SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS 



adorned with royal portraits; bituminized statues 

 of a king, chariots, maces, a footstool, alabaster 

 vases, and quantities of trussed duck and haunches 

 of venison, left, according to the ancient custom, 

 as provision for the great dead. Beyond the first 

 chamber lay another chamber crowded with a con- 

 fusion of gold beds, boxes and alabaster vases, 

 and beyond this, again, lies another chamber 

 which may prove to be the actual tomb of the 

 king whose funeral relies lie in bewildering pro- 

 fusion in the first two rooms. The name of the 

 king who thus emerges in splendor from the dim 

 past into the murky light of our troubled day is 

 Tutankhamen, of the Eigliteenth Dynasty, who 

 reigned in Tel-el Amarna and Thebes over three 

 thousand years ago. Little was known of him 

 except that he claimed to be a son of the famous 

 Amenhotep III, and that he married the daughter 

 of that strange Pharaoh Akhenaten, who revolu- 

 tionized the Egj'ptian religion by instituting in 

 the worship of the rays of the sun a kind of mono- 

 theism, and at the same time promoted a remark- 

 able artistic revival. Of Tutankhamen the chief 

 fact hitherto attested is that in his reign the tra- 

 ditional religion, mth its worship of Amen as the 

 principal deity, once more claimed its own. He 

 was, so to speak, tie patron of a counter-reforma- 

 tion. Now, thanks to this remarkable discovery, 

 we may perhaps learn more of the circumstances 

 of this strange ebb and flow of religious emotion 

 in the days when mankind was still young. And 

 though the world is old now and restless still, 

 with the craving for power and for a knowledge 

 of great mysteries, even now when the eastern 

 lands are trembling between war and peace and 

 a Europe undreamed of by the Pharaohs is 

 wrestling with problems that vould have been 

 stranger to them than all their weird panoply is 

 fo us, that figure of the ancient king who thus 

 suddenly steps out from oblivion has a permanent 

 significance. ' ' On his footstool are figures Sym- 

 bolizing his lordship over Syria, and the peoples 

 of Ethiopia owned his sway. Around him are the 

 confused tokens of a reversion froan a groping 

 after new spiritual ideas to the comfortable forms 

 of an ancient ritual. 



PRELIMINARY TRANS-ATLANTIC RADIO 

 AMATEUR TESTS SUCCESSFUL 



Science Service 

 Messages broadcasited by amaiteur radio sta- 

 tions in preliminary trans-Atlantic tests just eom- 

 I^leted were received across the water in England, 

 reports from that country say. 



Por ten days on predetermined schedules, ama- 

 teur radio enthusiasts in all parts of Canada and 

 the United States competed in order to qualify 

 for a special place in the final trans-Atlantic tests 

 that will be held between December .12 and 31. 

 To qualify they had to be heard by a station at 

 least 1,200 air miles away. Indications are that 

 many will compete in the final tests. 



The way in which the amateurs in the different 

 radio districts kept within their allotited times 

 was gratifying, according to ofScials of the 

 American Badio Eelay League who are managing 

 the tests. 



At least 20,000 radio amateurs are competing in 

 these tests, it is estimated. 



ITEMS 



Science Service 



Words from a language which flourished cen- 

 turies before Columbus are being used for names 

 of varieties of the fruit, avocado or " alligator- 

 pear, ' ' which is relatively new to this connitry. 

 The U. S. Department of Agriculture has intro- 

 duced Mayan names along Avirth this salad-making 

 fruit that its experts have brought from Guate- 

 mala, where eentnries ago an ancient civilization 

 flourished. Some folks seeing certain kinds of 

 ' ' alHgator pears ' ' taged ' ' Itzamna, " " Lamat, ' ' 

 ' ' Hunapuh, " " Kayab, " " Mayapan ' ' and others 

 equally sta-ange, may have thought that the gov- 

 ernment 'has enlisted the services of the namer of 

 Pullman ears. It has just been explained by the 

 department that these names are taken from the 

 Maya who built up in what are now the wilds of 

 Guatemala great cities and a powerful agricul- 

 tural civilization hundreds of j'ears before Colum- 

 bus ever left the old world. The ayoeado called 

 ' ' Itzama ' ' is named after the chief Mayan god, 

 the creator of mankind and the father of all the 

 other .gods. Such names as "Lamat" and 

 "Hunapuh" designated days in the wonderful 

 calendar of these ancient peoplej' who had invent- 

 ed' a system of chronology more accurate" than 

 tlie time system^s of the Europeans of their time. 

 ' ' Mayapan, ' ' the name given to another variety 

 of this salad fruiit, was one ef the important 

 cities of this people. It means "place where 

 there are Mayas. ' ' 



The Santa Maria, a commeraial flj-ing boat of 

 the Aeromarine Company of New York, has flown 

 •15,000 miles. 



Airplanes are carrying mail in Morocco over a 

 route formerly covered only by means of camels 

 and donkeys. 



