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FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



October, 193S 



Field Museum of Natural History 



Founded by Marshall Field, 1893 

 Rooserelt Road and L4ike Michigan, Chicago 



THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



Sbwbll L. Avery 

 John Borden 

 W1U.IAM J. Chalmers 

 Marshall Field 

 Stanley Field 

 Ernest R. Graham 

 Albert W, Harris 

 Samuel Insull, Jr. 

 Cyrus H. McCormick 



John P. 



William H. Mitchell 

 Frederick H. Rawson 

 George A. Richardson 

 Fred W. Sargent 

 Stephen C. Siums 

 James Simpson 

 Solomon A. Smith 

 Albert A. Spragub 

 Silas H. Strawn 

 Wilson 



OFFICERS 



Stanley Fieo-d President 



Albert A. Sprague First Viee-PresiderU 



James Simpson Second Vice-President 



Albert W. Harris Third Vice-President 



Stephen C. Simms DivKtor and Secretary 



Solomon A. Smith. . . Treasurer and Assistant Secretary 



FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



Stephen C. Simms, Director of the Mmevm 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 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 

 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. 



METEORITE SOCIETY ORGANIZED 



The Society for Research on Meteorites 

 was organized at meetings held on August 21 

 and 22 in the small lecture hall of Field 

 Museum. This institution was chosen as 

 the meeting place because of its important 

 meteorite collection, largest in the world 

 in number of falls represented. 



Dr. Oliver C. Farrington, Curator of 

 Geology, was elected honorary president of 

 the society, and Associate Curator Henry 

 W. Nichols was elected a member of the 

 council of the organization. Scientists from 

 all over the country attended. Dr. Frederick 

 C. Leonard, chairman of the department 

 of astronomy at the University of Cali- 

 fornia at Los Angeles, was elected president; 

 Dr. C. C. Wylie of the University of Iowa 

 and Dr. W. F. Foshag of the United States 

 National Museum, were elected vice- 

 presidents; and Professor H. H. Nininger 

 of the Colorado Museum of Natural History, 

 was chosen secretary-treasurer. Councilors 

 include L. F. Brady of the Museum of 

 Northern Arizona, Dean G. M. Butler of 

 the University of Arizona, Professor Ray- 

 mond E. Crilley of Iowa Wesleyan College, 

 Dr. W. T. Whitney of Pomona College, 

 and Dr. F. R. Moulton of the University 

 of Chicago. 



MUSEUM CLOSING HOUR 

 CHANGES OCTOBER 1 



Beginning October 1, visiting 

 hours at Field Museum of Natural 

 History will be from 9 a.m. to 5:30 

 p.m. daily until October 31. Since 

 June 1 the Museum has been open 

 every day from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. for 

 the convenience of visitors to A 

 Century of Progress. 



On Novemiber 1 the Museum will 

 resume its regular schedule of visit- 

 ing hours, which varies slightly at 

 different seasons, as follows: 

 November, December, and January 

 — 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; February, 

 March, April, and October — 9 a.m. 

 to 5 p.m.; May, June, July, August, 

 and September — 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. 



PARA RUBBER 



By B. E. Dahlgrbn 

 Acting Curator, Department of Botany 



Rubber is essentially an American prod- 

 uct. At the time of the early Spaniards 

 in tropical America the Indians in Mexico 

 used rubber playing balls, and in South 

 America they were acquainted with the 

 latex of the rubber tree and its use as 

 waterproofing for rain capes. The Amazon- 

 ian Indians made syringes of rubber with a 

 perforated stick of wood for a nozzle. The 

 first scientific report on rubber was made 

 by Condamine and Bouguer in 1736 to the 

 Paris Academy of Sciences. 



Nevertheless, in Europe and North 

 America rubber was almost unknown until 

 about a hundred years ago. The English 

 chemist Priestley is said to have discovered 

 its usefulness as a pencil eraser. A practical 

 process for impregnating cloth with a rubber 

 solution was patented in Great Britain in 

 1823 by Mackintosh, whose name has since 

 become a synonym for raincoats. With 

 the discovery of the process known as 

 vulcanization, consisting of the treatment 

 of rubber with sulphur, the usefulness of 

 the new material was greatly increased. 

 Its present enormous importance dates, of 

 course, from the invention of the pneumatic 

 tire, which has made the crude "coucho" or 



caoutchouc of the Indian an indispensable 

 raw material of the industrial world. 



There are many kinds of rubber. All of 

 them consist of the dried latex or sticky 

 juice of certain plants. The list of rubber- 

 yielding plants known is now very extensive, 

 including hundreds of species scattered over 

 all continents. The latest to be announced 

 is from Russia, a dandelion-like plant of 

 western Asia with a rubbery root, that may 

 be grown far to the north in the temperate 

 zone. Of the large number of plants from 

 which rubber may be obtained only a few 

 have actually been found to yield a product 

 of great commercial importance, and of 

 these only one yields a rubber of really 

 prime quality for most purposes, viz., the 

 Brazilian rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis, of 

 the Amazon. This furnishes the Brazilian 

 product known as Par4 rubber, so named 

 from its chief port of exportation. It is 

 this species which, transplanted to the moist 

 tropics of the East Indies on a large scale, 

 now furnishes practically all of the so-called 

 plantation rubber. 



Formerly the Amazon was the only source 

 of supply. The rubber industry is still 

 important there, but in the virtual absence 

 of producing plantations, is confined to 

 tapping the wild trees of the forest. These 

 yield a superior product but at a cost of 

 time and effort much greater than that 

 expended on plantation rubber. The rubber 

 trees in the forest are scattered. The gatherer 

 of rubber must live far from his kind, establish 

 and maintain himself in the forest, often 

 under very difficult conditions, far from 

 sources of supply. He must find a sufficient 

 number of trees more or less convenient 

 of access within a reasonable range of his 

 camp and cut a path for himself from tree 

 to tree before he can begin his daily round 

 of collecting. 



Most of the Amazon rubber thus obtained 

 comes to market in large balls, formed 

 gradually by pouring the collected rubber 

 latex on a stick revolved over the smoke 

 of a palm nut fire, which causes the milky 

 juice to coagulate. This is continued daily 

 until the ball of rubber grows to such 

 dimensions that it becomes unmanageable or 

 inconvenient for one man to handle, the 

 average weight of the balls being about 

 sixty pounds when fresh. 



A plantation rubber tree showing the 

 now usual manner in which the bark is 

 cut in shallow V-shaped incisions, and a 

 wild rubber tree showing the effects of 

 tapping in the crude manner formerly in 

 use on the lower Amazon, have been placed 

 on exhibition among the raw plant materials 

 in Hall 28 of the Museum. Shown with 

 these are the tools used for making the 

 incisions, and specimens of Pari rubber in 

 the form in which it comes into the market. 

 This exhibit was made possible by gifts 

 of material received from Van Cleef Brothers 

 and the Wilkinson Process Rubber Company 

 of Chicago, and by collections obtained by 

 the Marshall Field Botanical Expedition to 

 the Amazon in 1929. 



To illustrate the botanical characters of 

 the Hevea rubber tree a fruiting branch of 

 this tree obtained by the Amazon expedition 

 has been reproduced in the Stanley Field 

 Plant Reproduction Laboratories of the 

 Department of Botany. The whole forms 

 an instructive and important nucleus for 

 an exhibit which will include the principal 

 kinds of rubber from various other sources. 



An unusually fine carved lacquer screen 

 from China, eighteenth century, deposited 

 by Mrs. Marshall Field, Sr., occupies the 

 North Gallery above Stanley Field Hall. 



