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FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



April, 1933 



Field Museum of Natural History 



Founded by MarahaU Field, 1893 

 RooaeTelt Road and Lake Michigan, Chicago 



THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



Sewell L. Avery 

 John Borden 

 William J. Chalmers 

 Marshall Field 

 Stanley Field 

 Ernest R. Graham 

 Albert W. Harris 

 Samuel Insull, Jr. 

 Cyrus H. McCormick 



John P. 



WiLUAM H. Mitchell 

 Frederick H. Rawson 

 George A. Richardson 

 Fred W. Sargent 

 Stephen G. Simms 

 James Simpson 

 Solomon A. Smith 

 Albert A. Spragub 

 Silas H. Strawn 

 Wilson 



OFFICERS 



Stanley Field Pretident 



Albert A. Spragub Fint Vice-Pretidni 



Jambs Simpson Second Vice-Pmidmt 



Albert W. Harris Third Vice-Pretident 



Stephen C. Simms Direclor and Seeretarv 



Solomon a. Smith.. .Trcomrcr and Atnxtant Seetetaxy 



FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



Stephen C. Simms, Director o/ Oie Muteum Editor 



CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 



Berthold Laufer Curator of Anthropology 



B. E. Dahlgren Acting Curator of Botany 



Oliver C. Farrington Curator of Geology 



Wilfred H. Osgood Curator of Zoology 



H. B. Harte Managing Editor 



Field Museum is open every day of the year dtuing 

 the hours indicated below: 



November, December, January 9 AJ«. to 4:30 PJJ. 



February, March, April, October 9 A.M. to 5:00 p.m. 

 May, June, July, August, September 9 aji. to 6:00 p.m. 



Admission is free to Members on all days. Other 

 adults are admitted free on Thursdays, Saturdays and 

 Sundays; non-members pay 25 cents on other days. 

 Children are admitted free on all days. Students and 

 faculty members of educational institutions are admit- 

 ted free any day upon presentation of credentials. 



The Museum's natural history Library is open for 

 reference daily except Saturday afternoon and Sunday. 



Traveling exhibits are circulated in the schools of 

 Chicago by the N. W. Harris Public School Extension 

 Department of the Museum. 



Lectures for schools, and special entertainments 

 and tours for children at the Museum, are provided 

 by the James Nelson and Anna Louise Raymond 

 Foundation for Public School and Children's Lectures. 



Announcements of free illustrated lectures for the 

 public, and special lectures for Members of the Museum, 

 will appear in Field Museum News. 



A cafeteria in the Museum serves visitors. Rooms 

 are provided for those bringing their lunches. 



Chicago Motor Coach Company No. 26 buses go 

 direct to the Museum. 



Members are requested to inform the Museum 

 promptly of changes of address. 



MEMBERSHIP IN FIELD MUSEUM 



Field Museum has several classes of Members. 

 Benefactors give or devise $100,000 or more. Contribu- 

 tors give or devise $1,000 to $100,000. Life Members 

 give $500; Non-Resident Life and Associate Members 

 pay $100; Non-Resident Associate Members pay $50. 

 All the above classes are exempt from dues. Sustaining 

 Members contribute $25 annually. After six years they 

 become Associate Members. Annual Members con- 

 tribute $10 annually. Other memberships are Corpo- 

 rate, Honorary, Patron, and Correspondmg, additions 

 under these classifications being made by special action 

 of the Board of Trustees. 



Each Member, in all classes, is entitled to free 

 admission to the Museum for himself, his family and 

 house guests, and to two reserved seats for Museum 

 lectures provided for Members. Subscription to Field 

 Museum News is included with all memberships. The 

 courtesies of every museum of note in the United 

 States and Canada are extended to all Members of 

 Field Museum. A Member may give his personal card 

 to non-residents of Chicago, upon presentation of 

 which they will be admitted to the Museum without 

 charge. Further information about memberships will 

 be sent on request. 



BEQUESTS AND ENDOWMENTS 



Bequests to Field Museum of Natural History may 

 be made in securities, money, books or collections. 

 They may, if desired, take the form of a memorial to 

 a person or cause, named by the giver. 



Cash contributions made within the taxable year 

 not exceeding 15 per cent of the taxpayer's net income 

 are allowable as deductions in computing net income 

 under Article 251 of Regulation 69 relating to the 

 income tax under the Revenue Act of 1926. 



Endowments may be made to the Museum with the 

 provision that an annuity be paid to the patron for life. 

 These annuities are tax-free and are guaranteed against 

 fluctuation in amount. 



NEW RARE GAS EXHIBIT 



By Henry W. Nichols 

 Associate Curator of Geology 



A collection of rare elemental gases of 

 the argon family has been presented to 

 the Museimi by the Air Reduction Sales 

 Company of Chicago, and is now exhibited 

 in the corridor connecting Hall 36 and 

 Frederick J. V. Skiff Hall (Hall 37). The 

 gases are seen glowing with the bright 

 colors they radiate when used in neon and 

 similar signs. Normally these gases are 

 colorless and invisible, but if maintained 

 in a partial vacuum they can be excited to 

 luminosity by the passage of a suitable 

 electric current. In the exhibit five gases — 

 argon, neon, helium, krypton and xenon — 

 radiate characteristic colors from five tubes. 

 Three other tubes show the colored glow 

 of mixtures of these gases, and a modifica- 

 tion of color by the vivid green fluorescence 

 they induce in uranium gla.ss. 



The gases of the argon family are rare, 

 being found nowhere in more than minute 

 quantities. Some are found in certain 

 natural gases and in a few rare minerals. 

 All are found in minute quantities in the 

 air. They are all inert chemically; that is, 

 they cannot combine with other elements, 

 but are always in the free state. Their 

 scarcity and inert nature delayed their 

 discovery until years after most other 

 chemical elements had been classified. It 

 was not imtil 1894 that the first of them, 

 helium, was isolated from the rare mineral, 

 uraninite or pitchblende. The four others 

 in this exhibit were found in 1895, in the 

 residues from evaporating liquid air. 



Neon, helium and argon now have an 

 important place in industry. The evening 

 aspect of business streets has been brightened 

 by the red glow of neon signs. Neon light 

 is used also for signaling. Miniature neon 

 bulbs provide the light for television 

 receivers, and recently have been added to 

 radio receivers to indicate the point of 

 correct tuning. Other miniature neon tubes 

 detect the presence of high tension currents 

 and are used to indicate defective spark 

 plugs in automobiles. One part of neon is 

 found in 80,000 parts of air. 



Helium provides a yellow light for lamps 

 of the neon type, but its most important 

 use is for inflating balloons. Next to 

 hydrogen it is the lightest gas known, and 

 as it is absolutely non-inflammable it pro- 

 vides safety for the balloon at only a slight 

 sacrifice of lifting power. It is present in 

 air in the proportion of one part helium 

 to 250,000 parts air. The commercial 

 supply is obtained from certain natural 

 gas wells. It is also found in a number of 

 radio-active rare minerals. Helium is one 

 of the few elements of known origin. It is 

 a product of the disintegration of the ele- 

 ments uranium, radium and thorium, and 

 is constantly being formed as these elements 

 are destroyed. It might be supposed, since 

 new helium has been forming ever since the 

 beginning of the earth, that by this time so 

 much would have accumulated it would no 

 longer be rare. There are two reasons why 

 this has not happened. The parent elements 

 are rare, and helium constantly escapes into 

 space from the upper atmosphere. The 

 gas is so light that the earth's attraction 

 is unable to hold helium that has diffused 

 upward to the limits of the atmosphere. 



Argon provides a dull blue color for 

 luminous signs. More important, when 

 incandescent lamp bulbs are filled with it 

 the quality of the light is improved, and 

 the life of the lamp and economy of its 

 operation are increased. It is the most 



abundant of the rare gases, one part being 

 present in 125 parts of air. 



The two other gases in the exhibit, krypton 

 and xenon, are so rare that they have at 

 present little or no commercial use. Krypton 

 is present in air only to the extent of one 

 part in 2,000,000, and xenon in the almost 

 infinitesimal quantity of one part in 

 17,000,000 parts air. 



PASSION FLOWERS 



The passion flowers constitute a small 

 New World family of tropical and subtropical 

 climbers with a few shrubs or trees. Several 

 species are cultivated for their fruit and 

 for their curious flowers. 



The flowers owe their characteristic 

 appearance to a conspicuous circle of colored 

 filaments and to the elevation of pistil and 

 stamens on a column. The name refers 

 to the legend originated by the early Spanish 

 missionaries who saw in these flowers 

 emblems of the crucifixion or "passion of 

 Our Lord." The corona of filaments 

 suggested the crown of thorns, the stigmas 

 the spikes, the stamens the three wounds, 

 the tendrils the scourges, and the parts of 

 the floral envelope the ten apostles. 



A flowering and fruiting passion flower 

 vine, the Granadilla, and several smaller 

 passion flower fruits, are to be seen in the 

 Hall of Plant Life (Hall 29). The edible 

 part of the passion flower fruit is, as in 

 the pomegranates, the pulpy covering of 

 the seeds, which has an acid-sweet aromatic 

 flavor greatly esteemed in the tropics as a 

 flavoring for ices and for cool refreshing 

 drinks. 



ORIGIN OF UNICORN LEGEND 



The unicorn of mythology has three 

 principal counterparts in actual animal life, 

 to each of which has been attributed the 

 origin of legends concerning this queer one- 

 homed beast which never existed. Of these, 

 two are represented by mounted examples 

 among the zoological exhibits at Field 

 Museum — the Tibetan antelope or chiru 

 (in George M. Pullman Hall, Hall 13), and 

 the oryx or beisa antelope of Africa (in 

 Cari E. Akeley Memorial Hall, Hall 22), 

 while specimens of the third, the nilghai 

 or blue bull of India, are in the Museum's 

 collections being prepared for exhibition. 



The basis of the imicorn legends is prob- 

 ably an optical illusion on the part of ancient 

 peoples, it is asserted by Museum zoologists 

 and anthropologists. At a distance, all 

 three of the above mentioned animals, 

 which have parallel upright horns, may 

 appear from a side view to be one-horned. 

 The other characteristics assigned to the 

 unicorn in ancient descriptions — head and 

 body of a horse, hind legs of an antelope, 

 tail of a lion or a horse, and sometimes the 

 beard of a goat — were probably the results 

 of active imaginations stimulated by the 

 fleeting sight from a distance of swift 

 animals about which little or nothing was 

 known. 



On zoological grounds the oryx of Africa 

 would appear the most likely to have 

 originated the unicorn myth. But on his- 

 torical grounds, because of its being an 

 inhabitant of the parts of Asia whence the 

 legends sprang, the blue bull would seem 

 the most likely, although zoologically it is 

 of the three the least like pictures of unicorns. 



A large collection of pseudomorphic 

 minerals — i.e., minerals which by substitu- 

 tion or alteration assume the forms of 

 other species — is shown in the Department 

 of Geology. 



