SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS

NEW WILEY BOOKS

EXTERIOR BALLISTICSPrepared under the Direction of Lt. Col. THOMAS J. HAYES, formerlyProfessor of Ordnance and Science of Gunnery, United States MilitaryAcademy.This pamphlet represents a reprinting of Chapter X, Exterior Ballistics,and Chapter XII, Bombing from Airplanes, from the author 's largerwork, "Elements of Ordnance." It is presented in this form on therecommendation of the War Preparedness Committee of the AmericanMathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America. Itis designed particularly for courses in ballistics which are being given bydepartments of mathematics, physics, and engineering. The materialpresented is the latest and most authoritative available.98 pages Illustrated 6 by 9 Paper, $1.00

INTRODUCTORY READINGS INCHEMICAL AND TECHNICAL GERMANEdited by JOHN T. FOTOS, Professor of Modern Languages, and JOHNL. BRAY, Head of the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineer-ing; both at Purdue University.This book is a part of the four-volume Purdue series for students of chem-istry and other sciences. It is suitable for use by those who have hadelementary instruction in German grammar. Four sources provide thereadings: Dr. A. Stavenhagen 's "Kurzes Lehrbuch der AnorganischenChemie, " Ullmann 's "Enzyklopiidie der technischen Chemie, " currentresearch articles from two prominent publications, and Euken und Jakob 's

"Der Chemie-Ingenieur."303 pages 51 by 8 $2.50

INSECT PESTSOF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARDBy LEONARD M. PEAIRS, Professor of Entomology, West VirginiaUniversity.Sanderson and Peairs' "Insect Pests" has been revised by ProfessorPeairs. The book now offers a concise but adequate summary of thegroups of insects and their classification, with particular attention tothose groups which include important pests, predators and parasites. Thenumerous insecticides developed in recent years are briefly discussed andevaluated. Particular stress is given to the utilization of natural controlagencies, to mechanical control methods, and to the insecticides which donot leave undesirable residues.Fourth Edition 549 pages 648 illustrations 6 by 9 $4.00

EARTH SCIENCES.By J HARLEN BRETZ, Professor of Geology, University of Chicago.A part of "The Sciences: A Survey Course for Colleges," edited byGerald Wendt. This is an elementary, compact, and at the same timethoroughly interesting study of the earth sciences. It is an ideal bookfor an introductory course; for a brief, fundamental survey. Under themajor headings of earth, water, and air, this analysis forms a sound andpractical treatment of geology, physical geography, oceanography andmeteorology.260 pages 129 illustrations 5j by 81 $1.75

JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.440 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, N. Y.

JANuAtY 24, 1941 7

SCIENCE-SUPPLEMENT

SCIENCE NEWSScience Service, Washington, D. C.

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARYOF AGRICULTURE

"THERE is no room in the Western Hemisphere for anynotions about racial superiority. " This counter chal-lenge is thrown into the faces of "New Order " racedogmatists by Henry A. Wallace, now vice-president ofthe United States, in the midst of the biological and eco-nomic discussions that occupy his last annual report asSecretary of Agriculture. Speaking with the authorityof his first-hand knowledge of genetics, which had gainedhim recognition before he entered into public life, helashes unsparingly at doctrines that would rearrange theworld on a master-and-slave basis:

"Theories of racial superiority and racial inferiorityhave no scientific basis. Certain nations may be verydifferent by training from other nations; by inheritancethey are probably little different. Millions living inGermany are different from us chiefly because of anindoctrination systematically instilled into them fromearly youth. They have had more training in hard work,in giving their all to the fatherland, and in submission toeconomic and military rule. Many of them believe waris holy and think the achievement of German dominationjustifies any means. But if numerous American childrenhad been adopted into German families twenty years ago,they would be just the same. They would be indis-tinguishable from native-born Germans. Probably anyfavorably located race can develop a civilization. TheIndians of Latin America did so. Civilizations of longago in Africa, China, Japan and India were not inferiorin many respects to those of to-day. In this hemisphere,broadly speaking, we have democratic types of civiliza-tion, and they rest on a genetic basis."In the report, much emphasis is placed on the necessity

for adjusting American agricultural production to theexisting market. Pre-war measures taken by practicallyall the nations anticipating the outbreak of hostilitieshad sharply diminished our old export markets, especiallyfor wheat, cotton and tobacco, and the events of the warhave cut still further into possible outlets for thosecrops. On the other hand, home markets for such thingsas meats, dairy products, fruits and vegetables are steadilyimproving.

In the presence of this situation, Mr. Wallace pointsout, "Growing unneeded crops is sheer waste of labor,of capital and of soil, even if temporarily the productscan go into storage under government loans. It is adrain on resources that would otherwise be available fornational defense."

Better trade relations with other Western Hemispherenations are recommended in the report. Obviously, theUnited States can not import from South America com-modities of which it already has surpluses, like Argentinewheat or Brazilian cotton; for these, joint effort in seek-ing sales outlets would seem to promise more satisfactoryresults. In the meantime, there is plenty of room inUnited States markets for a whole array of products

whose very names suggest the exotic: abaca, cinchona,kapok, rotenone, tea, cocoa, camphor, rubber, tropicalhardwoods. Most of the North American demand forthese things is now supplied from the Old-World tropics;and even so, that demand should be capable of consider-able further growth.

MYTHS OF NORDIC SUPERIORITYMYTHS of "Nordic superiority'" fare ill at the hands

of Dr. Aleg Hrdlidka, the physical anthropologist of theSmithsonian Institution, who has just completed a studyof the heads of one hundred and fifty of America's lead-ing scientific men. Far from being long-headed blonds,this group of outstanding American scientists tend to bewide-headed and their hair (so far as they have any left)is decidedly dark.The group included in the study were chosen from the

membership of the National Academy of Sciences. Thisbody, sometimes referred to as the Senate of Americanscience, elects to its membership only persons of provedaccomplishment and reputation in the various fields ofscience. Naturally, most of its membership is middle-aged and elderly-few men less than fifty years old areelected.The high average age of the members accounts in part

for the predominantly dark hair color. Every one 's hairgrows darker as he grows older. It also explains thequalification of his statement, that a high proportion ofthe academy members have (or had) dark hair.

Fifty members of the group studied were of foreignbirth or immigrant ancestry. The remaining one hun-dred were "Old Americans," that is, of families whohave been three generations or longer in this country.These " Old American " scientists tend to have largerand wider heads and darker hair than the average of"Old American" men in the general population. Theyalso have decidedly less prominent cheekbones.Another myth that suffers from this study is that of

the "highbrow." Eminent scientific men don 't averagemore prominent foreheads than do other men, the mea-surements show. Neither do scientific leaders havemassive heads on stoop-shouldered, kindling bodies: thegeneral physique is full-grown and sturdy. This, it ispointed out, is largely a matter of nutrition. Men withtheir brains and training get good jobs and keep them.

Seven per cent. of the group have decidedly back-slop-ing foreheads-another traditional "sure sign" of in-ferior intellect. This has nothing to do with the braincontent of the skull. A sloping forehead is usually dueto larger-than-ordinary sinuses over the eyebrows, givinga wider base rather than a narrower top. Even when theslope is due to other causes, however, it does not neces-sarily mean any inferiority of the brain.One member of the academy has the head of a Stone

Age man. This does not mean, however, that he is abeetle-browed Neanderthaler-far from it. His head islike that of the Aurignacian people, who left remarkable

VOL. 937 No. 24048

J-~r~ 24 191SINEAVRIEET

PULFRICH PHOTOMETER(Arranged as Golorimeter)

This instrument is designed for colorimetry with-out comparison solution. It measures the absorp-tion occurring in different wave-length regions witha degree of precision formerly obtainable only witha spectro-photometer. The results are rapidly de-termined by one measurement without variation ofthe depth of liquid.

Additional accessories equip this instrument as aNephelometer, Glossimeter, and Comparison Micro-scope. Literature will be gladly sent on request.

(Prompt delivery from stock)

CARL ZEISS, INC.48 5 Fi ft h Av e nu e 728 So. Hill StreetN E W Y 0 R K _RLZEISS'LOS ANGELES

JAxuAFY 24, 1941 SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS 9

SCIENCE-SUPPLEMENT

paintings and sculpture in the caves of southern Europe.Aurignacian men had larger heads and bigger brains thanmoderns. The type still crops up occasionally in Scandi-navia and among certain groups of American Indians.They may be considered a survival of, or perhaps a re-version to, the earlier type of our common ancestry.

REPORT OF THE U. S. BUREAU OF PLANTINDUSTRY

ABILITY of the United States to get along on its own,or to replace former dependence on the Old World bymutual aid between peoples of the Western Hemisphere,is emphasized in the annual report of the Bureau of PlantIndustry to the Secretary of Agriculture.An outstanding influence of such intra-hemisphere aid

is the announcement that new kinds of wheat from Brazilare showing high resistance to leaf rust and some degreeof resistance to stem rust as well. These wheats arebeing used as breeding stocks in producing rust-resistantwheats for growing in the Southwest.The Biblical maxim that "man shall not live by bread

alone" receives practical exemplification in the produc-tion of new, American-produced Easter lily bulbs, to re-place the stocks heretofore imported from Japan. Thenew American lilies can be grown so far out of seasonthat they can be brought into bloom for use at Thanks-giving time as well as at Easter.

Possible plant sources of poison for insects that eatother plants are being investigated by the bureau. Mostpromising are new strains of the rustic tobacco plant(Nicotiana rustica) which produce several times morenicotine than is obtainable from ordinary tobacco. An-other is the native seashore plant known as devil's shoe-string, which yields rotenone, at present extracted fromEast Indian derris and South American cube.

Further declaration of independence of foreign sourcesis proclaimed in such diverse fields as fertilizers, sugar-beet seed and tung oil. Magnesium for mixed fertilizersused to be imported from Germany; chemists of the bu-reau have shown how to use an American magnesium com-

pound with satisfactory results. For potato fields, do-mestic muriate of potash is shown to be a good substitutefor imported (and more expensive) potassium sulfate.During the last war, the American beet-sugar industry

found itself in a bad way for lack of foreign-grown beetseed, on which it had become dependent. The Bureauof Plant Industry insisted on the development of anAmerican source of seed, and sugar-beet growers havereason now to be glad they did.

Efforts to grow the Chinese trees that yield tung oilhave run into some difficulties because of their sensitive-ness to cold. This, the report states, is mitigated whenthe trees are in a fully dormant state at the onset of thecold wave.

Cold-resistance seems to be possible also in the tropicalHevea rubber trees that have been the subject of breed-ing experiments at the bureau 's experimental farm atCoconut Grove, Florida. So well have Hevea trees thriventhere that the bureau scientists have been able to pull acoals-to-Newcastle stunt-they have sent some of the seedsgrown there for planting in tropical American countries.

WILDLIFE CONSERVATIONWILD animals that live in the woods don't like their

woods too complete. Not the "deep tangled wildwood"of oldtime poetic fancy, but a mixture of old and youngtrees, full-grown timber and open spaces with plenty ofbrush, makes up the ideal forest from the wildlife stand-point, Ira N. Gabrielson, chief of the U. S. Fish andWildlife Service, points out in a new book, "WildlifeConservation," off the presses recently (Maemillan).

This seeming paradox is easy to explain. Tall trees incompletely closed ranks, such as one finds in a maturevirgin forest, bear their leafy canopy high in air, wherenot even a giraffe, let alone a deer or moose, can browseon the foliage. Furthermore, the tops are so tightlyinterlaced that very little light can seep through to sup-port a ground population of herbs and shrubs that wouldafford food to game birds or mammals.The ideal situation, where profitable timber yield and

support of wildlife are sought simultaneouly, can beachieved either by selective cutting, where only chosentrees, ripe for the ax, are taken out each year, or by cleancutting of quite small blocks of timber distributedthrough the forest. Either method provides a constantsuccession of well-scattered spots where young trees andunderbrush provide browse and shelter. The Forest Ser-vice even instructs its men not to plant in certain limitedacreages that appear to be more useful as homes for wild-life than as fields for future crops of timber.

Mr. Gabrielson of course does not confine his attentionto problems of wildlife in the forest. His book is a com-prehensive and well-balanced study of what is to be donewith America's outdoor resources-grasslands, deserts,mountains, streams and lakes, as well as woods. He re-views abuses of the past, and tells how they can best beremedied-are already being remedied in many places.

It isn't just a matter of providing picnic grounds forvacationers, game to hunt and fish to catch for sports-men. There are potential cold cash values of major pro-portions in wildlife restoration. The raw fur take in theUnited States was once worth a hundred million dollarsa year. What the meat might have been worth, in thedays of game abundance, there is no way of estimating.But if we could restore even a fraction of the venisonand wildfowl and fish that the early settlers knew- andwasted-there can be no doubt that there would be eagerand profitable markets for them.

RARE ACIDSTHE European war has caused a spurt in the production

of rare amino acids at the University of California atLos Angeles, according to Dr. Max Dunn, associate pro-fessor of chemistry.

Dr. Dunn operates a non-profit company, Amino AcidsManufacture, with the assistance of M. J. Stoddard. Thecompany, formed by Dr. Dunn in 1935 shortly after hefirst began his study and found that only a few of thetwenty-three acids were produced, is one of the three or-ganizations of its kind in the United States.

Since then Dr. Dunn has been able to produce nearlyall the acids, and he sells these to laboratories and med-ical clinics all over the world.

VOL. 93, No. 2,40410

SCIENCE-SUPPLKMENT

The chemist knows amino acids as constituents of pro-teins but in appearance they look like bath salts crystals.They are manufactured from a variety of substances suchas glue, human hair, dried cottage cheese, dried blood, etc.Some of them are so difficult to produce that they sell for$1,000 a pound-worth twice their weight in gold. Theacids, which seldom occur free in nature, make up theprotein of man's hair, skin and fingernails." Amino acids are no longer coming through from

Germany and Switzerland," said Dr. Dunn, " and we aregetting about twice as many orders as before the war."Amino acids are used for a number of purposes. One

kind is used as a flavoring for soups and gravies and hasa surprising meat-like taste. Other types of amino acidsare used in medical research on baldness, cancer and mus-cular diseases. Amino acids are already used in treat-ment of such disorders as gastric ulcers and muscularailments.

SYNTHETIC RUBBER

THAT synthetic rubber can not "be universally substi-tuted for the natural product," was reported to the So-ciety of Automotive Engineers by L. B. Sebrell and R. P.Dinsmore, of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.It is, they stated, "a material having special propertieswhich, when properly handled, will give improved resultsas compared with natural rubber. On the other hand,we should look upon it as a material whose developmentand perfection will liberate us from the threat of embargoof natural rubber during the time of national emergencyand as a guarantee that the price of the natural productwill never again reach the peaks which have characterizedit in the past. "

Although synthetic rubbers possess elasticity and re-silience, they differ considerably in molecular makeup,and it ought not -to be expected that they will processjust the same way as natural rubber. This study islimited to synthetic rubbers capable of vulcanization.By far the most serious aspect of the successful use of

these rubbers is their difficult processability. For severeservice in tire treads, certain synthetic rubbers wererecommended by the authors, who added that they cannot, at present, be expected to equal natural rubber.None of the synthetic rubbers is the equal of natural rub-ber in rebound. Synthetic rubber can not be substitutedfor natural rubber on a quantitative basis or on an equalcost basis without examining carefully the physical prop-erties which are to result from such a procedure. Thereare also encountered various difficulties in substitutingsynthetic rubber for natural rubber. Typical compound-ing results for several vulcanizable synthetic rubbers intwo different formulas were given, as were tabular dataon dynamic tests.

ITEMS

THE first American commercially built electron micro-scope-an instrument capable of magnifying 100,000times-is now in use at Stamford, Conn. Constructed by-the RCA Research Laboratories in Camden, N. J., the newsuper-microscope, which takes pictures with electrons in-stead of light waves, is in the laboratories of the Amer-

ican Cyanamid Company. Already used in studying pig-ments for the paper industry, it has shown that the veryminute particles have the same crystalline structure asthe larger ones observed with old type microscopes, dis-proving a widely held theory.

PREVENTABLE accidents in industry cause the loss of2,000 eyes and more than $50,000,000 yearly, Dr. ThomasD. Allen, of Rush Medical College, Chicago, stated at theclosing session of the third annual Congress on IndustrialHealth, sponsored by the American Medical Association.The $50,000,000 loss does not include such indirect lossesas subsequent reduction in earning power of the workerwith impaired vision. These losses, Dr. Allen and Dr.Henry F. Carman, of San Francisco, estimate, are prob-ably four times as great as the direct loss. Besides the2,000 eyes that are completely lost each year in prevent-able industrial accidents, there are 300,000 eye accidentswhich incapacitate the worker for one day or more. Suit-able goggles are the best means of protection, Dr. Allensaid, because about 80 per cent. of all industrial accidentsinvolving the eyes are due to flying bodies.

A MOSQUITO species hitherto known only from Panamahas appeared on the coast near Brownsville, Texas. Dr.Frank W. Fish, of the University of California, who hasmade a study of the insect's peculiar habits, conjecturesthat it may have traveled to its new home by plane. For-tunately for human beings, the invader is exceedinglyretiring, does not bite man and is not known to carry anydisease. Its larvae or "wigglers" live in the holesmade in the beach by the innumerable fiddler crabs thatswarm along the Gulf shores. The adults prefer to feedon cold-blooded animals, and mate in confined spaces.The insect is known to entomologists by the technicalname Deinocerites spanius.

A NEW instrument for telling in advance of treatmentwhether the eyes of a cross-eyed person can be straight-ened to work together as a seeing unit was announcedby Dr. J. F. Neumueller, director of the Bureau of VisualScience of the American Optical Company. The instru-ment gives the diagnosis in half a minute. The test withthis instrument is based on the phenomenon of the after-image and on the fact that normal eyes can definitelylocate objects in space. If the eyes and brain are unableto do this, as determined by the after-image test, normalvisual functioning can not be restored. The after-imagetester consists of a glass tube containing an electric wire.The current is switched on and as the wire glows thepatient looks through one eye only at a red dot on thecenter of the tube. The tube is then turned from itshorizontal position to a vertical position and the patientlooks at the red spot through his other eye. Then thelight is turned off and the patient, both eyes now open,looks at a fairly bright wall. Soon he notices two darklines, the negative after-images. If these two lines forma cross, his cross-eyes can be successfully treated. But ifthe two lines do not meet, chances of restoring binocularvision are said to be remote.

JANUARY 24, 1941 11

12 SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS

CHE new Spencer Polarizing Microscopes are the result ofmany years of development. Scientific workers, eminent au-thorities have contributed suggestions-have experimentedwith ""pilot" models-have given enthusiastic approval.

These new instruments represent important advances, bothoptically and mechanically-advances which further increasetheir usefulness in the many sciences and industries in whichthe polarizing microscope has proved invaluable.

A catalogue illustrating these new microscopes, and summariz-ing many of the functions for which they can be utilized is nowready for distribution. Write Dept. N4 for your copy.

Spencer Lens CompanyBUFFALO, NEW YORK

iF@I Scientific Instrument Division ofAMERICAN OPTICAL COMPANY

Sales Offices: New York, Chicago, Son Francisco, Washington, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, Columbus,St. Louis, Philadelphia, Atlanta

No. 45

SCIENCE-ADVERTISEMENTS VOL. 93, No. 240412