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FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



July, 1 9S3 



Field Museum of Natural History 



Founded by Marshall Field, 1893 

 Roosevelt Road and Lake Michigan, Chicago 



THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



Sewell L. Avery 

 John Borden 

 William J. Chaluers 

 Marshall Field 

 Stanley Field 

 Ernest R. Graham 

 Albert W. Harris 

 Samuel Insull, Jr. 

 Cyrus H. McCormick 



John F. 



William H. Mitchell 

 Frederick H. Rawson 

 George A. Richardson 

 Fred W. Sargent 

 Stephen C. Simhs 

 James Simpson 

 Solomon A. Smith 

 Albert A. Spbague 

 Silas H. Strawn 

 Wilson 



OFFICERS 



Stanley Field President 



Albert A. Sprague First Vice-President 



James Simpson Second Vice-President 



Albert W. Harris Third Vice-President 



Stephen C. Simms Director and Secretary 



Solomon A. Smith . . . Treasurer and Assistant Secretary 



FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



Stephen C. Simms, Director of the Museum Editor 



CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 



Bbrthold 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 during 

 the hours indicated below: 



November, December, January 9 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. 



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

 May, June, July, August, September 9 a.m. 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 Corresponding, 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 wul 

 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 

 8 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. 



SOUTHWEST EXPEDITION RESUMES 

 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS 



The Field Museum Archaeological Ex- 

 pedition to the Southwest, which conducted 

 excavations on the Lowry ruin in Colorado 

 during the summers of 1930 and 1931, but 

 was suspended in 1932, has resumed oper- 

 ations this summer. Dr. Paul S. Martin, 

 Assistant Curator of North American 

 Archaeology, who was leader during the ex- 

 pedition's two previous seasons, again is in 

 charge of the work, having left Chicago for 

 the field on June 16. 



The Lowry ruin is a site holding the re- 

 mains of an interesting offshoot of the 

 culture known as that of Chaco Canyon. 

 In the previous seasons the expedition ex- 

 posed two kivas or ceremonial rooms, and 

 collected pottery, prayer-sticks, and other 

 artifacts of the ancient inhabitants of the 

 pueblo. It was ascertained that the middle 

 period of the pueblo was probably some- 

 where between a.d. 800 and 1000, but the 

 time of the earliest occupation remains to 

 be traced. 



The expedition is financed from funds 

 provided by the late Julius and Augusta N. 

 Rosenwald. 



CARNAUBA WAX 



By B. E. Dahlgren 

 Acting Curator, Department of Botany 



Mention of wax suggests to most people 

 beeswax, product of the honeybee, which 

 has long represented the conception of wax 

 in general, despite the fact that certain 

 mineral waxes such as paraffin have now 

 become even more common. Waxes of 

 vegetable origin are on the whole less im- 

 portant today and far less generally known 

 than the mineral ones, although in parts of 

 the United States a historical interest 

 attaches to bayberry candles, made of wax 

 obtained from berries of the wax myrtle. 



Many plants produce wax in small quan- 

 tity which may or may not be of great use 

 to the plant, and may be of little or no 

 economic importance to man. Carnauba 

 wax is a conspicuous exception. This 

 vegetable product has found numerous appli- 

 cations in modern life. It has long been 

 known as a material for candles, in which 

 its admixture with other waxes and fats 

 serves to give rigidity and to raise the 

 melting point. It enters into the composition 

 of plastic masses, such as those used for 

 dictaphone and phonograph records. On 

 account of its hardness and the fine high 

 gloss it acquires on being rubbed, it is one 

 of the chief ingredients of shoe polish and 

 furniture and floor wax. It has found 

 application in the textile industry as a filler 

 and to give gloss to certain fabrics. Its 

 consumption runs into thousands of tons 

 per year, and its production serves to give 

 occupation to a large part of the population 

 of the semidry, often drought-afflicted region 

 of northeastern Brazil. 



This wax is the product of the carnafiba, 

 a handsome fan-palm, being an excretion 

 coating the surface of the leaf and serving 

 as a protection against excessive evaporation. 

 It is obtained by cutting, drying, and sub- 

 sequently beating the leaves, which causes 

 the wax to fall off as a fine powder which is 

 later melted and poured into dishes or forms 

 to cool. There are various commercial 

 grades depending in quality on the age of 

 the leaves and on the care exercised in 

 preparation. 



A series of specimens typical of the car- 

 nauba palm, its wax and other products, was 

 obtained last year by the writer in cooper- 



ation with S. C. Johnson and R. P. Gardiner, 

 of Racine, Wisconsin, on a visit to Cear&, 

 center of the carnauba region of Brazil. 

 Many of these specimens have been added to 

 the exhibits of vegetable raw materials in 

 Hall 28 and the palm exhibits in Hall 25. 



NORTH AMERICAN HERONS 

 EXHIBITED IN HALL 21 



By Rudyerd Boulton 

 Assistant Curator of Birds 



Long-legged wading birds of closely re- 

 lated forms are found all over the world, 

 but most commonly in the tropics. Of the 

 seven families that belong to this order, 

 four are found in this country. Examples 

 of these have recently been installed in the 

 systematic series of North American birds in 

 Hall 21 by Taxidermist Ashley Hine. 



The flamingo, with feet and bill like a 

 duck, and with legs, neck and body like 

 a heron or stork, forms a connecting link 

 between these two important groups of 

 birds. Nowadays, flamingos are found only 

 rarely at the southern tip of Florida, but 

 they are more common in the West Indies 

 and in South America. A habitat group of 

 flamingos from the Bahama Islands, show- 

 ing their peculiar nesting habits, is to be 

 found in Hall 20. 



The wood ibis, also from Florida and the 

 Gulf states, is a victim of the misapplication 

 of names, for it is not an ibis but the only 

 member of the stork family inhabiting this 

 country. The true ibises are represented by 

 three species, while the roseate spoonbill, 

 rare and colorful relative with a bill curiously 

 adapted to specialized feeding habits, forms 

 the fourth member of this group. These 

 birds are confined to the southern part of 

 the country. 



All the twelve species of American herons 

 and bitterns, commonly seen along the 

 streams, sloughs, and lakes of the northern 

 United States, are shown in the case just 

 installed. Many of them are incorrectly 

 called cranes. Cranes are related to the 

 rail family and belong to an entirely different 

 group of birds. The two well-known Ameri- 

 can cranes, the whooping and the sandhill, 

 are shown in a habitat group in Hall 20. 



The great blue heron, the green heron 

 and the black-crowned night heron nest in 

 the Chicago region, while the little blue 

 heron, snowy egret and American egret, 

 formerly martyrs to the traffic in plumage, 

 occasionally visit us in late summer. 



Malicious Magic in Africa 



In the Hall of African Ethnology (Hall D), 

 is a large wooden figure of a man studded 

 with nails and pieces of iron driven in so 

 closely that little of the body woodwork 

 can be seen. A tribesman who desired to 

 injure an enemy approached the medicine- 

 man with a gift, asking that a sharp piece of 

 iron should be driven into this symbolic 

 figure of the foe. By sympathetic magic 

 the enemy against whom these machinations 

 were directed was supposed to be injured in 

 a manner corresponding to the mutilation 

 of the figure. Hearing that such a rite had 

 been performed the victim might go away 

 to die, or at least become sick and depressed. 

 But should he be able to find payment, the 

 medicine-man might be persuaded to remove 

 the piece of iron which was symbolically 

 causing pain. 



Exact reproductions of the world's most 

 famous diamonds are on exhibition in H. N. 

 Higinbotham Hall. 



