Page i 



FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



April, 19SS 



FIVE ILLUSTRATED LECTURES 

 TO BE GIVEN IN APRIL 



Of the spring course of lectures on science 

 and travel, five remain to be given on 

 Saturday afternoons during April. The 

 lectures are illustrated with motion pictures 

 and stereopticon slides. They begin at 

 3 P.M., and are given in the James Simpson 

 Theatre of the Museum. Admission is free. 

 Following are the dates, subjects, and 

 speakers scheduled: 



April 1 — Land o' Peaks and Sky Blue 

 Waters 



Fred PajTic Clatworthy, Estes Park, Colorado 



April 8 — -The Canadian Arctic and Its 

 People 



Richard Finnie, F.R.G.S., Ottawa, Canada 



April 15 — Hunting Whales 



Chester Scott Howland, New Bedford, Massa- 

 chusetts 



April 22— The Utah Fairyland of Bryce 

 Canyon National Park 



Dr. C. O. Schneider, Chicago 



April 29 — Jungle Gods 



Captain Cari von Hoffman, New York City 



No tickets are necessary for admission 

 to these lectures. A section of the Theatre 

 is reserved for Members of the Museum, 

 each of whom is entitled to two reserved 

 seats on request. Requests for these seats 

 may be made by telephone or in writing 

 to the Museum, in advance of the lecture, 

 and seats will then be held in the Member's 

 name until 3 o'clock on the day of the 

 lecture. Members may obtain seats in the 

 reser%'e<i section also by presentation of 

 their membership cards to the Theatre 

 attendant before 3 o'clock on the lecture 

 day, even though no advance reservation 

 has been made. All reserved seats not 

 claimed by 3 o'clock will be opened to the 

 general public. 



RAYMOND FOUND.\TION PRESENTS 

 PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN 



Five more of the spring series of free 

 motion picture programs for children, pro- 

 vided by the James Nelson and Aiina 

 Louise Raymond Foundation for Public 

 School and Children's Lectures, remain to 

 be given on Saturday mornings during April. 

 Following are the dates, and the titles of 

 the films to be shown on each: 



April 1 — The Tortoise and His Cousins; 



The Frontier Woman 

 April 8 — The Rhino Meets an Auto- 

 mobile; A Dyak Wedding; A Trip Through 



Yellowstone Park 

 April 15 — The Realm of the Honeybee; 



Among the Elephant Seals 

 April 22 — A Trip to Penguin-land; Peter 



Stuyvesant 

 April 29 — From Egg to Butterfly; Flower 



Friends of Brook and Roadside; Wild 



Wings 



Each program is given twice, at 10 am. 

 and at 11, in the James Simpson Theatre 

 of the Museum. Children from all parts of 

 Chicago and suburbs are invited to attend. 

 No tickets are required for admission. 



"Dragon's Blood" Resin 



"Dragon's blood" is the name given to 

 a bright red resin exuding from the fruit 

 of rattan palm, native of southeastern Asia. 

 It is used for gi\"ing a deep red color to 

 spirit varnish (see exhibit in Hall 28, and 

 the rattan palm ease in Hall 25). 



Remarkable Slate Cleavage Shown 



Columns of Welsh slate exhibited in 

 Clarence Buckingham Hall (Hall 35) illus- 

 trate the perfection sometimes attained in 

 the cleavage of slate, which was so important 

 when slate roofs were in more general use. 

 One column six feet long and nearly six 

 inches wide has been cleaved by Welsh 

 quarrymen into uniform sheets one-eighth 

 of an inch thick; another six-foot column 

 has been di^'ided into plates only one- 

 sixteenth of an inch thick. These columns 

 also show a flexibility and strength not to 

 be expected in a common rock. The lower 

 half of each column is compressed between 

 iron clamps so firmly that in one instance 

 no trace of the cleavage can be seen, yet 

 it has been possible to spread the tops of 

 the sheets fanwise to show their thinness. 



SPECIAL NOTICE 



Members of the Museum who have 

 changed residences or plan to do so 

 are urged to notify the Museum of 

 their new addresses, so that FIELD 

 MUSEUM NEWS and other com- 

 munications may reach them 

 promptly. 



Members going away during the 

 summer, who desire Museum matter 

 sent to their temporary addresses, 

 may have this service by notifying 

 the Museum. 



Pomegranates 



Pomegranates have been cultivated since 

 ancient times. They are natives of the 

 Levant, and are said to have been intro- 

 duced into northern Africa and southern 

 Europe by the Carthaginians, whose Latin 

 name Punicus has been applied to the 

 pomegranate tree. They are now grown 

 for fruit and for ornament in all warm 

 countries. 



Of the two species recognized, one is wfld 

 in the Balkan countries and through Persia 

 to the Himalayas and northwest India. In 

 the Caucasus there are said to be found 

 entire forest formations composed exclu- 

 sively of wild pomegranates and pears. 

 The other species is indigenous to the island 

 of Socotra, off the Arabian coast. 



A flowering and fruiting branch of the 

 pomegranate is to be seen in the Hall of 

 Plant Life (HaU 29). 



China's Bronze Age 



The bronze age of China (about 1500 B.C. 

 to A.D. 220) is the subject of exhibits in 

 George T. and Frances Gaylord Smith Hall 

 (Hall 24). Among imusual objects in the 

 collection is a caltrop or four-spiked military 

 instrument so designed that however it 

 fell one spike would point upward. On 

 roads where enemy cavalry was to pass 

 caltrops were scattered to wound the 

 horses' feet. 



Of interest also is a water-clock or 

 clepsydra. A steady dripping of water into 

 a vessel was permitted and time was 

 measured by the rise of the water to notches 

 marking the hours on a wooden rod. Large 

 bronze drums produced in early times are 

 another feature. Manufacture of such 

 drums ceased centuries ago, states Dr. 

 Berthold Laufer, Curator of Anthropology, 

 and by the twelfth century they were 

 esteemed by the Chinese themselves as 

 antiquities. They were a development from 

 drums of aboriginal tribes conquered by 

 the Chinese. 



APRIL GUIDE-LECTURE TOURS 



Conducted tours of exhibits, under the 

 guidance of staff lecturers, are made every 

 afternoon at 3 p.m., except Saturdays, 

 Sundays, and certain holidays. Following 

 is the schedule of subjects and dates for 

 April: 



Week beginning April 3: Monday — Birds at Home; 

 Tuesday — Chinese Halls; Wednesday — Looms and 

 Textiles; Thursday — General Tour; Friday — Mexico. 



Week beginning April 10: Monday — Indians of 

 the Southwest; Tuesday — Plants and .\nimals of the 

 Past; Wednesday — Roman Exhibits; Thursday — 

 General Tour; Friday — Primitive Clothing. 



Week beginning April 17: Monday — Eskimo Life; 

 Tuesday — Eg>'pt; Wednesday — Fibers and Their Uses; 

 Thursday — General Tour; Friday — Gems and Jewelr>-. 



Week beginning .\pril 24: Monday — Moon and 

 Meteorites; Tuesday — Animal Life of North America; 

 Wednesday — Woodland Indians; Thursday — General 

 Tour; Friday — Peoples of the South Seas. 



Persons wishing to participate should 

 apply at North Entrance. Tours are free 

 and no gratuities are to be proffered. A new 

 schedule will appear each month in FIELD 

 Museum News. Guide-lecturers' services 

 for special tours by parties of ten or more 

 are available free of charge by arrangement 

 with the Director a week in advance. 



Gifts to the Museum 



Following is a list of some of the principal 

 gifts received during the last month: 



From Northwestern L^niversity — skeleton of Indian 

 elephant; from Miss Louise Christopher — 2 gypsum 

 rosettes. South Dakota; from Park Richmond and 

 Company — a mahogany board, Santo Domingo, West 

 Indies; from Professor Lorenio R. Parodi — 21 her- 

 baritun specimens, .\rgentina; from Garfield Park Con- 

 servator>' — a trunk otLirtstona palm; from Agricultural 

 Experiment Stations of the University of Florida — 

 50 specimens of pecans; from Dr. E. E. Sherff — 33 her- 

 barium specimens, Hawaiian Islands; from School of 

 Forestry, Yale University — 50 herbariiun specimens, 

 Ectiador; from C. Suydam Cutting — 133 small mammal 

 skins with 127 skulls, and 70 bird skins, Upper Burma; 

 from Philip Hershkovitz — a cave salamander and 3 

 lizards, Texas; from F. A. Mitchell-Hedges — an 

 elephant beetle. 



NEW MEMBERS 



The following persons were elected to 

 membership in Field Museum during the 

 period from February 15 to March 15: 



.\saociate Members 



Mrs. Russell D. HiU, John C. Hinti, Miss Ruth 

 Wilkins. 



.\nnuai Members 



C. W. Allen, W. Austin .\mor>-. Miss Randi .Kndersen, 

 George J. Avery, Mrs. A. M. Barrett, William A. 

 Bond, T. M. Coen, Paul W. Cook, Miss Margaret 

 Frank, Mrs. G. H. Griffith, Mrs. El\-in W. Howland, 

 Mrs. E. A. Kauroeyer, A. L. Mj-rland, John K. Platner, 

 O. Jay Smith, Charles F. Thomas, George W. Travcr, 

 Frank V. Zintak. 



Mrs. Roosevelt Sr. Visits Museum 



Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., widow of 

 the late President Theodore Roosevelt, 

 visited Field Museum recently to see the 

 habitat groups of Asiatic animals in William 

 V. Kelley Hall composed of specimens 

 collected by her sons. Colonel Theodore 

 Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt. She had 

 stopped in Chicago on her way home from 

 a trip to the Philippines where she had 

 been visiting Colonel Roosevelt, Governor- 

 General of the islands. James Simpson, 

 sponsor of one of the Roosevelt expeditions, 

 accompanied her to the Museum. 



Wood Exhibits Aid Builders 



Persons interested in the construction of 

 buildings, or the manufactiu* of products 

 involving the use of woods, find much 

 assistance in selecting the woods best suited 

 to their particular purposes by consulting 

 exhibits of American and foreign woods 

 occupying two halls at Field Museum. 



FMINTCO ay FICLO MUSEUM PRESS 



