=
Webruary 112----
March 1 O22 sae
April gd vee eee
REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Dr. Harold P. Stern, Freer Gallery of Art, “Life in 14th
Century Japan.” Attendance, 132.
Dr. Aschwin Lippe, Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Early
Chalukya Sculpture of India (Sixth and Seventh Cen-
turies).’’ Attendance, 46.
Michael Gough, Esq., British Institute of Archaeology,
Ankara, Turkey, “Christian Archaeology in Asia Minor;
the Last Ten Years.” Attendance, 218.
Fujio Koyama, Esq., Ceramics Historian, Tokyo, Japan,
“Three-color Pottery in the Shosdin.” Attendance, 91.
The Smithsonian Institution used the auditorium as follows:
1963
September 27______
National Air Museum—lecture by Elmer A. Sperry, Jr.,
“Early Airplane Instruments.’ Attendance, 112.
The auditorium was used by seven outside organizations for 39
meetings as follows:
1963
United States Department of Agriculture:
United Givers Fund__________ September 19; attendance, 50.
4-H Club Group__-__-------_ October 24; attendance, 111.
National Outlook Conference. November 20; attendance, 230.
November 21; attendance, 83.
Annual Farmers’ Cooperative December 9; attendance, 120.
Workshop.
United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare:
Food and Drug Administra- November 13; attendance, 138
tion, Bureau
of Biological
and Physical Sciences.
DAL / RP Bee ee December 10; attendance, 81.
Women’s Committee, National October 2; attendance, 95.
Symphony Orchestra.
Washington Chapter, National October 2; attendance, 91.
Women’s Committee, Brandeis
University.
1964
United States Department of Agriculture:
Federal Extension Service___ January 8; attendance, 92.
January 9; attendance, 8&5.
January 10; attendance, 97.
February 5; attendance, 638.
Forest Service.._..—..-..=.=. January 22; attendance, 64.
March 2; attendance, 189.
Rural Electrification Admin- February 4; attendance, 71.
istration.
Publicsnearing= =) 22-3 ee April 9; attendance, 225.
April 10; attendance, 81.
SECRETARY’S REPORT 209
Office of the Inspector Gen- April 28; attendance, 48.
eral. April 29; attendance, 70.
April 30; attendance, 83.
May 1; attendance, 63.
May 5; attendance, 75.
May 6; attendance, 84.
May 7; attendance, 95.
May 8; attendance, 59.
United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare:
Food and Drug Administra- January 15; attendance, 93.
tion, Bureau of Biological February 19; attendance, 137.
and Physical Sciences.
Division of Pharmacology___. January 24; attendance, 81.
General meeting_____________ April 15; attendance, 76.
Washington Fashion Group:
Ninth Fashion Career Course:
“Fashion Showmanship”’_.._ February 17; attendance, 242.
“Accessories to Fashion”___ February 24; attendance, 256.
“Fashion in the Home’_____ March 2; attendance, 235.
“Fashion Communication”__ March 9; attendance, 234.
“Fashion Careers Un- March16; attendance, 234.
limited.”
“Fashion Designing”’_______ March 28 ; attendance, 237.
Archaeological Institute of America:
Lecture by Professor D. P. April 16; attendance, 35.
Hansen, New York Uni-
versity, “Sculpture from
Nippur.”
National Academy of Sciences:
Committee on Vision_________ April 23; attendance, 122.
April 24 ; attendance, 160.
STAFF ACTIVITIES
The work of the staff members has been devoted to the study of
new accessions, of objects contemplated for purchase, and of objects
submitted for examination, as well as to individual research projects
in the fields represented by the collection of Chinese, Japanese, Per-
sian, Arabic, and Indian materials. In all, 17,894 objects and 1,298
photographs were examined, and 1,093 Oriental language inscriptions
were translated for outside individuals and institutions. By request,
32 groups totaling 859 persons met in the exhibition galleries for
docent service by the staff members. Ten groups totaling 98 persons
were given docent service by staff members in the storage rooms.
Among the visitors were 132 distinguished foreign scholars or
persons holding official positions in their own countries who came here
under the auspices of the Department of State to study museum ad-
ministration and practices in this country.
210 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
TECHNICAL LABORATORY
A total of 218 objects was examined by various methods, including
microscopic and microchemical examination, and examination in ul-
traviolet light. Of the 85 Freer objects examined, 47 were bronze ob-
jects analysed by wet chemical methods, and 28 were objects of stone,
bronze, silver, and other metalwork and pottery which were cleaned
and/or repaired. Forty-two objects being considered for purchase
were examined. Ninety-one objects were examined for other divisions
of the Smithsonian, other museums, and private owners. Two of these
were repaired, and 10 written reports were made. Forty-seven of
these objects were coins belonging to the Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and Collection, of which the specific gravity was determined.
In addition, 22 bronze standards were analyzed by wet methods; and
75 identifications were made by X-ray diffraction. Twenty inquiries
were answered by letter, and numerous inquiries by telephone.
Analysis by wet chemical methods of Chinese bronzes in the Freer
collection was continued. Further systematic collection of data on
the technology of ancient copper and bronze in the Far East was
undertaken. Much of the information gained will be presented in
a forthcoming catalog on Ancient Chinese Bronze Ceremonial Vessels
in the Freer Gallery of Art. Continued studies on the corrosion
products of ancient metal objects were made. The editing of J/C
Abstracts, published by the International Institute of Conservation
of Historic and Artistic Works, London, continued to be carried on
in the Technical Laboratory.
LECTURES BY STAFF MEMBERS
By invitation, the following lectures were given outside the Gallery
by staff members (illustrated unless otherwise noted) :
1963
June 25—August 25__. W. B. Trousdale gave a series of 16 lectures on Chinese
Art History, for the Second Summer Institute in Chi-
nese Civilization, under the auspices of the United
States Education Foundation in China, Taichung, Tai-
wan. Average attendance, 29; total attendance, 464.
Duly ioe eae eee Mr. Trousdale, at the China Society, Taichung Branch,
Tunghai University, Taiwan, “Archaic Chinese Jade.”
Attendance, 50.
guOlyegose seek ees Dr. Richard Httinghausen, at Georgetown University
(Peace Corps Training Program), Washington, D.C.,
“Turkish Art.” Attendance, 100.
DUN eo ae ees R. J. Gettens, at the meeting of the ICOM Committee for
Scientific Museum Laboratories held in Leningrad,
U.S.S.R., read a paper on “Mineral Alteration Products
on Ancient Metal Objects.’ Attendance, 75.
Secretary's Report, 1964
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Secretary's Report, 1964 PLATE 6
The Bodhisattva Fugen. Japanese painting, Heian period, 12th century
Buddhist school. 63.3, Freer Gallery of Art.
Secretary’s Report, 1964 PLATE 7
Vase, by Ninsei Nonomura. Japanese pottery, Edo period, 17th century. 64.1, Freer
Gallery of Art.
Secretary's Report, 1964 PLATE 8
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Chinese painting.
Landscape, by Liu Chiieh (1410-1472).
SECRETARY’S REPORT Zit
1968
October! (2525228 2s Dr. John A. Pope, at the Society for Asian Art, Berkeley,
Calif., “Japanese Porcelain and the Dutch Trade.”
Attendance, 75.
October 822 = Dr. Pope, at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., ‘‘The
Monuments of Angkor.” Attendance, 750.
October: 92-222 222.2 Dr. Pope, at the University of California, Berkeley, Jap-
anese Porcelain and the Dutch Trade.” Attendance,
200.
Octoberslon a2. Dr. Ettinghausen, at the Alburz Foundation, Teheran,
Iran, “The Meaning of Art and Archaeology” (not
illustrated). Attendance, 65.
Octobernd4 SS. 2-2... Dr. Pope, at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa
Barbara, Calif., “The Monuments of Angkor.” Attend-
ance, 150.
Octoberl422-2.- == Dr. Ettinghausen, at the Iran-American Society, Teheran,
Iran, “The Interest of the United States in Iranian
Art and Culture.” Attendance, 165.
October! G222222-22 Dr. Pope, at the Collectors Group, Los Angeles County
Museum, Los Angeles, Calif., ““The Collectors and Collec-
tions of Chinese Art.” Attendance, 40.
October d 6222223 5—5 Dr. Ettinghausen, at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the
University of Teheran, “Masterworks of Iranian Art in
Washington.” Attendance, 250.
October ie ee Dr. Pope, at the University of California in Los Angeles,
“The Harly Trade in Chinese Porcelain.” Attendance,
150.
October i252. 2. Dr. Pope, at the Japan-America Society of Southern Cali-
fornia, Los Angeles, “Japanese Porcelain and the Dutch
Trade.” Attendance, 250.
October £72 = = Dr. Ettinghausen, at the Literary College of the University
of Teheran, ‘‘Persian Miniature Painting.” Attendance,
135.
OctobertS 2 aco Dr. Pope, at the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego,
Calif., “The Early Trade in Chinese Porcelain.” Attend-
ance, 125.
Octobernia9eek eo Dr. Pope, at the Art Center in La Jolla, Calif., “Collectors
and Collections of Chinese Art.” Attendance, 150.
October 21s 2 Dr. Pope, at the University of Arizona, Tucson, “The
Monuments of Angkor.” Attendance, 150.
October sla .22 seus 2 Dr. Pope, at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., “Note on
the Early Trade in Chinese Porcelain.” Attendance,
alts
November 4______-- Dr. Httinghausen, at the Turkish-American Association,
The Art Lovers’ Club, Ankara, Turkey, ‘American In-
terest in Turkish Art’ (not illustrated). Attendance,
150.
November {i2i=2.2 =. Dr. Ettinghausen, at Ankara University, Literary College,
“Persian Miniatures” (in German). Attendance, 100.
766-476—65——_15
212 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
19638
November 14-------- Dr. H. P. Stern, at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto,
Canada, “Popular Painting of Tokugawa Japan.” At-
tendance, 175.
December’ b=2——---—- Dr. Ettinghausen, at the Oriental Seminar of the Univer-
sity of Frankfurt, Germany, “The Development of Per-
sian Miniature Painting” (in German). Attendance, 25.
December 122---==_- Dr. Pope, at Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., “Some
Aspects of the Pre-Eighteenth Century World Trade in
Chinese Porcelain.’ Attendance, 175.
1964
acme 3 Ue Dr. Pope, at the Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Williams-
burg, Va., “The Far East and Early America ; Especially
Porcelain.’ Attendance, 350.
March, 1322 Mr. Gettens, at a symposium on “Aims and Essential In-
formation for Reports on Technical Studies of Archae-
ological Objects,’ at Columbia University, New York
City, “Requirements for Published Data on Chemical
Analysis of Archaeological Objects.” Attendance, 30.
Marchnto2 ss eae Dr. Pope, at a symposium on “Chinese Export Porcelain,”
at Winterthur, Del., “Shapes and Decoration Common to
Porcelain Made for Export to the Middle East, Portugal,
Holland, and England to 1750.” Attendance, 100.
Aprila(ps see eee Dr. Stern, at the Musée Guimet, Paris, France, “Japanese
Art.” Attendance, 10. (Staff members only.)
April (eee Dr. Stern, at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Nether-
lands, “Hokusai.” Attendance, 125.
April Zoe) a Dr. J. F. Cahill, at the Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm
Beach, Fla., “Chinese Painting and Contemporary Art.”
Attendance, 70.
Aprilt 22-2 Sons eae Dr. Cahill, at the “Coffee Hour Talk,” Princeton Univer-
sity, Princeton, N.J., “Photographing in Taiwan.” At-
tendance, 30.
April 2322.22 Sooeene Mr. Gettens, at the 1964 National Junior Science and
Humanities Symposium, Industrial College of the Armed
Forces, Fort McNair, ‘““Prying into Chinese Ceremonial
Bronzes, the Documents of an Ancient Culture.” At-
tendance, 35.
Mary 22 ee Dr. Cahill, at the University of Chattanooga Faculty Semi-
nar, Chattanooga, Tenn., “Chinese and Japanese Art:
Concurrences and Divergences,” and “Chinese and Jap-
anese Paintings.” Attendance, respectively, 150 and 14.
May 142 See ee Dr. Stern, at the Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen, Denmark,
“Life in 14th Century Japan.” Attendance, 150.
Mayie2e nib eee Dr. Stern, at the Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen,
“Hokusai.” Attendance, 150.
Mavis Zee ee Dr. Stern, at Oxford University, England, “Hokusai.” At-
tendance, 75.
May, Ios see Dr. Stern, at Oxford University, “Life in 14th Century
Japan.” Attendance, 80.
Mays eo sace aces Dr. Stern, at the Japan Society of England, London, “Ho-
kusai.” Attendance, 65.
SECRETARY'S REPORT 213
1964
prio ey a 2 LS a ee Dr. Ettinghausen, at the National Gallery of Art, “The
Last Flowering of Iranian Art.” Attendance, 375.
une) Oe kes Dr. Cahill, at the Conference on the China for Presidents,
Deans and Senior Faculty Members of New York State
Colleges, Pinebrook, Saranac Lake, N.Y., “Chinese Art
and Its Background in Thought.” Attendance, 35.
Members of the staff traveled outside Washington on official business
as follows:
19638
May 8—July 9_---._- Dr. J. A. Pope, in Europe, attended the opening of the
new Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, in Stockholm,
Sweden. He also saw other collections in Sweden,
Denmark, The Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland,
France, and England: in numerous museums, private
collections, and dealers.
June 14-July 15_____ Miss H. H. West, in Europe, visited numerous museums in
Italy, France, and England; she also attended a sym-
posium on art conservation sponsored by the Conserva-
tion Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York
University, held at the Institut Royal du Patrimoine
Artistique, in Brussels, Belgium.
June 17-Novem- W. B. Trousdale, in the Orient and Hurope, examined
ber 22. objects in museums and private collections, and visited
archeological sites, in Japan, Taiwan, India, Afghanis-
tan, Iran, Lebanon, Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden, and
England.
June 29-July 1___-~- Dr. J. F. Cahill, in New York City, attended the exhibi-
tion, “Evolution of the Buddha Image,” at Asia House
Gallery ; and examined objects for numerous dealers.
wuly 15—-19seess oss Mrs. B. M. Usilton, in Chicago, Ill., attended the annual
meetings of the American Library Association.
AUSUSEF1O2: SEL ees Dr. Pope, in Williamsburg, Va., examined pottery for Co-
lonial Williamsburg.
Ageust 20ceaouer ek Dr. H. P. Stern, in New York City, examined miscellan-
eous objects for a dealer.
August 21-22_______ Dr. Stern, in Philadelphia, examined miscellaneous objects
at the Museum of Art and at the University Museum;
the latter included the collection of Edmund Zalinski.
August 29-Novem- T. Sugiura, in Japan, met with other restorers, ordered
ber 22. special silks and other supplies unobtainable in the
United States, and saw numerous objects in museums,
private collections, and dealers.
September 1-Octo- Mr. Gettens, in Europe, attended meetings of the ICOM
ber 16. Committee for Scientific Museum Laboratories held in
Leningrad and Moscow. He also visited museums and
laboratories in these two cities, and in Vienna, Miinich,
Ziirich, Stuttgart, Brussels, Paris, London, and Dublin,
examining objects at the British Museum in London,
the Musée Cernuschi in Paris, and the Institut Royal du
Patrimoine Artistique in Brussels.
214 |= ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
1963
September 2-March Dr. Cahill, in Japan, Formosa (Taiwan), and Hong Kong,
30. attended a number of exhibitions, including “Art of the
Ming and Ch‘ing Dynasties” and “Indian Art” at the
Tokyo National Museum; saw numerous objects in
museums and private collections; and participated in
the Taiwan Photographie Project to aid in the estab-
lishment of two archives of photographic negatives of
objects in the National Palace and Central Museums,
one archive to be kept in Taiwan, and the other to be
deposited with an institution in the United States; this
project was financed by the Rockefeller, Bollingen, and
Henry Luce Foundations, with the Freer Gallery of Art
administering the funds.
September 2-April R. A. Schwartz, in Japan and Formosa (Taiwan), at-
24. tended a number of exhibitions and saw numerous ob-
jects in museums and private collections; photographed
Chinese paintings in the exhibition, “Art of the Ming
and Ch‘ing Dynasties” at the Tokyo National Museum;
and participated in the Taiwan Photographie Project,
doing the actual photographie work; photographed
numerous kiln sites and outstanding examples of old
palace architecture; approximately 7,000 color and 9,000
black-and-white negatives, a total of 16,000, were made
on the taiwan project.
September 7-9__-~- Dr. Pope, in New York City, examined miscellaneous
Chinese and Japanese objects at the Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art and at one dealer’s.
September 9-20__._._ Dr. Stern, in Ann Arbor, Mich., taught a 2-week seminar
on Ukivoe painting, at the University of Michigan.
September 18-De- Dr. Ettinghausen, in Venice, Italy, attended the Second
cember 16. International Congress of Turkish Art; helped plan two
traveling exhibitions. “7,000 Years of Iranian Art” and
“Art Treasures from Turkish Museums,” to be shown
in the United States: saw collections in museums in
Iran, Turkey, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, and
England, and examined objects for numerous private
collectors and dealers.
October 7-24_______. Dr. Pope, in California, visited the collections and exam-
ined objects in the Brundage Collection of the M. H.
DeYoung Memorial Museum, the Stanford University
Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the
San Diego Museum of Art; also examined objects at
numerous dealers and in private collectors, including
one in Tucson, Ariz.
October 16-19_____-_. Mrs. Usilton, in Atlantie City, N.J., attended meetings of
the Middle Atlantic Regional Library Conference.
October 18-19______. Dr. Stern, in New York City, examined objects at several
dealers.
October sie 2a Dr. Pope, in Ithaca, N.Y., examined Chinese pottery at the
Andrew Dixon White Museum of Art, Cornell Univer-
sity.
November 1-2______. Dr. Pope, in New York City, examined objects at several
dealers.
SECRETARY'S REPORT 215
1963
November 4-8_-----. Dr. Stern, in Ann Arbor, taught a one-week seminar on
Japanese painting, at the University of Michigan.
November 13-15_-_--. Dr. Stern, in Toronto, Canada, examined numerous Chi-
nese and Japanese objects at the Royal Ontario Museum.
November 18__-----. Dr. Pope, in Greenville, Del., examined objects in a pri-
vate collection and at the Winterthur Museum.
November 29- Dr. Pope, in Kansas City, Mo., examined objects at the
December 2. William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and in a private
collection; and in Chicago examined objects at the Art
Institute and at a dealer.
1964
AJIT TA PA Mrs. E. West TitzHugh, in Baltimore, Md., visited the Wal-
ters Art Gallery, regarding the conservation of Arme-
nian manuscripts, and the new laboratory at the Balti-
more Museum of Art.
January, 18=2222-2-— Dr. Pope, in Cambridge, Mass., attended a meeting of the
ad hoc Committee on Tenure Appointments, Harvard
University ; and in New York City examined objects at
several dealers.
January 28-80______ Dr. Pope, in Williamsburg, attended the Antiques Forum,
during which time he examined objects for the Depart-
ment of Archaeology, Colonial Williamsburg.
January 30-31______ Dr. Ettinghausen, in Philadelphia, attended the annual
meeting of the College Art Association and examined
objects at the Free Library of Philadelphia and in a
private collection.
February 7—-8__-_~_- Dr. Ettinghausen, in New York City, attended the exhibi-
tion of Mughal painting at Asia House; met with Prof.
Edith Porada, Columbia University, regarding the cata-
log of the exhibition, ‘7,000 Years of Iranian Art’; and
examined objects at several dealers.
February 15-16_____ Dr. Pope, in New York City, attended meetings of the
American Council of Learned Societies S8.S.R.C. Com-
mittee for Grants on Asian Studies.
Marchrge = tesa ies Dr. Pope, in Buffalo, N.Y., examined objects in the von der
Heydt Collection at the Museum of Science.
March isoeseeer Dr. Pope, at Winterthur, Del., examined objects for the
Winterthur Museum and in a private collection.
Marche Geers Mr. Gettens, in New York City, attended a symposium
at Columbia University.
Mareh’ 23-25_ == Dr. Pope, in New York City, examined objects at several
dealers and in a private collection.
March 26-June 16__. Dr. Stern, in Europe, saw collections in Lisbon, Portugal;
Paris, France; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Copen-
hagen, Denmark; and London, England: in numerous
museums and private collections and at dealers.
Aprile S2O cs en a Oe Dr. Pope, in New York City, attended meetings of the
American Oriental Society and reported in his capacity
as chairman of the Louise Wallace Hackney Scholarship
Committee; examined objects at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and at one dealer and a private collec-
tion.
216 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
1964
Aprile19-21 SS es Dr. Cahill, in West Palm Beach, Fla., examined objects
at the Norton Gallery of Art and in a private collection.
Aprilio2 a2 soos Dr. Cahill, in Princeton, N.J., examined objects in a pri-
vate collection.
Anrile24-2)= see ee Dr. Pope, in Philadelphia, recorded two taped programs
for ‘What in the World” at WCAU-TV broadcasting
station; and in New York City attended the board meet-
ing of the College Art Association.
May ta Osoe n= ee Mr. Trousdale, in New York City, did preliminary work
on a film narration for the Asia Society; and examined
a large private collection of jade.
May 17-—June 30___-. R. C. Mielke saw building installations at the Dayton Art
Institute, Cincinnati Art Museum, John Herron Art In-
stitute, City Art Museum of St. Louis, William Rockhill
Nelson Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit
Institute of Arts, Cleveland Museum of Art, and Toledo
Museum of Art.
Mayi21ao2 sae eee Dr. Cahill, in New York City, attended a meeting of the
American Council of Learned Societies, Committee on
Studies of Chinese Civilization; saw the exhibition “Art
of Nepal’ at Asia House; and examined objects at
several dealers.
May’ 25—26. S22 see Mrs. E. West FitzHugh, in St. Louis, Mo., attended the
annual meeting of the International Institute for the
Conservation of Museum Objects, American Group.
May? 25-276 ee ete Mrs. L. O. West and Mrs. M. H. Quail, in Chicago, I1.,
attended meetings of the Museums Sales Association.
Maiyj25=20 ee Mr. Gettens, in St. Louis, Mo., attended meetings of the
I.1.C., American Group, and the American Association
of Museums; he also examined objects at the City Art
Museum of St. Louis and the Allen Art Museum, Oberlin
College, Oberlin, Ohio.
UM Bes a ie Dr. Pope left for Europe to visit museums and collections
in England and France.
UNC eh Oe ee eee Mrs. FitzHugh, in Baltimore, Md., visited the Walters
Art Gallery where she worked in the conservation lab-
oratory on the chemical microscopy of pigments.
Afoh o(ss A al ae ee Dr. Ettinghausen, in New York City, examined objects
at several dealers.
As in former years, members of the staff undertook a wide variety of
peripheral duties outside the Gallery, served on committees, held
honorary posts, and received recognitions.
Respectfully submitted.
Joun A. Popr, Director.
S. Ditton Rievtey,
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution.
Report on the National Gallery of Art
Srr: I have the honor to submit, on behalf of the Board of Trustees,
the 27th annual report of the National Gallery of Art, for the fiscal
year ended June 30, 1964. This report is made pursuant to the provi-
sions of section 5(d) of Public Resolution No. 14, 75th Congress, Ist
session, approved March 24, 1987 (50 Stat. 51).
ORGANIZATION
The statutory members of the Board of Trustees of the National
Gallery of Art are the Chief Justice of the United States, the Secre-
tary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, ex officio. On January 9, 1964, Lessing J.
Rosenwald and Dr. Franklin D. Murphy were elected general trustees
of the National Gallery of Art. The three other general trustees con-
tinuing in office during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1964, were Paul
Mellon, John Hay Whitney, and John N. Irwin II. On May 7, 1964,
Paul Mellon was reelected by the Board of Trustees to serve as presi-
dent of the Gallery, and John Hay Whitney was reelected vice presi-
dent. On January 9, 1964, J. Carter Brown was elected assistant
director.
The executive officers of the Gallery as of June 30, 1964, were as
follows:
Chief Justice of the United States, John Walker, Director.
Earl Warren, Chairman. Ernest R. Feidler, Administrator.
Paul Mellon, President. Huntington Cairns, General Counsel.
John Hay Whitney, Vice President. Perry B. Cott, Chief Curator.
Huntington Cairns, Secretary- J. Carter Brown, Assistant Director.
Treasurer.
The three standing committees of the Board, as constituted at the
annual meeting on May 7, 1964, were as follows:
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Chief Justice of the United States, Secretary of the Smithsonian
Harl Warren, Chairman. Institution, S. Dillon Ripley.
Paul Mellon, Vice Chairman. John Hay Whitney.
Dr. Franklin D. Murphy.
217
218 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
FINANCE COMMITTEE
Secretary of the Treasury, C. Douglas Secretary of the Smithsonian
Dillon, Chairman. Institution, S. Dillon Ripley.
Paul Mellon. John Hay Whitney.
John N. Irwin II.
ACQUISITIONS COMMITTEE
Paul Mellon, Chairman. Lessing J. Rosenwald.
John Hay Whitney. John Walker.
John N. Irwin II.
PERSONNEL
At the close of fiscal year 1964, full-time Government employees on
the permanent staff of the National Gallery of Art numbered 305.
The U.S. Civil Service regulations govern the appointment of em-
ployees paid from appropriated funds.
Continued emphasis was given to the training of employees under
the Government Employees Training Act, and it was possible to give
training to seven employees under that Act.
APPROPRIATIONS
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 1964, the Congress of the United
States, in the regular annual appropriation, and a supplemental appro-
priation required for pay increases for wage-board employees, pro-
vided $2,176,000 to be used for salaries and expenses in the operation
and upkeep of the National Gallery of Art, the protection and care
of works of art acquired by the Board of Trustees, and all adminis-
trative expenses incident thereto, as authorized by the basic statute
establishing the National Gallery of Art.
The following obligations were incurred :
Personnel compensation and penehtses == ae ee $1, 831, 443. 17
AST Ober TCeM Sapa Sees ee oe ee ee 315, 774. 41
ROCA Obie a tO mS ee os a ee et ee 2, 147, 217. 58
Because the low bid for the contract to renovate the skylights
over the east wing of the Gallery was considerably below the amount
included in the appropriation for that purpose, it was possible to
return $28,782 to the Treasury as an unobligated balance.
SECRETARY’S REPORT 219
ATTENDANCE
There were 1,236,155 visitors to the Gallery during fiscal year 1964.
The attendance for the previous fiscal year was higher by 557,545
visitors. This resulted from the large number of people who came to
see the Afona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci when it was on exhibition at
the National Gallery of Art for 27 days in fiscal year 1963. The daily
average number of visitors during the past fiscal year was 3,415. This
is the largest average in the past 10 years, except those years in which
occurred the unusually popular exhibitions of the Mona Lisa and the
Tutankhamen Treasures.
ACCESSIONS
There were 5,002 accessions by the National Gallery of Art as gifts,
loans, or deposits during the fiscal year, an increase of 3,796 over the
previous year.
GIFTS
During the year the following gifts or bequests were accepted by the
Board of Trustees:
PAINTINGS
Donor Artist Title
Avalon Foundation, New Cropsey.__---- Autumn on the Hudson River.
York, N.Y.
LD Yoel oes. Set ree eree Soro Doughtyae==—= Fanciful Landscape.
John W. Beatty, Jr., Pitts- Homer_______- Marshy Scene with Man in
burgh, Pa. Boat.
National Gallery of Art, Ailsa Poussin._____- The Assumption of the Virgin.
Mellon Bruce Fund.
Paul Mellon, Upperville, Va. Canaletto___-_- Landscape Capriccio with Col-
umn.
GS oft Aba A ee orn Ne iy Aad L Landscape Capriccio with
Palace.
MO) rope res ees shee oy 2 2 Devyisseces fo Conversation Piece, Ashdon
House.
Bie esos es Peel | o's apa ip Lord Brand of Hurndall Park.
National Gallery of Art, Rubens______- Tiberius and Agrippina.
Andrew Mellon Fund.
National Gallery of Art, Copley_._____- Watson and the Shark.
Adolph Caspar Miller
Fund.
220 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
GRAPHIC ARTS
Donor Artist Title
Mrs. George Matthew Adams, Legros__-_--__-- Cardinal Manning.
New York, N.Y.
Dowty eee Pi ape as ee Hand of His Daughter.
Mrs. George Matthew Adams, Legros_.------ Nude.
New York, N.Y.
John W. Beatty, Jr., Pitts- Various_------ Nineteen prints and drawings.
burgh, Pa.
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Eyerly, Miro__-------- Ink and pastel drawing.
Des Moines, Iowa.
1D) Qa see ae = Bee Feininger_---.-- Spire of Gelmeroda.
Mrs. Beatrice Beck Fahne- Watteau____-_- A Mezzetin.
stock, Washington, D.C.
Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Various___----- Thirty-four French and Italian
New York, N.Y. drawings and water colors.
Mrs. Laura T. Magnuson, Renoir_-_------ Red-chalk drawing of a child.
Washington, D.C.
Print Council of America, Various_------ Set of 55 prints in the exhibi-
New York, N.Y. tion ‘“‘American Prints To-
day—1962.”
Lessing J. Rosenwald, Jen- ----do------.-- 2,574 prints, drawings, illus-
kintown, Pa. trated books, and reference
works. Among the prints
are important works by
Aldegrever, Baldung Grien,
Direr, Bruegel, Bosch, Rem-
brandt, Goya, Daumier, and
Degas.
David E. Rust, Washington, Gentileschi, A Young Girl Playing a Lute.
D.C. Orazio.
EXCHANGE OF WORKS OF ART
In exchange for a print by Daumier entitled “Un plaideur peu sat-
isfait” in the Rosenwald Collection, Mr. Rosenwald gave a woodcut
by Christoffel Jegher, after Rubens, entitled “The Rest on the Flight
into Egypt.”
OTHER GIFTS
In the fiscal year 1964 gifts of money were made by Avalon Foun-
dation, Mrs. Cordelia S. May, Old Dominion Foundation, Calouste
Gulbenkian Foundation, J. I. Foundation, Inc., The Frelinghuysen
Foundation, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 16th International Con-
gress of Zoology, and Mrs. Landon C. Bell.
Mrs. Mellon Bruce contributed additional funds for the purchase
of works of art for the National Gallery of Art and for educational
purposes related to works of art
SECRETARY’S REPORT 23
The Gallery received a bequest of funds by the late Chester Dale
to provide fellowships for painters, sculptors, and historians and crit-
ics of the fine arts.
WORKS OF ART ON LOAN
The following works of art were received on loan by the Gallery:
From Artist Title
Mr. and Mrs. David Lloyd Bonnard._----- Le Jardin de Bosquet.
Kreeger, Washington, D.C.
Dovetets 6 a ciny. ee es Cézanne__._._- La Route Tournante.
DOs oes ee eee aE Van Gogh-_____- Vase of Flowers.
DQ mee ae ee ee eee Maillol= 22a s= Pomona (sculpture).
Bones eo. teleosts Picassorieus sf Café de la Rotonde.
WO eee ne a Renom =. >-2- Bather.
Doe ss. ee tis ne 286 22 “2 dostenkiis View of Venice.
Mrs. Eugene E. Meyer, Wash- Dufresne_-_-__- Still Life.
ington, D.C.
DG. eee See ee Rano. 268.55 Man Lying on Sofa.
1D Xo fee ene LYS, S278 CE Be Oe Se Nude.
The Honorable Claiborne Bingham eb. -= The Jolly Flatboatman.
Pell, Washington, D.C.
§. Dillon Ripley, Washington, Audubon__-_-_-- Washington Sea Eagle.
D.C.
WORKS OF ART ON LOAN RETURNED
The following works of art on loan were returned during the fiscal
year:
To Artist Title
Col. and Mrs. Edgar W. Gar- Senior..-_----- The Sportman’s Dream.
bisch, New York, N.Y.
Mr. and Mrs. David Lloyd Bonnard-_-----_- Le Jardin de Bosquet.
Kreeger, Washington, D.C.
LE fa oe I ee enetes tp Ls Cézanne... __- La Route Tournante.
Opes cheer ee as 2 CE i UE Van Gogh. ._-_- Vase of Flowers.
[D0 es oe RR ca kA Picassoe p22 Café de la Rotonde.
Ques st sh A EES eae Renoir. 222s - Bather.
Dov ee uk as ue nwemeie Site. Sead joe View of Venice.
Mrs. Eugene E. Meyer, Wash- Dufresne---_--- Still Life.
ington, D.C.
Oe ai ee ete Renoirslee = Man Lying on Sofa.
AERC eae eed ae PA ANTS: ote Sado ae SU Nude.
WORKS OF ART LENT
The American Federation of Arts, New York, N.Y., circulated the
following works of art during the fiscal year to the Rochester Memorial
Art Gallery, Rochester, N.Y.; Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee,
Wis.; Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, La.; Baltimore
222
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Museum of Art, Baltimore, Md.; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Phil-
adelphia, Pa.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass.; and Detroit Art
Institute, Detroit, Mich. :
To Artist
American Federation of Arts, Joseph Badger-
New York, N.Y.
DO ea ys eae John Bradley~-
DDO ce ees oats pte? oe Bundyaeeee
De aes See. CR ie Rae Marlee sus eee
DD) oR ee EE it Th Eoimanna= ===
Doves sic See we Se tee Linton Park__-
Doe tea : ee ey Susanne
Walters___-_
Dow She Sea sede te tee Unknown__-_-__-_
Dostes. 22 eRe ee 2 NGO= seas el
DD) Ques eee Ses = er Oen ee aS
Do Be es ee are F102 Hs SEE
DG Fee he Ea eee Par eee (0 reaper =), Bear
Dose SLE enii Aes Mii ak = pidocweea ase
DG 22s. eee Ee ee ueeedOsa=see st
1D) Oe ee ee Bet (Goya eS
POs soo2=2 oo eee E1300 tes BES
1D yey A) eee eae Aa oe SOO maa ee
DB) eee PDS MAE BAL 2 eAMER se ido: t eke
Title
Mrs. Isaac Foster.
Little Girl in Lavender.
Vermont Lawyer.
Family Portrait.
Berks County Almshouse.
Flax Scutching Bee.
Memorial to Nicholas M. S.
Catlin.
Jonathan Benham.
The Start of the Hunt.
The End of the Hunt.
The Sargent Family.
Alice Slade.
Joseph Slade.
General Washington on White
Charger.
Blue Eyes.
The Hobby Horse.
Mahantango Valley Farm.
Civil War Battle Scene.
The following loans also were made during the fiscal year:
American Embassy, London, Canaletto_----
England.
DO2s2 a 25 eee sie AO. teers
DG 322 sare eet es Devise we a2
1D oe ee eee ee seks 2d O55) 2 eee
Cleveland Museum of Art, Stuart.___.--_-
Cleveland, Ohio.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Homer_-_-_-----
Mass.
LD [Yani t oeaner eeepa nee Unknown_-----
Columbia Museum of Art, Healy_-_------
Columbia, 8.C.
1D Yo peg ROS SRNT oe See SP a used Osea eee
1D (oa Bee) ke egret eas = aw Lambdin-_-_-_--
Ont e2e. Feel ee ee, Stuartjass=-s=—
1S) ee RS Se Sk Vasey SU ys eee
VD) es es = Mel eS ne ae VR Unknown------
Coreoran Gallery of Art, Sargent... __-
Washington, D.C.
Oe Sere ON hee Oi ae, et eye 0 Lopes oe oI
Landscape Capriccio with
Column.
Landscape Capriccio with
Palace.
Conversation Piece, Ashdon
House.
Lord Brand of Hurndall Park.
The Skater.
Right and Left.
Burning of Old South Church,
Bath, Maine.
Franklin Pierce.
Daniel Webster.
John Marshall.
Horace Binney.
John Quincy Adams.
President John Tyler.
Repose.
Street in Venice.
SECRETARY’S REPORT
To
Detroit Institute of Arts,
Detroit, Mich.
Museum of Early American
Folk Arts, New York, N.Y.
The Minneapolis Institute of
Arts, Minneapolis, Minn.
Portland Museum of Art,
Portland, Maine.
City Art Museum of St. Louis,
St. Louis, Mo.
Smithsonian Institution, Mu-
seum of History and Tech-
nology.
Smithsonian Institution, Mu-
seum of History and Tech-
nology, Presidential Recep-
tion Room.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
Richmond, Va.
Washington County Museum
of Fine Arts, Hagerstown,
Md.
ton, D.C.
Whitney Museum of Ameri-
can Art, New York, N.Y.
223
Artist
British School__
Title
Pocahontas.
LaSachsssse22. The Herbert Children.
Unknown__-__-_- Baby in Blue Cradle,
Se Sa fc ME Child with Rocking Horse.
Copleyoas = 552 - Epes Sargent.
WWWieaGs 203i yee 2 The Battle of La Hogue.
Unknown...-__ Burning of Old South Church,
Bath, Maine.
SMart 25 are Mrs. Yates.
British School.__ Pocahontas.
Reales se aba William Moultrie,
PING 3 sae or General Smallwood.
Pp OKs ees Washington at Princeton.
Nullyesoe esses Major Thomas Biddle.
AUNIS oes chs Commodore Rodgers.
heaven a(n se Daniel Webster.
Benlecee ees Robert Coleman.
British School. Pocahontas.
Pesles sao ne John Philip de Haas.
cere HC Ot Ayala General William Moultrie.
JE dose ea Benjamin Harrison, Jr.
Sully sale capes Andrew Jackson.
Healy 23.6 2 Henry Clay.
Shive hc hos eee = George Washington.
Homerus 22.222 Right and Left.
EXHIBITIONS
The following exhibitions were held at the National Gallery of
Art during the fiscal year 1964:
Prints and Drawings by Mary Cassatt.
through September 12, 1963.
From the Rosenwald Collection. Continued from the pre-
Landscape Prints.
Continued from the preceding fiscal year
ceding fiscal year through October 14, 1963.
Evhibition of Modern Prints and Illustrated Books from the Rosenwald Collec-
tion. July 13 through September 2, 1963.
Water Colors by J. M. W. Turner from the collection of the British Museuin,
September 15 through October 13, 1963.
224. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Echibition of Etchings and Mezzotints from J. M. W. Turner’s “Liber Studiorum.”
September 15 through October 18, 1963.
Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings from the Correr Museum. October 27
through November 24, 1963.
Eighteenth-Century Venetian Etchings from the National Gallery of Art Collec-
tion. October 27 through November 24, 1963.
National Gallery of Art 1963 Christmas Card Subjects from the Graphic Arts.
November 20 through December 10, and from December 17, 1968, through Janu-
ary 7, 1964.
Prints by Kathe Kollwitz from the Rosenwald Collection in Commemoration of
Human Rights week. December 10 through December 18, 1963.
Paintings from The Museum of Modern Art, New York. December 17, 1963,
through March 22, 1964.
Expressionist Prints from the Rosenwald Collection. December 17, 1963, through
March 22, 1964.
Thomas Rowlandson Prints from the Rosenwald Collection. January 7 through
April 17, 1964.
Drawings from the National Gallery of Art Collection. April 17, 1964, to con-
tinue into the next fiscal year.
7000 Years of Iranian Art. June 7, 1964, to continue into the next fiscal year.
Portrait of the Artist’s Mother: Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. 1 by James
Abbott McNeill Whistler. Lent by the Musée du Louvre. June 10 through
June 30, 1964.
Whistler Prints from the National Gallery of Art Collection. June 10, 1964, to
continue into the next fiscal year.
Exhibitions of recent accessions: “Joris W. Vezeler” and ‘Margaretha Boghe,
Wife of Joris W. Vezeler” by Joos van Cleve. Continued from the preceding
fiscal year through July 11, 1963; ‘“‘The Bookseller’s Wife” by Goya, August 30,
through October 30, 1963; “The Assumption of the Virgin” by Poussin, Novem-
ber 17, 1963, through January 10, 1964.
TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS
Special exhibitions of graphic arts from the National Gallery of Art
collections were circulated during the fiscal year to 50 museums, univer-
sities, schools, and art centers in the United States and abroad.
Index of American Design. Fifty-eight exhibitions (2,344 plates) of material
from the Index were circulated to 18 States and the District of Columbia.
CURATORIAL ACTIVITIES
Under the direction of Perry B. Cott, chief curator, the curatorial
department accessioned 2,700 gifts to the Gallery during the fiscal year
1964. Advice was given with respect to 1,918 works of art brought to
the Gallery for expert opinion, and 20 visits to collections were made
by members of the staff in connection with offers of gifts. About 6,691
inquiries, many of them requiring research, were answered verbally
and by letter.
William P. Campbell, assistant chief curator, served as a member of
the Special Fine Arts Committee of the Department of State.
SECRETARY’S REPORT 225
Hereward Lester Cooke, curator of painting, continued as consultant
to National Aeronautics and Space Administration with duties of
organizing and supervising commissions to artists for paintings of
themes relating to the space program. He also acted as judge for the
Tri-State Exhibition, Evansville, Ind., and the Savannah Art Associa-
tion exhibition during the fiscal year.
The Richter Archives received and cataloged 84 photographs on
exchange from museums here and abroad; 2,289 photographs were pur-
chased, and about 1,000 reproductions have been added to the archives.
RESTORATION
Francis Sullivan, resident restorer of the Gallery, made regular and
systematic inspection of all works of art in the Gallery and on loan to
Government buildings in Washington, and periodically removed dust
and bloom as required. He relined, cleaned, and restored 18 paintings
and gave special treatment to 37. Thirty-four paintings were X-rayed
as an aid in research. He continued experiments with synthetic
materials as suggested by the National Gallery of Art Research
Project at the Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa. Technical advice
was given in response to 237 telephone inquiries. Special treatment
was given to works of art belonging to Government agencies, including
the U.S. Capitol and the Treasury Department. In other instances
advice was furnished to various agencies concerning the care and
conservation of paintings.
PUBLICATIONS
A new book by John Walker, director, on the history and collections
of the Gallery entitled National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
appeared during the year.
Mr. Cooke wrote an article for Art in America, October 1963 issue,
entitled “Count-Down at Canaveral.” He also wrote the text for 16
National Gallery leaflets.
Miss Katharine Shepard, assistant curator of graphic arts, wrote
a book review for the American Journal of Archaeology, April 1964
issue.
PUBLICATIONS FUND
During the fiscal year 1964, the Publications Fund placed on sale
six new publications including two books: National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C. by John Walker and The Eternal Present:
The Beginnings of Architecture by S. Giedion, the latter being the
second volume of the 1957 A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts.
Four exhibition catalogs were placed on sale: Turner Water Colors:
Kighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings from the Correr Museum;
226 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Paintings from the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and 7000
Years of Iranian Art. The number of 11- by 14-inch color reproduc-
tions published by the Gallery was increased to 238 with the addition
of 37 new subjects, and 44 new postcards were published to make a
total of 196 subjects now available. Two new slide sets of paintings
by Rembrandt and by Renoir were placed on sale. The 1963 Christ-
mas card selection included 14 new color subjects. With Gallery
cooperation, six new collotype reproductions were produced: Botti-
eelli— Madonna and Child with Angels, Canaletto—The Portello and
the Brenta Canal at Padua, Van Cleve—Joris W. Vezeler and Mar-
garetha Boghe, Wife of Joris W. Vezeler, Gentileschi—7he Lute
Player, and Redon—Wildflowers. Five small sculpture reproduc-
tions were added to the items available to the public.
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
The program of the educational department was carried out under
the direction of Raymond S. Stites and his staff. Lectures and con-
ducted tours on works of art in the Gallery’s collections were given.
Attendance for the general tours, tours of the week, and picture-of-
the-week talks amounted to 40,801. The attendance at the Sunday
afternoon lectures in the auditorium totaled 13,450.
Special tours, lectures, and conferences were arranged for a total of
17,371 persons. These special appointments were made for Govern-
ment agency groups, and at the request of congressional offices, for
educators, foreign students, club and study groups, religious organiza-
tions, conventions, museum officials, and groups from hospitals, as
well as school groups from various parts of the country.
The program of training volunteer docents continued, and special
instruction was given to approximately 130 volunteers from the
Junior League of Washington and the American Association of Uni-
versity Women. By special arrangement with the public and paro-
chial schools of the District of Columbia and surrounding counties
of Maryland and Virginia, these organizations conducted tours for
68,836 children, representing an increase over last year of 2,308. They
also guided 750 Safety Patrol girls from Atlanta, Ga., on tours of the
Gallery.
Fifty-two lectures were given in the auditorium on Sunday after-
noons. Of these, 34 were delivered by guest lecturers, 10 by members
of the staff, and two were full-length film presentations. Jakob
Rosenberg delivered the 13th annual series of the A. W. Mellon Lec-
tures in the Fine Arts on seven consecutive Sundays beginning on
March 8 on the general subject: “On Quality in Art: Criteria of Fa-
cellence in the Past and Present.”
PLATE 9
Secretary’s Report, 1964
ald
Rosenw
8).
=
)
594-16
llange (1
by Jacques Be
ing
An etch
ha Rose.
rit
in and Child w
Virg
The
rt.
1 Gallery of
ationa
NT
Collection.
‘yay jo Asayey euoneNY “uorjda1[0D pleMussoy
(6991-9091) UAY uvA Ipuviquay Aq—ccgT—oIeIs Alive ‘Zuryojo uy ‘s[doag 9Yy} 0} pelusseig aslyD
PLATE 10
Se so
Secretary's Report, 1964
Secretary's Report. 1964 PLATE 11
Lord Brand of Hurndall Park, by Arthur Devis (1711-1787). Gift of Paul Mellon. National
Gallery of Art.
Conversation Piece, Ashdon House, by Arthur Devis (1711-1787). Gift of Paul Mellon.
National Gallery of Art.
Secretary's Report, 1964
PLATE 12
THD
"Vy jo Asayey [euoneN ‘uoypeyy [neg jo
*(S9ZI-L691) OVATeuURD Aq ‘uUINJoD YIM o1Ds1IdeD odvospue'y
WD
‘yay jo Ajayjeg [euONeNY ‘uoTeyy [neg jo
‘(S9ZI-Z691) O}a[eueD Aq ‘sov[eg YIM o1dides odeospur'y
Secretary's Report, 1964 PLATE 13
ASE, . ....c-2..-<2-=- 79, 553. 39
*Hodgkins, Thomas C. (General)_...--------- 49, 160. 26
TGTEO WO WIP TGA VN ese ae 8 ek Wi es 125, 493. 59
Olmsted Helen ACs aces ue ee oe alt 1, 301. 09
*Poore,uucy ....and George, Wo 2--s25- 222544: 264, 125. 96
IBOnteHerenny sn kem ab = ae le ee oie ee 464, 776. 51
MUN CEH WV MAM JONESY: £40 0 Sd. oh be ote DS LOLs hit
= SamfOnG sn GeOne ey elas aes eee ee geek el 1, 444. 61
TSmuthsou, James: 28203022 le Us had ete 1, 981. 23
DEES aN CET ocr ieee ag eae ee 580. 42
Higbee, Harry, Memorial Fund___..---_-_--_- 19, 019. 89
Witherspoon, Dnomas Ac 24. kek et 209, 430. 31
Ca | ge RR A eh ee poe. eres Seng any $3, 517, 751. 23
*In addition_to funds deposited in the United States Treasury.
766—-746—65——-19
Income 1984
$1, 082.
2, 870.
65, 850.
20, 062.
292.
29.
$144, 826.
276 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
CONSOLIDATED FUND—Continued
(Income restricted to specific use)
Fund Investment 1964 Income 1964
Abbott, William L., for investigationsin biology $169, 186. 94 $7, 574. 92
Armstrong, Edwin James, for use of Depart-
ment of Invertebrate Paleontology when
principalsamounts, to $5,000.20 2S 8 2, 237. 37 95. 89
Arthur, James, for investigations and study of
the sun and annual lecture on same_____-___ 64, 903. 62 2, 905. 87
Bacon, Virginia Purdy, for traveling scholarship
to investigate fauna of countries other than
the United Statess. 2... < ah sete Sf fate fae 81, 306. 56 3, 640. 28
Baird, Spencer Fullerton, for expenses in whole
or in part of a scientific exploration and
biological research or for the purchase of
specimens of natural objects or archeological
Bpecinipnsl eS. ites ee ee hee 59, 500. 00 2, 663. 95
Barney, Alice Pike, for collection of paintings
and pastels and for encouragement of
American artistic endeavor___-_______-_-_____ 46, 546. 23 2, 083. 96
Barstow, Frederick D., for purchase of animals
for ZO0lomicalvPark a: os 781 teen ne eee. 1, 622. 40 72. 62
Brown, Roland W., endowment fund—study,
care, and improvement of the Smithsonian
paleobotanical collections._.._.__..___--__- 52, 861. 91 2, 366. 75
Canfield collection, for increase and care of the
Canfield collection of minerals_____________-_ 62, 069. 64 PA TCS (Ot)
Casey, Thomas I., for maintenance of the
Casey collection and promotion of researches
relating to Coleopterat 22 a4 -2oeeee ule et 20, 341. 68 910. 72
Chamberlain, Francis Lea, for increase and
promotion of Isaac Lea Collection of gems
and wmoluska 2U. 285 sete S 28 SA kee aii fom 45, 700. 54 2, 046. 11
Dykes, Charles, for support in financial research 69, 869. 81 3, 128. 24
Kickemeyer, Florence Brevoort, for preserva-
tion and exhibition of the photographic col-
lection of Rudolph Hickemeyer, Jr___-_-_--- 17, 639. 63 789. 79
Guggenheim, Daniel and Florence Foundation
for a commemorative Guggenheim Exhibit,
an annual Daniel Guggenheim Lecture, and
annual Guggenheim Fellowships for graduate
students for research at the National Air
Wiasuein 220 2 ee SS ee ete ee an ib ae ees 25, 000. 00 0
Hanson, Martin Gustav and Caroline Runice,
for some scientific work of the Institution,
preferably in chemistry or medicine__._--_-_~- 14, 427. 04 645. 92
Higbee, Harry, income for general use of the
Smithsonian Institution after June 11, 1967_- 689. 63 78. 59
Hillyer Virgil, for increase and care of Virgil
Hillyer collection of lighting objects_________ 10, 665. 69 477. 54
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
CONSOLIDATED FUND—Continued
(Income restricted to specific use)—Continued
Fund Investment 1964
Hitchcock, Albert 8., for care of the Hitchcock
Rerontological Mibraryet .- oo) 25 oe e eens $2, 560.
Hrdli¢ka, AleS and Marie, to further researches
in physical anthropology and publication in
connection therewith-..2222..-.---.-..=..+ 89, 665.
Hughes, Bruce, to found Hughes alcove______- 31, 063.
Johnson, E. R. Fenimore, research in under-
Water pnOLographye >. 25.565 o0. > Geeeaee 12, 428.
Loeb, Morris, for furtherance of knowledge in
thevexactsclences: Slee: oe oe ek 141, 436.
Long, Annette and Edith C., for upkeep and
preservation of Long collection of embroid-
Bries) laces And textiles._.22 52 2255-20 nea: 881.
Maxwell, Mary E., for care and exhibition of
Maxwellicollection=-.2-oae oat ee eee Sl Sole
Myer, Catherine Walden, for purchase of first-
class works of art for use and benefit of the
National Collection of Fine Arts_.__.______- 32, 780.
Nelson, Edward W., for support of biological
BUCHER eam eee arte ei ite cenemL Be eens kan Una 38, 626.
Noyes, Frank B., for use in connection with the
collection of dolls placed in the U.S. National
Museum through the interest of Mr. and Mrs.
ING YO San ah me AN ee Be ph A a ca 1, 559.
Pell, Cornelia Livingston, for maintenance of
Alfred Duane Pell collection. .......__.__-- 12, 029.
Petrocelli, Joseph, for the care of the Petrocelli
collection of photographic prints and for the
enlargement and development of the section
of photography of the U.S. National Museum_ 12, 030.
Rathbun, Richard, for use of division of U.S.
National Museum containing Crustacea_ -_-_- 17, 260.
*Reid, Addison T., for founding chair in biology,
INEMEeMoOnvsOrmAShenVmUInisa: == aes ee 28, 866.
Roebling Collection, for care, improvement, and
increase of Roebling collection of minerals__- 195, 860.
Roebling Solar Research. — 202 3_ 2. 225ltscol ee 40, 695.
Rollins, Miriam and William, for investigations
INSP VRICE ATGc REINA! Vee is ne ee aa 242, 033.
Smithsonian employees’ retirement___-_______- 37, 423,
Springer, Frank, for care and increase of the
Springer collection and library___._....-___- 29, 102.
Strong, Julia D., for benefit of the National
Collection of Fine Arts. .o. ees eee 16, 226.
Walcott, Charles D. and Mary Vaux, for de-
velopment of geological and paleontological
studies and publishing results of same______- 778, 915.
76
38
71
22
88
16
06
LG
19
12
3l
75
69
03
04
49
39
68
46
11
07
2
$114.
3, 842.
1, 390.
819.
6, 332.
39.
1, 425.
1, 467.
1, 682.
69.
538.
538,
772,
1, 292.
8, 769.
S22,
10, 599.
1, 691.
1, 302.
726.
34, 842.
V7
Income 1964
65
51
79
28
49
46
15
64
71
83
56
278 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
CONSOLIDATED FUND—Continued
(Income restricted to specific use) Continued
Fund Investment 1964 Income 1964
Walcott, Mary Vaux, for publication in botany- $93, 939. 64 $4, 205. 91
Younger, Helen Walcott, held in trust._.___~_ 127, 107. 05 6, 500. 71
Zerbee, Francis Brinckle, for endowment of
AG UIATI AS Sot ese Sh ok he pe ea Ue SS 1, 539. 39 68. 91
hota] Rees eal et. Se oon 3 $2, 760, 430. 44 | $121, 416. 45
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 subjects
of art, as well as paintings, etchings, and other works of art by Whis-
tler, Thayer, Dewing, and other artists. Later he also gave funds for
construction of a building to house the collection, and finally in his
will, probated November 6, 1919, he provided stocks and securities to
the estimated value of $1,958,591.42, as an endowment fund for the
operation of the Gallery. The fund now amounts to $10,987,835.54.
SUMMARY OF ENDOWMENTS
Invested endowment for general purposes______-_-_____-___- $5, 248, 151. 23
Invested endowment for specific purposes other than Freer en-
Gowment 2222 2-60 oe ee Se LE Se era 2, 989, 882. 05
Total invested endowment other than Freer_____-____~ 8, 233, 033. 28
Freer invested endowment for specific purposes______________ 10, 987, 835. 34
Total invested endowment for all purposes_____________ $19, 220, 868. 62
CLASSIFICATION OF INVESTMENTS
Deposited in the U.S. Treasury at 6 percent per annum, as au-
thorized in the U.S. Revised Statutes, sec. 5591______________ $1, 000, 000. 00
Investments other than Freer endowment (cost
or market value at date acquired) :
BOTS tan ies Sa ee eR ee as $2, 641, 924. 90
StOCK Ss £8 sks Whe ee EA ae Pl 3, 601, 024. 68
Realrestatesandwunorteaves 2 951, 406. 00
Uninvestedweapitalee =. 22 eee 38, 677. 70 7, 233, 033. 28
Total investments other than Freer endowment_________ 8, 233, 033. 28
Investments of Freer endowment (cost or mar-
ket value at date acquired) :
BONG Ss ses a oi os ie Ul eae $6, 032, 418. 24
SCOGMS Es Bate = a ete mt ee Se 4, 954, 472. 28
WUninyvestedwcapitalos 2== os a ee ee 944.82 10, 987, 8385. 34
Total investments 25 e ve a ete ee ed e $19, 220, 868. 62
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 279
EXHIBIT A
BALANCE SHEET OF PRIVATE FUNDS
June 30, 1964
ASSETS
Current funds:
General:
Cash:
United States Treasury current account______-__-__~__ $76, 965. 48
In pAN KS An OPONMMaN Gs see noo eee ee slae aks ayy
232, 678. 65
Investments—stocks and bonds (quoted market value
CSP OPA) bot UG DLO 0 cee a ep an meee em rp eet ee ata eas 2, 030, 531. 30
TravelsanodsOcher advances. soe es a ee ee eee 13, 983. 65
Totaly general’ fund sae Sets ee ee ee ee ee 2, 277, 193. 60
Restricted :
Cash—United States Treasury current
MCCOUN Tt ee ee ee eee $1, 731, 447. 28
Investments—stocks and bonds (quoted
market value $496,064.00) (note) ------_ 498, 641. 63
otal srestri cited fhundses 222 So oe ee 2, 230, 088. 91
ADORE | CT Gre) EIS GUS AS feet Nee Ts Rapa eo ee ae 4, 507, 282. 51
Endowment funds and funds functioning as
endowment:
Investments:
Freer Gallery of Art:
Cit ees ee 8 ool ts 944. 82
Stocks and bonds (quoted market
value $17,404,618.00) (note) ------- 10, 986, 890. 52
10, 987, 835. 34
Consolidated :
COP TG 6) aa 5 ARR Oe us $27, 875. 21
Stocks and bonds (quoted
market value $7,924,-
024.00) (note) -------- 6, 113, 080. 63
6, 140, 955. 84
Loan to United States
RECA SUT Ye eee ss Sete See 1, 000, 000. 00
Other stocks and bonds
(quoted market value
$182,068.00) (note) ----_ 129, 868. 95
Casha. <2 224 eT oe 10, 802. 49
Heal estate. 2-2-2 5. ss 951,406.00 8, 233, 033. 28
Total endowment funds and funds functioning as
Gnd O wane te ee ee eS ee oes ee $19, 220, 868. 62
No tal sae see See a he eee he $23, 728, 151. 13
1 Investments are stated at cost or appraisal value at date of gift.
280 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
FUND BALANCES
Current funds:
General:
Unexpended funds—unrestricted____________----_--______ $2, 277, 193. 60
Total general funds
aie ete a Rb ag pis Soe a Se i aes 2, 277, 193. 60
Restricted :
Unexpended income from endowment______ $1, 292, 324. 13
Funds for special purposes:
CRIA see i pe a cee ae Bae a 514, 631. 55
Grants es fon sae see es ee ee eee 1, 216, 815. 73
Contracts
Seen oe eee mai (793, 682. 50)
aes se ee re pe as 2, 230, 088. 91
Total wcurrent rungs: 22222 fe eee 4, 507, 282. 51
Endowment funds and funds functioning as endowment :
MreersG aleryaeOheA Does eee ee 10, 987, 835. 34
Other:
Restricted2 = eet $2, 989, 882. 05
General: ..42 2 este es 5, 248, 151. 23
8, 238, 033. 28
Total endowment funds and funds functioning as
@nd OW MeN bie S_ aaree es ee re ee etes 19, 220, 868. 62
Total
a et ce $23, 728, 151. 13
281
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTER:
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283
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ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
284
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285
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
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286 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
EXHIBIT D
PRIVATE FUNDS
STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN PRINCIPAL OF ENDOWMENT FUNDS AND FUNDS
FUNCTIONING AS ENDOWMENT
Year ended June 30, 1964
Balanceratibezinningor yearns. sane ee eee eee $16, 086, 025. 07
Add:
Gifts and jpequests 232. 2s ek Oe ee ee 1, 211, 648. 50
Income added to principal as prescribed by donor________-_- 10, 596. 00
Transfer from current fund for investment______________-- 1, 370, 621. 19
Net gain: (On) investmen tse ose See as ae eee 542, 684. 43
19, 221, 575. 19
Less:
Transfer to cover deficit in employees’ retirement
GY 0.66 (emeepe OB ee Bi as ig ee Be OE ee $849. 82
Income paid to income beneficiary as prescribed by
GONOT Stes SE ee OE ae ee be oe ee 356. 75
706. 57
Balance vat send sot, yearss oe ee ee ee $19, 220, 868. 62
Balance at end of year consisting of:
reer: Gallery ofreArts 2) oes oe See eee ee ee eee 10, 987, 835. 34
Other:
Restricted! See ee Ee eee 2, 989, 882. 05
General 2.2 eh ie ee an 5, 248, 151. 23
$19, 220, 868. 62
The practice of maintaining savings accounts in several of the
Washington banks and trust companies has been continued during
the past year, and interest on these deposits amounted to $7,817.98.
Deposits are made in banks for convenience in collection of checks,
and later such funds are withdrawn and deposited in the United
States Treasury. Disbursement of funds is made by check signed
by the Secretary of the Institution and drawn on the United States
Treasury.
The Institution gratefully acknowledges gifts and grants from the
following:
Anonymous, a gift for special purposes.
Atomic Energy Commission, a grant for research entitled “A Study of the Bio-
chemical Effects of Ionizing and Nonionizing Radiation on Plant Metabolism
during Development.”
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: 287
Boston University, a grant to defray travel expenses to the West Coast to study
research materials.
Bredin Foundation, a grant for the support of research entitled “Biological
Survey of Dominica Project.”
A grant for the support of research entitled “Ocean Food Chain Cycle.”
David K. E. Bruce, a gift for special purposes.
Mary Grace Bruce, a gift for special purposes.
Mrs. J. Campbell, a gift to the Zoo Animal Fund.
Department of the Air Force: Additional grant for the support of research
entitled “Study of Atomic and Electronic Collision Processes which occur
in the Atmosphere at Auroral Heights.”
A grant for studies directed toward the development of a technique for
measuring wind speed and direction at heights using ionized paths gen-
erated by meteors.
A grant for the exploration of computer techniques in the preparation of
indexes.
A grant to prepare and conduct a course in operation maintenance and
calibration training for seven government personnel on the Baker-Nunn
Camera System.
A grant to perform numerical analysis of observational data to determine
the rate of satellite period.
A grant for time standard calibrating training and consulting in support for
the ‘Field and Precision Reduction of Baker-Nunn Film.”
Department of the Army: Additional grant for the support of basic research
entitled “Potential Vectors and Reservoirs of Disease in Strategie Overseas
Area.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Mammals and their
Ectoparasites from Iran.”
Additional grant for support of research on the analysis of bird migration in
the Pacific Area and the study of the ecology of birds and mammals on one
or more Pacific Islands.
A grant for research entitled “Bio-Ecological Classification for Military En-
vironments.”
Ethyl Corporation, a gift for the 8. D. Heron Memorial Fund.
Robert Lee Forrest Bequest for unrestricted use of Smithsonian Institution.
Esther Goddard, a gift to the Goddard Memorial Fund.
Robert H. Groh, a gift for the purchase of Egyptian Bronze Situla.
Guggenheim, Daniel and Florence, Foundation for a commemorative Guggen-
heim Exhibit, an annual Daniel Guggenheim Lecture, and annual Guggenheim
Fellowships for graduate students for research at the National Air Museum.
288 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Felix and Helen Juda, a gift to the Freer Gallery of Art, for the purchase of
collections.
Joseph H. Kler, a gift for the Delaware Log House Exhibit Fund.
Landegger Foundation Inc., a gift for research entitled ‘‘The Landegger Under-
water Exploration.”
Link Foundation, a grant for the publication of the pamphlet “Opportunities in
Oceanography.”
James H. Means, a gift for the James Means and the Problem of Manflight Fund.
Paul Mellon, a contribution for the Traveling Exhibition Service.
Vera C. Murray, a gift for the purchase of two historic aircraft engines.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Additional grant for the
support of research entitled “Optical Satellite Tracking Program.”
Additional grant for the scientific and engineering study for instrumenting
and orbiting telescope.
A grant for research entitled “Optical and Radar Investigation of Simulated
and Natural Meteors.”
A grant for research entitled “Computation of Data Reduction of S-16 High
Energy Gamma-Ray Experiment.”
A grant for research studies in the recovery and analysis of space fragments.
A grant for an investigation and collection of meteorites, tektites, and related
materials.
National Geographic Society: Additional grant for research entitled “Link
Prolonged and Deep Submergence Study Program.”
A grant for research expedition to Australia.
A grant for publication entitled “Archeology of Pueblo Bonito.”
National Institutes of Health: Additional grant for research entitled “Studies
of Asian Biting Flies.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Generic Classification
of the Proctotrupoidea.”
A grant for the support of research entitled “Chronic Disease in Relation to
Social Efficiency.”
National Science Foundation: Additional grant for the support of research
entitled “Early Tertiary Mammals of North America.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Earth Albedo Obser-
vations.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘Revisionary Study
of Blattoidea.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Rare Gases in
Meteorites.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘Morphology and Paleo-
ecology of Permian Brachiopods of the Glass Mountain, Texas.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Tertiary Forests of
the Tonasi-Santiago Basin of Panama.”
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 289
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “South Asian Micro-
lepidoptera, particularly the Philippine Series.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “The Mammals of
Panama.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Ecology and Behavior
of Suncus murinus.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘“Photoresponse and
Optical Properties of Phycomyces Sporangiophores.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Taxonomy of Bam-
boos.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Lower Cretaceous
Ostracoda of Israel.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘Marine Mollusks of
Polynesia.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Tertiary Echinoids of
the Eastern United States and the Caribbean.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Monographie Revision
of Carcharinid Sharks of the Tropical Indo-Pacific Oceans.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Zoogeography of South-
ern Ocean Sclearactinian Coral Faunas.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “The American Com-
mensal Crabs of the Family Pinnotheridae.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Prehistory of South-
west, Virginia.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘Indo-Australian Vespidae
sens. lat. and Specidae.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Support of Publication
of an English Translation of Flora of Japan, by Jisaburo Ohwi.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Revision of Genera of
Paleozoic Bryozoa.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Research of Stellar
Atmosphere.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘Monographie Studies
of the Tingidae of the World.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘“Ethnoscientific Analysis
of American Ethnology.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Pelagic Phosphorus
Metabolism: Phosphorus-containing Compounds in Plankton.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Study of Type Speci-
mens of Ferns in European Herbaria.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘‘Polychaetous Annelids
of New England.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “The Phanerogams of
Colombia.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Monograph of Parmelia
Subgenus Xanthoparmelia.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Revision of Scarab
Beetles of the Genus Ataenius.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Systemic Studies of
the Archidaceae, Subtribe Epidendrinae.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “A Monograph of the
Stomatopod Crustaceans of the Western Atlantic.”
290 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Recording of Data for
Specimens Collected during the U.S. Antarctic Program.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Mammals of South-
eastern United States.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Exploration in Southern
Brazil.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Distribution of North
America Calanoid and Harpacticoid Copepoda.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Megalithic Structures of
Panope.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Collection of Meteorites
and Tektites in Australia.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘Installation of Power
Line to Barro Colorado from Mainland.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “European Tertiary
Dicotyledon Floras.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Science Information
Exchange.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Geographic Variation in
the Inter-specific Relations among Certain Andean Passeriformes.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Upper Cretaceous
Inoceraminae in North America and Western Hurope.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Environment of Permo-
Triassic Reptiles of the Order Therapsida in South Africa.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘“‘Taxonomic and Biologi-
cal Studies of Neotropical Water Beetles.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Evolution and Distribu-
tion of Parmelia in Eastern Asia and Pacific.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘Sorting of U.S. Antarctic
Research Program Biological Collections.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Taxonomic Studies of the
Family Stenomidae in Neotropical Region.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Pre-Industrial System
of Water Management in Arid Region.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Effects of Displacement.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Revisionary Studies in
the Chilopoda.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Photographic Investi-
gation of Comets.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Purchase of the Hood
Collection of Thrips.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled ‘Archaeological Survey of
Southwestern Kansas.”
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Taxonomic and Bio-
logical Studies on Central American Caddisflies.”
Neinken Foundation, a gift for philately research.
Office of Naval Research: Additional grant to perform aeronautical research
studies.
Additional grant to provide expert consultants to advise the Navy Advisory
Committee.
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 291
Additional grant to perform psychological research studies.
Additional grant for the support of research entitled “Information of Shark
Distribution and Distribution of Shark Attack All Over the World.”
Additional grant for studies concerning the development of a proposal for an
institute for laboratory of human performance standards.
A grant for research entitled “Microlepidoptera of the Island of Rapa.”
A grant to conduct research on the Medusae and related organisms from the
Indian Ocean Collection.
O’Neill Brothers Foundation, a gift for the purchase of rare Alaskan notes for
numismatic collection.
Charles Pfizer and Company, a gift for purchase of objects for exhibits on the
history of pharmacy.
Rockefeller Foundation, a grant for research entitled “Bird Virus Diseases in
the Region of Belem, Brazil.”
Mr. and Mrs. R. Tom Sawyer, a gift for the Tom Sawyer—Model of the first Gas
Turbine Locomotive Fund.
Frank R. Schwengel, a gift toward the study of mollusks of Polynesia.
For the support of the Science Information Exchange:
Atomic Energy Commission
Department of Defense
National Institutes of Health
National Science Foundation
Jerome A. Straka, a gift for the purchase of the antique Feregham carpet.
For the support of the Taiwan Photographie Project :
Bollingen Foundation
Henry Luce Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
Ellen Bayard Weedon Foundation, a gift to the Freer Gallery of Art for the
Library Fund.
Wenner Gren Foundation, a gift for anthropological research entitled “To Aid
Study of Rapid Change and Adjustment under Conditions of Shock and Terri-
torial Displacement among Canela of Brazil.”
Westinghouse Corporation, a contribution toward the dismantling and transpor-
tation of one of the original generators at the Niagara Falls Power Company.
Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, a gift for marine biological research
(Buzas).
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a gift to provide funds to permit the par-
ticipation in the International Indian Ocean Expedition.
Charles Mortiz Wormser, a gift for the Mortiz Wormser Memorial Fund.
766—746—65——20
292 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
The following appropriations were made by Congress for the Gov-
ernment bureaus under the administrative charge of the Smithsonian
Institution for the fiscal year 1964:
Sinibhutecypnes his aaeiyse e eeee $13, 191, 000. 00
Ispehmtosmesd | VA) Creer | Vee is ee ee $1, 597, 356. 00
The appropriation made to the National Gallery of Art (which
is a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution) was__-__-------- $2, 138, 000. 00
Tn addition, funds were transferred from other Government agencies
for expenditure under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution as
follows:
Working funds, transferred from the National Park Service,
Interior Department, for archeological investigations in river
Dasins throuchout the) United: States=222-- es aan ee eee $254, 500. 00
The Institution also administers a trust fund for partial support of
the Canal Zone Biological Area, located on Barro Colorado Island in
the Canal Zone.
ROBERT LEE FORREST BEQUEST
The final settlement was made during the year by the Mercantile
Safe Deposit and Trust Company of Baltimore, Md., as executors of
the will of Robert Lee Forrest, who died on October 30, 1962. The
Smithsonian Institution was named in the will as the residuary legatee.
The distribution resulted in the following being received by and
for the unrestricted use of the Smithsonian Institution :
OSI IgteerQ(a tl ee ee $1, 370, 621. 19
5,498 shares of The Borden Company, fair market value_- 847, 748. 50
In addition to the above there was received three parcels of real
property consisting of a farm known as “Java Farm,” located in Anne
Arundel County, Md., of approximately 360 acres; one lot and im-
provements located at 7-11 Chesapeake Street, Towson, Md., one un-
improved lot located at 700 N. Kresson Street, Baltimore, Md. ‘There
also was received some odd lots of stock of “no value” which included
292 shares, preferred, of The Municipal Asphalt Company, 30 shares,
Common, of the Municipal Asphalt Company, 100 shares of The
Fast Bearing Company, and 100 shares of Medical Chemicals,
Incorporated.
AUDIT
The report of the audit of the Smithsonian Private Funds follows:
THE BOARD OF REGENTS
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.O., 20560
We have examined the balance sheet of private funds of Smithsonian Institu-
tion as of June 30, 1964 and the related statement of current general private
funds receipts and disbursements and the several statements of changes in
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 293
funds for the year then ended. Our examination was made in accordance with
generally accepted auditing standards, and accordingly included such tests of
the accounting records and such other auditing procedures as we considered
necessary in the circumstances.
Except for certain real estate acquired by gift or purchased from proceeds
of gifts which are valued at cost or appraised value at date of gift, land, build-
ings, furniture, equipment, works of art, living and other specimens and certain
sundry property are not included in the accounts of the Institution; likewise,
the accompanying statements do not include the National Gallery of Art, the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and other departments, bureaus
and operations administered by the Institution under Federal appropriations.
The accounts of the Institution are maintained on the basis of cash receipts and
disbursements, with the result that the accompanying statements do not reflect
income earned but not collected or expenses incurred but not paid.
In our opinion, subject to the matters referred to in the preceding paragraph,
the accompanying statement of private funds presents fairly the assets and
funds principal of Smithsonian Institution at June 30, 1964; further, the
accompanying statement of current general private funds receipts and dis-
bursements and several statements of changes in funds, which have been pre-
pared on a basis consistent with that of the preceding year, present fairly the
cash transactions of the private funds for the year then ended.
(S) Prat, MarwicyH, MiTcHeE tt & Co.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
October 16, 1964
Respectfully submitted :
(S) Rosert V. FLEMING,
(S) Cary P. HAsKINs,
(S) Cxrvron P. ANDERSON,
Executive Committee.
GENERAL APPENDIX
to the
SMITHSONIAN REPORT FOR 1964
PREFACE
The object of the Genera Apprenprx 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 stafi
members and collaborators of the Institution; and memoirs of a gen-
eral 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 of 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 1964.
An “Author-Subject Index to Articles in Smithsonian Annual
Reports, 1849-1961” (Smithsonian Publication 4503) was issued in
1963.
Reprints of the various papers in the General Appendix may be
obtained, as long as the supply lasts, on request addressed to the
Editorial and Publications Division, Smithsonian Institution, Wash-
ington, D.C., 20560.
296
The Quest for Life Beyond the Earth’
By Cari SAcAN
Staff member, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Assistant Professor of
Astronomy, Harvard University
[With 4 plates]
We are nor alone in the universe. Among the countless galaxies,
each with billions of stars, there must be many planets on which life
is now flourishing. Unfortunately, there is little prospect of travel to
these distant worlds—at least for the next century or so—and statisti-
cal arguments do not satisfy that amalgam of scientific curiosity and
the love of high adventure which motivates the search for the beings
of other planets.
But it may not be necessary to venture beyond our solar system.
The possibility that neighboring planets are inhabited, at least by
simple organisms, is a concept that is both very old and very popular.
Its immediate appeal, however, should be tempered by the facts. De-
spite the wide range of studies which have already been performed, we
do not know whether the other planets of our solar system are in-
habited. The problem often reduces to probability considerations,
and to estimates of observational reliability. At convenient places
in the following discussion I shall try to pause and give brief expres-
sion to alternative interpretations. In almost all cases, an optimistic
view can be found which holds that the evidence is strongly sugges-
tive of, or, at the worst, not inconsistent with, the existence of extra-
terrestrial life; and a pessimistic view can be found, which holds that
the evidence adduced in favor of extraterrestrial life is unconvincing,
irrelevant, or has an alternative, nonbiological explanation. I leave
it to the reader to pick his own way among the factions.
Extraterrestrial life and the origin of life are questions intertwined.
If it appears relatively easy for life to have emerged in the primitive
terrestrial environment, it may follow that the origin of life is a fairly
general planetary phenomenon. So let us begin with a discussion of
1The A. Calvert Smith prize-winning essay at Harvard University for 1964. Reprinted
by permission from Harvard Alumni Bulletin, April 4, 1964.
297
298 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
QUEST FOR LIFE BEYOND THE EARTH—SAGAN 299
recent ideas on the origin of life on Earth some 4 billion years ago, and
then continue with a discussion of the physical environments of the
moon and planets, and finally, a look at the more direct evidence for
life beyond the Earth.
When life began depends upon the definition of life, and, curiously
enough, there is no definition acceptable to all biologists. Yet, the
many characteristic features of living systems—their complex and
highly structured forms, their growth, metabolism, and reproduction—
are all ultimately attributable to evolution by natural selection. And
evolution occurs in plants and animals because of the interaction of
the environment with the hereditary material, a kind of molecular
blueprint which controls metabolism, produces a replica of itself for
the next generation to follow, and, through the centuries, gradually
changes, or mutates, occasioning new forms of life. The key mole-
cules of the hereditary material are the nucleic acids, ribonucleic acid
(RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Thus, the problem of the
origin of life seems to be connected with the problem of the origin
of nucleic acids.
The structure and function of DNA have been elucidated chiefly by
James D. Watson, of Harvard, and Francis H. C. Crick, of Cambridge
University. It is a long molecule, comprising two molecular strands
wound about each other in a coil, or helix. During cell division, the
strands separate, and each synthesizes a copy of the other, yielding two
molecules of DNA where originally there was one. The building
blocks for this synthesis are called nucleoside phosphates, and much of
the activity of the cell is devoted to constructing these building blocks
from yet simpler molecules, and joining them together to form nucleic
acids. The nucleoside phosphates are each composed of a sugar, a
base, and one, two, or three phosphates. A given nucleic acid molecule
is generally composed of four kinds of nucleoside phosphates. Their
sequencing along the chain is a kind of four-letter code that deter-
mines which proteins a cell will make. Proteins, in turn, are long
chains of amino acids, and recent evidence indicates that three nucle-
oside phosphates are required to specify each amino acid in a protein.
The transcription sequence is this: DNA makes RNA; several kinds of
RNA make proteins—in particular, enzymes; and enzymes govern the
<—_—_
Ficure 1.—Schematic illustration of a short section of the Watson-Crick model of DNA.
The two helical strands can be seen running vertically, in opposite directions, on the
right and left sides of the figure. As the detailed inset shows, the strands are
connected by pairs of bases, chosen from the four bases adenine (A), cytosine (C),
guanine (G), and thymine (T). The strands themselves are made of sugars (S) and
phosphates (P). A combination of a base and a sugar (e.g., A-S) is called a nucleoside;
a combination of a base, a sugar, and a phosphate (e.g., A-S—P) is known as a nucleoside
phosphate. Thus, the DNA molecule can be considered to be constructed of a linear
sequence of nucleoside phosphates. The sequence of bases (e.g., along the left
strand of the inset TCAG) specifies the genetic code.
300 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
metabolism of the cell. In this way, the nucleic acids control the
form and functions of all cells.
With geological time available for the origin of life, the key event
may then have been the spontaneous production of nucleoside phos-
phates in the primitive environment. In contemporary cells, these
building blocks join together in the presence of special enzymes which
speed their rate of reaction; but given enough time, it is possible that
nucleoside phosphates will spontaneously polymerize to nucleic acids.
How might such nucleoside phosphates have originated, billions of
years ago, on the primitive Earth? ‘There are very good reasons for
believing that the primitive atmosphere of the Earth contained large
amounts of hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.
Some 4 billion years ago, the atmosphere should have consisted pri-
marily of hydrogen and the hydrogen-rich gases methane, ammonia,
and water. The transition from this primitive atmosphere to our
present oxidizing one is due in part to the escape of hydrogen into
interplanetary space, and in part to the production of oxygen by
plant photosynthesis. In 1953, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey
applied an electric spark—lightning on a smaller scale—to a mixture
of gases resembling the primitive atmosphere of the Earth. They
produced a variety of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.
Since these pioneering experiments, other scientists have produced
other organic molecules—cyanides, aldehydes, hydrocarbons—in simu-
lated primitive atmospheres. In addition to electrical discharges,
other energy sources available on the early Earth, such as ultraviolet
light and high temperatures, have been utilized.
In later experiments, the amino acids and other simple products
have themselves been used as starting points in the production of
more complex organic molecules—polypeptides, resembling simple
proteins; sugars; and the kinds of bases found in nucleosides. It is
a curious fact that these bases absorb ultraviolet light at just those
wavelengths transmitted, in the absence of ozone, by the primitive
terrestrial atmosphere. For this reason, Cyril Ponnamperuma, Ruth
Mariner, and I last year irradiated dilute solutions of bases, sugars,
and phosphorus compounds, and found that we had made in high yield
various nucleosides and nucleoside phosphates. One of these was
adenosine triphosphate (ATP). It is not only the most important
energy-storage molecule in plants and animals; ATP is also an RNA
precursor, and differs in only one atom from an important building
block of DNA. From experiments such as these, it can be estimated
that the amount of organic matter produced from natural energy
sources in early times is so large that, if dissolved in the present
oceans, it would make about a 1 percent organic solution.
Here, then, is a picture of the early stages of the origin of life.
Ultraviolet light, lightning, or other forms of energy produce sugars
QUEST FOR LIFE BEYOND THE EARTH—SAGAN 301
and bases in the primitive oceans. Under continued ultraviolet
irradiation, they combine with phosphorus compounds already in
the oceans to form nucleoside phosphates. In turn, the eventual
interaction of nucleoside phosphates yields nucleic acids resembling
DNA. Because of their characteristic chemical structure, the nucleic
acids slowly replicate—that is, they begin forcing the production of
other, identical nucleic acids from adjacent building blocks in the
primitive oceans.
Occasionally, an error in replication occurs, yielding different vari-
eties of the original nucleic acid molecule. These varieties, however,
also reproduce themselves. Some of these new molecules may replicate
more rapidly or more efficiently, and they prosper; others do not.
Thus, a kind of evolution begins, a natural selection on the molecular
level. When, in time, nucleic acid molecules developed which weakly
controlled chemical reactions outside themselves, the chain of life
from molecule toman began. The critical event has been the produc-
tion of the first molecule which could reproduce itself.
This picture provides a convenient scaffolding for draping our
ideas, but there are many problems which remain to be answered.
Will enough nucleoside phosphates be produced, and interact, in
primitive times, to form many nucleic acids? How did early nucleic
acids control their environment, in the absence of the elaborate con-
temporary DNA-RNA-protein transcription apparatus? What is the
effect of molecular contaminants on the course of prebiological organic
chemistry? What is the origin of the cell?
Despite the many uncertainties remaining, certain features of the
origin of life are now becoming clear. It is a remarkable fact that
the physics and chemistry of the primitive terrestrial environment
were such that large numbers of organic molecules were produced—
organic molecules which today are intricately entwined in the fabric
of life. This has two implications for the possibility of extra-
terrestrial life. First, the origin of life may be a highly probable
event arising by the operation of very general energy sources on very
common primitive planetary environments. Second, fundamental
extraterrestrial biochemistry may be of a familiar type, even if extra-
terrestrial morphology and physiology are not.
Although all the planets may have started with similar primitive
environments, it is clear that subsequent planetary development has
produced a diversity of extraterrestrial environments. The Harvard
paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson has emphasized that evolu-
tion is an opportunistic, and not a far-sighted, process. Adaptations
occur to immediate environmental crises, and not because of any long-
term plans. Each evolutionary step must build on the previous ones,
and the number of evolutionary “decisions” in the ancestry of any
organism is enormous. Thus, we must not expect the inhabitants of
302 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
these diverse planetary environments—if, indeed, there are inhab-
itants—to have familiar forms. They have made other adaptations
to other environments. But the anticipated diversity and unfamiliar-
ity of extraterrestrial organisms provide a profound challenge and
a supreme opportunity for biologists.
What, then, are our neighbors in the solar system like? What are
these planetary environments?
Mercury and the moon are similar in many ways: little or no
atmosphere, no surface water or other likely solvents, and extremes
of temperature. With no atmosphere, the moon receives intense ultra-
violet radiation and proton bombardment from the sun, and no
terrestrial organism could survive, unprotected, on the lunar surface
for more than a few hours. But conditions are much milder below
the lunar surface. Here, there is no solar radiation, the temperature
variations are small, at some depths the average temperature is mild,
and there may be liquid water trapped below a layer of permafrost.
Nevertheless, the likelihood of subsurface life on the moon seems re-
mote, because in the absence of sunlight there is no convenient energy
source for living systems.
The planet Venus emits radio waves characteristic of a body at a
temperature of 600 or 700° F. Until recently, however, no one knew
for certain whether this high-temperature emission came from the
surface of the planet, or from some region high in its atmosphere.
The voyage of the NASA space vehicle Mariner IT to the vicinity of
Venus, in 1962, helped solve this problem. Aboard Mariner was a
sensitive radiometer designed by five scientists, including A. E.
Lilley of the Harvard College Observatory, which radioed back to
Earth the news that the radio emission arises from the surface of
Venus. The planet is therefore too hot for any familiar biochemicals,
and a terrestrial organism placed there would fry. Indigenous life
on Venus is very unlikely.
Between Mars, of which we will speak presently, and Jupiter are
fragments of stone and rock known as the asteroids. Chips off the
asteroids occasionally intercept the orbit of the Earth, and fall to its
surface as meteorites. Meteorites are the only samples of extra-
terrestrial material now available for laboratory analysis. A few
meteorites, known as the carbonaceous chondrites, contain a few per-
cent of very complex organic matter. It is not known whether this
organic matter was produced in the absence of life, by chemical
processes similar to those invoked for the origin of life on Earth, or
whether—more interestingly, but less likely—it was produced by liv-
ing organisms on the parent bodies of the chondrites. Inclusions
which superficially resemble microorganisms have also been found in
these meteorites. But some have been shown to be inorganic, and
others, to result from Earthly contamination-—for example, by rag-
QUEST FOR LIFE BEYOND THE EARTH—SAGAN 303
weed pollen. It is not known, however, whether all the inclusions can
be similarly explained away. There is no evidence for viable micro-
organisms in meteorites.
At first sight, the Jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune) seem far too hostile to support life. Their measured
temperatures range to several hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit,
and their atmospheres are mixtures of methane, ammonia, and other
ordinarily poisonous gases. The low temperatures, however, refer to
the top of the visible cloud layers on these planets; as on Earth, the
temperatures should be much higher below the clouds. Furthermore,
rather than being unambiguously poisonous, the atmospheres of the
Jovian planets are similar to the primitive atmosphere of the Earth
in which living organisms first arose. Even today, there are many
microorganisms which do well in hydrogen-rich, anaerobic environ-
ments. It has recently been shown that water condensation is to be
expected at moderate temperatures below the visible cloud layers.
Organic molecules are likely being synthesized today, by ultraviolet
light and electrical discharges, in the Jovian atmospheres. The
amounts of organic material probably produced there over the last 5
billion years areenormous. The Jovian planets may eventually prove
to be immense and invaluable planetary laboratories on the origins of
life.
The most Earthlike of the other planets in our solar system is Mars.
There is a detectable atmosphere, composed mainly of nitrogen and
carbon dioxide and smaller amounts of water vapor. The polar ice
caps wax and wane with the seasons, so that the amount of water
vapor in the atmosphere varies with time and place. The highest
temperatures measured on Mars are about 80° F.; but every night, the
temperature falls 150° or so, and the average over the entire planet is
about 40° below zero. To round things out, there is no detectable
oxygen and ozone, and solar ultraviolet radiation harmful to terrestrial
organisms may reach the surface.
Tentative identifications have been made of very small amounts of
nitrogen dioxide (NO.) on Mars. Since large amounts of NO, are
injurious to many familiar organisms, a few scientists have concluded
that life on Mars is impossible. It is of interest to note that the
amount of NO, in the air of smog-filled Los Angeles often exceeds
the amount on Mars. Life in Los Angeles may be difficult, but it is
not yet impossible.
Freezing kills in two ways: it produces ice crystals which disrupt
cellular structure, and it makes liquid water unavailable, an effect
especially deleterious in microorganisms. Food technologists have
long known, however, that microorganisms can survive freeze-thaw
cycles comparable to those on Mars. Recently, a number of labora-
tories have tested the survival and growth of terrestrial microorga-
766-746—65 21
304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
nisms in a more completely simulated Martian environment. ‘Two of
my colleagues and I have found that in every sample of soil tested,
some microorganisms could survive indefinitely the apparent rigors
of the Martian environment. Other experimenters have observed that
when a more plentiful supply of water is assumed (such as may occur
at the edge of the retreating polar ice caps), many soil organisms grow
and reproduce.
If biologically tractable mechanisms exist for the survival of ter-
restrial microorganisms, what may we not expect of the indigenous
biology? We are almost entirely ignorant of the availability of water
in the Martian subsurface, and this remains the chief uncertainty
in assessing the possibility of life there. Nighttime ice crystallization
of tissue water would preclude the existence of larger plants and ani-
mals on Mars; but one can envision a variety of adaptations to circum-
vent this difficulty. It seems premature to exclude, at the present time,
the presence of large organisms on Mars.
These experiments also underscore the necessity for sterilization
of space vehicles intended for Mars landings. Suppose an unsterilized
space vehicle Janded on Mars and the terrestrial microbiological con-
taminants which it contained then proliferated. If, several years
later, a life-detection experiment finds Mars populated with micro-
organisms of a familiar type, what shall we conclude? That the evolu-
tion of life on Mars paralleled that on Earth? That biological contact
between Mars and Earth had occurred in earlier times? Or that the
previous space vehicle had not been sterilized ?
Of the other planets in our solar system, serious direct evidence for
indigenous life exists only for Mars. That any evidence should exist
at all is in itself remarkable, a fact which perhaps can best be appreci-
ated by considering the circumstances reversed. Imagine that we
are situated on Mars, and provided with the same level of astronomical
instrumentation which exists on Earth today. Is there life on Earth?
The largest engineering works would be invisible. In 100,000 Tiros
photographs of Earth, of higher quality than could be obtained with
a 200-inch telescope from Mars, only one image showed any sign of
the works of man. Lights from large cities, such as Los Angeles,
would be marginally detectable, and interpretation would not be easy.
Seasonal color changes of deciduous forests and of crops—for example,
in the American midwest, or in the Ukraine—would be observed, but
here there would arise vexing questions on the reliability of Martian
color vision, and the chromatic aberration of telescopes.
Occasionally, bright flashes of light might be discernible. Their
durations would be only several seconds, and there would be some
evidence of their recurrence only in a few restricted locales, such as
Eniwetok and Novaya Zemlya. It is doubtful whether they would
be considered evidence for life on Earth—much less, intelligent life.
QUEST FOR LIFE BEYOND THE EARTH—SAGAN 305
If the hypothetical Martians had radio reception equipment, and chose
to scan Earth in narrow wave bands, they would certainly be re-
warded—if that is the word—by television transmission from Earth.
There would be an intensity maximum when the North American
continent faced Mars, and it would perhaps be possible to determine
that this radio frequency emission was not entirely random noise.
But barring such observations, the problem of life on Earth would
remain an open question.
What evidence, then, do we have for life on Mars? The green color-
ation and rectilinear markings on Mars were once interpreted, respec-
tively, as vegetation and the artificial waterways of intelligent beings.
It is now known that the dominant color of the dark areas of Mars
is gray, not green, and that the so-called “canals” resolve, under the
best seeing conditions, into disconnected fine detail.
There are, however, more reliable observations which may be indica-
tive of life on Mars. As the polar ice caps recede each year, releasing
water vapor into the Martian atmosphere, a wave of darkening pro-
ceeds from the polar regions toward the dark areas near the equator.
The edges of the dark areas sharpen and delicate pastels of brown,
green, and blue appear. There is no doubt about the darkening, but
some dispute exists about the reality of the color changes. The bio-
logical interpretation of these phenomena is this: the Martian dark
areas are covered with organisms, perhaps plants, whose metabolism
is sensitive to the availability of water. During most of the year they
are ina dormant state. As the wave front of water from the vaporiz-
ing polar cap arrives, the organisms grow rapidly and proliferate.
The changes in darkness and color of the dark areas can be attributed
to these metabolic activities. As the water vapor wave front passes,
the organisms once again fall into dormancy.
It has also been proposed that the Martian dark areas are covered
with crystals which change their color and darkness when the avail-
ability of water increases. The polarimetric evidence, however, shows
that the dark areas cannot contain large amounts of such crystals.
Analysis of the polarization of light reflected from Mars indicates
that the dark areas are covered with fine dark grains which change
in size and darkness with the seasons. These particles could be organ-
isms which grow to maximum size and proliferate as the wave front
of water arrives. But it may also be possible that the polarization
changes can be explained by a redistribution of sizes of inorganic
grains. Perhaps winds which accompany the water vapor front dis-
turb the surface dust, which in the absence of winds has settled with
the very large and very small particles deepest.
When the Martian dark areas are observed with an infrared spec-
trometer, three features are observed which are possibly produced
by the absorption of infrared radiation by organic molecules. The
306 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
wavelengths at which these features are observed are specific for hydro-
carbons and aldehydes; and no reasonable inorganic materials absorb
at these wavelengths. The presence of hydrocarbons and aldehydes
on Mars may provide a key to Martian biochemistry, but it is also
possible—if less likely—that they are irrelevant to the question of life
on Mars. We have already seen that complex organic molecules can
be formed in the absence of living systems.
While none of the pieces of evidence is convincing by itself, together
they are suggestive of at least simple life forms on Mars, composed
of familiar organic substances, dependent upon water, proliferating
in the springtime, and covering a major fraction of the planetary
surface. But we are far from sure.
So we must, after all, go to Mars. The plans are already being
formulated, both in the United States and in the Soviet Union, for
these voyages of discovery and high scientific adventure which may,
perhaps, begin before the decade is out. Instruments have been de-
signed, prototypes built and tested, to land in preselected locales, search
for the presence of life, and radio the news back to Earth. Television
cameras will see what there is to see—perhaps only sand dunes, but
perhaps... foliage? ... fossils? . . . footprints? Coupled with
microscopes, they will seek out microorganisms. Culture media will
be automatically inoculated with soil samples, and then monitored.
Do Martian organisms eat terrestrial foodstuffs ?
In various forms, life has existed on the planet Earth for some
4 billion years. Thus, on a random basis, the probability of being
alive during just that decade when the first definitive study is made
of life beyond the Earth is about one-millionth of a percent. To seek
the beings of other worlds is the rarest of adventures—an adventure
we will all be fortunate enough to share.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Sagan PLATE 1
—
A three-dimensional model of a short section of the DNA molecule. Here, each atom of
hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus is represented by a different-colored
y gen, ) gen, oxygen, p Pp )
or -shaped atom. (Courtesy of Professor Paul M. Doty, Harvard University.)
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Sagan PLATE 2
The Mariner II spacecraft, as it might have looked during its encounter with Venus on
December 14, 1962. The horizontal panels are solar cells for the conversion of sunlight
into electricity. "The microwave radiometer is the dish-shaped instrument above the solar
cells, in the middle of the spacecraft. (Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.)
PLATE 3
Sagan
Report, 1964.
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PLATE 4
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Sagan
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The Secret of Stonehenge’
By Geratp S. Hawkins
Astronomer, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; Research Associate, Harvard
College Observatory; Chairman, Department of Astronomy, Boston University; Director,
Boston University Observatory
[With one plate]
A FEW MONTHS ago the book of Stonehenge seemed closed. It was
thought that little more could ever be learned about the mysterious
stone structure on England’s Salisbury Plain. The fraternity of
diggers—archeologists and other students of the past—had fixed the
dates of construction, from 2000 to 1500 B.C., and the probable meth-
ods. Shaping the great stones could have been done by fire, water, and
much pounding. Sturdy English schoolboys proved by toil and sweat
that cement blocks as big as Stonehenge stones could be floated by
raft and rolled overland from quarries as far away as Wales. (Legend
said the slabs were brought from Africa to Ireland by giants, and
whisked over to England by Merlin’s “word of power.”) The 50-ton
uprights of the trilithons (three-stone archways) could have been
tilted into retaining holes. Finally, the 6-ton crosspieces could have
been levered up on timber towers.
But why was Stonehenge built ?
Buried bones indicated that it had been a mortuary, also a crema-
torium, and it almost certainly was a temple, though not necessarily
Druid. But was it more? The unique monument, which Henry
James said “stands as lonely in history as it does on the great plain,”
guarded its secrets well... .
I first became interested in Stonehenge in 1954, when I went to the
Larkhill missile-testing base nearby. (Of course, we took pains to aim
our missiles away from Stonehenge—we were horrified to hear that
during World War I an airstrip commander, and a British one at
that, had requested that for his planes’ convenience the Stonehenge
megaliths be flattened. Request denied.) I used to visit that gaunt
ruin whenever I could. Even when it was alive and loud with tourists
1 Reprinted by permission from Harper’s Magazine, June 1964.
307
308 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
it seemed remote, timeless, brooding. I poked around, marveled, and
read everything I could find about it.
The word that originally struck me in the literature was “coinci-
dence.” The one thing that all laymen know about Stonehenge—that
if you stand in the center on a clear Midsummer morning (around
the summer solstice, June 22) and lock down “the avenue” you will
see the sun rise almost exactly over the distant “heelstone’”—was
called a coincidence by most archeologists. Beware, it leads to “fruit-
less conjecture,” warned one authority. As an astronomer I could not
help feeling that such an alinement of the most important direction
of the structure with the point of sunrise of the longest day of the
year might well have been deliberate. I wondered.
Then, early in 1961, I had occasion to mention Stonehenge in my
book Splendor in the Sky:
. .. If the axis of the temple had been chosen at random the probability
of selecting this point by accident would be less than one in five hundred.
Now if the builders of Stonehenge had wished simply to mark the sun-
rise they needed no more than two stones. Yet hundreds of tons of
voleanic rock were carved and placed in position. . . . It must have been
the focal point for ancient Britons. . . . The stone blocks are mute, but
perhaps some day, by a chance discovery, we will learn their secrets.
As I wrote those words, the thought that had been nebulous in my
head for some 7 years suddenly crystallized: something should be
done. So that summer I went there again, and my wife and I stalked
the Stonehenge sunrise. We made base camp in an Amesbury hotel
close by, and a few days before Midsummer (alas, we couldn’t be there
on The Day itself), we went over. Not without overtones of ght
comedy: sunrise was due about 4:30 (daylight time); we had ne-
elected to tell the hotel we would be going out so early, and we hadn’t
paid our bill; so with exceeding furtiveness we tiptoed down the long
dark hall, past the loudly ticking grandfather clock, and we started
our car quietly.
Stonehenge stood black against the lightening sky. I climbed the
barbed wire fence (which defeated my wife), placed myself at the
center of the circles,? and made ready my 8-millimeter telephoto movie
camera. And suddenly, there it was—the first red flash of the sun,
rising just one-half a diameter to the right of the heelstone. For a
moment I was lost in time, bemused, trying to go back 8,500 years to
those other sunrises, similarly witnessed by what other people, for
what other purpose? But quickly I returned to the 20th century,
because I felt surrounded by questions calling out for answer: Why
2The inner circle consists of five trilithons set in a horseshoe pattern; the next, tra-
ditionally called the Sarcen (Saracen?) circle, is a ring of upright boulders, some with
lintels on the top; the outer or Aubrey circle (named for the 17th-century investigator
John Aubrey) is marked by 56 equally spaced holes and mounds.
THE SECRET OF STONEHENGE—HAWKINS 309
is the heelstone ever so slightly out of line, so that to see it through
the trilithon arch you must stand 6 inches to the left of the center of
the circles? Why are those trilithon arches so narrow? The huge
uprights stand 20 feet high, but the space between is less than a foot.
Why do these spaces line up? What do those alinements point to?
As an astronomer, I thought, “Aha! A transit instrument. These
arches were used to point to stars or planets or different things in
the sky.”
AVENUE
BANK
(LATER THAN
STONEHENGE 1)
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56
MIDSUMMER
SUNRISE
UNEXCAVATED 1965
*. STATION STONE RECTANGLE _
SCALE OF FEET
Ficure 1.—Schematic plan of Stonehenge.
310 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
And as I pondered, the sun kept rising. And it was rising almost
horizontally, so that it had traveled fully 2 degrees before the disk
stood clear of the horizon. That meant that it would be—would have
been—extremely difficult to estimate the exact spot at which it lifted
clear of the horizon. Clouds, of course, are common in England, and
the Stonehenge people were probably no more fortunate than the
modern Briton. Nowadays I think only one in five Midsummer sun-
rises at Stonehenge is clear. All of these things would make the set-
ting of the stones difficult. Critical conditions, devices capable of
precise measurement, evidence of knowledge, skill, purpose—all for
what?
I thought, in that lonely place: “Was Stonehenge an observatory ?”
There seemed to be significance in those delicate alinements, and it
would most logically be astronomical significance. What would you
line sighting-stones on? Surely on the heavenly bodies—the gods of
prehistory and so-called barbarism. The center-heelstone certainly
pointed to Midsummer sunrise; could there have been other such
alinements, such as a corresponding one pointing to Midwinter sunset ?
T read at Stonehenge that the noted British archeologist R. S. Newall
had suggested that possibility, but there had been no verification.
What did those alinements point to ?
I said to myself, “It’s no good just talking. The problem is too
complicated. We need precise measurement, more elaborate calcula-
tion that I am prepared to do. We need the machine.” But at that
moment, I had more mundane problems to face—the barbed wire fence,
the hotel bill, and an English summer squall that was dashing cold
rain across the plain.
WHAT THE COMPUTER SAID
Before I left England I got plans and charts of the site. Back in
Cambridge, Mass., I armed myself with all the pertinent material in
Warvard’s Widener Library. I defined the problem: What, if any,
correlation is there between Stonehenge alinements and the rise or set
points of any heavenly bodies, as of the period 2000-1500 B.C.? ‘Then
with the help of Shoshana Rosenthal and Judy Copeland at the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, I went to the machines.
First we put charts of Stonehenge into “Oscar,” a plotting machine
that transforms positions into X, Y coordinates on punched cards.
Then we fed those coordinates into the Harvard-Smithsonian IBM
7090 computer and asked it to calculate azimuths, or compass direc-
tions, determined by some 170 pairs of positions, a position being a
stone, stone hole, mound, archway, or the center. Next we asked the
machine to translate those azimuths into declinations, that is, to deter-
mine the “latitudes” of the celestial sphere they intersected.
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THE SECRET OF STONEHENGE—HAWKINS Sil
Then we examined those declinations, the horizon spots to which
the Stonehenge pairs pointed. Was there any pattern to them? Did
the pairs point to significant rise or set positions of celestial bodies?
A quick check showed no significant matching with planets or with the
bigger stars, Sirius, Canopus, Arcturus, Betelgeuse, Spica, Vega... .
But the most cursory naked-eye glance at those declinations told us
of probable sun correlation. The figures +24 and —24 were fre-
quent—and those figures are the declination of the sun at Midsummer
and Midwinter, its farthest north and south.
I was somewhat prepared for such solar correlation. Indeed, I had
suspected it. But what we next discovered took us by surprise: even
more frequently than the +24 of the sun, the +29 and +19 of the
moon appeared. The moon has a more complicated relative motion
than the sun. During a 9-year cycle its maximum north and south
declination moves from 19 to 29 degrees. The machine’s finding
seemed to show that not only was Stonehenge alined to the sun—it was
also oriented to the moon.
I must admit that it was with some unscientific emotion that we
programed the machine to take the sun and moon back to 1500 B.C.,
to get an accurate check of those azimuth alinements. What we found
was beyond expectation. To a mean accuracy of 1 degree there were
10 sun correlations. To a mean accuracy of 1.5 degrees, there were 14
moon correlations.
We did the work in spare moments over the course of a year. About
10 hours were spent measuring the charts, about 20 hours were spent
preparing the machine program, and the final run on the Harvard-
Smithsonian IBM 7090 computing machine took about 1 minute.
It is important to note that ald of the 24 alinements are between key
positions—the center of the structure, the “avenue” or most important
axis, the great trilithon arches, the rectangle of “stations,” the uniquely
placed stones near the entrance. Every one of these key positions
paired with others to point to a sun or moon rise or set. That solidly
establishes the fact that those alinements were significant, deliberate,
basic in the construction. Stonehenge lived by the sun and moon.
Could it possibly have been coincidence? Bernouilli’s theorem of
probability indicates that there is less than one chance in a hundred
million that this could happen without a prearranged design.
And what does it mean? It means that Stonehenge was an astro-
nomical observatory. And a good one, too. It could have formed a
reliable calendar to predict change of seasons. It could also have
signaled danger periods for eclipses of the sun or moon. It could
have formed a dramatic setting for observation of the interchange
between the sun—dominator of summer—and the moon—ruler of the
winter. How it actually was used we may never know. All that we
can now state with certainty is that it was designed, with astonishing
766-746—65——_22
312 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
——D SUNRISE
-~—-—-’D MOONRISE
<< SUNSET
<-—-—-—- MOONSET
+29 WINTER MOON HIGH
+19 WINTER MOON LOW
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—29 SUMMER MOON LOW
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SCALE OF FEET
Ficure 2.—The sun and moon alinements found for Stonehenge.
skill, as an observatory, and that it could have been used for many
astronomic purposes.
It is now the responsibility of archeology to digest this new infor-
mation and from it draw new historic conclusions.
WHAT THE ARCHEOLOGIST SAID
I first published an account of my discovery in the British magazine
Nature, last October. There has been a surprising amount of response.
Newspapers and other magazines from many countries have com-
mented, from England and Canada to Spain and South Africa.
Among the letters I have received from archeologists was one, par-
ticularly engaging, from R. S. Newall in England:
It is always difficult, I suppose, when two different sciences meet (if
archeology can be called a science), to come to agreement. Astronomers
THE SECRET OF STONEHENGE—HAWKINS 313
have their eyes in the sky; archeologists in the earth. . . . However,
I agree that Stonehenge is oriented to the winter solstice setting sun
in the great central trilithon as seen from the center or anywhere else
on the axis, and since the plan of Stonehenge is sepulchral, it is in some
way the mortuary temple to the sun in his old age when he goes down
to the lower world at the end of the year or life....
Mr. Newall also wondered if Stonehenge could aline to an astro-
nomic point, the point of sunrise at equinox. He was right; two of the
main stoneholes do this to within one-tenth of a degree. The aline-
ment was overlooked by me, I regret to say, and the machine is blame-
less. Finally he quoted the first-century B.c. writer Diodorus, who
said that in the mysterious northern island of “Hyperborea” there was
a “spherical temple” to Apollo, and “the god visits the island every
19 years, the period in which the return of the stars to the same place
in heaven is accomplished. .. .”
The archeologist concluded: “Now I do noé say that that refers to
Stonehenge, but could it ... ? Could the full moon do something
spectacular once every 19 years at Stonehenge?”
It is a fact that some Jewish and Chinese calendars used a 19-year
cycle, and that the Greek Meton knew that the full moon occurs
exactly on the same calendar date after a lapse of 19 years. But I was
struck by Newall’s wonderment about the moon at Stonehenge. I
thought, “What about eclipses, at the most spectacular place—over the
heelstone?” So I looked up eclipse records for some 150 years. Moon
eclipses in December—January, the approximate time when the eclipsed
moon would rise over the heelstone, occurred mostly at intervals of
19 years, with sometimes an interval of 18 or 8. Interesting?
A similar condition occurs at Midsummer, and this phase of the
Stonehenge cycle is going to happen in 1964, this very month! * The
full moon is eclipsed at 2 a.m. on June 25, and then sets in the great
trilithon as seen from the center of Stonehenge. The monument will
be closed to visitors at that time, unfortunately.
In the course of this investigation, I have found out many other
arresting things, indicating avenues for further exploration. The
machine, quick, dispassionate, tireless, makes possible much more thor-
ough analysis of such an elaborate problem than humans would care
to attempt. A new chapter in the ancient book of Stonehenge now lies
open.
3 June 1964. [This eclipse, and the Midsummer sunrise, was filmed and shown in “The
Mystery of Stonehenge,” presented by CBS—TV.]
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The Smithsonian’s Satellite-Tracking
Program: Its History and Organization
PART 3’
By E. Newson Hayes
Editor-in-chief, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Tue Unirep States launched its first artificial earth satellite from
Cape Canaveral at 10:48 p.m., eastern standard time, on January 31,
1958. The disappointment and frustration of the preceding months
lifted as the Jupiter-C Rocket thrust Satellite 1958 Alpha into an
orbit with apogee of 1,573 miles, perigee of 224 miles, and period of
114.8 minutes. The payload, weighing 30.8 pounds, carried experi-
ments to measure cosmic rays and upper atmospheric temperatures,
and to detect micrometeors. This first American satellite made pos-
sible one of the most important discoveries of the International Geo-
physical Year (IGY)—the existence of what is now known as the Van
Allen radiation belt.
The worldwide Moonwatch network of the Smithsonian Astrophys-
ical Observatory was immediately alerted, and on February 2 teams
in Bryan, Tex., and Albuquerque, N. Mex., reported sightings of the
object. In the ensuing weeks, predictions were sent to those Baker-
Nunn camera installations that were in operation, and on March 18
the station in South Africa made the first photograph of 1958 Alpha;
Japan followed with an observation on April 5, and the New Mexico
station made observations on April 11, 15, and 18. These observations
were in fulfillment of the Observatory’s obligations to the IGY.
Those responsibilities were defined in a memorandum to Dr. Fred L.
Whipple, director of the Observatory, from Hugh Odishaw, executive
secretary of the U.S. Committee for the IGY. He specified that the
Observatory was to assume “responsibility for optical tracking of all
satellite bodies launched by the U.S. that are not sending out radio
1Part 1 was published in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1961,
pp. 275-322; Part 2 in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1963, pp.
331-357.
315
316 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
tracking signals,” and “to promptly forward to NAS and to AGI-
WARN all optical observations of all future U.S.S.R. launch satellites
received directly which are sufficiently reliable to use in orbit
predictions.”
These instructions were based on the assumption that the space
efforts of the United States and Russia during the IGY would be rela-
tively modest. In fact, however, before the IGY ended, on December
51, 1958, the United States had launched eight satellites, and the Soviet
Union three. Together, these objects represented a greater tracking
load than had been foreseen, and only the superb instrumentation of
the 12 Baker-Nunn camera stations and the highly efficient organiza-
tion of the more than 200 volunteer Moonwatch teams enabled the
Smithsonian to make observations of all of them.
By mid-1958 it became apparent that both national and scientific
interests demanded the continuance of the United States space pro-
gram beyond the end of the IGY. However, no civilian Government
agency had the funds, personnel, and desire to carry through the work.
As a provisional measure, the IGY was continued on an interim basis
as the International Geophysical Cooperation (IGC) and the sug-
gestion made that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA) assume the support of the various components of the IGY
tracking program.
Meanwhile, a special committee, appointed by President Eisenhower
in 1957 to determine our national objectives and requirements in space,
recommended in March 1958 that a civilian agency be created to con-
duct a full-scale program of space exploration. On July 29, Congress
passed a bill creating the National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-
tration (NASA), and it was this organization that in the succeeding
months gradually would bring under its aegis most space activities
of the United States.
By late 1958, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory no longer
was responsible for tracking every satellite launched. Instead, the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration assigned to the Ob-
servatory and to other tracking networks responsibility for specific
satellites. During the last quarter of the year, the Observatory was
formally assigned the tracking of Satellites 1958 Alpha, 1958 81, 1958
§2, and 1958 Epsilon. In addition, it made orbital and ephemeris
computations on 1958 62 and 1958 Zeta for the purpose of preparing
predictions of passages. In the first quarter of 1959, the Observatory
was given responsibility for two additional objects, 1959 al and a2
launched on February 17.
The Observatory also had a special assignment from the Army
Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), which had total responsibility
for ExplorersTV and V. Explorer V had an unsuccessful launching ;
but Explorer IV went into orbit on July 26,1958. Designated Satel-
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 317
lite 1958 Epsilon, it had an apogee of 1,380 miles, a perigee of 163,
and a period of 110.27 minutes. Its instrumentation, consisting of
geiger and scintillation counters and two transmitters, was designed
to telemeter to earth new data on the radiation belts. Its radio signals
failed on October 6, and the satellite came down on October 23, 1959.
The Observatory had proposed to ABMA in May 1958 that it
monitor the two Explorers, and furnish space-time coordinates in a
special form adapted to the specific purpose of the experiments carried
in the satellites to ensure the ultimate value of the telemetered data.
This latter work was to be conducted in conjunction with the tracking
operations. Dr. Charles A. Lundquist coordinated the program for
ABMA; Dr. G. F. Schilling, for the Somthsonian Astrophysical
Observatory.
The first Baker-Nunn photographs of Explorer IV were obtained
34 hours after launch. Within a few days, the Observatory was able
to supply ABMA with minute-by-minute positions of the satellite.
It also prepared orbital elements on a regular basis throughout the
lifetime of the radio transmitter. In all, 130 photographic and 250
Moonwatch observations of the satellite were obtained.
In addition, the contract between the Observatory and ABMA
provided that various computer programs be written, particularly
a numerical integration program and a differential correction proce-
dure, both based on work done by Dr. Leland Cunningham. This
cooperative undertaking proved to be highly successful. Explorer
IV was the first satellite for which ephemerides were reproduced
in multiple copies and sent in a brief time—a matter of a few days
or a week—to all interested parties. This procedure has now become
routine.
As for the Observatory, the success of the project reflected the re-
fined skill of the satellite-tracking network, a skill that was to ensure
the continuance of the network after the IGC.
MOONWATCH
By early 1958, the Moonwatch network consisted of 230 teams; 121
of them were within the continental United States, 1 in Canada,
13 in South and Central America, 77 in Japan, 5 in Australia, 5 in
other islands in the Pacific, 3 on the Asia mainland, and 5 in Africa.
During the first quarter of the year, the Observatory received 1,371
observations from the teams; 1,272 of these were of Satellite 1957
Beta, 85 of 1958 Alpha, 8 of 1958 Beta, and 6 of 1958 Gamma. Moon-
watch observations since October now totaled 3,141.
These observations were of unique and vital importance, especially
since the radio signals from Sputnik I ceased 3 weeks after its launch-
ing on October 4, and those from Sputnik IT ceased 7 days after it was
318 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
placed in orbit on November 3. Moonwatch teams had even been
able to sight the faint third component (the nose cone) of Sputnik I.
Widely separated teams reported 11 different observations; without
these the existence of 1957 «3 might never have been verified.
Under the leadership of Leon Campbell, Jr., Moonwatch was more
than fulfilling the expectations of its creators and was demonstrat-
ing its ability to provide data of singular scientific significance.
THE MOONWATCH TEAMS
Hundreds of people of widely differing personalities and vocations
had responded to the romantic and even adventuresome appeal of
Moonwatch. Among professionals who joined were many doctors,
dentists, engineers, clergymen, and teachers. Radio hams and photog-
raphers were especially attracted to the program. Then there were
the scores of housewives, salesmen, clerks, factory workers, and secre-
taries. Students were particularly responsive and came not only
from high school and college levels but from grade school as well.
One could even find a watchmaker, an artist, a retired Naval captain,
a newspaperman, a railway engineer, a priest, a weatherman, a hotel
administrator, and an automobile dealer. And the inmates of a State
penitentiary offered to establish a team; difficulties in choosing an
acceptable observing site rendered this suggestion impractical.
In all, the teams represented a fine balance between the enthusiasm
of the amateur and the skill of the technician. What was most needed,
however, and fortunately usually was found, was the ability to get
along with people, and, for the leaders, a talent for organizing and
inspiring others. Frequently, the pattern was for the engineer or
other technical specialist to design new equipment, develop observing
techniques, and set up efficient communications, while a clergyman, or
teacher, or doctor would arouse and sustain the interest of other
members of the team.
That interest was infectious. In many communities, Moonwatch
took up where Chautauqua and similar activities of the 19th century
left off. Then, Americans had neither radio nor television; people
in small towns made many of their own amusements and intellectual
pursuits, and brought in outsiders to lecture, teach, and entertain.
Today, everybody is likely to stay in his own living room and watch
television. Moonwatch drew many people away from such passivity
and back into a community activity in which many could participate
either directly or indirectly. Even those who were not members of a
local Moonwatch team could derive much satisfaction from supporting
it.
Additional support came from companies and business firms, which
often helped to coordinate the efforts of the teams. One company,
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 319
for example, bought the telescopes and supplied the local Moonwatch
team with radio and all other necessary equipment. Another in-
stituted a telephone-answering service, so set up in the factory that
one could dial a number for satellite information. Every day the
tapes were changed, and callers could learn where the satellite was
and whether it could be seen locally. The tapes were done in language
that everyone could understand. The service started with 1 telephone;
before it was through, there were 12 automatic telephone-answering
lines. In this way, the entire community became involved in the
Moonwatch program. Such companies did not use Moonwatch to
advertise their products or services; rather, their motives were good
will and a wish to do something for the community.
The greatest impact of Moonwatch was on youth. Indeed, a few
teams in the United States were set up and successfully operated
entirely by young people.
One team in the Southwest was started by a schoolteacher who
instructed a course in general science. The town had a considerable
problem of juvenile delinquency, and school officials frowned on any
activity that would bring the children together at night. Neverthe-
less, the teacher persevered in setting up the team, and through it gen-
erated sufficient interest in science and in satellite tracking not only
to achieve a high technical level but also to absorb profitably the
energies of dozens of children who might otherwise have been less well
employed. In time, the local high school took part in Moonwatch
activities and the team was permitted to build a permanent station
on top of the school building. Over a period of years, the incidence
of juvenile delinquency sharply declined and the whole community
benefited from the project.
In another town, a 79-year-old woman felt the challenge of space
and created a Moonwatch team consisting of children and parents
who observed side by side. She instilled so much enthusiasm for
science among these children that many of them went on to college
to major in physics, astronomy, and other sciences. Perhaps the most
remarkable aspect of her achievement was that she was totally blind.
At the other extreme were teams primarily manned by academicians.
One, for example, drew chiefly from the oceanography staff of a large
university. Another team was established by a young professor in
a Texas college that had no department of astronomy. The team at-
tained great excellence in its observations; the professor built a larger
telescope of his own, and so stimulated interest in both the community
and in the college that the latter now has an observatory of profes-
sional status.
All of these Moonwatch teams had similar problems involving
money, equipment, personnel, observing techniques, and communica-
tions with Cambridge. Many of them solved these problems in their
320 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
own individual ways; others required assistance from field represen-
tatives later sent out by the Observatory.
The Smithsonian had no funds to supply equipment other than
M-17 telescopes and the loan of satellite simulators, tape recorders,
and a few other items, most of them U.S. Government surplus. Each
team, therefore, was required to provide its own means for correct
timing of the observations, its own observing site, and other facilities.
The Moonwatchers showed great ingenuity in supplying themselves
with these necessities.
In all probability, any other arrangement would have proved disas-
trous. Had the Observatory given money for these purchases, un-
doubtedly a wholly different type of person would have volunteered
for the teams. He would not have been essentially a pioneer; he
would not have wanted to devise ways and means of meeting needs.
In this respect, the first Moonwatchers resembled the first observers
at the Baker-Nunn stations, who also had to pioneer in the develop-
ment of observing techniques and in the most efficient use of available
equipment.
On the other hand, a vital difference between the Moonwatch teams
and the Baker-Nunn stations needs to be stressed. Both had to de-
velop techniques to meet individual situations. For the Moonwatch
teams, this proved a means of maintaining a lively interest in the pro-
gram and of taxing the creativity and energy of the participants.
The same was also true of the observers at the Baker-Nunn stations
during the initial phases of the program. Later, however, the re-
quirement that the Baker-Nunn observations be standardized to a
single formula and that a high level of consistent excellence be main-
tained necessitated the development of strict routines that proved in
some instances to be unacceptable to the independent spirit of the
observers. This problem had to be faced and solved at the first
station chiefs’ conference in 1959.
Meanwhile, the Moonwatch network flourished during those early
days of satellite tracking. But as the Baker-Nunn network gradually
became more and more productive of extremely accurate observations
the value of marginal Moonwatch observations became less and less.
Consequently, by the middle of 1959 all of the teams were revaluated,
and each was assigned a status based on such criteria as its observa-
tional record, its potential for valuable contributions to the program,
its geographical location, and its organizational and financial stabil-
ity. Of the 200 teams, 35 were classified as prime-A; 10 as prime-B;
2 as special; 81 as standard; and 36 as reserve. By July, 36 other
teams were withdrawn from the program. Thus, when the program
went under the auspices of the National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration on July 1, 1959, there was a total of 164 teams with a
membership of approximately 5,000.
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 321
The contribution that Moonwatch had made to the IGY and IGC
was recognized in a series of awards that were given to teams, in-
dividual Moonwatchers, and to sponsors and other individuals
who had participated. The awards were in the form of Moon-
watch emblem pins, printed certificates, and letters of commendation.
By mid-1959, more than 4,000 pins and 8,000 certificates had been
awarded, and Moonwatch headquarters in Cambridge had forwarded
to the IGY National Committee recommendations for achievement
certificates to some 50 Moonwatch teams and for 205 other awards
to individuals who had made outstanding contributions. These were
duly made.
OBSERVATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF MOONWATCH
What the Observatory required from each Moonwatch team was
a message giving the time and position of a satellite during transit over
the site. Although these observational data needed to be as accurate
as possible, they did not have to be obtained by any particular observ-
ing technique so long as the procedures provided data in the right
format and the team exercised caution in the choice of methods.
Table 1 lists the number of Moonwatch observations of each satel-
lite launched from October 1957 through June 1959. Some of these
observations were quite remarkable achievements, and a number of
them provided unique data for research and analysis at Cambridge.
On April 13, 1958, dozens of Moonwatch teams were alerted to
observe the demise of Sputnik IT. Sightings of the satellite in its
descent were made by teams in Millbrook, N.Y.; New Haven, Conn. ;
and Bryn Athyn, Pa.; final observations were made from ships and
islands in the Caribbean as the satellite plunged to its death near
the northern coast of South America. This dramatic occurrence was
recounted by Dr. Luigi Jacchia in the Observatory’s Special Report
No. 15.
TABLE 1.—Moonwatch Observations, October 1957 to June 1959
Satellite Number of Satellite Number of
observations observations
LO fol Peers ISTP is Fay SOD PIOSStoS et EERE ee re ae 9
PO Gree ee ae ale G1 POSS .04e4 i ae a 1
1h! 15 Ais ae eee ee ne 11 LO5Sebpsilon= eee. Jae 384
i yA 2) 2) 2 A deep ene 2° 389 Wop e Aebalaaoense ee 247
PTE seis es SS ET ga) RUG ol bps acer A as alee 172
NOHS: Glee ees ae Ae} VE AQUVELO SOL age eos Se 277
OSS Bees es eis eh rage 8 fat OHO Gamma;t! ed yes ae 3
Ob SAG amine see ee 59
NO roles a ae oe 3, 855 Kl 0) iE opesaeetes me ee he eager! 9, 835
322 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Late in October 1958, observations of Satellite 1958 Alpha had fallen
off to such an extent that accurate predictions for the Baker-Nunn
stations could not be prepared. Consequently, no Baker-Nunn pho-
tographs were being made, and the satellite was in danger of being
lost. Twenty-five Moonwatch teams in the United States were asked
to make a special effort to find the object and were sent rough predic-
tions derived mainly from “best guesses” and extrapolations. Moon-
watch observations began to come in again, finally in sufficient number
to generate good predictions for the Baker-Nunn stations. There-
after the satellite was photographed on a regular basis. The “lost”
satellite was found.
In May of the same year, Professor Arthur S. Leonard, leader of
the Sacramento, Calif., Moonwatch team, derived the orbital elements
of the carrier rocket of the first Vanguard satellite from observations
obtained at Albuquerque, N. Mex., and at Sacramento. These data
were then used by the Observatory to make Baker-Nunn predictions
that resulted in photographs of the object on May 11 by the station
at Organ Pass, N. Mex., and on May 12 by the station in Hawaii.
Confirming visua] observations were made by Moonwatch teams in
China Lake, Whittier, and Walnut Creek, all in California, on
May 11.
One of the most elusive objects was Vanguard I itself, a 6-inch
sphere orbiting between 409 and 2,453 miles from the earth. In July,
Moonwatch reported that the teams in Yuma, Ariz., and Alamagordo,
N. Mex., had observed the satellite passing some 2,000 miles above the
earth over a point as much as 1,000 miles south of them. Thereafter,
few observations were made of the satellite either by Moonwatch teams
or by Baker-Nunn cameras. A special search undertaken by Moon-
watch teams in the fall of 1958 failed to locate the satellite. Early
the following year, Dr. Henize developed a new search pattern for
another attempt. Some 42 Moonwatch teams having special experi-
ence and capabilities were selected to participate in the search begin-
ning April 1 and to extend for about 6 weeks. The plan utilized
a network of teams in pairs separated north and south about 15
degrees. The basic idea was to find some search area in the meridian
plane of the observing teams through which the satellite must pass
within some given time interval and to concentrate the search within
this area for the required time so as to ensure that the satellite would
not slip through the net. Using an observation made on May 6 by
the two Moonwatch teams in Albuquerque, N. Mex., Professor Leon-
ard in Sacramento modified the orbital elements of Satellite 1958
B2. Using the resulting predictions, his team observed the satellite on
May 10. From new predictions several other Moonwatch teams in
the West and Southwest were able to observe the satellite, and by May
12 the Baker-Nunn camera stations could once more begin to photo-
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 323
graph the object. Thus another satellite was rediscovered by
Moonwatch.
When the third Russian satellite (Satellite 1958 Delta) was launched
on May 15, 1958, a large number of Moonwatch observations made it
possible to determine that the satellite was accompanied by at least
three components. On November 21, all Moonwatch teams were
alerted to observe the last few revolutions of 1958 81. Many such
observations were received, including two made during what is be-
lieved to have been the next to last revolution of the satellite; these
sightings were by teams in Wichita, Kans., and Albuquerque, N. Mex.
In the late spring of 1958 only three observations were made of
Satellite 1958 Epsilon; these were not sufficient for the preparation
of predictions for the Baker-Nunn stations. Fifteen Moonwatch
teams were assigned to concentrate on this object and a number of ob-
servations were made shortly thereafter. The satellite, however,
proved to be so erratic that special observations of it were again re-
quested in December. This time, however, Moonwatch was unable
to find it.
Within 2 days of the launching on February 17, 1959, of Satellite
1959 al (Vanguard II), Moonwatch teams were called upon to de-
termine whether the third stage component of the rocket, Satellite
1958 «2, was in fact in orbit. By the end of the month a number of
teams had made observations of the object and from these the Ob-
servatory was able to prepare preliminary ephemerides for the Baker-
Nunn stations. Subsequent photographs confirmed the existence of
the satellite.
These are but a few of the noteworthy achievements of the Moon-
match network during the IGY and the IGC.
BAKER-NUNN CAMERA STATIONS
Explorer I offered the first significant challenge to the capabilities
of the Baker-Nunn camera that could reasonably be expected to be
met. Satellite 1957 a2 (Sputnik I) had been a 22.8-inch sphere,
probably painted black, that during its brief lifetime of 92 days could
not be successfully photographed by the only Baker-Nunn camera
then in operation, first at South Pasadena, Calif., and then at the Las
Cruces station in New Mexico. The rocket case (Satellite 1957 a1)
had been a large object visible to the naked eye and easily photo-
graphed by the camera. Satellite 1957 Beta consisted of the payload
of Sputnik IT and the rocket case, which never separated; together
they were probably 85 feet long and weighed as much as 4 tons.
Again, the satellite was visible to the naked eye and easily photo-
graphed.
Satellite 1958 Alpha consisted of a payload 22 inches in diameter
and about 10.5 pounds in weight, and a cylinder of approximately 30
324 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
pounds; together they formed an object approximately 80 inches in
length and 6 inches in diameter. Its rapidly changing orbit required
that predictions of its passages be good; its poor visibility required
that a camera of exceptional capabilities be used in photographing it.
The predictions from Cambridge during the initial days of the satel-
lite’s orbiting were not of high quality. In addition, the observers
had considerable difficulty in finding the satellite image on the plates;
in part, this was due to inexperience and, in part, it was a consequence
of the satellite image on the film being quite small.
As predictions were improved and as field procedures were refined,
more and more successful photographs were taken of this satellite and
of those launched subsequently.
The first Baker-Nunn camera station was established in Las Cruces,
N. Mex., and the first photographic observation of Satellite 1957 a1
made there November 26, 1957. There also the first observers were
trained to use the camera and related equipment and prepared to man
the other stations as soon as possible.
From February through May, those other stations were established,
the 2d camera being shipped from California to South Africa on
February 3, and the 12th to Hawaii on May 28. The last station
to begin photographing satellites was that in India, on August 29,
1958; although the camera had been shipped there on March 30, films
could not be taken earlier because of the monsoon season.
As soon as all cameras were in the field, the observers carried out
tests, including the making of focus plates to be sent to Cambridge
for analysis. The results showed that all cameras, except that in
India for which no test films were yet available, yielded image diam-
eters in the center of the field of 60 microns or less, with an average
diameter on the order of 35 microns. Differences in focus between the
center and the edge of the field of the film indicated the need for
further adjustments and possibly for a refiguring of the backup plates
in several cameras. However, the image quality of the cameras was
good, demonstrating that each of them was capable of photographing
the faint United States satellites 1958 Alpha and 1958 Epsilson.
While these tests proved that the cameras were more than adequate
to the task for which they had been designed, limited steps were taken
during the remainder of the IGY to improve their performance, in-
cluding visits by Mr. Sydor, the optical specialist of the Observatory,
to a number of stations to adjust the optical systems.
One nagging fear had been that the KzFS-2 glass used in the outer
elements of the corrector cell of the camera would prove unduly
fragile as that glass was sensitive to acid staining and was “soluble”
in distilled water. Obviously, it was necessary to protect the glass
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 325
from rain. The lens cover, therefore, had to be kept on the corrector
cell at all times except during actual photography, and the air-drying
system for the camera kept in good working condition. Later, special
desiccators would be installed. At each station, however, some highly
individual methods were used to ensure that the outer lens was kept
dry; at one, the observers found that a quick swipe of the lens with a
baby’s diaper was highly effective.
In any case, experience proved that although the outer lens was
inevitably pockmarked to some extent by moisture in the air, the loss
of transmission was very small—not more than 10 percent. Although
acceptable, this was not ideal, and later means would be found to pro-
tect the lens better.
Another problem was that the camera was “blind” to the observer.
In other words, there were no means whereby the observer could see
what the camera was photographing. To remedy this situation, late
in 1958 the Observatory shipped 5-inch aperture telescopes to the
stations. One of these was attached to each camera so that the axes
of the two telescopes were parallel. The observer could then watch
what the Baker-Nunn camera was photographing and during a transit
make any necessary adjustments in the tracking mechanisms so that
the image of the satellite would remain roughly centered on the film.
This procedure proved to be extremely valuable in directing the
camera to photograph newly launched satellites for which predictions
might be somewhat inaccurate.
A third difficulty involved the Norrman time standard. In part,
this was a consequence of the heavy strain that was placed on the
mechanism itself. For example, a transformer proved to be sub-
standard to the needs of the system and had to be replaced in all the
clocks. In part, also, it was the result of inadequate power supply to
some of the stations. Consequently, the amplifier to the clock had
to be modified, and other means found to ensure a constant and steady
power.
The film chosen for the camera was the famous ID-2, which pro-
vided the spectral distribution needed and was extremely fast. Never-
theless during the remainder of the IGY consideration was given
to several other types of film. Early in 1958, Eastman Kodak pro-
posed the use of their 8.0.1200 emulsion. Tests at the New Mexico
station proved that the film was about twice as fast the ID-2. How-
ever, the manufacturer encountered serious production difficulties that
prevented production of the film in sufficient quantities. Later that
year, one other film was tried: a Dupont emulsion coated on a “cronar”
base. It was unsuitable. In addition, tests were made to determine
the possibility of photographing very bright satellites during the day
by using an infrared-sensitive film together with an infrared filter
326 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
over the corrector lens of the camera. These tests did not give very
hopeful results.
Meanwhile, the ID-2 film was proving more than satisfactory, and
as the number of satellites increased and the skill of the observers im-
proved, it was needed in greater quantities. By early 1959, plans
were made to send an additional 20,000 feet of film to each station—
enough for 100,000 home snapshots. This amount was based on the
assumption that the average weekly use of film was about 1,000 feet.
In addition, each station had to be shipped various other materials
to ensure continuous operation. These included not only the usual
nuts-and-bolts necessary to the maintenance of any mechanical equip-
ment, but also substantial electronics supplies for the Norrman time
standard.
The kinds of problems encountered at the stations can perhaps best
be summarized by noting some of the specific difficulties that occurred
during the second quarter of 1959.
In Argentina four anchor bolts holding the large diesel engine for
the auxiliary power supply broke off because of the inferior quality
of the metal. New bolts had to be installed in fresh concrete. One of
the bearings of the 15-kilowatt generator was badly scored, and a
new one had to be obtained and installed, along with new brushes. The
pulley was realined and the generator cleaned. The power was then
turned off so that the clock could be reset.
In South Africa the Baker-Nunn mirror seemed loose and the
collimation poor. The corrector cell had to be dismantled and sent
to the Bureau of Standards in Pretoria for collimation. The mirror
was adjusted and cleaned and a new shear-pin unit and clutch were
installed. The power amplifier was moved into the camera house and
new relays installed. Later the crystal clock ceased to operate and
had to be repaired.
In India the film transport system of the camera jammed when
operating at 82 seconds per cycle. Both generators were out of order
for a week, and the clock lost time at.a high rate.
In Peru the Norrman clock gained 2.9 seconds and the power am-
plifier continued to give trouble. The clock failures during this time
were believed to be the result of low-line voltage or earthquakes.
In Curagao the slave clock stopped because of a failure of a filter
condenser in the power amplifier.
These difficulties were of the sort that could be expected, and each
was resolved in turn. All of them were part of the operations of each
station as they had originally been conceived. When, however, it
became evident that the Smithsonian satellite-tracking program would
continue after the IGY and the IGC, plans would develop for overall
improvement of the system. These included better dehumidification,
sealing the interior of the camera house, various additions to station
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 327
buildings, and, above all, engineering studies to improve operation
of both the camera and the timing system. These and other modifica-
tions of the network would be carried out when the program was
funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s grant
to the Observatory.
Meanwhile, however, the observational achievements of the system
were notable. From July through September of 1958—the first quar-
terly period when all of the stations were operational—the stations
reported 480 observations of four satellites: 1958 Alpha, 1958 81, 1958
62, and 1958 Epsilon. ‘The total for each station was as follows:
ING ye Mies COs = ae ewe es al POT, eee eee ee ee eee 86
SOULE LIMAVETS Cotes = rete eee eee (3) HD cfs OY eee eps YR et Se Rd Se ae Rs 18
PA CLA NG i eee ee ee eee 62 Curaca Ors = as a ee eee 47
Siac hhay See eee Reece oes ee eee 40 HlOniG as) ou ee ee aS 14
JED ay nah) 2 eee SE NOS Se eee be 44 AT SOMTIN Sse © ee eee eae et Ne 3
106 Li Yen, OO SR RE ee EE A a 1 ELS Wye Gees oe Sa ee ee ae eer 45
During April and May of 1959, shortly before the close of the IGC,
the stations recorded the following number of observations:
NeW rMexicos ee tele sear ys 160 Pe@rU 2 Gee is Rd ed se 210
South BATT Cae ek fee J ee 79 fits a) BO (a Sete Lg boy a ee Pee 68
SNES ANU: f SSE ee eee Fee Og 237 CuTa CaO gs a= = be as a eee 74
NO) OPI ce, Mae Ea ai eee ar ee 130 NOL aves he et eee ees 57
CLIC FOE ee eS a ra, a i le ek 94 APO CNGITNA ee ene he nee 86
SD OVOWED oe te a eS ty SES LP eS 149 anal ee 2 Dae oe ieee 105
In part, of course, this large increase was a consequence of the
number of satellites in orbit; in part, also, it was the result of vastly
improved predictions and observing techniques.
From November 1957 through June 1959, the stations made the total
observations shown in table 2.
The outstanding single achievement was photographing the Van-
guard experimental sphere (1958 82). This object, 6 inches in diam-
eter, was filmed at a distance of 2,400 miles, first by the station in
Woomera, Australia, and subsequently, at comparable ranges, by
several others,
THE STATION OBSERVERS
Originally, the Observatory had determined that two observers at
each station would be a sufficient number, although in fact in the very
early days usually each station was manned by only one. This meant
that the observer had to be an electrician, a mechanic, a maintenance
man, a carpenter, a computer, and, of course, an observer. Typically,
he made two or three observations a night.
Even when each station was staffed with two men, the increasing
load proved to be too much, so that by mid-1958, the Observatory had
decided that at least three trained observers were necessary at each
station to ensure continuous and eflicient operation. As a consequence,
766—-746—65——23
328 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
TABLE 2.—Number of Baker-Nunn Observations (Separated by More Than 8
Minutes) October 1957 thru June 1959
Baker-Nunn Camera Station
fo} iss]
tellite ¥ & 3 er sat
ci 23 |e | de | os |<2|-¢|-8|_2| glee les|aa]
Be Ee ae ge ae =e 5s 58 B& | 58 Ee ae
1957 whe ed hey Mota tne RD EL BN CR TC aI 3
1058 quelle 116 | 90 |109 | 55 | 88 {102 |145 | 35 | 67 | 56 | 40 |116 | 1,014
1958 B1____- POM Bara bh Bile Bal Ah BOW esd 2s Fate Nats 199
1958 82.___- OFT NA Oy Td. SLO. lb aldo eo aaa) eter 40) 129
Ey aah 14 1933136") 85 |) 28 [coh mStar it a eoel ce abe 215
1958 52... _- 67 | 43 | 87 | 80 | 93 | 54 | 50 | 35 | 35 | 18 | 15 | 29 606
195863 2 le epee oe PN PR (MI eu loser pate | Geet ce 2
L(y ae cl eR (es He en og gpa Miele en hry east Ba Sesol pt 13
os ae 34. (794) 461 39) 54-1) 971 ga) Sead) Alte 319
1958 ¢1____- 71 Ma Yelp fy a cae ba Cys fare kt esc lee S| Deed Pen) 50
1959 ai--222 123 | 56 {121 | 66 | 48 | 76 {103 | 45 | 73 | 60 | 45 | 75 891
TORO =o 103 | 51 {120 | 53 | 46 | 44 |102 | 35 | 71 | 50 | 39] 71 785
Total per
station_|504 |329 |593 |346 |374 |320 [520 |194 |289 |224 |176 |357 | 4, 226
a recruiting program was initiated to find new men for the job. In-
quiries were circulated to astronomical and associated scientific de-
partments of major American colleges and universities, and courtesy
notices were placed in various technical publications. The response
was slow, and many of those who applied were not suited for the work.
Meanwhile, a second observer training program in New Mexico began
in late January 1958, with Dr. Henize and Messrs. Burkhead and
Ledwith instructing the apprentices. New training sessions continued
in the months that followed, so that by July 1959 a total of 82 pro-
spective observers had been instructed in the use of the camera and its
related equipment.
The original pattern of personalities and of work at the station was
largely set by the character of the first observers. In the early months,
running a Baker-Nunn camera station was very much a do-it-yourself
project, a one-man project, at best a two-man project. The program
demanded, and received, the devoted efforts of men who were willing
to work 80 to 100 hours a week.
Enthusiasm was an obvious necessity as were considerable intelli-
gence and an ability to understand and work with mechanical things.
Perhaps the most important characteristic required was a sense of
humor, for it often proved the buffer against circumstances that might
otherwise have been unbearable.
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 329
The observers were not theoreticians. Their interest was chiefly
applied rather than pure science. Only one of them, Dr. Kozai, was
successful both as a tracker of satellites and as an analyzer of data.
After a period at the station in Japan, he joined the staff at Cambridge
and achieved significant results in the use of observations in studies
of the upper atmosphere and of the geopotential.
As additional observers joined the program, the work at each station
became more and more a team effort, so that in addition to the minimum
level of technical competence, there developed the need for people to
work together, and for someone to guide and direct them. From this
change emerged the concept of a chief who bore responsibility for the
running of the station. Further, there developed necessarily a basic
routine for getting things done and at the same time a loss of some
of the romantic thrill that had resulted from accomplishing single-
handedly the seemingly impossible. This was to result in major
changes later in the kind of person needed in the program.
One of the most interesting aspects of the field program was the
evolution of a kind of migratory system. Observers moved from one
station to another, and often spent some time doing work at head-
quarters in Cambridge. This crossfertilization was a deliberate effort
on the part of the people in Cambridge to make the observers see the
program as a whole and to understand the needs at headquarters as
well as the needs in the field. As a consequence, there came about a
better rapport between the two groups.
Learning in the field was in many ways a unique experience in this
day and age. The group had to adjust to an often trying situation,
had constantly to be developing new techniques, and to find related or
allied interests at the station, such as geology, seismology, and arche-
ology, to occupy their spare time profitably as the workload at the
station became less burdensome.
The attitude of the observer toward his job was, of course, of crucial
importance. At some stations there tended to be an unhealthy compe-
tition among the observers, which led to friction that interfered with
the productivity of the group. Frequently there had to be a shake-
down period when new observers arrived, a time during which the
energies devoted to internal dissension had instead to be directed
toward the job at hand.
Yet, there was always a great sense of responsibility among the
observers so that in spite of some personal friction and despite the
fact that the early staff was small, no station ever went unmanned.
Not only did the observers have to learn to live and work together;
they also had to learn to live and work with local people. Ata number
of stations, the experiences of the nationals with Americans had been
limited to military missions and to commercial enterprises. The
personnel of the Baker-Nunn camera station proved a refreshing
330 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
change. From the beginning, the local people could see what the
observers were doing and realize immediately that it had no military
connotations, was not intended to make money from them, and had no
purposes other than those of peaceful scientific work. There was never
anything secret about the optical tracking of satellites.
On the other hand, the actual meaning of the tracking of satellites
and the worldwide effort of the IGY were not always readily under-
stood in some communities. The observers had to make an effort,
therefore, to reach and teach the people. This they did by giving
lectures, contributing equipment and photographs for various shows,
inviting local school classes to tour the station, and declaring certain
days “open house” at the station so that anyone and everyone could
visit. In addition, many observers went into the local communities
to help out in whatever ways they could. In some instances this meant
the loan of tools or the sending of a truck. In others, it meant setting
up of classes to teach English to the people. At the station in Peru
the observers helped out greatly after the earthquake of 1959. In
Iran, the observers taught hospital personnel how to build and use
needed medical equipment, and even constructed an incubator for
babies.
Perhaps most important, each station became a center of information
about artificial earth satellites, a clearing-house for celestial activity.
It was the policy of the Smithsonian and the aim of the observers to
have each station function locally in a manner smiliar to that of the
Observatory in Cambridge—as a source of public information, as a
means of informing people of astronomy and the space program.
From the first, the Observatory encouraged the observers to take
their wives and children with them, a policy that served to broaden
the contacts between station personnel and the local people, and that
added stability to the whole arrangement. The reactions of the wives
varied as one would expect. Their attitudes were reflected in a series
of round-robin news letters that were issued from 1958 through 1961.
For some of the wives, life at the station proved to be flat, stale,
and unprofitable. They seemed to lead lives of constant frustration
and fear—frustration because life at a foreign station was not like life
in America, and fear because disease and other dangers seemed always
to be at hand. These women, of course, failed almost completely to
integrate with the local community and to learn from the experience.
One of the best symbolic expressions of this failure was the inclusion
in one of the news letters of an exotic recipe from Harper’s Bazaar!
For others, however, it was a richly rewarding experience. The
wives not only made pleasant homes for their husbands overseas, but
also participated as much as they could in community affairs. They
taught in local schools, conducted special adult classes in English,
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 331
went on archeological and other field trips with their husbands, learned
the local language, and by such means filled their days with activity.
No less a range of response occurred among the observers themselves.
Some could hardly wait to return to the United States. Others, work-
ing under the happiest of circumstances for themselves, flourished
and gained a new kind of education that perhaps would not in those
years have been possible in any other way.
As individuals and as families, they learned that entertainment
could come without mechanical means, such as radio and TV. The
emphasis was on participation. One could not in this situation be a
passive individual. He had to take part in the life going on around
him if he himself wished to enjoy life. It was, in the words of one
observer, “a return to fundamental human relationships.”
It could be, and for many was, in every respect a broadening and
fascinating experience. The observers and their families began to
think “globally.” There developed the notion that the world was full
of people not unlike themselves. For in spite of differences, the
similarities between observers and nationals were overwhelming. And
even the differences became less and less as the language barrier was
surmounted.
Perhaps what had to be learned was best summarized in a brief
essay that Paul Wankowicz wrote while in Iran:
Persia is a country of melons. They come in ail sizes, shapes, and colors, and
the supply seems almost inexhaustible.
In Iran, as in the United States, the problem remains the same. The cold,
silent outside of the melon tells very little of what you will find inside.
The most common method of determining whether a melon is ripe is the
thump system, which entails gently thumping it with your knuckles. If the
thump is hollow and resounding the melon is good. If it is hard, with a bell-
like sound, then the melon is green. And, of course, if your fingers sink into it,
the melon is rotten. Melons tend, however, to vary greatly in their thump
quality.
The next method depends on the structural quality of the shell. If you gently
squash the melon in the middle it will elongate slightly so that you can feel
its springiness. You possibly can develop a feel for the tensile strength of the
outside and the compression that the seeds and pith will take on the inside, as
well as of the stiffness of the meat between. Of course, slightly later you
discover that melons vary according to the region in which they were grown.
The melons from villages that skimp on water or have lazy jube diggers tend
toward a harder inside. So the tensile-strength analysis does not yield
thoroughly satisfactory results.
For the next step, you decide that the condition of the melon can be deter-
mined from the little grey patch on the bottom, which has continually rested on
the ground. This patch tends to be slightly softer than the rest of the melon
because of the moisture that it has picked up from the ground, and the shade
in which it has been kept as the melon ripened. If it is too soft the melon is
probably over-ripe. If it is too hard, moisture of the ground hasn’t had time
to work on it, and the melon is probably unripe. But when you have found one
332 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
that you think is the king of all melons, you still discover that there are melons
that absolutely defy the scientific approach.
After you pass this stage you are considered an expert if you develop the final
and fool-proof system. The secret of success and the secret of good melon
lunches in Iran is very simple. You walk up to the storekeeper and say: “Give
me one good melon please.” This roughly runs: “Lotfan yeki harbuse hoob bedi
hemen.” When he hands it to you you ask him in a rising inflection: ‘““Hoob ast?”
which means: “Is it good?” And if you have dealt with him before so he
knows that you are a man of the world, then he is sure to give you a delicious
melon. This system does not fail!
The intense experience of life at an overseas station, and of tracking
satellites, considerably altered everyone who participated in it. The
observer was no longer the same man as when he started in the system;
similarly, his wife and children had changed. Each had matured in
his own individual way. And in general, those who left the project
for one reason or another found that their experiences were both cul-
turally and financially profitable.
Yet, a fundamental dilemma still remained. The kinds of people
who did the kinds of things that the Observatory wanted in those early
months—those who could combine technical knowledge with an ability
to work with people—became less and less contented with the situation
as the work became increasingly routine and therefore offered fewer
and fewer rewards. This was to become a crucial issue at the first
station chiefs’ conference in mid-1959.
COMMUNICATIONS
In the first half of 1958, generally satisfactory communications
were established at all of the tracking stations. A number were linked
with Cambridge through the military network and others by com-
mercial wire services and teletype. At that time the possibility of
direct radio linkage with certain of the stations was considered, but
since the existing system was working efficiently, there did not seem
any need for such an arrangement. By March of 1958, the communi-
cations center in Cambridge was handling nearly 400,000 words per
month.
Inevitably, there were delays of one kind or another; messages were
lost; and sometimes the wrong material or information was sent to
the stations. At one point, the chief observer at one station sent the
following memorandum to headquarters in Cambridge: “We have re-
ceived the material on ‘stuffing’ and I might say it will come in handy
if we have any more visitors before we get this station into full oper-
ation. Since I failed to bring along my aqualung, I feel that it is
inadvisable to try collecting invertebrate animals other than insects
and molluscs. There are, however, thousands of fossils just a few
hundred yards down the hill from the station, so perhaps Ill try my
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 333
hand at this operation when I have time.” He had been sent by
mistake a packet from the Smithsonian U.S. National Museum.
By mid-1958, excellent routines for the exchange of satellite in-
formation had been worked out. Tapes were cut and ready for im-
mediate transmission to all stations giving the news that a satellite had
been launched.
Another tape was cut stating that the satellite went into orbit at a
particular time, and this information was then sent to the station.
Following this second message, still another gave all the latest
information received on the satellite itself—its size, weight, revolution,
perigee, apogee, etc.
There was constant improvement of the system and efforts to over-
come annoying delays. By early 1959, the communications center was
already beginning to tie into the services of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration. Thus, the teletype services to South
Africa were put through NASA facilities, and similar arrangements
were being discussed for lines to Australia and Peru. By March, a
privately leased teletype line was in operation between the head-
quarters in Cambridge and the Space Control Center in Washington,
D.C.
PHOTOREDUCTION
The first Baker-Nunn films of satellite transits were tediously re-
duced at the stations, and information on the time and coordinates of
the satellite image was rushed to Cambridge by cable. The time
shown on the slave clock was, of course, directly photographed on the
film. The position of the satellite image was determined in relation
to the background of stars. These measurements were sufficiently
good for the generation of new predictions of satellite passages and
for preliminary estimates of atmospheric density and other phe-
nomena. They did not, however, provide nearly so precise information
as the Baker-Nunn camera was capable of offering. In fact, these
measurements of position were inaccurate on the average between 60
and 90 seconds of arc, which might represent for a low-orbiting satel-
lite as much as 1,000 feet in space.
There arose, therefore, the necessity for finding a much more ac-
curate, reliable, and rapid means of reducing the films. As early as
March 1957, an experimental machine for measuring Baker-Nunn film
was constructed ; it incorporated a film backup plate similar to that
used in the camera so that angular distances could be measured
directly. In the ensuing months, however, as construction of the first
Baker-Nunn camera was rushed to completion, and then as the first
satellites were launched and tracked, this aspect of the program re-
ceived relatively little attention. It was not until early 1958 that the
staff of the Observatory formally outlined the possible equipment and
334 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
procedures by which the precise reduction of film might be
accomplished.
The objectives of this phase of the work were detailed as follows:
(1) to establish means of defining the film images that were measurable
and of locating them on the film when they were not apparent to the
naked eye; (2) to test the several machines available for the measuring
procedures; (8) to select and identify the reference stars in the back-
ground; and (4) to estimate satellite magnitudes and variations in
brightness.
Procedures were set up for filing and indexing all films received
from the Baker-Nunn camera stations and for sending to them pre-
liminary comments on the quality of the films themselves. Each film
was searched for satellite images not detected during field reduction.
For this purpose, film viewers and binocular microscopes were used.
With magnifications of 6.6 < and 20 X, a film could be scanned in two
sweeps, and then the microscope zeroed in on possible satellite images.
There was the suggestion that Mr. Nunn design a special blink-micro-
scope for detailed searching of the Baker-Nunn films; this was never
built, however, because commercially available microscopes proved
wholly adequate to the job.
Two sophisticated machines for measuring positions on the film
were chosen for test: the Mann two-screw comparator, and the Van
Biesbroeck goniometer. Preliminary estimates suggested that the
former might be used on those films that, because of excellent images
and favorable distribution of reference stars, might produce the most
refined measurements, while the latter would provide sufficient accu-
racy for run-of-the-mill films. However, before any decision was
made, a detailed comparison of the two machines had to be undertaken.
On the Van Biesbroeck photogoniometer the film is stretched to a
curvature similar to that at the focal surface of the Baker-Nunn
camera. The film is then positioned in a manner similar to that of the
strip in the Baker-Nunn camera itself. The plate takes the original
orientation with the use of known stars, and the measurer points a
microscope to the satellite image. The images are measured with a
precision goniometer placed in the center of the curved film. The
film holder is shifted toward the goniometer or away from it until
the angular distance of the selected stars (about 20 to 25 degrees
apart), as measured with the goniometer, satisfactorily approximates
the angular distance of these stars in the sky. Then the film holder
is moved in until the frame appears in the position in which the film
was taken; the horizontal plane corresponds to the celestial equator.
The differences in horizontal circular readings now equal the differences
in right ascension, and the differences in vertical circular readings
equal those in declination.
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 335
The differences between the theodolite readings for the satellite and
any one of the reference stars give a value for the satellite position.
The mean of the values obtained for all the reference stars is accepted
for the final position of the satellite. The smallest readable unit on
the Van Biesbroeck goniometer is 1 second of arc.
With the Mann machine, the film is placed on the comparator near a
zero-degree orientation; i.e., with the oscilloscope edge toward the
measurer. The satellite image is brought to a point near the center
of the target screen. The stage of the Mann machine is rotated until
the trail of the satellite is as nearly parallel with the horizontal cross-
hair as is possible, and the stage is locked. The satellite image (or
central break) is brought to the cross-hair intersection. The two
plane coordinates, x and y, of the reference stars and the satellite are
then measured. The stage of the Mann machine is then rotated 180°
and the measurements are repeated. This is done to eliminate the
magnitude error—a systematic but not a constant error of the observer.
For the computation of the 6 plate constants, the measurer used 6
stars, employing the least-squares method to compute the 6 constants
from 12 equations. When there were large residuals, one or two refer-
ence stars were sometimes omitted. If large residuals still remained,
he repeated the measurements, never using fewer than four comparison
stars.
A measuring accuracy of 1 micron (which corresponds to 0.4 second
of arc on the Baker-Nunn films) or better can be achieved with the
Mann comparator.
Before the introduction of the completely automatic equipment the
x and y coordinates were read by eye and written down by hand.
These data as well as the catalog data on the reference stars were
punched on tape by a Flexowriter and the position of the satellite was
computed by a Burroughs E-101 computer using the Flexowriter tape
as input. The computation with this machine took about 30 to 40
minutes.
As a preliminary step, the two machines were used to locate “un-
known” stars from the Yale catalog by measuring their positions
relative to nearby reference stars also selected from the Yale catalog.
By this means, the nature and extent of several sources of error could be
determined. First, of course, there were the errors inherent in the
machines themselves. For example, the Mann engine was operated by
means of a periodic screw and a secular screw; each of these mecha-
nisms had to be evaluated.
Second, there was the human element. Each person using the
machine would do so in his own particular way; he would handle the
machine in an individual fashion and would be more or less accurate
compared to other measurers. The personal error could in general
be eliminated, however, by making direct and reverse measurements of
336 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
the unknown star and reference stars in the preliminary testing of the
machines.
Third, there inevitably would be errors in the setting of the machine.
Preliminary estimates indicated, for example, that when images of
40-micron diameter were measured with the Mann machine, there was,
in the settings, a consistent and repeatable error of 1 micron on the
average.
A further error could be introduced by the camera itself, although
it seemed unlikely that the geometry of the Baker-Nunn system would
cause any very considerable error of this sort. In any case, it had to
be determined whether the image of the star on the film would be of
such a magnitude as to introduce a significant variation in the
measurements.
Finally, and most importantly, distortion of the film as placed in the
machine might introduce a substantial error. That distortion would
not be the same in every direction, and therefore positions reduced with
linear plate constants might not be reliable. However, over small
distances of 1 or 2 centimeters of film, it was expected that fluctuations
in the plate-scale would be small, not exceeding 1 or 2 seconds of are.
The staff devised a simple method of evaluating this problem by meas-
uring the same grouping of stars on several separate frames and then
studying the residuals and positions from frame to frame.
By mid-1958, the photoreduction section had developed an efficient
system of filing the films, had undertaken the searching of films with
microscope viewer, and was planning the techniques for measuring the
satellite images on the films. Again, this was a two-fold problem,
one of developing appropriate methods, and the other, at the same time,
of training personnel to use them.
Precision reduction of the Baker-Nunn films of artificial satellites
began in June 1958, and by the end of September the positions of some
69 satellite images had been precisely determined. It was initially a
very slow procedure; a trained operator could measure between four
and six satellite images per day with either the Van Biesbroeck or the
Mann measuring engine.
The initial phases of the work had been carried out by Pedro
Kokaras, under the immediate supervision of Drs. Whipple, Hynek,
and Henize. In October, however, Dr. Karoly Lassovszky, a refugee
from Hungary, joined the staff as astronomer in charge of photo-
reduction. Mr. Kokaras then served as his administrative and techni-
cal assistant and supervised the work of the measurers.
During the last quarter of 1958, some preliminary evaluations of the
two measuring engines were possible. In those 3 months, 94 images
were measured on a modified Van Biesbroeck machine, with a mean
estimated probable error of 7.4 seconds of are in right ascension, and
5.5 seconds of arc in declination.
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 337
Meanwhile, the staff was working on the problem of measuring films
with the Mann machine. The positions of nine images were reduced
with a probable error in right ascension of 1.05 seconds of arc, and
in declination of 0.54 second of arc. At the same time, a program
was written for the reduction of measurements made by this machine
so that computations that required 1 or 2 days by hand could now be
performed on a Burroughs E-101 electronic computer in some 15
minutes. This was the first step toward automating as much of the
procedure as possible.
As a further step to facilitate the work, a special project was under-
taken to assign Yale catalog numbers to the BD and CD star charts.
Precision reduction of the films continued, so that in the first quarter
of 1959, a total of 155 satellite images were measured and in the
second quarter 109. Meanwhile, however, the Baker-Nunn stations
were taking films at a considerably faster rate; during the same
6-month period, more than 4,000 films were received in Cambridge.
Clearly, more rapid and efficient means of measuring the films remained
to be found and put into practice.
COMPUTATIONS
Before Explorer I was launched early in 1958, the Observatory had
developed two computer programs that were to be the basis for the
determination of orbits and the preparation of predictions for the next
year and a half (see Part 2 of this history ”).
From a set of observations of a satellite the Herrick-Briggs-Slowey
initial orbit determination program was used to derive the orbit with-
out any previous knowledge of it. With a program of this type, the
accuracy cannot be high since usually only three observations are
used for the calculation of an orbit. However, an initial concept of
the elements of the orbit can be obtained.
Two major improvements were soon made in the program. First,
an empirical correction for air drag used an expression for the nodal
period as input and computed the corrections to the observations
necessary to give the osculating orbit at the time of the first observa-
tion. The second provided an alternate method of interpolation when
the usual method failed. In this mode of operation, the program must
find any and all elliptical solutions in a given range that fitted the
observations.
By mid-1958 the program was fully debugged, tested, and com-
pletely operational in all of its essential parts. Proof of the usefulness
and accuracy of the program was demonstrated by its application to
the tracking of 1958 Delta. The program was used not only to obtain
an initial orbit but also to follow the changes in the orbital elements.
2 See footnote 1 on page 315.
338 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Thereafter a number of simple, but relatively important refinements
were made in the program as the computations group of the Observa-
tory became more sophisticated in their approach.
The second program was the subsatellite procedure, developed by
Dr, Luigi Jacchia, which provided a quick analysis of incoming ob-
servations. From each observation, a subsatellite point was computed
from a given set of orbital elements derived from the initial deter-
mination program. From the subsatellite points, the position and time
of the crossing of the ascending node were computed, as well as the
nearest perigee crossing. A plot of these quantities was sufficient to
tell whether the observation was good or bad.
The subsatellite program could be used to predict all the modifica-
tions of the orbit. One had only to follow the position of the satellite ;
therefore, air drag could be determined as a byproduct of the program.
it was an empirical approach, but the modifications of the orbit were
observed; from these one could deduce theoretically the changes of
the orbit. Again, during the months that followed, the staff was to
make various improvements to this program.
Using input from the subsatellite program, the ephemeris 0 gave
the time of crossing of a satellite at various parallels—10°, 20°, 30°,
ete.—with height, correction for time, angle of trajectory, and so forth,
so that an observer with a minimum amount of calculation could work
out fairly accurately the appearance of a satellite transit from his
particular position. This program was started shortly after Sputnik I
was launched, and became the basic prediction procedure for Moon-
watch teams and for people interested in making their own observa-
tions of the satellite.
For the Baker-Nunn camera stations, however, a somewhat more
complex ephemeris was required. By early 1958, the basic program-
ing of the detailed station ephemeris was completed and debugging
was in process. Not until a year later, however, was the program fully
operational. By February of 1959, it had proved itself to be com-
pletely satisfactory and thereafter only minor refinements were made.
Meanwhile, during the latter part of 1957 and continuing for sev-
eral years, Dr. Cunningham’s major project was to develop a very
precise method of deriving, from the details of the equations of
motion, the position of a satellite as a function of time. This ap-
proach meant starting with an initial position of the satellite in terms
of its velocity and time. Then, by numerical integration, which
simply means step-by-step calculations using intervals of perhaps
one minute or less in time, the position of the satellite is computed.
This numerical integration program represents a difficult procedure
if one wishes to carry out the calculations for, let us say, 10 days in
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 339
which time the satellite may perform as many as 150 revolutions
around the earth. During this period, any errors made by not com-
puting enough significant figures tend to accumulate.
Cunningham’s effort was aimed at constructing a program that
could be used as a standard reference for computing accurate, defini-
tive orbits after all the observations were in, and for checking more
approximate theories. His work was not intended to provide a prac-
tical approach to computing orbits on a day-to-day basis, for his
program required at least one minute to compute a single orbit of
perhaps an hour and a half.
By mid-1958, the program was being debugged and checked out.
At the same time, it was being modified so that elements of it could
be included in the differential correction program of Dr. Lautman.
The latter program had been completed by late 1958, thus providing
an extremely accurate method of correcting orbits of satellites, with
or without drag. Again, the large amount of computer time necessary
for its operation precluded its use for day-by-day corrections and
ephemerides. The Observatory expected, however, that its accuracy
and general applicability would result in its use as a powerful tool for
analysis, especially when geodetic satellites were available.
Both of these programs required that the magnitude of satellite
drag, the size and shape of the satellite, and other physical parameters
be known and included in the calculations. In contrast, a differential
orbit improvement program developed by Dr. George Veis included
virtually everything as unknown and approached the problem purely
as one of defining the orbit without having recourse to theory.
The theory came afterward once the motion of the satellite had been
determined.
The Russians had developed such a program, which seemed the most
practical way to compute orbits for generating predictions. Mean-
while, Veis had included in his doctoral dissertation at Ohio State a
chapter on satellite-orbit computing that contained all the features of
the Russian program. His method was entirely satisfactory from
every point of view. He had worked it out independently and had not
the slightest notion of what was being done elsewhere. When Dr.
Whipple learned of the features of Dr. Veis’ program, he asked that it
be set up as quickly as possible for use at the Observatory.
Dr. Veis’ program had originally been developed for geodetic pur-
poses, that is, he planned to use it to determine precisely the positions
of stations from which observations of satellites were made. The
problem now was to invert that program in such a way that, the posi-
tions of the Baker-Nunn stations being relatively well known, the time
and position of satellites could be determined from observations made
from those stations.
340 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
In the summer of 1958, Dr. Veis, assisted by Charles Moore, a
student at M.I.T., modified the program so as to omit its geodetic
aspects. By the end of the year, they had a working program, al-
though it still needed a good deal of effort to smooth out difficulties.
In the spring of 1959, Dr. Veis presented a paper on this technique,
at the N.A.S.A. conference on Orbit and Space Trajectory Determina-
tion in Washington; the program itself went into routine operation
at about the same time.
This differential orbit improvement program, with the modifications
that have been made since its inception, has proved to be the work-
horse of the computing effort of the Observatory. In fact, it
has so far exceeded its original purpose that it continues in the
mid-1960’s to be the best program for correcting orbits and has been
used for the highly precise geodetic work of Imre Izsak and others,
as well as for further refinement of measurements of upper atmos-
pheric densities and temperatures.
Various other programs, many of them highly specialized, were
also undertaken by the computations group of the Observatory in
this period. Two merit special attention, since they were to have
important bearing on the development of the satellite-tracking project
after it came under the auspices of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration.
Mr. Slowey began a study of observing techniques and orbit deter-
mination methods relating to long-arc satellite transits. A primary
purpose of long-arc observations would be to make simultaneous sight-
ings of a satellite from two or more Baker-Nunn camera stations; the
resultant data could be used to determine more exactly the geodetic
positions of the stations themselves.
Dr. Veis initiated a long-range program of establishing a star
catalog in puncheard format. This project would in time result in
the preparation of the famous SAO catalog giving the positions and
other data on more than a quarter of a million stars.
While these and other programs were being developed, the com-
putations group carried on its day-to-day activities with increasing
efficiency and success. In the first quarter of 1958 they processed
approximately 2,500 satellite observations, including some from Mini-
track. This number steadily grew during the months that followed,
so that from April to June of 1959, more than 12,000 observations
were processed. The group achieved a similarly spectacular increase
in the number of predictions of satellite transits sent to the 12 Baker-
Nunn stations. From the meager beginnings late in 1957, the figure
rose to 1,700 for the last 3 months of 1958, and to 6,700 for April
through June of 1959.
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 341
RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Once satellites had been launched and tracked, and observations of
them reduced to precise statements of time and position, there re-
mained the most important job—the use of these data for scientific
purposes. Satellite orbits are sensitive to a number of influences—the
earth’s gravitation, atmospheric density (which changes with both
electromagnetic and corpuscular solar radiation), and the pull of the
sun and the moon. By means of powerful mathematical tools, includ-
ing computer programs especially developed for the purpose, scientists
are able to separate these influences from one another and to measure
them individually. From this study have come some of the most
exciting and significant discoveries of the space age.
Late in 1957 Dr. Allen Hynek, associate director of the Observatory,
outlined such a program of satellite research and analysis. He pro-
posed to reduce and analyze the data from visual and photographic
observations of earth satellites: “Data are now being received at the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from stations and observa-
tories on a worldwide basis. . . . The project would extend the present
work to future satellites, conduct basic research on the reduced data
with the objectives of determining values of upper atmosphere density,
geodetic parameters, and the value of gravity in geopotential. Pre-
liminary results will be published in special project reports for rapid
dissemination among the scientific community and final results will
be published in standard scientific journals.”
Already the Observatory had undertaken such a program, and had
issued six Special Reports on Sputniks I and IJ, including a prelimi-
nary estimate on upper atmospheric density derived from observa-
tions of Satellites 1957 Alpha and Beta. The call now was for a
greatly expanded project that could adequately handle the many data
and derive maximum scientific results from them.
By mid-1958, when the project was well under way, Dr. Whipple
wrote to Mr. Odishaw: “I want to underscore the real need for more
scientists and money for rapid reduction and interpretation of the data
obtained. In my opinion this problem will reach crucial proportions
not only in the rocket and satellite fields but also in other IGY areas
where you are faced with the accumulation of a considerable amount
of raw data in very complex form.” More scientists and more monies
were forthcoming, and the Observatory developed a major program of
research and analysis.
The plan of the IGY was to launch satellites that could contribute
to the gathering of information about the earth during those 18
342 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
months. The period from July 1957 through December 1958 had been
selected to coincide with maximum activity in the sun. Since solar
phenomena involving ultraviolet and corpuscular radiation cannot be
observed on the ground because the atmosphere cuts off most or all
of their effects, the satellites were to carry instrumentation that would
measure these and other astrophysical events and telemeter the data
to ground stations.
The initial purpose of the Observatory’s program for the optical
tracking of satellites was primarily surveillance—that is, to keep the
object in view as it went around the earth, particularly if its radio
transmitter failed for one reason or another. In fact, the transmitters
in several of the first satellites did fail, so that the optical system was
often the only means of tracking.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory planned also and more
importantly to make secondary use of these satellites. It was to track
them as passive objects and analyze the resultant data to derive new
knowledge about the earth and its atmosphere.
The satellites could, of course, be tracked by other means—radio,
radar, and doppler measurements in particular. At the time, however,
none of these was nearly so accurate as the optical techniques de-
veloped by the Observatory. Optical tracking was based on astro-
nomical methods that had been refined over a long period of time and
were well understood by scientists. ‘The other methods were relatively
new, and until actually employed in the tracking of a satellite were not
wholly predictable. These techniques were quickly refined following
the launching of Sputnik I.
The first American discoveries from satellites were made almost
entirely with Moonwatch observations of Satellites 1957 Alpha and
Beta. For Satellite 1958 Alpha the observations were primarily
Baker-Nunn. And for Vanguard I, the observations were mainly
Minitrack, because the satellite was too faint except for occasional ob-
servations by the Baker-Nunn cameras. All of these observations
were used for research purposes and it was Vanguard I from which
the most important early determinations concerning the structure and
variation of the upper atmosphere were derived. These facts serve
to emphasize once again the close and necessary cooperation that
existed among the projects of the IGY and that continues today
among the various programs of the U.S. space effort.
The first satellite research of the Observatory concerned the upper
atmosphere. The atmosphere had already been explored by balloons
and probed by rockets to a height of about 200 kms., and approximate
profiles of temperature, density, and composition drawn for that re-
gion. What scientists now wished to do was to refine that picture and
to extend it to the boundary of the interplanetary medium. They
had realized from the first, of course, that passive satellites could be
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 343
used for the determination of atmospheric density and temperature.
They would thus be able to obtain corrections to the profiles that had
been more or less guesswork before the first satellites were launched.
What they had not realized was that there were such large variations
of the atmospheric density related to phenomena outside the earth
and that the satellites, simply through the irregularities of their mo-
tions, could monitor those variations.
Dr. Jacchia has described the motion of a satellite in orbit :
In a first approximation, then, we can say that the satellite describes an
elliptical orbit, but the plane of this ellipse slowly rotates, and the major axis
of the ellipse rotates in this plane. Moreover, we shall find small periodic
deviations from the elliptic motion in the course of one revolution. The motions
of the orbital plane and of the major axis are progressive and slow when com-
pared to the orbital motion; they are called secular perturbations, a term taken
from the theory of planetary motions, in which the period of such perturbations
amounts to many centuries. All the other gravitational perturbations are much
smaller and of an oscillatory character, and are called periodic perturbations.
Atmospheric density causes a “drag” on the motion of the satellites.
Continuing with Dr. Jacchia’s description :
This atmospheric drag has seemingly paradoxical effects. While a gun pro-
jectile is decelerated by drag in the course of its trajectory, the same drag accel-
erates a Satellite in its orbit. The reason for this paradox is that drag causes
the satellite to lose energy and to fall to smaller orbits in which the period of
revolution is shorter. Although the kinetic energy of the satellite increases,
the total energy involved in the course of one revolution decreases. ...
Much information about the upper atmosphere can therefore be derived by
analyzing the motion of satellites. The rate at which the satellite’s period de-
creases with time—the so-called orbital acceleration—yields a value for the
atmospheric density at perigee height. True, to have an accurate determination
of density we must first know how the density varies with atmospheric height
(the local “scale height”). Then we must have an exact knowledge of the drag
mechanism, and we must make sure that no drag other than atmospheric drag
operates on the satellites. And finally we must know the exact physical char-
acteristics of the satellite (if the satellite is a sphere, the problem is relatively
simple ; not quite so simple if it is a cylinder or an irregular body).
At a meeting at the Observatory in 1957, scientists adopted a model
atmosphere based on the latest results from rocket and balloon explor-
ations. Virtually all research to that date consistently underestimated
atmospheric densities above 100 km. Before any satellites were
launched, Dr. Theodore E. Sterne of the Observatory’s staff worked
out a theory of orbital variations due to drag. However, he and other
scientists prayerfully hoped that the drag would be so small that in
fact it could be taken into account by empirical corrections in orbit
computations; that is, they expected that once the satellite was up,
they could then best determine corrections for atmospheric drag to be
included in the computations.
The first efforts to derive the orbit of Sputnik I, launched October 4,
1957, from early observations by Moonwatch teams convinced sci-
766-746—65——24
344 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
entists that at the altitude of its perigee—approximately 220 kms.
above the earth—there was a good deal more atmospheric density than
had been anticipated. On November 6, the Observatory and the U.S.
Naval Research Laboratory jointly announced preliminary results
from the tracking of the Soviet satellite. Whereas pre-Sputnik esti-
mates had indicated a density of 10-* grams per cubic cm., analysis of
the orbit of Sputnik I now suggested a density of perhaps five times
that amount. These calculations had been made by Dr. Sterne, as-
sisted by Dr. J.S. Rinehart and Dr. G. F. Schilling.
They had, then, the rather paradoxical situation that one of the
reasons for sending up a satellite was to determine atmospheric den-
sity, but that a fairly good estimate of the density was needed in order
to compute orbits and make predictions of satellite transits.
A milestone in research and analysis of satellite data was reached in
May of 1958 at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union at the
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. There, some of
the results on Explorers I and III were summarized. Dr. Van
Allen presented his conclusions concerning the existence of a radia-
tion belt around the earth. Other scientists made preliminary esti-
mates of the concentration of meteors at the altitudes at which the
satellites were orbiting. And Drs. Schilling and Sterne offered a sum-
mary of tentative conclusions concerning the density of the upper
atmosphere as derived from satellite observations; table 8, which
appears in the Observatory’s Special Report No. 12, dated April 30,
details their results.
The authors noted that these estimates were made from observations
at different geographic latitudes and that the data were too few to pro-
vide an accurate mean value. They further cautioned that the esti-
mates were not strictly comparable because no allowances had been
made for seasonal, diurnal, and other sporadic variations of air den-
sity. These were now to become a major concern in the study of
atmospheric phenomena.
Meanwhile, the Observatory had incorporated into its program for
the computation of orbits the changes of period caused by air drag.
They found, however, that they were still faced with rather serious
errors in predictions, although not nearly so bad as they had been
earlier. The problem was complicated by the fact that Sputnik IT and
Explorer I were not spherical; therefore, as their orientation changed
in space, the amount of surface against which atmospheric density
could act to decrease the altitude and increase the speed of the satellite
changed.
Nevertheless, the variations in satellite drag from day to day did
not seem accountable by considerations of the presentation area. When
the spherical satellite Vanguard I showed the same type of oscilla-
tions that had appeared in the orbits of Sputnik II and Explorer I,
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 345
TABLE 3.—Atmospheric Densities Derived by Various Investigators
Height (kilometers) Density (gm/em’) Satellite Author
Bees See Se ue Es 105% 1958 Alpha- ---- Sterne.
Reece Eo 14 10-% 1958 Alpha----- Sterne.
PAT 5 eS valiant S.5:), LOPE) l9S7 a2. Harris and Jastrow.
Pos oS ST este eh 2.5 10% 1957 a2_____--_| Royal Aircraft.
Doonan pan © sere 2.2 107% 1957 61_____--_| Sterne and Schilling.
3 Ne Te ee 1S By OFC? )y i LOST 2s 2S a Harris and Jastrow.
771 Se ee Fh Gat Oe LOB Vials sts be Sterne and Schilling.
7d Se ee ee 4.5 107% OGY (GPL SB See Sterne and Schilling.
5? We etl a 4,0 10-8 Lovee eee Sterne.
7) Vi) Raa ae 4.7 10-8 Ly A eae Priester et al.
Fad tage Ne ee Rs 4.8 10-8 NOS 7vBle + 2 ee Sterne and Schilling.
7) bp. 0) er 4,4 10-8 Gir gis) eee een ees Sterne and Schilling.
their origin had to be sought in the atmosphere itself rather than in
the shape of the satellite.
Dr. Jacchia discovered that the oscillations had a period of approxi-
mately 27 days, equal to that of the sun’s rotation, and immediately
surmised that the cause of the variations of density in the atmosphere
revealed by these variations of drag might be solar radiation.
He outlined this possibility in a paper entitled “The Erratic Orbital
Acceleration of 1957 Beta” in the April 1958 issue of Sky and T'ele-
scope. When Dr. Wolfgang Priester of Germany studied the text,
he noted that the curve of the drag of Sputnik II resembled the varia-
tions of the 20-cm. radio flux from the sun. The resemblance could
not be seen clearly because unfortunately there were just two minima
and one maximum on the curve, and the satellite’s perigee went from
night into day and back into night exactly at the time when the drag
was rising and then declining. The curves did, however, appear to
be similar.
By the time Priester had made this analysis, Jacchia had many more
data at hand, including several months of observations of Vanguard
I for which he had not published any detailed accelerations. Since
he did not have access to the 20-cm. fiux, which is measured in East
Berlin, he made use of the 10-cm. flux which behaves very much like
the other, and which is measured in Canada. He plotted the 10-cm.
flux against the drag of Vanguard I. The two curves were almost
identical: every single minimum and maximum in one was reflected in
the other. There could no longer be any doubt of a relationship be-
tween something that was happening in the sun and something that
was happening in the atmosphere to affect the motion of the satellite.
It must be emphasized that there is no direct causal relationship
between the 10-cm. flux and the variations of the density, since the
atmosphere is completely transparent to that radiation and therefore
346 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
cannot be heated by it. There simply must be another kind of radia-
tion in the sun that varies in more or less the same way as does the
radio flux and that influences the orbit of the satellite.
It was reasonable to assume that extreme ultraviolet radiation,
including soft X-rays, emitted from sunspots varies in a manner
similar to that of the 10-cm. radiation; that is, the same primary cause
underlies the two phenomena and therefore they are in unison. If this
is true, then the 10-cm. flux serves as a fairly accurate indicator of
variations of the emission of the extreme ultraviolet. The latter can-
not, of course, be observed from earth because it is completely shielded
by the atmosphere. Its existence, however, had earlier been confirmed
and measured by rockets lofted before the IGY. Since sunspots have
a tendency to concentrate in a few long-lasting active areas, the radio
flux and the extreme ultraviolet flux will show a maximum every 27
days when the rotation of the sun brings them near the center of the
visible disk. And since the number of sunspots greatly varies with the
11-year solar cycle, there is a corresponding variation in the two fluxes,
which is reflected in the heating of the atmosphere. Actually, this
variation with the 11-year cycle is by far the largest observed in the
atmosphere.
This, then, was the first major discovery concerning variations of
upper atmospheric density made from the tracking of satellites. The
importance of this finding has frequently been compared to that of
the Van Allen radiation belt.
Shortly after the discovery of the 27-day variations, another kind
was found from observations of the rocket of Sputnik III (1958 81).
Jacchia noted that one two occasions during the lifetime of the object
the drag increased much more suddenly than it did during the 27-day
fluctuation. Each of these increases occurred within a matter of two
days, one during which density rose, and the other when it fell. He
then searched for any unusual happening on those days. They proved
to be the dates of the only two large magnetic storms during the life-
time of the satellite. The maximum of each storm coincided with
the maximum of disturbance in the drag to within a fraction of a day.
Once he computed the acceleration curves and compared them with
the magnetic indices, he found that they were almost identical.
Such magnetic storms are caused by solar flares. In both cases,
in July and in September, the magnetic storms started approximately
24 hours after the appearance of a +38 flare on the sun.
The agent that caused the storm was corpuscular radiation. Its
role in heating the atmosphere was completely unknown before the
space age. Violent flares on the sun emit charged particles. When
they are in the vicinity of our planet, they interact with its magnetic
field and cause perturbations of the magnetic needle. The same par-
ticles indirectly also cause the temperature of the atmosphere to in-
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 347
crease and therefore its density at a given altitude. It must be added
that scientists do not yet understand precisely how this heating occurs.
The next discovery by Dr. Jacchia was that the atmosphere at a
given height is denser in the illuminated—that is, the bright—hemi-
sphere than it is in the night hemisphere. In other words, the atmos-
phere bulges out toward the sun. This diurnal bulge is another phe-
nomenon caused primarily by the extreme ultraviolet radiation from
the sun.
At a height of 150 km., surfaces of equal density in the atmosphere
are nearly concentric with the earth. At higher altitudes, however,
a slight bulging out occurs around the point that is at the same latitude
as the subsolar point but shifted 2 hours in longitude. This bulging
out reaches a maximum in the region between 600 and 1,000 km.; the
bulge then decreases in the helium and hydrogen regions of the atmos-
phere. The temperature goes up much more sharply in the bulge.
At the height of Vanguard I, for example, the density of the atmos-
phere in 1958-59 varied by nearly one order of magnitude across the
bulge; the density increased by nearly one order of magnitude going
through its center, and then decreased.
A fourth effect of solar radiation is the semiannual variation. In
1960 Professor H. K. Paetzold found from Dr. Jacchia’s observations
of Vanguard I and Satellite 1958 Alpha that there are indications of a
small semiannual oscillation in the drag. His discovery was then sub-
stantiated by Priester and Jacchia. The maxima and minima of this
oscillation agree with the maxima and minima of the semiannual
oscillation in the geomagnetic indices and with the maxima and minima
of aurorae and magnetic disturbances.
Again, the mechanism of this variation is not understood. The
changing dip of the magnetic axis of the earth with respect to the
“solar wind” has been invoked to explain the effect, but this explana-
tion seems to meet with increasing difficulties.
From all of these observations and deductions, a new model of
atmospheric heating resulted. The troposphere extends to between
8 and 12 km. from the ground. The ground is heated by visible radia-
tion; then the heat is transferred from the ground to the atmosphere by
conduction and convection. Above the troposphere is the ozonosphere,
the layer of atmosphere that contains a quantity of ozone which absorbs
the near ultraviolet ; most of this region is between 25 and 40 km. above
the earth. The layer above is heated from the ozonosphere in the same
way that the troposphere is heated by the ground. These facts had
already been available, however, to estimate the nature and extent of
heating in the upper atmosphere above 100 km.
348 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
In 1957 the most popular hypothesis on the heating of the upper
atmosphere was Chapman’s idea that the heating occurred by con-
duction from a hot interplanetary space that was part of the solar
corona. The belief was that the earth moved in a thin medium with
a temperature of something of the order of a quarter of a million to
possibly a half-million degrees and that this heat percolated by con-
duction into the atmosphere. This conception proved to be completely
wrong, for in fact the temperature of the upper atmosphere above a
given point of the earth and at a given time is just about constant from
300 km. upward, at a relatively cool level, about 1000° to 2000° Kelvin.
Both the extreme ultraviolet radiation and the heating energy from
the corpuscular fiux from the sun seem to be absorbed at comparable
heights of the order of between 100 and 200 km. above the earth.
This layer has the same role for the upper atmosphere as the ground
has for the troposphere, except that instead of convection there is only
conduction. The lower regions heat the upper regions. The extreme
ultraviolet and the heating energy from the corpuscular radiation
directly heat the atmosphere, and then heat the layers above by
conduction.
The temperature of the atmosphere does not increase constantly
as one goes upward. Actually, it increases in a tremendous leap
in the region between 100 and 200 km., going from 200° Kelvin at
90 km. to a possible 2000° Kelvin at maximum sun activity in a matter
of 100 to 200 km. Then it remains stationary in the higher regions
of the atmosphere. In other words, it is almost an inverted picture
from what had been anticipated before the IGY.
In summary, extreme ultraviolet radiation from the sun heats the
atmosphere unequally in the dark and bright hemispheres and thus
causes the diurnal effect, and it varies from day to day and therefore
creates the erratic “27-day” effect, as well as the 11-year variations.
Corpuscular radiation from the sun indirectly heats the atmosphere
during magnetic storms and may or may not be related to the mys-
terious semiannual effect. These, then, were some of the major scien-
tific results derived from optical observations of satellites during the
IGY.
Scientists at the Observatory also undertook other research pro-
grams as part of the IGY. From observations of Satellites 1957
B1 and 1957 B2, Dr. Jacchia derived new values for the second-
and fourth-order coefficients of the earth’s gravitational potential.
Dr. Kozai made a theoretical study of the motion of a satellite by
taking into account the second-, third- and fourth-order terms of the
earth’s potential; his results provided more accurate expressions for
the secular motions of the perigee and the node. He also developed
a theory of secular perturbations on satellite motions caused by the
sun and the moon. Other scientists began developing further means
SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM—HAYES 349
for using satellite observations in geodetic studies. ‘These and other
programs of research and analysis were to reach fruition after the
IGY when the Satellite-Tracking Program of the Observatory came
under the sponsorship of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.
ACHIEVEMENTS DURING THE IGY AND IGC
When the Satellite-Tracking Program came under the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration on July 1, 1959, the Observa-
tory’s direct participation in the International Geophysical Year and
the International Geophysical Cooporation ended.
The changes, the progress, the achievements of the program during
those years had been momentous.
The Observatory staff—most of whom were involved in the satellite
program in one capacity or another—grew from 38 when the
Observatory moved to Cambridge in 1955 to a cosmopolitan group
of more than 175 people.
In 3 years, the Observatory built and manned a worldwide network
of 12 stations, each equipped with a specially designed and constructed
Baker-Nunn camera and Norrman time standard. The camera was
so sensitive and so accurate that it photographed the Vanguard 6-inch
sphere at a distance of some 2,400 miles; the clock could display time
to one-thousandth of a second. By mid-1959 these 12 stations had
made more than 4,000 photographic observations of U.S. and U.S.S.R.
satellites launched during the IGY and IGC.
A communications network linking the stations with headquarters
in Cambridge handled each month 400,000 words of information on
predictions and observations of satellite transits.
More than 8,000 volunteers joined the Moonwatch program of visual
observations of satellites. More than 200 teams were organized, not
only in the United States but also throughout the world. Together,
they made nearly 10,000 observations and were of unique value in
locating several “lost” satellites and in observing the demise of
Sputnik IT.
Techniques were developed for the precise reduction of the films
from the Baker-Nunn cameras, and by June 1959 the times and posi-
tions recorded on the photographs were being routinely determined.
The computations group successfully evolved a series of programs,
among them the DOJ, for the generation of predictions to the camera
stations and the Moonwatch teams and for the derivation of precise
orbits. They also created a number of other significant programs for
research and analysis.
Scientists used the observational data to define several influences on
the motion of satellites and thereby made new estimates of atmospheric
350 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
density and discovered the role of solar electromagnetic and corpuscu-
lar radiation in heating the atmosphere. Other research using satellite
data was initiated in studies of geodesy.
Members of the staff presented some 20 papers to scientific meetings,
and published 30 others in leading scientific journals. The Observa-
tory issued 27 special reports on research in space science, ranging
in subject from observational data to plans for a flashing satellite for
geodetic studies. In the years to follow, literally scores of other papers
and reports based on IGY activities were to appear.
The imaginative vision of 1955 had become a splendid reality.
How Mountains Are Formed’
By R. A. LYTTLETON
Reader in Theoretical Astronomy
University of Cambridge
[With 2 plates]
THE EXISTENCE Of mountains has remained for generations one of
the most perplexing problems of geology and geophysics despite the
enormous amount of evidence apparently available. True, we have
been told since childhood that mountains are due to shrinkage of the
Earth as it cools causing corrugations as on a withered apple. But
a purely verbal explanation of this kind represents only the first
glimmerings of a theory. Before any theory can be regarded as satis-
factory, it has to show that all the proposed processes would occur
to correct numerical amount. If experiments are not possible, this
can be done only by working out the mathematical consequences of
physical laws. A verbal theory can keep the moon swinging around
the Earth with a piece of cotton, but as soon as numbers are put into
the scheme it founders. This has happened to various theories of the
origin of mountains.
The geologist can explore the surface of the Earth in all its detail.
As yet, the prospector can bore down only a small distance, but he
can examine present surface rocks and features that must formerly
have been buried much deeper. The geologist can see sedimentary
layers, which were originally deposited horizontally, so compressed
from the sides as to be folded and contorted here, and sheared and
thrusted layer-over-layer there (pl. 1, upper fig.), and also uplifted
and turned through large angles. He can examine lands that at one
time formed seabeds, and he can examine intrusive rocks and lavas
poured out in seemingly gigantic amounts from volcanoes. He can
tunnel through mountains and examine them in all their forms. This
has been done on an immense scale but has produced few clues as to
the ultimate cause of mountains except to show that worldwide com-
pressive forces have been at work. The origin of the forces has
remained a mystery.
1 Reprinted by permission from Discovery (London), vol. 25, No. 2, February 1964.
766—746—65 25 351
352 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
One of the reasons for this is that the accessible material is far less
than one-thousandth part of the whole mass of the Earth. In this
minute proportion, the geologist nevertheless finds signs of almost
every kind of disturbance that could be conceived, with the result that
almost any conjecture about the Earth’s history can find some apparent
evidence for its support. This renders the task of the theorist both
difficult and thankless. However, one general conclusion has emerged
from this work, and that is that the outer crust of the Earth has under-
gone considerable horizontal shortening, as if to fit down on to a de-
creasing and shrinking interior. The problem is to find the cause of
this contraction.
CONVECTION CELLS
One obvious suggestion is that at one time the Earth rotated much
faster than now. This would have caused it to have bulged out far
more at the equator than at present. As the shape became less sphe-
roidal, this would lead to crumpling at the surface, presumably mainly
along meridional lines. There is certainly some evidence of a greater
rotation rate in the past, but this theory would place the greatest
changes in surface area far back in the Earth’s history, whereas moun-
tain building is still going on now, even though changes of surface
area due to changes of shape are negligible.
An entirely different theory maintains that the mountains are pro-
duced by the drag of circulating convection currents actually flowing
in the Earth’s solid mantle (see fig. 1). It is considered that such cur-
rents would have a pattern, dividing off into a certain number of
convection cells just filling the volume of the mantle. From time to
time, as a result of the increase in size of the liquid core of the Earth,
the number of cells would have to increase by one. The drag on the
surface layers, if effective at all, would be producing mountains all
stationary continent
moving continent
an —~
BLE 5 Sia “
>.
and rift z & yy —
et
ma
splitting continent
| /
Ficure 1.—The diagram shows how circulating convection currents in the solid mantle
deep within the Earth are supposed to give rise to surface features. ‘These convection-
cells are also supposed to account for Earth’s drifting continents.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Lyttleton PLATE 1
he we.
These strata of sedimentary rock would be horizontal when first deposited. Changes in
the Earth’s crust as it shrinks cause thrusting, folding, and compression of the rock
layers. These distortions of rock are found on every scale from relatively small changes
like this to whole mountain ranges such as the French Alps.
The Earth probably developed from a cool, low density cloud of gas and dust such as the
one shown here in the “horsehead nebula” in Orion. Subsequent heating and formation
of a liquid core would have caused the Earth to contract.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Lyttleton PLATE 2
Deep gash of the Grand Canyon in Arizona illustrates vividly the powerful forces of uplift
and erosion that produce the Earth’s surface features.
HOW MOUNTAINS ARE FORMED—LYTTLETON 353
the time (and as an additional flourish would make the continents
drift), and the readjustment when the number of cells increased is
associated in the theory with a period of intense mountain building.
Ingenious as this descriptive theory is, it is hard to see why hori-
zontal currents near the surface should produce such enormous uplifts,
and it is even more difficult to see why such currents should occur in
solid matter of considerable strength. It is difficult to prove one way
or the other whether a sufficient force will cause “solid” material to
flow if applied long enough, but there is recent evidence from the
motions of artificial satellites that the Earth may possess enough
strength to maintain a slightly more spheroidal form than its present
rotation warrants (presumably a relic of a time of faster rotation).
This could tell heavily against the notion of convection currents. The
mechanism would also require regions of unequal heating to produce
currents, or some other departure from symmetry. Moreover, the
theory requires a growing core, and for this the theory speculates still
further and assumes that free iron is present deep within the solid
mantle. Because this iron would be heavier than the surroundings,
it would sink gradually to build up a metallic core. The Earth does
in fact contain a heavy core, almost entirely liquid, with radius now
some 55 percent of the whole Earth-radius, but the presence of the
requisite chunks of iron is highly dubious. A body containing nearly
40 percent of heavy metals would be a cosmic object of the utmost
curiosity.
THE EARTH’S ORIGIN
Several epochs of mountain building have now been traced right back
in time by the geologists. There have been at least three major periods
well authenticated in post-Cambrian times (that is, within the last
500 million years). Numerous others occurred over a range of some
thousands of millions of years, with their greatest intensity at intervals
of the order of a hundred million years. Thus any inquiry as to the
origin of mountains must face the question of the original state of
the Earth. It seems to be here that a new approach may bring
order where for so long there has seemed to be only difficulty
and contradiction.
For almost a century it has been widely believed that the Earth
began its existence as an entirely molten body, so that its development
seemed to be explicable simply by the processes of cooling of such a
body. Indeed, the thermal-contraction hypothesis, whereby the moun-
tains are supposed to result from this cooling as it extends downward,
has long been regarded as the obvious cause. The surface would cool
first and become solid to a certain depth, and then, when a lower layer
cooled and contracted, the already solid outer crust would find itself
too large to fit continuously over the cooled adjacent interior. It
354 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
would therefore buckle and thrust over itself sideways, piling up
material against gravity.
Attractive and inevitable as this mechanism seemed, detailed calcula-
tions showed that it was likely to give far less contraction than would
satisfy the geologists. Measured in terms of circumferential contrac-
tion of the entire globe, it might lead in the whole age of the Earth to
a reduction of a hundred kilometers or so. The geologists need at
least a thousand kilometers—some would prefer even two or three times
this amount—to allow adequately for all the earlier periods of moun-
tain building.
But even more serious doubt has been thrown on this hypothesis by
the gradually emerging conclusion that initially the Earth may have
been sufficiently cool to have been solid throughout. When proposals
for the origin of the planets were under review a few decades ago,
the only possible source for material seemed to lie in the stars, and here
all the material was known to be at very high temperatures. Could
released stellar material settle down into a compact planetary mass
straightway? It now seems much more likely that material removed
from a star by some catastrophic occurrence would expand almost
indefinitely, thereby cooling, and instead of giving rise to a planet
would produce a gigantic low-density cloud of gas and dust. The
heavens, it is now established, are replete with such clouds, which
occupy some 10 percent of all galactic space (pl. 1, lower fig.). It thus
becomes necessary to think in terms of planets developing initially
from cool material.
There are a number of mechanisms by which the sun could have
acquired sufficient dust and gas to form all the planets. For example,
a companion star to the sun may have exploded as a supernova to pro-
vide the material; alternatively, the sun may have nosed sufficiently
slowly through one of these clouds to form a dust-and-gas cloud cir-
culating round itself. (The clouds themselves would possess slow
circulation in the first place.) Once captured, a cloud of gas and dust
would settle down into a thin disklike form moving round the sun,
somewhat resembling a giant Saturn’s ring but on an immensely larger
scale and much further out in proportion. Within this disk the
planets would have grown by a process of gradual accretion. But for
present purposes it is not necessary to go into the details of all this: it
is sufficient if we postulate an initially cool and entirely solid Earth,
and ask how such a planet would develop.
SIZE OF AN ALL-SOLID EARTH
Tf then we imagine all the material of the Earth initially gathered
into a single all-solid body, almost the first question that springs to
mind is to ask how big such a planet would be. To answer this with
HOW MOUNTAINS ARE FORMED—LYTTLETON 355
any worthwhile degree of accuracy would be an almost impossible
task were it not for the occurrence of earthquakes. For study of their
wave effects has enabled a great deal to be learned about the pressures,
densities, and elastic properties of the material existing at all depths
within the present Earth. The pressures inside the Earth are of the
order of millions of atmospheres, and far above the strengths of solid
materials in all but the extreme outer layers. This great pressure
renders the problem tractable, for the internal material must be so
distributed that it is supported against gravity entirely by pressure.
The times of travel of earthquake waves enable the physical properties
of the material, in particular its compressibility, to be found at these
enormous pressures. ‘This is obviously essential information if we
are to calculate the initial size of the Earth.
If the Earth grew by accretion of cosmic dust, there would be no
reason to suppose any great difference of composition from one part to
another, and it would be easy to calculate the uncompressed volume
that a mass equal to that of the Earth would occupy if composed of
dust. However, the compression squeezes the matter to higher density,
the more so the deeper it is inside the Earth, and it is this that makes
the calculation awkward. It is necessary to have precise knowledge
of how the density varies with pressure.
Geophysicists have long since determined the incompressibility at
almost all parts of the Earth by their studies of earthquake travel-
times. The results show that the incompressibility is almost exactly
a linear function of the pressure (see fig 2). The same type of law
had also been arrived at quite independently more than a decade ago
from purely physical considerations. It therefore seems probable
that such a law holds with an accuracy greater than that of the present
geophysical data from which it can also be inferred.
It is found that a straight-line law holds not only throughout the
solid mantle and the solid outer shell of the Earth (which is just over
400 kilometers deep), but also in the liquid core. The constant of in-
compressibility associated with zero pressure is different in each zone,
but the slope of the straight-line law is the same. Our first require-
ment is to consider an all-solid Earth. Its radius is readily calculated
by means of the linear law (and the use of a computer) and comes out
to about 350 kilometers greater than the present Earth-radius of 6,371
kilometers. This means an initial circumference more than 2,000
kilometers greater than the present value, and a surface-area about 60
million square kilometers greater! This is the area that would have
been tucked away by folding and thrusting to change the Earth to
its present size. These are exactly the kind of changes the geologists
need to account for all the epochs of mountain building (see fig. 3).
356 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
The pressure at the bottom of the mantle, 2,900 kilometers below
the surface, is about 1.37 million atmospheres, whereas at the center
of an entirely solid Earth it would be only just over 20 percent greater.
Thus no more than a modest extrapolation of the law between pressure
and density is required.
INCOMPRESSIBILITY (10" dyneycm. )
I 2 3
PRESSURE (10 dyne/cm. *)
Ficure 2.—The incompressibility of each of the Earth’s three main zones is a linear func-
tion of pressure. But the greater compressibility of the liquid core means that as radio-
active heating at great pressure causes more liquid to form, the Earth contracts.
Where the outer shell meets the solid mantle, the pressure is 0.141 x 10!2 dyne cm.~;
at the boundary of the mantle and core, 1.36 x 10!2 dyne cm.~; and at the Earth’s
center, about 3.9 x 10! dyne cm.~?; (10! dyne cm.~ is approximately 1 million
atmospheres).
HOW MOUNTAINS ARE FORMED—LYTTLETON 357
Figure 3.—The Earth’s initial radius was about 350 kilometers greater than it is now.
Its surface area must therefore have been reduced by about 60 million square kilometers.
This additional material would have been tucked away by folding and thrusting, giving
rise to epochs of mountain building which still continue.
HEATING AND CONTRACTION
But this is only the beginning of the story. We have also to explain
how the Earth has come to possess its liquid central core, with a radius
more than half that of the Earth. Clearly something must have
happened to raise the temperature enough to cause the Earth to melt.
There is no difficulty here, however, for this could be achieved by only
a minute content of radioactive materials: no more than a few percent
of the proportion found to be present near the Earth’s surface would
gradually raise the temperature as these materials—mainly uranium,
thorium, and potassium—decayed into other elements, thereby releas-
ing energy. Thus, instead of the Earth cooling down, it has in fact
been warming up and is still probably doing so. It may well have
remained entirely solid for a thousand million years or more, until the
358 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
central temperature reached the melting point of the material there:
this would mark the beginning of the growth of the core. Further
release of radioactive energy would increase the temperature, and the
core would continue to extend further out.
The crucial point is that this liquid form, which the material is
converted into as a result of both the high pressure and temperature,
is more compressible than the solid form constituting the mantle.
Thus, as the core mass increases, the Earth gradually gets smaller.
Over the whole age of the Earth, the average rate of decrease of the
outer radius has been about one-tenth of a millimeter a year—in 3.5 X
10° years this amounts to 350 kilometers. This contraction also re-
leases gravitational energy, which will augment the heating by radio-
active energy, but in a planet as small as the Earth this additional
source of heat cannot be tapped until radioactive heating has first
produced liquefaction, so that contraction can begin.
An indirect consequence of the gradual contraction would be that the
rotation of the Earth would have speeded up: the rotatory inertia of
the planet would have decreased as the body contracted. It now has
only about 4/5 of the original value, and so the present angular velocity
would be about 5/4 of the original rate in order to conserve rotatory
momentum. This means that the day, if affected by this process only,
would initially have been about 30 hours long. It is known that the
tides of the sun and moon act to slow the Earth down, but the present
process appears to be of comparable importance, and it will need to
be taken into account in future discussions of the evolution of the
Earth’s rotation.
STRAIN, FRACTURE, BUCKLING
It is the response of the outer layers of the Earth to this steady lique-
faction of the deep interior that is ultimately responsible for the
formation of mountains. But the surface does not follow the con-
traction entirely uniformly because the strengths of the materials in
the outer few kilometers are greater than the pressure. Thus the
contraction in the core for a time produces no catastrophic effect at
the surface, but only builds up increasing strains. Rocks can be com-
pressed by rather more than one part in a thousand of their linear
dimensions before they yield altogether and fracture. Thus a spheri-
cal Earth could contract down by a few kilometers without serious
distortion at the surface, but then any further contraction would re-
sult in widespread fracture and buckling of the outer layers. Some
catastrophic readjustments would be made as the material gave way
under excess strains. This stage would correspond to a period of
mountain building. What exactly would take place in any such cata-
strophic epoch is almost impossible to consider theoretically, for the
Earth’s surface layers will have different strengths at different parts,
HOW MOUNTAINS ARE FORMED—LYTTLETON 359
and the processes will automatically always find the weakest parts of
the planet’s crust.
It is unlikely that the mountains were produced exactly in their
present forms. Long ridges would develop where one layer was thrust
over another, and then erosion would carve out gorges and canyons
by wearing away huge quantities of the more readily removable ma-
terial (see pl. 2). The resulting reduction in weight would cause the
whole area gradually to rise, maintaining a kind of floating equilibrium
on the layers below. This would increase the surface irregularity,
though clearly there is a limit to which the process could go. Simi-
larly, where the relief of stresses took the form of folding of the sur-
face layers, subsequent erosion would accentuate the surface features,
at least for a time.
THE EARTH’S STORY IN OUTLINE
Thus it now seems probable that the Earth began as a cool feature-
less planet with minute traces of radioactive minerals spread through
its volume. Aeons may have passed while the internal temperature
slowly but inexorably rose, until suddenly the crucial melting point at
the center was reached and the process of contraction was set in motion.
Compression of the liquefied central part would take place automati-
cally at this stage because of the high pressure, and the outer parts
would then follow down to restore equilibrium. Continuing compres-
sion would begin the cycle of mountain formation by building up
stresses in the outer layers. This would be followed eventually by
catastrophic release as the surface rocks folded and fractured, and
erosion of the resulting foldings and thrustings would finally produce
huge areas of mountain ranges. And there is no reason to suppose that
the process has ceased: the lifetimes of radioactive elements are such
that heat is still being produced throughout the Earth, though cer-
tainly at only a fraction of the original rate. But until it practically
ceases altogether, the Earth will go on contracting and periods of
mountain building will continue to occur.
MOUNTAINS ON OTHER PLANETS?
To the question: could mountains be formed by this process on the
moon or on any of the small planets, such as Mercury, Venus, or Mars,
the theory can in fact give quite definite answers. Venus, for example,
has an observed radius consistent with the value it would have if the
planet is made of material with similar properties to the Earth. Since
its mass is only a little less than that of the Earth, the internal condi-
tions of pressure and temperature are likely to be such that melting
near the center has occurred, and a liquid core formed deep within it,
but not to quite the same extent as in the Earth. Folded and thrusted
mountains would therefore be expected to be found on Venus.
360 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Mars, on the other hand, is only about one-ninth the mass of the
Earth, and not only would the temperatures due to radioactive heating
at corresponding depths be rather less than in the Earth, but the
pressures are far too low for liquefaction yet to have occurred in its
central regions. So no contraction of Mars can have occurred : indeed,
if anything has happened as a result of internal heating, it would
rather have produced very slight expansion of the outer parts, possibly
thereby bringing about rifting of the solid surface. Whether such
riftings could be eroded into anything resembling terrestrial moun-
tains is doubtful. Although the surface is directly visible, Mars is
rather too distant for the question to be settled for certain at present.
Nevertheless it has long been believed from observations near the edge
of the planet’s disk that there can be no irregularities of more than a
few thousand feet, and the absence of detectable shadows means there
is no direct evidence even for this amount. Photographic or other
kinds of survey from space probes passing close to the planet may
clarify the situation in the next few years.
The same conclusion holds for both Mercury and the moon, and the
theory indicates that these bodies have always been solid throughout.
Hence no mountains of the terrestrial kind can be expected at their
surfaces. It is of course generally recognized that no such features
are to be found on the lunar surface; all the so-called “mountains” can
be associated with the remnants of the rims of large craters that have
been heavily eroded.
However, special processes, perhaps chemical or radioactive, might
lead to the development of intense loca] heating in comparatively
small regions of the outer parts of the planets or of the moon. For
example, a large meteorite of high radioactive content plunging into
a planet might produce sufficient heating to bring about volcanic effects
hundreds of millions of years later. This in turn could lead to the
building up of volcanic mountains, but these make an almost negligible
contribution to the whole area of the Earth covered by mountains.
We can conclude that if the inner planets began as molten bodies,
they should all possess mountains produced by thermal contraction.
But if they began as entirely cool bodies, only the Earth and Venus
can have mountains. Thus we have an absolutely clear-cut test of a
new hypothesis which implies a great deal about the deep interiors
of the planets—a realm that can be explored theoretically. And there
is an intriguing opportunity for space research to obtain the necessary
evidence by direct exploration of the surfaces of these planets.
The Future of Oceanography’
By ATHELSTAN SPILHAUS
Dean of the Institute of Technology
University of Minnesota
[With 4 plates]
OcEANOGRAPHY’S FUTURE depends on the uses to which we put the
ocean. The science of oceanography is not a discipline but an adven-
ture wherein any discipline or combination of disciplines may be
focused on understanding and using the sea and all that isin it. Often
the arts of using the sea precede the full understanding of it and point
to questions yet unanswered. For example, submarines led to the
study of how sound travels in the ocean; aircraft carriers to the study
of waves. But equally, scientific discoveries resulting from sheer
curiosity point the way to new uses. The finding (first by the Chal-
lenger) of manganese nodules on the bottom of the sea, followed by
recent photographs showing their abundance, has led to serious work
on “surface” mining the sea bottom. In all science there is a continu-
ous interplay between artisan and scientist; in oceanography, it is
between sailor, submariner, fisherman, and oceanographer.
So, to speculate about oceanography’s future, we must extend pres-
ent uses into the future, dream of entirely new uses, and see what we
can do to bring them about.
One of the first and still one of the foremost uses man makes of the
ocean is as a magnificent highway with “straight,” great circle routes
to travel from any point on the coast of the world island to any other
point on its coast. Surface navigation has been highly developed
with excellent “road signs” from the simplest buoy or lighthouse
through radio time signals, sonar, long-range radar, and radio direc-
tion-finding navigational aids, to the most modern systems of naviga-
tion utilizing the navigational satellite as a “lighthouse in the sky.”
Here, as in all cases, the needs for pure, scientific oceanography, for
industrial exploitation, and for the Navy are parallel. It is no use
for the oceanographer to know in detail the character of a certain body
1 Reprinted by permission from Ocean Sciences, edited by E. John Long. Copyright
1964 by U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Md.
361
766-746—65—_26
362 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
of water, the currents, or the nature of the ocean bottom there if he
does not know precisely where “there” is. Now that the Polaris mis-
sile can be launched from the sea, the Navy must also know the exact
launching point in order to aim.
Navigation of the future will be done more and more under water.
Although submarines have thus far been used principally for military
purposes, the advantages of traveling below the disturbed interface
between ocean and atmosphere with its waves, windstorms, and ice
mean that submarine freight and passenger travel, as well as a variety
of submarine vessels for research purposes, will undoubtedly be devel-
oped. Under water the navigational problems are even greater. The
navigator must have complete maps of the bottom topography, the
gravimetry, magnetic anomalies, and the nature of the sea bottom. He
must have instruments to detect these so that he may “see” where he
is just as a land or air traveler sees his position on ordinary maps. He
will also, for regular routes, have a beacon system under the sea, as
airplanes have in the air; thus, he will home from beacon to beacon.
The other age-old use that men have made of the sea is to gather
their food from it. It is not immediately obvious that studies of life
in the sea are important to the Navy, but in fact, the Navy has given
considerable support to work in marine biology. Two obvious exam-
ples of direct naval significance are research on marine fouling orga-
nisms and the noises that animals make in the sea that confuse hydro-
phone listening. Unquestionably, studies of life in the sea will find
increasing importance, not only for the needs of people in peacetime
but also for military applications.
Food from the sea is not properly exploited. On the one hand, some
desirable species of fish are overfished to the extent of threatening
extermination; on the other hand, some are not used at all. Countries
having ample food within their land boundaries, such as the United
States, use less fish than heavily populated countries surrounded by
the sea, such as Japan. Only 5 percent of our protein comes from the
sea as compared to the world average of 12 percent. This world aver-
age must inevitably increase with population growth. There are other
factors which affect the use of protein from the sea. Even in protein-
poor countries such as India, abundant fish from the Indian Ocean
are not extensively used. This is partly due to the difficulty of preserv-
ing fish without expensive refrigeration in hot lands. Modern can-
ning and dehydration can surmount these difficulties. Education to
overcome taboos and use protein-rich, nonspoilable fish flour can pro-
vide the necessary supplement to the diet of one-fourth of the world’s
population which is undernourished now.
If we harvested this renewable source of food properly, we do not
know whether we could steadily take five times the present amount out
of the sea or a hundred times that amount. Marine biological and
THE FUTURE OF OCEANOGRAPHY—SPILHAUS 363
fishery research must give us an estimate of productivity which would
let us plan the size of the harvest so that it would be constantly con-
served and renewed, at the same time it is being used.
But, once we establish the present productivity of the sea, we need
not stop there. Agriculture on land has made tremendous increases in
productivity per acre by growing single stands instead of mixed
populations, by breeding special strains adapted to a particular locality
and resistent to disease, by renewing the land by plowing, fertilizing,
and irrigating. All of these methods have their counterparts in aqua-
culture, the farming of the sea. Behavioral research on marine
animals’ reactions to stimuli— electrical, acoustical, chemical, physical
bubbles and currents, and temperatures—all point the way to the
kind of “fences” we may use to isolate species and special breeds and
harvest them more readily than do present fishermen who merely
hunt them.
The nutrients needed by life in the sea are presently renewed and
concentrated by various processes of nature. When we understand
these, we may be able to emulate them in artificial processes. Winds
drive away surface water in the lee of a coast, bringing up nutrient-
rich lower water. This suggests that barriers placed in the open ocean
might form artificial lees with rich patches of water around them. In
the open ocean when winds diverge, they also bring up bottom water
at the center of the divergence, and the natural stirring of currents
plows the sea. Perhaps we can “boil up” the nutrient-rich bottom
water by putting a nuclear stove down there. Possibly the waste
heat of an underwater nuclear powerplant for submarine beacons for
navigation could be used for this. Without aquaculture, the problem
in the sea is similar to the problem of gathering food from the wild
mixed animal and plant life in the undeveloped tropics. It is simply
that the desirable foodstuffs, plant or animal, are widely scattered
and hard to gather. Some way must be found to concentrate or herd
them. We shall need “shepherds” and “cowboys” in the sea. Perhaps
they will ride bucking one-man submarines, or perhaps as a result of
the present behavioral studies, we can train dolphins as sheep dogs
of the sea.
The difference between wild scrub cattle and the highly bred, heavy
beef cattle is a result of selective breeding, good pasturage, and sup-
plemented feeding. Fish husbandry can do the same for fish in isolated
areas of the sea.
Present-day fishing methods are mainly of two types, either netting
fish, which are closely gathered in schools, or hooking them with bait.
How fish respond to stimuli points the way to powerful new methods
of fishing and shows that the fish will line up and swim toward one
pole in a field of electric current. “Electric fishing,” already practical
in fresh water, requires greater currents in the ocean water electrolyte;
364 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
but pulses of high energy may soon be used to make fish swim straight
into a funnel hose, thence to be pumped directly into the hold of the
factory ship. The most important sense a fish has is its chemical
sense, and this may be exploited by ringing a school with a repellant
to concentrate it and then luring it to an attracting chemical. Finally,
the fish may be rendered senseless by another chemical and swept
from the surface of the sea. They can be processed immediately in
floating factories which will look more like chemical engineering
plants than ships as we know them today. Around these factory ships,
cities will grow, especially in the most productive waters of the world
such as the Humboldt Current and Antarctic waters. The cities will
be made up of apartment ships with shopping centers, having protected
sea gardens between them, and airport ships. And, as other extensions
of the floating city grow, perhaps even “municipal” hydrofoil trans-
portation will be needed.
Even more archaic than the primitive state of present day fishing
is the way we use (or don’t use) the vegetation of the sea. It is true
that peoples in Asia use seaweed as an important part of their diet,
and in Japan it is grown on fences for ease of harvesting; but in our
country we use it only as a source of algin in ice cream, cosmetics, and
jellies. Surely just as the grasses of the land were developed to yield
the wheat, corn, barley, rice, rye, oats, and even sugar for our daily
bread, seaweed can be cultivated to form an important part of our food.
Even the useless poisonous living plants and animals in the sea
may be put to use. They are sources of important drugs, antibiotics,
and tranquilizers. We may separate the poisons from hideous sea
cucumbers and stingrays for our medicine cabinet and eat the rest.
The most important need of life that comes to us from the sea is
fresh water, distilled naturally by the sun, condensed into rain or snow
and carried onto our lands. Until very recently the importance of
this sea resource was hardly appreciated because of its abundance.
Now, however, lack of fresh water is often the one critical factor not
only in the support of peoples in arid and semiarid lands, but also
in modern cities. Methods of producing fresh water artificially from
brackish or sea water are being vigorously pursued, and without ques-
tion, this will be a big industry of the future. As technology advances,
the cost of separating fresh water from salt will go down. As popu-
lation increases, the value of fresh water goes up. When these two
curves meet, the process is “economical.” In parts of the world, such
as the oil towns of Arabia and isolated naval base islands in the Pacific,
they have already crossed.
Half a dozen radically different methods of obtaining fresh water
from the sea are now being tried. Distillation, emulating the natural
way the sun makes fresh water, is one which may not turn out to be
the most practical unless abundant solar or cheap nuclear power can
THE FUTURE OF OCEANOGRAPHY—SPILHAUS 365
be used. Freezing of sea water in nature leaves about one-third of
the salts in pockets in the ice, but the technique of zone refining of
metals which results in ultra purity suggests the method of “zone”
freezing, which would have the advantage over distillation in that
it requires only about one-sixth of the power. Semipermeable mem-
branes, ion exchange, and even salt-eating bacteria are other
possibilities.
As the need for fresh water increases, more and more rivers will be
stopped from running into the sea. This does not mean that the
rivers will cease to exist, but simply that their waters will be used and
reused and returned to the sea through the evaporative cycle rather
than by waste flow. Every drop of fresh water that flows into the sea
represents a waste of the solar energy that was used to distill it. The
rivers of the world carry 2,000 million tons of salt each year into
the oceans, and one might think that by tampering with river flow
we would upset the balance of ocean salts. But to give an idea of
how tiny this effect is, the annual amount of salt going into the sea
is only one hundred-millionth of the total already there.
As well as producing fresh water for use on land, we will develop
ways of producing it under the sea. This is done now by evaporation
in the nuclear submarines, as it is indeed on surface vessels. When
we understand how penguins can exist without a drop of fresh water
and exclude the excess salt, perhaps we can build counterparts of their
mechanism to get fresh water.
Before man required fresh water from the sea, he needed just the
opposite—to extract the salt. This is an ancient art; at first the salt
was used only for the seasoning of food. But in the last 40 years, not
only have sodium, potassium, and magnesium salts been extracted
economically, but also bromine and magnesium metal. The difficulty
of getting anything out of sea water is that everything occurs in a
highly dilute state, and large amounts of water have to be pumped
and processed. But power is getting cheaper, and perhaps, instead
of pumping sea water through plants on land, we will have floating
processing plants at sea, propelling themselves through the water as
they take what they need from it, just as marine animals do. The
advantage of such floating “refineries” is that they do not occupy
expensive shore land and can move to areas of rich sea “ore.” Perhaps
deuterium taken from the sea water itself will power them.
Many valuable elements are so dilute that it is not economical to
extract them from sea water, yet nature concentrates them in high-
grade deposits on the floor of the sea. Nodules on the sea bottom are
already being mined for phosphorus, and nodules of manganese, not
valuable enough in itself, may contain enough valuable nickel, cobalt,
molybdenum, and zirconium to warrant scraping them off the bottom
in a deep sea mining enterprise. The most interesting facet of this
366 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
deep sea mining is that the nodules seem to form at a rate exceeding
what we might conceivably take out to cover the present total world
consumption of these metals. They are like self-renewing mines.
As time goes on, other valuable materials may be discovered on the
bottom of the sea. Already, off Southwest Africa, a company is recov-
ering diamonds. They are hopeful of getting 75,000 carats a month
in sizes up to 10 carats. But the nodules and diamonds are just a
start; undersea prospecting has hardly begun.
It is not surprising that we now drill for oil under the sea on the
continental shelves which are merely extensions of the land, the shore-
line being an accident of present sea level. We should therefore
expect that, as our ability to drill in deeper water increases, oil rigs
will push farther and farther off shore.
Exploitation of all of these things we need from the sea for living
will inevitably lead to international disagreements and then, we hope,
to agreements surrounding the “ownership” of the oceans.
Parts of the edges of the ocean must be exempt from exploitation
of any kind and must be saved for two other uses. First, for scientific
purposes as well as aesthetic, we must have some land, estuarian water,
sea, and island communities preserved in their natural state. If we
do not do this soon, the whole coast of the United States will be bulk-
headed with concrete by well-meaning engineers to prevent the
“ravages” of wind and wave. All our estuaries will be filled to make
“valuable” shoreline property. Tidal estuaries will be polluted. These
and other competitive uses will destroy our valuable seashore and
leave none in its natural state. Furthermore, as fishing methods
become more efficient, sport fishing even more than commercial fishing,
unhampered by the cost of acquisition of aqualungs, guns, chemical
lures, electronic fish calls, may deplete certain species. These same
species may be the very ones that need the disappearing estuaries as
nurseries for their larvae and young.
Secondly, men during their working lives must periodically take
time for “recreation.” As the land becomes more crowded and cities
grow, men turn to the sea for holidays. This important use should
not be forgotten among other competitive uses of the coastal seas.
The same reasons have led us to set aside wilderness areas on land.
Mass-produced underwater vehicles within the reach of many will
become as common as automobiles. Advances in underwater breathing
gases and apparatus will make it possible for everyone to go down
into the sea. Underwater resorts will develop. People will drive
down under the sea, park their submobiles, check into submarines, and
participate in one of the many recreations the resort will offer. Like
land resorts, the ideal undersea resorts will be in clear, warm water
regions—F lorida, the Bahamas, across the Antilles, Hawaii, the Pacific
islands, and similar areas. Submarine trains and guided tours will
THE FUTURE OF OCEANOGRAPHY—SPILHAUS 367
take people through the reefs and underwater world so different from
their normal environment. Underwater hunting and photography
will become ever more popular sports.
One of the best means of averting war is complete surveillance. If
peoples and nations make their moves openly, exposed to the vigilant
eyes of their world neighbors, there is less chance of conflict. This
is the basic reason for developing surveillance systems on land and
in the air. It is equally valid for the sea. Fixed defenses, such as
mines and bottom-moored weapons, are tremendously effective, but
because of international ownership of the sea, in times of peace, they
cannot be placed unless it is covertly done. This is very different
from the pre-aimed intercontinental ballistic missile silos that stand
ready on home land.
Until the time comes when we have complete surveillance in the
sea, the first military task for submariners is to “see” yet be “unseen.”
And all the developments of sonar and the silencing of submarine
weapons and vessels are toward this end. The second important mili-
tary objective is to go deeper in the sea than your enemy. In fights
between aircraft, the one that could climb higher had the advantage.
First rockets, and now satellites, have virtually removed any ceiling.
In the sea, the only way to be sure the enemy cannot get below us is
for our submarines to be able to go to the deepest part of the ocean.
But speed is as important as depth. AI] submarines up to the present
time have been built with positive buoyancy so that if the engines
failed or were shut off, they could float directly to the surface. Per-
haps this idea should be abandoned, as it was with aircraft when we
moved from the floating dirigible to the dynamically supported air-
plane. Pencillike submarines with negative buoyancy might have the
strength and streamlining for the necessary depth with speed. They
would rely on the dynamical lift of their hydrofoils with the reliability
of their motors to raise them from the deeps. The third point is to
know where you are. This has been satisfied by the submarines’ new
navigational aids. The fourth military consideration is to be able to
hit what you aim at. It is incredible that the United States can guide
a probe to the vicinity of Venus, yet not be sure of hitting a target
from a submarine a mile away.
The ocean engineering of submarine travel, research, exploitation
of the sea, and living in or upon it does not, for the most part involve
new inventions. The elements are now known. A vehicle can be
built to take us anywhere in the sea, even 7 miles down. We know
how to build the structures and how to arrange communications.
These new engineering products will emerge just as soon as research,
defense, or industrial needs demand and justify them economically.
Flip, the ship that goes to sea and then submerges its stern with
just the bow peeking out of water as a floating station, can easily have
368 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
a bathyspherelike elevator built into its stern so that, once in position,
investigators or workers can go down to the bottom or any inter-
mediate level by elevator and return home to Fp when their work
is done.
The extraordinary success of the early attempts to drill toward the
earth’s mantle—the MOHO project—will for scientific reasons, if no
other, make drilling the ocean bottom another routine survey proce-
dure. Instead of drilling from a rig floating on the hazardous, wavy,
stormy surface of the sea, with a threadlike string twisting through
miles of water before reaching the drill, the rig, power, and everything
will in the future be located on the bottom.
It is most exciting for the scientist to explore the bottom of the sea,
because it has preserved the history of the earth in the layerings of its
sediments without the weathering, folding, and creasing of the pages
that occurs on land. Perhaps the best place to estimate the quantities
and recover the materials—meteorites—which come to the earth from
space is the undisturbed bottom of the sea.
When we have blue-green lasers, possibly with choppers to reduce
backscattering, we will be able to see and photograph through the sea
water “window” a greater distance. Self-perpetuating ocean power
sources will be developed; some will generate electricity by biological
means using bacterial anodes and cathodes. Missiles for the explora-
tion of space or other uses may be launched more cheaply from “silos”
in the sea. Undersea pipelines, already well developed, may carry
all kinds of fluids or fluidized substances under the sea with less
maintenance than land pipelines. Submarine freight transport may
be far more practical than surface vessels adversely affected by storm
and wind, and more economical than air freight because of the
buoyancy of sea water.
Transit-type satellites have already proved their worth for naviga-
tion at sea, but this is just a beginning. Satellites can be used to
collect and retransmit data from buoys and ships at sea, to take
pictures of ice conditions near the poles, by infrared sensing to trace
ocean currents by the differences of temperature, and even for track-
ing the worldwide migration of certain sea animals with transmitters
attached.
In the air we are accustomed to breathe, the inert gas nitrogen dilutes
our oxygen supply. Some of the most exciting experiments are those
that show that, for underwater breathing at high pressures, other
inert gases are superior, and various mixtures have been tried with
some success to prolong the length of time and the depths at which
men may stay under water. Extension of this research will show
us how to “condition” the air for underwater resorts, underwater mili-
tary establishments to service true submarines, and for cities if we
are driven to the protection of the sea to survive atomic attack, It is
THE FUTURE OF OCEANOGRAPHY—SPILHAUS 369
not out of the question that some, perhaps at first clumsy, large replica
of the natural mechanism by which fish extract oxygen from sea water
through their gills may be made and used by men under the sea.
Oceanography is moving rapidly away from the expedition stage.
Already there are the multi-ship efforts to get a synoptic or bird’s-eye
view of changing current systems and interest in moored buoys as
observing stations. Ultimately, all over the oceans, we must have a
permanent network of stations observing and reporting conditions
on the surface and down to the bottom. This would be a counterpart
of the worldwide weather network which observes conditions on the
earth and high in the atmosphere. This network of stations will
consist of manned and unmanned buoys and artificial islands on reefs
and seamounts close to the surface. Surface ships and submarine
survey ships will routinely fill in the gaps between the permanent
station network. Airplane and shore bases will be established for
gathering data on ice and from automatic reporting buoys. A satellite
network will receive, collect, and retransmit the worldwide synoptic
ocean data to central storage, analysis, and forecasting computers in
various countries.
The survey ships will need to have semiautomatic means of taking
and processing the vast amount of data to feed it to the computing
centers. We will need a census of living matter in the sea. We may
count fish of different species by sonar, radio, chemical, or other dis-
tinguishing tags. We will need automatic methods for the pre-
liminary sorting of microscopic plankton.
It is this kind of data which will develop ocean forecasting. The
already accurate forecasting of tides will be extended to the prediction
of tidal currents. Ice and iceberg distribution, growth, and melting
will be foretold. The best channels for sound communication will
be predicted, and forecasts of the varying strength of ocean currents,
winds, and waves will indicate the safest and most advantageous course
for ships. A worldwide fishery forecast both from observation of the
distribution of fish and by inference from winds, currents, and physical
conditions will tell us where the fish are. “Fish Futures” will be
bought and sold as commodities on the basis of observations of each
year’s larvae and information as to when and if they will produce a
good crop of 3-year-old or 4-year-old fish.
One of the more important outcomes of oceanographic forecasting
will be its contribution to weather forecasting and even to seasonal
and longer term predictions of climate.
The ocean’s effect on climate is only understood in broad outline.
With nuclear explosives, we have powerful earth-moving devices
which put within the realm of possibility the actual blocking of
straits, damming or diversion of warm or cold currents which could
profoundly affect climates. In most cases, however, we do not even
766-746—65 27
370 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
know what the direction of change might be. For example, if warm
water were pumped, as has been suggested, into the Arctic Basin
through the Bering Strait, would the warming be beneficial or would
so much more snow come to Canada as to reduce the habitable land
area? With the observations from the oceanographic network and
by varying certain factors put into the forecasting, we could conduct
experiments to see what would happen before we try it.
Climate control by cloud seeding is more the province of the mete-
orologist, but anyone who has gone to sea knows how clouds hover over
the edges of the Gulf Stream, for example. By influencing the re-
flectivity and absorptivity of the sea surface, or of sea ice in polar
regions, we may be able to redistribute the clouds, even break up an
area in the tropics which may be the breeding place of a hurricane.
Or, alternatively, for offensive purposes, we might encourage the
generation of the hurricane. Such control of weather can be used
either way for warlike or peaceful purposes.
We may even speculate about control of whole seas. In special
cases such as the Mediterranean, the connection to the deep Atlantic
is blocked by a comparatively shallow sill, so the Mediterranean is
nutrient poor because the inflow of the phophorus rich deeper Atlantic
water isdammed. With controlled atomic explosives this dam might
be removed, increasing the productivity of the whole Mediterranean
Sea.
Just as we now accept complete surveillance as one of the important
deterrents to war and have built elaborate air surveillance networks
and are negotiationg for international seismological surveillance sys-
tems on land, so our sonar and other means of keeping track and iden-
tifying every vessel, surface or submarine, military or commercial, in
the sea must be perfected. Perhaps international surveillance systems
may come about by agreement between nations.
Oceanography has for many years set a pattern of international
cooperation in studying the seas. The kind of survey work necessary
to assess all marine resources is one that is too great for any one
nation. It should be done internationally.
Another urgently needed international project in the oceans is to
set aside presently uninhabited islands and their surrounding waters
as international sea wilderness areas. Examples are Inaccessible and
Nightingale Island in the Tristan da Cunha group, Bouvet in the
South Atlantic, and numerous Pacific islands. This should be done
soon so that the continuity of marine and sea bird wildlife may be
preserved before the pressures of population cause the islands to be
inhabited and thus upset the balance of these last natural sanctuaries.
The freedom of the seas has been jealousy preserved over the ages.
But as we take more from the sea, not just along our shorelines but
from the open ocean, we shall need more international agreements,
PEATE 1
Spilhaus
Smithsonian Report, 1964.
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THE FUTURE OF OCEANOGRAPHY—SPILHAUS 371
perhaps even the granting of rights for exploitation. When no single
nation owns any parts of the ocean, then no nation worries about the
conservation of its resources. Rights to exploit the oceans of the
world should carry with them specific responsibilities for their
conservation.
When amicable agreements are arrived at with respect to who takes
what and where, we shall still need an international seaborne control
force to see that these agreements are carried out. Hopefully, this
force should resemble an international commission of game wardens or
officials of a world bank of ocean economic resources rather than the
familiar pattern of the more politically involved international
organizations,
Much of this article has been mere speculation about oceanography’s
future. It is exciting to dream about some of the ways in which man
may use the sea. But if the dreams are to come true, we must roll
up our sleeves and make them come true.
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Search for the Thresher’
By F. N. Spiess
Marine Physical Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
and
A. E. MAxwELi
Geophysics Branch, Office of Naval Research
[With 4 plates]
ON THE MorNING of April 9, 1963, the nuclear-powered attack sub-
marine Thresher steamed out of Portsmouth Navy Yard toward a
nearby submarine operating area. Her purpose was to conduct the
usual series of check dives which follow any major overhaul period
for submarines of our Navy. With her, to provide escort and commu-
nication contact, was the rescue ship Skylark. Assoon asthe Thresher
was clear of the shipyard, the crew rigged for dive and check-dived
the boat in shallow water, following procedures developed over many
years of submarine operations. At 0745 the following day, she sent
her routine diving message to Skylark and to submarine force head-
quarters, then shortly after disappeared into the sea on her dive to
test depth. About an hour and a half later a routine report was made
by sonic telephone to the escorting ship—all was going well except
for some minor difficulty. Then there was a more hasty, garbled
report indicating more severe trouble; this was followed by noises
resembling, it seemed to the sonar man on the Skylark, sounds associ-
ated with the breakup of a sinking ship. The Zhresher, with all
hands, was lost.
This ship (pl. 1, fig. 1) was the first of our Navy’s newest class of
attack submarines, the 15th nuclear-powered undersea craft of about
60 that have been in operation since the commissioning of the Vautilus
in 1954. The number of innovations which have been brought to
reality in these boats is so great that experienced submariners of
World War II would scarcely recognize these craft as related to the
wartime submarines except for the cylindrical hull and ballasting
1 Reprinted by permission from Science, vol. 145, No. 3630, pp. 349-355; copyright
1964 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
766—746—65——_28 373
374 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
principles common to both. Speed, endurance when submerged, oper-
ating depth, search capability, and weapons effectiveness all have
increased by factors unimagined 20 years ago. With these great
improvements has come, with much less fanfare, though it is of com-
parable significance, an increase in safety of operation. Through
all of the second-guessing as to the cause of the loss of this beautiful
piece of machinery and its human crew, much has been said of meas-
ures which could have been taken to increase its structural integrity
or its ability to respond under conditions of extreme stress, and even
of a need to install special emergency data-recording equipment. The
remarkable reality, however, and the reason for shock within the
submarine forces, is that this loss terminated a 14-year period in
which not a single U.S. submarine had been sunk. This is the longest
such period since the introduction of these craft into our Navy in
1900, with the commissioning of the U.S.S. Holland. There has been
a tendency to forget that duty in submarines is considered hazardous
in the same sense that duty in military aircraft is. The shock engen-
dered by the Thresher accident, in contrast to our acceptance of the
loss of more lives in 1963 alone in military aircraft accidents than
were lost aboard the Z'hresher, is a tribute to this new standard of
operational safety.
The purpose of this article is, however, not to recount the various
theories as to why this unfortunate event occurred or to discuss the
engineering and construction improvements which it has triggered.
Rather, we describe the participation of marine scientists and their
tools in the search for the wreckage of this ship, which must eventually
have found its way to the floor of the sea. Clearly, such a discussion
must start with some consideration of why one might want to make
such a search at all. There are several answers, each of which was
pertinent to a different phase of the operation as it developed. At
the very first there was a hope that perhaps the boat had not really
gone down but had surfaced in the rough seas and, though crippled,
might yet be found, or that some survivors might have escaped. This
hope rapidly faded and was replaced by a determination to learn
as much as possible for the future from the accident by photography,
or perhaps even recovery, of parts of the hulk. Finally, as over-
optimistic piecemeal adaptation of techniques showed that the location
problem itself was a difficult one and that the craft had been cata-
strophically damaged, the emphasis shifted to the long-term problem
of developing specialized equipment for careful examination of objects
on the sea floor. In this last context the 7hresher has become simply
a good specific case on which to test the effectiveness of newly develop-
ing systems.
The marine scientific community was actively involved from the
beginning of the first phase of operations. Atlantis IJ, the recently
SEARCH FOR THE THRESHER—SPIESS AND MAXWELL 375
completed research ship of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu-
tion, was at sea within 150 kilometers of the accident and immediately
joined the destroyers, aircraft, submarines, and other Navy craft
which responded to the emergency signals from the Skylark. The
search initially was concentrated on effects observable at the surface,
although the Atlantis IJ began use of its precision echo sounder early
in the operation. The many ships plowed the area looking for slicks
and debris, while the aircraft, im addition, surveyed the area with
radiological monitoring equipment. Negative results with this equip-
ment eliminated the fear that some reactor accident had occurred,
with associated high-level contamination of the sea. As this phase
developed it became clear not only that the boat was lost but that
there was an uncertainty of several kilometers concerning the position
of Thresher at the time of her last contact with the Skylark.
Determination to find the wreck in order to ascertain the cause of
the disaster developed very quickly. During this same time the Navy
began to realize that it had no operational techniques, in the con-
ventional sense, adequate for the job. The Navy has, however,
strongly supported research activity at sea, and thus had available
a pool of interested scientists and research ships eager to assist with
this new problem. Soon other research laboratories in the vicinity
joined the search: Lamont Geological Observatory with its new
(Navy-provided) ship Conrad; Hudson Laboratories with Gibbs,
Allegheny, and Mission Capistrano; the Navy Research Laboratory,
the Naval Oceanographic Office, and the Naval Ordnance Laboratory,
working together, with another new research ship, Gls, in addition
to the Rockville and the Prevail.
Some organization of this effort was required, and for this purpose
a seagoing unit was established—Task Group 89.7, under the command
of Captain Frank Andrews, whose normal assignment was that of
Commander Submarine Development Group Two, based at New Lon-
don,Conn. Overall technical coordination was vested in the 7’hresher
Advisory Group, under the direction of Arthur E. Maxwell, Office
of Naval Research. This group included representatives from the
laboratories mentioned above as well as from the University of Rhode
Island School of Oceanography, the University of Miami Marine
Laboratory, the Bureau of Ships, and the Office of the Chief of Naval
Operations. The group met from time to time during the search
to lay out plans and evaluate results. In addition, they were backed
up by a full-time analysis staff assembled at Woods Hole and utilizing
personnel from Woods Hole, the Navy Oceanographic Office, Sub-
marine Development Group Two, the Naval Underwater Ordnance
Station, and the Navy Electronics Laboratory.
Throughout this phase of the search there was a sense of urgency.
Initially this was a residue of the urgency that characterized the ini-
376 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
tial effort, when there was a true need for emergency action. Later
on, the feeling of pressure continued because all the major participants
had previous plans for research expeditions, to which they were
anxious to return. As time passed and the difficulties became more
apparent, there was pressure to bring the operation to a successful
conclusion before bad weather set in, in the fall.
The individual techniques which were immediately recognized as
potentially useful and which were already being employed in some
fashion in exploration of the sea floor were use of acoustic echo
sounders or near-bottom sonar; magnetic, electric, radiation detection ;
photographic detection ; real-time optical detection, either direct view-
ing or viewing by closed-circuit television from deep-operating craft;
and dragging or dredging. The group rejected the last alternative,
primarily on grounds that it would disturb the site in ways which
might confuse interpretation of the situation when the wreck was
found. Direct observation could not be implemented initially, but
the bathyscaphe 7rieste was immediately transported by ship from
San Diego to Boston and readied for use.
Of the techniques available, the one which was most immediately
and widely applicable was use of the precision echo sounder. This
device consists of a downward-looking broad-beam sound transmitter
and receiver; the received signal is displayed on a facsimile-type
recorder having a very stable time base. This display produces, on
an expanded scale if desired, an analog record of the echo return times
for successive sound pulses transmitted into the water as the ship
travels along. In normal use, this system provides an approximate
representation of the topography for the construction of charts or the
study of shapes of naturally occurring features. For search purposes
this technique would be useful only if the sea floor were relatively
smooth. If this were the case, attention would be directed to search
for a small crescent-shaped pattern superposed on the echo returns
from the sea floor. Simple geometry shows that the return from a
submarine will be the first echo, even if the hulk is 150 meters to the
side of the search ship’s track, for target height of 10 meters in water
depth of 2500 meters (about that in the search area). Comprehensive
application of this technique thus dictated a stringent requirement
for a navigational capability not normally possessed by research
ships in this area.
SEARCH AREAS AND ACCURACY
The navigational problem was first met by the use of the Loran C
electromagnetic system. After difficult-to-obtain Loran C receivers
were obtained, it became rapidly apparent that the shore station
locations were such that only one coordinate was useful. Therefore,
arrangements were made to utilize, in addition, a Decca system in the
SEARCH FOR THE THRESHER—SPIESS AND MAXWELL 377
area, which provided another nearly orthogonal coordinte. Over a
single weekend, new charts were prepared and receivers were provided
for six ships. This system (combination Loran C and Decca), al-
though it lacked accuracy at night, provided the primary navigational
reference throughout the search. Reproducibility of position, as
judged relative to bottom topography and moored buoys, was about
100 meters.
In the beginning of the operation the search area of 18 by 18 kilo-
meters (10 by 10 nautical miles) was quartered, and one ship was
assigned to each sector. With the availability of the improved naviga-
tional system it became apparent, however, that a more systematic
approach was required. It was thus decided that four ships (Adl/e-
gheny, Mission Capistrano, Prevail, and Rockville) would make a
navigationally controlled, precision exploration of the entire area,
with 250 meters between tracks, while Conrad, Gillis, and Atlantis II
would move in to investigate possibly significant contacts. The sys-
tematic survey required 2 weeks of operating time in the area during
which time the data were plotted and contoured aboard ship. The
results provided the first quantitative indication of the difficulties of
using the echo sounder for this purpose. A model showing the com-
plexity of the topography is shown in plate 1, figure 2, in comparison
with a model based on previously available data. The result was the
conclusion that in about half the area the sea floor was too rough for
search by this technique. In the other half there were six possible
target indications, one of which was point “delta,” first observed by
Atlantis II. Because “delta” was close to the location deduced from
the rough navigational record provided initially by Skylark, and be-
cause the echogram (pl. 2, fig. 1) was especially convincing, this point
was given the highest priority for further investigation.
During the time the four ships were conducting their detailed
sweep of the area, Conrad, Atlantis IJ, and Gillis had already begun
investigation of the most likely locations. They relied principally on
photographic equipment built over the years to solve the needs of
submarine geologists. With such equipment it was possible to make
stereo pair photographs of a strip about 7 to 10 meters wide, with over-
lapping coverage for successive exposures, while the vessel was travel-
ing at speeds of 1 to 2 knots (1.8 to 3.6 km/hr). Aside from the result-
ing very slow search rate (about 214 km.? per week), this technique
has the additional disadvantage of requiring a bottom-referenced navi-
gation system accurate to within at least 5 meters to assure that there
are no appreciable gaps in coverage. As an investigative tool in a
restricted area, however, this is an essential method, since it can provide
the detailed view of a wreck that is needed by investigators.
Underwater television was another device with similar restrictions
that was available for optical investigation of the area. At the time
378 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
of the Thresher sinking, the Navy Research Laboratory had under test
a slow-scan underwater television system. It was being developed by
the laboratory for direct observation of the bottom in real time, to
correlate with acoustic reflection measurements, as well as for examina-
tion of instruments and structures emplaced on and in the bottom.
The unit had been tested through 6,700 meters of cable on the dock, but
had never been to sea or even in the water. By accelerating the de-
velopment program, the system was readied for use aboard the lis in
May. Although the television had an advantage over photography in
providing real-time observations (one picture every 2 seconds), it had
a relatively poor 600-line resolution. Fortunately, the cameras could
be activated to give pictures of better resolution when interesting ob-
jects came into view on the tube. Many thousands of “looks” at the
bottom were obtained by this technique, complementing the results
obtained by photography.
DEBRIS IS PHOTOGRAPHED
In spite of lack of knowledge of the exact location of the photo-
graphic or television camera (on the end of 2,500 meters of wire)
relative to a lump on the sea bottom that had been found by the echo
sounder at the surface, the ships criss-crossed the area with some
success. Using combined photographic, echo ranging, electric poten-
tial, and radioactive equipment, part of which was loaned to Woods
Hole by Schlumberger, the Atlantis JJ searched in a predominantly
north-south pattern based on 7hresher’s last known course of 090
degrees, in the hope that some evidence of her passage might be de-
tected. This strategy paid off with the receipt of the first pictures of
fresh man-made materials on the sea floor, and was used by other ships
to build up, gradually, sufficient evidence to indicate a streak of debris
about 1,000 meters wide and at least 4,000 meters long. However, none
of the pieces of debris photographed at this stage showed any item
clearly identifiable as belonging uniquely to Thresher.
At this time the need to identify the debris streak with Thresher
became strong enough to override, temporarily, the earlier restriction
against dredging. Conrad had on board equipment normally used to
gather rock samples from the sea floor. She dragged this across the
debris area and, in several passes, recovered some envelopes containing
spare gaskets. ‘These were identified, from notes on the envelopes, as
being definitely from the interior of the Thresher. Similarly, the
Atlantis II dredged up pieces of battery plates that were later identi-
fied, by chemical analysis, as being of the type carried on nuclear
submarines.
Dredging, photography, and echo sounding were three techniques
which could be used in this search without any modification. Mag-
netometers [obviously applicable in a search for a 3,000-ton (2,700-
PLATE 1
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Spiess and Maxwell
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1. Two PGR (precision graph recorder) records taken from Atlantis IJ, showing point
Because of the size and shape of this contact an accelerated search for the
“delta.”
Thresher was made in this area.
1 kilometer to the north.
The first photographs of debris were obtained about
(Courtesy Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.)
2. Photograph of debris from the Thresher, taken by the Navy Electronics Laboratory
bathyscaphe Trieste, on August 24, 1963, at a depth of 2,600 meters. (Courtesy U.S.
Navy.)
PLATE 3
Spiess and Maxwell
Smithsonian Report, 1964.
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Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Spiess and Maxwell
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SEARCH FOR THE THRESHER—SPIESS AND MAXWELL 379
metric-ton) lump of iron] had been used for geophysical exploration
both on land and at sea, but usually as airborne or shallow-towed
instruments. Only the geophysical group at Cambridge University,
England, had a magnetometer capable of being towed at great depth,
and this particular instrument was then in use in the Indian Ocean.
Several laboratories (Lamont, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
and the Naval Ordnance Laboratory) thus began packaging the avail-
able magnetometers for use at depths which would give the required
proximity (about 200 meters) to the hulk during search. More was
involved than simple provision of a pressure-proof case; also required
were a strong towing wire having good capability as a conductor of
an electrical signal and proper telemetering circuitry to make the
signal available on the towing ship. In early attempts there were
many electrical problems. Nevertheless, one credible anomaly was
found, at about the time of the dredging operations, but it was appar-
ently remote from the debris area by more than a kilometer. Some-
what later, another signal (fig. 1) was found, several times, by Conrad.
Still later this magnetic signal was confirmed by both Gibbs and Gillis
(with equipment from Scripps and the Naval Research Laboratory).
In each instance, navigational uncertainty and lack of ability to make
photographs or view by television at the time the signal was obtained
precluded the possibility of identifying these signals with 7hresher,
or even of being sure that they were all generated by the same object.
The amplitude and dimensions of the signals were such that it is highly
probable that they were generated by a mass of iron of the approximate
dimension of a submarine, but whether this was Z’hresher, some other
wreck, or even natural background is as yet not known.
High-resolution acoustic techniques, used near the sea floor, were
regarded from the start as providing a most promising type of search.
Two units were assembled through modification of existing equipment
(by Marine Physical Laboratory and Woods Hole Oceanographic In-
stitution), but these units lacked adequate resolution in angle. West-
inghouse, under contract with Hudson Laboratories, built a unit
specifically designed for the purpose, and it was operating effectively
by July. This unit was towed near bottom, by means of a cable similar
to that used with the magnetometers; it had an acoustic transmitter
and receiver whose two narrow beams were directed one to each side.
The variation in amplitude of the nearly continuous sea-floor reverber-
ation from each transmitted pulse was plotted on a facsimile-type
recorder. In this way, for each pulse a high-intensity mark was made
at the ranges of highly reflecting sea-floor features and virtually no
intensity was recorded at ranges corresponding to shadows. Thus,
as the towed unit moved along, from successive pings it created a
picture of the sea floor similar to that used by cartographers to show
roughness of terrain, or similar to the “PPI” (plan position indicator)
380 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
100
90
80
70
oO
— pt
TIME 0430 0445 0500
12 JUNE 1963
Ficure 1.—Graph obtained with the deep-towed proton precession magnetometer, showing
an anomaly of approximately 100 gammas in the intensity of the total magnetic field.
This anomaly, first observed aboard the Conrad, was later confirmed by observers
aboard the Gillis and the Gibbs. ‘This single clue indicates that the hull, though badly
torn, is still essentially in one piece. (Courtesy the Lamont Geological Observatory.)
display from a radar installation looking out at a flat angle over the
land. Many informative pictures were obtained with this unit, but
none could be positively identified with Z'hresher.
TRIESTE AIDS THE SEARCH
As additional evidence from photography, television, magnetom-
eters, and side-looking sonar was accumulated, it became evident that
the most promising region, where search should be concentrated, was
SEARCH FOR THE THRESHER—SPIESS AND MAXWELL 381
the small area directly to the east of the strip of debris charted by
Atlantis II, Gillis, and Conrad. This was the area in which the
magnetometer contacts were obtained, as well as the photographs of
the larger pieces of debris. Because this area was sufficiently re-
stricted in size to allow effective use of Z’rieste, the bathyscaphe was
brought to the scene. She is one of the few craft in the world (and
the only one belonging to the United States) which can operate to
the depth necessary for observing the bottom in this area. Like all
others (French and Japanese craft), Z’rieste lacks the cruising range
and maneuverability necessary for an extensive search operation, but
her observational capability makes her a useful investigative adjunct,
once an area of high probability has been established. Operation of
this craft is time-consuming and provides a good example, for the
nonseagoing scientist, of the slow pace at which many seagoing experi-
mental activities must be conducted. TZ rieste must be towed from port
to the operating area at a speed set by the conditions of wind and sea,
at best not in excess of 5 knots. She is essentially a fair-weather ve-
hicle and is very vulnerable if caught under tow in a storm; thus, she
is not taken out of port unless there is a prediction of good weather for
the entire operation period.
In the present case, the tow from Boston took about 3 days. Once on
station, it is necessary to transfer personnel from the towing ship to
Trieste in small boats, and to maintain divers in the water until she has
started her descent. This portion of the operation typically takes
more than an hour. Once on her way, 7 7ieste sinks at a rate of less
than 1 meter per second, requiring some 60 minutes to reach bottom in
the Thresher area. After 7'rieste’s arrival on the bottom (and possi-
bly after oscillating maneuvers to free her from mud, if her descent
was not checked in time), her ballast is adjusted and she can begin to
cruise horizontally at speeds of 14 to 1 meter per second at an elevation
of about 10 meters above the sea floor. From this position, one of
the three men in the sphere (2 meters in diameter) can observe a patch
of sea floor a few meters wide and 10 to 15 meters long, ahead of the
vehicle. Her turning circle is about 20 meters in diameter, and thus
a 180-degree turn takes about 2 minutes and no single spot on the
sea floor can be kept in view during that time. When the battery
supply is exhausted, after she has been at the bottom for 4 or 5 hours,
ballast is released and she ascends to the surface. Once the 77este is
at the surface it is necessary to check out all equipment, recharge bat-
teries, and load ballast before she can make another dive. One dive
per day is her maximum capability under good weather conditions in
this area.
Trieste made two series of five dives each in connection with the
Thresher search. Because of navigational difficulties and minor mal-
functions of equipment, only two out of each five dives were highly
382 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
successful. The remaining three dives per series, while useful, pro-
vided essentially negative evidence, such as evidence on where 7 hresher
was not. During these dives, personnel of the 7’rieste were able to
plot the limits of debris on the bottom, obtain photographs (pl. 2,
fig. 2) of many parts of the hulk (including draft markings from the
bow), and recover pieces of the debris. The debris area has been
described by the 7 rieste’s pilot, Lt. Comd. Donald Keach, as “re-
sembling an automobile junk yard.” Unfortunately, a magnetometer
aboard the 7’rieste did not operate properly and the magnetic anomaly
observed by the surface ships could not be positively associated with
the debris. Radiation detectors, both total-count and pulse-height
analyzers, showed the radioactivity in the area to be normal and to be
attributable primarily to the potassium-40 in the sediments.
Results from the 7'rieste operations showed the microstructure of
the bottom to be sufficiently complicated to make further use of surface
echo sounders impractical. As a consequence, considerable effort was
expended to improve deep-towed instrument packages. The Navy
Research Laboratory combined their television camera unit with a
proton precession magnetometer and a side-looking sonar (pls. 3
and 4). Although there was interference between the various com-
ponents, nonetheless, the advantage and practicability of multiple
sensors was amply demonstrated. Even with this increase in capa-
bility there remained the problem of accurate navigation with respect
to the bottom, which hampered all phases of the search operation.
NEW TRACKING SYSTEM
As the difficulties in finding 7’hresher became more apparent it also
became clear that a major requirement would be the ability to keep a
record of the tracks of various instrument packages and of 7’reste in
their traverses across the area. Initial estimates of the positions of
deep-towed instruments relative to the towing ships were made from
knowledge of the ship’s speed, the amount of towing wire used, and
the angle of the towing wire at the ship. However, the currents in
the area are not constant, either as a function of time or as a function
of depth; thus, particularly at the low towing speeds which were
necessary, the 3000 meters of wire allowed a considerable position un-
certainty. It was known from other work that acoustic methods
could be used to determine the position of the tow relative to the
tending ship. Thus, the Woods Hole group on Atlantis JJ put into
operation a tracking system in which a sound source on the towed
package transmitted a signal picked up by three elements, two mounted
(fore and aft) on the ship and the third mounted on an outrigger to
provide a 15-meter athwartship separation between the receivers.
With this arrangement and with knowledge of the water depth from
echo sounding, it was possible to compute the approximate position
SEARCH FOR THE THRESHER—SPIESS AND MAXWELL 383
of the sound source. By the time the 7’rieste made her second series
of dives, a more elaborate tracking system, assembled by the Applied
Physical Laboratory of the University of Washington, had been in-
stalled on the research ship Gillis. In this system a short pulse signal
is transmitted from the ship and answered automatically by the sound
source (transponder) on the tow. Three receivers are mounted on
the ship, and their outputs are fed to a computer which produces all
three coordinates of the transponder relative to the ship for each pulse.
This system was used to track 7’7este in her second series of dives
and to navigate (lis relative to a transponder fixed to the sea floor.
Throughout the entire operation consideration had been given to the
use of acoustic transponders or beacons to mark various reference
points, but erratic performance and fear of overloading the area
with confusing noisemakers made the Advisory Group reluctant to
use them extensively.
While acoustic methods seemed appropriate for use with most in-
strument packages, there was also a realization on the part of some
participants that even simple, after-the-fact, knowledge of the posi-
tion of photographic equipment relative to the sea floor would be
useful. This led to the use of “fortune cookies”—plastic sheets (40
by 55 cm.) numbered sequentially, rolled, tied with a soluble band,
weighted, and dropped into the sea by one of theships. This provided
strings of spots on the sea floor which were then used for correlating
different photographic sequences traversing the same area. This sys-
tem also proved useful in orienting observers during bathyscaphe
dives.
Following the second series of 7'rieste dives the weather began to
worsen, and the decision was made to terminate the entire operation,
at least for 1963. By that time the debris area had been well de-
termined and convincing photographs and pieces of material from
within the submarine had been obtained; there no longer remained
any doubt that the site of the accident had been found and that any
properly equipped ship could return to the debris area at will. The
evidence clearly indicated that some catastrophic event had occurred
as the eventual result of loss of buoyancy and control by Thresher.
It did not appear that any direct information on the chain of events
leading to the violent hull failure could be reconstructed from the de-
bris thus far found. Some questions still remain, however, which
make the area an interesting one for testing new and improved systems
for sea-floor search. Specifically, the location and condition of the
remains of the pressure hull and the reactor are of considerable in-
terest, particularly in view of the variety of credible hypotheses as
to their behavior that have been proposed. These range from a
hypothesis of complete burial in the sediment, due to high sinking
speed, to one of possible temporary surfacing of a portion, resulting
384 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
from a diesel-engine-like explosion following rapid flooding from
one end.
Further activity in the search area this summer is already under
way. Complete systems combining acoustic, magnetic, and photo-
graphic techniques are being used, in connection with careful sonic
navigation. 7Z'rieste has been extensively rebuilt (this work had been
started prior to the 7hresher accident) and has returned to the scene
as a far more rugged piece of seagoing machinery. Concurrently,
the Navy is preparing to implement a long-term development pro-
gram, based on work of special study group (the deep Submergence
Systems Review Group), which will give it capability in locating,
examining, and (in special instances) recovering objects on the deep
sea floor. This program will include the construction and outfitting
of small submarines having greater mobility, cruising range, and
work capability (though not greater operating depth) than 7’rieste.
Many marine scientists have long desired development of craft with
the observational, instrument-planting, and recovery capabilities that
these small submarines will have. It is unfortunate but true that
it has taken the 7 hresher tragedy to awaken many to our lack of ability
to investigate the deep sea—a lack not of basic knowledge of fruitful
techniques but of experience and equipment in being. Such capabili-
ties as we had a year ago grew directly out of our existing marine
research effort. The new capabilities which are being brought into
being as a result of last summer’s work will help push forward our
ability to make even more fruitful exploration of the depths of the sea.
Recent Events in Relativity’
By Mitton A. RoTHMAN
Research Physicist, Plasma Physics Laboratory,
Princeton University
Iv MAY HAPPEN in some future time that a man will be able to step
into a spaceship and travel to another solar system at a speed ap-
proaching that of light. If this ever occurs, certain events predicted
by the theory of relativity will take place, events decidedly peculiar
by present standards.
Suppose, for example, that our traveler sets out for a star 10 light-
years distant, and is quickly able to attain a velocity of 90 percent
that of hight. It will take him about 11 years to reach his destination,
and if he then turns around and comes back at the same speed, 22 years
will have elapsed on earth by the time he makes his landing.
To the voyager, matters appear somewhat different. Once he
reaches a constant velocity, he feels no sense of motion. However, he
sees the earth receding and the destination approaching at a speed 90
percent that of light. Owing to the contraction of length predicted by
relativity, he finds that the distance to be traveled is only 4.35 light-
years, rather than 10 light-years. Therefore, he finds it takes him
only 4.85 years to go, and an equal time to return, or a total round trip
time of 9.70 years.
Asa result, a person who has remained on earth finds himself aged 22
years, while the person who went on the trip is aged 9.7 years. Time
has been going more slowly on the spaceship than on the earth. This
is In agreement with rule 4 of table 2, which gives some of the con-
clusions drawn from the Special Theory of Relativity.
On the other hand, we might raise an objection to this conclusion.
While a clock in motion appears to be going more slowly than a clock
which is at rest with respect to the observer, the direction of motion
does not enter into the equation. If motion is completely relative,
then as far as the man in the ship is concerned, it is the earth which is
1 Reprinted by permission from Foote Prints, vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 15-24, copyright 1963
by the Foote Mineral Company, Exton, Pa.
766-746—65 29 385
386 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
moving. Therefore the man in the ship should find that the clock
on the earth is going more slowly than his clock.
The traveler feels that he should be the older one at the end of the
trip—not the one who stayed home!
This famous “clock paradox” has been well-known for many years,
and has been discussed thoroughly by a great many writers. The
consensus has been that indeed the traveling man would come back to
earth younger than the stay-at-home individual. In spite of this, there
has been a vocal minority which has maintained that there would be
no difference in age between the two people (Dingle, 1956, 1957).
Until very recently there was no experimental evidence bearing
upon this paradox one way or the other. After all, it has proven
difficult enough to get an observer out in space without getting him up
to relativistic velocities—that is, velocities great enough to observe
these small effects. It requires a speed of 42,000 kilometers per second
to produce a 1-percent change in the length, mass, or time rate of a
body. With ordinary laboratory or rocket-type velocities, the effects
are exceedingly small.
However, during the past 2 years a new laboratory tool (the Méss-
bauer effect) has made possible experiments of such precision that
previously they were not considered feasible. As a result of this,
interest in experimental proof of the Principle of Relativity is now
at a higher level of activity than ever, despite the fact that a great
many facets of the theory have already been proven in the 55 years
since Einstein first proposed it.
Since relativity is the foundation of modern physics, any experi-
ments which help establish its validity are considered very funda-
mental and important. The newly invented techniques illuminate
certain aspects of the theory which have been inaccessible up to now.
THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUIVALENCE
The Special Theory of Relativity is based upon the two assumptions
listed in table 1. While the Special Theory (published by Einstein
in 1905) deals with observers moving at constant velocity, the later
TABLE 1.—Basic Assumptions of the Special Theory of
Relativity
1. The velocity of light in free space is always a constant,
regardless of the motion of source or observer.
2. The laws of nature are always the same to any observer
moving with constant velocity, regardless of this velocity.
The Principle of Equivalence: A body in a gravitational
field behaves exactly the same as it would if it were subjected
to an equivalent acceleration, without the presence of the
gravitational field.
RECENT EVENTS IN RELATIVITY—ROTHMAN 387
and more elaborate General Theory (1915) deals with accelerated
systems. In an intermediate paper of 1911, Einstein discussed the
Principle of Equivalence (table 1), which has been the subject of some
of the recent experiments.
This principle, in effect, says that if we do an experiment on the
surface of the earth, under 1 g. of gravitational acceleration, then
we should get exactly the same result if we do the experiment out in
space, in a ship undergoing 1 g. of rocket acceleration. In fact, we
see here that the terminology of the astronaut explicitly recognizes
the Principle of Equivalence, for 1 g. of acceleration always means
the same thing, whether it is caused by gravity or rocket thrust.
What this implies is a very basic assumption: Gravitational mass
(the mass which determines the force of gravity) is exactly the same
as inertial mass (the mass which determines the acceleration resulting
from an applied force).
If this were not true, then bodies with different masses would fall
at different rates. It has not always been obvious to people that
different masses do fall at the same rate. Since the time of Galileo
we have believed this assumption to be true. Nevertheless, our experi-
ments are only approximations, and there is always the chance that
an experiment giving another decimal place of accuracy might dis-
cover small differences between gravitational and inertial mass. Be-
cause of this, we are always on the alert for new and novel experi-
ments which tend to settle the question more definitely.
The predictions of the Special Theory, listed in table 2, have been
verified by numerous experiments during the past 50 years. How-
ever, the Principle of Equivalence has not been so fortunate, since the
effects which it predicts are so minute that until very recently labora-
tory experiments of the required precision have been out of the
question.
One effect which the Principle of Equivalence predicts is the “gravi-
tational red shift.” Ifa source of light emits radiation which travels
from a region of low gravitational potential to a region of high
gravitational potential—that is, if the light is traveling wp, then the
TABLE 2.— Results of the Special Theory of Relativity
1. A body which is moving relative to an observer appears
to be shortened in the direction of motion.
2. The mass of this moving body is greater than when it is
at rest. This increase of mass is directly related to the
kinetie energy of the moving body.
3. The total mass of a body is related to its total energy
according to the expression: E=mc’.
4. A clock which is moving relative to an observer runs
more slowly than a clock at rest.
5. The maximum velocity for the transmission of any
signal is the speed of light.
388 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
frequency of this radiation is decreased. The wavelength is shifted
toward the red.
Astronomers have sought to observe this in the hight coming from
very heavy stars. If we look at this hght by means of a spectroscope,
and compare the wavelength of a particular spectral line with the same
line from a terrestrial source, the line from the star should be shifted
toward the red. This is a very small shift, and is superimposed upon
the normal Doppler shift due to the motion of the star away from the
earth, so that the measurement is very difficult to make.
The same sort of shift should be observed if we use a source of light
at the surface of the earth, while the observer or detector is stationed
at some height above the surface of the earth (fig. 1). In this case,
the amount of shift would be very small indeed.
There are a number of ways of “explaining” how this comes about,
all of which are ultimately equivalent in terms of the theory of rela-
tivity. One way of understanding the reason for the gravitational
red shift is to consider that the ight emitted from the source is in
DETEEHOR
SOURCE OF
MONOCHROMATIC LIGHT
EARTH
FIGure 1.—Light traveling up from the surface of the earth has a longer wavelength than
light from the same source traveling parallel to the earth’s surface.
RECENT EVENTS IN RELATIVITY—ROTHMAN 389
the form of photons. Each photon has a certain energy which is
proportional to the frequency of the radiation. Associated with this
energy is a definite mass. When the photon rises from the surface
of the earth, it must do work against the gravitational field. It is
“pulled back” by the force of gravity. Therefore, the photon loses
kinetic energy. Since its velocity must remain a constant, this loss
of energy is observed as a decrease in the quantum energy—in other
words, a decrease in the frequency.
Conversely, a photon falling toward the earth must acquire an
increased frequency.
An alternative way of describing the same situation is offered by
the Principle of Equivalence. We imagine the source of radiation
and the observer to be located in a spaceship undergoing 1 g. of ac-
celeration (fig. 2). The source and observer are always the same
Ficure 2.—Light leaving the source A heads for the observer B. By the time the light
reaches the observer, the latter is at D, and is traveling faster than it was when the
light left the source.
390 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
distance apart—they are at rest with respect to each other. A photon
emitted by the source at A travels toward the observer at B. However,
by the time this photon reaches the observer, the latter has reached
the point DY. In addition, the observer is now traveling faster than
he was at point B, because he has been under constant acceleration.
In other words, although the source and observer always remain the
same distance apart, the acceleration produces an effect as if the
observer were always running away from the source. If we calculate
the additional velocity acquired by the observer during the time it
takes the photon to reach it, we can then calculate the Doppler shift
resulting from this velocity. This turns out to be exactly the same as
the shift which is calculated on the principle that the photon is rising
against the acceleration of gravity.
The statement is sometimes made that the gravitational red shift is
observed when the source of light is in a stronger gravitational field
than is the observer. However, this is incorrect, since the calculation
outlined above shows that the shift can be observed even when source
and observer are in a uniform field. The only thing that matters is
that the observer must be higher than the source. In other words, it
is the difference of potential that enters into the calculation. If the
observer is lower than the source, the result will be a blue shift.
Measurements of the gravitational frequency shift within the con-
fines of a laboratory were formerly unheard of, because there was no
way of measuring the tiny amount of shift produced by the earth’s
eravitational field. With the advent of satellites, proposals were made
to send up very precise radio-frequency oscillators, whose signals
would be compared with those of an identical oscillator down on the
ground. Since the amount of shift depends on the difference in alti-
tude between transmitter and receiver, it was calculated that a meas-
urable effect would be obtained.
However, before this could be done, a development in a totally
unexpected direction made these satellite experiments obsolete before
they were even undertaken. This new development came from the
field of nuclear physics, and it came from a rather obscure corner of
a specialty known as low-energy nuclear spectroscopy.
THE MOSSBAUER EFFECT
The story illustrates quite beautifully the strongest argument in
favor of basic research: You never know when a piece of research will
turn out to have important consequences in an unpredictable appli-
cation.
For several years a number of nuclear physicists have been using the
phenomenon of nuclear resonance fluorescence to measure properties
of the excited states of various nuclei. This is based upon the idea
RECENT EVENTS IN RELATIVITY—ROTHMAN 391
Coo’
a. Th Kev
Gamma
Ray
SSO
ELE SA
Eeo/ Feo!
Ficure 3.—Radioactive cobalt-57 decays by beta emission to an excited state of iron-57,
which quickly emits a 14-kev gamma ray. If this gamma ray photon encounters
another nucleus of iron-57, it may be absorbed.
that when a nucleus has been raised to an excited state, it decays to the
normal ground state by emitting a gamma ray of a definite frequency.
If this gamma ray now encounters another nucleus of the same kind
as the first, this second nucleus may now be raised to its excited state
by absorbing the energy of the gamma ray (fig. 3).
This is a resonance effect. If the gamma ray differs in frequency
by as little as one part in 10%? of the resonance frequency, the absorp-
tion will be greatly reduced—the amount of reduction depends upon
the “width,” or energy spread, of the excited level. Theoretically, at
least, the absorption can be measured by counting the gamma rays
from an appropriate radioactive source first with and then without
the proper absorber between the source and counter.
Unfortunately, when a nucleus emits a gamma ray, some of the
energy of the excited state goes into recoil motion of the nucleus. This
means that the gamma ray frequency is reduced considerably, so that
when it hits a nucleus which might be receptive to it, it is far-off
resonance, and there is no absorption at all. In the past, people have
managed to compensate for this recoil motion by heating the source
or by whirling it around in a centrifuge.
In 1958, R. L. Mossbauer, a young German physicist, discovered
that in a few favorable cases one could obtain gamma rays with prac-
tically no recoil at all (Méssbauer, 1958; Benedetti, 1960). There are
a few radioactive elements which emit rather low energy gamma rays
and which are so strongly bound in their crystal lattice that the recoil
energy is taken up by the crystal as a whole rather than by the individ-
ual radiating nucleus.
Immediately, a number of physicists realized that the Mossbauer
effect provided a source of radiation of unparalleled precision, as far
as the energy (or frequency) of the radiation was concerned. The
392 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
most commonly used isotope is cobalt-57, which decays by the emis-
sion of beta rays to iron-57, with a half-life of 280 days.
Following the beta emission, the iron-57 nucleus is in an excited
state which lasts for about a tenth of a microsecond, a reasonably long
time as nuclear lifetimes go. It now emits a gamma ray of about 14
kilo-electron-volt energy, which corresponds to a frequency of 3 X 10*§
oscillations per second. This gamma ray may be visualized as a wave
packet containing about 10’? waves altogether.
If this packet encounters another iron nucleus likewise bound in a
crystal lattice, it is able to raise the nucleus up to its 14 kev. excited
state, and is absorbed in the process. The nucleus behaves as a very
delicate frequency-measuring device. If the frequency of the incom-
ing wave varies by only one part in 10", the probability of absorption
will be reduced by a large factor.
Thus we have a wave whose frequency is very sharply defined, and
we also have a measuring device which is equally sensitive to changes
in frequency.
So sensitive is this system that if the source is moving only a few
millimeters per second with respect to the absorber, the resonance is
wiped out, due to the Doppler shift in the emitted frequency. ‘The
standard method of doing a Méssbauer effect experiment is to have a
radioactive source mounted on some device (such as a lathe carriage)
which can move it at a known speed toward or away from a scintilla-
tion counter which counts the number of photons transmitted through
an absorber (fig. 4). If the source is iron-57, the absorber is usually
of iron enriched in the isotope iron-57. By plotting the number of
photons counted in a given time at various source velocities, the reso-
nance curve shown in figure 5 may be obtained.
The measurement of this type of resonance curve is the basis for all
of the recent experiments which have been performed to test the theory
of relativity.
The theory of the Doppler shift informs us that the frequency of
the emitted radiation is increased when the source moves toward the
absorber, and is decreased when the source moves away from the
RADIOACTIVE ABSORBER
SOURCE
SCINTILLATION
COUNTER
Ficure 4.—The basic apparatus for a Mossbauer effect experiment.
RECENT EVENTS IN RELATIVITY—ROTHMAN 393
INTENSITY TRANSMITTED BY ABSORBER
-0.4 0 +0,4 +0.8
D
=
foe)
RELATIVE VELOCITY (c.m. per second)
Ficure 5.—Typical resonance curve obtained by the apparatus of figure 4.
absorber. (This refers to those photons which are moving toward
the absorber.)
In addition, there is another, much smaller, reduction of frequency
which always takes place, no matter what the direction of motion.
This is an effect of relativity, and has been of the greatest interest in
the recent experiments.
When the source (or the observer) is moving at right angles to the
motion of the radiation, only the small effect of relativity is observed.
This reduction of frequency—the “transverse Doppler shift”—arises
from the slowing down of the atomic clocks in the moving source. This
is the relativistic time dilatation, and the amount of slowing down
depends only upon the magnitude of the relative velocity between the
source of radiation and the observer.
The transverse Doppler effect was recently observed in an experi-
ment performed at Harwell, England, using the Méssbauer effect as a
tool (Hay et al., 1960). The radioactive source was placed at the
center of a rotating wheel, while the absorber was at the edge. The
scintillation counter was at rest outside the periphery of the wheel.
In this arrangement the absorber is always moving at right angles to
the photons, and so any shift in frequency is a result of the transverse
Doppler effect, and is therefore a manifestation of the time dilatation.
394 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
WEIGHING THE PHOTON
Perhaps the most extensive and completely worked-out test of rela-
tivity performed with the Méssbauer effect has been that of R. V.
Pound and G. A. Rebka, at Harvard, begun early in 1960, and still in
progress.
The initial purpose of this experiment was to check the gravitational
red shift, and in the course of doing this it almost incidentally cast
a great deal of light on the problem of the clock paradox.
Pound’s experiment measured the change in the resonance between
an iron-57 source and an iron absorber (enriched in iron-57) differing
in height by a distance of 74 feet. The apparatus was set up in a
tower at Harvard University which, fortunately, had been built many
years previously for an entirely different purpose.
When the source is at the bottom, the frequency of the radiation is
shifted to the lower side of the resonance point, because the photons
must lose energy in rising against gravity, as described previously.
This, in effect, measures the “weight” of the photons. When the source
is at the top, on the other hand, the absorber “sees” that the frequency
VIBRATOR
SOURCE
ABSORBER i
SCINTILLATION .
COUNTER ea
UP
SCALER
SWITCHING
CIRCUIT
DOWN
SCALER
Ficure 6.—Experimental arrangement for measuring the gravitational red shift by means
of the Mossbauer effect.
RECENT EVENTS IN RELATIVITY—ROTHMAN 395
of the descending photons has shifted toward the high side of the
resonance frequency.
The actual percentage shift in frequency measured in this experi-
ment is rather small, amounting to about 5 parts in 10. If you were
performing this experiment with a 100 megacycle radio-frequency
oscillator, you would have to detect a change of five cycles out of about
4 months’ operation of the oscillator to obtain the same sensitivity.
The method for measuring this small change by means of the Moss-
bauer effect is as follows (fig. 6) :
The radioactive source is mounted on a vibrator so that it moves
rapidly up and down—toward and away from the absorber. The
scintillation counter is connected to scalers through electronic switches
so that one scaler is counting while the source is moving towards the
absorber, and the other scaler is counting while the source is moving
away from the absorber.
The Doppler shift due to this motion changes the frequency of the
gamma rays to points above and below the center of the absorption
resonance (fig. 7). If both source and absorber were at the same
height, the scalers would be counting at points A and B on the curve.
However, if the source is higher than the absorber, the photons are
shifted to slightly higher frequencies when they reach the absorber,
INTENSITY TRANSMITTED BY ABSORBER
O
RELATIVE VELOCITY OF
SOURCE AND ABSORBER
Ficure 7.—Effect of gravitational shift upon resonance curve.
396 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
and so the counts are measured actually at points C and D on the curve.
The difference in counting rates between the two scalers measures the
change in frequency due to the gravitational effect.
Because of the 74-foot distance between the source and detectors, -
the counting rates are rather low, and it takes many hours to acquire
sufficient counts to give good statistics. In the course of the experi-
ment it was noticed that there was a slow drift in the relative counting
rates of the two scalers—a drift large enough to wipe out the effect
being sought. The drift was somewhat periodic—with a period of
about 2 days.
After a good deal of soul-searching and examination into possible
causes for this drift, it was finally realized that this error was a result
of the small temperature difference between the source and absorber.
It requires a difference of only 1° C. to produce a frequency shift as
large as the one being looked for.
The temperature correction turns out to be directly related to the
relativistic Doppler shift mentioned previously. The atoms of the
radioactive source are vibrating in their crystal lattice with a mean-
square velocity proportional to the temperature, and the relativistic
Doppler shift depends upon just this velocity. Utilizing this as a
basis, Pound calculated the amount of correction to apply in order to
eliminate the temperature effect.
When this correction was used, it was found that the remaining
frequency shift agreed very well with that calculated from the theory
of relativity, using the 74-foot difference in height between the source
and absorber.
In this way the gravitational “red shift” was verified.
THE CLOCK PARADOX
Following publication of this experiment, it was noticed by C. W.
Sherwin, of the University of Illinois, that the clock paradox plays
a role in this situation (Sherwin, 1960).
We recall that the relativistic Doppler shift is associated with the
time dilatation of the moving source. In the present experiment, the
source of radiation is an atomic nucleus which is vibrating back and
forth in a crystal lattice with a mean-square velocity proportional to
the temperature of the material. ‘The emitting nucleus actually goes
back and forth many times during the time that the wave packet is
being emitted.
This, we see, is very much like the clock paradox situation described
at the beginning of this article. Instead of a spaceship going away
and coming back, we have a radioactive nucleus going away and com-
ing back many times. The radiation passing between the emitter and
absorber is a means of continually comparing the clocks located on the
RECENT EVENTS IN RELATIVITY—ROTHMAN 397
“spaceship” and “earth.” The clock, in this case, is the resonant fre-
quency of the nucleus in the act of emitting or absorbing the radiation.
The effect actually observed is this: The nucleus traveling with the
highest average velocity (at the highest temperature) has the lowest
resonance frequency. In other words, its clock runs at the slowest rate,
as seen by the observer in the laboratory, who considers himself
motionless.
In terms of our original paradox, the man who goes off in the space-
ship will always return to find himself younger than the man who
stayed at home. His time has been passing at a lower rate.
What is it that makes the difference between the clock on the ship
and the clock on earth? What is it that makes the situation
unsymmetrical ?
It is simply the fact that in order for the spaceship to go away and
come back, it must undergo acceleration at least once during the trip.
The clock on earth has been moving at a constant velocity in the mean-
time. Itisthis difference which allows us to put a label on the one who
is going to emerge with the slower clock at the end of the voyage.
The experiment of Pound and Rebka has verified that the magnitude
of this effect—the amount by which the clock slows down—depends
only upon the mean-square velocity of the moving bodies. It does not
depend upon the magnitude of the acceleration, or upon the amount of
time between accelerations. In this experiment both the source and
absorber nuclei are moving, both clocks are slowed down relative to the
laboratory observer, and therefore the difference between the two
clock rates depends upon the difference in temperature between source
and absorber.
This experiment is not the first time that the time dilatation effect
has been observed in the laboratory. The relativistic Doppler shift
was measured by H. E. Ives in 1938 by observing the light emitted by
rapidly moving hydrogen atoms. However, this new experiment
marks the first time that the effect has been observed using the radia-
tion from a source which is moving back and forth, thus duplicating
the situation of the clock paradox,
CONCERNING THE SHAPE OF MOVING OBJECTS
For many years we have agreed that an object moving at a high
velocity will appear to be shortened in the direction of motion. This
idea originated even prior to Einstein. It is, in fact, called the Lor-
entz-Fitzgerald contraction in honor of the prerelativistic scientists
who conceived it in order to explain away the observation that light
always has the same velocity regardless of the motion of the observer.
As a result of this, writers of science fiction have spoken of long,
thin spaceships appearing to be short and squat when in motion, while
the passing stars are turned into ellipsoids.
398 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
E E
=s-=n= Vv
Fae >
Perma ns 73
A |] D
TO OBSERVER
E bis Cc
AD=L
w(t)
FA D F x :
NON-RELATIVISTIC
V
SinO=—
cues é
oat Jin (b)
C2
AF=(X)L
ae D
RELATIVISTIC
(a)
Ficure 8.—(a) Appearance of moving cube. (b) Appearance of rotated cube.
It now appears that we have all been wrong.
Fortunately, the basic ideas have not been wrong—only the inter-
pretation of what we would actually observe have been mistaken. 'The
error was recently pointed out by J. Terrell (1959), and expanded on
by V. F. Weisskopf (1960). It is one of those embarrassing things
which appears obvious after it is pointed out to you.
Suppose we consider a cube which is moving at right angles to the
observer’s line of sight (fig. 8). The observer takes an instantaneous
photograph of the cube, so what he records is the position of those light
rays which reach the photographic plate at one instant of time.
Our first impulse is to say that we would simply see one side of the
cube—the square ABCD. However, we must keep in mind the fact
that the points # and F are farther away from the photographic plate
than points A and B. Therefore light from B which leaves the cube at
a certain instant will reach the plate at the same time as light from /’
which left the cube L/C seconds earlier. But during that time the
RECENT EVENTS IN RELATIVITY—ROTHMAN 399
cube moved a distance Lv/c. Therefore it is really the light from Z”
which reaches the plate simultaneously with light from B.
Thus we would expect to see a picture like the one labeled “Non-
Relativistic,” where we find a square ABCD, followed by the projec-
tion of the rear end of the cube, ABH. Without relativity, we expect
to see a distorted, elongated picture of the moving cube.
How does relativity change the situation? Relativity says that all
lengths are shortened in the direction of motion by the factor-y1—v?/c?.
The other lengths, at right angles to the direction of motion, are not
changed. Therefore, under the relativistic interpretation, we would
see the shortened square ABCD, followed by the rear end of the cube,
ABEF, as shown in the diagram labeled “Relativistic.”
What makes this interesting is illustrated in figure 8b. If we take
the same cube, motionless, but simply rotated through an angle 9,
whose sine is v/e, its picture will be exactly the same as the one obtained
from the moving, relativistic, cube.
In other words, a person looking at a cube moving rapidly will see
that it appears to be rotated through the angle 9, but that it otherwise
appears normal. Previously, the relativistic interpretation would
have said that the cube appeared shortened—now we say that it
appears rotated.
When this argument is applied to a sphere, such as a star or planet,
we conclude that the sphere remains spherical in shape, but appears to
be rotated. If you were moving fast enough you could see part way
around the opposite side of the sphere.
Professor Weisskopf, in his paper, goes into the details of how a
moving object changes its appearance as it comes towards us, passes
by, and then recedes. In brief: We first see the front face of the object,
strongly Doppler shifted to high frequencies. When the angle of
vision reaches a certain value, the color shifts toward lower frequen-
cies, the intensity of the light drops, and the object seems to turn.
Soon the object has turned all around and we are looking at its trailing
face. As Weisskopf says, “It is the picture expected when the object
is receding. However, it appears already when the object is moving
toward us.”
This description, of course, applies only to objects which are moving
very nearly at the speed of light.
As stated originally, none of this invalidates the basic findings of the
theory of relativity. It merely emphasizes, as many have found to
their chagrin, that we must always be very careful in interpreting the
results of the theory.
400 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
LITERATURE CITED
Benedetti, S. de.
1960. Mdéssbauer effect: with biographical sketch. Scientific American,
vol. 202, April, pp. 42, 72-80, 220.
Dingle, H.
1956. A problem in relativity theory. Proc. Phys. Soc., vol. A69, pp. 925-
935. London.
1957. The clock paradox in relativity. Nature, vol. 180, No. 4597, pp. 1275-
1276.
Hay, J. J.; Schiffer, J. P.; Cranshaw, T. E.; and Eegelstaff, P. A.
1960. Measurement of the red shift in an accelerated system using the
Mossbauer effect in Fe”. Physical Review Letters, vol. 4, No. 4, p.
165.
Mossbauer, R. L.
1958. Kernresonanzfluoreszenz von Gammastrahlung in Ir™. Zeitschrift
fiir Physik, vol. 151, pp. 124-143.
Pound, R. Y., and Rebka, G. A.
1960. Variation with temperature of the energy of recoil-free gamma rays
from solids. Physical Review Letters, vol. 4, No. 6, pp. 274-275.
Sherwin, C. W.
1960. Some recent experimental tests of the “clock paradox.’
Review, vol. 120, No. 1, pp. 17-21.
)
Physical
Terrell, J.
1959. Invisibility of the Lorentz contraction. Physical Review, vol. 116,
No. 4, pp. 1041-1045.
Weisskopf, V. K.
1960. The physical appearance of rapidly moving objects. Physics Today,
vol. 13, No. 9, pp. 24-27.
The Edge of Science
By Sansorn C. BROWN
Associate Dean, Graduate School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tr 1s very seldom in the life of a scientist that a whole new vista of
knowledge opens up, vast and challenging before him. But this has
really occurred in what has come to be called plasma physics.
In physics a plasma is defined as a neutral collection of electrons and
positive ions (atoms that have been stripped of their electrons) which
move around in random thermal motion. We have discovered that
this is the most common form in which matter is found in the universe.
If you go out into the far reaches of so-called empty space, or to the
stars or the solar system, or almost anywhere in the galaxy except our
peculiarly cold bit of dust which we call the Earth, you will find
matter in this ionized state, the plasma state. Nearly all of the matter
in the universe is in this state, and yet it is only within the past 10
years or so it has been recognized as a common state of matter. The
whole subject of what we call plasma physics has excited a great frac-
tion of the scientific community.
To bring order into a fairly chaotic collection of phenomena, I refer
you to a plot in which the nature of matter is defined in terms of two
variables: the density of electrons per cubic meter and the temperature
at which these electrons are to be found. The diagram shows the vari-
ous areas covered by plasma physics.
To start our discussion we begin in the lower left corner of this
diagram. If we get to very cold electrons and to very transparent
matter, we are in what is called interstellar space, including any nebulae
we find in a study of the sky. It has not been long since all our infor-
mation about the interstellar space came from visual telescopes. Col-
lections of charged particles such as electrons and hydrogen nuclei,
which are dancing around in space, but which are still held together
by their mutual gravitational attraction, are not necessarily visible
optically but may be visible by radio telescopes. We call these collec-
1This article is based on Professor Brown’s remarks at the Alumni Symposium on
“Engineering, Science, and Education for Tomorrow,” held in Newark, N.J., April 18,
1964, and is reprinted by permission from the Technology Review, vol. 66, No. 9, July
1964.
766—746—65——30 401
402 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
tions “stars.” Many of you are aware of the tremendous amount of
work which is going on all over the world in studying the nature of
the electrical signals which we get from these interstellar spaces.
Interplanetary space, that is, space within our own solar system,
which on the average happens to be kept warmer because we have the
hot sun in our vicinity, reaches temperatures of around 10,000 degrees
K. In interplanetary space the number of particles per cubic meter,
except when we actually get to the surface of a planet, is fairly small,
between a million or perhaps 10 million particles in each cubic meter.
This is fairly transparent space. The interplanetary plasmas are of
extreme importance to modern science because it is through this me-
dium that we must travel if we are to go out any distance from the
surface of the earth into interplanetary space, where we have already
sent a fair number of probes. The physicists and engineers who are
involved in space research are studying the mechanisms and the inter-
actions of the plasma state in these interplanetary regions.
Perhaps the one astronomical area that has been studied most is the
Earth. Around it there is a charged blanket resulting from the fact
that the atmosphere attached to the earth is being bombarded by solar
radiation and the solar radiation produces a plasma from the neutral
gases which make the earth habitable. This layer is called the iono-
sphere and always insulates us from the outside space. This plasma
blanket around the earth has been well known for a long time. It is
relatively cold, 1,000-10,000 degrees K, and the electron density can
get fairly high, up to about 10*°-10" electrons per cubic meter. ‘There
are some very interesting and important phenomena which occur as a
result of this ionospheric blanket. Well known to radio engineers is
the fact that you can bounce radio waves off the ionosphere. ‘The in-
teraction of electromagnetic radio waves with the ionosphere has been
a major study for many years by both electrical engineers and
physicists.
Recently the newspapers have been full of another phenomenon
which was predicted theoretically long ago but actually found experi-
mentally only a few years ago when we started sending up rockets
and high-altitude balloons. This has been called the “Van Allen
belts.” These belts are areas of plasma concentration which have
been caught in the inhomogeneous magnetic field around the earth.
If you put a moving electron in a magnetic field, it has a tendency to
go around in a circle, the diameter of which is inversely proportional
to the magnetic field. If a charged particle is high above the earth
somewhere near the equator, where the earth’s magnetic field is not
very strong, it goes around slowly in a big circle, but as it gets closer
to the pole, where the strength of the magnetic field is greater, it must
move in smaller and smaller circles. In shortening the radius of the
ELECTRON DENSITY PER CUBIC METER
ro)
@
THE EDGE OF SCIENCE—BROWN 403
U crank
22 PON
ARCS i RON TUBE
102°
UW En . CZs RS).
HOLLOW CATHODE THERMON oe FUSION
10'8 LOW PRESSURE ARCS
106 FLUORESCENT LAMPS
GLOW DISCHARCES
neon tubes
_—
.e)
A
he)
Oo
ae
ro)
IONOSPHERE
INTERPLANETARY
ee ee
108 L eae TYPES OF PLASMAS
CO
10? {0° 104 10° 10° {07 10 ~=—>_ {0?
ELECTRON TEMPERATURE -T (°K)
Ficure 1
404 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
circle, a radial force is applied, and in conserving its angular momen-
tum the particle speeds up so that it not only moves in tighter spirals
but goes around the tighter spirals more rapidly. In the Van Allen
belts, the plasma particles are caught in a gigantic “magnetic mirror.”
As these ions and electrons approach the poles, they are wound in
tighter spirals, but as they rotate faster in smaller circles they con-
serve energy by moving more slowly toward the poles. In fact, they
actually slow down and stop, and are then reflected by the mirror into
reversing their directions. They go back and forth, caught in the
Van Allen belts. The mirror effect is not perfect, and the charged
particles leaking out the ends of the Van Allen belts cause the north-
ern lights, or the aurora borealis. This electrical discharge is the
visible indication of the ionosphere, or the charged plasma, escaping
out the ends of the Van Allen belts.
Our very existence on earth depends upon our greatest plasma
source, the sun. Its energy comes from the process we call thermonu-
clear fusion. ‘Two heavy hydrogen nuclei are fused in such a way
that helium is formed. There is energy left over which keeps the
process going and incidentally keeps us warm. The whole process
of the operation of the sun is a nuclear reaction occuring in the plasma
of the sun itself.
There are some other things on the diagram that show how univer-
sal the plasma state is. Perhaps one of the earliest plasmas studied
as an easy way of producing a neutral collection of electrons and ions
was aflame. A flame even from a candle is not very hot, maybe 1,000
degrees K, but it is extremely dense because it occurs at atmospheric
pressure. Chemical flames themselves are not usually studied, but
many varieties of chemical or electric “torches” produce plasmas
which are not only laboratory tools for increasing our understanding
of the plasma state but are technically important tools for such varied
operations as welding or chemical synthesis. Also, for example, me-
teors burn up when they come into the atmosphere and are reduced
to the plasma state. Much of our information about meteoric physics
and chemistry comes from studies of the behavior of the plasma state.
If you go to a plasma a little hotter than a flame, and a little denser,
you come to the most common everyday form of plasma, a gas dis-
charge tube of some sort, a neon sign or a fluorescent light. Most of
the original studies of the plasma state were done in what was called
a “glow discharge” because this was a readily available way of pro-
ducing a plasma to study in the laboratory. A great deal of the infor-
mation we are now gaining about the ionosphere, the sun, and
interplanetary and interstellar space comes from studies made in the
laboratory with a glow discharge. Practically, there are many appli-
cations of a glow discharge, particularly in the field of control and
gas tubes of various sorts. Glow discharge studies not only explore
THE EDGE OF SCIENCE—BROWN 405
the theory of the plasma state but have led to engineering applications
which have been very numerous indeed.
If we continue to pour more and more energy into an ordinary glow
discharge, it turns into what we call an “are.” In an arc, the electron
density can rise to 10° times the charge density that is found in the
sun at perhaps one-thousandth of the temperature. These kinds of
arc studies in the laboratory provide us with powerful tools for study-
ing the behavior of the plasma of the sun. Incidentally, at this kind
of temperature and pressure a great deal of work is now being done
to produce what. are called “ion jet” engines. Ion engines may well
be the kind of engine that will move spaceships through the inter-
planetary space for long sustained flight after chemical rockets have
achieved the high initial force necessary to escape the earth’s gravi-
tional field. Plasma jet engines are capable of providing a driving
force over the thousand years you need to reach out into interstellar
space. Obviously a great deal of practical engineering must be done
before this method of ion propulsion is perfected.
The high-pressure arcs are the densest form of plasma that we
know. Here, all the material that is in the are is ionized; everything
is in the charged state. Here the theoretical studies are the most
characteristic of a plasma because the plasma is pure, undiluted by
un-ionized gas. Here also some very practical devices are being
worked on, particularly the “magnetohydrodynamic energy con-
verter.” In a conventional turbine, gas energy is converted into the
kinetic energy of a moving conductor which then generates the elec-
tricity by cutting lines of magnetic flux, but if a gas conductor, a mov-
ing plasma, is used, the intermediate step is completely eliminated.
The plasma moving in a magnetic field produces a flowing current
which will allow us to produce generators without any moving parts.
There are plans for building very large generating stations by this
scheme in which the plasma is produced either by nuclear power, fis-
sion heat, or from a chemical reaction.
Making very dense plasmas and going a little farther up into the
temperature region of 100,000 degrees K, we find the “shock tube”
as a plasma production device. When a mechanical] shock wave is
driven down a tube faster than the velocity of sound, the shock wave
acts as a piston. Just as with a bicycle pump, you get heat because
the piston is pushing against the gas and doing work on it, so in the
shock tube you can produce very high temperatures. Some of the
highest temperatures we have achieved in the laboratory are produced
by shock waves. Another phenomenon which has been known to
physicists for a long time, but has only recently received attention in
the popular press, appears when we try to pull astronauts back out
of interplanetary space through our own atmosphere. When a
capsule comes down through our own atmosphere, it produces a shock
406 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
wave ahead of it which is so strong that it builds a plasma sheath all
the way around the astronaut, and our communication with the astro-
naut disappears.
Physicists and engineers have been spending a great deal of their
time in a search for a way of producing controlled thermonuclear
fusion. We all know the sun is hot—a million degrees or more on
the corona. At those temperatures a controlled thermonuclear reac-
tion is produced, as we mentioned before. We would like to be able
to carry on the same reaction in a controlled fashion on the surface
of the earth. The advantages would be tremendous. For one thing
we are going to run out of fuel to produce power if we keep on using
fossil fuel. The fission fuel is rather dangerous because radioactive
products are left over after the reaction. If we went completely to
fission power, we would eventually have difficulty in disposing safely
of all the radioactive waste. The thermonuclear reaction has no ra-
dioactive waste. It ends up as ordinary helium. Furthermore, its
fuel is a plentiful isotope of hydrogen, found in all water. Wherever
human beings are, there is water, and you can burn this water to
produce thermonuclear reactions. We know that a thermonuclear
reaction works because the hydrogen bomb is exactly this: by explod-
ing a fission bomb in contact with the hydrogen isotopes, you heat
them so hot that the fusion reaction takes place. We would like to
be able to do this in a controlled way in the laboratory; we have not
yet succeeded.
It should be quite clear from this description of the plasma state
that its science and technology do not fall within any one of the usual
established disciplines. It is well known that the Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology is a place where particular disciplines do not
have any very rigid boundaries. The field of plasma physics cap-
italizes upon the philosophy of teaching at M.I.T.
At the moment there are over 80 members of the faculty working
on some phase of the plasma program. There are about 100 grad-
uate students doing research and about 30 undergraduates absorbed
into the laboratory in various ways. It is difficult to know how many
courses are being taught at the graduate level because many of the
courses are not of a very formal nature. However, listed in the cata-
log are more than 20 different courses in the plasma field, taught in
many departments in both Science and Engineering. For example,
in Mechanica] Engineering there are courses having to do with the
magnetohydrodynamic fluid flow, magnetohydrodynamic machines,
shock waves, and direct energy conversion. You would expect the
Electrical Engineering Department to cover a great many of these
areas and they do. There is a magneto-fluid dynamics course; there
are some energy conversion courses; there are microwave interaction
courses that deal with radio astronomy and the structure and be-
THE EDGE OF SCIENCE—BROWN 407
havior of the ionosphere. In the Physics Department courses in the
electrical properties of electrons and ions and the effects of magnetic
fields on plasmas are taught. Also there are courses in the nonlinear
phenomena in fluids and plasma and wave propagation in this new
kind of medium. There is a very strong group in cosmic physics.
They specialize in satellites and in making tests of the plasma nature
of space in the interplanetary system, as well as in problems of radio
astronomy.
As you would expect, the Department of Aeronautics and Astro-
nautics has research teams working in various areas of this plasma
group. They are interested in problems of astronaut propulsion and
in high-speed flow, since many of the very high-speed phenomena
occurring in plasmas are of great interest if you want to get some-
where in the universe away from the earth. The Mathematics De-
partment has a course in mathematical theory of magneto-fluid
mechanics, and our mathematicians are developing the basic mathe-
matical tools for understanding many of the plasma phenomena on
earth and in the astronomical regions of space. Finally the Nuclear
Engineering Department has four courses which have to do with the
thermonuclear processes which we hope will lead to a controlled
thermonuclear fusion reactor. This is still in the future, but we are
learning a great deal about this reaction as a potential source of power.
To me, as a teacher, one of the interesting things about suddenly
opening up a new field is its effect on our teaching policies. What
kind of physics do we teach our undergraduates to give them basic
information for more advanced work in this field? For generations
we have been dropping out things like fluid flow, but this is precisely
what you need for an understanding of the fundamentals of plasma
physics. As the research areas change, the change must be reflected
in the more elementary educational processes.
To make progress in this direction we convened at. M.I.T. a group
of physicists and engineers who were basically interested in trying to
teach plasma physics at an elementary level. There were some M.I.T.
professors, professors from Pittsburgh, from Princeton, from Caltech,
from Swarthmore, from the University of California at Berkeley,
from Stanford, and some industrial physicists from Bell Labs, from
Aveo, and from Government laboratories like those at Los Alamos and
Livermore. We worked together for a week, devising what we thought
was a reasonably good course. We published it in outline form. Many
of us in various places in the country are trying now to teach this
undergraduate course in plasma physics, including the areas having
to do with plasma astronomy, charged particle physics, magneto-
hydrodynamic flow, and so forth. This interuniversity cooperation
is a very real attempt to develop undergraduate courses which will
lay the foundations for further work in this field.
408 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Now let me close this brief survey of a fascinating new area of
physics in essentially the way I began. It is rare that scientists are
suddenly faced with a whole new state of matter which they had not
recognized before. The plasma physicist finds himself in this situation,
riding the leading edge of science. Tremendous endeavors are gen-
erated whose influence reaches into all areas of human affairs. The
sensation is exhilarating.
Anatomy of an Experiment: An Account
of the Discovery of the Neutrino
By CiypE L. Cowan
Professor of Physics, Catholic University of America
[With 8 plates]
The first three decades of this century saw the absolute conservation
laws and the theory of relativity take on dimensions extending from
the astronomical to the atomic. But during these years a serious
challenge to their general validity was also building up as a group at
the Cavendish Laboratory led the work of compiling the facts of
radioactivity. Of the three kinds of radioactivity known at that
time—alpha, beta, and gamma decay—the first and the last were well
behaved. In these, the alpha particle and the gamma ray were found
to carry away from the decaying nucleus just the right amount of
energy and momentum. Each time such a decay occurred, the energy
lost by the decaying nucleus was to be found in the emitted particle.
For beta decay the story was very different. Although, again, the
amount of energy lost by the nucleus was well known, the emitted beta
particle never carried away this amount from the decay. It was in-
triguing that the beta particle never had too much energy, but. always
too little. The distribution-in-energy, called the “energy spectrum,”
of the beta particles from any given type of decay, when collected for
many decays and plotted in a bar graph resulted in a plot typified by
figure 1.
Energy was, apparently, being lost—disappearing from the uni-
verse. Otherwise, each time a beta decay occurred, the beta particle
would have had that energy, and all would have been plotted in a
single bar at the point marked “end point energy” in the figure.
THE FABLE OF THE FRUSTRATED BULLETMAKER
Consider an analogous (but totally mythical) situation: A maker
of rifle bullets compounds a new gunpowder and, of course, must test
it by firing a number of bullets filled with the new mixture. He
mounts his test rifle on a firm stand and aims it down range. The first
409
410 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Typical Distribution-in-Energy (Energy Spectrum) found for beta
particles from decays of a given kind of nucleus.
Number of electrons found in each
interval of energy
ENERGY, DIVIDED INTO EQUAL INTERVALS
Ficure 1
few firings are sufficient to convince him that something has gone
wrong, for none of his bullets travels the expected distance. Instead,
they all fall short at different distances (one even rolled out of the
barrel and dropped at his feet). Puzzled, the bulletmaker takes his
gun apart, but finds it to be in perfect shape. He opens a number of
his shells to inspect the powder. It is dry. He fires a few more, but
with the same result.
Returning to his laboratory, the bulletmaker looks into the jars and
boxes of sulfur and lampblack and nitrates. He tests each—only to
find them normal. He prepares more of the new mixture, fills more
shells and plugs them with new bullets. He has been overly careful to
weigh the same amount of powder into each shell, and as he knows the
Ss Se.
The Bulletmaker’s Dilemma
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i 2 cant ' "eq, g stl, lle,
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Ficure 2
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 411
amount of energy each measure of powder has in it, he calculates again
how far the charge should carry each bullet.
Back on the rifle range, the bulletmaker again fires his new bullets,
and again, none goes far enough. He checks his gun again and again,
then fires good, old-fashioned bullets using powder that has worked
well for years. These behave perfectly. Each falls at exactly the
right place. But when he tries his new powder, none of the bullets
behave sensibly. He checks for gas leakage from the rifle breech.
There is none. He examines the shells after firing. The powder has
burned perfectly and completely. Tormented by the puzzle, the master
——
ee
After a Month of Shooting!
Ficure 3
bulletmaker drives himself to discover where the loss of power is occur-
ring. After firing bullets for some weeks, the spent bullets lie in a long
continuous heap stretching down range from his gun.
By now, many of the bulletmaker’s friends have heard of his strange
problem and visit his rifle range to see for themselves. Of course,
each has an opinion, and each is invited to correct the difficulty. They
fire the bullets with their guns, but the bullets merely fall onto the
growing pile. They test the powder over again, but find that it always
burns completely and at the same rate. Many end by shaking their
heads and declaring that the bulletmaking craft is no longer an exact
science, that the familiar rules can no longer be relied upon.
One friend, however, takes a meter stick and measures the dimen-
sions of the pile of spent bullets. He measures its depth at various
distances from the gun. Then he makes a suggestion (for he doesn’t
want to give up the rules so readily). “Suppose ¢wo bullets come
out of the gun at each firing with this new powder! One would be
the bullet seen to fall onto the pile, and the other a very small one
which travels a great distance at high speed and is not seen. The new
412 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
bullet would be ‘made’ at the instant of firmg by the powder, and
would share the energy of the powder charge with the ordinary bul-
let.” His friends glance at one another in amusement, but he continues,
“Now if this new little bullet never travels down the barrel but always
leaves the gun through the sides and back of the breech, then we could
keep our rules for the energy of a powder charge and explain the shape
of the pile of spent bullets in front of us.”
The idea is met with astonishment. How could any sane bulletmaker
seriously propose such a wild thought as this? Surely, this is just
a strained excuse for holding onto obsolete rules concerning the amount
of energy available in a given weight of powder.
But another friend in the group speaks up. He says, “Let us assume
that this ‘ghost bullet’ idea is correct. Let us write an equation which
relates the distance the ordinary bullet travels with the direction of the
recoil of the gun and the amount of recoil, assuming that a ghost
bullet does travel off at some strange angle each time. We'll assume
that the powder makes the ghost bullet as it burns.”
When this is done, it is found that the same equation always describes
the situation correctly. It says how the recoiling gun and the ordinary
bullet are to act. They always do so. It correctly describes the shape
of a pile of spent bullets. It even suggests the rules for making new
powders that also behave strangely and predicts their spent-bullet
pile very well.
And so the attitude of the assembly of bulletmakers changes. They
say, ‘This man’s theory is correct in telling us about the pile of bullets
and the recoil of the gun. It preserves our old rules for these things.”
Thus it comes to pass that the Guild of Master Bulletmakers starts
making bullets once again as if they really believe in their recipes
for gunpowder. Every now and then a batch of strange powder is
made by accident. Then they recall the ghost bullet and say, “The
little bullet is being made here, too.” Sometimes they have to say
that éwo little ghost bullets are being made in order to explain a par-
ticularly strange batch of powder.
When other friends ask them about the little bullet, they become
a bit evasive, pointing out how accurately they can describe the funny
recoils and the strung-out pile of spent bullets. “Of course, the little
ghost bullet exists!” they exclaim. Then, a bit wistfully, some might
be heard to say, “But it would be nice to find one someday.”
PAULI’S SUGGESTION: A LITTLE GHOST PARTICLE AND THE FERMI-DIRAC
THEORY
Knergy was being lost from beta decay that was not to be found in
the beta particle. This much was clear. There was widespread dis-
cussion of the problem, and some suggested that the laws of conserva-
tion of energy and momentum either failed when events occurred in the
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 413
small regions of the nucleus or, at best, only held on the average there.
Wolfgang Pauli, however, suggested in 1931 that the rules held fast,
but that there was a new, small, electrically neutral particle which was
emitted simultaneously with the beta particle and which carried away
the missing energy and momentum.
Unorthodox proposals such as this seldom find a friendly audience—
nor did this one. In the early 1930’s, few took Pauli seriously, but one
who did was Enrico Fermi. Building a theory analogous to the theory
of gamma decay (which describes the creation of a photon by a
nucleus) but in which an electron and Pauli’s little particle were pro-
duced simultaneously, Fermi succeeded in 1934 in devising an equation
which described the phenomena of beta decay with uncanny accuracy.
It correctly predicted the shapes of the energy spectra for various
kinds of beta decay and correctly predicted the half-lives of these
various radioactive nuclei. With such impressive success with Pauli’s
little neutral particle, Fermi suggested that it be named “neutrino.”
In constructing his theory, Fermi had used the results obtained by
P. A. M. Dirac in 1928 in which Dirac had succeeded in finding an
equation for the electron which satisfied the theory of relativity. An
unexpected result of Dirac’s work was the prediction of the existence
of positive electrons in nature—a prediction confirmed by the observa-
tion of “positrons” by Carl D. Anderson in 1932. Fermi applied
this theory not only to the beta particle (the fast electron ejected by
a decaying nucleus) but also to the neutrino. Thus, the neutrino would
not only be coupled with an antineutrino in nature (as the electron
is to an antielectron; the positron), but also would have an intrinsic
spin angular momentum of 14 unit, the same as does the electron.
In using these theoretical predictions of the Dirac equation, Fermi
was building a complete conservation into his own theory: That of
energy, of linear momentum, of angular momentum, of electric charge,
and of “light particles” (now called “leptons”).
INTERACTIONS AND THE PENETRATION OF MATTER
Natural phenomena are treated by modern physics in terms of “in-
teractions,” or basic forces which can be looked upon as causing
things to happen. The “constant of gravitation,” the G in Newton’s
equation for the gravitational attraction between two masses, is the
most venerable of the “interactions” we know of in nature. Electrical
phenomena are described in terms of the Coulomb interaction, and
nuclear reactions in terms of a “strong” nuclear force. For his theory
of beta decay, Fermi postulated yet another interaction—that which
causes the decay. The strength of the interaction affects the rapidity
with which a given event will occur. In radioactive decay it de-
termines the half-life of any given radioactive species. Conversely,
if the half-life is measured for a given species, and if the theoretical
414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
expression for the decay of that species is known, then the strength
of the interaction may be computed.
This experimental evaluation of Fermi’s interaction was made for
many different radioactive species. It was the same for each, and—
what was most surprising—it was found to be extremely small com-
pared with the other known nuclear force. For this reason, it has
become known as a second kind of nuclear force termed the “weak
interaction.”
As it is the field of force that a particle carries along that determines
how readily it will collide with other particles, the strength of this
force field determines how much matter a particle will penetrate
before it is stopped. Because of this, the neutrino described by the
theory of Fermi turns out to be an extremely penetrating particle.
All other particles known carry some or all of the other force fields
with them, and so they slow down quite readily when they enter a
thick layer of matter. The neutrino, on the other hand, carries only
this weak field with it and so sees other particles very poorly; in fact,
hardly at all.
We may give the value of the force numerically, but it might be
more comprehensible if we instead interpret it in terms of how deeply
a neutrino may be expected to penetrate matter. This can be done
by recounting a true story involving the author and his colleague, Dr.
Frederick Reines. In dreaming of ways to detect neutrinos from the
sun (for the sun should be making neutrinos as it generates its own
nuclear energy), we wondered how one might prove that such neu-
trinos actually came from the sun, once detected. The first thought
was simple: Observe the signal rate at noon and at midnight, then
compare the two rates. The one taken at night would require solar
neutrinos to have penetrated the earth, and so the signal would be
reduced by absorption in passing through the earth. We calculated
the reduction to be expected, and found that the midnight rate would
be indistinguishable from the noontime rate. We must have more ab-
sorber than the earth can provide! Well, let’s perform the experi-
ment during a solar eclipse, when the moon would also be an absorber
for us. Still no change worth considering. Our curiosity aroused,
we then calculated how many moons, all eclipsing the sun at the same
time, would be required to reduce the signal by a detectable amount.
We found that there isn’t enough room between here and the sun to
crowd in enough moons to do this! It would take a line of moons some
3 or 4 light-years long to absorb only one neutrino of every two that
started through them. So small is the “weak interaction.”
Another way to visualize a neutrino is by a “size.” If we relate
the penetrating ability of a neutrino to its size, in the sense that the
smaller it is, the less likely it will be to strike anything, then the neu-
trino which would penetrate our long line of moons would have a cross-
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 415
sectional area of about 10-*° square centimeters. But this is a number
so smal] that it is impossible to visualize. We can make the com-
parison with an electron, however, and say that the electron is several
hundred billion billion times larger than a neutrino. The neutrino is
quite surely the smallest piece of reality that has even been seriously
contemplated by man.
TO CATCH A NEUTRINO
It is precisely this extreme penetrating power of a neutrino which
caused them to escape from the beta decay experiments leading to
Pauli’s hypothesis. It is also this ability to penetrate matter which
sets the main problem in trying to observe a neutrino in flight from
the instant of its birth. In order to “observe” an entity like an ele-
mentary particle, the entity must react with something so as to pro-
duce an observable signal—say an electrical impulse. In the case of
a neutrino, we have seen that it will penetrate astronomical thicknesses
of matter before it has the opportunity to react at all. But, given
sufficient thickness of matter, it will react. And here is the key to the
detection problem. For, if instead of asking for one neutrino to
react with a great thickness, we can turn the question around and sup-
ply a reasonable thickness and ask for an astronomical number of
neutrinos to be incident upon it. Then we can hope to detect inter-
actions in this matter.
In the years following the hypothesis of Pauli and the theory of
Fermi, such attempts were made, but not nearly enough radioactive
material was available to supply the astronomical number of neu-
trinos required. Attention then turned to the investigation of those
aspects of beta decay which were observable. Measurements of beta
spectra and lifetimes were refined greatly. The theory itself was re-
fined to account for some deviations found, and it began to yield a
deepening insight into the nature of the elementary particles.
The search for the neutrino turned to indirect methods. Careful
measurements both of the beta particle momentum and the recoil of
the nucleus were made. It turned out that, within the accuracy at-
tainable, the two particles, nucleus and electron, recoiled from the site
of the decay just as if a neutrino had shot off in some other direction.
Thus, if a neutrino did shoot off as the theory said, the conservation
laws still held true. These observations of conservation of energy
and momentum, asswming the existence of a neutrino, became a popular
argument for the existence of the tiny particle. The concept of the
neutrino had been developed to save the conservation laws. The fact
that the concept then permitted their retention—as it must if the
algebra is worked correctly—was then taken as proof of the existence
of the neutrino. This circular reasoning is the sort that postulates
the existence of a poltergeist to explain the unattended movement of a
416 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
chair across the room, then takes the observed movement of the chair
as proof of the existence of the poltergeist.
The story of these exciting times and the ingenious and painstaking
efforts made to test the neutrino hypothesis is told at length in the
technical and popular literature, an introduction to which is given
as a part of the bibliography More detailed and complete accounts
of the properties of the neutrino as anticipated before its observation
and as they have developed since that time are also to be found there.
Suffice it to say that physics had a genuine poltergeist in its house by
the time the 1950’s were drawing to an end, for by then a considerable
list of reactions of the elementary particles called upon this ghostly
particle to help conserve the conservation laws.
PROJECT POLTERGEIST—I
We have said that the extreme reluctance of the hypothesized neu-
trino to interact and so reveal itself might be overcome if an astro-
nomical number of such reluctant particles were allowed to fall on a
reasonable amount of absorber. Such astronomical quantities were
presumably becoming available during the years following World
War II, if indeed neutrinos did exist, as nuclear explosions were set
off from time-to-time. These explosions of fissioning uranium and
plutonium resulted in great concentrations of radioactive nuclei,
known as “fission fragments.” In general, the fission of one atom of
uranium will produce a chain of some six or more radioactive decays,
each one a beta decay. Thus, each fission should produce on the
average some S1x or more neutrinos.
Here we must particularize somewhat. We have said that Fermi’s
applications of Dirac’s equations to his theory would predict that both
neutrinos and antineutrinos are made in nature. Just what the dif-
ference between the two sorts of neutrino might be was not understood
at that time, except that beta decay which produces negative electrons
as beta particles must also produce antineutrinos, while beta decay
producing positrons would produce neutrinos. And as all the radio-
active fission fragments being made in the nuclear explosions resulted
in negatron decays, then the six small partners from these decays must
be antineutrinos.
We also have said that the only field the neutrino (let us continue
to use this word to indicate both sorts, except where it is necessary to
specify one kind only) carries with it is the weak field which causes
beta decay. This means that the only reaction one can reasonably
expect the neutrino to produce is another beta decay. Such a forced
decay, if made by neutrinos in a detector, would constitute the first
synthetic beta decay and would signal the possible capture of a neu-
trino. To tag the neutrino as the culprit which stole the energy from
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 417
a given decaying nucleus, one must find that energy in the particle
and show that it came from the site of the theft. If theory was correct,
there were plenty of these small culprits fleeing from the decaying
nuclei in a nuclear explosion fireball so that one could hope to catch
a few of them.
Frederick Reines and the author resolved to attempt this. As a
signal of the capture of an antineutrino in flight, we would ask for
the radioactive decay of a proton. Now protons, most familiar as
nuclei of ordinary hydrogen, are among the most stable objects
known—they never decay spontaneously. If one should capture an
antineutrino, however, it would be forced into changing into a neutron
by emission of a positive beta particle, a positron.
Thus, if one detects protons emitting positrons, then one has every
reason to believe that an antineutrino has been captured. We calcu-
lated that we could provide enough protons (as hydrogen atoms) in a
few hundred gallons of an organic liquid so that a few hundred such
positrons should be produced by antineutrinos coming from a nuclear
fireball—if we could get the liquid close enough to the fireball.
Two problems were raised by this conclusion, however: (1) How
could a few hundred positrons be detected when released in several
hundred gallons of liquid; and (2) how could such a detector, once
built, be placed close enough to the violence of a nuclear explosion and
survive to tell the story ?
By “close enough,” we calculated that it must be at least within
200 feet or so from the base of a tower on which a 20-kiloton explosion
was fired. Such towers are usually about 100 feet high. We set about
finding answers to these questions.
For the first problem, there was already a lead. Certain organic
liquids had been found which when purified and then contaminated
with traces of particular compounds become sensitive to the passage
of fast electrons. They “scintillate’—they emit short bursts of light.
These bursts are extremely weak, but what intensity they have
is proportional to the range (therefore, the energy) of the electron
passing through them. These bursts of light are detected by highly
sensitive phototubes which in turn produce pulses of electricity. This
lead was partial, however, for at that time (1950) such organic liquid
scintillators had only been made and used in small quantities. To see
into several hundred gallons of it would require some additional effort.
To test this possibility, Reines and I (both of us were working at
the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory at the time) built a large bi-
pyramidal brass tank, of about 1 cubic meter in volume, and mounted
four photomultiplier tubes at the two opposing apexes, We filled this
tank (now named El Monstro) with very pure toluene activated so
766-746—65——31
418 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
that it would scintillate. Tests using radioactive sources of electrons
and gamma rays showed us that the scheme could be made to work,
and that we could “see” into almost any size container we wished to use.
The second problem was a stickler. The extreme violence of a large
nuclear explosion, accompanied by a searing heat wave and vast num-
bers of gamma, rays and neutrons, was hardly reduced at all at a dis-
tance of several hundred feet. A detector placed on the ground at
that distance would be melted, torn apart, and scattered in small pieces
over the countryside. We could put it into a heavy concrete block-
house, but the shock alone would still damage it beyond use, and only
a few neutrons leaking through the walls would completely obscure
our hoped-for-signal. We would have to shield it by at least a hundred
feet of earth from the ordinary neutrons and gamma rays to reduce
their intensity sufficiently.
The plan evolved was finally this: We would dig a shaft near
“sround zero” about 10 feet in diameter and about 150 feet deep. We
would put a tank, 10 feet in diameter and about 75 feet long on end
at the bottom of the shaft. We would then suspend our detector from
the top of the tank, along with its recording apparatus, and back-fill
the shaft above the tank.
As the time for the explosion approached, we would start vacuum
pumps and evacuate the tank as highly as possible. Then, when the
countdown reached “zero,” we would break the suspension with a small
explosive, allowing the detector to fall freely in the vacuum. For
about 2 seconds, the falling detector would be seeing antineutrinos
and recording the pulses from them while the earth shock passed
harmlessly by, rattling the tank mightily but not disturbing our falling
detector. When all was relatively quiet, the detector would reach the
bottom of the tank, landing on a thick pile of foam rubber and feathers
(fig. 4).
We would return to the site of the shaft in a few days (when the
surface radioactivity had died away sufficiently) and dig down to the
tank, recover the detector, and know the truth about neutrinos! We
did a lot of thinking about this matter before we broached the idea
to anyone. Our first conversation on the matter was with Enrico
Fermi. He questioned us closely and examined our plan in detail.
His was the first encouragement we received for our plan, and we felt
that the race was at least half won at that point. We approached the
laboratory director, Norris Bradbury, and received more encourage-
ment—plus permission to proceed! Assembling a group of physicists,
engineers, and technicians from around the laboratory who were suf-
ficiently intrigued by the project to take on work additional to their
own, we set out to catch a neutrino.
As it made little difference precisely where we placed our shaft,
we chose to put it 137 feet from the base of the tower for luck. (If
PEATE!
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Cowan
Richard Jones (left) and Martin Warren (right), two members of our team from Los Alamos,
use the special fork lift to insert the top target tank into the detector shield at the Sa-
Heavy lead doors behind Warren move by hydraulic
vannah River Plant reactor.
A rack of preamplifiers are seen behind
control to cover the detector when it is operated.
Jones. These amplified the small voltage pulses obtained from the tubes and sent them
through coaxial cables to the electronics trailer parked outside the reactor building.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Cowan PLATE 2
‘ ce
1. One of the thin ‘“‘meat” tanks for the “double-decker club sandwich” detector. This
tank, containing scintillating solution and a cadmium salt, was used for analysis of the
detector and calibration of its performance. It was replaced by a tank of water and
cadmium acetate (later heavy-water and cadmium acetate) for the measurement at the
reactor. ‘There were, of course, two of these target tanks in the detector. It is shown
resting in a special fork-lift built to handle the detector sections.
2. A completed detector section ready for insertion in the shield. ‘The tank is made of
steel plate, with the exception of the bottom. ‘This is a cellular aluminum structure,
similar to aircraft skin sections, which provides strength against bending while affording
little obstruction to the entry of gamma rays from below.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Cowan PLATE 3
ee ee
1. Three 1,200-gallon steel tanks on a flat-bed trailer comprise our tank farm. With a
network of stainless-steel pipes and valves, along with special pumps, the apparatus was
used to mix and transport our load of scintillating solution from Los Alamos to the Sa-
vannah River Plant. ‘The tanks are coated with epoxy on their interiors and were later
wrapped with layers of electrical heating strips on their outsides, then covered with
fiber-glass insulation. On the trip to South Carolina, they were plugged into the elec-
trical outlets of kindly filling-station operators to warm up overnight; they kept sufficient
heat during the next day’s run to preserve the solution.
2. The final test of our signal was to shield the entire detector even more so than neutrons
and gamma rays would be further attenuated. The signal, however, did not change,
unless the reactor was turned off. The shield, shown here, consisted of many bags of
sawdust, saturated with water, and had a mean density of 0.5. It was over 4 feet thick
at all places. A pound of hominy grits, placed near the center of this face of the shield,
completed it in a little ceremony in salute to our southern hosts.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Cowan PLATE 4
1. The lower “triad” of detectors of the system used at the Savannah River Plant rests
in its lead shield ready for test at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. The dark
rectangles labeled ‘‘2”? and “3” are the ends of the large liquid scintillation tanks which
were to form the “bread” of the club-sandwich-detector. ‘The target liquid is in the
white center tank.
2. This multichamber dark-box was built to put each of the many photomultiplier tubes
through a rigorous testing and balancing procedure before use in the detector. Three
chambers are shown opened, and a photomultiplier with a sodium iodide crystal may be
seen in one of them. The tubes were thus carefully selected for uniformity and stability
from a large number of candidates.
PLATE 5
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Cowan
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Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Cowan PLATE 6
1. A view of the interior of one of the large liquid scintillation tanks before mounting the
photomultipliers in the end. A plexiglass sheet seals off the end forming a chamber which
will contain the tubes. The thin, corrugated, stainless-steel top for the tank is seen
resting behind it.
2. Exterior view of the end of a scintillation tank after mounting photomultipliers. The
tube mounts and bases are seen protruding from the end. After wiring the bases into a
circuit, a steel box cover was bolted in place over the end.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Cowan PLATE 7
One of the 112 photomultiplier tubes used in each large tank, shown with its mounting
socket. ‘The 5-inch diameter face, equivalent to perhaps 100 human eyes, contains a thin,
photosensitive surface. When a photon of light falls on it, an electron is ejected from the
surface toward the interior of the tube. The electron strikes the first metal element
known as a “dynode” where it splashes several more electrons out of the metal. These,
in turn, repeat this over some nine more dynodes, multiplying the number each time until,
finally, several million electrons appear at the base for each one started from the tube
face. ‘These produce a pulse of voltage in the circuit at the base which is then amplified
and analyzed by the equipment farther along the line.
PLATE 8
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Cowan
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DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 419
Nuclear Explosive
_,_ Expected Fireball
» from Explosion
ce i Buried Signal Line for
ea aoe Triggering Release
Back Fill Vacuum Pump
4—Vacuum Line
Suspended Detector—, 1
Vacuum Tank
SCHEME FOR DETECTING NEUTRINOS
FROM A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION ¢-Feathers and Foam Rubber
Ficure 4
you think that physicists are not superstitious, just ask one about the
number 137 sometime. He’ll be evasive and say, “Oh, you mean 1/137,
the fine structure constant.” Press him to explain it, however, and
youll see what I mean.) We arranged for the drilling of a hole and
the taking of cores at the nuclear test site in Nevada to explore the
underground conditions there. Arrangements also were made to
measure ground shocks and neutron backgrounds at various depths in
the hole during forthcoming nuclear explosions so that we could plan
more specifically. Our group began work on the problems of light
transmission over long paths in the scintillator liquids, the operation of
large banks of photomultiplier tubes, and the design of the great
vacuum tank and its release mechanism.
But then we stopped the work suddenly, for a better idea had
occurred to us.
PROJECT POLTERGEIST—II
It was a late evening in the fall of 1952. Reines and I had addressed
a seminar of the Laboratory’s Physics Division that afternoon, de-
scribing the progress of the work and our latest plans. At the end, Dr.
J. M. B. Kellogg, Chairman of the Division, had suggested that we re-
420 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
view the problem just once more to see if we could possibly use the neu-
trinos emitted by a fission reactor rather than those from a fission
explosion. We knew that the flux of neutrinos from even the largest of
reactors would be thousands of times less than that from an explosion,
while the background noise from neutrons and gamma rays would be
about the same with the available shielding. Nevertheless, we sat late
into the evening going over every estimate. Then the thought struck!
We were planning to force protons to undergo beta decay by absorp-
tion of antineutrinos. This decay would be the emission of a positron
as the proton was changed into a neutron. The positron, being an
antielectron, would be captured quickly by one of the ordinary elec-
trons in the atoms of the liquid, both positron and electron would
vanish, and two 0.51 Mev. (million electron volts) gamma rays would
be produced. These gamma rays were to constitute our signal, as
they, in turn, bounced off other electrons in the liquid, making it
scintillate. The neutron, we knew, would also bounce around in the
liquid as it struck protons and lost its energy to them, then would drift
about for many microseconds before finally being captured by a proton
to form deuterium, or heavy hydrogen. The neutron-proton capture
would release a gamma ray of 2.2 Mev., but we had planned to use this
gamma ray only as an independent signal to increase the detection
efficiency somewhat.
Suddenly, we realized that if we could manage to dissolve a cadmium
salt in our liquid, then the neutron would be captured more quickly
(as cadmium has a much greater “cross section” for neutron capture
than has hydrogen), and we could mark a neutrino signal by two
characteristic bursts of gamma radiation which followed one another
by a few microseconds: First, the two 0.51 Mev. gammas from posi-
tron-electron annihilation, then a burst of gammas totaling about 9
Mev. as the neutron was captured by cadium. This unique set of sig-
nals would provide us with a powerful discrimination against the
backgrounds from a reactor. It would then be possible to use the
much weaker but calmer neutrino fluxes emitted by a reactor. Instead
of detecting a burst of neutrinos in a second or two coming from the
fury of a nuclear explosion, we would now be able to watch patiently
near a reactor and catch one every few hours or so. And there are
many hours available for watching in a month—or a year.
A new plan and a first try
We called a meeting of our group the following day and set about
devising a plan for work near a reactor. The road ahead now looked
much clearer, and we felt that we were finally closing in on our quarry.
During the winter of 1952 we built two cylindrical detectors, each
about 30 inches high and 28 inches in diameter. We mounted 90 photo-
multipliers around the curved walls of each and filled them with
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 421
liquid scintillator made of toluene. We learned how to connect these
tubes into two interleaved banks for operation in coincidence to reduce
the spurious “dark-current” signals generated by the tubes themselves.
As for the cadmium salt, we found that the propionate of cadmium
would dissolve in the scintillator quite well without reducing its light
output seriously.
The winter was spent in testing the system in an isolated and
unheated building while keeping the detector warm with several
electrical bow] fires. Some of our group swept the snow away from
outside the building and set about casting many large blocks of
paraffin wax and borax for use as neutron shielding when we would
go to a reactor. Others began mixing gallons of liquid scintillator
in batches with varying composition. We found that we could also
make a scintillating liquid from just one of the several brands of
mineral oil carried by the local druggists. This would give us a
different hydrogen density in our detector from that of toluene,
allowing us to test the fact that it is a proton which reacts to yield
a neutrino signal. We ordered several barrels of the oil, and this was
duly mixed with the chemicals to make it scintillate.
It was during this testing period that we also investigated the radio-
active content of the materials which were used to construct the
detectors. We built a cylindrical well into one of the detectors and
proceeded to put quantities of steel, liquids, wax, and other materials
into it for testing. We found that brass and aluminum were quite
radioactive compared to iron and steel, and that the potassium in the
glass envelopes of our photomultiplier tubes would contribute to the
detector backgrounds. By putting the detector “into itself” in this
manner, piece-by-piece, we were able to avoid the more seriously
contaminated materials in its construction.
During this time, one of our group, Robert Shuch, proposed making
the well in the detector a bit larger so that we might be able to put
a human being into the detector. This was done, and a number of
people, including our secretary, were trussed up and lowered into
the 18-inch hole. We found quite a detectable counting rate from
everyone. It was due to the radioactive potassium-40 naturally
present in the body. Using small radium sources strapped near the
navel of a subject, we found that extremely minute quantities of radio-
active contaminants were measurable in the human body. This brief
interlude thus saw the birth of the total-immersion, or “whole-body”
counter. The two neutrino detectors were later to be placed into
service as the first of many such large clinical and medical research
counters.
In the very early spring of 1953 we set out for Hanford, Wash.,
where the largest and newest of the country’s fission reactors was Just
being put into operation. The work at Hanford, while tedious in
766-746—65—32
422 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
the doing, need not be so in the telling. We put our detector very
close to the face of the reactor wall, piling all of our shielding around
it and all the lead that was available at the Hanford plant until the
floor sagged, and then we “listened.” We restacked our shield and
listened again for the double pulses signaling neutrinos when the
reactor was operating. (See pl. 5.)
The lesson of the work was clear: It is easy to shield out the noise
men make, but impossible to shut out the cosmos. Neutrons and
gamma rays from the reactor, which we had feared most, were stopped
in our thick walls of paraffin, borax, and lead, but the cosmic ray
mesons penetrated gleefully, generating backgrounds in our equipment
as they passed or stopped in it. We had brought large trays of geiger
counters to place around and over the detector, so that cosmic rays
could be identified as such and rejected from the signal rate.
We did record neutrinolike signals which, seen in retrospect, were
genuine. They appeared and disappeared as the reactor was raised to
power and then shut down again. But the cosmic rays with their
neutron secondaries generated in our shield were some 10 times more
abundant than were the neutrino signals. Under these circumstances,
it was quite impossible to test the neutrino signal by changing the
number of proton targets in the detector or by altering the cadmium
concentration to alter the neutron capture times as we had planned.
We felt that we had the neutrino by its coattails, but our evidence
would not yet stand up in court. We must be more clever than this.
We returned to Los Alamos with a gleam in our eyes, for we felt that
now we knew how to catch the neutrino.
PROJECT POLTERGEIST—III
Tt was time to become serious about Project Poltergeist, and so the
Laboratory suggested that we set up a formal group for the sole
purpose of tracking neutrinos. This we did, taking with us those of
the original team who could leave their other work behind, and recruit-
ing several new members to the group.
Looking again at the reaction which signals the capture of an anti-
neutrino, we recall that the capture of the particle by a proton changes
the proton into a neutron with the emission of a positron. We had
used the time correlation of the two pulses produced by positron
annihilation and by neutron capture in hydrogen. We would now
use the spatial correlation of the various gamma rays as well. This
would give us a great advantage over the spurious signals produced
by the cosmic rays.
A new detector was designed in which a large thin tank of water
supplied the proton targets, and cadmium acetate dissolved in the
water lay in wait to capture the neutrons produced. Positron annihi-
lation results in two 0.51 Mev. gamma rays which travel away from
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 423
the annihilation in opposite directions. Thus, quite often one gamma
ray would emerge from the top of the water slab, and the other from
the bottom. Neutron capture in cadmium produces a burst of many
gamma rays which total about 9 Mev. in energy. These also would
emerge from both top and bottom of theslab. By placing large thick
tanks of liquid scintillator on either side of the water slab, we could
expect to see these events in top-bottom coincidence as well as in time-
delayed correlation. A detector of this description was designed but,
in a sense, was made twofold. We designed two such slabs and placed
them between three thick liquid scintillator detectors, much as the meat
is placed between three slices of bread in a club sandwich. This would
provide a running check on the equipment, as both detectors must
operate in agreement as to what they see. (See pl. 4, fig. 1.)
Another year’s work at Los Alamos went into the construction and
testing of the new detector. Dr. John Wheeler suggested during that
time that we make our next measurement at the new Savannah River
Plant and arranged for our visit to that laboratory. With the co-
operation of the Du Pont scientists there we quickly found an almost
ideal spot near one of their reactors. During the year we also de-
veloped a new scintillating solution (of triethylbenzene) which was
much less hazardous than toluene. (See pl. 4, fig. 2.)
When completed and sitting in its great lead shield in the physics
building at Los Alamos, the detector was about 10 feet high. It
occupied a floorspace some 6 feet by 12 feet. The shield around it
was made of a steel framework holding walls of lead 6 inches thick.
The lead top and bottom were also of this thickness, and hydraulically
operated lead doors some 4 inches thick closed the two ends. Three
separate scintillation detectors were stacked inside the shield, and
between each pair was a flat tank of water and cadmium acetate as a
target.
The detectors were made of rectangular steel tanks which held the
liquid scintillator in their center sections. Each was 2 feet thick, about
4 feet wide, and some 11 feet long. Each center section of scintillator
was 6 feet long. End sections were filled with a clear, nonscintillating
liquid to act as shields against radioactivity from the banks of photo-
multipliers looking in fromeach end. There were 55 photomultipliers
on each end of each of the 3 detectors. Each photomultiplier was a
large 5-inch diameter “eye” which stared fixedly at the sensitive liquid
in the tank and reported the faint flashes of light there with electrical
pulses. The “compound eye” of the total detector thus had a retinal
area greater than 45 square feet. Each of the photomultipliers had
been carefully selected and its sensitivity balanced to a standard value.
The tanks were painted white inside to conserve every photon possible
and reflect it toward the phototubes. (See pls. 2,6,7, and 8.)
424 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
As the spot chosen at the Savannah River Plant reactor was only
large enough to hold the detector, we would have to send the electrical
pulses from it to the equipment some distance away. We decided to
build all of our electronic gear into a large trailer which would then
act as our laboratory. Holding amplifiers, coincidence and gating
circuits, scalers and recording equipment, some 12 racks finally lined
one side of the trailer from floor to ceiling. A blower and conduit
outside the trailer served to keep the equipment cool while it was
operating.
To prepare and handle the liquid scintillator, a “tank farm” was
built on a flat bed trailer. This consisted of three steel tanks, each of
1200-gallon capacity. The tanks were coated on their interior sur-
faces with an epoxy paint to preserve the purity of the liquids and
were wrapped with several layers of insulating material on their out-
sides. As the tanks must never be allowed to fall below about 60°
F. when they contain scintillator, long strips of electrical heating
elements were embedded in the exterior insulation. A network of
stainless steel pipe, valves, and pumps complete the tank farm. (See
pl. 3.)
The year was spent in building and testing. It was important that
we know the details of the performance of our system quite well before
we left home. The effects of the ever-present cosmic ray muons were
also determined in great detail.
In November 1955, we were ready to leave Los Alamos again in
quest of neutrinos. Early one morning, after a blessing of the group
and its equipment by Father Francis Schuler, the Catholic pastor of the
parish at Los Alamos, in the ancient Latin phrases that down through
the centuries have sent men across the world in search of knowledge
and adventure, our little convoy snaked down the mountainside and
set out for South Carolina.
The work at the Savannah River Plant
The new year found our detector installed near the great reactor,
with its pipes and bundles of wires and coaxial cables running to the
laboratory and tank farm trailers parked outside. Calibrations were
undertaken using artificial radioactive sources and the cosmic rays,
and backgrounds were measured in the myriad different forms they
assume in such equipment. By early spring we felt that we were ready
for our quarry. (See pl. 1.)
The bait that we were using was hydrogen—or rather the nuclei of
hydrogen, protons. Let us review the anticipated reaction and the
signals produced which would demonstrate that antineutrinos were,
in truth, coming from the reactor. Of the several hundred million
billion antineutrinos which should (according to theory and the known
power level of the reactor) be streaming through our detector each
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 425
second, virtually all would pass through as if the detector were not
there. Several times each hour, however, one antineutrino would
react with a proton—the nucleus of a hydrogen atom in one or the other
H,O target tank. When this occurred, a fast positron would be
emitted by the proton, and the proton would then be a moderately
fast neutron as it recoiled from the site of the event. We knew what
the energy spectrum of the antineutrinos coming from the reactor
should be, because we knew quite a bit about the various radioactive
fission fragment nuclei being formed in it, and we had Fermi’s theory
to guide us from there. We knew, for instance, that about 10%
antineutrinos should strike each square centimeter of our water target
per second, that the effective energy of these antineutrinos should be
about 3 Mev., and that the cross section presented by each proton in
the water hydrogen to each antineutrino would be about 10-* square
centimeters.
After an antineutrino had reacted with a proton, the positron
would slow to a stop very quickly in the water, would capture an
electron from near where it stopped, and then the two would combine
to produce two 0.51 Mev. gamma rays. Suppose this happened
in the top water target. Then one gamma would pass into the
top scintillator, producing a flash of light there, while the other
would do the same—at the same time—in the center scintillator. A
pair of pulses would then be recorded by our equipment as having
occurred “in coincidence,” and the electronics would be alerted by
this and start to watch for a second signal produced by the neutron.
The neutron would leave the site of the event with a few Kev. energy,
and, being much heavier than the positron, would slow down much
more reluctantly. Nevertheless, the neutron would be of “thermal”
energy in about 2 microseconds and would then drift about in the
water until it happened close to a cadmium nucleus. Let us imagine
that this would be about 4 microseconds later. One of the cadmium
isotopes has a strong affinity for neutrons that are just drifting about
with little energy. The neutron is quickly captured by the cadmium,
and a burst of gamma rays then is emitted by the cadmium nucleus.
Again, some of these would pass into the top scintillator, some into the
center. Flashes of light would again be detected as they produced
pulses of electricity in the equipment. We know the total energy of
the cadmium gamma rays when it captures a neutron, so the total
light produced should be just the right amount. So also, should the
total electrical pulse voltage, i.e., the sum of the two electrical pulses.
Thus, a set of four pulses (two of the right amplitude each, fol-
lowed in 6 microseconds by two of the right total amplitude) would
be fed into the electronic racks in the trailer. This particular pattern
is very distinctive and is not very likely to occur by accident or by
any other sort of nuclear interaction in the detector. Among the
426 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
many electrical pulses which rattle through the electronic equipment
each second from other causes, this one pattern can be picked out
by the equipment very nicely.
In addition to going to the electronic analysis equipment, our set of
pulses from the top scintillator has also been sent down a long trans-
mission line, wrapped back and forth inside the trailer. They take
10 microseconds to emerge from the other end. ‘They are then sent to
an oscilloscope. The electronic equipment, having sensed the possi-
bility of an interesting pattern, signals to the oscilloscope when it
sees the second pair of pulses, and the electron beam of the cathode
ray tube starts to trace a line of light across the tube face. It will
take 20 microseconds to traverse the tube face.
Thus, 4 microseconds later (10 for the time spent in the transmis-
sion line minus 6 while waiting for the neutron signal), the positron
pulse from the top scintillator tank emerges from the line and causes
the electron beam to deflect upward briefly, then return to its steady
sweep across the face of the tube. The amount of deflection of the
beam during the pulse is proportional to the energy deposited in the
tank, and this is known from our calibration work. Six microseconds
later, the neutron pulse arrives from the same top tank. It also
deflects the beam briefly, proportional to its amplitude. The beam
then completes its track across the remaining part of the tube face,
and it is turned off to wait for another interesting event to send it
on its brief trip.
All this has occurred for those signals coming from the top tank.
Exactly the same has occurred for those from the center tank of
scintillator as well. The pulses from the center tank have passed
down their own transmission line and then to the oscilloscope to
cause another beam in the same tube to deflect. Its track les below
the first beam so as not to obscure it. The bottom tank is connected
as well to a third transmission line and then to a third beam in the
tube. But no signals came from this tank in our example described
here, so its beam has just swept undeflected across the oscilloscope
face.
During this time a 35 mm. camera loaded with 100 feet of film
has been watching the tube face with its shutter permanently open,
so that the streaks of light which appeared there are now recorded on
one frame of film. After the action has finished, the camera motor
advances the film to a fresh frame.
Thus were the signals from the three tanks sorted out, analyzed,
and recorded on film whenever they occurred in a pattern which may
have been due to the capture of an antineutrino in the detector. Two
triple-beam oscilloscopes were used in parallel, as described above,
so that one operating at low gain could look for large pulses while
the other operated at higher gain to record the smaller pulses. Each
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 427
day the films would be removed and developed for reading. At that
time tests would be made of the detector and electronic system to catch
any changes that might have occurred.
THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF PROOF
Having the equipment operate as planned near the reactor and
observing the correct patterns of pulses now and then was most satis-
fying. But now the work remained to test these signals to ascertain
whether or not they were in fact produced by antineutrinos from the
reactor. Five experiments were performed using these pulses, with
objectives as listed below:
1. The rate at which they were recorded must be correct, knowing
the reactor power and detector efficiency. This rate must drop to
zero (or to a relatively low and well-understood background) when
the reactor is shut down.
2. The first pair of pulses must be shown to be due to the annihila-
tion of a positron by an electron.
3. The second pair of pulses must be shown to be due to the capture
of a neutron by cadmium, and the neutron must have appeared in
the detector at the same instant as did the positron.
4. The signal rate must be proportional to the number of protons
in the water target tanks. If the amount of hydrogen is changed,
the signal rate must change accordingly.
5. The signal, when shown to be associated with the reactor being
run, must be shown to be independent of gamma rays and neutrons
leaking from the reactor shield.
The following months saw these tests undertaken. In each test,
the two water tanks operated as independent targets, and the data
obtained from each were analyzed and required to check one another.
The checks were made in various, sometimes redundant, ways, In
order to apply every test we could devise. The details of these checks
and the resulting data are reported in the relevant papers listed in
the bibliography, and will be described only in general terms here.
Dependence of the signal rate on reactor power.—This is the
easiest to describe. The equipment was operated for 893.5 hours
(in two separate runs) with the reactor on, and for 263.4 hours (again,
in two separate runs) with the reactor off. With the reactor on, the
signal rate was about 1.8 per hour, and with the reactor off, it was
about one-fifth of this. This background rate was understood in
terms of cosmic ray interferences, similar to the ones which had forced
us to stop work at Hanford. But there, the cosmic ray backgrounds
were some 10 times Aigher than the signal rate produced by the reac-
tor. We could also work our data “in reverse,” calculating a cross
section for the reaction from them, then comparing it with the
theoretical one. The two—experimental and _ theoretical—agreed
428 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
well within the limits imposed by statistical fluctuations and lack of
absolute knowledge concerning the neutrino spectrum.
Evidence that the first pulse pair was due to a positron.—Here we
had two checks. We had dissolved a known positron-emitting radio-
active material (copper-64) in the water of a target tank and observed
the pulse amplitude spectrum obtained from it. The spectrum of
pulses in the first pair of reactor-produced events agreed with it
nicely. The second check consisted of placing thin sheets of lead as
an absorber between the water targets and the scintillation detector
tanks. By measuring the reduction in counting rate produced by
the lead, we could check the energy of the gamma rays in the first
pulse. They were found to be the two simultaneous gamma rays
produced when a positron-electron pair combines (or “annihilates,”
in the vernacular).
Evidence that the second pulse pair was due to the capture of a
neutron by cadmium, and that the neutron had appeared in the
detector simultaneously with the positron.—Again, we had two
checks of this. We varied the amount of cadmium salt in the water
targets and observed the varying times for observation of the second
pulse following the first. These checked with the same data when a
known neutron source was placed near the detector and neutron
capture times measured. These capture time curves had already been
run on computers at Los Alamos for different cadmium concentra-
tions. These also agreed. The second check was the total pulse am-
plitude spectrum. This agreed with that obtained with known neu-
tron sources. The pulses were due to neutrons. The capture time
curves also demonstrated that the neutron had appeared with the
positron, for it was the interval between the two that was measured,
and this interval would not have checked had this not been so. Three
different runs were made with different cadmium concentrations.
Dependence of the signal rate on the number of protons in the
target.—For this check, we reduced the amount of hydrogen in the
target to half, but did not reduce the amount of water. This was
done by replacing the ordinary water with a mixture of 50 percent
ordinary (light) water and 50 percent heavy water. Thus, 50 percent
of the hydrogen had been replaced by deuterium, which has a com-
paratively very low cross section for antineutrinos compared with
hydrogen. The signal rate fell when this was done as expected.
This checked another point at the same time. By putting deuterium
into the detector, we were sensitizing it to the effects of gamma rays
and neutrons. Such backgrounds can easily break up a deuteron
and mock up an antineutrino signal. Therefore, if the gamma ray
and neutron backgrounds were fooling us before, the signal rate
should have increased now rather than decreased as it was observed
to do.
DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO—COWAN 429
If we were seeing antineutrinos from the reactor, we should not
be able to reduce their intensity on the detector by putting absorbers
around it. If, on the other hand, we were seeing only gamma rays
and neutrons, it should be easy to change the rate with absorber.—
This simple experiment, however, took some time to devise, for a
considerable amount of material was needed to stack around the
detector to form our shield. This amount of anything looked very
expensive to us. We first thought of wooden planks and timbers.
The cutting and fitting problem was too great for wood. We consid-
ered water, but the tanks required would have been expensive and very
large.
As we were in South Carolina in the summer, an obvious suggestion
was a great pile of watermelons. We doubted that they would have
survived long enought in a sweet condition. Another suggestion
was sacks of hominy grits. An enterprising member of the group
actually located a warehouseman in Augusta, Ga., who was willing to
lend us the requisite amount. We feared, however, that he would be
reluctant to take them back when he learned that they had been placed
very close to the Nation’s largest nuclear reactor! The native resources
of the South did come to our rescue, however.
We used sawdust. Obtained free from a sawmill in Aiken, S.C.,
and bagged as it came from the chute, we hauled it in great truckloads
to the reactor site. The sawdust was too light for our liking, so we
piled it into a smal] mountain and squirted it with a firehose for several
days. Drained and stacked around our detector, it provided a fine
shield. In recognition of the Southern hospitality which we were
enjoying all this time, we also incorporated hominy grits into the
shield—a pound of it. (See pl. 3, fig. 2.)
Tested with neutron and gamma ray sources carried around it and
placed in various places in it, the shield was fine. It reduced such
artificial signals by large amounts. But it made no difference to our
reactor signal.
This test, alone, was sufficient to demonstrate that we were observ-
ing antineutrinos from the reactor.
QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM
We were done. For a few days, we enjoyed the knowledge privately
that Pauli had guessed correctly as we prepared a report to this effect
for publication in the literature and for a summer meeting of the
American Physical Society at Yale. The experience of knowing a
fact new to mankind and knowing it for awhile all alone is an un-
forgettable one. The neutrino existed as an objective, demonstrable
fact of nature. The great laws of conservation stood firm. And our
small group had had the privilege of sharing in the work that made
them so.
430 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALLEN, JAMES S.
1957. The neutrino. Princeton, N.J. [This excellent monograph covers much
of the material omitted in this paper and supplies a generous bibli-
ography in context. ]
Cowan, C. L., JR. ; REINES, F.; ET AL.
1956. Detection of the free neutrino: A confirmation. Science, vol. 124,
No. 3212, pp. 103-104.
REINES, F., and Cowan, C. L., JR.
1953a. Detection of the free neutrino. Phys. Rev., vol. 92, No. 3, pp. 830-831.
1953b. A proposed experiment to detect the free neutrino. Phys. Reyv.,
vol. 90, No. 3, pp. 492-498.
REINES, F.; Cowan, C. L., JR. ; ET AL.
1960. Detection of the free antineutrino. Phys. Rev., vol. 117, No. 1, pp.
159-178.
Fracture of Solids’
By J. E. Fretp
Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England
[With 4 plates]
THE FAILURE OF a solid by fracture is an experience common to all,
whether it be the breaking of a cup, the shattering of a car windscreen,
or the event leading to disaster with an aircraft. The nature of the
initiation, subsequent path, and speed of development of fracture often
appear unpredictable. The result of fracture is frequently cata-
strophic. It is this aspect of finality which creates the greatest prob-
lems for the engineer who at present only overcomes them by clever
design and the use of large safety factors.
It would, of course, be difficult and undesirable to avoid using brittle
solids since they combine so many useful properties with their brittle-
ness. Glass as the prime example of a brittle solid has, in one or
other of its forms, high hardness, good resistance to chemical reaction
and thermal shock as well as its most valuable of properties, trans-
parency. Further, one of the many modern requirements is for solids
which remain strong at high temperatures. Above about 1,000° C.
the solids which still retain some degree of strength are frequently
those that exhibit brittleness at room temperature.
Fracture is, however, not only a calamity to be avoided; it is fre-
quently the best way of dividing a solid. The energy required to
cleave a diamond or split a log is far lower than that needed by any
sawing process. The surfaces of cleaved materials are frequently
smooth and plane; properties which have many scientific uses besides
their importance in jewel stones.
TYPES OF FRACTURE
If a solid is pulled hard enough it will eventually fracture. On the
atomic scale this is the stage where the binding forces between the
atoms are finally overcome by the tensile stress we have applied. The
1 Reprinted by permission from The Times Science Review (London), No. 51, Spring
1964.
431
432 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
process of separation can take a variety of forms: A rubbery material
elongates enormously before tearing; metals often deform before
breaking (ductile fracture) ; glass fractures with little previous de-
formation (brittle behavior); and crystals frequently cleave along
definite crystallographic planes. It is important to realize that a
given material does not fall into a specific class regardless of the con-
ditions in which it is used. A rubbery solid, for example, if taken to
a low enough temperature, will fracture in a brittle fashion, and metals
show similar temperature transitions from ductile to brittle behavior.
A factor as important as temperature is the time taken in applying the
stress to the material. If the stress is applied in a short time (i.e. a
high rate of strain) the effect is analogous to that of decreasing the
temperature of the body. The variation of behavior with strain rate
is readily apparent with polymers such as Perspex. If a steel ball
is pressed slowly against the surface the material deforms to give a
permanent depression. If, however, the ball is allowed to fall from a
height of a few inches, a circular ring fracture similar to those pro-
duced on glass is formed.
STRENGTH OF SOLIDS
Theoretical calculations of strength are usually based on the way
that the forces between the atoms vary with separation. Usually the
maximum force occurs when the separation between the atoms has
been increased by 10 to 20 percent, or in other words, the theoretical
strengths of solids lhe between #/5 and #/10, where # is the Young’s
modulus of the solid. However, one of the more striking features
about the strength of solids is the divergence between practical meas-
ured strengths and theoretical estimates: This divergence is greatest
with brittle solids. Calculations on glass, for example, predict
strengths as high as 2 million p.s.i., but plate glass has usually a
strength only about one-hundredth of this and even glass in fiber form
rarely exceeds one-tenth of the theoretical estimate.
A possible explanation for the low practical strengths was put for-
ward in 1920 by A. A. Griffith, who suggested that microcracks on the
surface and in the bulk of a solid could cause loss of strength. A
useful analogy here is to imagine the cracks acting as levers to separate
the atoms, the cracks becoming more effective the longer their lengths.
Griffith, in experiments on glass, was able to show that the strength
was in fact related to the depths of cracks which he artificially added
to the glass.
The size of the microcracks sufficient to explain a practical strength
for glass of 20,000 p.s.i. when its theoretical strength is 100 times higher
turns out to be very small; cracks of length 1 or 2 microns (10~cm.)
and widths of a few angstréms (1A=10-°cm.) are sufficient. It is not
surprising, therefore, that even with modern electron microscopes
FRACTURE OF SOLIDS—FIELD 433
these microcracks are not easily observable. However, since 1920,
decoration and etching techniques coupled with fracture experiments
have built up a considerable body of evidence which largely substan-
tiates the idea of microcracks. Other sources of weakness can also
occur such as inclusions, voids, notches, and growth steps. All of
these can act so as to increase the stress concentration at a point in the
solid.
Crystalline materials (and this includes metallic crystals) may or
may not contain microcracks initially, but they will usually contain
defects of structure (dislocations) which will allow the planes of atoms
to slide relative to each other without separation (plastic deformation).
If the movement of the dislocations is blocked (this could be caused by
the inclusion of a foreign particle) the dislocations build up causing a
high-stress concentration with the possible formation of a microcrack.
This crack could then initiate bulk fracture.
Materials without defects, such as carefully produced whiskers or
fibers, exhibit high strengths approaching the theoretical values. This
tends to confirm the importance of defects and indicates a possible,
albeit difficult, way of obtaining high-strength solids.
TRANSMISSION OF STRESS
When a stress is applied to a body the disturbance is not experienced
instantaneously throughout the whole body, but is transmitted by stress
waves which travel with a definite velocity. The effect is very similar
to that when ripples traverse the surface of a pond. In a solid whose
properties are independent of direction, a disturbance travels through
the body of the solid in two waves—a longitudinal (dilatational) wave
in which the particle motions are in the direction of propagation, and
transverse (distortional waves in which the particle motions normal to
the wave front. The velocities of the wave depend on the elastic con-
stants of the solid. These constants are themselves related to the
elastic moduli (i.e., ratio of stress to strain produced). For glass, the
longitudinal and transverse wave velocities are about 18,000 and 11,000
feet. per second respectively, but for diamond, a material with very
high elastic constants, the velocities are higher, having values of about
60,000 and 40,000 feet per second. Physically, the more rigid the
atomic structure the faster the waves pass and vice versa.
Plate 1, fig. 1, shows pictures taken from a sequence of high-speed
photographs of stress waves propagating in a Perspex specimen of
dimensions 2 in.X2 in.X34. in. The waves were initiated by the
detonation of a small charge of explosive at the midpoint of the top
edge, and were made visible by the insertion of crossed polaroids into
the optical system of the camera. Both waves are seen; the velocity of
the fastest wave, the longitudinal, is about twice that of the transverse
waves. When the waves reach the boundaries of the Perspex they
434 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
reflect and return through the block. This reflection always causes
a change of phase and the longitudinal wave, for example, which passes
out as a compression returns as a wave of tension. In thin plates of
brittle material this effect can lead to failure causing a scab of material
to become detached from the rear surface. The brittle solid fails in
this manner since although it is strong in compression it is compara-
tively weak in tension. Instances of this so-called “scabbing” fracture
were frequent in the last war when thin sheets of armor plate were
struck by fast projectiles. Reinforcement by two waves, of either the
same or different type, can also lead to localized fracture.
On the surface of a solid a third type of wave, the Rayleigh Surface
wave, is developed. This wave travels at a velocity about 90 percent
of the transverse wave. Since it exists only in a thin layer at the
surface it loses energy in two dimensions, whereas the body waves do
so in three. When transmitted over large distances this wave retains
its intensity to a greater degree and is usually the main component of
the disturbance from earthquakes. As will be seen below it is also
important in explaining certain fracture phenomena.
MODE OF FRACTURE
The way in which the stress is applied to a solid greatly influences the
final form of fracture. Starting at the one extreme of “static” loading
this can perhaps best be represented by the example of a steel ball
pressed with increasing force against the surface of a solid. With a
brittle solid such as glass, the first form of failure is the formation of a
“ring” crack which closely follows the edge of the contact area where
the maximum tensile forces exist. The fracture usually starts at
one point and then travels round, keeping at right angles to the maxi-
mum tensile stress, until the full circle is complete. The point of
initiation may be slightly away from the contact area since it will
depend on the location of the microcrack which gives the greatest
stress concentration. If the stress is increased still further a second
ring crack forms while the initial fracture develops into the solid
forming a conical surface of fracture. Plate 1, fig. 2, shows this stage;
the faint circular bands around the ring cracks are interference fringes
formed in the gap between the fracture planes. In thin glass the
fracture may reach the back surface giving a perfect cone of material.
The cone angle is usually about 140°. (This form of failure is not to
be confused with the scabbing failure mentioned briefly above in con-
nection with stress waves.) Thin glass will also bend causing large
tensile forces at the rear surface which result in long radial fractures
growing from a point opposite the loaded area.
If the steel ball impacts against the glass stress waves have to be con-
sidered. At relatively low impact velocities the general appearance
of the fracture does not greatly alter from the static case except that
FRACTURE OF SOLIDS—FIELD 435
the fracturing is more severe. The reason for this is that at low
impact velocities the time of impact is relatively long and the stress
waves, with their high velocity, have time to distribute information
about the stress to all parts of the body during the impact time. Since
the stress distribution quickly approaches that of the static case, the
pattern of fracture for a low velocity impact is similar to that for
static indentation. An example of this is window glass broken by a
stone; the long radial fractures and the displaced cone of glass are the
main features of the impact.
For very high impact velocities the duration of the impact becomes
short compared with the time taken by the stress waves to pass through
the body. Thus a point in the solid no longer receives a long train
of stress waves which gradually build up the stress, but rather a con-
centrated pulse of stress of short duration. Very intense pulses last-
ing only 1 or 2 millionths of a second can be produced by a variety
of methods, one of which is the detonation of a small quantity of ex-
plosive on the surface of a solid, or, as has been shown recently at Cam-
bridge, when a jet of liquid strikes a solid at high velocity. (This re-
sult has practical significance when aircraft pass through rain.) An
example of the fracturing caused by the impact of a cylinder of liquid
water of diameter 8 mm. at 2,400 feet per second on plate glass is shown
in plate 2, fig. 1. The diameter of the large ring fracture corresponds
closely with the size of the head of the cylindrical jet. This ring
fracture and central area closely resemble the static case illustrated in
plate 1, fig. 2, except that the main ring crack is made up of several
fractures rather than one continuous crack. The additional features
are the short circumferential fractures. These are entirely of stress
wave origin, and are formed when the sharp pulse reaches a micro-
crack capable of giving a stress concentration sufficient for fracture.
The fractures remain short and develop as separate events since the
stress waves are themselves of short duration. The stress wave which
causes these particular fractures is the Rayleigh Surface wave. Their
formation is illustrated in plate 2, fig. 2. The pictures, separated by
only 2 microseconds, show a lead slug impacting against the top edge
of a3 in. by 3 in. by 14 in. glass specimen at about 600 feet per second.
The point at which fresh fractures appear moves out from the center
at the Rayleigh wave velocity of approximately 10,000 feet per second.
When thin plates of glass are loaded by intense short duration pulses
extra “bands” of fracture occur as seen in Plate 3, fig. 1. This shows
the result of the impact of a cylinder of water at a velocity of approxi-
mately 4,000 feet per second on 14-inch-thick glass. The circular bands
of fracture are again of stress wave origin, and occur only on the front
surface. They are formed when the Rayleigh Surface wave is rein-
forced by tensile components from the stress waves reflected at the
back surface of the glass. Similar bands have been produced on hard
436 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
polymers and certain crystalline solids. High-speed photographic
records show that the formation of the bands is complete before the
plate specimen starts to bend and that only at a later time do the long
radial fractures produced by the bending start to develop.
FRACTURE VELOCITY
Once a fracture is initiated the question arises as to how fast it can
travel. The answer appears to be that a fracture can have any
velocity up to a certain maximum. It is reasonable that a maximum
velocity exists since it would not be expected that a fracture velocity
would exceed stress wave velocities, since in the one case a rupture of
atomic bands occurs and in the other merely a transmission of stress.
The measurement of fracture velocities is usually achieved by the
use of high-speed photography or ultrasonic techniques, although
markings on the fracture surfaces often give extra information. Ex-
amples of these markings include faint lines called “rib” marks which
are formed when a fracture pauses, and other lines (“river” patterns)
which denote the direction of travel of the fracture for each part of
the surface. These “river” patterns occur on glasses, and both metallic
and nonmetallic crystals and are formed when the fracture advances
simultaneously on slightly different levels. The most important mark-
ings for velocity determinations are Wallner lines (named after H.
Wallner who first explained them) and an example is shown in plate 3,
fig. 2. These were photographed on the fracture surface of a glass
plate. The lines are formed by the interaction of the fracture front
with transverse stress pulses started when the fracture passes through
an imperfection, usually at the edge of the specimen. If the fracture
origin is known and also the transverse wave velocity for the solid,
the fracture velocity can be determined. This idea has recently been
extended and an ultrasonic beam of waves of frequency about 5 mega-
cycles per second is passed through the solid as the fracture advances.
The resultant fracture surface shows a series of fine ripples, and the
spacing of these, since the time interval is accurately known, gives a
direct measure of the fracture velocity.
High-speed photography is a technique which can measure fracture
velocities accurately (to about 1 percent) provided the camera is
capable of giving accurate synchronization and framing rates in ex-
cess of 10° per second (i.e., the order of 1 microsecond between pic-
tures). A sequence showing the fracture of a toughened glass
specimen is given in plate 4, fig. 1. This is the type of glass frequently
used in car windowscreens. The glass is about five times stronger than
plate glass, and is made from plate glass by a heat treatment process
which puts a thin outer layer into compression. However, the treat-
ment leaves the inner layers in tension and if a crack grows through
the outer layer the fracture propagates catastrophically. It is clear
FRACTURE OF SOLIDS—FIELD 437
TABLE 1.—Fracture and Stress Wave Velocities (In feet per second)
Material r Fracture Longitudinal | Transverse wave Ve/Ci
velocity (V) |wave velocity(C:)| velocity (C2)
———— | ee
NRE u = esa Se eee 5, 000 18, 000 11, 000
0. 28
used tsiiicaees | S322 eae 7, 000 19, 500 12, 500 0. 36
Sa paps Cire sg og 14, 500 36, 000 21, 000 0. 4
Digmonds 220 see see 24, 000 60, 000 40, 000 0. 4
from the picture that the fractures all travel at the same velocity. The
change of appearance in the fracture pattern after frame 8 (fourth in
row 2) is caused by the interaction of the reflected longitudinal pulse,
now a tension, with the advancing front.
Recent fracture velocity and stress wave velocity measurements
made at Cambridge from sequences such as in plate 1, fig. 1; plate 2,
fig. 2; and plate 4, fig. 2, are shown in table 1 above. The fracture
velocities are all approximately one-third of the longitudinal stress
wave velocity. Fracture velocities in metals are usually a lower frac-
tion of the stress wave velocities. This is mainly because much of the
fracture energy is lost in doing plastic work. The smaller value of
the ratio for glass (0.28 as compared with 0.4 for sapphire and
diamond) may also be significant in showing that glass itself does
not behave in a completely brittle fashion. (Indentation experiments
have also indicated this.)
REMOVAL OF SURFACE DEFECTS
It appears that the key to the strength of solids lies in the existence
of microcracks and other imperfections. Once these are removed
higher strengths ensue. Several materials have already been produced
in fiber and whisker form with high strengths. Experiment shows that
glass has most of its flaws located at the surface and is therefore amen-
able to surface treatments such as toughening, ion exchange (in which
the sodium atoms at the surface are replaced by larger ones, thus put-
ting the surface layers into compression), and etching. In the etching
process hydrofluoric acid acts partly by removing the flawed layer and
partly by rounding off the flaw tips. The effect of removing a few
microns (10-* cm.) of glass, and greatly improving the strength, is
illustrated by the impact mark in plate 4, fig. 2, in which the lower half
only of the specimen was etched. Impact was by a liquid jet on the
dividing line between the treated and untreated regions (see also plate
2, fig. 1). Improvements of strength by etching of up to 500,000 p.s.i.
have so far been reported. Materials such as hard polymers and
ceramics have flaws distributed throughout the bulk, so a surface treat-
ment alone does not have such a marked effect (their initial practical
strengths may, of course, be higher).
766-746-6533
438 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
The fact that fractures propagate less easily in materials in which
some plastic work occurs as the fracture advances may prove useful.
Indications are that reinforced solids can be devised which, while
retaining many of the good properties that brittle solids have, will
inhibit fracture growth of catastrophic nature. Certainly a large
amount of information about the strength properties of solids has
been assembled in the comparatively short time since the original paper
by Griffith. In the last few years understanding of the cause of frac-
ture and the mechanism of its propagation has advanced considerably.
It is reasonable to expect that in the near future new and exciting
materials will be developed.
PLATE 1
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Field
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This impact gives a short but intense pulse of pressure which initiates the many short
circumferential cracks. These cracks are not found under static or slow impact condi-
tions. (Magnification 13.5.)
di ake
Ficure 4.—Electron paramagnetic resonance spectra (EPR) of particles prepared from
Axotobacter vinelandii (OP). Signals recorded in gauss (g). Left column, particles
actively fixing nitrogen. Right column, particles that do not fix nitrogen, from cells
grown with an ammonium salt as nitrogen source. Upper row, spectra of particles as
isolated. In the nitrogen fixing particles there is a signal at g=1.97 probably associated
with molybdenum valency 5+. Middle row, after adding 10ul of culture medium in
which the bacterium had been growing and gassing with hydrogen. Lower curve,
gassing with nitrogen after the hydrogen and medium treatment.
456 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
oxidized state, and for an unidentified iron component. This iron
factor is distinct from ferredoxin, mentioned earlier; in fact, ferre-
doxin does not produce EPR signals and is not present in Azotobacter.
It was possible to reduce this iron and molybdenum by hydrogen and
culture media factors and they were reoxidized by nitrogen (fig. 4).
Comparisons with similar effects in the oxygen-fixing respiratory
mechanisms suggest that nitrogen and oxygen are alternative targets
for chemical reducing power that is transferred successively from
hydrogen to iron to flavin and then via cytochrome to capture oxygen
or molybdenum to capture nitrogen. Support for the view that mo-
lybdenum is a key link in the chain comes from experiments in which
particles from cells that do not fix nitrogen proved to contain very
little molybdenum.
Much work has been done on the mechanism of root nodule forma-
tion in clover, and similar studies have also been made in other types
of flowering plants. It is clear that the host plant derives the advan-
tage of the readymade products of nitrogen fixation and the micro-
organisms in turn get a supply of food that the plant makes during
photosynthesis, as well as a favorable environment for nitrogen
fixation.
Bergersen and his associates in Canberra have shown that the
rhizobia bacteria in the nodules of clover are enclosed in a double
layered membrane envelope. The bacteria are devoid of cell walls
and are termed bacteroids (fig. 5). They are bathed in a solution of
hemoglobin, which has a high affinity for oxygen, and this may provide
Ficure 5.—Rods and bacteroids from root nodules. A, rods from a white ineffective
nodule. B, bacteroids from a red ineffective nodule. C, rods from a green ineffective
nodule. D, various forms of bacteroids. (After Virtanen.)
HOW DO MICROBES “FIX” NITROGEN FROM THE AIR?—-NICHOLAS 457
a mechanism for preventing free oxygen from coming in direct contact
with the nitrogen-fixing system and competing with nitrogen for the
reducing power generated by the bacteroids. When the rhizobia are
cultivated outside the nodules they require nitrogen compounds for
growth, such as nitrate, ammonia, or amino acids, as they are unable
to fix nitrogen without the host plant. Nodules cut out or sliced soon
lose their capacity to utilize nitrogen gas.
There are two current theories of the mechanism of nitrogen fixation
in the nodules. The first is that fixation occurs in the membrane en-
velopes where the gas is activated and reduced to ammonia. Nitrogen
is envisaged as the ultimate acceptor of the reducing power which is
generated in the bacteroids and involves hemoglobin as a carrier. The
host plant supplies the carbon compounds which are partially oxidized
by the bacteroids and which then serve as a source of electrons for
the reduction of the activated nitrogen. The products of the incom-
plete oxidation of the substrates serve as acceptors of ammonia from
the fixation process which is needed for amino acid production in the
bacteroids. The acids then become available to the host plant. This
overall scheme is presented in figure 6. The second theory suggests
that hemoglobin itself is the site of nitrogen fixation in the nodule.
Future work will decide between these and other theories put forward
to explain the symbiotic system.
The products of fixation appear to be similar in the nodules of
leguminous plants as those already described for Azotobacter and
Clostridium, that is, ammonia is heavily labeled with nitrogen-15
followed by glutamic acid. An interesting difference, however, has
been found in alder nodules where the amino acid citrulline contained
more nitrogen-15 than did glutamic acid.
Nodulated plants of soybean were first shown by Evans and his
collaborators at Corvallis in Oregon to require minute amounts of
cobalt (0.1 microgram per liter of culture solution) when relying
solely on atmospheric nitrogen. Similar results were obtained subse-
quently with alder, Casuarina, and Myrica. A. vinelandii also requires
0.1 microgram of cobalt per liter of culture solution for nitrogen
fixation. Since the amount is so small it is unlikely that it functions
directly in nitrogen fixation but is probably required for the biosyn-
thesis of enzymes involved in the fixation process. Cobalt is incorpo-
rated into vitamin B,,. coenzymes in Azotobacter and in the root nod-
ules of some legumes and alder. In our laboratory at Long Ashton
we have found that (. pastewrianum also requires cobalt or vitamin
B,, for nitrogen fixation.
What of the future?
Over 70 percent of industrial ammonia is used in the fertilizer in-
dustry and at present production exceeds demand, not because there
is no pressing need for it but because the product is expensive. AlI-
458 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Carbon substrates
Partial oxidation
Red
Cytochromes
Host cytoplasm
Membrane envelope
Ficure 6—A diagram of a hypothesis for nodule nitrogen fixation. One nitrogen-fixing
unit is shown. Reducing power, generated in the bacteroids by partial oxidation of
carbon substrates supplied by the host plant, is passed along an electron transport
chain involving haemoglobin and is used for the ultimate reduction to NHsg of Ne
activated in the membrane envelopes. X=unknown steps between the bacteroid
metabolism and haemoglobin. Y=unknown steps between haemoglobin and the
ay of NH3. (F. J. Bergersen. Bacterial. Rev., vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 246-250.
1960.
though the synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers are making a valuable
contribution in various farming systems, the amounts employed are
still small in comparison with the total amounts of nitrogen concerned
in the world’s crop production. Cereal crops in Britain remove about
50 pounds of nitrogen from an acre of soil, and a similar amount is
present in about 1,000 gallons of milk; yet only 22 pounds of fertilizer
nitrogen is returned to the soil, and a substantial amount of this is lost
by bacterial denitrification or washed away by rain. As long as the
world’s population increases and arable land remains even at its pres-
ent acreage there will be rising demand for nitrogenous fertilizers;
unfortunately it is not economical to use them on a large scale in under-
developed countries where, of course, the need for protein for animal
and human consumption is greatest.
HOW DO MICROBES “FIX” NITROGEN FROM THE AIR?—NICHOLAS 459
Most of the world’s agricultural nitrogen is still supplied by soil
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pr
The Unity of Ecology’
By F. Fraser DARLING
Vice-President, The Conservation Foundation, New York, N.Y.
Ir Is RATHER extraordinary to be asked by educated people, what
is ecology ?—the more so, as economics is a word used by everyone and
the substitution of the letter “e” for the diphthong “c” disturbs no-
body. Both ecology and economics, so properly derived from the
Greek o7ios—the home, are concerned with the ordering of the habitat
and income and expenditure. Both sciences deal with communities
and are, at simplest, observational studies of communities. Economics
has tended to deal with income and expenditure symbolized in money,
and the most dangerous economists have been those who have mistaken
the symbol for the reality. There is now a refreshing trend to con-
sider wealth as availability of resources, often natural and renewable
and organic resources. The changes in the status of availability are
subtle, depending on history, growth and movements of populations,
and on technology. The resources themselves change in economic
status with changes in human needs and desires, emergencies and
fashions.
Ecology deals with income and expenditure in terms of energy cycles
in communities of plants and animals, deriving from sunlight, water,
carbon dioxide and the phenomenon of photosynthesis by which or-
ganic compounds are built. This raw definition is made more interest-
ing by what I would emphasize as the observational study of com-
munities of animals and plants. Here comes the possibility of that
more general definition of ecology as the science of organisms in rela-
tion to their total environment, and the interrelations of organisms
interspecifically and between themselves. The total environment in-
cludes all manner of physical factors such as climate, physiography
and soil, the stillness or movement of water and the salts borne in
solution. The interrelations of organisms and environment are in some
measure reciprocal in influence; in animal life it is becoming increas-
1 Presidential address delivered to Section D (Zoology) on August 29, 1963, at the
Aberdeen Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and re-
printed by permission from Advancement of Science, November 1963.
461
462 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
ingly clear that important environmental influences are operative in
what may be called psychological factors. Social behavior can be of
critical quality ecologically, and this field serves, perhaps, to show
how inadequate and imperfect as yet is our observation, especially of
interspecific social behavior apparent in a complex biological com-
munity which includes man. The ecologist tends ultimately to con-
sider man as a member of the indigenous fauna if man is a primitive
hunter-foodgatherer, or as an introduced species if he is buffering
himself against the environment by civilization, developed technology,
and an export trade in natural resources. But there is one outstanding
difference between man and the rest of creation ecologically. He isa
political animal and in our day and age it is quite unreal to ignore
the political nature of man as an ecological factor.
I am already giving the impression, perhaps, that there is such a
subject as human ecology, a matter which has called forth some tart
difference of opinion until very recently. For myself, there is no such
subject as human ecology; there is ecology only, which must accept
man as part of the field of reference; but man can have an ecological
outlook in studying his own problems, whatever they are—medical,
agricultural, or those of labor relations.
Haeckel coined the word oecology in 1869 and he had animals in
mind. There is something ironical in the speculation that so ecolog-
ically perceptive a man as Charles Darwin probably set back the
study of ecology for half a century because after 1859 the paleonto-
logical data concerning evolution had necessarily to be gathered.
Ecology as we knew it 50 years ago was a botanical science primarily,
handicapped by a certain restriction of vision associated with those
whose eyes are focused on the sward. The early literature of ecology
gravely neglected the influence of the biotic factor on vegetation;
indeed, it was not until 1932 that the British Ecological Society pub-
lished its second journal of Animal Ecology. Shelford was reacting
to animal ecology in his studies of succession in the first decade of
this century and his book on animal communities appeared in 1913,
the same year in which C. C. Adams published his Guide to Animal
Ecology.
Perhaps World War I explains the gap between 1913 and the early
twenties, when Charles Elton’s series of papers appeared, culminating
in his Animal Ecology of 1927, giving us the fundamental ecological
ideas of cyclicism in populations, food chains of varying complexity
between species, leading to the concept of what is now known as the
Eltonian pyramid, and the idea of animals filling néches in the func-
tions of conversion of matter. Charles Adams, to whom I have al-
ready referred, made a profound remark to the effect that ecology
was a study of process—process which is not necessarily progress,
although the developmental quality apparent in the slow building
THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY—DARLING 463
of biological communities was tacit in the phenomena of plant suc-
cessions elucidated by the Clementian school of ecologists in America.
Adams saw that the orderly thread of developmental succession could
easily be broken or influenced by all manner of factors, but there was
still the unbreakable thread of process or, in fact, history. There
is at present some reaction against the idea of orderly succession to
a climax state which is stable and continuing, because so many ex-
amples can be brought forward to show how natural phenomena such
as hurricane, fire, and frost-heave—each at certain moments of bio-
logical significance such as a seed year or not—can make nonsense
of orderly progression within the community under investigation.
But they do not make nonsense of the idea and the trend, and the plain
record of process of history brings us to a perspective of reality. It
is part of the thesis of this essay that man was able to civilize by
being a breaker of climaxes, giving him the stored wealth of the ages
in plants, animals, and soil fertility with which to buttress himself
against the environment and to enjoy the immense capacity for social
evolution provided by the new ability to be permanently gregarious.
The concept of the dynamic biological community took a long time
to mature—if we admit that it is even now much advanced beyond
adolescence. Its development shows all the signs of what most of us
detect some time or other in our personal investigations, inability
to see much more than what we are looking for, or seeing without
apprehending significance. Edward Forbes saw the concept of com-
munity clearly in his classic marine work of 1843-45, but his early
death robbed Scotland and ecology of a luminous mind. The plant
ecologists of the late 19th century, headed by Warming, made the
concept of community a cornerstone of a growing science, and Tansley’s
famous paper of 1920 codified it and gave it greater significance.
Tansley emphasized in this paper that conceptual arguments and
hypotheses must be firmly based on observation of the vegetation itself
and that one must constantly go back to the field. It was a necessary
admonition in that laboratory era. Tansley developed then the idea
of the community as a quasi-organism or organic entity, of the whole
being greater than the sum of its parts. He made comparisons of
plant communities with human communities, and remarked that lack-
ing psychical awareness, instinctive cooperation did not develop—only
symbioses of varying degrees—and that competition was the law of
relationship. It was later, in Vegetation of the British Islands, that
Tansley gave lengthy consideration to the biotic or animal factor in
the expression of communities, realizing for example that a landscape
of chalk downland, so old and English and accepted as natural, de-
pends completely on the continued grazing of sheep. The very habitat
of chalk grassland is man-produced by way of the sheep, yet it is
464 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
a habitat with well-defined floristic and entomological characteristics.
We see here an example of organic evolution aligning itself with the
long pursuance of human activity toward development of habitat.
We have much to learn in this field in Africa, one of the main cradles
of humanity, where man-produced habitats, such as savannah by the
agency of fire, have developed their own ungulate faunas. Time has
had its chance, unaffected by glaciation or major changes of climate.
Some of the shocks of human impact on biological communities
may have turned the Americans the more surely to study such organic
entities as inextricable webs of plants and animals; one of Shelford’s
pupils, W. C. Allee, expressed the notion of unconscious cooperation
in biological communities, a concept so much easier to elucidate from
studying plants and animals together. Some measure of the ‘psychic
awareness’ not obvious to Tansley in 1920 was now seen to be present
in the enlarged wholes of biological communities which we accept
nowadays. Allee’s unconscious cooperation was entirely scientific
and utterly removed from the wishful thinking or pious hopefulness
of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid. All the same, Allee brought warmth
and light into a field which had tended to be chillingly botanical.
But the strings of past philosophy trail round our feet, making
us conservative from a sense of prudence rather than reason. Judaic
monotheism put man and nature apart, an idea strengthened by Car-
tesian dualism of mind and matter. The older Dionysian intuition
of wholeness was heresy, and the ancient Chinese comprehension of
a universe of checks and balances and compensations, in which man
was essentially a part and no more, was unknown and unscientific
anyway. Hence, far into our own day, man was not a proper part of
the study of ecology. If you studied man you might have been an
anthropologist or an archeologist or a historian, but if you studied
ecology you dealt with nature as she was conceived to be and not with
man. The notion of human ecology was considered not to be schol-
arly, though such a man as Patrick Geddes had made most illuminating
contributions to the ecology of human life and had collaborated with
J. A. Thomson who held this rostrum so long. Also, there were sev-
eral people in manifestly defined fields such as geography, sociology,
epidemiology, and social anthropology, who were jumping on this
new bandwagon and calling their subjects human ecology. Ecologists
would have none of it. They were aware of the wide spread of their
subject and of their dependence on good taxonomy; there was some
suspicion already that an ecologist might be a jack of all trades and
master of none, and it was academic suicide to be an ecologist except
incidentally to an acknowledged position in botany or zoology. The
ultimate necessity of considering the biological community as a work-
ing whole, ecology being as it were the physiology of community, pro-
THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY—DARLING 465
duced crops of errors where good botanists were less good zoologists,
and good zoologists very inadequate botanists. In such an atmosphere
of the titter behind the hand, it was not easy to embrace man and his
possible ecology as well.
But for several reasons the intellectual climate is changing. The
archeologist has shown in recent years that protocivilization is several
thousand years older in the Old World than we had thought, and the
primitive Folsom Man in the New World was much earlier than the
accepted Quaternary immigration from northeast Asia. As we have
learned how man lived, what he ate, how his houses were built, and
what his devotional buildings signified, what movements he made,
we have been compelled to speculate on the influences man has had
on his environment through many thousands of years. Also, the dy-
namic world of this century, particularly of the past 20 years, has made
us intensely and often painfully aware of change in the landscape.
We have been rather roughly pitchforked into a world of democracy,
so-called; into a world of human population explosion, into a world
of mobility made possible by the invention of the internal combustion
engine and the exploitation of fossil fuels. Land use has changed
in character and so much more land has been used, often uncritically,
following earlier patterns in different climates. The immense plan-
etary buffer and reservoir of wilderness has shrunk in area and influ-
ence. Quite suddenly in these past 25 years and particularly since
the last war there has been a shaking of confidence. The all-conquer-
ing technological man whose mind had the same characteristics as the
bulldozers employed to grow groundnuts on a prodigious scale in Tan-
ganyika is already out of date, although the breed is highly inventive
and has in no way accepted defeat. There is apparent in politicians
an unsureness: they look longingly and hopefully at the extreme
technological man, but now it is perhaps as well to listen also to the
biologists, not merely the ones who overcome noxious insects with
magical rapidity, but ecologists as well.
What do ecologists offer? No panaceas or quick returns, so much
as a point of view which restrains, shows the consequences of different
types of action, and possibly how mistakes in land-use can be rectified ;
and why they were mistakes. Ecology is a science of identifying
causes and consequences.
Here, I think, is where we may consider the place of history: the
political situation and the changes brought about by individuals and
ideas are the stuff of history and it is difficult to find out what influ-
ence man was having on his environment and what accommodations
the organic world of nature was making. But it can be done to a
considerable extent if we will give time to it and reconsider history
in ecological terms for enrichment of our experience in making future
decisions.
466 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
I would like to take as an example at random, pulling out one
thread of English history, the course of sheep farming from Saxon
times until the latter end of the Middle Ages. England was once a
country of deep forest in the vales, with scrub on the chalk hills and
wolds. Neolithic man could tackle the scrub with his tools of stone
and bone, but not the forest. The Roman, better equipped, drove his
roads through everything, making islands in the sea of forest. The
Saxon came from forested lands, and working in his own ecological
fashion soon reduced the forest to islands in a sea of cultivated or
cleared land. The Saxon was a swineherd who undoubtedly valued
the pig’s snout in life as its hams after slaughter. Large numbers of
herded swine must have been effective implements in scarifying the
forest floor, disturbing or eradicating the pristine flora, influencing
the physicochemical state of the ground and preventing regeneration,
so that forest with undercover would decline and open woodland with
fewer and fewer standards would be left. The food-gathering, soil-
working pig may be looked upon as a pioneer when present in suf-
ficient numbers, creating conditions in which a sward of grass could
form in an increasingly parklike terrain. At this stage the sheep
could take over, living on the sward, maintaining it and quite surely
preventing the regeneration of woodland. The cattle grazing among
the sheep also helped in the establishment of permanent grassland and
were creating the possibility of fairly rapid conversion into arable
land when pressure of population demanded extension.
Historical research has revealed that England and parts of southern
Scotland were already important wool-producing country in Saxon
times. That was the main economic function of the sheep, to pro-
duce wool; mutton was welcome but incidental. Some of the wool
was used at home but it was an important item of export which al-
lowed importation of Continental luxuries and even goods from the
Levant. The great early development of medieval sheep farming did
but build on the existing Saxon foundation. England was the prin-
cipal European producer of fine wool. Italy, and later the Low Coun-
tries, were the large manufacturers of fine textiles. This interde-
pendence must have helped in the unification of the medieval world.
When England eventually produced her own fine cloth and cut down
her export trade in wool, she inevitably crystallized more sharply.
Italian bankers and merchants were prominent in the early trade and
the Church was a pioneer agent in the spread of sheep farming to new
areas. The Cistercian order particularly was responsible for extension
into the north and west, where flocks of several thousands were kept
by each foundation, such as Fountains and Rievaulx. Lords of the
manor and peasants were all in this golden age of English sheep
farming. The late Eileen Power gave a vivid impression in her Ox-
ford series of lectures entitled The Larly English Wool Trade. Reck-
THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY—DARLING 467
oning from the number of sacks exported and allowing for some being
used at home, there were probably 15 million sheep in England in the
early 14th century.
It has probably been insufficiently realized what effect this vast
sheep farming enterprise must have had on the landscape and wildlife.
Despite the patches of forest, the fringes of parklike country in
transition and gorse-clad commons, there must have been extensive
bald spots where open-field cultivation and sheep farming between
them would have destroyed all tree growth. The land of England
was being mined of its stored fertility, but in such a favored area do
we live that regeneration made good part of the loss in flora and fauna,
seen and unseen, and consequently that much of the lost fertility.
Now comes the political act with its ecological consequences: this
economically prosperous sheep farming era was wrecked by taxes in
wool and on wool. Edward III was on the warpath, and wars, as
we know all too well, are an expensive form of dissipation. The
lords of the manor began to let their ploughed lands, and later their
sheep also as going concerns. The rates of exploitation probably in-
creased as the small men came in and had to create their capital. But
the removal of the Wool Staple to Calais was the disintegrating blow.
A system of husbandry was pretty well at an end, and before long the
Reformation and the advent of American gold started a period of
enclosure of land. This enclosure undoubtedly made for stabilization
and a husbandry based on maintenance rather than pure extraction.
The 18th-century introduction of leguminous crop plants and the
more skilled application of the principle of rotation produced a con-
version cycle of energy fiow vastly in excess of that of the centuries
immediately preceding. Not all of it was translated into human in-
crease and economic prosperity. Hedges, hedgerow timber, increased
leisure (for the few) for such country pursuits as hunting and shoot-
ing, which needed a varied landscape, and not least the emergence of
the Romance poets in their delight in landscape, all contributed to
diversification of habitat which the wild flora and fauna were quick to
exploit in this favored climate.
The story in Scotland has been less happy. The more acidic soils
did not withstand the sheep farming as well as those in England, if
we exclude the millstone grits of the English Pennine Chain; the
Southern Uplands of Scotland are still in sheep, but are deteriorating
slowly. The Highlands, poorer and wetter and steeper, suffered their
hardest blow of deforestation and the coming of the sheep in the 18th
century, and have deteriorated to an ecological decrepitude which is
plain for those with eyes to see. The political situation is not yet
sufficiently ecological in climate to tackle this essentially biological
problem of rehabilitation in a biological and geographical manner, al-
though, as I said at the outset, it is improving.
766—746—65——37
468 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Let us now look at an older and larger pattern of animal domesti-
cation which has profoundly influenced the characteristics of flora
and fauna over a vast area of the land surface of the Old World. The
development of the highly specialized husbandry known as nomadism
is far from primitive, though because it shows so many examples of
arrested cultural growth we are apt so to consider it. Nomadic pas-
toralism is one of the surest means of breaking ecological climaxes.
It is an insidious means also. There is not the primary traumatic
onslaught of tree-felling, brush-grubbing, and ploughing that agri-
culture demands. Pastoralism is a penetration of terrain by a rela-
tively small number of human beings. The landscape is not altered
immediately and there are no considerable works of man evident to
the eye. But numbers of grazing animals and close treading place
selective pressures on the vegetational complex. Where fire is used,
selection is more rapid. In effect, the herbage complex is simplified,
and that means gaps in the original niche structure, with consequent
overall loss in biological efficiency of the community. Broadly, the
vegetation moves toward the xeric.
Nomadism postdates agriculture by an undetermined period running
to some thousands of years. The specialization is like that of the
seafaring man, no longer content to paddle about in the shallows with
primitive raft or formless dug-out canoe, who has built himself a
ship, beautiful in form because it is functional in crossing uncharted
seas of uncertain temper, and who has developed the skill to navigate
by the stars and sail the ship as if it were a live thing. Equally, the
nomad did not just walk out into the sea of the steppe which stretches
from the Crimea of Europe to the Yellow River of China: he was a
riverside dweller, a forest-edge dweller venturing no farther than his
domesticated animals could go and come in a day, or perhaps a little
farther in the season of rains. Domestication itself probably arose
on religious grounds, for the animals in sight, touchable and ready
for sacrifice, were the embodiment of that which was desired, life-
giving and life-enhancing. One of the characteristics of nomad stock
is the capacity to herd close, and to move and feed and rest as one, a
matter for selection conscious and unconscious, before man could go
forth with flocks and herds on to the ecean of the steppe.
The sheep is the mainstay of nomadism just as it is the mainstay
of the husbandry of wild lands today. The goat provides brains for
the most part. The multiplicity of mouths are wealth-gatherers ac-
tivated by four times as many superbly adapted legs and feet. Water
is needed in minimal quantities, and the animal itself provides man
with milk, meat, and warmth. But the nomad, interposing animals
between himself and the generally inhospitable environment of the
steppe, realized quite well that the several sorts of domesticated ani-
mals gave him different securities and desirable ends in an environ-
THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY—DARLING 469
ment not as uniform as our school geography books would lead us to
believe. Cattle are much more efficient converters, as individuals, of
forage into meat, milk, and leather, and they can be used for traction
and as weight carriers; but their heavy water requirements govern the
possible nomadic routes. The camel, on the other hand, gives the
nomad the greatest penetration or retreat into arid regions. Lastly,
the horse was of great benefit as a producer of meat, milk, and tractive
power. Domestication of these animals meant their presence where
and when they were wanted, their mental and even physical charac-
teristics so far modified that they did not move as quickly as wild ones.
In consequence, the animals were in general on the ground for a
longer period and in greater numbers than when they were wild. The
nomad society arising gradually from the more sedentary agricultural
group would early realize that overgrazing hung like a sword of
Damocles. The price of the life-way of grazing animals is move-
ment, the brand of Ishmael. In the ideal, agriculture is concentra-
tion of effort, or intensification: pastoralism is conscious, well-or-
ganized diffusion.
Yet man does not prefer constant or random movement. Even
the most highly developed nomads do not go far, no more than 150
or possibly 200 miles of farthest distance in the year, and relatively
long spells of pitched tents are desired. The women wish it so, caring
nothing for floristic composition of the grazing. At best the nomad
was on the chernozem soils of the Ukraine or in delectable valleys: at
worst in the wastes of the Gobi or the Tarim Depression. Nomadism
in its highest development did not occur until after 1500 B.C. and it
came with achievement of that maximum state of mobility, the mas-
tery of riding horses, as distinct from using this animal for traction.
Horse riding seems to have arisen on the plateau of northwest
Persia. If you have ever ridden a pony of stocky Prjewalski type you
will know the relief of getting off it for a rest: but once you have
ridden one of the delicately controllable, long-gaited creatures of
what we now call the Arab type, one’s whole outlook changes on the
mounted state. Man well mounted is a superior being, and the nomad
soon geared his way of life to that which gave the male element swift
and far range; even his eyes are a yard higher above the ground—no
mean advantage. We cannot know the details of the dominant muta-
tion which produced the dish-faced, long-necked, sloping-shouldered,
fine-boned “horse of heaven,” as it came to be called, but nomadic man
quickly made use of it. Even his status changed, producing the cheva-
lier, the caballero, and the knight, who were with us till the Land
Rover came and the girls took over the pony clubs.
Now came maximum exploitation of the steppe environment, not
only nomadism which, as I have said, is never over a very long dis-
tance, but in migration. The Indo-European tribes began their great
470 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
easterly migrations of thousands of miles through a thousand years, by
which time they reached the Ordos country of the Yellow River.
Within this time the civilizations of the Near East had learned the
survival value of cavalry, and the Chinese finally learned the same
lesson. They became an equestrian nation in all its elite grades.
Expeditions were sent into Turkestan to bring back these “horses of
heaven.” One of the Pazirik felts, so miraculously preserved in the ice
of an Indo-European grave since some hundreds of years B.C. in
Siberia, shows a gay cavalier with impeccable military moustache on
his Arab-type steed, meeting a seated man of Mongol type in Mongol
dress.
Even the bronze art of the Indo-European nomad traveled over
this whole region. These people knew their animals: just asa Navaho
Indian boy today does not need to look at a horse to draw it in any
posture, so the Indo-Europeans thought their animals—horses, cattle,
sheep, goats—in lifelike simple terms; yes, but wild animals were of
immense importance to them as well, whether ungulate or carnivore,
and the dramatic moment of the lion’s attack on the stag or antelope
is often captured in a stylized but dynamic bronze plaque. There
are the Scythian bronzes of the Kuban, the anima] bronzes of Luris-
tan, and at the eastern end the bronzes of the Ordos bend, which show
a remarkable sensitiveness to animal form. The involved twisting
stylized representation can be found also in the Celtic and Nordic
scrollwork in metal and stone on the Atlantic seaboard. Tamara
Talbot Rice has brought out this wide spread of nomad art in her
book on the Scythians.
The archeologists have produced much of this material for us and
set it in perspective, but zoologically they have not done so well. I
suggest that it is up to zoologists to examine it with care, so that elk are
not called stags, antelopes deer, or Urial sheep ibexes. The Saiga
antelope also appears in these bronzes, unrecognized as such, and
crested cranes seem of some significance. I myself have a complete
Luristan bit, the cheek pieces of which are representations of elk.
The use by the elk of the two posterior toes has been faithfully ob-
served by this bronze-caster of nearly 3,000 years ago. How did this
get into the Zagros Mountains? Had it come from the Caucasus?
I also have what must be one of the earliest surviving representations
of a peacock from Amlach in the Elburz country south of the Caspian.
Forgive my digression, but I hope this nomad animal art will be
examined in relation to possible distribution of species in the past and
to ecological history.
Once the Mongols became equestrian, the backward, westward surge
began, culminating in the empire of Genghis Khan which frightened
Europe and conquered China for a spell until Kublai was himself
THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY—DARLING A471
conquered by Chinese culture. So many of the remaining nomads
of Central Asia are Mongoloid, even as far west as Kazakstan, but
the Indo-Europeans also survive in pockets as far east as northern
Afghanistan. By the end of the Mongol Yuan dynasty it is esti-
mated that the human population of China had been reduced by 40
millions, which in itself must have had interesting ecological conse-
quences for a generation or two.
The original fauna of this great region of the steppe survives in
the mountain ranges, and the Saiga antelope is back on the plains in
millions thanks to an enlightened policy of conservation by the Rus-
sians. But how long can nomadism survive? The brand of Ishmael
produces this highly specialized form of society which in effect finds
itself in a cultural cul-de-sac unable to evolve, whereas the less spe-
cialized and once handicapped societies at the edge of the steppe did
evolve into the civilizations of today. Political feeling is against
nomadism and the biological necessity of movement in pastoral
nomadism if the habitat is to be conserved, is ignored. If there can be
irrigation of the steppe, the obvious access of foods and fibers thus
made possible means the nomads must change or go, and going is no
longer possible in our contracting world. Farming nibbles at the
alluvial river flats and the bore hole brings up fossil water also and
cripples the wholeness of the habitat for the nomad. The Russians
seem definitely to be eliminating nomadism, and such western nations
as have any seem to be doing the same thing. Individual Britons
have admired nomads and their way of life, but collectively or
politically Britain is depressing nomadism: the Masai of the semiarid
East African steppe are being eased out of their culture of arrested
development in favor of Kikuyu and Sukumba, rapidly increasing
tribes under the Pax Britannica, which were formerly despised and
harried by the nomads. The reindeer Lapps are also finding their
winter grounds falling within the agricultural penumbra and there is
the social urge toward education, which tends to make the winter com-
munities static. Nomadism will die, at the expense of sterilizing large
areas of back country which only nomads could utilize, as far as do-
mesticated livestock is concerned. Whether in the future we may
return to controlled cropping of wild animals on wild lands unfitted
to human settlement remains to be seen, but despite the tentative
experimentation in Africa and the successful Russian work on the
Saiga antelope, I have the feeling that man is still going to degrade
much good wildlife country in an effort to farm it, before it is fully
realized that the nature of such country in its water relations and soil
characteristics precludes agriculture. There is some false moral self-
delusion which makes modern governments try and fail rather than
consider the wholeness of land-use ecology before formulating a land-
use plan.
472 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
The mention of the pastoralism of wild lands by wild animals
brings me back to a form of nomadism in the New World which has
several points of interesting comparison with the early development
of specialized nomadism in the Old World through use of the horse.
We may take it for granted that the late flowering of civilization in
the Americas was the result of having fewer and less convenient
domesticable plants, especially cereals, and certainly fewer and less
convenient domesticable animals. At the more primitive level, the
North American Indians were forest and forest-edge and river-valley
people. Their beast of burden was the dog, sometimes dragging a
travois—a sorry means indeed. They too were near a great central
steppe of prairie where the wild bison conducted its own seasonal
movements which took it away from the haunts of men. Hunting of
this animal meant enticement to newly burned grazing, and stalking
which even included wearing a bison mask—a most unenviable
method. Nevertheless, it would seem that from about the 16th century
man was increasing the range of the bison by burning at the forest
edge.
The advent of the horse by way of Mexico and the Rio Grande far
into the Southwest was a major liberation for the American Indian.
Horses were stolen or went feral and the terrain was that dry steppe
phenologically perfect for this animal. Here man did not need to
wait for the mutation which produced the “horses of heaven,” for it
was the less carefully bred examples of this type which so rapidly
colonized the American steppe. The Spaniards lost their advantage
when the horse went feral and spread northward and came into the
hands of the Indians, who immediately rode.
There now occurred that specialization toward nomadism. The
Indian could leave the forest edge and follow the bison. Thus, from
the beginning of the 17th century until the middle of the 19th there
was a strong man-induced extension of the bison’s range and there
was a rapid specialization by certain tribes to become horse nomads,
in effect pastoralizing the wild bison instead of domesticated stock.
Agriculture was minimal, carried on by the women, for the water
situation was generally easier than in the Old World steppe.
This situation could have gone on indefinitely as a biological con-
tinuum, for the wild animal prevented overgrazing by its migratory
habits, and the enlargement of bison-inhabited country by Indian
fire seems merely to have been an enlargement of soil conserving
prairie grassland rather than extension of less biologically productive
savannah such as we see today in South America and Africa. It was
the white man overrunning the West with domesticated stock, pack-
ing it and going away with the proceeds that devastated millions of
acres at a much faster rate than the Old World nomads reduced the
productive potential of the Asian steppe with close-herded domesti-
THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY—DARLING 473
cated animals. Just as the Ukraine country of the Scythians came
ultimately to wheat, so did the Middle West prairie become a bread
basket. The Indians of the Middle West have gone the way of the
Scythians.
We will not pause to consider the 19th-century calamity that befell
the bison and the Indian, but what must be pointed out is that the
sudden disintegration of this nomadism imposed by the wanderings
of the bison, hit hardest those tribes which had specialized most
in this way of life. Even today the observer can see that the horse
tribes have come off worst in social and economic adaptation. The
tribes which remained in the forest or at the forest edge are now woods-
men and construction men; the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande
valley may be anything that the white man is, because of their urban
tradition ; but the horse tribes who accepted the exhilaration of liberty
of distance and became what we have come to call Plains Indians,
have found themselves in the deepest bondage of the drastically
changed economic base. Now, as pastoralists, they are finding move-
ment cut down, and yet a dawning ecology of land use is demonstrat-
ing the old truth, that the pastoralism of wild lands imposes movement
of the animals. There is the continuing paradox of political ten-
dencies to restrain the movement of people on wild lands, and scientific
evidence that animals on wild lands must be kept moving. Only wild
animals conduct this aspect of their lives without human direction,
and on this shrinking planet of exploding humanity even the wild
animals are having their necessary movements constricted. The threat
to the elephant in Africa is not the killing that goes on but the merci-
less restriction of range and movement. Without the movement,
habitat is destroyed and other species of wild animals suffer in train.
A dramatic example of this trend has been the build-up of elephants
in the sanctuary of the Tsavo Royal National Park in Kenya. De-
struction of trees and bush by the elephants endangered the food
supply of the rhinoceros, so that a period of long drought made this
painfully apparent in the starvation of over 200 rhinoceroses. They
were not short of water themselves, for the river never dried, but
they died with their bellies full of indigestible cellulose fiber. I saw
some of these creatures die and helped in the post-mortem examina-
tions. I saw the wreck bush which would not even become a fire-
climax savannah. I did not put the blame on the elephants.
I began this address with the statement that ecology was the obser-
vational study of communities of living things in time as well as space,
and I repeated Charles Adams’s dictum that it was essentially con-
cerned with process. I have allowed myself to range about the world
seeing man, plant communities, the communities of his own domesti-
cated animals and some wild animals in dynamic process through
474. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
some thousands of years of man’s most fertile years of culture, and you
may agree with me that in any synecological studies it is difficult to
exclude man or to be a plant or an animal ecologist. There is only one
ecology. If we are to follow an ecological approach to the study of
society—be it historical, sociological, agricultural, anthropological, or
economic—we must keep in mind that man’s habitat and human so-
cieties are not static. The cross section presented by a socioanthro-
pological study needs amplification in time. Cultures are altering
continually, progressing or retrogressing, and these trends, though
subject inexorably to natural laws, are also the results of human be-
havior. Such action may have been unseeing of consequences in the
past, but if ecology is to concern itself with human influences, and
take its place at the council table of human affairs, it should accept
the premise that our species has in many parts of the world arrived
at the stage of mental evolution at which it is possible to foresee the
consequences of various kinds of direct and indirect modifications of
habitats and their biological communities. The well-being of the
habitats and the human communities therein can be influenced and
sustained by understanding the interrelationship of the biological
communities in which we coexist.
I have put forward the thesis that man has been able to enjoy
gregariousness and civilize as a result of learning how to tap the stored
wealth of ecological climaxes—soil fertility, timber and other plants,
and animals. His agriculture of annual or biennial plants sets back
ecological succession and demands a high skill to maintain fertility;
the general history of animal exploitation is of over-use. Are we faced
with the proposition that civilization is a contradiction in terms; that
civilization carries its own seeds of decay because ecologically retro-
gressive processes once begun cannot be checked? I believe there is
some danger of this, but there need not be in an ecologically conscious
world. The suffering planet has immense power of natural rehabilita-
tion if given its chance and we are also learning how these wonderful
integrated processes of healing take place. As I said earlier, ecology
is the physiology of community. Understanding it we can avoid
undesirable consequences. Perhaps it is necessary to say that I am
not crying “back to nature”; our growing understanding of the
physiology of community gives power of planned manipulation, find-
ing other ways round to desired ends. The history of the Nature Con-
servancy in this country is a vivid example of men learning how to
manage biological communities in a manner simulating the natural.
Man often reminds me of the Irish elk in that the elk’s antlers could
develop nonadaptatively in evolution as a byproduct of increase in body
size, what Julian Huxley calls heterogonic growth. The enormous
drain on the organism of growing so much nonfunctional calcium
phosphate every year was too much once the prodigality of the
THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY—DARLING 475
Pleistocene had passed. Well, man conjures from his mind ways of
using resources unproductively, be it pyramid building in Egypt,
temple building and human sacrifice in Mexico, and now defense and
nationalism. Nationalism is the modern Irish Elkism. In a world
where the only hope for man is internationalism, nationalism is the
political ecological factor which prevents any constructive action to
curb population increase. And withal, we are faced with the ironic
paradox of splintering nationalism and pseudo-national costumes,
with the dismal destruction of individuality inside them, which varia-
bility is as desirable in the social system as in the eco-system. Further-
more, I believe that the pressure of population on land is presenting us
with an emergency earlier than the problem of growing enough food
for the increase. Mobility by way of the internal combustion engine,
vastly increased leisure by way of automation, and sophisticated modes
of outdoor recreation are changing the land-use pattern far quicker
than we are learning how to cope withit. Fifteen years ago the excuse
of increased food production was enough to get rid of hedgerow trees
in England; but at this moment the amenity value of such trees in such
a populous country, needing the balm of the green leaf, far outweighs
the small increase of food production which might accrue from their
removal. The picture in the United States is of food surpluses but
a very real shortage of recreational land. An Outdoor Recreation
Bureau has been established as a department of government to help
in planning the solution of this very considerable problem of land-use
ecology in its widest sense, and I am glad to say ecologists have been
brought in at the beginning.
It would be fantastic, nevertheless, to make the mistake now of so
expanding the scope of ecology that it would become all-embracing,
so that the ecologist would bog down in a morass of his own ignorance,
and become the supreme irritating busybody. That, I think, was
feared by those who years ago wished to exclude man from their studies
and would not admit human ecology. Neither doI; there isno human
ecology—only ecology—but in those sciences dealing with man, from
political economy to social anthropology and archeology, there is
plenty of room for the ecological slant of mind. As a corollary, I
think that ecological research must become more and more the effort of
teams of workers; the single worker will continue to discover beautiful
expressions of phenomena, but the synecological studies in depth of
habitats and communities which we need today demand far more
than what one man can compass. Ecological studies are not designed
ad hoc to solve land-use problems but to discover truth, and this high
scientific approach must be jealously guarded, but thereafter ecologists
can have a social conscience and apply their discoveries to the problems
of land-use by man. The teams I envisage are not collections of
476 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
specialists, if they are to be successful, but, to borrow Tansley’s
expression, organic entities.
REFERENCES
ADAMS, C. C.
1913. Guide to the study of animal ecology. New York.
ALLEE, W. C.
1931. Animal aggregations. Chicago.
CREEL, H. G.
1937. Thebirth of China. Chicago.
DARLING, F. FRASER.
1955. West Highland survey. Oxford.
1956. Man’s ecological dominance through domesticated animals on wild
lands, pp. 778-87 in Man’s role in changing the face of the Earth
(ed. Thomas). Chicago.
ELTON, C.
1927. Animalecology. London.
FORBES, EH.
1848. Report on the molluscs and Radiata of the Aegean Sea, and on their
distribution considered as bearing on geology. Report Brit. Assoc.
Ady. Sci., vol. 13, pp. 130-93.
Forp, C. DARYLL.
1934. Habitat, economy and society. London.
LATTIMORE, O.
1951. Inner Asian frontiers of China. New York.
POWER, EILEEN.
1941. The wool tradein English medieval history. Oxford.
SHELFORD, V. E.
1918. Animal communities in Temperate America. Bull. Geogr. Soe.
Chicago, vol. 5, pp. 1-368.
Tatpot Ricer, T.
1957. TheSeythians. London.
TANSLEY, A. G.
1920. The classification of vegetation and the concept of development.
Journ. Ecology, vol. 8, pp. 118-49.
1939. The British Islands and their vegetation. Cambridge.
THOMPSON, J. A., and GEDDES, P.
1931. Life: outlines of general biology. London.
TOYNBEER, A. J.
1934. A study of history. Oxford.
WARMING, J. E. B.
1909. Oecology of plants (trans. from Danish of 1895). Oxford.
WISSMAN, H. von.
1956. On the role of nature and man in changing the face of the Dry Belt
of Asia, pp. 278-803 in Man’s role in changing the face of the Earth
(ed. Thomas). Chicago.
Venomous Animals and Their Toxins
By Finpiay E. RussELn
Director, Laboratory of Neurological Research, School of Medicine
Loma Linda University, Los Angeles, Calif.
[With 2 plates]
VENOMOUS ANIMALS are found in every phylum except the birds.
While it would be difficult to propose a figure for the number of species
of venomous animals, because we do not as yet know about the possible
venomousness of a score of arthropods and fishes, we do have some
idea of the approximate number of poisonous species in most of the
phyla. Of the 2,500 or so species of snakes found throughout the
world, only about 250 are dangerous toman. Table 1 gives the names
of some of the more important venomous snakes of the world, their
adult average lengths, the approximate amount of dried venom con-
tained within the venom glands of adult specimens, and the intra-
peritoneal and intravenous LD,;, (the dose required to kill 50 percent
of the test animals of a given group), expressed in milligrams per
kilogram (mg./kg.) weight of test animal.
In the marine animals there are many venomous forms; at least 200
species of marine animals and freshwater fishes are known to be
venomous or poisonous. Table 2 gives the names of a few venomous
aquatic animals. The lethal doses for the marine toxins vary con-
siderably. The geographer cone, Conus geographus, has an LD5o of
less than 5 micrograms per kilogram; the venom of the round stingray,
Urolophus halleri, has an LD;) of approximately 25 mg./kg. while the
LD;» for the toxin of certain catfishes is of the order of 200 mg./kg.
Among the arthropods at least 700 species are known to be venomous.
These include the black widow spider (Zatrodectus) , funnel web spider
(Atrax robustus), the spiders Lycosa raptoria and Phoneutria fera,
the scorpions, particularly Centruroides sculpturatus, Tityus bahien-
sis, and 7’. serrulatus, the bees, wasps, hornets, certain centipedes,
millipedes, caterpillars, moths, ticks, beetles, and ants. Even among
the mammals there are several venomous forms, the platypus and sev-
eral of the shrews.
1Printed by permission from The Times Science Review (London), Autumn 1963.
477
478 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
TABLE 1.—Some venomous snakes of the world
Yield Intra- Intrave-
Snake Length venom | peritoneal | nous LD:
adult (cm.) (mg.) LDso 3 (mg./kg.)
(mg./kg.)
Europe:
Viper (Vipera):
Common viper (V. berus)_------ 54-60 6 0. 80 0. 55
North America:
Rattlesnake (Crotalus) :
Eastern diamond (C. adaman-
HATE) Wa Se ese a es Paap ee a ys See ' 80-210 | 410 1. 89 1. 68
Western diamond (C. atrox)____- 74-175 230 3. 71 4, 20
Moccasin (Agkistrodon):
Cottonmouth (A. piscivorus) _ __- 65-135 125 A, TL 4. 00
Copperhead (A. contortrix)_____- 55-115 52 10. 50 10. 92
Coral (Micrurus):
Coral snake (M. fulvius)_._____- 50-70 2 5 OF, vee, Bee
South America:
Rattlesnake (Crotalus):
Tropical rattlesnake (C. durissus
Herrrjieus) ite MM eS. Tip Fe 50-148 35 «SO? |= af PERE
New World pit vipers (Bothrops)
Fer-de-lance (B. atror)____------ 125-175 80 3. 80 4, 27
Bushmaster (Lachesis):
Common bushmaster (Z. muta)__| 175-270 | 411 5. 93
Australia:
Tiger snake (Notechis scutatus)__---- 95-150 25 SOA oe ee eee
Asia:
Cobra (Naja):
Indian cobra (N. naja)_--------- 120-160 | 220 . 40 . 40
Viper (Vipera):
Russell’s viper (V. russelli) ____-- 90-125 130) jpteke 2s . 82
Krait (Bungarus):
Common krait (B. caeruleus) - --- 88-120 i iy es eer anes . 09
Africa:
Viper (Vipera):
Puff adder (Bitis arietans) ___-_-- 100-145 130 OOS" See. are
Mamba, (Dendroaspis) :
Green mamba (D. angustriceps)__| 225-285 SO) esses 2 . 45
® Dose required to kill 50 percent of the test animals of a given group.
TABLE 2.—Some venomous aquatic animals of the world
Coelenterata :
Fire coral (Millepora alcicornis)
Portuguese man-o’-war (Physalia physalis)
Sea nettle (Dactylomecira quinquecirrha)
Certain sea anemones
Mollusca :
Geographer cone (Conus geographus), textile cone (Conus textile)
Common octopus (Octopus vulgaris)
VENOMOUS ANIMALS AND THEIR TOXINS—RUSSELL 479
TABLE 2.—Some venomous aquatic animals of the world—Continued
Echinodermata:
Sea urchins, Diadma setosum and Tozopneustes pileolus
Fishes:
Stingrays, all species, particularly Urolophus halleri
Scorpionfishes, all species, particularly the stonefish Synanceja horrida and
the lionfish Pterois volitans
Toadfiskes (Barchatus), surgeonfishes (Acanthurus), stargazers (Uranos-
copus), weeverfishes (Zrachinus), certain catfishes (Plotosus, Galeich-
thys)
FOLKLORE AND FACT
Few areas of biology have stimulated the minds and superstitions of
man more than venomology. In early times the consequences of the
bites or stings of venomous animals were often attributed to forces
beyond nature, sometimes to vengeful deities thought to be embodied
in the animals. To these peoples the effects of venoms were so sur-
prising and varied, so violent and sometimes incapacitating, that these
substances were always shrouded with much myth and superstition.
Even today considerable folklore concerning venoms still exists, par-
ticularly about methods of treating the injuries inflicted by venomous
animals. During the past decade, however, a considerable amount of
Inowledge on the chemical and zootoxicological properties of venoms
and plant poisons has been gained and one can now propose a few
general considerations.
Venoms are complex mixtures, chiefly proteins, many of which are
enzymes. Studies to the present time indicate that in those toxins
rich in enzymes, such as snake venoms, much of the lethal and more
deleterious biological properties appears to be more closely related to
the nonenzymatic protein portions of the venom than to the enzymes
and enzymatic combinations, although these latter substances certainly
contribute to the overall toxicity of the venom. The effects of the
separate and combined activities of these substances, and of the metab-
olites formed by their interactions, is complicated by the response
of the envenomated organism, which may itself produce and/or release
substances such as adenosine, bradykinin and histamine, which may
not only complicate the poisoning but also may in themselves pro-
duce more serious consequences than the venom. The toxin of the
bee, for example, is relatively nonlethal. It takes more than 150
simultaneous bee stings to kill the adult human; however, persons
sensitive to bee venom may die from a single sting, the result of auto-
pharmacologic changes.
The venoms of snakes are the most complex of all the mixtures of
the animal toxins. They contain many enzymes, some of which, such
as the proteases, phosphomonoesterase, phosphodiesterase, L-amino
acid oxidase, 5-nucleotidase, cholinesterase, ribonuclease, desoxyribo-
480 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
nuclease, ATPase, DNPase, and hyaluronidase are being used by the
biochemist, pharmacologist, and physician. However, these enzymes
are not present in all snake venom. In general, Elapidae venoms are
rich in cholinesterase and phosphotidase and poor in ATPase. Cro-
talidae venoms contain large amounts of hyaluronidase, phosphodies-
terase, ribonuclease, and desoxyribonuclease, but little or no cholines-
terase. There are species from both families that do not contain
L-amino acid oxidase, even though this enzyme has been identified in
the venoms of more than 55 species of venomous snakes. While there
tends to be a relationship between enzymatic content and the genus of
snake, it is not always possible to predict the enzymes present in the
venom from data on closely related genera or even species. Not only
do different species of the same genus contain different enzymes—or,
as in some cases, different amounts of the same enzyme—but even
snakes of the same species at different times of the year or under
different environmental conditions may exhibit considerable variation
in the enzymatic composition of their venoms. Such variations have
little relation to the lethality of the whole venom.
A number of nonenzymatic proteins have been separated from snake
venoms, and these appear to be considerably more lethal and in many
ways more deleterious than the enzymes. These proteins also differ in
number and molecular weight in the venoms of the three families of
snakes so far examined. The first of these proteins was isolated from
the venom of the tropical rattlesnake, Crotalus terrificus terrificus by
K. Slotta and H. Fraenkel-Conrat in 1938. The fraction was called
“crotoxin” and contained, in addition to the toxic nonenzymatic pro-
tein, several enzymes. It was given the tentative formula C,.30Hiz76-
OuzeNgesSz63 1t had a molecular weight of 30,000 and was said to be ap-
proximately 15 times more lethal than the crude venom. Some years
later, J. M. Goncalves obtained three fractions from the same venom,
all having specific biological activity: (1) “crotamine,” with a molecu-
lar weight of 10,000 to 15,000; (2) “proteolytic enzyme”; and (3) “neu-
rotoxin,” which corresponded to crotoxin in its biological properties.
Since the work of these investigators a number of chemical studies have
been carried out on the nonenzymatic portion of snake venoms, and
studies to date indicate that there may be no less than 6 and perhaps
as many as 15 nonenzymatic proteins in most reptile toxins. Some of
these fractions, such as “crotactin” and “crotamine,” have been identi-
fied with specific biological activities; others appear to have several
biological activities, while for still others we have not yet found the use
to which their properties have been designed.
The composition of the venoms of marine animals varies consider-
ably. Some coelenterate venoms contain: (1) several quaternary
ammonium compounds, the most toxic of which is tetramethyl am-
monium hydroxide or “tetramine”; (2) 5-hydroxytryptamine; (3)
VENOMOUS ANIMALS AND THEIR TOXINS—RUSSELL 481
histamine and histamine releasers; and (4) several proteins whose
composition has not yet been determined, although there is a likelihood
of one or several of these toxic proteins being peptides.
Studies on the chemistry of fish venoms have been limited by several
factors. In many fishes there is no true venom gland; rather the venom
is produced in certain highly specialized secretory cells which le in
dermal tissues that are not otherwise toxic. These cells are shown in
figure1. Unlike the snake venoms, which retain their zootoxicological
properties even after 20 or 30 years, the fish venoms are extremely
unstable, most of them losing their biological activity on standing for
an hour at room temperature. In general, fish venoms are composed
of 8 to 10 proteins and have little or no enzymatic activity. They are
very unstable when heated and most of the toxic fraction is nondia-
lyzable. On electrophoresis one to five fractions can be identified,
only one or two of which appear to have biological activities that are
deleterious.?
The venoms of some species of ants contain formic acid—which is
very simple chemically—while others contain a toxin so complex by
contrast, as “dendrolasin” C,;H,.O, 8 (4:8-dimethylnona-3, 7-dieny1)
furan. Bee and wasp venoms are very complex mixtures containing a
protein hydrochloride called “mellitin” and a number of other sub-
stances including at least seven enzymes as well as 5-hydroxytrypta-
mine, kinin, and histamine. The venom of Latrodectus contains at
least 12 aminoacids. As most spider venoms, it is rich in glutamic acid
and A-aminobutyric acid. Six protein fractions have been separated
by paper and column electrophoresis, and most of the toxic activity is
found in one of them. The venom has spreading activity but no
haemolytic activity and does not appear to inactivate cholinesterase.
The LD;, for Latrodectus mactans venom is 0.550 mg./kg. test animal
body weight.
The effects of venoms on the various organ systems of mammals
and certain arthropods are quite well known. In spite of this, however,
and at the present stage of our knowledge, it seems wise to avoid the
arbitrary division of venoms into such groups as “neurotoxins, haemo-
toxins, cardiotoxins,” ete., for while these classifications do serve some
useful purpose, they have led to much misunderstanding and certainly
to a number of errors in clinical judgment. It has become increasingly
apparent from chemical and physiopharmacological studies that these
divisions are oversimplified and misleading. Neurotoxins can, and
often do, have cardiotoxic or haemotoxic activity, or both; cardiotoxins
may have neurotoxic or haemotoxic activity, or both, and haemotoxins
2D. B. Carlisle has demonstrated that some 60 percent of the dry weight of the venom
of the weeverfish appears to consist of toxic mucosubstances, which can be separated
into two albumins and an amino polysaccharide, although in the crude venom they are
probably associated in a single complex mucosubstance. He has suggested that the 5-
hydroxytryptamine contributes to the pain-producing property of the venom.
482 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
may have the other activities. Until the fractions responsible for the
deleterious effects of venoms has been isolated and studied individually,
and in combination, one must consider all venoms as substances capable
of producing several changes, sometimes concomitantly, in one or more
of the organ systems.
THE ANIMAL’S SIDE
Most data on the zootoxicological properties of venoms are based
on our studies on mammals, which, of course, makes them of limited
usefulness for understanding the design of some of the toxins in the
animals’ armament. The venom of Latrodectus, for instance, did not
evolve and adapt to the problems existing between that spider and the
mammals. Thus, it is not surprising to find that its venom is 20 times
less lethal to some insects than it is to the mouse, while on the other
hand it is also 10 times more lethal to certain other insects, which have
not adapted in the same manner. Some sharks appear to be relatively
immune to stingray venom while others from completely different
habitats are very sensitive to this toxin. The California mountain king
snake is highly immune to the venom of the Southern Pacific rattle-
snake. A dose which would make a man dangerously ill, or may even
kill him, has no observable effect on the king snake. The remarkable
thing is that this venom, which produces such necrotic lesions in mam-
mals, fails to produce even the slightest necrotic wound in the king
snake. Thus, care must be exercised in applying data derived from
studies in one group of animals to conclusions about the biological
effects of a venom in another group of animals, or to data on the design,
use, and adaptation of the venom (pl. 1, fig. 1).
Perhaps some considerations for classification might be proposed on
the basis of the use to which the animal puts its toxin. Most venom
delivered from the head, or more generally from the oral pole, of the
animal is used during an offensive act, as in the gaining of food. This
is particularly evident in the snakes and only slightly less so in the
spiders. The venoms of these animals tend to have a higher enzymatic
content than those delivered from the anal end, i.e., from the aboral
pole of the abdomen, as those of the scorpions and bees. However,
both of these groups use their toxins as part of their offensive arma-
ment; whereas the toxins of most venomous fishes and the poisons of
certain amphibians, which are derived from dermal tissues, are used
in the defensive armament. These latter toxins contain few or no
enzymatic constituents. The snake uses its venom to immobilize
or kill its prey, and to aid in its digestion. The prey is incapacitated
by the toxin so that it becomes unnecessary for the snake to hold it
after envenomation, thereby avoiding the possibility of being bitten.
In most instances the venom kills the animal so quickly that it rarely
has time to stumble more than a few feet from where it has been struck.
VENOMOUS ANIMALS AND THEIR TOXINS—RUSSELL 483
Ficure 1.—The sting of the stingray showing (a) the spine; (b) a cross section through the
middle of (a) at AB; (c) an enlargement of a ventrolateral groove, drawn from the
area marked CD in (b). The large venom-producing cells are below the surface of the
sheath.
We have some evidence on which to speculate that it would be to the
snake’s advantage not to kill its prey immediately on envenomation.
It would seem that if the enzymatic components of the venom were
to serve their best use they should be circulated, so far as possible,
throughout the prey’s body immediately prior to its death. The fact
is that mice sacrificed and injected with the venom show less evidence
of tissue autolysis than those killed by the venom within a minute of
the poisoning. While snake venoms serve an important digestive
function they do not appear to be absolutely necessary for this function.
With these several considerations in mind some insight into the
physiopharmacological or zootoxicological properties of venoms is
484 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
obtained. Cvotalus venom, for instance, causes deleterious changes
in the tissues at the area of envenomation, changes in the red blood
cells, defects in coagulation, injury to the linings of vessels and to a
lesser extent damage to the heart muscle, kidneys, and lungs. While
most of the North American Crota/us venoms produce relatively minor
changes in transmission at the neuromuscular junction, the venoms
of the South American species produce marked changes in nerve con-
duction and neuromuscular transmission. When Crotalus venom is
injected intravenously there is an immediate precipitous fall in sys-
tematic arterial pressure with concomitant changes in venous and
cisternal pressures, heart rate, and respiration. These changes are
thought to be due principally to changes in the resistances of the pul-
monary circulatory parameters, and to some extent changes in the
cardiac cycle.
EVIDENCE OF USE
The black widow spider (fig. 2 and pl. 1, fig. 2) uses its venom to
paralyze or subdue its foe and to a lesser extent to assist in digestive
functions. The amount of the several enzymes in this venom is not
sufficient to have any serious effect on man or most other mammals but
they certainly play a part in the breakdown of the tissues of the
spider’s prey. In mammals, the venom induces a mild arterial hyper-
Ficure 2.—Black widow spider and egg sac in web.
VENOMOUS ANIMALS AND THEIR TOXINS—RUSSELL 485
tension; it produces bronchial spasms and changes at the neuromuscu-
lar junction. Plate 2, fig. 1,shows the tarantula.
The venoms of some scorpions paralyze; they are among the most
effective of the neuromuscular blocking toxins. The venoms of some
of the parastic wasps are also potent nerve-muscie blocking agents.
‘They are capable of paralyzing the junction in the body muscle masses
of their host while having no eifect on visceral musculature; the heart
of the paralyzed host may beat for many weeks. The toxicity of
some of these venoms is comparable with that of the bacterial toxins.
Beard has estimated that 1 part of bracon hebetor venom in 200 million
parts of the host’s blood is sufficient to produce paralysis in a late instar
larva.
All of the fish venoms studied to date are known to be used by
venomous fishes in their defense, particularly against those animals
which feed upon them. On the basis of our findings in man it is
assumed that fish venoms are capable of producing a similar degree
of excruciating pain in other animals. i have injected small doses
of a number of diferent venoms into myself and have found none quite
as painful as those of the stingray and scorpion fishes. A pain-
producing substance in the venom of the stingray, and other such
venomous fishes (pl. 2, fig. 2), would appear to be a great asset to
those fishes in their defensive armament.
There seems little doubt that the “convulsions” seen following
stringray injuries, as reported by some of the early writers, were prob-
ably no more than reactions of hyperactivity provoked by the painful
efiects of the venom, rather than responses due to the direct effects
of the venom on the central nervous system. This venom does not
appear to elicit specific changes in the central nervous system except
as secondary effects of cardiovascular changes. Stingray venom, and
the toxins of many poisonous fishes, have a direct effect on the pace-
maker of the heart, as well as on several other parameters of the car-
diovascular system. Both smali and large doses of this venom
produce a hypotensive crisis in mammals. Small amounts of the
venom appear to cause peripheral vasodilation while large amounts
cause vasoconstriction. The venoms of the stingrays and weeverfishes
(pl. 2, fig. 2) do not appear to have any effect on neuromuscular
transmission.
Snake-venom poisoning constitutes a serious medical problem in
some areas of the world. In Asia, excluding China, a few years ago
approximately 30,000 deaths from snakebites were reported annually.
Most of these deaths were due to bites by the cobras Vaja naja and
Ophiophagus hannah, the kraits Bungarus candidus and B. fasciatus,
and the vipers Vipera russelli and /'chis carinatus. In Africa as many
as 1,000 deaths a year may be attributed to snakebite. Most of these
deaths are due to bites by the adders Bitis arietans and Causus rhom-
766-746—653——38
486 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
beatus, the cobras Naja flava, N. haje, Sepedon haemachates, N. nigri-
collis, and N. melanoleuca, and the mambas Dendroaspis angusticeps,
D. jamesoni, and D. viridis. In South America approximately 3,000
deaths from snakebite are reported annually, most of which are caused
by the tropical rattlesnake Crotalus durissus terrificus, the fer-de-lance
Bothrops atrox and related species, and the bushmaster Lachesis muta.
In Australia the tiger snake Votechis scutatus, the death adder Acan-
thophis antarcticus, the taipan Oxyuranus scutellatus, and the brown
snakes Dermansia have all been implicated in deaths to humans.
While most of the Pacific islands between 180° E.-170° E., New Zea-
land, the Hawaiian Islands, and some others are free of venomous
snakes, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, and Japan
contain several venomous forms. The more dangerous snakes in
Papua and New Guinea are the death adder and brown snakes, while
the mamushi, A ghistrodon blomhofi, is the commonest venomous snake
in Japan. In Malaya the pit viper Agkistrodon rhodostoma is re-
sponsible for a large number of bites and some deaths. In the United
States there are approximately 6,000 cases of snake venom poisoning
reported each year, with an average of 14 deaths a year. The most
dangerous snakes in that country are the coral snake Micrurus fulvius
and the rattlesnakes Crotalus adamanteus, C. atrox, C. viridis helleri,
and C. scutulatus. :
Fortunately, since the advent of antivenins and their extensive dis-
tribution, the case fatality rates for snake-venom poisoning in the vari-
ous endemic areas of the world have been declining very significantly.
In the United States the fatality rate has fallen from 11 percent to less
than 1 percent since the introduction and widespread use of antivenin.
Today hyperantivenins are being produced by exposing the immunized
animal to certain of the very active fractions of venoms in a mixture
with the whole venom. It is quite probable that within the not too
distant future it will be possible to recommend the use of a single
antivenin for the treatment of envenomation by Viperidae, Crotalidae,
and Elapidae.
Poisonings by arthropods are common in many areas of the world,
although statistics on the incidence of the bites or stings of these ani-
mals are lacking. In Mexico during 1957 there were 1,495 deaths due
to the stings of scorpions, while in the United States at least 26 deaths
a year are attributed to the bites or stings of arthropods; almost twice
the number attributed to the bites of the venomous snakes. Stingings
by venomous marine animals are also common in many parts of the
world. In the United States, where studies have been made on the
incidence of stingings by these animals, it has been found that approx-
imately 750 people a year are stung by stingrays, 300 persons a year
are stung by the scorpion fishes, 300 a year by venomous catfishes, and
an undetermined number by coelenterates, sponges, and certain
PLATE 1
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Russell
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is familiar to East Coast fishermen.
VENOMOUS ANIMALS AND THEIR TOXINS—RUSSELL 487
echinoderms. Only one death has been reported in that country dur-
ing the past 50 years following a stingray injury.
The past decade has been a period of “tooling up” for the venomolo-
gist. Through the advent of chromatography, electrophoresis, and
certain physiological monitoring devices, our knowledge on venoms has
increased a hundredfold. During the next 10 years we should not only
learn to separate and identify the various fractions of venoms, and
to correlate them with specific biological activities, but we should dis-
cover how these complex proteins can be used to further man’s studies
of the cellular membrane and his fight against pain and disease.
766-746—65—_-39
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How Insects Work in Groups’
By Joun Supp
Lecturer in Entomology at the University of Hull, England
[With 2 plates]
WHEN PEOPLE SEE ANTS or bees collecting food, or the giant mounds
built by termites in the tropics, they usually sense some fellow-feeling,
some idea that insect and human societies are at bottom similarly
constituted. The reason why these insects are held up to us in Scrip-
ture and in fable as models is that they can be seen going about tasks
as men do, collecting and carrying food, building and fighting. Per-
haps more important, they appear to combine in groups to catch, carry,
or build things beyond the power of a single individual.
A termites’ nest may be 2 meters high and a meter across at ground-
level. Each of the grains of soil of which the nest is built has been
carried separately and placed by a termite perhaps half a centimeter
long. Clearly many termite-lifetimes of work were involved—just
as many as the man-years of work in building a pyramid or in a space
program. But termite mounds are not shapeless heaps; like pyramids
they have a characteristic shape as well as a complex set of internal
passages and chambers. The behavior of each of the huge number of
termites has been directed to achieve this shape; each addition to the
nest has somehow been brought into a correct relation with preceding
ones. (See pl. 2, fig. 2.)
We can call the behavior of termites in building such a nest coopera-
tive, using the word in its everyday sense, because we can see in it the
three points we look for before we say that people are cooperating.
These are, first that there should be a number of people working, sec-
ond that they should gain some advantage by making something larger
or more quickly than they could working alone, and last, and perhaps
most important, that each man should adjust his work to suit that of
his workmates.
1 Reprinted by permission from Discovery, June 1963.
489
490 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
APPROACHING COOPERATION
In the termites’ nest it is obvious that adjustment must have oc-
curred; in other cases it may not be so obvious. Where mutual adjust-
ment of behavior cannot be seen we must be careful to avoid the
conclusion that any advantage gained from being in a group is the
result of cooperation. The larvae of the white pine weevil feed
under the bark of twigs, eating their way down towards the base of
the shoot. The number of grubs in a shoot is always just enough to
eat away the plant tissues all round the twig. If there are too many
larvae, some are crowded out and cannot feed, while if there are too
few, resin flows sideways from uneaten tissues into the damaged area
and kills the larvae. Clearly the larvae gain an advantage from
group feeding, but as there is no adjustment of their behavior to suit
that of their fellows (no alteration of the rate of feeding or of the
width of cut, for instance) the advantage is not the result of coopera-
tion.
A closer approach to cooperation is to be found in young larvae of
the jack pine sawfly. These caterpillars feed in groups on the foliage
of Pinus banksiana (pl. 1); caterpillars feeding singly are very rare.
The aggregation is not imposed on the caterpillars by the way the
female laid her eggs. Groups form on needles where no eggs were
laid, and will reform if the caterpillars are artificially spread out over
the foliage. However, regrouping does not occur if the caterpillars
are spread out on a sheet of paper. This behavior is related to a defi-
nite situation—feeding—and it is this which provides the key stimuli.
A. W. Ghent has shown that groups form around feeding cater-
pillars which have succeeded in penetrating the hard cuticle of the
leaf. The situation provides the necessary stimuli for grouping—the
smell of damaged foliage and of a resinous secretion produced by
feeding larvae. Since the small first-stage larvae have difficulty in
biting through the cuticle, breaks in it are important for their survival.
Young caterpillars make full use of any presumably lucky break in
the cuticle by extending the cut edge. Therefore caterpillars feeding
in a group are better able to feed and correspondingly more survive to
their first molt.
As these groups are formed by adjustment of the behavior of some
larvae to use the success of others, the caterpillars can be said to
cooperate in exploiting these situations. They respond to the evidence
of success—the smell of damaged leaves. The cut in the leaf is the
only link between members of the group, for sometimes larvae ap-
proach the opposite side of the cut to the larva that started it, and they
move away from each other as they feed.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Sudd PLATE 1
Larvae of the jack pine
sawfly gather where the
tough pine needles have
been pierced. ‘They are
attracted by the smell of
the damaged foliage.
PLATE 2
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Sudd
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HOW INSECTS WORK IN GROUPS—SUDD 49]
SUCCESS—A KEY STIMULUS
Among the truly social insects the ants are perhaps the most varied
in their behavior. One of the wonders of the ant world is the nest of
the tailor ants. These ants live in the Tropics, in a continuous range
from North Queensland to West Africa, and always build their nests
in trees. Unlike the many other tree-dwelling ants, their nests are
made by drawing living leaves together to form envelopes which they
secure with silk threads produced by their own mature larvae. In
West Africa the French zoologist A. Ledoux has shown that leaves
are bent to form nests in two ways: Either two nearby leaves are
drawn together and their edges held in a tissue of silk, or a single
leaf can be rolled up to form a tube.
The rolling-up of leaves to form the second type of nest is most
interesting. The leaf is not rolled up in a logical way by a group
of ants collecting at its apex and pulling it back under the leaf-blade.
On the contrary, ants begin pulling at any point around the leaf mar-
gin, and they pull singly, not in groups. These first efforts are mostly
abandoned, and some ants leave the leaf altogether, others merely move
to another point on it—particularly to places where the leaf is already
bent, either naturally or experimentally. Soon some ants succeed in
bending the leaf edge. Because of the arrangement of veins in the
leaf this is more likely to happen at the tip of the leaf than at its sides.
Throughout the process ants let go of the leaf and move about on
its surface before they settle again, and these ants are attracted to
places where bending is well advanced, so that they add themselves
to the most successful groups. In this way the efforts of the ants are
gradually concentrated at promising sites, usually the tip of the leaf,
which are drawn down under the leaf blade. As the successful party
moves down the leaf, ants pulling at the sides are drawn in too.
Finally, when the leaf is doubled back, ants appear carrying larvae
and close up the gaps with silk. How they are called in at this point
is not known.
There are a good many similarities here to the case of the jack
pine sawfly. Although ants are in general attracted to one another,
those which are beginning to pull leaves do not aggregate in this way.
The groups of ants which bend leaves form only as the work of bend-
ing progresses, just as the feeding groups of the sawfly did not form
unless some larvae were feeding. Ant groups, like the sawfly groups,
formed where there was evidence of success at the job in hand.
PULLING THEIR WEIGHT
The existence of cooperation has been most debated in the trans-
port of prey by ants. Many ants are carnivorous and take insect
prey back to their nest to feed their growing brood. In some species,
766-746—65—40
492 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
though not all, a large insect is dragged home by a group of ants,
some of which seem to be pulling together while others seem to be
pushing. Some naturalists, struck by the ants’ success in moving
large prey, have concluded that this group transport shows a high
degree of cooperation. Others, who noticed that some ants pull
against one another and others simply ride on the prey while their
comrades pull, thought that cooperation was absent.
In the wood ants, which occur in many parts of Britain, I have
found evidence which seems to support both sides of the question.
A few minutes after offering a large insect to these ants, a group of
5 to 10 ants forms round it. Many of these do not pull the prey at all
and those that do, pull in different directions (fig. 1). There is a
deadlock, and what movement there is, is often reversed and cancelled
out in the next minute. At first, it seems that the ants are incapable
of cooperation and that the more of them there are, the worse the con-
fusion gets. But after 10 or 15 minutes, movement toward the nest
starts and short of accidents goes on at a good rate. The group of
ants is now usually small (pl. 2, fig. 1)—two pulling and one pushing
is a common combination—and the ants’ bodies are more closely alined
with one another than in deadlock groups. ‘Transporting groups seem
to arise from deadlock groups when some ants leave the prey and others
rearrange themselves so that their efforts are not opposed. The push-
ing ants are probably acquiescing rather than helping. At this stage
the ants seem to be showing a fair degree of cooperation.
I have shown that changes which result in formation of a transport-
ing group from a deadlock stem from behavior which can be seen
equally well when a single ant is moving prey. The changes are
basically part of the ant’s method of coping with the difficulties it
meets in moving prey. Perhaps the most obvious of these is a change
in the mode of transport from carrying used for light prey, when
the ant walks head foremost to the nest, to dragging, when it walks
backward trailing a heavier insect behind it. This change seems to
occur when the prey is about three times the weight of the ant.
The decision to carry or to drag is not, however, made once and
for all at the start of transport. The ant changes from one to the other
according to the gradient and smoothness of the surface, which affect
the resistance the ant feels in pulling. This probably explains the
existence of pushers and pullers in groups. Although the prey may be
10 times the weight of an ant, an ant pushing feels only a fraction of
this and behaves as though it was carrying light prey. Actually the
motive power is almost all supplied by the pulling ants, just as gravity
supplies the power when a single ant carries prey down a deep slope.
Other remedies for difficulty in moving prey are not so well defined.
When the prey an ant is dragging gets snagged on an obstacle, the ant
swings itself through an angle of between 20° and 80° to pull at
HOW INSECTS WORK IN GROUPS—SUDD 493
a different angle, and it goes on trying new angles until it finds a line
along which the prey will move. If this doesn’t work it may release
the prey and seize it again at a new position. These changes of position
are not based on any knowledge of the type of snag; it is simply a ques-
tion of “trial and error.” If after a short time the prey does not come
loose, the ant may abandon it. But if the difficulty in transport is not
caused by, say, a grass stem, but by another ant pulling in the opposite
direction, swings and changes of position may again result in finding
angles at which the ants are not opposed to one another. This seems
to be the way in which transporting groups are formed from deadlocks,
although there is possibly also a tendency for pulling ants to aline
themselves with the direction of movement once it has begun.
DISORDER, SEARCH, AND ORDER
These three examples have an underlying pattern in common, a pat-
tern of three phases—disorder, search and order (see fig. 1). The
gradual appearance of order in these tasks suggests that cooperation
is not due to the imposition of a master plan but arises through the trial
of many possibilities, those which are unsuccessful being abandoned.
The trials are judged by effects, and the medium of communication
between individuals which enables them to tell whether or not they are
cooperating, is not incidental signals—scent, sounds, gestures—but the
progress of the work itself. It is deeds that tell, not words.
Termites almost certainly build their strange-shaped nests by the
same system. Professor P-P. Grassé has kept termites in the labora-
tory, and given them soil for building. At first they laid their pellets
of soil at random, but later they were attracted to places where pellets
had already been laid, so that pillars and walls were formed. When
these were 4-5 mm. high, the termites began to build in horizontal
sheets, joining one pillar to another. The progress of the work not
only was the link between the work of individual termites, but also
provided the cue for a change from vertical to horizontal building.
Grassé calls this stimulatory effect of work “stigmergy” (from
stigma— prick, stimulus,’ and ergon—‘work’).
SUCCESS BY RANDOM CHANGE
Many of the movements in an animal’s behavior are closely adapted
to some rather restricted function, for instance, the pairing of the sexes.
Here, since all males and all females of the same species are similar, the
problems involved in bringing the pairs from the random positions
in which they first encounter one another to the stereotyped position
in which mating is possible, are predictable, and can be solved by a
fixed program, a kind of countdown of standard movements and re-
sponses. This is provided by the courtship of many animals.
494 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Disorder
Jack pine sawfly
young larvae find it difficult to
penetrate the pine leaf cuticle
Tailor.ants
ants begin to pull at places wide
apart but leave places hard to bend
Wood ants
at first many ants gather round the
prey, pulling in all directions
Ficure 1.—In many group activities a definite pattern of development is seen, as shown
successful, when order is
HOW INSECTS WORK IN GROUPS—SUDD 495
Search Order
the smell of damaged tissues causes
they move over the shoots until one
larvae to collect to exploit the gap
is successful and starts to feed
they wander over the leaf but stay this collective effort at places of
where bending is advanced (at apex) success gives a typical rolled nest
unsuccessful, some move away while these changes turn the prey to a
others change their angle of puil position suitable for transport
on this and the facing page. Starting in disorder, insects search at random until they are
established in the group.
496 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
In other situations, however, the animal is so much at the mercy
of circumstances that it cannot develop a specific routine solution.
This is nowhere more true than in a group activity, where the animal
faces not only the variation in conditions but also the unpredictable
and shifting behavior of its workmates. The tailor ant building
a leaf nest or the wood ant dragging its prey solve these problems
by changes in behavior which are not specifically related to the nature
of the difficulty.
The success of this method is proved by the ability of tailor ants
to build a nest with all types of leaves from the stiff broad leaf of an
orange to the narrow flexible leaflet of a palm, and the ability of wood
ants to move all shapes and sizes of prey over all types of surfaces.
The undirected searching nature of their response to these conditions
gives an appearance of chaos to group activities. But it is the same
response which eventually finds a way through the difficulties.
Our Native Termites
By Tuomas E. SNYDER
Honorary Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution
SINCE TERMITES are social insects and have a caste system and di-
vision of labor, there has been considerable interest in their habits.
They also cause large amounts of damage and consequent money
losses. This article discusses the termites of the United States, the
damage they cause, and recent researches in termite control.
HABITS
Termites are most abundant and conspicuous in tropical countries
where their high mound and tree nests attract the attention of the
traveler. However, some termites occur in countries with temperate
climates. In the continental United States, 41 living species (4
families) and 16 fossil (5 families) termites have been found. The
living species have been found in 49 States. It is believed that
all of these termites are native, with the possible exception of Crypto-
termes brevis (Walker) which may have been introduced into Key
West, Fla., from some nearby tropical island.
The nests of our native termites are inconspicuously located in
stumps, logs, dead trees, fenceposts, utility poles, the woodwork of
buildings, or in the ground. Subterranean termites may move from
ground to wood and vice versa. The population of Zootermopsis
colonies may be several thousand. The drywood termite colony (/n-
cisitermes), reaching 5,000 individuals, is large. One quarter million
individuals of a subterranean Reticulitermes colony constitute prob-
ably the maximum population, in contrast to several millions in some
nests of tropical termites.
CASTE SYSTEM
The different forms or castes of these social insects include: The
reproductives or primary macropterous pigmented king and queen,
developed from winged adults; the brachypterous or short wing pad
slightly pigmented supplementary reproductives, developed from
nymphs, and the very slightly pigmented apterous reproductives, also
developed from nymphs; the soldiers or defense caste, which cannot
feed themselves; and finally, the worker caste which do most of the
497
498 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
damage to wood, and care for the other castes (fig. 1). Where work-
ers are not present, nymphs or pseudoworkers take over their duties.
The inhibition theory of caste differentiation first developed by
Drs. A. L. Pickens and G. B. Castle of the University of California
in the early 1930’s has recently been substantiated by the Swiss en-
tomologist Dr. Martin Liischer (1952) in his studies of hormones.
Their theory is that males, females, soldiers, and workers secrete ecto-
hormones which inhibit the nymphal development of individuals of
the same sex or caste as that of the form secreting the hormone. In
small colonies where reproductive forms are fully functioning, the
development of any additional sexual forms is inhibited by the secre-
tions of the parent reproductive forms of the king and queen.
This substance is supposed to be distributed throughout the colony
by the grooming habit of the individuals. Or each caste, if present
in the colony in sufficient numbers, tends to delay or inhibit the de-
velopment of the individuals of the same caste by a hormone
regulation.
Dr. Liischer found that this inhibitory effect can operate only when
workers can touch the functional reproductives. He theorized that
it is the saliva, feces, or exudates of the reproductives that possibly
contain an ectohormone that is the inhibiting agent. The surplus
supplementary reproductives are eaten by the workers. If contact
is cut off, the inhibiting influence that prevents the production of
supplementary reproductives does not operate.
At the Fourth International Congress for the Study of Social In-
sects, held at the 600-year old University of Pavia, in Italy, I presented
a paper (Snyder, 1963) dealing with the fate of the supplementary
reproductives in small colonies of eastern species of Reticulitermes
in the United States. In the spring, large numbers of supplementary
reproductives are present in colonies before the annual colonizing
flight or “swarm” of the winged adult. These disappear just before
or at the time of the flight of the winged. Are they killed by the
workers as being unnecessary in the parent colony where reproduc-
tives are already present? Or, impelled by the same stimuli as the
winged, do they migrate—with or without workers—by subterranean
galleries to form new colonies ?
In the discussion which followed the presentation of the above,
it appeared that there exist substantial differences between the habits
of species of Reticulitermes in Italy and the habits of those species
commonly found in eastern United States. In Italy, Reticulitermes
colonies are headed only by supplementary reproductives, whereas in
the United States colonies are commonly founded by winged or ma-
cropterous adults. In France, both reproductive forms found
colonies.
OUR NATIVE TERMITES—SNYDER 499
-
Ficure 1.—Life cycle of the common subterranean termite Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar).
(a) Egg. (b) Newly hatched nymph. (c) Immature nymph in quiescent or resting
stage. (d) Soldier. (e) Worker. (f) Sexual winged adult. (g) Brachypterous
(young) reproductive form. (h) Apterous (young) reproductive form. (i) Primary or
macropterous queen. (j) Brachypterous supplementary queen. (k) Apterous supple-
mentary queen. All enlarged. (Courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture.)
500 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
There are probably differences as well in the frequency with which
colonies are headed by macropterous reproductives or by supplemen-
tary forms of Pacific coast and eastern species. Apparently fewer
colonies on the Pacific coast are founded by primary reproductives
than in the Eastern States.
COMMUNICATION
Dr. A. M. Stuart, an entomologist from New Zealand, now at the
University of Chicago, in 1961 published on laboratory experiments
with trail-laying by Zootermopsis nevadensis. A substance secreted
by a gland in the ventral part of the fifth segment of the abdomen
produced a clear-cut trail following. The nymphs are often seen
dragging their abdomens along the ground when moving, thus bring-
ing the fifth segment in contact with the substrate or surface. The
substance from the gland can quite easily escape from the reservoir
onto the surface on which the insect is crawling. Nymphs accurately
followed the path. It leads termites to follow a straight line to food.
In a later paper (19632), Stuart found the trails which the termites
follow to be odor trails. In southwestern United States and northern
Mexico, species of eticulitermes build shelter tubes straight up to
a beam on walls of adobe houses.
Also in 1963 Stuart (1963b) discovered that there is a directional
vector in the communication of alarm by Zootermopsis. This vector
was a trail laid by an alarmed termite from the point of disturbance
to the main area of the nest. Individuals are recruited to the site
of alarm by following such trails. Alarm is transmitted principally
by contact.
SPECIALIZED FORMS
Dr. K. Krishna (1961) listed systematically the protozoa of the
family Kalotermitidae.t. These low forms of animal life live in the
intestines of about 500, or one-fourth, of the 2,100 known species of
termites in a symbiotic relationship and contain enzymes which digest
1 Also in 1961, Dr. Krishna, then at the University of Chicago, now at the American
Museum of Natural History at New York, revised the family Kalotermitidae. Several
termites of the United States had their names changed. Kalotermes jouteli Banks of
southern Florida was placed in Neotermes; Kalotermes occidantis (Walker) of Arizona
was Placed in Pterotermes ; Kalotermes arizonensis Snyder of Arizona, K. banksi Snyder
of Arizona and Texas, K. milleri Emerson of southern Florida, K. minor Hagen of Cali-
fornia, Utah, and Arizona, K. schwarzi Banks of southern Florida and K. snyderi Light of
southeastern United States were all placed in Incisitermes Krishna; and Procryptotermes
hubbardi (Banks) of Arizona and California was placed in Marginitermes Krishna. Only
a few species of economic importance are involved.
Such changes, however, are hard to accept by workers in economic control work and
pest control operators, who have terms of “Kalis’’ for the termites, and “Kalo guns” for
equipment in the control of drywood termites in California. They may find it difficult to
refer to Kalotermes minor as Incisitermes minor.
OUR NATIVE TERMITES—SNYDER 501
the wood which they eat. Most of the more highly specialized termites
do not contain these symbiotic protozoa.
There are other termites of interesting shape and habits, especially
in the Southwestern States. The nasutiform termites, species of
Tenuirostritermes, have a nasus or beak instead of biting jaws for
defense. From this exudes an acidulous secretion which gums up
attacking ants, usually at the pedicle or middle of the body. The
soldierless termites, species of Anoplotermes, must rely on large-
jawed workers for defense. The desert termites, species of Amitermes,
destroy sound wood. Species of Gnathamitermes cover over vegetation
and wood with earthlike tubes to induce decay, then merely scarify or
erode the wood. These are highly specialized types of termites.
Further studies are needed on all of these unusual termites although
none causes relatively serious damage compared with that caused by
the lower or less specialized groups.
DAMAGE
Only 11 of our 41 species of termites of the continental United
States cause serious damage.
For convenience in control, the destructive termites of this country
have been grouped with: Dampwood types—Zootermopsis angusti-
collis (Hagen), Z. nevadensis (Hagen) of the Far West, and Pro-
rhinotermes simplex (Hagen) of southern Florida; drywood types—
especially Incisitermes minor (Hagen) of California, J. snyderi
(Light) of southeastern United States, and Cryptotermes brevis
(Walker) of southern Florida; and subterranean types— Feticuli-
termes flavipes (Kollar) common in the United States, except for the
Far West, 2. virginicus and R. hageni of eastern United States, R.
hesperus Banks of the Pacific coast, and the arid land subterranean
termite /. tibialis Banks of the Western States.
For the last 10 to 15 years there have been noticeable movements
of termites. The large dampwood termite Zootermopsis angusticollis
has been shipped in green lumber from the Pacific coast into 20 States
east of its range but, so far as is known, has infested no buildings and
has nowhere become established. Its spread since 1950 is due to the
large amount of insect- and fire-killed timber salvaged and moved
east.
Through the transportation of furniture, the drywood termite
Incisitermes minor of Western United States and Mexico has infested
houses in 12 States east of its range, but has not become established.
Cryptotermes brevis has become a major pest of buildings in southern
Florida and has damaged buildings in five States north of Florida,
probably from infested furniture; this termite has not become estab-
lished locally except in the Gulf States.
502 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
The dark, southern subterranean termite Reticulitermes virginicus
(Banks), whose northern range was Washington, D.C., in 1951 was
found at Philadelphia, Pa., and has been found on Long Island, N.Y..,
since 1959. The light southern subterranean Feticulitermes hageni
Banks, whose northern range was Washington, D.C., was found in
1958 in a building at Trenton, N.J. It is believed that these last. two
northward spreads were due to the trend toward warmer winters.
Most States have only the subterranean types as injurious species
of economic importance but California and Florida both have all three
types.
The California Structural Pest Control Board at Los Angeles issues
quarterly pest infestation reports by counties, giving the comparative
amount of damage for the three types of termites. Averaged for 55
counties out of 58 for 1962 and 1963, the figures are: Dampwood 0.4
percent, drywood 33.8 percent, and subterranean 44.52 percent. The
remaining percentage related to other matters.
For the entire United States, it is estimated that the losses caused
amount to one quarter billion dollars.
CONTROL
PREVENTION
With the increase in the number of buildings constructed on concrete
slabs on the ground and consequent increase in the number of buildings
infested with subterranean termites, the less costly pretreatment of
the soil with insecticides became practicable in the late 1950’s. Before
the concrete slab is laid, you must secure proper drainage, remove all
wood debris from the building site, and saturate the soil with long-
lasting soil poisons such as water emulsions of chlordane and dieldrin.
This may save more difficult and expensive treatment after the house
has been built.
FUMIGATION
The most successful method of killing drywood termites damaging
buildings in southern California and southern Florida is to seal them
with heavy Kraft paper or cover them with tarpaulins and then fumi-
gate with heavy dosages of lethal gases. Of course there is no residual
effect and the buildings may soon become reinfested. However, it
would take a long time to build up new destructive populations.
DESICCATION
Dr. Margaret S. Collins, now of Howard University, Washing-
ton, D.C., has since 1950 been interested in differences in toleration of
drying between species of our native subterranean termites (Meticu-
OUR NATIVE TERMITES—SNYDER 503
litermes species). She early discovered that our arid land R. tibialis is
more resistant to drying than our common &. flavipes.
In 1959, Drs. Walter Ebeling and R. E. Wagner, entomologists
of the University of California at Los Angeles, discovered that in-
festation or reinfestation after eradication of drywood termites could
be prevented by treating susceptible timbers with inert sorptive dusts,
silica aerogel, nontoxic to humans or animals, These dusts removed
lipids of the termite epicuticle which caused a rapid desiccation and
death of the termites. Later it was discovered that water soluble
fluorides incorporated into the silica gels increased the effectiveness
with increasing relative humidities. After the wax is disrupted, flu-
orides can act as contact insecticides.
In 1963 Dr. Collins, with Dr. A. G. Richards of the University of
Minnesota, studied in the laboratory of that university the tolerance
to drying of five eastern species of Reticulitermes. Included were the
rather desiccation-tolerant ¢ibialis, which loses water at a consistently
low rate, three species that lose water relatively slowly but show great
variability under experimental conditions, and a species flavipes, that
shows a variable but relatively high rate of water loss. The desiccation
tolerance of ¢bzalis, which ranges from west to east, appears to be
associated with a relatively effective waterproofing mechanism, a
well-developed cement layer, and moderate size.
When treated to demonstrate the cement layer, species of Reticu-
litermes other than tibialis were found to have very small argentaflin
granules in depressed areas, instead of the heavy scaly layer found in
tibialis.
fF. flavipes seems to have the least efficient transpiration-retarding
mechanism—the fact that this species may outlive species having lower
loss rates during drying is probably due to its large size. There also
were differences in the survival times in the castes.
Transpiration resistance Increases with age, in the absence of dam-
age, as does the resistance of the waterproofing to damage. This re-
sults in the rate of transpiration in imagoes (adults) falling to about
one-third the rate of teneral (not quite hardened) imagoes.
Size appears to have no influence on the rate of loss, though it can
influence length of survival under dry conditions.
Under field conditions, tibialis ranges into more arid areas than
the sand-dwelling arenincola, and both inhabit more arid situations
than flavipes. In areas inhabited by both arenincola and tibialis,
the former can be found most readily in logs and stumps on the surface
in spring during periods of abundant rainfall. The latter may be
taken at the surface during either spring or fall. In Florida, vir-
ginicus and hageni are found more easily than flavipes during dry
periods in nonforested areas.
504 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
POTENTIAL CONTROLS
ATTRACTANTS
In the early 1960’s Dr. G. R. Esenther, entomologist stationed at
the Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wis., and a group at the
University of Wisconsin published a paper on a termite attractant
(Ksenther et al., 1961). It was discovered that the subterranean
termite Reticulitermes flavipes will follow a concentration gradient
of an attractive material, a culture of the brown rot fungus (Lenzvtes
trabea) on pine to find decaying wood. It was believed that such
a potent termite attractant might be useful in termite surveys and
control.
Esenther and Dr. H. C. Coppel of the University of Wisconsin
in 1964 published on results on laboratory experiments continued
in the laboratory at Madison, Wis., with the response of /eticuli-
terms flavipes to attractants from extractives and synthetics especially
to extracts from white pine infected with the brown rot fungus
Lenzites trabea. Periodically for as long as several weeks the termite
would not respond to any attractant; the cause remained unexplained.
Receptors appear to be terminal antennal segments and hind tarsi.
The reproductive caste gave the most positive response. Specific
differences, between termite species and specific wood-decaying fungi,
are being studied.
Field studies indicate that sterilized Z. trabea infected wood is the
best field attractant. A modified attractant insecticide unit was used :
A sandwich of five corrugated fiberboard pieces in which the center
and two outermost pieces were not treated with insecticides. The
second and fourth pieces were dipped in either 1 percent chlordane
or dieldrin solutions, or a massive dose of dieldrin was applied to a
sandwich unit by shaking only the central piece in a plastic bag that
contained 75 percent wettable powder. ‘The last method caused the
greatest mortality. Decayed wood contains both an orientating and
feeding stimulus; synthetic attractants show poorer results because
they may be orientative attractants only.
Apparently, attractants’ usefulness in economic control work is
not yet proven.
FUNGI
In the early 1960’s Dr. A. E. Lund of the Koppers Co., Verona, Pa.,
obtained conclusive evidence in the laboratory that certain species of
our subterranean termites (Reticulitermes) initiate attack on the wood
of southern yellow pine without previous infection of the wood by
wood-destroying fungi. Further laboratory studies (Lund, 1962,
1963) proved that there was an influence on eastern subterranean
termites by wood-destroying fungi.
OUR NATIVE TERMITES—SNYDER 505
One fungus, Zentinus lepideus, produce metabolites (end prod-
ucts) that appear to be very toxic to termites. Lenzites trabea pro-
duces an attractant. Porta incrassata extended the laboratory life
considerably. Poria monticola exhibited a somewhat repellent effect.
Still other fungi seem to be neutral in effect. At least one of the com-
mon molds (Penicillium spp., Aspergillus spp., ete.) reduced the
longevity and the termites’ death followed shortly.
As yet some of these relationships are not supported by laboratory
or field evidence.
LITERATURE CITED
CALIFORNIA STRUCTURAL PEST CONTROL BOARD.
1963. 1962 yearly structural pest infestation report by county. P.C.O. News,
vol. 28, No. 6, pp. 6-7.
1964. 1963 yearly structural pest infestation report by county. P.C.O. News,
vol. 24, No. 11, pp. 24-25.
CASTLE, C. B.
1934. The dampwood termites of western United States, genus Zootermopsis.
In “Termites and termite control,’ ed. by C. A. Kofoid. University
of California Press, Berkeley. pp. 273-310.
CoLiins, M. S., and RicH Arps, A. G.
1963. Studies on water relations in North American termites 1. Eastern
species of the genus Reticulitermes (Isoptera, Rhinotermitidae).
Ecology, vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 600-604. 4 tables.
EXBELING, W., and WAGNER, R. E.
1959. Rapid desiccation of drywood termites with inert sorptive dusts and
other substances. Journ. Hcon. Ent., vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 190-207. 5
figs., 11 tables.
ESENTHER, G. R.; ALLEN, T. C.; CAsipa, J. E.; and SHENEFELT, R. D.
1961. Termite attractant from fungus-infected wood. Science, vol. 134, No.
3471, p. 50.
ESENTHER, G. R., and Copret, H. C.
1964. Current research on termite attractants. Pest Control, vol. 32, No.
2, pp. 34, 36, 38, 42, 44,46. 3 figs., 1 table.
KrisHna, K.
1961. A generic revision and phylogenetic study of the family Kalotermitidae
(Isoptera). Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 122, Art. 4, pp. 303-
408. 81 figs, 6 tables.
Lunp, A. E.
1962. Subterraneans and their environment. New concepts of termite
ecology. Pest Control, vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 30-34, 36, 60-61. 2 figs.,
3 tables.
1963. Subterranean termites and fungi—theoretical interactions. Pest Con-
trol, vol. 31, No. 10, p. 78.
LtscuHe_er, M.
1952. New evidence of an ectohormonal control of caste determination in
termites. Trans. 9th Internat. Congr. Ent., vol. 1, pp. 289-294, 1 fig.
PIcKINS, A. L.
1932. Observations on the genus Reticulitermes Holmgren. Pan-Pacific En-
tomol., vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 178-180.
506 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
SNYDER, T. BH.
1963. The foundation of new termite colonies by supplementary reproduc-
tives of species of Reticulitermes. Symposia Genetica et Biologica
Italica. Atti. IV Congr. U.I.E.I.S.-Pavia, 9-14 setembre 1961, pp.
175-179. December 14, 1963.
Stuart, A. M.
1961. Mechanism of trail-laying in two species of termites. Nature, vol. 189,
No. 4762, p. 419. London.
1963a. Origin of the trail in the termites Nasutitermes corniger (Motschul-
sky) and Zootermopis nevadensis (Hagen), Isoptera. Physiolog.
Zool., vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 69-84. 2 figs., 6 tables.
1963b. Studies on the communication of alarm in the termite Zootermopsis
nevadensis (Hagen) Isoptera. Physiolog. Zool., vol. 36, No. 1, pp.
85-96. 5figs. January.
The Phenomenon of Predation’
By THE LATE PAu. L. ErrincTon
“NATURE’S WAY IS ANY way that works.” My students know I like
that expression. As a generalization relating to the opportunism
and adjustment of Life, relating to the eaters and the eaten, it covers
the field.
Predators kill and eat the animals they know as prey, however they
are able to do so. They prey according to their opportunities, their
adaptations, and—sometimes—their psychological preferences. Their
predation may be rather indiscriminate, that is, within common sense
limitations. It may be highly specific, highly selective. It may grade
into the related phenomenon that we refer to as parasitism. When the
prey consists of eggs or sessile animals, it may not differ fundamentally
in its operation from grazing by herbivores.
For that matter, certain peculiarly adapted plants may prey upon
animals. Bladderworts capture and digest small crustaceans in their
traplike organs. Pitcher plants and sundews take insect victims as a
regular way of life. And, whether one thinks of bacteria or viruses as
being predatory or parasitic or saprophytic, the basic natural laws to
which they conform in their exploitation of the exploitable are still
those applying to the phylogenetically higher organisms.
The common denominator throughout is exploitation of the exploit-
able; but, if we think of just that in considering the phenomenon of
predation, we may easily oversimplify. For there has been a lot of
evolution shaping the patterns of interrelationships of living things
with each other and with their physical environments. Diversity and
complexity in these interrelationships are wholly consistent with
diversity and complexity in the forms of living things.
I do not advocate straining to distinguish between borderline cases of
predation and parasitism, or trying to judge precisely where predation
and parasitism leave off and exploitation of dead or dying organic
material begins. Preoccupation with definitions in relationships that
by their nature have much leeway in them can, I think, defeat under-
1 Reprinted by permission from American Scientist, June 1963.
766-746—65——41 507
508 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
standing. Just where do we logically put the dividing line between
what a feeding mosquito does in taking a meal of either blood or juices,
what a spider does to a fly, a water bug to a minnow, a robber fly to a
grasshopper, a sea lamprey to a lake trout or a whitefish? What a
killer whale or a shark or a bird of prey or a wolf does in eating some-
thing, alive or dead? What a snapping turtle does when it feeds upon
algae, scavenge upon anything dead, eats the tails off live fishes on
a fisherman’s stringer or grabs a coot by a foot?
Gradations exist, whichever way we look, and I shall not further
belabor what seems to me the pointlessness of labeling categories be-
yond what the facts justify. Regardless of the opportunism common
to a bacterial infection and a violent attack by a genuine tooth-or-talon
predator, the obvious differences are such as to merit separate treat-
ment; and there is plenty about the phenomenon of predation that may
be discussed in ordinary terms of animals being sought by or escaping
from other forms that would kill or eat them, or, of them, if they could.
ADAPTIVENESS OF PREDATORS
Relatively few mammals and birds are adapted to exploit only a
particular kind of prey. One of these is the Everglade kite, which has
a hooked beak that is exactly right for extracting soft parts from the
shell of a single genus of snail, and so the bird lives. The Canada lynx
and the Arctic fox may, on occasion, be all but restricted to only certain
of the foods available to them, apparently because of their own lack of
adaptiveness; on the other hand, their relatives, the bay lynx or bobcat
and the red and gray foxes of central and southern North America,
may readily eat a wide diversity of foods. Gray wolves having op-
portunities to do so may, by choice, prey almost exclusively upon white-
tailed deer. But predatory mammals and birds collectively are om-
nivorous feeders compared to the vast numbers of insects that show
rigid selectivity in their predatory (or parasitic) behavior. Far down
the phylogenetic scale are extremely host-specific viruses and bacteria,
as well as some showing great versatility. The virus of rabies, the
bacterium of tularemia, and the roundworm causing trichinosis each
can attack an astonishing variety of at least warm-blooded host
animals.
Food preferences or hunting techniques based upon individual learn-
ing are not restricted to higher vertebrates, though they naturally tend
to be prominent among the more intelligent animals. Next to man,
I should say that members of the dog family—individual red foxes,
coyotes, gray wolves, domestic dogs—can show as much special choice
of prey as anything of which Iknow. The favoritisms and originality
that some of these animals develop in their preying may at times result
in unusually severe local exploitation of a vulnerable prey population.
Even prey species that are living with notable security from other
THE PHENOMENON OF PREDATION—ERRINGTON 509
predators may at times suffer from concerted canine predation—I have
known instances of this sort of thing in my studies of predation by
foxes and dogs upon muskrats and ground-nesting birds.
But, modern studies on predation by lower vertebrates have demon-
strated that learning can have a pronounced influence on their food
habits. Fishes learn to take certain food items. Frogs may prey
selectively through experience. Also, in late years, I have been gain-
ing an impression from various sources that some insects and other
active invertebrates may have capabilities for more individual pref-
erences than we commonly have thought. A morphologically ad-
vanced brain is not an absolute prerequisite to a psychology of learn-
ing and choice.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS
Let us consider some of the ways that predation may be influenced by
the psychology of either or both predators and their prospective prey—
not forgetting that predators may generally take such prey as is
easiest for them to get, suitable for their requirements, and recognized
as food.
Some of the clearest examples of psychological influence in pred-
ator-prey relations are those in which adversaries do a good deal of
testing out and appraising each other’s intentions and capabilities.
The caution that predators show toward dangerous prey may be
illustrated by wolves sizing up their prospects for attacking moose,
bison, or muskoxen, or by the behavior of minks in the presence of
formidable muskrats; but a predator’s decision to attack or not attack
may be quite unrelated to any threat of danger to the predators, them-
selves. Wolves also appraise their chances with caribou that they
have no reason to fear. Bird-hunting hawks may repeatedly test by
preliminary feints the attitudes of small birds that could not possibly
do more than to escape.
Prospective prey that displays alertness toward predatory dangers
yet conducts itself in a recognizably confident manner may discourage
predators from attacking or cause the predators to desist soon after
an attack is undertaken. I think we should give many predatory
vertebrates credit for knowing pretty well when a serious attempt is
not worth going through with. Conversely, except for manifest in-
juries or helplessness, panic on the part of the prey may encourage
attacks about as much as anything.
There may be, however, a still weightier psychological factor in
some predator-prey relationships: social intolerance.
One aspect of social intolerance—territoriality, or the defense of an
area—has been best studied in mammals and birds, in some lower
vertebrates, and in a relatively few invertebrates. Even among the
mammals and birds for which it represents most nearly characteristic
behavior, territoriality may exist in virtually all conceivable degrees
510 |§ ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
of intensity, the year around or only part of a breeding season. It
may represent either highly sterotyped or highly adaptive behavior.
A territory, as for a nesting pair of peregrine falcons, may be several
miles across; or, as in some colony-nesting birds, approximately the
distance that a bird can reach with its beak while sitting on its nest.
For one species of East African bishopbird, a territory may have
boundaries that are exceedingly resistant to change, yet, for a closely
related species of bishopbird, a territory may be almost indefinitely
compressible. There are examples of communal territories defended
by whole colonies. There are examples of the defended territories of
some waterfowl actually lying outside of the nesting grounds.
While usually directed against members of the same species, terri-
torial exclusiveness may also take the form of antagonisms toward
members of different species. Wrens and coots include species of birds
that can be among the more savagely aggressive toward other species
about territorial boundaries.
Savagely aggressive social intolerance is not necessarily restricted to
defense of territories, as is illustrated by the mobbing of hawks and
owls by crows and the mobbing of the crows, in their turn, by smaller
birds. Social tolerances and intolerances may also be influenced by
the traditions that either individuals or populations may build up.
Much may depend upon what animals become accustomed to.
Concerning territorial and other intolerances, one may again easily
regard Nature’s way as being any way that works.
A wolf pack may lay claim to a whole watershed, and the wolves
may jealously keep that area for themselves. Or, they may admit
to their social order or their holdings neighboring groups of wolves
or unattached individuals—depending upon interplays of wolfish
(really doggish) formalities, necessities, and the tolerance or dis-
crimination allowed by individual dispositions. The chief prey ani-
mals of these wolves in the northern Lake States and adjacent Canada
are the white-tailed deer, which have social intolerances too weak to be
much of a self-limiting factor; and the deer may increase up to such
numbers that they starve and seriously damage their environment
while so doing. At least under some conditions, an adequate popula-
tion of wolves may hold the deer down to levels that are in better
biological balance than populations not subject to effective predation.
Social intolerances of minks may not fit too well into the category
of actually defended areas, but the intolerances do work to keep mink
populations spread out. As essentially solitary animals, their winter
densities on the marshes that are the most food-rich for them—the
most generally attractive for them of which I know—seem to level off
at between 12 and 20 minks per square mile. I have never observed
that any superabundance of readily available food ever resulted in
concentrations of free-living minks to the extent that individuals
THE PHENOMENON OF PREDATION—ERRINGTON 511
would be likely to encounter each other with great frequency in their
daily lives. It has always seemed to me that excess minks tend to
withdraw from the mink-crowded places, though this might mean
wandering or trying to live in ecologically inferior environment.
If North American minks have any one favorite food, I should say
that it isthe muskrat. Minks may at times subsist upon muskrat flesh
almost as exclusively as wolves may upon venison—with the outstand-
ing difference that the minks may not find the presence of large num-
bers of muskrats synonymous with availability of large numbers of
muskratsasfood. Our Iowa data show a peak fall population of about
9,000 muskrats living securely on a 935-acre marsh, despite the activi-
ties of about 30 muskrat-hungry minks. The distinction between
availability to predators and mere presence of prey animals should be
emphasized. In the case of our Iowa muskrats, the predation is
centered upon overproduced young; upon the restless, the strangers,
and those physically handicapped by injuries or weakness; upon ani-
mals evicted by droughts, floods, or social tensions; and upon what is
identifiable as the more biologically expendable parts of the popula-
tions.
I do not think that predation should be regarded as a true limiting
factor of these muskrat populations. To the extent that predation
operates only incidentally, removing little except the wastage parts of
populations that are more or less destined to be frittered away somehow
through one agency or another, it may make little difference to the
population levels reached or maintained if the predation losses are light
orheavy. Ishould say that the dominant limiting factor of a muskrat
population is still its own sociology, within the frame of reference im-
posed by the material features of its environment.
Another predator-prey relationship in which severity of the preda-
tion suffered by the prey may be most misleading in off-hand appraisals
of population effects is that of the great horned owl and the bobwhite
quail in north-central United States. Our year-after-year popula-
tion case histories show heavy predation by low populations of owls
upon either high or low populations of quail; light predation by high
populations of owls upon either high or low populations of quail; and
much variation in between. What counts in determining the popula-
tions reached or maintained is not that the owls have quail to eat or that
the quail have owls to eat them. Both species are highly territorial
and show a strong degree of self-limitation independently of each
other. Big owl or small quail, neither under normal conditions per-
mits itself to increase up to levels that are biologically top-heavy.
Each of these two species has in this way much in common, though
one is subject to very little predation and the other is subject to much.
In its workings, territoriality tends to separate the haves from the
have-nots in a population, with the holders of “property rights” having
512 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
tremendous psychological advantages in whatever competition takes
place. Proper consideration of this factor calls for some modification
of conventional views as to the struggle for existence, the ruthlessness
of natural testings, and the nature of predation. The favored parts of
a territorial population that live in relative social peace and are well
adjusted to their environmental resources may, in fact, have fairly
easy lives. They may not have to do much more than to conduct them-
selves according to their ordinary endowments to live securely with
respect to their ancient predatory enemies. In contrast, life can be
anything but benign for the wastage parts of a territorial population,
and these are characteristically vulnerable to such predators as have
aptitudes for preying upon them.
Species having weak if any territoriality may show much more vio-
lent fluctuations. It is quite understandable that the less a population
is self-limited, the more it must be limited by something else: by preda-
tion, parasitism, disease, emigration, malnutrition or exhaustion of
food, exposure to climatic emergencies, and the miscellaneous troubles
that become compounded whenever populations get out of bounds.
THE ROLE OF TERRITORY
Surely, one of the principal differences to be seen in predator-prey
relationships of higher vertebrates and invertebrates is linked with the
relative importance of territoriality in these phylogenetically differing
groups. Between the extremes represented by the most socially ex-
clusive of the mammals and birds and, let us say, oysters growing on top
of one another, many forms have developed territorial behavior to
some degree.
Lizards and fishes—among them chameleons, sunfishes, and stickle-
backs—include territory holders at least during their breeding seasons.
Although territoriality in lizards and fishes may allow great numerical
abundance, populations of these forms may still show distinct tenden-
cies to level off with increased crowding and, often, with apparent inde-
pendence of predatory enemies. Phylogenetically down-scale a little
more, we also have insects and crustaceans that are capable of display-
ing effective antagonism toward possible competitors; and their popu-
lations may have at least some of the features of thresholds of security
and vulnerable overflows. I think of dragonflies perched on tips of
cattail stalks and patrolling their holdings, and, if their behavior is
not truly territorial in so doing, it looks like the next thing to it.
J. H. Pepper published, in the mid-fifties, a most informative com-
parison of the population dynamics of Montana grasshoppers and
Towa muskrats. As far apart in their taxonomic relationships and
as diverse in their living requirements as grasshoppers and muskrats
are, they may show social intolerances and habitat responsiveness that
THE PHENOMENON OF PREDATION—ERRINGTON 513
appear, broadly, not too dissimilar. Parts of grasshopper popula-
tions may, as for the muskrats, be relatively well situated ; other parts,
crowded into inferior habitats or beset by the frictions of overpopula-
tions, are more exposed to miscellaneous mortality factors, including
predation.
I can now see that a good deal of the predation suffered by grass-
hoppers—which I had long assumed to be more random, more of a
gradual-attrition type—falls instead in more of an off-and-on, secure-
and-insecure dichotomy.
(I am reminded that once I had even felt that the predation borne
by an abundant muskrat population was proportional to the numbers
of muskrats and the predators preying upon them, whittling down the
general muskrat population little by little. That was before any
attempts were made to inquire more deeply into what was happening.
With careful local analyses, it became apparent that the predation
that suggested gradual attrition was not in fact working that way
on the muskrat population as a whole; it was conforming to the same
overall rules of order that the Iowa muskrat studies had been bringing
out again and again, whereby parts of the population lived very vul-
nerably while other parts retained their security.)
When reexamining questions of social intolerances and population
effects of predation in the Animal Kingdom, I do not feel surprised
because of the fewness of pat answers that come to mind.
Predator-prey relationships are hardly likely to be unaffected by
social frictions, established property rights, and complex behavior
patterns just because the participants happen to be classed as lizards,
fishes, insects, and crustaceans instead of as mammals and birds. Nor
should the greater collective fecundity of lower vertebrates, with
corresponding individual cheapness of life, be considered a complete
explanation for the lesser territoriality of lower vertebrates. Even
among higher vertebrates, the strongly territorial gray wolf with
close family ties has, on paper, a far higher biotic potential than its
prey, the deer and caribou that may congregate in tremendous num-
bers. Nor can the lesser territoriality of lower vertebates be wholly
explained in terms of their lesser intelligence and lesser adaptiveness,
for territoriality reaches some of its most pronounced evolutionary
peaks in birds, which as a class are less intelligent and adaptable than
are mammals as a class.
The point is, once more, that Life selects for what works out, ir-
respective of our human efforts to define and classify.
INTERCOMPENSATIONS
We may next consider something else that Life selects for, something
that is very often interlinked with or a byproduct of territoriality.
It is a tendency to compensate, one of the prime upsetters of both
514 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
theoretical and “common sense” calculations as to how things work
out in natural equations.
Intercompensatory trends in rates of population gains and losses
go along way toward conferring a singular degree of biological safety
upon species that are subject to vicissitudes. In a resilient population,
severe loss rates may in effect substitute for each other without mount-
ing up excessively high in their totality. Extraordinary losses
through one agency may automatically protect from losses through
many other agencies. The death of one individual may mean little
more than improving the chances for living of another one. Fur-
thermore, in some species, extraordinary losses may be compensated
by accelerated reproduction, more young being produced in conse-
quence of more being destroyed.
From these considerations, it can be perceived why I am not inclined
to accept mere conventional vital statistics as a suitable base for ap-
praising the population effects of predation. More may be needed
than figures as to how many individuals are brought into the world
and how many or what proportions die through predaceous agencies.
Whether the population resiliences permitted by the compensatory
trends enable a species to escape being dangerously reduced by great
trials, or to resist changes in status quo, or to fill up biological frontiers
with explosive rapidity, they obviously can be an important part of
Life. Whether the purposes of human manipulations of animal popu-
lations are to encourage or discourage a particular species, in con-
nection with nature protection, fish and game management, or pest
control, we cannot afford to forget the fact that natural compensations
can nullify much of the thinking that fails to take them into proper
account.
The renesting prowess of some popular game birds is sufficient to
confound many of the pencil-and-paper figurings of laymen, who
easily become emotional at the thought of a crow or a skunk destroy-
ing a clutch of eggs. To the bobwhite quail and the ring-necked
pheasant, the loss of a clutch or two early in the nesting season does
not necessarily signify a corresponding net decrease in productivity
of young. For species that are constituted to hatch only one cluich of
eggs per year and that have a long breeding season and several possible
nesting trials with which to do it, half to three-quarters of their nests
may fail and still allow the breeding females to fill their one-brood
“quota” for the breeding season. The more resilient nesters among
waterfowl seem to be almost as persistent and as ultimately successful
in their renesting efforts. Within broad limits set by physiology and
climate, it may not really matter whether the crows, skunks, raccoons,
or other wild egg eaters plunder a large proportion of the nests or
whether they do not. It may all come out much the same in the end.
THE PHENOMENON OF PREDATION—ERRINGTON 515
Breeding resilience may also compensate for high juvenile mortality
in some of the more prolific mammals. This, too, should not be con-
fused with the mere production of immense numbers of young to allow
for or to compensate in advance for heavy losses. Rather, the popula-
tion adjusts to the social tolerances of the species and the status of
the habitat. Extraordinary losses of young may stimulate reproduc-
tion. For the muskrats of north-central United States, averages
approaching four litters during a breeding season may be born to
uncrowded adult females living under favorable conditions. Averages
as low as a litter to a litter and a half may satisfy crowded popula-
tions in the same kind of place. But, if the early-born young suffer
very high rates of mortality—as through the agencies of floods and
epizootic disease on the north-central study areas—even crowded pop-
ulations may give birth to many additional litters that plainly would
not have come into existence had it not been for the severity of the
earlier losses. After the young of these resilient breeders are hatched
or born, compensatory trends in loss rates go into a substitution phase.
While a minimal loss of young during the rearing season is inevitable
under the best of conditions, a lot of the postbreeding shaking down
of overproduced young depends upon the extent that their environ-
ment is already filled up with their own species. The net population
increases often tend to be according to definite curves or to reach
certain density levels, often in conformity to year-to-year mathemat-
ical patterns that look unaffected by changes in kinds and numbers
of predatory enemies, the impacts of the less sweeping deadly emer-
gencies, and so on. We can thus see evidence of balancing and coun-
terbalancing that make meaningless any calculations as to population
effect based solely upon the numbers or percentages of individuals that
may die through this agency or that.
Muskrat populations comfortably situated in rich environment may
give birth to many young and rear most of the young born; those
populations that are beset by endless stress may give birth to few young
and rear comparatively few of them. When the social squeeze is on
and life is hard, there are bound to be heavy losses from various agen-
cies, including predation from different kinds of predators. Still,
I cannot see that such predation actually operates as a limiting
factor—at any rate insofar as something else is doing the real limiting.
Particularly do I find it difficult to see why some predators, for ex-
ample the mink, may be considered a limiting factor on the basis of
the large numbers of muskrats the mink as a species may kill, as long
as in the absence of minks the muskrats may neither reach nor maintain
their numbers at perceptibly higher density levels than they do in the
presence of the minks. The Iowa case histories of mink-muskrat rela-
tionship repeatedly support this view.
516 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
We may go on from quail and pheasants and muskrats and see simi-
lar evidences of social interplays and compensations in the extensive
literature on population dynamics. Poison-depleted rat and ground-
squirrel populations have responded to lessened social tensions by ac-
celerated rates of increase. The red fox, despite sport and bounty
hunting in north-central United States, not only maintains its numbers
at high levels in suitable range but also, I should say, thrives with
heavy hunting mortality. Heavily hunted deer populations produce
greater numbers of twin fawns than the less hunted. Mallard ducks,
though overshot by man, have remarkably low “natural” loss rates
compared to blue-winged teal, which are relatively little subject to
human hunting. Heavily exploited stocks of sport or food fishes have
faster growing individuals than less exploited stocks in the same
waters. The Iowa lake that most consistently produces the greatest
numbers of large bullheads of which I know is at the same time among
the most heavily fished.
Of course, one could easily overgeneralize. I am aware that many
species of birds have practically no renesting in them. Some grouse
may normally make but a feeble attempt at renesting and then only
if their initial clutches of eggs for the season be destroyed before the
laying birds have invested much time in incubation. The shortness
of the summer does not leave Arctic-nesting waterfowl much time for
renesting, at best, if the late-hatched young are to develop enough to
fly out before freeze-up. Even the bobwhite quail may lose its renest-
ing resilience under the influence of severe and prolonged drought.
There are conditions under which the most resilient of species will not
try to breed at all, under which there seems to be no chance for any
kind of compensatory balancing, at any stage of life.
As concerns either the lack or the prevalence of intercompensatory
trends in the population dynamics of invertebrates, I feel too unsure of
myself to generalize. I do not have to go far in this direction soon to
find myself outside of my radius of professional experience. Of the
opinions about compensations expressed in the invertebrate literature,
a great deal remains inconclusive. Many leading students of popula-
tion dynamics of insects regard compensatory tendencies as of general
application throughout the Animal Kingdom; another very respected
entomologist regards compensatory predation as probably uncommon
in insects.
Perhaps, it may be argued that, concerning phenomena in which
almost anything can happen, everyone can make whatever choice
pleases him, but I do not think that that is a scientifically fair judgment
to make. In studies of the exploiters and the exploited, we deal with
adaptations of long standing. We need not restrict ourselves to the
Animal Kingdom to see this. Grass grows anew in response to graz-
THE PHENOMENON OF PREDATION—ERRINGTON 517
ing, and part of the annual production of a pasture depends upon the
grazing pressure that it receives.
PREDATION ON INVERTEBRATES
The literature on biological control has among its bewildering fig-
ures and variables and mathematical models and claims and counter-
claims some examples of causes and effects that look quite clear. Some
of the evidence as to controlling or regulating influence of predation
upon invertebrate prey populations can be duplicated by experimenta-
tion practically at will, or verified by repeated observations of natural
events that fall into patterns.
Granted that we must know what preys upon what, it is not dis-
advantageous to know about relative severities of predation drawn
by the prey, provided that we do not thereby conclude overmuch.
I have nothing against the idea of exploring what can be explored with
the aid of theoretical means, but I would hesitate to endorse anything
following the line of thought that a given theory must be correct
because it has no alternatives its proponents would rate as logical.
I confess also to a distrust of conclusions derived from mathematical
models that assume more randomness of contacts between predator
and prey than I am accustomed to see under natural conditions—
though, by this, I do not contend that randomness cannot or does
not occur in true-to-life equations.
In general, the more patently the evidence comes from the land—
or the water—itself, the more reassured I feel as to its validity as any
sort of proof, one way or another. And, while even long-term experi-
mentation on the land with predator-prey (or parasite-host) relation-
ships very frequently gives rise to negative or inconclusive results,
there are enough convincing cases of populations of especially insect
prey responding either to increased or decreased predator (or parasite)
pressure to demonstrate causes and effects. Some of the examples
coming out of biological control experiments are by now classics in
the literature on predation. I suppose that almost everyone who has
done much reading in biology knows about lady-bird larvae preying
upon plant lice. Similar examples that are scarcely less celebrated
have been reported from many regions of the world. Indeed, the
books and review papers on biological control attest to a tremendous
amount of collective experience with this sort of thing and to the
frequency with which, among the invertebrates, a predator can in-
fluence the population levels of its prey; and the idea of managing
entomophagous insects through environmental manipulation, estab-
lishment of “refuge stations” in intensively cultivated areas, etc., is
not new in applied entomology. I am uncertain, however, as to how
effectively this type of management may increase an economically
desirable type of predation.
518 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
The role of insectivorous birds in pest control has been threshed over
for decades, sometimes with extravagant claims and assumptions. In
my opinion, the desirability of having birds around can be well advo-
cated on grounds other than the quantities of insects that they eat,
without straining to justify economically what is not economic.
When it comes to appraisal of bird predation upon insects, worms,
slugs, and the small creatures that do what we do not want them to,
the questions continue to arise as to whether such predation does have
a controlling influence or genuinely contribute to control.
The few case histories of control of insect populations through bird
predation that look convincing to me have one thing in common:
superlative intensity of predation. A small garden enclosed by lux-
urious shade trees and shrubbery may concentrate the feeding of a
large number of birds and thus have its insect populations reduced
by the sheer weight of the predatory effort exerted. A homely anal-
ogy may be seen in neighborhood robin depredations on the cherry
crop ripening on someone’s lone backyard tree. But, in considering
predation by birds upon invertebrates on a more spacious scale, it
becomes more difficult to argue from sober facts. The property on
which I live never seems to have any dearth of earthworms, however
much the local robins may be observed pulling them out of the ground
or collecting them in their bills after rains. (Neither do the ground-
plowing moles seem to affect earthworm numbers appreciably, as a
spadeful of soil turned in any place suitable for earthworms will
reveal at almost any time.) We see the chickadees working the tree
branches, the flickers and meadowlarks out in the fields, the swallows
feeding in the air; and we know that they are eating insects, perhaps
of known kinds and in quantities that might be calculated, but, aside
from that, what do we really know about it?
Considering predation by birds on a still more spacious scale, I am
willing to concede that the early Mormon settlers of Utah may have
had good cause to erect a monument to cricket-eating gulls. The
gulls, flocking to feed on the hordes of crickets that threatened the
Mormon crops, very possibly brought the crickets under sufficient
control to save the crops; but, from what I have been able to learn
about this event, it would seem to have been a matter of rather local
concentration of gulls in response to a concentrated food supply; and
I would doubt that the gull predation resulted in any significant
population control of the crickets over truly immense areas.
This naturally leads to philosophical questions as to how much some
degree of predation here and there and now and then by this predator
or that may contribute to the control of an invertebrate species when
added to its other mortality factors; and I am reminded, too, about all
of the confusion between facts of predation and effects of predation
that exists in the literature on vertebrates and invertebrates, alike.
THE PHENOMENON OF PREDATION—ERRINGTON 519
The population effects of predation by raptorial birds upon mice and
upon songbirds may be equated with the numbers of prey killed; so
may predation by the mice and the songbirds upon the insects that
these may kill; so may predation (or parasitism) by insect species upon
each other, by the hornets, the dragonflies, the powerful biters and
stingers of lesser creatures that cannot escape; and yet I should say
that the grounds for imputing population control may be flimsy indeed
without consideration of possible intercompensatory adjustments.
CONCLUSIONS
To sum up concerning predation as a phenomenon, with special
reference to its significance in population control: As may easily be
judged, I regard the outstanding source of error in appraisals of preda-
tor-prey relationships as confusion of the fact of predation with effect
of predation. Apart from a number of extreme or dramatic cases of
predation depleting prey populations in ways that are self-evident, my
inclinations are to look very critically upon figures presented, by
themselves, as proof of population effect. They may constitute no
proof at all, however imposing they may be when superficially
regarded.
For intercompensation remains one of the big answers of prey
species—especially of the less fecund or the only moderately fecund of
prey species—to predation losses as well as to many other losses, On
the basis of my own experience as a student of predation, the best ad-
vice I have to offer anyone interested in exploring the subject on his
own responsibility, or to those trying to obtain workable concepts of its
mechanisms, is, in short: Watch out for the compensations in attempt-
ing to distinguish between what does or does not count. When com-
pensations are important in population dynamics, they simply can-
not be ignored in calculations as to regulation effects of mortality
factors, if the truth is to be reached.
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50,000 Years of Stone Age Culture
in Borneo’
By Tom Harrisson, D.S.O., O.B.E.
Government Ethnologist and Curator of The Museum
Kuching, Sarawak
[With 4 plates]
Wuen I wap the privilege of becoming curator of the Sarawak
Museum in 1947, no systematic archeology had been done in the island
of Borneo and most of the published material on its prehistory was
speculative or even subjective. Slowly, in the past 16 years, we have
been able to accumulate an organized body of fact, starting in Sarawak
itself, and subsequently extending to Brunei and in a preliminary way
to Sabah (North Borneo).
We have reached down to the level of beyond 50,000 B.C. in our
excavation of the Great Cave at Niah. But in considering prehistory
in the context of a place like Borneo, it is necessary to recognize that
as well as extending far back into the past it continues, living, in the
present.
It is not possible to understand the living cultures of Borneo
today without tracing back through their history into prehistory.
This history (among peoples who until recently were really illiterate)
is nevertheless firmly held in a most elaborate sung and spoken folklore.
In this folklore, past events are often identified with specific persons,
places, and numbers of generations back from the present. Though
subject to even more error and argument than the work of Western his-
torians, recent work in Borneo has shown that there is a great deal
of objective value in this folk material; a considerable part of our
Museum energies has been expended in collecting what is left of it,
before the great old singers and story-tellers die out.
In several cases, we have followed up folk tales by actual excavation,
and proved an association between spoken words and things in the
1Read to the Commonwealth Section of the Royal Society of Arts, on November 28,
1963, and subsequently awarded a Prince Philip Medal. From the Journal of the Royal
Society of Arts, vol. 112, No. 5091, pp. 174-191, 1964. Reprinted with revisions by
permission of the Royal Society of Arts.
521
522 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
ground. By and large, this folk information can be regarded as
having a varying but appreciable validity up to 20 generations back,
especially among people like the Kenyahs and Sea Dayaks, who use
remarkable atde-mémoires—in the form of marked planks—to refresh
the compositions of successive generations. After about 20 genera-
tions, 1 or 2 generations may represent centuries, and we move back,
usually, into a world of spirits and psychoses. Nevertheless, even in
this twilight of remembered thought, it is possible to identify distinct
major events, such as the advent of Islam in the 14th century; the
impact of great Hindu figures earlier than that; and the impact of
iron early in the Chinese impacts of the T’ang dynasty.
I first became directly conscious of this stone age element in the
present when I landed, by parachute, among the Kelabits in the far
interior during the Japanese [Second World] War. They were then
at the very end of an actual stone age—such as still persists on a
massive scale in parts of Central New Guinea. They were still using
stone hammers on stone anvils to beat out crude irons for their rice
hoes and jungle knives. Among their most valued cult objects were
peculiar conical stones, which I now believe represent pounders for
root crops and other purposes completely lost since the arrival of rice.
These people have lived above the 3,000-foot level in the remotest part
of the island, less disturbed than any others in this constantly dynamic
and changing island population. I also saw then, and have explored
since, extensive systems of upland irrigation in remote areas and a
tremendously impressive range of megalithic monuments, some of
them junior Stonehenges, standing days of walking away in the jungle.
For these and many other “mysteries,” the Kelabits have extensive
explanations in their folklore. Following up these cult objects of
stone, one finds they are common to many Borneo peoples. But none
of the others have conical pounders. Among the Kenyahs and Kayans
of Sarawak and Kalimantan, another form of adz is characteris-
tically kept and believed to be a magical thunderbolt. Farther north,
among some of the Sabah people, the earlier findings of the late I. H. N.
Evans are extensively confirmed by further collection. There he found
small squared adzes and some remarkable gouges, cigar-shaped and
nearly a foot long. Along the coast and southwest, we find even more
peculiar stone tools (since published in Afan).
Without elaborating on this to the extent of confusion, patterns of
different stone age cultures (in a simple technological sense) can be
mapped over different areas of the island. But, of course, with the
mobility of many of the groups—even in historic times for the Sea
Dayks and others—it does not follow that the tools now found in this
way within any area were originally used there. They may well have
been brought from another island, millennia ago.
50,000 YEARS OF STONE AGE CULTURE IN BORNEO—HARRISSON 523
Now, gradually, we are finding some of the same tools in stratified
excavation, in our cave sites and elsewhere. Only this year, for the
first time, have we found the crescentic adz in situ. This, most puz-
zling, in a new sector of the Niah Great Cave well in the darkness; but
not in the ordinary succession in the enormous cave mouth, to which I
will refer again presently. Others of the cult stone-tools have not so
far been identified by excavation within Borneo, though known
outside.
There is another significant linkage between the protohistory of
ethnology plus folklore and prehistory by excavation, which must be
briefly mentioned in connection with my present theme. Stories are
told (among some peoples) of the actual introduction of iron. The
Kelabits register this as a sort of miracle transformation, where sud-
denly a man appeared, with the first iron tool; he was able to multiply
his agriculture enormously in one splendid day.
As well as stories about iron, there are others about bronze, and these
again are in several cases associated with cult objects. One of these
cult objects, which has a 20+ generation genealogy, has recently been
presented to the Museum by the hereditary owner, a Kayan who no
longer felt his group had the necessary pagan basis and power to pre-
serve it in its deep spiritual context. This figure, called Lmun Ajo, is a
superbly modeled small bronze of a man with a hornbill headdress,
closely related to the D’ongson bronze age culture of Indo-China.?
Imun Ajo is regarded as a sort of fossilized living person, in transfor-
mation from stone to metal. But the important inferences of stories
about him (and others) is that there was an almost direct transition
in Borneo from the late stone age (Neolithic) to iron. There was no
real bronze age in between, in Borneo; which moved from a tremen-
dously developed Neolithic bang to a massive explosion of iron (I
believe).
We have now traced some of the actual ironworking sites in the
Sarawak River delta, where metal is always associated with impressive
debris of a Chinese trade, noticeably ceramics of T’ang-Sung date.
Using mine detectors, we have been able to plot some of these. One
stretches for nearly a mile along a now silted-up creek; another, cover-
ing about 3 acres, has accumulations of iron slag down to 12 feet in
depth—if it were not so inaccessible in what is now mangrove swamp,
it would be extracted by bulldozer to provide Sarawak with much
needed road metal.
This iron, in the living context of the great and difficult Borneo rain
forest, had an even more radical effect here than in many places. It
facilitated techniques for felling and clearing. And it provided a
2 Photographs and particulars will be published in a forthcoming issue of Artibus Asiae.
3 See papers in Oriental Art and Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society.
766—746—65—42
524 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
means of boring long straight holes through hardwood to provide that
wonderfully efficient weapon, the Bornean type of polished blowpipe,
which can shoot a dart accurately for long distances, including into
the forest canopy. The extensive evidence from analyses of the very
large quantities of food bone we have been recovering from the stone
age levels of the Niah cave (over a million pieces to date) underlines
how difficult it had previously been for man to hunt the rich fauna
of the highest jungle levels, and how much he tended to concentrate on
the terrestrial and lower arboreal.
Nevertheless, there is much to show that through Borneo iron pro-
duced a technological acceleration rather than a “revolution”: that
to a large extent it was adapted to and within the continuing frame-
work of emerging advances in Neolithic thinking and social organiza-
tion, with a population rapidly expanding before iron appeared. In
this connection one must emphasize that quite recent explorations in
Central New Guinea have shown nearly a million people living with a
highly developed culture and irrigated agriculture, above the 3,000-
foot mark there, strictly in the stone age.
By now (1965) it may have become almost painfully clear, to those
who have been patient enough to follow my thesis so far, that both the
Borneo present and the Borneo past are exceedingly complex; if we
are ever to understand them we must use archeology in parallel with
folklore—and also, of course, ethnology, anthropology, and linguistics.
But I do not for a moment wish to imply that the task is too difficult
to be undertaken. On the contrary, it can be very rewarding. For
there is, I think, a better chance of getting a full picture for Borneo
than perhaps anywhere else in far Asia. Conditions that encouraged
active and extending fieldwork since 1947 continue into 1965. There
are, of course, grave political difficulties as between Indonesia and
Malaysia. But it is an ethnic fact that nearly all the major groups
of island population are represented on both sides of the political
border and that a large part of the total picture can be built up from
one side. Later, under happier conditions, the rest can be filled in
from the other. One great thing about archeology is that it can nearly
always wait. A pressing urgency about folklore is that in emergent
new nations it is liable to be lost unless immediately recorded for
future generations.
Let me now concentrate on the archeological aspect more strictly.
From 1947 on, the Sarawak Museum began to train local staff in
excavating techniques, beginning with simple work at the early iron
age sites in the Sarawak River delta already referred to and in some
small caves at Bau, close to the Museum in the capital at Kuching.
Some of the results of this earlier work have been published in the
Journal of the Polynesian Society, and fairly extensively in the Sara-
wak Museum Journal. This latter journal, in which we have pro-
50,000 YEARS OF STONE AGE CULTURE IN BORNEO—HARRISSON 525
duced 4,000 pages of original work since 1947, has also dealt extensively
with the more elaborate excavations which we have gradually devel-
oped, particularly at the Niah caves, with personnel trained on the
lesser sites. Three papers have appeared in Man, but I am only too
conscious of the fact that we have been so much engaged with the work
itself that we have tended to publish only locally. Nevertheless, the
material which I will now seek to summarize is largely available in
that print, including papers by foreign experts who have generously
assisted our project by studying material sent to them from Sarawak,
notably Dr. D. A. Hooijer and Professor G. H. R. von Koenigswald
from Holland; Dr. D. Brothwell, the Karl of Cranbrook, Miss Mary
Tregear, Professor S. Tratman, and Dr. Calvin Wells in Britain;
Dr. Robert Griffing, Dr. R. Kerr, Dr. A. R. Griswold, Dr. W. 8S. Sol-
heim and Dr. Robert Inger from the U.S.A. This is also the moment
to express warm thanks to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, who
have made a series of very generous grants to the work; to the Shell
Group of companies and the Chicago Natural History Museum, who
have supported us in many ways in the field; and to the Sarawak
government for its continuing basic support. We have also had en-
couragement and good advice from Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, F.R.S.,
Dr. Kenneth Oakley, F.B.A., Dr. M. Burkitt, Dr. Richard Shutler, and
Professor W. W. Howells. Most of these mentioned above have come
to see our work on the spot.
We began digging at Niah in 1954, by which time I had enough
trained staff and some initial financial support. By then we already
knew that the Great Cave covered over 25 acres. The first trial trench,
dug with Mr. Michael Tweedie and Mr. Hugh Gibb, showed rich hu-
man materials under a surface which indicated nothing. I have traced,
in the Sarawak Museum Journal for 1958, the strange story of early
searches in this cave, the first inspired by the great Alfred Russel Wal-
lace—who spent more than a year in Sarawak just over a century ago
and focused attention on the search for a Borneo “missing link.” I
have also there explained how this vast cavern with more than 2 million
edible bird’s-nest swiftlets and nearly half a million bats (of seven
species), was lost to human knowledge and exploitation for several
centuries after the collapse of the China-Borneo trade in the Ming
dynasty; how it was rediscovered by nomadic Punans, and again be-
came a socioeconomic center, first as a major source of bird’s-nests, and
subsequently of bat guano for fertilizer. But the swiftlets and bats
live in the dark bowels of the caves, which through various chambers
run for miles through the Niah mountain.
The main or west mouth of the Great Cave is about 200 yards wide
and up to 100 yards high. This is so light that it is free of guano, and
thus remained untouched until 1954. After initially proving the site
in 1954, it took some time to raise the large additional funds and out-
526 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
side help that were clearly going to be necessary, but in 1957 we started
large-scale regular excavation. Now, in 1968, we have a house inside
the cave, mouth and a large base camp organization on the river 2
miles away, with a connecting hardwood plank-walk from river to
cave. Permanent staff are on duty all the year round. We average
4 to 5 months’ field excavation during the year; and all-the-year-round
analysis back in Kuching (where we now have a fine new research
building).
The simplest fact about the Great Cave west mouth is that what
appears to be earth producing a wide pleasant floor is really aimost
solid human deposit, back at least into the middle Paleolithic. The
outer part of the mouth was used primarily for frequentation in the
Neolithic—by which time people were making some permanent dwell-
ings out in the rain forest; and for regular habitation in the earlier
phases of stone age (Paleolithic—Mesolithic).
In front of the guano belt of darkness, the whole floor is netted with
burials, of which we have now more than 100 left exposed in situ, under
perspex covers—for later full study. Burials also occur in the habita-
tion-frequentation zone, mostly at the deeper levels; usually the bodies
distorted, crouched, or the head alone. The deepest of these so far is a
young Homo sapiens boy which has been fully published by Dr. Broth-
well and generally accepted (eg., at the recent Pacific Science
Congress, Hawaii) as corresponding to a carbon-14-dated level of
around 38,000 p.c. There is good reason to believe that its date is
correct within, at the worst, a few thousand years; and it therefore
represents much the earliest Homo sapiens (“modern man’) found so
far East. The further inferences is that Homo sapiens was much more
widely distributed considerably earlier than has previously been sup-
posed. This is indirectly supported by other archeological indica-
tions that human culture advanced early and rapidly in West Borneo.
I believe that full excavation elsewhere in Southeast Asia will un-
doubtedly provide similar material in Malaya, Thailand, and Indo-
nesia. Dr. Robert Fox (of the National Museum in Manila) and I
visited Palawan in the Southern Philippines 2 years ago, on an archeo-
logical reconnaissance, and he has since, using similar techniques there,
already produced Homo sapiens material which is datable to beyond
20,000 z.c. from a Palawan cave.
The Brothwell Niah skull comes from 100 inches level in the West
Mouth excavations at a pit we call “Hell’”—owing to the heat and dis-
comfort of working there . .. The deposit down here is extremely
fine and difficult to work. Soon after 100 inches, bone (both human or
food remains) and all food shell (of which 20 species occur in quantity
higher up) disintegrate completely through the mere process of equa-
torial time. For a feature of Niah is that nothing in these deposits
has fossilized. Under the peculiar conditions of this great limestone
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Harrisson PLATE 1
1. Sarawak Museum’s laboratory inside Niah Great Cave mouth. Edible birdsnest climbing
poles are shown on each side of the hut, rising from a declivity in the background.
2. General view up main excavation area in West Mouth, Niah Great Cave. “Cemetery”
is at far back; main “frequentation” area is in foreground.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Harrisson PLATE 2
1. Neolithic burial (No. 76) at Niah Great Cave, with associated pottery.
2. Massive earthenware urn, decorated in three colors and used for “secondary burials,”
especially of women and babies, in the late Neolithic of West Borneo.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Harrisson PLATE 3
Teh ial
Ws bai
in dell? at
1. Working below the 100-inch layer—on which the author is standing
c. 40,000 B.C. in Niah Great Cave.
tro
. The Deep Skull, from Niah—earliest Homo sapiens known in Far Asia.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Harrisson PLATE 4
1. Wall paintings in scarlet haematite, Painted Cave, Niah. A major emphasis is on
“death ships.”
2. “Death ship” coffins lying on floor of Painted Cave, Niah.
50,000 YEARS OF STONE AGE CULTURE IN BORNEO—HARRISSON 527
cave, it has been so naturally and slowly dehydrated that bone and
shell simply continue until they expire.
Below 120 inches—and we are now working well below this—the
main indications of human activity are through chemical analyses of
the “soil” (which have been undertaken for us by Dr. C. A. Sutton
and others), by certain pollens (on which we have been working with
the Shell laboratories), and by the presence of stone tools and fire
strikers.
Stone tools are, of course, the clearest indication of all. But here
we come up against another peculiarity of Niah and West Borneo
generally. There is a great shortage of durable, workable stone
throughout the area—even of rough stone suitable for roadmaking.
Whereas in Sabah, Malayan, Thai, and Palawan caves large quan-
tities of stone tools are generally found, all through West Borneo hard
stone has been sparse, and was clearly precious to early man. At the
deeper levels we are finding only very small, fine flakes of quartzite.
Even in the late Neolithic, when there was clearly much mobility and
even sea traflic, the polished stone tools are quite few and far between
in the excavation. By presistence over the years, we have now ac-
quired a good series for the whole deposit. But it is not unusual, with
a team of up to 50 or so working, to recover no more than one stone tool
during the day. Correspondingly, there has been an elaboration of
bone tools, on which Lord Medway and I have recently published a
first attempt at an 18-category typology.
It is quite possible that as we continue lower at Niah we shall come
to a level of true fossilization; or, anyway, limification. Otherwise,
we have little chance of finding pre-Homo skeletal remains such as
Pithecanthropus. We may now reach that sort of depth by 1965.
Meanwhile, common sense suggests that such early hominids were
present in Borneo, which had a land link with Java and “Java men”
in the Pleistocene. We have recently recovered, in a bauxite mine near
Kuching, two large stone tools which may well belong to that “cul-
ture,” as described by Dr. von Koenigswald and Dubois.
Of particular interest in this connection is the presence, in the “Hell”
deposit at Niah, of the extinct giant pangolin, Mainis palaeojavanica
(Dubois). This was previously described from the fossil beds of
Trinil in Java associated with Pithecanthropus. The curator of the
Dubois Collection at Leyden, Dr. Hooijer, has now identified from
Niah a series of bones of this huge, scaly anteater—in of course non-
fossil condition—extending to the limit of our bone survival depth in
“Hell.” It has not been found in the high levels.
In the higher levels, for which we have a series of published carbon-
14 dates, and others in preparation, I very provisionally put forward
the crude tabulation shown in table 1.
528 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
TasBLeE 1.—Preliminary Niah phaseology
Approximate Niah
Phase Main “‘characteristic’”’ starting date
(estimated)
1. Middle Paleolithic? ___-- ding flakes 42. a 144 bs iees ees 40,000+ B.C.
7 Ni a gl Se (6 (oT ee Re LARC Oa Fee ‘““Mid-Sohan”’ flake !____._____- 35—40,000 B.C.
3. Upper Paleolithic? . __-_- Chopping tools and large flakes__| ca. 30,000 B.C.
4. eS 6 (cS aya LO Srnaall flakes) See mee eae 25-30,000 B.C.
5. ‘‘Paleo—Mesolithic’’?____| ‘‘Advanced flakes”_________-__ 10,000 B.C.?
63/2 Mesolithie?=b Gi. 11868 Edge-ground tools___---------- ca. 7,000 B.C.
d-(eNeolighie. 2251-2 F ee “Round ax’7 Zc Jee se Ns Tee av ca. 4,000 B.C.
(or later).
Sees Cs Gao Sap tag sala See at Quadrangular adzes; fine ca. 250 B.C.
pottery, jewelry, mats, nets,
etc.
9:7 Chaleolithie’ 4322.02 “Soft tool” in stone; slight ca. 250 B.C.
nonfunctional bronze;
elaborate pottery, beads.
LOS diarly iran So ee Tron tools, imported ceramics, A.D. 650 (until
glass beads, etc. A.D. 13800).
1 See Man, 1959.
I should emphasize the apparent absence (at No. 6 in table 1) of
those distinctive struck pebble tools usually attributed to the Mesolithic
in Malaya and Indonesia and name “Hoabinhian” after the type site
in Vietnam. I am mildly sceptical about the “Hoabinhian” as gen-
erally accepted; in any case, it is—as at present defined—strikingly
absent at Niah.
The situation at Niah is not, clearly, unique. Further cave explora-
tion in Borneo will surely yield similar results. But there are certain
conditions that are desirable to produce a site of this richness, For
one thing, a cave floor must be well above sea level, to avoid effects of
prehistorical changes in level and also massive floods from the great
rivers—which have continued even in historical times. It was also
a big attraction to early man to have a cave literally teeming with
protein in the form of edible birds and bats.
Yet the extent to which a place like Niah became a center of stone
age civilization has only been barely indicated above. As well as the
work in the West Mouth, in the last 5 years we have been exploring
the whole limestone formation of the Niah massif. We have found
literally scores of other caves of archeological value. One of these,
first identified from the air, involved a group of skilled climbers in
5 days’ preparation and ladder building before they could reach it
high up in the cliff. It proved to be a cave almost as impressive as
the West Mouth itself; and a first scratch at the surface produced posi-
tive human results. We have so far excavated extensively in 5 other
50,000 YEARS OF STONE AGE CULTURE IN BORNEO—HARRISSON 529
caves in the formation. The broad results fit with the West Mouth
picture: But in every case something new and special has appeared as
well—including some evidence for a small Neolithic “negritoid” popu-
lation living alongside larger people, but using separate burial caves
(there have been no negritos on the island in historic times).
Most exciting of all is a beautiful cave 300 ft. up in a difficult cliff,
the whole back wall of which is painted with primitive designs in
scarlet hematite. The cave floor is littered with relics of late stone and
early iron age rituals for secondary burial (transference of bones) and
the journey of the dead, including quantities of early Chinese porce-
lain and other mainland imports. A separate monograph on this cave
is now under preparation.
This “Painted Cave” showed no sign of having been visited by man
during several centuries. It is too high and light to contain either of
Niah’s modern incentives for search—bat guano or edible nests. After
reconstructing, by excavation in association with the wall paintings,
a picture of what we think was going on there about a thousand and
more years ago, we found that some of the same ideas were present in
the folklore and custom of the Punans living at Niah today. They
themselves became so interested in this that, with the help of some of
the oldest men, we have been able to “revive” the old Punan death
rites for secondary burial to assist the spirits in the journey of the
dead. This clearly goes right back into the ancient past—and now
it can be shown in film.
On the whole, the most striking impression gained from all this
work is of the highly advanced culture that was achieved as the stone
age proceeded in West Borneo. By the later Neolithic, say at 2,000
B.c., there were beautifully made polished tools, superb pottery dec-
orated in three colors, of which we now have reconstructed or whole
pieces and over 200,000 classified sherds. They had an elaboration of
shell, bone, and stone jewelry (including jade) ; mats, nets, and good
boats. They showed what could fairly be described as a love of the
dead, extending not only to exquisitely laid out primary burials, but
also to secondary burial and cremation, especially of babies—these long
predating the Hindu influence to which this custom had hitherto
been attributed in Southeast Asia.* They had a small domestic dog,
possibly a Neolithic lap dog rather than a hunter—as proved by bones
not only from Niah but from 400 miles away behind Kuching. This
dog features in folklore but is now extinct, completely swamped by
the only too familiar bigger “pye dog” of the East, which iself is related
to the Basenji breed of sophisticated dog breeders.
This dynamic Neolithic undoubtedly extended far inland into the
central highlands; and along the coast even to tiny offshore islands.
*¥For a fuller account of the growth and elaboration of contemporary death rites out of
the stone age, see ‘Borneo Death,” Bijdragen, vol. 116. Leiden. 1962.
530 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Recently, the Sabah Government was faced with the necessity of blow-
ing up a whole islet to get “fill” for the extension of the airport of
Labuan, for this was the only hard stone anywhere near. In the
process the engineers came across a tiny cave. A Sarawak Museum
unit was rushed up there; and we were able to recover what remained
before the work of necessary destruction proceeded. On this one of
many small islands, in a cave hardly big enough for three bodies,
lay secondary burials associated with a three-color ware pottery and
polished stone tools. This is just one clue to the scale and extent of
human probing, that long ago.
Borneo has an astonishingly rich, varying, and enterprising culture
today. I think that the part which Sabah and Sarawak are going to
play in the new Federation of Malaysia will amply demonstrate this
in the most modern of settings. A good deal of the strength in this
setup derives directly from a tremendous tradition of development
and human evolution going right back to the Brothwell skull—and
behind that.
This is, necessarily, both a general report and a preliminary one.
Within a few months, I hope to be back working at Niah for at least
another 2 years. Meanwhile, also, we are training local personnel to
extend these investigations more widely in Malaysian Borneo and the
State of Brunei. We should welcome further outside support, par-
ticularly from specialists prepared to collaborate on specific sections
of the project, whether out there or back here in the West..
5 For a picture of living cultures inside Borneo, see the 1963 Dickson Asia Lecture to
the Royal Geographical Society in Geographical Journal, 1964. The megalithic culture and
past population of the uplands are also discused there.
The Emergence of the Plains Indian as the
Symbol of the North American Indian
By Joun C. Ewers
Director, Museum of History and Technology
Smithsonian Institution
[With 18 plates]
Onz sumMMeER’s pAy in 1941 I stood on the North Montana Fair-
ground in Great Falls. From a stand in front of me a fast-talking
patent medicine salesman was vigorously extolling the curative powers
of his bottled wares. From time to time he pointed to the living
advertisement standing beside him—a tall, erect, young White man
whose paint-streaked face was framed by a beautiful, flowing-feather
bonnet. The young man’s body was clothed in a cloth shirt, leggings,
and a breechclout dyed to resemble buckskin. His feet were clad in
beaded moccasins. The audience, for the most part, was composed
of Indians from Montana reservations wearing common White men’s
clothes—shirts and trousers. I was intrigued by the fact that this
pale-faced symbol of an American Indian standing before us was
wearing a close approximation of the same costume the Blackfeet,
Crees, and Crows in the audience would put on when they staged an
Indian show for the enjoyment of tourists.
How did this picturesque costume come to symbolize “Indianness”
to the minds of Indians and Whites alike? How did the popular
image of the Indian come to be formed in a Plains Indian mold?
Why de people in Europe and America, when they think of Indians,
tend to think of them as wearers of backswept feather bonnets, as
dwellers in conical tipis, and as mounted warriors and buffalo hunters ?
Surely our founding fathers had no such conception of the Indian in
the days when the frontier of settlement extended only a short distance
west of the Alleghenies, and the only Indians the remote frontiersmen
knew were forest dwellers who lived in bark-covered houses, traveled
in bark canoes or dugouts, hunted and fought on foot, and wore no
flowing-feather bonnets. Nor was the prevailing popular image of
the Indian an original creation of the motion pictures during the 20th
century. How and when, then, did this image emerge?
766-746—65——43 531
532 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Probing into history we find that the creation and clarification of
this image was a prolonged process to which many factors contributed.
Let us try to trace the development of this image from what appear
to be its earliest beginnings.
THE FIRST PICTURES OF PLAINS INDIANS (1804-1840)
Obviously before non-Indians could begin: to picture Indians in
Plains Indian terms, they had to have fairly clear ideas of the appear-
ance of the Indians of the Great Plains and of those aspects of their
culture that typified their way of life. European explorers and
traders traversed considerable portions of the Plains in the 214 cen-
turies between Coronado’s quest for the fabled city of Quivera on the
grasslands of Kansas in 1541 and the purchase of Louisiana by the
United States in 1803. Nevertheless, those Spaniards, French, and
Englishmen produced no popular literature about and no known
pictures of Plains Indians—either portraits or scenes of Indian life.
At the time of the Louisiana Purchase these Indians remained vir-
tually unknown to the peoples of Europe and the United States (al-
though a number of earlier explorers’ and traders’ accounts have been
published since that time).
The earliest known portraits of Plains Indians were made in the
cities of the East during the first decade of the 19th century. They
were likenesses of Indians whom President Jefferson urged Lewis
and Clark to send to the seat of government in Washington. They
were profiles executed by two very competent artists, who both em-
ployed versions of a mechanical device, known as a physiognotrace,
to accurately delineate the outlines of their sitters’ heads. The French
refugee artist Charles Balthazer Fevret de Saint-Mémin made por-
traits of some of the 12 men and 2 boys of the Osages who comprised
the first delegation of Indians from beyond the Mississippi. Thomas
Jefferson welcomed these Indians to the Presidential Mansion in the
summer of 1804, and enthusiastically termed them “the most gigantic”
and “the finest men we have ever seen” (Jackson, 1962, p. 199). Saint-
Mémin’s most striking profile is that of the chief of the Little Osages
(pl.d, fie, 1).
Charles Willson Peale, prominent Philadelphia artist and museum
proprietor, cut miniature silhouettes of 10 members of a second Indian
delegation from the West. He sent a set of these profiles to President
Jefferson on February 8, 1806 (Jackson, 1962, p. 299). One of these
sitters was Pagesgata, a young Republican Pawnee from the Platte
Valley (pl. 1, fig. 2).
After his return from the Pacific coast, Meriwether Lewis purchased
several originals or copies of Saint-Mémin’s Indian portraits. Un-
doubtedly he intended to reproduce them in an elaborately illustrated
account of the Lewis and Clark explorations which he proposed, but
THE PLAINS INDIAN—EWERS Dae
never produced because of his untimely death in 1809. Peale also was
to have furnished illustrations for this ill-fated work. Doubtless they
would have included accurate drawings of the Plains Indian costumes
and other artifacts sent or brought back by Lewis and Clark, which
Peale exhibited in his popular Philadelphia Museum.
More significant factors in the early diffusion of the Plains Indian
image were the oil portraits of several members of an Indian delega-
tion from the Lower Missouri and Platte Valley tribes who arrived
in Washington late in the year 1821. Although Charles Bird King
painted these Indians for Thomas McKenney, Superintendent of
Indian Trade, he executed several replicas of these paintings that
were diffused more widely—one set being sent to Denmark, another
to London. The original portraits formed the nucleus of the National
Indian Portrait Gallery, which became one of Washington’s popular
tourist attractions before it was almost completely destroyed in the
Smithsonian Institution fire of 1865 (Ewers, 1954).
The most popular Indian in that 1821 delegation was Petalesharro,
a young Pawnee warrior. He was hailed as a hero during his eastern
tour because he had courageously rescued a Comanche girl captive
just as her life was to be taken in the traditional human sacrifice to
the morning star, an annual Pawnee ceremony. Petalesharro’s por-
trait was painted by John Neagle in Philadelphia, as well as by King,
and Samuel F. B. Morse placed him in front of the visitor’s gallery
in his well-known painting of “The Old House of Representatives,”
executed in 1822. (See pl. 2.) All three paintings show this Indian
hero wearing a flowing-feather bonnet. They are, to the best of my
knowledge, the first of the millions of pictorial renderings of this
picturesque Indian headgear produced by artists and photographers.
The popular novelist James Fenimore Cooper met Petalesharro
during that Indian’s eastern tour. This meeting was a source of in-
spiration to the author in writing Zhe Prairie, the only one of the
Leatherstocking Tales to have a Great Plains setting (Keiser, 1933,
pp. 184-138). In the living Indians of the Plains, Cooper recognized
the virtues he had imputed to his Woodland Indian heroes of an earlier
period in The Last of the Mohicans. Writing of the Indians 2 years
after that popular novel was published, he observed: “The majority of
them, in or near the settlements, are an humbled and much degraded
race. As you recede from the Mississippi, the finer traits of savage
life become visible.”
Cooper thought that Plains Indian chiefs possessed a “loftiness of
spirit, of bearing and of savage heroism . . . that might embarrass
the fertility of the richest inventor to equal,” and he cited Petal-
esharro as a prime example (Cooper, 1828, vol. 2, pp. 287-288).
Some of the distinctive traits of the Plains Indians were pictured
in illustrated books and magazines prior to 1840. The first published
534 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
picture of the conical skin-covered tipis of the nomadic Plains tribes
was a crude engraving after Titian Peale’s field sketch on Major
Long’s expedition of 1819-20, which appeared in Edwin James’ ac-
count of those explorations (James, 1823). (See pl. 3, fig. 1.) The
first reproduction of a Plains Indian warrior on horseback probably
was the lithograph of Peter Rindisbacher’s drawing “Sioux Warrior
Charging” that appeared in the October 1829 issue of Zhe American
Turf Register and Sporting Magazine (pl. 4). Young Rindisbacher
had ample opportunities to observe Plains Indian warriors and buffalo
hunters during nearly 5 years’ residence in Lord Selkirk’s settlement
on the Red River of the North, 1821-26. His lively portrayal of
Indians on horseback chasing buffalo was offered as the colored litho-
graphic frontispiece in the first volume of Thomas McKenney and
James Hall’s classic History of the Indian Tribes of North America
(1836-44). (See pl. 5.) However, of the 120 finely printed colored
lithographs of Indians in that handsome work only a small proportion
portray Plains Indians, and all of these were portraits of members
of western delegations to Washington, the originals of which had
been executed by Saint-Mémin, King, or the latter’s pupil George
Cooke.
In 1839 Samuel George Morton of Philadelphia, now known as the
father of physical anthropology in America, published his major work,
Crania Americana. Its frontispiece is a lithographic reproduction of
John Neagle’s portrait of the Omaha head chief Big Elk, a prominent
member of the 1821 deputation from the Great Plains. Morton ex-
plained this selection : “Among the multitude of Indian portraits which
have come under my notice, I know of no one that embraces more
characteristic traits than this, as seen in the retreating forehead, the
low brow, the dull and seemingly unobservant eye, the large aquiline
nose, the high cheek bones, full mouth and chin and angular face”
(Morton, 1839, p. 292). (See pl. 3, fig. 2.)
The first illustrated schoolbook on American history was Rev.
Charles A. Goodrich’s History of the United States. First published
in 1823, it went through 150 printings by 1847. However, Noah
Webster’s History of the United States was a popular competitor from
its first appearance in 1832. The small and sometimes indistinct
woodcuts in these books are not numerous. Nevertheless, some of them
include Indians. A few scenes in Webster’s history were adopted from
John White’s 16th-century drawings of Indian life in coastal North
Carolina. But the scenes depicting early explorers’ meetings with
Indians, the making of Indian treaties, and the conduct of Indian wars
seem to be based largely upon the imaginations of their anonymous
creators. Plains Indians are conspicuously absent. They had yet to
make an indelible mark upon American history in their determined
THE PLAINS INDIAN—EWERS 535
resistence to the expansion of White settlement onto and across their
grassy homeland.
THE INFLUENCE OF GEORGE CATLIN AND KARL BODMER (1841-60)
No other mid-19th century factors had such a stimulating influence
on both (1) the projection of the Plains Indian image and (2)
the acceptance of this image as that of the American Indian par ex-
cellence as did the writings of the American artist George Catlin and
the German scientist Maximilian Alexander Philipp, Prince of Wied-
Neuwied; and the pictures of Catlin and of the Swiss artist Karl
Bodmer, who accompanied the prince on his exploration of the Upper
Missouri in 1833-34.
Inspired by the site of a delegation of western Indians passing
through Philadelphia on their way to Washington, and his own con-
viction that the picturesque Plains Indians were doomed to cultural
extinction as the frontier expanded westward, Catlin determined to
rescue these Indians from oblivion and to “become their historian”
before it was too late. During the summers of 1832 and 1834 he
traveled among the tribes of the Upper Missouri and the Southern
Plains gathering information and preparing pictures for an Indian
Gallery, which he exhibited to enthusiastic audiences in the larger
American cities. In 1840, he took the exhibition to England for a
4-year display in London; this was followed by a Paris exhibition that
included a special showing for King Louis Philippe in the Louvre. In
addition to his paintings this exhibition included costumed manne-
quins, a pitched Crow tipi, and enactments of Indian dances and cere-
monies by Chippewa or Iowa Indians. No one had brought the Wild
West to civilization as had Catlin, and his exhibition must have made a
lasting impression upon all Americans and Europeans who saw it.
Nevertheless, Catlin’s books must have had a still wider influence.
His two-volume Manners, Customs and Condition of the North
American Indians, published in London in 1841, combined a vivid
description of his travels and observations with 312 steel-engraved
reproductions of his paintings. The work was enthusiastically re-
viewed in America and abroad, and was reprinted five times in as
many years. Although Catlin included brief descriptions and illustra-
tions, primarily portraits, of a number of the semicivilized Woodland
tribes, he concentrated primarily upon the wild tribes of the Great
Plains. There could be no mistaking either from his text or from his
pictures that the Plains Indians were his favorites. Repeatedly, if
not consistently, Catlin sang their praises. He declared that the tribes
of the Upper Missouri were the “finest specimens of Indians on the
Continent . . . all entirely in the state of primitive rudeness and wild-
ness, and consequently are picturesque and handsome, almost beyond
536 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
description.” The Crows were as “handsome and well-formed set of
men as can be seen in any part of the world”; the Assiniboins “a fine
and noble looking race.” There were no “finer looking men than the
Sioux”; and Catlin used almost the same words to describe the
Cheyennes. (Catlin, 1841, vol. 1, pp. 22-28, 49, 54, 210; vol. 2, p. 2.)
Catlin devoted several chapters of his book to Four Bears, the second
chief of the Mandan, whom he called the “most extraordinary man,
perhaps, who lives to this day, in the atmosphere of Nature’s
noblemen.” (See pl. 6, fig. 1.)
Prince Maximilian’s Reise in das Innere Nord-America in den
Jahren 1832 bis 1834, first published in Coblenz (1839-41), offered a
more restrained, scientific description of the Indians of the Upper
Missouri. Nevertheless, it was reprinted in Paris and London within
3 years, and the demand for it soon exceeded the supply. Its great
popularity was due largely to the excellent reproductions of Karl
Bodmer’s incomparable field sketches of Plains Indians that appeared
in the accompanying Ad/as,
Together the works of Catlin and Maximilian-Bodmer, appearing
almost simultaneously, greatly stimulated popular interest in the
Plains Indians in this country and abroad, and had a strong influence
on the work of many other artists.
They influenced the pictorial representation of Indians during the
mid-19th century in three important ways. First, the Catlin-
Maximilian-Bodmer example encouraged other artists to go west and
to draw and/or paint the Indians of the Plains in the field. Among
the best known of these artists were the American John Mix Stanley,
the German-American Charles Wimar, the Canadian Paul Kane, and
the Swiss Rudolph Friederich Kurz.
Secondly, they encouraged some of the most able illustrators of
the period, who had not visited the western Indian Country, to help
meet the popular demand for pictures of Plains Indians by using the
works of Catlin and Bodmer for reference. In 1848, 2 years after
the first publication of Catlin’s popular book, an enterprising Phila-
delphia publisher offered Scenes in Indian Life: A Series of Original
Designs Portraying Events in the Life of an Indian Chief. Drawn
and etched on Stone by Felix O. C. Darley. This pictures episodes in
the life history of a fictional Sioux chief. The artist was then an
almost unknown “local boy,” 20 years of age; but he possessed re-
markable skill asa draftsman. Darley became the outstanding Ameri-
can book and magazine illustrator of the century. Even though most
of his finely drawn illustrations are of non-Indian subjects, he re-
peatedly pictures buffalo hunts and other Plains Indian activities. He
prepared the frontispiece and illustrated title page for the first edition
of Francis Parkman’s classic, 7he California and Oregon Trail (1849),
and toward the end of his life designed a colored lithograph, “Return
from the Hunt,” which has the qualities of spurious realism that only a
THE PLAINS INDIAN—EWERS Hat
highly skilled artist who does not know his subject can impart to
his work. The picture shows a birchbark canoe in the foreground,
a village of tipis in the middle ground, and a background of high
mountains. Darley appears to have produced a handsome geograph-
ical and cultural monstrosity in which characteristics of the region
from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains are compressed into a
single scene (pl. 9).
Darley was on firmer ground when he followed Catlin and Bodmer
more closely. A few of his book illustrations are frankly acknowl-
edged as “after Catlin” (pl. 8).
Some of the most popular Currier and Ives prints of the 1850’s and
1860’s were western scenes, lithographed from very realistic drawings
executed jointly by German-born Louis Maurer and English-born
Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, neither of whom had any first-hand know]l-
edge of Plains Indians. Maurer acknowledged that they learned about
Indians from the reproductions of Bodmer’s and Catlin’s works in the
Astor Library in New York City (Peters, 1931, p. 21).
Finally Catlin and Bodmer powerfully influenced those lesser, poorly
paid artists who anonymously illustrated a number of popular books
on Indians as well as school histories; these began to appear within
a very few years after the books of Catlin and Bodmer were published.
One can trace the progressive degeneration of truthfulness in illustra-
tion in the copies of these once popular books preserved in the Rare
Book Room of the Library of Congress.
A prolific writer of popular books of the 1840-60 period was Samuel
Griswold Goodrich, who commonly used the pen name “Peter Parley,”
and who claimed in 1856 that he had written 170 books of which 7
million copies had been sold. Goodrich had discovered Catlin by
1844, when he published History of the Indians of North and South
America; he quoted Catlin in the text and copied Catlin’s “Four Bears”
in one illustration. Two years later Goodrich’s The Manners, Cus-
toms, and Antiquities of the Indians of North America derived all of
its 35 illustrations of North American Indians from Catlin—28 of
these being Plains Indian subjects. Finally, in Goodrich’s Zhe Amer-
ican Child’s Pictorial History of the United States, first published in
1860, and adopted as a textbook for the public schools of Maryland
5 years later, the Indians of New England, Virginia, and Roanoke
Island are pictured living in tipis and wearing flowing-feather bonnets
of Plains Indian type, while 17th-century Indians of Virginia are
shown wrapped in painted buffalo robes and performing a buffalo
dance in front of their tipis.
Impressionable young readers of popular histories of the Indian
wars published in the 1850’s also saw the common traits of Plains
Indian culture applied to the Woodland tribes. John Frost’s Indian
Wars of the United States from the Earliest Period to the Present
538 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Time pictures a buffalo hunt on horseback in the chapter on the French
and Indian Wars, Catlin’s Crow warrior on horseback in the one on
the War of 1812, and the same artist’s portrait of Eagle Ribs, a Black-
foot warrior, in the Creek war chapter.
Catlin’s and Bodmer’s representations of Plains Indians underwent
even more miraculous changes in identity in William V. Moore’s /ndian
Wars of the United States from the Discovery to the Present Time.
In that book Catlin’s “Four Bears” became “Pontiac” (pl. 6, fig. 2),
his Crow Indian on horseback “A Creek Warrior” (pl. 7, fig. 2), and
a ceremonial in a Mandan setting emerged as “Village of the Semi-
noles.” Bodmer’s well-identified portraits of Mandan, Hidatsa, and
Sioux leaders became “Saturiouva,” a 16th-century Florida chief, and
two leaders in the Indian wars of colonial New England.
The first illustrated edition of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s pop-
ular Song of Hiawatha was published in England in 1856. John Gil-
bert, its illustrator, did not copy Catlin slavishly but leaned heavily
upon him in representing the poet’s ancient Ojibwa of the southern
shore of Lake Superior as typical Indians of the Upper Missouri.
His portrait of “Paw-puk-keewis,” for example, is but a slightly altered
version of Catlin’s Mandan hero, “Four Bears” (pl. 6, fig. 3).
Nor were these Woodland Indians in Plains Indian clothing limited
to the works of artists who had had no first-hand knowledge of Indians.
John Mix Stanley had known the Plains tribes well, yet when he
attempted a portrait of “Young Uncas” (the 17th-century Mohegan)
or “The Trial of Red Jacket” (the Seneca), he tended to clothe his
Indians in the dress costume of the tribes of the western grasslands
(pl. 10). And when Karl Bodmer collaborated with the French artist
Jean Francois Millet to produce a series of realistic but imaginative
scenes in the border warfare of the Ohio Valley during the Revolu-
tionary War, the war-bonneted Plains Indian was clearly portrayed
(Smith, 1910, p. 83).
INFLUENCE OF THE PLAINS INDIAN WARS (1860-90)
In 1860 a new medium appeared to exploit the American boy’s fasci-
nation for the Indian’s prowess as a warrior. Dime novels increased
very rapidly in both numbers and sales. A favorite theme in this
lurid literature was Indian fighting on the Western Plains in which
many a wild Comanche, Kiowa, Blackfoot, or Sioux “bit the dust”
before the hero ended his perilous adventures. Bales of these cheap
“paperbacks” were sent to the soldiers in camp or in the field during
the Civil War, and reading them helped the boys in blue or gray
to forget, for a time at least, their own hardships and sufferings
(Johannsen, vol. 1, p. 39).
The horrors of Plains Indian warfare became very real as emigrants,
prospectors, stage, and telegraph and railroad lines pushed across the
THE PLAINS INDIAN—EWERS 539
Plains after the Civil War, and the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa,
and Comanche resisted White invasion of their buffalo hunting
grounds. Newspaper and magazine reporters were sent West to re-
port the resultant Indian wars. Theodore R. Davis, artist-reporter
for Harper's Weekly, was riding in a Butterfield Overland Dispatch
Coach when it was attacked by Cheyennes near the Smoky Hill Spring
stage station on November 24, 1865. His vivid picture of this real-
life experience, published in Harper’s Weekly, April 21, 1866, was the
prototype of one of the most enduring symbols of the Wild West—
the Indian attack on the overland stage (pl. 11).
As the Indians of the Plains made their desperate last stand against
the Army of the United States they again and again demonstrated
their courage and skill as warriors. On the Little Bighorn, June 26,
1876, they wiped out Custer’s immediate command in the most decisive
defeat for American arms in our long history. Numerous artists,
largely upon the basis of their imaginations, sought to picture that
dramatic action. One pictorial reconstruction of a closing stage of
this battle, Otto Becker’s lithograph “Custer’s Last Fight,” after
Cassilly Adams’ painting, has become one of the best-known American
pictures. Copyrighted by Anheuser-Busch in 1896, more than 150,000
copies of this large print have been distributed. It has provided a
lively conversation piece for millions of customers in thousands of
barrooms throughout the country (Taft, 1953, pp. 142-148). (See
pl. 12.)
Four years before his death, George Armstrong Custer published
serially in the Galawy, a respectable middle-class magazine, “My Life
on the Plains,” in which he expressed his admiration for “the fearless
hunter, matchless horseman and warrior of the Plains.” Many Army
officers who had fought against these Indians expressed similar opin-
ions in widely read books on their experiences, some of which were
profusely illustrated with reproductions of drawings and photographs,
including portraits of many of the leading chiefs and warriors among
the hostiles—Red Cloud, Satanta, Gaul, Sitting Bull, and others.
The exploits of these leaders on the warpath became better known to
late 19th-century readers than those of such earlier Indian heroes of
the forest as King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola, and Black
Hawk.
THE WILD WEST SHOW AND ITS INFLUENCES (1883- )
On July 20, 1881, Sitting Bull, the last of the prominent Indian
leaders in the Plains Indian wars to surrender his rifle, returned from
his Canadian exile and gave himself up to the authorities of the United
States. But within 2 years William F. Cody, pony express rider,
scout, Indian fighter, and hero of hundreds of dime novels, whose
hunting skill had earned him the name “Buffalo Bill,” organized a
540 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
reenactment of exciting episodes of the Old West that was so realistic
no one who ever saw it could forget it. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
Show opened in Omaha, Nebr., on May 17, 1883. It ran for more
than three decades, before millions of wide-eyed viewers in the cities
and towns of the United States and Canada; in England; and on the
continent of Europe. Sitting Bull himself traveled with the show
in 1885. It always included a series of performances staged in the
open by genuine Plains Indians—Pawnees, Sioux, Cheyennes, and/or
Arapahoes—chasing a small herd of buffalo, war dancing, horse
racing, attacking a settler’s cabin and/or an emigrant train crossing
the Plains. A highlight of every performance was the Indian attack
on the Deadwood Mail Coach, whose passengers were rescued in the
nick of time by “Buffalo Bill” himself and his hard-riding cowboys.
This scene was commonly portrayed on the program covers and the
posters advertising the show (pl. 18).
In 1887 this show was the hit of the American Exhibition at the
celebration of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in England, playing to
packed audiences in a large arena that held 40,000 spectators. The
Illustrated London News for April 16, 1887, tried to explain its
fascination :
This remarkable exhibition, the “Wild West,” has created a furore in America,
and the reason is easy to understand. It is not a circus, nor indeed is it acting
at all, in a theatrical sense, but an exact reproduction of daily scenes in frontier
life, as experienced and enacted by the very people who now form the “Wild
West” Company.
Except in Spain, where no outdoor drama could quite replace the
bullfight, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show met with almost equal suc-
cess on the European continent. During its 7 months’ stand at the
Paris Exposition of 1889 it attracted many artists. The famous
French animal painter Rosa Bonheur pictured the show Indians
chasing buffalo. What is more, the Indians inspired Cyrus Dallin, a
gifted American sculptor then studying in Paris, to create the first
of a series of heroic statues of Plains Indians. “The Signal of Peace,”
completed in time to win a medal at the Paris Salon of 1890, now
stands in Lincoln Park, Chicago. A second work, “The Medicine
Man” (1899), is in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. The famous
sculptor Lorado Taft considered it Dallin’s “greatest achievement”
and “one of the most notable and significant products of American
sculpture” (pl. 14). Another, “The Appeal” (to the Great Spirit),
winner of a gold medal at the Paris Salon of 1909, sits astride his
horse in front of the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. And still a
fourth, “The Scout,” may be seen atop a hill in Kansas City. Taft
termed Dallin’s realistic equestrian Plains Indians “among the most
interesting public monuments in the country” (Taft, 1925, pp. 476-8,
576).
THE PLAINS INDIAN—EWERS 541
The phenomenal success of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show encour-
aged others to organize similar shows, which together with the small-
scale Indian “medicine” shows toured the country and the Canadian
Provinces in the early years of the present century, giving employ-
ment to many Indians who were not members of the Plains tribes.
These shows played a definite role in diffusing such Plains Indian
traits as the flowing-feather bonnet, the tipi, and the war dances of
the Plains tribes to Indians who lived at very considerable distances
from the Great Plains. A Cheyenne Indian who traveled with a med-
icine show is reputed to have introduced the “war bonnet” among the
Indians of Cape Breton Island as early as the 1890’s (Shaw, 1945,
p- iv). Contacts with Plains Indian showmen at the Pan-American
Exposition in Buffalo during 1901 encouraged New York State Seneca
Indians to substitute the Plains type of feather bonnet for their tra-
ditional crown of upright feathers, and to learn to ride and dance like
the Plains Indians so that they could obtain employment with the pop-
ular Indian shows of the period.t Carl Standing Deer, a professional
sideshow and circus Indian, is credited with introducing the Plains
Indian feather bonnet among his people, the Cherokee of North Caro-
lina, in the fall of 1911.?
The acceptance of typical Plains Indian costume, of the tipi, and
some other traits of Plains Indian culture as standard “show Indian”
equipment by Indians of other culture areas is revealed through study
of 20th-century pictures. My collection of photographic prints, post
cards, and newspaper clippings dating from the turn of the century
shows Penobscot Indians of Maine wearing typical Plains Indian garb
(women as well as men), dancing in front of their tipis at an Indian
celebration in Bangor; a Yuma Indian brass band in Arizona, every
member of which wears a complete Plains Indian costume; dancing
Zia Pueblo Indians of New Mexico wearing flowing-feather bonnets;
Cayuse Indians of Oregon posing in typical Plains Indian garb in
front of a tipi (pl. 15, fig. 1) ; and a young Indian standing in front of
a tipi in the town of Cherokee, N.C., to attract picture-taking tourists
and to lure them into an adjacent curio shop (pl. 15, fig. 2).
In 1958 I talked to a Mattaponi Indian in tidewater Virginia about
the handsome Sioux-type feather bonnet he was wearing as he wel-
comed visitors to the little Indian museum on his reservation. He was
proud of the fact that he had made it himself, even to beading the brow-
band. With that simple and irrefutable logic which so often appears
in Indian comments on American culture, he explained : “Your women
1Communication from Dr. William N. Fenton, director, New York State Museum, June
12, 1964,
*Communication from John Witthoft, anthropologist, Pennsylvania Historical and
Museum Commission, August 2, 1964.
542 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
copy their hats from Paris because they likethem. We Indians use the
styles of other tribes because we like them too.”
The trend toward standardization in Indian costume based upon
Plains Indian models has also been reflected in the art of some of the
able painters of the Taos, N. Mex., art colony, for whom a sensi-
tive interpretation of “Indianness” was more important than tribal
consistency in detail. Likewise, it appears in prominently placed
paintings purporting to commemorate significant historic events of
the colonial period in the East. It is not difficult to recognize the
Plains Indian costumes in Robert Reid’s mural “Boston Tea Party,”
in the State House, Boston, or in Edward Trumbull’s “William Penn’s
Treaty with the Indians” in the Capitol at Harrisburg, both of which
were executed in the first quarter of this century. So perhaps it should
not seem strange to see 19th-century Plains Indians sitting at the feast
in Jennie Brownscombe’s appealing painting “The First Thanks-
giving,” which hangs in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass. (pl. 16).
THE PLAINS INDIAN AS A NATIONAL SYMBOL
It is a fact that every American coin bearing any resemblance to
a representation of an Indian has strong Plains Indian associations.
Both the Indian-head penny, first minted in 1859, and the $10 gold
piece designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens for issue in 1907 represent
the artists’ conceptions of the Goddess of Liberty wearing a feathered
bonnet. A number of Indians have claimed they were the models
for the fine Indian head on the famous “buffalo nickel.” However,
its designer, James Earle Fraser, in a letter to the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, dated June 10, 1931, stated: “I used three different
heads: I remember two of the men, one was Irontail, the best Indian
head I can remember; the other one was Two Moons, and the third
T cannot recall.”
Significantly, the two models remembered by the artist were Plains
Indians. Two Moons, the Cheyenne chief, had helped to “rub out”
Custer’s force on the Little Big Horn. Strong-featured Iron Tail
had repeatedly led the Sioux attack on the Deadwood Coach in Buf-
falo Bill’s Wild West Show. (See pl. 17.) For 25 years after this
coin was first minted in 1913—during the days when a nickel would
purchase a ride on the New York subway, a cigar, or an ice-cream
cone—this striking Indian head in association with the buffalo on the
opposite side of the coin served to remind Americans of the Plains
Indians.
The only regular issue United States stamp to bear the portrait of
an Indian is the 14-cent stamp issued May 30, 1923. Titled “American
Indian,” it bears the likeness of Hollow Horn Bear, a handsome Sioux
from the Rosebud Reservation, South Datota, who died in Washing-
THE PLAINS INDIAN—EWERS 543
ton after participating in the parade after President Woodrow
Wilson’s inauguration (pl. 18).
In the solemn ceremonies marking the burial of the Unknown
Soldier of World War I in Arlington Cemetery on November 11,
1921, one man was selected to place a magnificent feather bonnet upon
the casket as a tribute from all American Indians to their country’s
unknown dead. He was Plenty Coups, an aged, dignified war chief
among the Crow Indians of Montana. This was one hundred years
to the very month after the young Pawnee hero Petalesharro first
appeared in the Nation’s capital wearing a picturesque flowing-feather
bonnet. During the intervening century the war-bonneted Plains
Indian emerged as the widely recognized symbol of the North
American Indian.
REFERENCES
AMERICAN TURF REGISTER AND SPORTING MAGAZINE.
1829. Vol. I, No. 2. Baltimore.
CATLIN, GEORGE.
1841. Letters and notes on the manners, customs and condition of the North
American Indians. 2 vols. London.
CooPER, JAMES FENIMORE.
1828. Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a traveling bachelor. 2 vols.
Philadelphia.
CustTER, GEORGE ARMSTRONG.
1872-73. My life on the Plains. The Galaxy. [Magazine.] Jn vols. 13-16.
New York.
DaRxtey, Ferrx O. C.
1843. Scenes in Indian life: A series of original designs portraying events
in the life of an Indian chief. Drawn and etched on stone by Felix
O. C. Darley. Philadelphia.
EWErs, JOHN C.
1954. Charles Bird King, painter of Indian visitors to the Nation’s Capital.
Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Institution for 1953.
Frost, JOHN.
1852. The book of the Indians of North America, illustrating their manners,
customs, and present state. Hartford, Conn.
1856. Indian wars of the United States from the earliest period to the
present time. New York.
GoopRIcH, REV. CHARLES AUGUSTUS.
1823. History of the United States. Hartford, Conn.
GoopRicH, SAMUEL GRISWOLD.
1844. History of the Indians of North and South America. Boston.
1846. The manners, customs, and antiquities of the Indians of North and
South America. Philadelphia.
1847. Parley’s primary histories. North America; or the United States and
the adjacent countries. Louisville.
1860. The American child’s pictorial history of the United States. Phila-
delphia.
766—746—65—44
544 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
JACKSON, DONALD.
1962. Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with related documents,
1783-1854. Urbana, Ill.
JAMES, EDWIN.
1823. Account of an expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains
performed in the years 1819 and 1820. 2 vols. and Atlas. Phila-
delphia and London.
JOHANNSEN, ALBERT.
1950. The house of Beadle and Adams and its dime and nickel novels.
Norman, Okla.
KEISER, ALBERT.
1933. The Indian in American literature. New York.
LINDERMAN, FRANK BIrp.
1930. American. The life story of a great Indian, Plenty Coups, Chief of
the Crows. Yonkers, N.Y.
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH.
1856. Song of Hiawatha. London.
McKENNEY, THOMAS L., and HALL, JAMES.
1836-44. History of the Indian tribes of North America. 3 vols. Phila-
delphia.
MoorE, WILLIAM V.
1856. Indian wars of the United States from the discovery to the present
time. Philadelphia.
Morton, SAMUEL GEORGE.
1839. Crania Americana; or a comparative view of the skulls of the various
aboriginal nations of North and South America. Philadelphia.
PARKMAN, FRANCIS.
1849. The California and Oregon Trail. New York.
PETERS, Harry T.
1931. America on stone. Garden City, N.Y.
RUSSELL, Don.
1960. The lives and legends of Buffalo Bill. Norman, Okla.
SHaw, AVERY.
1945. A Micmac Glengarry. New Brunswick Museum. Saint John, New
Brunswick.
SmituH, DE Cost.
1910. Jean Francois Millet’s drawings of American Indians. The Century
Illustrated Monthly Magazine, vol. 80, No. 1, pp. 78-84.
Tarr, LoRADO.
1925. The history of American sculpture. New York.
TAFT, ROBERT.
1953. Artists and illustrators of the Old West, 1850-1900. New York.
Wesster, NOAH.
1832. History of the United States. New Haven, Conn.
WIepD-NEUWIED, MAXIMILIAN ALEXANDER PHILIPP, PRINZ VON.
1839-41. Reise in das Innere Nord-America in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834.
Coblenz, Germany.
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la.
Cyrus Dallin’s “The Medicine Man” in Fairmount Park, Philadelph
)
jation
Fairmount Park Art Assoc
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Ewers PLATE 15
1. Cayuse Indians of Oregon. Photograph by Major Lee Moorhouse, ca. 1900.
a
me
2. Cherokee Indian “chiefing” for a curio shop in Cherokee, N.C. Photograph by the
author, 1962.
PLATE 16
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Ewers
Tey wusyig jo As91.In0D)
(‘sseJy ‘yznowAlg
‘ssepy ‘yanowdTg [ep] wuspig ur poigqryxe ‘(6[6] *¥9) equiossumorg otuuaf Aq ,SuIAtssyurY], SITY OL,
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Ewers PLATE 17
AS
1. Iron Tail, Sioux, one of James Earle Fraser’s models for the Indian side of the “buffalo
nickel.”
2. The “buffalo nickel,” first minted in 1913.
Smithsonian Report, 1964.—Ewers PLATE 18
Hollow Horn Bear, Sioux Indian model for the 14-cent “American Indian” stamp shown
in the inset. ‘The stamp was issued May 30, 1923.
INDEX
A
Abbot, C. G., xiii
Accessions, 114, 191, 219, 243, 261
Library, 261
National Air Museum, 243
National Collection of Fine Arts,
191
National Gallery of Art, 219
National Museum, 18
National Zoological Park, 114
Adey, W. H., vii
Adrosko, Rita R., vii
Ahmanson, Howard F., x
Ailes, Stephen, Secretary of the Army, xi
Akers, Floyd D., x
Allen, Maj. Gen. Brooke E., U.S. Air
Force, ix
American Historical Association, 270
Anderson, Clinton P., Regent of the
Institution, v, 293
Andrews, A. J., vi
Angel, J. L., vi
Anglim, J. E., viii
Appropriations, 6, 153, 218
National Gallery of Art, 218
National Zoological Park, 153
River Basin Surveys, 6, 83
Astrophysical Observatory, viii, xiii, 6,
157
Astrophysical Research Division,
157
Publications, 177, 187
Radiation and Organisms Division,
184
Report, 157
Staff, viii, ix, 183
Austin, O. L., xii
Avrett, E., viii
B
Ballard, Murray C., 272
Battison, E. A., vii
Battle, Lucius D., Assistant Secretary of
State for Educational and Cultural
Affairs, x
Becker, Ralph E., x
Becklund, W. W., xii
Bedini, 8. A., vii
eets, Virginia, vii
Beggs, Thomas M., Special Assistant for
Fine Arts, v
Bell, Daniel W., x
Benjamin, C. R., xii
Benson, R. H., vii
Billings, K. LeMoyne, xi
Bishop, P. W., vii
Blake, Doris H., xii
Blanchard, Ruth E., Librarian, vi, 264
Boardman, R. &.,
Borneo, Stone Age Culture (Tom Harris-
son, 521
Borthwick, Mrs. Doris E., vii
Bow, Frank T., Regent of the Institu-
tion, v
Bowen, Catherine Drinker, xi
Bowman, T. E., vi
Boyd, Julian P., xi
Boyle, W. E., vii
Bradley, James C., Assistant Secretary
of the Institution, v
Bredin, J. Bruce, xii
Breech, Ernest R., x
Briggs, R. W., viii
Bronfman, Edgar M., x
Brown, J. Carter, ix
Brown, John Nicholas, Regent of the
Institution, v, xi
Brown, Sanborn C. (The edge of science),
401
Brown, W. L., xii, xiii
Bunche, Ralph J., x
Burden, William A. M., Regent of the
Institution, v
Bureau of American Ethnology, viii,
xiii, 6, 80, 110
Archives, 107
Editorial work and _ publications,
109
Illustrations, 110
Report, 80
River Basin Surveys, 83
545
vii
546
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Bureau of American Ethnology—Con. | Cooper, Mrs. Grace R., vii
Staff, viii, 110
Systematic researches, 80
Buzas, M. A., vii
Byrd, Mrs. Mabel A., vi
Cc
Cahill, James F., ix
Cairns, Huntington, ix, 230
Campbell, J. M., xi
Canal Zone Biological Area, x, xiii,
231
Buildings and equipment, 233
Finances, 6, 234
Plans, 234
Rainfall, 231, 232
Report, 231
Research activities, 232
Cannon, Clarence, Regent of the Insti-
tution, 5
Cannon, W. F., vii
Carleton, N. P., viii
Carmichael, Leonard, ix, xii
Carriker, M. A., Jr., xii
Cartwright, O. L., vi
Casey, L. 8., x
Castrodale, Anne, vii
Celebrezze, Anthony J., Secretary of
Health, Education, and Welfare,
member of the Institution, v, x
Chace, F. A., Jr., vi
Chapelle, H. L., vii
Chase, Mrs. Agnes, 68
Cifelli, Richard, vii
Clain-Stefanelli, Mrs. Elvira, viii
Clain-Stefanelli, Vladimir, viii
Clark, Ailsa M., xii
Clark, Joseph §., x
Clarke, Gilmore D., ix
Clarke, J. F. G., vi
Clarke, R.S. Jr., vii
Cochran, Doris M., vi
Cogswell, W. N., ix
Collins, H. R., vii
Collins, Henry B., Acting Director,
Bureau of American Ethnology, viii,
80, 110
Collins, J. A., Chief, International Ex-
change Service, viii, 78
Colombo, G., viii
Conger, P. S., vii
Cook, A. F., viii
Cooke, C. W., xii
Cooper, G. A., vii
Correll, D. L., ix
Cott, Perry B., ix
Cowan, Clyde L. (Anatomy of an Ex-
periment: Account of the Discovery
of the Neutrino), 409
Cowan, R. S., vi
Crabill, R. E., Jr., vi
Crawford, Frederick C., xiii
Crocker, W. H., vi
Cross, Page, ix
Cutress, C. E., Jr., vi
D
Darling, F. Fraser (The Unity of Ecolo-
gy), 460
Daughters of the American Revolution,
Society of, 271
Davis, D. R., vi
Davis, R. J., viii
DeFelice, J., viii
Deignan, H. G., xii
Desautels, P. E., vii
Deschler, Lewis, xi
Diamonds, Man-Made (C.G. Suits), 439
Dillon, Douglas, Secretary of the Treas-
ury, member of the Institution, v, ix
Doolittle, James H. (Lt. Gen., U.S.A.F.
ret.), xX
Dowling, Robert W., xi
Drake, C. J., xii
Dressler, Robert L., x
Duckworth, W. D., vi
Dugan, C. H., viii
Dunkle, D. H., vii
Dutro, J. T., xii
E
Ecology, The unity of (F. Fraser Dar-
ling), 460
Edelen, Mrs. Eloise B., 109, 269
Education, Smithsonian’s role in, 1
Edwards, J. L., ix
Eisenhower, Mrs. Dwight D., x
Elstad, V. B., ix
Emerson, K. C., xii
Ernst, W. R., vi
Errington, Paul L. (The Phenomenon of
Predation), 507
Ettinghausen, Richard, ix
INDEX
Evans, Clifford, Jr., vi
Ewers, John C., vii
(The Emergence of the Plains Indian
as the Symbol of the North Ameri-
can Indian), 531
Executive Committee of the Board of
Regents, v, 274
Report, 274
Exhibitions, National Gallery of Art,
223
National Museum, 53
Smithsonian Institution Traveling
Exhibition Service, ix, 195
Explorations and fieldwork, 35, 80, 83
Bureau of American Ethnology, 80
National Museum, 35
River Basin Surveys, 83
Eyde, R. H., vii
F
Fauntleroy, Travis E., viii
Fazio, G. G., viii
Fehlmann, H. A., vii
Feidler, Ernest R., ix
Ficken, Robert W., xii
Field, J. E. (Fracture of Solids), 431
Field, W. D., vi
Finances, 6, 153, 274, 278, 292
Audit, 292
Endowments, summary of, 274, 278
Executive Committee Report, 274
National Zoological Park, 153
Private funds, 274, 279, 281, 284,
286
See also Appropriations.
Finley, David S., ix, xi
Finn, B. S., vii
Fireman, E. L., viii
Fleming, Robert V., Regent of the In-
stitution, v, 293
Flint, O. 8., Jr., vi
Fracture of Solids (J. E. Field), 431
Franklin, F., viii
Freeman, Orville L., Secretary of Agri-
culture, member of the Institution, v
Freer Gallery of Art, ix, xiii, 201
Attendance, 207
Auditorium, 207
Building and grounds, 206
Changes in exhibitions, 203
Collections, 201
Fund, 278
766—-746—_65——45
547
Freer Gallery of Art—Continued
Lectures by staff members, 210
Library, 203
Photographic laboratory and sales
desk, 206
Publications, 204
Repairs to the collection, 203
Report, 201
Staff activities, 209
Technical laboratory, 210
Friedmann, Herbert, xii
Froeschner, R. C., vi
Fulbright, J. William, Regent of the
Institution, v, x
Furlong, W. R., xiii
G
Garber, P. E., x
Gardner, P. V., vii
Garrett, Mrs. George A., x
Gazin, C. L., vii
Gettens, Rutherford J., ix
Gibbs, R. H., Jr., vi
Gibson, G. D., vi
Gingerich, O., viii
Goins, C. R., Jr., viii
Goldberg, B., ix
Goldberg, L., viii
Goodrich, Lloyd, ix
Grabar, Oleg, xiii
Graf, John E., xi
Gray, Clinton W., viii
Greenewalt, Crawford H., Regent of the
Institution, v
Greenwood, Mrs. Arthur M., xii
Greeson, O. H., Chief, Photographic
service division, vi
Griffith, F. O., vii
Grimmer, J. L., viii
Gronouski, John A., Postmaster Gen-
eral, member of the Institution, v
Grossi, M., viii
Guest, Grace Dunham, xiii
H
Hale, M. E., Jr., vii
Hamarnebh, S. K., vii
Hancock, Walker, ix
Handley, C. O., Jr., vi
Harrison, J. H., ix
Harrisson, Tom (50,000 Years of Stone
Age Culture in Borneo), 521
548
Hartzog, George B., Director of the
National Park Service, x
Haskins, Caryl P., Regent of the Insti-
tution, v, 293
Hawkins, Gerald §., viii
(The Secret of Stonehenge), 307
Hayes, Bartlett H., Jr., ix
Hayes, E. Nelson (The Smithsonian’s
Satellite-Tracking Program: lts His-
tory and Organization, Part 3), 315
Henderson, E. P., vii
Henkle, L. L., vii
Henry, Joseph, papers, 7
Herber, E. C., xii
Hilger, Sister M. Inez, xiii, 110
Hobbs, H. H., Jr., vi
Hodge, P. V., viii
Hodges, Luther H., Secretary of Com-
merce, member of the Institution, v
Holland, C. G., xi
Hoover, Mrs. Cynthia A., vii
Hopkins, P. S., Director, National Air
Museum, x, 246
Hotton, Nicholas III, vii
Howell, E. M., viii
Howland, R. H., vii
Hoyme, Lucile E., vi
Hueber, F. M., vii
Hull, F. M., xii
Hume, 1. N., xii
Humphrey, P. §., vi
Hunsaker, Jerome C., Regent of the
Institution, v
I
Information program, 272
Insects, Work in Groups (John Sudd),
489
International Exchange Service, viii, 6,
69
Foreign depositories of govern-
mental documents, 71
Interparliamentary exchange of of-
ficial journals, 74
List of services, 70
Report, 69
Irvin, John N. 11, ix
Irvine, W. M., viii
Irving, Laurence, xii
Izsak, I. G., viii
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
J
Jacchia, L. G., viii
Jackson, M. H., viii
Jellison, W. L., xii
John F. Kennedy Center for the Per-
forming Arts, x, 10, 247
Administrative changes, 250
Architectural planning, 251
Board of Trustees, x, 248
Financial report, 254
Fine arts accessions committee, 251
Future prospects, 252
General Services Administration,
250
Memorial committee, 251
Organization, 247
Progress during 1963-1964, 248
Report, 247
Johnson, D. H., vi
Johnson, Lyndon B., President of the
United States, member of the Insti-
tution and presiding officer ex officio,
v
Johnson, Mrs. Lyndon B., x
Judd, N. M., xi
K
Kainen, Jacob, vii
Kalkofen, W.., viii
Kauffman, E. G., vii
Kellogg, Remington, xii
Kendall, E. C., vii
Kennedy, J. A., director of personnel,
vi
Kennedy, Mrs. John F., x
Kennedy, Robert F., Attorney General,
member of the Institution, v
Keppel, Francis, Commissioner, U.S.
Office of Education, x
Kier, P. M., vii
Kintner, Mrs. Jean, xi
Kirwan, Michael J.,
Institution, v
Klapthor, Mrs. Margaret Brown, vii
Klein, W. H., viii, 184
Knez, E. I., vi
K6hnlein, W., viii
Kozai, Y., vili
Kreeger, David Lloyd, xi
Kullerud, Gunner, xii
Regent of the
INDEX
L
Lachner, E. A., vi
Lane, F. C., xiii
Langley Medal presentation, 9
Lasker, Mrs. Albert D., x
Laughlin, Robert M., viii
Lautman, D. A., viii
Lawless, B. W., viii
Lea, John §S., 267
Lectures, 10, 210, 226
Lehfeldt, H. J., ix
Lellinger, D. B., vi
Leonard, E. C., xii
Lewis, Wilmarth S., ix, xi
Library, 261
Acquisitions, 261
Branch libraries, 262
Cataloging and binding, 262
Freer Gallery of Art, 203
National Collection of Fine Arts,
197
National Gallery of Art, 227
Programs and facilities, 263
Reference and circulation, 262
Report, 261
Staff activities, 263
Summarized statistics, 263
Life beyond the Earth, The Quest for
(Carl Sagan), 297
Lindsay, G. Carroll, curator, Smith-
sonian Museum Service, vi
Loehr, Max, xiii
Loercher, L., ix
Long, A., ix
Lundeberg, P. K., viii
Lundquist, Charles, viii
Lyon, Roland, ix
Lyttleton, R. A. (How Mountains Are
Formed), 351
M
Mahon, George H., Regent of the
Institution, v
Man-Made Diamonds—A Progress Re-
port (C. G. Suits), 439
Manning, R. B., vi
Manship, Paul, ix
Martin, R.., viii
Marvin, O. B., viii
Maxwell, A. E., see Spiess and Maxwell, 373
McCall, Francis J., 68
McCandless, Byron, xiii
McCarthy, Mrs. Eileen M., 271
McClure, F. A., xii
549
McCrane, Marion, viii
McCrosky, R. E., viii
Mcellhenny, Henry P., ix
MelIntosh, Allen, xii
McKay, E. W., xii
McNamara, Robert S., Secretary of
Defense, member of the Institution,
Vv, xi
Meany, George, x
Meggers, Betty J., xi
Melder, K. E., vii
Mellon, Paul, ix
Merzbach, Uta C., vii
Meyer, R. B., x
Michaels, Andrew F., Jr., buildings man-
ager, vi
Miller, J. J., II, vii
Mills, Deborah J., vii
Mitler, H., viii
Mitrakos, K., ix
Moore, J. P., xii
Morrison, J. P. E., vi
Morton, C. V., vi
Mountains, Formation of (R. A. Lyt-
tleton), 351
Moynihan, M. H., Director, Canal Zone
Biological Area, x, 235
Muesebeck, C. F., xii
Mullin, Philip J., xi
Multhauf, R. P., vii
Mumford, L. Quincy, Librarian of Con-
gress, X
Murphy, Franklin D., ix
Murray, Mrs. Anne W., vii
Museum of History and Technology,
Vil, xii, 0
Museum of Natural History, vi, xi
See also National Museum.
Museums, Smithsonian cooperation
with, 2
N
National Air Museum, ix, xiii, 6, 236
Accessions, 243
Advisory board, 237
Assistance to Government Depart-
ments, 238
Exhibits, 238
Reference material, 238
Report, 236
Special events, 237
Specimens, repair, preservation, and
restoration, 238
National Armed Forces Museum Ad-
visory Board, xi, 6, 11
550
National Collection of Fine Arts, ix,
6, 190
Accessions, 191
Alice Pike Barney Memorial Fund,
193
Art works lent and returned, 192,
193
Catherine Walden Myer Fund, 191,
193
Henry Ward Ranger Fund, 193
Library, 197
Paintings purchased, 194
Report, 190
Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition
Service, 195
Special exhibitions and events, 199
Staff activities, 198
Study collection, 192
National Gallery of Art, ix, 217
Accessions, 219
Appropriations, 218
Attendance, 219
Audit of private funds, 230
Concerts, 229
Curatorial activities, 224
Educational program, 226
Exchange of works of art, 220
Exhibitions, 223
Extension services, 227
Gifts, 219, 220
Index of American Design, 228
Lectour, 229
Library, 227
Maintenance of buildings and
grounds, 228
Organization, 217
Personnel, 218
Publications, 225
Publications fund, 225
Report, 217
Restoration, 225
Traveling exhibitions, 224
Works of art on loan, 221
National Museum, vi, 6, 18
Buildings and equipment, 66
Collections, 18
Docent service, 65
Exhibitions, 53
Organization and staff changes, 66
Report, 18
Research, exploration, and field-
work, 35
National Portrait Gallery, xi, 6, 257
Commission, 257, 258
Report, 257
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
National Zoological Park, viii, xiii, 6,
11s
Births, 111
Capital improvements, 155
Cooperation, 153
Deposits, 116
Exchanges, 116
Finances, 6, 153
Friends of the National Zoo, 154
Gifts, 114
Information and education, 152
Personnel, viii, xiii, 148
Police division, 150
Purchases, 118
Report, 111
Research, 146
Safety subcommittee, 152
Veterinarian report, 143
Visitors, 147
Neutrino, Account of Discovery of
(Clyde L. Cowan), 409
Newland, K. E., x
Nicholas, D. J. D. (How Do Microbes
“Fix”? Nitrogen From the Air?), 449
Nicolson, D. H., vi
Nitrogen, Fixation (D. J. D. Nicholas),
449
Nitze, Paul H., xi
Norweb, R. Henry, xii
Noyes, R. W., viii
O
Oceanography, The Future of (Spilhaus),
361
Oehser, Paul H., Chief, editorial and,
publications division, vi, 273
Office of Exhibits, viii
Olin, C. H., conservator, U.S. National
Museum, viii
Olin, Mrs. Jacqueline S., viii
Olsson, A. A., xii
Ostroff, Eugene, vii
My
Parker, Mrs. Kittie F., xii
Pawson, D. L., vi
Pearson, Joan Jockwig, xii
Pearson, Mrs. Louise M., administra-
tive assistant to the Secretary, v
Perkins, William H., Jr., xi
Perry, K. M., vii
Perrygo, W. M., vi
Peterson, M. L., viii
Pettibone, Marian H., vi
INDEX
Phenomenon of Predation, The (Paul
L. Errington), 507
Pierce, J. N., vii
Plains Indian, as Symbol of North
American Indian (John C. Ewers), 531
Pleissner, Ogden M., ix
Pope, John A., Director, Freer Gallery of
Art, ix, 216
Pope, Mrs. Annemarie, Special Assist-
ant for Traveling Exhibition Study, v
Powars, Mrs. Nancy Link, 265, 273
Predation, Phenomenon of (Paul L.
Errington), 507
Prescott, Mrs. Phyllis W., 110, 273
Price, J, xii
Price, L., ix, xii
Publications and Information, 265
American Historical Association,
270
Astrophysical Observatory, 177, 270
Bureau of American Ethnology,
109, 269
Distribution, 271
Freer Gallery of Art, 204
National Collection of Fine Arts,
270
National Herbarium, 268
National Museum, 267
Program, 265, 272
Report, 265
Report National Society, Daugh-
ters of the American Revolution,
271
Reports American Historical As-
sociation, 270
Reprints, 273
Smithsonian Annual Reports, 266
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collec-
tion, 265
Staff changes, 273
R
Rabor, Dioscoro §&., xii
Radiation and Organisms, Division of,
viii, 184
Publications, 187
Report, 184
Staff changes, 159
Ray, C. E., vii
Reed, T. H., Director National Zoo-
logical Park, viii, 156
Regents, Board of, v
Rehder, H. A., vi
551
Reid, Mrs. Charlotte T., x
Relativity, Recent Events in (Milton A.
Rothman), 385
Research, Smithsonian emphasis on, 3
Reynolds, Richard §., Jr., x
Rhoades, Katherine N., xiii
Richardson, Edgar P., ix
Ricketson, Frank H., Jr., x
Riesenberg, S. H., vi
Ripley, S. Dillon, Secretary of the In-
stitution, v, ix, x, xi, 1, 68
Ritterbush, Philip C., Special Assistant
for Scientific Matters, v
River Basin Surveys, vii, 6, 83
Appropriations, 6, 83
Fieldwork, 83
Missouri Basin, 87
Virginia, 107
Idaho-Oregon, 107
Report, 83
Washington office, 85
Roberts, Frank H. H., xiii
Robinson, H. E., vii
Rolff, J., viii
Rosenwald, Lessing J., ix
Rosewater, Joseph, vi
Roth, Rodris C., vii
Rothman, Milton A. (Recent Events
in Relativity), 385
Roy, Edgar L., Treasurer, v
Rudd, Velva E., vi
Rusk, Dean, Secretary of State, mem-
ber of the Institution, v, ix
Russell, Findlay E. (Venomous Animals
and Their Toxins), 477
8
Sagan, Carl E., viii, 297
(The Quest for Life Beyond the
Earth), 297
Saltonstall, Leverett, Regent of the In-
stitution, v, x
Sawyer, Charles H., ix
Schaller, W. T., xii
Scheele, C. H., viii
Schmitt, W. L., xii
Schoech, Vice Adm. William A., U.S.
Navy, ix
Schultz, L. P., vi
Schwartz, Benjamin, xii
Science, The Edge of (Sanborn C.
Brown), 401
Science Information Exchange, 12
Scott, David W., Acting Director, Na-
tional Collection of Fine Arts, ix, 200
552
Secretary of the Institution (S. Dillon
Ripley), v, ix
Setzer, H. W., vi
Setzler, F. M., xi
Shetler, 8. G., vi
Shouse, Mrs. Jouett, x
Shropshire, W., viii
Shryock, Richard H., xi
Skalafuris, A., viii
Slowey, J., viii
Smith, L. B., vi
Smith, Neal G., x
Smithson Bicentennial, 7
Smithsonian Art Commission, ix, 190
Smithsonian Institution, Board of Re-
gents, 5
Consolidated fund, 275
Establishment, 5
Finances, 6, 274
International activities, 4
Members of, v
Parent fund, 274
Private funds, 279, 281, 284, 286
Summary of accomplishments,
1963-1964, 1
Visitors, 6, 8, 147
Smithsonian Institution Traveling Ex-
hibition Service, ix, 195
Exhibits contained from prior
years, 195
Exhibits initiated in 1964, 196
Smithsonian Museum Service, 14
Smithsonian’s Satellite-Tracking Pro-
gram: Its History and Organization,
Part 3, The (E. Nelson Hayes), 315
Snyder, Thomas E., xii
(Our Native Termites), 497
Soderstrom, T. R., vi
Solids, Fracture of (J. E. Field), 431
Solomon, L., viii
Soper, C. C., xiii
Southworth, R. B., viii
Spangler, P. J., vi
Spiess, F. N., and Maxwell,
(Search for the Thresher), 373
Spilhaus, Athelstan (The Future of
Oceanography), 361
Springer, V. G., vi
Squires, D. F., vi
Steiner, A. M., ix
Stephenson, R. L., viii, 83
Stern, Harold P., ix
Stern, W. L., vii
Stevens, Roger L., x
Stevenson, J. A., xii
A. E.
ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964
Stewart, T. D., Acting Assistant Sec-
retary of the Institution, v, vi
Stirling, M. W., xiii
Stonehenge, The Secret of (Gerald S.
Hawkins), 307
Strong, L. Corrin, x
Sturtevant, W. C., viii
Sudd, John (How Insects Work in
Groups), 489
Suits, C. G. (Man-Made Diamonds—
A Progress Report), 439
Swallen, J. R., vi
Switzer, G. S., vii
T
Talbert, D. G., ix
Taylor, F. A., Director, U.S. National
Museum, vi, vii, 68
Taylor, Theodore W., Assistant to the
Secretary, v, 260
Taylor, W. R., vi
Taylor, W. W., Jr., xi
Termites, Our Native (T. E. Snyder),
497
Thompson, Frank, x
Thresher, Search for (F. N. Spiess and
A. E. Maxwell), 373
Tilles, D., viii
Tillinghast, C. W., viii
Tobin, W. J., xi
Tobriner, Walter N., President, D.C.
Board of Commissioners, x
Todd, Frederick P., xi
Traub, Robert, xii
Tretick, Julius, viii
U
Udall, Stewart L., Secretary of the
Interior, member of the Institution,
Vv
United States National Museum, vi,
xi
Report, 18
Vv
Van Arsdale, Mrs. Dorothy, ix
Van Beek, G. W., vi
Veis, G., viii
Venomous Animals and Their Toxins
(Findlay E. Russell), 477
Verville, Alfred V., xiii
Visitors, 6, 8, 147
Vogel, R. M., vii
INDEX
W
Walker, E. P., xiii
Walker, John, Director, National Gal-
lery of Art, ix, xi
Wallen, I. E., vii
Walton, William, Chairman, Commis-
sion of Fine Arts, x
Waring, A. J., Jr. xiii, 110
Warner, William, Consultant to the
Secretary for international activities,
v
Warren, Earl, Chief Justice of the
United States, Chancellor, v, ix, xi
Washburn, Henry Bradford, Jr., xi
Washburn, W. E., vii
Waters, William N., Jr., Chairman, D.C.
Recreation Board, x
Watkins, C. M., vii
Watkins, W. N., xii
Watson, G. E., vi
Wedel, W. R., vi
Weiss, Helena M., Registrar, vi
Weitzman, S. H., vi
Welsh, P. C., vii
Wengenroth, Stow, ix
553
Wetmore, Alexander, ix, xii
Whipple, F. L., Director, Astrophysical
Observatory, viii, 189
White, J. H., Jr., vii
Whitney, C. A., viii
Whitney, John Hay, ix
Wilding, A. W., Chief, supply division,
vi
Wilson, Mrs. Mildred &., xii
Wirtz, W. Willard, Secretary of Labor,
member of the Institution, v
Wood, J., viii
Woodbury, Nathalie F. S., xi
Woodbury, R. B., vi
Woodring, W. P., xii
Wright, A. G., viii
Wright, F. W., viii
Wright, Jim, x
Wurdack, J. J., vi
Z
Zuckert, Eugene M., Secretary of the
Air Force, xi
Zusi, R. I., vi
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1965
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