MUSEUM NOTES 
about one-fourth of the expedition’s collec- 
tions. The balance remains in the hands of 
Mr. Lang, leader of the expedition, who also 
will come out of the Congo immediately after 
the final work of packing and shipment is 
completed. 
The entire collection numbers some 16,000 
specimens of vertebrates alone, 6000 of 
which are birds and 5000 mammals. The 
specimens are accompanied by some 4000 
pages of descriptive matter and 6000 photo- 
graphs. It includes full material and careful 
studies for museum groups of the okapi, the 
giant eland and white rhinoceros, besides 
many specimens of lions, elephants, giraffes, 
buffaloes, bongos, situtungas, yellow-backed 
duikers, black forest pigs, giant manis and 
chimpanzees. 
The ethnological section of the collection 
is rich in specimens of native art of the Congo 
including several hundred objects of carved 
ivory, a revelation as to the capacities of the 
Congo uneducated negro. There are also 
seventy plaster casts of native faces from 
the Logo, Azande, Avungura, Mangbetu, 
Bangba, Anadi, Abarambo, Mayoho, Ma- 
budu, Medje, Mobali and Pygmy tribes. 
Each cast is supplemented by a series of 
photographie studies of the individual. 
Mr. Chapin will take up again his zodélogi- 
cal studies at Columbia University and will 
retain his connection with the American 
Museum as assistant in ornithology. In this 
position he wiJl work up for publication the 
6000 Congo birds of the new collection 
which in point of preservation as well as size 
and number of specimens new to the Ameri- 
can Museum, surpasses any collection that 
has ever been secured by the institution. 
THERE is on exhibition in the west as- 
sembly hall for the month of April a series of 
photographic transparencies illustrating cer- 
tain noteworthy features of the work of 
Professor Percival Lowell and his staff at the 
Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona. The series 
shows, first, the Observatory, the great 
24-inch telescope, and following, the spectra 
of the Moon, Jupiter and other planets. Of 
special interest are the photographs showing 
various aspects of Mars, including the much 
discussed “canal system.’’ These are sup- 
plemented by drawings by Professor Lowell 
which illustrate the vegetation on Mars and 
the condition of the snow-caps at the north 
and south poles. Perhaps the most striking 
of the series is the large photograph of 
197 
Halley’s Comet, which includes not only the 
comet itself, but the stars drawn into lines 
on account of following the comet with the 
camera, the planet Venus, and lastly a meteor 
which chanced to pass directly across the 
plate during the exposure. 
Photographs of the Moon show the craters 
and the shadows of the great crater walls 
which rise almost vertically 10,000 to 15,000 
feet. As the transparencies are brilliantly 
illuminated in a darkened room, it gives the 
effect of looking at the sky itself. 
“Ortain and Meaning of some Funda- 
mental Earth Structures’ was the subject 
recently discussed by Professor Charles P. 
Berkey of Columbia University in the Jesup 
lectures for 1915. The course consisted of 
eight lectures and opened with a discussion 
of the origin and nature of the earth. The 
nebular and meteoric hypotheses of the 
origin of the earth were contrasted with the 
later and now widely accepted view that the 
earth has been built up by the slow accretion 
of planetesimals, or fragments of a disrupted 
sun that was the parent of the whole solar 
system. 
Reasons for the existence of elevated areas 
and basin-like depressions, namely of the 
continents and oceans, were discussed; these 
elevations and depressions and the move- 
ments of the earth’s crust were all traced 
back to gravitational forces, which were 
manifested in earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, 
mountain-forming uplifts, and submergences, 
all due eventually to the balancing of conti- 
nents and oceans against each other (isostasy). 
The place and work of volcanic activity and 
the agencies and forces involved in the 
metamorphosis of rocks were treated, with 
constant reference to rock structure and to the 
cycles of transformation from sedimentary 
to metamorphic and igneous structures and 
the reverse. All this was finally applied to 
the interpretation of local geology and to 
such practical matters as foundation work, 
tunneling work, water supply and the quali- 
ties of structural material. 
The Jesup lectures, which are Columbia 
University lectures given in codperation with 
-the American Museum, form an important 
medium for the presentation in concise form 
of scientific progress. The first course of 
the series was given by Professor Henry 
Fairfield Osborn in 1907, his subject being 
the “Evolution of the Horse.” In the 
second series (1909) Professor Richard C. 
