, hence its Dutch name of ringhals (ring neck). The ringhals is aggressive when disturbed and will advance on a man or even pursue him for a considerable distance. The danger from this snake comes when people stoop toward the ground or rock pile where 304 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 an alert ringhals may be lying, as the venom is ejected in two streams from the fangs, accompanied by the expulsion of air from the lungs, so that it. is sprayed in a fine shower for several feet. The entry of venom into the eyes causes intense pain, followed by inflammation and partial or total blindness. The eyes should be promptly and efficiently treated by washing at once with water and boric acid. The poison is not harmful when it falls on the unbroken skin. Eye- glasses or goggles afford adequate protection to the eyes against the spray of venom. Owing to its small size, the ringhals can throw its venom only about 6 feet. The bite of the ringhals is as deadly in proportion to its small size as that of any other cobra. Unlike most cobras, this snake produces its young alive, in litters of from 24 to 60. It is common throughout South Africa. The spitting or black-necked cobra. The black-necked cobra (Naja nigricollis) also sprays its venom. Larger in size, it is even more formidable than the ringhals. It has a much wider range than the ringhals, being found from upper Egypt to Angola and the Transvaal, and is very common in some regions. It rears and “spits” upon shght provocation, and the venom is effective at distances up to 12 feet. The snake is 7 feet long when fully grown, and since it rears its head to a height of 3 feet from the ground, its attack is unexpected and overpowering. ‘The effect of the venom on the eyes of the victim is as disastrous as that of the ringhals. It is probable that if nothing were done to dilute or wash away the poison from the absorbent membranes of the eyes, blindness would result. Not enough of the poison seems to be absorbed to cause death, however. This snake may be lustrous black, olive, brown, or salmon pink in color. The black variety may show a pair of large crimson blotches under the hood when this is spread. The lighter- colored specimens have a black band across the throat, giving the snake its common name. The black cobra. This serpent (Naja melanoleuca) is slightly larger and heavier than the spitting cobra and looks somewhat like it. It does not spit venom but is quick to become angered and will rush to attack whoever comes near. It is confined to tropical Africa. The shiny texture of its skin distinguishes it from the dark variety of the spitting cobra. The Egyptian cobra or asp. This snake (Vaja haje, pl. 14, fig. 1) is the most widely distributed of the African cobras, being found in the whole of North Africa ex- cept in the coastal area of Algeria. It is especially numerous in countries bordering the Sahara and extends through East Africa all the way to Natal. Its color is dull brown, blending well with the DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 305 hot, dry sand through which it prowls in search of rats and mice. It takes freely to water, where it devours frogs and toads. It grows to 6 feet in length. By disposition it is very irritable, hissing and striking repeatedly at the slightest disturbance. The Cape cobra. The bad temper and ferocity of this snake (Naja flava) is well recognized in the south of Africa, where it occurs from Cape Colony to southern Tanganyika. It is found with several different colora- tions, individuals being yellowish, reddish, brown, or black. It frequently climbs trees in search of young birds and eggs. Several other species of cobras inhabit rather restricted areas in West Africa or Angola, some of them nearly “hoodless” but other- wise unmistakably cobras. The water cobras. These aquatic cobras (Boulengerina, pl. 14, fig. 2) live in Cameroon, the French and Belgian Congos, and in Lake Tanganyika. In the last-named place they stay around rocks, on top of which they bask in the early morning sun before taking to the lake. They grow to around 8 feet in length. Their degree of toxicity is not definitely known, but out of the water they are apparently not nearly so ag- gressive as the true cobras. Most of them have a black bar behind the head, followed by a number of black, usually light-centered spots. They probably seldom go far from water. The mambas. These deadly snakes (Dendraspis, pl. 15, fig. 1) are set apart from the other poisonous snakes of Africa by their extreme slenderness. This makes them admirably adapted for an arboreal existence, and their green or blackish coloration makes them almost indistinguishable among the stems of climbing vines. The head is narrow and the eyes large. The mamba looks rather like the harmless tree snakes of sim- ilar build found in the Tropics of both hemispheres. When it opens its mouth, however, there is no mistaking its poisonous character, for the large fangs are situated at the very front of the mouth. One species may be as long as 12 feet, a length unmatched anywhere among elapine snakes except by the king cobra of southern Asia. In strik- ing, it takes advantage of its length by doubling back its neck laterally and then lunging forward nearly half of the body length. Birds and small rodents comprise its food ; in searching for the latter it often takes to the ground and even enters native huts. There are several species of mambas now recognized, and in distribution they pretty well cover the southern part of Africa north to Abyssinia and the Niger. Mambas are said to be very sociable, several males and fe- males being frequently found inhabiting the same hollow in the trunk 306 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 of a tree, a crevice among boulders, or a hole in a bank, and often sharing their retreat with a black-necked cobra. The eggs are laid in dense vegetation, and the young snakes take to the trees as soon as they are hatched. THE REAB-FANGED SNAKES The boomslang. The boomslang (Dispholidus typus) belongs to the rear-fanged group of the family Colubridae and in build is like one of our racers. The color varies greatly, from green through all shades of brown to black, the scales of the lighter-colored individuals often being edged with black. An adult may measure over 6 feet in length. Its name in Dutch means “tree snake,” and the trees are its natural environment. In sparsely wooded country it takes to the ground to hunt frogs, liz- ards, ground birds, caterpillars, and various insect larvae. The eggs are laid in decaying vegetation on the ground. When biting, the boomslang does not readily let go when once it has seized its prey. Unless its grip is complete, the fangs do not penetrate the flesh, since they are set halfway back in the upper jaw under the eyes. Fortu- nately this snake is very timid and will make off into the bushes at the slightest alarm. When it bites, however, its venom is very active, and the results may be fatal to human beings, as they undoubtedly have been fatal to dogs, oxen, and other farm animals. AUSTRALIA, NEW GUINEA, AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDS Aside from the sea snakes of the family Hydrophidae which live in the waters of the northern coasts, Australia has but one family of pois- onous snakes, the Elapidae.? This family has an extremely large representation there, however, as 14 genera and 80 species are known. While a number of these are not considered dangerous to man owing to their small size, short fangs, and timid dispositions, the larger kinds are outstanding for their abundance, insolence, and high toxi- city. There is a great range in the toxic power among the really dangerous species. While the action of the poison is more largely neurotoxic—as in other members of the Elapidae throughout the world—there are some haemolytic effects as well. Most of the cases of snake bite in Australia could be avoided by the use of boots and leggings, as the snakes do not rear very far from the ground in at- tacking, and few are aboreal, hence the feet and legs of a pedestrian are in most danger of being struck by the fangs. New Guinea has, in addition to a liberal population of sea snakes, several representatives of some of the deadly kinds found in Australia. 2 Australia is the only part of the world where a majority of the snakes are venomous. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 307 There are no snakes in New Zealand, poisonous or nonpoisonous. The Hawaiian Islands are likewise devoid of them, as well as most of the scattered islands of the South Pacific. One genus of the fam- ily Elapidae, Ogmodon, is found in the Fiji Islands. Several of the same family occur in the Solomon Islands, while some of the sea snakes live in the surrounding waters. The black snake. This snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus, pl. 15, fig. 2), most abundant of the larger poisonous kinds of Australia, grows to a length of 6 to 7 feet. The smooth scales are satiny blue black above, while below they are brilliant scarlet edged with black. The neck is slightly extensible so that a “hood” about half as broad as that of a cobra can be formed. When about to attack, it does not rear like the cobra, but instead raises the head only a few inches from the ground. It will not attack man unless trodden upon or cut off from means of escape. It prefers marshy places or streams and dives and swims well. It can stay under water for a long time, and from its habit of lying still at the bottom of lakes and streams it is dangerous to bathers. Its food consists of frogs, lizards, and small mammals and birds. The young are born alive in March, up to two dozen to a litter. During the winter the black snake hibernates in holes in the ground. It is found through- out Australia, except in the north, but does not occur in Tasmania. Its bite is said to be less dangerous than that of the other large Aus- tralian snakes, owing to the lower toxicity of its venom. Several other snakes of the genus Pseudechis live in Australia. One of these, inhabiting central Queensland, grows to be 9 feet long, with proportionately large fangs and poison glands. A still larger snake, the giant brown snake (Oayuranus scutellatus) , belongs to a closely related genus. It is restricted to Cape York Pen- insula. It is known to reach a length of over 9 feet. The copperhead snake. | While a reddish-brown or dark-brown color usually characterizes this snake (Denisonia superba, pl. 16, fig. 1), occasionally a bright red or black individual is found. The head is usually of a coppery tone, especially so in the young ones. It is a stouter-bodied creature than the black snake and does not grow quite so large, as 6-foot specimens are considered uncommonly large. When angry, it is said to rear a few inches from the ground, with the neck slightly curved, as the cobra does. Like the black snake, it frequents swamps and feeds on lizards and frogs. It is found in southeastern Australia and in Tasmania. There are about two dozen other closely related species belonging to this genus in Australia, some of them being no more than 15 inches long and with relatively weak venom. 308 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The brown snake. The larger members of the genus Demansia are considered highly dangerous, especially the brown snake (D. tewtzlis, pl. 16, fig. 2), which is usually 5 to 6 feet long, and widely distributed all over Australia. It is light yellow to brown or gray above and white below. The young, hatched from eggs, are ringed during the first year. This snake has a small head, but its bite is extremely serious, owing to its highly toxic venom. The snake is all the more dangerous as there is nothing in its appearance or behavior to excite fear, since it resembles one of our whipsnakes. There are about a dozen species of this genus, and several of them are called whipsnakes, owing to their slender build. Related forms of this dangerous snake occur in New Guinea as well. The tiger snake. The dark bands on a tawny ground suggest the name of this, the most savage and dangerous of Australian reptiles (pl. 17, fig. 1). Sometimes the ground color is so dark that the bands are indistinct. The venom is of such extremely high toxicity that it is not equaled by that of any other known snake. It seems to cause more fatalities in Australia than all the other poisonous snakes of that country put to- gether. The tiger snake (Wotechis scutatus), when disturbed, becomes furious, spreads out the neck to twice its usual width, and rushes toward its enemy. It resents being interfered with by other snakes and is said to be more than a match for the black snake. A man bitten by this snake may die within an hour if no treatment is given, and a dog in less than 20 minutes. The tiger snake is between 5 and 6 feet in length when full-grown, and its body is rather stout. It is extremely prolific, producing 50 or more young in a litter. Its food consists mainly of lizards. It likes dry country, hence its range is extensive both in Australia and Tasmania. The death adder. A short, thick, clumsy body not more than 3 feet long, and resembling that of a viperine snake far more than its own relatives just enu- merated, characterizes the death adder (Acanthophis antarcticus, pl. 17, fig.2). In color it resembles the ground it lies on, so that it may be gray, brown, pink, or brick red, depending on the sandstone of the region in which a particular individual may live. In younger speci- mens, bands of darker shade cross the body; these may disappear with age. It is found in sandy localities over most of Australia except in southern Victoria, as well as in New Guinea and the Moluccas, thus having the widest range of any Australian poisonous snake. The young are born alive, about a dozen at a time. It has very rough scales, even on the head, and there is a spine on the tail. Its large head bears fangs that are no longer than those of the tiger snake, and DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 309 its venom is so active that it is reckoned as highly dangerous. It is not so quick to strike as the tiger snake, but as it is likely to be stepped on, it is a constant menace. The broad-headed snake (genus Hoplosephalusa, the black and white ringed snake (genus Fwrina), the red-bellied snake (genus Pseudelaps), and their allies are not considered very dangerous to man, either because of their small size, their relatively weak venom, or their short fangs, and therefore will not be considered here. The status of the poison of some snakes, such as Micropechis ikahekae of New Guinea and the Solomons, is not yet established. THE SEA SNAKES This family (Hydrophidae) is the only other family of poisonous snakes found in Australia besides the Elapidae just discussed. It would be more proper to say “in the waters off the coasts,” for these snakes are never found inland. Twenty-seven species have been listed from the waters bathing the northern shores of Australia; these belong to 12 different genera. Since this group has been discussed under the section on “India, China, Japan, and Malaya,” it will not be further touched upon here. DANGEROUS NONPOISONOUS REPTILES Certain of the nonpoisonous reptiles may be important to man for one or more of three reasons: First, because their large size and great strength may allow them to bite, scratch, or crush whoever is unwary enough to approach them too closely; second, because their natural food may comprise rats, mice, and other pests which, if un- checked, would destroy the results of man’s industry; third, because their skins, flesh, or eggs may be economically useful. While the following comments are by no means complete, they will nevertheless bring to mind some of the more dangerous nonpoisonous reptiles to be encountered in the various geographic regions, with a brief mention of their positive economic importance. NORTH AMERICA The three large nonpoisonous reptiles on this continent which may do considerable bodily harm if they are interfered with are the Ameri- can crocodile, the alligator, and the alligator-snapper (a turtle); a smaller but very vicious turtle, the common snapping turtle, is also considered. The several species of soft-shelled turtles (family Triony- chidae) occurring in the United States are vicious biters like their rela- tives in Asia and Africa, but their smaller size—not exceeding a shell length of 18 inches—does not warrant their inclusion among the more dangerous reptiles of this area. 566766—4421 310 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 THe AMERICAN CROCODILE In the United States the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus, pl. 18, fig. 1) is found in southeastern Florida and in the Florida Keys, while beyond our borders it is known from the Greater Antilles (except Puerto Rico), and on both coasts of Central America from Mexico to Ecuador and Colombia. It attains a length of more than 14 feet, and for so bulky a creature it is surprisingly agile on land, being able to run with its body raised clear of the ground. It usually rushes for cover if startled while basking on the shore, but if brought to bay before it reaches the water, it can turn on its pursuer quickly with snapping jaws, at the same time dealing a heavy blow with its tail. In the water it ap- pears to be inoffensive; nevertheless, a large one might be tempted to at- tack a person bathing near its haunts. Its narrow snout serves to distinguish it from its broad-nosed relative, the alligator. Its jaws are very powerful in closing, so that its bite could easily sever an arm oraleg. In Cuba, as elsewhere, it is actively pursued for its valuable hide. The flesh of the tail of all crocodilians is greatly prized as food by the natives wherever these reptiles are found. THE AMERICAN ALLIGATOR The American alligator (Alligator mississipiensis, pl. 18, fig. 2) is found in rivers and swamps of the lowlands of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, west to Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Rio Grande in Texas. Because of the industrial demand for the hides, large ones are hard to find nowadays, a 12-foot specimen being a rarity, although some as long as 15 feet probably once existed. It is timid by nature and will.try to escape into deep water when surprised. Like its rela- tive, the crocodile, it can defend itself with heavy jaws and threshing tail when the need arises. It feeds largely upon crustaceans, taking as many fish, turtles, birds, or small mammals as it can get, however. Very young alligators likewise devour insects. THE ALLIGATOR-SNAPPER The savage alligator-snapper (MMacrochelys temminckii, pl. 19, fig. 1) is a relative of the common snapping turtle, and because of its large size would be a serious menace to bathers except for its shy and secretive disposition. It is seldom found around heavily populated areas. It could defend itself very effectively against molestation by using its powerful jaws, but, as a matter of fact, accidents to human beings from its bite are very few. It attains a weight of about 140 pounds and a shell length of about 28 inches. It lies on the muddy bottom waiting for fish that may swim within its reach, enticing the fish to come near by opening its mouth, on the inside of which is a white filament of flesh, which looks like a large worm to a fish and acts as a very efficient bait. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN Bl! The flesh of this turtle was greatly esteemed by the Indians, for its bones can be found on many ancient camp sites. It occurs from Texas east to southern Georgia and northwestern Florida, as far south as the Suwannee River drainage system, north in the Mississippi Basin to central Illinois. Tue CoMMON SNAPPING TURTLE Found practically everywhere east of the Rockies south of Nova Scotia (excepting peninsular Florida), the common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina serpentina, pl. 19, fig. 2) is one of our commonest and most aggressive reptiles. It strikes with its head as a snake does and the sharp-edged jaws, although without teeth, can cause very seri- ous injury. A large one may weigh about 40 pounds, with a shell length of 14 inches. It is much less shy than its large relative, the alligator-snapper, and its fondness for shallow, muddy barnyard streams results in the loss of many young ducks and geese, which it catches by the foot and pulls under water to drown. It also feeds largely upon fish. Its flesh is sold in the markets, and the soup made from it ranks high on the menu of most sea-food restaurants. A subspecies occupies the peninsula of Florida, similar in habits and disposition to the common snapping turtle. LATIN AMERICA There are several kinds of large turtles found in Latin America, but none of these shows much inclination to bite even in self-defense, while their flesh and eggs are of decided value. Though snapping turtles related to those discussed above occur also in Mexico and Central America, they are rarely encountered. Several kinds of caymans and crocodiles, the anaconda, the boa, and some of the lizards large enough to scratch and bite complete the list of poten- tially dangerous nonpoisonous reptiles from this region. THE ANACONDA The anaconda (Zuneéctes murinus, pl. 20, fig. 1) is aquatic, often be- ing found submerged close to the banks of rivers in the Guianas, Brazil, and Amazonian Peru. It eats birds, mammals, crocodiles, fish, or anything that it can swallow. Its tremendous muscular power could be immediately fatal to a human being who was constricted within its coils, and undoubtedly there have been some fatalities, especially among Indians who go to the river to bathe. There is a difference of opinion as to the maximum size attained by this snake, some authorities maintaining that specimens over 30 feet long have been killed. It breeds when less than half that length, however, the young being born alive. A litter from a 19-foot female weighing 236 pounds we ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 contained 72 young snakes, each about a yard long. The leather made from anaconda hide is strong and of high quality, while its flesh can be used as food, since all snakes are edible. In Brazil its native names are sucuri or sucurijuba. Several varieties mostly based on color have been described. THE Boa The boa (Constrictor constrictor, pl. 20, fig. 2) has a much wider range than its relative, the anaconda, its several varieties being found from Mexico to the Argentine. Its maximum length seems to be about 13 feet. Some individuals can be quickly tamed in captivity, but others remain bad-tempered, striking and hissing with a great show of ferocity. Its sharp, recurved teeth can inflict a very severe and lacerating bite. It seldom stays long in water, but is an excellent climber and is frequently found in trees, where it goes to hunt for nesting or sleeping birds and small mammals. Its hide is much sought after, being very beautiful in color and pattern. THE BELIZE CROCODILE Found in great numbers in the Sibun swamp west of Belize, Brit- ish Honduras, the Belize crocodile (Crocodylus moreletii) has been doubtfully recorded as far north as Tampico, Mexico. It grows to about 10 feet in length. Water beetles and insects comprise the food of the younger individuals. It is too shy to be of much danger to bathers. Its hide is valuable to commerce. THE ORINOCO CROCODILE Noted for its ferocity, the Orinoco crocodile (Crocodylus inter- medius) is greatly dreaded by the Indians who live in the Orinoco Delta where it occurs. Early writers insisted that it was 25 feet long when full-grown, but few over 10 feet long are to be found nowadays. THE CAYMANS In Central and South America occur seven species of caymans, two species belonging to the smooth-fronted genus Paleosuchus, the others to the “spectacled” Caiman, the “spectacles” in the latter consisting of a heavy ridge of bone between the eyes, lacking in the former genus. Very little is known about the habits and life histories of the smooth- fronted caymans. Both species are small (about 5 feet). They are found in the Paraguay, Amazon, and Orinoco Rivers. As far as is known, they are not vicious toward man. The spectacled caymans live in streams of Central and South America. The only one that reaches a considerable length is the black cayman, Caiman niger, found in the Amazon, and known to reach a length of more than 16 feet. It is feared by the natives, who tell DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 313 many tales of its voracity. The Paraguayan cayman (C. yacare) is less than 10 feet in length, while the broad-snouted cayman (C. latirostris) from the Rio Sao Francisco and Alto Parana is about 7 feet. The flesh, especially that of the tail, is reported to be excellent eating. IGUANAS AND OTHER LARGE LIZARDS Several kinds of large lizards (genera /guana, Conolophus, pl. 21,fig. 1, etc.) can bite and scratch fiercely when captured. The true iguanas belonging to the genus Jgwana are extremely plentiful over most of tropical America including the southernmost of the West Indies. The value of their flesh as food, and of their skins for leather, makes them important to man wherever they are found. Most lizards are largely insectivorous, and in the insect-plagued Tropics every natural check on the increase of insect pests is to be encouraged. EUROPE AND NORTHERN ASIA There are no nonpoisonous reptiles of sufficient size to be dangerous to man in this region. Some snakes here, as elsewhere, will defend themselves if molested by attempting to bite. As these snakes can do little more than break the skin with their short teeth, they will not be further discussed. INDIA, CHINA, JAPAN, AND MALAYA This region is particularly rich in large and dangerous, though non- venomous, reptiles. The pythons come first to mind, then the Komodo “dragon,” the largest of all lizards living today. There are several kinds of smaller monitor lizards, close relatives of the Komodo dragon, able to battle fiercely with tooth and claw when their safety is at stake. The salt-water crocodile is known to be a man eater at times, and the Siamese crocodile is not blameless in this respect. The mugger and the gavial are less dangerous to man. The several kinds of soft- shelled turtles, while shy and retiring in habit, have knifelike jaws similar to those of their North American relatives and resent being disturbed in the same manner. THE RETICULATED PYTHON The snakes most frequently seen by the American public in side shows at circuses are the reticulated python (Python reticulatus) and the Indian python. The former is known to reach a length of 32 feet, but whether this snake or the anaconda of South America can truly claim the title of “largest snake in the world” is still somewhat in dispute. A 28-foot python weighs 250 to 300 pounds, so that it is far less bulky in proportion to its length than the heavy-bodied 314 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 anaconda. Its coils possess great constricting power, and a large python has no trouble in crushing a pig or goat, which it then pro- ceeds to swallow whole. The tales of pythons being able to swallow an ox are utterly false, but there is an apparently authentic story of a 14-year-old boy being eaten by a python in the East Indies. Leather made from python hide is very beautiful and is much desired by the trade, and before the war a great number of skins were ex- ported each year from Asiatic ports. THE INDIAN PYTHON Snakes of this species are welcomed by snake charmers because of their sluggish and “gentle” dispositions. Even in a wild state, the Indian python (Python molurus, pl. 22, fig. 2) is known to make little effort to escape, and when attacked often makes no attempt to avenge offense or injury. It is fond of lying partially submerged near the bank of a river and can remain under water entirely for several minutes. It possesses great muscular strength and, in spite of its lack of aggres- Siveness, can overpower a leopard with ease. It is active by day as well as by night, feeding on mammals, birds, and reptiles. Two color phases of this species are known, the individuals of one phase being light in color, the others dark. The extreme length is about 25 feet. THE Komopo Dragon LizArD The Komodo dragon lizard (Varanus komodoensis, pl. 21, fig, 2), the largest existing lizard, was unknown to science until 1912. It occurs on Komodo, Flores, Rindja, and Padar Islands, all lying close together east of Java and south of Celebes. Small deer and wild pigs form its staple diet, with turtle eggs which it digs up on the shore where other food is scare. It is extremely voracious, falling savagely upon a wounded member of its own species if it has the opportunity. It is naturally wary toward man, but fights desperately when cornered, using the tail as a means of defense, as the crocodilians do. Its maxi- mum size appears to be about 10 feet, and such an individual may weigh 250 pounds if in good condition. In walking, it swings its head from side to side close to the ground, usually dragging the tip of the tail. The young lizards before they are strong enough to pull down larger game climb trees to hunt for birds’ eggs. The old ones make burrows between tree roots and sometimes under rocks. OTHER MONITOR LIZARDS Nearly 20 species of monitors (genus Varanus) live in southern Asia and Malaya. After the dragon lizard, the largest of these, measuring 8 feet in total length, is the kabara goya (Varanus sal- vator), also called water monitor by the English because it is more DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 315 aquatic than the other Asiatic species. It climbs trees in search of food, but when frightened, it takes to the water for safety and has been seen swimming far out at sea. It can run at good speed when pursuing its prey on land. The soft-shelled eggs, from 15 to 30 in a clutch, are laid at the beginning of the rainy season in holes on the bank of a river or in trees beside the water. The desert monitor (Varanus griseus) lives in arid regions of northwestern India west- ward throughout southern Asia to the Caspian Sea and North Africa. Tt retires to its own burrow or the disused hole of some other animal during the heat of the day. The other species of monitors are more or less intermediate in habits between the two mentioned. Monitors can be destructive to poultry and their eggs, but this is offset by the number of rats and mice that they destroy. They can all bite and claw with great vigor when hunted down, and the tail is often used as a lash. Other monitors occurring in Africa will be mentioned below. Tur Sorr-SHELLED TURTLES Several genera of soft-shelled turtles (family Trionychidae), all very similar in appearance, occupy the region under discussion. They are fond of burying themselves in mud, with only the head and part of the back exposed, where they remain nearly invisible waiting for their food to pass, when they seize it with a quick movement of the long neck. They eat fish, mollusks, and frogs, but will take carrion also. Much of their food is found by hunting, for they are extremely voracious, and very active when swimming, although clumsy on land. The adults are vicious and powerful creatures, some species with the upper shell nearly a yard long. They are dangerous to handle, for they can give severe bites. Their long flexible necks enable them to reach most parts of their body, and when catching them the only place to hold them with safety is the margin of the soft disk or “shell” just in front of the hind limbs. Their flesh is said to be delicious, and they are for sale in many markets of the Orient. THE SALT-WATER OR ESTUARINE CROCODILE The salt-water or estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus, pl. 22, fig. 1) can without any doubt be called the giant among living reptiles, be- cause authentic specimens measuring more than 20 feet are known from the Philippines. The species ranges also to the east coast of India, Ceylon, Malaya, the north coast of Australia, the Solomon and Fiji Islands. It lives in the mouths of muddy rivers and canals near the sea, seldom ascending a river above tidal limits, and has been found several miles out to sea. Its huge size enables it to overcome large and powerful animals. It is the species that causes most of the annual loss of human lives in Asia which is attributed to crocodiles. When an individual 316 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 has once acquired man-eating habits, it appears to have a preference for human beings as food, probably because they are more easily ob- tained than wild beasts. It is only the adult crocodile that is able to attack man and large animals. Fish, birds, and turtles are likewise relished. Young ones eat crustaceans and even insects. The female makes a nest of reeds and rushes, the heat of decomposition of which incubates her eggs. The Burmese and some other Asiatic races are fond of the flesh of this crocodile, while the Siamese trap it for its gall bladder, believed by them to have remarkable medicinal powers. THE SIAMESE CROCODILE While the Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis) grows to a length of nearly 12 feet, it is not as a rule aggressive toward adult human beings, although small children are said to be seized sometimes. In the rivers it prefers to stay above the tidal limits. It feeds chiefly upon fish. Its flesh is sometimes eaten but is no longer a regular article of commerce. THE MuccER Two other popular names of the mugger (Crocodylus palustris) are the marsh and the broad-snouted crocodile. Its range extends through- out the whole Indian Peninsula and Ceylon, west almost to the Per- sian frontier in Baluchistan, north to Nepal and east to Assam. It lives in swamps and rivers, usually above the tide line. During the dry season it buries itself in the mud and aestivates until the rains come. It feeds chiefly on birds and fish, and only occasionally at- tacks man. The mugger is hunted by the natives of Sind, but only as a defensive measure in order to protect their fish. THE GAVIAL Living in rivers of India and Burma, the gavial (also spelled gharial) (Gavialis gangeticus) reaches a length of over 21 feet. Its food consists mostly of fish, with some birds, and it has been known to seize goats and dogs. It rarely attacks man and hence is little feared. AFRICA The dangerous nonvenomous reptiles found in Africa belong to the same groups as those found in Asia—in fact, one or two are of identical species on both continents. THE Rock PyTHON Reliable records indicate that the rock python (Python sebae, pl. 23, fig. 1) grows to a length of at least 25 feet. It is found all over Africa except in Egypt and the Mediterranean and desert regions of the north. It is common in some localities and remains so even in the vicinity of DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 317 some native villages, for it is often reputed to be supernatural, hence is avoided by the people of the region. Wart hogs are said to kill pythons sometimes, and crocodiles may occasionally become involved in a struggle when the snake drinks at a river. In Natal the rock python is a valuable ally of the sugarcane growers, for it devours considerable numbers of rats and is the chief enemy of the destructive cane-eating rat. Pythons are in consequence encouraged, and semitame specimens frequent most of the sugar factories. There are very few authentic cases of human casualties due to the rock python’s embrace, although there are plently of instances of fully adult persons being caught who were strong enough to get away. THE WARAL AND OTHER MONITORS The waral (Varanus niloticus), sometimes called the Nile monitor, is found all over Africa except in the northwestern part, being espe- cially conspicuous along the banks of the Nile. It is more or less aquatic in habit and lives largely on fish, but eats rats and mice with avidity also. Its habit of digging up and eating the eggs and young of the crocodile is sufficient reason to ensure its respectful regard by the natives. Its total length when full-grown is slightly over 5 feet. Several other monitors occur in Africa, though ranging over a less extensive area than does the waral. Some live in desert regions, one of these, Varanus griseus, being found in southern Asia. All can bite and scratch fiercely, and the tail-lashing habit is more or less prevalent. THE NILE CROCODILE The Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) attains a length of 17 feet, and is generally abundant from the Nile to the Senegal, and south to the Cape of Good Hope, as well as in Madagascar. It is extremely vicious and dangerous, taking many lives each year. Its food consists chiefly of fish, with birds and mammals unwary enough to come near it. The eggs are laid in dry sand, 40 to 60 in number, and are about the size of goose eggs. The young are nearly 6 inches long when hatched. They make for water at once, although many of them be- come the prey of the Nile monitor (Varanus niloticus) as already mentioned. The ancient Egyptians worshiped the crocodile, and its mummified remains have been found in tombs dating back thousands of years. THE LONG-SNOUTED CROCODILE The long-snouted crocodile (Crocodylus cataphractus) is definitely a West African species, being confined to the Congo basin. It attains a length of 12 feet. Like that of the gavial of India, its elongated snout is ideally adapted for fishing. Young individuals feed on anything they can find, including shrimps, crabs, frogs, snakes, fish, and even 318 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 grasshoppers. Not many accidents from the bite of this crocodile are reported; this may be due to the fact that palisades are erected in the river near villages where crocodiles occur, providing places of safety for bathing and obtaining water. Two other crocodiles, Osteolaemus tetraspis and Osteoblepharon osborni, are characteristically West African in distribution. The for- mer has a very short, turned-up snout but otherwise looks much like the latter. Both are rather small, not exceeding 5 feet, and probably are not at all dangerous to man. THE AFRICAN SOFT-SHELLED TURTLE The African soft-shelled turtle (7'rionyx triunguis) frequents the Nile, the Congo, and the Senegal Rivers and their tributaries, as well as rivers in Syria. When fully grown its shell is over a yard in length, and its body weight 200 pounds. It has all the biting ability of its relatives in Asia and in North America. In all parts of its range this turtle is hunted and eaten by the natives. AUSTRALIA Except for the large pythons and some monitor lizards and the salt- water crocodile, this region has few nonpoisonous dangerous reptiles. THE DIAMOND PyTHON The diamond python (Python spilotes) grows to a length of 20 feet, hence ranking with the half-dozen or more largest living serpents. In addition to eating rats, mice, and rabbits, it destroys some of the rarer and more valuable Australian mammals. Its skin is much sought after, and python farming for commercial purposes may some day be a reality. OTHER LARGE SNAKES It is necessary to give only a brief mention of the six or seven other large members of the python family (genera Python, Liasis, Aspi- dites) found in Australia, some of which are said to grow to 16 feet in length. They are mostly arboreal in habit and have great muscular power in constricting. It is well to emphasize again the fact that a great many Australian snakes not of the python family are dangerously poisonous. THE GOANNA The goanna (Varanus varius) is also known as lace monitor or (erroneously) as the iguana. It climbs trees habitually for birds’ eggs and young birds. It is equally fond of poultry and makes itself a nuisance in the henyards of populated areas. It bites severely with its sharp teeth if handled incautiously. di DANGEROUS REPTILES—-COCHRAN 319 The skin of the goanna is in even greater demand for shoes than snake skin, as it is tougher, and is very attractive when properly prepared. GovuLb’s MONITOR Unlike the preceding species, Gould’s monitor (Varanus gouldii, pl. 23, fig. 2) does not take to trees, but lives on the ground in holes and is usually found in waterless districts. It is much less vicious than the goanna, although it hisses loudly if vexed and inflates the loose skin of the body. It grows to a little over 4 feet in length. Other Australian monitors are more or less intermediate in habits between these two. THE SALT-WATER CROCODILE The salt-water crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), a dangerous man eater, has already been discussed under the section on Asia, since it ranges there as well as in northern Australia. It infests the tidal mouths of streams especially in North Queensland, and when sur- prised it actively resents any intruder’s presence. It has excellent hearing and is very difficult to approach for this reason, as it slides into the water at the slightest sound. It ascends water courses, so that the clear pools of fresh water in the upper reaches are by no means safe for bathers. APPENDIX FIRST-AID TREATMENT While it is not. within the scope of this paper to give any medical advice as to the treatment of cases of snake bite, it is desirable to re- publish the first-aid directions contained in a leaflet issued by the makers of standard antivenin serum. They say: IN CASE OF BITE Snake bites. should be treated immediately. The following first-aid measures should be employed: Mr FIRST AID Apply constricting band. above bite. just tight enough to prevent ‘absorption and not interfere entirely with flow of blood. A cold, numb limb means constric- tion is too tight and should be loosened. Make deep X-shaped: cuts % inch’ long through skin at points where fangs entered skin. Let the blood flow from these cuts. Make additional cuts at edge of swollen: area: Help flow of blood from these’ cuts. by suction. Make suction for 15 or.20. minutes every hour for.several hours. : ‘In-interval between suction treatment, cover with cloths wet with strong. solution of table salt or epsom salts in water. Don’t cauterize the wounds or r apply postassium permanganate. Don’t run or exercise. Don’t take any alcoholic stimulants; » 320 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 ASSOCIATED TREATMENT Of general measures apart from antivenin, sedatives such as morphine or aspirin, or small doses of a barbiturate may be given to relieve pain and nervous- ness. For collapse, strychnine, aromatic spirits of ammonia or other general stimulants are of some value. In all severely poisoned persons, great relief is likely to be experienced from the infusion of a large amount of physiological saline, or still better, transfusion of blood, the effects of which may be life saving in borderline cases. ANTIVENIN AND ITS PREPARATION Antivenomous serums used to combat the deadly effects of the bites of poisonous snakes are prepared by medical institutions in many coun- ties. In the United States the Sharp and Dohme Laboratories at Glen Olden, Pa., furnish a serum effective against the bites of all the important poisonous snakes to be found in this country, as well as serums for use in tropical America. “The first step in preparing an antivenomous serum, or ‘antivenin,’ is the extraction of the venom from the snakes by manually forcing it into a suitable container. It is then partially purified by centrifuga- tion, dried, and stored for use. As it is needed it is dissolved, steri- lized, and injected into horses, starting with very small doses which are repeated in gradually increasing amounts every week or every 2 weeks. Eventually the horses become so highly immune that they can with- stand amounts several hundred times as great as would kill a normal horse. Their blood is tested periodically to determine its antiven- omous potency. When it is up to a set standard, the horses are bled at regular intervals. The serum is separated from the cells and is con- centrated in such a manner as to remove much of the inactive sub- stances, leaving a highly active material that is the antivenin of com- merce. In general, it may be said that an antivenin is satisfactorily effec- tive only against bites from snakes of the same type that supplied the venom used in its preparation. Jt may be useful in treating bites from closely related species, but usually it is worthless, or nearly so, in accidents from unallied types. Thus, an antivenin prepared against the venom of a rattlesnake is useless, or nearly so, in treating bites of cobras, and vice versa. Fortunately, however, it is possible to prepare one antivenin that will counteract several different venoms, merely by using a mixture of venoms in immunizing the horses. This method is used in the United States and results in a product that is effective in treating bites of all native poisonous snakes except the coral snake, bites from which are rare. Such polyvalent serums are prepared in other countries as well, and they greatly simplify the treatment of bites. When the snake responsible for the bite can be DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN 321 identified beyond any doubt, it is best to use the specific antivenin, if one is available.” (Nigel Wolff, personal communication. ) A famous laboratory for making antivenin for the bites of neo- tropical poisonous snakes is the Instituto Butantan at Sao Paulo, Brazil. In exchange for live snakes from which to obtain fresh venom, which are sent in by planters and farmers all over Brazil, the institute furnishes fresh antivenin to use in the many cases of snake bite occuring among the laborers clearing ground for new plantations. The death rate from snake bite in Brazil was estimated to be about 3,000 a year before the establishment of the institute. In 1930, however, after careful tabulation, the total appeared to be well under 100. In Australia, the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories at Melbourne manufacture antivenin for the bites of the tiger snake and death adder, the two most deadly snakes of that region. In the French colonies, various branches of the Pasteur Institute provide serums for different kinds of local poisonous snakes. The Burroughs-Wellcome products, of English manufacture, are available in India and Egypt and other areas of British influence, while the South African Institute for Medical Research, Johannesburg, supplies serum for the bite of many African species. DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING SCIENTIFIC COLLECTIONS In little-explored regions there is always the incentive of dis- covering unknown species, which would be of great scientific value if they could be collected and preserved for the United States Na- tional Museum in Washington, D.C. It is relatively easy to preserve snakes, lizards, frogs, and toads. All that is necessary after killing them is to make a short incision with a penknife on the ventral surface into the stomach and intestines, then they can be dropped into a solution of 1 part formaldehyde and 10 parts water and left for 2 or 8 days. They should then be changed into a fresh solution of the same strength. When they are to be packed for shipment, an empty gasoline tin should be lined with paper or straw to prevent the rust from discoloring the skins of the preserved specimens. The specimens themselves should be loosely wrapped in cheesecloth damp- ened with formaldehyde, with the place of collection, the date col- lected, and the name of the collector very plainly written with soft black pencil on heavy paper. This information is absolutely neces- sary, for without it the specimens are valueless. The gasoline tin may then be soldered shut, and the specimens will keep for several months without more attention. Those interested in natural history will find it a pleasant occupation for spare time to make such collec- tions, and the collections will be assured of prompt study and identi- fication upon their arrival at the United States National Museum. 322 = ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ANTIVENIN INSTITUTE OF AMERICA (NOW SHARP AND DOHME). 1927-1931. Bull., vols. 1-5. Glen Olden, Pa. BouLeENGcER, E. G. 1914. Reptiles and batrachians. London and New York. - BOULENGER, GEORGE A. 1880. The fauna of British India including Ceylon and Burma. Taylor and Francis, London. 1912. A vertebrate fauna of the Malay Peninsula. Reptilia and Batrachia. Taylor and Francis, London. 1913. The snakes of Europe. Methuen and Co., London. BurRDEN, W. DOUGLAS. 1927. The dragon lizards of Komodo. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London. CoNANT, RoGER, and BriIpGEs, WILLIAM. 1939. What snake is that? D. Appleton-Century Co., New York and London. CurRAN, C. H., and KAUFFELD, CARL. 1937. Snakes and their ways. Harper and Brothers, New York and London. DeE Roorgs, NELLY. 1917. Reptiles of the Indo-Australian Archipelago. II. Ophidia. E. J. Brill, Leiden. De Sota, C. RALPH. 1933. The crocodilians of the world. Bull. New York Zool. Soc., vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 2-24 (photographs), Jan.—Feb. Dirmars, RayMonp L. 1907. The reptile book. Doubleday, Page and Co. 1930. The poisonous serpents of the New World. Bull. New York Zool. Soe., vol. 33, No. 3, May—June. 1934. Snakes of the world. Macmillan Co. Firzsimons, F. W. 1912. The snakes of South Africa. Longman, Green and Co., London. GabDow, HANS. 1901. Amphibia and reptiles, in The Cambridge Natural History. Macmil- lan Co., New York and London. GLoyp, Howarp K. 1940. The rattlesnakes, genera Sistrurus and Crotalus. Chicago Acad. Sci., Spee. Publ. 4. KincHorn, J. R. 1929. The snakes of Australia. Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney, New South Wales. Lucas, A. H. S., and Le Souer, W. H. D. 1901. The animals of Australia. Mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Whitcomb and Tombes, Melbourne, New Zealand, and London. PITMAN, CHARLES R. S. 1938. A guide to the snakes of Uganda. Kampala. Pops, CiLirForD H. 1987. Snakes alive and how they live. Viking Press, New York. 1939. Turtles of the United States and Canada. Knopf, New York and London. ScHmipt, Karr P. 1919. | Contributions to the herpetology of the Belgian Congo based on the collection of the American Congo Expeditions, 1909-1915. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 39, art. 2, pp. 885-624. DANGEROUS REPTILES—COCHRAN ove ScHMinT, Karr P., and Davis, D. DwicHrT. 1941. Field book of snakes of the United States and Canada. G. P. Put- nam’s Sons, New York. Smitry, Matcorm A. 1926. Monograph of the sea-snakes (Hydrophiidae). British Museum, London. 1931. The fauna of British India. Reptilia and Amphibia, vol. 1, Loricata, Testudines. Taylor and Francis, London. 1935. Idem, vol. 2, Sauria. STEJNEGER, LEONHARD. 1895. The poisonous snakes of North America. Ann. Rep. U. 8. Nat. Mus. for 1893, pp. 337-487. Von IHERING, RODOLPHO. 1934. Da vida dos nossos animais. Fauna do Brasil. Rotermund, Sao Leopoldo. WALL, FRANK. 1907. The poisonous terrestrial snakes of our British Dominions and how to recognize them. Higginbotham, Madras. 1921. ‘The snakes of Ceylon. H.R. Cottle, Ceylon. fay MY ; aah vehi hem 3 Spi aN wary ‘ ante Pao An oh rs ace sh nage 3 Meee, ODT ta ois ji a at Wie ie : We} wh f ¥ i a RL | PRS Ue al BG te 0 Fen ee sh acer pe Fs.) fy isu r TP ld Ne i i rE by Pe at fan ye. y CANS eh (Seleg JY UeINg UBIUOSyIIUIg ASeqIno0;y) ‘edoiny Jdeoxe JUeUT{UO0D AIOAA UI Indd0 ‘soyeus suldv[a Joy}O puw SBIGOd VY} SULPN[OUL ‘SoAT]V[OI S,AYVUS [B10D OY} ‘BISY Jo sjred ul pue PHOM MON 94} Ul ATO punoj ore ‘sJodta 41d oy) ‘searejer s,pwoyreddoo oy} ety AA “soyeus snouostod Jo sdnois jueB{1od uit {SOUL OM AY} JUASeIdoI SABO] OY] SuOUIR SUI[MBIO (SNIQIN{ SNINLIY) PYBUS [R109 BY PUB YdOI 94} UO po[lod (Wosayou UOpo‘siyby) pesyeddod oy J, | 3LV1d uely20y—"Ep6] *quoday uetuosyzIWG Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 2 le Bs tt a ’ 1 om 2 rn so tiie as wil i oh a 1. Coral snake (Micrurus fulvius), also called harlequin or bead snake. Color: wide rings of crimson and black, the latter narrowly bordered with yellow (see plate 1). Length: 3 feet. Range: North Carolina to Florida; the Gulf States and Mississippi Valley States north to Ohio and Indiana. Poisonous. (Courtesy Philadelphia Zoological Society.) Bs ues ic SEES “a irt Ras OE 6 gat as ' ; ee St NED se , dha Se i te as od 2. Timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus), also called black or banded rattler. Color: yellow or tan with wavy cross bands of dark brown or black, sometimes almost entirely black. Length: 516 feet. Range: Maine to Georgia, west through Louisiana to Texas; the Mississippi Valley States into Wisconsin. Ex- tremely poisonous; aggressive if disturbed. (Courtesy Philadelphia Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 3 1. Carolina pigmy rattler (Sistrurus miliarius), also called ground rattler. Color: grayish with a series of darker rounded blotches and a reddish band along the back. Length: 2 feet. Range: North Carolina to Georgia and Alabama. Poisonous. (Courtesy Dr. W. Gardner Lynn.) 2. Copperhead (Agkistrodon mokeson), also called rattlesnake pilot, chunk-head, and highland moccasin. Color: pale brown, pinkish or light reddish brown, with a series of chestnut-brown hour-glass-shaped markings (see pl. 1). Length: 4 feet. Range: Massachusetts to Georgia and the Carolinas, exclusive of peninsular Florida. Not aggressive unless disturbed. Poisonous. (Courtesy Philadelphia Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 4 ® : ; e. al ] 1. Tropical rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus terrificus), also called cascabel. large dark brown ‘‘diamonds”’ on the body, and a pair of dark longitudinal stripes on the neck. Length: 6 to 7 feet. Range: drier parts of the Guianas, Venezuela and Colombia to northern Argentina, Paraguay, and southern Brazil. Most poisonous of all the rattlers: very aggressive. (Courtesy Bulletin of the Anti- venin Institute.) Color: yellowish gray with ¥ 2. Bushmaster (Lachesis mutus), a!so called la cascabela muda in Central America, sirocucu in Brazil, and mapepire z’anannain Trinidad. Color: pale brown, often pinkish, with a series of large brown blotches wider on the back and abruptly narrower on the sides. Length: over 11 feet. Range: southern Central America through tropical South America, including Trinidad. Exceedingly poisonous; aggressive. (Cour- tesy New York Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran Mare ay e aye se 1. Fer-de-lance (Bothrops atror), also called barba amarilla, jararaca, terciopelo, or tomigoff. Color: gray to olive, brown or reddish, with dark, light-edged cross bands or triangles, the apex of these extending to the center of the back. Length:8 feet. Range:southern Mexico to central Brazil, also Trinidad and Tobago; Martinique and St. Lucia in the West Indies. Exceedingly poisonous. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) ar. £. E ; Tot ite hw Somes sa a oe Bars Stet ee Cte P. x: 9 March’s palm viper (Bothrops nigroviridis marchi). Color: uniformly brilliant green above, merging into yellowish green on the sides. Length: not quite 2 feet. Range: Honduras. Dangerously poisonous. (Courtesy Nature Magazine.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 6 is Sec Dataueeas NNaste s : % 1. Hog-nosed viper (Bothrops nasuta), also called nose-horned viper. Color: brown with alternating small black spots along the back separated by a pale line. Length: 2 feet. Range: eastern Central America to Colombia and Ecuador. Poisonous. (Courtesy Nature Magazine.) Metaerd ee i PP ARE ae oe 2. Mussurana (C/lelia clelia), a beneficial snake because of its habit of eating other snakes, especially the fer-de-lance. Color: blue black above, white below (Central American specimens). Length:8 feet. Range: Guatemala through Brazil. Back-fanged, but the bite not fatal to man. (Courtesy Nature Magazine.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 7 Mexican beaded lizard (Heloderma horridum). Color: yellow with dull brown or black irregular markings. Length: 244 feet. Range: Central Mexico to northern Central America. Not aggressive unless disturbed. £72 Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 8 ess 1. Common viper (Vipera berus), also called adder or kreuzotter (in Germany). Color: gray, olive, brown, or reddish, uniform or with small dark lateral spots; a dark zigzag pattern along the back. Length: over 2 feet. Range: Great Britain; northern Europe, and Asia to the Amur River and Sakhalin Island; south- ward in Europe to the Pyrenees, the Apennines, and the Balkans. Dangerously poisonous, savage, and quick. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) 2. Orsini’s viper (\V7pera ursinii), also called marasso alpino in Italy. Color: yellowish or pale brown with a series of dark brown spots which may run together in a wavy or zigzag band; sides dark gray or brown. Length: 2 feet. Range: southern France, northern Italy, Hungary, and parts of Jugoslavia. Slightly poi- sonous; not aggressive. (Courtesy Bulletin of the Antivenin Institute.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 9 1. Daboia (Vipera russellii), also called Russell’s viper or tie-polonga. Color: pale brown, with 3 rows of large black rings bordered with white or yellow, having red or brown centers. Length: 5 feet. Range: India, Ceylon, China, the Malay Peninsula, and some of the East Indian islands. Extremely poisonous; not aggressive unless disturbed. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) ee BT 2. Indian cobra (Naja naja), also called spectacled or Asiatic cobra. Color: yellowish to dark brown, with a black and white, usually spectacle-shaped mark on the hood when spread. Length: 6 feet. Range: eastern shores of Caspian Sea through Asia into China and Formosa, the Malay Archipelago, and the Philippines. Exceedingly poisonous; aggressive when disturbed. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 10 1, King cobra (Naja hannah), also called hamadryad. Color: olive or yellowish brown, often with black cross bands. Length: over 18 feet. Range: eastern India, China, the Malay Archipelago, and the Philip- pines. Extremely dangerous; very aggressive. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) Br vou 2. Banded krait (Bungarus fasciatus), also called ular welang in Malay. Color: yellow above, with broad black rings. Length: nearly 5 feet. Range: southern India and China, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo, Extremely poisonous; not aggressive unless disturbed. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 11 Cree 1. Night adder (Causus rhombeatus), also called Cape viper. Color: gray, with a chain of dark, light- edged spots along the back. Length: 3 feet. Range: the greater part of South Africa to the Nile. Extremely poisonous; aggressive when disturbed. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) 2. Puff adder (Bitis arietans). Color: a series of black chevrons separated by yellow crescents down the back. Leneth: 5 feet. Range: southern Morocco and the southern Sahara to the Cape of Good Hope, also Arabia. Extremely poisonous; hisses loudly when disturbed. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PEATE 1/2 1. Rhinoceros viper (Bitis nasicornis), also called river jack. Color: a row of large blue oblong marks down the back, with a yellow line in the center and black borders; a series of dark crimson triangles bordered with blue on the sides; top of head blue with a black arrow-shaped mark pointing forward. Length: 4 feet. Range: tropical West Africa. Extremely poisonous, but not aggressive. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) : | biases 2. Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica). Color: a series of oblong buff marks enclosed in brown ovals along the back, with a chain of purplish marks outside of these; sides with triangular purplish blotches; eyes silvery. Length: nearly 6 feet. Range: forests of West Africa, also Uganda, Tanganyika, Northern Rhodesia, Angola, and the island of Zanzibar. Extremely poisonous. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) ithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PIPATE ic: 1. Common sand viper (Aspis vipera). Color: pale yellowish or pinkish with fai rker blotches. Length: 2 feet. Range: northern Africa from Algeria to Egypt. Poisonous. (Courtesy , York Zoological Society.) 2. Ringhals (/7aemachates haemachatus), also called keel- ed spitting cobra. Color: brown or dull bl above, sometimes with cross bars of brown; underside b h, except for a pale band or two on the neck. Length: about 4 feet. Range: Cape of Good Hope and Namaqualand. Dangerously poisonous not only from the bite, but from its habit of spraying poison in the eyes of its victim, and very aggressive. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—-Cochran PLATE 14 Phage pag cet ae eet et 1. Egyptian cobra (Naja haje), also called asp. Color: brown, sometimes with faint darker markings. Length: 6 feet. Range: northern and eastern Africa from Morocco to Natal. Extremely poisonous; irritable and aggressive. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) 2. Water cobra (Boulengerina stormsi). Color: light brown with a series of black, light-centered bands or spots on the body. Length: 8 feet. Range: lakes and rivers in Cameroon, the French and Belgian Congos, and Lake Tanganyika. Degree of toxicity unknown; aquatic; not aggressive out of water. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Re ort, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 15 1. Green mamba (Dendraspis viridis). Colo en or dark olive, uniform or each scale brown at the end; lips yellowish, outlined with black. Length: 749 feet. Range: West Africa from the Senegal to the Niger. Poisonous. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) 2. Australian black snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus). Color: above blue black: beneath scarlet, the scales often edged with black. Length: 6 to 7 feet. Range: Australia, except the northern part. Poisonous. (Courtesy Bulletin of the Antivenin Institute.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 16 wRpee 1. Australian copperhead (Denisonia superba). Color: brown to black above, the head usually coppery. Length: 6 feet. Range: southeastern Australia and Tasmania. Dangerously poisonous; not aggressive. (Courtesy Bulletin of the Antivenin Institute.) _2. Brown snake (Demansia tertilis). Color: light brown or gray above, white below; young specimens ringed with black. Length: 5 feet. Range: widely distributed throughout Australia. Extremely poisonous; not aggressive. (Courtesy Bulletin of the Antivenin Institute.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 17 1. Tiger snake (Nofechis scutatus). Color: green, gray, orange or brown, with dark bands. Length: over 5 feet. Range: southern half of Australia. Extremely poisonous; very aggressive. (Courtesy Bulletin of the Antivenin Institute.) ae 2. Death adder (Acanthophis antarcticus). Color: brownish or gray, with dark bands which are most apparent in the young. Length: 3 feet. Range: dry parts of Australia, except Victoria. Extremely poi- sonous. (Courtesy Bulletin of the Antivenin Institute.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 18 1. American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus). Color: adults olive to dull gray; young, greenish with black markings. Length: over 14 feet. Range: southeastern Florida and Florida Keys; the Greater Antilles except Puerto Rico; both coasts of Central America from Mexico to Ecuador and Colombia. Usually not aggressive but dangerous because of powerful tail and jaws. (Courtesy National Zoological Park.) e 3 2. American alligator (Alligator mississipiensis). Color: Adults uniformly black or dull gray; young, black or dark brown with bright yellow cross bands. Length: about 12 feet. Range: from the Carolinas to Florida, west through the Gulf States to the Rio Grande in Texas. Usually timid, but able to defend itself by lashing its tail and biting savagely. (Courtesy National Zoological Park.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 19 1. Alligator-snapper (Macrochelys temminckii). Color: light brown or yellowish. Shell length: about 28 inches. Range: from Texas to southern Georgia and northwestern Florida, as far south as the Suwanee River drainage system, north in the Mississippi basin to central Illinois. Shy and retiring in the wild state, but able to bite viciously when disturbed. (Courtesy Philadelphia Zoological Society.) 2. Common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina serpentina). Color: upper shell dull olive or dark brown; lower shell yellowish; head and limbs very dark above, light beneath. Shelllength: about 14inches. Range: eastern North America from southern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, except peninsular Florida, where it is replaced by a related subspecies. Able to inflict a severe bite with its sharp-edged jaws. (Courtesy A. I. Ortenburger.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 20 1. Anaconda (Hunectes sp.). Color: olive with two rows of large black spots on back, and smaller ones, often with yellowish or orange centers, toward the belly; orange dark-bordered streak on side of head. Length: possibly over 30 feet. Range: Guianas, Brazil, and Peru. Constricts and crushes its victim; jaws with long, backward-slanting teeth to hold prey. (Courtesy Philadelphia Zoological Society.) 2. Boa (Constrictor constrictor subsp.). Color: pale tan or yellow to reddish brown, with dark brown saddles often enclosing lighter markings; scales highly iridescent. Length; about 13 feet. Range: Mexico to the Argentine (in several varieties). Constricting and biting. (Courtesy Philadelphia Zooloicgal Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 21 ae + ag 1. Galapagos land iguana (Conolophus sp.). Color: head and neck dull orange to yellow; body, tail, and limbs dark brown. Length: about 4 feet. Range: the Galapagos Islands. While these and other large iguanas of other genera are not at all aggressive, they can bite and scratch with great vigor when captured. (Courtesy National Zoological Park.) 2. Komodo dragon lizard (Varanus komodoensis). Color: dull brown or black; tongue yellow. Length: about 10 feet. Range: restricted to four small islands (Komodo, Flores, Rindja, and Padar) lying east of Java and south of Celebes. Wary toward man, but very strong and a vicious fighter with teeth, claws, and lashing tail. (Courtesy Philadelphia Zoological Society.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—-Cochran PLATE 22 1. Salt-water crocodile (Crocodylus porosus). Color: dark olive brown to black. Length: up to 33 feet. Range: India, Ceylon, southern China, the Malay Archipelago, the Solomon and Fiji Islands, and northern Australia. Extremely vicious and aggressive, being accountable for many deaths each year in the Malay region and India. (Courtesy New York Zoological Society.) 2. Indian python (Python molurus). Two color phases: dark olivaceous with almost black markings, and bright tan with olive-brown blotches, with usually a pinkish band on each side of head. Length: up to 25 feet. Range: India, the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, and Java. Sluggish and “gentle,’’ but because of its great size able to constrict, crush, and bite. (Courtesy National Zoological Park.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cochran PLATE 23 1. Rock python (Python sebae). Color: pale brown above, with dark brown sinuous cross bars; sides witb large and small dark spots. Length: 25 to 30 feet. Range: Central and South Africa. Able to crush and constrict because of its great strength, as well as to bite savagely if disturbed. (Courtesy Philadelphia Zoological Society.) ~ eee 2. Gould’s monitor (Varanus gouldii). Color: blackish with yellow dots in rosettes on the back. Length: about 5 feet. Range: Australia and New Guinea. Like others of this genus, it fights with teeth and claws and threshing tail when threatened. (Courtesy National Zoological Park.) THE PLANTS OF CHINA AND THEIR USEFULNESS TO MAN By Easpert H. WALKER Assistant Curator, Division of Plants, U. S. National Museum [With 12 plates] Foreigners traveling in China are struck by the contrast between the barren, treeless mountains and hills, with here and there small patches of dense forest hiding the picturesque temples, and the inten- sively cultivated fertile valleys or strikingly terraced hillsides. Scholars delving into the history of the people or the causes for the locations of the present centers of population find that the plants and their distribution, past and present, lie at the base of many problems. Foreign residents meet curiosity-arousing plants on their rambles or strange plant foods on their tables. The great majority of the Chinese people are farmers, a much larger proportion than in America. Likewise most merchants are constantly dealing with plants or plant products in their business transactions. These and many other considerations stress the importance to China of her plants and vegetation. The flora of China is the richest of any temperate region in the world and is one of the most, if not the most, important and useful to man. Although it has long been explored and studied, no one has yet prepared a manual of the flora of this vast area or of any major part of it comparable to our well-known Gray’s Manual of Botany or Britton and Brown’s Illustrated Flora of the Northern States and Canada. HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS OF BOTANY IN CHINA How we have come to know about this plant wealth is important in understanding what we know about it and where to find the re- corded knowledge. Recently a student came to the Smithsonian In- stitution to find a detailed map showing the distribution of the vege- tation in China and its character in every locality. Had he under- stood the stage of development of our knowledge of the botany of China, he would have known that no such map existed and that the 566766—44-_22 325 326 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 materials from which one could be prepared are widely scattered, very incomplete, greatly generalized, and often very unreliable. It is therefore of advantage to trace the history of the botany of China before viewing the vegetation as a whole and examining some of its principal component parts; that is, the individual species, of which there are over 15,000 now known, with hundreds of new species being described every year. This history has three branches: the first, the accumulation of knowledge now represented in the rich Chinese literature prepared before the advent of modern science; the second, the development of scientific knowledge by westerners; and the third, as yet only a vig- orous shoot scarcely 25 years old, the development of Chinese scien- tific botanists and institutions. PRESCIENTIFIC STUDY BY CHINESE Chinese nonscientific knowledge can be traced back to the mytho- logical emperor and scholar, Shen Nung, who is supposed to have lived some 2,000 years B. C. In the third century B. C. a diction- ary of terms, including botanical names, which were used in the an- cient Chinese classics, was compiled by Chou Kung under the title “Ehr yah.” In 1590 appeared the most important of all Chinese botanical works, the herbal called “Pén ts’ao kang mu,” by Li Shih- chen, a record of all knowledge of Chinese medicinal plants. Since that time many editions of this famous work have been prepared, as well as other herbals. Most of the data recorded in these numer- ous Chinese works are agricultural, medicinal, or economic. Valu- able information on plants is inscribed in the huge Chinese encyclo- pedias, which are often so large as to dwarf our familiar reference works of this type. More information is buried in the numerous pro- vincial and regional gazeteers. A few western scholars of the Chi- nese language, or Sinologues, have delved into these storehouses of literature and have made translations of scattered portions, but the bulk of this material is still hidden from modern scientists in the intricacies of the Chinese language. It is of relatively little value to us from the purely scientific point of view but is of use in the field of economic botany. STUDY BY WESTERNERS The growth of our western scientific knowledge of the plants of China shows a steadily increasing seriousness in its scientific objectives, progressive changes in the nationality and qualifications of its workers, expansion of the areas where they worked, and changes in the loca- tion of the centers in which they labored. The earliest westerners who came to China were much interested in the strange new fruits PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 327 and economic plants which were used by the Chinese people and which happened to come to their attention. Later westerners made more serious search for plants grown in Chinese gardens and shipped cuttings and seeds home so that their own gardens and greenhouses might be enriched. Later still definite exploration for useful plants was undertaken, from which developed scientific botanical exploration and the collecting of herbarium specimens of all species. The first westerners who concerned themselves with the plants of China were traders whose primary interest was business. These were followed by specially employed plant explorers, the earliest of whom were not highly trained as botanists. Later came better-qualified men to gather and interpret the wealth of botanical material so much desired by horticulturists, agriculturists, and scientists in the west. It is specially significant that almost all the European countries and the United States were interested in exploring for China’s botanical treasures, for the open-door policy in China prevented any one nation from excluding the others. In the beginning, of course, all material collected was sent back home, so that today the important scientific collections are scattered throughout Europe and the United States. Later, when stable centers were established in or near China, botanical work was carried on from places nearer the collecting grounds, and at least part of the material was retained in the country. Soon after Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain in 1841, the Hong Kong Botanical Garden and herbarium were established, and similar institutions in various places were started as opportunities opened up. In the earlier part of the present century western missionary schools, colleges, and universities were founded and, together with various native Chinese schools and institutions, undertook botanical work. Until recently most of the basic or purely technical study has been done in Europe or America, Jargely because the institutions in China lacked the basic scientific collections so essential to such studies, but now much is being done by Chinese in China. This story of Chinese botany is closely bound up with the pro- gressive opening up of China to western penetration. At first only the prized plants of Chinese gardens in the few coastal cities open to foreign trade were known. Later the foreigners were permitted under special restrictions to explore the nearby hills. Still later, when the great diplomatic missions were allowed to travel overland between Peiping and the southern ports, glimpses were obtained of the botani- cal wealth of the interior. Following the opium wars, 1840 to 1861, permission was wrested from the reluctant Chinese rulers to penetrate farther inland and to establish consulates, customs stations, mission compounds, and other centers from which botanical work could be conducted. Eventually botanical explorers began to enter the back 328 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 door of China from Burma and to scour the far distant borderland and even the still largely forbidden land of Tibet. Now the eastern part of China is closed to all outsiders except the Japanese, and the westerners can enter only by the back door. Of course the first westerner to observe the plants of China was the Italian merchant Marco Polo. His written accounts of what he saw contain many references to the plants and vegetation and are of some use in reconstructing a picture of the vegetation in the thirteenth century, so different in many places from that found today. But to scientific knowledge Marco Polo made almost no contribution. From the rediscovery of China by the Portuguese in 1516 to the ex- clusion of the western botanists from eastern China after “Pearl Harbor,” there has been a steady accumulation of knowledge of Chinese botany by the west. Following on the heels of the Portuguese traders came Jesuit missionaries, who, unlike the merchants, pene- trated far into the interior. In 1601 the Dutch arrived but their pred- ecessors, the Portuguese, were too well established to permit these newcomers to do much in China, so the Dutch concentrated their efforts on Japan and were more important in the botanical history of that country. They introduced tea into Europe soon after their first ar- rival. The English came in 1637 and the French at a somewhat later date. When the Swedish botanist Linnaeus wrote his epoch-making Species Plantarum, published in 1758, he had access to a surprising number of Chinese plants brought by the Swedish sea captains or sent by various traders established in the few coastal ports then available, especially by the enterprising chaplain Peter Osbeck at Canton. As these treasures from the east and other parts of the world reached Europe, gardens were established for their cultivation and herbaria were built for their preservation. Scientific societies were formed to promote world exploration and to study the accumulated specimens. Thus grew the famous Chelsea Physic Garden in London and the Royal Gardens, the latter now the world-famous Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, almost universally known simply as Kew. Likewise there were established the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and botanical gardens in Leiden, Geneva, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and elsewhere. After 1800 there was developed the Royal Botanic Garden in Calcutta with its eminent botanists, especially Wallich and Roxburgh. The Royal Horticultural Society, the Linnaean Society of London, and other scientific organizations were founded, and botany thrived throughout Europe. Governments became interested in the subject, and botanists accompanied many of the world exploring expeditions that were so popular during the eighteenth century and the first half of the nine- teenth. All these foreigners except the Russians began their activities in China at coastal cities. The Russians, however, pushed overland and PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 329 entered China from the north as part of their exploration of Siberia and adjacent lands, and today the basic botanical collections from northern and northwestern China are to be found in Leningrad. The first real American botanical interest in China came with the famous Perry expedition, which forced Japan to open her doors to foreign trade in 1854. Charles Wright, the botanist of the expedition, collected in China only about Hong Kong and Canton. His collec- tions were studied by our own famous Asa Gray, working closely with European botanists. Sets of duplicates were sent to London, St. Petersburg, and probably Paris or Berlin. The famous Russian botanist, C. J. Maximowicz, founded several new species on Wright’s collections. Numerous famous botanists were associated with various aspects of this increasing interest in botanical exploration. Robert Fortune ex- plored the coastal regions of eastern China from 18438 to 1861, largely for the Royal Horticultural Society of London, and practically ex- hausted the possibilities of Chinese gardens as sources of material for cultivation in Europe. He wrote several very readable books on his explorations, and from Chekiang and Fukien he obtained tea plants from which were developed the now extensive and important tea plantations in northern India. He was unable, however, because of restrictions on travel, to penetrate very far into the back country. The most learned botanical scholar in China in the nineteenth cen- tury was probably H. F. Hance, a consular officer established in Hong Kong and Whampoa below Canton. He accumulated there a fine herbarium, wrote scholarly botanical papers, and corresponded ex- tensively with other botanists and collectors in the east. His herbar- ium eventually reached the British Museum. Charles Ford and various others were in charge of the Hong Kong Botanical Garden and enriched these collections by exploring southern and southeastern China. Augustine Henry was a medical officer and assistant in the Chinese Maritime Customs, who was stationed at various times in Formosa and Hainan, and at Ichang in Hupeh, and Mengtze and Szemao in Yunnan. He was much interested in studying the economic botany of the country and collected, with the aid of Chinese assistants, thousands of herbarium specimens, which were sent to Kew, whence duplicates were distributed to various herbaria throughout the world. They are now considered among the best and most important of all botanical collections from China. Besides collecting herbarium ma- terial, Henry observed the uses made of these plants and wrote an important account of the economic plants of the country. Among prosperous businessmen in Shanghai around 1870 was an energetic American, F. B. Forbes, who delighted in collecting plants on his week-end houseboat trips in the vicinity. Having need for a 330 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 list of the known plants of China, he persuaded the famous British botanist, W. B. Hemsley, who named his collections, to prepare a list of all the known plants of China. This project developed into the only comprehensive enumeration of all the plants of China ever writ- ten, namely, An Enumeration of All the Plants Known from China Proper, Formosa, Hainan, Corea, the Luchu Archipelago and the Island of Hongkong, published between 1886 and 1905. Forbes’ name appears as first author, but, although he made some contributions, the work is largely the result of Hemsley’s effort. It was never intended to be a manual for ready identification of the plants mentioned and is now greatly out of date. It is important, however, as it brings together the scattered material published up to that time. In 1899 the search in China for ornamental and other useful plants was renewed with great vigor. In that year E. H. Wilson, trained as a gardener at Kew, was sent to China by the famous horticultural con- cern, Veitch & Sons, of England, with the encouragement of C. S. Sargent, founder of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Wilson subsequently made several trips for this American scientific institution, the first in this country to interest itself seriously in the Asiatic treasures. Following Wilson there came three Britishers: George Forrest, who died in Yunnan; Reginald Farrer, famous for his additions to English garden plants; and Francis Kingdon Ward, who is still exploring in Asia. Austria was represented by Camillo Schneider and H. Handel-Mazzetti, the latter marooned in China by the First World War. American workers included Frank N. Meyer, pioneer plant explorer for the United States Department of Agri- culture, who was drowned in the Yangtze River (pl. 11, fig. 1); P. H. Dorsett, another Government explorer of North China in the 1920's, now deceased; and J. F. Rock, an enthusiastic collector in western China for our Government and other organizations, recently returned from Yunnan, Most of these men and others were employed pri- marily. to bring back seeds and cuttings of economically useful plants and more or less incidentally to make scientific herbarium collections. However, their dried specimens and technical publications have con- tributed greatly to the knowledge we have today of the rich flora of China. Because they were especially interested in plants for cultiva- tion. in temperate Europe and America, they confined their en- deavors largely to the rich hunting grounds of western China, first explored about 1870 by the French missionary-explorer, Armand David. Frank N. Meyer and P. H. Dorsett, however, made especially valuable discoveries of little-known cultivated plants in northern, cen- tral, and eastern China. Meyer, furthermore, penetrated into Chinese Turkestan and beyond. ; PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 331 THE BEGINNINGS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY BY THE CHINESE Until about 1918 practically all the scientific botanical work in China was done by foreigners from Europe and America, who took back to their home countries all their valuable collections. But following the Chinese Revolution in 1911, the idea was developed of initiating simi- lar work by Chinese as part of the modernization of China. In 1916 the staff of Canton Christian College, now called Lingnan University, started accumulating a herbarium with the encouragement of W. T. Swingle, of the United States Department of Agriculture, and of E. D. Merrill, then director of the Bureau of Science in Manila, and estab- lished a department of botany where students were trained to do re- search work. F.A.McClure,a member of the staff, a plant explorer of many parts of South China, especially of Hainan, and collaborator with the United States Department of Agriculture, undertook the in- vestigation of the bamboos for the purpose of training Chinese stu- dents in scientific research. About the same time Nanking University, another mission school, and National Southeastern University, a gov- ernment institution, now called National Central University, started herbaria and undertook similar work. Gradually other schools, espe- cially those under the Government, inspired by the examples of the earlier ones and staffed by their graduates or by botanists trained abroad, instituted botanical research. In the beginning various for- eign foundations fostered these developments by direct or indirect means, and later, Chinese scientific societies and other organizations aided their growth. Soon the initiative in botanical work was taken by trained Chinese botanists, most of them with degrees from American or European universities. At first these herbaria were dependent on foreign specialists for most of the naming of their collection, because the basic collections needed for comparison were in Europe and Amer- ica, and library facilities in China were inadequate. But gradually these obstacles have been overcome by obtaining photographs or dupli- cates of important collections or by making new collections which were carefully compared with the older ones, and by buying books or getting photostats or other reproductions. Now many parts of China have been explored by Chinese botanists and large collections of valuable material have been accumulated. These workers have been able to penetrate areas either not accessible to foreigners or not worth their exploring because of their primary interest in horticulturally useful material from temperate regions. There has thus been a steadily increasing interest in Chinese botany from the time of the first Portuguese trader to the establishing of modern herbaria and scientific research by Chinese institutions. Much has already been learned, but there still remains extensive work to be done. 332 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 THE PRESENT STATUS OF CHINESE BOTANY The principal botanical centers in China before the war were Canton, the Nanking-Shanghai area, and Peiping, with some activity in Sze- chwan. In Canton were Lingnan University and Sunyatsen Uni- versity. In Nanking were Nanking University and National Central University, the Academia Sinica, and the Botanical Laboratory of the Science Society of China. In Peiping the principal institutions were the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology and the National Academy of Peiping, the former especially interested in southwestern China, the latter centering its activities largely in Mongolia and Sinkiang, or Chinese Turkestan. On Lu Shan near Kiu Kiang, in Kiangsi Prov- ince was the Lu Shan Arboretum under the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology. This arboretum is now established in Likiang, Yunnan. Besides these major centers many other colleges, universities, and societies were engaged in botanical work, such as Amoy University, which was especially interested in marine algae, Hong Kong University, National Wuhan University, Kwangsi University, Science Institute of West China, and others. It is of considerable interest and of no little importance in the light of Chinese-American relations to note that most of this work by Chinese botanists has its roots in American activity in China. Thus their methods and points of view are primarily American rather than European, and a far larger proportion have degrees from American than from European universities. In Japan the reverse is true. Of the many fine Chinese botanists, one of the most outstanding is Dr. H. H. Hu, head of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, a graduate of Harvard University, now president of Chung Cheng Uni- versity (Chiang Kai-shek University) at Taiho, southwestern Kiangsi Province. Prof. W. Y. Chun, of Sunyatsen University, also a Harvard student, whose present location is unknown, is especially versed in the flora of southeastern China and Hainan, where he has collected ex- tensively. On the fall of Canton to the Japanese forces he established the university’s herbarium temporarily in Kowloon in British territory opposite Hong Kong Island and saved most of the collections. The col- lections he could not remove from Canton are reported to have been taken by the Japanese to Formosa. We have no knowledge of what happened on the fall of Hong Kong. R.C. Ching (pl. 11, fig. 2), head of the Lu Shan Arboretum in Likiang, Yunnan Province, is the fore- most authority on ferns, and Dr. Y. L. Keng, of National Central University in Chungking, is a thorough scholar who has specialized on the grasses of China. Prof. W. P. Fang, of National Szechwan University, Omei Hsien in Szechwan Province, is working on the flora of that region and has made extensive collections. Dr. Tseng Cheng-kwei, who is still in America, is a specialist on marine algae, PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 333 and Li Liang-ching, last heard from at the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology in Peiping, is an authority on fresh-water algae. Dr. Tai Fang-lan, a student of fungi, was at least formerly with National Tsinghua University, now joined in exile with the National Southwest Union University in Kunming, Yunnan. At this same Union Uni- versity is C. Y. Chang, a plant morphologist. Many others, equally worthy of mention, are in various places unknown to us because of the wartime disruption of communication. Whereas in former years in- quiries about Chinese plants were usually directed to some foreign institution, now they can be directed to Chinese botanists at home. Even at the present time botanical work is going forward in China. Research and even exploration is being carried out, although on a small scale and under tremendous handicaps, and scientific papers are occasionally printed. Exchange of publications with western na- tions is impossible, except as many scientific periodicals in America are being microfilmed and sent by mail through cooperation with the Cultural Relations Division of the United States Department of State. It should not be forgotten, however, that much botanical work on Chinese plants is still being done by westerners in America and Europe. Dr. E. D. Merrill, director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, is the foremost authority in America, and that institution, along with the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University. has the finest collection of Chinese herbarium specimens in the United States. The United States National Herbarium in Washington has many thousands of specimens in the care of the present writer, who is especially interested in the plants of China. The New York Bo- tanical Garden, the University of California, and the Missouri Botanical Garden also have large Chinese herbaria. In Europe the largest collection is probably at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, but very large and important deposits are at the British Museum in London and the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. In Berlin there was developed a large and very important herbarium, which is reported to have been almost completely destroyed in March 1943 in a bombing raid. Other important collections are in Paris, Vienna, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Leningrad. THE LITERATURE ON CHINESE PLANTS Ever since the time of Marco Polo and the earliest Portuguese explorations, people have been writing about the plants of China. There is now a tremendous literature written in almost every Euro- pean and Far Eastern language and in the books and periodicals of almost every country. It deals with these plants from almost every point of view, taxonomic, economic, agricultural, geographical, and 304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 others. Because these plants from China have found their way into cultivation in all parts of the world, horticultural and agricul- tural literature is full of valuable accounts of interest to students of Chinese botany. Much of the literature is highly technical and would be of little interest to the general reader. Very little of a popular nature has been written on the plants as a whole; indeed the subject is so vast and there is so much even yet unknown that it is a difficult task to treat the flora as a whole. Everyone in China who is interested in plants longs for a manual by which he can learn the scientific, Chinese, and sometimes the common English names of the trees, shrubs, and herbs about him, but no one has yet undertaken to write such a comprehensive work. For a few restricted areas there are such books, but they are of little use outside their boundaries. A few years, ago Dr. E. D. Merrill and the writer compiled A Biblio- graphy of Eastern Asiatic Botany, listing over 21,000 titles of books and papers on the plants of China proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, Japan, Formosa, Korea, and eastern Siberia. It is the most extensive regional plant bibliography ever published. By means of its extensive indexes one can find a great mass of information on many subjects. For further details on the principal works on Chi- nese plants, see pp. 360-361. FLORAL REGIONS OF CHINA The great number of species of plants in China, numbering over 15,000 seed plants and ferns alone, along with the great diversity in the vegetation, ranging from the steaming Tropics of Hainan Island to the cold, wind-swept Mongolian deserts and from the China Sea to the eternally snow-capped peaks of Tibet, makes the task of gaining a general concept of China’s flora a difficult one. The aver- age person in most parts of China sees, besides the well-tended plants in cultivated and usually irrigated fields, a limited amount of wild vegetation. This consists largely of scattered trees among the culti- vated fields (pl. 1, fig. 2) or along roadsides and paths or an occasional grove in or near a village (pl. 4, fig. 1). Striking oases of luxuriant vegetation hide the temples and monasteries scattered about the countryside or nestled in mountain valleys. One will notice also that most of these mountains and hills are covered with grass or small shrubs (pl. 1, fig. 1), or bear scattered pine trees of no great size (pl. 2). But if one travels into the interior on the divides between the major rivers and away from tillable lands, he may find genuine forests, even dense primeval jungles. The most outstanding feature of the Chinese landscape to a new- comer from the west is the barren and treeless appearance of the hillsides throughout most of the country. Reforestation is the most PRIM | Northeastern ¢ 2 Gobi Desert Re 3 Loess Region 4 Middle China " LY lanes: tp, ee ee re aaa) : ~ a a OF or : e ar wart ; * ‘ a if © PAotat y nah are ea s Pt + - : sei at hah ey 7 7 1.2 4 ner 1 7 ay) ie a : Lane iy Bai er. cy oe Soy. ee : a as° 90° = PRINCIPAL FLORAL REGIONS SEE Rte ee : ae OF is ae eee CH / N A ne ee j 5 . | Northeastern China 5 Ss . ( ° “5° outhern China ; Bae oo Region Sen Yunnan OrUAr Bo MONGOL, ; aN : egion Highlands of Western Chi ts MQ . 4 Middle China 8 Grasslands of het Pd - oHarbin vi 5 Be Ri A” € CHAHAR pg = 5 =e ° “| pe ON ¢? \ rr a \ fa ie “Sf ie } 2 ad —_ G oO \ ° ° {‘— b Wn — -? Mukden f = he 0 ) ie a NN ER yore, ee erate. oon SUTY UA F 3 f + --Z, . Peking 2 : Ae oy Pa . leo o ' Zack : (ee LSS : CHOPEH) = m e e ’ -\ e0teeee wan te i $ PP ag v ZL FS varay E y SHANSI WO | ‘ 2 ata v . [3 $a / é \ 3 ) SHANTUNG i. )e? a f F\ ws vel 2 es - 000s = << ~r ae KW | °° Rs 05; HONA ° ) ak Sian ) N ~\ = e? 4 ) . he e 4 s “felhetodesesd, / oN : Sw co a Cetee 4 ° J 3 \ i BN ~~ BH fi i | i ia -\ 3 1 => ees 3} e as “oii $ . , \ —“~, é i , — ( AwvUekeE Apkon* me wel ret ) : engti ; 75 ‘ii a 5? ad Pe aed 4 ee See =—~ AN ‘ g ye te pee 4. par len he Cenantens ee ve eal > Changsha » i : _ v lane, I = Wumete ere HUNAN yy 7 ] ¥ < Roam 5\ A ji) ore” eee Cee cjanspregnenanls Clas) eget oe eS a Ee cons A ene e fon mS oN D> os ! } INDOCHINA SIA M } 100° ‘A 10 566766—44 (Face p. 334) Figure 1.—Principal floral regions of China. oe ‘eros a0 te ’ y= yi a. «se focdie . | RM L\xD ery rita on Th f is 5 fie** - e a. 3 - te y » \ . : >? o Fey < > —s Ls - i ‘ * r 4 . a, { q po ‘ < « 2: : } 3 aed ‘ e! f hes é ” / * 7 .! 4 L 2 , ; ,, Be ~*~ Ot iusd® teysasd—.t arid ens PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 5H 9) urgent economic problem in China next to that of raising enough food for its millions of people. The vegetation of China varies with respect to the rainfall and humidity, which are in turn governed largely by the direction of the winds, the seasons, and the location and altitude of the mountains, which rise in the west to peaks over 22,000 feet. The distribution of the rainfall throughout the year, the average temperature, the ex- tremes of temperature, the character of the soil, and various other factors also determine the type of vegetation found in any given area. As these factors differ widely throughout the country, so there is great variation in the vegetation. Geographically China can be divided into at least eight floral regions as follows (see also map, fig. 1, where approximate bound- aries are shown) : 1. Northeastern China, including most of Korea and extending from northern Manchuria to the great plains of China, marked off from the lower Yangtze Valley by the extension of the Tsinling Mountains, and reaching westward to the Gobi and Ordos Deserts and the loess regions of Shansi. 2. The Gobi Desert region of Mongolia, especially the southern part, including the Ordos. 3. The loess region covering eastern Kansu, most of Shensi, and part of Shansi. 4. Middle China, comprising the main part of the country from the Tsinling Mountains on the north to the Nan Shan on the South (that broad range which separates the watersheds of the Si Kiang from the Yangtze Kiang) and extending westward across the plateau of Yunnan and the basins and lesser mountains of Szechwan to the foot of the snow-capped peaks in the west. 5. Tropical and subtropical southern China, including most of Kwangsi, all of Kwangtung except the most northern part, coastal Fukien and southern Chekiang, and of course Hong Kong and Hainan. 6. Southwestern Yunnan, which has the same type of luxuriant tropical vegetation as adjacent Burma. 7. The highlands of western China with their deep river gorges and snow-capped peaks and corresponding parts of western Szechwan and Kansu. 8. The grasslands of eastern Tibet, covering parts of Sikang, Tsing- hai, and Kansu. If Tibet as a whole be included in this greater China area, two more floristic regions would be added, namely: (1) the northern plain or Chung Tang along with the Tsaidam, the part with internal drainage; and (2) the outer plateau, the part of Tibet drained by several rivers which flow through great gorges across the Himalayan Range. 336 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 These divisions are not clearly marked off from each other, but gradually intergrade. Of course it must not be supposed that the vegetation is uniform within these divisions; it actually varies con- siderably according to soil, altitude, and climate. Also in general aspect the vegetation in most parts has been enormously changed by man from that which unhindered Nature has developed. In fact, to a very large extent we can only determine what is the normal vegetation by careful study of the few remnants which man has not yet altered. The plants that compose the vegetation of these regions can be divided according to their geographic affinities. For example, the banyan trees of southern China occur elsewhere only in southern Asia, and the species of pines found in Manchuria occur elsewhere only in Siberia and northeastern Asia. Thus the plants of China can be divided into the following eight groups based on their geo- graphic affinities, with the addition of a ninth group, if the strictly cultivated plants be considered as part of the flora of the country. 1. Palaearctic, consisting of plants which occur in northern Asia, often also in Europe and northern North America. 2. Central Asiatic, occurring in Turkestan and vicinity, usually also in Asia Minor and often even in northern Africa. 3. Himalayan, consisting of plants found in the temperate and alpine parts of this vast range south of Tibet. 4. Indo-Malayan, the plants which are found exclusively or nearly so in Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula, and the East Indies. 5. Insular or Japanese, including plants extending over Hokkaido, Japan proper, the Liu Kiu Islands, and Formosa. 6. North American, consisting of that group of plants found in eastern Asia and eastern North America, which has been of so much interest to plant geographers. 7. Cosmopolitan, those which occur so widely distributed over the world that they cannot be considered as indigenous of any one part. 8. Endemics, or those plants, either species, genera, or even fam- ilies, which occur nowhere else. The following discussion is mainly concerned with the floral re- gions, because considerable knowledge of the distribution of plants is needed in order to understand floral affinities. However, these re- lationships will be considered in connection with each region. NORTHEASTERN CHINA This floral region includes Manchuria, most of Korea, the great plain of China in Shantung, Shansi, Chihli or Hopei, and most of Ho- nan, and extends south over northern Anhwei and Kiangsu. It is bounded on the west by the loess deposits of Shansi and Shensi and PLANTS OF CHINA—-WALKER Bae the desert and grasslands of Mongolia, including the Ordos Desert in the great bend of the Yellow River. This is a region of rather se- vere winters and adequate, but not extremely abundant, rainfall. The climate is greatly influenced by the monsoon winds, although less so than in the regions farther south, and is not extremely continental, as is that of Mongolia and of central and northern Asia. The characteristic plants are broadleaved deciduous Temperate Zone trees and shrubs, the genera of which are mostly familiar to people of eastern North America, such as oak, maple, birch, beech, ash, walnut, elm, willow, etc. There are many conifers, such as larch, spruce, fir, and pine, but they are found in less abundance or on the higher mountains. Bamboos are found in northern Korea. In Man- churia and northeastern Asia occurs that gorgeous phenomenon of autumn leaf coloration, so familiar to us in the northeastern United States and Canada, but occurring nowhere else in the world to such a degree. Throughout most of this region in China proper the trees now occur singly or in small groves. Originally great forests extended almost unbroken, though changing in constitution, from Manchuria and even farther north, all the way down through eastern China to the tropical jungles. There remain today large forests in northern Korea and in some of the mountainous parts of Manchuria. These forests furnish much valuable timber for use in northern China and even for export to Japan and elsewhere. Until about 30 years ago there were some magnificent forests east, west, and north of Peip- ing, which were saved by the emperors for hunting preserves; but, with the passing of the last imperial dynasty and the uncontrolled pressure of the population for forest resources, these have rapidly dwindled to almost nothing. In Shansi has occurred the same phe- nomenon; the once great forests on Wu Tai Shan described in early Chinese literature have steadily dwindled till now there is almost nothing left. The tragic story of this mountain has been ably told by W. C. Lowdermilk and Dean R. Wickes under the title “History of Soil Use in the Wu T’ai Shan Area.”1+ This account, prepared in connection with our own Government’s soil conservation efforts, was traced largely from the records found in various Chinese works. In north-central Shensi, north of the loess-filled valley of the Wei Ho and south of the loess area of the northern part of the province, are some forests of pine, birch, and poplar, which might be considered as belonging to this floristic region. It has been reported that in this wild area, partly denuded in earlier years, the forests returned to some extent after the destruction of the population in the great Moham- 1 Published as a monograph issued under, the auspices of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 31 pp., illustrated, 1938. 338 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 medan rebellion of 1867 to 1878. In the mountainous or hilly Shan- tung Peninsula the original forests have disappeared and been re- placed in small part through scientific reforestation, in some cases with foreign trees such as American black locust, Scotch pine, and others. This work was started when the area was partially under German control. The ranges of many of the dominant plants of this northeastern region extend northward into Siberia. These species are thus con- sidered as Palaearctic. There are, however, a number of endemic species of considerable importance. Here occur also a number of plants belonging to the eastern Asiatic-eastern North American group, as for example the popular oriental medicinal plant ginseng. THE GOBI DESERT REGION The Gobi Desert region covers most of Inner and Outer Mongolia and includes the Ordos Desert within the great bend of the Yellow River. It is really the eastern end of the great desert region that extends from northern Africa across Arabia, Iran, central Asia, northern Tibet, and Sinkiang or Chinese Turkestan. The flora of all these regions is closely related, the ranges of many species found in the Gobi Desert extending far to the west, some even to Africa. The driest and most desertlike part is in the south, roughly along the line of the Yellow River, where are found in places, especially in the Ordos and in eastern Kansu, large wind-blown sand dunes with no vegetation to hold them in check. Elsewhere are rock-strewn plains or hills with an occasional, usually dry, watercourse, along which occurs'some vege- tation consisting largely of drought-resistant, dull green shrubs, trees, and grasses. Just north of the Yellow River he paralleling mountain ranges, the Alashan and In Shan, which are high enough to intercept in summer the remnants of the monsoon winds from the southeast and to drain from the clouds sufficient moisture to maintain forests of spruce, pine, and poplar. Toward the southeast, east, and north the desert becomes more moist and merges into grasslands, which in turn merge on the north into the forests or steppes of Siberia and on the east into the Manchurian forests. There are of course very few trees and shrubs in the true desert. Those which can survive the extremes of this severe continental climate and the scant moisture are mostly willows, elms, poplars, tamarisks, saxauls, and a few others. The saxaul (Haloxylon ammodendron) is the most characteristic plant of this desert as of all central Asia. It is a leafless tree, rarely reaching 30 feet in height, with green branches, and is a member of the goosefoot family (Chenopodiacae), which is largely composed of herbs and semiwoody shrubs. The garden beet and the common lamb’s-quarters or pigweed of our gardens and PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 339 waste places belong in this family. A favorite food of the camels and other browsing desert animals is the nitre bush (Witraria scho- beri) of the caltrop family (Zygophyllaceae), which grows in the saline soil so common in deserts. It isalsoan emergency food for man. The characteristic central Asiatic desert vegetation is largely com- posed of other members of these same families and of the orpine and tamarisk families (Crassulaceae and Tamaricaceae, respectively), and certain genera and species of the mustard (Cruciferae), pea (Legum- inosae, especially the spiny caraganas), pink (Caryophyllaceae), and other families as well as euphorbs, sedges, and grasses. The interest- ing drug plant H’phedra, rather new in western medicine, but long used by the Chinese, is found in the desert. There are no endemics in this flora, a fact of considerable im- portance in considerations of the extent to which the deserts of Asia may be man-made and how much they are the result of natural condi- tions. Whatever may be the answer to the question of the origin of the Gobi Desert, we are very sure that it is gradually extending itself east- ward and southward and encroaching on the more habitable lands which man needs. Besides the unmistakable historical evidence for this progressive desiccation, which is to be found in ancient written records, in the reports by people still living, telling of present desola- tion where once they saw green fields, and in the ruins of once prosper- ous cities now buried in sand, we have botanical evidence in the buried and fossilized remains of trees of species which can grow only under more moist conditions than now exist. Other evidence is seen in the re- mains of Chinese agricultural activity north of the Great Wall, where now it is impossible, and in the increasing occurrence of dust storms spreading down over China, even as far as Canton. Probably, this pro- gressive desiccation is a result of a progressive change in climate, and nothing will stop it except a reversal of the trend. In this advance of the desert the conifers succumb first, and then the maples, oaks, walnuts, and other hardwood trees. The poplars, elms, and willows survive the longest, and these constitute the principal trees found today in the towns and cities along the Yellow River and the edge of the Gobi Desert. In some places one finds the fruitful jujubes or Chinese dates cultivated or wild. For people who are accustomed to seeing the best of woods used in ship construction it is rather hard to imagine boats made of willow planks, but, having no better material available, boat- builders on parts of the Yellow River or Hoangho must of necessity use this material. THE LOESS REGION The dust blown out of the Gobi Desert has throughout the ages settled down on regions to the south, building up great deposits of the distinctive material called loess. This deposit varies in thickness 340 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 from a few inches to several hundred feet and covers a large area in Kansu, Shensi, and Shansi. (For approximate location, see map, fig. 1.) The climate of this area is essentially continental, and the vegetation is scarcely better off for quantity of moisture than is that in the Gobi and Ordos Deserts. Most of the rain comes in July and August. How- ever, the fine loess soil holds by capillarity the water which it does receive and raises it from the water table to heights where deep-rooted plants can reach and use it. The loess itself is highly fertile, and good crops of shallow-rooted plants can be grown where sufficient water can be brought to the fields. Thus, the loess region is better provided with vegetation than is the desert, but yet, as compared with the rest of China, the plant cover is woefully thin. In composition this vege- tation is closely related to that of central Asia and the desert regions. Jujubes, poplars, elms, and willows constitute the principal woody plants. There are no endemics. In all probability forests grew here in former times, but scarcely any remnants are left today. As wood is lacking there is little fuel and practically no timber for building, but the happy circumstance that the loess deposits can be tunneled into without caving in enables whole villages to be carved out of the cliffs, and wood need be used only for doors, window frames, furniture, and farm implements. As the walls of these cave dwellings conduct little heat, the houses are cool in summer and warm in winter. The great problem in the loess region is that of erosion by water and by wind, aided by violent earthquakes. With such unstable conditions prevailing and with the inhabitants scraping the hillsides for every possible bit of fuel, a thriving native vegetation could hardly be expected. 7 MIDDLE CHINA The bulk of the flora which is commonly thought of as character- istically Chinese is found in the great basin or basins of the Yangtze River and its tributaries. This is the largest floral province in China and extends from the Tsinling Mountains, southern Honan, and north- central Anhwei and Kiangsu on the north to the northern border of Kwangsi, the northern portion of Kwangtung, and southern Fukien, and from the coast of the China Sea, except parts of Fukien and Chekiang, westward to the lower parts of the high snow-clad moun- tains in the west. The plateau of Yunnan lies within this floral area. The Tsinling Range on the north effectively cuts off the cold winds of central Asia and permits the vegetation toward the south to thrive under the more benign influence of the summer monsoon from the southeast. Hence, in contrast with the cool-temperate flora of north- eastern China and the desert vegetation of the Gobi and loess regions, we find in middle China a warm-temperate or even, in places, a sub- tropical vegetation. It varies, of course, with the distance from the PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 341 sea and the consequent intensity of the rainfall and its distribution through the growing season. The monsoon reaches the Yangtze River in April and Kansu in late summer. Furthermore, the regularity of the monsoon winds decreases toward the north, where, because of the caprices of these winds, occur most of the well-known periodic famines of China. For instance, that of 1877 and 1879 in Shansi was the result of a continuous current of air flowing down the Yangtze Valley which prevented the monsoon winds from the south or southeast from reach- ing northern China as they usually do. As in most of the northeastern floristic region and in the semi- tropical part to the south one of the most significant features of the vegetation in middle China is its alteration by man. Wherever agri- culture is at all possible, we find the native wild vegetation entirely replaced. The demands of the dense population for fuel and other plant products are so great that the original vegetation on the neigh- boring hills, which cannot be cultivated, has been largely destroyed. Only the hardiest native plants remain, unless protected by temples or monasteries or sometimes by enterprising villages in communal forests or woods. True forests remain only where they cannot be ex- ploited profitably because of their distance from rivers on which logs can be floated to market. Im consequence of the almost complete alteration of the native vegetation in the various large basins and valleys which comprise this area, we can learn of the original vegeta- tion of middle China only by studying the forests still remaining on the major divides. The northernmost forested area is the Tsinling Range lying south of the loess area and dividing the Wei and Han Rivers in southern Shensi. It extends eastward into Honan where it is much less prom- inent. The eastern part of this range reaches up to 12,000 feet in places, high enough to have subalpine rhododendron thickets above a zone of firs (Adzes), pines, birches, and willows. Somewhat lower down, especially on the southern side of the range, occur forests of deciduous broadleaved trees, as in northeastern China, but containing species less tolerant of the severe winters of that area, such as ash, liquidamber, Fortunea, Paulownia, Catalpa, Ailanthus or tree-of- heaven, and even bamboo. South of the upper part of the Han River, forming the northern and eastern border of Szechwan, lies the Ta Pan Shan, which, together with the Tsinling Shan, is the eastward extension of the Kuenlun Range separating Turkestan from the Tibetan Plateau. Forests of great commercial importance are found in the Ta Pan Shan in Szechwan, southern Shensi and western Hupeh. From them much timber and many other products, such as various gums, resins, nut galls, edible fungi, and medicinal plants, are exported to adjacent 566766—44_23 342 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN iNSTITUTION, 1943 populated areas. These forests contain many of the same species of trees as are found in the Tsingling Shan, with the addition of some more southern species such as Dalbergia hupeana, valued for its heavy, close-grained wood used for farm implements, oil presses, and similar objects. The boats built on the Han River are better than are those built on the Yellow River, for here are found many more suitable woods, among them being Paulownia and Catalpa. South of the Ta Pan Shan in eastern Szechwan is a hilly area where many trees are grown for their commercial products, especially wood oil (pl. 8, fig. 2), varnish (pl. 8, fig. 1), and wax, and mulberries for their leaves to feed silkworms, and bamboo for its multitude of uses. These trees are also grown throughout most of the Red Basin of Szechwan. This province is so well protected from the severe conti- nental climate of central Asia by mountains on the north and west that it has in places an almost subtropical vegetation. Much fog occurs here in summer; indeed, the name of the next province toward the south or southwest, Yunnan, means “south of the clouds.” The high humidity is especially favorable for plant growth. South of the Yangtze, in southern Szechwan, Kweichow, south- western Hupeh and western and northwestern Hunan, are more mountains whose forests have been saved from exploitation by their inaccessibility. In general, these forests have the same composition as those on the Ta Pan Shan, but there are in addition many species with more southern affinities. The important southern fir, Cunnninghamia lanceolata, which also is found north of the Yangtze River, but not north of the Han Ho, is found here. Western Hunan and the ad- jacent parts of eastern Kweichow have been very important centers of timber supply to central China for many centuries. Here are found pines of species different from those of northeastern China, also Cedrela sinensis, a northward-extending member of the mahog- any family (Meliaceae), the camphor tree, and nanmu (Phoebe nanmu), a tree of the laurel family (Lauraceae) with exceptionally valuable wood, various oaks and chestnuts, and many others. It has been reported that there are in Hunan many forests or woods planted, protected, and managed in a very satisfactory manner by clan effort. These are located away from the main traveled routes and are not com- monly seen by people just passing through. Another important forest-bearing area is the Nan Shan Range, a broad, irregular mountainous tract extending east from the Yunnan plateau and separating the Yangtze valley from that of the Si Kiang or West River in Kwangsi and Kwangtung. In its inaccessible parts are forests, primarily of the oak-chestnut formation. These are, however, mere remnants of the vast, rich forests which once grew here and include, of course, many other species than oak and chestnut. PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 343 Along with those species which form the forest canopy are found also members of the tea family (Theaceae), essentially a subtropical group of trees and shrubs. Characteristic of the lower woody plants are members of the laurel family (Lauraceae). Indeed, the members of this group in middle China are so prominent that the vegetation of central China and Japan is sometimes referred to as of the “laurel type.” Conifers are not abundant, but the south China fir, Cunning- hamia lanceolata, thrives here and is the most promising tree for re- forestation. The more primitive people dwelling here use this species in maintaining forests in northern Kwangtung and elsewhere. It is encouraging to read that where Chinese are in close contact with these earlier inhabitants of the land, they are using this same species in re- forestation work. This fir is very easily grown, because it sprouts readily from the cut stumps and may be grown from cuttings. The only other conifer with the natural] ability to propagate vegetatively is the Sequoia or giant redwood of our west coast. The only other major forested watershed of middle China is formed by the mountains of southeastern Anhwei, Chekiang, Fukien, north- eastern Kwangtung, and the adjacent border of Kiangsi. In this area are still found some fine and even fairly extensive coniferous and broadleaved forests, the former of several valuable species, the most important being red pine (Pinus massoniana, pl. 2), the funeral cypress (Cupressus funebris) , Cryptomeria japonica, and the southern fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata). The principal broadleaved trees are camphor, oak, chestnut, and Ormosia henryi of the pea family. Many of the species found here occur also in western China. Although we commonly think of the flora of eastern China as distinct from that of western China, because of the different flora of the intervening area, yet on careful comparison the east and west are found to be too much alike to be properly considered as distinct. This is good evidence that originally the flora of the central region was the same, but that its character has been materially altered by man. These forests of south- eastern China also have definite southern affinities. In the southern part are many species occurring in Kwangtung, Hainan, and even Indo-China, but in the northern part there is a much smaller propor- tion of southern species. These forests are, of course, being extensively exploited, but Dr. H. H. Hu, of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, who explored the region about 1925, reports that conditions are not so serious as they are usually depicted by western writers and that in many regions the forests are properly cared for. With proper governmental pro- tection others can be restored. The plants occurring in the larger part of Yunnan belong to the middle China vegetation. East of the high mountains of this province 344 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 lies a large highly dissected plateau ranging downward from about 4,000 feet altitude. It has a warm-temperate climate with more tropi- cal conditions in the lower parts of the valley, as along the Yangtze. The vegetation of this part of Yunnan is, therefore, subtropical with warm-temperate elements. In general, the hills are less denuded than in the eastern mountains of China, owing in part to the lesser Chinese population and the greater abundance of Thai, Shan, and other non-Chinese peoples. These latter inhabitants are less agricultural than the Chinese, hence the wild vegetation is less disturbed. They do, however, affect the vegetation adversely to some extent by clearing the hillsides and cultivating them without terracing or using other means to reduce erosion. In 2 or 3 years, when the fertile soil is washed away, these areas are abandoned and new fields are cleared. The abandoned fields may eventually revert to the original forested condition, but only after a succession of stages, some of which are very undesirable. Taken as a whole the flora of middle China is warm temperate with admixtures of subtropical families, genera, and species. It is rich in endemics and includes most of the eastern Asiatic-eastern North Amer- ican species and genera (pl. 4, fig. 2). The Japanese flora, except for that of the more tropical parts, is essentially of the same type as that of middle China. TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL SOUTHERN CHINA In this area is found the extension into China of the tropical or subtropical jungle vegetation of Indo-China and the Malayan region. The area comprises all or most of Kwangsi, most of Kwangtung, the coastal region of Fukien and part of Chekiang and, of course, of the islands of Hong Kong and Hainan. The lowland vegetation of Formosa and that of tropical Japan are of this type. Climatically the region is dominated almost wholly by monsoon winds, which bring an abundance of rain from March or April through October, with relatively little rain from then till March again. The Nan Shan Range on the north cuts off most of the coldest winter winds from that direction, so the winters are milder than in middle China. Freezing temperatures are very rare near the coast. Judging by the jungles still found in Hainan and by the oases of tropical vegeta- tion still found in a few remote mountain ravines and around temples, and in comparing this area with places in other parts of the world which have a similar climate and formations, but which are as yet undevastated, it is rather clear that large broadleaved evergreen rain forests formerly occurred where we now find only grass-covered hills. The amount of cultivated land in this area is relatively small, con- sisting mostly of the rich delta of the West, North, and East Rivers PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 345 and their rather narrow valleys, and of similar delta areas along the coast. Here the luxuriant vegetation is under complete control, and the hills that protrude through the delta plains are given over to the graves of past generations on which the cattle graze. There is little room for native forests and no incentive to develop them. Hainan Island, being more thinly populated with Chinese around the edges and with more primitive peoples in the interior, still has tropical jungles, which vary in character at different altitudes. On the higher parts are oak-chestnut forests with broadleaved evergreen rain forests below. Hong Kong Island and Kwangtung are botanically the best-ex- plored parts of China, the flora of Hong Kong published in 1861 being the first real plant manual of any part of the country. The flora is rich in species but poor in numbers of plants. In Hong Kong much reforestation has been carried on by the British, and the appearance of that island contrasts sharply with that of adjacent islands and the mainland. The red pine (Pinus massoniana) occurs widely throughout south China, usually planted more or less widely spaced on the mountains, but sometimes as groves, and occurs spontaneously as a forest tree in the mountains of Fukien and Chekiang. The wide spacing of the planted trees encourages the development of side branches, which are eventually cut off (pl. 2) and used as fuel in brick and lime kilns. The groves are needed for geomantic or “fung- shui” purposes, to propitiate the evil spirits which are popularly sup- posed to infest the country (pl. 4, fig. 1). Another common tree in the region is the banyan, of which there are several species (pl. 5, fig. 2). These trees have little use as fuel or timber. Hence they grow unmolested, spreading wide over the villages and temples their huge branches from thick, gnarled and fur- rowed trunks, which rise from a broad, often exposed base of tangled roots. Palm trees, mostly cultivated, can be seen in places, and clumps, groves, and even small planted forests of bamboo add much to the picturesqueness of the landscape. Planted or possibly spon- taneous along the muddy tidal canals and channels of the delta occurs the water pine (Glyptostrobus pensilis), a close relative of the bald cypress of our southern swamps. Strangely enough this species has been found in abundance growing spontaneously on hilltops in Kiangsi Province in middle China. Our own cypress will also grow in much drier situations than in its characteristic swamp habitat, especially with human encouragement. The vegetation of Kwangsi Province is very similar to that of Kwangtung but has more forests and perhaps a few more Indo- Chinese species, at least in the south. (See pl. 3). Extensive botanical collections have only rather recently been made, and as yet little has been written of the vegetation of the province as a whole. 346 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 SOUTHWESTERN TROPICAL YUNNAN The southwestern part of Yunnan adjacent to Burma is under the influence of the monsoon winds which in summer flow from the Bay of Bengal laden with moisture. The lower portions of the great parallel gorges, which are such a prominent feature of western Yun- nan, lie under the influence of these winds and are filled with luxuri- ant rain-forest vegetation. Here most of the trees are evergreen, and the jungles are filled with lianas, palms, tropical nettles, and other characteristic plants of the dense rain forests. This floristic region of China is only an extension of that of Burma and Siam. Many of the very numerous species of plants occurring here are Indo- Malayan or are characteristic of tropical India. As in other tropical rain forests, malaria is common and conditions are unfavorable for human habitation. This diffculty is overcome in some of the gorges by building the villages high up on the sides, whence the people descend to the fertile river bottoms to till their crops. Southern Yunnan also has a highly tropical vegetation with many species of plants which likewise occur in Hainan and elsewhere in southeastern China, but with a gap between. ‘There is, however, in the valley of the Red River and adjacent streams a dry area of limited extent due to local variations in climate. THE HIGHLANDS OF WESTERN CHINA The western and northwestern portion of Yunnan is botanically more or less distinct from the great dissected plateau to the east and the monsoon-drenched mountains and lower ends of the gorges to the south. In these deep gorges flow the great rivers which arise on the Tibetan plateau and cut across the eastward and northeast- ward extension of the highest mountains of the world, the Himalayan Range. Originally these mountains extended in an east-west direc- tion, but their deep intersection by southward-flowing streams has left the intervening ridges stretching north and south. The original mountain peaks tower up to over 20,000 feet, well up into the regions of perpetual snow. It is obvious that this tremendous range in alti- tude and the extremely rugged character of the land would greatly affect the type of vegetation found in the region. When the moisture-laden monsoon winds from the southwest are forced to rise up the slopes of these mountains they lose their load and are dissipated. Hence the vegetation in this region is less lux- uriant than that farther south. Another meteorological phenomenon that occurs in the gorges results in very arid conditions. During the day the sun heats the air in these closed-in canyons to a temperature much above that in the side canyons and on the surrounding moun- PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 347 tains. About the middle of the afternoon this heated air suddenly starts to rise and creates such a current that any attempts of moisture- laden monsoon winds from the southwest to penetrate the area are completely thwarted. This dry area occurs in the valleys of the Sal- ween, Mekong (pl. 7, fig. 1), and Yangtze Rivers. On the Salween ' it begins at about the sth parallel but farther south on the other riv- ers. On the Yangtze it includes the gorges around the great bend north of Likiang. Thus only drought- resistant stunted shrubs and moisture-holding herbs can survive here and the vegetation in part is related to that of Central Asia. A strange exotic is an American cactus (Opuntia) which somehow reached this out-of-the-way land and found con- ditions favorable to its growth and survival. Its seeds and fruits are eaten by men, beasts, and birds. How it arrived is quite un- known. Possibly it was brought by some missionary long ago or possibly it came with some caravan from the Near East where it was introduced soon after the discovery of America. Higher up on the mountains occur great forests of deciduous trees of various kinds, then conifers in zones (pl. 6), then rhododendron thickets, and finally alpine formations of various kinds, especially the gorgeous alpine meadows. Here is found the rich vegetation so eagerly sought for by plant explorers in search of ornamentals for western gardens, especially rock gardens (pl. 5, fig. 1). This is the plant-lover’s paradise, for from this varied region have come many of our most exquisite rhododendrons, primulas, poppies, larkspurs, and other garden favorites. Here occur vast forests, mostly as yet unexploited, a future storehouse safe from the ax until railroads and roads have opened it up. The area extends northward from Yunnan through eastern Sikang and Tsinghai to western Kansu. It is peopled largely by Tibetans and has been called Tibetan China. On the east it merges with the more temperate or even subtropical vegetation of Szechwan and on the west with the grasslands of Tibet. In respect to affinities this rich flora contains many elements of the Himalayan flora of northern India, in contrast with that of tropical Yunnan, which is largely Indo-Malayan. It contains also a large number of endemics as well as elements of the flora of middle China. Yunnan as a whole has the richest flora of any of the 18 provinces of China, having over 6,300 species. This is not surpris- ing in view of the great diversity of climatic and physiographic con- ditions, the proximity of a great variety of floras of different composition and origin, and the long uninterrupted geological history of the larger part of the province. 348 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Far back in geological history, in the Oligocene period, Eurasia was divided by the Tethys Sea, which occupied about the present location of Burma, Assam, and Tibet and separated China from India. Asia was a continent of undulating wooded lowlands without high mountains. The flora was probably fairly uniform. Later mountains were formed which upset the climate and brought about a diversified flora. Finally the Himalayan uplift occurred, which eliminated the Tethys Sea and replaced it with the world’s highest mountains, through which the rivers from the uplifted Tibetan pla- teau cut transverse courses. In the succeeding Pleistocene period huge glaciers developed in these mountains and spread out north- ward over the southern half of Tibet and east and south over western Yunnan. Thus the plants of these ice-covered parts were wiped out, but, because of the limited spread of the glaciers eastward, the vegeta- tion of central and eastern Yunnan remained. It may have been altered and forced southward but was not destroyed. When the glaciers receded, this altered vegetation spread back into the released western part of the province, and the plants of Indo-Malaya spread northward again. At the same time conditions were favorable for the flora developed in northern India to invade this territory. Hence, the Yunnan flora today contains elements from the diverse floral regions round about, as well as remnants of the early flora developed in the province in earlier geological times. The lack of extensive glaciation in north China, such as occurred in Europe and northern North America, accounts in part for the richness of the flora of China as a whole in comparison with that of the heavily glaciated continents. THE GRASSLANDS OF EASTERN TIBET The grasslands of eastern Tibet lie in the new provinces of Sikang and Tsinghai west of the great mountain ranges of western China and extend somewhat into western Kansu Province (pl. 7, fig. 2). These lands are the home of the Tibetan nomads where flocks of yak are herded and the people live in yerts or felt tents. The vegetation is almost entirely composed of grasses and grasslike plants, with many herbs remarkable for their ability to burst forth early in the short growing season, cover the landscape with a riot of gorgeous color, and quickly ripen and shed their seeds before the early winter forces them into dormancy again. Shrubs and trees are few or wanting on the uplands, but exist in the sheltered valleys and in belts on the mountains, where the clouds are forced to drop more moisture. The vegetation of these grasslands is essentially central Asiatic and alpine, and the few woody plants and trees are largely of northern affinities. PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 349 TIBET Besides the floristic provinces already discussed as extending into Tibet, namely, the arid valleys of the great rivers draining south- eastern Tibet, the high mountain vegetation of the Tibet-China bor- derland, and the grasslands, Tibet has two other areas. These are (1) the northern and northeastern parts, called by F. Kingdon Ward? the Chang Tang or Great Plain, including the Tsaidam in Tsinghai Province, the whole draining entirely into salt lakes and swamps, and (2) the outer plateau part north of the Himalaya Mountains drained by five great rivers, the Indus, Tsang Po, Salween, Mekong, and Yangtze. The divide between these areas is generally low and rather imperceptible. The Great Plain and Tsaidam on the north at an altitude of over 8,000 feet have a rainfall ranging from almost nothing at all to only 10 inches per year. The flora, according to Ward, is extremely meager and consists of about 53 species of plants, with only 3 woody genera and no endemics, nearly all being central Asiatics. A richer vegetation could not exist in such an extremely dry and severe climate. The outer plateau toward the south has a better climate, with rain- fall ranging from 10 to 20 inches per year. Its altitude of around 12,000 feet, with its exposure to the cold winds of the north, permits only a limited and rather xerophytic flora to develop. However, there is sufficient moisture and protection, at least in the river valleys, for the development of an alpine and semidesert flora, the dominant woody plants being willows, poplars, junipers, and certain elms. At the head of the gorge country toward the east are found some forests. In the gravel portion of this plateau, in the vicinity of Lhassa, Ward reports that 541 species of plants are known. It is in this part of Tibet that the bulk of the population is found. THE ECONOMIC BOTANY OF CHINA CONCERNING DEFORESTATION The most outstanding economic problem of China is raising food for her more than 400 million people. So intense has become the struggle for food in China that little energy has been left for the consideration of other problems. The need for more and more food has been met by increasing the amount of food grown on an acre of land and by increasing the acreage. This has been accompanied by a steady increase in the human labor expended and in the taking of land away from other uses, notably the taking of forested land. In the wake of these changes have come numerous other problems which ? See his A sketch of the geography and botany of Tibet * * *, Journ. Linnean Soc., Botany, vol. 50, pp. 239-265, illustr., 1935. 350 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 have demanded adjustment, such as the loss of timber and plant cover, the exposure of the hills to erosion (pl. 1, fig. 1), the destruction of agricultural lands through washing away and silting, and a host of other consequences. As in other countries, the demand for increased crops and more tillable land has fallen on individuals and small groups, who in many, if not most, cases have been unable to meet the resulting larger problems and who have in time been reduced to the direst poverty or been driven away from the lands they so urgently need to areas where they can only eke out a bare subsistence and repeat the destructive processes. Thus, next to agriculture, reforestation is the most urgent economic botanical problem in China. Many refer- ences have already been made to this subject, but its importance justifies separate consideration. The major cause of forest destruction in most areas, at least in the past when there were extensive forests, was the need for agricultural land rather than for the products of the forests. The same is true in some regions today, as is shown by the wanton abandoning of thou- sands of board feet of merchantable timber, as was observed by W. C. Lowermilk in his studies in Shansi. After the lowlands were cleared, this demand for more land could be met only by terracing the hillsides (pl. 1, fig. 1), progressing gradually higher and higher until the slopes became too steep for cultivation even by these means. Even on the still steeper and higher slopes agriculture is often possible for a few years without terracing by growing, at least in north China, special crops such as maize or Indian corn and potatoes, both originally from America. Soon, however, the soil washes away and the fields must be abandoned. The second most important cause for the forest removal is the need for forest products, especially timber. With the gradual removal of the timber near centers of population the quality of the lumber de- creased and the price went up, so that the standard of living fell lower and lower. Much of the timber now seen rafted to market in China would not be transported in America even for fuel or pulpwood. When the huge wooden pillars of the Temple of Heaven in Peiping, originally brought down from Manchuria, were destroyed by fire, they could only be replaced from the fir forests of the northwestern United States. But the common man cannot rebuild with imported lumber; he must use sun-dried bricks or mud plastered over kaoliang stalks. Every stick of available wood must be used for the best pur- pose to which it can be put. The ever-increasing demand, as the population has grown, has led to more and more cutting of the forests, then to scratching the treeless hillsides for whatever would serve as 3 Kaoliang is a variety of Sorghum nervosum resembling kafir corn which is sparingly grown in America. Kaoliang fields in Shantung remind one of the vast cornfields of Illinois and Iowa. PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 351 fuel. It is little wonder, then, that the hills near the great cities are denuded. A factor favoring destruction in some areas has been the fear of wild animals, such as tigers, leopards, and wolves, and of wild men or bandits, who, indeed, may be the very people who in the first instance lost their land through erosion and then turned to banditry in order to maintain life. Thus forests have been cut down and the new growth kept under control by repeated burning, till grasses were thoroughly established which can now be replaced by forests only with the greatest of difficulty. It has been reported that hillsides have been burned over so that the ashes will wash down and fertilize the cultivated lowlands, It might be supposed that the obvious value of the forests to the country as a whole would have led to governmental control of cut- ting and to replanting on an extensive scale. Such has indeed oc- curred in certain ancient times and has been resumed in the modern period of China’s awakening, But governmental control in China has long been weak, and the intense preoccupation of the people with the struggle for existence has prevented any general demand for im- proved conditions. It has been observed that in the Ming and Ching Dynasties the officials were drawn largely from the “literati” or scholars of the country, who, though they appreciated the forests around the villages and temples, were little inclined to protect, main- tain, and develop forested areas. They left the problem to the lower classes, who had little or no vision beyond their narrow fields nor means to carry out what little they did have. Furthermore, the rulers, unlike many of the feudal governors of Europe, were not given to sports requiring hunting preserves. Hence, no wild areas were protected for their immediate owners and for posterity, as happened in Europe. An exception is found in certain imperial hunting preserves in north China, most of which, after the fall of the Empire in 1911, were sold by the abandoned and impoverished Manchus for commercial exploitation, so that they themselves might still subsist. This lack of: interest in forests on the part of the “literati” rulers has prevented the Government from protecting any private investment in maintained forests, so that the common people have been unimpeded in their seizing of whatever they could. Even safe titles to nonagricultural lands could not be had, so that there was little incentive to private initiative in forest development, and lumber companies could profit only by quick and complete exploita- tion of whatever concessions they could obtain. Even the little protection which the Government could give in peace times has been impossible in times of war. During these crises, especially following the revolution in 1911, forest destruction has gone 352 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 on unhindered. Records of the Taiping Rebellion are full of ac- counts of destruction of trees and forests. In 1911 there were large forests on Loh Fau Shan about 50 miles east of Canton, but Prof. R. Mell reports that by 1921 only a sixth of them were left and by now they are probably all gone. Loh Fau Shan was, for at least 10 years following 1922, a bandit land where no government official dared intrude. Along with the weakening and modernizing of the Government following the revolution has occurred the steady decline in the in- fluence of the Buddhist temples and monasteries, which have long protected their encircling forests and jungles as part of their reverence for wildlife. But as their official state support dwindled they, like the abandoned Manchu officials, sold their assets for commercial exploitation. The factors making for preservation of forests in China are far weaker than those making for destruction, but are, nevertheless, worthy of some consideration. Foremost among these is the difficulty of trans- porting the forest products in areas distant from rivers and streams. Where trees must be carried for long distances on the backs of coolies over simple mountain trails, forests can remain (pl. 9, fig. 1). Until the motor or railroad age reaches western China its vast forests are safe. Likewise the Buddhist philosophy of the preservation of all life and the demands of that religion for isolated seclusion have preserved throughout the ages many remnants of the primeval forest and even aided new forests to grow up. These preserved oases are of great scientific value in showing what the original native vegetation was and thus enabling modern reforestation to proceed on a sound biological foundation. The emphasis that western writers have put on the destruction of Chinese forests has often blinded people to the practice of forestry that has existed in the country even for many centuries. In places there are clan or community forest projects, a few of which have al- ready been referred to. W.C. Lowdermilk has mentioned seeing well- managed communal forests that exceed any similar enterprises, even those of Germany. Foresters who have visited some of the more in- accessible parts of Kwangtung and Kwangsi have been surprised to find thriving reforestation projects using the southern fir (Cunning- hamia lanceolata), grown when young under the shade of manihot or cassava bushes. They report that this is largely the result of a greater appreciation by the aboriginees of the value of trees and that the Chinese near them are favorably influenced to adopt their methods. These efforts at reforestation probably result largely from the need for forest products. Indeed throughout much of Kwangtung the growing of the red pine (Pinus massoniana) for fuel, including the PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 350 branches for brick- and lime-kiln fuel, may be considered in this same light, though the scattered way the trees are grown hardly leads to real forests. Scientific reforestation has made a beginning in China. Its first attempts were in Hong Kong under British supervision and in Shan- tung when it was under German control. In the former colony there bas long been a forestry department, and much replanting of the hill- sides with native pine has occurred. In Tsingtao foreign trees, includ- ing American black locust, Scotch pine, and many others, have been successfully used. Nanking University and Lingnan University have contributed much to the program, and Sunyatsen University has had an active forestry department and careful studies have been made leading to a thorough program of reforestation. Experimental plots have been tried with various trees, some of which are encouraging, others not so promising. Cunninghamia is the most promising for the higher parts in northern Kwangtung, but it proves to be unsuited to the lower lands. Here must eventually be established evergreen tropical forests on the now grass-covered hillsides. This transforma- tion cannot be made in one step. Instead intermediate growth must be established using carefully tested trees, capable of growing well on these open hillsides, such as possibly Z'ucalyptus of selected species, Dalbergia sisoo, a leguminous tree from a similar formation and climate in Assam, the native Pinus massoniana, the chinaberry tree (Melia azedarach), wood oil (Aleurites spp.), Leuwcaena glauca, and others. An enlightened insight has come to the leading scientific men of China, but as yet it has not come to the masses. THE USES OF CHINESE PLANTS Almost all the Chinese prescientific interest in plants from the mythi- cal scholar Shen Nung of 2000 B. C. to the beginning of the scientific period in China in the present century related to their usefulness to man. The same was true in western countries, for the earliest Euro- pean botanical books, like those of the Chinese, were herbals or books on the medicinal and food-yielding properties of plants. Even today most people are economic-minded. Ask any person not trained in science about a plant and his reply will be either that it is a weed or a useless plant, or that it is “of some good”—that is, useful. So we find a vast storehouse of information on useful plants in Chinese literature, but little if anything concerning noneconomic plants. The first great use of plants to man is of course for food, and in this field the Chinese excel. Whether it be their greater control of prejudices against certain food plants as lowly, unpalatable, or harm- ful, or whether the constant recurrence of disasters which have taken away their normal foods and thrust them back against the evil choice of 304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 starving or of eating whatever can be consumed regardless of prej- udice, it is hard to say. But the fact is that in China more kinds of plants are eaten than in the west. Famines have occurred in the west, but never was there written outside of China a book telling what to eat in times of famine, or a “famine herbal,” such as that written by Chu Hsiao in the fifteenth century under the title “Chiu huang pén ts’ao.” This book has been issued in many editions, sev- eral in Japan, and large parts have been translated into western languages. Intensive agriculture is probably more highly developed in China than in any other part of the world. Throughout its thousands of years of growth methods have been found that derive from the soil almost the last possible ounce of food, but at the same time leave the land capable of growing more crops indefinitely. Of course modern scientific agricultural methods can make and are making valuable contributions to Chinese farming and furnish explanation for many of the empirical methods used in China, but at the same time the west is learning much from the east. Certain food plants have long been grown in China which the west is only beginning to appreciate (pl. 9, fig. 2), and we are discovering there methods of storing and marketing which we can well consider. For example, in 1924 P. H. Dorsett, agricultural explorer for the United States Department of Agriculture, studied for the first time the methods used near Peiping in handling the large persimmon crop. The fruits mature throughout the fall. When fresh, these large tomato-sized orchard fruits are too full of tannin to be eaten. Hence, the first of the crop is carefully treated in a hot-water bath for about 12 hours, which process removes the tannin and renders the fruits readily marketable. The bulk of the crop, however, matures late in the fall. Most of us in the southern and south-central United States have learned that persimmons picked before the frosts of early winter will pucker one’s mouth, but that those gathered later are good. This fact has never been used for commercial exploitation of the American persimmon, but the Chinese have applied the principle on a large scale and millions of persimmons are stored in special outdoor beds where they quickly freeze (pl. 10, fig. 1). Not only are they thus rendered delicious by the removal of the tannin, but they are also preserved, so that they can be marketed throughout the long winter, being thawed out only as needed. Frozen or frosted foods in the west are of very recent development and require complicated arti- ficial refrigeration. The Chinese industry resulted from the careful development of the right varieties or forms of persimmons, grafted on the proper stock, and grown in a country where natural freezing is possible. Also the size of the crop must not be so great as to PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 355 flood the facilities for early treatment by hot water, or to flood the early market, nor too great to be consumed before the heat of spring and summer finds unsold stocks in the storage beds. So it is with many other food plants and methods. We in the west, handicapped by our prejudices of taste, have only probed the surface of Chinese agriculture for new food plants, or new forms of old ones, or methods of handling them. Of course the major diffi- culty lies in the fact that labor is cheap in China and agricultural methods give scant consideration to the human efforts expended, whereas in western agriculture labor must be saved at every turn. Next to their use as foods, plants are sought by man the world over for their medicinal virtues. In China food and medicine are closely linked, and a skillful housewife of the wealthier classes keeps her family in health by the right selection of foods from the great range available, rather than by the administration of drugs. A Chinese pharmacopoeia is full of food plants. It contains likewise a far larger number of drug plants than do our western medicinal handbooks, which, indeed, with each new issue list fewer and fewer plants as sources of useful drugs. Many of these Chinese drugs and their plant origins have been examined by modern scientific methods and some have proved of real value, as the ma-huang, the desert plant Ephedra sinica, which has long been used in China as a haemostatic and for the treatment of asthma, and only relatively recently adopted into western medicine. Other Chinese drugs have proved of little or no value, such as ginseng, long valued highly in China as a giver of fertility. As far as western science ean de- termine, its virtues are purely psychological, and the plant is not included in our pharmacopoeias. However, only the surface of Chi- nese medicine has as yet been scratched by modern science. Plants as givers of building material probably rank in importance ahead of their use for medicine. The supply of wood exerts a pro- found influence on Chinese life, for in western China, where the population is thinner and wood more abundant, we find it much used in house construction, but in most parts of China, mud or bricks, either kiln-burned or sun-dried, are used, the mud plastered over kaoliang stalks in the north or over bamboo or other materials in the south. In the latter region bamboo frames covered with palm- leaf thatch are often erected for temporary buildings. Few who have seen the construction work in any of the large cities, especially in the central and southern parts, have failed to marvel at the strength, magnitude, and skillful fabrication of the scaffolding erected by lashing together bamboo or pine or fir poles with seemingly frail strips of bamboo and with no use of nails. The lack of wood for ties or sleepers is a great handicap in the building of railroads in China. 356 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Although coal, oil, and natural gas are used in China as sources of heat, their limited distribution and the high cost of transportation of such bulky materials prevent their general use throughout the country. Instead wood and charcoal are burned, except where their lack forces people to comb the countryside for whatever will give off heat. Quan- tities of rice straw and kaoliang stalks are likewise used for fuel, and the leaves, grass, pine needles, and weeds garnered from the hillsides find their way into the stoves in quantities just sufficient to maintain the minimum of warmth. This combing of the hillsides removes the po- tential humus and protection needed for seedling trees and shrubs and prevents the restoration of the woody cover (pl. 4, fig. 1). The ashes go to the fields for fertilizer. Charcoal is a favorite fuel because its light weight enables a coolie to carry on his shoulders more po- tential heat than if he were carrying wood. Nothing is wasted in China. Of course much of the heat problem is solved by the wearing of more clothes, which in turn is related to another plant, cotton. Besides food, medicine, building material, and fuel, plants also furnish fiber for clothing and other textiles. Cotton is by far the most important, as it is the most economical. Wool is less economical be- cause land is required to feed the sheep or goats, but cotton grows directly, thus producing more “warmth” per acre in spite of its lesser insulating properties. Silk is a luxury, yet probably a greater re- turn per acre of land can be obtained from silk than would be possible from wool, because of its greater value and the export demand. A\I- though the silk comes from an insect, the industry is essentially based on the culture of the mulberry, which grows well in all the warmer parts of China, but especially in the delta of the West River in Kwangtung. Here the long growing season permits the development of sufficient leaves to feed three and sometimes four or five generations of silkworms per year. In some places in north-central China, where the mulberry will not grow, silkworms are fed on certain oak leaves. Many other fibers are grown in China. An important crop in parts of Chihli Province is the ching ma or American jute (Abutilon theophrasti), a member of the mallow family (Malvaceae). This is grown as a sub- stitute crop when others have failed for a season. From it is produced a fiber, which, when mixed with other fibers, is used in the manufac- ture of brocades and silk substitutes. Many kinds of plants find uses in the manufacture of the numerous articles used in China. Much thought has been given throughout the ages to their cultivation, selection, and adaptation to special uses. Al- though many plant sources have been scientifically determined, many others remain as yet unknown. It has often been difficult to determine what plants furnish the materials from which even well-known manu- factured articles are made, and even today many may not be rightly PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 357 named. Indeed, some of the plants may not yet be known to science, for only about 3 years ago it was found that the lo han kwoh, a long- known Chinese fruit of the melon family (Cucurbitaceae), repre- sented a new species, and the same may well be true of some industrial plants. Often a manufactured product or food comes from a special variety or form of a well-known plant, which has been developed in a limited isolated region never visited by anyone with an inquiring scientific mind. Likewise many processes of manufacture have not been adequately described, for few observers give attention to the many minute and apparently trivial details of the intricate processes of turning raw materials into manufactured products or of preparing plants for food. It is impossible within the scope of a paper dealing in a broad way with the botany of China to do more than suggest the existence of the fascinating field of economic botany. To discuss the plants from which are manufactured paper and textiles other than those already men- tioned, or from which oils, resins, gums, varnishes, dyes, drugs, and a host of other products are extracted, would require far too much space. The subject of the uses of the many kinds of bamboo alone is itself one for a separate book. One of the great fascinations of China is the finding of the different ways in which things are done. A factor which makes for the ready observation of such things is the home-and- shop method of manufacture of numerous articles, in contrast with the closed-factory method used in this country. Generally, too, the people are responsive to an interest in their occupations and the methods used. THE EXCHANGE OF USEFUL PLANTS WITH OTHER COUNTRIES Most of the important crops of Europe and North America originated in Asia. Likewise the most important crops of China are introductions, wheat being a native of southwestern Asia, kaoliang * probably of India, and rice of southern or southeastern Asia, as far as known. Many plants were exchanged between Europe and China in early days along the caravan routes across central Asia and Persia, as has been told by B. Laufer, of the Feld Museum in Chicago, in his scholarly study under the title “Sino-Iranica: Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran, with Special Reference to the History of Cultivated Plants and Products.” The taking of useful Chinese plants to Europe has already been mentioned as the major objective of most western botanists in China. In recent years the methods of search have been much perfected, and the results at- tained have considerably affected our economic life. 4 See footnote 3, p. 350. 566766—44—_24 358 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Of all the parts of the world from which plants may be introduced into Europe and America, China is the most promising because of the great number and diversity of the plants occurring there and because most of them are Temperate Zone plants, hence suitable for cultivation in other temperate regions. Another factor is that during the long development of Chinese agriculture many new varieties and forms have been selected and developed which are also suitable for our use. Many kinds of introductions have been made from China. Some are ornamentals for adorning our gardens, others are new food plants or new varieties or forms of old ones, or disease-resistant forms, and still others are plants needed in industry, such as wood or tung oil. Furthermore, some plants have been introduced for special protective plantings, such as the Chinese elm (Ulmus pumila) from dry north China, much used in our well-known Prairie States shelter-belt project. The methods used by plant explorers vary according to their ob- jectives, their own individual peculiarities and abilities, and the regions in which they work. Most of them have been sent by some scientific society or government to collect living plants, seeds, or cut- tings. Others have been foreign residents in China, teachers, mission- aries, or consular officers, who have obtained material in their spare time, or as part-time collaborators with their home governments. Some explorers have traveled far and fast with little baggage, picking up the most promising plants from here and there for mailing home. Still others have traveled in large parties with full equipment and many helpers (pl. 6), usually with official military escorts. Some- times they have gone unobtrusively about their work, speaking the language and mingling with the people as one of them, or perhaps working with or through a trained native assistant. Some of our ex- plorers have established themselves with full equipment in some large city near the region to be explored, from which they have sallied forth on frequent journeys into the country. This enables them to return as often as necessary to the same place to see the different stages of de- velopment of plants they were gathering, or the local process of harvesting and preserving them. Frequently in working in this man- ner they first visit the markets to discover what fruits and vegetables are being offered for sale (pl. 12, figs. 1 and2). Then they find whence they came and finally visit the farmers who raised them. One of the plant explorer’s greatest problems is packing and shipping the seeds, cuttings, and full plants to their new homes, so that they will arrive safely and in viable condition. They must also be disease-free, so that they may pass the rigid quarantine established to keep foreign diseases from reaching plants in this country not immune to their ravages. Often these collectors have endured great hardships, and a number have died in the field as a result of privations. Many, too, PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 359 have lived to see fruitful fields in their homeland bearing valuable crops as a result of their hard labors in distant China. The plant-disease aspects of plant introduction are very important and interesting. In 1913 after the chestnut-bark disease, then of unknown origin, had begun its devastating attack on this highly important forest tree in America, Frank N. Meyer, well-known United States Department of Agriculture explorer (pl. 11, fig. 1), discovered the same disease in China. He also found that the Chinese chestnut trees were able to survive the attacks of this disease, suffering only wounds from which they could recover (pl. 10, fig. 2). The evidence is strong that by some unknown means this disease of the inner bark, caused by a fungus called E'ndothia parasitica, found its way into this country where our trees were not immune. To replace our doomed chestnuts the United States Department of Agriculture has cbtained large quantities of seed from selected Chinese trees which have survived the disease and are therefore known to be immune. Hence, in the course of time, we will have new chestnut trees for shade and chestnut bark for tannin. Another aspect of the plant-disease problem is the introduction from China of insecticide plants. A few years ago the casual dis- covery of an article published in Chinese in a current entomological periodical from Chekiang Province revealed the use there of an in- secticide powder prepared from the roots of Tripterygium wilfordiz, a shrub of the staff-tree family (Celastraceae). This organic poison, long known in China, is far superior to mineral poisons, such as those prepared with arsenic, because it disintegrates and becomes harmless by the time vegetables and fruits sprayed with it are ready to be eaten. Plants of this species were obtained by the United States Department of Agriculture through consular officers and Chinese plantsmen for experimental cultivation and investigation in this country. Great benefits are likely to result from this introduction when the details of its growth and preparation have been perfected. Many other examples might be given of various benefits to this country resulting from plant introduction. In like manner China is destined to benefit from importations from the United States and other temperate regions. As yet little attention has been given in China to this method of helping to solve her food problems, but be- ginnings have been made in extending the work on a scientific basis. In certain parts of China, as for example the higher parts of Kansu Province, it would be possible to grow more nutritive plants than are now commonly cultivated, if the right varieties adapted to their par- ticular climates and soils could be found. Reference has previously been made to the introduction of foreign trees for planting in inter- 360 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 mediate stages in the reforestation of denuded mountains. A number of foreign trees have already been planted for this and for various other purposes in China, especially black locust from America, which is being grown to furnish much-needed railroad ties. The possibili- ties for more profitable introductions are almost endless, and with the cessation of the present war, rapid progress will undoubtedly be made in introducing plants, as well as in using more effectively and scientifically the rich Chinese flora for the benefit of mankind in China and elsewhere. SELECTED BIBLOGRAPHY OF GENERAL WORKS ON CHINESE PLANTS The following list contains the major general works on Chinese plants, espe- cially those which might be useful in identifying plants. Some other references are given concerning the vegetation or phytogeography of the country and the history of botany in China, and a few works are listed by which Chinese names of plants may be identified with their Latin or English equivalents. For other notes on the literature of Chinese botany see pp. 333-334. BRETSCHNEDDER, HE. V. 1898. History of European botanical discoveries in China. 2 vols. London. A facsimile reproduction was issued in Leipzig in 1935. Ca#’EN, YUNG. 1937. Chung hua shu fen lei hsueh. 1,544 pp., illustr. Nanking. An illustrated manual of Chinese trees and shrubs. In Chinese with Latin names. CHow, HANG-FAN. 1934. The familiar trees of Hopei. English ed., 370 pp., illustr.; Chinese ed., 269 pp., illustr. CHUN, WOON-YOUNG. 1922. Chinese economic trees. 3809 pp., illustr. Shanghai. CuHunG, H. H. 1924. A catalogue of the trees and shrubs of China. Mem. Sci. Soc China, vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1-271. This is a check list of Latin names only. Diets, Lupwic. 1900-1901. Die Flora von Central China. Bot. Jahrb., vol. 29, Hefte 2-5, pp. 169-659. Leipzig. A systematic treatment in German without keys or descriptions, except of new species. DunN, STEPHEN T., and TuTcHER, WILLIAM J. 1912. Flora of Kwangtung and Hongkong. Kew Bull. Misc. Inf., Add. Ser., No. 10, 370 pp. A systematie work with keys but without descriptions. Forbes, FRANCIS BLACKWELL, and HEMSLEY, W. Botrina. 1886-1905. An enumeration of all the plants known from China proper, Formosa, Hainan, Corea, the Luchu Archipelago, and the Island of Hongkong ... Journ. Linnean Soc. London, Botany, vols. 23, 26, and 36. The most complete enumeration ever published. See p. 330 for further data. PLANTS OF CHINA—WALKER 361 HANDEL-MAzZZETTI, HEINRICH. 1931. Die pflanzengeographische Gliederung und Stellung Chinas. Bot. Jahrb., vol. 64, Heft 4, pp. 309-323. Leipzig. Abstracted in English in Abstracts of Communications, Fifth International Botanical Congress, Cambridge (England), pp. 315-319, 1930. Hu, HSIEN-HSU. 1936. The characteristics and affinities of Chinese flora. Bull. Chinese Bot. Soce., vol. 2, pp. 67-84. Peiping. KunG, CHING-LAI, et al. 1918. Chih wu hsueh ta t’zu tien, or Botanical nomenclature. 1,726 pp., illustr. Shanghai. This illustrated botanical dictionary containing Latin, Chinese, Japanese, German, and English names is largely translated from Japanese. Probably it is mostly correct. LEE, SHUN-CH’ING. 1935. Forest botany of China. 991 pp., illustr. A systematic treatment with descriptions of all species, but often botanically inaccurate. Liv, JU-CH’IANG. 1931. Systematic botany of the flowering families in North China. 212 pp., illustr. Peiping. 2d ed., 1934. This is not a general manual. MATSUMUBA, JINZO. 1915. Shokubutsu mei-i. (Revised and enlarged.) Pt. 1, Chinese names of plants. 405 pp. By means of this work the Latin equivalents of Chinese names of plants may be found, especially those mentioned in the Chinese classics. MERRILL, ELMER D., and WALKER, EcBerT H. 1938. ele Ae ere At Bait Anson pine u sali ve het tepean i dads) aon with ie POL SENET Ni ih peeve) py i) oe Na ri Be ata 8, BO Vi iy if i oe a i an s ae pie “a , ae ibn YO hana ay bak? Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Walker PLATE 1 1. BARREN, ERODING, PARTIALLY TERRACED MOUNTAINS IN NORTH CHINA. Orchards grow on the terraces, but only Viter incisa shrubs, small wild jujube trees, and grasses clothe the mountain slopes. Note the stone walls supporting the terraces. (Photograph by P. H. Dorsett, courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture.) 2. A TYPICAL FARM SCENE IN MIDDLE CHINA. The trees mark the farm houses or temples, all the remaining land being used for growing rice. (Photo- graph by P. H. Dorsett, courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture.) (AqoIW0g o1ydeasooy [RUOIRN © ‘loop Woqoy “mM Aq ydeiZo0j0yq) ‘S|[LY JUBISIP ey puoA IBJ SSOIOJ OYVOIPUT JYSII PUB JJo] YB SJjv1 SO] OY, “STITY Popnusp yons wo vuroy 7e ajInb ‘sARSe UBOLIOULY UB SI PUNOIs0IOJ OY} UL 4JN} OY} :(DUDIUOSSDUL SNUIT ) sould pod o1B S901} OUT “AONIAOYd NAIMNA ‘YSAIN NIW AHL NO MOHDOOY YaAddN ¢€ ALV Id IAB A\—"Eh6| *qaoday ueluosy zug (‘Ajoro0g o1ydeis0enH [euoleN ©) ‘dUTAOId SITY} 0} Pop], 1B “IOAOMOY “YOIY AM ‘syvod SUIIaM0} YONS JoIdep 0} GAOT SJsIjIe odeospue] eseuIYH MOlEq Spfey pe}eAti[Nd oY} YIM Sjsel} Woo TON}BIISOA YO 9G “AONIAOYUd ISONVYM™M NI SEONM ANOLSAWIT GAHLOID ATIASNAG a. SS. Ta ws € 3LV1d 124[2A\—'Eh6| *quodayy ueluosy yg vy ALVI1d (aimy[nosy Jo jueuyIedeq *s "AQ Asoqinod ‘19A0T *“N ‘a AQ ydeis0joyg) ‘“volleury YON U1eysBe PUB BISY U10jSBo UI ATUO MOIS SOLIOYOI “YSNOIYY 499} Z SI YUNAY sIy.L (dS SAHOVLSOTIAHd) ATSNNAL COSWYVgG DNVIMAHD V N! (SISNSAVHLV9D VAYVD) 35YL ANYOMSDIH SSSANIHD V “*Z ey hn «4 at oe Pied w Pe (aoqine ey3 Aq ydeisojoyg) ‘“spoes Sumnords oyy djey 07 snurny OU SUIABIZ ‘Se_pseU aUTd aTqRuAING [eB JO a1e@q poyYBi [IOS 9y} 9ION ‘purl oy} JO szlatds [IA0 oY} UlBIYSeI SOAOIS YONS Uva e[doed oy, “ASVTTIA VNIHD HLNOS V YVAN (VWNVINOSSVW SNNId) SANId GHY AO 3A0UD VY ‘1 Pn AIAEM—'Eb6l *quoday URIUOSY TWIG Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Walker PLATE 5 — ty? ANG < Se — “= oe Aa ft —— ” 1. HIGH ALPINE PLANTS IN THE LIKIANG SNOW RANGE, WESTERN SZECHWAN. These medusa-headed composites (Saussurea lewcoma) were found at 16,500 feet altitude, about the upper limit of plant growth. Such alpine treasures are among the goals of plant explorers. (Photograph by J. F. Rock, © National Geographic Society.) = Omi Pye wa 2. A BANYAN TREE (FICUS LACOR) IN SZECHWAN PROVINCE. These venerable trees spread wide their huge branches from short, gnarled trunks. Among the twisted roots one may find a simple shrine with glowing incense sticks. (Photograph by E. H.Wilson, courtesy Arnold Arboretum.) (‘Ajo1o0g orydeisoo4) [BUOIIBN © ‘yooy ‘wf Aq ydeszoj0yq) ‘oSoy) O¥!{ SIYZIoy Wod oW0d s}ue[d UepIeS-yoOI oY “SpNoyo oy} Ul UpplYy oe S}TWUUNS OY, “BUIYO UWoysoM Ul ofplopeukYyY JUNO] Ie UolyIpodxo s,yooy ‘A ‘f “SHV3ad GaddVD-MONS MO1AG SSAHOYXV] AGNV SYI4 DNOWY GAadWVONA 9 3LV1d JI4[eA—'€h6 1 *qaoday uviuosyzIUICG Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Walker PLATE 7 1. ANCIENT MUD WATCHTOWERS IN THE ARID MEKONG VALLEY IN YUNNAN. Corn has been harvested in the foreground and compost piled for the next crop. Scattered trees, probably pines, cover the distant heights. (Photograph by J. F. Rock, © National Geographic Society.) 2. GRASSLANDS OF NORTHEASTERN TIBET. An explorer’s party resting for lunch. Note the almost complete lack of woody plants. When the spring frosts disappear the alpine flowers clothe the hills in a riot of color. (Photograph by F. R. Wulsin, © National Geographic Society.) (umm4o10qry Cunjoaloqiy ploury Asojin0d ploury Asoqinood ‘uos[iM “H ‘a Aq ydeiz0j0yq) ‘spaes Addod Ayuo 10 ‘UOSIIM ‘Ha 4q ydeisojoyg) “41 3urqono} ynoyALM des snouostod Zurpnxe ‘uinido SurpjetA sdeyjed ‘sepnsdvo yyiM sotddod jo yoyed & st JYSII oy} 04 oq} JO} YuNI, oy} dey 0} sloyIOM o[GBUe 991} 9} 0} Por} SadaId ssold OY, pus ully puoseg ‘vouvISeIy Syl SAOfue 4ooy poyepuBS YIM JouLIey [eoIdAY VW “NYMHO&8ZS NI (WYSSIOINYSAA SNHY) “WOOTg TINA NI 3aYL TO-ONNL YO -GOOM TIVWS V “2 S3qeau lt YsaNOOV] YO HSINYVA ASANIHD VY ‘1 8 3LlV1d J94/BA\—'E 6] ‘“Wodey ueruosyqwig Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Walker PLATE 9 1. HAND-HEWN HEMLOCK TIMBERS EN ROUTE TO MARKET. These measure 7 by 9 inches and are 18! feet Jong and weigh nearly 400 pounds. When such means of transport are replaced by trucks and trains, the remaining forests may be doomed. (Photograph by E. H. Wilson, courtesy Arnold Arboretum.) 2. AN OLD ORCHARD OF JUJUBES OR CHINESE DATES NEAR PEIPING. Winter wheat is planted in rows in this crchard. It makes a good growth before the leaves of the trees in spring cast too much shade. Jujube orchards are now established in California. (Photograph by P. H. Dorsett, courtesy U. S. Department of Agriculture.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Walker PLATE 10 Loe pr ae 5 “PV? \ ; by : As ¥ x ai At an ie 1. MILLIONS OF PERSIMMONS FROZEN SOLID IN NATURAL COLD-STORAGE BEDS NEAR PEIPING. Note the bundles of kaoliang stalks placed across mounds of earth, thus enabling the cold air to penetrate under the fruit. Thin mats are spread over the top. (Photograph by P. H. Dorsett, courtesy U. S. Department of Agriculture.) 2. BLIGHT-RESISTANT CHINESE CHESTNUT TREES (CASTANEA MOLLISSIMA) IN A CHIHLI PROVINCE ORCHARD. Note the healing scars of branches killed by the blight and the crop planted beneath the trees. American chestnut trees would have died. (Photograph by F. N. Meyer, courtesy U. 8S. Department of Agri- culture.) ; ; Canjeog juoy ‘yy Aq ydeisojoyq) “WeUUN A Ul WINjologry uBYyS NT (ainy[nolis y Jo JUeUT ay} JO J0J091IP MOU SI 9A “UOPIBy) [BIIULIOG SUOY SUOA IY} UL ST SIG. -yaedect ‘SQ Aseqanod ydeis0joyg) ‘“Ysnoi1y} 109} ¢ JnNoqeB st YUN} vy,L “-ISNVHS NI (SISNSNIHOD VIOVLSId) 3SYL AHOVLSId ASHNIHD V Ad ‘YseuYO 1d “XO LNVId IWHYNLINDIYSY YAANO!ld ‘YSAAW 'N ‘A lL °8Z61 NI DNOM DNOH NI (VOIGNI Va1vZy) HSNgG VAIVZY Nv 3qISag ‘Ya3uYO1dxXy LNV1d ASSNIHD ‘OSNIHD ‘OY “Zz LL 3Lv1d JI4[eM—"E$6| ‘Wodeay ueruosyytuig (eany no -l3y Jo juouyedeqd “g “Q Aseyinod “4Jos10q “H “d Aq ydeis0j,0y 4) ‘dind seded eptAoid syooys Yyons W101] UMOA5 SUI0}S sunoxX ‘“sulyo0o 10} poredaid Ayjred sioyjo oyy ‘poysoAsey ysnf ore YS oy} WO OMY OYE “"YNIHD IVYLNAD WOU (SII1NGa SAHOVLSOTIAHd) SLOOHS OOEWVG 3418104 “e lh CEGS/Aba| (eIny[NoWs y JO USUI -yuedeq, *g ‘(Q Aseqinos ‘yyesiod “H ‘d Aq qdvisojoyg) “Boleury 04 ZUI[IBUL 10J pol9y 43 SSUT}IND PUB Spses puB ‘vuTvI AO} BDO suopies PUB SPIVY.10 9} 0} PadV1] aq [IIA So[qvyJo50A PUB S}IMJJ osay} JO 4JSeq 94 L, “ISHUYVW WOYS SLONGOCdd SONIYG ‘YSLSYdYSLN| 3AIEGY S,LLASHOG ‘NIT Y¥sa143d *} NATURAL RUBBER! By O. F. Coox [With 20 plates} CONTENTS Page Why the two principal rubber trees are confused. __-_-..--__.----_--_- 365 GamingretaGhe mb ben ares ter ies ioe oie Ries elude ale Lk AR eis 367 Anew realmrot human attainment. 2422 oe ee 368 Service of rubber-tovsciences=22 sia 2 Ese A ea 369 dubber discoveries accidentals). .tee a eee ee 370 ine wrst.:uropean to appreciate rubber... #2242. 2k leeks ees | 371 ia Condaniine in! Brazil\and Giuliana Joe. ooo ae ATE ek 372 A basic discovery in extracting Para rubber latex._____-___--__-------- 373 Seopevol Ridley si@iscovery aao20 i422 oS nl ee a 374 Pxplaming the wound responses’ ac {oe ee el ye El 375 Commeneial gunveys) of wild, rubber) ae js 2 re 2 es ON lla reat 375 Genera related cO) WAstIa eyo sR a Bn ete ees Pe 377 Genera ‘related to’ Para rubber: sh.) ois sie!) a es eon 377 Evaltiation of rubber treesisi2 eps Gi ety Bere ele ete teh ia ie 377 Reasons) for preferring treecropso2e. 2-2 bok Sei da ee el 378 Rubberiasia garden crop sve ein! seek a Nie a 379 Proplemsiof. rubber latex. £287) eet CC ee come 22 A) oka NR 380 Kuper py rule, Of Uinainbyc ee a lens peas ae OY Re eos eae as, weve - 3880 Rubberand near-rubberse Pie oe Us oe Se RE ede 382 Rubbermrithoutiater! ey Atos oe erecta ee rei ree ee (ya 382 Rubber-forming cells in ‘Castilla latexgicse Sees Se 384 Castilla, handicapped by anvenzyme gy. 2 i ei ek CR ai lel AL 384 TSRTOX SPTATALO ALON GSE IO Li ik UN Re oa pe es ese a 386 Specialized branches and leaves in Castilla..._.__.___-_---__------------ 387 Two forms of branches'in' Castillats 3102S. ols Le oe 388 Specialized leaves of dimorphic branches__._-__.---__---_-------- 389 awoupreliminary, leat forme iny Castilla... 82500 00.22 ce wee Ue 390 Propagation of Castilla from permanent branches___._______------- 391 Forest adaptations of the Para rubber tree. 222. -25--22522-.2e00 528 391 Branching habits or eararupbver tree... 2S lo eee aes 393 Inermittent, growthvobitimonks Joe Led eh ee ee Pe ee 393 eaves! arranged itl rosettes eh op iit bee sey hss Eg eh ae 394 Many, leafless ;metamenrsit sara tse i) oy in Nui 52). hare te copier bua dea agi iain 394 SPONY, PETishapleseeae <12e" we kid ye ey Beas el a 395 edves Of SCCdlhNngRSGeNeCatO ssc act tae fee Oe ee las oe ee he 395 1 Much of this material is recast from previous papers and reports by the same writer in publications of the U. 8. Department of Agriculture. A bibliography is appended. Titles of some of the papers are mentioned in the text, with other references by date only. 363 364 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Page A growth disorder in seedlings of Para rubber__.__..._..._...---.----_ 396 Diversity in ‘abnormal plants. 10228 eh a Ste ee yey ee eg 397 Recovery of normal leaf forms: oi wee eles 8 eet Ate cree i ee 397 A-anature tree with narrow leavesses ecu ky od se ep avenines oe AO 398 The Para rubber tree as-a-bypricetoek-- 45 a2. oe 398 Rubper in a Gesert sorub serie ne eee ee eh ete Ree Le a 398 Developing a’ guayule Industryea ae a eke 400 Effect of Ridley’s discovery on guayule and Castilla__._.__.__.__---- 400 Possibility of applying guayule extraction methods to Castilla__.____ 401 Rubber in desert milkweeds ve! 2 severe ere) 2 eee Pe 402 Cra ptestegen as): A SOL COVER. er eee hee eerie 2 URINE A al I ee oe 403 The African tubber tree in shelter beltse-.0 2 Ce eo eee ee 404 Ahardy. Guitta-perehaneree 0k 8 8 OU aig ale ies AI aa AN 404 Eucommia, a tree that never blossoms. 2..242):-2505._-42.5..-2-2502 405 Eucommia suppresses all terminal buds_______._.--..--._---_------ 406 nie ‘Deilsitey Gro eee oe ee ite eels er ee ahaa Pe ae Ne ad ands ER 407 (Phe sapodilla, orehewine-pumiptrees |] oes ete ee Be ae 408 Ourihousehold/ “rubber plan 72 2 ul OU aria Ce ek ged a 8 a a 409 MWOlTubbers ia tONG:bReG ss.) 2 oi 2 ee 2 Ei pia ee oh ee os ee 409 Taking account of natural sources of rubber is a scientific task of enormous proportions, which as yet has received only casual and inter- mittent attention. Only a few species have been studied and evaluated, while thousands are known to contain rubber, and other thousands doubtless remain to be discovered. Rubber and rubberlike substances are not restricted to plants that have latex, the milky juice that is car- ried in minute tubes apart from the other tissues. Latex may have functions in the plant economy other than the storage or transfer of the rubber-forming material, but nothing has been found to indi- cate that the rubber material itself is more than a waste product, like the resins, tannins, or lignins that are formed in the various groups of higher plants. Thus no biological limit can be set to the need of a general survey of the plant kingdom. A beginning of the search for rubber resources may be reckoned from a century ago, when the Para rubber tree in the forest of the Amazon valley began to be exploited on a large scale, after the Castilla or Central American rubber tree, the original source of commercial rubber, was largely exhausted. To the middle of the last century most of the rubber had been obtained from the Castilla tree, and Brazil has continued to furnish Castilla rubber from the more remote or less accessible districts. The Castilla rubber is handled in Brazil under the name caucho, while the Para rubber is known as borracha. The com- mercial preponderance of the Para rubber in recent decades has left the Castilla rubber in such obscurity—or even oblivion—that popular writers were led to suppose that the history of rubber began in the Amazon valley. In reality the Castilla rubber had been known in Mexico and elsewhere in tropical America for more than three cen- turies before the Para rubber became prominent. NATURAL RUBBER—COOK 365 The Para rubber tree was not widely utilized in the early days be- cause much more labor was required to get the rubber from it than to gather the rubber of Castilla. A Castilla tree was exploited in Brazil in a single complete operation—felling the tree and ringing the trunk in many places, thus obtaining several pounds of rubber, often 10 to 20 pounds—while a Para rubber tree had to be punctured repeatedly through weeks and months, and the latex collected in daily driblets. But with the greater demand for rubber and the rapid advance in prices after the middle of the last century, following Goodyear’s im- provements of manufacturing processes, the gathering of Para rub- ber was greatly stimulated. The discovery of vulcanization is dated from 1839, and Goodyear obtained his patent in 1844. When Richard Spruce, a first-rank botanical explorer, landed at Para in 1849, he found that the tapping of the Para rubber tree was “limited to the immediate environs” of the city, but in a few years of rising prices thousands of people turned to gathering the Para rubber. The extraordinary price reached by rubber in Par& in 1853 at length woke up the people from their lethargy, and when once set in motion, so wide was the impulse extended that throughout the Amazon and its principal tributaries the mass of the population put itself in motion to search out and fabricate rubber. In the small province of Paré alone (which includes a very small portion of the Amazon) it was computed that 25,000 persons were employed in that branch of industry. Mechanics threw aside their tools, sugar-makers deserted their mills, and Indians their rogas, so that sugar, rum, and even farinha were not produced in sufficient quantity for the consumption of the province. Spruce was told of an earlier period when the rubber trees had been felled for tapping, and he inferred from this that the method of har- vesting had been changed in the interest of obtaining more rubber “by successive tappings of the same tree.” Since felling and ringing the trees was the usual procedure with Castilla in South America, a tran- sition from Castilla to Para rubber is indicated. Some of the up-river tribes that Spruce visited did not know that rubber was being gathered from the Para rubber tree. WHY THE TWO PRINCIPAL RUBBER TREES ARE CONFUSED The generic name Siphonia, dating from 1791, was used by Spruce for the Para rubber tree, and for several related species that he dis- covered in Brazil, such as Siphonia lutea, S. pauciflora, and S. dis- color. The use of Hevea instead of Siphonia by Mueller von Aargau in 1865 was a mistake, and has led to much confusion in the histories, habits, and uses of the two principal rubber trees. The native name, heve, the original of Hevea, did not belong to the Para rubber tree or even to the Amazon valley, but to the Castilla tree and to the district of Esmeraldas on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, visited by La Conda- mine in 1736. The Para rubber tree and the related species of Sipho- 366 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 nia do not extend beyond the Andes, but only to the eastern foothills of the mountain barrier. The natural distribution of Castilla in- cludes most of tropical America from Brazil and Peru to Mexico, but not the West Indies. Writers who traced the origin of the name Hevea to the district of Esmeraldas naturally inferred that the Para rubber tree was first discovered on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, though some have assumed that Esmeraldas was a locality in Brazil. As late as 1876 James Collins, the most competent author on rubber of that period, contrib- uting to a book on “British Manufacturing Industries,” represents La Condamine as finding Para rubber trees, “siphonias or seringas in great abundance,” along the Pacific coast, “adjacent to the sea.” The usual supposition that rubber history began in Brazil arises largely from the fact that rubber was coming from Brazil in the days of Goodyear, but the preceding centuries of rubber history should not be disregarded—three centuries in Mexico and at least one century in Brazil. The first rubber industry in Brazil was the gathering of Castilla rubber on the eastern slopes of the Andes, as witnessed by La Condamine when he descended the Amazon in 1748. This indus- try entered Brazil from the Spanish settlements on the Pacific coast, and spread eastward through the Amazon valley, until it was replaced or at least overshadowed at the middle of the next century by the ex- ploitation of the Para rubber tree, beginning around Para and spread- ing westward, as witnessed by Spruce. The word caucho came from the west with the Castilla industry, the word borracha from the east, with the Para rubber. The primary error was made by Aublet in 1775 in associating the vernacular name heve from Esmeraldas with a native rubber tree of French Guiana. But Aublet’s Hevea had been discarded as a hom- onym in Lamarck’s encylopedia, and replaced by Siphonia. To overlook this fact was a technical error, violating one of the basic rules of nomenclature, that names abandoned as homonyms are not to be resumed. The name Hevea doubtless will continue in popular use for many years and will only gradually be replaced by Siphonia. An alternative is to treat Hevea as a popular name, like petunia, aster, or chrysanthemum. The name Para rubber tree is familiar and not equivocal. It seems remarkable that Spruce should have botanized in so many places along the Amazon without encountering a single Castilla tree, from which it may be inferred that a nearly complete extermination had taken place. Many other botanists, before and after Spruce, ob- tained no specimens. The Castilla of the lower Amazon had no botani- cal status until it was described by Warburg in 1905 as a new species, Castilla ulei, named for Ule, the collector. This tree may be less strik- NATURAL RUBBER—COOK 367 ing than the other species of Castilla in Mexico and Central America, since the leaves are smaller, but the trees grow large and yields of 30 to 50 pounds of rubber are reported. The confusion of the names might be supposed to have little rela- tion to the study of practical problems, since the two types of trees are entirely unlike in appearance, habits, and cultural requirements. Castilla is a striking, large-leaved tree like a magnolia, while the Para rubber has the appearance of an ordinary tree—an ash or a boxelder. Although nobody who knows the two trees would be expected to con- fuse them, yet much confusion regarding their characters and behavior has existed and still continues, even among those concerned with rub- ber experiments and projects. The commercial, industrial, mechan- ical, and chemical aspects of the rubber problems have been intensively elaborated, but not the plant-life aspects. Not many tree crops have been domesticated, and people rarely have experience of a kind to make them familiar with such differences as those of the rubber trees. Outside of the Amazon valley, popular knowledge of rubber trees in tropical America has related almost entirely to Castilla, with the Para rubber tree coming forward only in recent years. ‘The uncon- scious carry-over of ideas from the Castilla to the Para rubber has occasioned many destructive errors and interferences, even to the ex- tent of Para rubber trees being cut down as complete failures because they did not yield latex freely like Castilla. This reason was given for cutting down several Para rubber trees in an experimental plant- ing in Haiti. One of the stumps survived for many years, as shown in plate 11. On account of confusion of the trees, a certain indifference appears when the planting of Para rubber is advocated by speakers or writers not familiar with the Castilla tree. Separate recognition of the two trees in the minds of interested people is the first step toward effective understanding and utilization of either of the trees in tropical Amer- ica, or of both together. Castilla may serve under some conditions as a nurse crop for the Para rubber, but the extraction of the latex will need to be done in a different way. COMING OF THE RUBBER AGE Enormous resources of Para rubber were discovered in the forests covering the valleys of the Amazon and its principal tributaries, and yet in a few years all the accessible areas were being exploited, more wild rubber was being sought in other continents, and the question of planting rubber trees was being raised. In 1876 Wickham made his famous shipment of Para rubber seeds to the Kew Gardens near London, for planting in India, and 20 years later the first commercial planting of Para rubber was made in Malaya. The search for other 368 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 sources lapsed when the planting project came through at the begin- ning of this century, and now is largely forgotten. From Goodyear to plantation rubber was only 50 years, and 50 more to the present time. The rapid advance of industrial civilization in the United States during this short period is viewed with complacency as the “Rubber Age,” usually without reflecting that in most of the other countries the utilization of rubber is only at the stage of beginning. The eventual need of rubber must be, in many parts of the world, hundreds or thousands of times the merely “token” requirements as yet recognized. Not only the populous countries need rubber, but the waste places have even greater needs, the vast areas of denuded lands, scarcely populated now, but to be made accessible and habitable by means of rubber. Every nation will need rubber. Developing adequate supplies of rubber is a basic provision for the general advance in human welfare that now is contemplated. Rubber has come to be a normal need of civilized people, hardly less than food, clothing, and shelter. The power of motion is an enlarge- ment of our lives that we purchase at any price. The wider attain- ments and satisfactions of this rubber-brought freedom still are beyond the range of constructive imagination, but there is no thought of turn- ing back to our previous immobile state. We have tried our new legs and wings, but have scarcely learned to use them. Even with us the Rubber Age lies mostly in the future. The futility of all the world depending on the production of a single rubber tree in a single region is amply demonstrated in the present emergency. ‘The production of Para rubber is being decentralized as rapidly as possible, and many other trees, shrubs, and herbaceous rubber-bearing plants are being studied, with special attention to those that can live outside the Tropics. The hardy Zucommia tree from China, if it produced rubber instead of gutta-percha, undoubtedly would be hailed as one of the most valuable introductions. The rubber crops of different countries eventually may be as diversified as the sugar crops or the starch crops, after the cultural qualifications of the various rubber bearers have been determined. Only a beginning could be made in this scientific project with the intermittent interest and support that could be obtained while it appeared that ample supplies of rubber were assured from the plan- tations in Malaya. A NEW REALM OF HUMAN ATTAINMENT From a scientific viewpoint the course of human progress is entering a new realm in adopting and developing the uses of rubber. Pro- found changes are involved, comparable to those encountered by our primitive predecessors in adopting fire, contriving tools, weapons, NATURAL RUBBER—COOK 369 hunting gear, and fishing tackle, discovering fish poisons, building houses and boats, domesticating food plants and animals, developing textiles, ceramics, and graphic arts. All these activities and attain- ments, superposed and interacting with each other, were modified in many ways when metal tools replaced wood and stone, and again when iron and steel could be substituted for copper and bronze. Rubber is a material with new and different properties, not a food or a textile or a metal, but not inferior to any of these in its powers of modifying and transforming the activities and conditions of living in our civiliza- tion. Rubber had only a few uses among primitive peoples, but with us the uses are so many that no limit can be imagined, if our civilization is to continue. Rubber is a new realm not only in the sense of being only recently entered, but also as causing many abrupt changes in the lives of millions of people. Little analogy is found with the gradual developments of other natural resources that have altered conditions of life in the course of centuries. Rubber already has brought many profound transforma- tions to vast numbers of people, leaving very little of their former lives unaffected. In view of the extent and rapidity of this transformation it doubtless will be reckoned in the future as one of the major events of history, and yet the botanical basis and background of the change attained no public recognition during the first quarter-century of intensive utilization. SERVICE OF RUBBER TO SCIENCE Rubber is serving civilization in so many ways that efforts to enu- merate them become tiresome, but services to science often are omitted from such reckonings. Not only are airplanes, automobiles, trucks, speedboats, and countless other machines dependent on rubber, but also a world of scientific apparatus, the veritable tools of investigation. What would chemical laboratories be without the equipment made possible by rubber tubes and gaskets, or electric research without insulation? That chemistry should have achieved at this juncture the knowledge and skill to make synthetic rubber will doubtless feature with future historians as a “decisive battle” in the scientific field, an- other escape of civilization from a major disaster. The development of synthetic rubber lends a new interest and significance to natural rubber.? Another service to science is seen in the special studies of the rubber- bearing plants, many of which would otherwise have remained but little known, as most of the forms of plant life still are, especially in 2A discussion of synthetic rubber and of chemical research connected with rubber will be found in a paper entitled “The Rubber Industry, 1839-1939,” by W. A. Gibbons, Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst. for 1940, p. 193, 1941. 370 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 tropical countries. Only a few of the species that are known to con- tain rubber have as yet been accessible to comparative study, but even these preliminary surveys have opened new chapters in botany. That many unknown and unexpected features should be found among the rubber-bearing plants need not be taken to mean that such plants as a class are peculiar, but only that our knowledge of and interest in the plant world still are strangely limited. RUBBER DISCOVERIES ACCIDENTAL Many writers have stressed the fact that Goodyear’s discovery was made accidentally, and this is true, to an even greater extent, of other contributions not less significant than Goodyear’s to the development of the rubber industry. Goodyear’s contribution is in no way dimin- ished by recognizing that the services of other men were likewise indispensable. Wickham’s exploit of 1876 in sending rubber seeds from Brazil to England for planting in India is frequently recounted, but two other names should be as widely recognized: La Condamine, who was concerned with rubber a century before Goodyear, and Rid- ley, who came half a century after Goodyear. Wickham’s exportation of rubber seeds from Brazil and Ridley’s discovery of a tapping method at Singapore were both voluntary contributions due solely to the interest and initiative of the two men involved. Neither had gone to the Tropics to study rubber, and the services that they rendered had not been planned or expected. Cross was being sent to Brazil at the time that Wickham was obtaining his shipment of 70,000 seeds by persuading the captain of a tramp steamer to take a chance of being rewarded. Previous seed shipments had failed, and that method of introduction was being abandoned. Cross, a few months later, took home a thousand young seedling plants, but only a few survived. Without Wickham’s seeds the ex- periments of that period could not have reached a practical scale. Ridley’s solution of the tapping problem also came, so to speak, from the side lines. Specialists in plant physiology had been sent to Ceylon and a station established for experiments with rubber trees, but under a policy of tapping the trees by methods carried over from Brazil, such discouraging results were obtained that Ridley had difficulty in getting his facts considered. Without the spontaneous interest of these two men, the history of rubber culture must have been com- pletely different. Even with these contributions, the outlook for rubber planting remained doubtful until actual production was demonstrated. As late as 1900 unfavorable opinions of Para rubber were reported in Java, where experimental studies of this and other rubber plants were supposed to have received more attention than in the British NATURAL RUBBER—COOK Sy pil colonies. Further planting of Para rubber as a regular crop was no longer considered advisable on the basis of careful studies by agricultural specialists. For Java it appeared that Ficus elastica was more promising, and even on the general question of rubber plantations the Dutch investigators were said to have reached an adverse conclusion, on account of the small prospect of meeting the expense of competent and honest administration of the estates. THE FIRST EUROPEAN TO APPRECIATE RUBBER The statements of many books that rubber was “discovered” by La Condamine in 1736, are misleading, since rubber undoubtedly had been known and used by native peoples over most of tropical America through many generations. Many travelers and explorers had visited America before La Condamine, and several had reported the existence of rubber, but none had considered rubber as more than a curiosity, one of the many marvels of the New World, but with no impression of practical value. La Condamine was the first European to become constructively interested in rubber—the first to see that this tough, elastic substance might become valuable material in France and other civilized countries. Alexander von Humboldt and many other European travelers visited tropical America before and after La Condamine without receiving, or at least without reporting, any such impression of the potential importance of rubber. Thousands of Europeans—soldiers, sailors, missionaries, travelers, and settlers in America—had seen and handled rubber, as shown by casual references in several early books on America. Many incidental uses were noted by Sahagun, who reached Mexico in 1528, and by Hernandez, who came in 1570. Saha- gun also described many religious ceremonies among the Aztecs in which Castilla rubber, or wlli, was used with copal as a burnt offering, or made into sacred images of the gods. The resemblance of rubber to a living animal or to human tissues may be reflected in some of the native names. The Aztec name, wle, was adopted into Spanish in North America; in South America another native name, caucho, rendered in French as caoutchouc. Many languages of Central and South America have distinctive names for rubber or for the rubber tree. La Condamine was not a botanist or even a naturalist, but is usually described as an astronomer or mathematician, and also as a geographer or engineer. His errand in South America was to determine more definitely the figure of the earth by making astronomical measure- ments of sections of the meridian of Quito, close to the Equator. The expedition was sponsored by the Academy of Sciences of Paris, under the auspices of the King of France, Louis XV. Since the astronomical 372 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 project was responsible for La Condamine’s visiting South America and seeing rubber in its natural state, rubber may be reckoned his- torically as a byproduct of astronomy. La Condamine went to South America by way of Panama and landed in “Peru” at the small port of Manta, actually on the coast of Ecuador north of Guayaquil. The Andes were ascended by way of Esmeral- das, another coast locality north of Manta. Heavy rains in the moun- tains made the trails impassable, and the few weeks of enforced delay in the coast district doubtless were responsible for his contacts with rubber. Thus a mere incident of travel appears to have had a much more important relation to human progress than anything else that La Condamine was able to contribute. No time would appear to have been lost by La Condamine in sending his first report on rubber to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, in 1736. A further account was published in 1745, soon after La Condamine returned to France. LA CONDAMINE IN BRAZIL AND GUIANA The fact that La Condamine descended the Amazon and visited French Guiana before returning to Europe is responsible for the strange confusion of the principal rubber trees already noted. The chief purpose for which rubber was being collected at the time of La Condamine’s visit was for making torches and candles, which are said to have burned very well. The evil smell of burning rubber comes largely from the sulfur that is added. At the time of La Conda- mine’s visit, supplies of rubber were being obtained from the eastern slopes of the Andes in the Maynas district of the upper Amazon, as well as from the forests along the Pacific coast. No rubber gathering on the lower Amazon was mentioned by La Condamine, but at Para small objects modeled from rubber were seen, and some of these were carried to French Guiana, where a search for rubber trees was started. Fresneau, an engineer who spent 14 years in this colony, found several latex-bearing trees, as reported through La Condamine to the Paris Academy in 1751. One of the Guiana trees was supposed from native information to be the kind that furnished rubber in Brazil, and this was described by Aublet in 1775 as Hevea guianensis. Several localities were noted, and the nuts were said to be gathered and eaten by the natives, the “al- mond” having a pleasant taste. La Condamine and Fresneau are not mentioned, but a reference is given to the “poor figure of the Guiana tree in the memoir of 1751.” The name “Hevea peruviana” engraved on Aublet’s plate 335 leaves no doubt that the Guiana tree was sup- posed to be the same that La Condamine had found on the coast of Esmeraldas, “northwest of Quito,” where Castilla grows, and the native name heve was encountered. NATURAL RUBBER—COOK aie Thus it came about that the name heve, used by the natives of Es- meraldas for the Castilla tree, was employed by Aublet as a generic designation for the Guiana rubber tree, and later was extended to the Para rubber tree. The writers who placed Esmeraldas in Brazil or in Venezuela, rather than in Ecuador, show the extent of confusion that a misleading name may generate. Ducke says in a footnote of his “Revision of the Genus Hevea,” in 1935: “I do not know why Aublet attributed the origin of the name heve to Esmeraldas on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, where the genus Hevea is unknown.” The reason is that the trees were assumed to be the same, since both produced rubber. A BASIC DISCOVERY IN EXTRACTING PARA RUBBER LATEX The rapid extension of the use of rubber during the present century was made possible by the discovery at Singapore about 1890 of a new method of tapping the Para rubber tree. The discovery was made by Henry N. Ridley, then in charge of the Singapore Botanic Gardens. A definite date is difficult to assign because the tapping experiments were made incidentally and not published by Ridley until 1897. Even then the report was fragmentary and not explicit, so that little ac- count has been taken of what in reality was a basic discovery that made plantation rubber feasible on a large scale. The idea that latex could be drawn repeatedly and at short intervals from the same wound, by paring the margin, doubtless seemed too absurd to be credited by rea- sonable people and was therefore difficult to disseminate. No effective record might have been made if Ridley had not been visited at Singa- pore in 1896 by David Fairchild, as described in an article in the Journal of Heredity for May 1928, “Dr. Ridley of Singapore and the Beginnings of the Rubber Industry.” Fairchild appears to have appreciated more clearly than Ridley that a definite and indispensable step had been taken in Ridley’s experi- ments. To Fairchild it seemed that Ridley had worked out “the most important single point of technique connected with the very vital problem of how to get the rubber out of the Hevea trees.” Fairchild’s evaluation of Ridley’s work is as follows: It is to Dr. Ridley that we owe the discovery that you can open a wound in the bark of the rubber tree, let it “bleed” and collect the latex as long as it will run, and when the wound dries cut it open again the next day and get not only another run of latex but a larger run than from the original incision. It is this discovery which led to the development of the modern methods of rubber tapping and, it may be fairly said, solved the planter’s difficulties; turned the trick so to say, in a critical period of the rubber industry. Every well informed manu- facturer in America will see that such a trick, such a discovery, had it been in the field of patentable inventions would have resulted in royalties sufficient to have enriched the discoverer and placed him in the class of the great inventors of the twentieth century. But it did not do this. Dr. Ridley today is a man of 566766—44——25 374 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 small means whose chief pleasure is in studying the herbarium material which he had collected years ago in that part of the world which he chose as a young man for his special field of study—the Malayan Region; and in the preparation of a Flora of that remarkable area of the tropics. The introduction of a new plant into a new region is an “event.” The first exploitation and adaptation of that plant to the conditions of life which surround the new plant immigrant is another “event.” And we must indeed be lacking in imagination if we fail to raise on a pinnacle the pioneers whose vision and ingenuity and scientific curiosity guided the developments of these vast and indis- pensable industries during their formative days. SCOPE OF RIDLEY’S DISCOVERY A more fateful discovery than Ridley’s method of harvesting the rubber of the Siphonia tree would be difficult to adduce from the pages of history. Many “epoch-making inventions” are recounted, but none that so promptly affected so many millions of people. In all civilized countries living conditions and social relations were profoundly changed in a few years. Even among primitive tribes in remote and backward regions of the Tropics, rubber cultivation had almost immediate effects. ‘Thousands of Malays, Hindus, and Chinese soon were engaged as contract laborers on the rubber plantations, while other thousands of even more primitive people were released from the gathering of wild rubber in forest regions of both hemi- spheres, and in effect were reprieved from extinction through Ridley’s discovery. A parallel may be seen in Eli Whitney’s invention of the saw gin for short-staple cotton, which had social and political significance in the rapid expansion of Negro slavery in the southern States, eventuating in the Civil War, but these effects were relatively local, while the rubber reactions were world-wide. The ascendancy of the northern nations of Europe may be ascribed to the introduction of the potato, but centuries were required for the potato sequence to work out, while less than half a century has elapsed since the first com- mercial planting of the Siphonia tree in 1896. Rubber production offered at once such definite advantages that only a few years were required for a new agricultural industry to be created in the East Indies, and new manufacturing industries in Europe and America, providing new systems of communication and transportation in all civilized countries. Rubber and gutta-percha as insulating materials made it possible for electricity to be utilized. Riding on rubber has become our “standard of living.” A vast exten- sion of the human environment has taken place. Hundreds of chemical and physical discoveries have contributed to “modern scientific progress,” but rubber in thousands of tons was necessary for the endless new applications to be developed. Ridley’s biological observation was the critical point in quantity production, NATURAL RUBBER—COOK SD making it possible for our industrial and cultural transformations to go forward with such amazing speed. It might be said that Ridley turned on the rubber, and caused an industrial deluge. EXPLAINING THE WOUND RESPONSE Studies of the tapping problems of the Para rubber tree in the early period were confused by a special theory of wound response, devised to explain the’ gradually increasing flows of latex after the first tapping, which usually yields very little. The theory assumed a greater intensity of physiological action to account for more latex being formed in the bark adjacent to a tapping wound, but such a reaction is not indicated. The underlying causes, determined by later investigators, are the branching latex tubes, which form a con- tinuous network throughout the bark, and the fact that the latex becomes more liquid with a lower content of rubber. Subsequent tappings produce a freer flow because the tubes adjacent to the wound are gradually freed of the thicker, more creamy latex shown in its original state at the first tapping; other changes, of a nature to form more latex in the tissues around the wound, are not indicated. Instead of an effect of the tapping upon the adjacent tissues, the lack of such an effect is the remarkable fact that needs to be appre- ciated in order to understand that in the Para rubber tree renewal of the same wound may be repeated frequently and continued indefi- nitely. Because the latex tubes are united into a network, the supply of latex is always sufficient to replenish the tubes near the wound, and thus to restore the bark pressure. The entire system of the tree contributes to the drainage from the tapping wound. The prompt replacement of the latex and renewal of the bark may be viewed as . a remarkable provision of the tree against the wound reactions that otherwise might occur if the tissues remained depleted or became infected by fungi or bacteria, which rarely happens.* COMMERCIAL SURVEYS OF WILD RUBBER From the commercial standpoint it appeared that the search for resources of wild rubber had been carried to a practical conclusion in the later decades of the last century. With supplies of wild rub- ber from Brazil becoming inadequate, large expenditures were made by commercial agencies in exploring the tropical forest regions of both hemispheres. In Africa, Madagascar, and Malaya, many new rubber-bearing trees, vines, and “root-rubbers” were found and rap- idly exhausted, though several were exploited extensively during 2A lack of wound response in an experiment with repeated tapping was reeognized by Karling in a latex-bearing tree (Couma guatemalensis), studied in eastern Guatemala as a possible substitute for chicle. See Amer. Journ. Bot., vol. 22, p. 580, 1933. 376 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 periods of years. Such efforts continued until the plantations of Para rubber trees in the Malay Peninsula began to supply the market, and the need of searching further for wild rubber seemed to have passed. In reality the commercial surveys had taken only a partial view of the general problem of natural rubber. The rubber-producing plants were not studied or evaluated from the standpoint of agricultural production possibilities, but only with reference to their existence in large numbers over wide areas, in sufficient abundance to be exploited in commercial quantities. No commercia! interest would be taken in trees or plants limited to small areas or occurring as rare, widely scat- tered individuals. With a plant that is brought into cultivation, it obviously makes little difference whether the wild stock is scattered widely in nature or limited to a single district, or even to a single locality. Many spe- cies are localized, especially in tropical regions, to an extent that is seldom appreciated. The apparent uniformity of tropical forests al- lows us to suppose that the same species are widely distributed, but even where forests are continuous the species may prove to vary. Richard Spruce, after several years of intensive exploration in the Amazon valley, estimated that with every degree of latitude half of the species were changed. Alfred Russell Wallace, who visited Brazil during the same period that Spruce did, also failed to distinguish between the two types of trees that were being exploited in the Amazon valley. Even in 1908, in publishing Spruce’s Journals, Wallace writes of cutting the trees down as a method of utilization that had been applied to the Para rubber in the early days. Wallace held that the latex served for the growth of the trees and that tapping should be suspended during the flowering and fruiting season. Several species of Siphonia, or Hevea, have been described from the Amazon valley, but only one species of Castilla. The number of per- ceptibly different local forms of Castzla doubtless would run into scores or hundreds, if a thorough study could be made. Ten species were distinguished in a monograph by Pittier published in 1910, and others may be described, but the number that can be separated and classified by definite differences may not be much larger. The species of Castilla are less localized than in many tropical genera, the fleshy fruits being eaten by birds and monkeys, and the seed scattered. Vari- ations of structure or habits within the species, such as thicker bark or greater tolerance of drought or other unfavorable conditions, may have cultural importance far beyond the characters formulated in describing species in the usual manner, that is, from differences in leaves, flowers, or fruits. NATURAL RUBBER—COOK oe GENERA RELATED TO CASTILLA Several genera related to Castilla are worthy of being canvassed as rubber trees, in view of reports by botanical collectors that the latex was abundant and formed an elastic substance. Thus Olmedia aspera and Q. laevis were noted by Ruiz in 1784 at Pozuzo on the eastern slope of Peru as “trees that on incision give an abundance of very white milk, which, exposed to the air, turns into a very elastic resin of a reddish-chestnut color; it can be shaped into any form desired.” The presence of rubber may explain a statement by Sandeman in “A For- gotten River,” that a waterproof bark cloth is obtained from this Olmedia, which the Indians call Zlanchama. x 4 7 _ = a) 4 : “8 ~~ >" ae * fis me 4 4 “¢ A '. = < Font g AN ASSAM RUBBER TREE IN FLORIDA. Our familiar household ‘‘rubber plant,’ a species of fig (Ficus elastica) commonly grown from cuttings for decorative use. The tree is native in northern India, but thrives in Florida, the spreading limbs supported on aerial roots, like the banyan fig of India. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cook PLATE 20 | ei ; ' ‘ FRUITING STAGE OF THE ASSAM FIG TREE. Leaves and fruits, natural size, from a large tree at Port-au-Prince, Haiti. As with many tropical trees, the leaves are much smaller in mature trees than in juvenile stages. These leaves are only 3 to 4i nches long, while the tree in plate 19 had leaves nearly a foot long. LESSONS FROM THE OLD WORLD TO THE AMERICAS IN LAND USE? By WALTER CLAY LOWDERMILK Assistant Chief, Soil Conservation Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture [With 4 plates] Lands of the Old World bear an indelible record written across land- scape after landscape by resident populations. The longer the occu- pation, the deeper is the record written and the easier it is to read the story of man’s stewardship of the earth, whether it be wasteful ex- ploitation or use with conservation of the resource. One finds suc- cessful adjustments of populations to the land in remarkable terrac- ing and reclamation works, as well as tragedies of land misuse, in gul- lied fields and alluvial plains, in rocky hills and mountain slopes washed bare of soils, in shifting soils and sands, in silted-up and aban- doned irrigation reservoirs and canals, in ruins of great and prosper- ous cities and in ruins of olive presses and cisterns in desertlike land- scapes. The effects of land use through the centuries are cumulative. In the United States of America, we have in a comparatively short period written far and wide on the face of our country a story of wasteful exploitation and reckless use of abundant natural resources. We have grown wealthy by an economy of exploitation. The time has come with the occupation of all lands of the earth to change to an economy of conservation. It is of timely interest to the New World to read the story of land use as it has been written in the lands of the Old World, that we may profit by the experience of the past in its failures as well as its successes. Western civilization had its beginnings in the Near East in the alluvial plains of the Nile Valley and of Mesopotamia. Early tillers of soil by irrigation and by selection of food plants produced more food than they themselves required. Surplus food supplies released other members of early societies to engage in useful activities other than food production. Division of labor thus began and increased the command over nature and progress in civilization. + Reprinted by permission from Proceedings of the Highth American Scientific Congress, vol. 5, 1942. 413 414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 From these far-away lands of the Near East, western civilization has moved westward, until now its vanguard has reached the gleaming billows of the Pacific Ocean that wash the western sands of the Ameri- cas. For the first time in the history of the human race there are no more continents to discover, to colonize, and to exploit. The fron- tiers of new lands are gone forever. The nations of the Americas occupy the last frontier of western civilization. A survey of land use throughout this westward march of civilization discloses successes and failures in the long use of land. The object of this survey was to profit by failures and achievements of the Old World in our national movement for the conservation of land. This survey covered 28,000 miles of overland travel by automobile from humid England to the margins of the deserts of Sahara and Arabia. Studies were made in consultation with fully a hundred specialists in 124 areas of special interest within 14 countries and dependencies in a period of 15 months of field work. No attempt is made in this brief paper to account for the destruction or conservation of lands on economic grounds. To profit by the ex- perience of the past it is important to know what has happened to the land after centuries and thousands of years of use. Complexity of causes cannot hide the menace to national welfare in soil erosion and the necessity for setting up national objectives to conserve basic re- sources of soils and waters in the land. Means of achieving the ob- jectives of conservation will vary in accordance with the genius of peoples and their institutions. Soil erosion, if not controlled, has demonstrated its ability to undermine nations and civilizations re- gardless of what may have been the social or economic conditions that set it going or stimulated its destructiveness. The land of special areas was examined for evidences—in changes of the original soil profiles insofar as they could be reconstructed ; in the shifting of soils from slopes by erosion; and in the accumulation of sediments on valley floors and plains; in the shifting of sand dunes; in the cutting out of alluvial plains with deep gullies; in the filling cf stream channels with erosional debris producing marshy condi- tions; and in ruins of agricultural works for the control and conserva- tion of waters for domestic and irrigation use; as well as evidences of changes or stability of climate. Furthermore, the fate of the physical body of the soil resource was given more attention in the survey than problems of fertility maintenance. For if the soil is maintained in place, liberty of action in use is assured to succeeding tillers of the soil, in applying more or less fertilizer, in growing this or that crop; but if the soil itself is destroyed, the present and succeeding genera- tions are deprived of their basic heritage. Throughout this broad expanse of land it became plain that the fate of land under use has been most influenced by slope. The hazard of LAND USE—LOWDERMILK 415 soil erosion is low on flat lands, but it is critical on sloping lands. Flat lands have their problems, it is true, in the rise of water tables and in the accumulation of salts, but drainage is usually sufficient. Other problems occur in the formation of sand dunes, for which fixation with vegetation is the solution. But the tiller of soil has met his greatest problem throughout the ages in maintaining cultivation on sloping lands. We found failures and successes throughout this broad expanse of land. ANCIENT PHOENICIA AND SLOPE FARMING The Near East is believed by archeologists to be the scene of the beginnings of agriculture which made the growth of western civiliza- tion possible (11).?_ It is probable that irrigated agriculture preceded rain agriculture. The flat lands of the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia were irrigated before the slopes of ancient Phoenicia were cleared and cultivated. It is probable also that it was on the slopes of the orig- inally forest-clad mountains of ancient Phoenicia that rain agriculture first began, and at the same time the tiller of soil of our western civil- ization first encountered the hazards of slope cultivation and of soil erosion. It is also probable that the tillers of soil first controlled erosion here with rock walls to terrace sloping lands. In this connection, we must refer to the remarkable terraces of Peru. I am unaware if the age of the terraces of Peru has been de- termined. Certainly they were developed by the genius of a resource- ful people in great antiquity and independently of the Phoenicians in the Near East, for which they deserve equal praise for a marvelous achievement. About 5,300 years ago, the Phoenicians migrated from the desert and settled along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, estab- lishing the harbor towns of Tyre and Sidon, Beyrouth and Byblos. They found their land mountainous, rising to a crest of 10,000 feet and heavily covered with forests, the greatest extent of which were the forests of the famous cedars of Lebanon. These forests became the timber supply for the treeless alluvial plains of the Nile and of Mesopotamia. This conclusion is inferred from inscriptions such as one on the Temple of Karnak, Egypt, placed at 2840 B. C., which announces the arrival in Egypt of 40 ships laden with timber of the cedars of Lebanon (2). Inscriptions found in excavations of Nineveh and of ancient Babylon refer to the use of “huge cedars from Mount Lebanon” in the construction of buildings (9). In this mountainous land rising boldly out of the sea there was little flat land along the coast. The growing population doubtless soon exceeded the carrying capacity of these restricted flat lands and was 2 Numbers in parentheses refer to literature cited. 416 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 faced with the alternatives of shipbuilding, trade, founding colonies, and the cultivation of slopes. As these slopes were cleared of forests and cultivated, they were subject to soil erosion under heavy winter rains, then as they would be now. The great area of terrace walls in various states of repair indicate that the ancient Phoenician slope farmer sought to retard or control erosion with rock walls across the slope, 40 or possibly 50 centuries ago. The famous forests of the cedars of Lebanon, which are associated with the rise of civilization in the alluvial plains of the Near East, retreated before the ax and the hoe until today only a few remnants of the original forest of about 1,000 square miles are left. The best known relic is the Tripoli grove of cedars, consisting of about 400 trees, saved from vandalism by a church and from goat grazing by a stone wall. (Pl. 1, fig. 1.) Restocking of this grove within the protection of a stone wall against grazing signifies that under present climatic conditions the forest would spread and grow where soil enough has escaped the ravages of erosion. The disappearance of these famous forests is symbolic of the decline and deterioration of the resources of the country. Today one may find on the mountains of ancient Phoenicia bare lime- stone slopes strewn with remnants of former terrace walls, showing that the battle with soil erosion sometimes was a losing fight (18) ; else- where one may find terraces that have been maintained for several thousand years. (Pl.1,figs.2 and 3.) Such astounding achievements demonstrate that when the physical body of the soil resource is main- tained, it may be cultivated and made productive for thousands of years. Its yield in crops then depends upon its treatment. The cost in human labor to level terrace slopes of 50 to 75 percent as were found in Beit-Eddine, Lebanon, works out at modern wage scales at 2,000 to 4,000 United States dollars per acre. Such costs are not justified when other lands are available; moreover these costs repre- sent what may and sometimes must be paid in an economy of survival. Such remarkable works demonstrate to what lengths a people will go to survive, as well as the necessity of maintaining the soil resources to support a population. Such examples warn us to find ways of saving good lands before necessity drives a people to such extremes in costs of human effort. A “HUNDRED DEAD CITIES” Syria holds some of the grandest ruins to be found in the ancient world, such as Baalbek and Jerash. But to a soil conservationist the most striking ruins are found in the graveyard of a “hundred dead cities.” (Pl. 2, fig. 3.) An area of about a million acres in North Syria lying between Aleppo, Antioch, and Hama exhibits soil erosion LAND USE—-LOWDERMILK 417 at its worst. Here are ruins of villages, market towns resting on the skeleton rock of limestone hills, from which 8 to 6 feet of soil have been swept off. Evidence of the depth of soil eroded from these slopes is found in doorsills of stone houses now 8 to 6 feet above the bare rock. Here soil erosion has done its worst and spread a ghastly destruction over a formerly prosperous landscape, as judged by the ruins of splen- did houses in villages and in cities, such as at El Bare, which we ex- amined in the summer of 1939. In reality, these cities are dead, with no hope of resurrection; for the basis of their prosperity is gone. These cities have not been buried, but have been left high and stark by the removal of soil through the irreversible process of erosion. The good earth of terra rossa soils is completely gone from the slopes except in patches where it is held back by walls of ruined buildings or in pockets in the limestone. In these patches a few vines and olive trees stand as sad remnants of a former profitable use of land, which provided exports of olive oil and wine to Rome during the empire. Seminomads now inhabit repaired ruins in a few of the former cities. As one travels in the desolation of this man-made desert today, amid the barren limestone hills once forested before they were converted to cultivated fields, I was moved by continuous astonishment to find ruins of dead cities which gave every evidence of former prosperity and well-being. (P1.2,fig.1.) While buildings of some cities are tumbled amid their masses of overturned blocks, those of other cities stand upright, showing facades, towers, arches, and walls of convents and cathedrals, as well as details of houses, villas, shops, stores, public baths, hotels, and superb tombs such as those at El] Bare. This area was flourishing from the third to the seventh century, without sign of decadence. The invasion of the Persians in 614 and the Arabs in 630 decimated the inhabitants, blotted out their culture, destroyed their cities, and even the traditions of their agriculture. Today, after 13 centuries of neglect, of terraces overrun by herds and patch cultivation of grain by seminomadic descendants of the invaders, soil erosion has completed the destruction of the good earth with a thoroughness that has left this formerly productive land a man-made desert, generally void of vegetation, water, and soil. The cities could be made habitable again, but they will remain dead for- ever, because their soils are gone beyond hope of restoration. Here the “unpardonable sin” of land use has been committed. THE “PROMISED LAND” OF PALESTINE When Moses stood on Mount Nebo and looked across the Jordan to the “Promised Land” about 3,000 years ago, he described the land to his followers as a “land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, 418 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass” (1). The “Promised Land,” as it is today, is a sad commentary on man’s stewardship of the earth. The “Promised Land” which 3,000 years ago was “flowing with milk and honey” has been so devastated by soil erosion that the soils have been swept off fully half the area of the hill lands. The soils have been washed off the hills into the valleys (pl. 2, fig. 2), where they are sorted: the finer particles are swept out in flood waters to change the beautiful blue of the Mediterranean to a dirty brown as far as the horizon; the coarser particles are spread out on former alluvium where they are still cultivated but in a progressively reduced area. Acceler- ated run-off from barren slopes continues to cut gullies through the alluvial valleys and to carry erosional debris out to choke up the channels of streams flowing through the coastal plains. In times past, such erosional debris together with sand dunes blown in from the coast created marshes in the plains; then malaria came in, practically depopulating the lowlands. The hills also have been greatly depopulated as shown by the studies of Dr. Guy (5). A survey of ancient village sites abandoned and now occupied discloses how the hill lands of Palestine have been depopulated since the seventh cen- tury. The watershed of Wadi Musrara of 312 square miles draining the western slope from Jerusalem to Tel-Aviv was divided into three altitudinal zones: (1) the plain, 0-100 meters; (2) the foothills, 100-300 meters; (3) the hills, 300 meters and over. In the plains outside marshy areas, 32 sites are now occupied and 4 abandoned; in the foot- hills, 31 occupied and 65 abandoned; and in the hills, 87 occupied and 127 abandoned. The break-down of ancient terrace walls and the erosion of soils to bedrock on the upper slopes is sufficient reason to account for the reduction in population. Erosion in the hills as well as marshes with malaria in the coastal plain has been sufficient to reduce the population of the “Promised Land” to one-third of the Roman and Byzantine period. Palestine can never be restored to its original condition as the “Promised Land”; it can be much improved over its present condition as the splendid works of the Jewish colonies on 5 percent of the total area have demonstrated, but the lands have been so devastated by the irreversible process of soil erosion in the uplands that they can never be restored to their original productivity as the “Promised Land”—it is too late. This case brings home the tremendous lesson that sloping lands may be damaged beyond full restoration; that unless suitable measures are taken in time, land resources are reduced in the face of increasing populations with their augmented demands. LAND USE—LOWDERMILK 419 The recent movement of Jewish colonization to redeem the wasted lands of Palestine is an excellent example of what can be done, but at great cost. (Pl. 1, fig. 4.) Works of reclamation of swamps and of reforestation of barren rocky slopes cost more than can be justified as commercial investments in land. The insidious nature of erosion is here made apparent. It reaches a point where the value of the lands will not justify their restoration as an investment for profit. This work can be justified only on the basis of survival of a people. Such expenditures fall into the category of national defense against a ruthless invader or destroyer; for land is the basis of life of a people. ROMAN AFRICA North Africa bristles with astounding ruins of opulent and popu- lous cities and of thousands of villages and works of the Roman epoch. (Pl. 2, figs. 4 and 6.) A century or more after the destruction of Carthage by Scipio in 146 B. C. Rome began to colonize North Africa and in the course of time established several important and stately cities at the sites now known as Timgad, Sbeitla, Tebessa, Jemila, El Jem, and Lambesis. These cities were established at cross- roads and along the southern edge of the great agricultural region, devoted principally to the growing of grain and olives. The Roman city of Thydrus, at the present site of El Jem, was located in the midst of the great coastal plain of Tunisia. The most conspicuous remnant here is the ruin of a great coliseum to seat 60,000 spectators, which was second in size only to that at Rome. (Pl. 2, fig. 5.) Now a wretched village stands on the site of this great Roman city. This center was supported by intensive agricul- ture of grain fields and olive orchards; now this plain is sparsely covered with wild vegetation and isolated groves of olives overrun by herds of grazing animals. The Roman city of Thamugadi, at the site called Timgad in Al- geria, was one of the more famous centers of Roman power and cul- ture. It was established by Emperor Trajan about A. D. 100 and was laid out in symmetrical pattern, equipped with a magnificent forum embellished with statuary and carved porticoes, with a public library, with 17 Roman baths adorned with beautiful mosaic floors, with a theater to seat some 2,500 and with marble flush latrines. Timgad was a stately city supported by extensive grain fields in the valley plains and olive orchards on the hills. After the weakening of the Roman power by the Vandal invasion in A. D. 430 the Berbers captured the city, and after the Arab in- vasion of the seventh century it was lost to knowledge for 1,200 years, buried by dust, the product of wind erosion. Only a few columns and a portion of Trajan’s arch stood above undulating mounds as 420 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 tombstones to indicate that once a great city was here. There is no counterpart today of the magnificence of this ancient city. A wretched village of mud-wall houses sheltering a few hundred in- habitants is the only descendant of this center of Roman power and culture. Water erosion as well as wind erosion has been at work on the landscape. Gullies have cut through portions of the city and have exposed the aqueduct which supplied the city with water from a great spring some 3 miles away. Ruins of the land are as impressive as the ruins of cities. The hills have been swept bare of soil, a story which may be read throughout the region. The original soil mantle is being washed off the slopes, often showing that the upper edge of the soil mantle is being grad- ually worked down slope by accelerated run-off from the bared up- per slopes. Erosional debris has been deposited on the lower slopes and valley plain. Torrential storm waters cut great gullies into the alluvial plains. Water tables are lowered and rain waters quickly flow off the land leaving it dry and thirsty. The effects of desiccation of the land are brought about even if rainfall has not diminished. Out toward the Sahara, 70 miles south of Tebessa, were found ruins of remarkable works for conserving and spreading storm run-off. Check dams were constructed to divert storm waters around the slopes and to spread them on a series of terraces, dating back to Roman or pre-Roman times. Why these terraces were constructed is not yet known. At any rate the French Government is rebuilding the works and is spreading storm waters out on these terraces to increase forage growth for the herds of the Arab nomads. These works of water conservation out so near the Sahara Desert might indicate that cli- mate has changed or that all good lands were intensively utilized during the Roman epoch. All North Africa, as indicated by such a vast display of ruins and works in the midst of a sparsely settled and depressing land, must have had an agriculture of remarkable refinement in measures of soil and water conservation. The striking contrast between the prosperous and populous con- dition of North Africa in Roman times and present decadence led early students to believe that an adverse change of climate was re- sponsible for the decline of the granary of Rome. But the researches of Gsell (4), Gautier (3) and Leschi (7) discount an adverse change in climate since Roman times (6 and 10). The most telling evidence of unchanged climate in the past 2,000 years is the successful planta- tion of olive groves on the sites of ruins of Roman stone olive presses. An experimental grove planted at Timgad by Director Godet demon- strates that olive orchards would thrive today where soil still remains on slopes. The great plantation of more than 150,000 acres in the vicinity of Sfax, Tunisia, which now supports thriving enterprises at LAND USE—LOWDERMILK 421 Sfax, also discredits the change of climate theory. Moreover, in the vicinity of Sousse, Tunisia, there are a few Roman olive orchards which escaped the destructive invasions of the seventh century and survive to the present day. No pulsations of climate have been sufficiently ad- verse to kill off this remnant of the agriculture of Roman times. The astounding decline in agriculture of the Near East and North Africa is not due primarily to adverse climatic change (14 and 12). It was begun by successful invasions of desert nomads during the seventh century and completed by soil erosion. This remarkable in- vasion, which not only destroyed a civilization, but its agriculture and, more important, the traditions of its agriculture, is another in- stance of the age-old struggle between Cain and Abel, between the shepherd and the farmer, between the tent dweller and the house dweller. The desert has always produced more people than it could feed. Farmers built up thriving cultures in the alluvial plains. From time to time the hungry tent dwellers swept into the valleys, when defenses were weak, and destroyed and robbed, sometimes passed on, and left destruction and carnage in their path. At other times they replaced the former population to become farmers and city dwellers themselves, only to be destroyed by another invasion of hungry deni- zens of the steppes or deserts. These nomad invaders and their herds unleashed the forces of soil erosion by water and by wind which through centuries have reduced the capacity of the land to produce or to be restored to its former productivity, except in some alluvial valleys. The achievement of conservation of land resources by long and tedious methods was nulli- fied by ruthless invasions and wars. : Such are some instances of the decline in the usefulness of the land due to the wastage of erosion and quickened run-off of storm waters, by the break-down of measures arrived at by long and slow experience of trial and error. The wisdom of the ages was nullified in a brief time, breaking into fragments the glories of the past. It is also fitting to examine some of the recent works to reclaim lands damaged by inconsiderate and reckless use in the past. RECLAMATION OF MARSHES The climate of the Mediterranean sets the stage for land destruction by erosion if special precautions are not taken in cultivated fields and on grazed slopes. Heavy rains occur generally as erratic storms dur- ing the winter months—October to April. The remainder of the year is rainless and hot. Where bold mountain ranges are bordered by comparatively broad coastal plains, as in Italy, Greece, Palestine and Algeria, cultivation of slopes unprotected by rock-wall terraces has induced serious soil 566766—44_28 422 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 erosion. Eroded soils and debris have choked up stream channels in the plains, converting these coastal plains into marshes. Malaria made the lowlands pestilential, weakened or practically depopulated extensive populous areas. Such is the history of the Pontine Marshes in Italy, whose reclama- tion is an outstanding example of the application of the modern sciences of medicine, engineering, and agriculture to such problems. The Pontine Marshes were once well populated if we are to accept as evidence remains of 16 cities which predated Roman occupation. Following the rapid rise of Rome from the eighth century B. C., cultivation of the slopes of the Apennine Mountains took the same course as it did in Phoenicia. By the fourth century B. C. Appius Claudius undertook to drain the marshes, which had become a problem (pl. 3, fig. 1). He was unsuccessful in reclaiming these pestilential Pontine Marshes as were his successors, Julius Caesar, Trajan, and Theodoric, and later on a number of Popes, especially Pope Pius VI. But in 1931 the Government of Italy undertook the reclamation of this age-old problem of Rome and Italy with military thoroughness as for a battle. Within 2 months the swamps had been drained and within 6 months farms had been laid out, concrete farm- houses built, and the town of Littoria fitted out with all necessary public buildings, centers, and residences as a service town to more than 100,000 acres of reclaimed land (pl. 3, fig. 2). In this time, 260 miles of roads were built, nearly 6 million cubic yards of dirt were moved to make 1,097 miles of canals. This is a splendid achievement; 7 years prior to our visit (1938) this thriving area was a deadly marsh, impassable to man and beast alike; only water buffalo were able to survive. During this period approximately 363 million dollars were spent by Italy on public works. An additional amount of about 124 million dollars was granted to private landed properties for reclamation work. More than a third of the total expenditure was made to assist private land- owners to prepare their lands for subdivision and colonization. The justification of such great expenditures is the fundamental importance of the nation’s welfare, looking to self-sufficiency in agri- cultural crops. Investments of public funds for making lands pro- ductive for settlement of farm families also served the purposes of giving employment to thousands of unemployed, of settling people from congested industrial centers on the land, and of increasing the productive wealth of the nation as a whole. CONTROL OF TORRENTIAL FLOODS Population pressures in Italy of 836 and in France of 547 per square mile of cultivated area have exceeded the carrying capacities of the flat lands and have pushed the cultivation line up slopes in the Alps LAND USE—LOWDERMILK 423 to steep gradients as forests were cleared away. These mountains had been sculptured by glaciers of the Ice Age into deep gorges bordered by hanging valleys, which set the stage for torrential debris floods as slopes were cleared of forests for cultivation or heavily grazed. France and Italy have been engaged for many years in the control of debris floods in mountain valleys. France has carried out for 60 years a comprehensive program of works, with notable achievements. The experience of 60 years of such works is especially valuable in meet- ing the increasing hazards of floods in mountainous areas of the New World. Debris floods bury fields, orchards, and villages in valley floors, interrupt communication, and destroy livestock and human life. Losses over the past century have reached enormous figures and have stimulated brilliant engineering and remarkable measures of erosion control and revegetation. Correction of mountain torrents is most economically and effectively carried out as a gigantic chess game. It is man against nature, where man may perchance delay the inevitable long enough for his purposes. It takes time and daring as well to play this game, in addition to minute study of natural forces at work. As the torrent-control engineer builds each structure he waits to observe the responses of natural forces. These in turn determine his next move, whether to build another structure, or reinforce existing works, until in due time he is successful in checkmating torrential floods. The high costs of the control of torrents are justified by the protection of valley lands from damage, by the reduction of debris accumulations in stream channels, as a safeguard against rising water tables and marshy condi- tions in high-value alluvial lands, and by saving life. Two essential principals are followed in all torrent-control works: establishment of base levels of cutting in torrent channels with per- manent check dams, and revegetation of the catchment area. Similar work has been done in Bavaria in southern Germany, but it was not possible for me to continue the projected survey into Germany because of the outbreak of war in that fateful September. FIXATION OF SAND DUNES Problems of water-erosion control are most common on sloping lands, but those of wind-erosion control most often occur on flat lands. Sand dunes have been formed in semiarid regions by the sorting effect of wind erosion of cultivated lands. The wind sorts dry soils, lifting the fine and fertile particles to blow them away in dust clouds, whereas the heavier particles as sand are left behind to form hummocks and finally active sand dunes. Usually former farm lands of the Old World so damaged have been abandoned and left to their fate (8). In southwestern France the government has carried out the classic and greatest achievement in the fixation of a vast area of a “moist 424 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Sahara” of sand dunes. A great pestilential sore spot in France, where dwelt poverty, malnutrition, and despair before the merciless march of gigantic sand dunes, was converted into a beautiful and productive forest and into a region of health resorts and prosperity. The destructive invasion of the Vandals in A. D. 407 set sand dunes onthe march. By Napoleon’s time they had covered 400,000 acres and had buried forests and farm villages, and dammed up the streams, causing a great area of coastal plain to overflow. Marshes brought in malaria, which diminished and weakened the resident population, Work of fixation and control was begun by Bremontier in 1786 under the command of Napoleon. Reforestation of the dunes was made possible by creating a great littoral dune. This was done by means of a movable palisade of planks which were successively pulled up as the dune crest was raised. In time a dune was built up along the coast whose windward slope reached a grade too steep for the winds longer to blow sand over it. Thereupon, the slopes of the dune were fixed with sand grasses. Reforestation to the leeward and streams were thus safeguarded from further advance of dunes. Fol- lowing the fixation of dunes, drainage of 214 million acres of lowlands was made possible under the direction of Chambrelent. By 1865 this memorable task was completed. One dune, near d’Arcachon, however, was left uncontrolled for some reason (pl, 4, fig. 1). It is 2 miles long, 14 mile wide, and 300 feet high and is advancing on the forest at the rate of 60 to 65 feet a year. This active dune serves as a comparison of the present re- claimed dune area and gives some idea of the magnitude of the achievement of converting a devouring menace affecting 214 million acres of land into a healing resource. It is estimated that the return from the resin crop alone from the pine plantations has been sufficient to pay off all the original costs of this classic example of reclamation of sand dunes and pestilential marshes. CONQUEST OF THE SEA FOR LAND Conservation and utilization of natural resources is the striking lesson gained from Holland. Few nations have done so much with what little they have. Among the masterpieces of land reclamation, The Netherlands has achieved wonders in dewatering the ocean and transforming hundreds of thousands of acres of ocean floor into pro- ductive farm lands. Holland, with 2,500 persons to the square mile of cultivated area, required more land. She chose a policy of rec- lamation instead of conquest. When the present Zuider Zee project is completed, more than 550,000 additional acres, formerly inhabited by fish, will be occupied by people. In 1939 we saw farmers plowing the land, 13 to 16 feet below sea level, over which the salt fishermen had plowed the waves only 6 yearsbefore. (PI. 4, fig.3.) We watched LAND USE—LOWDERMILK 425 the farmers threshing their huge stacks of grain, which resembled African villages on the landscape (pl. 4, fig. 2). Hollanders are experts in the use of land and the control of water. Since early times, picturesque Dutch windmills have drained the otherwise useless lowlands and lifted drainage water into canals to empty into the ocean. Since the completion of the huge 26-mile ocean dyke across the outlet of the Zuider Zee, Holland has con- quered her thousand-year-old enemy, the North Sea, and has provided her people with a much-needed sweet-water lake, new agricultural lands, and better transportation. The Dutch take an artistic pride in the excellence of the crops of their native soil; their farms and forests are models in management. This conquest of the soulless sea has carried with it none of the destructive horrors of modern war and has cost much less. The hope of the world in conservation rather than in destruction is made realistic by this masterpiece of reclamation. THE INSIDIOUS NATURE OF EROSION Our studies in lands long occupied by man disclose that soil erosion, i, e., man-induced erosion as distinguished from normal geologic ero- sion, is an insidious process that has destroyed lands and undermined progress of civilization and cultures. Achievements in the control of soil erosion and in adjustments of a lasting agriculture to sloping lands are steps in the march of civilization as momentous as the discovery of fire and the selection of food plants. Solutions to problems of population pressure have too often in the past been sought in the conquest and destruction of the works of peoples rather than in conservation and improving the potential pro- ductivity of the earth, with provision for exchange of specialty prod- ucts. The formula of exploitation and destruction has interrupted the orderly solutions to land-use problems in the past and has un- leashed the forces of erosion to spread like the tentacles of an octopus through the lands of North China, North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Holy Lands, as well as in the United States and other countries of the New World. One generation of people replaces another, but productive soils de- stroyed by erosion are seldom restorable and never replaceable. Con- servation of the basic soil resource becomes more than a matter of indi- vidual interest; it becomes a matter of national interest necessary to the continuing welfare of a people. The day is gone when lands may be worn out with the expectation of finding new lands to the west. The economy of exploitation must give place to an economy of con- servation if a people will survive into the unknown future, Peace among nations must rest upon such a policy. 426 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 In face of the limited area now available to the human race, the realization that enormous areas of land are still being destroyed by inconsiderate and wasteful methods must arouse thinking people to action. Ifman is making deserts out of productive lands, it is a matter not only of national, but of world-wide concern. If Moses had foreseen how soil erosion induced by inconsiderate use of land would devastate the “Promised Land,” as well as vast areas of the earth, resulting in man-made deserts and decadence of civiliza- tions; if he had foreseen the impoverishment, revolution, wars, migra- tions, and social decadence of billions of people throughout thousands of years because of the exploitation and desolation of their lands by erosion, he doubtless would have been inspired to deliver an Eleventh Commandment to complete the trinity of man’s responsibilities—to his Creator, to his fellow men, and to Mother Earth. Such a Com- mandment should read somewhat as follows: Thou shalt inherit the holy earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and productivity from generation to generation. Thou shalt safeguard thy fields from soil erosion, thy living waters from drying up, thy forests from desolation, and protect thy hills from overgrazing by thy herds, that thy descendants may have abundance forever. If any shall fail in this stewardship of the land thy fruitful fields shall become sterile stony ground or wasting gullies and thy descend- ants shall decrease and live in poverty or perish from off the face of the earth. Hitherto, mankind in its conquest of the land, except in very limited areas, has not been governed by such an injunction; on the contrary, mankind has been impelled by an economy of exploitation, looking to the discovery of new lands or new sources of food and materials as needs arise. The lands of the world are occupied and such a policy leads inevitably to conflict. The solution of such conflicts in the past has been sought generally in a formula of war with destruction of property, works, and human lives as means of arriving at agreements. As this paper is being written fully half the human population of the earth, more than a billion human beings, have as their most absorbing purpose to destroy the achievements and works of generations and the annihilation of popu- lations, soldiers and civilian men, women, and children. Civilization is committing suicide. Sooner or later peoples engaged in modern warfare will become weary and exhausted by this hellish frenzy of destruction and car- nage. Mankind may then be prepared to accept an alternative—a substitute for destruction in the conservation of the earth’s resources, in maintaining and improving necessary supplies. Under scientific conservation, the earth will produce beyond the dreams of mankind. Besides, the formula of destructive exploitation has failed miser- ably to solve problems of growing populations; it has only set back the same problem to come forth again with more insistence. The LAND USE—LOWDERMILK 427 fate of lands devastated and despoiled by erosion, which is most often associated with war or conquest, stands as a warning to mankind to change from an economy of exploitation to an economy of conserva- tion—of healing and saving conservation. We must be fully prepared to defend our sovereignty and liberty of action against all aggressors. At the same time, the Americas are best situated to make the principle of conservation realistic in the use of land resources. Thus interpreted and reduced to works of saving soils and waters on the land as necessary to the conserva- tion of human resources and values, the principle of conservation may be compelling and enticing enough to turn a war-weary world from a suicidal frenzy of destruction and carnage to a saving and healing conservation. The lands of the earth will record the decision of mankind as to this momentous question. LITERATURE CITED 1. BIBLE. Deuteronomy VIII, 7-9. 2. BREASTED, JAMES H. 1906. Ancient records of Egypt, vol. 1, p. 146. Chicago. 3. GAUTIER, E. F. 1935. Sahara, the great desert, pp. 95-99. Translated by D. F. Mayhew. New York. 4, GSELL, STEPHANE. 1918. Histoire ancienne de 1’Afrique du Nord, vol.1. Paris. ay (Chong, 324, 1h (Op Unpublished notes. 6. KNIGHT, M. M. 1928. Water and the course of empire in North Africa. Quart. Journ. Econ., vol. 48, pp. 44-98, November. 7. LESCHI. Unpublished reports. 8. LowpDERMILE, W. C. 1939. Field notes. 9. LUCKENBILL, DANIEL D. 1927. Ancient records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1, pp. 98, 194 f. Chicago. 10. MARTONNE, EMMANUEL DE. 1930. a degradation de Vhydrographie. Scientia, vol. 47, pp. 9-20, January. (See p. 19.) 11. PEAKE, HARoLp J. 1933. Early steps in human progress, Philadelphia. 12. PLAYFAIR, Sir Rosert L. 1877. Travels in the footsteps of Bruce in Algeria and Tunis, p. 155. London. 18. THoumIN, R. L. 1936. Geographie humaine de la Syrie Centrale, p. 125. Paris. 14, WooLry, C. LEONARD, and LAWRENCE, T. BE. 1914-1915. The wilderness of Zin (archaeological report). Palestine Exploration Fund. London. a Pt Mis Lo ea ' Ta eee ‘oom pi re hoias i 7 i ol biiaint oi Yuden ri wi bi | -BV'192 | i vei rodil | has siggiotaray aso hr RS ih ‘enottom A ‘outs sorts oti he “odd nN aunis | 7 tein Boot n tea i i Sag de rea ditzilsot agilavainy9 ‘to. pljinuing ogi sing 9 beds anes alow . oF booubos bar be otal aay ie ie . . AAs } 289 : i i? ‘ stab aH x >? : bie hi 4 . ‘mother 19en09 ‘to. a yoouing. we) ae ae oy Bate Yisow-tey @ siti} 0) Aston. ution ine diva “Dae gatree 8 of gem. ‘bas. ORO i Heel 43 1 febioitte 8, IRVIeeO © ibe iy oe alt broo91 Iie 0 mitaa, oi ‘putebital ad, By ee nilhod ay ete | Ot 2H, ace 4 aL ALPS. hall ( Sed i Feiss Piso) no oat a tae Donia Tp neta the hens " SEED AS Net (Lt Freee chin wan! 4 DNR ALE Ata i He . ee duty Ae ‘hog HCA: DE gw A nt yD 5 hj a Oe dy a ¢3 E ri sitet , ie Pe. 1 ze i atat? - Pei ton weit a aa co bosateamr Wea ae Hey Sacer odd. aN Rivage i} Os eae ee ec , fies "4 ; a Hy ean By oats iS OWiNe pltehh eaniae De a ha ait st yoien: hey emia our a Bs di ance > a AT AMAR focal arn Fae id ee HOY boa ub b sup Yi _ 1 4 Rie aa de Bh AE i ry ’ event) Ah H r : 1s inet Y Wi i? i) init) i Ke m0, sae spina ss0¥ ah, othqng To ge r Ry wea a u aed. | odenavor SCE gq fa Ven Live va th Wa ‘ ht {i "| ment i ian % ' We aN A) Riot hl i | Kia NaN i“ ait * er co aa aly son dts ‘baa. | M : 4 by igle : 4, ‘ iS ‘ a eee ie : a mae py ag ory hee th os-0 Ae nS iow vats 40 Py Pa et hi a Unnyat ‘iota ‘at “bons Cath ea te i Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Lowdermilk PLATE 1 1. The Tripoli groves of cedars in the forests of the cedars of Lebanon, Lebanon, Syria, September 1939. 2, 3. Not far from Beyrouth is a valley where we found the climax in adjustment of permanent agriculture to steep, sloping lands. September 1939. 4. Well-planned and well-constructed Jewish colonies have great agricultural possibilities if the Jews are permitted to continue with their program of land reclamation in Palestine. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Lowdermilk PLATE 2 . Oblique aerial view of Kalaat Samaan ruins of the sanctuary of St. Simon, showing the denuded condition of adjacent slopes. Some cultivation is taking place within the walls of the ruins which have held back the soil from being eroded away. (Courtesy of Father J. Mattern, 8. J.) Aerial view of hills of Judaea near Hebron. April 1939. Vertical aerial view of Gerade, which belongs to the southern group of Dead Cities. The largest and only village for many miles around the former city of Djemila, which in Roman times boasted more than 11,000 population. January 1939. View of the giant coliseum at El Djem. February 1939. The market square in the excavated Roman city of Djemila, where once were sold products of the sur- rounding lands. The denuded erosion-gullied slopes bear mute evidence of their wreckage and soil losses. January 1939. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Lowdermilk PLATE 3 1. The ill-famed fever-infested Pontine Marshes, being a view of the site now occupied by the City of Littoria. Before reclamation. 2. Oblique aerial view of Pontine Marshes, as seen in photograph above, after reclamation, showing the city of Littoria under construction as a beautiful administrative and market center of the reclaimed area. Note scores of farm houses sprinkled over the plain. Photographs courtesy of the Government of Italy.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Lowdermilk PLATE 4 _ . Leeward side of the untamed dune near d’ Arcachon, showing the advance of the dune on the forest, engulfing it at the rate of about 60 to 65 feet a year. November 1938. 2. Inside view of a Holland farmer’s crop of gold in this “‘Dutch-made Agricultural Heaven on Earth” below sea level. September 1939. 3. Wieringerwerf, the last of three villages, is shown under construction. The broad freight canal running diagonally across the picture has movable bridges. The dark borders around the rectangular farms are barge canals. The drainage ditches for leaching out the salt content from the new-born lands appear as fine lines. Agricultural specialists nurse the land with special treatment until it can be cropped to clover. It is then weaned and turned over to individual farmers. AREAL AND TEMPORAL ASPECTS OF ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE! By Jonn M. Cooper The Catholic University of America [With 4 plates] CONTENTS UTS GME al ne ee Physica llenvinOnin ents. semen. 2 seme eae RS ee le Poa mera TOCINM ls es eee es SO ee Preitie terested lowlands Ysie *e Aeee eg eu Le oh Be Pheopen-cOuUntry Deltas 225. .oeeeetee stot se Sele ee oO SOmAatolomye wee kiss JET ILL AMR UAT RM I RA ae Po SiS EN Sa A TAP MIE DO ISEOGKS Es TERR) Tp, eee Ss ie ti 8s Leip fe MARR eee 8 ort cp he eee Bo hte poe woe ose AN AC PATeAITGIStrDUtION ep pemrre ee wate meg eee yy vs es ae fem ViareinalCultimeseme s&s Neer ne Lk) oN eee PTY AL CUT UTC eeeern pat enemies tLe Ge Ee eee oo mlerrel culguremesee ces. SORE R Shi st Sul bs Been T BS Diffusion and:temporalisequence. 2ete82 2204. see. oe glee 2 1. European and Negro diffusion: post-Columbian____________- 2. Aboriginal diffusion and sequence: since circa A. D. 1000_--_- a. Diffusion within and from Sierral culture_...._____-__-- b. Diffusion within and from Silval culture__.____---__--- 3. Aboriginal diffusion and sequence: before circa A. D. 1000_- a. Sierral versus Silval and Marginal__._________-__---__- eonpilwali versa niareinale. fe 6s 2 fi Le bee PPO wlbursevidences oo 2 28 So) oe I es (amsouthvAmericdne ee ba 2 ee eee tb): Pan*‘Americanit: 8 0) Ob ek dM OL (2) Somatological evidence. _____-___--------------- (3) Geographical evidence_-______------------------- 4. The question of Old World influence____.__--.-_-__----_--_- PSL EPETOETES Gh gh, WAR) ine eat AE Rea Pr a a RRR RICA! D'S 7 Tentative prehistorical reconstruction Bibliography INTRODUCTION The purpose of the present paper is to give a bird’s-eye view of aboriginal cultural distribution and sequence in South America. The West Indies and southern Middle America from the Isthmus to about 1 Reprinted by permission from Primitive Man, vol. 15, Nos, 1 and 2, January and April, 1942. ° 429 430 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 central Honduras are included, since they are linked culturally more to South America than to North America.? The paper has been written, not for seasoned specialists in South American anthropology, but for nonspecialists, to set up an areal and temporal framework into which the enormously complex factual data can be provisionally fitted and to offer a first-aid guide to the anthropological literature of the continent. No attempt has been made, of course, to include an ade- quate list of the innumerable first-hand sources. Good bibliographies of these may be found in Nordenskidld, especially 1920; Krickeberg, 1922, 1989; W. Schmidt, 1913; Izikowitz, 1935; Gillin, 1940. For a better understanding of cultural distribution and sequence in South America, a few of the more pertinent data upon physical environment and racial and linguistic divisions are premised. PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT ® Geographically Pan America may be looked upon as a quasi peninsula jutting out from the extreme northeast tip of the Afro- Eurasiatic land mass which we assume to be the birthplace of the human race. Thus, of the larger continental areas of the world, South America is farthest removed from man’s primal home, the most isolated, and probably the latest to be inhabited. South America may, for our present purpose, be divided into three major regions: (1) the mountainous western fringe, with its flanking coastal plains, and, east thereof, (2) the forested lowlands of the north, northeast, and center of the continent, and (3) the more or less open country of the east and south. With these three areas co- incides fairly well the distribution of the three major cultural group- ings of the continent—a correlation to which we shall return later. 1. The Andean region—The Andean cordillera lifts its peaks, ranges, and plateaus, paralleling the coast, from Panama to its dip beneath the ocean at Cape Horn. Toward the Pacific it is flanked over most of its extent by a narrow strip of lowland: tropical rain forest down to about Payta (5° S. lat.), in extreme northern Peru; the Peruvian-Chilean coastal desert thence about 1,600 miles to near La Serena (30° S. lat.), Chile; dry forest and temperate rain forest from La Serena to the Magellanic archipelago. 2. The forested lowlands—The forested lowlands of the Orinoco and Amazon watersheds, lying east of the northern half of the cordillera, form a vast, roughly quadrangular area. The northwest- ern and southwestern sides of this quadrangle are formed by the Andes; the northeastern, by the Atlantic coast line from central 2 Thomas and Swanton, 1911, p. 96; Mason, 1988, pp. 311-314 ; Lothrop, 1940 ; Kidder II, 1940. Cf. Lothrop, 1939. - 3 Geographical data in this section of paper largely based on: Jones, 1930; Denis, 1927 ; Zon and Sparhawk, 1923; Whitbeck, Williams, and Christians, 1940. Cf. James, 1942. . ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 431 Venezuela to about 400 miles southeast of the mouth of the Amazon; the southeastern, by a broken line running from this last point across country to central Bolivia. The sides of the great quadrangle are about 1,300 to 1,500 miles long. Most of the area is covered with dense tropical rain forest, except for the extensive savannas of the middle Orinoco and of the Guiana highlands, 3. The open-country belt.—The third division of South America, representing about one-half of the continental area, is the region bounded on the west by the southern Andes, on the northwest by the Amazonian rain forest, and on the northeast and southeast by the Atlantic. It is mostly open country, treeless or only sparsely wooded—erasslands, savannas, bushlands, and steppes—including the eastern Brazilian and Matto Grosso highlands, the Gran Chaco, the Uruguayan plains, the Argentinian Pampa, the Patagonian plateau and part of Tierra del Fuego. On the Atlantic border of the Brazilian highlands, the tropical rain forest extends in a narrow coastal strip down to about 25° S. lat. The chief break in this great open-country belt is that made by the subtropical forests of southern Brazil and of the Paraguay and Parana. basins. The inland and up- land savannas of the Brazilian and Matto Grosso highlands are thus practically ringed with heavily forested country, mostly lowlands. To the far southwest of the open belt lies the Chonoan and Magellanic archipelago, flanking the mainland for about 1,200 miles from Chiloé to Cape Horn and covered mostly with temperate rain forests. SOMATOLOGY Our data on the living races of man on the Southern American con- tinent are very incomplete. Only in four or five scattered spots do they approach anything like adequacy, while for enormous areas, such as most of the Amazonian forested area, they are lacking almost entirely. No thorough analysis or interpretation even of the sparse data we have has been attempted. Dixon dealt with only certain selected elements. Biasutti’s review is wanting in detail. Our most recent study, Hickstedt’s, is at best provisional; however, such as it is, it represents at least a start.‘ Eickstedt isolates four main physical types (pl. 1) two tending to- ward brachycephaly, two toward dolichocephaly—although one of these latter two, his Brazilid type, falls in the main within meso- cephaly. Eickstedt blocks out the following distributions: The Andid subrace, broad-headed and of relatively low stature, occupying most 4Dixon, 1923, pp. 443-472; Biasutti, 1912, pp. 140-143, maps 1-7; Eickstedt, 1934, pp. 720-759, 838-876, map opp. p. 752; Pericot, 1936, pp. 593-727, passim, good for bibliog- raphy; Krickeberg, 1922, pp. 217-219. For references to other classifications and distri- butions, see: Gusinde, 1939, pp. 406-418 ; Imbelloni, 1937. 432 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 of the Andean area down to Chiloé; the Pampid subrace, brachy- cephalous and of relatively tall stature, of the Matto Grasso plateau, the Chaco, the Uruguayan plains, most of the Pampa region, and Pata- gonia; the Brazilid subrace, of medium to short stature and heavy torso, tending toward dolichocephaly [mesocephaly], of the Ama- zonian and Orinoco watersheds, most of the coastal forest belt flanking the Brazilian highlands, and the Buenos Aires region; the Lagid sub- race, more markedly dolichocephalous, of medium to low stature, and of lighter torso, occupying the Brazilian highlands, and the Chonoan and Magellanic archipelago. In general it can be said that the Andean region is more dominantly brachycephalic, while in what we are calling the open-country belt there is much more of dolichocephaly. In rain-forest areas, apart from the Colombian coastal region, there is more tendency toward mesocephaly. These broad generalizations are subject to local exceptions. On the prehistoric South American racial types our data are like- wise very sparse and inadequate, particularly for the tropical rain- forest region. None of our prehistoric human remains is of demon- strated great age. Ameghino’s claim to have discovered Tertiary man has long since been successfully challenged and disproved. In the hill caves of Lagoa Santa in southern Brazil and in the sambaquis (shell heaps) of the southeastern Brazilian coast have been discovered skel- etal remains of a race or races of seemingly considerable age. But there is no clear evidence of very great age. The 17 Lagoa Santa skulls are fairly high and, with one exception, dolichocephalous; the coastal shell-heap or sambaqui type is likewise dolichocephalous but with rather low forehead. A number of older post-Pleistocene remains have been found in the Pampas; some others here and there in the Andean region, such as the Punin skull of Riobamba, Ecuador. These earlier skulls from the Pampa and Andean region, like the Lagoa Santa and sambaqui skulls, are consistently long-headed, and many of them show other seemingly significant similarities with some of the living peoples such as the Botocudo and Fuegians, whom Eickstedt includes in his Lagid race.° From such evidence as we have, sparse and incomplete though it be, we seem to be on fairly safe ground in concluding that earlier man in South America was long-headed,® that the broadheads represent a later stratum, and that many of the modern Lagids are survivors of this earlier type and have preserved to greater or lesser degree its characteristics. The modern Lagids, or at least many of them, would thus seem to represent the more primitive type of South American 5 Hrdlitka, 1912; Hickstedt, 1984, pp. 748-759; Sullivan and Hellman, 1925, Punin ealvarium ; Walter, Cathoud, and Mattos, 1937, Confins man. 6 As in North America: Stewart, 1940. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 433 man. Whether the brachycephalic type or types developed out of the earlier dolichocephalic type or types, or represent a later migra- tion into South America across the Panama bridge or the Antilles, is an open question. All that we can say with any confidence is that the broadheads appear in the main to be more recent. | LINGUISTIC STOCKS As our evidence stands today, there are more linguistic stocks, by probably a good 50 percent, in South America than in North and Middle America combined. Our most important recent review, Riv- et’s, lists 77 such South American linguistic stocks. In view of our scant evidence for many areas and peoples and of our lack of a thor- ough analysis of the evidence we have, this number is provisional only. In all probability it will be appreciably increased or decreased as our information itself and the analysis thereof become fuller. Particu- larly defective is our information for the Brazilian highland region, al- though Nimuendaji and one or two others are helping to clear up the situation.’ Of these 77 stocks, about 14 are spoken over a good four-fifths of the continental area. In the Andean region, passing from north to south, Chibcha, Quechua, Aymara, and Araucanian cover nearly the whole area. Over a good two-thirds or more of the Orinoco-Ama- zonian forest belt and in the West Indies are spoken Arawak, Carib, Tupi, Tucano, and Pano, or were in post-Columbian times spoken. In the open-country belt, about four-fifths or more of the area is or was inhabited by people of Gé, Guaycurti, Charrua, Puelche, and Tshon stocks. Most of the remaining 63 stocks are scattered over the rest of the continent, not checkerboard fashion, or at random, but in the main distributed in a great broken crescent extending in the west along the base of the Andes and to the south along the southern borders of the Amazonian forest and of the Brazilian highlands to the At- lantic coast. This marginal distribution may be explained in either one of two ways. The peoples speaking these stocks may have been driven to marginal areas by the more numerous and more powerful peoples of Arawak, Carib, Tupi, and other stocks. Or else we may assume that before the deployment of these latter through the Ori- noco-Amazonian belt, this area was occupied by a very great number of peoples of distinct linguistic stocks, and that, as the Arawak, Carib, Tupi, and others spread out over the area, these earlier residents TRivet, 1924, pp. 639-707; Nimuendajii and Lowie, 1937, pp, 565-566. For linguistic (and tribal) maps of South America, see: Rivet, 1924; W. Schmidt, 1926, Atlas, largely utilizing Rivet; Krickeberg, 1922, 1939; Pericot, 1936, largely based on previous maps, bibliography ; Krieger, 1935, adapted from Krickeberg and Roth. For linguistic maps of Middle America, see Mason, 1940, and Johnson, 1940; Thomas and Swanton, 1911. 434 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 took over the languages of the invading swarms, thus leaving the earlier atomistic distribution of stocks on the uninvaded margins of the area. We have many instances, historically and ethnologically verified, of such change of language as a result of Tupi, Carib, and Arawak invasion or contact. At any rate, the distribution of stocks in South America is in itself evidence of very wide migrations and drifts, many of them estab- lished historically—migrations and drifts facilitated by the lack of great natural barriers over the vast lowland areas of the continent, and stimulated to a considerable extent, within the horticultural belt by the prevalent milpa agriculture,’ and for the Tupi, by the ancient and deep-seated tradition of a distant Utopia beckoning them on.° CULTURE A. AREAL DISTRIBUTION For purposes of description and interpretation, the aboriginal cul- tures of South America may be classified regionally into three large divisions, the areas occupied by these divisions corresponding roughly to the Andean uplands, the forested Orinoco-Amazon lowlands, and what we have called the open-country belt. For convenience we are calling these three cultural groupings the Sierral, the Silval, and the Marginal, respectively. The Marginal is so denominated in view of the fact that technologically it is simpler than either of the other two and that regionally it borders on” and is marginal to the Sierral and Silval areas.” 1. Marginal culture.—In this grouping we include the Gé-speaking peoples (provisionally) and the Botocudo (Borun), Masakali Patago, Puri, Waitaka, and others of eastern Brazil, together with the Bororé, Guaté, and Guayakf, as well as the peoples of the Chaco, of the Uruguayan plains, of the Argentine Pampa and of Patagonia, and the Ona, Yahgan, Alacaluf, Chono, and Chango—who, in the main, may be looked upon as externally marginal to the Sierral and Silval areas; and also certain peoples now or until recently of very simple culture such as the Yaruro, Maki, Schirianéa, Waika, Bahina, Huht- 8M. Schmidt, 1917 ; cf. Cook, 1921. ® Métraux, 1928, pp. 201-224. . 10 We have no satisfactory comprehensive description of South American culture. Kricke- berg, 1922 and 1939, and Nordenskisold, 1912b, come nearest, but much new material has come out in these last two or three decades. Stout, 1938, has a good short summary. The Handbook of South American Indians, now being prepared by the Smithsonian Institution, under the able direction of Dr. Julian H. Steward, with the cooperation of a group of specialists, will be published about 1944 or 1945. For West Indies see: Fewkes, 1907; Lovén, 1935.. For Panama region : Lothrop, 1937. ‘11 Wissler, 1917, used a fivefold division. Krickeberg, 1922, adopted a twofold one: Naturvélker, with six subdivisions, and Kulturvélker, with four subdivisions; in 1939, a threefold one: collectors, gardeners, and Kulturvélker. Stout, 1938, has worked out a ninefold division, his Nos. 4-6 corresponding roughly to our Sierral, No. 7 to our Silval, the remaining five to our Marginal. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 435 teni, Katapolitani, Mura, and Sironé, who are found widely scattered here and there in the Silval area as internally Marginal groups. (See fig. 1.) The externally Marginal peoples occupy most of our open- country belt, except such sections of the forested land therein as are or were occupied by horticultural tribes, mostly Tupi.? Some of the foregoing tribes, such as the Gé, Mura, and Sirioné, may later turn out to be culturally retrogressed Silval peoples. Between these many Marginal peoples one finds very numerous and profound regional and tribal divergences of culture.’* But un- derlying these divergences there exists very considerable uniformity of culture both in what is present and in what is absent. We may sum up this basic uniformity about as follows: Food- getting by hunting, fishing and gathering, with horticulture either absent or only rudimentary or less developed among most groups; no domestic animals except the dog, and even the dog absent here and there; more commonly no stimulants (alcoholic beverages, tobacco, coca), or else demonstrably or probably of relatively recent or even post-Columbian introduction; pottery very often absent or, where present, of relatively crude type; clothing and adornment usually either very meager or very simple; weaving absent or at best rudi- mentary; shelter of the simplest, such as the lean-to, beehive hut (pl. 8, upper), and so forth; mats or skins on ground for sleeping; use of stone, bone, or wood for weapons and utensils, with practically complete absence of metals; unusually long bows and arrows among many of the internally Marginal and northern externally Marginal peoples; fire-making by drill over most of the area, but by the per- cussion method in the Magellanic archipelago and among the Guayaki and some Tehuelche; cannibalism absent or practically so; well-organized ,family system with prevalent monogamy or simple “For the convenience of readers who may desire to follow through or check up on the content of the culture of these Marginal peoples, the more important first-hand and second- hand sources, many of them containing bibliographies, are here listed. Gé and other eastern Brazilian marginals: Ploetz and Métraux, 1929; Métraux, 1939; Snethlage, 1930; Nimu- endaj, 1938, 1939, 1942b; Nimuendaja and Lowie, 1937, 1939; Lowie, 1940b, pp. 423-439, 1941; Henry, 1941. Bororé: Colbacchini, [1924]; Lévi-Strauss, 1936; von den Steinen, 1894. Guat6: M. Schmidt, 1905, 1914. Guayaki: Vellard, 1934. Chaco: no satisfactory survey available that embodies the newer data from the many scattered sources ; a thorough one by Métraux about completed but not yet published ; short surveys in Krickeberg, 1922, pp. 293-305, and 1939, pp. 108-117; cf. also Nordenski6éld, 1919, 1920; bibliography in Pericot, 1936. Uruguay and Paran4 delta: Lothrop, 1932; Rivet, 1930. Argentine Pampa and Patagonia : Outes and Bruch, 1910; Palavecino, 19384. Ona, Yahgan, Alacaluf (Chono) : Gusinde, 1931, 1937; Lothrop, 1928; Cooper, 1917. Chango: Latcham, 1910. Yaruro: Petrullo, 1939. Schirianf, Waika, Maki, BahGna, Huhtteni, Katapolitani: Koch-Griinberg, 1906a, 1906b, 1922, and 1923, pp. 248-319. The Bahtna, Dr. Irving Goldman informs me from his field studies in the area, are a sib rather than a tribe; there is some question, too, as to the correctness of Koch—Griinberg’s assumption that the Schirianfi and others had only recently adopted horticulture. Mura, Sirioné: extremely meager data available; for Mura, cf. Tastevin, 1923 ; Bates, 1892, pp. 166-170 ; for sources on Sirioné, see Pericot, 1936; Gillin, 1940, p. 648. Four subdivisions of the South American Marginals are suggested in Cooper, 1942. 183 As among Marginals elsewhere, as Lowie, 1940a, pp. 417-418, has recently emphasized. 436 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 YARURO BAHUNA hie MUHUTEN s—SCHIRIANA=WAIKA KATAPOLI TANIA EASTERN LIMIT OF SIERRAL CULTURG SIRIONO, CHACO TRIBES A A ae KI ees PUELCHE-QUERANDI eeeea = APPROAIMAT E , SOUTHERN LIMIT OF N Se Slice: TEHVELCHE CHONO —>, ) 9 ALACALU Ee Figure 1.—Distribution in historic times of South American Sierral, Silval, and Marginal culture, and southern limit of agriculture. Apart from the areas in- habitated by the Marginal peoples designated on the map, nearly all the territory east of the eastern limit of Sierral culture and north of the southern limit of horticulture has in historical times shared the Silval culture. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 437 polygyny, and here and there rather strict monogamy; the typical political unit a small band, usually made up of relatives, with bands occasionally forming loosely cohesive tribes with or without chief- taincy of limited power; moieties and moietylike tribal divisions as a rule absent, but reported among the Yaruro, Bororé, and some of the Gé peoples, the moiety organization among the latter being of marked complexity; levirate, sororate, and avoidances of fairly wide distribution; among a number of the tribes, especially the Yaruro and Ona, land-tenure systems resembling closely the northeastern North American family hunting-ground system; sha- manism, but absence of priesthood; religion in general seemingly a little more animistic than manistic, with well-defined theism among at least a good many groups, and recorded in detail among the Fuegians, the Apinayé, and the Yaruro (pl. 4, upper). 2. Silval culture*—The area of the Silval culture includes not only the broad Amazonian-Orinoco forested region with its adjacent and enclosed savannas, but also the Guianas, the West Indies, most of Middle America from Honduras to the Isthmus, the rain-forest belt of the Colombian and eastern Brazilian coast, the temperate rain forests of southern Brazil and the Parand-Paraguay region, and the forested Andean foothills bordering the northern Chaco. As in the Marginal culture, so in the Silval culture there are in- numerable and important local differences, but underlying these there is a quite perceptible uniformity. These more uniform character- istics of this far-flung Silval culture may be summed up about as follows: Horticulture universal, with use of dibble rather than hoe, and carried on under the slash-and-burn, shifting-cropping or milpa system; manioc (pl. 2, upper), sweet or bitter, a, or the, basic staple over most of the area, with, however, a good deal of maize, beans, sweetpotatoes, and so forth; the dog, at present, practically but not quite universal; widespread use of poison in fishing, and, toward the northwest particularly, of the blowgun with curare-poisoned darts in hunting; tobacco and alcoholic beverages throughout the area, the latter made with mastication (except of course for wines and mead) and indulged in to intoxication at festival drinking sprees; canni- balism widespread, particularly but not exclusively among Tupi- and Carib-speaking peoples; well-made but simple pottery, here and there reported archeologically and ethnologically of unusually good type as at Santarem and around the mouth of the Amazon; notable meagerness or absence of clothing, with, however, rather elaborate body adorn- ment, particularly featherwork; lip plug of fairly wide distribution; 144QOur best reviews of culture of area are Krickeberg, 1922 and 1939. For distributions of material culture elements, see Nordenskiéld, 1919, 1920, 1924, 1931. For social organi- zation, see Kirchhoff, 1931; Haeckel, 1938. For sources, see Gillin, 1940; Pericot, 1936. 566766—44——_29 438 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 fairly well-developed weaving; shelter of timber framework demand- ing fairly advanced carpentry and commonly of dimensions large enough to house a considerable number of people (pl. 8, middle), with inside ground areas reported up to about 10,000 square feet or more; hammocks; weapons and tools of stone, where it is available; some metal ornaments; major social unit in the tribe consisting more com- monly, where data are reported, of the extended family or sib living in the large houses above mentioned, with villages often comprising only one or two, at most several, such houses; villages at times con- federated into a loose tribal organization; moiety and sib systems recorded here and there, some of the moiety systems bearing marked resemblance in certain details to those found among the Gé peoples; levirate, sororate, and avoidances not uncommon; couvade widespread ; religion, as far as known, largely shamanistic and animistic, with at least a good deal of theism among many groups (pl. 4, lower). 3. Sierral cultwre.—The Sierral culture extends from Colombia to the northern Araucanian area and is shared by the peoples of the region we have previously described as the Andean area, except the tribes of the rain-forest coastal strip in the north who belong more to the Silval culture, and the Changos of the Chilean coastal desert and the Chono-Fuegian Canoe Indians whose culture is of the Mar- ginal type. The Araucanians of middle Chile down to Chiloé are in the main on a markedly simpler culture level than the peoples far- ther north, but in many respects are linked genetically with the Sierral culture proper and so may best be included therein. Again, as in the Marginal and Silval culture, marked local differences appear in the Sierral culture as one passes down the Andean highland from Colombia to the south, but there is like- wise beneath the divergences an underlying cultural uniformity. The more characteristic traits of the Sierral culture may be summed up as follows: Horticulture universal, with maize as the chief staple and beans ranking next, except in the very high altitudes where white potatoes, oca, and quinoa are basic; garden plots and fields tend- ing to be of more permanent location than under the Silval milpa system, with irrigation in the drier lowlands and with terraces in the highlands (pl. 2, lower) ; the ama and alpaca domesticated and used for transportation, wool, food, and sacrifices ; coca chewing as a stimu- lant, in addition to tobacco and alcoholic beverages; very high develop- ment of pottery and weaving; full body clothing (in contrast to predominant Silval near-nudity); advanced metallurgy, in copper, platinum, gold, and (from Ecuador south) silver, but not in iron, with smelting, casting by direct and lost-wax methods, alloying of gold and 16 Thompson, 1936, gives an excellent summary of Sierral cultures, for the general reader, with selected bibliographies. For fuller treatment, especially of Peru, with bibliography, see Means, 1931. For types of horticulture in Sierral and Silval cultures, see Sapper, 1954. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 439 copper (tumbac), of gold and silver, and of copper and tin (bronze), sintering of gold and platinum (Ecuador),' plating, gilding, sold- ering, and welding; ordinary dwellings as a rule of very simple con- struction but advanced megalithic architecture (pl. 3, lower) in the central Andean region in the building of temples, fortifications, and other public structures ; roads, suspension and stone bridges; the quipu knot-record system, but no writing; wide use as weapons of slings, stone-headed and metal-headed clubs, spear and spear thrower, and bolas, with bow and arrow absent or of quite secondary importance (as contrasting with the Silval and most of the Marginal area where the bow and arrow and the unheaded club predominate) ; advanced politi- cal institutions with high organization and centralization, and partic- ularly in the Inca civilization, militaristic imperialism; tribute and taxes; organized standing army; earlier pre-Inca tenure of garden plots in severalty supplanted later under Inca rule by limited com- munal control of land; elaborate market system; highly organized priesthood and ritualism, alongside of considerable shamanism; animal and, to a limited extent, human sacrifice; marked solar cult. As is obvious from the foregoing summary descriptions, the Margi- nal, Silval, and Sierral cultures represent in the main three fairly dis- tinct levels of technological and economico-political achievement, the Marginal being the simplest, the Silval more developed, and the Sierral the most complex. It has been our main purpose so far to block out only in broadest out- line the nature and distribution of these three contrasting cultural types over the South American Continent and the adjacent areas of the West Indies and Central America. To keep the picture from becoming too intricate, we have purposely closed our eyes to the numberless tribal and areal cultural diversities and have tried to see the continent as a cultural whole, even at the risk of appearing to oversimplify the well-recognized unending complexities of South American aboriginal culture. B. DIFFUSION AND TEMPORAL SEQUENCE Our next task is that of interpretation—here an attempt to deter- mine spatial and temporal relationships. As initial steps toward working out a provisional reconstruction of cultural sequence on the continent we may first isolate and strip off certain cultural elements in modern aboriginal South American culture that are demonstrably post-Columbian, and secondly, survey some of the more significant earlier diffusions that are clearly or reasonably inferable from the data at our command. 18 Bergsge, 1937 (cf. reviews by J. A. Mason and D. Horton in Amer. Antiquity, vol. 4, pp. 84-87, 1938. 17 Santa Cruz, 1940. 440 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 1. EUROPEAN AND Necro DiFrusion : Post-CoLUMBIAN A very great number of important elements, widespread among and well integrated into contemporary aboriginal South American culture, are, aS is well known, due to introduction by Europeans since 1492. Such are, for instance, among domesticated plants, sugarcane, banana, watermelon; among domesticated animals, the horse, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens; firearms; weapons, utensils, and tools of iron; perhaps the pellet-bow; and of course many social, economic, political, and religious concepts and practices. Some less widespread and less significant elements are traceable to post-Columbian Negro influence, such as the marimba, and specific types of African drum.’® 2. ABORIGINAL DIFFUSION AND SEQUENCE: Sincp Criroa A. D. 1000 With the historical, ethnological, and archeological data at our com- mand today we are able to plot for a great many cultural elements, complexes, clusters, and types the diffusion routes that can be chron- ologically classified as of post-Columbian times or else as of the centu- ries immediately preceding the Discovery, and consequently relatively recent. Some of these diffusions are demonstrable or practically so, others rest on reasonable probabilities. Such diffusions of course pre- suppose and are temporally posterior to the rise and establishment of the respective cultures involved. If we strip them off the cultural pic- ture of modern aboriginal South America we can see a little more clearly the broader outlines of cultural distribution in South America several centuries before the Discovery—say about the year A. D. 1000, to select a more or less arbitrary date. Diffusion of cultural elements from the Marginal peoples to the Silval and Sierral has seemingly been minimal. Diffusion has occurred almost exclusively from and within the Sierral and Silval cultures. In each there have been certain marked major diffusions and others of minor significance. Let us begin with the Sierral. a. Diffusion within and from Sierral culture—Two major Sierral diffusions may be distinguished, one definitely tied up with the rise and spread of the Inca Empire, the other of less determinable prov- enance. In the two or three centuries prior to the coming of the Spaniards the Inca Empire developed and spread from around Cuzco to the north along the Andes as far as northern Ecuador and to the south as far as the Rio Maule in central Chile and along the eastern slope of the Andes to the Diaguita territory carrying with it a great 18 Post-Columbian white influence: Nordenski6ld, 1919, pp. 232-234; 1920, pp. 119-126, 197-202; 1930, ch. 7. Post-Columbian Negro influence: Nordenski6dld, 1930, ch. 7; Iziko- witz, 1935, p. 415. Pellet-bow: Nordenskiold, 1919, pp. 48-51, evidence for post-Columbian origin ; Friederici, 1920, p. 186, for pre-Columbian origin. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 44] * number of elements which we have previously listed as typical of the Sierral culture. (See fig. 2.) f Partly in pre-Columbian times (Inca and presumably pre-Inca), partly in post-Columbian times, many of the typical Sierral elements drifted south into Araucanian territory. Such elements include, to- gether with others of less importance, irrigation and possibly quinoa and the white potato, the domestication of the llama, wool weaving, certain pottery types, metal work in silver, and the quipu. In post- Columbian times prior to the middle of the eighteenth century the Araucanians deployed far out over the Pampas toward the Atlantic coast, carrying with them their culture, many elements of which through contact diffused well north and south of the central Pampas. Some time between the dates 1670 and 1741 this Araucanian influence profoundly modified the culture of the Tehuelche to the south of the Pampas proper as far as the southern limit of the Tehuelche territory at the Strait of Magellan. The culture of the Tehuelche as recorded in our 20 sources from 1520 to 1670 differed markedly from it as re- corded consistently from 1741 on, and the majority of the new elements are obviously of Araucanian origin.” Through trade and other contacts a good deal of Sierral culture has filtered down from the highlands into the adjacent wooded lower eastern slopes of the Andes. But in general only minor Sierral in- fluences, some of them at least recent post-Columbian, are discernible in the Silval and Marginal regions. Such in the Silval region are probably elements such as coca chewing, the feather fire-fan, and the Panpipe.2* Among the seemingly Sierral elements in Chaco culture are the feather fire-fan, games of chance, sandal and fillet, and certain textile and fictile patterns.” AJl in all, however, Sierral influence on the Amazonian and Chacoan peoples did not, so far as we can de- termine, very appreciably change their fundamental culture Whether in far distant prehistoric times agriculture with such arts as weaving and pottery had their origin in the Andean region and thence spread out over the Silval area, in this manner greatly changing an assumed earlier archaic collecting culture there, we are not in a position to say, nor probably will be unless or until the archeologist’s spade digs up decisive evidence. b. Diffusion within and from Silval cultwre.—Let us pass to the cultural diffusions stemming out from the Silval area. It is possible that in remote times the cultivation of manioc originated in the Silval belt east of the Andes and thence spread to the lowlands of the Sierral 1% Means, 1931; Thompson, 1986. The Diaguita, higher culture was, however, at base independent of, and anterior to, Inca influence and domination. 20 Cooper, 1924, pp. 406—410. 21 Nordenskiéld, 1920, pp. 202—206 ; 1924, ch. 21 ; 1930, ch. 9. 2 Nordenskidld, 1919, pp. 235-251 ; 1920, pp. 202-206 ; 1924, pp. 225-226. 442 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 CULTURE DIFFUSION ROUTES = PRE-INCA SIERRAL INCA ARAUCANIAN SIERRAL To CHACO TUPI TO MARGINAL BELT ARAWAK-CARIB TO WEST INDIES oka gy ome = EASTERN LIMIT OF SIERRAL CULTURE wome APPROXIMATE LIMIT OF SILVAL CULTURE m—~= SOUTHERN LIMIT OF HORTICULTURE FicuRE 2.—Tentatively reconstructed distribution of South American Sierral, Silval, and Marginal culture, as of circa A. D. 1000, and major cultural dif- fusions and drifts since then. Marginal enclaves within the Silval belt are not included in map. Araucanian territory is placed in the Marginal area, although horticulture may possibly have reached that far south by A. D. 1000. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 443 region, but the evidence is far from decisive. As regards one minor and two major diffusions of Silval culture, we are on more secure ground. A minor drift or drifts brought into the Chaco certain Silval elements such as manioc horticulture, the manioc grater, wooden stools, hammocks, and the rubber ball for games.*° The first of the two major diffusions is that of the Arawakan peoples into practically the whole of the West Indies probably some centuries before the coming of the Spaniard, and later the invasion, still under way at the time of the discovery, of the Caribs across the Lesser Antilles as far as some of the nearer Greater Antilles islands. Whether or not the presence of typical South American Silval culture in southern Middle America represents migration or cultural intrusion into the area from South America cannot at present be decided. At any rate, most of the region of Middle America where culture similar to the South American Silval culture is found is, like the latter’s area of distribution, rain forest. The original centers of dispersion of the Arawak and Carib peoples cannot in the present state of our evidence be determined. With only rare exceptions the areas over which they have spread are areas of tropical rain forest. They have, it is true, occupied the smaller lower- Amazon savannas and part of the Brazilian highland savanna, but not, except in part, the more extensive savannas of the middle Orinoco, where in historic times at least have dwelt peoples of other linguistic stocks, such as the Otomac, Guahibo, Saliva, and the very primitive Yaruro. The Arawaks and the Caribs appear, in other words, to have shunned the open country and to have kept in the main to the deep forests. Some of the spread of Arawak and Carib culture within the forested area is pretty clearly a matter of relatively recent genera- tions—as e. g., in the case of the Schiriand and Waika, if we can rely on Koch-Griinberg.** Most of the Arawak and Carib spread must, on the other hand, go back to relatively remote prehistoric times. The Tupi, like the Arawak and Carib, have also kept pretty con- sistently to the forests. The earliest determinable center of dispersion seems more probably, since Métraux’ studies, and Klimek and Milke’s statistical analysis, to be the Amazon basin. Then well prior to the coming of the European they appear to have drifted down to the Paraguay-Parana and southern Brazilian region, the historic home of the Tupi-Guarani. At least it is mostly from these two centers on the Amazon and the Paraguay-Parana that the Tupi spread out along the southern bank of the lower Amazon, and along the Brazilian coast with almost no break from the mouth of the Amazon to the extreme 23 Nordenskiéld, 1919, pp. 252-255 ; 1920, pp. 208-213. 24 Koch-Griinberg, 1928, pp. 284-319 ; cf. M. Schmidt, 1917. 444 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 southern Brazilian coast.2® Thus the Gé-speaking, Botocudo, and other Marginal peoples of the Brazilian highlands became almost en- tirely ringed by the Tupi, who brought with them into the forested areas wherever they went their typical Silval culture. The regional distribution of the Tupi as mapped by Métraux coincides almost per- fectly with the area of distribution of the tropical and subtropical rain forests that all but surround the eastern Brazilian and Matto Grosso highlands. Silval influence, in most cases mediated through the Tupi, has deeply penetrated into the Brazilian highlands and adjacent regions and has overlaid to differing depths the preexisting Marginal culture, leaving only areas here and there untouched or relatively untouched. To such Silval influence can be with reasonable confidence ascribed such ele- ments as horticulture, tobacco, intoxicants, the hammock, and so forth,” and possibly, although the question is still an open one, the basic pat- tern of the complex social organization revealed among the Borordé and by more recent studies among some at least of the Gé-speaking peoples such as the Apinayé, Canella, and Serente.27 Many of these element diffusions from Tupi sources can be well dated by historic documents as post-Columbian. Furthermore, from the scattered dis- tribution of these Silval traits in the area, from their seemingly imper- fect assimilation, and from the recency of much or most of the Tupi invasion of the area, Silval influence on the highland region appears to be in the main recent. All in all, then, we have good ground for concluding that the process of Silval diffusion into this Marginal region has been mostly a relatively late one, much of it known definitely to be post-Columbian and most of the rest probably dating back not many centuries prior to the coming of the European. The numerous migrations of Sierral and Silval peoples and cultures which we have briefly summarized in the preceding several pages are of course by their very nature chronologically later phenomena in the respective regions. Many of them are post-Columbian, most or all of the remaining ones are—some quite clearly, others very probably—of dates later than the one selected above, somewhat arbitrarily, that of circa A. D. 1000. At or about that date, the distribution of the three cultures—the Sierral, the Silval, and the Marginal—was much less broken and more regular than it was at the time of the Spanish con- quest or than it has been in more recent times (see fig. 2). At that more remote date, the Sierral culture without the Inca overlay occupied about the area where it was found at the time of the Discovery; the 2% Métraux, 1927; Klimek and Milke, 1935, pp. 87-88. Cf. Nordenski6éld, 1917, on Chiri- guano migration across the northern Chaco to the forested foothills to the west thereof; more fully documented in Métraux, 1929b. 23 Ploetz and Métraux, 1929. 27 Haeckel, 1938—a valuable assembling of the factual evidence, but theory of ultimate Andean origin provisional only. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 445 Silval culture, approximately where it Las been in recent times, in the Amazon-Orinoco watershed; the Marginal culture, the rest of the continent to the east, southeast, and south. In case, however, the Gé should turn out to be partly retrogressed Silvals, the dividing line be- tween the Silval and Marginal cultures would have to be drawn far- ther to the southeast than we have drawn it in figure 2. 3. ABORIGINAL DIFFUSION AND SEQUENCE: Brrore Circa A. D. 1000 We have so far blocked out certain important temporal sequences that have occurred within the last millennium. How far can we get toward determining such sequences prior to our date of circa A. D. 1000? It is recognized of course that any such historic reconstruction on a continental scale must rest on probabilities rather than on cer- tainties. But at least it seems worth while to assemble and appraise such evidence as we have. We shall take up first the temporal relations of the Sierral to the Silval and Marginal, and after that the relations of the Silval to the Marginal. a. SIERRAL VERSUS SiLvAL AND Marcrnau.—That the higher pre-Inca culture or cultures of the Sierral region developed at a date later than did the Silval culture appears to rest on fairly solid ethnological and archeological evidence. Ethnologically these civilizations presuppose and are built upon well-advanced horticulture. And we have no good ground for assuming that horticulture developed in the Silval area prior to or at least appreciably prior to its development in the Andean area. A plausible case can even be made for the Sierral region as the birthplace or earliest area of origin of agriculture on the continent, although the claim may be disputed by Middle America or perhaps by the Silval region.** While archeologically the earlier Andean pre- Inca civilizations cannot, over most of the area, be shown to have been preceded by simple cultures of the Silval level, at two points at least in the area, Taltal and Arica, early and perhaps the earliest archeological horizons seem to show an even simpler one comparable to that of the nonhorticultural Marginal peoples.” b. Strvau versus Marcrnat—As regards the temporal relations of the Silval and Marginal cultures the evidence calls for a little more in the way of discussion. Theoretically the Marginal belt might con- ceivably represent a retrogressive break-down and offshoot of the Silval culture. Actually, the evidence seems to be accumulating that the Marginal culture is in reality a tarriant culture, earlier in point of time on the continent than the Silval. The evidence for this inference we shall now summarize and discuss—first and chiefly the cultural 8 Cook, 1925 ; Mangelsdorf and Reeves, 1939; Sauer, 1939 ; Thompson, 1936, pp. 13-14. ? Summary from earlier sources, in Cooper, 1924, p. 413; important recent excavations, ‘in Bird, 1943. 446 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION). 1943 evidence from ethnology and archeology, then briefly the somatologi- cal and geographical evidence. Some of the cultural evidence is derived from a consideration of the data from South America alone; other, from consideration of pan-continental conditions, from North as well as South America. (1) Cultural evidence.—(a) South American.—That the Fuegian culture represents in the main such cultural tarriance from very early times seems reasonably clear. The evidence for this conclusion has been previously presented in detail by the present writer, a conclusion strengthened, it seems, by the archeological investigations of Lothrop: and Bird which indicate that the earliest inhabitants of the area had a culture seemingly even more simple than that of the modern Yahgan and Alacaluf, and of the Ona and their close cultural rela- tives, the Tehuelche of southern Patagonia. Furthermore the mod- ern culture of the Yahgan and Alacaluf in particular corresponds in many seemingly significant respects with the extremely simple culture determined archeologically on the earliest horizons at Taltal and Arica, well up the Chilean coast.*° That the Gé(?), Botocudo (Borun), Puri, Waitaka, and other Mar- ginals of eastern Brazil represent a survived archaic pre-Silval cul- ture in the region seems the most reasonable hypothesis to account for the evidence we have. The evidence for the region has been mar- shaled by Ploetz and Métraux, much of the evidence for the northern Gé, by Snethlage.** This conclusion, to which we have previously adverted, is drawn partly from the marked primitivity of the culture as compared with the Silval, and partly from the historically proved and reasonably inferred later intrusions of the Tupi and of Tupi culture into the area. We may also call attention in passing to the fact that, apart from the Carib Pimenteira and (Carib or independent stock) Kariri in the eastern part of the highlands, the Carib and Arawak tribes of the upper Xingu, the Arawak Guana and Tereno of the upper Paraguay—all of these last four on the far western borderlands of the highlands—and the Karaya of the Araguaya River, the Tupi are the only or almost the only people of horticultural or of typical Silval culture who border on and are intrusive into this whole great highland and savanna section of eastern Brazil.*? Lift Tupi peoples and Tupi influence from the 30 Cooper, 1917, pp. 223-226; 1924, pp. 411-414; Lothrop, 1928, pp. 110-115, 178-197, 198-212; Bird, 1988. The results, published since the above was in proof, of Bird’s more recent excavations along the north Chilean coast show, however, some important con- trasts between the earlier Chilean coastal cultures and the modern Yahgan and Alacaluf (Bird, 1948). 31 Ploetz and Métraux, 1929, pp. 227-234; Snethlage, 1930. Among the foregoing peoples of eastern Brazil, the Gé may turn out to be partly retrogressed Silvals, to judge from the trend of the evidence within the last couple of years. 2 Nimuendajii’s 1937 and 1942 unpublished maps of the area are our best and most com- plete ones. Cf. also maps previously listed in footnote 7. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 447 area and there remains an almost unbroken vast region of nonhorticul- tural Marginal culture in the east from the lower Amazon to the La Plata. The Bororé likewise give every indication of being a fundamentally Marginal culture overlaid only lightly by Silval elements. The Tupi- speaking Guayaki in the midst of Tupi peoples but. with a culture sharply contrasting at almost every point with the Tupi, seem to be either remnants of prehorticultural Tupi or else a group later Tupi- ized as regards language but preserving a pre-Tupi culture. The Guat6 are somewhat problematical but both the archeological and the ethnological evidence suggests cultural tarriance in their case rather than retrogression. Upon the Chaco peoples have rained influences from east, north, and west, many of these influences certainly of post-Columbian date. The reasonable assumption is that in times prior thereto and not very re- mote the Chaco peoples were closely akin in culture to the Charrua of the Uruguayan plains and to the Puelche-Querandi of the Argen- tine Pampa. Moreover a considerable number of widespread Chaco cultural elements, such as skin clothing, the hairbrush, the sinew bow- string, suggest rather strongly cultural kinship with the peoples of the Pampas and Patagonian plateau to the south.** At any rate the peoples of the Chaco, of the Uruguayan plains and of the Pampas have a relatively very simple culture as compared with the more elaborate Silval culture, and there is no evidence whatever to suggest that this simplicity has been the result of cultural retrogression. Tt looks, too, as if the internally Marginal peoples scattered here and there in the Silval belt, or at least most of them, may be cultural tarriants from pre-Silval times. The marked simplicity of their culture contrasting sharply with that of the Silval, the absence of evidence of retrogression, except perhaps with the Mura, the scattered type of distribution, and, in some cases, specific historic evidence, all suggest that these peoples are earlier occupants of regions near where they now are, who have been driven forward, conquered, scattered, pene- trated, or surrounded, and in some cases profoundly influenced cul- turally and linguistically by later-coming Silval Arawak, Carib, and Tupi, as well as other peoples of Silval culture. Such is the view, from first-hand study in the field, of Koch-Griinberg, as regards the Schiri- ana, Waika, and Maku, although it is possible that what he took for definite recent historical tradition may have been legendary tribal lore. Some of these people, too, seem to differ somewhat somatologi- 33 Nordenskiéld, 1919, pp. 259-261; Lathrop, 1932, pp. 188-189; Palavecino, 1934, p. 229. 34 Koch-Griinberg, 1906a, p. 878; 1906b, pp. 180-181. 1922, pp. 226, 260-262, 265-266; 1928, pp. 15-16, 284, 299-800, 307. Cf. Nordenskiéld, 1924, p. 233, Sirioné tribe “repre- sents perhaps a remnant of the original population” [of northeastern Bolivia]. 448 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 cally from the surrounding peoples of Silval culture.* Certain cultural correspondences, too—such, for instance, as the extremely long bows found among the Sirioné and among many of the Brazilian highland Marginals—appear significant, and as far as they go, suggest Marginal tarriance with later Silval cultural intrusion. But our information on most of these internally Marginal groups is at present woefully frag- mentary. We may say in passing that perhaps no more urgent task in South American ethnology clamors for attention than that of thorough field investigation of these very simple peoples scattered here and there through the Silval belt. (b) Pan American evidence.—The foregoing South American evi- dence for the priority of the Marginal culture or cultures to the Silval is appreciably corroborated by the Pan American evidence. A very considerable number of specific and diagnostic cultural elements found in South America, particularly though not exclusively among the Marginal peoples, largely disappear in Silval South America and in Middle America, and then reappear in North America, and in a number of cases even in northeastern and northern Asia. Nordenskiéld first called attention to the phenomena and their probable significance nearly three decades ago. In his final paper on the subject published shortly before his death in 1932, he listed 64 such elements. Krickeberg later barred or fused some of these but added about 25 others. Loeb, Schmidt, and von Hornbostel called attention to certain specific correspondences in puberty rites, religion, and musical style respectively. A number of striking resemblances in folk lore have been noted by Lowie, Métraux, and others.*° To the above lists the present writer can add about 15 or 20 further items. All in all, we have before us about 100 or more such North-South correspondences. Of these, some—such as family hunting territories or the use of skin garments, of crutchless paddles, of plank houses and plank boats— should best be left out of count, as they are not specific enough, or else may well be chance convergences, or convergent functions of similar natural environment or basic Wirtschaft in the far north and far south of the continent. Some few of them, too—such as scalping, the hollow rattle, sandals, the husking peg—may quite possibly be the result of independent diffusion from horticultural cultures. But a great many of them, probably a good majority, cannot seemingly be 35 Koch-Griinberg, 1906a, p. 878; 1906b, p. 180. The Sirion6é are assumed by Eickstedt, 1934, pp. 758, 855, so to differ, but such differences as exist may well be due to intrusions of white and Negro blood to which reference is made by Cardfis, 1886, p. 280. Cf. Outes, 1924. Definitive conclusions on the Sirion6 will have to await the completion of Allen Holmberg’s field study now in progress. 30 Nordenskiéld, 1912a, 1931, pp. 6-15, 74, 77-94 (cf. same, 1926; 1930, pp. 163-165) ; Krickeberg, 1934; Loeb, 1931, pp. 532-533; W. Schmidt, 1929, pp. 1008-1033 ; von Horn- bostel, 1986 (cf. Danckert, 1937) ; Lowie, 1957, pp. 194-195 ; 1940a. pp. 421- 422; Métraux, 1939 (cf. Palavecino, 1940) ; Luomala, 1942. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 449 accounted for on any of the foregoing grounds. Such, for instance, are: Thread-tattooing; fire making by the percussion method ; sundial and inclined-stick traveling signs; the association of head-scratcher, drinking tube, hoof rattle, ashes (charcoal), foot race in early morn- ing, and gathering firewood with girls’ puberty rites; the remarkable grouping of games—hockey, lacrosse, ring-and-pin, hoop-and-pole, dart game, battledore, dart sticker, dice—in the Brazilian highlands and particularly in the Chaco; the perhaps still more striking oc- currence of a large number of very specific folk-lore motifs, especially in the Chaco. These very numerous and quite specific phenomena appear best accounted for on the hypothesis that the Marginal peoples of North and South America, or many of them, have retained much from a common cultural ancestry of archaic days prior to the rise and spread of the more advanced material arts on the continent. In other words the Marginal cultures of South America, or many of them, are more primitive than the Silval, in the sense that they in appreciable measure represent cultural tarriance with partial retention of pattern from times anterior to the development of the Silval. Added weight accrues to this inference from the fact that a certain number of these North-South correspondences—such as thread-tattoo- ing and the ring-and-pin game—are shared as well by some of the Marginals of northern Asia.** A certain amount of further support is derived from archeology—as for example, the consistent absence of head deformation and sporadic absence of the dog, among earlier populations, as among modern Marginals, of North or South America or both.* (2) Somatological evidence—Somatological data cannot as a rule be cited as evidence in the cultural court. But the fact that so many of the peoples of the Marginal belt appear more or less closely related physically to the earliest physical type so far recorded on the South American continent, does seem to corroborate, as far as it goes, the cultural evidence for the primitivity of the Marginal culture itself. So related physically to the ancient Lagoa Santa-sambaqui type are the modern Yahgan and Alacaluf together with the Ona and Tehuel- che, as also many at least of the living Marginal peoples of the Brazilian highlands, and some perhaps of the other Marginal peoples.” (3) Geographical evidence-—Geographically the externally Mar- ginal peoples are in the main in more remote areas of the continent, farthest removed from the doorways of ingress to the continent via Panama and the Antilles, and farthest removed by sheer distance as 87 Birket-Smith, 1929, pt. 2, passim. 88 On absence of head deformation, cf. Stewart, 1940; Nordenskiéld, 1931, p. 73; Imbel- loni, 1934 ; Lovén, 1935, pp. 488—490 ; Harrington, 1921, vol. 2, p. 386. *%” Hrdlitka, 1912, pp. 179, 183 ; Eickstedt, 1934, p. 7T56—759. 450 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 well as by natural barriers from the cultural influences of the advanced civilizations of the continent. Most of the internally Marginal peoples are likewise in remoter “refuge” areas of the tropical rain forest. 4. THE QUESTION or OLD Worip INFLUENCE Within the limits of a short paper like the present, which has already gone far beyond the length originally planned, it is not possible to enter into a detailed review of the evidence bearing on this supercomplicated problem. And unless the evidence pro and con is discussed in minute detail and against a pan-continental and even world-wide background, discussion of it is all but futile. The ablest treatment of it which has yet appeared is, to the present writer’s best judgment, that by Nordenskidld, to which the reader is referred for details.*? Without entering into the minutiae of the controversy and merely to fill out some of the main lines of culture sequence in South America, we shall confine ourselves to the briefest statement of the conclusions which, in the view of Nordenskiéld and of most of us interested in the problem, seem to follow from such evidence as we have. The earliest prehistoric human migrants from northeastern Asia to the American continent brought with them their heritage of Old World “paleolithic” culture. Beyond, however, this initial heritage from Old World culture, there appears no convincing or even good probable evidence for appreciable accretions in pre-Columbian days to South American culture through the migration from the Old World either of peoples or of cultures, whether by a northern route across Bering Strait or the vicinity thereof or by a southern route across the Pacific. Our evidence regarding an element here and there, such as the sweetpotato, the calabash, or the coconut, makes plausible—though far from proved—the assumption of sporadic pre-Columbian cultural contacts between Oceania and South America.*t But the inference that there has been notable or basic pre-Columbian Old World in- fluence upon South American culture, as maintained by the Helio- lithic and Kulturkreis schools,‘? seems to rest on extremely weak positive evidence and furthermore to be in conflict at scores of crucial points with our massive ethnological and archeological evidence. The resemblances on which these two schools mosily rest their re- spective cases seem far too few, too scattered, and too vague to justify conclusions of large-scale diffusion from the Old World to the New by 40 Nordenski6ld, 1931, pp, 16—53. “1 Nordenskiéld, 1931, pp. 27-30; Dixon, 1932; cf. Cook, 1910. 4W. Schmidt, 1913; Smith, 1929. Cf. critiques in: Dixon, 1928, chap. 7 and passim; Lowie, 1937, chaps. 10-11. For most recent exposition of Rivet’s theories of Oceanic influence in aboriginal South America, see Rivet, 1943. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 451 the Oceanian or any other route. Apart from the initial “paleolithic” (in the sense of “prehorticultural”) inheritance, apart from a pos- sible stray pre-Columbian accretion here and there, and apart from obvious post-Columbian influences, the culture of aboriginal South America gives every indication of being home-grown. SUMMARY In attempting to discover and reconstruct the broad lines of cul- tural sequence on the South American continent we have resorted to the stripping process, following reverse chronological order. Since the coming of the white man, four-and-a-half centuries ago, a large group of important elements of European provenance, and a very limited group of minor elements of Negro origin, have spread widely over the continent or parts thereof. Since our more or less arbitrary date of about A. D. 1000 or since, in round numbers, about a millennium ago, a half-dozen major cul- tural diffusions or drifts have occurred—the Inca and _ pre-Inca within the Andean area, from the Southern Andean (Araucanian) out into the Pampean and Patagonian, from the Silval (mostly Tupi) into and around the Brazilian highlands, and (Arawak- Carib) into the West Indies—and other minor diffusions, such as those from the Silval and Sierral into the Chaco, from the Sierral into the Silval, and a great number, not dealt with in the present paper, of more localized ones within the Sierral, Silval, and Marginal respectively. Earlier, perhaps around the beginning of the Christian Era or maybe long before, came the beginnings of horticulture in the Silval or Sierral area or both, and together with associated or subsequent more advanced material arts and divergent social and religious structures and usages spread out over the western, northern, and cen- tral regions of the continent, penetrating to about the limits of the arable land in the Sierral area and of the tropical and subtropical rain forests of the Silval. These cultural drifts, however, left rela- tively untouched the cultures of the great eastern and southern open- country belt, and seemingly, too, a number of archaic cultural islands here and there within the Silval area as represented by the internally Marginal peoples still surviving there, and even within the Sierral as represented by the coastal Chango. Still earlier, between the remote first migration or migrations of man to the continent—perhaps 10,000 to 25,000 years ago—and the beginnings of aboriginal American horticulture, the original “paleolithic” culture of these earlier immigrants was carried by them over all or most of both North and South America as they deployed out over forest and open country, highlands and lowlands. Some of 452 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 the very early culture, perhaps even of the earliest, survived, and has been retained down to the present. Much or most of it suffered more than a sea change, in the process of adjustment to varying new external environments and under the impulsion of internal forces. TENTATIVE PREHISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION Before bringing this paper to a close, it seems worth while, at the risk of some repetition but in the interests of clarity, to give a résumé in chronological order of what, for purposes of discussion, has been dealt with in inverse temporal order. In doing so we are venturing to fill out the picture a little by adding a few details only implicitly or incidentally touched upon in the preceding pages. Some of these details in the following attempted reconstruction of the broad lines of culture growth on the South American continent—and in a certain sense the basic reconstruction itself—must of necessity, in view of the many lacunae in our evidence, be tentative and provisional only. Workers in the natural sciences take for granted that it is legitimate to formulate provisional theories, if only as working hypotheses. Why may not the cultural anthropologist do the same, provided he keeps reasonably close to his evidence and proposes his reconstructions as provisional only and not as established verities? There is a via media between giving free rein to fancy and speculation and setting up tentative hypotheses to be tested. The long-headed earlier peoples of the South American continent must have reached it from North America either by way of the Isthmus of Panama or across the Antilles route. How many thousand years ago this occurred there is no very definite evidence for concluding— possibly only the 4,000 which Spinden allows, perhaps some thousands of years earlier as suggested by our linguistic data, and by some of the more recent archeological evidence for South as well as North America.** Man on his arrival in South America had in all probability a very simple culture without agriculture, weaving, or pottery, without alco- holic intoxicants or tobacco, and, judging from its earlier absence from the extreme southern tip of the continent and its modern absence from a great many other peoples of the Marginal and Silval belts, quite possibly, too, without the dog. Fire in the early stages was more likely by the percussion method as well as by the drill. Boiling with hot stones was practiced. Body painting and depilation went along with the use of the brush comb. Head deformation was lacking. The autonomous politico-economic unit was the small band, mostly com- posed of kin, each band with its own more or less circumscribed sover- eign territory. Sibs, moieties, age classes, marked social stratification, 48 Spinden, 1937 ; Bird, 1938 ; Roberts, 1940. ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 453 and powerful chieftaincy were probably absent, although there is some question regarding moieties and age classes in view of the recent Gé evidence. The family was the basic social unit, polygamous or pre- valently monogamous in form, with probably some strict or fairly strict monogamy in groups here and there. Esthetic culture was weakly developed; recreative, very slightly organized. Religion was most probably a combination of shamanistic, magical, animistic, and theistic concepts and practices, with relatively less manism. The prob- able later derivation of the hollow rattle from the Silval culture and the actual absence of rattles of any kind south of the Strait of Magellan suggest that the rattle, at least the hollow rattle, was not part of the earliest magico-religious culture. The marked dominance of weapons like the sling, club, spear, and spear thrower over most of the Andean area to Cape Horn contrasting broadly with the dominance of the bow and arrow and unheaded club over most of the area east of the Andes, seems to point toward two great more or less independent cultural drifts in the western and east- ern regions of the continent, drifts which may well date back to remote archaic times. For some hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years the South American continent was occupied by peoples of such simple culture as has been above outlined, a culture partly preserved in varying degrees until the present or until very recent times here and there in the Sierral and Silval regions, and over most of our open-country belt. During, however, these centuries or millennia countless major and minor local and tribal cultural divergences developed within this pre-horticultural pattern. At the latest during the first millennium B. C. and perhaps much earlier, came the beginnings of horticulture, together with more or less sedentary village life, alcoholic intoxicants and tobacco, weaving, pottery, and other more advanced material arts. Whether horticulture first reached South America via the Isthmus from Middle America, or originated independently south of the Isthmus, is an open question, although some of our recent evidence seems to be a little more favor- able to the theory of South American origin. Middle America’s claim to be the birthplace of maize cultivation is being sharply challenged. Then, too, at least some weight is given to Peru’s claim to priority from the marked variety of plants, about 70 in all, cultivated there in pre- Discovery times. Or else the domestication of plants on the southern continent may have begun as root-tuber horticulture, with perhaps white potatoes in the central Sierral region, or with manioc somewhere in the Silval. In any case, waiving as still sub judice the question of the exact locality or localities of its origin, horticulture in South America 566766—44—30 454 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 seems to have later diffused in two main streams: one, carrying chiefly maize, beans, and white potatoes until it covered the western belt from Colombia to Chiloé; a second one carrying chiefly manioce and beans until it extended over the great rain forests of the Orinoco- Amazonian region and flooded out over the Antilles. At later dates, mostly after our more or less arbitrary one of A. D. 1000 and in many sections even after the coming of the white man, this basically manioc culture spread around and deeply penetrated into the eastern Brazilian and Matto Grosso highlands, diffused into parts of the Chaco, and swept over many of the savannas within and adjacent to the tropical rain forests—areas until then occupied by nonhorticultural Marginal peoples. In general, it looks as if the typical larger groups of the Silval belt— especially the Carib, Arawak, and Tupi—pretty consistently kept in their spread to the tropical and subtropical rain forests, penetrated to the limit thereof, and stopped short at the savannas and grasslands. They stayed in the deep forests and avoided the open country. Even the ‘Tupi-speaking Chiriguano on their western trek out of the Para- guay country across the Chaco, settled, not in the open Chaco region, but in the forested foothills and lowlands bordering thereon. For the beginnings of the high civilizations of the Sierral region, archeology has so far yielded us no well-established dates, nor has it determined definitively how much of this more advanced culture may have had its origin north of the Isthmus. Such facts as we have can be fitted comfortably within the assumption that Sierral civilization, with its advanced weaving, pottery, metallurgy, megalithic architec- ture, and political institutions—to mention only a few of its outstand- ing characteristics—does not date in its origin or origins beyond the beginning of the Christian Era. At least there is no specific evidence for an earlier date. Assuming, albeit with reserves, an origin or origins of Sierral civili- zation around the first centuries of the Christian Era, this pre-Inca higher culture developed and flourished for about a millennium. Then, somewhere between about A. D. 1100 and A. D. 1300 came the rise of Inca imperialism which, during the generations immediately preceding the coming of the Spaniard, carried its truculent conquests as well as its characteristic culture from around Cuzco to the north as far as northern Ecuador, to the south as far as the Rio Maule in middle Chile, and out into the Diaguita country in northwestern Argentina. Apart from this main area of diffusion of earlier Andean and later Inca civilization, Sierral culture in diluted form spread to the Arau- canians of middle and southern Chile, partly in pre-Columbian times, partly in post-Columbian. In post-Discovery days, this diluted An- dean culture was carried by the Araucanians far to the east of the ABORIGINAL SOUTH AMERICAN CULTURE—COOPER 455 southern Andes—by the middle of the eighteenth century, through actual Araucanian invasion, to the peoples of the Pampa, and, some- time between 1670 and 1741, through Araucanian contacts, to the Tehuelche of Patagonia as far south as the Strait of Magellan. Such in brief appear to be the broad lines of aboriginal South American cultura] evolution, as far as our available somatological, linguistic, ethnological, archeological, and historical evidence reveals them. Some of this reconstruction is derived from dated historical documents. Much of it rests on evidence that yields temporal infer- ences of from reasonable to high probability. 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VELLARD, J. 1934-35. Les indiens Guayaki. Journ. Soc. Amér. Paris, vol. 26, pp. 223- 292; vol. 27, pp. 175-244. VON DEN STEINEN, KARL. 1894. Unter den Naturvélkern Zentral-Brasiliens. Berlin. WALTER, H. V., CATHOUD, A., and MatTTOos, A. 1987. The Confins man. In G. G. MacCurdy, editor, Early man, pp. 341-348. WHITBECK, R. H., WILLIAMS, F. E., and CHRISTIANS, W. F. 1940. Economie geography of South America. 3rd ed. New York and London, WISSLER, C. 1917. The American Indian. New York. Zon, R., and SPARHAWK, W. N. 1923. Forest resources of the world. 2 vols. New York. Hf ': i a? vhygh' | ; nats ao r % Me acee thee , Ry aN) Rea. Ph fT: AO ¥ eof v > phi yim i i eek , iv um na ae ’ ne am ys af iy ‘ 4) Ae oh } M a \ Lay page ; Ab ay hie a Dail “ ¥ “Tikes Ani sa ¥ oa Away On td overt ioe | Hel naam a 2} jonitionn “th Aaspesi it vi i Ae Ply .. MS PY Gd ith . ARONA OO ad Dee hy whey ars | bis ') \ ap tt y pnw yloteta iia amb Bk ‘ oh j Ra CR } ; aa iy " a ihe ine my AL j F f nt Ald Oe ; eS q ; y j / ‘ ik 1 H ' 4 tt Fd UCR RE ER a ge mM pee ue a pee a Byaies Vy iedied lave « wire IU Oa Ce ith a leet ad ay AT pen i Mai Nt ; i pa ae | Pe 7 ‘ihoen ‘y : ay He) nie a "y N i ‘i ! np ¥ ee LH Nay ‘Nis aie 14 Ce) eee ‘) ray 4 OM in ‘ahd oe se th a it 7 4 i ae Bot Kus v1 By iae ; oe Mie i elt fi fy nw, ry i A i) om Leds ae paige Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cooper PLATE 1 SILVAL PHYSICAL TYPES. Upper left, headman of the Naravute, a tribe of the upper Xing River region, eastern Brazil. (Courtesy Vincenzo Petrullo.) Upper right, boy of the Yagua tribe, of northeastern Peru, with decorative face painting and palm-fiber forehead band and ‘‘bib.”’ (Courtesy Paul Fejos.) Lower, Yagua mother and child. Courtesy Paul Fejos.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cooper PLATE 2 ' “i ve ot, ae a. Sie Mcah ne OF en FOOD. Upper, Wapisiana women of British Guiana grating cassava (Manihot utilissima) root, preparatory to squeezing out the juice which contains poisonous hydrocyanic acid. (Courtesy The University Museum, Philadelphia, Pa.) Lower, Aymara gardening terraces at Ichu, Peru, in sierral territory. (Courtesy Alfred Kidder II.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cooper PLATE 3 SHELTER AND CONSTRUCTION. Upper, beehive hut of the marginal Yahgan, of the Magellanic Archipelago, the southernmost people of the world, now nearly extinet. (From Hyades and Deniker.) Middle, half-completed dwelling of the silval Naravute, upper Xingti River, eastern Brazil, showing heavy timber framework. (Courtesy Vincenzo Petrullo.) Lower, ancient part-ruined chulpas, used as burial places, at Kacha Kacha, Peru, showing a type of sierral dressed-stone construction. (Courtesy Harry Tschopik.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Cooper PLATE 4 THE LIGHTER SIDE OF LIFE. Upper, a wrestling match, among the marginal Bororé, of Matto Grosso, Brazil. (Courtesy Vincenzo Petrullo.) Lower, Yagua boy, of northeastern Peru, with pet monkeys. (Courtesy Paul Fejos.) ORIGIN OF FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS: A BRIEF HANDBOOK? By CarL WHITING BisHoP Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution [With 12 plates] INTRODUCTION AIMS AND METHODS OF STUDY Anthropology is that science which studies man in connection with his environment, physical, social, and economic. But to this end we must also lay under contribution many of its sister sciences, notably those of geology, climatology, biology, and history; for these too can throw light on various aspects of our problem—the career of mankind in ancient eastern Asia. The cultural significance of that part of the globe, moreover, like that of every other, can only be rightly under- stood if we view it in relation to the cultures of neighboring areas; while the growth of civilization there must, as always, be interpreted in terms both of time and of space. CHINA Physical environment.—As a preliminary survey, we need to know in at least its main outlines the geography of China; since it was there that our particular phase of the great human drama began (Cressey, 1934, passim; Latourette, 1934, vol. 1, ch. 1). As a glance at a map or, better still, a terrestrial globe will show, the area in question occupies a position marginal or peripheral to the Near East—the region where, as we now know, civilization first developed. Ever since fairly remote geologic times, however, these widely sundered areas have been linked by two great land routes or thoroughfares of migration and travel, vegetable, animal, and human. (See map. fig.1). These pass in a generally east-and west direction to the north and to the south, respectively, of the lofty tableland of Tibet. The former route, that on the north, has in general played far the more 1 Reprinted from Smithsonian War Background Studies, No. 1, Publ. 3681, June 10, 1942. The author died June 16, 1942. 463 464 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 important role in human history; but the latter, known in part as the now famous Burma Road, has come into renewed prominence of late. The sea route between the Occident and the Far East did not come into use until much later, well on in the historical period—not, in fact, until sails and seagoing ships had long been known in the Near East. Surface features—Northern China is preeminently a vast, low- lying alluvial plain, bordered by the sea on the one hand, on the other by rugged areas that form the scarp of the central Asian plateau. The Ch‘in-ling chain of hills—dwindling outliers of the mighty K‘un-lun Mountains of inner Asia—divides the basin of the Huai River from that of the Yangtze and forms a faunal, botanical, and historical boundary of great importance. ra V4 Dy QS ~igy 4 A Whine “sp ee ptly ~~ LeManZyy A en neyZZ ar. py / a Li YR DUS 1 fy) Tipe ‘ / Ws, IX f WA Figure 1.—The “steppe corridor” and the Far East. Southern China, on the contrary, is in general hilly—in parts even mountainous; but its elevations do not form continuous, well-defined ranges. Loess soil.—Over much of northern China, and extending far into central Asia, lies a thick mantle of loess soil (likewise found in other parts of the world, as for instance in many of our western States and portions of Europe). This type of soil, of a fine powdery consistency and grayish yellow in hue, is divided by geologists into two varieties, primary (eolian) and secondary (alluvial) loess. Of these, the first was deposited by the wind, in the form of dust, during the (geologically speaking) Recent epoch, since the close of the last ice age; while the second, a derivative of the first, has been laid down by water (which in this way, for example, created the great North China plains just mentioned). (Cressey, 1934, pp. 184-189 and passim; Anderson, 1934, _ passim.) FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 465 Rivers and lakes.—In northern China the rivers are “young” (again in the geologic sense) and are therefore subject to devastating floods. By far the largest is the Huang Ho or Yellow River, sometimes called “China’s Sorrow” on account of the terrible loss of life which it often causes. This stream rises in northeastern Tibet and is 2,500 miles in length. Too shallow and swift to be an important waterway, it has often altered its lower course ; the most recent of these changes occurred less than a century ago. South of it flows the Huai River, much shorter, and the mouth of which has for the past few hundred years been cut off by the Grand Canal, so that it no longer flows directly into the sea. The rivers of southern China, on the other hand, are “mature” in character, with deep, well-defined channels. The most important is the Yangtze, second in size and volume only to the Amazon, in South America. Like the Yellow River, it too rises in northeastern Tibet, and flows in a general easterly direction for 3,200 miles before it reaches the sea, near the present city of Shanghai. Its value as a high- way of commerce is very great, and oceangoing steamers are able to ascend it for over 600 miles. In the early historical period it entered the sea through a delta with three mouths, now reduced to one. The river systems of southeastern China are nearly all short and coastal, few of them extending back into the interior of China. There are likewise, especially in the center and north of the country, nu- merous lakes, some shallow and subject to seasonal fluctuations of out- line, while others are deeper and more permanent in character. Flora and fauna—tThe great plains of northern China were before the dawn of history probably open grassland, with belts of timber along the streams and on the watersheds—much like our American prairies in aboriginal times. The Yangtze Basin and southern China in general, on the other hand, seem to have been covered with luxuriant subtropical forest continuous with that clothing Indo-China and much of India, and not unlike the one that once occupied the southeastern part of North America. . There are in eastern Asia two main zoological provinces, a northeru and a southern. The boundary between these today extends, roughly, along the southern border of the Yangtze Basin; but in ancient times it ran at least as far north as the latitude of Peiping.? Hence as late as the second millennium B. C. China had, even in the north, many large forms, such as the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the water buffalo, now living only in regions much farther south. Eastern Asia was, in fact, during ancient times (before human activ- ity had yet had time to produce its usual destructive effect) a region teeming with very many forms of wildlife, both animal and vegetable. 2This parallel, of very nearly 40° N. latitude, passes through northern California and central New Jersey on our side of the globe. 466 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Among these, numerous species in both the animal and the vegetable kingdoms were closely related to others that we look on as especially characteristic of the New World. For instance, the only parts of the globe where the true alligator occurs today are North America and a small area on the Yangtze River. Many other examples of like nature might be cited. There was—and still is—a bird life wonderfully rich in both number of individuals and variety of species, the latter including terrestrial, arboreal, and aquatic forms. Climate-—The controlling factor in the climate of China—of all southeastern Asia, in fact—is the alternating occurrence of the mon- soon winds and their influence on precipitation (Cressey, 1934, pp. 60- 64 and passim). The summer monsoon, blowing steadily from the south, off the equatorial ocean, is warm and moist, whereas the winter monsoon, from the interior of the continent, is dry and bitterly cold. These distinctions are very marked, and their effect is to divide the year rather sharply into a hot, rainy summer and a cold, dry winter. The Middle and Late Pleistocene periods, when the vast deposits of loess soil were being slowly formed, seem in general to have been much drier than now but to have been followed, during late prehistoric and early historic times, by an interval of rather greater rainfall and warmth than are found in northern China today. The general tend- ency for at least the past 1,500 years seems to have lain in the direction of growing aridity, interspersed with somewhat wetter phases. All these climatic fluctuations have influenced human activity in countless ways, the effects of which are still clearly visible. ADJACENT LANDS Northwest of China proper are the lofty plateau of Tibet and that nexus of mountain ranges forming the Pamirs, the “Roof of the World.” North and northeast of China extend the elevated plains of Mongolia and Manchuria, wooded on the east, bare and tending more and more to aridity on the west. Other lands—Indo-China, Korea, and numerous great island groups—lie to the west, south, and east. All these, together with China itself, form that part of the globe which we know collectively as the Far East. The region is one that is playing an increasingly large and important part in world history, as we all realize. PRIMITIVE MAN RACES OF EARLY MAN It is still undetermined exactly where the human race originated, although we may at least be sure that it did so in the Old World, not in the New. Recent discoveries have revealed, however, that numer- FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 467 ous forms of man once existed, but that all save the one found today—Homo sapiens—eventually became extinct (Abbot et el., 1938, passim). “PEKING MAN” About one of these very early human types—whether or not di- rectly ancestral to modern man is still disputed—we have been hear- ing much of late. This is the primitive creature commonly called “Peking man” (Sinanthropus pekinensis), which lived around the very beginning of the Pleistocene period, variously estimated at from 250,000 to 1,000,000 years ago. MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE During the past few years also, traces of men of the Old Stone Age or Paleolithic period have come to light in eastern Asia, as, for in- stance, in northwestern China proper and on the borders of Mon- golia. These people lived much later but still as early as the begin- ning of the deposition of the loess, not less than from 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. From this time onward until late prehistoric times there is a great gap in our knowledge of man in eastern Asia. Pos- sibly he did not exist there at all then, the climate following the ice age being too unfavorable to permit living in that part of the globe by people still in a food-gathering (as opposed to a food-producing) stage of culture. MORE RECENT RACES NEGROID TYPES In times much less remote from our own but still long before his- tory began, southern Asia and some of the islands off its coast seem to have been inhabited by two dark-skinned races, one of pygmies, the other of a taller people, perhaps akin to the Papuans of New Guinea or to the aborigines of Australia. This second race, some students have suspected, once extended its influence northward as far as Japan, there to contribute to the formation of the Ainu, still found in some of the northern islands of that archipelago. A CAUCASOID TYPE Somewhat later but still far back in prehistoric times, southeastern Asia and many of the East Indian islands seem to have been over- run by a brown-skinned race of Caucasoid type, perhaps distantly * Of these pygmies, a few scattered remnants still exist, in the Malay Peninsula, the Andaman Islands, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and they are mentioned in old Chinese records. The larger Negroid race was perhaps best represented by the (recently) extinct Tasmanians, 468 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 related to the “Mediterraneans” of the west. This type may still be seen entering into the composition of the present population of the area; thus travelers often mention seeing individuals there with the aspect of southern Europeans. MON-KHMER STOCK The Mongoloid or yellow-brown variety of man seems to have be- come specialized somewhere in central Asia and to have spread thence outward, toward the sea. The first traceable members of this race in the Far East seem to have belonged to the Mon-Khmer linguistic stock, still found in many parts of southern Asia. They spread (or were driven) southward until they occupied much of southern China, Indo-China, parts of India, and apparently some of the islands. Physically they are shorter and darker than Mon- goloid man in general, possibly on account of very early admix- ture with the pygmies already mentioned. SINO-T‘AI STOCK Probably a good deal later than the Mon-Khmers came the speakers of the Sino-T‘ai family of languages (to which, re- spectively, belong the Chinese and the Siamese). These two groups of speech are very closely related to each other, and this may account in part for the success of the Chinese emigrants to Siam.+ The Chinese ancestral stock spread, at some prehistoric time, over northern China (roughly, the Yellow River Basin), while the T‘ai speakers occupied much of the Yangtze Valley. Southern China and Indo-China became more especially the home of the Mon-Khmers.® Throughout the historical period, various forms of Chinese speech have been steadily supplanting both T‘ai and Mon-Khmer in south- ern China or have driven them into Indo-China. TIBETO-BURMAN STOCK Yet another linguistic family, the Tibeto-Burman, is related to the Sino-T‘ai group, although less closely than are the two branches of the latter to each other. As their name indicates, languages of the Tibeto- Burman family are today spoken mainly in Tibet and in Burma; but in ancient times they extended over much of northwestern China, and remnants of them still exist there. Physically this stock is very variable, though essentially Mongoloid in character. 4The Siamese like to call themselves the T‘ai (or, less correctly, Thai) ; but they are by no means the only people speaking a T‘ai language. 5 All the groups of whom we are now speaking are today much alike in physical aspect, their distinguishing marks being more especially matters of speech, costume, and custom. This applies in very large measure also to the Japanese. FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 469 NEOLITHIC PERIOD Characteristics —This stage of culture is characterized by the use of ground and polished stone for tools and implements, but it also marks a really tremendous step in man’s progress; for it was then that he became a producer of food instead of depending, as he had always done hitherto, on what he could find for his nourishment, whether animal or vegetable. It was then that he began to domesticate various kinds of animals (except the dog, already associated with man far earlier) and different food plants. This Neolithic phase of culture prevailed over practically the entire globe, only disappearing from different areas as civilization slowly diffused itself. This was true of eastern Asia as of every other region ; thus the Ainu of the Kurile Islands, northeast of Japan proper, re- mained in that stage until well into the nineteenth century. About the Neolithic period in western and southern China we as yet know little, for not a great deal of archeological work has been done there. Of that of northern China, Korea, and Japan, we know much more. The Neolithic inhabitants of these regions seem nowhere to have been pastoral nomads but invariably semisedentary planters. It is also interesting to note that in northern China at least the skeletal evidence shows the prehistoric population to have been directly an- cestral to the present one. Like the Neolithic culture of much of eastern Asia was the one that we find in northern China (Bishop, 1932a). There, however, it disap- peared, or perhaps more accurately was submerged, under a developed civilization of Bronze Age type, with a knowledge of metal, consid- erably sooner than was the case in many adjacent lands. In parts of Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, and Japan, for example, Neolithic cultures survived until the Christian Era and even longer. In northern China this cultural phase spread over the entire country save for areas subject to seasonal inundation or too heavily timbered for easy clearing with stone tools. There as elsewhere (for instance in Europe), the Neolithic peasants sought more especially lands cov- ered with loess soil, as being at once more fertile than others and less densely overgrown with trees and brush. Habitations—Habitations in northern China, as in so many other northern lands during this stage of progress, were pit dwellings or earth lodges, roughly circular in form and beehive-shaped, usually with a depth and diameter of around 10 feet, and entered from the top. (See pl. 2.) The Chinese character Asiieh, now meaning a den or cave, in its ancient form clearly represents a vertical section of such a pit dwelling, with its domed and timbered roof (fig. 2). Archeology has in this in- stance, as in so many others, confirmed the evidence of epigraphy. 566766—44—31 470 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 During the warmer months, which comprised the period of growth and also the rainy season, these pit dwellings seem to have been temporarily deserted for huts built in trees or on piles and aptly likened to “nests,” situated near the cultivated patches. No signs of fortification of any sort have been found; and in general the Neolithic peoples, in northern China at least, seem not to have been very warlike. Villages of these underground huts were not occupied continuously over very many years. On the contrary, as soon as the soil of the vi- cinity had lost its fertility through the wasteful mode of cultivation then used, and which included clearing the ground with the aid of fire, villages were shifted to other localities with unexhausted soil. Tillage —Cultivation was probably carried on in common, perhaps mainly by the women for magical reasons connected with the idea of fertility. The implements used were digging sticks, hoes, mattocks, sickles, and perhaps spades, shod with stone or shell. (See pl. 3, fig. 1, and fig. 3.) The staple crop was common millet (Panicum mitlia- Va Ficure 2.—Modern and ancient forms of Chinese character for hsiieh (a den or pit dwelling). ceum), and many mullets and mealing stones, used in preparing this grain for human consumption, have been found. Rice also was being grown in the Yellow River basin in Neolithic times; and there is some slight (though doubtful) indication that sorghum (kaoliang or giant millet— now an important food crop) was also known then. Beer, brewed from millet and perhaps also from rice, may likewise have been made. The method used in early times to set up fermenta- tion was that of chewing the grain and then steeping it in water. Animal husbandry.—In its variety of domestic animals during this cultural stage, China was far poorer than was the Occident. The lat- ter then had the ox, sheep, goat, pig, and dog. China, on the other hand, had only the two last, though toward the close of the period the ox, sheep and goats, and even the horse may have appeared (the horse, however, perhaps not as a domestic animal). Implements and clothing—Supplies of the right kind of stone for making tools and implements have always been of vital importance to Neolithic man everywhere. The most common implement in China, as in other lands, was the ground and polished stone celt, which occurs in two forms, the ax and the adz. A rectangular or semilunar stone knife had a very wide distribution, being found not only in northern FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 471 China but also in Siberia, Japan, and even as far afield as among the Eskimo. (See fig. 3.) Arrow points were of stone, bone, and shell; and picks of deer antler similar to ones found in Europe also occur. Spindle whorls of clay or stone and perforated needles of bone show that at least sewing was known, and perhaps weaving also, for impressions of cloth on certain ancient Chinese potsherds may possibly date back to Neolithic times. Bark cloth like the Polynesian tapa seems also to have been made; and during the cold season furs were undoubtedly worn. Fiaure 38.—Mattock and knives of stone, northwestern China. Pottery.—Pottery was well known in eastern Asia during this cul- ture phase. Broadly speaking, it falls into two great categories, a northern and a southern, the former usually ornamented in various ways, the latter most often plain. The northern family is itself divisible into two classes. Of these, one is a coarse gray ware, sherds of which are found all over northern China and are closely akin to the pottery of the neighboring areas. Hand-made, often by the coiling process, it appears in a wide variety of forms. Ornamentation is incised, impressed, punctate, or applied, and the ware itself is as a rule poorly fired. 472 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The other sort of northern ware, far finer in texture and apparently, in some instances at least, made on some rudimentary form of potter’s wheel, likewise displays a wide range of shapes, which as a rule differ from those of the foregoing type. This finer ware occurs more espe- cially along the great migration route from Chinese Turkistan across northern China to southern Manchuria. Varying in hue from a light bluff to a dark reddish brown, it is as a rule highly burnished; some- times it bears simple geometric designs in color, most likely with some magical or symbolic meaning. Both types of ware occur together, however, and seem to have been made by the same people. The Chinese burnished pottery gradually deteriorated and finally died out before the dawn of history. Not so, however, with the coarse gray ware; for this kept on being made, at least by the peasantry, until well within the Christian Era. In northern and especially northeastern China there has also recently come to light a very fine black pottery, somewhat later than the kind just discussed. It was, however, still Neolithic; for no metal has been found with it. Its exact significance is not yet clearly understood. Trade.—Trade seems to have been little developed in China then, for given communities were self-sustaining. No particular demand for imports had as yet arisen. Cowry shells from the southern sea- coasts and obsidian (volcanic glass) for certain implements must have been traded from considerable distances; so contacts of some sort must have existed, most probably of an indirect, “hand-to-hand” sort. Religion.—Religion in northern China, as in most lands during the Neolithic period, most likely consisted of beliefs in magic and animism and in orgiastic ceremonies for the promotion of fertility in general. In these, women probably played a large part. In China as elsewhere, indications of human sacrifice and cannibalism have been found in this connection. The bodies of the dead were buried in the earth; for cremation has never been general in China. Discussion.—The Neolithic stage of culture in northern China lacked many of the elements that it needed to develop into a more advanced civilization. However, it long survived the advent of the Bronze Age, and formed the basis of the peasant culture of the latter period—just as it has done in large measure during even later times. A word may be said here in regard to the influence of bamboo on cultural progress over so much of southeastern Asia. That plant (which anciently seems to have extended somewhat farther north than now) lends itself to such a wide variety of uses of all kinds that its presence appears to have acted as a definite deterrent to experi- mentation with other materials, and so to further progress. (See pl. 4). FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 473 The Neolithic period elsewhere in the Far East seems to have been similar in a general way to the one just discussed, though in most places without the burnished pottery. Nowhere were the people yet in a pastoral stage, with tending of flocks and herds as their means of livelihood. On the contrary, they were planters, though with more dependence on hunting and fishing than in northern China. Mon- golia, for instance (which today we look on as preeminently a pastoral region), seems only to have adopted that type of culture when it acquired sheep and cattle (apparently from the west, to judge from the skeletal evidence); and nomadism proper after obtaining the horse, probably not long before the middle of the first millennium B. C. The effects of the acquisition by the Mongols of the latter cultural trait, incidentally, may profitably be compared with those that took place among our own Plains Indians when they got the horse from the Spaniards. SOUTHERN CHINESE CULTURE Southern China, Indo-China, Malaya, and the islands off the coast, like the Netherlands East Indies, Borneo, and the Philippines, had a somewhat different type of Neolithic culture, characterized by pile dwelling (see pl. 7, fig. 1), long dugout canoes, undecorated pot- tery, and in many if not all areas head hunting, tattooing, and ritual cannibalism. The peoples of these areas did some planting, more especially of leaf and root crops, but also depended greatly on fishing. This southern culture made its way northward along the coast as far as southern Korea and western Japan, where its impress still survives. Eventually it reached a northern form of Neolithic cul- ture more like the one just described. CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD TRANSITION BETWEEN STONE AND BRONZE AGES Except in northwestern China, almost nothing is yet known about the transition from the Neolithic period to the Bronze Age. In Kansu, stone implements remained in use long after copper (or bronze?) arrow points and trinkets appeared, as signs of contact with metal-using peoples to the west. Burnished (and sometimes painted) pottery continued to be made, but was not as fine as before, and its designs tended to become naturalistic rather than. geometric. Villages were now protected by earthern walls, suggesting an increase in warfare, perhaps even invasion from without. In Shansi there has lately come to light still another Chalcolithic culture. This had a small amount of true bronze and also a different kind of pottery, bearing an impressed spiral design; and sheep seem 474 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 to have been the principal if not the only domestic animals. Little, however, is known of this new culture as yet. DISTRIBUTION Both Kansu and Shensi (for these provinces, see map of China, fig. 21), we should note, are situated along the eastern terminus of the more northern of the two transcontinental migration routes. (See map, fig. 1.) Hence the presumption that bronze and the herding of sheep had diffused themselves to China from the west (where both these culture traits had been known much earlier) be- comes almost irresistible, The Chalcolithic period in eastern Asia still forms a “dark age.” In many areas, indeed, it probably never appeared at all, the tran- sition from the Neolithic period to a fully developed Bronze Age or even to one of iron having been a direct one, without intermediate phases. BRONZE AGE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS A Bronze Age is by no means an invariable cultural phase every- where on the globe. It has, on the contrary, been strictly limited in both time and space. Roughly it extended along the North Temperate Zone of the Old World, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. (See map, fig. 4.) Before it had had time to diffuse itself beyond this area, bronze had been overtaken and supplanted, save for limited uses, by that cheaper and more useful metal, iron. DIFFUSION The true Bronze Age, as distinct from the Chalcolithic period that ushered it in, began in the Near East some 6,000 or 7,000 years ago, and lasted until about 3,000 years ago, when it gradually gave way to the Iron Age. It reached western Europe and eastern Asia less than 4,000 years ago, and lasted there for about 1,500 years. All the Bronze Age civilizations are based on the same set of funda- mental elements. These were: the use of bronze itself for weapons and implements; possession of the common domestic animals, and cultivated plants; knowledge of the wheel and of animal traction; and some form of writing. The spread of these cultural traits took place in various ways, through war, trade. and migration, and of course took a long time. Our present civilization has spread far more rapidly, mainly as the result of improved means of communication and transportation. Wit- ness, for example, the rapidity with which the airplane, invented hardly a generation ago, has reached all parts of the earth. FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 475 To return to the Bronze Age, however, the third and second millen- niums, before our era were marked by great disturbances, widely felt in the Old World. The ancient kingdoms of the Near East fell, in most cases through invasion by peoples having war chariots and improved weapons of bronze. It was such peoples that overran and conquered Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor, northwestern India, and northern China. These movements, when traced backward, all point to the western end of the Eurasiatic steppe belt (see map, fig. 1) as their region of dispersion. Significant too is the fact that bronze weapons and war chariots appeared latest and survived longest at the two ex- RIVER-VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS -OF THE-— ANCIENT WORLD COFCANC Cee @ BABYLONIAN @EGYPTIAN @ INDUS VALLEY @ Earty CHINESE @ Use oF BRonzE IN ANTIQUITY. FIcurE 4.—River valley civilizations of the Ancient World, showing (in black) area of use of bronze. tremities of their region of occurrence—in the British Isles in the west and in China in the east, having gone out of use slightly earlier in the latter region than in the former. BRONZE AGE CIVILIZATIONS OF THE NEAR EAST AND OF CHINA It is illuminating to compare and contrast the Bronze Age civiliza- tions of the Near East and of China. In the former region the de- velopment of the Bronze Age has been traced step by step out of the antecedent Neolithic cultures into the fully developed metal-using civilizations of early historical times. This evolution required at least 4,000 years and in some particulars much more than that. 476 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Thus in Babylonia, writing, wheeled vehicles, the ox-drawn plow, wheat, and all the common domestic animals except the horse, with a complete mastery of bronze working, all existed well before 3000 B.C. In China, on the other hand, there seems to have been no knowl- edge of the metals before around 2000 B. C. Yet only something like 500 years later we find the Yellow River basin occupied by an already well-developed Bronze Age civilization which had most (though not quite all) of the elements known to the Near East a thousand years or more earlier. This civilization must therefore have appeared in north- ern China during the first half of the second millennium B. C. Thus not only did the Bronze Age begin in China many centuries later than in the Near East, but it survived there nearly a thousand years longer. Moreover the Chinese form had from the first, ap- parently, a well-developed system of writing, a very skilled knowledge of bronze working, and the same domestic animals and food plants (though not yet the ox-drawn plow) as in the Near East. Also it had wheeled vehicles and animal traction, including the use of horses to draw the chariot. The latter object, moreover, was used in exactly the same way as in the Near East, for pagentry, ceremonial, hunting, and war. On the other hand, in China the local Bronze Age lacked certain traits characteristic of the same cultural stage in the Near East. Thus the Chinese had no dairy economy or weaving of woolen fabrics; and it was not until around the fourth century B. C. that the ox-drawn plow finally appeared there (Laufer, 1914-1915 passim). CHINESE ORIGIN LEGENDS Chinese legends about the origin of their civilization (the only one of which they knew in antiquity) have come down to us in late form, and do not represent genuine folk recollections, at least as they stand. They are not, however, mere inventions or fictions, but preserve, albeit in distorted form, the real beliefs held by their Bronze Age ruling classes about the beginnings of their civilization (Latourette, 1934, vol. 1, pp. 37-40; Bishop, 1934, p. 297): The oldest traditions cluster about northwestern China, especially southwestern Shansi and central Shensi. This localization is signifi- cant; for the area in question is again—like the one just cited as that where the Neolithic painted pottery and traces of the earliest knowl- edge of metals in China occur—near the eastern terminus of the “cor- ridor of the steppes.” (See map, fig. 1.) Archeologically and cul- turally, this region is by far the most important in eastern Asia. THE HSIA DYNASTY According to the orthodox Chinese accounts, the first dynasty was that of the Hsia, but of this we have neither contemporary records nor FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP AT7 identifiable archeological remains, and some have even doubted its existence. In later (but still fairly early) times, however, the Hsias seem to have been regarded as in some sort the forebears of the ruling class during the Chinese Bronze Age; and it seems most probable that they were an actual group, perhaps a local one (Creel, 1937, pp. 97-181). THE SHANG DYNASTY The second dynasty claimed by the Chinese was the Shang. Here we are on much firmer ground, for of this we have both actual remains and contemporary written records. The Shangs seem in the beginning to have been merely one of several bronze-using groups in northwestern China, located in southwestern Shansi if we may believe an early legend. Our oldest accounts—reduced to their present form centuries after the close of their period—declare that they shifted their capital several times. Eventually however, perhaps about the sixteenth or fifteenth cen- tury B. C., we find them seated in the great North China plain, near the Yellow River. Here they established themselves, thenceforth to be for several hundred years the dominant group in that region. Either then or perhaps earlier the Shangs seem to have adopted numerous cultural features from the aborigines, descendants of the old Neolithic peoples; but essentially the Shangs themselves were a Bronze Age group, of rather primitive type. In later times the Shangs were sometimes called the Yins; but there is no contemporaneous evidence that they ever applied that name to themselves. With the Shangs, then, authentic Chinese history may be said to have begun ° (Creel, 1937, chap. 3; Latourette, 1934, vol. 1, pp. 40-46). Nature of the Shang “empire.”—The Shang “empire” meant simply the area, mainly in the middle and lower Yellow River basin, in which they exercised a precarious supremacy over as many other groups (most of them probably with a similar type of culture) as they could hold in subjection. Thus it was a mere tribute-collecting machine of the same kind as the earlier “empires” of the Near East. No evidence exists of any effort on the part of the Shangs to set up a feudal, much less a bureaucratic, system of government—forms which seem indeed to have been quite beyond their political concepts. The Shang rulers were not emperors but kings, of a primitive priestly type, though some of them seem to have been great war leaders as well. They were regarded by their subjects as intermediaries between man- kind and the Unseen Powers and as responsible for the maintenance of the due course of Nature through their observance of the proper rituals ® Both Chinese and Occidental scholars agree that China’s authentic and continuous history does not begin until the ninth century B. C., long after the Shang Dynasty had come to an end. 478 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 and tabus. Not the reigning king, however, but his deceased ancestors were the real power in the state. Their will was ascertained by divina- tion, and elaborate worship was paid to them. Succession to the kingly office was of the fraternal type, from older to younger brother, not the filial one, from father to son, usual in later times. Habitations—Both the rural population and the city poor seem to have lived in round pit dwellings like those of their Neolithic ancestors already described. The ruling class built large rectangular timbered houses of developed type, with roofs supported by rows of wooden pillars with stone or bronze bases. (On this type of architecture, which has survived in China down to recent times, see pl. 12, fig. 2.) These structures, which in some ways recall the megaron house of ancient Greece, were sometimes erected on low platforms of rammed earth. This last-named material was also used for walls about towns and enclosures, just as it still is in portions of China. This method of erecting walls and platforms is, or once was, common throughout the North Temperate Zone of the Old World; in Babylonia, for example, it was already at least 2,000 years old when the Shang period opened. Dressed stone and brick did not appear in China until many cen- turies later. Literary references, however, perhaps based on con- temporary evidence, attribute to the Shangs a varied and developed architecture. Tillage-—The economic foundations of the Shang civilization were animal husbandry and especially agriculture. As previously noted, the ox-drawn plow was not yet known in China; but tillage was carried on by the peasantry, direct descendants of the old Neolithic popula- tion, with the aid of hoes, mattocks, and apparently foot plows, shod with stone or shell. There is also some indication that irrigation was already being practiced during Shang times. The staple crops were wheat, millet, and perhaps rice. Of these, the first originated in western Asia, where it had already been domesti- cated probably thousands of years before the Shang period began. Millet was an inheritance in China from Neolithic times, and later on was the only cereal regarded as sacred—itself a sign of a high antiquity on account of the workings of religious conservatism. There is also some reason to believe that rice was grown. Beer was brewed from millet and perhaps from rice, though as to the processes employed, we know nothing. No spirits (distilled liq- uors) were known in China for something like 2,000 years after the Shang period. Animal husbandry.—Animal husbandry was also economically im- portant. Species both of the wild pony and of the wild ass are known from eastern Asia, although neither has ever been domesticated ; but FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 479 evidence of the domestic horse in China in Neolithic times is wanting, just as it is, practically, in Europe during the same cultural phase. That the Shangs had it, however, there is no doubt; but they did not ride it, using it instead to draw their chariots. For in China, as in most ancient lands, the horse was driven long before it was ridden. Shang inscriptions reveal that cattle were the most important do- mestic animals. They were offered in sacrifice, their flesh was eaten, and their hides made into leather; but milk was not used. Oxen were probably employed to draw carts and carry packs. Sheep and goats were also kept. They seem, however, not to have been derived from native wild forms but from the same western ones as the domestic sheep and goats of the Occident. Sheep were sacrificed by the Shangs, though not to the same extent as cattle; and mutton was an article of diet. Wool, however, was not spun or woven, either then or later. Ficurp 5.—Country oxcart, a primitive survival. Swine were bred in large numbers, just as in Neolithic times; and dogs were both sacrificed and eaten. The domestic fowl was known, and appears to have reached China, probably by the Burma Road (see map, fig. 1) from Indo-China, during the “dark age” which fol- lowed the Neolithic period, for its remains have not been identified from sites of the latter cultural phase in China. Trade and transportation —A Bronze Age civilization always pre- supposes a considerable amount of trade, both domestic and foreign. The northern Chinese plain was, however, deficient in many kinds of raw materials, especially metals. And since these played an im- portant part in the life of the time, they had to be imported from other regions, particularly from the Yangtze Valley, then and for long afterward not regarded as part of China. Some transportation was carried on by water; but mainly it seems to have been by land, probably in oxcarts (for a modern but primi- tive survival, see fig. 5) and on the backs of oxen, for the horse seems to have been reserved for the uses of war, the chase, and religion. 480 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 There seem to have been even then, just as there were later on, contacts with the rich metalliferous regions of the Yangtze Valley, just mentioned; and cowries (Cypraea moneta) and bones of the whale show that the Shangs were in touch, directly or indirectly, with the sea. The presence of jade, not known ever to have occurred in China proper, suggests that the Shangs obtained that substance from central Asia. Also, supplies of salt are necessary, for dietetic reasons, to a people subsisting mainly, as the Shangs seem to have done, on a cereal diet. Attempts to obtain such raw materials from abroad were, how- ever, often not true commercial ventures but great plundering raids, undertaken as state enterprises, with regular armies. The penetra- tion of the Yangtze Valley by certain Shang kings was probably of this character. Arts and crafts—Among arts and crafts, bronze working was carried to a pitch of technical and esthetic excellence hardly if ever equaled in later times, in any land. Bronze is an alloy of copper and other metals, usually tin and lead. It is uncertain whether Shang metallurgists knew the two latter as separate metals or whether they used copper ores containing them as impurities. The Shangs also cast magnificent bronze ritual vessels for use in ancestor worship. These vessels bear two styles of ornamentation which regularly appear in combination. Of these, one was a highly conventionalized animal style, the other geometric in design and apparently akin to the old Neolithic art of southeastern Asia. Some and perhaps all designs were thought to have magical power, espe- cially over the weather, most important to a predominantly agricul- tural community such as were the Shangs. There seems nothing to suggest that oramentation was ever applied for purely decorative effects. The wants of the ruling class were supplied by highly skilled craftsmen and artisans of many kinds; for specialization of tasks was already being carried to a high pitch. The needs of the peasantry and of the city poor probably differed little from those of their Neolithic ancestors. Pottery.—The painted pottery of Neolithic times had practically disappeared from northern China by Shang times, most likely during that as yet little-known “dark age” already mentioned. The coarse gray ware, also Neolithic in origin, continued however under the Shangs, as it did in fact all over northern China until well after the Christian Era. The potter’s wheel was regularly employed by the Shang potters. A limited use was also made of a kind of glaze, which, however, disappeared with the fall of the Shangs; and when glaze is again FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 481 found in China it is of an entirely different type. The Shang potters also made fine white ware, neither glazed nor painted but bearing incised or impressed on its surface designs identical with those on the bronze ritual vessels just mentioned. Among all these types of earthenware there appeared a wide variety of forms, shapes, and sizes, many of them being represented in bronze also. Textiles—Both hemp and silk were woven into cloth during Shang times. Hemp, we may note, occupied the place in ancient China held in the Occident by flax and its derivative, linen. Matting and basketry were also woven. Decorative arts—Carving, sometimes of very fine quality, was done in stone, ivory, and probably wood. Both bone and bronze objects were inlaid with turquoise or mother-of-pearl. The Shangs also did considerable carving of jade, probably then as later believed to possess magical significance. Weapons and implements.—The weapons used in Shang times were as a rule of bronze. Socketed spears were known, and there were also two distinct types of battle-axes, each with its own method of hafting. Arrow points of bronze, stone, and bone were also used. The bronze sword did not appear in China until very late—not, in fact, until the Shang period had closed. Needles of bronze and of bone are also known, and knives and chisels were of bronze or stone. Agricultural tools of bronze are however almost entirely lacking; for that metal was always costly and was probably reserved almost exclusively for purposes of religion, luxury, and war. Warfare.—Among the causes of war mentioned in the Shang inscrip- tions are border raids and encroachments on grazing grounds. There was also the recurring need to enforce the authority of the Shang king over the subject states that withheld tribute and submission; and expeditions were made against non-Chinese people for plunder and captives. Armies are recorded as numbering from 3,000 to 5,000 men, and the main reliance in fighting was on the chariot, drawn, just as in the ancient Near East, by two horses yoked—not harnessed—abreast. Slaves and captives were employed as foot soldiers, as were also prob- ably levies of peasants. Weapons used by the charioteers were, as far as we know, bronze battle-axes and spears and the composite bow— the latter a weapon of circumpolar distribution. How the foot soldiers were armed, we do not know. Hunting —Hunting played an important role during Shang times. Many products of the chase were utilized, as for example ivory, hides, horns, and plumes. Great organized battues were periodically held by 482 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 the kings, riding in chariots just as in the ancient Near East. Their motive seems to have been not so much that of mere sport as the duty of ridding the land of dangerous and troublesome wild animals and of procuring victims for the sacrifices. Among the creatures whose bones have been found in Shang de- posits are the elephant, the tiger, the bear, the wild boar, deer, hares, and, strangely enough, the whale. Shang inscriptions sometimes state that elephants have been captured alive, not killed; and there is no doubt that the Shangs sometimes tamed these great animals. Writing.—There is no indication of even the beginnings of writing during Chinese Neolithic times, although perhaps quipus (knotted cords) or notched sticks may have been used then to aid the memory, just as by unlettered people in so many lands. The earliest known Chinese writing, already mentioned as occurring in surviving Shang inscriptions, dates from around the latter half of the second millennium B. C. Even then, however, it was already highly developed, and must have had a long previous period of evolu- tion somewhere. It is moreover directly ancestral to the Chinese writ- ing of the present day (Creel, 1937, pp. 1-16). Existing specimens of these inscriptions, aside from very brief ones on bronze vessels, are incised or scratched on animal bones and shells of the tortoise. Shoulder blades of oxen were often used. The in- scriptions that we possess consist largely of oracular inquiries and responses; but it is known that the Shangs also wrote on wooden tablets and bamboo slips. Hence it is quite possible that a consider- able body of literature may have existed; but if so, it has entirely perished. Inscriptions on bone and shell were incised with a sharp point, per- haps of bronze or obsidian, for steel was not yet known, and the Shangs probably had nothing else hard enough. Some kind of brush was also used. A few characters thus written on potsherds have been found, and it is almost certain that writing on bamboo and wood was done with a brush. Knowledge of writing during the Shang Dynasty was confined to a very small class, and the art itself was regarded as having a magical and mysterious character. Thus recorders were also diviners. The same way of thinking has survived in China down to much later times. Religion—We know something of the Shang pantheon—in part from contemporary inscriptions. The supreme god was Shang Ti. The title “Ti” indicated a divine being, and was applied by the Shangs not only to their highest divinity but also to the spirits of deceased royal ancestors. Hence it has been surmised that Shang Ti may have originated merely as the (legendary) first ancestor of the Shang kingly line. FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 483 Shang Ti was entreated both for abundant harvests and for success in war. He was believed to live in the sky, perhaps in the North Star, and so was in this sense a sky god; although we have no evidence that the Shangs worshiped the sky itself. The Shangs also revered many other divinities, often female. Among them, according to the inscriptions, were the Eastern Mother, the Western Mother, the Dragon Woman, gods of the Winds, of Rivers, of Earth, and one called the Ruler of the (Four?) Quarters. This frequency of female divinities is in marked contrast to the later Chinese Bronze Age, and may have been due to aboriginal influence. For goddesses play a great part in the primitive beliefs of eastern Asia, the Japanese Sun Goddess being probably the best-known ex- ample. Of ancestor worship among the Shangs, the only direct evidence applies to the royal line alone; but there is little doubt that the ruling class in general practiced it throughout the original Chinese culture area. The welfare of the spirits of the dead depended, it was held, on the sacrifices offered to them by their living descendants. It was regarded as highly dangerous, therefore, to withhold them and thus rouse the ancestral spirits to anger. The sacrifices consisted of both human and animal victims (Creel, 1936, pp. 206-216). The former were often “barbarian” (i. e., non-Chinese) captives of war, taken most frequently from the Chiangs, a people to the northwest. The Shangs appear in fact to have been in the habit of raiding the Chiangs for supplies of human victims in a way that recalls similar practices among the Aztecs of ancient Mexico. Lastly, we may note, the Shangs had a “week” of 10 days, used in connection with their religious observances. Disposal of the dead—During Shang times, important people were buried in great rectangular or cruciform pits, together with much wealth and many human victims. Mounds were not, however, erected over such tombs as yet. Fall of the Shangs—A later tradition asserts that the Shang Dynasty came to an end during a period of protracted drought for which the reigning king was held responsible through his neglect to observe the proper rites. And quite apart from such superstitious ways of thinking, such a long interval of dryness must necessarily have led to much suffering, unrest, and discontent. There is also some evidence that the king himself added to this feeling by a de- termined effort to assert his power over some of the rebellious rulers of the subject city-states that composed the Shang “empire.” And, worse still, in this attempt the king appears to have enlisted the aid of certain aboriginal tribes. 484 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The rulers of these city-states were constantly trying to throw off the sway of their titular suzerian; and now some of them sought the aid of a group called the Chous, who lived on the northwestern fron- tiers of China, along the border between what are now the provinces of Shensi and Kansu (see map, fig. 21). These Chou people had been in contact with the Shangs for several generations at least. When we first hear of them they seem to have been in process of exchanging a pastoral for an agricultural mode of life. In some ways they appear to have been less civilized than the Shangs, but to have had a better organization for war and more effec- tive leadership. In certain particulars their civilization appears to have had a closer resemblance to those of the ancient Near East than to that of the Shangs. Examples of this are: the use of a 7-day week instead of the one of 10 days employed by the Shangs; possession, by the Chou rulers at least, of regular harems, with eunuch attendants, ap- parently unknown among the Shangs; and succession in the kingly line from father to son. Lastly, the bronze sword (Janse, 1930a, pp. 67-184; Karlbeck, 1925, pp. 127-133), long known in the Occident (where in fact it was already being replaced by much more effective swords of iron), reached China either with the Chous or early in their period. The overthrow of the Shangs is not known to us through con- temporary accounts; but it seems pretty surely to have been the result of a concerted attack on them by some of their subject city- states together with the Chous. The latter are said to have had with them as subject-allies eight peoples occupying parts of western and northwestern China, mainly in the central and upper Yangtze basin (Bishop, 1932c, pp. 236 et seq.). The Shangs collapsed perhaps as much from lack of unity and cohesion among the various and heterogeneous elements under their rule as from external force. Their conquest by the Chous did not however take place as the result of a single battle, as the “orthodox” account states. On the contrary, it required a long time, and was not completed for half a century at least after the initial invasion by the Chous. Perhaps the Shangs were too strong to be wholly crushed by the newcomers; for they were allowed to retain the nuclear part (called Sung) of their former territory, as vassals of the Chous. The princes of this remnant of the old Shang kingdom, said to have belonged to the Shang royal line, were granted the title of kung (duke), which no other feudal prince was permitted to hold. The historical Chinese civilization that we know had its roots firmly implanted in the Bronze Age culture of the Shang period, and there has been no serious break with the past until recent and FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 485 even modern times. In this sense, and in this sense only, may we speak of the Chinese as “unchanging.” THE CHOU DYNASTY There are certain slight indications that during the Shang period and possibly even earlier, members of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic stock from the region north of the Tibetan plateau (see map, fig. 1) were pushing eastward and southward. With this movement of peoples the Chou invasion seems to have been connected, if indeed it was not actually part of it. These migrations perhaps account for the appearance of Tibeto- Burman peoples in so much of western China, especially in the upper Yangtze basin. Be that as it may, at all events there was established there, somewhere around a thousand years before our era, a Bronze Age civilization in large part associated with them. In extreme west- ern China the local culture also contained elements from northern India. Similarly, culture traits, passing through the region traversed by the now famous Burma Road, have gone on diffusing themselves from prehistoric times right down to the present day. To take a fairly recent example of this, maize or Indian corn, an American plant brought by the Portuguese to India during the sixteenth century, lost little time reaching China by this route. And the vital importance of the Burma Road to China today is well known to all. Chou origin legends.—At the time when the Chous first come within the purview of history they were, we are told, being pushed steadily eastward. Legend also states that they even for a time became guard- ians of the western frontier for the Shang kings. That the latter ever conquered the Chous, we have no evidence; but they evidently attracted them strongly into their cultural orbit. This outward thrust of the Chous from inner Asia in the direction of the coast lands was, it would seem, comparable to contemporary movements outward from the steppe regions into western Europe, southwestern Asia, and Egypt (Latourette, 1934, vol. 1, pp. 42-44; Creel, 1936, pp. 227-229). The chief deity of the Chous, now as later, was a sky god, T‘ien, be- lieved to control the weather and whom the Chou royal line claimed as its ancestor. For it was from Hou Chi, “Prince Millet,” said to have been miraculously sprung from T‘ien and who became God of Agri- culture under the Chous, that the latter claimed descent. In historical times, indeed, we find the Chou kings arrogating to themselves sole conduct of the worship of Tien, and also the title of T‘ien-tzi (Son of Heaven). This appellation remained the common one for the Chinese supreme rulers—the individuals whom we term “emperors”— down to 1911. 566766—44—32 486 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The Chous conquer northern China.—The Chous seem long to have meditated conquest of the Shang kingdom, against which they are said to have made at least one ineffectual attempt before they embarked on their final venture.’ They and their allies are said to have de- feated the Shangs in the region of the Shang capital, which recent archeological excavation shows they then savagely sacked and destroyed. The Chous then conquered much of northern China, where they established their power far more firmly than the Shangs had ever done. (On the Shang and Chou culture areas, see map, fig. 6.) The task Figure 6.—Shang (in black) and Chou (cross-hatched) culture areas, showing southward extension of the latter. seems to have required something like half a century, and a passage in Mencius tells us that they subdued 50 states. Over these they then set up a feudal kingdom of primitive type but still forming a great step in advance over anything in the way of a political organization that the Shangs had undertaken. However, the Chous failed to subdue the aboriginal populations of the northern coast lands, and these long remained independent or at most became tribute payers. Their thorough assimilation into the Chinese political body was not accomplished until many centuries later. 7 The traditional date of 1122 B. C. for the Chou conquest is almost certainly too early by about three-quarters of a century. On this point, see Bishop, 1932c, pp. 235-237. FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 487 The Chou conquest of northern China marked an important epoch in the history of civilization in the Far East, for as a result of it, many Shang refugees seem to have carried their own higher culture to various outlying regions hitherto barbarous. Such a process has, in fact, always been one of the ways in which cultural advances have taken place in the Far East just as everywhere else. Further, the Chou period was the one in which the Chinese people gradually de- veloped a consciousness of cultural unity. Nature of the Chou kingdom.—The earlier Chou kings, in organizing their feudal kingdom, are said to have divided it for administrative purposes into 9 (sometimes given as 12) chow or circuits. Over these they placed superintendents (significantly called mu, bullock drivers) to collect tribute. Politically, the kingdom is said to have contained at first 1,800 fiefs, many of them grouped into large territorial units granted to the con- quering Chou king’s relatives and allies. The old city-states did not, however, entirely disappear ; in certain instances, indeed, they retained their identity for long periods. By the eighth century B. C. the Yellow River basin (essentially the Chou kingdom, though the latter seems to have embraced extensions outside of it, particularly on the south; see fig. 6), had about 100 fiefs ; but in time even this number was still further reduced. Finally, to- ward the end of the dynasty only 7 large states were left. For some three centuries after their conquest of the Shangs, the Chou kings remained in their old seats in the west. They were at first rulers of the war-leader type; but they also took over the sacerdotal functions of their predecessors the Shang kings. As high priests of the kingdom, their persons were sacred, and they were the fountain- heads of all legitimate authority. Their royal symbol was the battle-ax. The early Chou kings pushed their conquests (at least temporarily) into the Yangtze basin, and perhaps also toward the northwest. But at length their power dwindled. In the eighth century B. C. the Chou line was driven eastward by renewed attacks from the west, and established itself in northern Honan. (See map, fig. 21). It thus lost the territorial basis of its power, and its scions gradually sank to the position of mere political figureheads. But for several centuries longer they retained their priestly functions and remained the sources of legitimacy. Social organization.—Society was divided during most of the Chou period (we know little of its earlier portion) into two classes, a small one of nobles, who held all the land and offices, and a large one of com- moners—peasant-serfs, artisans, traders, and slaves—who performed the labor. The nobles were grouped in 30 or fewer ancestor-worshiping clans. In the “Spring and Autumn Annals,” for example, 124 feudal states 488 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 are mentioned but only 22 clans. Branches of the latter were located in various parts of the country, often widely separated from one an- other. The head of each clan was trustee for its land (which was thus not his own personal property, to do with as he liked) ; and he also con- ducted the clan worship. The head of the ruling clan of a state wor- shiped his own ancestors and also the patron divinities of his state. For no separate priestly class existed in ancient China. Nobles were subject only to their own code, not to the laws govern- ing the lower classes. Knowledge of these laws gave the nobles a great advantage, and they objected strongly to their being reduced to writing. They also practiced polygamy, though custom strictly forbade their taking wives or even concubines of the same clan as their own, no matter how remote the kinship might be in reality. Headship of the clan passed in the male line, usually to the eldest son of the princi- pal wife; though in this respect usage was not fixed. The latter fact often caused great trouble, through disputed inheritances. Noble- women could not hold land or succeed to headship either of a clan or of a state. Hence inheritance of these privileges in the female line was impossible. Of the plebeian class, on the other hand, we know little; for early Chinese writers did not concern themselves with the masses. We may say however that the vast bulk of the population consisted of peasants in a state of serfdom, practically at the mercy of their lords. These peasant-serfs may have been grouped in matrilineal clans; and they probably retained much—as indeed Chinese peasants still do—of the old Neolithic culture of their remote forebears. They seem to have lived in rural hamlets, and to have had little contact with the urban life of the nobility. These little peasant hamlets were organized com- munally, and their inhabitants did their field work in common. Stone, shell, and wood continued to be used for agricultural implements. The ox-drawn plow was not yet known in China, its place being taken by foot plows used by men working in pairs. Serfs were bound to the estates on which they were born, and efforts were made by their lords to keep them from shifting their villages about in old Neolithic fashion ; for it was the labor of the peasants that gave value to the land, and there was a great demand for workers. It was therefore a crime to entice them away, and runaways could be reclaimed. There are indications, too, that the feudal lords dreaded uprisings among their peasants, and it was a capital offense to arouse discontent or unrest among them. The peasants tilled the land, but did not own it, although plots of ground on which to grow food for themselves and their families were FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 489 periodically assigned to them, on which, however, they had to pay tithes. They had also to perform other work, such as ditching and draining; and they had likewise to follow their lords in the frequent wars, both public and private. The serfs on an estate were supervised by a land steward or bailiff appointed by the lord, and who among other duties exercised control over peasant marriages. At the bottom of the social scale, in Chou times as later, was a not very large class of slaves, recruited partly from criminals and captives of war. These were not attached to the soil, like the serfs, but were bought and sold in the market place with domestic animals. Economic development.—During much of the Chou period trade was by barter, and taxes and tribute were levied in kind. Cowry shells were, however, highly prized, both for their scarcity value and because of their religious and magical associations (which seem to have existed in many other lands also). The only basis of wealth, however, was land—arable, pasture, forests, salt marshes, and mines—which could only be held, whether in absolute ownership or as fiefs, by clans of nobles. Plebeians were thus barred from obtaining wealth and consequent power. Later, however, there occurred a gradual but great economic evolu- tion. No coined money yet existed; but there came tobe used in its place as units of exchange rolls of silk and fixed quantities of grain. We have no evidence that oxen or sheep were ever so used in ancient China, as they were in the west. Trade and transportation.—Trade, both domestic and foreign (i. e., mainly with the Yangtze Valley, not then regarded as a part of China) was active, and was partly in the form of state enterprises and partly in the hands of traders, who had however to pay heavy imposts. No understanding of the true function of trade, as a form of wealth production, seems ever to have arisen in ancient China, where the nobles despised it and regarded traders with contempt. Hence com- merce was tolerated merely, not actively encouraged. There are some indications however that it was more highly esteemed in the great Yangtze Valley states, and that they knew better how to make it con- tribute to building up their strength than did those of the more purely Chinese north. This earlier dependence on a natural economy and especially on taxes levied in grain rendered transportation of revenue from distant districts to the royal capital a difficult matter, and added greatly to the decentralization characteristic of the time. But around the middle of the Chou period the idea arose of cast- ing—not striking—metallic token money, or in other words a coinage. 490 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 This practice seems to have originated in northeastern China. At first it took the form of miniature models of domestic utensils—knives, spades, and hoes—cast in copper. (See fig. 7.) This innovation fundamentally altered the basis of wealth, and for the first time per- mitted its accumulation in a form other than that of land. It thus deprived the nobles of that monopoly of the power and prestige that accompany riches, and played an important—perhaps even the de- cisive—part in undermining the old feudal system and causing its disintegration and ultimate downfall. This process became accelerated toward the end of the Chou period, and was of course accompanied by the disappearance of many of the Ficure 7.—Ancient Chinese token money of copper. barriers that had formerly separated different classes of society. Traces of these however still survive in both the Confucian and the Taoist beliefs and practices, as we shall see in a moment. Arts and crafts—What has already been said in regard to the arts and crafts of Shang times will apply, in most cases with increased force, to those which flourished under the Chous. While few actual remains of the technical skill and esthetic talent of the Chous have come down to us aside from their work in bronze casting and carving in jade (for examples of their work in bronze, see pl. 10, and figs. 8, 9, and 10), we know that their work ranked very high indeed. The subject is, however, too vast a one to receive detailed FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP AQ] treatment here. Fortunately there is no lack of excellent and author- itative books on various aspects of this fascinating subject, and to these the student may turn for further information. Ficurr 9.—Ancient Chinese bronze bell, Chou period. Habitations—The Chou nobles and their dependents lived in towns protected by rectangular ramparts of pounded earth provided with gates flanked by wooden towers. (See fig. 11.) In the center stood 492 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 the palace enclosure of the local feudal lord (or in the capital of a state, that of its ruler), including his ancestral temple and the “altar” (a mere mound of earth) of the Shé or God of the Soil of the region. Every town had just north of it a market place, from which the lord errs Ce en The ead” 5 z 2S Figure 10.—Lid of Chou Dynasty bronze vase with bird figures. Bh Rerr tray os eo were oes 5 Sa B< 2. Figure 11.—Tile model of ancient Chinese city gate. drew additional revenue through a sales tax. (For a plan of the ruins of such a town, of the Chou period, see fig. 12.) The palace enclosure also contained a school for the sons of nobles, the subjects taught being the rites (1. e., correct procedure on all occa- sions, religious as well as secular), music, archery, chariot driving, FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 493 reckoning, and writing. Reverence to superiors or divinities was shown by bowing, kneeling, or prostration, as in the Occident, not by squatting as among the peasants and the peoples of southeastern Asia and the islands off the coast. Houses were of timber, pillared (see pl. 12, fig. 2), carved, and painted (or laquered), red being a favorite color, regarded as lucky. On the plastered walls were executed paintings of various auspicious creatures, such as the tiger and dragon. Pleasure towers, summer houses, and gardens are also mentioned. The upturned roof cor- ners, regarded in the Occident as so typically Chinese, did not appear .f-T Stet He. Foss Fry n r) u " Sra rere rec. 'SraAsraarectrs. w FORMER | PATH P. PATH. VEAST canicaiaiahiden ALACE = | GATE | QUARTER? etm. Ss A: JS my GATE? = } = =e INNER || MOAT {= S.W. CORNER EO eT CERT | SPR RAIA PRE PPCEREAN a SHeIhE 5k 7 ale = - ma WS eae IN, B8ROKEN DOWN CATS kata ANS AN NATTA PH i ZN ee BA fietyee Sy - MOUNS OUTER || MOAT pono soured GATE \ 0 4 Scale of Miles Ruins oF YING, PATHS Baas CAPITAL OF CH‘u Ficurg 12.—Ruins of Ying, ancient capital of Ch‘u, on the Yangtze River. in China until long after the beginning of the Christian Era; during Chou times Chinese roofs had straight lines, as in the west. Costume.—Costume, of course, varied according to rank, social position, and wealth, and probably, too, from state to state. That of the nobles was in general of silk, and was long and flowing, as in the Near East. Furs and feather capes were worn, particularly in cold weather. Embroidery and fine needlework were highly regarded, and bright colors esteemed. Shoes, at least among the well-to-do, were often ornamented with jade. Manners and customs.—The rank of a noble was indicated espe- cially by his headgear. This, on attainment of his majority by a 494 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 patrician youth, was conferred on him with much ceremony in his ancestral temple. The token of a young noblewoman’s reaching marriageable age was the assumption of a hairpin, similiarly bestowed. Shoes were removed on entering a house; and bathing seems to nave been customary, at least among the nobles. Chairs and tables had not yet been introduced; hence people sat cross-legged on the floor or knelt on mats or cushions, and food was served on low stands. Food and drink.—Generally speaking, the basis of diet among all classes, nobles and commoners alike, was one of cereals—millet, wheat, and rice. Nobles, however, in contradistinction to the peas- antry, were also great eaters of meat, especially beef, mutton, and game, and of fish. And, just as today, there was a great variety of sauces. Dishes were of earthenware, wood, and bamboo. Glazed pottery disappeared with the fall of the Shangs, and true porcelain was still far in the future. Chopsticks were a late invention, and whether they had yet appeared during the Chou period we do not know; they are mentioned even as far back as late Shang times, but this may be an anachronism. The diet of the peasants was mainly millet, just as it is today in northern China. Their flesh food was chiefly dog, pig, and fowl— the latter apparently more highly esteemed than duck. All classes were given to drinking, usually done in connection with some religious or other ceremonial occasion; and beverages were various kinds of beer, brewed from millet or rice. The ancient Chinese, like the peoples of the west, early learned, empirically, that water was unsafe to drink on account of risk from typhoid; and tea was as yet unknown. As among many peoples, including ourselves not so many centuries ago, drinking vessels were often horns; those of the wild ox were especially prized by the ancient Chinese, perhaps on account of their capacity. Law.—As we have already remarked, the nobles had their own codes of conduct; and they were, moreover, until long after the beginning of the full historical period, sole repositories of the regulations gov- erning their peasants. These were committed to memory, not put in writing, and this of course gave the nobles a great advantage. Hence the latter vigorously opposed the issuance of written codes, which in fact did not appear in the various states until around the middle of the first millennium B. C. In the Near East advanced codes of laws had appeared 2,000 years earlier. Witchcraft was much feared, by high as well as low, and penalties against it were severe. In general, execution of the laws was harsh, and included such punishments as boiling alive, tearing asunder, de- FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 495 capitation, and mutilation of various kinds. In addition to the regu- lations imposed on them by their lords, the peasantry also observed the ancient local customs of each region; but just what these were, we have only incidental knowledge. Warfare—The Chou period, like that of Bronze Age civilizations everywhere, was one of constant war. With the weakening of the royal power, especially after the Chou kings were driven eastward just after 770 B. C., the more powerful feudal states began a process of absorption of their weaker neighbors and of the neighboring non- Chinese peoples which led finally to only seven great kingdoms being left. In theory, wars were undertaken to punish and coerce those, whether Chinese or “barbarian,” who refused to acknowledge obedience to the Son of Heaven; but in reality they were waged for purposes of ag- grandizement. The third quarter roughly of the first millennium B. C. came, in fact, to be known as the Age of the Contending States (Latourette, 1934, vol. 1, pp. 251-256). Figure 13.—Ancient Chinese snaffle bits of bronze. The feudal lords also carried on private wars with their neighbors, even of the same state. Rulers, however, constantly tried to put down this practice, productive as it was of so much disorder and misery. There has been at no time in Chinese history a special military class, comparable, for instance with the Japanese samurai. All Chinese nobles, however, were supposed to be warriors. The title of a minister of war, Ssii-ma, meant Master of the Horse, and reflected the great importance of the horse in war. Armies were composed of two main classes of troops, chariotry and foot. The former, composed of nobles, was called shih, while the latter, a rabble of levies of peasant-serfs, was called di. Hence an armed force as a whole was known as a shih-lii. In theory each feudal lord’s chariot was accompanied by from 75 to 100 of his peasants, on foot, but in reality the proportion of foot soldiers attached to each chariot rarely exceeded 50. Cavalry did not form an element in Chinese armies until near the close of the Chou period, and chariots continued to be the main arm until about the third century B. C., after which they ceased to be mentioned as being employed in war. (For ancient Chinese Bronze Age bits, see fig. 13.) 496 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Chinese armies in Chou times were divided into an advance guard, a center, right and left wings, and a rear guard. Provisions were carried in oxcarts and on pack oxen, and consisted largely of dried flesh (often that of wild game) and of grain. Armies then, however, just as elsewhere, eked out their supplies by foraging and pillage. The enormous numbers sometimes attributed to ancient Chinese armies by old writers are evident exaggerations; for it would have been, as a simple calculation will show, impossible to maintain them in the field under the conditions of transport that then prevailed. Methods of combat.—Kach chariot carried three men clad in hide armor—a driver, an archer, and aspearman. How the infantry were armed there are no clear indications, although they seem not as a rule to have carried missile weapons such as bows and arrows or slings. Ficure 14.—Chinese mounted archer, from design on tile; late first millennium B. C. Chariots (see pl. 3, fig. 2 for what seems to have been an antler cheek- piece of a Chinese Bronze Age bit) did not generally fight in massed formation but singly, each accompanied by its supporting contingent of foot. Every noble bore his own standard, by which he might be recognized in battle; and nobles as a class deemed it derogatory to fight on foot, “like peasants.” There are indications, however, that the practice was growing more usual toward the end of the Chou period. Armies were accompanied on campaigns by special sacred chariots bearing the tablets (perhaps originally images) of the Shé or God of the Soil of the state and also of the chief ancestor of its ruler; these tablets were supposed to extend their aid in battle, much like the Ark of the Covenant among the ancient Israelites. Omens were taken be- fore an action; and the signal for advance was given on a drum, that for retreat on a gong, both instruments borne on the chariot of the leader. Cessation of these sounds was apt to cause a panic among the troops by giving the impression that the leader had been either slain or made a prisoner by the enemy. ‘Trumpets were not used in war. FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 497 Principles of strategy were well understood and applied, but tactics were undeveloped. According to our evidence, battles were confused affairs, with no attempt at maneuvering. Various simple strategems were, however, employed, especially feigned flights, meant to throw the foe off his guard. Attacks were usually directed against the weakest part of the hostile line, and particular efforts were made to kill or capture the enemy commander or seize his standard. In the Occident, mounted troops and iron weapons began to appear toward the end of the second millennium B. C., but in China not until around 500 years or so later. The idea of riding almost certainly came to the latter country, as it may already have done in the west also, as a culture loan from the nomad peoples of the steppe belt of inner Asia. For example, there are indications that the western “barbarians,” who around 770 B. C. expelled the Chous from their Figure 15.—Modern dragon boat, Yangtze River; from a photograph. old seats in Shensi and drove them eastward, were already in pos- session of mounted troops. The earliest Chinese cavalry seem to have been light lancers riding bareback and employed for scouting, skirmishing, and foraging, not in battle. Around 300 B. C., however, the northwestern Chinese states adopted the use of horse archers from their steppe neighbors. (See fig. 14.) Such troops were far more formidable than chariotry, on account of their mobility and speed, and soon supplanted the use of chariots in war. They thus contributed to the downfall of the already crumbling feudal system by depriving the Chinese nobles, preeminently charioteers, of much of their prestige in war. In the Yangtze basin and along the southern Chinese coasts, wars were often waged in fleets of large dugout canoes, ancestors of the later dragon boats (see fig. 15); for in that region chariotry seems to have been unknown until introduced by Chinese refugees from the north, while the great rivers provided abundance of waterways. Armor and weapons.—The nobles, fighting, as has already been said, from chariots, wore hide armor, with helmets of leather or 498 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 copper (perhaps of bronze). Shields, of leather, wood, or wicker, were also used (Laufer, 1914, passim). The infantry too may have carried shields; but in other respects their costume in war was prob- ably simply what they wore in peace. Of their weapons we know almost nothing, though in some instances they seem to have borne dagger-axes. (See fig. 16.) Missile weapons were the bow and arrow and the sling. The for- mer was of the compound type, of wood, horn, and sinew, and in time became the especially characteristic arm of the steppe nomads; the famous Turkish bow is probably the best-known example. Arrow Ls A, wor Pez La Ficurn 16.—Ancient Chinese dagger-axes of bronze. points were of bronze, often with three edges. Crossbows were mainly used from chariots and in defending or attacking fortified places. That spears and javelins were ever hurled, there is nothing to indicate. Hand weapons included different kinds of battle-axes, the dag- ger-ax especially being often mentioned; and there were different types of bronze spears. (See pl. 10.) The bronze sword, as already noted, appears late in China; and when it does so, it is in an unde- veloped Altaic form, perhaps a culture loan from steppe regions. (See fig. 17.) Standards were of silk, yaks’ tails, and tufts of feathers. Forms of these have survived in parts of eastern Asia until very recently. 499 FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP In general, siegecraft was well understood, and cities were taken in various ways—by surprise attacks, storm, or building around Or their ram- them walls of circumvallation and starving them out. ns swords. Ficurre 17.—Chinese bronze g@ rivers parts, of rammed earth, might be breached by divertin against them, or by tunneling under them and then setting on fire the timber props supporting the roof of the mine and thus causing its collapse. The latter method was also employed in the Occident, where it seems to have appeared rather earlier. 500 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Blood feuds.—In addition to waging private wars, already men- tioned, the Chou Dynasty nobles, turbulent, aggressive, and given to fighting, regarded the relentless prosecution of blood feuds as a sacred duty. This custom the rulers of states found it exceedingly hard to abolish, in spite of the disorders to which it gave rise. Social effects of war.—This constant warfare naturally produced in time important social consequences. For example, as improved methods of fighting appeared, the exclusive place in war held by the Chou nobles could no longer be maintained, and social barriers were broken down. Various classes of plebeians were rewarded for courage or loyalty in war by being elevated to higher positions than any to which they might have aspired before. Thus peasants and members of the artisan class might be ennobled (i. e., become landlords and hence feudal vassals). Slaves were similarly rewarded by being granted freedom. Hunting —Originally, as we have already noted of the Shang period, it was the duty of Chinese nobles to rid the land of dangerous or troublesome wild beasts; but in Chou times the sport motive seems to have predominated. For this purpose the Chou kings and nobles held great seasonal hunts, conducted on a large scale. These were carried on in chariots, just as in the ancient Near East, with the aid of large armies of peasant beaters on foot. Such hunts served as training and preparation for war, and they also sometimes masked surprise attacks on unsuspecting states. Game laws were very strict, it being for instance as great a crime to kill a deer as to murder a man. As the country grew more settled, however, and game scarcer, rulers and powerful nobles enclosed private hunting parks, just as did, for example, the ancient Persians. Prohibitions against killing game or even gathering wood in these parks were among the chief grievances of the peasantry, who regarded them as a great hardship. Religion.—Peasant religion during the Chou period seems to have been derived from the old Neolithic fertility cults, and was marked by much witchcraft, magic, and even human sacrifice, though the latter practice was opposed by the lords, probably on economic rather than humanitarian grounds, and eventually disappeared. Toward the close of the Chou period feudalism declined, its decay not unnaturally going hand in hand with a recrudescence of the old popular religion. At the same time, too, the masses seem to have adopted elements from the ancestor worship of the nobles. In this way gradually evolved the Chinese cult of ancestors of later and modern times. Among the nobles, on the other hand, a quite different religion pre- vailed. In this, the chief god, T‘ien, was regarded both as the ultimate ancestor of the royal line and also as a sky god. FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 501 Fairly early in the Chou period a tendency arose to identify T‘ien with Shang Ti, chief god of the Shangs. This confusion was appar- ently facilitated by the fact that both divinities were sky gods, just as were the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter, also eventually identified. The Chous also had a Goddess of Earth, Ti, a kind of consort of T‘ien (Bishop, 1939c, pp. 29-31); thus the Confucian “Classics” tell u& that “T‘ien and Ti are the father and mother of all things living.” § In the religion of the Chous, in marked contrast to that of the Shangs, goddesses seem to have played a very minor part. They are found more particularly among the coastal populations, not yet fully Chinese, and also among the insular and other peripheral peoples of eastern Asia. The Chou pantheon, which we know only in late form, comprised, in addition to the gods brought with them by the Chou and including of course the royal ancestors, other divinities, some of them taken over from the Shangs and perhaps also from the aboriginal peoples of eastern Asia. Thus there were local gods (not goddesses) of the soil, the Shé, already mentioned (Bishop, 1933c, pp. 32-34) ; these we know existed at least as far back as Shang times, and theirs was a primitive concept with many archaic features. There was also a Rain God in the form of a frog. The dragon was regarded, if not actually as a divinity, at least as a supernatural being, benevolent in nature—not, as in Europe, malefi- cent. The original of this concept dates back at least to Shang times, and seems to have been founded in part on the Chinese alligator, regarded as a rain bringer, and therefore as a friend of man. But the real basis of aristocratic religion under the Chous, as most probably under their predecessors the Shangs, was the cult of an- cestors. Whether the Chous were ancestor worshipers before their conquest of the Shangs is unknown; but after that event the deceased forbears of their kings became the patron divinities of their kingdom. Hou Chi, “Prince Millet,” was at once an ancestor of the Chou royal line and also its official God of Agriculture (Bishop, 1933c, pp. 37 et seq). Souls of nobles after death became Shén; those of plebeians, ued. The latter term was also applied to the gods, demons, and ghosts of non-Chinese peoples. There is little to indicate that divinities in Chou times were regarded as having human form, or even »f their being represented by images. Rather, they seem to have been indicated by symbols. That of Ten, for example, was a circle or disk; that of Earth, a square. This sym- bolism persisted, officially at least, down to very recent times. In general, ancient Chinese divinities and supernatural beings were 8 The notion of marriage between Sky and Earth is a very common and widespread one. 566766—44 33 502 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 usually regarded as having grotesque and composite forms, and thus belong to a stage of religious throught corresponding roughly to that of the old Egyptian “beast gods,” familiar to most of us. Thus Ho Po (“Count of the Ho”), God of the Huang Ho or Yellow River, had a human face and the body of a fish. Shén-nung, God of Agriculture in the Yangtze basin and who in northern China supplanted Hou Chi in the same capacity toward the close of Chou times, had a human body and the head of a bull. Beings with the bodies of birds and human faces or with the bodies of serpents and human heads, as well as many others of similar composite form, also occur in the old writ- ings. Among the natural objects worshiped were mountains, rivers, springs (see pl. 9, fig. 1), rocks, and trees. Thus, “famous mountains and great rivers” are often mentioned as worshiped by the feudal princes. This was undoubtedly a very primitive survival; for such objects have been venerated in many countries from remote prehistoric times. The sacrifices that accompanied worship in the Chou period were similar to those of the Shangs, but with certain progressive modifica- tions. Among the victims offered were cattle, swine, sheep, and dogs. Horses were also sacrificed, especially to the Chou God of War. Human sacrifices, common in Shang times, were still occasionally offered by the Chous; but this practice became rarer as time went on, and at length disappeared almost entirely. As in most lands at certain stages of religious development, the will of gods and ancestors was sought before embarking on any enterprise of importance. -In the official religion this was most usually done with the aid of the shell of the tortoise; hence “to consult the tortoise” came to mean to inquire about the future. Omens were also drawn from various natural phenomena, such as dreams or the flight of birds. The howling of ghosts and the hooting of owls were portents of evil. With the decline in power of the Chou royal line and the decay of the old aristocratic religion, popular concepts once more rose to the sur- face. During this period also the religious ideas of the northern Chinese were influenced and modified by others traceable to the Yang- tze basin. Instances of this are the displacing by Shén-nung (the “Divine Husbandman”) of Hou Chi as God of Agriculture in northern China, and the extension to the latter region of the dragon concept, pretty surely of southern origin. We may note in this connection that many of the elements of the ancient Chinese religious beliefs and practices had a far wider range than China proper. Some of them point to western Asia and even to eastern Europe. In the main, however, they belong to that body of religious ideas and customs that pervaded southeastern Asia and cer- tain adjacent island groups from times probably before the appear- ance of a Bronze Age civilization in northern China, FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 503 Examples of these latter traits are: the dragon-boat festival, espe- cially characteristic of southern China but extending over a wide area outside China itself (Bishop, 1938b, pp. 415-424) ; the tug-of-war; ceremonial swinging; and the ritual bullfight (Bishop, 1925)—all of them practices apparently connected with the promotion of fertility. Later Chinese religion was only in part an outgrowth of the beliefs that prevailed during Chou times. For the eventual disappearance of the feudal system with its aristocratic ancestor worship caused the destruction of the latter in its old form and its adoption, with certain important modifications, by the Chinese people in general. Traces of the old aristocratic religion may, however, be seen even today in the Confucian system (for the temple to Confucius at his birthplace see pl. 12, fig. 1); and many of the ancient beliefs of the masses, among them probably survivals from Neolithic times, still appear in modern Taoism. For Confucius (551-479 B. C.) was himself a member of the Chou nobility (though claiming descent from Shang times), a loyal subject of his feudal prince and of the Chou king, and a faithful follower of the code of conduct of his own social class. (See pl. 9, fig. 2 for the tomb of Confucius.) During several centuries after his death, however, his teachings exerted little influence; and it was not until the founding of the Han Dynasty (ca. 200 B. C.) that the authorities, realizing the importance of Confucianism as an instrument of state- craft and a means of controlling the people, began to give it recognition and encouragement. On the other hand, the ancient Chinese popular beliefs and practices tended more and more to associate themselves with the doctrines of Laotze (traditional date of birth 604 B. C.). That philosopher, of whose teachings the later Taoist system is in part the product, voiced the resentment of the masses against the arrogance, tyranny, and bloodshed of the feudal princes. His views were essentially demo- cratic, and denied the value of petty human distinctions and ambitions. Hence the very ancient but long-submerged beliefs of the lower classes have naturally tended to crystallize about his teachings. Later, during the early centuries of the Christian Era, Chinese religious ideas, together with other cultural features, spread over a large part of the Far East. Notably was this the case with Indo- China, Korea. and Japan. Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet—regions no farther away geographically but with different types of culture patterns—were less intimately affected. Music.—Music played a part of great importance during the Chou: period in all ceremonial life, on religious occasions as well as at banquets, archery contests, and the like. It had especially religious and magical connotations, and correct tunes were supposed to frighten away evil spirits and summon beneficent ones, including those of the 504 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 ancestors when these were to receive worship. Musical instruments were drums and bronze bells (see fig. 9); flutes, single and double; whistles; and sets of musical stones. seem also to have been used (Creel, 1936, pp. 330 et seq.). we eww ee ee ee = = = nw ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee = ea ee ee ee ee ew wn ew ew ee = ' jee ee ee ee ee bee eee we enw en we we ee aS eee eenne eee eee = ee eee = = eS we ee eee eee eee Scale: 2000 feet 3 Simple stringed instruments ol CO I OO SE Se a a eee | Figure 18.—Hypothetical reconstruction of grave mound of Ch‘in Shih Huang Ti. (See pl. 1.) Disposal of the dead.—As we have already seen, disposal of the dead naturally played a part of the first importance among an ancestor- worshiping people like the ancient Chinese nobles, during all periods. During Chou times burial, not cremation, was the general rule. There were, however, exceptions. of cremation, sometimes accompanied by chariot burial. A few indications exist of a rite Mention is made of a group in the northwest (perhaps, however, non-Chinese) FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 505 .who burned their dead on pyres. And a custom of cremation, appar- ently not of Buddhist origin, is still practiced by certain Tibeto- Burman tribes of western China. During the Chou period the important dead, covered with red pigment, were placed in wooden chambers constructed underground. Goods and particularly bronze vessels were buried with them, as well as human beings, although not in such numbers as in the preceding Shang Dynasty. Chariot burials also occurred, as in the west. Burial mounds, usually though not always truncated pyramids of earth, often gigantic in size, were then erected over them. (See pl. 1 and figs. 18, 19, and 20.) Saas == Wire —. oR St : = = eS St Sag =e == a ae SSS eee SSS SS === : aS ec Ficure 19.—Group of ancient grave mounds, northwestern China. THE BRONZE AGE REACHES WESTERN JAPAN Apparently about the close of the Chou period or very shortly thereafter, bronze began to appear in western Japan. It came from the Asiatic continent by two routes, the one through Kyushu, western- most of the larger islands of the archipelago, the other from Korea to the northwestern shores of the main island. The area over which it diffused itself was roughly that bordering the Japanese Inland Sea; it did not extend far beyond the eastern extremity of that body of water. IRON AGE IRON APPEARS IN CHINA The advent of iron in China had no such revolutionary effect on the development of civilization there as had that of bronze, something like a thousand years earlier. It had no immediate influence on the political, social, or economic life of the country, but meant merely 506 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 the gradual substitution of one metal for another as the superiority . of iron over bronze for certain purposes became slowly apparent. Tron had been well known in the Near East for something like a thousand years before jt appeared in China, first perhaps in the Yangtze Valley. The balance of probability seems to be that the knowledge of how to smelt and work iron reached China from northern India. The route it followed was apparently the one traversed by rice, the domestic fowl, and other culture traits almost certainly of Indian origin—in other words, the same region through which passes the highly strategic Burma Road. At all events we find domestic utensils and agricultural imple- ments being made of iron around 500 B. C. In both the Yellow River and the Yangtze basins, however, that metal only very slowly sup- planted bronze as the material for weapons. A similar phenomenon also occurred in Homeric Greece, where bronze continued to be employed for weapons of war long after iron was being used for domestic utensils. Superior iron ores and abundant wood for charcoal encouraged pro- duction of steel in the Yangtze Valley; but in northern China, where wood was scarcer, coal came to be used in the reduction and manufac- ture of iron. Long, straight, steel swords, often double-edged and far superior to the old short ones of bronze, appeared in China toward the close of the Chou period. Weapons apparently very similar are shown on the Assyrian monuments of something like 500 years earlier, and were probably carried both east and west by the steppe peoples; in the Occident this type eventually developed into the “Crusader’s sword.” Swords of this type may, too, very possibly have aided the warlike northwestern state of Ch‘in in its conquest of all China, late in the third century B.C. These blades seem to have come into general use in China (save in the extreme south, where bronze still lingered), shortly before the commencement of our era. FALL OF THE CHOUS: FIRST CHINESE EMPIRE During these conquests, Ch‘in brought to an ignominious end the very ancient Chou Dynasty, long since lapsed into powerlessness and insignificance. In its stead, toward the close of the third century B. C., the reigning king of Ch‘in established a real Chinese Empire.® This he erected on bureaucratic foundations of which traces survive even today. As its absolute ruler he assumed the title “Shih Huang Ti”—First Emperor.” (For a view and plan of the enormous grave mound of this man of genius, see pl. 1, and fig. 18.) ®* From the name Ch'in almost certainly comes our own for China. Those who dispute this, on the ground that the latter name appears (in India) before the founding of the Chinese Empire, forget that the state of Ch'in had previously annexed the eastern terminal of both the two transcontinental routes linking China and the Occident (see map, fig. 1). FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 507 SPREAD OF IRON TO NEIGHBORING LANDS Into many adjacent regions, such as southern China, Manchuria, Korea, and western Japan, iron was introduced from northern China, during the early centuries of the Christian Era. In certain of these regions, as we have just seen, bronze had already begun to be used; but there iron soon overtook and superseded it. In other areas, as for example eastern Japan, where bronze had not yet been adopted, the transition was direct from the Stone Age to that of iron, without the interposition of a Bronze Age at all. This is in fact what has taken place in most parts of the world. The seaboard region of northern China was still in the hands of non-Chinese peoples until late in the first millennium B. C. For example, the birthplace of Mencius, about the middle of the fourth century B. C., had less than 200 years earlier (1. e., in the time of Confucius) still been in the hands of “barbarians.” The assimilation of the coastal populations of northern China by the Chinese civiliza- tion seems indeed to have been a cultural rather than a military conquest. The inhabitants of extreme southern China, perhaps of the Mon- Khmer linguistic stock, were yet in the Bronze Age at the beginning of the Christian Era; but they soon thereafter came under the in- fluence of the Chinese civilization, already in its Iron Age, pushing down from the north. Southern China.—The numerous waterways and the bold, deeply in- dented coast line of southern China naturally invited the development of an esentially aquatic mode of lfe (Bishop, 1934, pp. 316-325; 1938b). Probably even before knowledge of metals had appeared, large dugout canoes were being made. (See fig. 15.) These, propelled by paddles alone, were nevertheless capable of long voyages along the Asiatic coast. Not, however, until the sail had appeared could penetration of oceanic areas begin. This southern culture had before the (local) dawn of history spread as far as southern Korea, western Japan, and the East Indian islands. Today it survives in purest and least modified form (though it knows iron) in parts of Borneo and of Indo-China. Indo-China—The civilization of Indo-China, though resting basically on a strong aboriginal foundation, was greatly affected by the more advanced ones of both China and India. These began to make themselves felt there around the beginning of the Christian Era, and provided the necessary stimulus for the development of a characteristic form of culture during the first millennium A. D. Korea.—Northern Korea, too, was drawn increasingly into the Chinese cultural orbit. This tendency was accelerated and augmented, toward the close of the first millennium B. C., by refugees fleeing from 508 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 disorders in northern China. Also, the great Han emporer Wu Ti (see fig. 20), late in the second century B. C., established a Chinese colony in northern Korea which survived for several hundred years; while an independent kingdom with a civilization of Bronze Age type arose about the same time or perhaps a little later in the south- eastern part of the peninsula. Both colony and kingdom became im- N wi S iy Y SS ARIS LLL ELLE NS SSS Scale: 600 feet Figure 20.—Plan and elevation of grave mound of Han Wu Ti. portant secondary centers from which civilizing influences spread over much of eastern Asia. Japan.—Toward the close of the Chou period again, a stream of cul- tural influences from around the mouth of the Yantze River reached Kyushu, in western Japan. In that country it encountered other streams from Korea and even from southern Manchuria, and inter- mingled with them to form the historical J apanese civilization. The FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP 509 latter also thus owed its origin and stimulus entirely to the continent of Asia, especially to China. The founder of the Japanese imperial line, the “official” Japanese accounts tell us, was descended from the Sun Goddess, and conquered the western part of the archipelago.’? At that time and for long afterward, central and eastern Japan remained in the hands of the Ainu aborigines, then (from their remains) still in the Neolithic stage of culture but gradually absorbing more advanced elements of civiliza- tion from their invaders and ultimate conquerors. The very brief and partial Bronze Age culture of western Japan was thus soon superseded by an Iron Age civilization of continental origin, which by the close of the first millennium A. D. had overspread the entire archipelago save its extreme northern portion. The Japanese Early Iron Age (the so-called Dolmen Period) was characterized by burial in megalithic chambers or dolmens over which great mounds were erected; by the form of steel sword used ; by fight- ing on horseback with the bow and arrow; and by many other traits, most of them Chinese in origin but others pointing in the direction of central Asia and even of the Occident. (Sansom, 1982.) SUMMARY Let us now recapitulate. Forms of man have occupied eastern Asia from very ancient times—from the early Pleistocene period at least—for “Peking man,” one of the most primitive human types yet found, dates from that remote epoch. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) man later appeared in northern China, Mongolia, the extreme south of Asia, and perhaps Japan. He may also, there is some reason to suspect, have spread to the Philippines while those islands were still attached to the continent of Asia, and have survived there for a long time. Later yet, though still long before the dawn of history, various forms of Neolithic (New Stone Age) cultures spread all over the Far East, where they are divisible into two fundamental classes, a northern and a southern. These both agree however in deriving their subsistence from planting, eked out in the one case by hunting, in the other by fishing. They had thus both already passed far beyond the stage of mere food gathering and had become food producing. Probably to- ward the second half of the third millennium B. C. there appeared in northern China, near the eastern end of the “corridor of the steppes,” a more advanced culture, still Neolithic or New Stone Age in character— that is, quite without metals—but possessing a painted pottery that 10 The date claimed by the Japanese for the founding of their imperial line, 660 B. C., is of course absurd. The actual time seems to have been about the commencement of our era, and reliable and continuous Japanese history does not begin until considerably later still. 510 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 has been likened to similar forms of ware found in southeastern Europe. Not long afterward, again, probably around 2000 B. C. there arose in the same general region a Chalcolithic period, with the first evidence of bronze in China. A little later still—toward the middle of the second millennium B. C., for we have now reached the protohistoric era—we find in the Yellow River basin a highly developed civilization of Bronze Age type, based on almost the same set of fundamental elements as had been the far more ancient river valley civilizations of the Near East. OW TER WeiMAO NG iOVE IEA Figure 21.—Map of China, showing the 18 provinces. This new culture—of its origin we as yet know nothing—slowly dif- fused itself until toward the middle of the following millennium it overspread most of northern China. It then went on to penetrate various marginal areas, notably south- ern China, Korea, and western Japan. Soon afterward, however, it yielded place in turn to an Age of Iron (of rather archaic type, it is true, compared with the one that had already come into being in the Near East over half a millennium before). Thus our survey reveals to us one outstanding fact, viz, that as civil- ization advanced in the Old World, it developed not one but two great centers of culture diffusion—the Near East on the one hand, China on the other. The latter country has in fact played a civilizing role in FAR EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS—BISHOP Shi eastern Asia quite worthy of comparison with the better-known one assumed Rome. in the Occident by Babylonia and Egypt, by Greece and REFERENCES AND SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY AspoT, C. G., HkprIGKA, ALES, and BisHop, C. W. 1938. ANDERSSON, 1929. 1934. BisHop, C. W. 1925. 1932a. 1932b. 1982c. 19338a. 1933b. 19338c¢. Man from the farthest past. Smithsonian Sci. Ser., vol. 7. New York. J. G. Der Weg die Steppen. Bull. Mus. Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 1, pp. 148-163. Stockholm. Children of the Yellow Earth: Studies in prehistoric China. London. The ritual bullfight. China Journ., vol. 3, No. 12, pp. 630-637, December. China: Aesthetic development. Enc. Britannica, 14th ed., pp. 546-549. The rise of civilization in China with reference to its geographical aspects. Geogr. Rev., vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 617-631, October. The chronology of ancient China. Journ. Amer. Orient. Soc., vol. 52, No. 3, pp. 282-247, September. The Neolithic Age in northern China. Antiquity, vol. 7, pp. 389-404, December. Rhinoceros and wild ox in ancient China. China Journ., vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 322-330, June. The worship of earth in ancient China. Journ. North China Branch Roy. Asiatic Soe., vol. 64, pp. 22-43. Also printed in Excayation of a West Han Dynasty Site, pp. 1-20, Shanghai, 1982. 19384. The beginnings of north and south in China. Pacific Affairs, vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 297-825, September. 1936. A civilization by osmosis—ancient China. Amer. Scholar, vol. 5, sum- mer No., pp. 323-326. 1938a. An ancient Chinese capital: Earthworks at old Ch‘ang-an. An- tiquity, vol. 12, pp. 68-78, March. Reprinted in Ann. Rep. Smith- sonian Inst. for 1938, pp. 569-578, 1939. 1938b. Long-houses and dragon-boats. Antiquity, vol. 12, pp. 411-424, De- cember. Buxton, L. H. DUDLEY. 1928. China, the land and the people. Oxford. CHaAo, Y. R. 1932. Music, in Zen, Symposium, pp. 82-96. Curt, CH‘IAO-TING. 1936. Key economic areas in Chinese history. London. CREEL, H. G. 1935. Dragon bones. Asia, March, pp. 176-182. 1936. The birth of China. New York. 1987. Studies in early Chinese culture. Baltimore. CrESSEY, G. B. 1934. China’s geographic foundations. New York and London. Hopovs, L. 1927. Folkways in China. London. Hopson, G. HE. 1934. Europe and China: A survey of their relations from the earliest times to 1800. London. 512 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Hv SHIH. 1932. Religion and philosophy in Chinese history, in Zen, Symposium, pp. 51-58. JANSE, OLOV. 1930a. Quelques Epeés anciennes trouvées en Chine. Bull. Mus. Far Hast- ern Antiquities, No. 2, pp. 67-184. Stockholm. 1930b. Antiquités Chinoises d’un Charactére Hallistattien. Ibid., pp. 177- 183. KARLBECK, ORVAR. 1925. Ancient Chinese bronze weapons. China Journ., vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 127- 183, March. IXARLGREN, BERNHARD. 1923. Sound and symbol in Chinese. London. LATOURETTE, K. S. 1934. The Chinese, their history and culture. 2 vols. New York. LAUFER, BERTHOLD. 1914-1915. Some fundamental ideas of Chinese culture. Journ. Race De- velop., vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 160-174. 1934. Chinese clay figures. Chicago. Li Cui. 1928. The formation of the Chinese people: An anthropological inquiry. Harvard Univ. Press. 1932. Archaeology, in Zen, Symposium, pp. 184-190. MASPERO, HENRI. 1927. La Chine Antique. Paris. PoprE-HENNESSY, U. B. 1923. Early Chinese jades. London. Sansom, G. B. 1932. Japan, a short cultural history. London. Tao, L. K. 1932. Social changes, in Zen, Symposium, pp. 293-304. Tine, V. K. 1932. How China acquired her civilization, in Zen, Symposium, pp. 9-30. WILHELM, RICHARD. 1929. ali te ui et? BtRe? THAILAND. SOUTH CHINA e ANAMBAS®, is0 ° ingapore O gap c) WS, .°. RIAU IS. ‘o' ° ) 7s @LinGoa 1s. TAMBELAN - e° 15. BATU BN “NS CTelokbetong <4 5 t ONATUNA 15. Ss e "Sa Sambas na at oPontianak Orgy Suzoharte Tjilatjop THE EAST INDIES "1942+ ORAWN oY LEONARD MASON 4am Spite + ottuyt +* nee aon @ on ° Miriff., BRUN Anny @ Sf ”~ MINDORO FF PANAY fo oN e Hoilogy PALAWAN NEGROS' am. SUL ora 06 Zamboanga G Len e BASILAN BRIT. LgSondaken Joloay os ~ ara Brunei? 2. *NORTH ay.” Ss v * BORNEO Fens S CELEBES a“ * BsaRAWAKS = s ao?* Somarinda *So we Bolikpapan ¢ “<_— “~ « 2) “ . Bandjarmasin {jp 6 % % 1] ° x FLORES, Woingapu SUMBA 5 re Ficure 1.—The Bast Indies. BANGOAI 900 !5. MINDANAO PALAOG Oo ££ A Ww TALAUT % 1s. SANGIRD ee 3 *oZ ° SALAWATI, - & miso Sc 3S SS CERAM Woahar e e < Foul 2° Amahai BuRv aA. ay *Scoram $s © amBon Ambala ' ° ° BANDA WATUBELA BANDA SEA SEQUA, Damar . ONILA e ° a * of)? e eof Franmenn oe OA a * uae) 15. SERMATA 566766—44 ARAFURA SEA Torres Str (Face p. 514) ; "Oepe oanhs a) 4 ‘ a® 3 Hon Re Wa SLANT, ee i Ces . fie aS nape * fivandes 4” ao \ ‘ : 4 72a ATAM US > i » *onsew) 7 ’ - i y Ot, | earn Team ] | | io px ‘ s : . Be by SR to RS thy etn nt litt : : : a » } ‘ SP jes ofT--1 wavrord ie is INDONESIA—KEN NEDY O15 The two main racial strains are the proto-Malay and the deutero- Malay, or, as we shall call them, the earlier and the later Malays. Both of these racial types are small, brown-skinned, and wavy- or straight-haired; but the earlier Malays, who came into the islands from the mainland of Asia before the later stock, are generally more “Caucasoid” in facial appearance, shorter, more wavy-haired, and nar- rower-headed. The later Malay type looks much more Mongoloid, has predominantly coarse and straight hair, and is very broad-headed. Whereas the earlier stock is now restricted mainly to the interior dis- tricts of the large western islands and to the remoter eastern parts of the archipelago, the later Malay strain predominates in the coastal areas of western Indonesia, and has only recently spread in appreci- able force to the eastern islands. The cultural differentiation runs parallel with the physical, in gen- eral. Thus the tribes of’ earlier Malay type, inhabiting the more inaccessible regions, are still largely pagan in religion, only partially influenced by Hindu civilization or Mohammedanism, lack many of the more advanced techniques of material culture, and preserve ancient features of social organization. The later Malays, living mostly in coastal districts, have undergone strong Hinduist acculturation and are now nearly all Mohammedan in religion, possess a wide repertory of manufacturing techniques, and have long since adopted centralized state forms of government. LANGUAGES Despite these differences, which are due mainly to the relative loca- tions of the two racial types, there are innumerable elements of cul- tural similarity prevailing throughout the islands. One of these is language. AI] the peoples of Indonesia, with only three exceptions, speak languages belonging to the same basic stock, the Malayo-Polynesian or Austronesian, which also spreads over most of the Oceanic islands, the Philippines, part of southeastern Asia, and Madagascar. The three exceptions are the natives of northern Hal- mahera in the Moluccas, eastern Alor in the Lesser Sundas, and inte- rior New Guinea. For want of a better term, these languages are lumped together as “Papuan,” which means merely that they do not belong to the Austronesian stock but have not yet been properly classi- fied otherwise. Few of the Indonesians can read and write. Those who do use either an ancient kind of script, derived from Hindu writ- ing, or the Arabic alphabet. Recently, the schools established by the government and the missionaries have spread knowledge of the Roman alphabet over many districts. Some of the more primitive tribes, such as the Batak and Redjang of Sumatra, are able to write 516 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 in the archaic Hindu-derived script, but this is rapidly giving way to Arabic and Roman writing. ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES The principal economic activity is agriculture. Some groups still subsist largely by hunting and gathering wild products. These in- clude the nomadic Kubu tribes of Sumatra, the Punan of Borneo, and a few of the remoter peoples of the eastern islands. The archipelago can be divided into three main agricultural zones, each distinguished by its principal crop. The western rice zone includes all the Greater Sunda Islands (Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and Java), and the west- ern Lesser Sundas (Bali, Lombok, and Sumbawa). The central maize area, where corn is the mainstay of subsistence, covers the eastern Lesser Sundas and most of the southern Moluccas, as well as the Sula Islands in the northern Moluccas. The eastern sago zone, where the natives obtain their basic food supply from the meal of the sago palm, includes some of the southern Moluccas, nearly all of the northern Moluccas, and runs over into New Guinea. This is the general picture, to which minor exceptions could be made in a more detailed survey. Also, these areas are not mutually exclusive; maize is grown in regions where rice is predominant, and vice versa; while sago eaters in many instances also plant both rice and maize. Other crops, too, are cultivated, such as coconuts, yams, taro, and several varieties of vegetables, but the three main products are rice, maize, and sago. Wet rice, grown on irrigated fields, was introduced into the islands later than dry rice, which is planted in dry earth after the fields have been cleared and burned over. Irrigated rice agriculture has yet to reach the interior regions of the large western islands, and is almost totally unknown in the eastern parts of the Indies. Even dry rice has not spread to the easternmost islands, ror to some of the remoter dis- tricts of the Greater Sundas. It appears thus that rice is not a very ancient product of Indonesia, and that before it was introduced, per- haps about 2,000 years ago, yams, taro, and millet were the staple crops. Maize, an American plant, came only recently to the Indies, of course. The areas where it is now the staple formerly had millet as the main crop. Dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, and goats are the oldest domesticated ani- mals of Indonesia, and are found in nearly every district. Water buffalo and cattle, however, would appear to be much more recent, and are still absent in many parts of the Indies. Horses and sheep are the newest additions among the animals, the former having prob- ably been introduced by the Hindus and the latter by the Europeans. Animal husbandry, except for the raising of pigs and chickens, is relatively unimportant in Indonesian economy, and the native diet INDONESIA—-KEN NEDY 517 includes far more fish than meat. Fishing, indeed, ranks second only to agriculture as a source of food. HOUSES Nearly all the houses of the Indies peoples are rectangular structures of wood or bamboo, with thatched roofs. In most regions they are raised up on piles, and this appears to be the more ancient type of con- struction. In Java and a few other places the natives build their dwellings directly on the ground, evidently a newer practice. In Bal, such buildings have clay walls rather than wood or bamboo, but this is a unique case. The Indonesian pile houses range in size all the way from the small single-family Malay structures to the enormous Borneo longhouses, often measuring hundreds of feet in length. There are isolated instances of divergent house types, such as the simple tempo- rary shelters of nomadic tribes, the “beehive” circular dwellings found in parts of Timor and Flores and the little island of Engano off Suma- tra, the floating raft huts of the Akit of Sumatra, and the round or oval roofed houses of the Land Dyak in Borneo, the northern Halma- herans, the Savunese, and the northern Niassans. Some of these, par- ticularly the “beehive” structures, probably represent very ancient types which have now disappeared from most of the archipelago. Stone is almost never used for buildings in the Indies, but sculptured monuments of impressive size are erected by the Batak of Sumatra, the people of Nias off the west Sumatra coast, and the Sumbanese. Less pretentious stonework is done in many other regions, and the widespread occurrence of old megalithic remains throughout the archipelago indicates that in the past the use of stone for nonutilitar- ian, probably mostly religious, purposes was much more prevalent than it is at present. Under Hindu influence, Indonesian stone workman- ship attained its supreme height in medieval Java. The Javanese have now lost this art, but it still flourishes in Bali. HANDICRAFTS There are many places in Indonesia where the craft of weaving has vet to penetrate. There the natives, especially in central Celebes, make their clothes of bark cloth, which was once the only dress fabric known in the islands, except for matwork and leaf garments. Weav- ing arrived relatively late in the Indies and shows two levels of de- velopment. The older type of weaving, found in the more isolated districts, is done on a back-bar loom, which has one end of the frame attached to the weaver’s body. The more complicated looms have fixed frames. Metalworking evidently predated weaving in the archipel- ago, and has spread much more widely. Indeed, only the most primi- 566766—44———34 518 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 tive Indonesians lack the ability to manufacture articles of metal. Pottery, though undoubtedly a very ancient craft, is poorly done. It appears that the ready availability of bamboo and gourd containers in- hibited the development of clay vessels in the area. Matwork and basketry and wood carving are universal handicrafts, practiced by even the lowliest tribes. The highest development of material culture occurs, however, in metal and woven artifacts, the finest of all Indones- ian products being the ceremonial krisses and the beautifully batikked and ikatted (tie-dyed) textiles. The most primitive peoples wear bark-cloth loin wrappings, al- though in New Guinea even these scanty coverings are dispensed with in some districts. The loincloth for men and the short kilt for women carry over into many tribes where woven fabrics are used, but the standard costume of the more advanced regions consists of a sarong and blouse for women, and a sarong or trousers and shirt for men, all made from either locally woven material or trade cloth. Body ornaments are most elaborate on intermediate levels of culture— among the earlier Malay peoples of Borneo, Celebes, and Sumatra, for instance—and decrease in quantity and variety on either end of the cultural spectrum, among the most primitive and the most civilized groups. The most popular decorations are headdresses, ear pendants, necklaces, and arm and leg rings. Artificial mutilation of the body, for the purpose of beautification and sometimes with social and religious implications, reaches an amazing development in Indonesia. Virtually universal are ear piercing, often involving extreme distension of the lobes and incision of the upper part of the ear as well, and filing of the front teeth, either to points, or horizontally, or with grooves on the outer surface. Almost as prevalent is mutilation of the male sex organ. The older practice is supercision, or splitting the upper part of the prepuce without removing any flesh. Evidently more recent, and largely confined to Mohammedan regions, is true circumcision, or cutting off the prepuce entirely. Incision of the female genitals is so closely coextensive with circumcision that it would appear to be a later, and perhaps associated, practice. A few tribes in Borneo and Celebes pierce the penis for the insertion of knobbed rods or similar devices, the purpose being purely erotic—to augment the sensation of women in coitus. Tattooing is now confined mainly to the less advanced places, but formerly was much more widespread in the archipelago. Borneo, incidentally, is probably the greatest tattooing region in the world. The foregoing are the principal forms of bodily mutila- tion in the Indies. Sporadic occurrences of artificial head deforma- tion, scarification by burning and cutting, body painting and stippling with resin, and hair bleaching with lime complete the list, except for nose piercing, which is confined to New Guinea. INDONESIA—KEN NEDY 519 Spears, swords, and shields are, or were, virtually universal weapons in the islands. The bow and blowgun also find widespread use; but the former is more general in eastern Indonesia, the latter in the west- ern part. This probably means that the blowgun is a more recent weapon than the bow. Clubs and slings are rare, but appear to have been more important in ancient times. One mention of returning boomerangs appears in the literature; they are used as toys in a section of central Celebes. Although the more advanced peoples of the archipelago have built and navigated large sailing ships for centuries, the Indonesian boat par excellence is the dugout canoe with outriggers. With very few exceptions, the outriggers extend from both sides of the canoe. The attachments of the floats to the booms become more complicated toward the eastern parts of the Indies, and in the Moluccas a wide variety of outrigger styles can be seen. Transportation of goods overland, except in areas where animals take the place of human porters, regularly involves the use of back baskets, with lines going over the forehead or shoulders, or both, in all the primitive parts of Indonesia. The balance pole has replaced the back basket in most of the more advanced regions. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION The social organization of the Indonesian peoples shows three levels of development. First there are the few modern cities, where the natives are partly Europeanized. Then there are the native states, still semi-independent in most cases, a form of organization originally imported in Hindu times about 1,500 years ago. Before that, the social systems of the Indies had never developed beyond the tribal or village-community stage, which is the third, and by far the most important, level even today in most of the islands. The tribes have little functional significance generally; the basic unit of native government and social organization is the village community, and each of these small groups lives almost entirely independent of the others—politically and economically—even within the same tribal area, Where life is still nomadic, the same pattern holds, and the small bands of wandering Kubu and Punan are functionally discrete units. The prevailing style of government, in both nomadic and settled tribes, is democratic. Chiefs are chosen by general consent, even where the office passes down through a single family line, for an unsuitable successor will be deposed by his people. Moreover, the village councils, composed of all or nearly all the adult males as a rule, exercise effective control over the actions of the chiefs. Eco- nomically, too, the Indonesian communities are basically democratic, with communal ownership of land and little class distinction on the 520 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 basis of wealth. Despotism in government and marked inequality in property ownership are in nearly all cases traceable to “higher civilization.” In most parts of the islands, the only important social unit besides the community is the family, or rather the extended family, for the Indonesians lay more emphasis on the remoter degrees of kinship than do Europeans and Americans. The majority of the tribes reckon re- lationship on both the maternal and the paternal sides, as we do; but in certain groups either the female or the male lineage determines a person’s family membership. Throughout Java, Borneo, and Celebes, the bilateral type of family prevails; but in most of Sumatra, the Lesser Sundas, and some of the Moluccas, either matrilineal or patri- lineal kinship schemes predominate. The kind of relationship sys- tem that a tribe employs determines the marriage rules. Thus, while all groups taboo primary incest (marriage with parents or brothers or sisters), those with the “mother family” extend the prohibition of marriage to quite distant degrees of relationship on the mother’s side, but may allow even first-cousin marriage if the parties are connected by way of their fathers. Exactly opposite rules apply in groups with the “father family.” In parts of Sumatra and in some islands of eastern Indonesia, matrilineal and patrilineal systems of kinship become vastly elaborated by the development of clans. Where this occurs in a patrilineal tribe, the taboo on marriage applies to all mem- bers of the father’s clan, no matter how distantly related; while in matrilineal tribes all persons in the mother’s clan are forbidden as mates. Generally, also, the mode of reckoning descent governs place of residence after marriage—i. e., with the wife’s or the husband’s people—although in many bilateral kinship areas, notably Borneo and Celebes, even though male relationship is considered as important as female, a married couple nearly always reside among the wife’s people. In eastern Sumbawa, Flores, and the Alor-Solor Islands, totemism, or belief in the descent of clans from animals or plants, occurs; and in some districts here the clans are grouped in marriage classes, with complicated rules of intergroup mating, a pattern strikingly remi- niscent of certain New Guinea, Melanesian, and Australian social systems, NATIVE RELIGION Indonesian native religion rests basically upon three partly over- lapping and partly independent sets of concepts, i. e., beliefs con- cerning magical power, spirits of various kinds, and the ghosts of the dead. Even where Hinduism, and later Mohammedanism and Christi- anity, have affected the beliefs and practices of the people, the ancient INDONESIA—KEN NEDY 521 pagan cults persist and strongly color the more recently adopted religions. The magical concepts emerge in the head-hunting com- plex, for hunting of ‘heads’ is preeminently a religious duty, calculated to enrich the supply of spiritual force of a community by capturing heads, and the supernatural power they contain, from some other group. Many of the rituals of the native tribes have the same pur- pose, and priests and priestesses are regarded as experts in the tech- nique of gaining access to and drawing upon the store of magical force that pervades the universe. Mostly the purpose is beneficent—to heal the sick, improve crops, and the like—but black magic can be used against enemies. The spirit beliefs and practices are more specific than those connected with magic. The rituais are “pointed” at cer- tain recognized spirits, whose properties and powers are known. Some of these beings are good, others bad; and the principal purpose of the spirit cult is to gain the favor of the former in combating the malevolent designs of the latter. Most of the tribes have ideas con- cerning the existence of pantheons of high gods, but these deities are too lofty and remote to exercise much immediate influence over lowly humans. Therefore the lesser spirits—of the earth, water, air, and sacred places—occupy a more vital and intimate place in the native religions. Probably the most ‘Hiconsine cult in Indonesia, as in much of eastern Asia, has to do with the ghosts of the dead and the ancestors. The funeral eeeronies of the Indies are more elaborate than perhaps anywhere else in the world, and sacrifices to the departed ghosts, who are powerful intermediaries between their living relatives and the gods and spirits, must never be neglected. Fear of and respect for ances- tors, whose existence in the afterlife is vividly real to the Indonesians, make for stubborn conservatism, because the ancestors are sure to be angered by any change in the ways they were used to on earth, and will withdraw their favors from the living if the old customs are not preserved. Despite later infusions of Hinduism, Mohammedanism, and Chris- tianity, the base of Indonesian religion is still paganism, the tradi- tional beliefs and practices of the ancestors. “Conversion” usually means merely taking on new names for old things. Nevertheless cer- tain areas have been strongly influenced by alien religions. Bali is unique in preserving the old Hinduist religion, which 600 years ago was the faith of all Java and most of Sumatra. Mohammedanism, of varying degrees of “purity,” has since spread over nearly all of Sumatra, Java, and the coastal lands of Borneo and Celebes. It is steadily making converts throughout the eastern islands, some of which—notably Lombok and Sumbawa—are nominally almost com- pletely Islamized. Christianity has never been able to make headway 522 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 in previously Mohammedanized regions; indeed, the areas of influence of the two religions are mutually exclusive to a marked degree. De- spite centuries of missionary effort and enormous expenditures in Mohammedan Java, for instance, there are now only about 200,000 Christians there, and probably not more than half of these are natives. Christianity has made best progress among formerly pagan tribes: the Batak of Sumatra, the Toradja and Minahasa of Celebes, and the Amboinese of the Moluccas. In general, the contours of culture in Indonesia display a strikingly regular pattern of stratification. In the far eastern islands and in the deep interior regions of the larger land masses, the most archaic racial types and cultures are preserved. In the more accessible inland dis- tricts of the Greater Sundas and in the westerly islands of the Lesser Sundas, the racial stock is of the earlier Malay type and the level of culture is “intermediate.” Finally, in the coastlands of western Indonesia, one finds the most recent physical types and cultural accre- tions, which are steadily spreading inland and eastward into the terri- tories where until today the ancient peoples of the Indies carry on their age-old traditions in the shadow of impending change. (qsuny “¢ Aq ydeisojoyg) “du Aysep pues posseidep yeyMomos B sey ‘Jey pue opm ysnoy) ‘esou oy “3 ‘e) sj1e1q Telok’ Uendeg (neoing UOleulojuy SpuvployJaN Asoqino0,)) pue PlOIsON UBISOUBATY JO 9IN}XIUT B SMOYS 9dAQ [BOISAYd OY, ‘ornytod uodurod oy} WOTYSses 07 pasn st Jopulpéo Tey y “ley A|[OOM PUB SAIN}BI PIOIGAN YIM ‘od Aq [RoIskyd uBlsouURpey AUT, “SaMILLY AAILSSA NI “SAYOTS ‘VHNLNVYV] AO SAILYN “2 “YOW!IL “ONVdNy AO AAILVYN “1 3LY1d p Aposuueawn—"c44} ‘JUOday uPIUOsSUITIWIC ‘yBqeg om) JO aqI1Iqns O1BY 94 JO oI4sl1ojoBIeYO SI ssoppBoy oHT[MoT[Id oy “ABR ‘ain} xu (plojosuoyyy) -0j01d Aj[Borseq st adA4 ayy Inq ‘aTqroaqep st sada 94 JO UOIBZI[OSUO TW IU SIS V AB[BI-O10]Nep pus (plosvoneD) Avyeyy-0}01d MoYs sed4q [eoIskyd oy, VYLVWNS “THID HVLVgG OYUVH °“Z “SSAHLONWD ONIMYOM NI STYID ASANVAVE *1 % Sa ES ee c 3ALV 1d Apauuay—*¢ 66 | *yuoday UeTUOsy UIC Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Kennedy PLATE 3 1. BATAK WOMEN AND GIRLS, SUMATRA, SHOWING THE PROTO-MALAY (CAUCASOID) PHYSICAL TYPE. 2. SETI OF CENTRAL CERAM DOING A WAR DANCE. The physical type is the so-called Alfur, the proto-Malay and Papuan hybrid characteristic of the Moluccas. (Courtesy Bataviaasch Genootschap.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Kennedy PLATE 4 1. NIAS WOMEN DANCING, IN FESTIVE DRESS. The Niassans, on special occasions, wear elaborate double earrings, headdresses, and armbands. 2. MENTAWEI WOMEN FISHING, SHOWING LEAF CLOTHING. These people cannot weave, but make their garments of either bark cloth or leaves. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Kennedy 1. DYAK GROUP, WESTERN BORNEO, SHOWING WEAPONS AND WAIST RINGS OF BRASS AND RATTAN WORN BY WOMEN. 2. BAHAU DYAK GROUP, SHOWING DISTENDED EAR LOBES AND, CENTER REAR, PANTHER-TOOTH EAR ORNAMENTS WHICH MAY BE WORN ONLY BY SUCCESSFUL HEAD HUNTERS. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Kennedy PLATE 6 1. MINANGKABAU LONGHOUSE, SUMATRA. All Minangkabau buildings have graceful saddle-shaped roofs. (Courtesy Netherlands Information Bureau.) ie 2. TOBA BATAK VILLAGE, SUMATRA, SHOWING THE SLOPING GABLES OF THE HOUSES OF THIS SUBTRIBE. (Photograph by E. E. Muhs.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Kennedy PLATE 7 Wty gi RCP) i Ah | {a jy) Gy ig, ASvige ann ¥ = RAIS yaar» Se rg ab 2, HOUSES IN NIAS WITH MASSIVE TIMBERS, CARVED AND PAINTED GABLES, AND HOODED ROOFS. Sculptured stone monuments dedicated to ancestors, in foreground, on paved village plaza. (Courtesy Netherlands Information Bureau.) PLATE 8 Kennedy Smithsonian Report, 1943. coe ated Ke se 5 if ae FFD oe MINANGKABAU OF SUMATRA IN CEREMONIAL COSTUME. These richly brocaded garments are heirlooms TJUN U9}}IIM JOADU SBM Ye IN, 942 Ul pojutid st 194sod ey, S39V4ad YSH NO ONIIddIlS “YVASDOGVAH SALVYOSV1F AGNV WAIEWA YOANN S.YOIeyVM NISSYM HLIM ‘SSS371FD ‘NYWOM VFAVYOL ‘2 AHL ONIGNTIONI “AWNLSOD IWINOWSAYAD NI SVIN AO NVW (1 jo Speed ne Heyer Dipo ie, Sy SOMA 6 3ALV1d Apauuay—"¢p6| “q4odayy ueruosyyiwG Ol ‘yI1Bq 918 SSUOIBS 19Y40 9Y} ‘3u0IVS (padp-a14) yoyt Ue ‘19\Ued oY UT “STYID ASANIIVE “2 “SNIHLOWD ATIALS Nvado0ung -INAS NI NYVW AHL ‘31dNOD ASANVAVE ‘1 43aLV1d Apauuey “Cr6l *quodayy uerTuosy IWS “SA8gO07 Y¥VF AHL AO NOISNALSIOC “SILNIOd OL ONIMOHS ‘OANHOG “MHVAC NVHV “2 Gall4d HL3ASAL HLIM THIS ISAMVLNAW (1 L} aLv1d Apauuayy—"¢p6| ‘Woday ueiuosyyrug Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Kennedy PLATE 12 1. SADANG BURIAL CAVES, CELEBES, CHISELED IN THE FACE OF A CLIFF. They have wooden doors and carved guardian images. (Courtesy Netherlands Information Bureau.) 2. PALACE OF THE SULTAN OF SIAK, EASTERN SUMATRA. Siak is one of the scores of native states which the Dutch ruled ‘“‘indirectly,’’ retaining the hereditary princes in office. THE ARAB VILLAGE COMMUNITY OF THE MIDDLE EAST By Arir I. TANNoUS Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations, U. S. Department of Agriculture [With 14 plates] THE REGION AND THE PEOPLE Despite the fact that it consists.of five political entities—Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq—the region under considera- tion is in reality one cultural unit. Its geographic boundaries are determined by the Mediterranean Sea on the west, forming a coast line of about 750 kilometers; the Sinai and Arabian deserts and the Persian Gulf on the south; the Kurdistan Mountains on the east; and the Taurus Mountains of Turkey on the north. These boundaries enclose an area of about 770,000 square kilometers (800,000 square miles), of which not more than 85,000 square kilometers (32,000 square miles) are under cultivation by village settlements. The rest of the area consists of arid, sandy deserts and semiarid plateaus over which the nomadic Bedouins graze their herds. An interesting variety of topographical and climatic features is en- countered as one moves inland from the seashore. A narrow coastal plain, with high soil fertility and an altitude of less than 100 meters (about 330 feet), stretches from the Egyptian frontier in the south to the Turkish frontier in the north. In most places the coastal strip does not exceed 1 or 2 kilometers in width. Parallel with the coast and rising abruptly from it, extends a rugged mountain range, reach- ing its maximum height of over 3,000 meters (over 10,000 feet) in the Lebanon section. To the east of, and parallel with, the Lebanon Mountains rises the equally rugged but slightly lower Anti-Lebanon Range. Between the two ranges lies the high and fertile plateau of Bika’. In contrast with these high mountains is the Jordan valley depression in Palestine, with an altitude of about 100-800 meters (330- 990 feet) below sea level. In the northeastern corner of the region stands the third significant mountain range, which is a continuation of the Taurus and Kurdistan Ranges. The remaining greater portion of the region consists of extensive semiarid plains and plateaus. The only two extensive river valleys are those of the Tigris and Euphrates, 523 524 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 running across Iraq from north to south. Smaller rivers are the Orontis in Syria, the Leontis in Lebanon, and the Jordan in Palestine. Along with this varied topography, a similar variation in climatic conditions is encountered. Along the coastal plain prevails the Med- iterranean type of climate—a short and mild winter in which rain is concentrated, and a long, damp, and warm summer in which no rain falls. Here rainfall is relatively heavy, especially in the northern ° section where it reaches an average of over 30 inches per year. On the mountain heights snowfall is heavy during the winter, whereas the summer is cool, bracing, and dry. In the interior there is a marked variation in temperature between day and night and between summer and winter. Here rainfall is scanty. In addition to the above varie- ties, there is the subtropical climate of the Jordan depression in Pales- tine and of the Persian Gulf area of Iraq. Between 9 and 10 million people live within the boundaries of this region. What strikes attention first is their pattern of ,distribution. As expected, the fertile coastal plains and river valleys are densely populated, whereas the extensive semiarid plains and plateaus of the interior support a sparse population. Coming to the Lebanon Moun- tains, however, we find a high population density of over 100 per square kilometer (260 per square mile). This is so despite the fact that these mountains are extremely rugged and their soil scanty. Obviously, not only geographical but also cultural factors must be taken into consideration in accounting for this apparent anomaly. Religious and political conflicts during the old Turkish regime forced the Christian minority to congregate and take refuge in the mountain heights. A second feature of the population is the existence of a high birth rate and a high death rate, especially in the villages. Early marriage, emphasis upon family life as a major value, and the polygynous fea- ture of the Muslim religion are some of the cultural factors respon- sible for a birth rate that ranges from 30 to 45 per thousand. This is more than double the rate for the United States of America. On the other hand, a death rate of 20 to 28 prevails, which also is much higher than the rate in the United States. A natural increase in population, however, has been the net result. With the advent of modern medical knowledge and sanitation, an acceleration in the rate of increase may be expected. With respect to racial composition, the population of the region shows a marked degree of admixture. It is true that a relatively high degree of racial purity exists among the Bedouin tribes of the interior. This purity, however, which is the result of relative isolation and consequent inbreeding, becomes in general less and less evident as ene moves away from the center toward the periphery, especially the ARAB VILLAGE COMMUNITY—TANNOUS ae Mediterranean coastal area. Varieties of eye color, pigmentation, hair texture, and stature can be readily observed. Such a situation can be expected as a result of the fact that the region under consider- ation has been, since time immemorial, one of the most strategic meet- ing places of races, cultures, and nations. A large number of ancient peoples, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hebrews, Persians, Hittites, Phoe- nicians, and others, met there, intermixed, and succeeded one an- other. Then followed the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, and Turks, each contributing its racial strain to the already existing mix- ture. What is of primary significance in this connection is the out- standing fact that racial consciousness is practically nonexistent among the people. This is primarily a result of the predominant religion of Islam which accords equality to all Muslims in this life and the life to come, irrespective of color and lineage. It is well known that under the influence of their religious message the Arabs intermarried freely with the various races they conquered. A fourth aspect of the population is its rural-urban composition. Here we have a situation that is heavily biased in favor of rural cul- ture. A genuinely urban way of life is limited to the few main cities of the region: Baghdad, Basrah, and Mosul in Iraq; Aleppo, Damas- cus, Antioch, Homs, and Hama in Syria; Beirut, Tripoli, and Sidon in Lebanon; and Jerusalem, Jafa, and Haifa in Palestine. Conse- quently, between 65 and 80 percent of the inhabitants of these coun- tries can be considered rural. A small minority of these are still in the nomadic stage, whereas the great majority are fellahin, agri- cultural people settled in villages. Finally, with respect to the cultural composition of the population, one encounters a situation similar in its diversity of elements to that of racial composition discussed above. For thousands of years this part of the world has been a center of dynamic cultural contact. As nation followed nation on that stage, from the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians to the western powers of today, cultures developed, met, selected and borrowed, invented, and passed on their heritage to future generations. Thus the past lays a heavy hand indeed upon the culture of the Middle East. Within this diversity of cultural origins, the Arabs, who have occupied the region since the middle of the seventh century A. D., have been able to achieve a stable integration, giving the prevailing culture a predominantly Arab orientation. Their religion of Islam is now embraced by about 85 percent of the population. Arabic, the language in which the Muslims believe that Allah revealed the Qor’an (Koran), is the mother tongue of each one of these countries. Dialects may differ from locality to locality, but written Arabic is the same for all. Other main cultural values and practices have been either modified 526 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 or originated by the Arabs and more or less uniformly spread through- out the region. Among these are emphasis upon family solidarity, exaltation of individual prowess and daring, group consciousness and identity rather than individualism, hospitality, and the predominance of the personal touch in all types of human relationships. The way in which a cup of coffee is prepared and served and its symbolic significance are practically the same in the Muslim villages of southern Palestine and in the Christian villages on the high slopes of Lebanon. Similarly, everywhere there is heavy dependence upon bread as the main staple in the diet and the same reverent attitude toward it. THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT Everywhere in the Middle East, whether on the coastal plains or on the high mountain slopes, on the interior plateaus or in the river valleys, the village type of rural settlement prevails. Unlike the North American pattern, practically no isolated farmsteads or rural] neighborhoods exist between the villages. Farmers and animals live in the village, from which they go out daily to work in the surround- ing fields and come back in the evening. The origin and evolution of the village type of settlement in this, the oldest part of the world, is lost in the remote and obscure past. It is certain that the village was there long before Biblical times. How long ago and in what manner it developed, whether directly as such or gradually along a line of several stages, is a matter that is still open for speculation. One can reasonably conclude, as did Professor Sanderson, that de- velopment possibly followed a line of transition from the nomadic tribe to the subagricultural group, to the semipermanent village, to the permanent village settlement. This explanation seems to gain support from the contemporary existence in the Middle East of the older stages of settlement. In fact, one can observe the process of transition actually taking place. In general, it can be readily seen that as one moves from the coastal areas and river valleys toward the interior, villages assume less and less of a permanent character, until pure nomadism is reached. The large Bedouin tribe of Fa’oor, who used to roam with its herds over a wide area along the borders of Syria, Palestine, and Trans-Jordan is now in the process of transi- tion. ‘The Emir of the tribe and his brothers are rapidly developing into feudal lords. They and their entourage occupy a compound of modern stone buildings, whereas around the compound one still sees the old tents of the Arab nomads. Some branches of the tribe have begun to live in more permanent dwellings, made of reed cane or of * Sanderson, Dwight, The rural community, chaps. 2 and 3. Ginn and Company, 1932. ARAB VILLAGE COMMUNITY—TANNOUS 527 stone. They still follow the seasons with their herds, but in addition they now cultivate the soil and raise crops. In the Jordan valley of Palestine, as well as in several places in Syria and Iraq, various stages of the same process of transition can be observed. Even in Lebanon, where permanent village settlement has been established since ancient times, the writer came across modified forms of the original nomadic and seminomadic stages. LOCATION The factors responsible for determining the location of each village are many and varied. A few of them, however, seem to be more out- standing and more common than others. An obvious one of these is the availability of water supply. The significance of this factor can be better apppreciated when one is reminded of the fact that rainfall in the region is scanty (not exceeding 10 inches per year in most places) and that all of it is concentrated during 3 or 4 months of the fall and winter seasons. In Lebanon, where snow accumulates on the mountain tops, springs are abundant, and practically every village has one or more of these running through it or just outside its limits. The people use such village springs both for human consumption and for irrigitation. In most of the villages of the interior, where run- ning springs are scarce, the necessary water is obtained from wells, which are sunk to varying depths until the underground water table is struck. In other places cisterns are used, which are filled with rain water and which supplement other sources. Another way of supple- menting the water supply is to dig a large and shallow pit just outside the village proper and make use of the accumulated rain water. In river valleys, naturally, direct use is made of the river water. A second factor in the choice of a location is the matter of defense. Almost invariably, whether on the mountain heights, in the interior plains, or in the river valleys, one finds that the settlers have chosen the site that best lent itself to defense. This was essential in early times in the face of attacks from other villages or from marauding Bedouins. Hilltops, bluffs, and invincible shoulders of deep ravines afforded such easily defensible sites. It must be observed that this factor has lost its significance in the greater part of the region, in view of the prevailing public security. Fertility of the soil has been another determining factor. ‘This is to be expected in view of the fact that the village people are dependent almost completely upon agriculture for a living. Through the use of farmyard manure in some places, or the development of a suitable crop rotation in others, the people did their best to maintain the fertility of the land as long as possible. Permanent and continuous settlement on the same land for generations made the application of some conser- 528 |§ ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 vation techniques imperative. This has been singularly successful in the Lebanon Mountains where terracing and manuring have been extensively used. In some places, especially where manure is used for fuel, soil depletion could not be avoided. It must be pointed out that in some cases all these factors of location, as well as others not mentioned, have been equally operative. On the other hand, we find a great number of villages in which one or more of the required conditions had to be neglected in favor of others that seemed more compelling. Such is the case of the Kura Valley in northern Lebanon, which offered the settlers an extremely fertile soil, but no adequate water supply. For a long time before underground water was discovered in some places, village people had to depend upon rain water and upon a running stream several miles away. All the villages on the rugged Lebanon slopes serve as an illustration of the predominance of the defense factor, which was eagerly sought by religious minorities. PHYSICAL STRUCTURE A compact, nucleated form of structure is the first striking impres- sion one gets of the Middle Eastern village. It is a conglomeration of houses standing close to each other, divided by winding alleys and paths that do not seem to have any regular design. In parts of some villages the houses are so close together that one can walk or jump from roof to roof without much difficulty. In other villages the houses are scattered enough to leave room for small garden plots. To a casual observer such a mass of dwelling places shows no evidence of differentiation. Upon investigation, one finds that the people are con- scious of the existence of certain sections in their village. Each one of these is called a Hara or a Het’, which is usually the habitat of one kinship group. In this we see a carry-over from the tribal organiza- tion and an indication of the significance of family in the early devel- opment of the community. Normally, the mosque or the church stands as the physical and cul- tural center of the settlement. Dwellings are erected on all sides of this center by the original family groups. As a family multiplies, its dwelling place also multiplies by a process of “budding.” Under the influence of a strongly partilocal system, in which the wife comes to reside with her husband’s people, the newly married couple add one more room on top or to the side of the groom’s ancestral house where the rest of the family dwell. For generations this process of budding has been going on, resulting in the entangled mass of houses described above. Next to the church or mosque is the Saha, an open space where people hold social gatherings or present their produce for sale. In the villages of the interior, where regular biweekly or monthly mar- kets are held, the Saha is of a fairly large size. Normally, the few ARAB VILLAGE COMMUNITY—TANNOUS 529 existing stores are located around this central space. In large vil- lages, or those that have two religious sects, two centers exist. Such settlements may be designated as bicentral. With respect to the structure of dwelling places, the following main forms may be distinguished. Tents, made mainly of goat hair, are used exclusively by the nomads. Shacks made of reed cane can be observed in marshy localities, such as exist in northern Palestine, northern Syria, and southern Iraq. This type of dwelling is used mainly by seminomadic tribes who are in the process of settlement. In the hilly areas of the region in general, and in Lebanon in par- ticular, stone (mostly limestone) is the most common building mate- rial, It is cut by expert masons, of whom practically every village boasts a good number. In most cases stone is used exclusively in constructing the foundation, the walls, the ceiling, and the roof. A solid dome-shaped structure is the result, which may have a flat or a convex roof. Sometimes wooden beams are used for the ceiling and bricks for the roof. On the plains of the interior, adobe houses are the most prevalent. A special variety of these are the so-called bee- hive houses of some villages in northern Syria. The distinctive fea- ture here is the conical shape of the dome, which helps to mitigate the effect of the blazing sun. hi mi ee Ay? a he me a oy ~ i oly hel Wea 8 iat i 4 ‘4 ats 3 rae 8 Ww amaten { oa hy . ; Ve 7 ‘ Tag vats 4 mt fe “{SQl O[PPITAL 94} UI WOUIOA 0} pousysse st AITATIOR Yong ‘ANILSS1Vd IWYLNAD AO A39NVTIIA V NI SNIYdS BAHL WOYS YSALVM SAO ¥ver VY ODNIAYYVD snouue | —'¢$6| *‘qaoday ueiuosyzUICg Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous Preanee 1. THE VILAGE WELL OF BISHMIZZEEN, NORTH LEBANON. Water is hauled by means of a kerosene can and a rope. 2. IN SOME VILLAGES THE PEOPLE DEPEND UPON WATER FROM A RUNNING STREAM FOR WASHING AND DRINKING. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 3 sive = “ f be THE ANCIENT WATERWHEEL OF THE ORONTIS RIVER VALLEY IN NORTHERN SYRIA. ‘The river current turns the wheel and lifts the water to a suitable height, whence it is conducted for irrigation purposes. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 4 re le: BEF 1. TYPICAL HOUSE IN THE BIKA’ PLAIN, LEBANON. Note the heap of dung cakes which are used for fuel. 2. A REED-CANE DWELLING FOR SUMMER USE. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 5 1. THE NUCLEATED STRUCTURE OF A VILLAGE IN CENTRAL SYRIA. 2. THE SAHA, WHERE MARKETS ARE HELD, IN A VILLAGE OF SOUTHERN PALESTINE. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 6 THE COURTYARDS OF VILLAGE HOUSES IN SOUTHERN PALESTINE (1) AND IN THE INTERIOR OF LEBANON (2). Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 7 1. A STONE HOUSE IN THE VILLAGE OF BISHMIZZEEN, TYPICAL OF THE MOUNTAINOUS SECTION OF LEBANON AND NORTHERN PALESTINE. 2. GENERAL VIEW OF A ‘‘BEEHIVE’’ VILLAGE IN THE ALLOUITE REGION, NORTH SYRIA. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 8 1. BAKING BREAD ON THE SAJ (THE HEATED IRON PLATE IN THE CENTER) IN THE INTERIOR OF LEBANON. Note the thin loaves. 2. BAKING BREAD IN THE VILLAGE BAKERY IS A HIGHLY COOPERATIVE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 9 1. GENERAL VIEW OF OLIVE ORCHARDS IN THE KURA VALLEY, LEBANON. 2. ELABORATE TERRACING IS MAINTAINED IN ORDER TO PREVENT EXCESSIVE EROSION ON THE MOUNTAINSIDES. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 10 ne a “48 1. A TEAM OF OXEN IS THE MAINSTAY OF A LEBANON FARM. The farmer holds the goad in one hand and directs the plow with the other. 2. THE ANCIENT THRESHING BOARD IS STILL IN USE. The under surface is studded with hard stones. PLATE 11 Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous 1. FREQUENTLY THE COOP IS PERCHED IN A TREE, AND THE CHICKENS LEARN HOW TO CLIMB TO IT. 2. AN EARTHENWARE JAR SERVING FOR A BEEHIVE IS ANOTHER OLD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICE. “ANILSS1IVd NYSHLYON NI YS019 AOVTITA IWOIdAL V “2% “ANILSATVd NYSHLNOS NI YS019 3DVTMIIA AVIIdAL Vv ‘1 cl 3LV 1d snouue | —'¢p6| ‘J40dayy ueruosyztWG Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 13 : { id ten NE ile ok, i Nd Real A eS tm 1. THE COUNCIL OF ELDERS MEETING WITH GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN A DRUZE VILLAGE. A i we - agt So ; - os 2. ARAB COFFEE AND HOSPITALITY ARE SYNONY MOUS. Note the mortar in which the roasted beans are pounded. Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Tannous PLATE 14 1. THE AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE HAS INVADED THE OUTLYING ARAB VILLAGE, BRINGING ABOUT FAR-REACHING CHANGES IN ITS WAY OF LIFE. 2. THE RETURNING EMIGRANT HAS BEEN ANOTHER FORCE OF SOCIAL CHANGE IN VILLAGE CULTURE. He brings back new ideas, a higher standard of living, and a new outlook on life. CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS FROM MICROBES By Rosrert L. WEINTRAUB Division of Radiation and Organisms Smithsonian Institution [With 5 plates] RETROSPECT The treatment of disease with chemical agents is as old as the prac- tice of medicine itself. Since the beginnings of the healing art, there has been a constant effort to discover specific remedies for the maladies that beset the human organism. During the dawn of our present scientific era, hopes of success in this direction were voiced by some of the outstanding workers, such as Paracelsus in the sixteenth cen- tury and Boyle in the seventeenth, but the search for chemical spe- cifics was of necessity conducted in an entirely empirical manner. Until the twentieth century only three valuable specific remedies for infectious diseases had been found: cinchona bark (containing quinine) for malaria, ipecac (containing emetine) for amebic dysen- tery, and mercury for syphilis. The firm establishment of the germ theory of disease, due largely to Pasteur during the latter half of the nineteenth century, created a rational basis for the development of chemotherapy. ‘Today various connotations have become associated with this term. To the earlier workers it meant the internal disinfection of the body by chemicals which would destroy the pathogenic parasites without harming the host—in the words of Paul Ehrlich, the father of chemotherapy: “by magic bullets which strike only those objects for whose destruction they have been produced.” The recognition of the powerful bactericidal action of a number of chemicals, such as carbolic acid and bichloride of mercury, stimu- lated expectations of the early accomplishment of inner disinfection. Despite a great deal of labor, however, this goal was not achieved ; the disinfectants which appeared so promising in test-tube experiments were found to be either ineffective in vivo or too toxic toward the body. It was not until 1910, with the introduction of salvarsan, or “606,” developed after years of painstaking work by Ehrlich, that 545 546 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 successful chemotherapy by a synthetic compound could be regarded as accomplished. Hopes were again raised that, having reached this milestone, further progress would be rapid, but once again the expecta- tion proved futile. In the ensuing quarter of a century only a hand- ful of useful chemotherapeutic agents were developed and all these, like quinine and salvarsan, were limited to the treatment of protozoal diseases. All experience indicated that the ordinary pathogenic bacteria could not be attacked by chemotherapy. Then in 1935 announcement was made of the curative effects on bacterial infections in mice by the dye prontosil. It was soon shown that the action of this compound is due entirely to a small portion of the molecule, sulfanilamide. From this parent substance have been derived all the sulfonamide compounds so widely used in recent years. In a period of half a dozen years approximately three thousand derivatives and related compounds have been tested; four of these—sulfapyridine, sulfaguanidine, sulfathiazole, and sulfadia- zine—have been outstanding. The introduction of these drugs has rev- olutionized many phases of medicine. Dozens of infectious diseases have responded to sulfonamide therapy, and the prospects for cases of septicemia, pneumonia, scarlet fever, and meningitis, to mention only a few, have been dramatically improved. Without doubt hundreds of thousands of lives have already been saved by the sul- fonamides. These drugs are not, however, without their disadvantages. In many patients they produce symptoms of great discomfort and may even cause severe toxic effects and tissue damage. Further, it has been discovered that some strains of pneumococci and other bacteria are resistant to the action of the sulfonamides, so that a considerable percentage of infections by these bacteria is not amenable to the treatment. Even in the case of susceptible organisms, there are other limitations on the usefulness of the sulfonamide compounds. Their antibacterial activity is greatly diminished in the presence of large numbers of bacterial cells, even of dead bacteria, and also by the presence of pus, blood serum, and various products of tissue destruc- tion, all of which are very likely to be found in infected wounds. While progress in the sulfonamide field still continues and further valuable discoveries may well be anticipated, the successes here have served to stimulate rather than to deter investigation of other, un- related, chemotherapeutic agents. A powerful impetus to these studies has been furnished by the present war with its greatly increased demand for better antiseptics. Within the past few years, considerable attention has been given to a number of substances which are the metabolic products of various CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 547 micro-organisms. As yet, the study of none of these has reached the final stage, but already very promising preliminary results have been obtained. As is true of most scientific advances, the ultimate flower- ing of this field has been preceded by a long preparatory period of scattered observations whose practical implications were unrecognized or ignored. During the past three-quarters of a century numerous examples of antagonistic relationships between various micro-organ- isms have been noted. In many instances the inhibitory effects have been shown to be due to the production of toxic materials. In the following account an attempt will be made to sketch the development and present status of knowledge of the more potent antibacterial substances which have been obtained from bacteria and fungi. AGENTS FROM PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA In 1877 Pasteur reported that the injection of anthrax bacilli into susceptible animals frequently failed to elicit the disease when the inoculum was contaminated with “common bacteria” and suggested that this observation could “perhaps justify great hopes from a therapeutic point of view.” A dozen years later two other French bacteriologists, working independently, announced that by injecting cultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the so-called bacillus of blue pus, into rabbits infected with anthrax, an appreciable number of the animals was prevented from dying of this disease. Pyocyanase.—This discovery aroused a great deal of interest and it was soon shown, first, that a sterilized culture of Pseudomonas could be employed in place of the living bacteria, and then that an active material could be obtained from the culture fluid itself after removal of the cells. Minute amounts of this product, originally believed to be an enzyme and designated “‘pyocyanase” after the old name (Pseu- domonas pyocyanea) of the organism, were capable of causing the dissolution, or lysis, of billions of cells of staphylococci, pyogenic streptococci, the bacilli of diphtheria, plague, typhoid, and anthrax, and the cholera vibrio. During the early years of the present century, pyocyanase was employed therapeutically to a considerable extent and was produced on a commercial scale in Germany. Favorable results were reported in the treatment of a large number of diseases, including anthrax, diphtheria, cerebrospinal meningitis, infectious catarrh, wounds and abscesses, as well as many infections of the eyes, mouth, and skin. In general the surface infections were treated with greater success than those of more deep-seated occurrence. Later, however, there began to accumulate a number of reports of negative and inconsistent results, and interest in the therapeutic use of pyocyanase waned. 548 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 Studies of the physical and chemical properties of the substance also resulted in lack of agreement. The reasons for most of the observed discrepancies are now appar- ent. In recent years it has been demonstrated that several anti- bacterial substances, which differ in their mode and specificity of action, are produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Furthermore, dif- ferent strains of this organism do not behave alike in their elaboration of the various compounds and, moreover, for a given strain the pro- duction of each of the active agents is influenced by a number of environmental factors. The methods of extraction also are of importance in determining the composition of the antibacterial preparations. Pyocyanic acid.—In 1908 it was found that the bactericidal activity of pyocyanase, as well as of Pseudomonas aeruginosa cultures, could be extracted by various organic solvents. That pyocyanase really was an enzyme had already been questioned by a number of investigators and this new finding was interpreted as evidence that the active agent was a fatlike substance. The extracts were demonstrated to possess the ability to dissolve, or lyse, red blood cells, as well as bacteria. Several investigators attempted to identify the active compound. In 1933 an active substance which appeared to be a fatty acid was iso- Jated and named “pyocyanic acid.” This compound has not yet been identified and its precise chemical structure is unknown. It is quite potent against certain bacteria; complete inhibition of the growth of the cholera vibrio is produced by 0.001 percent, of the anthrax bacillus by 0.005 percent, of staphylococci by 0.02 percent. Somewhat higher concentrations cause lysis. Pyocyanic acid is a surface-active com- pound, that is, in aqueous solutions it has the property of accumulating at the interface between phases, such as at the water-air boundary, and of reducing the surface tension of the water. This property, which is characteristic of detergents or cleaning agents such as soap, seems to be of importance in its bacteriolytic action, inasmuch as a number of other detergents have been found to produce similar biological effects. The purest preparations of pyocyanic acid thus far tested have been found to be moderately toxic to mice. No attempt has yet been made to use the substance therapeutically. Pyocyanine.—One of the most obvious characteristics of Pseudo- monas aeruginosa is the production of a water-soluble blue pigment. As early as 1860 this pigment had been isolated from blue pus and given the name “pyocyanine.” Not until 1929, however, was its chem- ical nature elucidated and its synthesis accomplished in the labora- tory; it was the first natural product demonstrated to belong to a class of organic substances known as phenazonium compounds. There is CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 549 considerable evidence that the pigment may play a role in the meta- bolic activities of the bacterial cell. In 1982 it was shown that pyocyanine is fairly strongly bactericidal. In 6 hours the causal organisms of anthrax and diphtheria are killed by 0.025 percent ; numerous other species are also susceptible, although to a lesser degree. The pigment is about twice as toxic for mice as is pyocyanic acid. Promising results have been obtained in preliminary trials in which the noses of diphtheria carriers were sprayed with pyocyanine solution. a-Hydroxyphenazine—In adition to pyocyanine, Pseudomonas aeruginosa produces a number of pigments which have been less thor- oughly studied. One of these, a decomposition product of pyocyanine known as a-hydroxyphenazine, was shown in 1935 to be bactericidal toward a large variety of organisms. This compound is not very stable, so that its activity rapidly decreases with time; in tests of short duration, however, it has proved to be highly potent. The growth of the cholera vibrio, for example, is completely inhibited by a concentration of 0.00013 percent. The pus-forming streptococci and the pneumonia bacterium are about one-half as sensitive. The toxic- ity to mice is less than one-fifth that of pyocyanine. Therapeutic trials have not yet been reported. The increased knowledge of the multiplicity of antibacterial agents produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa sheds considerable light on the contradictory experiences of the older workers with pyocyanase. It is now clear that different preparations contained these components in varying extent. Pyocyanine was doubtless present in many of them. In view of the many favorable results obtained with the old unstandardized preparations, a reexamination of the possible applica- tions of the pure components seems desirable. Against staphylococci, streptococci, the organisms of typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, as well as other micro-organisms, pyocyanine and «-hydroxyphenazine, have a much greater growth-inhibiting, or bacteriostatic, potency than the sulfonamide drugs. The action against several pathogenic fungi alse compares favorably with that of the common disinfectants. Owing to the toxicity of the Pseudomonas agents their potential usefulness would appear to be limited to surface or localized infections. The high potency against fungi which are responsible for such infections suggests a possible therapeutic application. AGENTS FROM BACILLUS BREVIS The remarkable diversity of the chemical transformations brought about by the varied bacterial population of the soil led Dubos, at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, to attempt to isolate 566766—44—36 550 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 therefrom an organism capable of attacking Gram-positive cocci.t The technic adopted was to add, from time to time, suspensions of living streptococci and staphylococci to soil in the hope of provoking the development of a microbial flora able to utilize these cells. In 1989, after a period of 2 years, he was able to announce the success of the experiment. There was isolated from the soil a bacterium, identified as Bacillus brevis, which brought about the lysis of living staphylo- cocci, streptococci, and pneumococci. A short time later Hoogerheide, who had been working independently at the Franklin Institute, also reported the isolation of several strains of soil bacilli which pro- duced antibacterial substances. Other species, endowed with the same type of antagonistic activity, have been obtained also from sewage and from cheese. Tyrothricin, gramicidin, and tyrocidine——It was soon found that the lytic properties were exhibited not only by the living Bacillus brevis, but also by cell-free solutions obtained from old cultures in which self-digestion, or autolysis, of the bacteria had taken place. From such solutions there have been obtained several active fractions which differ in chemical composition and in biological properties. Apparently these various substances are derived, through the proc- esses of autolysis and the subsequent manipulations of extraction, from a single parent substance originally present in the bacterial cell. On acidification of the culture fluid there is obtained a protein precipitate from which a protein-free active substance can be ex- tracted with alcohol and precipitated with salt solution. The material obtained in this manner has been designated “tyrothricin” after Tyrothriz, the old generic name of a group of bacteria early recog- nized as having antagonistic properties. About half a gram of tyro- thricin can be prepared from a liter of bacterial culture. Tyrothricin has been further separated into two active components, named “grami- cidin” and “tyrocidine,” which account for approximately 20 and 50 percent, respectively, of the parent material. Both gramicidin and tyrocidine have beer isolated in pure crystal- line state and considerable information concerning their chemical properties has been obtained. Both compounds are complex poly- 1In the staining technic devised by the Danish bacteriologist Gram, the bacteria are treated successively with a dye, such as gentian violet, with iodine, and with alcohol. Those which are decolorized by the alcohol are termed Gram-negative, whereas those which retain the dye are Gram-positive. Although the Gram stain was introduced as a purely empirical procedure, it has been found to differentiate bacterial species into two fairly sharply defined groups which differ also in numerous structural and physiological character- istics. The reason for the difference in staining properties is not entirely clear but presum- ably is related to the properties of the cell wall. Of the common disease-producing cocci, the streptococci, staphylococci, and pneumococci are Gram-positive, whereas the gonococci and meningococci are Gram-negative. Among the Gram-positive bacilli are the causal organisms of diphtheria, gas gangrene, tetanus, tuber- culosis, leprosy, and anthrax ; Gram-negative bacilli include the agents of typhoid and para- typhoid fevers, bacillary dysentery, bubonic plague, and undulant fever. CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 551 peptides constructed in a fashion somewhat similar to the common proteins but differing from these in a number of important details. The precise empirical formulas are not yet known; gramicidin ap- pears to be approximately C,,HiosNi;0,3;, while tyrocidine may be CroeHiesN2eO2. or possibly a unit one-half this size. Although both gramicidin and tyrocidine possess antibacterial activity, and despite their chemical similarity, their biological proper- ties are quite different. The action of gramicidin is primarily bac- teriostatic; the great majority of Gram-positive species tested are highly susceptible, whereas the Gram-negative bacilli are entirely in- sensitive. Tyrocidine, on the contrary, exerts a marked bactericidal effect upon both Gram-negative and Gram-positive organisms. Tyrocidine causes the lysis of a number of bacterial species, whereas gramicidin has no such effect. It appears likely, however, that the dissolution is not a direct result of the action of tyrocidine but rather is a secondary self-digestion brought about by the bacterial enzymes after the cells have been killed by the bactericidal agent. Gramicidin, on the other hand, does not occasion the lysis of even the most sus- ceptible bacteria. Both agents cause the dissolution of red blood cells, but the mechanism of the action is quite different for the two substances. The hemolytic effect of gramicidin becomes apparent only after several hours, although it may be elicited by very small amounts of the agent. The action is completely inhibited by the presence of glucose or certain other carbohydrates. Tyrocidine, contrariwise, produces immediate hemolysis irrespective of the presence of glucose; its action, however, is inhibited by blood serum to a much greater degree than is that of gramicidin. The hemolytic activity of gramicidin and tyrocidine seems to be influenced by factors which are not yet entirely appreciated, as conflicting results have been obtained by different workers. The mechanism of the action of gramicidin and tyrocidine on cells has been studied to a greater extent than that of most of the other natural antimicrobial substances. Tyrocidine acts much like a gen- eral protoplasmic poison. It induces an immediate and irreversible cessation of metabolic activity which, in many cases, is followed by cellular disintegration. Its action in these respects resembles closely that of certain detergents, as do also its behavior as a protein pre- cipitant and its surface activity. While gramicidin has many of the physical and biological proper- ties of detergents, there is considerable evidence that its antibacterial activity is not due to these characteristics alone, although its tendency to concentrate at the bacterial surface well might enhance the action due to other properties. The effects produced by gramicidin are 552 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 greatly influenced by the composition of the medium. In the presence of glucose (or some other substrates), phosphate, and potassium, low concentrations of gramicidin markedly stimulate the respiration of various cells. Small amounts of certain substances, e. g., the am- monium ion, prevent this stimulatory effect. Higher concentrations of gramicidin may cause complete inhibition of respiration. It is known that the cellular oxidation of carbohydrate is brought about by means of certain phosphoric acid compounds. Recently there has been procured evidence that the formation of one of these compounds, adenosine triphosphoric acid, may be inhibited by gramicidin. This agent thus does not behave as a gross protoplasmic poison but appears to exert its bacteriostatic effect through an interference with the energy-supplying processes of the cell. The antibacterial activity of both gramicidin and tyrocidine is reduced by serum and tissue extracts. Tyrocidine is inhibited also by proteins and peptones. Of a large number of pure substances which have been tested, only a few, belonging to the class of phospholipides, have been found to possess the ability of diminishing the gramicidin potency. A gramicidin-neutralizing fraction rich in phospholipides can also be obtained from Gram-negative bacilli; whether this ma- terial plays a role in the nonsusceptibility of Gram-negative organ- isms to gramicidin has not yet been established. Both gramicidin and tyrocidine are quite toxic when administered intravenously or intraperitoneally. This, together with the lowered effectiveness in the presence of various biological substances, would appear to preclude the therapeutic application in systemic infections. For the treatment of many types of localized infections the prospects are much brighter. A considerable number of clinical trials with very favorable results have already been reported. In vivo, gramicidin is a much more active agent than tyrocidine. In practice the mix- ture of the two—tyrothricin—has been used much more extensively than gramicidin itself, inasmuch as it appears to possess some ad- vantages, as well as being much more easily produced. Tyrothricin is now commercially available. Among the diseases which have shown favorable response to tyro- thricin therapy are inflammations of the nose and sinuses, bladder infections, empyema due to streptococci, postoperative wounds, and burns. Skin ulcers which had persisted for years, despite various forms of treatment, have healed after a few weeks, or even days, of tyrothricin therapy. In general, streptococcal infections are more amenable than those due to staphylococci or pneumococci. Good re- sults have been obtained also in the treatment of bovine mastitis, a streptococcal infection of the cow’s udder. CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 553 The application of tyrothricin after surgical operations on the nose, sinuses, and mastoid has been reported to prevent postoperative in- fections and so to reduce fever, swelling, and pain in a number of instances. There is some indication also that the process of wound healing may be stimulated by this agent. On the other hand, it must be pointed out that among even the susceptible species of bacteria there may exist, or be developed during the course of treatment, strains which are very resistant to the action of tyrothricin. Treatment with this material may occasionally fail also in the presence of a mixed bacterial infection, inasmuch as certain Gram-negative bacteria appear to counteract the activity against susceptible Gram-positive forms. A further point of importance is that the infected area must be accessible to local treatment. Obviously, gramicidin (tyrothricin) is not a cure-all but, with due regard for its limitations, it would appear to furnish a valuable addi- tion to the medical armamentarium. AGENTS FROM BACILLUS MESENTERICUS Another spore-bearing bacillus which has long been recognized as having antagonistic properties is Bacillus mesentericus, the so-called potato bacillus. In 1904 it was shown that the antibacterial principle occurs in the culture medium and can diffuse through a collodion mem- brane. In 1939 the active agent was identified as a mixture of isova- leric and oleic acids, both of which are well-known chemical com- pounds found in biological materials. Oleic acid, which is especially widespread among plants and animals, is the more potent of the two and also possesses hemolytic properties. The agents are especially active against diphtheria and pseudodiphtheria bacilli, although other bacteria are inhibited by higher concentrations. OTHER AGENTS OF BACTERIAL ORIGIN A great many instances of bacterial antagonism have been described and the indications are that a considerable proportion of these is due to the production of specific inhibitory substances. The information available is so fragmentary, however, that a detailed discussion of these agents would not appear to be justified in the present account. Some of the bacterial species from which cell-free antimicrobial prep- arations have been obtained are: Pseudomonas fluorescens, Pseudo- monas putida, Pseudomonas phosphorescens, Proteus vulgaris, Ser- ratia marcescens, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus albus, Kleb- siella pneumoniae, Vibrio comma, Bacillus adhaerens, Bacillus anthracis, Bacillus mycoides, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus simplex, Ba- cillus cereus, Escherichia coli, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. 554 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 AGENTS FROM ACTINOMYCETES The actinomycetes comprise a large group of organisms somewhat intermediate between the true bacteria and the higher fungi. They are very widespread in nature, occurring in soils, composts, and water basins; the group includes also several species which cause diseases in plants and animals. In 1890 an Italian worker observed that certain actinomycetes were able to destroy the cell membranes of many bacteria and fungi. In the ensuing third of a century no further study of this phenomenon appears to have been undertaken. During the past two decades, how- ever, investigations in a number of laboratories have provided evidence that several antimicrobial substances are elaborated by actinomycetes and that antagonistic properties are widely distributed among various strains of this group of organisms. To date only a few of these active substances have been studied to any extent. Actinomycetin.—In 1924 two French workers who had been study- ing the lysis of killed staphylococci sought to isolate, from air or water, micro-organisms which could bring about this process. They succeeded in obtaining an actinomycete which was capable of causing the disintegration of a large number of microbial species. The production of the disintegrating agent, or lysin, occurs in any medium which permits the growth of the actinomycete and com- mences at the time of spore formation; prior to this stage no activity can be demonstrated in either the culture medium or the cells of the organism. Preparations of the active principle, which has been designated “actinomycetin,” are protein in nature; however, as they are further purified, the ratio of protein content to activity decreases. As previously noted the living actinomycete is capable of lysing a great variety of living bacteria and molds. With the exception of a few strains of Streptococcus pyogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and Klebsiella pneumoniae, the micro-organisms are resistant to the cell- free filtrate of the actinomycete, however. But if the bacteria are first killed, by whatever means, they become susceptible to the sterile actinomycete culture filtrate. Actinomycetin preparations which have been concentrated to the extent of a hundredfold increase in potency exhibit the same type of action and specificity as the crude culture filtrate. It thus appears that at least two principles are in- volved: a lytic factor which can act only upon dead micro-organisms and a bactericidal factor which exists in the culture medium in a relatively inactive form, albeit sufficiently active to kill the few susceptible strains enumerated. Support for this view has been contributed by the recent discovery that on extraction of purified actinomycetin with ether there is ob- tained a fraction bactericidal to a number of Gram-positive bacteria. CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 555 The role of the actinomycete cells is visualized as that of freeing the bactericidal agent from its hypothetical inactive complex. Evidence for the tendency of the bactericidal substance to form such com- plexes is considered to be furnished by the finding that the bacteri- cidal potency is much less in complex media than in solutions of inorganic salts. While information on the chemical nature of the active agent is still very fragmentary, it is thought by some workers to be a fatty acid. This is very suggestive of a parallel with the agents of Bacillus mesentericus and of the pyocyanic acid of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. At least one pigment with antibacterial activity has also been isolated from another species of actinomycete, although most of the pig- ments produced by this group of organisms do not appear to have such activity. No direct therapeutic use of actinomycetin has been made; it has been found, however, that the actinomycete-produced lysates of a number of pathogenic bacteria are very good antigens and much less toxic than the organisms themselves. Favorable results in a number of cases of various infections in man have been claimed through the use of such lysates. Actinomycins A and B.—¥rom cultures of another actinomycete, Actinomyces antibioticus, there has been obtained a strongly anti- bacterial preparation which was termed “actinomycin.” Subse- quently this material was separated into two components, both of which exhibited activity. These have been designated “actinomycin A” and “actinomycin B.” Both substances have been obtained in crystalline form. Actinomycin A, which is a bright red pigment, has been studied chemically to some extent. Its structure is not yet known but it appears to be a polycyclic nitrogen compound; possible formulas are CuH;.NsO,, and C;;Hs.N;Oi... The compound has a high degree of antibacterial activity which, for a given organism, may be bacterio- static or bactericidal, depending upon the concentration and time of action. Gram-positive organisms are considerably more susceptible than the Gram-negative forms. Among the susceptible bacteria are streptococci and staphylococci, which are inhibited completely by con- centrations of 0.00001 percent; the gas gangrene bacillus, inhibited by 0.0001 percent; and the tubercle bacillus, inhibited by 0.001 percent. The mechanism of the killing effect by higher concentrations appears to be a chemical interaction similar to that of the common antiseptics. Unfortunately actinomycin A is exceedingly toxic, so that its internal administration is precluded. Whether it would be useful in surface application remains to be determined. Actinomycin B has been studied to only a limited extent. No in- formation as to its chemical nature is yet available. Some difficulties 556 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 have been encountered in obtaining preparations of uniform anti- bacterial activity; the substance apparently has comparatively little bacteriostatic activity but is more highly bactericidal than the A component. . Streptothricin.—This antibacterial agent, which is produced by Actinomyces lavendulae, has the properties of an organic base; up to the present it has not been prepared in pure condition. In the culture fluid it seems to be associated with protein. The crude streptothricin is strongly bacteriostatic toward a considerable variety of Gram-posi- tive and Gram-negative organisms. For example, Brucella abortus, the etiological agent of undulant fever, is inhibited completely by 0.001 percent; 0.003 percent is inhibitory for the causal organisms of para- typhoid fever, of hog cholera, and of infectious abortion in mares. In higher concentrations streptothricin is also bactericidal. It has been reported that in guinea pigs experimentally infected with Brucella abortus, the pathogens can be eliminated or reduced in number by administration of streptothricin. Proactinomycin.—This name has been given to an antibacterial sub- stance extracted from cultures of a species of Proactinomyces. Like streptothricin, it seems to be an organic base. Its action is primarily bacteriostatic. The growth of the pneumococcus is inhibited by 0.00007 percent; 0.0002 percent inhibits streptococci, staphylococci, meningococci, and anthrax bacilli. Proactinomycin is moderately toxic to mice. White blood corpuscles are unaffected by concentra- tions well in excess of those required for the inhibition of the micro- organisms specified above. Micromonosporin.—This agent, obtained quite recently from a spe- cies of Micromonospora, has been but little studied. It is bacterio- static toward a number of Gram-positive bacteria, whereas all the Gram-negative organisms tested have been found very resistant to its action. Lysozyme.—In 1922 Fleming discovered that various tissues and secretions of the body contain a substance capable of causing the dis- solution of a variety of bacteria. This agent, named “lysozyme,” is present also in egg white. A bacteriolytic substance prepared by Russian investigators from Actinomyces violaceus has been regarded as possibly identical with lysozyme, although there appear to be dif- ferences in certain properties of the two agents. The Actinomyces lysozyme, which is of protein nature, exhibits a selective action against certain bacterial species but can dissolve both living and dead cells. AGENTS FROM MOLDS Penicillin—In 1929 Alexander Fleming, the English bacteriologist who a few years previously had discovered the lysozyme of tissues, was CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 557 making a study of staphylococci. Culture dishes of the bacteria were kept in the laboratory for periodic inspection, during which they were exposed to the air. Fleming noticed that in one dish, which had become contaminated with a mold (similar to the common blue mil- dew on jam or citrus fruits), the surrounding Staphylococcus colonies became transparent and were dissolved. ‘This is the type of observa- tion of a chance occurrence which is frequently made by scientific in- vestigators. But it is only by the alert, inquisitive, and trained worker that further exploitation is made. In the words of Pasteur: “Chance favors the mind that is prepared.” Fleming transferred the mold to a liquid nutrient solution and found that there appeared in the fluid a substance that was markedly inhibitory toward many of the more common disease-producing bacteria. The mold was later identified as Penicillium notatum and its bactericidal culture filtrate was des- ignated “penicillin.” Recently a preparation with very similar antibacterial properties has been obtained also from Penicillium chrysogenum. Fleming clearly realized the potential utility of the active material as a chemotherapeutic agent, which must have two essential character- istics: ability to inhibit pathogenic organisms and low toxicity toward living tissues. Penicillin was found to combine these properties to an unusual extent. It was not at all toxic to animals but was at least twice as powerful an inhibitor as carbolic acid toward sensitive organ- isms, such as the various pus-producing cocci. Local application of penicillin to septic wounds was tried in a limited number of cases with generally favorable, although not miraculous, results. The further investigation of the substance as a therapeutic agent suffered from a serious handicap—it was very diffi- cult to prepare in sufficiently large quantity and in purified condition, owing chiefly to its chemical instability which resulted in loss of anti- bacterial activity. In the decade following its discovery, no further progress along this line was made, although it was employed for the purpose of isolating certain types of bacteria which, on the ordinary culture media, were overgrown by accompanying species. By this means it was shown that the so-called influenza bacillus was present in the mouths of all normal persons examined and hence was probably not the causal organism of epidemic influenza, as had theretofore been widely assumed. More recently, penicillin has been used to isolate the acne bacillus from acne pustules and so to make possible a simple method for the preparation of autogenous vaccines of the organism. The discovery and rapid development of the sulfonamide drugs since 1935 had stimulated renewed interest in chemotherapy, and the success of gramicidin had directed attention to the antibiotic agents of microbial] origin. In 1940 a research team at Oxford University 558 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 commenced a concerted attack on the penicillin problem from several directions; the promise of the initial results inspired a large number of investigators on both sides of the Atlantic to take up the work. In the United States a number of governmental laboratories are now participating in this research. Obviously the widespread utilization of any rare biological product would be greatly facilitated if the substance could be prepared artifi- cially. In recent years we have seen numerous instances of the rapid extension of use which follows the success of the chemist in synthesiz- ing natural materials; some of the vitamins are outstanding examples. Further than this there always exists the possibility of improving na- ture’s product by some modification of the chemical structure of the molecule. Asa matter of fact, it is not the synthesis but the deter- mination of the structure of the natural product which is the funda- mental and difficult problem, for once the chemical pattern is known the synthetic chemist can usually devise one or more ways to duplicate it by starting with much less rare and expensive materials. As in the famous recipe for rabbit stew, so the first requirement in elucidating the structure of a chemical is to obtain a supply of the pure material. This was the problem which confronted the Oxford work- ers. A method was worked out for growing the Penicillium on shal- low layers of liquid in special stoneware bottles for a period of 10 days after which the fluid was removed for extraction of the penicillin. All operations must be performed with the most exacting bacteriologi- cal cleanliness, since certain bacteria, if they gain access to the solu- tions, cause a marked reduction in the yield of active material. Nor- mally about 14 gallons of culture solution could be harvested each day, an amount which contains about one-half gram of penicillin, although only a part of this can be obtained in purified form, due to the losses which occur during the many stages of the purification process. Quite recently there has been worked out, on a laboratory scale, a continuous-flow method similar to that used for the production of vinegar. The mold is cultured in a long glass column packed with wood shavings. Fresh culture medium is slowly dripped in at the top and the fluid containing the penicillin is constantly drawn off at the bottom. At the time of writing (summer of 1948), a large number of pharmaceutical concerns are engaged in production of penicillin; some of these have already progressed to the pilot-plant stage. Penicillin has not so far been obtained in absolutely pure form, so that its chemical constitution cannot as yet be fully determined. For- tunately it has turned out that certain derivatives may be prepared from penicillin which, while retaining its full antibacterial activity, are also permanently stable and may be kept indefinitely. CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 559 The action of penicillin, like that of the various sulfonamide drugs, is different from that of the older antiseptics, in that these newer chemotherapeutic agents act only on certain strains or species of bac- teria and also in that their action is primarily an inhibition of the bac- terial development, rather than a killing of the germs. The mode of action of penicillin appears to be an interference with the processes of cell division while growth may be allowed to proceed, resulting in very greatly lengthened rods or swollen spheres. Among the micro-organisms most susceptible to penicillin in test-tube experiments are the gonococcus (the causal organism of gonorrhea in man), the meningococcus (responsible for about 70 percent of all acute cases of cerebrospinal meningitis), Staphylococcus aureus (the most frequent cause of abscesses, boils, and many surgical suppurations), the pneumococcus (principal etiological factor in lobar pneumonia), Streptococcus pyogenes (found in human infections of very varied types), Clostridium tetani and Clostridium welchii (the tetanus and gas gangrene bacilli, respectively), and the anthrax bacillus. Rela- tively resistant pathogenic organisms, on the other hand, include the bacillus of tuberculosis, the vibrio of Asiatic cholera, the organisms of undulant fever, and certain types of dysentery bacilli. The exact potency of penicillin cannot, of course, be ascertained until the pure compound is available. Nevertheless, the activity of even the impure material far exceeds that of most other antiseptics. Thus 1 part of penicillin in 60 million parts of culture fluid com- pletely inhibits the growth of staphylococci; partial inhibition is obtained at dilutions of more than 300 million. In comparison with gramicidin, the antibacterial agent obtained from certain soil bacteria, penicillin is 20 to 40 times as potent against staphylococci. Addi- tional advantages of very great importance are the remarkably low toxicity of penicillin toward animals and its lack of inactivation by pus, blood serum, or products of tissue break-down. Indeed, it has been reported even that the bactericidal action of penicillin, in some cases, is enhanced by blood and serum. It is so innocuous that it can be introduced directly into the eye in the treatment of - conjunctivitis. Even the first clinical trials by the Oxford workers, although per- formed with an impure penicillin preparation of relatively low po- tency and hampered by lack of material, were attended by dramatic results. In these studies the scarcity of the therapeutic agent was so great, indeed, that advantage was taken of its rapid excretion by the kidneys; penicillin was recovered from the urine of treated patients, _ repurified, and reused. With the increasing availability of penicillin, it has been possible to confirm the early promise. A successfully treated case of Sta- 560 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 phylococcus aureus infection is illustrated in plate 5. An infection of this type, complicated by blood poisoning, is almost universally fatal. The patient, a 4-year-old girl, presumably became infected after biting the inside of her cheek. Redness and swelling of the jaw appeared, and within a few days the child’s condition had become critical. Much of the tissue of the floor of the mouth had been killed, and the tongue was nearly frozen to the hard palate. She was unable to sleep, could breathe only with difficulty and had a temperature of 104°. There was evidence of pneumonia in one lung. Penicillin administration was begun. Within 36 hours the staphylococci had disappeared from the blood. Within 96 hours the child was again able to swallow, was breathing easily, and could take a liquid diet by mouth. By the next day, she was able to eat solid foods, and by the ninth day the temperature was normal. The total amount of penicil- lin administered during the 12 days of treatment was only a little more than 1 gram. In another, somewhat similar, case in which penicillin therapy was begun at an earlier stage, the damage to the tissues and the bacterial invasion of the blood stream were prevented. Many other types of staphylococcus and streptococcus infections have responded to penicillin. Cases of gonorrheal infections which were not benefited by sulfonamides have also been cured with dra- matic rapidity by penicillin treatment. So far, the results of exten- sive trials have not been reported in detail. In the United States, clinical studies have been organized by the National Research Council. Early in 1948, clinical trials were begun by the United States Army. Among the cases subjected to treatment were many soldiers returned from the Pacific area with unhealed compound fractures, osteomye- litis, and wounds with long-established infections. Very promising results have been obtained and the tests are being greatly extended. In animal experiments, it has been found that the early administra- tion of penicillin is a powerful prophylactic against gas gangrene, one of the most serious complications of battle and air-raid wounds. For systemic infections, penicillin is usually administered intra- venously. Inasmuch as it is destroyed by acids, inactivation occurs in the stomach when the drug is given by mouth. However, oral ad- ministration is possible, although less efficient, if large amounts are taken together with sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the gastric acidity. Of the chemotherapeutic agents of microbial origin which have thus far been studied, penicillin is preeminently the most promising. At the moment, the principal handicap in its application is its limited availability. The outlook for the future, when the problems of pro- duction shall have been solved, is very bright indeed. CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 561 Notatin, penatin, penicillin B.—From several laboratories has come evidence that certain strains of Penicillium notatwm produce, in addi- tion to penicillin, another antibacterial substance. Various investiga- tors, working simultaneously but independently, have proposed different names for their preparations: “notatin,” “penatin,” “peni- cillin B”; the available evidence, while not entirely conclusive, sug- gests that the active principle is the same. It is the most potent natural antibiotic substance so far described. The growth of Staphylococcus aureus, which is one of the most susceptible species, is inhibited by concentrations as low as 0.00000002 percent. It is active against a large number of both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. The substance is bactericidal, as well as bacteriostatic, but does not appear to cause lysis. The available evidence indicates that notatin is a flavoprotein in which the protein is combined with flavine adenine dinucleotide. It functions as an enzyme which catalyzes the oxidation of glucose by oxygen, with the production of gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. Certain other sugars are oxidized also. It is believed that the anti- bacterial action is due to the hydrogen peroxide formed. Support for this view is furnished by the fact that the activity is appreciable only in the presence of oxygen and glucose and in the absence of catalase, the enzyme which promotes the destruction of hydrogen peroxide. The activity is reduced in the presence of fresh serum, owing, presumably, to its content of catalase. Inasmuch as the active agents have not been freed from impurities, the toxicity cannot be determined with certainty. Some preparations have been found to be rather toxic, others much less so. No detailed information as to the therapeutic applicability of the substance is yet available, although notatin has been reported as having been found effective in this respect. Penicillic acid.—This substance, which is not related to penicillin, despite the similarity of names, was isolated from Penicillium puber- ulum in 1911, at which time it was found to have an inhibitory effect upon the growth of certain bacteria. Interest in the substance was revived in recent years by the discovery of other antibacterial mold products. Chemically it has been shown to be y-keto-8-methoxy-é- methylene-A*-hexenoic acid, a type of structure hitherto unknown among natural products. Penicillic acid is rather strongly bacterio- static toward a number of organisms, some of which are resistant to many of the other antibacterial products of microbial origin. The toxicity for mice is fairly low. Therapeutic studies have not been undertaken up to the present time. Pendcidin—The name “penicidin” has been given to an antibac- terial substance obtained from an unnamed species of Penicillium. 562 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 The material is soluble in organic solvents, relatively thermostable, inactivated by alkalies but not by acids. It has not yet been isolated in pure form and its chemical nature and possible identity with previously discovered mold agents have not been determined. Lber- thella typhosa is inhibited by a 0.001 percent concentration of the partially purified preparation. Spinulosin and fumigatin.—During a study of the chemical prod- ucts of various molds, the pigments spinulosin and fumigatin were isolated some years ago from cultures of Penicillium spinulosum and Aspergillus fumigatus, respectively. Investigation of the structure of these substances showed them to be quite closely related, fumi- gatin being 8-hydroxy-4-methoxy-2,5-toluquinone, while spinulosin is 6-hydroxyfumigatin. Recently these compounds have been exam- ined for antibacterial properties and both have been found to be — moderately active. Spinulosin and fumigatin are less important — by virtue of their own potencies, however, than because of the infor- mation concerning the relationship between structure and activity which has been obtained from their study. This will be discussed below. Fumigacin—Although isolated from Aspergillus fumigatus, this substance is not to be confused with fumigatin. Fumigacin, which has been obtained in crystalline form but not yet characterized chem- ically, is said to be active against Gram-positive bacteria but nearly inactive against Gram-negative species. Citrinin—This is another substance previously isolated from a mold, Penicillium citrinum, and on recent reinvestigation found to possess antibacterial activity, although not to an especially marked extent. Its structure has been worked out as a complex substituted quinone; it has not yet been synthesized. Clavacin.—This substance, obtained from Aspergillus clavatus, is said to be particularly effective against Gram-negative bacteria, in- cluding a number of species not affected by penicillin, mandelic acid, or the sulfonamides. Various strains of the fungus differ greatly in their production of clavacin. The substance, which is rather un- stable, has not yet been prepared in pure form, but even the partially purified product exhibits a considerable measure of activity. Claviformin.—This material, isolated in crystalline form from the culture medium of Penicillium claviforme, may have the formula C.H,O;. It is considerably more potent than citrinin, clavacin, or fumigacin, although less so than penicillin. However, in view of its decreased activity in the presence of serum, as well as its fairly high , toxicity, its therapeutic application does not appear particularly promising. CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 563 Gliotoxin.—An antimicrobial substance isolated in crystalline form from Gliocladium fimbriatwm has been given the name “gliotoxin.” It has the empirical formula C,;H,,O,N.S, and is the first antibiotic compound of microbial origin which has been found to contain sulfur. The chemical structure has not yet been elucidated completely but it appears to be a condensed 8-ring compound with a unique type of sulfur bridge. Glotoxin is both bacteriostatic and_ bactericidal toward Gram-negative as well as Gram-positive organisms, Staphy- lococci and streptococci are completely inhibited by concentrations of the order of 0.0001 percent, Gram-negative bacteria by somewhat higher concentrations. It is toxic for higher animals in doses of 50 to 75 milligrams per kilogram. No therapeutic trials have been reported. Aspergillic acid—Some, but not all, strains of Aspergillus flavus have been found to produce an antibacterial substance which has been designated “aspergillic acid.” The material has been obtained in crystalline form in yields as high as 400 milligrams per liter of culture fluid. The empirical formula of aspergillic acid appears to be C,.H,.N.O.; its chemical structure has not yet been worked out. In vitro it is fairly potent against certain Gram-positive cocci; pneumococci and hemolytic streptococci, for example, are killed by a concentration of about 0.0002 percent. Gram-negative bacilli are much more resistant to its action. The toxicity toward mice is not especially high. The maximal tolerated dose is about 200 milligrams per kilogram when given orally and approximately half of this when injected intraperitoneally. However, neither oral nor intraperitoneal administration has been found to exert any therapeutic effect on experimental mouse infec- tions with pneumococci or hemolytic streptococci, although prelimi- nary experiments have shown some protection in experimental infections with gonococci and gas gangrene bacilli. Aspergillin—This name has been given to an antibacterial sub- stance which has been obtained in partially purified form from a strain of Aspergillus flavus. What relation this material may have to other antibacterial agents of microbial origin cannot be determined from the limited information so far available. Making allowances for the impure state of the aspergillin tested, its bacteriostatic potency and toxicity appear to correspond approximately with those of aspergillic acid. Puberulice and puberulonic acids.—These substances have been iso- lated in crystalline form as metabolic products of several species of Penicillium. The empirical formulas are C,H,O, and C;:H,0,, re- spectively. The chemical constitution is unknown, but puberulonic 564 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 acid is believed to be a quinonoid compound and puberulic acid the corresponding quinol. Both compounds inhibit the growth of a number of Gram-positive bacteria, puberulic acid being somewhat more effective than puber- ulonic. Neither shows much activity against Gram-negative species. Unnamed substances.—Several workers have obtained evidence of the production of antibacterial substances by other molds. In one survey of 100 fungal species, 30 were found to exhibit activity, with the added possibility that some of the negative species might well give positive results under different cultural conditions or against test bacteria other than those employed. In view of the existence of thousands of species of molds, it seems certain that many other anti- bacterial agents produced by these organisms remain to be discovered. Some yeasts, too, have been found to produce bacteriolytic substances. PROSPECT Of the score or more products of microbial origin which have been described here, the antibiotic activity of the great majority has been discovered only within the last 2 or 3 years. Most of them have not yet been studied sufficiently to determine what therapeutic applica- tions may eventually be made. It is, therefore, highly encouraging that some of these agents, particularly penicillin and tyrothricin, al- ready offer definite promise of practical utility. However, even though none of the presently known substances should ultimately be found of use in itself, the value of the rapidly increasing knowl- edge in this field is very great. This is true for two reasons: in the first place, the identification of a compound possessing some of the properties desirable in a chemotherapeutic agent, even though it may at the same time have other undesirable characteristics, opens the door for the chemist to manipulate the molecular architecture so as to enhance the one and suppress the other; secondly, studies of the mode of action of the available inhibitory agents upon micro-organisms may suggest the use of other substances, which, while chemically un- related, will exert similar biological effects. A wide range of chemical types is represented among the limited number of antimicrobial agents of which the composition has been even partially elucidated: proteins (notatin, lysozyme), polypep- tides (gramicidin, tyrocidine), fatty acids (pyocyanic acid, isovaleric acid, oleic acid, possibly actinomycetin), organic bases (streptothri- cin, proactinomycin), quinones (citrinin, fumigatin, spinulosin, pos- sibly puberulonic acid), heterocyclic compounds (gliotoxin, actino- mycin A, pyocyanine, a-hydroxyphenazine). Obviously, complete knowledge of the constitution is necessary before the relationship be- tween structure and biological properties can be studied. CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 565 So far such studies have been made in only one or two cases but these have proved very fruitful. It has been mentioned that the two mold products, fumigatin and spinulosin, are structurally very similar, differing only in the possession of an additional hydroxyl group by the latter. Spinulosin was found to have only about one- tenth the antibacterial potency of fumigatin. This unexpected dis- covery that the activity was markedly decreased by the introduction of a hydroxyl group led to a study of a considerable number of sub- stituted toluquinones and benzoquinones, from which several impor- tant generalizations concerning the effect of structure on activity could be drawn. As a valuable byproduct of the investigation, it _ was found that several of the compounds tested were more potent than fumigatin itself. A variety of effects is produced by the different antibacterial agents of microbial origin. At the one extreme are those like actinomycetin and lysozyme which cause the disintegration of the bacterial cells. Others, such as gramicidin, may also produce dissolution but pre- sumably only through the self-digestion brought about by the enzymes of the killed cells. Killing without lysis is brought about by a num- ber of substances: pyocyanine, clavacin, fumigacin, gliotoxin, notatin, etc. The least drastic action is that of such agents as actinomycin which are primarily bacteriostatic, preventing growth or reproduction without killing the cells. As might be expected, an even greater diversity appears to exist among the mechanisms by which the antibacterial effects are brought about. In very few cases has much insight been gained into these mechanisms, but progress is being made rapidly. Ehrlich and other early workers in the field of chemotherapy pro- ceeded largely on the assumption that the most effective agents would be those which produced the maximum killing of the pathogens without greatly damaging the cells of the host, a sort of selective sledge-hammer action. In later years it has become apparent, how- ever, that actual killing of the parasite by the chemical agent itself may not be at all necessary. The natural defense mechanisms of the body in many cases are able to cope with a limited number of invaders and can effect their elimination if the bacterial multiplica- tion can be prevented. Prevention of reproduction can be achieved through interference with some metabolic process of the micro-organ- ism and, since the biochemical processes of the bacterial cell differ in numerous respects from those of higher animals, there exists the possibility that there may be found subtle methods of interference which will be relatively innocuous to the host. An outstanding example of such a state of affairs is furnished by the action of sulfanilamide. One of the essential growth factors, 566766—44——37 566 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 or vitamins, for various bacteria is p-aminobenzoic acid which must be available if these organisms are to multiply in the infected animal. The utilization of this substance is effected through the agency of certain enzymes of the bacterial cell. Now it has long been known that compounds structurally similar to those upon which the enzyme normally acts may, if furnished together with the natural substrate, compete with it for the enzyme and so prevent or retard the normal interaction. In just this way the utilization of p-aminobenzoic acid is prevented by the presence of the chemically related sulfanilamide. This mechanism was not at all understood at the time of the intro- duction of sulfanilamide, of course, but it appears now that a similar principle may obtain in the action of many, though not all, other antibacterial agents. This has been indicated above in the discussion © of gramicidin, one of the few microbial agents of which, to date, the mode of action is at all understood. In this connection it may be significant also that a-hydroxyphenazine, one of the antibacterial substances produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, bears a certain structural similarity to riboflavin, or vitamin B,. The inhibitory effect of notatin, on the other hand, appears to be of a quite different nature, being occasioned by the toxicity of the hydrogen peroxide which it produces. An interesting phase of the mechanism of action is the high degree of specificity for certain micro-organisms exhibited by many of the agents. In a number of cases this specificity appears to parallel closely the Gram-staining reaction. Better understanding of the factors responsible for bacterial differences in this staining technic may conceivably aid in the further development of other specific chemical inhibitors. Tt seems axiomatic now that a practical chemotherapeutic agent must be inhibitory toward the pathogen, not merely in vitro but under the conditions existing in the diseased host, and that it should exert a minimal deleterious effect on the latter. There are, in addi- tion, a number of subsidiary desiderata, such as convenient mode of administration, stability in the body and during storage, etc. In the past these requirements have not always been fully appreciated. Before the etiology of infectious disease was understood, the search for chemical specifics was of necessity a trial and error affair. With the recognition of pathogenic micro-organisms came the idea of chemical bullets fatal to the parasite but not the host. Knowledge of the chemical structure of such bullets furnished guiding principles, according to which better ammunition could be molded. Increased knowledge of the precise means by which inhibition of bacterial activities can be effected and of bacterial physiology in general may be expected to lead to a new phase in the development of chemo- CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS—WEINTRAUB 567 therapy. It is in this respect that the microbial products may be of greatest value, since even at this early stage of their study many new avenues of exploration have been opened up. Through some of these, conversely, will come better understanding of the physiology and nutrition of micro-organisms and, in all likelihood, of higher animals also. In passing, mention may be made of another possible application of these agents, namely, in the control of certain plant diseases. Very little has been done along this line and its practicability cannot yet be forecast. However, the few experiments which have been carried out indicate that the treatment of fungus-infested soil or seeds with certain bacterial preparations may reduce seed decay and the damping oft of the seedlings. Finally, attention should be directed to other roles of the antimicro- bial substances of microbial origin which may possibly be of far greater significance than any eventual therapeutic application. It has long been realized that countless numbers of pathogenic bacteria, such as those responsible for pneumonia, diphtheria, plague, dysentery, cholera, tuberculosis, etc., gain access to the soil via the excreta or remains of diseased organisms. Yet the soil is not a source of epi- demics of these diseases and, indeed, the pathogenic micro-organisms cannot be recovered from the soil in signficant numbers. It is hence obvious that the survival of such forms in the soil is very limited. The suggestion was made long ago that other soil-inhabiting microbes, an- tagonistic to the pathogens, might be at least partially responsible for the rapid disappearance of the latter. The results of recent work lend much support to this view, so that it appears entirely likely that anti- microbial agents, such as those described here, may be of great impor- tance in the natural control of infectious disease. Possibly this may apply to diseases of plants, as well as to those of animals. Certain of the antibiotic microbial substances may, perhaps, play an even more intimate role in the natural control of some superficial infections in man. The skin is a nearly constant habitat of certain micro-organisms, some of which are known to form antimicrobial pro- ducts. Whether these actually serve to protect against skin infections is not known, but there is a little circumstantial evidence indicating that the normal skin flora may be absent or altered in cases of some fungus infections. The mouth and intestinal tract, too, harbor a bac- terial flora which conceivably could be of importance in the control of certain infections. It is hoped that this brief and incomplete account of the antibiotic substances of microbial origin will have served to call attention to a field of inquiry, as yet merely scratched, whose further cultivation may well be expected to contribute greatly to the welfare and scientific advancement of man. 568 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 June 1944. Notre.—During the year, since the preparation of the foregoing account, many notable advances have been made. Of greatest immediate interest are those relating to penicillin. Twenty-one plants for the manufacture of this drug are being erected in the United States and Canada, at a total cost of nearly $20,000,- 000. During the year production has been increased by more than 10,000 percent, and the present program calls for a further fivefold increase. Concurrently, the price has been reduced markedly and will doubtless fall much lower. The great potency of penicillin is emphasized when it is pointed out that the projected maximum production of these 21 plants will aggregate only about 9 pounds of the pure material per day, an amount, however, which is sufficient for the treat- ment of approximately 10,000 serious cases. Much of the credit for making possible the production program is due to the Northern Regional Research Laboratory of the United States Department of Agriculture which, through selection of better strains of the mold and improvement of the culture medium, has increased greatly the yields obtained. Penicillin has been isolated in pure crystalline form. Information as to its structure and synthesis, however, is at present classified as a military secret. Considerable additional experience in the clinical use of penicillin has been gained; it has been found very effective in treatment of pneumococcie pneu- monia and possibly may prove of value against syphilis. Space permits brief mention of only two of the many recent developments in other phases of the field of microbial antibiotic substances. It has been shown that the products isolated from a number of molds and designated by various workers as claviformin, clavacin, clavatin, and patulin are identical and have the formula C;H.O.. This substance has been claimed to be efficacious in treatment of the common cold. Among the newly discovered antibiotics, special interest attaches to the find- ing that an antibacterial substance is produced by the unicellular green alga Chlorella when grown under autotrophic conditions. This material, named chiorellin, is active against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms; it has not yet been obtained in a pure state. . Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Weintraub PLATE 1 * Dee eee at eee es iat eter! G3 Si roe +h cart ¢ 4 q | 1] i 1. Photomicrograph of crystals of gramicidin. 225. 2. Photomicrograph of crystals of tyrocidine hydro- chloride. 320. (From Dubos and Hotchkiss, Trans. and Stud. Coll. Physicians, Philadelphia, April 1942.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Weintraub PLATE 2 DEMONSTRATION OF THE GROWTH-INHIBITING EFFECT OF ACTINOMYCIN. The substance, applied in the cross-shaped groove, diffuses some distance into the agar and prevents the growth of gram-positive bacteria (2= Bacillus mycoides; 4=Sarcina lutea) but not of gram-negative bacteria (1= Escherichia coli; 3= Azotobacter beijerincki). (Courtesy Waksman and Woodr uff, Journal of Bacteri- ology, August 1941.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Weintraub PLATE 3 Penicillium colony. Staphylococci under- going lysis. Normal staphylococcal colony. PHOTOGRAPH OF A CULTURE PLATE SHOWING THE DISSOLUTION OF STAPHYLOCOC- CUS COLONIES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF A COLONY OF PENICILLIUM NOTATUM. (From the publication of Fleming announcing the discovery of penicillin, in British Journal of Experimental Pathology for 1929.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Weintraub PLATE 4 EFFECT OF PENICILLIN ON GROWTH AND CELL DIVISION CF STAPHYLOCCOCUS AUREUS. 1, control culture in broth, after 24 hours; 2, 3, 4, cultures in broth containing 0.00009 percent penicillin, after 3, 5, and 24 hours respectively. Penicillin permits growth of the cells but interferes with their normal division and separation. (From Smith and Hay, Journal of the Franklin Institute, June 1942.) Smithsonian Report, 1943.—Weintraub PLATE 5 ey 6 1 and 2, front and side views of patient at onset of penicillin therapy. Extensive facial cellulitis and edema of both eyes may be noted; patient moribund; 3, appearance of child 96 hours later; 4, appearance of patient 9 days after onset of treatment; 5 and 6, front and side views of patient before dismissal. Complete recovery. (Courtesy W. E. Herrell, Proc. Staff Meetings Mayo Clinic, March 1943.) 4 we see atta Pa SULFONAMIDES IN THE TREATMENT OF WAR WOUNDS AND BURNS! By CuHartes L. Fox, Jr., M. D. Department of Bacteriology, College of Physicians and Surgeons One of the major problems of global warfare is the immediate medical care of those injured by the ruthlessness of mechanized war- fare and aerial bombardment. Our Government has mustered every possible resource to meet this medical emergency. It is indeed ironic that the horror of war casualties has stimulated tremendous progress in medical research. Under the Office of Scien- tific Research and Development in Washington, specialized commit- tees, such as the Committee on Medical Research, have contracted with scientific institutions throughout the nation for specific, vital war research on problems such as the treatment of shock, the control of malaria, the use of sulfonamides in wounds and burns, and many others. New developments are communicated directly to representa- tives of the armed forces—almost from the test tube to the battlefield. Let us now focus on the problem of war wounds and burns and see the progress that has been made. To understand the treatment, at- tempt to visualize exactly what happens. A man is engaged in com- bat. Suddenly he is struck by a bullet or shell fragments, or his clothes may be set on fire, or he may be flung off his ship into water covered with burning oil. Within a very short time help arrives. Through first-aid courses you have learned enough to recognize the immediate problem: treatment for shock and control of bleeding. Now this is where recent research has made an important contri- bution. Patients in shock from burns should not be “kept warm” or have “heat applied” with hot blankets or hot water bottles. Care- ful studies have shown that room temperature (70°-75°) is best; that the extremes of heat or cold are definitely harmful. After shock has been treated, the next problem is to prevent infec- tion. Gunshot wounds are relatively clean but, since bacteria that cause serious infection are everywhere about us, most wounds and 1 Address delivered to the Biological Sciences Group, Special Libraries Association, at their annual conference, 1943. The recent research mentioned is work done under a con- tract, recommended by the Committee on Medical Research, between the Office of Scientific Research and Development and Columbia University. 569 570 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 practically all burns are potentially infected. The word potentially is used because frequently bacteria may be present but no infection will develop provided the bacteria do not gain the upper hand. For example, in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, only 1 out of every 25 soldiers was killed in battle but 1 of every 2 soldiers— 50 percent of the army—died of infections in hospitals. That was before anything was known about bacteria. Then fol- lowed the great discoveries, by Pasteur, Koch, Welch, and many others, of the bacteria that cause infectious diseases. Lord Lister then developed surgical asepsis—which means simply keeping bac- teria from getting into open wounds. These great advances were reflected in the medical history of the last war. To understand the present tremendous progress let us com- pare some results from the last war with similar cases as described by Capt. Reynolds Hayden after the Pearl Harbor raid. In World War I, gunshot wounds of the abdomen resulted in 60 to 80 percent mortality; at Pearl Harbor the mortality from these cases was less than 1 percent, and recent reports from the Solomon Islands place the mortality from these cases at less than 5 percent. Medical officers from all parts of the world who have been treating patients under a variety of circumstances have agreed unanimously that the sulfonamide drugs have been in large measure responsible for this great improvement. Now what are these drugs and how do they help accomplish miracles? It is interesting that the first reports of the amazing chemical that cured bacterial infections came from Germany in 1935. Domagk, of the notorious German chemical and dye trust, reported that he had discovered a red powder which when fed to mice infected with virulent hemolytic streptococci would save all the treated animals while the untreated control animals died in one day. Furthermore, to make the picture confusing, he stated that this red powder had no effect whatso- ever against the same bacteria in the test tube. This made everyone very skeptical even though reports of miraculous cures of patients continued to come out of Germany. Some English and French research workers wanted to repeat these experiments but the French couldn’t get any of the red powder from the dye trust. Fortunately, a brilliant French organic chemist figured out what was in the red powder and discovered how to make it. Then the French bacteriologists made an amazing discovery—most of the big red molecule wasn’t really necessary at all—only a small part of the molecule, the sulfanilamide part, was needed to save the infected mice. And equally amazing, whereas the big red molecule of the Germans had no effect on bacteria in the test tube, the small sulfa- nilamide part could stop the growth of bacteria in the test tube as SULFONAMIDES—FOX by el well as in the body. Since this sulfanilamide part had first been made in 1908 by Gelmo—who, by the way, had found that this chemical helped dyes stick to wool—there were no patent restrictions and every chemical company began making sulfanilamide so that doctors every- where could try it out. In the meanwhile research was conducted in many laboratories, including this, to determine how sulfanilamide worked. It was soon found that bacteria were not killed by the drug but that their rate of multiplication was temporarily retarded. This was called bacteriostasis. In the animal organism, this retardation aided the white blood cells to gain the upper hand and effectively dispose of the inhibited bacteria. Furthermore, this bacteriostatic effect did not begin immediately but only after a lag of several hours during which time the bacteria in the drug environment grew just as well as the control bacteria. It is possible that this delay in action represented the time needed for conversion of the drug itself by oxida- tion to an active principle. A recent discovery, however, has led to another explanation. That is Woods’ observation that para-aminobenzoic acid almost specifically nullifies the action of sulfanilamide, and that there is a definite quanti- tative relationship; i. e., one part of PAB can “block” or nullify 5,000 parts of sulfanilamide. This ratio obtains regardless of which bacterium is used for the test. Woods suggested that PAB is an essential metabolite for the bacteria and that sulfanilamide because of its chemical similarity “blocks” the utilization of PAB by bacteria. Although PAB has been shown to be an essential growth factor for two nonpathogenic bacteria, it has not yet been shown to participate in the metabolism of pathogenic bacteria so the mechanism of the definite antisulfonamide action of PAB remains to be discovered. It is important to differentiate PAB from the other so-called “inhib- itors” of sulfanilamide. Pus, peptone, devitalized tissue, and certain bacterial extracts have been asserted to “inhibit” the action of sulfa- nilamide, Careful study has shown, however, that in general these substances improve the growth of bacteria so that the drug has to grapple with more vigorously growing organisms. These are quite different from PAB which does not appear to alter the growth of bacteria, nevertheless definitely inhibits sulfanilamide bacteriostasis. The practical importance of this distinction will be clarified below. During this time chemists were attempting to synthesize sulfanil- amide like compounds which might be more potent and more effective against a wider variety of bacteria than sulfanilamide itself. Sulfa- pyridine was the first important improvement and established its merit by the success attained in the treatment of pneumonia. Soon afterward, sulfathiazole was synthesized. This substance is free of 572 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 many of the unpleasant and dangerous complications of sulfapyridine and issomewhat more effective. Sulfadiazine, the latest of this group, is about as effective as sulfathiazole but is less toxic and is easily tol- erated by most people. Up to this point the usefulness of these drugs has been evaluated for systemic diseases like pneumonia, men- ingitis, or infection of the blood stream with streptococcus. In these cases sulfonamides are given by mouth and the drug is distributed through the body. A localized infection in one part of the body like a limb or the abdomen can be treated by placing the drug directly in the wound in contact with the infection zone. This provides a high concentration of drug immediately in the dangerous infection zone without subjecting the entire body to the treatment. There are, however, certain practical difficulties. These drugs do not dissolve well and tend to lump or “cake” when poured into wounds. In addition, pus and partly devitalized tissues are excellent nourish- ment for the bacteria and sometimes interfere with the action of the sulfonamides. Studies in this laboratory were focused on the local use of these drugs as a problem of military importance. It soon became apparent that the order of increasing therapeutic potency—sulfanilamide, sul- fapyridine, sulfathiazole, and sulfadiazine—was a consequence of a single physicochemical characteristic: increasing degrees of ionization of these weak acids. It was of further interest that the more ef- fective drugs were likewise more effective in overcoming the block- ing effect of PAB. It was then found that acidity which reduced the ionization of these drugs likewise reduced their activity against bacteria. In addition, acidity also reduced the solubility of these substances. Measurements at the bedside showed that infected wounds usually become extremely acidic. This acidity is sufficient to reduce markedly the antibacterial activity of sulfanilamide and sulfapyridine and to prevent sulfathiazole or sulfadiazine powder from freely dissolving in the infection zone. In addition, this acidity tends to destroy the white blood corpuscles or leucocytes. Since these cells are needed to dispose of the sulfonamide-treated bacteria, they must be preserved to help eradicate invading bacteria. Clinical trials have shown that by using the soluble sodium salts of sulfathiazole or sulfadiazine (in- stead of the insoluble acids themselves) the interference of wound acidity can be minimized and wound infections can be controlled. The chemically “activated” drug is held in solution in the infection zone; and, with the cooperation of the leucocytes, speedily eradicates the bacteria. It is important to realize that this can be accomplished without harming the tissues. On the other hand, antiseptics such as iodine SULFONAMIDES—FOX Hie kill bacteria but also destroy tissue cells in the wounds. This is one of the greatest virtues of the sulfonamides—their selective action against bacteria without damaging tissue cells. With this background you might predict that burns would be par- ticularly suited for local sulfonamide therapy. Insofar as burns rep- resent destruction of the skin, which is man’s natural barrier against infection, sulfonamides are valuable in preventing bacteria from establishing infection in the damaged areas. But destruction of the skin also presents another serious problem—loss of the mechanical covering of the underlying tissues. The heat of a burn causes the tis- sues to become greatly swollen and waterlogged with a plasmalike fluid. Loss of the skin covering from burns permits the escape of this fluid and aggravates the shock. Many types of substitute cover- ings have been proposed but the most satisfactory seems to be a new pseudo skin formed in the burned region from the damaged skin. To accomplish this, tannic acid has been used for years to coagulate the burned skin and produce a hard, stiff, adherent covering known as an eschar. Now, tannins are used in the leather industry to “tan” animal skins and convert them into leather. The late Charles Wilson, a leather chemist, showed that tannic acid itself caused animal skins to become swollen and unfit for leather. In contrast, however, he found that when tannic acid is neutralized to the slightly alkaline reaction of the tissues, skins can be “tanned” without swelling, and soft, pliable leather is formed. Similarly, when neutralized tannic acid is used on burned human skin, very little swelling occurs and a soft, pliable covering is formed. This effectively prevents loss of the plasmalike tissue fluids. In addition, pain is alleviated immediately. This neutralized or slightly alkaline tannic acid works very well with the sodium salts of the sulfonamides. In the past, tannic acid itself has been used with the sulfonamides but too frequently infec- tions have occurred under the hard eschar of coagulated burned skin. The probable explanation is that the acidity of the tannic acid chem- ically inactivated the sulfonamide as described above. The neutral- ized tannic acid, on the other hand, keeps the sulfonamide in solution in the activated ionized form. The trials in human burns up to the present have indicated that this combination effectively prevents infection. The mixture is prepared in ointment form so that it can be quickly and easily applied and then covered with a light protective bandage. Since the soluble sulfonamide is brought into immediate contact with the zone of potential infection, no additional drug by mouth is neces- sary. It is not understood how this mixture relieves the pain, but the fact remains that the pain disappears after applying the ointment. 574 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 After a week the dressing is removed. Most of the ointment is found to have disappeared but the burn is covered with a soft, pliable protective eschar. Regeneration of new skin will occur under this covering provided that infection does not stifle this process. Treatment in this phase follows a cardinal principle of sulfonamide therapy—maintaining the concentration of drug in the infection zone as long as any bacteria may be present. This is accomplished by placing gauze impregnated with petrolatum, paraffin, and sodium sulfathiazole on the burned areas. When the skin is completely destroyed, skin from another part of the body must be grafted to make up the loss. To insure that the grafts will grow and not be overrun by spreading infection, addi- tional sodium salts of the sulfonamides are used in the grafted areas. This brief report has given you a glimpse of the local uses of sulfon- amides. They are used first in the fresh wound or burn to prevent the development of infection; then they are used to keep down infec- tion while healing occurs or when skin grafts are used to cover the defect. Recent research has shown that infected wounds become acidic and that when the acidity is overcome the drugs are “activated” and in solution in the infection zone. It remains for future research to discover additional improvements that may further reduce the present low incidence of infection in wounds and burns. THE YELLOW FEVER SITUATION IN THE AMERICAS? By Witpur A. SAWYER Director, International Health Division, The Rockefeller Foundation The early history of yellow fever, dominated by records of epi- demics in cities and outbreaks on ships, was largely characterized by waves of the disease. ‘There were outstanding epidemic years in which the disease extended to the seaport cities of Spain, to Philadelphia, and to New York, or up the Mississippi to Memphis and beyond, and also years in which there was widespread involvement of Central America and Mexico. The same changeable epidemic picture has been observed in West Africa and South America. The disease was never- theless continuously present for long periods in certain cities, like Habana and Guayaquil, where the supply of susceptible persons and an abundance of aegypti mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) permitted the disease to appear year after year. The outstanding characteristics of the historic yellow fever picture were sudden epidemic extensions of the disease far beyond any known endemic foci, followed by absence of the disease or relative quiescence. THE SHIFTING LOCALIZATION OF JUNGLE YELLOW FEVER Observations during the past few years in several countries of South America suggest that jungle yellow fever resembles, more closely than was at first apparent, the old-time urban aegypti-transmitted disease in its tendency toward wavelike epidemics and shifting local- ization. The world-wide yellow fever immunity survey, carried out from 1931 to 1937, by testing human sera from many countries by means of the mouse-protection test, showed that immunizing infec- tions had recently occurred in many places previously supposed to be free of infection (Sawyer, Bauer, and Whitman, 1937; Soper, 1937a) and the systematic collection and histologic examination of liver speci- mens in South America showed that fatal cases of yellow fever were occurring in scattered locations in the newly revealed endemic areas 1 The observations on which this paper is based have been made in large part by members of the staff of the International Health Division of The Rockefeller Foundation and of the health authorities of the governments with which the Division is collaborating. The paper is here reprinted by permission from the Proceedings of the Highth American Scientific Congress, vol. 6, 1942. 575 576 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 in South America. The tendency was to consider the disease in these areas as more or less static although the first observation of proved jungle yellow fever was made during a sharp epidemic in the Valle do Chanaan in Brazil (Soper et al., 1933). The very fact that jungle yellow fever was transmitted only under biological conditions pecu- liar to a forest environment with its special insects and animals would seem also to limit the spread as jungle yellow fever. It has, however, become increasingly clear that jungle yellow fever may sweep as an epidemic through a wide extent of the favorable environment and then become urban, aegypti-transmitted yellow fever when it reaches a community in which that mosquito abounds. That such spread of yellow fever from jungle to city has not been observed to occur re- cently needs special comment. THE ABSENCE OF AEGYPTI-TRANSMITTED EPIDEMICS AND THE DANGER OF THEIR REAPPEARANCE A striking and reassuring feature of the present situation in the Western Hemisphere is the absence of the classical type of yellow fever outbreak, in which the disease is transmitted by the long- recognized mosquito vector Aedes aegypti and tends to be localized in cities and to invade the channels of commerce. For 3 years no reports of such outbreaks have been confirmed in the Americas. The credit must rest largely with those who have continued and perfected the control of Aedes aegypti, so successfully begun by Gorgas and Oswaldo Cruz, for the threat of infection from areas of endemic and epidemic jungle yellow fever in the interior of South America appears to have been continuous for an undetermined period extending far into the past. Were it not for the noninfectibility of Rio de Janeiro in 1938, owing to well-organized aegypti control, we might have seen another serious epidemic in that city, with spread to other communities and shipping, for Soper (1938) has reported that four persons infected in a nearby epidemic of jungle yellow fever were known to have come into the city without causing any local infections. That jungle yellow fever is the same disease as urban yellow fever is well established. That it may be transmitted by Aedes aegypti has been repeatedly demonstrated in the laboratory (Whitman and Antunes, 1938), and on one occasion the establishment of yellow fever of jungle origin in a Brazilian town and its transmission there by Aedes aegypti were observed (Walcott et al., 1937). Some risk of urban yellow fever epidemics will remain as long as jungle yellow fever persists. Inasmuch as the possibility of complete extermination of the disease now seems remote if not impossible, the health author- ities are faced with the problem of choosing wisely between the avail- able methods of confining jungle yellow fever to the areas in which it is endemic, reducing the human involvement within these areas, YELLOW FEVER—SAWYER ny Wt and protecting threatened cities and rural populations against infection. The greatest disaster which yellow fever could bring would be the renewed involvement of large urban populations in aegypti-spread yellow fever, particularly if the cities affected were seaports from which the disease might easily spread to other seaports as well as to the surrounding towns. It is therefore a matter of moment that the methods of preventing urban yellow fever through suppression of Aedes aegypti have been so perfected by the Brazilian Yellow Fever Service that any city may easily solve its yellow fever problem without excessive cost by making itself noninfectible and may maintain this condition. METHOD IN USE TO PREVENT ARGYPTI-TRANSMITTED YELLOW FEVER The essential improvements of method that have made it possible to reduce the breeding of Aedes aegypti almost to the point of local extermination have been described by Soper (1937b). The weekly inspection of premises for aegypti larvae and the destruction of breed- ing places are being supplemented by the search for adult mosquitoes by special squads. If any are found, the breeding foci are sought out and destroyed. ‘To render the destruction of foci as certain as possible, petroleum (3 parts fuel oil and 1 part kerosene) is placed on water found to contain larvae. The oil and the necessary subsequent clean- ing are much more likely to destroy mosquito eggs than the older method of merely emptying out the water. Such methods have so reduced breeding that it has been possible in many cities to lengthen the period between house inspections and thus to lower the cost of the service. These methods make it entirely practicable for cities to acquire and maintain complete immunity to yellow fever regardless of the degree of exposure. The nearer to jungle yellow fever the more urgent the precautions, but it must be kept in mind that the critical distances have been greatly extended by the increased rapidity of travel, especially by airplane. Those cities and towns through which yellow fever would have to pass in order to spread from the jungle areas or to invade an uninfected country have a special responsibility for keeping themselves noninfectible. THE IDENTIFICATION OF YELLOW FEVER To be completely on their guard against aegypti-transmitted yellow fever, the health authorities need to be in a position to recognize yel- low fever immediately if it should appear, particularly if adequate steps have not already been taken to make their cities noninfectible. The history of yellow fever contains many instances in which failure 578 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 to suspect yellow fever or disagreement as to the diagnosis have caused the loss of valuable time. No longer is it sufficient to accept as final the weighed opinion of the experienced clinician, although a decision on the basis of symptoms may be all that is possible before the first pre- cautionary measures have to be taken. For the final decision as to the nature of a case or outbreak, the laboratory is now giving con- clusive information even when the cases are clinically mild and lack nearly all the well-known classical symptoms (Sawyer, 1939). In such cases blood specimens are drawn aseptically as early as possible during the acute disease and again 3 weeks after the onset. If the serum from both specimens is examined by means of the mouse- protection test in a yellow fever laboratory, and the first specimen gives no protection against yellow fever virus while the second protects definitely, the case is one of yellow fever. If neither or both speci- mens give definite protection, the illness must be some other disease. Where a more serious investigation is required, the attempt is made to isolate the virus itself from cases during the first 3 days of illness by injecting blood serum from the sick person intracerebrally in amounts of 0.03 ce. into six susceptible mice. Any virus thus isolated may be studied in detail in the laboratory. Great care must be exer- cised to prevent infectious blood from coming into contact with the hands of a nonimmune investigator. These methods establish the diagnosis beyond dispute whenever the case has been seen early. If there are fatal cases, it is important to obtain at least a specimen of liver by autopsy or puncture with the viscerotome and to send it in 10 percent formalin to a pathologist acquainted with the lesions of yellow fever. The determination of the nature of the disease in the individual case is, however, only one step in the thorough epidemio- logic investigation necessary for the adequate study of an outbreak of yellow fever. THE PROBABLE ABSENCE OF YELLOW FEVER OUTSIDE SOUTH AMERICA When adequate in number, sufficiently representative, and com- pletely negative, protection tests give the strongest possible evidence of the absence of yellow fever, whether transmitted by aegypti or the unknown jungle vectors. The results of protection tests of sera from North America, Central America, and the West Indies were published by Sawyer, Bauer, and Whitman early in 1937. The speci- mens had been collected by many cooperating persons from 1932 through the early part of 1986. When the collection began, jungle yellow fever had not been discovered or defined, and fewer specimens were taken in rural or forest environment than would otherwise have been the case. Moreover, a brief survey with completely negative YELLOW FEVER-—SAWYER 579 results only in young children could not be accepted as fully conclu- sive evidence of the absence of yellow fever, and this was the only evidence available in some countries. The disease had been present in E] Salvador in the form of a sudden epidemic of unknown origin as late as 1924 and had been widespread in Central America and Mexico in 1921, and consequently many adult immunes were discovered. The results of the survey were in general consistent with the complete disappearance of yellow fever from the entire region, including North America, Central America, and the West Indies, but the finding of three protective sera among those from 321 Mexican children under 10 years of age made it seem probable that unrecognized yellow fever infection had existed in that country as late as 1925, when the youngest of the three immune children was born. It was apparent that yellow fever might still be lingering in Mexico or some one of the Central American countries or West Indian islands, and it was decided to watch the situation over a period of years and investigate all suspicious reports. Canada and the United States seemed definitely free of in- fection. In the absence of any suspicion of the reintroduction of the disease, no further investigation of these two countries was made. In Mexico, the West Indies, and all but two of the countries of Cen- tral America, there have been neither observations nor rumors sug- gesting the reappearance of yellow fever. Accordingly, the tenta- tive opinion that they are free from yellow fever, as published in 1937, seems to have been strengthened by the lapse of time. CASES RESEMBLING YELLOW FEVER IN COSTA RICA Reports of two fatal illnesses in Costa Rica aroused apprehension lest jungle yellow fever might be present there. ‘The first case origi- nated early in October 1938 in the town of Parrita at about the mid- dle of the southwestern coast of that country, and the patient died in a hospital in the town of Puntarenas. Parrita is in a region being developed for banana culture by the clearance of virgin jungle, exactly the kind of situation which would bring jungle yellow fever to light if it were present. The symptoms of the patient included pro- nounced jaundice, high fever, slow pulse, albuminuria, and vomiting of blood. There was no necropsy. The second case was in a man 26 years old. It originated in Sierpe, on the seacoast near the southwestern end of the Pacific slope of Costa Rica. Here, too, there is a banana development and forest clearance. This patient had fever, a pulse rate of 120, albuminuria, acute epigas- tric pain, slight jaundice, and persistent vomiting. There were no malaria parasites in his blood. The patient died on the fourth day after admission to hospital at Puntarenas. At autopsy the stomach was found to contain a dark fiuid, and there were hemorrhagic spots 580 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1943 inthe mucosa. The liver was yellow and friable and the kidneys large and congested. There were no histological examinations. No further cases suspicious of yellow fever were reported. It was decided to make a thorough study of the situation in the forested hinterland of the Golfo Dulce region on the Pacific slope, inland from the place in which the second case had occurred. The investigation was considered especially necessary as the previous investigation in Costa Rica had been confined largely to urban com- munities and had not reached the forested regions. In the original immunity survey of Costa Rica 190 blood specimens were collected by Dr. D. M. Molloy from 1932 to 1934 in the cities of San José, Alajuela, Liberia, Puntarenas, and Puerto Limén and sent for examination to the laboratories of the International Health Division of The Rocke- feller Foundation in New York. The results were included in the re- port published by Sawyer, Bauer, and Whitman (1937). There were no immunes among the 115 persons bled who were under 20 years of age, while there were 18 among the 75 older persons. Among the coun- tries of Central America, Costa Rica and Panama stood out in the published report as the only ones in which immunes were not found in the age group 15 to 19 years. Realizing the significance of the reports of suspected yellow fever, Dr. Pejia Chavarria, then Secretary of Public Health and Welfare for Costa Rica, and Dr. Henry W. Kumm, of the International Health Division, made a field investigation in January 1939 and collected 133 blood specimens from three Boruca Indian communities in the region in which the deaths had occurred. These villages were Potrero Grande, Boruca, and Palmar. They are located in or near extensive tracts of virgin forest at elevations of 800 feet, 2,000 feet, and 100 feet, respectively. Specimens were taken only from persons who had al- ways lived in the same locality and this restriction prevented obtain- ing more than 19 specimens from males over 15 years of age. The in- habitants were principally Indian, although some of the blood donors were mestizos. Some of the older Indians stated that they had often seen severe cases of fever, some of which were fatal in a few days and were characterized by jaundice and black vomit. No evidence of ma- laria was found in Boruca, but the disease was quite prevalent in Pal- mar. As in the case of the other investigations here reported, the specimens were sent to the laboratories of the International Health Division for examination. No evidence of immunity was obtained in any of the tests. The results are included in table 1. The locations in which blood specimens were collected are shown in figure 1. Although the investigation seemed adequately to rule out the pres- ence of yellow fever in the region in which the suspect cases had oc- curred, it was deemed advisable to make similar inquiries in other representative forested regions of Costa Rica. In the following year YELLOW FEVER—SAWYER 581 Dr. Henry W. Kumm collected 70 blood specimens from the Guatuso Indians. They inhabit a forested region about equidistant from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans near the northern frontier of Costa Rict, in the Province of Alajuela. As is seen in table 1 the protection test results were entirely negative. Dr. Kumm then completed the study by investigating 10 districts of the Talamanca Valley at the southeastern end of the Atlantic slope of Costa Rica. The number of specimens collected was 193 and the results are classified by age groups in table 1. The persons bled had never been out of the area. They Lae eee em . % *H. if COSTA RICA —CENTRAL AMERICA showing the forested areas and the localities Where blood specimens for protection tests against yellow fever virus were obtained. FOVEStEC MOTE OS are onion hats aclelteteigicissisiels Localities Whete specimens were obtained by Du. Molloy in 1932 and 1934..@ Localities studied in 1939 and 1940 for possible presence of jungle yellow fever... Ficuke 1.—Localities in Costa Rica where yellow fever immunity surveys were made in 1932-34 and 1939-40, were mostly American Indians, although a few were listed as mestizos and were only partly of Indian blood. The blood from the Tala- manca Indians was devoid of protective power against yellow fever. The new evidence, when considered in relation to that which was previously collected, strongly suggests that yellow fever has not been present in Costa Rica for at least 20 years and that it had not been prevalent among the Indians of the forested regions of the interior during the lives of the present inhabitants. There is a possibility that these regions were never involved. 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