The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1909-05-27

ohScS SICdUuICo
This section next to the bones is full
never mind now. Here we see stones
and useless. Mr.. Harris, the marble
is rather hard proposition for us, SO
on we go.
This next room is full of precious
stones and minerals, such as diamonds,
rubies, beryl, amethyst etc. This is
said to be the finest collection of prec-
ious stones in the world. See how close
that guard over there watches US. I'll
bet he knows we are from Iowa.
Look at this! It's an iron meteorite,
weighing 1905 pounds, and they have
it fastened down, just as if we'd run
away with the thing.
E-t-h-o-n-o-l o-g-y --Eth- O. gy. That
means the study of the races and fami
lies of men. Here we have wax figures
showing the personal appearance, dress
and customs Of the different kinds of
people in the world. There are several
sections of this and it is always inter-
esting to me. don't know how you
kids will like it, but you don't, say so,
and we'll move on.
This gent here, done in stone, is the
Baron Ramon No-Kami Naosuke, the
first Japanese diplomat. He looks like
an old beggar, but reckon he was all
right.
Here's a Filipino woman weaving,
over there's Zulu warrior, and beside
him is group OF Bulgarian peasants.
No, no! child, that's not the city mar
shal-that's a Japanese warrior. He
does look fierce enough, though, to be
marshal of Leon. Here's Moorish wo-
man. She's peach, a dried peach, to
be sure, but beach nevertheless. See
that old Chinese mandarin making faces
at his wife. She seems to be returning
the compliment. Reminds me so much
of home This fellow here who looks
like he had forgotten to dress this morn
ing and is parading around in his night
shirt is an Arabian sheik. Here is a
Japanese farmer and his wife, and yon-
der is japanese lady receiving pres
ent. Her attitude is like my wife's
when | give her quarter when she
asks for ten ADMINISTRATIVE very
disdainful. This is Ghadamer girl of
southwestern Tripoli. If you should
hear profane man say that you'd think
he was swearing. Here are Chilkat and
Haida indians. I'm very we'll acquaint-
ed with the Haida indians. They are a
funny people and their literature is es-
pecialy interesting and instructive.
John Parrish can tell you all about them,
for | sent him book that told all. This
little fellow is an Eskimo, and over here
in the corner are lot of weapons, cos
tunes, armor, etc., belonging to him.
See that big "iniun" there? He's a
Sioux warrior. This is family group
| of Loweheiux indians. This group of
Cocopa, who lived before Carnegie
built his steel mills, are engaged in
making stone implements. Here's an
Ojibwa medicine man writing a pre-
scrption that Stempel couldn't fill
Surely that's not my old friend Hiawa-
tina over there! No, thought not; old
Hi was better looking indian than this
fellow. This is Seminole, while HI
was an Ojlbwa.
Around the walls up there are hun
dreds of portraits of famous and in
famous indian chiefs. There are old
Geronimo, Black Hawk, Red Cloud, TIE.
cumseh, and others we learn about in
our histories.
Well, we've about cleaned up down.
stairs, so we'll go up to the galleries and
look around. Oh, of course you re
tired-that's the penalty all sight
seers have to pay. Brace up now, sc
you can go back to Leon and say with g
clear conscience that you've seen the
National Museum and the contents
thereof. don't want you to be like al
old couple we saw up here one day
Actually, they took in" the Museum il
ten minutes and went trotting off tt
"see" the Smithsonian Institute.
This first gallery is devoted to the
ceramic art, and you can easily tell by
the exhibits what ceramic" mean.
without referring to the dictionary
which is also some tired. Here is por
eelain from China, ivory carvings from
Japan, and pottery from Korea, France
England and America. Here's some
metal and inlaying work from Asia
glassware from Bohemia; Moorish ant
ancient Greek and Roman pottery
bronz and cloisonne and satsuma from
Japan. This case is full of glassware
supposed to have been made 400 years
before Christ.
Around the bend here in this othel
gallery is an exhibit entitled 1.-The His
tory of Medicine, but that's another
one | think we'd better pass up. What
indeed, do we care for their squint es
sence of squad-drops! We meet VI
With enough nasty medicine withou
looking for it. From here we look dow
on the machinery section, and hanging
there in front of us are some models o
Langley's aerodrome, which we under
looked when we passed through there
This is the machine with which Professor
Langley tried to conquer the air ane
fly like bird, but if remember cor
rectly, he flew more like turtle an6
they had to fish him out of the Potomac
after his trial at the game. Professor
Langley was secretary of the Smith
sonian Institute and a very wise mar
indeed, but he wasn'ta bird. Huh-uh
This gallery is filled with fossils
There are lots of old fossils in Leon, by
the way, but they wouldn't do for ex
hibition purposes here. Fossil means
petrifed or preserved in stone. Those
creatures back there with the big
names are fossils. but this section con.
tains fossil plants. If you ever had an
idea that there wasn't such a thing as
petriied wood, you know now that you
were away of. for hero are great logs