struggle to increase surface in proportion to volume. Some of the methods of increasing the surface are useful up to a point but not capable of very wide adaptation. For example, while vertebrates carry the oxygen from the gills or lungs all over the body in the blood, insects take air directly to every part of their body by tiny blind tubes called tracheae which open to the surface at many different points. But gases diffuse easily through very small distances. Hence, the portions of an insect's body more than about a quarter of an inch from the air would always be short of oxygen. In consequence hardly any insects are much more than half an inch thick. Land crabs are built on the same general plan as insects; yet, like ourselves they carry round oxygen in their blood, and are therefore able to grow far larger than any insect. If the insects had hit on a plan for driving air through their tissues instead of letting it soak in, they might well have become much larger. Exactly the same difficulties attach to flying. Applying aeronautical principles to birds, we find that the limit to their size is soon reached. An angel whose muscles developed no more power weight for weight than those of an eagle or a pigeon would require a breast projecting for about four feet to house the muscles engaged in working its wings, while to economize in weight, its legs would have to be reduced to mere stilts. Actually a large bird such as an eagle does not keep in the air mainly by moving its wings. It is generally to be seen soaring, that is to say balanced on a rising column of air. But even soaring becomes more and more difficult with increasing size. Were this not the case eagles might be as large as tigers and as formidable to man as hostile airplanes. But there are advantages of size. One of the most obvious is that it enables one to keep warm. All warm-blooded animals at rest lose th same amount of heat from a UD area of skin, for which purpose the need a food-supply proportional t their surface and not to their weigh Five thousand mice weigh as much a a man. Their surface and food, o oxygen consumption, are about 1 times a man's. In fact a mouse eat about one-quarter of its own weigh of food every day, which is mainl used in keeping warm. For the sam reason small animals cannot live 1 wild countries. In the arctic region there are no small mammals. Th smallest mammal in Spitzbergen the fox. Similarly, the eye is a rather in efficient organ until it reaches large size. In order that they shoul be of any use at all, the eyes small animals have to be much large in proportion to their bodies than ou own. Large animals on the othe hand require only relatively sma eyes, and those of the whale an elephant are little larger than ou own. Such are a very few of the co siderations which show that for ever type of animal there is an optimu size. And just as there is a best size fo every animal, so the same is true fo every human institution. In th Greek type of democracy all th citizens could listen to a series orators and vote directly on question of legislation. Hence their phil sophers held that a small city wa the largest possible democracy. Th English invention of representativ government made a democratic natio possible and the possibility was fr realized in the United States. Wi the development of broadcasting has once more become possible f every citizen to listen to the politic views of representative orators. a the future may perhaps see the retur of the national state to the Gree form of democracy. Even the refe endum has been made possible on by the institution of daily new papers. The Black Curse of the Osages Condensed from Liberty (March 14, '26) TRANGE and mysterious events have taken place among the Osages in Oklahoma. Seventeen of that little tribe of Indians have bitten the dust in the approved manher when the white man wants what he wants. They have been shot in lonely pastures, bored by steel as they at in their automobiles, poisoned to die slowly, and dynamited as they elept in their homes-all because of the curse that has fastened itself upon the tribe. There was an investigation in January, and probably there will be another to determine why 17 innocent Indians have gone to their happy hunting grounds by methods that would have made Sitting Bull seem like an angel of mercy. The roots of this curse go back to the time when the Osages were poor and happy-long before they became rich and miserable: for they are now the richest people per capita in the world. the following year the amount climbed to $2608. Then their troubles began. The young Indian boys wanted to see the world; they wanted to have a good time; they wanted fire water and fire water and Indian don't mix. The Osages-there are about 2200 of them-were living in peaceful contentment in southern Kansas, getting $40 a year each from the government. The Creeks, a more vigorons and more demanding tribe, lived in a miserable part of Oklahoma given over principally to alkali, rattlesnakes, and bunch grass. The Creeks complained to the government about the land they had been given and put up such a vigorous protest that the government moved them to another location and picked up the unprotesting Osages and dropped them down on the cast-off land. But the Osages said nothing and all Went more or less well until 1915, when oil was discovered in Oklahoma. That year each and every member of the Osage tribe received $826; and Money continued to pour in. It was now $10,000 a year; and last year each and every Osage received $13,200. In a family of four or five, with each one drawing, this means a tidy income. Moreover, this income can be increased by inheritance. If a member of the family dies, the next of kin gets the money. There is Mollie Q., an Indian woman, who through inheritance now receives $135,000 a year. With the increase in the oil money the curse began to tighten around the Osages, for the whites were now camping on their trail. I expected to find Pawhuska a dreary, one-horse town of 8000 population. I was never more surprised in my life, for instead I found marble office buildings, smart Fifth Avenue looking shops, and magnificent custom-built cars rushing by. And small wonder; for since the coming of oil $180,000,000 has been dumped into that little town. There is an institution in Oklahoma known as a guardian. Most of the guardians were selected from people immediately around the Indians, ou the principle that they could keep their benevolent eyes trained on the guileless Indian and help him to spend his money to advantage. But soon the Indians found that they must buy their automobiles where the kindly guardian said and they must take it to be repaired to the garage he wished it taken to. Oh, he was most helpful! And when the car got banged about a bit, the guardian told the Indian that he would permit him to buy a new car. Many of the Indians, incidental ly, employ white chauffeurs for their expensive cars. It appeals to them to have their ancient enemies in this humble capacity. It so happens that everything that glitters attracts an Indian's eyes and it so happens that the local people know this, and also a trick or two about Indian psychology. An Indian is probably the most loyal person in the world. An Indian goes into a bright and glittering store in Pawhuska and buys a watch. A few weeks later he comes back into the shop and says, "Him no tick." The jeweler brings out his trays. "All right, John," says the obliging gentleman. "Take any one there and it won't cost you a cent." John takes it and goes happily away. Nobody in the world can now wean John away from that merchant-hasn't he just demonstrated how honest he is? Later, John comes back to buy a ring or a brooch. The merchant tells him the price and John's trusting hand goes into his pocket. The number of failures among the merchants in this section selling high-priced luxuries to Indians is surprisingly low. The Indians' money flows away almost as fast as the oil comes up. The Indians took up baseball and betting. Outside teams came in and the Indians loyally bet on their own men. Indians love to gamble. And there are plenty of crooks and schemers in the oil fields; for the Osage country is a stamping place of the bad men, bandits, card sharps, former COWpunchers now looking for an easy living, gamblers and roustabouts. The whites began to sell diamonds, jewelry, rare vases, and fine rugs and tapestries to these simple people. The whites built houses for them-and increased the death rate of the Indians. What the Indians really wanted to do was to live outdoors, in tents; they liked to live in their village with their pets around them. The whites sold them expensive sets of knives and forks -and the Indians put their food in a big yellow bowl and, squatting around it in the yard, reached in and ate with their fingers, while the knives tarn ished in the kitchen. I have see them use the big cut-glass bowls the merchants had sold them to wash thei vegetables in, and cloisonne vases t hold their baseball bats. The Indian girls are pretty up to certain age, attractive in spite of thei white-people clothes. Rough, swear ing, illiterate men came with smile: on their faces, met the Indian girls and the trusting girls were flatteredthey were being courted by white men There would be a short, perfervid ro mance and the Indian girls would find themselves married to these rough drillers, or coming home with unwant ed babies. The men got their of money, spent it, robbed the girls, and then deserted them. But the girls could not go back to their tribe; they became outcasts, wanted neither by the In One see: dians nor by the whites. constantly things of this kind in Paw huska that wring the heart. The Osages became richer and rich er and more and more the bad men o the Southwest were attracted to them But overcharging the Indians for dia monds and pianos and talking ma chines and radios was too slow. The curse threw out a new shadow. The began to kill the Indians. Why aren't the guilty ones pur ished? A natural question, but th The gov thing is to get witnesses. ernment procured indictments of W K. Hale, wealthy rancher, and Joh Ramsey, a farmer, charging them wit the murder of Henry Roan Horse More than 100 witnesses were sum moned, but they were afraid to testify In the meantime the curse goes or The Osages grow richer each yea and where there is sugar the file collect. Indian oil protection extend to 1946, and for 20 years more th Osages will have money-that is, ur less the red hills no longer spout black Pearls Condensed from Nature Magazine (April '26) Paul Bartsch, Curator, U. S. National Museum HERE is scarcely a people which did or does not count pearls among the most valued of its possessions. Pearls were among the earliest jewels prized by man, and have been found in ancient burial places. A Chinese legend of more than 5000 years ago tells of a certain pearl so brilliant that its radiance made it possible to cook rice a hundred yards away. Mystic qualities are even now arcribed to pearls by the Chinese, for find them prescribed by their Old School doctors, crushed to a powder or dissolved in acid, as medicine. They are mentioned in the Vedas, while the Old and New Testaments, the Talmud and the Koran all exalt them as symbols of beauty and purity. The Persians, long before Christ, valued them highly, for pearls have been found in their burial places. The Romans were particularly fond of these gems, and Caesar, to stop race suicide among the better classes, issued a decree that no woman without husband or children, under 45 years, might wear them. What are pearls? One poet says they are "the tears of a goddess dropped into the sea-caught to the heart of the pearl oyster and there treasured as the purest gem of the Ocean." the flesh of the animal. The most perfect spherical pearls are usually started by the baby stage of a fluke worm that must live for part of its early life in some mollusk. These young worms burrow into the flesh of the mollusk and live upon it until they have reached a certain growth. The mollusk attempts to lock up this undesirable parasite by secreting a shelly capsule around it, and if successful, it kills the parasite that way. But having once begun to secrete nacre-the shiny substance of the pearly shell-it can't stop, and so puts layer after layer of thin coating around this nucleus, and thus the pearl continues to grow until the mollusk dies or some lucky fisherman captures the prize. Dubois, the scientist, said, "The most beautiful pearl is nothing more than the shining sarcophagus of a Form," and his description is accurate. They are produced by the pearl oyster, the fresh-water clams, the abalone, and in lesser degree by other mollusks, and are the result of an effort on the part of the mollusk to seal up an enemy, or an irritating substance that has found its way inside of the shell, or has bored into Another way in which pearls are formed, and this is usually the history of the irregularly shaped ones known as "baroques" is that a grain of sand or some other hard substance is accidentally forced into the mantle promptly walled off against the inside cavity of the mollusk. This will be of the shell and covered, layer by layer, with a smooth coating to reduce irritation. Sometimes little water mites attack the gills of our fresh-water clams in large numbers, and these usually cause the irregular pearls known as rose pearis. Then again a small fish or crustacean may sometimes dart into the mantle cavity seeking protection from some pursuer. This, too, will be walled off and fixed to the inside of the mollusk shell and covered with nacre until it develops into a pearl with the shape of the fish or shrimp. But no matter what its shape, whether a more blister, baroque, rose pearl, or perfect sphere, each pearl represents a hurt overcome. Perfect shape, size, uniform color, and even luster are the criteria that determine the value of a pearl. So from long ago man has been desirous of wresting from Nature the story of pearl culture. In these efforts, China and Japan have been in the lead by centuries. In the National Museum at Washington are some specimen shells from those countries, on the inside of which are numerous little images of Buddha, all done in pearl. We are told that these are sold to or bestowed upon pilgrims visiting certain sacred shrines as miraculous manifestations of that great teacher. These little images are really the forerunners of our cultural, or artificially grown pearls. The method used by the Buddhist priests in producing the pearl images was to insert a small wooden wedge between the two shells of the animal. All mussels can open their shell a little way, just enough to extend the foot by means of which they slowly plough through the mud of the bottom, and the two tubes for feeding and refuse. The wedge once quickly and carefully slipped in makes it possible to work in the interior. Then when the priest had carefully forced the mantle for a little way from its attachment to the inner bottom edge of the shell, he took a number of small images of Buddha stamped in tin, upon the inner side of which he placed some sticky substance-probably a bit of beeswax-and, after carefully lifting the edge of the mantle, he inserted them and fixed them row upon row on the inside of the shell. All that was necessary now was to return the mussel to the pool where it would shortly repair the injury done to the edge of the mantle, and overcome the irritation produced by the irregular surface of the tin images by coating them with nacre. So after a year or more, when these mussels were taken from the pools, killed, and opened, the images would be found fixed to the inside of the shells just as they were placed, but now nicely coated with shining pearly nacre- miraculous manifestations of the grea Buddha, and as such highly prized. In Japan the cultural pearl industr has assumed great proportions. Thei early efforts resulted in the formation of hemispheres and buttons. Polished pieces of mother-of-pearl, that is, pear shell in perfect hemispheres, were in troduced into pearl oysters much i the way in which the little tin image! of Buddha were introduced, and the mollusk shells returned to the sea for further development and later gather ing. Many such cultural pearls are now on the market. They are not the perfect spheres which one finds strung on a chain of pearls. They require a metal setting that will hide the side by which they were attached to the inside of the shell that produced them. More recently, I am told, the Japanese workers have produced per fectly spherical cultural pearls. Their method of so doing is kept a secret. "What about the value of the string for which I paid a fortune," you may ask. Don't worry! Science has shown a way to tell the natural from the cultural pearl. By the use of X-rays the nucleus used for the cultural pearl I will be revealed, and since the price is intimately associated with the rari ty of the thing, the value of your string should not be involved any more than it was when man devised ma chinery that would turn a perfect sphere from a piece of pearl shellwhich, no matter how lustrous, still shows the grain. Practically nothing has been done in our country in the way of cultural pearl production. This is the more surprising because in the fresh-water streams of the United States are to be found the greatest number and the finest species of fresh-water pearly mus sels in the world. This spiendid ma terial should certainly tempt American ingenuity and enterprise to wrest from the Orient the leadership in an undertaking which produces great re turns. |