402 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



effect on June 1, at which date he will be- 

 come officially connected with the scientific 

 staff of the American Museum, 



The sum of $10,000 has been added to the 

 permanent endowment fund of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, through the 

 will of a friend of the institution, for use 

 in the department of anthropology. It is 

 planned to utilize the income for the devel- 

 opment of physical anthropology. 



In his new book, When the Somme Ban 

 Bed, A. Eadclyffe Dugmore relates his ex- 

 periences in the trenches and on the battle- 

 field as simply and forcefully as he has told 

 The Bomance of the Beaver or Camera Ad- 

 ventures in the African Wilds. Before the 

 great war began, Captain Dugmore's life 

 was devoted to the study of natural history 

 and his shooting was done chiefly with the 

 camera. He went to Belgium after the 

 German invasion, to see and record what the 

 Germans had done there. He was wounded 

 and made prisoner. Later, he offered his 

 services to the English army; he was sev- 

 eral years past conscription age. His ac- 

 count of life at the front and the first days 

 of the Battle of the Somme (to the time 

 when he was gassed) is graphic and con- 

 vincing. He leaves no doubt in the mind of 

 the reader that where such indomitable 

 spirit and courage have been displayed the 

 final outcome of the great struggle now 

 waging over the same ground is unques- 

 tioned. 



It is reported 1 that the fields over which 

 the battle of the Somme raged during the 

 late summer and autumn of 1916 were 

 thickly carpeted with blossoming plants less 

 than a year later. July of 1917 saw vast 

 stretches of scarlet poppies, interspersed 

 with acres of chamomile {Matricaria chamo- 

 milla, L.) and large patches of yellow char- 

 lock, glorifying what had been but a dreary 

 waste of mud and water throughout the 

 preceding winter. Half hidden within this 

 luxuriant growth white crosses mark the 

 graves of the dead. Where shells left yawn- 

 ing holes, water has gathered and formed 

 ponds, which are rendered more or less per- 

 manent by the nature of the soil. In and 



' Capt. A. W. Hill, Assistant Director, Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Kew, England, in the Kew Bul- 

 letin of Miscellaneous Information, Nos. 9 and 10, 

 1917. 



around these flourish the annual rush {Jun- 

 ciis bufo7iius), the smartweed {Polygonum 

 persiearia), and numerous water grasses. 

 Dragon flies hover about the pools, which 

 teem with water beetles and various other 

 forms of pond life. The woods which once 

 covered the uplands have been destroyed al- 

 most entirely by the heavy shelling. Only 

 at Aveluy Wood a few badly broken trees 

 still live, and these rise from a dense growth 

 of the rosebay willow-herb {Epilobium an- 

 gustifolium). The extraordinary method 

 of cultivation of the soil apparently has in- 

 creased its productive power. The under- 

 lying chalk formation has been broken up, 

 mixing with the subsoil and the old surface 

 soil, thus forming a new and very fertile 

 combination, from which the various seeds, 

 many of them perhaps long buried deep in 

 the ground, have sprung with great vigor. 

 Patches of oats and barley and occasionally 

 of wheat are to be seen. These may have 

 been sown by the Germans, or they may 

 have lain dormant in the ground since before 

 the war when this land was all under culti- 

 vation. Along the roadsides are traces of 

 the old permanent flora; while here and 

 there remains of currant and other bushes 

 show where had stood a cottage with its 

 garden. 



The following letter, dated May 5, from 

 TJr. Jean B. Charcot, physician, Antarctic 

 explorer, and at present lieutenant in the 

 French Navy, comes to us through the cour- 

 tesy of Mr. Herbert L. Bridgman, business 

 manager of The Brooklyn Standard Union: 



"How far the Antarctic is now! And 

 what different work I am engaged in ! It is 

 still oceanography, but of a special sort, as 

 I am running after tin-fish. For about a 

 year I was medical doctor in the French 

 Navy, but later obtained the command of an 

 auxiliary cruiser under British Admiralty 

 orders. The work we did north of Scotland 

 in winter was very hard, and after eight 

 months of this I fell dangerously ill, in fact 

 nobody knows how I outlived it; neverthe- 

 less after six months I obtained another ship 

 and for more than a year I have been run- 

 ning after the Huns in the Atlantic and 

 Channel. I cannot say that my health is 

 good, as one third of my lungs is useless, 

 but I hope to go to the end of the business 

 and play my part in the big adventure. I 

 am the oldest of the commanders of small 

 ships and I have with me part of my good 

 old Antarctic crew, who asked to serve un- 

 der my orders; some too old for conscrip- 

 tion have engaged to come with me and it is 

 a real satisfaction. I have lent my good 



